She stared at him in perplexity. “Why, Alex, you’re wearing a wig! I thought you preferred your own hair. And it’s not as if it were scanty or an unfortunate color.”
It had been too much to hope she would not notice.
“Yes, but having my hair arranged and powdered for formal occasions is a nuisance, when with my hair cut short, I can simply clap on a wig. ’Tis a great saving of time.”
“Oh, very sensible. And the one you’re wearing almost perfectly matches your own hair—though it’s much tidier, of course.”
“That is a convenience also, Mama.”
Before he could excuse himself, she asked, “Whyever are you wearing that old suit, dear? It’s really not suitable for town wear, except for some poor man who can afford no better.”
“I had an errand in a part of town where I did not wish to be an obvious target for robbery, ma’am.”
She was clearly on the brink of asking why he would go to such a place, but he added, “And now I must change into something more appropriate, if you will excuse me? Er…are you and my father dining at home tonight?”
“No, we are promised to the Beamishes. And yes, do change your clothes, before someone sees you and thinks your papa does not make you an adequate allowance.”
He bowed and turned toward the stair.
“You have a letter here, Alex. The oddest thing: why would Miss Fairford be writing to you? It came by messenger, too, rather than by the post. I hope all is well with her.”
Alex picked up the letter lying on the hall table and reminded himself to have her send any future letters to his inn. “I sent her an etui filled with needles and a little pair of scissors and a thimble and so forth.”
“That was very thoughtful of you. Every woman needs sewing things,” Mrs. Lattimer said, dubiously. “Though I would have thought a book would be more to her taste.”
“ ’Twas in the shape of a book, which is what made me think of her. Simon Banford was buying a gift for his sister, and so I thought of Miss Fairford.”
“How well you’ve turned out,” his fond mother remarked. “Some young lady will be very pleased with you. Is there anyone yet?”
“…Not yet. Besides, I’m convinced my father would say I must undertake some profession before I can think of marriage. I dare say he’s right.”
She sighed. “That’s very true.”
He broke the seal and unfolded the single sheet, which after the salutation and briefly worded hope that he and all the family were well, stated that the sender had a letter for him, for which he might call any afternoon. Either the writer or Mistress Jane had realized a thick packet might cause curiosity. Use of an intermediary was a well-known way of receiving a letter from some recipient of whom one’s family did not approve. Which would be any young man, of course; unmarried young ladies did not write to men to whom they were not betrothed except for brothers and fathers or other close male relatives. One would not expect a governess to act as a go-between, but it was best to be cautious. Alex had absorbed some of his father’s secretive habits. He wondered, as his valet helped him change, what the elder Lattimer had done earlier in his career.
****
Captain Simon Banford said, “Alex, you idiot. Did you never buy a pound of something when you visited France on your Grand Tour?”
“No, why would I? And my tour wasn’t precisely grand. Good, yes, but the oddest things kept occurring, and then I had to cut it short. A pound of what?”
“Meat, cheese…I don’t know. Come to think of it, I didn’t either. But my valet did.”
“What’s that to the point, Sim?” Alex inquired, thoroughly lost for once.
“I’d forgotten it until just now. Your asking about eight-pounders brought it all back. If you were an artilleryman, you’d know the French use a cannon they call an eight-pounder, but their pound weighs a little more than ours, so it’s almost exactly what we would call a nine-pounder. Why this interest in artillery?”
“Oh, I came across a mention of it, and I wondered, that’s all. My honored papa says I’m inquisitive.” Rupert’s “shopping list” had crossed off the entry, but he could not help but be curious.
Banford laughed and drained his tankard. “You are, indeed. That’s probably why you had adventures on the Continent. But it’s time for me to report. Will you be at Dolly’s Chop House tonight?”
“If I can, I’ll be there.” He had chosen his time to meet Sim Banford, knowing he had to go on duty. Otherwise, it might have been difficult to get away from his convivial friend.
“I don’t know what you find to fill your time. You’re seldom found at your club, you don’t gamble…ah, I know! You have a charmer tucked away somewhere. Well, that’s an acceptable excuse. When she begins to pall, we’ll see you oftener, no doubt.”
Chapter 9
“I hope I am not assisting you in a clandestine relationship, Mr. Alex,” Eliza Fairford said.
“No, really, ma’am. I am only helping the lady. She is a recent heiress, and there is some suspicion that her family covets her inheritance. In any case, she is not a girl, and her stepmother and father have made her their housekeeper for years,” he added, his powers of invention flagging.
“Oh, dear. Families can be so unreasonable. One is always hearing of girls forced into unwelcome marriages, or else deprived of opportunities to wed.” She gave him a speculative look. “If her inheritance is large, and she is a pleasant lady and not too old, some young man might be fortunate to secure her interest.”
“Yes, indeed.”
He read the very brief communication in the nearest coffee house.
Jane requested that he meet her at the same place they had talked before, meaning Lincoln’s Inn Fields, no doubt. She would be there at nine o’clock each morning until she saw him. She might simply have passed on in the letter whatever information she had but on the whole, he applauded her discretion. Also it provided a reason to see her again. She had added only one line more, followed by her initials. “Was there a second letter to his old friend?”
The question nonplussed him. If there had been a second letter, why had his father not mentioned it? He could guess, having heard his father say, “The fewer people who know a secret, the better.” If such a letter existed and contained some matter Anthony Lattimer considered sensitive, he would suppress it without a second thought.
The following morning, Alex wore one of his better suits to visit the park and was rewarded by the sight of Jane sitting primly on the bench. She looked up as he approached but confined herself to a cool nod of recognition before moving over to make more room for him.
She explained briefly what she had found in her uncle’s notebook and gave him a copy of the lines.
“I don’t think this would have meant anything to his attorney,” she said.
“No,” he agreed.
“Do you understand it, Mr. Gordon?”
“Parts of it are suggestive.”
She gazed at him expectantly. He was very partial to young ladies with black hair. Her eyes were green. He thought he had once read a novel in which the heroine’s eyes were described as being green as emeralds. Jane Stowe’s eyes were the color of gooseberries. He liked tart, full-flavored gooseberries; they reminded him of blue skies and warm days. He did not need to remember his father’s advice about secrets to know that he should not enlighten her.
“It would be best if you didn’t know, Mistress Jane.”
“But I know about the muskets, sir. My brother is somehow involved as an innocent victim. Surely I have a right to know?”
She hoped Rupert was innocent of all but foolishness, Alex thought. As he might be; but her half brother was not his concern. Not his primary concern, anyway. “I will have to find out, if I can, whether he did write another letter,” he said.
“That would be a very good idea.”
He would rather not ask his father, who would almost certainly order him—again—to cease prying into the affair, but there mi
ght be no way to avoid it. And he would as certainly carry on in spite of parental disapproval.
While he was pondering whether there might be another way of finding out, she went on, “I am curious about the Cocoa Tree. Why did Uncle Markham mention going there?”
“Well…it’s a chocolate house…”
“So I have heard, Mr. Gordon. But what has it to do with French muskets?”
“It’s popular with Jacobites and their sympathizers.”
“Then, if my uncle went there, he might have attracted the attention of someone who was connected with Captain O’Brien? Who, I suppose, might be sympathetic to the Jacobites’ views.”
“It’s possible.” Or someone connected with Rupert Stowe. But of course she wouldn’t want to be reminded of that.
“Then the ‘old trouble’ to which my uncle refers may be the Jacobite rebellion of 1715? It makes sense if the captain was involved with that one. There is danger of a new rebellion.”
“…What makes you think so?” Ladies did not read newspapers—gentlemen ordinarily went to chocolate houses and coffee houses or their clubs to do so. Had she heard something from her half brother, or perhaps her father? Even his own mother seemed unaware of how serious the situation in Scotland had become.
She colored. “I read The Gentleman’s Magazine.”
“Your papa permits you to—”
“No, I read it when he’s not home. Some of the articles are very interesting.”
He tried to recall how much indelicacy was to be found in that publication. Perhaps not a great deal, after all. Or it might be decently shrouded in Latin in the poetry section. It was certainly surprising to find a young lady reading it. Unless many ladies did the same and simply did not admit it? What a daunting thought!
“As there have been a number of articles which make it clear there is a good deal of unrest in Scotland, it seems obvious another rebellion is expected. There were rumors of one two years ago, after all, though that came to nothing.”
“You are correct, mistress. You will therefore understand the matter of your uncle’s death, and his suspicions, are being taken very seriously.”
“Pray, cannot Captain O’Brien be arrested and questioned?”
“His ship has left port but is being sought, I hear.” He should not have told her, but she was closely concerned in the affair and such an intelligent young lady, he had not the heart to disappoint her.
Jane sighed. “There is nothing more to be done here, I suppose.”
Alex suppressed a sigh of his own. He would like to know about that second letter. There was a chance he could find out without asking his father. “I may be able to ask a few questions here and there. I might visit the Cocoa Tree.”
Her alarm was rather gratifying. “That would be dangerous, surely, given what happened to my uncle.”
“I can pass as a Scot. And I won’t take unnecessary chances.”
“What, pray,” Jane inquired, “is a necessary chance?”
A chuckle escaped him. “I think it’s going to the Cocoa Tree, and speaking like a Scotsman when I do speak, and listening. I won’t try to lead the conversation around to rebellion, or treason, or…hmmmm, muskets.”
“Oh! Well, that sounds safe enough. Can you pick up anything useful that way, do you think?”
“Did you never eavesdrop on your mama and her friends, or on your parents, when you were a child? I learned any number of fascinating things, listening to my older brother and his friends when they didn’t know I was there.”
“Not your mother and father?”
“My father can be…extremely sparing of speech. I only eavesdropped on my mother once, when she and two friends were chatting in her boudoir. Never again.”
“Did she catch you and box your ears?”
“No.”
“What, then?”
Alex felt the blood rush into his face. “They were discussing a…female…matter.”
Jane was surprised into a laugh, which she quickly choked off. “I can see it might have been embarrassing for you.”
“Oh, horrible. I was eight. When I went to school, I knew more about the subject than anyone else—probably including the masters—but I never said a word. Better the other boys should have ridiculous ideas than they be burdened with the truth.”
She kept her face grave, though her eyes twinkled. “Do you still feel the same way?”
He cocked his head. “No…I suppose I don’t. But grown men do not discuss such things. Though the married men must be aware of the facts.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” she said dryly.
“Do all ladies think men are so, so…”
“Ignorant? Yes, very likely many of them do. But one can’t correct them; they would be horrified. Or outraged or think one very coarse and unladylike. I shouldn’t be talking like this, but somehow, Mr. Gordon, you are very easy to talk to.”
“Thank you, Mistress Jane. I might say the same of you.”
She smiled acknowledgement.
“I’ll leave you now. I may know something by tomorrow. Is it possible for you to meet me here again? Surely your family must wonder what takes you out every morning?”
“I give the staff their instructions after breakfast, and no one notices what I do afterward until much later in the day. Tomorrow, then.”
At home, Alex sauntered down the corridor. He had learned from the butler his mother was out visiting. His father was…wherever he went two or three times a week when he didn’t go elsewhere. He occasionally visited a government office in connection with his official position—whatever it might be. His father described it as “a sort of auditor of government efficiency.” He made it sound like a minor post, almost a hobby, and rather boring, which kept people from asking more about it. In fact, Alex thought very few were aware Anthony Lattimer held any office. He had been used to call upon Sir Robert Walpole, First Lord of the Treasury, in Downing Street, until Walpole’s resignation several years before. Alex had followed him once later out of curiosity only to find himself more curious yet. It appeared when his father was not at his club or a coffee house or any of the other places a well-to-do gentleman might amuse himself during the day, he vanished into Somerset House. Some court officials had rooms there, and some parts of it were used for storage. Some government offices were located there, too.
The staff had finished the morning’s cleaning and were now about other business. His mother, even if she came home early, was unlikely to go near the library. With a last glance around, Alex opened the door and slipped inside, closing it quietly and locking it behind him. His father had shown him Markham’s letter here. If there had been a second, it should be in his father’s strongbox with the original letter.
His father said he was as curious as a cat. As a child, he had been unable to resist locked rooms and locked boxes. He had learned to open the locked desk drawers when he was ten. It had taken several weeks of cautious attempts whenever he could escape from his tutor. The concept was simple: a key has projections so he experimented first with every other key he could find, then with a bent wire. When he finally succeeded, the contents of the desk were boring. Then by the sheerest good fortune, he found a tiny drawer concealed under the desk, and only because he had crawled under the desk after dropping his picklock. The strongbox key was in it.
The key was still there.
When he was ten, the contents of the strongbox had been a bore, too: nothing but papers, not the pirate treasure he had expected. This time, he hoped for a letter. It would be positively disappointing to find jewels instead.
He sorted quickly through the box, looking for the same kind of seal and paper he recalled from the letter he had seen and taking care not to change the order. Most of the contents appeared to be government documents. It took only moments to find it.
Tony,
Today I dropped into the Cocoa Tree to see if I could gather any further Intelligence. Much of what I heard around me was the Usual sedit
ious nonsense, all smoke and no Flame. I myself found it obnoxious that the late King spoke no English and so very obviously preferred the Principality of Hanover to his far more important English realm. It was unfortunate no Protestant heir more closely related to James I existed. But there is no use in raking up the past now. If ’twere only the Young Pretender and a handful of Highlanders up in Scotland, ’twould be no very great thing. However, some of our own Jacobites are in a Ferment, most particularly some frequenting the Cocoa Tree. They would bear close watching. I saw young Pleasaunce there, mighty serious with several other men I did not recognize. I recall that at the time of my Sister’s wedding, the Pleasaunce family and the Stowes were hand in glove. Recently, my niece mentioned that young Rupert Stowe is Engaged to marry one of the Pleasaunce girls. This makes me very uneasy, as I am sure you can understand.
Yr Most Obedient—
A coach rattled to a stop outside. Voices carried up to the study window, and one of them was his father’s.
Oh, Hades. Alex folded the sheet and tucked it back into its place, and closed and locked the strongbox. Sliding the key into its hiding place took another heart-pounding moment. Then he was closing the door carefully. He heard his father’s voice.
“We will be in the library. Bring up a bottle of the claret. Then I do not wish to be disturbed further.”
“Very good, sir.”
Alex went up the stairs soft-footed and reached his bedchamber unseen.
Chapter 10
Jane was in the kitchen speaking with Mrs. Merry when the scullery maid came in from her half-day holiday.
“I hope your mother is well? And your little brothers?”
“Oh, yes, mistress, thank you. And my brother Jeremy is to attend the Davenant school, that teaches poor boys to read, write, and do their numbers. But I saw the oddest thing when I left my mam.”
“What was that?”
“Now, Betty, don’t be boring on, taking Mistress Jane’s time,” Cook said.
“No, no, let Betty tell us. She is great with news, Mrs. Merry.”
“I saw Mr. Rupert going into a tavern. I can’t think why a gentleman would want to go to a low sailor’s public house like that one.”
Most Secret Page 7