Married By Morning (The Hathaways #4)(88)

Chapter Thirty

Guy, Lord Latimer, lived in a newer section of London on the west side, with a picturesque and peaceful common, and a row of stucco-fronted houses built in a deeply wooded hollow. Leo had visited the house on more than one occasion, several years earlier. Although the street and the house were neatly kept, the place was littered with distasteful memories that would have made an East End slum look like a rectory by comparison.

Dismounting from his horse before it had even halted, Leo raced up to the front door and pounded on it with his fists. All his thoughts had diverted into parallel currents, one occupied with the anguished desperation to find Catherine before harm could come to her. Or, if something already had befallen her—please, God, no—how to make her well again.

The other current was directed toward the one goal of turning Latimer into butcher’s refuse.

There was no sign of Harry yet—Leo was certain that he was not far behind, but Leo had no inclination to wait for him.

A perturbed-looking butler opened the door, and Leo shouldered his way in. “Sir—”

“Where is your master?” Leo asked brusquely.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but he is not—” The butler broke off with an astonished yelp as Leo grabbed him by the coat and shoved him against the nearest wall. “Good God. Sir, I beg you—”

“Tell me where he is.”

“The … the library … but he’s not well…”

Leo’s lips curled in an evil smile. “I have just the cure for him.”

A footman came into the hall, and the butler began to sputter for help, but Leo had already released him. In a matter of seconds he had reached the library. It was dark and overheated, an unseasonably large fire blazing in the hearth. Latimer was slumped in a chair, his chin on his chest, a half-empty bottle in one hand. With his bloated face lit by tongues of yellow and red flame, he looked like a damned soul. His incurious gaze lifted to the harsh contours of Leo’s face, and Leo saw from his difficulty in focusing that he was sow-drunk. Too bloody drunk to see a hole in a ladder. It would have taken hours of steady imbibing to arrive at this state.

The realization filled Leo with furious despair. Because the one thing worse than finding Catherine with Latimer was not finding her there. He leaped on the bastard, clenched his hands around Latimer’s thick, clammy throat, and hauled him to a standing position. The bottle dropped to the floor. Latimer’s eyes bulged, and he choked and spat as he tried to pry Leo’s hands free.

“Where is she?” Leo demanded, giving him a hard shake. “What have you done with Catherine Marks?” He loosened his bruising grip just enough to allow Latimer to speak.

The bastard coughed and wheezed, and stared at him incredulously. “Sodding lunatic! What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

“She’s disappeared.”

“And you think I have her?” Latimer let out a disbelieving bark of laughter.

“Convince me that you don’t,” Leo said, clenching his neck more tightly, “and I may let you live.”

Latimer’s bloated face turned dark. “I have no use for that woman, or any other harlot, because of the … the stew you’ve put me in! You are tearing my life apart! Investigations, questions from Bow Street … allies threatening to turn on me. D’ you know how many enemies you’re making?”

“Not nearly as many as you.”

Latimer writhed in his merciless grasp. “They want me dead, damn you.”

“What a coincidence,” Leo said through clenched teeth. “So do I.”

“What has become of you?” Latimer demanded. “She’s only a woman. ”

“If anything happens to her, I’ll have nothing left to lose. And if I don’t find her within the next hour, you’ll pay with your life.”

Something in his tone caused Latimer’s eyes to widen in panic. “I have nothing to do with it.”

“Tell me, or I’ll garrot you until you swell up like a toad.”

“Ramsay.” Harry Rutledge’s voice sliced through the air like a sword.

“He says she’s not here,” Leo muttered, not taking his gaze from Latimer.

A few metallic clicks, and then Harry placed the muzzle of a flintlock in the center of Latimer’s forehead. “Let go of him, Ramsay.”

Leo complied.

Latimer made an incoherent sound in the sepulchral quiet of the room. His gaze locked with Harry’s.

“Remember me?” Harry asked softly. “I should have done this eight years ago.”

It appeared that Harry’s ice-cold eyes frightened Latimer even more than Leo’s murderous ones. “Please,” Latimer whispered, his mouth shaking.

“Give me information about my sister’s whereabouts in the next five seconds, or I’ll put a hole in your head. Five.”

“I don’t know anything,” Latimer pleaded.

“Four.”

“I swear it on my life!” Tears sprang from his eyes.

“Three. Two.”

“Please, I’ll do anything!”

Harry hesitated, giving him an assessing stare. He read the truth in his eyes. “Damn it,” he said softly, and lowered the pistol. He looked at Leo, while Latimer collapsed in a sobbing drunken heap on the floor. “He doesn’t have her.”