Risking the Detective (The Bluestocking Scandals Book 6)

by Ellie St. Clair

  She would not ruin that for him.

  She found the letter opener and hastily slid it beneath the seal.

  My Darling Madeline,

  I am glad to hear that you are keeping well. I knew that the business would be in good hands with you. In fact, I am sure it will thrive in your care. While I understood your desire to leave Castleton Stone behind in order to marry and start a family, I am hopeful that in the future it means as much to you as it does to me.

  We are doing well here in Bath. I know that you all must be scandalized to know that I am not here alone, but I have news for you — news that I can hardly wait to share. I shall leave you in suspense as I cannot wait to see the expression on your face when I tell you.

  Madeline could practically hear her father’s laughter at that — laughter she missed. Nobody laughed as good of a full-bodied, deep-belly laugh as did Ezra.

  I shall likely be home within a fortnight. I look forward to seeing you, Madeline. I do not like being parted from you for so long.

  And Madeline, after everything that happened, please continue to chase your dreams and do what makes you happy. Do not allow that good-for-nothing to change your life. You deserve all of the happiness in the world, and I pray that you do not lose your joy.

  Sending you all my love,

  Father

  Tears pricked at Madeline’s eyes as she placed the letter down on the table before her. Oh, how she missed him. He had only been gone three weeks now, and there were still another two weeks to go.

  On the other hand, she had two weeks to determine just what was happening with the business. She was determined to have it solved before her father returned, to prove that his faith in her was justified.

  She sat down to return her father’s letter, but saw that the tray of additional correspondence was sitting next to her on the desk. She had been so involved in his letter that she had missed it.

  Madeline noted familiar handwriting on a slip of paper.

  Madeline, your presence is requested / required for a dinner at our home tomorrow evening at seven o’clock. Wear your pink gown. ~ Alice

  Madeline was smiling as she read it, until she considered Alice’s words. Why would she tell her what to wear? Unless… Alice was up to something. She sighed as she shook her head. Her friend needed to understand that she was happy. Happy with the business. Happy living her life. Happy not requiring anyone else.

  All of which she would tell her when she saw her next. But she would still enjoy the dinner. She was somewhat lonely without her father. Her aunt was lovely but did not make for the most scintillating of company. One thing was for certain. Whatever Alice had in mind, it would not be boring.

  Drake pushed through the heavy wooden doors of Bow Street’s Magistrate Court, indecision in his heart and on his mind.

  His aunt and uncle were likely right about moving on and enjoying life. But he couldn’t. Not until he knew the truth.

  He nodded his greeting to the clerk who sat at the front desk directing people who arrived with their concerns. Marshall was there as he always was. The man didn’t seem to do much unless he was told to. He preferred to wait until he was summoned out to the country, where he would hope to be well compensated for his efforts.

  The woman who sat near the front of the office gave him a nod. She was dressed in a non-descript navy dress, one that was carefully selected so as not to attract attention — which was exactly the point of her being there.

  Upon entering the building, most questioned her presence, although they soon accepted that she was an assistant of some sort. It didn’t seem to be the proper place for a woman, but they could understand it.

  If only they knew the truth.

  For Georgina Jenkins was not at all what she appeared to be.

  Drake nodded to her as he walked by. They had always gotten on well, and he considered her to be as close a friend as any he had now.

  “Afternoon, Georgie.”

  “Afternoon, yourself.”

  “Anyone come in today with anything interesting?”

  “You think I would tell you if they did?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “You would keep them for yourself. You always do.”

  Georgina Jenkins was a constable as much as any of the rest of them. She would never go in the record books or be recorded on any roster. But there were times when a woman could do things that a man could not, and she had proven herself useful many times over.

  “Say, Georgie,” he said, leaning against the wall beside her, “have you ever seen anything like this before?”

  He pulled the pendant out of his pocket, letting it lie flat against his palm as he held it out to her.

  She tilted her head to study it.

  “It’s a hawk,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I have seen it before… makes me think of something down at the docks. A business maybe?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Marshall ambled over. “What do you have there?” he asked.

  Drake didn’t think he’d be any help but showed him anyway. Marshall squinted as he peered at it.

  “I’ve seen it before, too,” he said. “I think it’s from one of the gangs near the Thames.”

  “A gang?” he repeated, his words a hallow echo. What would his father have been doing with a gang pendant? “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure,” Marshall said with a shrug. “But it was from quite some time ago. I’ve seen the symbol but not a pendant like that in a long time. The new ones have changed slightly. Those belonged to the originals of the club. Most of them are gone now. Not a business that begets a long life.”

  Drake could only stare at it, so small in his hand. Had his father stolen it from someone? Gotten in between the wrong people? His father had been a builder, like his uncle. They had worked together, side by side, so surely his uncle would have known what his father had been involved in? Or perhaps not… he couldn’t be sure.

  Drake sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

  “Thank you, Marshall, Georgie.”

  “Where’s it from?” Marshall asked, but Drake ignored him and continued on to check for correspondence, only to be distracted by a missive that awaited. He looked at the back of it, surprised to find that he had been invited to dinner by Benjamin and Alice Luxington. He didn’t exactly have time to go, but he also appreciated the invitation. If he said no to this there might never be another.

  He scrawled his reply.

  Chapter 10

  Madeline never quite knew what to expect at one of Alice’s dinner parties.

  Her friend had an active imagination, which had led to her becoming one of the finest novelists in all of England.

  But it also often led to her own notions on how her friends should achieve their own happily ever afters — even if they didn’t want to.

  At least not anymore.

  Madeline had the sense that she was going to be walking into a scene of some sort, in which she was to play the heroine, with a young gentleman cast in the role of prince and savior.

  Well, she would have to smile her way through it and then say farewell at the end of the night.

  “I wonder who else is here.”

  Bennett was beside her. He had been invited along with Madeline, although she wondered just why Alice had thought to ask him. She likely felt that Madeline could use someone to look out for her, and the sad truth was, she didn’t really have anyone else.

  She loved her cousin, she truly did, but he was almost too overbearing. He played the role of protector to such an extent that it almost became difficult to breathe when he was around.

  If only her father were here. He never forgot her strengths.

  The door swung open and the butler welcomed her, looking behind her into the empty space — likely for her chaperone, though none would be found there. Her aunt only cared about her actions to the extent that she was interested with the tales she brought home. Besides that, Madeline was now c
ast into a role that really had no precedent.

  She was unmarried, but ruined through no fault of her own. She had been accepted as a member of society for a small point in time, but then had been quickly dismissed when it was revealed that not only was Lord Donning a fraud, but so had been their marriage.

  “Madeline!” Alice rose to greet her, catching her in an embrace. While Benjamin was the son of a marquess and Alice the daughter of a baron, meaning each of them possessed noble blood, they were commoners now — which, they both admitted, they rather enjoyed.

  Madeline looked over Alice’s shoulder to see just who else filled the drawing room. There was Rose Ellis, here once more. There were Lord and Lady Essex, Alice’s brother and sister-in-law, and one of Lady Essex’s friends and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Archie Thompkins.

  Madeline breathed a sigh of relief. No other single men. No knights-in-shining-armor. Perfect. She could relax and enjoy herself.

  “I apologize for my tardiness.”

  Madeline closed her eyes at the voice from behind her.

  It wasn’t just the fact that he was there that bothered her. No. It was the way hearing him, sensing him there, sent a flutter of tingles from the back of her neck, down her shoulders and into her stomach.

  “Drake!” Alice said, moving away from Madeline before gripping her arm and propelling her around to face him. “I’m so glad you could make it. Madeline herself just arrived.”

  “Miss Castleton,” he said with a slight bow, although something danced behind his eyes, something Madeline couldn’t quite make out. He looked over at her cousin. “Mr. Castleton.”

  The rest of the party greeted them, although Madeline did her best to avoid Drake for most of the evening before the dinner actually began. She had spoken with him enough, had she not? What else was there to say, besides to ask him just when he was going to determine who was after Castleton Stone?

  But when they went in to dinner, she found, her heart sinking, that Alice had placed placards on the tables so that she was sitting right next to him, with Bennett across the table at the very end, likely so that he couldn’t interfere in her conversations with Drake. Of course. Madeline shot Alice a glance telling her exactly what she thought of the situation, but Alice took a sip of her drink and looked up to the ceiling, pretending not to notice.

  Rose, at least, seemed sympathetic to her plight.

  “Switch with me?” Madeline whispered to her as Rose took her seat beside her, but the young woman laughed lightly as she shook her head.

  “I wouldn’t want to catch Alice’s ire or else it will be me next time,” she murmured. “Except I’m not sure that I would turn my nose up at this one. He is rather handsome.”

  Madeline risked a glance over at Drake. Rose was right. He was handsome — too handsome. And striking. And everything that drew her, which were all the reasons for her to run far away.

  After this dinner, at least.

  “How are you, Madeline?” Lady Essex asked with a gentle smile, which Madeline forced herself to return. She knew the baroness actually did care how she was, but she also didn’t love being the center of attention of all the table, particularly when they were all aware of just why that would be so.

  “Very well, thank you,” she said, infusing more confidence than she actually felt into her words. “My only issue now is that someone seems to be after my business, and I cannot figure out who that might be.”

  “Is Drake not helping you?” Alice asked innocently, and Madeline nodded before looking sideways at him.

  “We are… slowly working on things,” she said, hoping that she could, perhaps, spur him into further action.

  “We are,” he agreed, arching an eyebrow at her. “In fact, we will be speaking with Hubert Powers tomorrow.” He gazed out toward the rest of the table. “He’s the man trying to take over all of the land adjacent to the Thames, where Castleton Stone resides.”

  Suddenly Drake had become rather chatty.

  “Do you really think it could be him?” Mr. Thompkins asked, and Madeline just shrugged.

  “I suppose we shall find out tomorrow, then.”

  “Ah…” Drake held up a finger as the first course was served. Alice’s dinners might not have been nearly as extravagant as a typical ton dinner, but they were an event in their own right. “By we, Miss Castleton, I meant one of my associates and me. I think you have had enough adventure.”

  Madeline stilled. “I’m so sorry?”

  “I have put you in danger enough through the course of this investigation,” he said, lower now, so that the conversation was between the two of them and not the entire table, although they all seemed to notice the tension between them that instantly arose. “I will go see him, and I will be sure to advise you of all that I find out.”

  “I can be of help.”

  “We shall discuss it later,” Drake said, although Madeline knew what that meant. It meant that he was going to do as he pleased and ignore her wants completely.

  She felt like grunting her frustration, but Benjamin Luxington, Alice’s husband, who had become rather friendly with Drake last year, caught Drake’s attention before she could make her chagrin known.

  Drake leaned over toward him, but despite Benjamin’s low tone, Madeline heard snippets of the conversation.

  She most certainly heard Drake’s response.

  “What?” he almost roared, and the entire table turned toward him. “My apologies,” he said, looking around at the rest of them. “I overreacted.”

  “He what?” she heard him insist to Benjamin. “When? How?”

  Benjamin murmured something that Madeline couldn’t quite hear, although she thought, if she wasn’t mistaken, she heard the word “escape.” And then… there was no mistaking it — something about Maxfeld.

  “What was that?” she asked, leaning over Drake, no longer considerate at all about politeness. She fixed Benjamin with her stare. “What did you say about Maxfeld?”

  “Miss Castleton,” Drake murmured in her ear, “it’s nothing.”

  She turned her head to him quickly, shocked at just how close his face was to hers, but refusing to give in. This was too important.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I said—”

  “I heard what you said.” She fixed her glare on him. “But if this is about Kurt Maxfeld, then I deserve to know what has happened.”

  Benjamin looked over to Alice, who nodded at him, and Madeline was grateful that at least someone in this room was confident that she could handle whatever was to come.

  “Madeline…” Benjamin said with some hesitation, “it seems that Kurt Maxfeld has escaped.”

  “Escaped?” Madeline exclaimed as her heart started thumping. “But… I thought he was in Newgate.”

  “He was,” Benjamin said dryly. “But when they went to give him his supper tonight, he was gone. I only just received word of it before we sat down to dinner.”

  “Were you going to tell me?” Madeline asked, looking around the table at the shocked faces who all stared at her with expressions of dismay and pity. Horror covered Bennett’s face.

  “Of course,” Benjamin said quietly, although from the way he looked away from her, she couldn’t be entirely sure. At least she knew that Alice would have.

  Drake placed a hand on the small of her back. No one else — except maybe Rose beside her — would be able to see the gesture, but a warming energy seemed to radiate from where he touched her, and she took a deep breath, letting it flow through her.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, his voice a caress. “Maxfeld would have no need to come after you. You know nothing that could hurt him any further, and he doesn’t need anything from you anymore.”

  Madeline took another deep breath. He was right. And yet…

  “Madeline will need someone looking out for her all hours of the day,” Bennett said, rising from his place down the table. “There is too much at risk.”

  “She should be safe,” Drake said, his
words easy, measured, and Madeline appreciated his calm, steady sureness in such a situation as well as the fact he didn’t falsely placate her. She supposed that was what made him the detective that he was.

  “Should be?” Bennett’s voice rose in pitch and volume, near to hysterics, and the contrast between the two of them was almost comical. “But what if she’s not? Oh, what would her father think? I was supposed to be watching out for her, and now she is at the mercy of these men once again.”

  It took a moment for Bennett’s words to invade Madeline’s mind.

  “Bennett… did you say that you were supposed to watch out for me?”

  “Yes,” he said, drawing himself up to his full height. “I told your father—”

  Madeline pinched the bridge of her nose. It seemed that her father didn’t trust her as much as she thought he did — not if he sent her cousin to oversee her. No wonder Bennett had recently taken a more active role in the business.

  Suddenly it seemed as though everything was being launched at her like individual, relentless, pounding stones — the attack on the business, the frustrating inability to do anything about it, her convoluted feelings toward Drake, the fact her father didn’t seem to actually trust her as she thought he did, and finally, the last stone hurtling toward her like a boulder rumbling down the hill, picking up speed as it went — Maxfeld’s escape from prison.

  She pushed back away from the table.

  “Excuse me one moment, please.”

  And then, with all eyes staring after her, she did all she could to keep her footsteps measured and even, holding her head high as she walked out of the dining room.

  But the moment she turned the corner, meeting the corridor beyond, she couldn’t hold back any longer.

  She ran.

  Chapter 11

  Drake watched her leave the room, calmly, assuredly, but with a tension surrounding her that was palpable, a tightly wound control that she was doing her very best to hold onto, but that he could sense was slowly slipping away from her.