The maid looked as if she would like to leave, but was already too far in the room to turn and flee.
She couldn’t seem to keep her gaze off Phoebe, and in turn, Phoebe watched her.
She was a young girl of around eighteen years old, with long, dark hair pulled back off her face into a loose bun under her white cap. She was quite beautiful, with high cheekbones and long lashes. She had eyes the color of chocolate.
Footsteps sounded across the hallway, and the girl gasped, jerking her gaze from Phoebe to the door.
“Margie?” Jackson frowned as he looked between them. “Everything all right?”
“Yes, Mr. Jackson.” The girl ducked her head and turned to the fireplace.
Jackson’s look was hard as he watched her kneel before the grate. This girl had done something to displease him. He seemed a fair man, and Lewis liked him, so she wondered what Margie could have done that would provoke such anger.
“We’re ready, my lady.” Lewis stood by the door, not even coming into the room.
“Thank you.” Phoebe nodded to Jackson, and he bowed low to her.
“It is I who thanks you, my lady. Your generosity will make a big difference to everyone in this house.” He flicked a look at the maid, who had turned at his words, and was staring at Phoebe again.
Phoebe murmured her goodbyes, and let Lewis lead the way.
Wittaker’s men were both by the carriage when they stepped out, and they were on the road, smooth and without a single wasted moment, before Lewis had even closed the carriage door.
She looked out of the window as they drew away from Sheldrake’s house, and felt a deep satisfaction that she would never have to go there again.
Chapter Twenty-eight
“So, you are in disguise?” Georges Bisset eyed James curiously.
“Something like that.” James fiddled with the scratchy wool of his borrowed jacket sleeve, careful not to move his injured arm too much. His valet had redressed the wound, and aside from being stiff, he had gotten off remarkably easy. “If someone is watching the house, I need a way to get out without being noticed.”
Georges shrugged. “You can come with me to the market, and then Thierry can leave a little bit later, and meet up with me. Carry what I buy at the market as he usually does.” He handed James two large baskets. “Take those.”
James grinned and took them, and followed Georges out of the kitchen door and into the dark of the morning. He had already been given hot, strong coffee and a croissant straight out of the oven, and he felt curiously at peace, even though this was the earliest he’d arisen for as long as he could remember.
When he’d listed the tasks he had to accomplish to Miss Hillier last night, he had left this one out.
On purpose.
Vincent Dowling may be a political reporter for the Day, but he was still a journalist, and any hint of Phoebe’s involvement would stir his curiosity. James wanted to keep her from him completely.
And he wanted to talk to the man away from listening ears and watching eyes. For Dowling’s sake as much as his own. He didn’t want to compromise the informer’s identity.
“So, you ’ave not said anything about the Prince Regent’s dinner. So unremarkable?” Georges could not help the satisfaction in his voice.
“Apparently the Prince Regent only decided to hold the dinner earlier the same day, so I’m sure his chef did the best he could, in the circumstance.” James said.
“’Ow many people?” Georges’s voice turned from satisfaction to outrage.
“Thirty, perhaps, or a few less.”
“Incroyable. If I was working for ’im, ’e would ’ave my resignation already.”
“Fortunately for me, you don’t work for him.” James said.
“Yes. For you, and for me, also, it seems.” The one thing Georges didn’t lack was confidence. “Still, I’m interested in what was served.”
“There was white soup to start, nothing like yours, Georges, and sorbet between courses, trout almandine, roast quail, some rather good beef, and to tell the truth, I can’t remember what we had for dessert.”
“Ah. Perhaps not dissimilar to what I would have done under such circumstances. Nothing too complicated. Although, if it were me, you would ’ave remembered the dessert.”
James made a grunt of assent and walked beside Georges in companionable silence until they came within sight and sound of the market. The lights and the hum of energy gave the scene a strange air of tension and excitement.
He could see Georges’s face sharpen, like a hunter on the scent.
“I’ll leave you here,” he said, holding the baskets out.
The big chef took them with a slight sniff of disdain, as if carrying the baskets was beneath him. “Bon chance.”
James nodded in acknowledgement and walked away into the darkness. The address Dervish had given him for Dowling was close to where the tailor from the day before had his shop. He found a cab around the corner from the market, the driver on his own way home after working around the clubs in St. James until dawn.
He refused to let James pay a fare as he dropped him at the end of the narrow lane where Dowling lived.
“Going home anyways, sir. You keep your money. I made enough out o’ the nobs tonight. Forget how much they’ve given me most o’ the time, they’re that drunk.” He grinned down at James and then lifted his cap before riding away.
James smiled after him. At least his disguise in one of his footmen’s clothes was working.
He pocketed the shilling he’d taken out as he walked down a street too narrow for anything but a cart, and climbed the rickety wooden stairs on the outside of Dowling’s building, up to a narrow door flush against the wall. There was no knocker, so James rapped hard with his knuckles.
He heard movement within, and then silence, and James knocked again, a little louder.
Eventually he heard the sound of a key turning in the lock, and the door was opened cautiously. The man peering out was in his early thirties, with dark hair receding a little from a high brow, a jacket thrown over a white nightshirt.
His eyes were heavy, as if he’d been wrenched from sleep, but they looked worried, too.
“Yes?” He peered at James a moment, and then his eyes narrowed. As if trying to place where he knew him from.
Another political journalist who recognized him, James realized. “Let me in, Dowling. You don’t want this conversation on your doorstep, believe me.”
“You alone?” Dowling squinted past him, looking into the gloom, although there was already more light now than five minutes ago, as the sun began to inch over the horizon.
“I’m alone.” James found the question curious, but he waited for Dowling to nod, and step back.
James entered a tiny sitting room, with a fireplace to one side, a kettle sitting on the mantlepiece above it. Through a door on the far side of the room he caught a glimpse of an even smaller room with a tousled bed against one wall.
“I know you, don’t I?”
“We’ve never been introduced,” James said, hoping he would leave it there.
“And what’s this about?” Dowling hesitated a moment, and then waved a hand to the two chairs on either side of the fireplace, which, along with a writing desk and stool against the wall near the front door, comprised the sole furniture in the room.
James sat and after a brief hesitation, Dowling did as well.
“It’s early, and I apologise for waking you, but I wanted to speak to you in strict privacy, and thought this was the best way to do it.” James watched Dowling as he hunched over himself in his chair, as if still trying to wake up.
The journalist grunted.
“I know you’re a Home Office informant, and I know you were present when Spencer Perceval was killed, and I want to know what connection there may be between those two facts.”
It was as if he’d applied a hot poker to a sensitive part of Dowling’s anatomy. The man visibly flinched in his chair, and star
ed at James with his mouth open.
“How the devil…?” Dowling stood suddenly. “It doesn’t matter. Out. Get out.” He pointed to the door.
“I’m not going anywhere, Mr. Dowling. Sit down and answer the question. I don’t mean any trouble for you.” James leaned back in his chair and watched as Dowling tried to get himself under control.
“Who the bloody hell are you?” He lowered himself carefully back into his seat.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve seen your reports on the radicals and their plans that you submitted to the Home Office. And I know you helped subdue Bellingham on Monday afternoon. Now, what can you tell me?”
“I’ve been half-expecting someone, truth to tell.” Dowling rubbed a shaking hand down his face. “Thought there’d be more of you, though, come to haul me off.”
“Why would that happen?”
“Looking for a scapegoat.” The journalist shrugged. “I hoped not, but I’ve been nervous.”
“Why would someone use you as a scapegoat?” James watched as Dowling lifted a candle from the floor, and then fiddled with a tinderbox to get it lit.
“I told the Home Office about Bellingham. In a report. Three weeks ago, I told them someone was asking people in the gallery to point out the prime minister and some of his colleagues. I pointed them out to him at least twice. The third time I saw him there, I drew him into conversation, and got his name and where he was from, just in case there was something more than simple curiosity going on. He seemed very calm and certainly not deranged or angry. But now it might look like I didn’t attach enough significance to his requests. He was obviously watching his intended victim, identifying Perceval to make sure when he shot him, he would be shooting the right man.” With a curse, Dowling spilled the contents of the tinderbox onto the floor, and then stared down at the mess.
“Who did that report go to?” James felt that kick of adrenalin again, that quickening of the heart beat.
“The Home Office Under-secretary, most likely. And then on to the Home Secretary, if he thought it warranted it.”
In the gloomy half-light, James and Dowling exchanged a glance.
The incompetence of the Home Secretary was so well-known, neither even remarked on it. Perceval had appointed Richard Ryder to the post because he was a loyal friend, not because he was capable of doing the job. The prime minister wanted someone who would comply with his plans, and as a result, it was widely known that Perceval himself attended to most of Ryder’s duties, because the man himself was incapable of doing it.
It had made Perceval Chancellor of the Exchequer, Prime Minister and also the de facto Home Secretary. It had given him full control of government.
“Wouldn’t it be ironic if Perceval had received that report himself,” James mused. “And ignored it.”
Dowling gave a half-laugh, although there was no humour in it. “I’ve thought the same thing too many times to count in the last few days, but the most likely answer is it is lying in a tottering pile of reports on Ryder’s desk.”
The scent of the hunt had dulled since Dowling mentioned the Home Secretary. The odds were overwhelming that it had been incompetence, rather than design, that Dowling’s report had gone unnoticed.
“What can you tell me about the incident itself?” With the candle still unlit, the only light came from the haphazardly drawn curtains, but even in the slowly lifting gloom, James saw Dowling wince.
“It was a mess.” He drew in a deep breath. “I was in the gallery, watching the hearings, and I heard the shot, but really as a background sound, something far away. Then the shouting started and we ran out to see what was happening. Gascoyne was upstairs as well, in another room, and he and I ran down the stairs together. Bellingham had already been identified as the shooter, and we ran up to him, to make sure he couldn’t run or shoot again.”
“Did that look likely?” James asked.
Dowling shook his head. “He was sitting there, white as chalk, shaking, sweating, not moving at all. The pistol was next to him on the bench. He wasn’t a danger to anyone.”
“His clothes are torn enough it looked as if he was roughly handled.” James said and watched Dowling’s reaction.
He pursed his lips. “Emotions were high. People were angry, and Bellingham was right there, unresisting. Gascoyne grabbed his hand so hard, he cried out.”
“I see in the hearing transcript Gascoyne says he took the gun from Bellingham to prevent him shooting the prime minister again.”
Dowling frowned. “No. The prime minister wasn’t there when we got there, he’d been taken into another room and laid on someone’s desk while they called a doctor.”
James steepled his fingers, tapped them to his lips. “Jerdan told me the same thing.”
“I can’t imagine why Gascoyne would embellish the truth, but then again, he made a huge production about recognizing Bellingham, too. It was as if he was determined to show himself the hero of the hour.”
Could it be that? Or something a little more sinister?
Whatever the case, Dowling had told him all he could.
James stood, and gave a short bow. “Well, thank you for your time, Dowling. You’ve been most helpful.”
Dowling pushed himself out of his chair, and from the look on his face, James had the sinking feeling he’d been recognized.
“You’re most welcome,” Dowling said. “Your Grace.”
James half-shrugged. “No doubt I’ll see you around Parliament.”
Dowling pursed his lips, but he could not bring himself to question a duke. “No doubt.” He opened the door for James and as James walked down the stairs and along the lane, he stood in his pyjamas on his top step, watching all the way.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Jimmy tells me you went out earlier.” James tried to keep his voice level as their coach lurched away from the back entrance of Home House. After all, she had taken his men, and been gone less than fifteen minutes. And the trip had been undertaken at seven o’clock in the morning. Not a time anyone would consider it likely for a jaunt.
Even though it had been a full hour and a half after his own early morning trip.
His men had seen no one around, and they had been watching since the night before. They had also been persuaded by Lewis that the trip was necessary.
All this told him she had not been rash, but he could rationalize it all he liked. He was still angry.
“I forgot to mention it last night, because…” She looked up at him from under her lashes and blushed, and he found himself completely immobilised.
He was charmed. And aroused. He could not seem to shake the sensation off.
She cleared her throat delicately. “I took the opportunity to talk to Sheldrake’s staff before the Wentworths move in, and offer them some assistance until they find new positions.” She lifted her shoulders. “The Wentworths could move in at any time, and although they have no money, they would have refused to allow me to help. I had to act immediately.”
“Why?” James tried to unwrap himself from her little finger and get some distance by leaning back against the cracked red leather of the old carriage he had managed to hire for the day. A solid, serviceable, but ancient contraption that would hopefully attract no one’s notice as they spent the day following the leads he had gathered yesterday.
She frowned. “Because if I didn’t go first thing, I might have missed my chance.”
“Why did you want to help them, I mean?”
She didn’t answer right away. Like him, she leaned back against the leather and then made a sound of disgust as a sharp edge where the seat had split caught the wool of her coat. She carefully unhooked the thread, her eyes on her task. “It was the right thing to do. And I would have done it, no matter what my relationship with Sheldrake had been, but my urgency, my sense of needing to get it done, in case the Wentworths somehow stood in my way, was because I know I hold some of the blame for the way things were between Sheldrake and myself.” She finally wo
rked the coat free, and tried to smooth the thread back into the wool fabric.
“I held myself back from him. I don’t suppose it would have made any difference if I had been more open. He may well not have noticed, but I didn’t try, even though I’d agreed to marry him.” She finally looked up, her blue eyes serious. “I should have refused. No matter the impact it would have had on my relationship with my father, no matter what he would have done as far as my financial well-being was concerned, I should have said no to that marriage. I was persuaded to say yes, and then held myself stiff and cold. I held Sheldrake in contempt. No matter how he behaved to me, that was unworthy of me. I had no business being his betrothed with that sentiment. And helping his staff, doing right by them…” She gestured with her hands. “I feel as if I’ve atoned, somehow. Balanced the scales.” She drew her coat tighter around herself, her finger going back to the pulled thread, pressing and smoothing it down. “I feel as if I’ve fought my way free.”
He leaned forward and took her hands. “I like the thought of you free.”
The rumble of the carriage wheels and the squeak of the chassis stretched between them, while he kept her hands in his, the feel of them like warm satin between his palms.
When the carriage stopped with a jerk and a call to the horses by the driver, James realized he had no idea how much time had passed.
He looked out the window and saw they had arrived at Snow Hill.
“Do I come with you?” Miss Hillier—Phoebe—asked, leaning close to him to peer out the window as well.
He nodded. “I understand Mr. Beckwith specializes in small guns that can be concealed in reticules and pockets. The majority of his clientèle are women. So today, I will be your adoring husband, looking at pistols for my lovely wife.”
She frowned. “We have to pretend to be someone else? I thought you just wanted to know who he’d sold the gun to.”
He shook his head. “I learned last night Beckwith sold Bellingham the pistols he used in the assassination. So we’ll be Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, to be safe.” He had dressed respectably but not extravagantly for today’s outing, and he could be a banker, a lawyer, or a merchant. “There may be a connection between the gunsmith and one of the conspirators. Otherwise it is a real coincidence that Bellingham chose to buy his guns the same gunsmith as our attacker from last night. Whether the gunsmith understands what is going on or not, he may mention our visit, and I would prefer that he didn’t know our real names.”
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