“A little harsh. She couldn’t have known my…rules.”
“No. You haven’t been by for more than a month, and she’s only been here two weeks.” Her tone was almost as fierce with him as it had been with Bessie, and she looked away, her shoulders stiff.
He didn’t respond. He wasn’t prepared to answer to her.
“Well, nice to have you back.” On that lie, she gave a nod, still not meeting his eyes, and stepped back into her office.
Jillie Bellows hadn’t been pleased to see him since the day he’d threatened to close her down for selling a child into sexual slavery, and that had been two years ago.
Since then they’d reached a strange truce. She didn’t send any of her girls out to him, and swore never to deal in children again, and he, by the cachet that came with being a duke, lent her establishment an air of high-class sin.
It appeared to be doing quite well without him, though, if the crowd in the gaming room was anything to go by.
“Wittaker. There you are! Thought you’d abandoned this place. I even started enquiring where you’d moved on to.” Banford was slumped in a chair near the door, his face flushed with the close heat of the room and the whisky in his glass.
So that was the reason behind Jillie’s sharp tongue. She sensed the sheep were getting ready to follow him to what they thought were greener pastures.
“Busy with other things, is all,” he said to Banford, slurring his words just a little. He wondered if he’d ever get drunk again—risk actually sounding like this.
Somehow, he doubted it.
“Oh?” Banford sat a little straighter, his eyes lighting at the possibility of something even more dissolute than what was on offer at The Scarlet Rose.
Wittaker didn’t hide his contempt at Banford’s reaction, flicking him a look before turning his attention to the room without making a reply.
It made him even more popular, even more respected among this lot, he’d found. The more contemptuous, the more dismissive he was of them, the more they tried to please him and follow his style.
“Like that, eh? Keeping all the best secrets for yourself.” Banford narrowed his eyes. “What’s a fellow got to do to get an invitation?”
James looked back at him. “You hear about Perceval?”
“You’d have to be living under a rock not to hear.” Banford got unsteadily to his feet. “Damn disgrace. Shot down in the one place he should have been safe.” He tipped slightly to one side and stumbled a little as he steadied himself on the chair.
“Worried about your own neck next time you’re at Westminster?” James didn’t look at him as he spoke, his eyes on the raucous game of Hazard happening in the middle of the room.
Banford laughed. “Not in the House often enough for that to be likely. Still, some places should be sacred.”
James gave him a cool look. “As you say.”
It was a hard line to walk. To play aggrieved enough by Perceval’s policies to let a possible conspirator know he would lend a sympathetic ear, but also suitably outraged enough that a man, any man, had lost his life by murder.
Almost as hard a line as to know how he genuinely felt about the prime minister. He’d approved of Perceval’s practical support of the abolition of the slave trade, but found the man himself objectionable. When facing off against his political opponents, Perceval attacked the individual, not their policies, leading James to think he didn’t have the intelligence to argue against them.
Perceval used his obviously genuine love for his family and the Church to garner himself more support, and further his political agenda, thereby sullying any moral high ground he would otherwise have had.
Perceval was a thorny problem of a man.
Unbending, unable to see any opinion other than his own, wholly annoying, and yet, no matter what, he did not deserve to be killed.
James rubbed the back of his neck.
He was on a wild goose chase here.
No one would say anything different to Banford. Certainly not a few hours after the murder itself had been done.
The breech of the sanctity of the Houses of Parliament, the way murder had slipped into a place where all thought they were safe but for a tongue-lashing from a political opponent—that would shock all of them, no matter if they hated Perceval or not.
Nevertheless…
He stepped toward the Hazard table, and was surprised to find himself tensing, as if for a blow.
It wasn’t so far off.
Forcing a sardonic smile on his face, he waded into the crowd, listening for anything unusual.
By the time he waded back out again, 2000 pounds richer, he had a name.
Sheldrake.
Chapter Four
Tuesday, 12 May, 1812
Everyone with any sense was at home this morning.
Phoebe had the paper open in front of her, but her eyes were on the street. Empty in a way she’d never seen it before. The only person in sight was a gardener in Portman Square’s fenced park, raking a bed.
According to the news, Bellingham had been moved to Newgate prison sometime in the night, after the crowds outside parliament had been dispersed. There had still been some people waiting for him outside the prison entrance, though, to cheer and wave him on.
She folded the paper with a snap and pushed it aside, stared down at the letter lying beside her plate, delivered early this morning.
Sheldrake’s unkempt script scrawled across the front. She wondered if she would even be able to make out what the note said. She rarely could.
It had been the cause of a number of missed engagements, and more than a few arguments between them.
Only, they weren’t arguments, as such. More teeth-gritting conversations with no satisfactory conclusion.
Relief at never having to have such conversations again made her a trifle light-headed. Her mother had often talked about silver linings. The silver lining on the storm cloud of Sheldrake’s betrayal was…Sheldrake’s betrayal.
She smiled, the first one she’d been capable of since Sunday evening, and lifted the note, brushing the paper with her fingertips. It was expensive and smooth, and she marveled that he’d remembered to pack his stationary when he took to the road.
She wouldn’t have expected that of him.
She lifted her letter opener, slid the blade carefully into the flap and gave a vicious upward swipe to break the seal.
A thick letter fell out, landing on the table.
Phoebe lifted it, and saw it was an official document, a petition for compensation, addressed to the Prince Regent and dated 21 January.
There was nothing else inside but a piece of notepaper, on which was written what looked like an address, an inn called The King’s Arms in Kent. She could barely make it out.
But she recognized the hand who had written it. No one could scrawl as illegibly as Sheldrake.
She looked at the document he had enclosed again. A petition for compensation for 8,000 pounds for loss of income resulting from the failure of the British government to aid a British citizen in the Russian port of Archangel. The language was formal and careful, and she was sure drawn up by a lawyer.
She wondered why on earth Sheldrake had sent her this.
And then her gaze fell on the name of the claimant, and a terrible chill stole over her, freezing her in place.
John Bellingham.
The man who had just assassinated the prime minister.
* * *
“His lordship is not at home.” The butler who answered Sheldrake’s door had wary eyes and held the door mostly closed, for ease of slamming it in his face, James realized.
“He will be at home for me.” He gave a smile, and handed the man his card. The late spring afternoon sun warmed the back of his neck, and he angled his body to get a little more of it.
The butler looked down at the card and straightened. Opened the door wider.
“My apologies, Your Grace, but Lord Sheldrake is not actually here. He left
for a hunting party on Sunday evening, and I only expect him back in two weeks’ time.”
“Where did he go?” James leaned against the door-jamb, and the butler opened the door wider still and took a step back.
“He didn’t say.” The man pursed his lips.
“That’s very disappointing.” There was something about this situation that was off. James could almost smell the rot in the air.
The butler seemed to be struggling with something. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then looked down at his shoes. “You might ask his betrothed, Miss Hillier. She may know where he’s gone. She lives in Portman Square.”
James felt a stir of excitement. “I will. Thank you.”
The butler looked up, and there was something calculating in his expression. “Her address is Home House.”
James tipped his hat and took his leave. He felt the butler’s eyes on him until he turned the corner and was no longer in sight.
Miss Hillier’s address was only a fifteen minute walk away, and James spent it trying to remember if he’d ever met her.
Sheldrake, he knew; from his club and from places like The Scarlet Rose, but he hadn’t attended a ball or polite dinner for many years.
Home House, on Portman Square, was large, and spoke of money and taste. And when the butler admitted him and he stepped into the hall, even he, with one of the finest houses in London, stood entranced by the staircase.
It was golden and bright, rising up to midway and then splitting to curve right and left, and frame the pale gold marble and white of the classically rendered wall behind it.
The butler cleared his throat and brought James back to himself. He followed him into a warm, sun-filled drawing room in pale gold and cream. While he waited, he looked out the window to the gardens of Portman Square, and wondered if he would be able to buy this place.
The door opened, and a woman stepped through. She was in her early twenties, five years or more past her coming out.
Her hair was the color of moonlight, almost silver it was so blonde, and she was slight and fair-skinned. Her eyes were a dark blue and her cheeks were flushed, as if she’d been out in the garden in the warm sun.
He smelled fresh-cut rosemary and the clean green scent of crushed leaves as she stopped in front of him, and guessed that was exactly where she had been.
“Your Grace.” She curtseyed and flicked a nervous look at the open door. “I’m afraid my aunt is out, and she is my only companion. I’m not sure…”
James saw her quandary. She was alone in the house but for her servants, and propriety demanded a chaperone.
“My apologies, Miss Hillier. I would have made an appointment, but I urgently need to speak to your betrothed, Lord Sheldrake, and his staff directed me here, as they don’t know where he is. If you could give me his current address, I will be immediately on my way.”
Her reaction was not what he was expecting.
She took a step back and lifted an ungloved hand to her lips, pressing her fingers against them.
His eyes jerked to hers, and they stood, staring at each other for a long beat.
Then she turned away, her arms tight across her chest, and walked to the small arrangement of chairs at the center of the room.
She half-turned to him, checked herself, and then braced both hands on the back of an armchair, her head bowed. “I am uncomfortable telling you this, but it will be common knowledge soon enough.” She straightened and finally turned to him again, her face composed, although James could see her cheeks were no longer flushed and pink. “Sheldrake broke our betrothal on Sunday. His plan was to leave England. He left London for Dover on Sunday evening, and his intention was to take a boat to the Continent,.” She hunched her body. “That he hasn’t told his staff is despicable, even for him. They will wait for him in vain, and with no salary. I will have to make it right.”
She sounded so desolate, he took a step toward her and then had to force himself to stop when her eyes widened. He cleared his throat. “Do you know why he left?”
She shook her head.
He read genuine frustration in her face, but there was something else there, as well.
“All he told me was that he was in debt and couldn’t get his hands on my dowry in time to save himself from his creditors.”
“Did you believe him?”
She started. “What do you mean?”
“Did you believe that was why he was leaving? His debts?”
“What else could it be?” Her voice wavered, and she turned away again.
“Have you had any word from him since he left?”
James watched her closely, and she went very still at the question. Seemed to take longer than necessary to answer.
“I received a quick note from him, from an inn called The King’s Arms in Kent.”
He knew it. It was a popular staging post for the mail coaches and travelling coaches heading for the coast.
“What did it say?”
She looked up, and now he could see anger sparking in those blue eyes. “I don’t mean to be rude, Your Grace, but why do you want to know the contents of my private correspondence with my former betrothed? What is your interest in Sheldrake?”
She stared boldly at him, and again they stood, looking into each other’s eyes for longer than was polite.
“I’m afraid I can’t disclose that.” James shrugged. “It’s a private matter.”
She kept her gaze on his face for another beat, and then looked away. “Well, I don’t suppose it makes a difference. Sheldrake said nothing in that note.” She looked down at her hands, and unclenched them. “Absolutely nothing.”
“What do you mean by nothing?”
“I mean he wrote the address of the inn, and nothing more.” She crossed her arms under her breasts again, and drew his attention to her pale blue dress with sprigs of green posies embroidered on its scoop-necked bodice.
It seemed incredible that Sheldrake would have done something like that. Sent a blank letter. But James could not doubt her genuine anger at it.
“Thank you. My apologies for disturbing you.” He moved to the door, and when he looked at her again, her face was more composed. “I’m sorry to hear that your engagement is broken and I look forward to meeting you again under more pleasant circumstances.”
She gave a nod and another curtsey, and the butler was suddenly there to show him out, as if he’d been waiting nearby. Even though it annoyed him to be watched, James was glad for the man’s protective instincts.
As he stepped through the gleaming black door and down the stairs, he reflected both Miss Hillier and he had done little but lie to each other for the last five minutes.
Miss Hillier was hiding something, and he, well, he wasn’t sorry Sheldrake was no longer her betrothed. Not at all.
Chapter Five
He was dangerous. Phoebe watched the Duke of Wittaker walk down her front path and turn in the direction of Grosvenor Square.
She wondered where his coach was. The Duke of Wittaker didn’t have to make his way on foot anywhere, but the way he strode down the street told her that he not only enjoyed it, but did it often.
When Sheldrake said people would be looking for him, she’d imagined rough-edged Bow Street runners, or hard-eyed businessmen with IOUs. Not the Duke of Wittaker, with his beautifully cut clothes, and his dark, sartorial looks.
He was at least head and shoulders taller than Sheldrake, with a long, lean body and a way of moving that suggested if he wanted to, he could be very, very fast.
She’d heard whispers about him. That he was a rake and gambler, a disaffected nobleman with a grudge against the government.
Just the sort of person Sheldrake would be in league with, if he were involved in the death of the prime minister—
She didn’t want to even touch the thought. Wanted it out of her mind. But it was too late.
And when she’d been looking, too long and too deep, into the Duke of Wittaker’s dark gray eyes, she
’d had the uncomfortable sense that he had seen too much. Had picked up on her disquiet.
And yet she hadn’t looked away. She was still trying to work out why.
She pulled back from the window.
The duke was long gone, had turned the corner and was no doubt already on his way home in his carriage. But Phoebe knew he’d be back.
There was a steely certainty about him.
Yes. He was most certainly dangerous.
She walked out of the room, to the small withdrawing room containing her writing desk, and removed the petition Sheldrake had sent her, still folded within his strange, blank letter.
She should burn it.
She rolled it up into a tight cylinder, and tapped it against her open palm.
There was no question that it was better to be rid of it.
But, better for who?
For herself, certainly.
She’d never thought herself a coward, or selfish. Sheldrake had sent this to her for a reason, and while she no longer cared about what was safe and good for him, perhaps she owed the family and friends of Spencer Perceval the respect of preserving it.
Just for a while.
Until she could work out what was going on.
* * *
James stepped from the upstairs landing of the exclusive St. James club into the common room. It was only the fifth time he’d been here, although he’d been a member since his father signed him up at seventeen, ten years ago.
He hadn’t come originally because it was his father’s domain, and then later because it hadn’t suited the image of himself he’d needed to portray.
Over the last few weeks he’d made up for that, though, and the few servants in attendance recognized him and bowed as he made his way to the isolated grouping of chairs at the far end of the room.
Dervish had invited him to meet here, but he wasn’t alone. James slowed his steps as he saw Durnham and Aldridge with him. He knew them both, and had occasion earlier in the year to get to know them a little better.
A Dangerous Madness Page 2