Jael snorted. “A royal scamp, he is!”
Gibbon wondered what this denizen of the underworld knew of the exquisite Hubert. Humbug might warrant some investigation of his own.
Jael rose and moved to an iron-bound chest. “You’re pitching it too rum, Baroness! Do you think to so easily pull the wool over my eyes?”
Dulcie abandoned her feeble air. “I had hoped to do something of the sort. In a mad quest like this, one needs whatever help one may obtain.”
“You’ll meddle once too often, Baroness.” Jael’s smile was a chill reminder that even the most hardened criminals held her in awe. Gibbon moved quietly forward. It was commonly known that the gypsy concealed a small arsenal of weaponry in her gaudy attire, instruments of violence she was not reluctant to use.
The gypsy glanced at him, and then away. “Perhaps one fine morning we’ll fish your body out of the river, along with all the other riffraff who’ve pried where they should not.”
“I sincerely hope not,” remarked Lady Bligh. “I’d hope for a more decorous end.”
“May it be granted you.” Jael reached into the chest. Gibbon, with a speed unsuggested by his cadaverous frame, darted forward to grasp her wrist. He next found himself in an ignominious position, sprawled upon the hard floor. The gypsy watched with great amusement as the Baroness hauled her butler to his feet.
“I appreciate your concern, Gibbon, but you must learn not to interfere.” Dulcie’s tone was as stern as if she had not spent her entire adult life poking and prying in business not her own.
Jael shook with laughter. “God’s bones, but I like you, Dulcie Bligh!” She extended a handful of sparkling gems. “Here, take these before I change my mind.”
The Baroness gingerly inspected the diamond necklace, once judged to be of sufficient brilliance to grace the young Arabella’s elegant neck. “You have only this piece?”
Jael nodded. “Sir William was so besotted that he ate out of Arabella’s hand; why, then, did she have to sell her gems? He’d have fetched her the moon, by all accounts, if she asked him to.” The gypsy looked at the diamonds regretfully. “I must be daft! Those are the finest stones I’ve ever laid hands upon.” Gibbon, sulking, thought that Jael had probably collected no small store of unlawful merchandise. He’d have given much to learn the trick by which she’d laid him out so easily.
Dulcie tucked the necklace into the bodice of her ragged gown, causing her butler to hastily avert his gaze. “You’ll be well paid, Jael.”
“I expect to be.” The gypsy returned to her throne-like chair and reached for a long-stemmed pipe. “Go away now. I’ll waste no more time on you.” It was not tobacco that she smoked, but the opium that had once numbed her hunger pains.
“One more question.” Lady Bligh’s glance was stern. “Where are the rest of the gems?”
The gypsy surveyed her visitor through a cloud of sweet smoke. Few dared to speak to Jael in that imperious tone.
After a moment’s consideration, she decided to be amused. “You’ve a nose like a bloodhound. I’ve told you all I know.”
Gibbon hovered at the door, hopeful of a speedy exit, but the Baroness was not done. “You’re lying,” she said bluntly. “Why?”
Jael’s eyes narrowed. “ You dare venture into my territory and order me around like you were a grand duchess and I was a scullery maid?”
“I’m still waiting for an answer.” Dulcie was unyielding. Gibbon quaked in his boots, seeing himself and his mistress floating face down in the foul Thames.
“They say the Lord protects fools.” Jael’s cold eyes rested on Lady Bligh with a grudging respect. “We will see, won’t we? Look for a down-at-the-heels gambler known as Slippery Jim.”
Chapter 10
Having had at last found a perfect excuse to deck out her companion in a dashing style, Lady Bligh set out on a whirlwind shopping expedition that culminated in vast quantities of silk stockings, French gloves, satins and brocades, Indian muslins, tippets of fur and feathers, plumes of every kind, ribbon and lace and fancy trimmings, all in the latest mode, and countless new costumes to be delivered with all possible speed. Livvy could no more have stopped the Baroness than she might stave off a full-scale hurricane. At length she gave up the unequal struggle and sat back, with only a small pang of conscience, to relish her unaccustomed luxury.
“You are enjoying yourself?” Lord Dorset wore a long-tailed coat of sky blue cloth, polished top-boots, a jaunty hat and gloves; and he was exercising the practiced charm that had led so many ladies to cast prudence to the wind.
Livvy gazed upon a street sweeper, a painfully ragged urchin who darted forward to remove horse dung from their path. “I am. I know I should not, but I have never before had an opportunity to discover that London is so interesting.” She realized that she had been caught off guard, tricked into speaking frankly while favorably comparing Dickon’s moderate shirt points with the neck-stretching cravats preferred by the dandy set, and waited for the inevitable ridicule.
Dickon did not oblige, but led her firmly past an Italian organ grinder with a hurdy-gurdy slung from one shoulder and a chattering monkey perched on the other. “Poor Livvy! You have a Puritan conscience and an irreverent soul.” The harsh features were amused. “Which will triumph, I wonder?”
From the corner of her eye, Livvy caught her image in a dirty shop window. She wore a carriage dress of white poplin with a deep blonde flounce and a blue levantine pelisse edged with floss silk. Covering her dark curls was a cottage bonnet of blue twilled sarcenet tied with a large ribbon bow.
Foolish to condemn the Earl’s profligacy when, given the opportunity, she would doubtless prove every bit as dissipated as he. She cast him a mischievous look. “I cannot say. It is the Dashwood blood, I fear.”
Lord Dorset’s amusement increased. “You are a descendant of Sir Francis?” That gentleman, an accomplished and industrious rake, had gained posthumous fame not only as an inept statesman and patron of the arts, but for the perverse eccentricity that led him to work with Benjamin Franklin on a revision of the Book of Common Prayer while simultaneously conducting sinister and bizarre satanic rites at Medmenham Abbey, which he owned.
“It isn’t something of which I boast.” Livvy wondered if she should have so recklessly acknowledged her infamous ancestor. “I don’t know why I mentioned it at all! Let us make haste, lest Smirke think I do not mean to keep my appointment with her.”
The Earl chivalrously refrained from pointing out that their tardiness was due to Livvy’s fascination with a circus menagerie, which he had not been able to persuade her to abandon until she had viewed the quantities of stock and equipment laden on long, lumbering wagon trains. Her enthusiasm extended to the caravan owners, who were engaged in cooking, like so many tinkers, in black pots outside the wagon train, and it had taken all Dickon’s diplomacy to finally lure her away. “Smirke will wait,” he replied. “She’ll not bypass an opportunity for profit.”
“It is an avaricious world,” said Livvy, allowing herself to be escorted into a coffeehouse. She looked about with interest; this too was a new experience. In the center of the narrow room were dozens of padded armchairs, and a table bearing journals and newspapers secured by long chains. Sawdust covered the floor. “It is kind of you to accompany me to this meeting, though Mary or Gibbon would have done as well.”
“That they would not.” Dickon conducted her to a high-backed seat. Each of the booths that lined the walls bore the likeness of a different great man in literature and art, ranging from Ben Jonson to Gainsborough. “You forget your position. Ladies do not venture into surroundings such as these, even with their servants’ protection.”
“Your presence, however, makes it right with the world? I thank you for your efforts to lend me countenance.” Livvy regarded a likeness of Henry Fielding, playwright and chief magistrate, and was unhappily reminded of the Earl’s peril.
“Not right, but permissible.” Lord Dorset was sardonic. “You must k
now that I am expected to lead you into depravity.”
Livvy was stricken mute by the startling discovery that this was a path she would very much like to tread, with Dickon as her guide. Resolutely she placed her errant heart under closer guard. Lord Dorset played a game with her, nothing more; his passionate nature must chafe at the restrictive bonds of this mock betrothal. He was only flirting with her to alleviate his boredom.
“Did you know,” inquired the Earl, “that your face is a perfect mirror for your thoughts?” She stared at him, aflame with guilty embarrassment. “Sweet Livvy, you worry needlessly.”
“Mrs. Lytton?” A plain, middle-aged woman stood by the table. “I am Smirke. Bertha told me I was to meet you here.”
Livvy thought, as the abigail joined them, that this woman would never succumb to frivolity. Smirke’s unfeminine severity was strongly reminiscent of Dulcie’s abigail, Culpepper; perhaps it was characteristic of the breed. For herself, Livvy was content with Mary’s pert mischievousness. A stout apron-wrapped individual deposited a tray of coffee and biscuits on the table, then bustled away.
“I saw a hanging at Tyburn once.” Smirke helped herself to biscuits as if she had not eaten for a week. “When I was a child. A grand thing it was, too, with people everywhere. I was eating bread dipped in mutton fat when they put the black hood over the highwayman’s head. The executioner drove off the horses and left the villain kicking in the air.” She gave the Earl a sideways look. “He was a long time dying. There was no one to pull on his body, and hasten his end. I still have a copy of his dying speech.”
“It is a pity that such spectacles are no longer held at Tyburn,” the Earl remarked, as calm as if he were not threatened by the same fate. “They were remarkably edifying.”
Having disposed of the biscuits, Smirke leaned back on the hard wooden seat. “Mind you, I don’t care if Lady Arabella’s murderer hangs or not. When I was her abigail, many was the time I wished to squeeze the life out of the witch with my own hands!” She looked at Livvy. “Begging your pardon, ma’am! She turned me off without a reference and I can tell you that I’ve seen hard times since then.”
Libby didn’t doubt it; Smirke looked like she would benefit from several good meals. “Why did she dismiss you? Were you not with her a good number of years?”
“I was, since her marriage to the Duke. Then she met Sir William. First she said she no longer had need of my services, but I wasn’t about to take that lying down, not from her!” Smirke’s mouth twisted bitterly. “When she saw I meant business, she accused me of stealing from her, and threatened to turn me over to the magistrates.”
“Did you steal from your mistress?” The Earl was mildly curious.
“A body has to live. You needn’t think that Lady Arabella was generous.” Smirke’s gaze shifted to the Earl. “You know what she was!”
Livvy experienced a surge of jealousy. Arabella had enjoyed the Earl’s admiration, a pleasure that, to Livvy, might more than compensate for a tragically premature demise.
Then her thoughts took a new turn. She had not considered the possibility of Dickon’s prior acquaintance with Arabella’s one-time abigail, and now wondered if he hoped to prevent Smirke from revealing information injurious to him. “When were you first taken into Arabella’s employ?”
“Just before she wed the Duke. A brazen piece she was, even then. What she wasn’t was virgin, though she fooled the Duke well untouched. The besotted old man was properly taken in.”
“Where was Arabella from?” Livvy interjected quickly, not eager to learn further details of the lady’s marriage bed.
“Coward!” murmured the Earl.
Smirke shrugged. “A country village, I can’t recall the name.”
“Try,” advised Lord Dorset, reaching into a pocket. Smirke’s face brightened.
“Lady Arabella was a wild girl. There was some sort of scandal; I never learned what. Her aunt raised her after her parents died.”
“That won’t do. We must know the village name.” Lord Dorset withdrew his empty hand. Livvy half wished Dickon had dealt with Bertha. It would have been an interesting battle between wit and greed.
Smirke’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “I doubt the family was well-off. Arabella was as feckless as someone who’s never had money of her own. She had enough after she came to London, though, and deposited herself on the grandmama’s doorstep.”
“I don’t understand,” Livvy interrupted.
“Lady Arabella’s father,” Smirke explained, “was an adventurer. He married above himself, and his wife’s family cast her off. Later Arabella’s grandfather came into a tide, and a fortune. I reckon they didn’t know of Arabella’s existence, and when she showed up they took her in. Arabella fooled them too, for a while, though when they learned of her carrying-on they washed their hands of her.” There was no need to add that the final straw had been Arabella’s indiscreet liaison with the Earl. “They’re all dead now.”
“You astound me,” remarked Lord Dorset. “I hadn’t realized Arabella was of so confiding a nature.”
Smirke laughed. “You should know better, my lord! I’ve always been one to keep my eyes and ears open, as they say.” Mirth faded. “That’s why she sent me away, I’ll wager; I knew too much for her peace of mind.”
This conversation was affecting Livvy oddly; she felt like she was being stuck with white-hot pins. “Was Lady Arabella afraid of anyone?”
“Afraid!” Smirke was astonished. “She had no fear of the devil himself! Bold as brass, she was.”
Arabella’s unease, then, did not precede her marriage to Sir William. Livvy’s interest quickened.
Livvy was subjected to an unflattering appraisal. Smirke was following another train of thought. “Your wife was the one Arabella confided in, Lord Dorset. Your first wife, that is!” The narrow gaze grew speculative. “I wonder how curious you are about your son’s accident.”
Though Dickon retained his impassivity, Livvy, with her newly heightened sensitivity, was aware of his tension. “Very, very curious,” he replied. “What might you know about that?”
Smirke knew she’d struck a nerve. “They talked in front of me like I was a piece of furniture,” she said.
Dickon dropped a gold coin on the table. Smirke grabbed it; then, with a familiarity that inspired Livvy with a wish to throttle her, patted the Earl’s arm. “I know about the argument that followed, too, when your lady went for your face with her sewing shears but caught only your hand.”
Livvy sat rigid with shock, and Lord Dorset’s expression darkened. “The accident, if you please.”
Aware that she had blundered badly, Smirke sought to make amends. “It was no mishap. Lady Dorset slapped her son and knocked him down the stairs. No need to look that way, my lord! The boy took little harm from it. What frightened him more was when she locked him in that dark closet for days at a time, feeding him bread and water and telling him tales of wicked children burning in hell.”
“Dear Lord,” whispered Livvy, through stiff lips.
As if awakening from a nightmare, the Earl looked at her. “I was a fool,” he said, “to try to force Gwyneth into a maternal mold. Her temper is vicious, but I never suspected she had gone so far. I assume the servants were too afraid of her to come to me, or were bribed to remain silent.”
Smirke had little interest in the Earl’s personal problems. She quickly drew the conversation back to matters that might be of profit to her. “You’re not the first ones to come asking questions about Lady Arabella. There was a man some months ago, wanting to know about her past.”
Livvy reflected that Arabella was certainly a prime candidate for blackmail. “Who was he, do you know? Did he wear a striking waistcoat and reek of tobacco?” Although Bow Street would hardly investigate a crime that had not yet occurred.
Smirke shook her head. “He was a shabby little person who looked like he needed a square meal.”
“What did you tell him?” Dickon asked.
“I don’t think he knew what he was looking for. He didn’t know anything about Arabella, not even what questions to ask.” Smirke paused mid-bite. “Sapping! That’s the village where she’s from. It came to me just like that.”
“Sapping.” Livvy rose in response to Dickon’s gesture, watched as Smirke received a handful of gold coins. “Am I mistaken, or does Hubert’s home not lie near there?”
“You are seldom mistaken,” Lord Dorset replied, as he escorted her to the door, “except in matters concerning myself. Humbug is more and more drawn into this thing. I believe it time my foolish cousin and I have a serious talk.” He frowned. “Then, Gwyneth.”
“Dickon!” Forgetting her various noble resolutions, Livvy clutched his arm. “She has been exceedingly wicked and cruel, but you must not seek revenge.”
The Earl’s hand closed over hers. “You upset yourself unduly. If Gwyneth’s death could alter what she has done to Austin, I would dispose of her summarily— but it will not.”
“What do you mean to do?” Livvy tried in vain to pull her hand away.
Dickon led his fiancée into the sunlight. “I shall call upon Gwyneth and inform her of what I have learned. She will be forced to abandon her schemes concerning my son, or find herself involved unhappily with the law. I doubt that Gwyneth will remain in London long.”
Livvy did not think the Countess Andrassy would be so easily routed. “Will she offer the boy further harm?”
“Austin is well protected.” The Earl helped Livvy into his sporty curricle. “Thank God I did not listen to my aunt and bring him to town.”
Far from reassured, Livvy sank onto the well-upholstered seat. None knew better than she that it was foolish to ignore the Baroness’s forebodings.
Dickon took the reins. ““Cheer up, sweet Livvy! We shall earn Dulcie’s highest praise, for we bring her revelations of the most extraordinary.”
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