“One thousand, one hundred and ninety one pounds and six shillings.” Mrs. Hobbs looked tragic. No wonder she had wanted to keep the money to herself. Even Melissa had not earned as much in all her time of doling out medicines.
“I should go away more often!” she said cheerfully. Just two hundred pounds would have been enough to buy her desk, chair, books and more besides.
She flicked a glance at the loyal couple in front of her. “May I take one hundred pounds worth of the money?” she asked seriously. “The rest is yours. I had no hand in running the business. I left you by yourselves. Really, by all rights, all of the money is for you. I just need to get those books back.”
“But with one thousand pounds, we could buy ourselves a house, a garden…” Mrs. Hobbs crowed for joy and then exchanged a look with her husband. “But without, you we would not have been able to make the money.”
“Exactly. We stay with you, Miss Sumner, until you have sorted everything else out. And then we’ll see.” Mr. Hobbs finished tamping tobacco into a long pipe that he kept in his pocket. He lit the bowl, and put the pipe’s stem into his mouth and puffed slowly. “The way as I see it, you helped us, and now we help you. There ain’t two ways about it.”
Melissa could feel her glasses beginning to steam up. She took them off and turned away to clean them.
“Thank you,” she said simply. There wasn’t much more that she could say.
The following day dawned bright, with blue sky and barely any clouds. Melissa dressed carefully. She did not want to give the butcher any room to accuse her of using her feminine wiles on him. Buttoning her coat to the neck, she stepped out onto the street, and followed the road towards the main thoroughfare that led through Bayswater to Hyde Park.
The butcher’s shop lay in the middle of the High Street. Large pig’s heads and rabbits were laid out on trestles outside the shop, and strings of sausages garlanded the inside of the window. Melissa hesitated before stepping into the shop. She had never been inside; the butcher had always come directly to them.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped in, and stopped. The smell was the first thing that hit her; meat and spices and sawdust all vied for a space in her throat. She fumbled to bring a handkerchief to her mouth, but then she noticed the line of customers all staring at her curiously. They were clearly all servants and shopkeepers themselves. Melissa regretted putting her large cloak on, her only remnants of her time in the ton.
“What do we ’ave here then, one of the quality has graced us with her presence!” The man behind the counter laughed hard, slapping his knife down into the wooden block in front of him. “You don’t come to us, ma’am, we ’as to come to you.”
“Shhh, Roger!” The butcher who normally came to the house in Bayswater bustled in from the back of the room, and looked at Melissa open-mouthed. A strange expression passed over his face.
“You can’t speak to her like that!” One of the customers in the queue came to her defense. “She’s the lady that runs the apothecary down the back of Cutler’s Yard. She actually makes the medicines that do some work.”
Others in the queue nodded vigorously. Melissa blinked several times in disbelief.
“I don’t care,” the belligerent Roger continued. “Them gentry should know their place, just as we know ours.”
“Bet she could help your gout that you is always complaining about!” an older lady called, much to the amusement of the others.
“And that arthritis in your wrist that always makes you cut the meat smaller than expected.” Titters followed.
Roger grew red. His colleague whispered in his ear and motioned to Melissa. “Miss Sumner, please come through to the back.” He disappeared behind the curtain again.
The queue of customers made way for Melissa to pass, smiling broadly at her as she did so. Melissa cautiously pushed open the faded curtain, finding herself in a serviceable hall. The butcher beckoned her from a door further down the hall. She followed, and entered a small sitting room which contained an angular over-stuffed chair and windows that looked onto a grass covered garden beyond.
“Please sit down, Miss Sumner.”
Melissa sat, wincing as the horsehair in the seat stayed as firm as when it was first stuffed.
“What can I do for you?” The butcher was short and to the point. It was what Melissa needed.
“I would like my desk, my chair and my books back,” she said baldly. “I will pay you for them.”
“Impossible,” the butcher said flatly. He clasped his big pudgy hands together.
“I’ve said I will pay you for them!”
“I was given them in good faith.” The butcher warmed to his theme. “You can’t come here and demand them back.”
“They weren’t someone else’s to give away in the first place.” Melissa had to be firm. At each verbal exchange, the butcher loomed closer and she began to realize quite how large he was.
“It don’t matter. You shouldn’t be so careless about your belongings.”
Melissa choked. That was one way to look at it. She delved under her cloak and pulled out a small sack of coins that she had divided off from the larger bag. She tipped the coins onto a small table where they created a large heap.
“I’m willing to pay you one hundred pounds and… don’t come any closer!”
The butcher stopped as if walking into a wall of iron. His small eyes gazed, riveted on the coins. His florid face stretched and compressed as he thought. But it was no use.
“Impossible. I won’t give them to you.” He gave the large pile of coins another wistful look and maneuvered his large bulk back to the door of the room. “I would like you to leave now.”
“Why can’t you give me back what is rightfully mine?” Melissa wanted to grind her teeth. “A hundred pounds would buy the contents of this house and the books, chair and desk!”
“Because he doesn’t have them anymore, dear.” A quavery voice came from behind the butcher’s bulk. With a wince, the man walked back into the room, a small elderly woman pushing him in his back with her stick.
Melissa frowned. The lady looked familiar. “From your garden queue, my dear. Mrs. Wenthrop. Best remedies I have ever bought. Came home to try and persuade my son to give you back all your belongings after I heard what you said to Mrs. Hobbs a while ago. He’s always been quite shady about where they had come from.” She gave her son another prod in the back, to his disgust. “But the idiot had sold the lot on to a rag and bone man that only passes through once a year. Didn’t even get a quarter of what that prime desk was worth.”
Melissa sank back onto the horse hair chair, this time not bothering to contain her wince. The lady chuckled and thumped her stick on the ground. “He’s shown you into our room for unwanted visitors I’m afraid. Every butcher has them. We supply everybody, you see.”
“Why did you do it?” Melissa asked the butcher plaintively.
“Why else do you think? A girl, of course!” the butcher’s mother was scornful, her voice dripping with scathing. “Thinks himself one of the high and mighty nobs and tries to imitate their behavior by visiting fast women.”
The butcher had not been able to get a word in edgeways. His small eyes narrowed until they almost disappeared in his large face.
“That is enough, Mother!” he roared. “Just because she works at the Lamb and Flag…”
“Oh dear,” Melissa broke in, “You haven’t found yourself itching, have you?” Carlos and Charles had laughed and laughed when she had told them about the numerous young men that came to the garden gate having enjoyed Regina’s charms.
The butcher gave her a wild look.
“I think you might need to visit Miss Sumner’s apothecary,” his mother said mildly. “And I think you ought to pay her the money that you gained from taking her property. You said at the time it was worth far more than the actual bill.”
Melissa goggled at this thought. “You mean that the bill wasn’t actually as big as the payment we made?”
“No,” the butcher sat slowly. “I tried to give it back but your mother refused.”
“She turned out not to be my mother.” Melissa blinked. Just another piece of evidence of Eliza’s perfidy.
“Lucky for some,” the butcher muttered, earning another sharp prod in the back.
Melissa shook her head. “I don’t want the money back.”
Mrs. Wenthrop peered around the massive bulk of butcher at Melissa, and then exchanged a glance with her son. He nodded, and wiped his hands on his apron before lumbering slowly back out of the door.
“We,” Mrs. Wenthrop emphasized carefully with a jerk of her head to the door at the disappearing back of her son. “We will find a way to pay you back in kind.”
CHAPTER 15
Hades waited for Carter to appear. He’d heard the knocker to the house crash down on the great front door. It wasn’t often that he had visitors. He had been deeply immersed in reading his report from the guard he had set on the house in Bayswater. It seemed that leaving Melissa out as bait had had the desired effect. Shortly after she had arrived in Bayswater, a slim man with a scar on his face had been seen entering the house from the rear and exiting only a few seconds later. He fitted the same description as the footman who had disappeared from the earl’s house.
Hades grimaced. The guard had not been able to get close enough to the house to see inside, or judge the household’s reaction to the man’s visit. Neither had he been able to follow the man away from the house as he had vaulted impossibly over several garden walls, losing the guard in the process.
But it had told him several things. Firstly that the earl’s house was being watched at all times too by the Viper—how else would he have known that Melissa was now back home safely? Secondly, the Viper still very much wanted the money and the book from Melissa, and thirdly, given the visibility of the leaping man, the Viper had an accomplice, as he would never let himself be so visibly seen. And that leaping man must be an acrobat given what the footmen and guard had said about him.
There were only two other clues that he had. The Viper knew that Hades was on to him, as he was attempting to bind his hands by making it public knowledge that Hades was hunting the Viper. Therefore the Viper must have seen Hades somehow when he was meeting Melissa at the cross. And lastly, the Viper had some sort of connection to the Royal Society. Edward had mentioned this when he had inadvertently met him the first time the Viper had entered the bet into the White’s book.
It just didn’t seem to add up to a cohesive whole. For a man who held some of the biggest political secrets in British government history, the Viper seemed to be spending all of his energy on chasing a book from an entirely unconnected woman in Bayswater.
The knocker crashed down again. Hades straightened in his seat and smiled. Perhaps it was Melissa back to ask for his help? He got up and opened the study door.
It was Henry. Blast— Belatedly, Hades remembered that Henry had said that he would call on the morrow when he had met him at Whites. He had not been looking forward to the man’s visit. Henry had been a rival; he was exceptional, a spymaster, famed for knowing where people would be. They had complemented each other’s talents using Hades’ strategic mind.
Hades chewed his lip. Henry was going to ask some uncomfortable questions along the lines of why on earth Hades had not yet caught the Viper.
Hades retreated back to his green chair and sat down balefully. A tentative knock at the door was followed immediately by the door opening. Carter had begun to knock since the incident with Melissa, but still had not got the hang of waiting for a ‘come in’. He glanced up at Carter and Henry.
“Henry, good to see you. Please come in.” Hades looked around the room for a chair, purposefully avoiding the deep leather chair opposite him. The library chair was set in the corner. He sat forward to pull himself up.
He was forestalled as Henry dropped himself into Melissa’s leather chair without asking. He winced. It didn’t seem right somehow.
“Granwich told me about your library chair,” Henry said cheerfully. “Didn’t want to experience it myself. Glad to see you’ve taken his comments on board and got yourself another chair in here.”
Hades nodded. Arturo peered out hopefully from under his seat as the leather chair squeaked, but retreated again when he saw Henry’s boot clad legs. “Couldn’t have my guests feeling like they weren’t welcome,” he said dolefully.
“Old Granwich said it seemed like you had done it on purpose.” Henry laughed and looked at Hades carefully. “Of course you had. I’m surprised Granwich didn’t realize.”
Hades looked up at Henry, who continued to stare at him.
“I’m here to offer an ear,” Henry said, turning away to look at the fire. “I recently had some trouble with a slippery villain and it all came around the time when I was falling in love too…”
“I am not falling in love!” Hades crashed his arm to the chair. Arturo howled.
Henry was relentless, however. “You see, my sister Lady Colchester is rather interested in your wellbeing.”
Hades groaned, but it didn’t stop Henry continuing.
“Victoria was in fact one of the main architects in the downfall of the said villain that I had become entangled with.”
“Monsieur Herr.”
“Yes. As I believe you have come to realize, she is extremely perceptive. She says that you have fallen in love and you don’t know what to do with yourself. She couldn’t tell me the name of the lady, but I’m afraid, old chap, that even I can see the evidence.”
Hades raised his eyebrows. “I’m not sure what you are talking about.”
“Withdrawal from the ton, two easy chairs in your favorite room complete with unusual reading material for a man interested in strategy—” Henry pointed to the medical books that Melissa had left behind—“A butler who was disappointed to see me at the door, and lack of progress in finding one of the most dangerous men England has ever faced!”
Hades grunted. Letting Henry into his home had been like letting a bloodhound sniff its way to his heart.
“I thought I had him, but all I have now are small clues to his identity and the knowledge that he wants something very much, more than he wants to sell those secrets at the moment.”
“Don’t change the subject, Hades. We’ll get onto that in a minute. I want to talk to you about your woman.”
“My woman.” Hades rolled the words around in his throat. He liked the possessive sounding nature of the words.
“Yes. That is precisely it. Your woman. When I first found Agatha I didn’t understand that I loved her. I did everything for my sake. She had to almost sacrifice herself for us to be together. Do not let yourself allow matters to become so dangerous for the both of you.”
Hades swallowed. He didn’t know that he loved Melissa precisely, but he did know that he had let her out of the house knowing that she was in danger and that she was the bait that was going to allow him to catch the Viper. And it bothered him every day. He couldn’t precisely see Melissa sacrificing herself for him, however. She seemed to have a good handle on who Hades was, and liked to keep him at an arm’s length on that basis.
“Now enough on that. Tell me about the Viper.” Henry crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair. “I’m still pursuing my own investigation into the conundrum that is Lady Guthrie. I know she and Edgar Stanton were linked through the death of Fairleigh, the customs officer Stanton was accused of killing in Brambridge, and Edgar and Eliza were both in league with the Viper. But still I don’t quite understand where this is all going. If someone could find Melissa Sumner we might find out more.”
Hades sighed and debated inwardly, but not for long. He would be a fool if he didn’t share some of his thoughts with one of the greatest minds in Britain.
“I’ve met with Melissa.”
Henry blinked and raised an eyebrow. “I see.”
Hades hurried on. “And I have met with other informants. I haven’t r
eceived any information on Lady Guthrie or Fairleigh, though. I’m not even sure they are connected to the Viper directly.” He quickly outlined the month’s past events without disclosing that he had held Melissa in his grasp for such a long time. “As far as I can see it, I have two lines of attack, following up on the Royal Society and on that book that the Viper is searching for.”
Henry nodded. “The Royal Society has a large number of fellows, however. I think it has around six hundred and fifty members, although only a hundred are active. And you don’t have a description of the man you are tracking.”
“True.” Hades rubbed his face with his hand. “I will still have to visit it though to make sure I can cross it off from my list.”
“And do so without the Viper noticing, especially if he is watching your house.” Henry got to his feet. “I would try and follow up on that book.” He hesitated. “In the meantime, I wondered if you fancied coming down to Brambridge? I have had some news that someone who is interested in buying those secrets the Viper stole might be coming through in the next few weeks from France. A Dutchman. We might not be able to catch him before he lands but Renard might be able to help us.”
Hades was torn. Renard was a man of indistinguishable loyalty who Hades had introduced to Henry. He had now become the spymaster’s French contact who plied the waters between England and France. “I’ll have to,” he said abruptly, “all my lines of enquiry at too faint. I have to look at everything.”
Henry nodded and strode to the door. He made a downward motion with his hand. “No need to get up. I’ll show myself out. Come down in a week. We’ll have a room waiting for you.”
“And your wife, Agatha?” Hades said grimacing. “How will she feel about this?”
“Oh, she’s alright. Once she heard that I planted you a facer for what you did, she bore you no further animosity.”
“Amazing woman.”
“Indeed.” Henry nodded vigorously and left the study.
Hades listened to the crash of the door as Carter let Henry out. Picking himself up from the chair, he wandered into the hall where Carter stood polishing some of the silver lamp stands.
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