“I am sure all the same. Perhaps it was not here but elsewhere.” He pondered it. “Do you gamble?”
Mr. Sykes’s expression turned guarded. “A bit, sir. Not overmuch.”
“Ah, now I remember. It was at Damian’s, not three weeks ago. I am sure of it. You were with two junior army officers at the wheel. You were much distracted by the play.”
Mostly Sykes had been distracted by his large losses in that gaming hell. His panic had been visible and palpable, which was why Castleford had noticed him. When desperate, Sykes appeared much as he had when awed by a duke’s entrance into his dungeon.
“I have been there on occasion, I think. Your memory is excellent, sir, if you noticed such as me.”
“My memory surprises even me sometimes. There is no accounting for what sticks in it.”
Mr. Sykes nervously opened and closed the snuffbox and, after admiring it a moment, handed it back with his thanks.
“Keep it, Mr. Sykes. Be sure to pawn it well, however. The top is gold and the bottom silver, and those are real sapphires as the lion’s eyes. Oh, and while you contemplate how far it will go to settling your gentleman’s debts, would you be good enough to bring me the books that have the war deaths?”
Mr. Sykes looked at him. Then at the snuffbox. Then at the door.
“Mr. Trilling will be some time returning, I promise you. Bathurst is in a meeting this morning, so there will be a delay for any other conversations. Mr. Trilling cannot return until he can let me stay or kick me out on the minister’s authority,” Castleford said. “If it makes you feel better, after you bring me the list, you can keep watch at the door.”
Mr. Sykes thought it over for a long moment. Then he went to the bookcases that held the records, climbed two rungs on the ladder propped there, and pulled out a large, bound volume.
D
aphne set aside the letter she had received from Katherine, in which Katherine described how everything at The Rarest Blooms progressed. Katherine gave repeated reassurance that Daphne’s presence had thus far not been missed. Her pride in managing everything on her own could be sensed through her words.
Daphne rather wished Katherine were not proving so competent. She should not go home until all was settled with Castleford, she knew, but if she had no choice, due to some disaster . . .
Her reaction was cowardly and uncalled-for. All she had to do was wait him out and make sure he never touched or kissed her again. He would lose interest quickly and most likely give her the property outright just to be rid of her.
She penned a quick response to Katherine, one full of praise. After she sealed that letter, she dipped her pen again and faced a blank sheet of paper.
It was time to write to her friend Margaret. Not only did she owe Margaret a letter, she also wanted to learn how things really fared in the north, where Margaret lived.
The reports read in London made the situation sound very dangerous, and she needed to know if the danger only existed in big towns like Manchester or elsewhere as well. Certain lords with property up there seemed to believe that rebellion might break out and that bloody unrest would spread like a fire. She prayed that they exaggerated. It would be good to get a sensible woman’s view of the common people’s mood, however.
Margaret would answer honestly, because she was an old friend. Older than Verity or Celia. She had never lived at The Rarest Blooms or taken refuge with Daphne, however. Rather, the opposite had happened. For a while, before Daphne obtained aid from Becksbridge and established her household near Cumberworth, Margaret had been the one to offer help and sanctuary in her small home outside of Manchester.
Daphne wrote the letter easily until she had almost finished it. The impulse to write in the first place had not entirely been due to the unrest up north. Now that she tried to form the words to pose her questions on another matter, her confidence faltered.
What would Margaret think, to open a letter and read such queries? She might be insulted or even afraid. Daphne realized that she, who lived by a rule that said one did not pry, was about to pry disgracefully into a good woman’s privacy.
A letter would never do. If she wanted to ask such things, if she wanted Margaret to confide, she would have to do it face-to-face.
She put her other questions aside. Instead she penned a few final sentences that expressed a desire to visit. It was perhaps time, she wrote, to talk honestly about the past.
C
astleford thumped the lion’s head door knocker on a house near Bedford Square. While he waited for a response, he looked up and down the street to see what attention he might be garnering.
The last time he had come here, some months ago, he had been in his state coach. A mistake, that. He had drawn a crowd within minutes. Today he had more sensibly ridden his horse and had escaped attention.
The door opened and a handsome, buxom, red-haired woman faced him. She took his card and gave him a hard, stony gaze before standing aside to let him enter. He looked hard at her as he did so.
She appeared familiar to him. Damned if he knew why. First Sykes this morning, and now this servant. It was annoying to have faces poke at your mind like this.
She led him to a front sitting room. His continued scrutiny of her seemed to annoy her. She left in a manner almost rude.
Soon boot steps sounded on nearby floorboards. Jonathan Albrighton entered, dressed informally, his angular face wearing the vaguest of smiles and his dark eyes showing their inscrutable depths.
“Castleford,” he said in greeting. “What a stunning surprise.”
“I was in the City, and thought I would call as I passed by on my way home.” He made a show of glancing around with appreciation. It was a modest home, of the sort he rarely entered. Albrighton could afford better now. Presumably he stayed here because it was away from society’s eyes. Albrighton had perhaps become too used to obscurity to be comfortable with anything else.
“We are honored. Celia would receive you too, but she insists she is not dressed well enough. I said you would not mind, but you know how women can be.” Albrighton gestured to a chair, by way of invitation. “May I offer you some brandy? Whiskey?”
“I think not, although I probably should. I have been busy of late, and more sober than is healthy, I think.”
Albrighton laughed in that almost silent style he had.
“It was not a jest, Albrighton. Sobriety is playing games with my mind. That servant here, with the red hair, for example. I wonder if I know her, but have no idea why I think I do. It is like a damned itch that can’t be reached.”
Albrighton thought before speaking. He always did that. It usually left Castleford wondering what was not being said. “It is possible you have met her before.”
“That is unlikely. I have not ‘met’ more than a dozen servants in my entire life.”
“She was not always a servant. She used to live in Covent Garden.” Albrighton looked over placidly. Meaningfully.
“Ah.”
“She fears you recognized her. She is being comforted by Celia, who has assured her you are too drunk ever to remember anything when you go whoring.”
“That is not true. I remember almost everything.”
Albrighton just looked at him.
“But not this time. Just her face, vaguely. Nothing specific otherwise.”
“Good.”
“Although it does occur to me that she may have been the one with—” He noticed Albrighton’s eyelids lower. “No, surely not. Try as I might, the details are completely lost. Most likely she was just a friend of some woman I knew much better.”
Albrighton acknowledged the effort with his damned vague smile, then turned the topic neatly. “As I said, you honor us with this call. Is there a reason for it?”
“Does there have to be a reason?”
“For most friends, no. However, you are not known to make calls even on the best people, let alone go out of your way like this.” He said nothing more. He just waited.
That was the problem with Albrighton. He made one show one’s hand in order to get anything out of him. His years employed by the Home Office, his role to ferret out information, no doubt accounted for that. “I merely found myself passing by. However, your mention of your wife does bring to mind my recent acquaintance of Mrs. Joyes. If I remember correctly, your wife lived with her for some time.”
“For five years, until she inherited this house upon her mother’s death.”
Castleford waited for Albrighton to offer something more. Anything. However, unlike with Hawkeswell, conversation, let alone gossip, did not flow freely with this man.
“She mentioned in passing that she sends flowers and plants to a friend in London to distribute. I immediately thought that friend must be Mrs. Albrighton. I don’t know why the notion came to me.”
“It was a logical deduction, I suppose. It was unlikely Mrs. Joyes had Lady Sebastian or Lady Hawkeswell as a partner. That is why Celia is not running above to dress better, to receive you. She expects that wagon from The Rarest Blooms today.”
“Soon? I hope that I have not intruded at an inconvenient time.”
“Not too soon.” Albrighton cocked his head, as if listening for sounds from the back of the house. “Let us take a turn in the park, however, so we are not a nuisance when it comes.”
Castleford agreed that was a fine idea. Albrighton looked like a man who wanted a private word, for one thing. For another, with any luck that wagon would have come by the time their walk was completed.
T
hey walked all the way to Bedford Square before Albrighton spoke again. “I thought perhaps you had sought me out for a different reason besides your curiosity regarding Mrs. Joyes.”
“I am not curious. It was merely small talk. Everyone in the world except you engages in it. If you are going to have any chance in society, you must learn to bore people with insignificant chatter too.”
Humor showed in Albrighton’s eyes, but it dimmed fast. “I thought you had come about Latham. He is in town. He came up from his county seat two days ago.”
Their gazes connected directly for a five count. For that brief spell they were not in Bedford Park or even England. They were in France on a damp night a little over two years ago, and acknowledging without words that Castleford was betraying his current lover and probably sending her to her death for the good of England.
They had never spoken of that business. If Latham had not returned to England, perhaps they never would have.
That night was in the past, and Castleford did not dwell on it. He had decided not to blame Albrighton for doing his duty as he saw it, just as Castleford had done his own in revealing what he had discovered to a man he knew to be an agent for the government. A man who was also a distant, old friend and who would know better than to congratulate His Grace for being so damned selfless and honorable.
“Latham can go to hell for all I care,” Castleford said. Mostly he did not want to care, because thoughts of the new Duke of Becksbridge conjured up a complicated emotion that strongly resembled guilt. About that night and about other things.
“It appears he has gone to court instead. And to visit the Earl Bathurst and Lord Liverpool.”
Albrighton clearly had something to say. Since the man rarely spoke plainly, when he did so it was usually worth hearing.
“I expect they sat and drank port and decried the disgraceful state of the realm,” Castleford said.
“I think it more likely they discussed the need to prepare for insurrection. If you made more calls on the best kind of people, you would appreciate just how worried your fellow peers are.”
“I do not have to endure calls to know. Talk of it is everywhere. I tire of hearing it. It bores me to death.”
“It is not the talking that might lead to deaths.”
Now, that was regrettably interesting. “Have you heard something that goes beyond talk? Do not get dodgy on me, Albrighton.”
“I only pick up pieces now, since I am officially severed from service to the government. Word of meetings drifts to me, though, from others who still know things.” He looked over and caught Castleford’s gaze again with his own. “There is talk of sending the army to Manchester for that demonstration planned next month.”
That was enough to make Castleford stop walking.
Hell and damnation. He had little interest in parliamentary sessions where peers droned on and on, but he prided himself on being aware of the real decisions, the ones made in private chambers. Mrs. Joyes had been distracting him too much if he had missed this. Quite likely he had been poking into her past in the War Office cellar today while ministers plotted something insane right above him.
One would think none of England’s government leaders were educated, from the way they turned stupid when they got together. Both common sense and experience said the presence of the army would not maintain order if a large demonstration in support of radical government reform took place but would only incite trouble.