Page 4 of Lady Isla and the Lord of Rogue (Merry Spinsters, Charming Rogues #6)

“‘E’s lying,” Meggie had warned her after they’d stepped out of the inn. “It’s a trap.”

But Isla had wanted to make sure. They’d ventured deeply into the heart of the rookery, and truth be told, it was amazing that they’d gone as far as they had, alive, without having been accosted by anyone, until, of course, that cad had jumped out at them.

Isla sighed.

So much had happened that day, and all in vain.

“Where, oh where are you, Jem?” she murmured as she tossed and turned, and then finally fell into a fitful sleep.

“You have to go with them, lelori, ” Jem had told her, but she’d clung to him, sobbing. Lelori was Jem’s endearment for her. It meant little sparrow in the Anglo-Romani language.

“I don’t want to,” she replied in his language. “Let’s go away together and find Lazlo’s kumpania . He’ll take us in.”

Jem looked over the heather field, his eyes troubled. Then he shook his head. “He won’t. He doesn’t want us. You need to go with them, the gadje . They want you. They’ve come specifically for you. This is your chance to leave this horrible place. They will give you a home and a new name.”

“But I don’t want them! I don’t want to live with the gadje .”

“They are your people,” Jem said kindly but firmly. “It is time for you to return to your own way of life.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” she cried. “I belong with the Romani as much as you.”

“I will find you,” Jem had whispered. “I swear on my life. Meet me by the sundial. In Kensington Gardens.”

She had waited and waited…

He never came.

Isla wept in her dream. When she woke, in the middle of the night, she was disoriented.

Her bed was too big, too soft, too suffocating.

After all this time, she still preferred to sleep on the hard ground, for it was safe, and she missed the smell of the moist earth and dewy grass in the morning.

Sighing, she threw her pillow and blanket to the ground.

She climbed from her bed and lay down on the blanket. There, she fell into a fitful sleep.

The next morning, Isla awoke late, nearly at noontime, to the sound of Meggie’s scolding.

“She’s doing it again! Her ladyship is sleeping on the ground again,” she heard her say to Annie, the abigail.

She rose with dark rings under her eyes and with dampened spirits. Algie would return home for his nuncheon, and she usually joined him in the dining room then.

Whitehall, where the Home Office was based, lay only a short distance from their residence in St. James’s Square, and on some days, when he felt especially weighed down by his duties, he insisted on walking to and from his office, to clear his mind.

He particularly enjoyed his morning stroll through a small stretch of St. James’s Park, savouring the quiet before stepping into the demands of Whitehall.

Isla liked to join him for a light midday meal, since it was the first meal of the day for her, whereas Algie partook of something more substantial, usually mutton, beef, or pigeon pie.

Algie sawed at his beefsteak with concentration while Isla sipped her tea.

“That’s right,” he suddenly remarked. “Meant to give you this.” He reached into his breast pocket to retrieve several sheets of paper, folded together, and handed them to her.

“What’s this?” Isla took them and unfolded them.

“Since you go out of your way to scour the rookery to find your man.” Algie sighed. “This is to prove it’s all futile, Pixiekins.”

Lists and lists…of Jem Fawes. Next to each name was an occupation and a neat mark made in ink.

Jem Fawe—butcher; Whitehall. (Marked)

Jem Faa—peddler; Southwark. (Marked)

“Goodness! How many of them are there?” Isla exclaimed.

“Hundreds.” Algie set down his cutlery. “In London alone, hundreds. These are all the Jem Fawes we could find. I have hired a man solely for this task.” He spread his hands. “It is worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack. As you can see, none of them is our man.”

“And the check means that…?”

“…That it’s not him,” Algie explained patiently. “We even investigated different spellings of the name. As you know, there are variants—Fawe or Faa. It is a common name among the Gypsies. One of the oldest names there is. ”

“He’s Rom. Romani,” Isla murmured absent-mindedly. Jem had been fiercely proud of his heritage.

“Yes. But, Isla. How long has it been? Nigh twenty years?” Algie shook his head. “It’s admirable, really, the tenacity with which you refused to forget the fellow.”

It was true. She never forgot him. Not for a minute. Not for a second.

“Mind you,” Algie continued with a dry chuckle.

“When I think back to all the troubles we had to go through, Mama and I. You were so little, and we couldn’t let you out of our sights.

You sought every opportunity to run away to be with your Jem again.

When the front door was open, you’d flit through. You nearly ran into a mail coach once.”

Isla barely remembered that. Her memories from her earlier time with Algie, right after she’d left the orphanage, were blurred and she could no longer distinguish whether it had really happened, or whether she’d dreamed it all.

“The first time you ran away was when we made a stop at the inn. The footman opened the carriage door and off you went like a shot, running like lightning up the road that we’d come down, crying, ‘Jem! Jem!’ Had a devil of a time running after you.

Caught you eventually at the next intersection.

You were sobbing wildly.” He shook his head.

“And Mama was so upset to see you so sad; she was sobbing right along with you. That was a ride to London, I tell you, I shall never forget it.”

“I made life quite difficult for you at first, didn’t I?”

“Not only at first.” Algie chuckled. “You sought every opportunity to look for Jem. You asked every Rom we passed whether they knew Jem. Then, after you finally grew up into a lovely lady, you stopped talking about him, and Mama and I hoped that maybe finally you’d forgotten that poor devil.

” He heaved a deep sigh. “Only to find that you’d developed a soft spot for charity cases and seeking every excuse to venture to Seven Dials to find Jem.

It was worse than finding a needle in a haystack, but you wouldn’t give up. ”

Isla chewed on her lower lip as her eyes dropped to the list in front of her. “Are you certain that none of them is Jem?”

“I am certain. If you ask me, three things could have happened to the fellow.” He lifted a finger. “One, he rejoined his people and is travelling freely again—who knows where. He might even be on the Continent, impossible to track.”

It was a possibility. There was nothing Jem had wanted more than to return to his people. He could have left the orphanage at any time, but he had stayed only to keep her company. He hadn’t wanted to leave his lelori alone in that terrible place. He had stayed only to protect her.

She felt a lump in her throat.

“Secondly,” Algie lifted a second finger. “He got transported. I’m sorry, but you know that’s a common fate for the Romani, especially if they fall into crime. The law is singularly harsh against them. For many, it is a crime simply to be born Romani.”

Isla nodded. “Yes. But never Jem,” she said fiercely. “Jem would never become a criminal. And thirdly?”

“Thirdly,” he said heavily, “he has already paid for whatever crime they accused him of.”

Isla stared at him for a moment, before the meaning sunk in. “You mean he might have been executed.”

“It is possible. More than possible. How else do you explain his complete absence from these lists? I’ve employed the best runners to help.” He shrugged. “Nothing. Look, Isla. If I cannot find him, then no one can.”

Isla’s shoulders slumped. He was right. Her brother was the Home Secretary, after all. They called him ‘ ’Bloodhound’. There was no other person in all of England who was better qualified to find him. And if Algie couldn’t…then who could?

She’d gone to the sundial in Kensington Gardens day after day, year after year. In vain. He’d either forgotten about her entirely, or more likely, something had happened to him that had prevented him from meeting her at the promised spot.

Maybe he really got transported.

Maybe he really was dead.

Isla stared into her tea, feeling utterly depressed.

The door opened, and Falks entered, bearing a missive on a salver. “The mail has arrived, Your Lordship.”

Algie took the letter, opened it, and cursed under his breath as he read.

“You must excuse me, Isla. I have much work to do. This Lucian Night is proving to be immense trouble. He’s ubiquitous, yet elusive.

His network is massive. Everyone claims to know him, yet no one has truly seen him.

It is as if he were a phantom. Confound it, it is most vexing.

” He threw down his serviette on the table.

Isla’s head snapped up. “Lucian Night? His name is spoken in every drawing room. I daresay…oh, I daresay that man would know vastly more people in the underworld than you do, would he not?”

“It is possible. Now, if you will excuse me.” He got up and strode to the door. “Oh, by the by. There is this fellow waiting for you again in the foyer. I passed him earlier. The one who is so smitten with you. What was his name again? Lindsay. Linfield. Lin-something.”

“Lord Thaddaeus Linwood,” Isla replied absent-mindedly.

“Linwood. That’s the man. His tenacity in courting you is admirable. Be nice to your suitors, Isla, I beg of you.” There was a mild expression of exasperation in his pale blue eyes.

“I’m always nice to them.”

Algie snorted. “Rumour reached me you sent one poor fellow on a fool’s quest for some impossible-to-get flower that doesn’t even grow in England. Fellow was said to have nearly drowned in a lake to find it. That wasn’t Linwood, was it?”

“Hm.”

“Isla?”

Her head snapped up. “Oh. It might have been Linwood, indeed. It was meant to be a joke. Only he was foolish enough to take it up as a real quest. No idea how he came to fall into a lake, however. How witless of him if he did. I believe that part to be an exaggerated rumour. You know what the ton is like. ”

Algie shook his head with an exasperated sigh. “Be nice to him, Isla. He is a good man.”

“Hm.”

“I would like to see you married, one day. It would be nice if at least one of us wed.” With those words, he finally left.

Isla remained sitting alone in the dining room, a steep furrow appearing on her forehead. “Lucian Night,” she repeated thoughtfully. He certainly sounded dangerous. “Lucian Night.” She tapped a pale finger on the tabletop. “Lucian Night…”

The man who was omnipresent. The man who was known by everyone, and who, likely, knew everyone, too.

Maybe he was the one who could help her find Jem—if Algie could not?

“I must find Lucian Night,” Isla said under her breath.