Lady Rogue

by Theresa Romain

  “They were indeed very,” sighed George. “They are always very. Ah, well. If you’ll excuse me, ladies?” With a nod, he thundered down the stairs—onward to wherever he’d been heading before Isabel smacked into him.

  Lucy stepped forward again and handed Isabel her reticule. “Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Selina. And for the loan of your cat.”

  “The loan of a cat?” Isabel’s brows lifted in some alarm.

  Lady Selina laughed. “Only while Miss Wallace is here, never fear. I know you have a dog of your own, and poor Titan is all but overset when she encounters Gog and Magog. But Miss Wallace, you must come back and visit Titan anytime, and me as well.”

  With that friendly farewell, Isabel and Lucy descended the stairs and clambered into the carriage that had been waiting.

  As the carriage lurched into motion, Isabel itched to write down her observations, but a question had to be posed first. “Lucy, dear, I noticed that you were shy of George—that is, Lord Northbrook. Is there some reason for your shyness? Has he . . .” Isabel searched for the right word. George would never disrespect a lady, but he could be, as he had said of the dogs, very.

  “Oh, no! His lordship has been everything amiable.” Lucy’s eyes went wide. “I hope I didn’t embarrass you. Only I did not expect to see a gentleman there, and I fear I curtsied rather badly.”

  “You need not startle around him. Oh—unless you were thinking of him as a potential match? Because I really wouldn’t advise it.”

  “I would never look so high,” insisted Lucy, a jut to her jaw.

  “It’s not that,” said Isabel. Although Lucy was probably right; when George wed, it would be to a woman of as lofty a pedigree as his own. “He is not a bad man, but his habits are not what I would wish for in a husband for you.”

  Lucy looked embarrassed, so Isabel turned the subject on impulse. “The duke’s loud dogs gave me an idea. I wonder if dogs can be trained to be silent? We’ve assumed we have to live with Brinley’s barking, but perhaps not.”

  Lucy frowned, thinking. “Brinley is such a good little dog, but he does bark at everything. I could try to train him out of it. What do you think, would meat be good as a training treat?”

  Isabel recalled George’s complaint about Gog and Magog being immune to bribes of liver. “Perhaps cakes,” she suggested. “They are my favorites. Why not a dog’s as well?”

  She was rather proud of her suggestion. Lucy loved Brinley, and she could take on the helpful task of sorting out what quieted a stubbornly loud dog. Not that there would be time to train Gog and Magog, of course. But if Isabel could get them to consume a drugged cake . . .

  As the carriage pulled up before the Lombard Street house, Isabel marveled at how quickly her life had changed. For a few months after Andrew’s death, she’d simply been a colorless widow. Then, faced with a secret, she had taken a lover and gained a secret of her own. Over the past year, she must have been changing without realizing it—for now her house didn’t fit her correctly, the ring on her finger seemed too binding, and she was plotting how to break into a duke’s home and drug his beloved dogs.

  Andrew had guided her so firmly during his life. In a way, he had also determined what she’d made of herself since his death.

  Finally, she was becoming something she rather enjoyed.

  Once the footman had helped Lucy down, he held out a hand for Isabel. She reached out—then changed her mind. “No, thank you, Douglas. I shan’t come in just yet.” Calling to her coachman, she asked him to take her to Bow Street.

  The carriage door closed with a satisfying clunk. Through the window, Isabel saw Lucy’s pale face, surprised, in the doorway of the house. But then the carriage rolled away, and she tugged the pencil and pocketbook of paper from her reticule and began to scribble notes.

  When she finished, just as the carriage pulled up before the court building, she tucked her items away again. After a brief hesitation, she tugged off her ring and tucked it into her reticule too.

  Not because she was going to see Callum Jenks. Just because it didn’t feel as if it belonged on her finger anymore.

  Chapter Five

  “I’ve cleared my case load, Fox,” Callum told the magistrate. “You said if I had time, I could pursue further inquiry into the Chapple case.”

  “Jenks. No.”

  “I recall it perfectly, sir. You said that once I—”

  “I shouldn’t have made the offer.” Speaking below the ever-present clamor in the courtroom, Augustus Fox eased his bulk into the seat behind his bench. “Nothing more about that business with Sir Frederic Chapple. It’s not possible.”

  “It is possible,” Callum said. “I just need your blessing to—”

  “Jenks. No,” Fox said again. “You know I’d give a different answer if I could. But as matters stand, we’re lucky Chapple didn’t ask for an apology.”

  “An apology?” Callum spat out the word. “For letting him return to his soft life without any consequences?”

  “He did spend nearly a year in prison,” Fox said mildly, searching through the case notes before him. “Ah, is Janey appearing before me again today? Good to see a familiar face. Hmm, a shopkeeper has accused her of picking his pocket. Must’ve been off her game.”

  “Let her off with a warning,” Callum said. Janey was one of the officers’ best informants in the area. The occasional stolen purse was worth the trade.

  “I’ll fine her this time, I think. We’ve been seeing her too often of late. If she truly did pick a pocket, she’ll have the means to pay it.”

  Fox looked up, taking in the crowd before the railing that separated the bench from the rest of the courtroom. The room was not large, and it seemed full of arms and legs and indignant gestures, drab clothing, and the occasional bright feathered bonnet. It smelled of wet wool and recent rain. “Are you certain you cleared your case load?”

  “That’s why half these people are here,” Callum said. “Petty thieves, the man who’s been smashing shop windows along James Street, and another fool holding a mock auction.”

  He tried one more time. “You know it’s not right, sir. The baronet might have spent a time in prison, but my brother is dead. It’s unjust for Sir Frederic to blame his dead conspirators for his own crime.”

  Fox’s heavy brows knit over his large blade of a nose. “I’ve never argued that it was. But we haven’t the evidence or means to open the case again. You know that.”

  He rubbed a hand over his eyes, sighing. “On a similar note, I’m quite certain Angelus has fixed the games in that gambling hell in Great Earl Street. But getting proof of anything related to him, especially in Seven Dials . . .” With a harrumph, he jammed the curled, powdered wig onto his head and took up his gavel.

  Angelus again. The man was everywhere, but he couldn’t be pinned down. Rather like the wind, or the yellow fog that crept over the pavement on a quiet London night.

  Callum gave the magistrate a curt nod, accepting his dismissal. Fox was a voice for justice, but he was only one man, and there were those with voices much louder and more powerful. Voices not for justice, but for secrecy and gain, and Sir Frederic had blended them in a harmony that lifted him free. Likely he had already left London, if he’d truly been released from Newgate yesterday as he’d expected.

  But Callum was an Officer of the Police, and there were always more cases. An endless stream of victims and criminals. They all needed attention. Some needed help. Some got under his skin; some caught him about the heart.

  Turning away from Fox, Callum shoved through the hinged gate in the railing—only to be bookended at once by a pair of lanky redheads.

  “How do you do, storm cloud?” said his fellow officer, Charles Benton. “Didn’t get the answer you wanted from old Foxy, eh? Still on about that Royal Rewards case?”

  “Leave him be.” His twin sister, Cassandra, pulled a face at Charles. “He was fond of his brother. Though if elder Jenks was anything like you, Charles, I cannot und
erstand why.”

  Callum shook his head. Always bickering, always together, the Bentons looked as similar as if they’d stepped out of Twelfth Night. Yes, Callum knew his Shakespeare right enough, and there was little difference to speak of between the twin brother and sister. Both were tall and wiry with a strong jaw, though Cass’s chin was softened by a cleft and her features by a wide smile.

  “It’s fine,” Callum lied. “Doesn’t bother me in the slightest. The Royal Rewards case was a year ago. I’m content just to keep busy.”

  “You’re a fair liar, but I can always tell.” Cass tweaked his nose. “Your nostrils flare when you’re lying, as if your own words stink.”

  Callum clapped a hand over his nose and tried to glare at her, but it was impossible to stay out of temper around Cass. She was always sunny, thriving on the energy of the court and never forgetting a detail of a case. It was a shame she couldn’t become an officer. She’d likely have been the best on Fox’s team, not even excepting Callum himself.

  “Hullo, hullo.” Charles elbowed him. “If you want to keep busy, Jenks, there’s a prime piece to occupy you. Looks like a nob. What do you s’pose she’s doing here?”

  “Janey probably stole her purse,” grumbled Cass.

  Dropping his hand to his side, Callum looked in the direction his fellow officer indicated. And he was grateful for all his practice keeping a stone face, for if Charles and Cass knew how his heart thudded at the sight of Lady Isabel Morrow slipping around the edge of the courtroom, they’d have teased him mercilessly.

  Instead, he managed blandly, “I’m acquainted with the lady. She has engaged me for—”

  “A few sweaty nights?” Charles laughed.

  Callum rolled his eyes. “Never mind. It was going to be a fascinating tale, and now I won’t tell you.”

  “Charles, you are such a ruiner!” His sister batted him on the arm. “Jenks, who is she?”

  Grudgingly, he revealed Isabel’s name. Cass, with her alarming memory, recalled the Morrow case at once.

  “That poor woman,” she breathed. “To see her husband accidentally shot, just like that. And now she’s in some sort of trouble again?”

  “Definitely not,” Callum said firmly. “A person can solicit help without being in trouble.”

  He waved off his friends, then shoved his way through the clamorous crowd toward Lady Isabel. Today she was in gray again, with a funny sort of black bonnet over her hair. Unmistakably a lady, yet in her sober garb she drew no notice from the impatient sorts around her. It might as well have been a disguise.

  “My lady,” he said when he reached her side. The way she smiled up at him did nothing to slow the thump of his heart. “I didn’t expect to see you here. Do you need assistance?” Did you come to see me?

  “I have news,” she replied. “About our artistic venture. I’d no idea the courtroom would be so crowded, though. Should I tell you here, or is there a quieter location?”

  Callum glanced at the large timepiece on the wall, though the drift of shadows would have given a more accurate notion of the hour. Midafternoon, drawing on three o’clock, and Fox had still to hear the latest cases.

  Callum could stay to help, nudging miscreants along. He could take evidence from people waiting; collect fines from those whose judgments had already been passed down.

  Or he could slip off with Lady Isabel Morrow and let Charles Benton carry the load for once.

  “Come with me,” he decided. “I know just the place.”

  * * *

  “It doesn’t look private, but no one will listen to anything we say here,” Callum told Lady Isabel. “If we went back to my rooms, my landlady would be sure to listen at the door.”

  “Wouldn’t it be scandalous for me to go to your rooms?” She looked around at the public room, brows lifted, taking it all in.

  “Not to us. Not if we were only talking. Which is what we’ll do here. Unless you want to eat too.” He clamped his mouth shut so he wouldn’t continue uttering silly little sentences.

  The Boar’s Head on Hart Street was named for the tavern favored by Shakespeare’s Falstaff, which was the sort of indulgence theatrical folk loved. Though actors were rare birds who flocked together in their own favored haunts, the Boar’s Head was pinned halfway between the theaters in Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Thus, it collected stray actors and their patrons, as well as the everyday working folk of the surrounding streets, and no one looked twice at an odd new face. As it was but a quick jog from Bow Street, Callum had eaten many a meal here, met with many an informant.

  It was solidly respectable, but that was about the only compliment he could give it. He saw the public room as Lady Isabel must: dark and cool and a little dingy, its days of fashion left behind a century before. If one were to create a room opposite that of her home’s drawing room, it would look much like the one in which they stood.

  “I have never been in a place like this,” observed Lady Isabel.

  Callum held his tongue against more silly little sentences—these ones questions. Are you afraid? Is it too plain? Do you feel as if you’re visiting a menagerie? More than once, he’d encountered a wealthy person who treated him as if he were a different species entirely.

  “Hmm,” was all he said.

  “Your evergreen response.” She looked as if she was trying not to smile, then only shrugged. “Until today, I had never been in the Bow Street magistrate’s court either. It’s time I went to more places. Do you want something to eat while we are here, or only to talk?”

  And that was that. It was a place, and the people were people, and if she hadn’t still been oh-so-Lady Isabel Morrow-ish in her half-mourning gown with her blue-blooded pedigree, he would have been sorely tempted to gather her in his arms and plant a smacking great kiss on her lips.

  Instead, he crossed to the bar, where he ordered and paid for two pints of porter. “And one for yourself,” he told the barman.

  The grizzled man caught the coins with thanks. “Sally will bring ’em right over.”

  A trio of rough-looking men sat at the table in the corner that Callum preferred. Striding over, he leveled a glare at them. “Gentlemen, it’s time for you to go.”

  For a few seconds, their gazes held his. Then with grumbles and curses, they got up from their seats. Edging around the table, they touched their caps to Lady Isabel and scowled at Callum.

  “You have a supernatural ability, Officer.” Lady Isabel sounded surprised. “I’ve not seen a glare have that withering effect since I was presented to the Queen in 1808.”

  Callum was tempted to leave her with the impression that he possessed a stare more powerful than a weapon, but conscience forced him to admit the truth. “One of those men was my brother Jamie. He and the other two work at my parents’ grocery. I was being literal when I told them it was time to go. It’s far too early for the dinner hour.”

  “Another brother,” she mused, and he realized she must have put together his name with that of the dead guard from the Royal Rewards case the year before.

  “That’s all of us remaining,” he said shortly. “Jamie. Me. And one sister too. Here, have a seat.”

  He put two fingers to his mouth and whistled, the custom here for summoning the barmaid. The sound hung above the low patter of speech. When the dreamy young barmaid drifted over, pints of porter in hand, Callum deferred to Lady Isabel.

  “I’ll have whatever the gentleman recommends,” she said. So he ordered a loaf of bread and a pot of jam.

  When the barmaid left, taking away the tankards left behind by the three previous customers, Lady Isabel asked, “Does Angelus ever come here? Would you know him by sight?”

  Callum wiped at a sticky spot on the table. “Maybe. He’s good with disguise. One doesn’t usually find out about him until after he leaves. I’ve never heard of him coming here, though. Why?”

  Her mouth pressed into a hard line. “I almost think I’d offer to settle Ardmore’s debts myself, if I met Angelus. It’s
not as though I’m short on paintings.”

  “You’re finding criminal behavior more difficult than you’d assumed?”

  Her lips curved. “Doesn’t that speak well of my character?”

  “My lady, I’ve always thought well of it.” Too much. He cleared his throat, turned the subject. “You wanted to tell me something, you said. You have information about the Primavera?”

  “The Butler-celli, I’ve started calling it in my mind. Yes. I paid a call earlier this afternoon, and I hope you’ll be pleased by what I found.” Laying her reticule atop the table, she drew out a pocketbook. A gold ring clacked out onto the tabletop with it, a sound that somehow carried through the loud public room. Everyone recognized the sound of precious metal.

  Callum slapped a hand down on the ring, catching it before it rolled off the table. Slowly, carelessly, he looked around the room—and anytime a curious gaze caught his, he held it until it fell away.

  Returning his gaze to the table, he lifted his hand gingerly. “Your wedding ring?” Yes, it was; her ring finger was bare. “Why did you remove it?”

  She snagged the band, then stuffed it back into the reticule. “It was time.”

  This was all she had a chance to say before the barmaid glided back with a crusty loaf of warm brown bread on a platter, plus a pot of jam. Callum flipped her the payment in coins, and she caught them and dropped them into her apron pocket before wandering off.

  “This is the second time I’ve been given tea today,” Lady Isabel observed. “Doesn’t that jam look good?”

  The pot had likely served many others, had many knives in it. But it did look good. It was a tempting plummy color, with whole currants in it, and it smelled darkly tart and pleasant.

  But. “There’s no tea here. Do you want to order some?”

  She waved a hand. “No, no. Tea is not only a drink. It is a ritual. People feed each other when they want to be together.”

  “Do you . . . want to be with me?” He swallowed heavily. Mustn’t let his eagerness creep into his voice.