Saving the Scientist (The Restitution League #2)(67)

Too many possibilities to track.

The Admiral was right. They’d have to use Ada as bait.

Edison pressed his palms to his tired eyes. They’d accomplished part of their goal. The admiral knew Ada was alive and her battery was still available. He could only hope the older man would spread the news wide and far. Whoever wanted the device should know about it by morning if they didn’t already.

In the meantime, they did indeed need a new plan.

A plan even a highly decorated admiral had no need to hear.

Edison pushed back his chair. “We’ve presumed on your time long enough, sir. Should be getting you back to your house.”

A sharp wrap on the front door interrupted any response.

Edison exchanged a look with his cousin-in-law. As if of one mind, they both rose from the table. Being closer to the entryway, Spencer took point. He reached for the door while Edison waited behind it, a stout umbrella in his grasp.

As soon as he heard the familiar voice, Edison lowered his weapon. “Burke.”

The tall detective strode into the house, his gaze pointed and assessing. “If I were a betting man, I’d put down twenty quid there’s an admiral lurking about the premises. One seems to’ve gone missing.”

“In the dining room.” Spencer pointed the way.

Burke sighed and headed in to the room. “Of course he is.”

“Admiral Helmsley, sir.” Burke sketched the man a short bow.

“And you are?”

“Detective Inspector Caleb Burke, sir. From the Yard. It seems you’ve been… misplaced.”

“Misplaced nothing.” The glass of ale in the man’s hand sloshed precariously as he waved it about. “This lot kidnapped me, is what happened. Not that I plan to press charges.” He smiled at Ada like a doting grandfather. “I’ve been worried about Mrs. Templeton. Good to have my mind at ease over that business.”

Burke shot Edison a sharp look before addressing the admiral. “May I escort you home? Your wife will be worried.”

The older man rose slowly, as if his joints might not move as easily as they once did. “Splendid. Need to prepare for a bore of an engagement.” He sighed. “The wife’s idea.”

He made his way around the table, but stopped just inside the doorway to look back at Ada. “That battery of yours is a splendid device. Splendid. Get this business done up and Her Majesty’s Navy still wants it.”

He looks at the men. “You keep her safe, or I’ll have my best officers after you lot.”

Edison met his gaze. “You have our word.” As long as he breathed, nothing would harm her.

Admiral Helmsley stared back, as if taking his measure, then nodded. “See to it.”

Before following his charge, Burke leveled them with a measured look. “I’d like to head home and take my boots off. Could you leave off the kidnapping for the rest of the night?”

Meena grinned at him. “Cross our hearts.”

Burke snorted. “Wish I could say that was reassuring.”

Meena and Briar chuckled and shared a look, before Briar waggled her fingers at him. “Enjoy your evening, Detective.”

Edison followed the men to the door and locked it behind them.

He returned to the dining room, but remained in the doorway, taking in the conversation. He wanted to think he was concentrating on creating a new plan, but the truth was he couldn’t take his gaze of off Ada.

How had he ever thought her too reserved? Too aloof? Too rigid to warm a man’s bed?

Perhaps—as Briar and Meena continued to remind him—he was a jelly-brained idiot, too intent on his own pleasure to think beyond the next conquest.

“We’ll need a reason for you to be in a public place at a pre-arranged time,” Meena was explaining. “A place that’ll tempt our man to make a move.”

Ada shuddered. It was a tiny movement. He wouldn’t have caught it a week ago, before he knew her so intimately.

She was trying to put on a brave face, but he could feel the fear wrapping its tentacles around her. She lived in a world of orderly chaos, where chemical reactions might go awry, but where her larger world ticked along with great predictability.

A world without violence.

A world as foreign to him as the House of Lords.

A world with no place for a man like him.

Edison sank back down in his chair, his stomach curiously hollow.

Nelly rushed in from the kitchen, a gnarled ball of newsprint in her small fist. “I have just the thing.”

She dropped the paper on the table, pressing it flat with her palms. “I was just about to toss this in the cooker to bring up the fire when I saw it.” She squinted down at the page. “Says here there’s to be a talk on noble metals put on by the London Chemical Society this Friday at their meeting rooms.” She looked up. “I think Mrs. Templeton oughta march right in there and show those old men what for.”

Edison couldn’t disagree.

He wanted to. He wanted to keep things just as they were for as long as he could, but he’d never been one to believe in fairytales. Every story he knew had a bad ending.

It seemed his was coming more quickly than he’d expected.



*

For a Navy man, Ravensworth showed a shocking lack of fortitude.

And even less foresight.