A Wicked Gentleman (23 page)

Nick frowned. “Oh, three, maybe four days ago…can't remember exactly. You know how it is, one evening just runs into another.”

“Reprobate,” Harry accused with a mocking smile.

Nick just laughed. “Why the interest in Dagenham, Harry? It's not like you to take up a cub.”

“No,” Harry agreed. “But I happened to meet a cousin of his a couple of weeks ago.”

“Female?” hazarded David.

“A widow,” Harry said calmly. “She and her sister-in-law and a friend have set up house in Cavendish Square.”

“Haven't seen them about.” David blinked in the dim light.

“No, they've been keeping to themselves up until now. But, rest assured, you'll see them in due course.” Harry set his tankard on the table and pushed back his seat.

“Just a minute, Harry.” Nick laid a restraining hand on his sleeve. “Enough of your riddles. Are they going to interest us?”

“Yes, is there money?” David, perennially underfunded, asked quickly.

Harry shrugged. “Not at all sure,” he said easily, although he knew perfectly well there was little enough. “But a house in Cavendish Square doesn't come cheap.”

“Indeed not.” David gave a sagacious nod. “Best pay a call on…On whom?”

“Lady Dagenham, Lady Farnham, and Lady Livia Lacey,” Harry said as he drew on his gloves. “Two widows and one spinster.”

“So they're all on the market?” Nick mused, regarding his friend through narrowed eyes. “You have an interest there, Harry? Best say before David here puts an oar in.”

Harry shook his head. “You know me, Nick.” He raised a hand in farewell and weaved his way through the crowd to the door.

“Aye, we know you, Harry,” Nick said softly. “Once bitten twice shy.”

“Can't blame the man,” David said. “That was a bad business with his wife.”

“The worst,” Nick agreed. “I never understood why he married her in the first place.”

“The daughter of a duke,” David reminded him, calling for more ale.

“Yes, but Harry wouldn't give a fig for that.” Nick shook his head. “No, fact is he liked her. I always thought there was something fishy about her, though.”

“Mustn't speak ill of the dead,” David said, but without conviction. “Dreadful way to die.”

Nick drummed his fingers on the table. “If only Harry hadn't been in the house at the time.”

David looked at him sharply. “You don't think…”

“No, not for one minute,” Nick denied. “But it looked bad, particularly once the whole business with Vibart came out.”

“Can't understand why the duke forced the issue, though. You'd think he'd want to protect his daughter's reputation. By insisting on criminal charges he exposed her for what she was. Little better than a whore.”

“Now who's speaking ill of the dead?” Nick said with a short and humorless laugh. “But Harry was exonerated and the duke just looks a fool by refusing to let it go.”

David shook his head gloomily. “Harry'll never live it down though. There'll always be a taint, a hint of doubt. If he marries again, it won't be into the ton, I'll wager anything you like on that.”

“I wouldn't take your wager,” Nick stated. “Harry wouldn't marry again if you paid him Midas's gold.” He pushed back his chair. “I must be going. You going home? I'll walk with you as far as Portman Square.”

H
ARRY MADE THE ROUNDS
of the clubs, but none of the doormen or the flunkeys remembered seeing Mr. Dagenham in the last few days, although they all remembered the man, and for the same reason. His IOUs. It seemed the young man had built up substantial debt among the members.

“There was some mention of blackballing, my lord,” the dignified and very experienced butler at White's offered in a discreet undertone. “But I gather Mr. Dagenham settled his debts in the end, and nothing more was said. Hasn't been around in a while though. Rusticating in the country probably. It's hard for youngsters to get burned like that. Always feel they daren't show their faces in society again. But it passes. We'll be seeing him again in a year or two, mark my words, my lord. When he's not so green.”

“I'm sure you're right, Naseby.” Harry slid a guinea into the man's gloved palm. “You've seen enough of them come and go in your time.”

“That I have, my lord, that I have.” The steward bowed as his knowing fingers identified the coin in his hand. “And thank you, my lord.”

“Thank you, Naseby.” Harry went back down to the street. Now where? It was still too early for the gaming hells to be functioning, and he had plans for the night that did not include chasing after some youngster who'd managed to get himself into trouble. Into it, but also out of it, it would seem. Just where had the money come from to pay his debts?

He decided to walk home to Mount Street and his dinner but stopped when the marquess of Coltrain's carriage wheeled to a halt outside White's. He turned back to the club, waiting politely as the footman let down the step, and the marquis himself stepped down to the pavement.

“Good evening, Coltrain.” He bowed to the marquis.

His lordship was a small, dapper gentleman with the raddled complexion of a man who had long enjoyed a love affair with the bottle. He looked up at his much taller interlocutor. “Ah, Bonham, good evening. You going into the club?”

“Not this evening, but I was hoping to run into you.”

Lord Coltrain looked astonished. They were barely acquainted, and for all practical purposes, different generations. “Ah, well…what can I do for you?”

“I was looking for your guest…Nigel Dagenham. I haven't been able to find him for a few days. I trust he's not unwell.”

“Good God, I wouldn't know,” the marquess said. “He's Garston's guest, not mine. But now you mention it, I haven't seen him in the house either.” He shook his head. “Not that I'd expect to, the hours these young pups keep. Don't get to bed afore noon, and they get up at midnight to fritter away their time and money at the tables.”

“I daresay you did the same at their age, sir,” Harry said, thinking that Coltrain, for all his protestations, was still an inveterate gambler. It was said he'd run through two fortunes before he'd reached thirty. Only the seemingly limitless fortune left him by a distant relative who owned coal mines in Northumberland had saved him from ruin.

The marquess chuckled a little. “Oh, perhaps so. Mustn't begrudge the youngsters their youth now. Recommend you find Mac, Bonham. He'll know where Dagenham is.” With that he tottered a little unsteadily up to the door of White's.

Harry was not going to find Mackenzie, the earl of Garston, anywhere at this hour. It would have to wait until tomorrow. But he couldn't shake off a sense of unease as he continued on his way home, and with a sigh of irritation turned his steps instead to Horseguards.

The man he sought was fortunately easy to find. The head of the British secret service was as unassuming as his need for discretion dictated. He operated from a suite of offices running off a long, dim corridor that reeked of dust and mice, and when Harry tapped at his open door, was engaged in moving pins around a map of the French coastline spread out on a table.

He looked up and greeted his visitor with genuine warmth. “Harry, what brings you here at this time of day. Can't get enough of the place, eh?”

“I've had more than enough of it in the last weeks, Simon,” Harry said with a dry smile. “But something's bothering me and I think we should look into it.” He perched on a corner of the table and looked at the map. “Networks?”

“Aye.” The other man looked grim as he removed a pin. “They've taken out the outpost at Rochelle. God knows where they got their information.”

“All gone?” Harry whistled his own dismay.

“We think so. Nothing from anyone so far, at least. If anyone survived, they'll make contact within the next twenty-four hours.” Simon Grant shrugged and exhaled noisily. “So, take my mind off this, Harry, and give me something else to worry about.”

His face, drawn and deeply lined, and his tired, sunken eyes gave credence to his words. He was a man who rarely slept, who felt that he held the lives of every agent in the far-flung field in the palm of his hand. And Harry had long believed that the responsibility was slowly killing him.

He regarded him now with sympathy and a flicker of guilt that he was going to add to his tribulations, but it had to be done. Only Simon Grant could order what had to be ordered.

The spymaster read his expression, and a weary smile flickered over his lips. “Let's have a glass of claret,” he suggested, waving to the desk. “I'm parched. Sit down, Harry.”

Harry took the seat across from the desk, accepted a rather dusty glass of claret, and told Simon about his fears for Nigel Dagenham.

“You think this is connected in some way to the thimble?” Simon ran a finger around the rim of his glass setting it ringing in the quiet room.

“I don't know for a fact, but it seems too much of a coincidence. I think we have to find him anyway. If they haven't netted him yet, they might just be waiting for the perfect opportunity.”

Simon nodded, sipped his wine, set down the glass, and reached for a sheet of parchment. “I can't really spare anyone, but if you think it's urgent then so be it. I'll put Coles and Addison onto it. If he's out there somewhere, they'll find him.” He dipped the quill into the ink pot. “What do you want them to do with him once they find him?”

“Nothing,” Harry said firmly. “Just lead me to him, that's all. I'll do the rest.”

Simon Grant looked up curiously. “You have an interest in him, Harry?”

“Let's just say, in the family,” Harry returned, setting down his glass and getting to his feet. “Sorry to have added to your burdens, Simon.”

The other man waved this away. “You relieve me of them often enough. Anyway, forewarned is forearmed. As long as we can contain this situation, we might even be able to use him ourselves. If the French, or even the Russians, are trying to net him, maybe we should just let that happen, then turn him ourselves.”

Harry made no response to this, it was the way Simon's mind worked. If it came down to it, then Harry would intervene. He didn't think Nigel Dagenham would make a reliable double agent.

He made his farewells and left the Ministry. His only real interest in Nigel Dagenham lay in his dangerous proximity to the women and children in Cavendish Square. The enemy wouldn't give a tinker's damn about collateral damage. If Nigel was to be their path to the thimble, then the women and their children were in danger. Removing the thimble was no longer sufficient. He had to find Dagenham and take him out of the picture. And Simon's men were the quickest way to do that.

 

“So what time should we be ready to receive the duchess of Gracechurch tomorrow, do you think?” Livia inquired, taking a slice of partridge from the serving dish one of the twins had placed on the dining table. A covered dish of brussel sprouts was set down beside it.

“By three o'clock,” Aurelia said, helping herself to roast potatoes. “That's the usual time.”

She looked up with a smile as one of the twins put a gravy boat beside her. “Thank you, Ada.” She addressed the woman with confidence, having noticed some days earlier that Ada had the tiniest mole just above her left eyebrow. This twin bore the blemish.

“We should have tea, of course,” Livia said, her mind running happily along these tracks. “Ada, do you think you could make some of those exquisite little sponge cakes?”

“That's our Mavis what makes them,” Ada said stolidly.

“Oh…well, do you think she would make them for us?” Livia offered a winning smile.

“You'd have to ask her that, mum,” Ada stated. “She'll be bringin' in the neeps in a minute.” With which she exited the dining room.

“Neeps?” Aurelia looked at her companions.

“Turnips, I think,” Cornelia said. “It's what they call them up north…oh, and in Scotland too.”

“How on earth did you know that?”

“I'm not sure…oh, yes, now I remember. When Stevie was born, we had a nursery maid who came from somewhere north of Durham. I heard her talking about neeps once. Linton complained that she couldn't understand a word the girl said, so, she had to go.” This conclusion was stated as a self-evident truth, and Aurelia understood it as such.

“It's so hard to communicate with the twins,” Livia lamented. “But they're such wonderful cooks. This partridge is delicious…oh, and the sprouts have chestnuts mixed in with them. We never eat this well at home.” She gave an exaggerated sigh. Her father, the Reverend Lacey, did not approve of fancy cooking. Plain fare was good enough for his table, as he said almost every dinnertime after grace was said. Plain food and one or at most two glasses of wine for health's sake.

Mavis entered with the turnips, and Livia quickly asked about the sponge cakes. The twin seemed to give the request grave consideration. “Would those be the ones with the dried cherries, mum? Or the ones with the currants?”

“Both?” Livia suggested somewhat tentatively. “They're both delicious, Mavis.”

Mavis merely ducked her head in acknowledgment and marched out of the dining room.

“Was that a yes?” Livia asked.

“I think so,” Aurelia said. “They're actually very obliging, just rather taciturn.” She poured gravy over her partridge and passed the boat across to Cornelia sitting opposite. “Gravy, Nell?”

“Oh, yes, thank you.” Cornelia helped herself, absently watching the stream of rich, vinous sauce coat the thin slices of partridge breast on her plate.

Livia exchanged a look with Aurelia. “You'll drown it in a minute, Nell,” she observed. She bent to give the dogs sitting on her feet beneath the table a piece of meat each.

Cornelia shook herself back to the room and set the boat down in its saucer. “It smells so wonderful,” she offered as excuse. “Could I try the neeps, Ellie?”

Aurelia pushed the tureen towards her. “We seem to have come a long way since our first meal in this house,” she said. “Do you remember bread and cheese and potato soup in the parlor that first night? It was so cold and miserable.”

“And now look at it.” Livia waved her fork at their surroundings. “We could have a dinner party now that this room is so respectable.”

Cornelia forced herself to enter the conversation with a fully focused mind. “I didn't think the dining salon would come up as well as it has,” she said. “But the cream and gold paint has done wonders; it really brings out the moldings.”

“And the fresco on the ceiling,” Aurelia said, craning her neck to look above her. “But you know something, I don't think that fresco is all that it purports to be. The painter had a very odd gleam in his eye when he came down the ladder after touching it up, and he almost blushed when I asked him if he liked the design.”

“Well, maybe it has hidden treasures, like the jelly mold,” Cornelia said, finally fully engaged in this subject.

“The cherubs are certainly very cherubic.” Livia gazed up at it herself. “I suspect that to get the full imagery, you would have to be up close.”

“Then we should get a stepladder and go up for a closer look,” Cornelia stated. “There's so much in this house that we haven't properly explored yet.”

“Like the attics.” Livia speared another slice of partridge. “I had a quick look, but it was so filthy I came back down in a hurry. But there are all sorts of boxes and chests up there.”

“I think Aunt Sophia's life is probably worth exploring,” Cornelia said. “When we've done what we came here to do.”

“Which is to burst in full fig upon an unsuspecting London society,” Aurelia declared. “And we start tomorrow.”

“Viscount Bonham has been so kind,” Livia said. “And after such a dreadful start.” She laughed. “We insulted him, deceived him, made fun of him, and he repays us with kindness. Isn't that amazing?”

“Utterly,” Cornelia concurred dryly.

“Oh, you're so suspicious, Nell,” Livia accused. “You sound as if he must have some ulterior motive; but he knows he can't have the house, so what else could he want?”

“I can't imagine,” Aurelia said, keeping her eyes on her plate. “I daresay he enjoys our company.”