by Merry Farmer
“More likely he fled so that he doesn’t end up splattered by the blood when the guillotine drops,” Malcolm said in a grim voice.
Katya pursed her lips and stared at his back as he donned a fresh shirt. She had no great love for Gatwick, but neither could she explain away his behavior, the way he’d helped them in the past few months. Or rather, the way he’d helped Lavinia. Much though it galled her, Katya had to admit there was more to Mark Gatwick than met the eye.
“I’m eager to discover who the new Inspector is,” she said as she and Malcolm finished dressing and headed for the door.
“It’s likely to be someone just as corrupt and vile as Coleman,” Malcolm grumbled.
Katya sent him a wry grin. “Are all Scotsmen as optimistic as you?”
Malcolm grunted in response and yanked open his door. He held up a hand to keep Katya from charging through, then peeked into the hall himself. The hall must have been empty, because he motioned for her to follow him.
Katya tip-toed through the upstairs hall and down the stairs to the entryway, where Mr. Galston seemed to be waiting for them.
“Your carriage will be in front shortly, my lord,” he told Malcolm.
“Thank you, Galston.” Malcolm nodded to the man.
“Papa.”
Katya flinched as Cece appeared at the top of the stairs. She refused to look guilty or as though she’d been caught doing something naughty. Instead, she turned to face Cece with a mild smile.
“What are you doing?” Malcolm demanded, far less smooth. His face turned red, and he sent an embarrassed glance Katya’s way before marching to meet Cece at the bottom of the stairs. “I thought you said you were going to your room.”
“I changed my mind,” Cece said with a smile. “Women are allowed to do that, aren’t we, Lady Stanhope?” She sent Katya a grin that left no doubt about just how much the girl knew.
“We are,” Katya answered, crossing her arms. “But changing one’s mind should never be done for fickle reasons, or for the sole purpose of making others look foolish.” When Cece’s smug grin faltered, Katya added, “Perhaps we will spend some time in the coming week discussing the importance of discretion and forbearance as well as shopping for a new wardrobe. The former is far more indicative of womanhood than the latter.”
Cece flushed pink and lowered her eyes. “Point taken, Lady Stanhope,” she said in a softer version of the growl Malcolm used when he knew he was wrong. Cece turned to Malcolm. “I think I will go to bed after all, Papa. But will you tell me all about your meeting in the morning?”
“Yes, of course,” Malcolm said, then gruffly kissed Cece’s cheek. “Off you go,” he added, pointing up the stairs.
Cece picked up her skirts and turned to head up the stairs. She glanced over her shoulder as she went, her sheepish look turning into a conspiratorial grin as she met Katya’s eyes.
Once Cece’s back was turned, Katya rolled her eyes and shook her head before letting her arms drop. “You’re going to have your hands full with that one,” she said as Malcolm rejoined her in the entryway.
Malcolm huffed a grim laugh. “We both are,” he said. When Katya arched a questioning eyebrow at him, he went on with, “You know she has her sights set on Rupert.”
“How could I forget?” Katya answered with equal foreboding. She supposed she would be delighted to have Cece as a daughter-in-law after all—as long as she and Rupert didn’t rush into marriage before either was ready for it—but thinking about the tangled web of her relationship with Malcolm at the same time as contemplating one between their children made her head hurt.
“Your carriage is here, my lord,” Galston announced, opening the door for them.
“Thank God for that,” Malcolm said, taking the lead and marching out the door.
They remained relatively silent on the short journey to Alex’s house. Alex and Marigold’s London home was close enough to Malcolm’s that they could have walked. But it was quicker to drive, and they were less likely to be seen. Katya wouldn’t put it past Shayles to send his eyes and ears out into London to see what his enemies were up to. He must have known that Inspector Coleman had been sacked as well, and if he was smart—which Katya knew he was, damn him—he would be making preparations of his own.
“Cece knows all about us, you realize,” Katya said at last, just as they reached Alex and Marigold’s house.
“I know,” Malcolm grumbled, scooting toward the door as the carriage came to a stop. “She wants you to marry me as much as I do,” he added, opening the door and hopping out of the carriage before she could give him the cross answer she usually gave to his constant proposals.
Katya sighed and shook her head before following him out into the street, then up the stairs and into the townhouse. Alex’s butler, Mr. Levins, held the door open and indicated that they were meeting in the large, front drawing room instead of one of the smaller, cozier rooms toward the back of the house. That was enough to make Katya forget her frustration with Malcolm’s constant matrimonial pressure in favor of the problem at hand.
“It’s about time you got here,” Alex said with a knowing grin as Katya and Malcolm entered the room where all of their friends were already gathered.
He didn’t seem the least bit surprised to find them arriving together. Neither did the rest of their friends. Armand and Lavinia were seated on a sofa that faced the curtained front window, holding hands. Marigold was pouring tea with the help of one of the maids. Peter stood by the fireplace with the anxious expression he always wore when Mariah wasn’t with him. The fact that he was in London at all while Mariah remained in Cornwall, two months away from delivering their second child, was a minor miracle.
But what surprised Katya even more was that her son was there as well, cradling a glass of brandy as he sat in a chair across from Alex.
“Rupert, what are you doing here?” she asked, blinking at him.
“This is a matter of utmost importance, Mother,” he said with an expression that was far too serious for his barely twenty years. “Mr. Croydon asked me to come.”
A strange, painful lump filled Katya’s stomach. She could remember the day Rupert was born like it was yesterday, a day that had been filled with tears of joy and sorrow for her. She’d kissed his scraped knees when he was a toddler, praised him for his childish drawings, sent him off to Eton, and gloried in his accomplishments at Oxford. She’d schooled him in the duties of the title his father had left to him when he was a boy of four and handed over the reins of those responsibilities to him only a year ago. And now she was caught between the ache of seeing the baby she’d cherished acting as a man and the anguish of having him replace her simply because he was a man and she was not.
“Katya, would you like tea?” Marigold asked.
Katya shook herself out of her burst of melancholy and turned to her friend. “I think whiskey is more in order,” she said with a sharp grin that was intended to hide her true emotions. “But you can put it in the tea.”
Marigold laughed and set to work fixing Katya’s cup.
“What’s going on?” Malcolm opted to dive straight into the issue at hand. “Coleman has been sacked?”
“Sacked and arrested,” Peter confirmed, stepping away from the fireplace. “It turns out that the leads we gave Scotland Yard uncovered far more corruption than the way he was shielding Shayles.”
“The leads Lord Gatwick gave us,” Lavinia corrected him.
“All of Scotland Yard is having a fit because of it,” Alex added, brushing over Lavinia’s comment. “Tomorrow’s newspapers are going to be splashed with headlines about lies, corruption, and cover-ups.”
“Will it help us bring Shayles down?” Katya asked the all-important question as Marigold handed her a powerful cup of tea.
“It will if we can coordinate with the new chief inspector as soon as possible,” Alex said. “But chances are he’ll have much more on his plate than closing Shayles’s club.”
“Much more,” Rupe
rt added. “Coleman wasn’t just protecting Shayles. It’s as if the floorboards were pried up and a dozen rats scattered in all directions.”
“We need to act fast to convince the new inspector that it will be worth his time to go after a peer,” Peter said. “Shayles’s title might not be an old or distinguished one, but the law has never been keen on going up against titles of any sort.”
“He’s only a viscount,” Rupert said with the same sort of youthful arrogance Cece had shown earlier, proving that the first flush of knowledge went straight to a young person’s head. “We’ve got two earls, a marquess, a viscount, and one of the wealthiest men in England right here in this room.”
“It’s eighteen-eighty-one,” Alex said. “Titles don’t mean as much as they used to, and depending on who the new inspector is, they won’t mean anything at all.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to make that assumption,” Armand said.
“Perhaps instead of debating the usefulness of titles, we should ask the obvious question,” Katya said. “Who is the new Chief Inspector?”
“A man by the name of Jack Craig,” Alex said, crossing to Marigold to take the cup of tea she was offering.
Katya exchanged a confused look with Malcolm. “I’ve never heard of him,” Malcolm said.
“Neither had any of us,” Peter told him. “He’s young.”
“Some of my friends know of him,” Rupert said. All eyes turned to him. “He’s barely thirty, but some say he’s been working for the Metropolitan Police since they plucked him off the street for picking pockets as a boy.”
Katya’s brow shot up. “So he isn’t an insider.”
“Unless he feels a sense of loyalty to those who brought him up out of obscurity,” Armand said.
“Even if he does,” Malcolm said, an excited light in his eyes, “he won’t feel that loyalty toward an impoverished viscount running a brothel.”
“But it means he won’t feel any loyalty toward the titled toffs fighting against Shayles either,” Alex argued.
He had a point. Katya swallowed the rest of her whiskey-laced tea in a few gulps before saying, “I’ll just have to speak to the man.”
Malcolm narrowed his eyes at her. “And what if he isn’t the sort to have his head turned by a pretty face?”
Katya grinned and batted her eyelashes at him. “Why, Malcolm, are you calling me pretty?”
“I’m calling you shameless,” he said, squaring off with her.
“I take that as a compliment.”
“You would.”
She smiled seductively, wondering if it would be worth sparking Cece’s meddlesome spirit by going home with Malcolm after they were done at Alex’s meeting.
Alex cleared his throat. “I was actually going to suggest that the two of you seek a meeting with Craig together.”
“Even better,” Katya agreed. She and Malcolm could accomplish anything when they worked together.
“You’ll have to go to Scotland Yard first thing in the morning,” Alex went on. “The place is likely to be chaotic, and there’s no telling whether you’ll be able to get in to see Craig.”
“The man will probably be up to his eyeballs in investigations,” Peter agreed. “Rupert is right about the number of rats scrambling for new hiding places.”
A twist of jealousy threatened to squash the pride Katya felt. “Craig won’t say no to us,” she insisted. She glanced to her son, arching an eyebrow. “Old age and experience beats youth and enthusiasm any day.”
To his credit, Rupert grinned at her with as much pride in his expression as she’d always felt for him. “If anyone can woo Craig, you can, Mama.”
It shouldn’t have touched her so deeply to have him call her “Mama” instead of the more formal “Mother” he’d adopted around her friends. It shouldn’t have brought a faint stinging to her eyes either. Perhaps she knew why Malcolm had seemed so sad earlier after all. Parenthood was the most wonderful and painful journey a person could go on.
“It’s settled then,” she said, tilting her chin up and sending Malcolm a challenging look. “First thing in the morning, as soon as the men of Scotland Yard are at their desks, Malcolm and I will pay Mr. Jack Craig a visit.”
“And if the man is as smart as they say he is,” Malcolm added, “he’ll be exactly what we need to bring Shayles down once and for all.”
Chapter 4
Inspector Jack Craig was a busy man. Malcolm took the fact for granted when he sent a messenger to Scotland Yard with a request to meet with him. But as it turned out, Craig was so busy that the best he was able to do was to meet Malcolm and Katya in passing between two undisclosed matters of even greater importance the next morning.
“But don’t you see,” Katya argued as she and Malcolm walked briskly down Oxford Street shortly before ten o’clock, “this is the perfect way to avoid any sort of suspicion this meeting might arouse.”
Malcolm sent her a flat scowl, back itching with impatience. “Are you really willing to stake your reputation on the solidity of this idea?” he asked in a grumble.
“What are the two of you talking about?” Bianca asked as she scurried along a few steps behind them.
“They won’t tell you,” Natalia answered her. “It’s probably the kind of thing Mama is constantly telling me I’m too young to hear.”
“You are too young to hear it,” Rupert answered her, sounding as put out about things as Malcolm felt.
Malcolm glanced over his shoulder at their entourage. Bianca and Natalia scurried a few feet behind him and Katya, eyes wide with excitement as they gazed around at the expensive shops and cafés lining the busy thoroughfare. Rupert escorted Cece a few feet behind them. The two of them looked entirely too cozy for Malcolm’s liking. But since maintaining secrecy about their meeting with Craig involved pretending the whole family was on an outing to shop for Cece’s coming out at the end of the week, there was nothing Malcolm could do about it.
“I still maintain this is a terrible idea,” he told Katya, reaching into his waistcoat to check his watch. “They’re going to be nothing but trouble.”
“They’ll be fine,” Katya said, not sounding convinced herself.
“Oh! Mama, look at the hat in that window over there,” Natalia gasped. “Wouldn’t that be divine with my blue organdy?”
“Ask your brother,” Katya snapped. “He’s the one holding the purse strings these days.”
Malcolm peeked at Katya with an arched brow. Chances were her short temper was due to the fact that she hadn’t slept much the night before. Their meeting at Alex’s house hadn’t adjourned until close to two in the morning, she and her children had arrived at Strathaven House before eight, and heaven knew she hadn’t gotten any sleep before the meeting was called. He didn’t know why she hadn’t just come home with him after the meeting. He’d offered. She’d refused.
“You have enough hats, Nat,” Rupert said, laughing in a way that was sure to annoy his little sister.
Sure enough, Natalia huffed the same way Cece did when Malcolm refused to buy some useless piece of frippery for her. “Mama, tell Rupert it’s not fair for him to hold the purse strings,” she said.
Katya barked a laugh, but there was little humor in it. Malcolm studied her with a sideways look again. The lines on her face betrayed more frustration than he’d picked up at first. The uncomfortable thought that it was unfair for Rupert to suddenly have control of everything that had been Katya’s until a year ago itched at the back of Malcolm’s mind. Sons assumed power when they came of age. That was the law and the way things had always been. But for a woman of Katya’s strength, it must have been a bitter pill to swallow.
Hoping to comfort her, Malcolm swayed closer to her, reaching for her hand as they walked. He just about had it in what he hoped was a comforting grip when she yanked it away.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Holding your hand,” Malcolm replied with a scowl.
Katya made an impatient soun
d and shook her head. “You can’t blithely hold a woman’s hand in public. This is Oxford Street. Anyone could be watching and sharpening their gossip knives.”
She had a point. “All right, then.” He offered his elbow to escort her more formally.
“I don’t need your support to walk down the street,” she said with a sigh. “I’m perfectly capable of standing on my own.”
Malcolm let his arm drop and his scowl grow. “God knows, we’re all well aware of that.”
She turned her head to stare at him with wide eyes. “What’s biting at you this morning?” she demanded, as though she were a pot calling him black.
“You tell me,” he said. “You’ve been peevish since…since I first met you.”
“I deserve every bit of my attitude,” she replied, eyes bright with anger.
“Oh, yes. Katya the Great, foiled at every turn by villainous men who want to put her in her place,” he said, knowing full well his sarcasm would hurt her.
“You have no idea,” she seethed.
“Of course not,” he said. “You’ve never deigned to tell me.”
She started forward again and picked up her pace. He kept up with her, if only to prove that she wouldn’t get rid of him so easily.
“Don’t worry, Kat,” he said quietly once he was striding by her side. “Everyone knows that you’re the one who puts men in their place. And that there’s a line at your door every night, waiting for that privilege.”
She stopped abruptly, pivoting toward him so fast Malcolm flinched. Fury lit her expression. “There’s banter, Malcolm, and then there are insults. Kindly learn the difference.”
“I’m just giving you something to smack me around about later,” he said, in spite of the sharp regret that pinched his insides. He didn’t mean to hurt her, but it was so easy when every step she took felt like she was stomping on his heart.
“Look at the two of you,” Cece giggled as the children caught up to them. “Bickering like an old married couple.”
“What an apt description,” Bianca said, then leaned over to whisper something in Natalia’s ear. Natalia laughed, clapped a hand over her mouth, and turned pink.