The Husband Hunter's Guide to London

by Kate Moore

Hazelwood’s hand was on the door. “I’m sure when you open the book, you’ll discover that the author recommends the services of a milliner and dressmaker before you level your weapon at a likely bird.” He descended and held out his hand to her. “I’ll collect you at ten tomorrow morning.”

  The word for his manner came to her then—cheeky. Her rescuer was a cheeky fellow, full of easy confidence that he could make things go his way.

  “I think I’ll read the book first.”

  A brief word of caution is now in order. Upon arriving in London and beginning to go about in society, the Husband Hunter will observe many more gentlemen than she is used to seeing at home in her country town or village. Neither the village church nor the local assembly has likely ever drawn more than a few gentlemen into her orbit, while it is the nature of the great metropolis to draw men of all ranks and characters to mingle together seeking both prominence and pleasure as their individual characters direct them.

  The Husband Hunter will not know at first glance which of these gentlemen has the respectable character she seeks. All may appear equally fashionable, equally polished in manner. Rather than descend into giddiness at the apparently limitless supply of gentlemen, she must develop the habit of listening carefully to a man’s speech and discerning from it, his true character. Where there are any hints from his manner of speaking of that he may be at heart a scoundrel, she must take steps to find credible informants to further elucidate his character.

  —The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

  Chapter Four

  When Hazelwood returned to the club, his fellow spies, Blackstone and Clare, stripped to their waists and wearing padded leather gloves, were sparring with words and fists at one end of the cavernous coffee room. Nate Wilde, the club’s man of all work, was setting out a tray of sandwiches and liquid refreshments. Occasionally, Wilde offered a word of approval or advice to the pugilists.

  Wilde, a youth in his early twenties, rescued from a life of crime nearly ten years earlier, had acquired the manners, accent, and above all, the wardrobe of a gentleman, though no fashionable gilding could hide the youth’s rough compact build, his toothy grin, and pronounced ears. He made excellent coffee, knew London’s streets intimately, and didn’t hesitate to back up his gentlemen in a fight.

  As sobriety was a club rule, the steaming punch Wilde set out would likely be made from tea, spices, and hot milk. Neither Hazelwood nor Blackstone minded the ban on spirits, though Clare grumbled about it. The irony of Hazelwood’s disguise in the past year had been that he’d been perfectly sober while wearing claret-stained cravats and waistcoats reeking of brandy. He liked being sober, liked a clear head and quick reflexes. He had willingly accepted the benefits of sobriety in spite of its less-visible disadvantages. Sustained sobriety was humbling. It tended to make a man acutely aware of past follies, misjudgments, and character failings.

  His friends exchanged another flurry of blows before Blackstone got in a solid hit. Sweating and panting, the two opponents let Wilde remove their gloves and hand them towels.

  Hazelwood helped himself to the punch while the other two toweled off. He was particularly fond of the club’s coffee room with its high, curved ceiling, long comfortable sofas, and absence of feminine objects. He didn’t have brothers, and his school friends had fallen away from him as his fortunes sank. In Blackstone and Clare he had new friends, men of keen intelligence and a proper appreciation of a good fight.

  “Hazelwood, did you meet the girl?” Clare asked, picking up a mug of punch and wrinkling his nose over the steaming drink.

  “What girl? A new case?” Blackstone toweled his head dry. “Has Goldsworthy removed you from night work?”

  Hazelwood nodded. “The girl is the daughter of that agent that went missing.”

  “George Fawkener? Remind me where he disappeared.” Blackstone tossed his towel aside and accepted a mug from the discreetly hovering Wilde.

  “Somewhere between Kourdistan and Kabul.”

  “What happened to him?” Blackstone took his first taste of the drink.

  Hazelwood lifted a brow. “You think Goldsworthy would tell? Fawkener was strangled, or beheaded, or tossed off a minaret in Bokhara. In any case, left for the birds and dogs.”

  “And the government has done what for the poor sod?” Clare asked.

  The three friends looked at each other. They knew the answer to that one. Exactly nothing. The Foreign Office had a way of regarding lost agents as private travelers for whom no help or ransom could be offered. Two years earlier Blackstone had spent his personal fortune ransoming his half-brother and a dozen other captives from a Greek warlord.

  Hazelwood felt a pang of sympathy for Jane Fawkener. Her father probably mattered to her. “The Foreign Office has arranged for his royal highness to bestow a posthumous knighthood on the dead hero.”

  Clare snorted and put down his drink in disgust. “Some consolation. A silver trinket in a velvet box.”

  Hazelwood stretched out on his favorite couch. “Ah no, my friend. There’s to be a full investiture ceremony with bunting, a band, and royal personages. Fawkener’s daughter is to receive the honor in her father’s name. That’s where I come in. I’m the protocol officer assigned to see the girl through the ceremony.”

  Clare saluted him. “Is she pretty?”

  The question shouldn’t throw him. It was the expected question after all. They had joked for a year about their mysterious benefactor and spymaster Goldsworthy having an ugly daughter tucked away somewhere that he planned to foist on one of them. But Hazelwood found he didn’t quite know how to answer. Jane Fawkener wasn’t pretty in the conventional sense, but he had wanted to wake her with a kiss, an odd impulse in a man of his experience.

  Blackstone spoke up next. “More to the point, Hazelwood, why the government charade? Why does the Foreign Office want you to shadow the girl?”

  Trust Blackstone to focus on the main point. Hazelwood took a pull on his mug of punch. “It’s more a case of keeping British secrets from the enemy. Goldsworthy suspects they will try to get some papers off of her.”

  “No one entrusted dispatches to her, did they?” As a professional soldier, Clare hated it when the government used unreliable civilians for its business.

  “Not at all, but the girl insists her father’s alive, and she seems to know his route. In other words, she knows more than she should about the government’s secrets.”

  They were silent a moment.

  “So your real job is to keep her from falling into the enemy’s hands.” Blackstone was instantly grim. He knew from personal experience how dangerous England’s enemies could be and how easily they could strike within London itself. “The Russians won’t be kind.”

  And we will be? Hazelwood finished his punch. He meant to keep the girl from the Russians, but he doubted she’d appreciate his efforts. He couldn’t be sure, but he suspected that he had pushed her into declaring her intention to become a husband hunter. After years of living abroad, she would have no idea what that meant.

  Wilde picked up the mug Hazelwood had put aside, and Hazelwood had a thought. “Wilde, I could use your help with this one.”

  “My help, my lord?” The youth set down his tray.

  “I’d like you to get a copy of this book for me tomorrow.” Hazelwood found a pencil on the table and scrawled the title and publisher’s name on a two-day-old copy of the Morning Chronicle. “Go to as many booksellers as you need to, but get it.”

  Wilde studied the scrap of paper, a dismayed expression on his face, his ears reddening. “The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London? But, Lord Hazelwood, sir, you can’t be serious. I can’t ask for this book in…”

  “Public? Afraid of a little humor at your expense, Wilde?”

  “Sir, I’ll be laughed out of every shop I enter.”

  “You could say it’s for your sister.”
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  “Don’t ‘ave a sister, my lord.” Wilde’s old accent slipped out with his unease.

  “I know what. Take Miranda with you. Tell her she’ll be doing me a favor.”

  The youth’s face changed instantly at the girl’s name. Miranda Kirby was the daughter of the club’s in-house tailor. With her fiery hair, smooth rosy cheeks, china-blue eyes, and lush figure, she possessed Wilde’s heart. Whether she would eventually return Wilde’s admiration or not was the subject of a wager between Hazelwood and Clare. Hazelwood was glad to give the lad another opportunity to win the girl’s affections.

  “Yes, my lord. Tomorrow, my lord?”

  “If you can manage it, Wilde.”

  As soon as the youth left the coffee room, Clare turned to Hazelwood. “You’ll set the whelp back,” Clare grumbled. “He was making a good recovery by staying away from Miranda for weeks.”

  Hazelwood shook his head. “He’s not going to get over her, Clare, and he needs all the help he can get.”

  “The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London? Doesn’t sound like your usual reading, Hazelwood.” Blackstone turned the discussion back to the case.

  Hazelwood sat up and swung his feet to the floor. “Not in the least. But tell me what you think. Fawkener used his bankers, the Hammersleys, to deliver one thing to his daughter.”

  “This absurd book?” Clare asked.

  “Exactly. And the girl holds on to the book as if it were the Holy Grail.”

  “So?” Blackstone raised a skeptical brow.

  Hazelwood leaned forward. “I think that if her father wanted to get a message to her without the idiots in the Foreign Office—”

  “Or any spies—”

  “—knowing what that message was, he’d send it through his bankers. We all know the Hammersleys are skilled at codes and at getting information across the continent.”

  Blackstone nodded. “And you’re going after a second copy of the book—why?”

  “For comparison’s sake. I want to know what’s in it, so that when I get my hands on her copy, I can catch what’s been added or altered.”

  “What do you think her father is trying to tell her?”

  “That depends on how much she already knows.” It would be Hazelwood’s job to find out.

  “Her father’s probably trying to tell her to stay out of the spy business and get herself a husband as fast as she can,” observed Clare, setting down his cup.

  Hazelwood laughed. “Goldsworthy is working up a list of eligible young men.”

  “The girl’s doomed then. Better all the matchmaking mamas of London than Goldsworthy. Does she have family? Does she have money?” Clare was on the girl’s side for sure.

  “Little money, I suspect.” Hazelwood turned back to Blackstone. “Your banker wife will know.”

  “And Violet will never tell. But you think this Jane Fawkener knows that her father was a government agent and not merely a merchant?”

  “No question about that, and she believes she can prove that he’s alive. She seems to have information that differs from the government’s account of things.”

  “Then what if someone else gets their hands on the book? The Russians will try.”

  “It will be time to break heads and throw bodies down stairwells. I expect you gentlemen are up for whatever it takes.” Hazelwood grinned at his two friends. In the end, they’d be in it together.

  * * * *

  Nate Wilde passed through the bare garden in the back of the club and entered the rear of the tailor’s shop. A long, narrow hallway led to the front of the shop, which faced a fashionable street and masqueraded as a chemist’s establishment selling gentleman’s toiletries—soaps and brushes, salves and pomades, toothpowders and scents. Though Kirby & Sons was the name on the door, there was no son, only a daughter—Miranda.

  From the time he’d come to work at the club, Nate had been unable to resist the chemist’s shop. One day he’d seized the biggest chance of his life to leave behind his childhood in a notorious London rookery, and the next he’d met Miranda Kirby, and discovered how powerful a hold the most insignificant things could have on a man’s mind, things like chestnut curls against a white throat and the swell of a silk-covered bosom.

  He closed the rear door behind him. Coming in the back way meant that no shop bell jingled, so Miranda had no warning of his approach. He liked to catch her at her work and tease her about it afterward. She waited on gentlemen who were in awe of her beauty, or she helped her father with the fitting and measuring of the spies for their disguises. Miranda regarded every gentleman who came through the door as a potential husband, a man who could make her a lady, not a shopgirl.

  He paused on his side of the crimson velvet curtains that separated the hall from the shop to listen for the presence of a customer. Miranda had a story she liked to tell her gentlemen clients about her French mother as a child escaping from the Revolution in spite of the silver buckles on her shoes. She believed that her mother had named her Miranda like a duke’s daughter in a play to remind her of her lofty origins. Nate was pretty sure that she’d had an Irish mother who’d come to London and got herself in trouble until old Mr. Kirby rescued her.

  Still his Miranda was shrewd and alert, so she readily sorted out unlikely candidates for her plan of becoming Lady Somebody, but her shrewdness did not protect her from Hazelwood. The disgraced viscount with his easy charm and laughing eyes appeared to Miranda as hers to claim. To her way of thinking, no lady of his own class wanted him, so he was hers, like some rich cake sent back to the kitchen because the lofty guests had already had their fill.

  Yesterday she had been thrilled to hear that Hazelwood’s new assignment meant no more stained and stinking clothes. She had been beside her father as he fitted the viscount for his new clothes.

  Nate heard no voices, so he pushed aside the curtain and entered the shop. Miranda looked up from her needlework, something fine and silken with small covered buttons, most likely a waistcoat for Hazelwood. She wore fingerless gloves with a blue woolen shawl draped over her shoulders.

  “You could use a brazier of coal,” he observed. He could see his breath in the shop.

  “Did you bring one then?”

  “Easily managed.”

  “No need. I’ll close up soon for tea.”

  With a quick pump of his arms, he boosted himself up to sit on the broad marble-topped counter. He wanted to show her that he’d healed from the injury to his collarbone, and he liked to look down at her. She tilted her head when she worked. Her left ear peeked out from her burnished curls, and the slight rounded curve of her breast rose above her lace tucker. Today her skin was very white against the blue wool of the shawl. Usually, he could not detect her scent in the competing odors of the shop—the citrus, bergamot, and lavender of the soaps and pomades, the rosewater of various lotions, and the cloves and cinnamon of toothpowders, or the peppermint of lozenges. But today Miranda was the only warm thing in the shop, and she smelled like the almond milk lotion she used on her skin.

  “Make yourself at home, then.”

  “I am home.” In the spring, he’d been beaten and tossed for dead by a pair of hired fists in Wapping when he’d come too close to their lair on a case. Since then he’d spent some time away from the club with his grand friends in their fine London houses. The time away was supposed to cure him of his attachment to Miranda. “The shop is club premises, isn’t it?”

  “What makes you idle then? No one needs you on the other side?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve been given a commission to get something relevant to the latest case.” He liked using big words to describe the jobs they gave him.

  She shot him a suspicious glance. “So you can get yourself knocked senseless again?”

  He shook his head. “Not a chance with this assignment. You could go with me.”

  �
��Go with you? The places you go? Hah!”

  “Not this time. You would have to dress as a lady, if you wanted to come.”

  “As if I don’t always.” She gave a haughty toss of her head that set the curls bouncing.

  He concealed a grin at having riled her. With her eye for detail, she always dressed like the real ladies he knew—his friends’ wives, Cleo Jones and Helen Jones, and the grandest lady of them all, the Marchioness of Daventry. Miranda just never talked the way those ladies did; no she sounded more like the women of Bread Street where he’d spent his early days.

  “You think I want to be seen with you?” He noted that she hadn’t turned him down yet.

  “You might. I’ve been asked to go around to some booksellers.”

  “Booksellers?”

  “For a book.”

  He could almost hear her calculating little brain spinning, like a turnspit dog racing to keep the roast from burning. She’d be thinking of the great bookshops—Hatchard’s and Lackington’s—and he’d take her to those places first, and hope that they wouldn’t need to comb the rubbishy bins outside the used book dealers on Holywell Street. He didn’t want to take her to his old haunts.

  “What sort of book could possibly help solve a case?” His Miranda didn’t lack for wits.

  “You won’t believe it.” He pulled the newspaper with Lord Hazelwood’s scrawl from inside his coat. He felt foolish even reading the title to her. He cleared his throat. “The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London.”

  She shot him a skeptical glance. “You’re bamming me. How is such a book to help one of our gentlemen catch a spy?”

  He pushed off the counter. He admired her brains, but he didn’t want her getting too smart on him. “They think the book contains a code, like that Spanish bank note I showed you last spring.”

  “They?” she asked. “Whose case is it?” She put aside her needlework and slid from her stool. “It’s Lord Hazelwood’s new case, isn’t it?” Her eyes lit up.

  He nodded, momentarily distracted by the effect of her quick movement on her bosom.