by Alyson Chase
Brogan looked to Juliana, wondering if this sort of presentation was normal in her circles. When she didn’t give him any indication, he turned back to Smythe. “I don’t care.”
Juliana muffled a laugh before drawing him away. “Mr. Smythe has only been a member of our common salons for eight months or so. He doesn’t know my father so no need to question him.” She grimaced. “Though I wouldn’t mind if you gave him a good whipping.”
Brogan stopped. “Why?” Had he hurt Juliana in some way? He looked back at the man and flexed his hand. Weak jaw. Delicate bones. One punch would take him out.
“He and Bertie were… good friends.” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “It ended badly.”
Brogan nodded. That was one suspicion confirmed. But he had neither the time nor the inclination to care about another man’s heartache. “Who here does know your father?”
“Almost everyone.” She set her shoulders and headed toward the nearest grouping of people. “I’ll make the introductions.”
And there were many introductions. So many Brogan’s head began to hurt. He pinched his temple between his thumb and forefinger as the latest artist Juliana introduced him to, a sculptor this time, told him about the newest method of casting plaster.
“And Lady Juliana’s father is a patron of yours?” Keeping his interrogations on track with this lot was as difficult as bailing water with his bare hands. Not that he could let on these were interrogations. His training at the agency had included determining when ‘friendly conversation’ worked better over direct questioning. Juliana didn’t want her acquaintances to know she suspected one of them, and he agreed.
He only wished he were better at friendly conversations. It hadn’t been a skill he’d needed in his past career. It wasn’t something most people tried to engage in with him. They took one look at his muscles and crooked nose and placed him in a different category from conversationalist.
“Well, he buys a piece here and there.” The man, James Masters, gave Juliana a kind smile.
When his funds would allow, was the implication. Just how impoverished was her father’s estate? When Brogan had first started looking for Juliana, a cursory examination had shown that Lord Withington, while not wealthy, was far from wanting. But perhaps his finances deserved a closer look. Money was the strongest motive for murder.
“I can’t wait to see your latest piece.” Juliana squeezed Masters’s arm. “You will let me know when it’s finished?”
“Of course.”
“Mr. Duffy is also an artist,” Juliana said.
Brogan looked around. There had to be another Mr. Duffy here. She couldn’t be referring to him.
“Do you have one of your sculptures with you?” She pointed at his coat pocket. “I know you keep your work in there at times.”
Mr. Smythe sidled up. He’d been circling them like a shark for the past half hour. The man didn’t seem to know how to take an insult and move on. “Oh, do show us. I’m always on the lookout for new talent.”
“No.” Juliana should know how absurd this was. That artists and poets wouldn’t esteem a bit of whittling. But she nodded to him, encouraging, as though in her mind a man who scratched away on stray bits of wood was in the same league as a professional sculptor.
He sighed, and dug his hand into his pocket. He held up the miniature stallion, its hind legs still hidden in the wood.
Mr. Smythe didn’t try overly hard to hide his snort of laughter behind his hand. “You whittle? That’s your great artform?”
“I never claimed it was art.” He rubbed his thumb over the horse’s mane. It was coming along nicely, however.
“It is art.” Juliana turned to Masters. “Sculpture takes many forms, isn’t that right, James?”
Brogan’s shoulders rolled back. James? Juliana was awfully familiar with the man. He glared at the sculptor. What exactly was their history?
Masters took a wary step back. He held up his empty glass. “Anyone else need a refill? I’m going to get another drink.”
Without waiting for a response, Masters hurried towards the makeshift bar on an end table.
Brogan swiveled his head to stare Smythe down. “You go too.”
Having some sense, the man turned on his high heel and joined another group.
Juliana frowned. “Whittling is art. And you are talented at it, no matter what these Philistines say.”
Brogan cracked his neck. “It doesn’t matter.” Though her insistence on the matter was surprisingly… sweet. “Everyone here seems to like your father.”
“My father is a very likeable man.” Juliana eyed the room, picking her next target it seemed.
“If you’re right, someone doesn’t like him.” A shout of laughter drew his attention to three men and a woman gathered together in the corner. “So, either someone is lying, or no one here is responsible.”
Juliana tucked her hand in his elbow and headed for that corner. “I’m beginning to think my idea of investigating my father was in error. Sometimes criminals are just mad, right? The motive might make sense to him, but not to anyone else.”
“Not usually.” He plastered a polite smile on his face as Juliana drew him before the group. His cheek muscles felt stiff, unused. “Good afternoon,” he told them all.
Juliana made introductions. “Miss Lynn,” she addressed the woman of the group, “I heard that your brother was injured, and that you were up in Stanhope to tend to him. I do hope he’s recovered.”
Miss Lynn drew her narrow shoulders back. “How does one ever recover from being beaten to within an inch of his life by men who’d rather kill than share the game rights to land that should belong to everyone?”
Juliana flushed. “I’m sorry. I’d heard he was injured. I hadn’t realized he was involved in the lead miners riots last year.”
Brogan had heard about those. The riots had reached even the London news, with the papers alternatively taking the side of the Bishop of Durham enforcing his property rights then sympathizing with the miners. It was like the editors wanted to cause strife.
“Your brother is a miner?” the man next to Miss Lynn asked. “How delightfully proletarian. However did you manage to rise from the miasma of the commoners and become the charming woman you are?”
Miss Lynn scowled. “You have such pretenses to thinking freely, Harry, but man’s natural prejudices always reveal themselves in the end.”
Brogan muffled a groan. He did not need his investigation deflected by politics. Especially when he could feel Juliana coiling beside him, readying to strike at Harry’s condescending words. “I heard Lady Juliana’s father has gone to visit a friend in Leeds. That is near Stanhope, is it not?”
“Not particularly.” Miss Lynn adjusted a purple turban over her cap of dark curls. “The weather is dreadful up there this time of year. You should tell your father to return home,” she told Juliana.
“If only I had the power to tell my father what to do.” Juliana frowned. “If I did, perhaps he wouldn’t have gotten into that jumble with… well, you all know who I’m talking about.”
Brogan had to give her credit. She was a clever one, and much better at the friendly interrogation than he was. Juliana had laid out the bait very prettily; it only stood to wait to see if anyone would bite.
The men looked at each other, eyebrows drawing together. Miss Lynn merely looked bored.
“I didn’t know your father was having problems with someone,” a man who had been introduced as a historian said. “I’m sorry to hear it.”
The other men nodded.
Harry leaned forward. “Who is he having a dispute with?” He nearly licked his lips, eager for that piece of gossip.
“Ah.” Juliana tugged at the wrist of her gown. “It is of no consequence.”
Harry deflated.
Miss Lynn elbowed his side. “You have another chance to feast on the misery of others.” She nodded to the door. “Snow
don is here. Perhaps he will tell you something.”
Juliana stiffened, shifting closer to Brogan.
Lord Snowdon wended his way through the sitting room to where they stood, his eyes narrowing as they caught on his sister’s face. “Jules, what a treat seeing you here. I thought you had an aversion to my company and gone into hiding again.”
“It’s almost like you didn’t have to pay someone to hunt me down,” she said sweetly. “You could have just written to see me.”
Harry and the other men looked between Juliana and her brother like their words were a ball in a tennis match.
Snowdon’s cheeks went brick-red. “We’ll discuss this later.” He greeted the group and positioned himself next to Miss Lynn. “What did I miss?”
“The usual. Comets, the Romantics, the natural state of man.” Miss Lynn rolled her head. “I thought you said this salon was interesting, but it’s the same ideas all the time.”
“You could introduce a new topic of conversation,” Juliana said. “Something more to your liking. What topics do interest you, Miss Lynn? Where do your passions lie?”
The barest hint of a smirk crossed Snowdon’s face. His hand went behind Miss Lynn’s back, and if Brogan wasn’t very much mistaken, gave the woman a small squeeze.
“I can’t tolerate inequality,” she replied. “Watching as some are born to privilege while the rest of us struggle.” She ran her gaze up and down Juliana’s body, pausing on her neat slippers and the lace trim of her gown. “If I am subject to these passions you accuse me of, that would be where they lie.”
“A noble calling, to be sure.” Juliana stepped forward eagerly. “Have you heard of Rose’s idea to form a debate society to try to address this problem? I’ve sent him some essays with my thoughts—”
Snowdon snorted. “You and your little scribblings. Perhaps you should leave the big ideas to those more qualified, Jules.”
Juliana’s face went scarlet.
Brogan cracked the knuckles on his right hand.
“Writings and debates are all very well and good,” Miss Lynn said, “but it is action that is needed. And don’t mock your sister, Snowdon, not when she is at least trying.”
Snowdon cleared his throat. “We all must do our part. Make sure the tenants have food, and all that. Now, I need a drink. The ride over here was damned dusty. Miss Lynn, can I get you anything?”
“Alcohol can only make this meeting more interesting.” She placed her hand on Snowdon’s arm. “I’ll come with you.”
Harry scratched his chest. “We let her in here, didn’t we? I wonder what she thinks is so unfair.”
And Brogan wondered what Miss Lynn saw in Snowdon, given he was one of the aristocrats born to privilege she seemed to disdain. But you never could tell what attracted some people to others.
The heat from Juliana’s body warmed his side, and he stepped away. “Ready to go?” The salon had been useless. The only hope he had to solve this investigation was with Pickens telling them what they needed to know. Brogan didn’t want to tell his employers he was hanging his hopes on such a thin thread. How soon would they regret their decision to give an ex-boxer a chance?
“All right, let me go see if Bertie is ready to leave, too.”
Brogan trailed behind her, picking up snippets of conversation here about human nature and there about the darkness in Renaissance painting. These were Juliana’s people. Her peers. And he felt as out of place as a fish in a meadow.
“We’re leaving,” she told Bertie. “Want a ride back with us?”
“I have to go to work, and the theatre is in the opposite direction.” He shook Brogan’s hand. “I’ll get my own cab.”
Smythe slunk up beside him. “Can you afford a cab on your salary?” He tutted. “If you need a friendly loan—”
“And now seems like the perfect time to leave.” Bertie’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He gestured to the door. “After you, Jules.”
Brogan followed after them to where the butler waited. He handed them coats and hats.
Brogan looked down the hall. Smythe stood just inside the sitting room doors, talking with an unseen person and gesticulating wildly. Brogan looked back at Juliana’s friend, who had stood beside her when the chips were down.
As Brogan passed Bertie on the front steps, he said, “You’re better off.”
He handed Juliana up into his carriage. He settled across from her and turned his hat in his hands. “Your acquaintances are quite varied.”
“You thought I’d only be friends with members of the peerage?” She scooted to the side and tugged down one of the windows.
“That is what most members of the aristocracy do.” Although the men who’d started the Bond Agency weren’t like that. Brogan had felt nothing but respect from them in their treatment of him and the other investigators.
“When will you learn that I am not like most daughters of earls?”
He caught her gaze. Her eyes were a lovely shade of brown, coffee mixed with cream, like his morning drink.
“I think I figured that out the moment I found you hiding in Mr. Huddleson’s apartments.”
“Mr. Duffy. Brogan. About last night—”
“Last night didn’t happen as far as you and I are concerned.” He shifted, parts of his body remembering quite well that the kiss had happened. And those parts wanted more.
She turned to look out the window. “People of my station tend to believe the working class are immoral when it comes to relations, but you’re actually the prudes, aren’t you?”
“There is nothing prudish about keeping things professional. About understanding one’s place in the world.” He arched an eyebrow. “And there is certainly nothing wrong with not debasing members of the fairer sex, of any station.”
She laughed. Out and out laughed at him. “Oh, how simple it must be in a man’s mind, placing women into neat little boxes. Purity, innocence, motherhood, all those ideals we’re wrapped in.” She leaned forward and whispered. “I have news for you. I’m no longer pure. And I have very little innocence left to protect.”
He blinked. Swallowed. Blinked again. After that kiss last night, he’d had his suspicions that she’d had at least some experience. But experience or not, whether he’d be ruining her or not, it made no matter.
He stared at the hat on her head. At the slight crack in the wood at the back of the carriage. Anything but at her. His body might be eager to explore with this new knowledge, but the circumstances hadn’t changed.
She was a client. He was a new investigator who needed to earn his place.
She was the daughter of an earl. He was one step up from the streets.
Nothing could come of their attraction.
“I don’t pretend to be an experienced woman. I’ve only had one lover,” she said casually. “The affair lasted all of three months. But it was enough to show me that there is a whole world outside of society’s expectations that I want to explore.”
Brogan dug his fingers into his thigh. It was that damned education her father had given her, treating her just like her brother. Taking her to salons and who knew what else. Most women didn’t talk like this.
Most women didn’t make him want to shut them up with his tongue down their throat.
“You actually met him,” she continued. “James Masters, the sculptor. He was very kind. And instructive.”
His fingers had to be leaving bruises the way they dug into his flesh. Had he thought Masters one of the more normal people at the salon? The man deserved to be shitting out his teeth.
“We’re here.” Thank God. He couldn’t take more of this conversation. He’d see her settled in the apartments and get the hell out of there.
He didn’t wait for the driver to open the door but hopped down himself. Twilight had fallen, and the boy lighting the gas lamps was making his rounds. Brogan cracked his neck then lowered the steps for Juliana.
She took his han
d and descended with more sway in her hips than he thought the occasion called for. She was trying to provoke him, and damn it, it was working.
“Tomorrow I’m going back to Newgate.” He gritted his teeth. “Would you like to come?” Did he want her to come? No. But with Juliana he was learning that keeping her within eyesight was preferable to letting her loose on London.
A slight whirring sounded, and he flapped his hand in front of his face. He couldn’t see any insects, but they weren’t shy about making noise.
“Yes.” She shook out her skirts. “I also wish to speak with Sir Thomas Miles. Lady Mary said he and my father had a falling out. It was some time ago, but leave no stone unturned and all that, right?”
The whirring grew louder.
Brogan frowned. “Let’s get you inside before you get eaten alive.”
Juliana took a step then paused. “One moment. I have a pebble…,” she said as she bent at the waist to adjust her slipper.
Something crashed into the stone building above Juliana’s shoulder.
Brogan didn’t think. He rushed forwards, wrapped an arm around Juliana’s waist and took her down. He twisted, trying to take the impact, but from her cry of pain he knew she had hit the pavement, too. He rolled, putting her body beneath his, and squinted up the street, looking for any movement.
The driver jumped down, pulling a pistol from his greatcoat. “A horse just went racing back up the street. What happened?”
Brogan waited for his heart to calm. For all his senses to assure him the danger had left before he picked himself off of Juliana. He pulled her to her feet then dropped to a squat, searching.
“This.” He picked up a stone the size of his fist. “That whirring. It wasn’t insects. It was a sling.”
“A sling?” Juliana rubbed her ribcage. “Who uses a sling nowadays?”
The driver put his pistol away. “Medieval, but effective.”
Brogan nodded agreement. He turned to Juliana. “It looks like you were right. Someone is trying to kill your father. And now they’re after you.”