Everything I Ever Wanted (43 page)

The lad had known little that was of help to South, but having him safe in residence, if sometimes underfoot, was a salve to South's troubled conscience. It was a small thing to do for India, he knew, but a necessary thing to do for himself. The child did not deserve to suffer at Margrave's hands for the loyalty and friendship he had extended to India.

South did not turn his head as the door to his study was gently pushed open. No one but Doobin would have come in without first receiving an entree from him. "What is it, Doobin?"

The fact that South knew it was him was a trifle alarming. Doobin's tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. "I've come for your boots, my lord. Mr. Darrow says it's for me to polish them."

"That is very good of Darrow," South said. "But I am still wearing them."

"I mean to take them off, my lord, and return them directly."

"I see." South felt a reluctant smile tug at the corners of his mouth. It had been a long time since his lips had been drawn in that shape. "Well, have at them."

Doobin crossed the room quickly and dropped to his haunches in front of South. He lifted the viscount's boot and took it firmly by the heel. "I'll have this done in a trice, my lord. Just see if I don't. I aim to make Mr. Darrow pleased that I'm in your service now."

Darrow would be mortified that Doobin had disturbed South here, but South vowed it was something they would work out between them. South would only suggest to his manservant that he not be too hard on the lad. He was a particular favorite of India's, after all.

Doobin removed South's right boot without difficulty. The left one presented more of a challenge. The boy's efforts were punctuated with soft grunts and the occasional curse. In the end, South had to set his unopened book aside and help.

"Thank you, my lord." Holding the boots aloft, Doobin made a slight bow. "I shall be quick about."

"Very good," South said. He wriggled his toes in his stockings and stretched out in the soft leather chair, his entire body curved in a comfortable slouch. When Doobin made to pass him, South caught the boy's wrist. "A moment, if you please."

"Of course, my lord."

"Have you seen Mrs. Garrety since you've been under my roof, Doobin?"

" Mrs. Garrety?" He was genuinely surprised by the question. "No. Why would she come here?"

"Perhaps to find Miss Parr. Mrs. Garrety was very close lo her."

"Oh, yes. Like a flea she was. Always nipping at Miss Parr. Trying to get under her skin." Doobin shook his head. "I haven't seen her since Miss Parr left London. My ears are glad of it, too. She boxed them regular. There's a bit of ringing yet in the left one."

South hoped again that he would get the opportunity to by Margrave out. Perhaps he would box the earl's ears first. "Miss Parr told me once that you collected all the cards that were given to her."

"Yes, my lord. I have them still."

"Were there many women who came calling?"

"Not many. Not backstage at the theatre. It's not a proper place for a lady, though I can't see how it can be proper for Miss Parr. She is a lady through and through."

"She certainly is."

"Lady Macquey-Howell came to the greenroom on occasion. A few others. Is it important? I can show you my cards."

"Perhaps later. Did Miss Parr receive many guests at her home?"

"I can't say if it were many. I have the cards she gave me."

"Do you recall if there was one from the Dowager Countess of Margrave?"

The gap between Doobin's front teeth was clearly visible as he smiled broadly. "I remember that one quite well. I was at Miss Parr's when her ladyship visited, though I wish I had been gone. They had quite a row, you know."

"You saw her?"

"From the upstairs hall. I was taking my lessons with Miss Parr in her sitting room when Lady Margrave called. Miss Parr went down to greet her, and I peeked to see her. I know I should not have, but Miss Parr was unhappy about the visit. I wondered about the person who could upset her."

"Can you describe Lady Margrave to me?"

Doobin's brow puckered as he gave the matter his fierce attention. "She's very tall, my lord. For a lady, that is. She stood eye-to-eye with Miss Parr, and there's not many that can do that. She wore a velvet bonnet with ostrich plumes that kept dipping and swaying when she spoke. She had a habit of bobbing her head, you see. They quite took my notice, so I don't remember the color of her hair. She has the face of a horse, though. That I recall. Put me in mind of a particular one I saw in Tattersall's once. It was an Arabian, I think, with a long black mane, rather like those plumes on her ladyship's bonnet. The Arabian was quite beautiful with its narrow nose and great dark eyes." He paused and admitted a trifle sheepishly, "Though there is something different about it on a lady."

"Indeed," South said dryly. He knew the kind of features Doobin was trying to describe. He imagined a rather elongated face and wide, flaring nostrils. Perhaps Lady Margrave's cheeks had become a bit jowly. "Then you would not say Lady Margrave was beautiful, even in her younger days?"

Doobin could not imagine the woman in her younger days. "She's what they call handsome, my lord. That's how I hear the gents at the theatre describe one such as she."

South nodded, his attention turning away from the boy. Somewhat absently he thanked Doobin. Minutes passed before he noticed he was alone in the room.

Colonel John Blackwood sat in his favorite chair, his feet propped comfortably on a padded stool. He tapped the bowl of his pipe against an ashtray, knocking the residue of a previous smoke loose before he packed it with his special blend of tobacco. "I cannot talk you out of it?" he asked casually, not sparing a glance in South's direction.

"No, sir. I have come close to tearing London apart looking for her, with no success."

"Oh, I would say you have made a success of tearing London apart. It certainly has come to my ears that you have done so." Without giving South time to insert a defense of himself, the colonel went on. "What has it been? Three weeks or four, since you returned from Ambermede?"

"Three weeks and three days," South said. He could have stated the number of hours but refrained from doing so.

"It has come to my attention from a variety of directions that you have disrupted the theatre at Drury Lane on at least three occasions with interruptions of their rehearsals, that you've bedeviled the families of both Mr. Kendall and Mr. Rutherford with questions they cannot answer and would not wish to if they could, that you have been seen wandering the alleyways of Holborn, that you've been to see Lady Macquey-Howell and may have inadvertently alerted her to the investigation by the Foreign Office, and finally that your own mother is becoming increasingly anxious as to the fitness of your mind. This last news I have heard directly from your father, who seems not to have the same concerns but nevertheless was pressed upon by your mother to voice them. I will leave it to you to guess who apprised me of the rest."

South opened his mouth to speak, but the colonel was not yet through.

"That you could have accomplished so much upset in so short a time and still have it not come to the notice of the wags or the gutter press is truly a remarkable feat. Add to that the fact that you have already been to Marlhaven and made a nuisance of yourself with the countess in asking after her son and demanding to know the whereabouts of Miss Parr, and you begin to see that my waking hours are filled with some news of your latest enterprise."

South tried again to speak and was summarily cut off when the colonel jabbed his pipe in the air to emphasize his final points.

"Your friends have each applied to me to insist that they be allowed to help. Now that North's affair with the Gentleman Thief is satisfactorily concluded and Elizabeth is at her ease in Society, it seems to me that Northam, at least, might be spared to assist you."

South came to his feet. "And make Elizabeth a widow, sir? No, I will not have that on my conscience." He remembered all too well sitting with Eastlyn and Westphal in North's Merrifeld Square home, listening to Elizabeth lay the tale of the Gentleman Thief before them. She had simply shined under the attentions of her husband, her almond-shaped eyes alight with mischief and wit. They had toasted her, and she had raised her glass to them in turn. "The Compass Club," she had said, just as if they were heroes.

It had almost been more than he could bear to accept her good wishes and praise when he knew very well that he was no hero at all. He had sat there making light of North's recent injury and Elizabeth's well-intentioned hovering, using humor to deflect the envy that was in his own heart. Envy, he thought, because he would not allow himself to give in to grief.

"It appears that North and his countess have their happy ending," South said. "I would not have it altered on my account. Furthermore, sir, when my friends come to you with the particulars of my latest intrigues, you may tell them I want no more skulking in my shadow. They are worse than any nursemaid I have ever had for listening at doors."

The colonel raised one black eyebrow. His spectacles glinted in the firelight. "Then you are set on the matter."

"Firmly set, sir. India is not in London. Margrave has either taken her abroada possibility for which I can find no evidenceor he is hiding her at one of his estates. I have good reason now to suspect it is Marlhaven."

There existed another possibility, but because South did not mention that India might already be dead, the colonel did not raise it himself. South's despair was almost palpable, yet it did not exist in any manner that was familiar to the colonel. South's handsome features were not haggard or drawn, but set hard as stone, obdurate and implacable. The amusement that could set light into his eyes was rarely visible. Instead they were most often cold and unyielding. The colonel had good reason to know why the Countess of Redding was concerned for her son. His own concerns, like those of South's best friends, were only a trifle more moderate.

"You have already been to Marlhaven," Blackwood pointed out. "And the dowager countess would have no part of your presence once you explained the reason for it. Why will a second visit end differently?"

"Because I intend to take a page from Margrave's book, sir." South picked up his wineglass and drained it. "My own mother won't recognize me. I sincerely doubt that his will."

"Of course you must go," Elizabeth said. Sunlight was trapped in the gold highlights in her hair as she sat at the window in the downstairs drawing room. She looked to her husband and dear friends with something like disappointment in her dark-amber eyes. "I cannot understand your hesitation. It has been more than a sennight since he left, and there has been no word. If any of you were in danger, South would not hesitate to come to your aid." Elizabeth gave her husband a sharply wry glance. "Indeed, did he not just do that very thing to clear your name, North? Perhaps you have forgotten it was South who risked bringing suspicion to himself by accompanying me to Lady Calumet's ball. He might have been caught, prowling about as he was. And to what purpose except to make certain the ton no longer suspected you were the thief in their midst. It really is not to be borne, North, that you would let him go off to Marlhaven alone."

North cleared his throat, a bit uncomfortable with his wife's level stare. "South was adamant that he did not want our help," he said. "Told the colonel we should stop following him."

"What does that signify?" Elizabeth turned her attention to her two guests. Good manners dictated that she deal with them politely, but she had spent enough time in their company to know that civility would not serve her now. "East? What does it matter that South has not applied to you for help? When has he ever done such a thing? And you, West? You were the one who told me how South turned the tables on the Bishops at Hambrick Hall. Did he ask you for assistance then? That is not how I remember the tale. And he knew very well the trap that had been laid for him. He willingly put himself at the mercy of their tribunal while all of you listened at the door." She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, then said gently, "The very least you could do for him now is listen at the door. I do not think that is an unreasonable request."

No member of the Compass Club spoke for a moment. They exchanged glances with one another, not in a way that ignored Elizabeth's dressing-down, but in a way that communicated they had heard every word of it.

West spoke first. "He will not thank us for it," he said to no one in particular.

"Thank us?" East said."It is quite possible he will never speak to us again."

North's mouth twitched. "That would be a point in favor of going to Marlhaven."

East considered that, the line of his own mouth set wryly. "It's as good a reason as any. I have never believed South was made to properly pay for that bit of business at Hambrick. It would serve him a good one if we were to rush to his aid now."

West leaned back in his chair and eyed his friends. "He did write our charter," he said. " North. South. East. West. Friends for life, we have confessed. All other truths, we'll deny. For we are soldier, sailor, tinker, spy . Amends must be made for bad rhyme."

Elizabeth smiled, encouraged now. She knew them all too well to suppose their amusement lessened the import of their decision. They would go to Marlhaven, and at the very least, they would listen at the door.