Victorian Vigilantes 01 - Saving Grace Read Online Free Page A

returning to his seat. “We now know she has been in Whitechapel. Why in the name of the devil has it taken this long to find out? A lady of quality would stand out like a fox in a hen house in such surroundings.”
    “Like I say, we weren’t looking there.”
    William wanted to throw something at the man for being so obtuse. Later he probably would, but right now he needed him. He took a deep breath and glanced up at his prized duelling swords, prominently displayed in a case on the wall opposite his desk. The jewelled hilts glistened in light reflected from the windows, helping to calm him. The swords were another purchase from a gentleman’s estate sale. William had thrown himself into the sport because it was an acceptable occupation for the gentleman he planned to turn himself into. It transpired he was a natural with a rapier—a skill he would put to good use when it came time to slice Eva’s lover through his miserable heart.
    “What are you doing to track her down?” he asked Stoneleigh in a mordent tone.
    “We’ve had a dozen people scouring the streets of Whitechapel since first light, asking at boarding houses, offering rewards for sightings of her. The net’s closing, sir. We’ll have her any time now.”
    Before William could formulate a suitably scathing reply, a servant tapped on the door.
    “Someone here to see Stoneleigh,” William’s butler said. “He says it’s regarding Lady Eva and is urgent.”
    “Well, what are you waiting for?” William barked. “Send him in at once.”
    A man William recognised but whose name escaped him walked into William’s inner sanctum.
    “What news?” William demanded to know.
    “We’ve managed to track a Mrs. Dalton down to a boarding house in Whitehall,” the man replied.
    William tried not to show any reaction but suspected his relief was self-evident.
    “Is she here?”
    “No, sir. She was seen leaving the building this morning. Someone followed her to Mitre Square but before he could accost her, she got into a handsome.”
    “So we’ve lost her again,” William said in a tone of muted fury.
    “We went to the room she’s renting. The landlady says she has paid for another two nights and her possessions are all still there.”
    “She has no possessions.”
    “She bought a few essentials, apparently,” the man said gruffly.
    William was suddenly grateful his wife didn’t choose to wear, at least during daylight hours, any of the expensive jewellery he’d bought her. Her unwillingness to do so used to irk him because it implied she was questioning his taste. It occurred to him now that just one of the huge diamonds he liked to see against her alabaster skin could have kept her in style for months. The abandonment of her wedding ring no longer seemed such a travesty, but more a sign of desperation.
    “So, presumably she is planning to return,” William said pensively. “Have her quietly brought home the moment she does.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You can go,” he said to both men. “Oh, and Stoneleigh, send Rose to me.”
    Stoneleigh smirked. “That I will.”
    Rose was head parlour maid and everything Eva was not. She enjoyed William’s attentions and, unlike Eva, was inventive and athletic between the sheets. Not that he would ever want Eva to behave in such a manner, and would be shocked if she showed any inclination to do so. She was a lady and ladies didn’t enjoy sexual relations—it was merely a duty they bore with stoicism in order to please their husbands. Every night when William called upon Eva, she simply lay there like a statue, spread her legs without him having to ask and twisted her head away as though she didn’t wish to look at him.
    That was the part William didn’t understand. He had been told by more women than he could count that he was both charming and pleasing to the eye. Why did Eva find it so distasteful to look upon him when all he wished to do was worship her? It made no sense at all. He felt as though he