“You mean like mistresses and such? I doubt there is a wife alive who does not know of those things, although we are supposed to pretend they do not exist.”
They had reached a bench overlooking a pretty scene of water and trees and horses in the distance. “Let us sit awhile,” Lowell said. “No one can overhear our conversation, and you do not need to fear offending my tender sensibilities, for I assure you I have none. I take it you suspected your husband had been keeping a cherie amour tucked away in a love nest somewhere? Such postmortem revelations are fairly common. I heard of one instance where bequests in a baron’s will led to the discovery of an entire separate family, of which his true wife had no prior knowledge.”
“I did not know what to suspect, although such possibilities of course occurred to me, to be discarded for various reasons. My husband had more than one vice, I am afraid. Then I was given information by a seemingly trustworthy young man that led me to believe my husband had indeed been conducting illicit liaisons. He was not, however, keeping his birds of paradise in well-feathered nests. He was supporting his children.” When her companion did not respond, Mina added, “Many children, that boy Perry included.”
Lowell was not surprised. “I believe there were rumors of wagers between Lord Sparrowdale and another old rip over who could father the most sons. The gossip died down at your marriage, I understand, or perhaps the other contestant simply died. I do not recall if the names of the ladybirds were ever mentioned.”
“No, nor the fate of those sons, I daresay.”
“But you tell me that Lord Sparrowdale did support his progeny? Many men would have walked away from the costly burden, if they acknowledged responsibility at all.”
“I suppose my husband had to claim paternity to win his wager. As for maintaining the children in a semblance of comfort, I am not certain he had a choice.”
Lord Lowell was polishing his lenses again. He seemed to do that when he was thinking, Mina realized. She did not wait for him to reason it out. “I believe someone was holding a threat over his head. There were grounds, it seems, for at least one valid breech-of-promise suit on behalf of one of the mothers. False marriage certificates and such. Lord Sparrowdale wished to avoid a public trial. So he paid for the children. Now I wish to continue that support.” She did not mention that she was planning on gathering the waifs and raising them as a family, her family. Let his lordship find the children first.
“That is a very worthy sentiment indeed,” he told her. “You have my admiration, Countess. Only a true lady would act so kindly.”
His praise warmed Mina, despite the slight chill from sitting on the bench. They both knew she was no lady born. “Thank you, but I cannot act on my feelings, worthy or not. I cannot find the children, or the boy who brought me the information and knows where they are. That is why I require your services.”
“What, no dragons to slay? Finding a lost boy is mere child’s play. Why, I shall barely earn the price of the curricle.”
“I told you, the curricle is yours to keep. But I doubt you will find the search as easy as you believe. Finding the children will be more difficult if the new Earl of Sparrowdale does not wish them found.” Now Mina was truly chilled, as if a cloud blocked the sun, and drew her black knitted shawl more closely around her shoulders. “My husband’s nephew, who had been Roderick Sparr.”
“Ah,” was all Lowell said, going over in his mind what he knew of the new peer.
Now Mina twisted the fringe on her shawl. “There is more. One of the children might—just might, of course—pose a threat to Roderick’s succession.”
“A legitimate heir, you mean?” Lowell sat up straighter. “This case grows more interesting by the moment.”
“As I said, there is a remote possibility. I . . . I fear the boy is in danger.”
“Or you.”
“Me?”
“What if Roderick cannot find the boy either? It is easy enough for you to have an accident, or be set upon by thieves. London is a violent place, you know.”
Mina found it hard to believe, in this peaceful setting with swans paddling across the water nearby. Then she recalled Roderick’s threats. “You think my nephew-by-marriage could be so evil?”
“I think you are the only witness likely to be believed in a hearing of the College of Arms. If there is an actual question of the inheritance, you might stand between an earldom and defeat. Do you have proof?”
She was not ready to give it. “I am not sure.”
“Perhaps you ought to visit my mother sooner rather than later, I am thinking.”
Chapter Ten
Mina could not like the way her retainer’s mind rattled around. “What does a visit to your mother have to do with anything?”
“She cannot very well invite you to stay at Merrison House unless she makes your acquaintance first, can she?” When Lady Sparrowdale looked at him as if he were as queer as Dick’s hatband, Lowell explained: “If you are seen in my company, an investigator of some repute, if I have to say so myself, although my fame has more to do with my pedigree than my prowess, Roderick will get his wind up. But my mother mentioned knowing the Albrights, your mother’s family. What could be more readily accepted than her inviting an old school chum and her young cousin to stay, to relieve the tedium of their mourning period? No one would question my escort of my mother’s guest. Most important, you would be a great deal safer at my house, with my trusted servants keeping watch, than among strangers at your hotel.”
Mina nervously licked her lips. “Then you do think Roderick is dangerous?”
Lowell had to turn away, lest his thoughts follow Lady Sparrow’s tongue instead of her case. She was an appealing little thing, but dragging out a new claimant to a succession was serious business indeed. “To be truthful, I never liked Roderick Sparr when I knew him as a schoolboy. He was a bully, picking on the smaller, younger boys while fawning over the older, titled lads.”
“Yes, that is how I have always seen him. He tried to ingratiate himself with Lord Sparrowdale, yet treated the servants abysmally. That is one of the reasons Harkness is in Town with me, because he will not work for the new earl. I cannot imagine what Roderick would have been like as a child if he’d been the heir.”
“I’d wager he imagined just such a thing. The question is whether he helped his dreams come true.”
“I do not understand. Lord Sparrowdale was not killed. He was ill,” Mina said without mentioning the specifics of her husband’s ailment. If Lord Lowell was a competent investigator, he would already know. “Everyone understood that Lord Sparrowdale’s condition was grave. Furthermore, Roderick was not at Sparrows Nest when his uncle actually passed on. I was there, and nothing untoward hastened the earl’s demise.”
“No, but Roderick was with young Harmon, Viscount Sparling, when that cloth-head was given notice to quit. Blame my curious nature, but I was never satisfied with the circumstances surrounding Sparling’s death.”
“What circumstances? He was knifed in a tavern brawl, after being caught cheating. I might have little regard for Roderick myself, but surely you cannot think he stabbed his own cousin.”
“I do think that Sparling could have been saved from the dissolute life he was leading. Your husband, forgive my bluntness, was no great example. When he no longer exerted any control over his heir, the cousin still could have. Sparling looked up to his older relation, yet Roderick made no attempt to curb the cub’s wilder impulses. There were, in fact, rumors that Sparr made a practice of introducing gullible young men to the seamier segments of the City, bringing green-as-grass gudgeons in to be fleeced by his compatriots in crime. Sparling was another of his gulls.”
“I am not surprised, but Roderick still did not wield the knife. He does not like to get his hands dirty.”
“The knife may have killed Sparling, but the weighted dice were the actual cause of death.”
“Of course, but—”
“I knew Sparling. He was a drunkard an
d a gambler and a womanizer. He was not a cheat.”
Mina, naturally, had not known her stepson in his earlier years. She had never seen him not in his altitudes and not below-hatches, yet neither had she seen him pilfering from the petty-cash drawer or stealing silver from the house. “You think Roderick could have placed those dice in his cousin’s pocket? Or switched them at the baize table?”
“What I think is that you will be safer at my house.”
Mina felt guilty. She had not told Lord Lowell the half of it, yet here he was inviting her into his home. He did not know that she intended to raise Sparrowdale’s children herself, or that the possible heir was her own impossibly alive son.
His mother would set the kindhearted gentleman straight. The duchess would remember, or know someone else who did, that Mina was nothing but a tradesman’s daughter with a blotted copybook. Her Grace would not approve her son’s association with Lady Sparrow. She certainly would not invite Malachy Caldwell’s daughter, the widow of the wastrel, wanton Lord Sparrowdale, into her home.
Mina was wrong. The duchess was elated. Guests in the great house? The more the merrier. A piquet partner? An old friend to reminisce with? Her Grace and Dorcas Albright were not truly friends, but they were both growing old, so they must have been young together. Besides, London was thinning of company these days, and Her Grace was weary of the usual social rounds. She would have traveled to the ducal seat in Somerset, but she was not happy there, with her daughter-in-law in charge. Now she had new faces, new gossip, a bit of intrigue, and a wedding to plan. As for the last, well, a mother could hope, couldn’t she?
Her Grace liked the looks of the gel, except that Lady Sparrow still had that birdlike delicacy. She made the duchess appear plump by comparison, when everyone knew the dowager was not fat; she was formidable. No matter, the younger woman’s lack of inches was more than amply compensated for by her pounds in the bank. Beyond that, Sparrowdale’s widow was passably pretty, neat and dignified, without being coming. She was dressed tastefully instead of being draped in crepe—no one would believe she was grieving for that dirty dish Sparrowdale or her mushroom of a father no matter how much black she wore. The duchess did acknowledge that losing both of them, one on top of the other, had to be unsettling. Now, according to Lowell, she was in London paying Sparrowdale’s debts, like the good, sensible woman she seemed. She was not flighty in the least, like those simpering chits he refused to partner at Almack’s. In other words, Lady Sparrowdale was a perfect match for her son.
Of course, the chit could be too rich. Lolly just might get on his high horse and balk at living off a wealthy wife. Someone should tell the boy a second son could not afford such scruples—someone other than his mother, who had been repeating that advice for so long, Lolly never listened. Looking on the bright side, perhaps Sparrowdale’s debts were so high that they would make inroads into the young widow’s inheritance. Not too deep inroads, of course.
All in all, the Duchess of Mersford liked what she saw, and she liked the way her son already appeared to be protective of the lady. She liked how a slight smile played about his lips whenever the countess glanced his way. Her Grace liked, too, how Lady Sparrowdale’s eyes followed Lolly’s movements. It was a good start. The duchess was happy with her company.
Mina was happy to be at Merrison House until the matter of her husband’s by-blows was resolved and she had a home of her own. This way she could make sure Lord Lowell let her participate in the investigation. “For I mean to join you in this inquiry, you understand,” she had told him on the way to his family’s town house that morning, when they left the park. “If you cannot accept that, having a woman as a partner, tell me now, before we go another block.”
“We are not partners, madam, and cannot be, but not because you are a woman. We are employer and employee, which means that when you pay the piper, you get to call the tunes. Since you have not shown me your list of dates and initials, not given me more than the name Peregrine, I would be a fool to refuse your assistance. It is not what I am used to, having someone else along, but I will manage unless things grow dangerous. I do refuse to let you put yourself in peril, however, if for no other reason than that I would have to save you. The curricle could not half cover the cost of rescues. If you cannot accept that, tell me before we reach Mersford Square and my mother.” Who would likely adopt Lady Sparrowdale, he knew, in her matchmaking glee at having an heiress to hand.
Mina had agreed to his terms, having no choice if she wished Lord Lowell’s help. Now she was glad she had. The duchess did remember Mina’s mother and was everything kind. Her Grace was an imposing female, with Lord Lowell’s fair hair and blue eyes. Her blondness seemed to owe somewhat less to nature than to her coiffeur, and her eyesight appeared to need as much assistance. Still, she was not the least bit disapproving or disdainful of Mina’s background. Her invitation to stay seemed sincere.
Of course the duchess did not know of the possible danger or Sparrowdale’s indecent number of by-blows. His lordship had merely said that Mina was concluding her husband’s unfinished business. With luck, Mina and that business—as many of them as she could find—would soon be on their way.
Cousin Dorcas was thrilled to be at Merrison House. At the Clarendon, no matter that it was the finest hotel in the city, Miss Albright had feared infested sheets, light-fingered maids, spoiled food, and being ogled by strange men in the hallways. She had also feared that Mina would expect chaperonage on her hey-go-mad hunt for Sparrowdale’s seedlings. Dirty hired carriages, dirty uncivilized neighborhoods, and more strange men with dirty looks. Oh, dear. No matter how much Dorcas loved her young cousin, and how grateful she was for Mina’s generosity, Dorcas was sure to have spasms within the sennight.
Now the escort of their hostess’s son ought to placate propriety, although young Merrison was as strange as a two-headed hen. Why, anyone could see how his mother doted on him. Unless the current duke kept both of them punting on Tick, there was no reason for the gentleman to be working for a living, much less in such a nasty way. He did seem a decent sort, though, not at all intimidating in his eyeglasses. As for their hostess, the duchess enjoyed cards, suffered innumerable interesting complaints, and had a vast stock of gossip, ancient or new. Dorcas felt she had landed in clover. Best of all, Merrison House was desperately short of doilies. Miss Albright could be useful without even leaving the premises.
Harkness was pleased to take up residence in a well-run duke’s residence, as a guest. The more out of joint the Merrison House butler’s nose grew, in fact, the more Harkness enjoyed himself. He was Lady Sparrowdale’s man of affairs for the nonce, entrusted with inspecting the various establishments offered for sale or lease by the real estate agents. He was also entrusted with visiting the various public houses where servants gathered, especially the staff of Sparr House. Surely, Lord Lowell and Mina’s butler had decided, Sparrowdale’s people were more likely to talk about their employers with Harkness than with a swell. Just as surely, someone there, the footmen or the coachmen, would know where the old earl had spent his evenings. Lowell thought he’d like to know where the new earl spent his, too.
Even the dog was happy to be at Merrison House, with its walled garden and tree-lined square just across the street. Merlin did not even need the key to the gate, since he was small enough to squeeze under the rungs. The cook was friendly, too, unlike the stiff-rumped chef at the Clarendon, with his curses and his meat cleaver.
Happiest of all that Lady Sparrowdale was at Merrison House was Lord Lowell Merrison himself. She was safe; he was working. He was never so content as when he was employed on an inquiry, and this one intrigued him. Other men loved to follow the fox. Lowell liked to untangle mysteries. He knew the countess was not telling the entire truth—she was not a good liar, stumbling over the words, studying her shoes—and the additional question of what she was hiding added to his enthusiasm for the chase. Putting Roderick Sparr in his place—or out of his place, as the case might be
—was incentive enough for him to track the previous earl’s pestilential path. He would pursue the investigation on his own, without remuneration, just to satisfy his curiosity and sense of fair play.
Of course it was always nicer to be paid, especially on the generous terms Lady Sparrowdale offered. The best reward of all, though, he decided, would be removing those worry lines from her brow and the troubled shadows from beneath her doe-brown eyes. Hell, he’d try to find Atlantis for Lady Sparrow, just for one of her sweet smiles. Yes, he was happy to have her under his roof.
Chapter Eleven
They began the search that same afternoon, while Harkness and Ochs, the Merrison House butler, argued over the disposition of Lady Sparrowdale’s boxes and belongings. Dorcas and the duchess were busy comparing stitchery and symptoms.
They took the curricle again, with the same boy up behind to hold the horses when they made frequent stops. Often, they walked and he met them a few blocks ahead. They started checking churches in Kensington, then schools. If Peregrine Radway and his granny had lived here any length of time, someone would know them.
Unless, Lowell warned, the lad had given a false name and direction. Mina had the list with P.R. written on it, though, and so was hopeful.
None of the curates they spoke to recognized the name, nor did the superintendents of the nearby boys’ schools. Mina’s description of the boy’s dark hair and aquiline nose seemed to strike a familiar chord with one of the instructors, but not even a coin could produce an address.
They could not very well go door to door, asking for a boy and his grandmother. There were too many houses, for one thing, long rows of attached buildings, and Perry had said they merely had rooms there. Scores of places displayed ROOMS TO LET signs outside, and flats were situated over every shop and office. For another thing, they were strangers, and the residents of this neighborhood did not trust anyone asking too many questions. Lowell misdoubted they were getting the honest answers to their inquiries.
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