by Erica Vetsch
“Congratulations.” Mrs. Washburn led the applause, and she presented Charlotte and Marcus with their prizes.
“Thank you.” Marcus took his box, but he waited for Charlotte to open hers first.
“Oh my.” Her mouth opened as she removed the striped paper and ribbon and peeked into the box. She held up a glittering gold chain with an oval pendant attached. Gold with a single emerald in the center.
“It’s a locket, my dear. You can tuck a keepsake inside or a miniature.” Mrs. Washburn held out her hand. “I’ll help you put it on if you like?”
Charlotte appeared stunned, handing over the necklace and sitting like a statue while her hostess clasped the gold chain around her slim throat. The locket rested against the fabric of her high-collared dress, and she touched the golden pendant as if it might evaporate.
Which was when Marcus noticed that unlike every other woman in the room, she hadn’t been wearing any jewelry. She wasn’t a debutante, so jewelry was allowed, but she’d worn no pearls, no diamonds, not so much as a cameo. Long sleeves, a high collar to her dress, she was as covered as if she had come straight from a cloister.
Mrs. Washburn was looking at him expectantly, and he pulled his mind back to the matter at hand. He made quick work of the paper and string, opening a jeweler’s box to reveal a gold snuff ring. It matched the locket perfectly, the same gold design, the same green jewel in the center.
“I do hope it fits. If not, I can take it back to the jeweler’s to get it sized for you.” Mrs. Washburn clasped her hands together at her waist.
He slipped the ring onto his right hand, third finger, where it fit perfectly. “I thank you, madam. It’s an excellent gift.”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Washburn.” Charlotte’s fingers hadn’t left the necklace. “I should say that it’s too much, but I won’t. I love it.”
Mrs. Washburn beamed. Her party had been a success, and Marcus was sure news to that effect would circulate on the morrow as the ladies present made their morning calls on one another.
The evening broke up soon after that, and Marcus, after thanking their hosts, found himself on the Washburn steps awaiting his carriage. Charlotte followed her parents outside and down the stairs.
Marcus sprang after her to take her elbow and help her into the earl’s carriage. “Thank you for a nice evening, Lady Charlotte. If I am ever in need of another partner for cards, I know where I shall go.”
She paused before stepping up into the coach, turning her face toward him. He didn’t know which gleamed brighter, those green eyes or the golden chain peeking from beneath her cloak.
“It was very nice to meet you, Your Grace. I should think your mother would be an excellent partner for cards. They nearly had us.” That saucy flicker entered her eyes again. “They would have, if not for me. Perhaps I should ask your mother to partner me next time. We would make floor mops of you, I’m sure.”
With that jibe, she entered the carriage, and he closed the door, feeling like laughing for the first time in months.
As they rolled toward their townhouse in their own carriage, his mother sniffed. “Get that notion out of your head, Marcus.”
“What notion?”
“If you have any designs on the Tiptree chit, you can put them away. She’s totally unsuitable. I’ve never seen a frumpier, more outspoken bluestocking in my life.”
Marcus blinked. “I don’t have designs on anyone, if you’ll remember. I merely partnered her at cards.”
“I know you better than you think I do. You couldn’t take your eyes off her.”
“She was sitting across the table from me. What was I supposed to do?” He spread his hands. “Anyway, not that I’m looking for a bride, but what makes her unsuitable? She’s the daughter of an earl, is she not?”
“You know perfectly well she is. It’s not her breeding that is the problem. It’s her behavior. And take a look at her. She’s as plain as a pikelet.”
Marcus went still. “I refuse to believe she has behaved scandalously. She didn’t flirt with me once all evening.” Though if his mother knew Lady Charlotte had ventured into St. Giles at night, she might have fuel for her opinions.
“I’ve heard nothing about her character that would be shameful. In fact, Tiptree keeps a tight rein on his wife and his daughter. You see the way he dresses them. And Charlotte acted as if she’d never seen gold jewelry until tonight. No, it’s her mouth that gets her into trouble. She behaved tolerably well this evening, but I’ve attended events in the past where she cannot seem to hold her tongue and ranges forth on subjects both unladylike and well above her. She is full of her own intelligence, and by her own admission, she reads books … she even reads newspapers.”
The shock in her voice amused Marcus, though he hid it. Oh, the scandal of a woman who read and kept up on current events.
The duchess wasn’t finished. “She would be better off concentrating on holding her tongue and acting like a lady. She’s three-quarters of the way to becoming an eccentric. This is her third Season, and if she doesn’t find someone to marry, she’ll be a confirmed spinster.”
Which she made to sound the worst fate imaginable.
“As for you, I don’t know where to begin. Your comments at supper were scandalous. I was so angry with you, I couldn’t see straight. What do you mean bringing up such indelicate topics at the table? If you must talk so, you should at least wait until the ladies retire. What the ton will make of your behavior, I can’t imagine. I have a hard enough road sorting out a suitable wife without you behaving so recklessly at our first social engagement of the year.”
Mother nagged and grumbled all the way back to the house, and as was his habit, Marcus let it roll over and around him.
At least he could report back to St. Clair that he’d made contact with two persons of interest in the Fitzroy case. He’d extended a dinner invitation to Trelawney, and he had established his bona fides with Eddington.
Hopefully, in the days to come, he would find other points of interaction with them.
Then his mind drifted to Lady Charlotte.
She was a puzzle. There was more there than he’d first thought. She played cards like a mathematician, evidently read books like an Oxford don, and had a hard time keeping her opinions to herself.
That his mother, who had the sharpest tongue he’d ever encountered, would think Charlotte too outspoken made him want to chuckle.
He shook his head. Lady Charlotte had not fawned or flirted with him and hadn’t treated him with any deference. She’d been friendly and interesting. Far more interesting than anyone else at the party.
She dressed like an old maid, but there was something attractive about her at the same time that intrigued him. As if a woman of passions lurked behind the dowdy facade.
The coach lurched to a stop in front of his townhouse, and Marcus was out the door, ready to get away from such ridiculous musings. It was his mother’s fault, putting all this marriage nonsense into his head.
Why was it that the moment his mother told him he shouldn’t do something—even if he hadn’t formerly contemplated it—that thing became exactly what he wanted to do straight away?
It must be a flaw in his character.
CHAPTER 4
“IT’S THE PERFECT solution, I tell you. Why won’t you even consider it?”
Marcus prayed for patience as his mother banged the same old gong.
“No one would bat an eyelash. After all, she’s a widow with a small child. You need a wife. As I said, it’s perfect. We could have a small ceremony here and then put a little notice in the papers. No fuss, and everything would be so tidy.”
“Madam, please. We’ve been over this. I have no more wish to marry my brother’s relict than she to marry me.” Marcus scraped his quill against the inkwell, shook off the excess drops, and replaced the pen in the holder. No one matched his mother for bringing work to a standstill. He sat back in his desk chair. The letter to his steward at Haverly Manor would hav
e to wait.
“How do you know? Have you asked her?” The rasp of exasperation colored her tone. At the rate she was yanking on the threads, her needlework would be a rat’s nest in no time.
“He has not. He has no need to ask.” Cilla came into the room, the baby in her arms. His sister-in-law’s hair was so pale a yellow as to be nearly white, her skin like alabaster, her eyes a vivid blue. She’d grown thin, too thin to Marcus’s way of thinking, since the baby had been born. Pining for Neville, no doubt.
Mother had wanted her to remain at the estate, but Cilla had begged to be allowed to come to London. “I don’t want to stay alone in the country. There are too many memories here. Everything is still too fresh.”
It had rankled Marcus that Cilla, a grown woman, widow of the heir to the Haverly title and estates, had thought she needed to ask permission of him or her mother-in-law to come or go as she pleased. He’d said as much at the time.
She now crossed the room to the desk, gently bouncing the infant. “Mother Haverly, I do wish you’d stop trying to push me off on Marcus. I do not wish to remarry. And I think of Marcus as he is, my brother. My daughter’s dear uncle.”
Marcus studied Cilla and then glanced at his mother. Cilla had been moldable when she had been chosen as his brother’s bride. Mother had seen someone she could manipulate under the more socially acceptable term “guide,” and Cilla had acquiesced, giving in to her mother-in-law’s “suggestions” in nearly everything.
But since Neville’s death, since Honora Mary’s birth, Cilla had been showing some signs of independent thought and even a touch of contrariness, alarming to Mother and interesting to Marcus.
She eased the lace cap away from the baby’s cheek. “I wanted to show you what Honora Mary can do now.” Tilting her up a bit, she said, “Show Uncle Marcus your new trick.”
Marcus had to admit the child looked better than when he had first seen her. Much less mottled and wrinkled. Her skin was the color of pink roses, and her hair grew in an absurdly cute tuft atop her head, like a thistle just gone to seed. He reached out, and she grasped his finger, drawing a smile from him.
Then she smiled back. At least he thought she did. Her mouth quirked up in odd directions, and her eyes locked with his.
“See, she’s smiling. Isn’t she a clever girl?” Cilla beamed, as if the child had just proven worthy to join the Royal Society of Astronomers.
Mother let her needlework fall to her lap. “Don’t you see it? You make such a nice family group. And it would save so much bother.”
“Enough.” Marcus disengaged his finger from Honora Mary’s tiny grip. Frustration made him reckless. All day the responsibilities and expectations of being the head of the house, the title bearer, had bound him and restricted him and weighed upon him until he was ready to pitch the entire enterprise into the dustbin and emigrate to the Americas. “We’ve both told you now that we have no desire to marry each other. If you don’t leave it, you’ll force me to do something drastic.”
Cilla and Mother both looked up quickly.
“Such as?”
He strove for patience, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Such as grab the first spinster I see and race to Gretna Green so you’ll stop hounding me?” He bowed, taking far too much pleasure in his mother’s shocked expression. “I have an appointment. I’ll change at the club and meet you at the ball.” Without waiting to hear his mother’s protests, he left his office. His office. The one room in the house where he should be able to get work done in peace and that the ladies insisted upon invading. Why couldn’t they use one of the townhome’s multiple sitting rooms, drawing rooms, or reception rooms and leave him alone?
Exiting the house, he felt as if a great weight slipped from his shoulders as he relegated the dukedom to the side and focused on the task ahead. Partridge met him in the mews, and they struck out for Piccadilly Road and Hatchards. Marcus noted a lightness in his step now that he was back in his comfortable role as agent for the Crown.
“What have you learned?” he asked his hulking employee.
It always took Partridge some time to ruminate, and he never spoke in haste, so Marcus wasn’t surprise when his silence lasted half a block as he marshaled his thoughts.
“Went to Aunt Dolly’s last night, and she gave me a few leads. Earl of Tiptree kept the Cashel woman, right enough, for twenty years odd. Last place he kept her was in some rented rooms near St. James’s Park, not fancy, but fine enough. He turfed her and the daughter out early last Season. He’s still renting the rooms, but he hasn’t gotten himself a new mistress yet, or if he has, he’s not housing her there.”
They walked on for another half block before Partridge continued. “Found Amelia Cashel. Wasn’t in St. Giles anymore. Seems her daughter got her a job. She’s the charwoman at the brothel where the daughter works in King’s Place. Daughter’s been working there nearly a year, but there wasn’t no job for the mother until now.”
“Quite a comedown for a woman being kept by an earl to charwoman in a brothel.” Though as parsimonious as Tiptree was said to be, Marcus doubted he’d lavished the woman with luxuries.
“But a step up from where she’d been, squatting in St. Giles and selling her few belongings for food. Seems she and her daughter had a falling out about the daughter becoming a doxy, sort of following her mother into the trade. Heard the mother said she was done making a living on her back, and she didn’t intend to have a daughter doing the same. Guess her pride only took her so far. She’s cleaning the fireplaces and emptying the slops in the brothel now, but at least it’s a roof and some food.”
This was a lengthy speech from Partridge, who was content enough to let others talk when possible, but he was good at getting to the heart of the matter with his reports when he had to. For such a large man, Partridge was also discreet. The former prisoner of war and army sergeant had never given a false report, and there had never been any bow spray coming back on Marcus or the War Department from him carving through investigative waters too quickly. He could move silently through the London underground, like a shark in the Thames.
“That’s good work. I have another task for you now.” They stopped at the curb for a brewer’s wagon laden with barrels to clop by. “His name is Lord Trelawney, and I’m having dinner with him next week. Probably Tuesday. I don’t want to put out feelers myself. I’ll gather what I can from him, take his measure at dinner, and hopefully start an acquaintance that will lead to learning more. Find out what you can about any dealings he might have that he might not want made public. Chat up his coachman at the local pub, see where he goes and when. He’s a political animal, so I would expect him to court me for his party’s agenda. Sir Noel is digging into his distant past, but I need to know his current comings and goings and liaisons.”
Partridge nodded.
“We might have to break into his house and his office in the City, but not just yet. It’s early in the investigation, and he’s only a person of interest thus far.”
“Can you be doing that now? The breaking in and the like?”
“Why not?” Marcus paused. He’d always done plenty of his own dark work. It was one of the things that had earned him the respect of his men, whether in the army or now in his current occupation—that he wouldn’t send them to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself. He was an excellent cracksman, if he did say so himself.
“You bein’ a duke and all. Was bad enough, you being a decorated officer and aristocrat born. What if you was to get caught now?”
Indignation wormed through him, tightening his muscles and bringing a scowl to his face. “I don’t get caught.”
“Not so far. You’re plenty good at the quiet stuff, but things are different now. You get caught, and it looks bad for everyone. You won’t be able to say why you was doing it. And you don’t want to have to silence anyone to keep the secret. Word got out a duke was picking locks and rifling files, it would be like setting off a spark in an ammunition bunker.”
How was he supposed to be a spy for his country if he couldn’t do the things a spy needed to do? Title notwithstanding, if any housebreaking or office-breaking was required, he would be the one to do it. He was skilled enough to keep his secret life secret. He’d done so up to now, hadn’t he?
“Get to work on Trelawney’s background. And be careful. We don’t want to jump a fence only to land on a caltrop. We’re looking for someone willing to murder the Prince Regent. We have to assume he or they will be willing to murder to cover it up.” Partridge nodded, turning away and letting Marcus continue toward Hatchards alone.
St. Clair was in his office, but he wasn’t alone. The Mary Wollstonecraft book was atop the bookcase, the signal that someone else was in the office with St. Clair. Marcus consulted his watch. If he had to wait long, he’d be cutting it pretty fine to get to the club and get into evening kit for the ball tonight.
But he couldn’t be caught loitering here either. St. Clair preferred his agents not know too much about one another unless absolutely necessary, so he requested them to take pains to avoid crossing paths in the bookstore if possible. Frustrated, he turned to go. Perhaps he’d find the time tomorrow to return.
Marcus had only gone halfway up the aisle of bookshelves when the front door opened and a woman stepped in. A bonnet shaded her face, but she turned toward him, and he found himself smiling.
Lady Charlotte Tiptree.
He removed his hat and stepped forward. “Lady Charlotte. How nice to see you again.”
And it was. The cold air had colored her cheeks, and her smile in response to his greeting changed her face in that dramatic way he’d noticed last evening. Her green eyes lit up, and the light from the front windows gave the color depth and complexity.
“Are you here to purchase a copy of Hoyle’s Treatise on the Game of Whist? To brush up on your card skills?” he asked.
She laughed, and the clerk behind the counter looked up.
“Sir, I might wonder if you were here on the same errand?” She tucked her muff under her arm, her reticule dangling from her wrist. She had no gloves. Odd with the weather so brisk today. Perhaps she’d forgotten them at home. He’d noticed the same on the night he’d rescued her. “If I remember correctly, I had to do most of the work in our pairing at last night’s tournament.”