Reckless Rules (Brambridge Novel 4)

by Pearl Darling

  The door opened silently and Carruthers entered with a large tea tray. Without looking at her, he navigated the small chairs and deposited the teapot, cups and cake on the desk that sat in the corner. Frozen, she followed Carruthers’ progress as he carefully set out the tea items, not once raising his own gaze to hers.

  “Pardon me, my lady, but when I heard your voice, I assumed you had visitors, so I brought in a tea tray,” Carruthers said, placing a spoon in the sugar well. “Might I pour you a cup of tea?”

  Victoria nodded slowly. The banality of Carruthers’ conversation had a soporific effect on her body. Her shoulders stopped shaking and the feeling returned to her legs.

  “I assume it is just the two sugars?”

  Victoria wanted to smile. Carruthers knew to the granule how much sugar Victoria put in her tea.

  “Just the one please, Carruthers.” Victoria licked her lips. “I’m sweet enough as it is.”

  “Of course, Madam, pardon my mistake. I will punish myself accordingly.”

  “I would suggest a good session of silver polishing would do the trick.” Victoria put out her hand to receive the proffered teacup. She looked quickly up into Carruthers’ face and winked. His sigh was followed by a smile.

  “Of course, my lady. There is nothing I should like more.”

  Make friends with the servants for they shall carry you through. That was the first rule of investigation. Victoria closed her eyes, relieved that the despair that had threatened to overcome her had receded to a safe distance. Lord Colchester couldn’t have realized when he had drummed those rules into her head that they would be so useful in many other ways.

  When he had died, she had got rid of all the servants, naturally in a staggered manner so it wasn’t so evident that she was cleaning out his nest of vipers, and then she replaced them with those she trusted.

  The first person she recruited was Carruthers, a former footman in her brother’s household, and now her butler and arch right-hand man.

  “Sit down, Carruthers, and pour yourself a cup of tea. You’ve brought enough to feed a small army as it is.”

  Without a murmur, Carruthers did as he was asked. Carefully folding the tails of his coat under, he sat, and stood again, bringing over the plate of cakes he had left on the tray.

  Victoria took a cake without bothering to wait for a small plate and took a large bite. Crumbs brushed down her face as she bit into the confection. Three bites later, and the cake was finished. Ponzi snuffled happily around the floor, licking at the carpet as Victoria brushed the remaining crumbs to the ground. She took another piece of cake as Carruthers opened a newspaper.

  “There is a very interesting article in this ‘Illustrated London News’ about a new attraction touring the country. Apparently it is called Pablo Moreno’s Grand Travelling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Hippodrome.” Carruthers stopped as if checking to see if she was listening. Victoria had hardly taken in a word but nodded. His voice was soothing and provided a good accompaniment to her chewing of the second slice of cake.

  “The extraordinary feats of knife throwing, tightrope walking and other activities were very attractive as we anticipated in our Journal of last week. As we have already described, these performances are complemented by the no less stunning exhibition of exotic animals and humans…” Carruthers trailed off as Victoria put up a hand. She finished her last mouthful of cake and took a deep breath.

  “Rosa Fanthorpe wishes me to investigate whether Mr. Cryne has had any other women interests in the last six months.” She was proud of herself. There was no wobble to her voice, and her energy returned as the cake’s sweetness rejuvenated her.

  “I thought that once you had found out why Mr. Cryne wanted to marry Miss Fanthorpe, then the investigation was over?” Carruthers dropped the ‘my lady’ pretense, and after carefully putting aside the paper, took a large cake himself, and bit into its crust.

  “I’m afraid that I may have made a comment that incited Miss Fanthorpe to think more clearly about her motivations in getting married to the odious man.”

  “I assume she still made the payment?”

  “Yes. It was a good suggestion of yours to choose those foundations.”

  Carruthers nodded and sipped his tea.

  “Simon, why did you choose those particular ones?” Victoria was curious. She hadn’t really cared at the start where the money went, so long as it wasn’t in her pocket. She had more than enough money as it was that she gave to other causes.

  “I was born in the Mile End pauper farm.”

  “Oh.”

  He nodded. “Until I was twelve I lived that life, then your grandmother needed more staff and hired me as a kitchen boy.”

  “And from there you became the footman in my brother’s household.”

  “And butler in yours.”

  “Hmm. Not just a butler.”

  “Perhaps not, my lady.”

  “I’ve told you to drop that when we are alone.” Victoria frowned. “If you had not come to me with that interesting conundrum regarding Maisie the housemaid’s bag after Colchester died, I’m not sure what I would have done with myself.” Victoria stopped. “I need another investigation, Simon. You saw me. Don’t tell me you didn’t. It’s back and this time it is not going to go away so easily.”

  “What about Mr. Cryne?” Carruthers brushed the crumbs off his trousers for Ponzi.

  “It’s not enough. I know all of the women he’s chased in the last six months. Although to be sure, I would like for you to make some discreet enquiries into his household if you could, just to make sure that we do a thorough job.”

  “Of course. I have also been handed six other investigations that you might be interested in?”

  Victoria waved her hand. “Go on?” She sat back and closed her eyes as Carruthers drew out a piece of paper and began to read.

  CHAPTER 6

  Bill’s men perched haphazardly at the dinner table in Brambridge Manor. They looked the most uncomfortable that Bill had ever seen them. Perhaps Victoria had been right—it was all too easy to see them through her eyes. Each man was at least six foot tall and burly, with muscles that threatened to spill through their carefully ironed uniforms. Although, in some cases Bill suspected that the muscles were now running to fat with the only exercise being undertaken a mild running up and down the stairs every time he returned home.

  “Gentlemen.” Bill groaned when one of the men put his hand up tentatively. “Yes Percy, what is it?”

  “Couldn’t you call us lads like you used to, Bill?” A quick elbow in his side caused Percy to choke slightly. “Mr. Standish, sir, I mean.”

  “What’s wrong with being called gentlemen?” Bill paced back and forth behind the lined up chairs. The men watched him from the corner of their eyes as one might watch a bull in the field. “I would have thought you liked it. It’s a step up from what I used to be called as a lad.”

  “Nothing, Mr. Standish,” the six men chorused like naughty school boys.

  Bill sighed. There was obviously something wrong. It was just like being in the forge again, except this time the environment was not as dangerous. But it was still as important to work out what was bothering the men before he asked them to do something for him.

  “I believe my fellow brethren are trying to point out, Mr. Standish, that they feel a little uncomfortable being called something that they are not.”

  Ah. Trust George to be able to verbalize what the others could not. It was a pity that his butler had only now decided how to suitably communicate after his run in with Lord Granwich and disclosure of some of Bill’s night time activities.

  Five heads nodded, whilst George picked genteelly at his fingernails.

  “That’s right, see,” said Percy, gaining voice again. “You might have changed but we ain’t. We’re still the boys from the forge dressed up like monkeys.”

  This time six heads nodded.

  “But I haven’t changed!” Bill protested. “I’m stil
l Bill, and you are still my apprentices from the forge.”

  “You ’ave changed,” Percy said in a more uncertain voice.

  “How?” Bill demanded. He was the same man and he treated them in the same way, apart from calling them gentlemen.

  “You own an estate,” George pointed out helpfully.

  “Not my fault.” Bill spread his hands out in supplication.

  “You ’ob-nob with wellborn folk more than us.” Percy half rose to his feet.

  “Ob-nob?”

  “Hob-nob, sir, a word you used to be familiar with, with or without the aitch.” Really, George was a jackass sometimes.

  “You know how to tie a cravat.”

  “You used to chase after village girls, now your ladies have peacocks in the back garden.”

  “You go off to London all the time.”

  “All your talk is of Lord this and Lord that.”

  “You used to be interesting and now you are not.”

  Bill looked around the table. He couldn’t work out who had come out with the most hurtful last statement.

  “I thought you wanted to work on the estate? I could hardly dissuade you. As it is, I’m the only one that goes back to the forge and the only apprentice there is Jim.” Bill looked at the sullen faces. He was rejected by the peerage, and now rejected by his own true peers. It seemed that Victoria wasn’t the only one rejecting him for who he was—or at least who they perceived him to be.

  Bill looked more carefully into their faces; he shouldn’t be harsh on them. They had only demonstrated all the things that he had felt, yearning for an easier life, and when it came along, finding that you were like a fish out of water and in some ways perhaps not suited to the life that you thought you wanted to lead. That was why he had attacked Victoria so strongly about her giving to the poor. He really wanted to know. Would it make himself feel better too, about his lot?

  “Look lads.” Bill stopped and all six men visibly relaxed. “I know you have had a hard time adjusting to being here at the estate. I’ll make a bargain with you. I will let any of you who wishes, go back to their old job in the forge. Jim is getting quite lonely, and as the youngest apprentice he needs more direction.”

  There was a murmur as some of the men looked doubtful while others seemed more hopeful. “There are also other jobs on the estate that need doing that we haven’t yet recruited for. We need a cooper, someone to repair the machinery, and other jobs besides.” Bill forced a doubtful look onto his face. “I think it might be hard, but you are welcome to do those jobs if you don’t want to be footmen any longer.”

  “What about pay?” Percy demanded.

  “Same as now.”

  “What’s the catch?” George said, the most intelligent of the men, particularly with numbers, although not necessarily the best smith.

  “Trust George,” Bill said as the others smiled. “You might have heard that I had a spot of bother with a man called Pedro Moreno.”

  The smiles became sounds of mirth. “We heard that he back flipped out of the room faster than peeling a banana.”

  “I heard that he slipped his chains without even cutting them.”

  The men roared with laughter again.

  “I can tell you that is all true,” Bill said soberly. “What you haven’t been told is that this man also has information that was stolen from the British government, and that I am the one to get him and it back.”

  The men held their sides, seemingly unable to stop their snorts of merriment.

  “You?” George choked.

  “Pull the other one,” Percy exclaimed.

  So it was not just Bill who doubted his abilities.

  “No. Not just me. You too.” Bill sat back as his team of burly men saw that he was not joking. “All of you. You will find and get him for me. Lord Anglethorpe, the spymaster has told me how to do it. This should be no harder than the runs we do to France in the Rocket to pick up the brandy and émigrés, or even sourcing war information from the continent.”

  “Oh, come on, Bill. Us? Find a man who can slip chains like butter and ooze out of a room faster than lightning? What has that bloody well to do with sailing across the channel, sitting in a pub, drinking some wine and then coming back again?”

  Bill sighed. “According to Henry, in order to locate a man, you take your most trusted individuals and set them the task of finding who or what you are seeking. All you need to give is a little guidance.”

  “You say we’re your most trusted individuals?” Percy said quietly. It was not what Bill had expected them to pick up on.

  “Yes.”

  “Alright.”

  “Alright,” chorused the five other men after Percy.

  Bill waited for other protests, but the men looked at him expectantly. It had been enough, it seemed, to demonstrate to them what they meant to him.

  “Where do we start?”

  “I understand that Pedro Moreno may have gone back to his roots and joined a travelling group of entertainers. I want you to travel to the nearest six counties, Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Dorset, Hampshire, and Wiltshire, and make enquiries. They’re all west country or near enough. Visit every fair you can. Then move on to the next six counties and so on.”

  “What’s our timescale?”

  “Come back in two weeks. We don’t have much time.”

  “Can we ditch the uniforms?”

  “Of course. Look, he is a dangerous man. We do not want him to know we are looking for him. You should use each of your talents to find out where he is and report back. Think of it like being in the forge and working the metal. Softly does it. Then I’ll come in with the hammer and separate him off.”

  Percy fiddled at the tight buttons around his neck and threw his cravat on the table. “Thank God for that. I thought you were going to expect us to hang around this house forever.”

  “Me too!”

  Only George looked unhappy. But it did not matter. Lord Granwich hadn’t spared his feelings either when he had informed him that he had to go and find Pedro.

  Bill watched as the men filed out of the door. Not once had they asked how Bill was coping with the change. Nobody did and especially not Victoria. She had probably not even spared a thought to Bill’s problems. She had been too long at that, what did she call it? Establishment in Hoxton? Bill had sat in that silly white barouche with just his thoughts and the mute Oswald to keep him company. Perched in the confines of the barouche, he had needed to run his finger around his collar to loosen it as anger surged through him.

  But waiting for her in the East End had been the only way to get Victoria alone, to persuade her that she wanted him. And that in due course she would marry him. Bill sighed. Unfortunately his own discomfort and angst had won through. Everything he had levelled at her could have referred to himself.

  Bill shook his head and stared at the wallpaper that was peeling away in innumerable places around the room. There would be time for self-pity later. He needed to get back to London to update Lord Granwich with his progress.

  He found Lord Granwich three days later, sitting in his favorite restaurant ‘Rules’ in Covent Garden, eating game pie. As Bill attempted to slide in unobtrusively on the opposite side of the table, he was hampered by his elbow that sent the salt bowl flying.

  Lord Granwich looked up in annoyance. “How is it that this time when you come and see me, you still manage to interrupt my enjoyment?”

  “I have an update for you.” Upending the upset bowl and its tiny spoon, Bill struggled to find the correct words. What were spies meant to say to their handlers when passing on information? Was there some sort of code that one should use?

  “Operation… Banana Skin has been set in motion.” With a huff of satisfaction, he pushed the spoon into the righted bowl.

  “Operation Banana Skin?” Lord Granwich repeated looking bewildered. “Whose banana?”

  “I have sent out six monkeys to find the banana,” Bill continued.

  Lord Granwich
laid down his knife and fork reluctantly and stared hard into Bill’s face. “Standish, old chap. Are you feeling quite the thing?”

  Bill blinked. “Yes, of course. Why?”

  “Because you just came out with some nonsensical rubbish about fruit and primates. I have no idea what you are talking about, and you are still interrupting my favorite dish of rabbit pie. Please could you get to the point or leave?”

  “Err. I have the Pedro business in hand.”

  “Good. Anything else?”

  Bill had come all the way to London for that? He shrugged. “No I don’t think so.”

  “Fine. Then you can go. I won’t keep you from your business.”

  Reluctantly, Bill got to his feet, pushing back his chair with an audible squeak across the floor. He derived a small amount of satisfaction as Lord Granwich winced. “There was one thing,” he said as an afterthought. “Edward Fiske is considering your proposal and seems favorably inclined.”

  Lord Granwich looked up from the rabbit pie that he had resumed eating. Gravy dripped from his chin. “I beg your pardon?” he said in obvious disbelief.

  “Edward Fiske is—”

  “No, I heard that. But you shouldn’t know anything about that. I told Fiske not to speak to anyone about it. How did you find out?”

  This was Bill’s moment to walk away. He wasn’t going to tell Granwich that Celine had told him in an unguarded moment. Staring in fascination as a drop of gravy dripped off Lord Granwich’s chin, he couldn’t help himself. Picking up the gravy boat and handing it to Lord Granwich, he grinned. “I never reveal my sauces… I beg your pardon… sources to anyone."

  Lord Granwich groaned. “Go away and leave me in peace.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Victoria slowly pulled on the gloves that Carruthers handed to her. The soft fur of their insides brushed against her cold fingers. She looked up at the portrait of herself and Lord Colchester hanging above the hall table and shuddered once again at the memory of the sitting for it, Colchester leaning over her, staring at the table upon which the painter had hurriedly placed a skull, two candlesticks, an open bible and a piece of lace. The portrait artist had explained that such a grouping was all the rage, showing the position of a wife in the household, and the learnedness of her husband. She tore her gaze away from the cold, dark colors and with relief fixed on the light colors of the hall.