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Hibbert met his gaze head-on. “I don't know, Lord Sheldrake.” '
“But you think it might be.” Damen got his answer in the silence that ensued. “Dammit, Hibbert. You and Royce said they'd be safe if they didn't venture out.”
“And they were. Then. He wasn't ready to kill yet. He wanted only to taunt Lady Breanna, to draw out her torture. Which he's obviously still doing. But the tone of this note is more ominous than the others. He went out of his way to address exactly what you just mentioned—the safety of your wife and Lady Breanna if they stay indoors. He's announcing that he's stripping away that safety. Also, he's now specifying a matter of hours before he acts, rather than alluding to some imminent but vaguely in the future time frame. He's running out of patience. And eventually ...” Hibbert drew a slow breath. “The problem is, I don't know when eventually will be.”
Royce was on edge when he returned to Kent.
He'd interrogated enough people to find out that no one had seen any suspicious cargo being loaded at London's docks over the past several days. He'd also seen enough manifests to know that ten ships had left port that were large enough to hide the kind of cargo he was looking for—namely, at least two unconscious women. Maybe more. He had no way of knowing whether the killer had shipped the five women en masse or separately.
All the merchant ships that fit the bill were headed for distant ports, with brief stops on the Continent. Every one of them had captains of impeccable standing who always verified the contents of their cargo, and whose honor and decency would never permit them to carry women in their holds.
Which left the smaller packet ships.
The manifests here were sketchier, so it was quite possible that someone using a phony name had arranged to ship illegal cargo by listing that freight as sacks of wheat, coal, or something equally innocuous. Or, perhaps the killer worked with a crew of his own choosing—a crew he paid to do his bidding. In which case, the entire manifest could have been falsified.
There was no way of telling.
Not unless Royce awaited those ships' return. And some of them were not scheduled to sail back into London for months.
Breanna didn't have months.
Besides, every instinct in Royce's body was screaming that the cargo he was searching for had been shipped to Calais. It made absolute sense. Calais was nearby. It promised immediate results for the assassin. Most of all, it gave him the ultimate satisfaction—another demonstration of his superiority. In short, John Cunnings had failed. George Colby had failed. He, on the other hand, would not.
Fine. So Calais was the likely destination. But to whom was the cargo being delivered? To Rouge? Or had Rouge been replaced by someone else? And how did Royce get to that someone?
Before leaving the docks, he interviewed a line of crane operators and porters. Some knew the crewmen who worked on those smaller ships. A few knew the captains.
But it was one wiry old fisherman who supplied Royce with the morning's most significant tidbit of information.
The old fellow recalled a packet ship that had sailed two days ago, just after sunrise. The reason he remembered it was that none of his longshoremen friends—the ones who usually worked the early shift—were there to attend it. Which was odd, almost like none of them knew it was scheduled to sail. Curious, he'd watched the crew hoist a few bags on board, then untie and cast off, as if they were in a grea
t hurry to get going.
Unfortunately, he didn't know any of the crew members personally, other than by face, so he couldn't tell Royce much about them. And he knew nothing about the ship's destination or when it was scheduled to return.
However, he did recall one thing, and that was the ship's name. It was called the Triumph.
Royce acted on that immediately. He issued strict instructions—along with a twenty-pound note—to one of the wharf rats he gave occasional work to, ordering him to advise Royce the instant the Triumph sailed back into port.
It might be nothing more than a coincidence. On the other hand, it might lead to the kidnapped women.
The problem was, it wouldn't lead to the assassin— not fast enough to stop him.
Time was running out.
By the time Royce reached Medford Manor, he'd made a decision. Someone had to go to Calais. Armed with a description of the missing women, this someone had to be subtle enough and shrewd enough to ask the right questions, investigate this matter from the receiving end in the hopes of finding the buyer, which, in turn, could lead to the assassin.
Unfortunately, that someone couldn't be him.
Because the hunt would take several days at least, especially since it meant following leads from the port of Calais to wherever those women had been taken. And he wouldn't, couldn't, leave Breanna for that amount of time.
Hibbert, however could.
Royce drew his carriage up to Medford's iron gates.
Rather than just waving him on, Mahoney approached the carriage, simultaneously gesturing for his men to begin opening the gates.
“There was another delivery late this morning,” he told Royce. “I left it with Hibbert. I thought you should know.”
