by Erica Vetsch
“Really, sir, there’s no need. I’m safe enough now.”
“I might as well finish the job.” He settled back against the hard wooden seat. No frills or plush squabs in this carriage. Tall as he was, he seemed to swallow up all the space inside.
When the carriage lurched into motion, he asked, “Why on earth were you looking for someone in the rookery at night?” He kept his face turned away from her, the muffler still covering the lower half, and the deep hood concealing the rest. He might be a common villain or the prime minister himself. Who could tell in the darkness like this?
She pressed her lips together. Disappointment and despair settled into her chest. She’d set out with such great hopes of meeting her sister. Of perhaps beginning a relationship … a friendship. She said nothing, knowing that it was foolish.
“Perhaps you’re just now realizing what a dangerous stunt you attempted? Good.” He tugged off his gloves, finger by finger, and bunched them in his hand, laying his fist along his thigh. The quality of his clothes was fine, the cloak thick, his gloves without a single hole, that she could see.
Odd that his fingernails were so clean, not at all like the other men in the public house. And his diction was better.
And he smelled better.
“If you must know, I was hoping to deliver a few things. I met—” Charlotte stopped, wondering. She supposed Amelia Cashel was a miss, since she’d never married, but she was old enough to be Charlotte’s mother. “Madam Cashel this afternoon, and I could see she was in need. I only sought to help her.” A blanket, some food, some candles, a shawl. Hopefully, none of the staff would notice these few items missing and report them to her parsimonious father.
The man actually grunted, as if barely comprehending her actions. “A noble thought, I suppose, though badly executed. If you leave the basket with me, I will see that it is properly delivered.”
“You would do that?” Suspicion laced her words. “You aren’t just trying to get your hands on the contents, are you?”
His silent offense was as cold as the February air. Finally, he asked, “What is your name?”
“Tell me who you are first.” She didn’t want to reveal her name, lest word get back to her father, so she stalled.
“Young woman, I have no need for such an exchange of information. If I put my mind to it, I will know your identity in less than twenty-four hours.”
Indeed? Arrogant man. She pressed her lips together, determined to give him no clues.
“Let’s see. Though you are plainly attired at the moment, you speak with an educated tone. Therefore you are probably genteelly born. Also, you haven’t the sense God gave a chicken, though come to think of it, that doesn’t narrow things down much. I’ve heard society ladies are a bit addlepated.”
She stiffened as if poked with a stick, but she bit hard on the inside of her cheek in order not to rise to his baiting.
“However, I do know you live on Portman Square. There cannot be that many beautiful young ladies who call that prestigious address home. An empty-headed society miss shouldn’t be that difficult to identify. Though, you might be a governess, or a ladies’ maid? Perhaps a paid companion? Still, the list of occupants in Portman Square isn’t that large, so who you are won’t be difficult to diagnose.”
She fumed that he would think she had no sense, though she’d certainly behaved that way tonight. But she took satisfaction in the knowledge that he only thought he knew where she lived. She’d given a false address so he wouldn’t be able to find her later and so she wouldn’t bring any shame to her family.
No more shame than she’d already discovered that her father had brought on them today.
The carriage rolled to a stop on the south side of Portman Square, and before he could stop her, she slipped out, leaving the basket behind, and hurried away.
As she ducked around the corner, she realized she hadn’t given him proper thanks, though after his insult to her intelligence, he didn’t deserve it.
Too bad she would never see him again. At least he’d been interesting to talk to. A rookery ruffian perhaps, but intelligent and capable of rescuing her from her own folly.
A unique man to be sure.
He also had one other uncommon opinion that predisposed her to favor him.
He had called her beautiful.
CHAPTER 2
MARCUS SLIPPED ALONG the laden shelves of Hatchards bookstore, mentally shedding the duties of his title and donning the more comfortable persona of employee of the Crown. It had been far too long since he and his chief had talked face to face.
Much to Marcus’s chagrin, upon his arrival in London, Sir Noel St. Clair had been absent. He shouldn’t have been surprised, as his director took frequent trips as part of his responsibilities, but the wait for his return had seemed interminable. Marcus needed guidance and to clarify his mission now that his circumstances had changed, and only Sir Noel could provide those things.
Marcus had been forced to bide his time. At least he’d been able to slip out at night and check in with some of his informants here in London. He’d been away from the city and his network for some months, and he needed to renew those contacts. He was useless without information, and he’d cultivated his sources over a period of years.
Everything had gone according to his carefully laid plans. At least until an intrepid, if foolish, damsel who didn’t realize she was in distress had crossed his path.
When she’d shown up at the Hog’s Head, he’d thought he must be seeing things. What was a woman of obviously genteel birth doing in that slum? Rescuing her had cost him half a crown in grog, but at least she’d had the decency to venture in after he’d met with his contact and gathered as much information as the man had to give. By the time she’d arrived, it had been time for Marcus to depart anyway. But he’d had to go carefully, concealing his face and deepening his voice to disguise himself.
He hoped Lady Charlotte Tiptree had learned her lesson and would stay at home where she belonged from now on. As he’d boasted, he had known her identity in less than a day, though the minx had tried to hide where she lived. He’d tracked her not to Portman Square where she’d asked to be let out, but to a side street off Grosvenor Square.
Not the best address, but near enough to the best not to be a total embarrassment. But it matched what he had heard about the Earl of Tiptree, that he was a bit of a Tartar who kept his wife and daughter on a strict budget and was shrewd in his business dealings.
Marcus took a book off a shelf, pretending to peruse it as a pair of young men joked and jostled farther up the aisle. Hurry up and leave so I can get to work.
They laughed and elbowed and acted like buffoons for a few minutes longer but finally headed toward the door, leaving the aisle clear. Marcus slipped the rather interesting volume on naval history back onto the shelf, picked up a copy of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Men, placed it atop the bookcase just so, and took the opportunity to use his key and unlock a door marked “Storage.” He entered, locking it behind himself, and trotted up the hidden staircase to St. Clair’s office.
He didn’t bother to knock on the door on the small landing upstairs and entered, inhaling the scent of ink, pipe smoke, and coffee. St. Clair had developed quite a taste for the dark, bitter brew when he’d been a young marine stationed in the West Indies. He’d tried many times to convince Marcus to drink it, but Marcus preferred tea. With no secretary or clerk, St. Clair brewed his own coffee on the small coal stove set into the fireplace opening.
Sir Noel sat behind his massive desk, leaning back in his chair and reading a document by lamplight. The room had no windows, always giving Marcus a feeling of being trapped, but the office wouldn’t be much of a secret if it could be observed through glass by the people in the next building.
Secrecy was behind most things St. Clair did, another reason he did not keep a secretary. Intricate locks kept filed papers secure, and the entrance at the back of the bookshop downstai
rs was known only to a select few.
“A moment.” St. Clair barely glanced at him and continued to concentrate on the papers in his hand.
Marcus, well used to his superior’s need to finish one thing before moving on to another—and appreciating it to the point of copying the method himself whenever possible—settled into one of the tatty overstuffed chairs before the desk and leaned back, lacing his fingers over his waistcoat.
The first time he’d entered this room, he’d been so nervous, he’d stammered and knocked a pile of folders off the corner of the desk into a snowstorm of paper. Of course, he’d been a first-year student at Oxford at the time, stunned that he would be recruited for this work.
That had been more than a decade ago, and in those years, he’d become a proven asset to St. Clair, and his boss had become a friend.
At last setting the papers down and butting the edges straight on the blotter, St. Clair looked up. “Marcus, or should I say ‘Your Grace’? How are you faring?”
A grimace twisted his mouth. “Please don’t. In this office, I’m just Marcus. I might have to be a duke sometimes, but not here.” He flexed his fingers and sat up. “Actually, that’s what I came to talk to you about. The title. And how it will affect my work.”
St. Clair tapped his lips with his finger, studying Marcus. He rarely spoke before giving what he had to say careful thought. Marcus waited.
“Are you worried that I’ll ask you to resign?”
“I’m worried I’ll have to. You know that the light always shines brighter on those close to the throne. I might not be a royal, but I am, for better or worse, a duke. I will be talked about, noticed, and scrutinized everywhere I go. It’s already begun, in fact. Before, as a second son, I had access to most places open to the ton, but I was easily overlooked. I could go where I pleased, listen without being noticed, and gather intelligence while appearing to do nothing at all.”
“I’ll admit”—St. Clair nodded—“your ability to attend society functions as well as to slip through the rookeries and slums with equal aplomb has had its uses. However, your elevation in rank might also prove beneficial to our cause. You will now have entrance and status in areas we haven’t yet plumbed.”
“Thus far, I’ve yet to accept any of the invitations that have flooded Haverly House here in London. Truth be told, I haven’t felt up to it. I know I’m the duke now, but until I have to actually be him officially, I’m in denial.”
“Many men would think they’d been blessed to inherit the Haverly title and lands.”
Marcus shook his head. “I wish heartily that I had not. The cost was too great.”
“Of course. To lose your father and your brother the same day. I offer my condolences again.”
“I appreciated your note, though I understand why it had to be encoded. My mother was mystified by a card from ‘John de Camp.’ I told her it was from an old Oxford classmate, and she was satisfied.”
“How is your mother bearing up?”
“Devastated and dramatic by turns. She’s now on a mission, however, and having a purpose has refocused her attentions, so she doesn’t dwell as much on her losses.”
St. Clair paused. “A mission? Pray tell.”
Marcus shifted in his chair. “Now that I am her only surviving son, she’s taken it upon herself to find me a wife as soon as possible. As if I needed a bride at this juncture. I want to be left alone to do my work, and if the title is a complication I cannot avoid, a wife is one that I can.” He shrugged, trying to dislodge the weight that pressed his shoulders. He shouldn’t have to think about the dukedom or a wife or any other part of his life while he was here in this room where he had accepted his first assignment so long ago. This room that gave him both a sense of peace and of excitement, and most of all fulfillment, as if he was doing exactly what he was put here on earth to do. “What have you learned while I was buried in Oxfordshire? Any new leads?” He barely held out hope. For months now their investigation into the contacts and acquaintances of the late Viscount Fitzroy had gone nowhere. The man had tried to kill the Prince Regent, and they knew for certain that he’d been hired for the job, but thus far, they had been unable to discover who had ordered the murder. A pity Fitzroy had been killed while trying to evade capture, but it couldn’t be helped.
“Yes, actually. Which will explain why I was away from London when you arrived. I was in France. We’ll talk about that, but first, tell me what you’ve done in my absence.”
“With the deaths of my father and brother, I’ve had to be at the family estates and away from London, but as soon as I returned, I began working my contacts, checking in with informants.” He perused his mental list. “I shouldn’t be surprised anymore, but it seemed the higher up the social ladder I was searching, the lower down the social scale I had to go. I spent several evenings in pubs in Seven Dials and St. Giles, letting my contacts find me.”
“And what did you discover?”
Marcus grimaced. “That birthright doesn’t exempt men from being scoundrels. I found a baron and a viscount who are alcoholics, one well-born young man with a strong fondness for opiates, and another who beats his wife.”
St. Clair bent a sharp glance at him. “I can’t think you let that last pass without some action. What did you do?”
His boss knew him well. Marcus would never abide the mistreatment of a woman. He’d seen too much of it in war-torn areas. The conquering army pillaging or the retreating army seeking retribution from the locals for their defeat. Women bought and sold, beaten and assaulted. It turned Marcus’s stomach, and he’d severely punished such violence when he’d found it amongst his ranks. God had created man to provide for and protect women, not to prey upon them. Protecting women was one area where his faith and his work required the same actions, and he didn’t mind the crossover.
“I sent Partridge to visit him. Partridge hardly had to say a word, just stood there looking as big as the Eiger, his arms crossed and muscles bulging. He let the young man know if he so much as laid a finger on his wife in anger again, he would find himself press-ganged into the Royal Navy, where he would be flogged round the fleet as his initiation. He knows he is being watched from now on.”
“It pays to have someone as fearsome as Partridge on the payroll, does it not? Remind me where you found him again.”
“Languishing in a Spanish prison. He’d been taken at Corunna and spent years in prison. The French refused to exchange him, fearing to meet him in battle again. When we retreated from Bussaco, we freed the political prisoners being held there, and Partridge has been with me ever since.”
“Corunna seems such a long time ago. The French celebrated then, but they’re worried now. I gathered much intelligence on my latest trip behind enemy lines.”
Marcus focused his attention. “What did you learn?” That his boss had ventured into France when their country was embroiled in a long war with that country didn’t surprise him. They had both made multiple trips into enemy territory over the years, spying, scouting, intelligence gathering.
Such was the work of agents for the Crown.
“If an absence of information counts, then I found plenty. Since old Boney disbanded the consulate and wiped out my network there, I’ve had to cultivate new contacts within the French government. It isn’t difficult to find disenfranchised aristocrats who despise their emperor, but it does take time to find individuals with pertinent information and to earn their trust.”
“Did you find anything that would indicate where the assassination attempt originated?”
“Thus far I have been able to track no connection between Viscount Fitzroy and anyone in the French government who might have ordered the assassination of the Prince Regent. Nor can I find anyone in France who would’ve specifically gained by his death at that time. While there might have been a momentary boost to French morale, it wouldn’t have changed overall strategy for either country. Not as if someone were able to assassinate Napoleon.” His eyes gleamed at th
e thought. To lop the head off the beast—no matter how close that head stood to the ground—would send the French government into an uproar.
Marcus considered this information. “If the link isn’t in France, it has to be domestic. Someone who would’ve risen in power if the Prince of Wales was assassinated. While his daughter would be the next in line for the crown, the Duke of York would have been appointed the next regent. We considered York for a while, but that’s as absurd now as it was then. None of the Prince Regent’s siblings seems particularly fond of him, but none is actively looking to murder him either. What of those who support the Duke of York over the Prince of Wales? Have you been able to make any connection between Fitzroy and any of York’s confidants?”
St. Clair pushed his chair back and rose. “That’s what’s so confounded frustrating. There are myriad connections because London society is so small. Familial, business, social. Everyone has dealings with everyone else. However, I have been able to narrow it down a bit. For the longest time, I couldn’t understand what would make Fitzroy agree to attempt the murder. Was the payment he would receive really the motivation? He was wealthy enough himself, with a healthy bank account as well as being his uncle’s heir.” St. Clair moved around the room, trailing his fingers along the books on the crowded shelves, pausing before an oil painting of Hampton Court on a sunny day.
“But we’ve never been able to track any payment. You thought to follow the money when we first started our investigation. No deposit was made to his account. None of his gambling debts mysteriously disappeared. No land changed hands. We had to assume that the payment was never made. Either because Fitzroy died or because the prince didn’t.” Marcus did a quick walk-through of the early days of the investigation. He’d been so sure he would unravel the chain of command quickly.
Such hubris. They’d encountered one dead end after another.
“No, the only money we could find that changed hands was from Fitzroy to Percival Seaton, and we know why Seaton got paid off. He was Fitzroy’s ticket to being invited to White Haven and getting access to the Prince Regent.” St. Clair turned from the painting and clasped his hands behind his back. “How is Seaton these days?”