Lady Rogue

by Theresa Romain

  She looked at him with some surprise. “Of course I do. I have to tell you about the Duke of Ardmore’s house.”

  “Of course,” he agreed, and drowned his disappointment with a swallow of porter. It was bitter and strong.

  When he set down his tankard, she opened the little book of paper and showed him the notes she’d written down. Precise and detailed, in a clear and flowing hand. “You’ve a good eye,” he said. He noted the position of the painting. The number of windows. The type of latch—

  “I tried to draw it,” she explained, “but it was difficult. It’s the same as the latches on my drawing room windows, so the next time you’re at my house, you can work with them.”

  “Will I be at your house again?”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  He raised a brow, holding her gaze. Her cheeks suffused with color.

  “Why, Lady Isabel.” That was all he needed to say for the blush to deepen. Then manners dictated that he pull back. “I’d be honored.”

  She shook her head, smiling. “Rascal.”

  It was pleasant, joking together. And he realized, with a flash of lightning clarity, that he liked Lady Isabel Morrow. His attraction to her aside, his determination to see justice done aside—he liked being with her.

  He didn’t like being with many people. He’d liked his brother Harry, of course. Cass and Charles, in small doses. His other fellow officers and Fox were agreeable to work with.

  His remaining family? That was more complicated. He wished he liked being with them, but being in their company involved so many strings and weights and obligations that it was easier to keep a courteous distance.

  But Lady Isabel, yes. He liked her. Very much.

  In a physical sense, he knew her with deepest intimacy. Yet there were so many things about her, great and small, that he did not know. The air between them seemed composed of questions.

  “What is your favorite food?” he blurted.

  She flipped forward a page in the little book. “Why? Do you want to order it?”

  “I only wondered. It might be relevant to the case,” he mumbled, not missing the humor in her eyes.

  “Let me think.” After cutting a slice of the dark bread, she spread black-currant jam over it from crust to crust. “If it could have a bearing on our attempt to retrieve the Butler-celli, I must give you an accurate answer.”

  He snorted.

  Her expression turned faraway. “I have it.” Without seeming to realize it, she handed the perfectly jammed bread to him. “When I was six years old, my father took my brother and me to the seaside. My brother was eighteen then, and he was remarkably patient with me. One day, we spent hours collecting oysters and clams and little shrimps and winkles in a big pot of salt water, and we boiled them over a driftwood fire and ate them so hot we burned our fingers. I was footsore and sun-browned the next day, but oh, it was worth it. I’ve not had anything so delicious since.”

  Then she blinked, laughing. “That’s a much longer answer than you were expecting, I’ll warrant.”

  “No, no.” He could have listened to her speak for hours, telling him whatever she wanted him to know. “But it was different from what I expected.”

  “You thought it would be all lobster patties and spun sugar, did you?”

  Yes. “It wouldn’t be wise of me to assume.”

  “Yet people do all the same. And at this distance in time . . . well. It’s probably only a trick of memory, or I’m recalling the adventure of it. Either way, I don’t suppose one can get freshly boiled sea creatures here.” She sat up and added brightly, “So. What’s your favorite food?”

  He regarded the sliced bread with jam, still held uneaten in his hand. “This is good.”

  “You are teasing me,” she said. “Fine, so be it. I shall become all business again.”

  He took an enormous bite of the bread, savoring the sweetness of the jam. “Go ahead, then,” he said through a deliberately full mouth. It was not the best thing he’d ever eaten, but it was the only thing he’d eaten that she had given him. Which made it at least twenty-five percent more delicious.

  Oblivious to his mooning thoughts, she drew the little book back toward her. “Let’s see. You saw the bits about the windows and the latches. I should like to leave no trace that we’ve been there. I don’t want the duke to know his painting was switched, or even that anyone was there at all.”

  Callum finished his bite. “Which means the two dogs must be dealt with.” He leaned closer to her, squinting at the page. “What is this next note—‘cake for dogs’? I can’t be reading that right.”

  “You are. It is not a brilliant idea, but it’s the best I’ve had so far. Lucy—my ward, you remember—is going to try coaxing Brinley with cakes to be quiet. If it works, we could do the same with Ardmore’s dogs. Only those will be dosed with laudanum.”

  “I retract my earlier comment that you are stymied by the criminal mind. Clearly you understand it well.”

  As he’d hoped, she laughed. “But I am also a proper lady, Officer Jenks, and if I need to collect more information, I can pay another proper call with Lucy. Lady Selina dubbed Lucy the sweetest girl in the world, so we would be welcomed.”

  Callum chewed thoughtfully at the final bite of bread. “I’m missing something. Just how large is Lady Selina’s acquaintance?”

  “You’re not missing a thing. ‘The sweetest girl in the world’ is understood to mean a young woman of tolerably pleasant manners. ‘The prettiest girl in the world’ is a young woman of middling to great attractiveness. Often a girl is the prettiest and the sweetest, which means she might sit out only a few dances at a ball due to the lack of gentlemen.”

  Every group had its own codes. The lilting rhyme-slang of the Cockneys, the rough cant of thieves in the East End. It only made sense that the ton would have a secret language too. “Thank you for translating. Now, are you going to join me in food or drink?”

  She took a sip of her porter. When she set down the tankard, she looked into it with some caution. “Isn’t it bitter?” She took another swallow. “I think I like it, though.” Another swallow. “Maybe. I’m not sure.” Another, then she set aside her tankard with a thoughtful look. “No, I prefer tea.”

  Callum hid a smile behind his own pint. “You must come for tea at my lodging sometime. It’ll be perfectly respectable, because my landlady will be eavesdropping, and it is good tea. I always get it from my parents’ shop.”

  “The grocery, is that right? Where your brother Jamie works?”

  “The very one.”

  She looked puzzled. “Only imagine, seeing one’s brother often enough to drink tea from a family shop and boot him from his seat in a pub. I hardly ever see my brother.”

  “Not all brothers are created equal. Harry, my eldest brother, was as fine a man as you’ll ever meet. Jamie and I have never got on as well.”

  “Too different?”

  Callum chuckled. “I suspect we’re too similar, my lady.”

  “Oh, heavens. You needn’t use the honorifics all the time. Really, you know more about me than anyone else, so you might as well call me Isabel.”

  Knowing about wasn’t the same as knowing, but if he had his way, he’d turn the first into the second. “Thank you. Isabel it is.” He tasted the name on his lips, sweet and ringing. “And my Christian name is Callum, if you wish to use it.”

  “I know.” She gave her pint a quarter-turn, then turned it back. “I overheard someone mention it during your investigation of Morrow’s death. It was an unusual name, so I remembered it.”

  His name was only two syllables, yet the fact that she’d known it and remembered it felt like a grand gift. It was warm, to be remembered. A pleasant sort of warmth, like a sip of brandy when one came inside from winter weather. It warmed one from the inside, from the pit of the belly to the tingling fingertips.

  This was again the sort of moment when a man of gentle birth might take a woman’s chin in hand and kiss h
er. But he was a plain man of plain stock, so he only made a joke. “It’s clearer than ever, you’ve a natural sleuthing ability. I’m fortunate that you turned your talents to the side of justice, if not precisely to the law.”

  This made her laugh, and they clinked their tankards together with mock ceremony. “So.” He kept a straight face, though inside that steady warmth still buoyed him. “I must return to Bow Street. May I get you a hackney first—Isabel?”

  She looked surprised by the new familiarity; then she smiled. “No, my carriage is waiting outside the court. If I may walk back with you, I’ll meet it there.”

  “You left your carriage on Bow Street? Where anyone might recognize it?” Callum stood, then held out a hand to help her from her seat.

  “You sound dismayed. Will it not be safe?”

  “It’s safe enough. But if any of your acquaintance sees it, they’ll suspect you of some scandalous crime. Why else would you be at the Bow Street magistrate’s court?”

  “Nonsense. I could not create a scandal if I tried.” But she looked much struck by the idea.

  As they left the Boar’s Head, her hand on his arm, he remained aware of the gulf between them. Not one of distance, but of birth and fortune. If not for one chance after another, they would never have met at all.

  And yet. She had narrowed the gulf by inviting him to use her name. By drinking porter with him in a pub. By trusting him with embarrassing truths about her marriage.

  By taking off her wedding ring?

  He wasn’t sure how narrow the gulf could become between a grocer’s son and a marquess’s daughter. But given time and opportunity, he was damned well going to find out.

  Chapter Six

  Isabel slipped around the edge of the house, drawing a plain brown cloak more tightly about her body. Beneath the cloak, she wore the gown her upper housemaid donned for her half-days off: secondhand and cheap, a dark blue printed fabric that showed neither dirt nor wear. Her hair was covered by a straw bonnet studded with shiny beads, another find from her housemaid’s quarters. Bless Polly; she’d been willing enough to sell these to Isabel for “someone who needed them.” Likely she already had her eye on something else in a secondhand shop that would impress Douglas, the footman.

  Coming from the servants’ entrance, Isabel would be invisible to anyone passing on Lombard Street who might recognize Lady Isabel Morrow stepping out of the front door while dressed in expensive gray.

  Success! She’d joined the people walking on the pavement without drawing a second glance. Turning her steps eastward, she set off toward the West India Docks. The sky was blue, with sooty fingertips of smoke drifting from chimneys here and there. The sun shone mildly, and the air carried the not-unpleasant smell of horses. She was free on this pretty spring day, and she was taking a step toward righting a wrong. As she walked, she hummed a little tune.

  Before she’d walked past three houses, a hand seized her shoulder. “Lady Isabel.”

  Her heart tripped and hammered. Should she run? No, better to brazen it out. She shook off the touch and whipped around, an excuse already on her lips.

  It dissolved at once. “Oh! Callum Jenks.” The sight of him brought instant calm. After having tea, or porter, with him the day before, she hadn’t expected to see him again so soon. “What brings you here?”

  “I’m disguised as a servant and off on a mysterious errand.” He frowned, his eyes a shadow beneath his low-brimmed hat. “Wait. My mistake. That’s what you’re doing.”

  “So I am.” Isabel stood on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “I’m going to call upon Butler. He lives near the West India Docks.”

  She was rather proud of herself for arranging this errand. Callum did not seem to share this emotion. The hand that had taken hold of her was now clenched in a fist at his side. “That’s most unwise.”

  “No, it is wise. He needs to know of our plan about the paintings, so he doesn’t later betray the truth. I wrote to him, and he agreed to meet me this afternoon.”

  Callum drew her aside, tugging her down a step into the railed-off area before the Pettibones’ house. “You are calling on him? Not he on you?”

  “I didn’t want to raise questions. I thought it wiser not to be seen having a new caller, and Butler is rather conspicuous.” This was putting the matter mildly. No one who saw Butler would forget having met him.

  “I’ve been a recent caller at your house.”

  “Yes, but you are not conspicuous. You make a point of it.”

  From top to toe, he dressed plainly and forgettably. His form and face, though most attractive, were not of the sort that drew the eye of strangers. They were the sort that one’s eye settled on more and more often as one got to know him, until it was difficult to imagine how one had not at once admired his appearance.

  Isabel flushed, her own thoughts bolder than she’d expected.

  “Even so.” The line of his mouth was hard. “You weren’t going to tell me about this? It’s not safe for you to go alone.”

  “I have a pistol.” Its weight was heavy in the pocket of her gown. It was the same pistol that had killed Andrew. The realization made her shudder.

  “Can you use it?” Callum’s fingers caught one of her forearms.

  “Yes.” How interesting. The knuckles of his hand were white, though his grip was gentle. “You are concerned about my well-being? There are hours before sunset, and Butler told me daylight was a safe time to call.”

  “Easy for him to promise.”

  Isabel laid a hand over the one Callum had placed on her arm—then lifted it off. “Let me by, please. I need to move along now.”

  As she climbed back up to the pavement, he was right behind her. “You’re not going without me.”

  “All right.” She waited for him.

  When he stood at her side, he looked at her with curiosity. “No argument? You won’t try to slip away?”

  “You are thinking of me as one of your criminal informants,” she chided. “I’m your partner, remember? Truly, I’d rather go with you. But I didn’t want to ask. I know time is short, and mine is an extra job for you atop your real employment.”

  They set off eastward again, weaving between servants carrying baskets and passing by carriages and wagons with jingling harnesses and well-groomed horses. After some silence, Callum said, “Every job I take is a real one. Including yours.”

  Isabel darted a sideways glance at him. He was studying her as he walked. How did he do that, without tripping over everything in front of him? He must have the sharp sight of a bird.

  “We are already taking enough risks, Isabel. Please don’t put yourself in any danger.”

  “Why, Callum, you truly do care about my safety,” she teased.

  “Hazard of the profession.”

  “I’d have expected your profession to have the opposite effect. To make you jaded.”

  He looked rather grumpy at this, so she did not press him. A smile played on her lips; a tune wanted to be hummed again. She had been a little afraid to walk to the docks alone, but she’d chastised herself for this fear, reminding herself how many new places she’d gone this week. This would be but one more, and she had taken pains not to look like a target for any thieves that might roam around.

  But with Callum walking beside her, she wasn’t afraid at all. Who would know the streets of London better than a Bow Street Runner—beg pardon, Officer of the Police?

  Lombard Street renamed itself Fenchurch and swept its way north, so they took a jog southward onto Rood to continue their direct path to the docks. “Thank you for coming with me,” Isabel said.

  “I happened to be in the neighborhood,” he grunted.

  “You were in the—no, impossible. Bow Street is not an easy distance from my house.”

  “Nor are the docks, yet here we are walking to them.”

  “Because they are our destination.”

  “Maybe you were mine.”

  In what way did he mean that? The words w
ere quiet, powerful. Each one was like a marble dropping to the floor: it resounded, then rolled about within Isabel, stirring up confusion and wonder.

  He drew her arm into his grasp, fingers covering hers. Neither of them were wearing gloves, and the unaccustomed bareness of hand on hand was a sweet shock to Isabel’s tingling nerves.

  Yet he sounded distracted. When she looked up at him, questioning, she realized he was scanning their surroundings. Top to bottom, left to right, again and again.

  Isabel peered. Squinted. All she saw were the familiar tidy rows of stacked-up town houses. “What are you looking for?”

  “Anything that’s not as it should be.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Beg your pardon. It’s a habit of mine, but it’s not good company.”

  “No, it’s fine. I want to see how you act when you’re investigating something. What you would do if I weren’t here with you.”

  “Besides have my hands to myself? Which I don’t plan to do this time.”

  “I didn’t ask that of you.” Holding fast to someone else—it was nice. As if he was looking out for her as well as the rest of London.

  Her feet peeked from below the hem of the skirt with each step, shod in boots of fine kid. “Oh! I thought I’d planned so well, but I didn’t borrow shoes. Now my disguise is incomplete.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said dryly. “You’re walking with me. No one would assume your boots to be anything but battered as mine.”

  “Brinley loves them just as they are,” she replied. “May we talk, or will conversation be too distracting as you look around?”

  “No more than simply being with you is distracting.”

  “I . . .” Hmm. She wasn’t sure how to answer that. It sounded as if it ought to have been a compliment, but his tone was so matter-of-fact that it could have meant anything from glumness to irritation.

  “What is on your mind?” he asked.

  His strides were long, eating the pavement in great stretches. She scurried a little to stay at his side, keeping their arms linked. “Were you near my house because of a case?”

  “I’m sure I could think of a case to bring up.”