by Joan Smith
Beaumont felt a lurch of fear for her. “We know Dooley’s our man. You don’t have to go with him. I’ll follow him, keep an eye on him.”
“He wouldn’t be as forthcoming with you as he is with Prissie’s sister. I must go, Beau. You can see that.”
He could see it, but he didn’t like it. He was coming to know Lydia well enough to realize she would go, with or without him. “Very well, but for God’s sake, be careful, Lydia. Dooley’s a dangerous man.”
“I am perfectly aware of it. I only wish I had a pistol.”
“I have one in my carriage. I’ll bring it along.”
“Thank you, Beau. What an excellent friend you are.” In her excitement and gratitude, she reached up and placed a kiss on his cheek before running back to Dooley. Beaumont stood scowling, wondering how he had gotten himself into this ridiculous position. If anything happened to her, he would be responsible. How could he explain it to Sir John and her mama if anything happened to her? How could he live with himself? He shouldn’t let her go, and he couldn’t stop her.
He hurried belowstairs and called for his carriage. Before it arrived, Dooley and Lydia came down and went out the front door. Dooley didn’t have a carriage. Beaumont overhead him say, “We’ll stroll along until we meet a hansom.”
They turned toward Maddox Street. He kept them in sight until his own carriage arrived, then followed slowly behind, taking care not to overtake them. When Dooley hailed a hansom, Beaumont followed behind it, wary lest it take a turn away from Prissie’s flat. It drove directly there, however, and stopped. Dooley helped Lydia from the rig, like a gentleman. Beaumont drove past, then drew his pistol from the side pocket, pulled the check string, and got out of his carriage.
“Drive on. Keep circling the block until I come out,” he said to his coachman.
As the carriage drove off, he stood in the street, wondering where he should post himself to protect Lydia. He wouldn’t be able to see or hear the parlor if he waited outside the kitchen window, which would give him easy access to the flat and concealment from the street. If he waited in the foyer outside Prissie’s parlor, Dooley would see him when he left. But that was the best spot to be if Lydia needed help. He strode into the house. The foyer was empty. He went on tiptoe to Prissie’s door and listened.
In the little parlor, Lydia perched nervously on the edge of a chair and Dooley took up the sofa opposite.
“What did you have in mind, then?” she asked bluntly.
Dooley sat, his dark brow furrowed. “I’m in a bit of a spot, Nancy. Prissie got some bee in her bonnet and ran off with what didn’t belong to her. I paid her a thousand pounds for her work and got nothing for my trouble. The wench said she deserved a bigger cut. She took the money and ran out on me. I don’t believe she took them with her. I’ve searched every place she’s been. I know she had them here last week. I saw them, and they were mighty good. Said she just wanted to do a little fine-tuning.”
“Can’t you wait till she comes back?”
“Who says she’s coming back?” She stared into his hard eyes. She could almost feel the evil emanate from him. She was sure he had killed Prissie—and he would kill her, too, if it suited him. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
Dooley continued, “Wilkie and the boys are eager to get started. The distribution’s all set. We’ve been working on it for a year. You chat around to her pals. She must have given them to someone for safekeeping. They’ll hand them over to her sister. Find the plates, and there’s a thousand pounds in it for you. Have we got a bargain?”
Lydia considered it a moment. She was eager to agree and be rid of Dooley, but she felt Prissie’s sister would drive a harder bargain.
“Make it fifteen hundred and you’ve got a deal.”
“Done!” He reached out and shook her hand.
“Where can I reach you if I find them?”
“I’ll be in touch with you.”
He rose and she accompanied him to the front door. “Here’s a little something to tide you over,” he said, and stuffed a wad of crumpled bills into her fingers. “Don’t spend it all in one place, as the saying goes. Good advice in this case. I’m glad to see you’re a sensible gel, Nancy. I think me and you could get along just fine.”
Lydia’s instinct was to throw the money in his face, but she knew she had to play her role to the end. She snatched at the bills eagerly, with a quick glance to see their denomination.
“How’s about a little kiss before I go?” he asked, putting one arm around her waist.
She felt soiled to touch him. “Let’s not mix business with pleasure, Dooley.”
“It never stopped your sister.”
“I ain’t my sister,” she said, pushing him off. He reached for her again.
Beaumont, still listening in the hall, had heard their footsteps approach the door. He’d intended to dart up the stairs when he heard Dooley leaving, but curiosity got the better of him. He could hear their voices within and some of their words. When he heard the conversation stop and scuffling sounds begin, he was afraid Lydia had run into trouble. He was glad to be there when it happened, and hoped it would cure her of this harebrained notion of pretending to be Prissie’s sister. After one sharp rap on the door, he strode in and directed a menacing stare at Dooley.
Dooley took one look at Beaumont’s angry face and shook his head at Lydia. “Crikey, you don’t waste much time,” he said, and strode out.
Beaumont slammed the door behind him, then turned his fulminating eyes on Lydia. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson! I heard that noise. Did he attack you?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned to follow Dooley. “I’ll darken his daylights.”
“Don’t be so ... masculine, Beau,” she said, laughing at him. “That sound you heard was not me fighting for my virtue, but only the dance of negotiations.”
“Was he offering you money?” he demanded.
“Yes.”
“Propositioning you, in other words!”
She smiled demurely. “In a way, I suppose he was.”
“I hope you put the hedgebird in his place.”
“It would have looked very odd if I had refused.”
“You mean you accepted money from him! Lydia, this is intolerable.”
She held up the wad of bills. “But such a lot of money! Fives and tens. It’s—it’s over fifty pounds, Beau. And I didn’t even let him kiss me.” She scowled at him. “Just how much does it cost you men to hire a woman, I should like to know.”
For quite thirty seconds he was beyond words. When he spoke, it was a command. “Change your clothes. I’m taking you home.”
“Don’t you want to hear what I learned? I am practically working with Dooley. He’s going to pay me fifteen hundred pounds.”
Beaumont was so incensed, he didn’t trust himself to speak. He took Lydia by the shoulders and marched her to the door of Prissie’s bedroom.
“Change, now. We’ll talk on the way home. I want to get you out of here in case he comes back.”
“He won’t. Not tonight. He thinks you’re my fellow.”
She laughed and flung the fistful of bills into the air, then went into the bedroom and closed the door.
Chapter Twelve
Lydia came out of the bedroom a moment later wearing her own mantle, but the rouge was still on her cheeks and her hair was in an unaccustomed tousle of curls. She saw the money was still on the floor.
“We can’t leave this here,” she said, and began picking it up to stuff in her reticule. “I shall give it to Nessie for her orphans.”
Beaumont had managed to get his temper under control. “Well, what did you learn from Dooley?” he asked.
“Plates,” she said. “Prissie made some plates for him. He paid her a thousand pounds for them, but she demanded more, and when he refused to pay, she ran off with them.”
“Plates?” Beaumont asked, blinking in confusion. “Why would he pay so much for plates?”
“I don’t know.
They must have been very special plates. Prissie does collect plates,” she said, glancing at the wall that held a motley arrangement of them.
They both went to examine the collection of tawdry plates for some hidden value. “If any of these are worth more than a shilling, I would be surprised,” he said, reading the inscriptions. “Tunbridge Wells, home of the famous Chalybeate Springs.” In the center of the plate, a shield held a picture of the Parade, with its row of lime trees. Another was of “Weymouth, the Royal Resort.” Beneath the inscription was a likeness of Gloucester House, where George III used to holiday before he ran mad.
“It can’t be this sort of plate,” Lydia said. “The ones Dooley spoke of were small. And heavy. I have been thinking about it. They must have been a forgery of some valuable historical memorial plates. The originals were probably in gold. I expect they’ve forged some in pinchbeck to sell to unwary victims.”
“Prissie painted. She didn’t work with metal. It would require a smelting works or some such thing to make gold plates.”
“He said plates.”
Beaumont stood a moment, brooding. “You must have misunderstood him. Perhaps it was rates, or gates, or—or weights,” he said, flinging out his hands.
“I am not deaf, Beau. He said plates. Furthermore, he would not pay her a thousand pounds for weights, and one could hardly wrap up a set of gates in a small parcel.”
Beaumont spotted one of the bills on the floor and reached to pick it up. He looked at it, frowning. “Let me see the other bills,” he said. She fished them out of her reticule and handed them to him. A slow grin spread across Beaumont’s face. “Plates,” he said, and laughed. “Of course. Plates.”
“What? What is it?”
“She made plates for forged banknotes.”
“Forged? You mean Dooley gave me counterfeit money?”
“It seems a suitable payment. Counterfeit money for counterfeit love. The serial numbers are all the same on the fives.” He checked the tens. “Yes, on these as well. I wonder if this is from the lot Eldon was complaining of in the House this morning. That would explain why Dooley is eager to get new plates—probably for different denominations.”
“Oh! That is why he said not to spend it all in one place. And that is what he meant by the distribution! He said the distribution was all set. How clever of Prissie! I wonder how she learned to do it.”
“She had some skill as a forger, or so I assumed from the Dürer prints. It would be more difficult to work on the copper plates, but not impossible.”
“Then she quarreled with Dooley and ran off with the plates. The question is, what did she do with them?”
“I doubt she left them behind when she went to Kesterly,” Beaumont said. “She would know Dooley would be looking for them.”
“He searched every place she had been. The Nevils’, where she kept Richie, the inn at Kesterly, as well as her flat here. Where would she have put them for safekeeping, I wonder?”
They stood a moment, looking at the forged bills. One possible answer occurred to them both at once. “You don’t think—” Lydia said, as Beaumont exclaimed, “Sir John!”
“But she would never tell Papa what she was doing.”
“She wouldn’t have to. She might have asked him to hold on to a parcel for her. A smallish, heavy parcel.”
“If she gave it to him, it is at Grosvenor Square. He would never take anything belonging to her to the Hall.”
They extinguished the lamps, locked the door, and went out into the street, where Beaumont’s carriage was just turning the corner. “Do you see any sign of Dooley?” Beaumont asked, looking around.
“No, and even if he sees us, he’ll just think I’ve accepted your patronage,” Lydia said unconcernedly.
Beaumont looked at her and shook his head. Lydia Trevelyn was not the prude he had taken her for. In the carriage, she turned to him, grabbed his arm, and gasped.
“Beau! I’ve just thought of something! There is a smallish, heavy parcel in Papa’s office! I saw it on his desk. I even picked it up, but it was too heavy to contain billets-doux, so I didn’t pay any heed to it. What shall we do with the plates? Should we turn them over to Bow Street? Prissie is already dead, so they cannot hang her.”
“They would be interested to learn what Sir John was doing with them.”
“We’d have to do it anonymously. That would fix Dooley’s wagon!”
“It wouldn’t help Prissie, and it wouldn’t put Dooley behind bars either. I think we should use the plates to catch him.”
“I do feel sorry for Prissie, but avenging her death is not my top priority. I have to think of Papa. She was not only a lightskirt and a criminal, she used Papa to hide behind. Imagine if the plates were found in his house. He’d be ruined. We should just throw the plates down a well. That would be the least troublesome way to be rid of them.”
When the carriage reached Grosvenor Square, they went into the house. “Is my aunt home yet?” Lydia asked the butler.
“Not yet, Miss Trevelyn. It’s only eleven-thirty. She is usually out a little later than this.”
“Thankyou, Blake. Wouldyou make us some tea, please?” she said, to be rid of him.
As soon as he was gone, she rushed into her father’s office. The smallish parcel sat on the edge of the desk. She snatched it up and began pulling at the strings. Inside was a small box of heavy cardboard. Her breath came in short pants as she lifted the lid. She looked at the contents, blinked, and looked at Beaumont.
“Well?” he asked, stepping forward to see for himself.
“It’s a clock,” she said.
Beaumont took the box, removed the clock, and began to examine it.
“The plates aren’t inside it, Beau. It’s the little French boudoir clock from Mama’s bedchamber. It stopped running a month ago. Papa brought it to London to have it repaired. He either forgot to take it home or it has come since he left. What a take-in.”
She gave a weary sigh, her shoulders sagging. She looked ready to bawl.
Beaumont felt a rush of some tender emotion. “That’s not to say the plates aren’t here somewhere in the house,” he said bracingly.
“That’s true!” she said, brightening. “And the likeliest place for them to be is either here or in his bedroom. We’ll look here first.”
They began pulling out drawers, opening cabinet doors, and peering under the bed. It didn’t take them long to learn the parcel was not in the study.
“His bedchamber,” Lydia said, and headed for the door.
They met Blake, just carrying the tea tray into the saloon. Lydia just glanced at it. “Oh, you have brought plum cake. How nice, but do you know, Blake, Beaumont was just saying he would like some bread and butter and cold mutton. Would you mind terribly?”
Blake bowed his obedience, set the tray on a table, and left. They immediately ran upstairs to Sir John’s bedroom. It was more difficult to search. Besides the toilet table, the desk, the bed, and the clothespress, there was the sitting room, with countless places to hide a small box. By the time they returned belowstairs, breathing hard and empty-handed, the second tray had been delivered.
“I don’t know what Blake must think,” Lydia said, and gave a nervous laugh.
As the words left her mouth, the butler appeared at the archway. “Will there be anything else, Miss Trevelyn?” he asked politely, but his darting eyes took in her breathless state and her toilette, which had become mussed from her frantic search. He frowned heavily at her escort.
“That will be all, thank you,” she said primly, but with a laughing eye at Beaumont.
“He thinks we’ve been carrying on,” Beaumont said. “We had best be careful, or Sir John will be demanding to know my intentions.”
“I’ve already promised I would jilt you, if worse came to worst.”
“It is not very flattering to hear myself spoken of as the worst,” he said, picking up a sandwich while Lydia poured the tea. He watched with interest as she daintily
poured, with her white wrist gracefully curved in the approved fashion. It seemed homey, the two of them having tea together.
She gave him a saucy smile. “I wager you receive enough flattery from the ladies. It will do you good to realize not everyone would jump at an offer.”
“Of course not every one. Just most of them,” he riposted. “Some misguided ladies have taken the unaccountable notion they want to be spinsters.”
“You or no one, eh? Such conceit,” she said, taking up another sandwich.
She glanced across the room to a silver cigar humidor on a side table. It was about twelve inches long, nine wide, and six deep. She rose and went to lift the lid. Beaumont watched. He noticed she didn’t walk as stiffly as she had before. Not so wiggly as when she was being Nancy, but there was a noticeable difference. She was more relaxed, more womanly, more interesting. . . .
The humidor held half a dozen cigars, but no plates. She looked around the room and began to consider other spots. A pair of large China vases sat on either side of the fireplace. She peered in. Seeing what she was doing, Beaumont rose and looked in a bombe-fronted chest in a corner and other possible spots.
In one dark corner stood a high Queen Anne cabinet holding a selection of small china Limoges ornaments. Lydia dragged a chair to it and climbed up to peer on top of the cabinet. “Let me do that,” Beaumont said, when he saw what she was doing.
The movement of the chair and their talking diverted them from hearing the front door open.
“Don’t bother. There’s nothing here but dust,” she said, wiping her hands.
Beaumont lifted his arms to assist her from the chair and she placed her hands on his shoulders. Her waist felt small and warm beneath his fingers. He lifted her bodily from the chair, while her skirts swung about her ankles. When he placed her on her feet, he kept his hands about her waist as he gazed down at her, and she looked up at him with a question in her eyes. The air seemed hushed as they continued looking. They were in this peculiar position when Nessie entered the saloon.