Page 53

Piccadilly Street

W ill Beckford swung along Piccadilly in the weak morning sun, Dickie Jones hurrying along at his side, gamely trying to keep up with the tall Peeler’s stride.

“Is this a race or are we actually headed somewhere important?” Dickie gave up trying to pretend he wasn’t bothered by the lightning pace they’d maintained down so many city streets.

He sucked in a deep, noisy breath and huffed it back out.

“Do you always walk this fast, or are yer tryin’ ter kill me?

” A shortness of breath had brought on a fit of the cant of the rookeries his adoptive father had worked for months trying to eradicate from his speech.

“We’re going to check on Olivia before I’m missed at station…and…I have to cover this beat in double time so I won’t be caught out having left the street to make sure your sister’s safe.

“Why wouldn’t she be safe? Is there something you’re not telling me? Somethin’ I should know?”

“Chelmsford’s mansion is a big place full of lots of expensive pieces of art, statues, and Lord knows what else, just begging to be stolen. The footmen can’t be everywhere at once. What if someone breaks in, and Olivia happens to be in his way?”

Dickie chuckled to himself, and a small piece inside his brain, like a random chunk of a wooden puzzle, clicked into place.

He wondered if his sister suspected the depth of feelings Will harbored for her.

He dismissed that thought out of hand. His sister was so single-minded in the way she approached life, he was sure she didn’t suspect.

She’d always seemed totally unaware of how the tall, gangly boy had always given her any extra blankets they could cadge and the best bits of food they could find each day.

He’d probably been cow-simple about her from the beginning.

They’d found her one night in Seven Dials, crouching beneath a huge pile of refuse in an alleyway, trying to escape the gang who wanted to force her into working as a prostitute.

Will was as gentle as he was broad-shouldered and gruff.

He’d found some clean water and soap and carefully cleaned the bruises and scratches she’d suffered during the battle royal with a gang of older boys.

She’d apparently given as good as she gotten.

Dickie’s mother had still been alive then, and despite having no other income than the laundry she took in, welcomed Olivia to the small tenement room they’d shared.

After his mother had died of consumption, Dickie and Olivia were adopted by CB, who at the time was treating the poor as a volunteer surgeon out of various inns throughout the rookeries.

He now had a permanent free clinic on Rose Street near Covent Garden.

Dickie’s Aunt Camilla had welcomed all of them into her home on St. James Square.

By that time, Will had managed to start a small business as a drover delivering vegetables by pony-drawn cart from Surrey to Covent Garden Market and could afford a room of his own.

However, Dickie had no idea what had possessed Will earlier that year to give up a perfectly good business to sign on as a Peeler in the newly formed police force.

He covered Division C, which, coincidentally, covered most of their old thieving grounds.

Dickie had concluded his old friend had either turned daft in his old age, or was working some angle he had yet to figure out.

A pril 15, 1830

Chelmsford Mansion Kitchen

Berkley Square

Will sat in the vast, recently renovated kitchen in the depths of the Duke of Chelmsford’s Berkley Square mansion.

He’d heard the rumors about why the renovation had been undertaken shortly before His Grace took Captain Eleanor Goodrum as his wife and duchess.

Everyone from the heights of the ton to the lowliest fishmonger had followed the gossip sheets and speculated: Why?

He smiled and took a second cup of tea offered by one of the pot girls. He knew what it felt like to love a woman, in his case, one particular woman who was more than capable of driving a man to allow the destruction of his own kitchen.

As usual, Will had scoured the halls of the Chelmsford mansion, top to bottom, ensuring there was nothing amiss, no kidnapper or murderer lurking in a dark corner…just waiting to harm Olivia.

The buxom downstairs maid suddenly plopped down next to him onto the bench at the long, well-worn wooden table before the fireplace.

Rumor also had it this particular table was the only thing His Grace had insisted should remain from the mostly destroyed original furnishings.

Will let his hand drift down the edge of the table to a deep gash no doubt left by a cleaver of some sort.

He smiled again and turned to thank the young woman next to him.

She leaned forward, offering Will a plate of biscuits as well as a generous view of her plump breasts. He politely averted his eyes.

The women crowding around the table using various excuses to edge nearer to the Peeler let out a collective gasp.

“Will Beckford—” Only Olivia could make his name sound like an epithet shot from her mouth like a cannon ball from one of his majesty’s ships.

What had he done wrong now? He was here only because of her, and those damnably bright sapphire eyes.

However, that was the last thing he’d ever have the courage to tell her.

She marched toward the crowd of women servants, and with one vicious look cleared the area around Will. At the other side of the kitchen by the wood-fired cook stove, Cook gave out a low chuckle.

O livia searched her memory for any other person…

man, woman, or beast, who had the power to reduce her to a shrill harpy.

Will Beckford apparently formed a species all his own.

Hera alone knew how a man as tall and brawny as her old friend could slip in and out of the Chelmsford mansion without her knowledge.

When she finally found her voice, all she could manage to bleat out was, “Where is your laundry?”

He stared back like a great, gawping dog she’d chastened until he finally found his voice. “I’m fine, Miss Whitcombe. How are you this glorious morning?” Outside, rain pummeled the cobblestones of the lower level courtyard like an army of ugly gray avengers.

Arghh…this was the part where he turned her into that hateful harpy. “Don’t you have somewhere you should be? How can you traipse about London doing as you please and still take the King’s coin?”

Will said nothing in reply. He stood, picked up his stovepipe hat from one of the wall hooks, and bowed low before clattering up the rear stone staircase to the tradesmen’s entrance.

She stamped a foot in frustration before realizing all the women servants still in the room had been unobtrusively spying on them and would dine off her behavior for weeks over the table in the servants’ hall.

A pril 15, 1830

Division C Peelers’ Station

Will quick-trotted all the way back to the Soho station on Beak Street where he filled out forms to show the beats he’d patrolled and anything he’d seen worthy of passing on to his superiors.

The captain to whom he reported leaned out the door of his small office and beckoned to Will.

However, before Will could reach his side, he was cut off by the desk sergeant leading an obviously wealthy woman attired in a long, deep-green wool cape with fur trim and expensive leather boots, no doubt from Hoby’s.

To be honest, very few women ever ventured into the Peelers’ station, let alone one garbed in such finery.

At the last moment, she turned as if sensing Will’s presence.

If Will were a weaker man, he’d have fallen on his arse.

The woman who’d just turned her sad-sweet smile on him had the same raven-dark curls as Olivia, which was not exactly unusual.

The older woman’s hair was shot with a bit of silver at the temples.

However, the thing that had nearly set Will onto his arse was her eyes.

Bright sapphire snapped out at him, probing deep into his soul.

Of course, he seated himself as close to his captain’s office as possible.

He had to know why this older version of Olivia had presented herself at the Section C headquarters.

If he had to eavesdrop, so be it. He had to know.

Was this woman possibly connected in some way to Olivia?

By the time she’d exited the office a long time later, Will had descended into a dark place of desperation.

What he’d just overheard could upend Olivia’s world and destroy her chances of finding a kind gentleman of the ton who would love and cherish her for life.

He had to make sure that never happened.