Lady Sparrow

by Barbara Metzger

  First they had to stop to let the dog be sick.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Perry was not at the address given. Neither was his grandmother, nor the retired curate. No one answered the front door of the narrow cottage, nor the kitchen entry around back. The place looked abandoned, with one blown flower on the solitary rosebush in the tiny backyard.

  Mina felt worse than before. “I only wanted to help, to make his life better.” She glanced around at the unkempt dirt path, the missing step. “Now he is hurt, and gone who knows where.”

  Lowell was looking around, wondering which of the few dwellings in the area might contain someone with knowledge of that very thing. He led her away from the cottage. “Fustian. It is not your fault, none of it. He came to you, if you recall. The boy sought you out, not the other way around. He’d already been to the solicitor and to Roderick, you said. They knew of his existence long before you did. They did not listen to his pleas for help—only you were decent enough to do that—but they knew of the danger, if he is, indeed, a threat to one of them.”

  “Surely you cannot suspect Mr. Sizemore, my man of affairs.”

  “No, he is not high on my list. He has nothing to gain, that I can see, and nothing to lose, either. It is your money you would be spending on the children, none of his. I intend to have a conversation with the man this very afternoon, though, to see what manner of fellow he is.”

  “Cousin Dorcas admires him greatly, if that is any recommendation. She does not, generally, like many gentlemen.”

  “She has hardly spoken two words to me, so I must suppose her approval of Sizemore counts for something. Does she also esteem Lord Sparrowdale—Roderick, that is?”

  “She will not stay in the room with him.”

  “Ah. That says a great deal about Miss Albright’s acumen.” The cottage they had reached was also empty, so Lowell headed back in the other direction, pacing his steps to Lady Sparrow’s shorter ones.

  “Then you agree with me that Roderick might be behind the attack on Perry?”

  “If what you say is true, that his title and fortune and future are in jeopardy, then certainly. Any one of those is motive enough for mayhem. I doubt if Roderick himself would skulk around street corners to thrash a young boy—and chance being identified—but he would not be above hiring a thug to do his bidding. Unfortunately, one cannot convict a man because his taste in waistcoats is abominable.”

  “Or because he pads his calves.”

  “No, does he? There is something inherently untrustworthy about a chap who resorts to sawdust and buckram wadding, isn’t there?” he said with a smile.

  Mina could not help glancing at her companion’s nether limbs. She doubted Lord Lowell had to use any artifice to attain his manly physique. His waistcoat this morning was a subdued gray, with the narrowest of saffron stripes. If one were to judge a gentleman by his appearance, her detective was top of the trees. She pulled her eyes away from her impolite scrutiny and noticed movement on the top floor of the curate’s cottage, through the small, curtainless window.

  They went to investigate. Actually, Lord Lowell went, telling Mina to stay behind with the curricle and the tiger and the dog, who was too ill to get down at his own house. There was no telling what unpleasantness they might find, Lowell warned, heading up the dark stairwell. Mina did not stay back, of course. She had nursed Lord Sparrowdale in his extremities. Nothing could be worse.

  As she climbed, the odors of paint and lacquer and turpentine met her nose, and she could hear Lord Lowell’s deep voice in conversation with another man.

  “Well, where did they all go, then?” he was asking.

  When she reached the final landing, Mina realized she was in an artist’s garret, with canvases stacked from floor to ceiling. Some were finished and framed, while others were in various stages of completion. They were all of women. Naked women. She fixed her eyes on the young artist himself, rather than on the embarrassing paintings. He was dark, unshaven, and unwashed, with streaks of paint on his chest where his shirt was open. No, she could not look there either. She stared at Lord Lowell instead. “They must have told you,” he said to the artist, “if they left you here in the house.”

  “Non, non. They do not tell Marcel thees thing. Or I forgot, n’est-ce-pas? The divine inspiration, she comes, and Marcel paints. He does not bother with the petit folie of the common man who sees no vision of beauty.”

  He did eat, though. For a half-crown, Marcel recalled mention of a sister in the country. The curate’s sister? Madame Radway’s sister? Perhaps Marcel’s sister. He rubbed his face in thought, leaving a broad new stripe of carmine on his cheek. “Non. I have no more knowledge of thees people. I know a jeune fille’s leg, the dimple on her knee, that fold where her thigh meets a man’s dreams, where—”

  Mina choked, and not on the odd smell mixed in with the turpentine.

  Marcel whirled around, paintbrush in hand, and spotted her in the doorway. “Mon Dieu, a mirage!”

  “No, she is a muttonhead who does not listen to orders,” Lowell muttered, trying to shield her from the artist’s view.

  Marcel bounded around him. “Non, she is my muse, my inspiration! That skin, those eyes, that hair! I must paint her. I will die if I cannot paint her.”

  Lowell vowed the dauber was going to die anyway, if he came one inch closer to Lady Sparrow. He stepped in front of her again. “Perhaps I would consider commissioning you to do the lady’s portrait—”

  From behind him, Mina made a sound somewhere between an eek and an eck.

  “Properly clothed, of course,” Lowell added. “We can talk about it more when you bring me an address for Mrs. Radway.” He handed over one of his cards and dragged the countess down the stairs so fast her half-boots barely touched the worn treads.

  “He was quite talented, wasn’t he?” Mina ventured when they were in the curricle and Lord Lowell was turning it for home, his jaw set in angry lines.

  “The man could have been Michelangelo for all I care. You should have listened to me, dash it. That was no place for a lady!”

  “But it was not dangerous, and that was our agreement.” Dealing with the dying Lord Sparrowdale had given Mina practice in managing irate gentlemen, if nothing else. She quickly changed the subject. “Do you think Monsieur Marcel will remember the address, or remember to bring it?”

  “I am surprised the nodcock can remember his name, with all the fumes in that place. I will send a man around to the other neighbors tonight, when they might be home from their work. And I can have someone check the church registry for the curate’s name and next of kin. We will find the boy, do not worry.”

  Not worrying was easier said than done, which Lowell seemed to understand. “Besides, you gave him enough blunt to get away from any more dangers, so he is safe.”

  “You do not think Roderick will be looking for him?”

  “I think that if we cannot find Perry, neither can the new earl. Why would he try, anyway? If what we suspect is true, the beating was a warning.”

  “Unless Roderick was trying to find information about the other children, especially about the one who might usurp his title.”

  Lowell shook his head. “No, I do not think so. If all he wanted was information, he would have had the boy kidnapped and brought to him for questioning. And if Perry had told what he knew, then he and his grandmother would have had no reason to flee. The others are as safe as they ever were.”

  Except for the fire at the foundling home.

  They did not find out about the fire until after luncheon, during which the duchess planned her dinner party. Mina did not know many of the names Her Grace mentioned, except by repute. When she claimed the company was flying too high for a simple country widow, the duchess raised her lorgnette to an eye the same shade of blue as her son’s and announced, “No company is too lofty for the home of the Duke of Mersford, nor for a guest in the house. Some, including our harum-scarum heir to the throne, are not elevated enough.
Invitations to Merrison House are highly prized.”

  “Give over, ma’am,” Lowell told Mina from his end of the table. “My mother will not be swayed, so if she says you will enjoy yourself at the dinner, enjoy yourself you will. I have learned it is easier not to argue, for one always loses.”

  The duchess let her looking glass fall back on its ribbon. “There, do you see what a brilliant son I have, and what a comfortable husband he will make some lucky—”

  Lord Lowell’s complacency did not extend to discussions of his matrimonial prospects over mutton. “When were you planning on holding this dinner in Lady Sparrowdale’s honor, Mother? We might have to travel out of town to pursue the investigation.”

  “Nonsense. Nothing is more important than establishing Minerva’s bona fides in the beau monde. I thought Tuesday next. You shall have to plan accordingly.”

  With a wink to the countess, he told his mother, “You might also order a clear night. You would not want the occasion marred by a rainstorm.”

  The duchess was too busy discussing the menu with Cousin Dorcas to reply to his barb. She did mention that the gardens were lovely this time of year. She would see that lights were strung along the paths, in case any of the company wished to stroll there, anyone with a particle of romance in his soul.

  Ignoring her gibe in turn, Lowell turned back to Mina. “I thought you might come with me to visit your solicitor this afternoon while we wait for my men to report back. If he is any kind of decent lawyer, he will not discuss your affairs without your permission.” And if Lowell was any decent judge, the house would soon be filled with gentleman callers. The hall was already cluttered with floral tributes—and the caper merchants had not even seen what an angel she looked. They would never see, if he had his druthers, but for now he could keep her away from the hordes, away from the house.

  They were about to leave, without the dog this time, when Harkness intercepted them. He ignored Ochs’s cluck of disapproval that a jumped-up rustic butler should be using the front door, and followed them back to the privacy of the library, where he told them about the fire.

  He had been out looking at properties for sale or rent, without finding anything satisfactory. The ceilings of the house he was inspecting had water spots, not a good sign, so Harkness was ready to move on when the fire brigade went by. Curious as to how the London insurance companies dealt with fires, he had followed along, with a great many other interested spectators.

  The building that was ablaze, he had learned from a neighboring onlooker, was a home for orphans, a private establishment, not a government-funded institution. The woman who ran it, Mrs. Ella Strickland, raised up children—for a fee. They were boys and girls no one wanted, but no one wanted to see them thrown into almshouses either. As long as the fee was paid, Ella kept children born when their mothers were “visiting abroad,” or when their father’s new wives made clean sweeps, or when both parents were dead and the relatives would not take on the chore. One boy, he’d heard, was a cripple, and the parents could not bear to look at him. Conscience money, that’s what they all paid, instead of leaving the infants at the door of some church.

  When Harkness got there, Mrs. Strickland was being comforted by the captain of the fire brigade—very comforted, indeed, it seemed to the watchers—and the children were in a row, across the street. Harkness could not get a good look at them, through the smoke and the crowds and the horse-drawn water wagons, but someone said they were all rescued. The blaze was quickly extinguished before the house was destroyed, to the onlookers’ applause. Harkness thought Lady Sparrowdale and her high-born investigator would be particularly interested in knowing that no one was injured, but all of the home’s records had been destroyed. And Ella Strickland had either taken to smoking cigars or entertaining gentlemen callers who did, or else someone had started the fire in her office.

  Chapter Fifteen

  They took a carriage this time, at Mina’s request. She wanted to be prepared in case they were able to bring a child home with them. She would have no youngster of hers—or her husband’s—languish a moment longer than necessary in dire circumstances, if such were the case.

  “You will never make a Bow Street investigator, ma’am, leaping to such conclusions,” Lowell told her as he handed her up into the coach. “We have no way of knowing yet whether this establishment is one of those filthy rats’ nests where infants go barefoot and hungry. Your foundling just might be living a life of ease, healthy and happy. He or she might not wish to leave with you at all.”

  He told the driver to spring the horses, though, Mina noted, as anxious as she to reach the Strickland Charity Home. She twisted the strings on her reticule, willing traffic to make way for them.

  Lowell was content to take the facing seat, his back to the horses, where he might watch the countess, surely a more pleasant view than the scenery he had seen a hundred times. Of course she was in yet another black gown, but he thought her expressive eyes would never grow boring. Trying to lighten the worry lines on her brow, he asked, “Have you given any consideration to what you will do with the child once you have it in your keeping?”

  “I did ask your mother,” Mina quickly replied, lest he think she was presuming on Her Grace’s hospitality. “She said I might place the child in the old nursery, since your brother seldom visits with his children. It is a temporary arrangement only, of course. Harkness is bound to find something suitable any day. And you must not think that I mean my child—my foster child—to be a burden on your household. Cousin Dorcas and I will take care of him or her until I can hire a nursery maid and a governess or a tutor. Whatever is required. Your people will not be overworked, I swear.”

  Cousin Dorcas was looking forward to caring for one of Sparrowdale’s bastards as much as she was looking forward to old age, but Mina did not mention that.

  “Nonsense,” Lowell replied, sounding very much like his authoritative mother. “Old Nanny Vann is at her sister’s in Hans Town, complaining of too much time on her hands.” Vanny was complaining her Lolly ought to settle down and start his own nursery, but Lowell did not mention that. “And we have more than enough servants at Merrison House to look after any number of waifs. No, what I meant was what you will do about the child’s future, not tomorrow?”

  “I cannot make plans, of course, until I know the child. We do not even know if it is a boy or a girl. For that matter, there might be more than one of Sparrowdale’s offspring at this place—or none. Then too, the fire might have been a coincidence. Fires break out all the time, I understand.”

  “That fire was as coincidental as Perry Radway being set upon by footpads,” Lowell stated positively. “There is definitely a connection. We both believe we will find one of the children—a boy, since a girl would be no threat to anyone’s inheritance. Would you be doing this lad a favor by taking him into your home? He cannot be educated or trained in the ways of a gentleman, you know, unless you think such traits are born in the blood.”

  Mina could not imagine that someone like Lord Lowell would not exhibit good breeding, be he acting as blacksmith or boatswain. The man was a gentleman from his knowing blue eyes to his tapered fingers to his kindness to the flower girl. Yet Sparrowdale was born a gentleman, as was his makebait son. No, Mina did not think gentility was inborn. Just look at her, a shipbuilder’s daughter, being treated as a lady, and trying to act like one. “Then what are you suggesting, that I leave him where he is, with others of his kind?”

  “No, I am merely offering the thought that the boy might be happier if you found him a position at your father’s shipyards, where he could learn a trade and earn his living, rather than live among the ton, where he will never be accepted.”

  “I would never be so selfish as to keep the child where he would be wretched, just to have him near me.”

  “I never meant to imply such a thing. You are the most unselfish female I have ever known.”

  Mina’s heart warming at the praise, she said, “They are m
y shipyards now, so I could easily begin an apprentice program and school. I have been thinking of finding a place in the country, anyway, and the house in Portsmouth is sitting empty.”

  “That might do,” Lowell agreed. Then he took his glasses off to inspect them for smudges and pulled out a clean handkerchief to wipe them. “Unless, of course, this hypothetical boy is the missing heir to Sparrowdale’s estates.”

  Mina looked away, busying herself in trying to unknot the strings of her reticule. “I suppose that is possible.”

  “Do you not also suppose it is time to tell me why you think one of these children might be legitimate?”

  Mina sighed. She trusted him, her hired investigator, and yet . . . and yet she wanted to enjoy that look of approbation she read in his eyes now and then for just a bit longer. It had been so long since a man had regarded her with appreciation or with admiration, perhaps never. Men had looked her way with lust and with longing—for her fortune. This gentleman seemed genuinely pleased with her looks, for he always gave her gentle smiles when she appeared, and they had already agreed on a price for his services. He did not have to be kind to earn it. No, she did not want to have to confess to him about that foolish elopement. Nor did she want to hear him say her dreams of getting her own son back were merely that. Not yet.

  She told him again of Perry’s mother, instead, how Sparrowdale actually married the unsuspecting girl, then admitted he was already wed, invalidating the marriage. “What if he had done the same to other innocent young women, but during the time when he was not married? There were five years, I believe, between the death of the first countess and my own marriage. There are two dates, and two sets of initials that fall between that time.” She handed him a copy of the list she had made. “He might have been so certain that the young women he chose would not contest his claims, that he did it again.”