Page 15 of The Duke and Lady Scandal (Princes of London #1)

“You wished to speak to me, Chief Constable?”

Ben stood stiff and tall, his hands clasped at his back as he always did when summoned to Haverstock’s office. Yet he wasn’t the same man who’d done so a hundred times before.

The hours with Alexandra—perhaps every minute since he’d met her—had altered him. He felt lighter. As if a weight on his shoulders had eased. It felt odd to sense the drive inside him loosen a bit. And yet he welcomed it because he could not regret a moment they’d spent together.

Haverstock stood with his back to Ben and seemed to be warming himself in front of the fireplace, yet there was nothing like ease in the man’s stance. His shoulders were slumped, his hair a bit disheveled, as if he’d forgone his valet’s ministrations. Ben wondered if he’d stayed too late at one of the clubs he was rumored to frequent.

Still, the delaying tactic of subjecting others to long silences wasn’t unusual for the chief. He used it as a means of displaying his power. When you came to him, you were on his time, and your own ceased to matter.

“I find myself astounded at how quickly all that we’ve come to expect can change.”

“Sir?”

Ben eyed the empty cut crystal glass on the chief’s desk.

“You were my finest officer, Drake. My sharpest tool.”

He finally shifted to turn and face Ben.

The man looked dreadful. Not just disheveled but diminished somehow. Less full of life and drained of his usual arrogance.

“How long have you been a detective inspector, Drake?”

Oh damnation, the man was in one of his moods. Asking questions to which the answer was obvious was an indicator of Haverstock’s churlishness.

“Three years, sir.”

“And you aim much higher, do you not?”

Ben barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “You know that I do.”

“As high as my office?”

Haverstock eyed him steadily, willing him to buckle.

“Yes, sir, or higher.”

Ben didn’t feel the urgency for it anymore, but he wouldn’t back down when challenged.

“I see.”

The chief constable broke eye contact and perused his desktop as if in deep contemplation. “Then your actions of late confound me, Detective Inspector.”

He lifted a document from his desk. “Did you or did you not hear of a plot to steal the Crown Jewels?”

Ben couldn’t see every bit of writing on the piece of paper Haverstock dangled, but he recognized the handwriting as Ransome’s. It looked to be a statement of some sort, though not an official police report.

“I had no evidence of a crime. Just a citizen who’d overheard a suspicious conversation.”

“And that citizen was the woman you chased out into the garden at Lord Wellingdon’s? Indeed, based on your behavior that evening, I can only conclude that you’re infatuated with Miss Prince.”

Ben clenched his fists and considered warning Haverstock he’d just stepped onto dangerous ground.

Haverstock tossed the document onto his desk.

“What inquiries have you made?”

He gestured to his blotter. “I must ask because there are no reports for me to review.”

“There is a report related to Miss Prince’s overheard conversation.”

Ben worked his jaw. “And a report of my altercation with Jack Demming.”

Haverstock frowned. “How is Demming caught up in this?”

“He was loitering outside of Princes of London, Miss Prince’s shop. But I found him and spoke to him, and I now believe his motives were more personal.”

“Personal?”

“He’s Amos Howe’s brother, apparently.”

“Ah . . .”

Haverstock’s face creased in a deeper grimace. “That matter is resolved.”

“It never was. We have still not identified or caught M.”

“Put a great deal of time into it recently, have you?”

Haverstock held his gaze, unblinking. “Or have you been too distracted with Miss Prince.”

“Haverstock—”

“You have not followed procedure from the outset, Drake. The chit’s report should have been taken immediately. Escalated immediately. But it seems you’re more interested in getting under her skirts than solving this case.”

Ben bit down hard, struggling to hold back his fury. He eyed the chief constable’s door, weighing whether he should walk out before saying something that would end his career with the Met.

“You’ve nothing to say for yourself, Drake?”

“I have constables attempting to gather information about M while I’ve attended to the backlog of cases that languished during the blackmail investigation.”

That damnably tangled case had to be considered a success in one regard, and it was time to play that card. “There have been no further threats to the prince, have there, sir?”

“No.”

He shot Ben a dire look. “Not to the prince directly. This new threat is to the very monarchy.”

“New threat?”

No wonder the chief constable looked as if he hadn’t slept.

“This matter that will now take precedence over whatever other cases you’re working. Delegate all else. Whatever else is causing you distraction, set it aside.”

Haverstock took a seat at his desk and drew a folio toward him, flipping it open, and staring down at the page in front of him with genuine bleakness in his gaze.

“What has happened?”

“It’s to be handled with delicacy. Special Branch. The Home Office. All have a concern here.”

Haverstock lifted a police report from the pile of documents. “An attempt was made on the royal regalia.”

Disbelief slackened Ben’s jaw. “When?”

“Two days past, the final day before their move from the jeweler’s where they were held.”

“You said an attempt. Nothing was taken?”

“They overtook two guards and damaged the vault but apparently could not crack it.”

Haverstock flipped a photograph that showed a damaged metal door. “By some miracle, we’ve kept it out of the press. Though the jeweler is proud of their vault’s resilience, and someone will crow eventually.”

“Most likely.”

Ben didn’t see the harm in letting the details out. The thieves had been deterred, and the attempt would put the Tower’s Warders on high alert. But it was an act against the Crown, and after the bombings of past decades and the agitation of protests more recently, they’d want no such news in the press.

“Do we have descriptions from the guards?”

Haverstock pushed the entire folio toward the edge of his desk for Ben to collect. “The thieves were disguised, masked, and wearing darkened spectacles. It’s all there.”

He flicked his hand as if wishing to be done with the details himself. “I take it you’ve discovered no concrete leads from Miss Prince’s tale.”

“I did not.”

Haverstock’s face creased in a fierce glower. “If you were focused on your work rather than that girl’s charms, you would have questioned her properly.”

He was besotted. He could admit that to himself now, but it was far more than mere infatuation. They may have only known each other a few days, but she’d already altered him, made him feel more alive than he had in years. He could not imagine a future without her in it.

“Your work is before you, Drake. I expect your full attention on this matter. Your diligence. Let nothing divert you.”

The man’s emphasis was anything but subtle.

“I understand, Chief Constable.”

Ben offered the man the look of acknowledgment that usually preceded his dismissal from a meeting.

But Haverstock settled back in his chair, hands clasped over his middle, as if he was only just getting started.

“Now to a more personal matter. My daughter, Drake.”

Haverstock paused as if expecting Ben to finish the sentence.

Unease began to tie itself in a knot in his middle.

“Sir?”

“Your behavior at Lord Wellingdon’s soiree has caused her a great deal of heartache.”

Ben frowned. He had no doubt Haverstock withheld crucial information when he saw fit, and, more and more, he’d come to recognize that the man worked him like a marionette. But he didn’t believe for a single moment that Lavinia was heartbroken. They’d met only a handful of times and had exchanged the most banal of civil chitchat.

“Forgive me, Chief Constable, but I don’t understand. Miss Haverstock is a fine young woman—”

“The finest you’ll ever have the opportunity to court.”

Ben willed himself not to lash out. Haverstock liked getting his own way, and for some reason he was set on this match with his daughter. Which begged the very pertinent bloody question.

“Why do you wish me to court her, Sir Felix? You imply that I barely deserve such an honor. And perhaps you’re right. You know the murky nature of my parentage.”

Haverstock scoffed. “Ah, Drake. You have moments of brilliance, boy, and then those when you fall far short of your abilities.”

Ben rocked on his heels and considered walking out of the man’s office. He’d had quite enough of the chief for one morning. The man had never baited him so openly. Never insulted him so plainly.

“Do you think I’d consider you a suitable match for my daughter if I didn’t know your history as thoroughly as I know my own?”

“How could you know my history when I don’t know it myself?”

Ben’s patience with the man and his maneuverings was at an end.

“I know your father, of course.”

For a moment, everything in his periphery went black, then blurred. Sounds became muffled. When it all rushed back, he was bent over Haverstock’s desk, his fists planted on the man’s blotter.

“Explain yourself, Haverstock.”

“He will never acknowledge you publicly, but he’s a man of noble blood and . . .”

Haverstock stroked his beard thoughtfully. “He checks in on you now and then.”

“And you never told me.”

Ben was shocked he’d gotten the words out with his teeth clenched so tight.

Haverstock stood, stretching to his full height, which was still a few inches less than Ben’s, and puffed out his chest.

“He asked me not to. He approached me at a gentleman’s club, told me he’d been watching your progress.”

As a boy, he’d believed having a caring father might have changed all their lives, but now it seemed the man was a coward, one who could beget illegitimate children but did not wish to endure the consequences.

He didn’t need some watcher now. He’d needed a father a decade ago.

Ben’s breath tangled in his chest. The fear and uncertainty of childhood swept in, but he forced the feelings away and focused on the man he was now. What he’d accomplished. What he’d yet to achieve. Then he thought of Alexandra and wanted nothing as much as to wrap his arms around her.

All that he’d accomplished paled in comparison to how she made him feel.

“I have no interest in courting your daughter, Sir Felix. She is an intelligent young woman and can surely choose her suitors for herself.”

“How dare you—”

“And I’d ask you not to share any more details of my progress with Lord Whoever, but I doubt you’d heed my wishes.”

“You forget yourself, Detective Inspector,”

Haverstock barked.

The man rarely raised his voice and seemed flustered by his own loss of control.

“I will allow it because the matter of your parentage is tender. But I mean what I said, man. Leave off trifling with this Prince chit and find these brazen thieves.”

Haverstock pointed to the folio Ben had picked up. “You’ll see that if you do, you may kill two birds.”

Ben frowned. “What do you mean?”

“There was a scrap of paper found. A cutting from a newspaper. A single letter.”

Haverstock raised both white brows. “Any guess, Drake, what that letter might be?”

Ben flipped through the folio and found a photograph of the piece of evidence. The letter M stood in two sharp black peaks, its serifs ornate, as if it had come from the masthead of a newspaper.

Allie hadn’t been able to sleep a wink.

After leaving Ben’s as the first light of morning dawned, she’d taken a cab home and tried for rest. Not ten minutes later, Lottie had come in to lay a fire, and Allie had given up.

Oddly, she wasn’t tired at all.

Her mind flowed with energy and ideas, and for the first time they weren’t ideas intended to win Dom’s approval or impress Eve.

They didn’t even involve a research expedition or traveling with her siblings on a dig.

They were ideas for Princes, to revive interest in the shop, perhaps entice new customers, and the notion that she would go on her trip to Ireland with or without Dom’s blessing.

Now she imagined taking that trip with Ben.

It was as if a new clarity had come from those moments with him.

Warmth bloomed in her chest when she thought of the night they’d spent, and she had no regrets.

She’d chosen those hours with him, knowing she might face judgement, if only from his sister or the Drake housekeeper, if either of them realized she’d slept over.

And, of course, there was the Prince household staff.

She suspected at least one of them had noted her absence in her bed last night.

But making the choice had freed her somehow, or at least given her a taste of what making a life for herself felt like—a life that had nothing to do with living up to the precedence of her father or siblings.

She and Ben had made no promises to each other, not even plans for when they’d meet again, but she knew they would.

She had a brazen kind of confidence now and would go to him this evening if need be.

After washing and dressing, she made her way to the shop.

One of her ideas involved reorganizing the shelving.

Everything had been the same for so long, and she’d felt a responsibility to maintain it that way, but now she wondered why.

The shop was not a mausoleum.

It should be a vibrant place, emphasizing color and providing better space for browsing.

Their walk around the Tower fortress reminded her how much visitors brought a place to life.

And that each piece should have its place.

Princes’ shelves should be organized, not cluttered.

By the time Mr. Gibson arrived, she’d made a proper mess, though she felt certain the displays would be more enticing once she’d finished.

“I would offer help, but I have a sense you’re possessed with a vision of what you want, and I might simply get in the way,”

Mr. Gibson offered thoughtfully after removing his coat and opening up his workroom.

“I do have a vision,”

she told him as she polished a vase that hadn’t been dusted in far too long. “And I have a few fresh ideas for the shop too.”

“Should they wait until your brother and sister return?”

“No,”

Allie told him a bit more sharply than she intended. “I’m no longer waiting on Dom and Eve’s approval when it comes to matters of the shop.”

Though they had an equal share in ownership, they took virtually no interest in its day-to-day operations or its ongoing success. But she did. She always had, and not simply because she’d been left behind while they went off on adventures.

She loved the idea of finding new owners for antiques, especially among those who not only appreciated their history but would also give them a new life or pass them on to the next generation.

Mr. Gibson made a murmuring sound, usually an indication that he was giving a matter deep consideration.

When Allie glanced back at him, he gave her a firm nod.

“You are the heart and soul of this shop, Miss Prince, and I trust that whatever changes you make will be improvements.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gibson. Though I think you’re a good deal of the heart of this shop too.”

He cleared his throat as if the overly complimentary moment had evoked the sort of emotions he was usually keen to hide.

“Well, then. Since you are quite occupied, I shall fetch our morning coffee.”

Allie’s stomach growled at the very thought of a scone or crumpet or some other baked treat from Hawlston’s.

“Thank you, Mr. Gibson. That sounds divine.”

“Shall I leave the sign to CLOSED until I return?”

It was more than a quarter hour past their usual opening time, and Allie had been too engrossed to notice.

“No, we should open. I can manage.”

Within another twenty minutes, she had the shelving refilled with fewer pieces, but those intended to catch the eye. She’d collected the other items into a crate and lifted it, intending to take it into the back room, when the front doorbell chimed.

She expected Mr. Gibson and set the box down to help him carry whatever treats he’d brought back, but it wasn’t Mr. Gibson who watched her from just inside the front door.

“Good morning, miss.”

The man adjusted his pince-nez with a gloved hand. “You are most definitely not the gentleman I spoke to a couple of days ago.”

“That would be Mr. Gibson. I am Miss Prince.”

“Are you indeed? Then you must be the proprietress based on the name on your lintel.”

“I am.”

A strange feeling worked its way down Allie’s back. An inexplicable sense of déjà vu. “And may I know your name, sir?”

“Lord Holcroft. Of the uncut diamond that your man Gibson swore he could fashion to my specifications.”

“Lord Holcroft.”

The air felt tight, as if it was pressing in around her. And Allie realized she was holding her breath. “Yes, of course, Lord Holcroft.”

He looked like the man who’d come a few days before, and yet not exactly like that man. His voice sounded similar and yet not as familiar as the day Holcroft had first come to the shop. Not precisely like the man at Hawlston’s.

But perhaps her memory had faded over the passing days. Was he as tall as the man in the alley?

And his face—it was obscured by an elaborately fashioned mustache, his jaw blurred by a high fur collar on his coat, and his eyes shadowed by thick ruddy brows and gold-rimmed pince-nez that cut straight across his gaze.

The man chortled. “Late, am I not? You must forgive me for that, Miss Prince. The days get away from me, and I forever overestimate what I can accomplish in a week.”

He seemed so . . . amiable. There was a such a bon vivant sense about him. She couldn’t tell for sure, what with the fall of his long mustache, but he seemed to be smiling and had been almost since the moment he’d walked through the door.

“Is your man Gibson here?”

He bent and held a gloved hand up to his pince-nez as if inspecting the space behind her.

Allie glanced up at their row of antique clocks. It was nearly the top of the hour and Mr. Gibson had been gone far too long for a mere fetching of coffee and crumpets.

“He is not here at the moment but should return soon, my lord.”

Allie gestured toward the man. “If you have your gem, I can watch over it until he returns.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

The man patted his overcoat pocket. “It’s quite a precious little stone to me, and I’d like to make it clear to the man what I have in mind for its transformation.”

“I understand.”

Allie studied the man, who hadn’t taken more than two steps into the shop. “Feel free to browse until his return, or tell me if there’s anything you’d like to see. I’m certain he won’t be long.”

The man cast an assessing gaze around the shop, and Allie tried to study him without being terribly obvious about it.

“He’s at Hawlston’s,”

she told him, and scrutinized what she could see of his face for any reaction.

“Is he now?”

Lord Holcroft approached the nearest display, all but blocking her view of him.

“Are you familiar with it? It’s the coffeehouse just next door.”

Holcroft lifted his head and cast a look over the rim of his glasses.

His were the darkest brown. “I’m a tea man through and through, my dear.”

Allie swallowed and found herself taking a step back, though the man was nearly the whole length of the shop from her.

He’d picked up the puzzle box she’d just set front and center in the shop this morning.

“Such clever little trinkets, aren’t they?”

Laughter bubbled up out of him. “I do adore a puzzle.”

“That one is a particularly intricate design.”

“Indeed. Quite a fetching thing.”

Holcroft shifted it in his hand, then tossed it in the air, and Allie rushed forward to take it from him. “But,”

he said, stopping her midstride as he caught it and set it gently back on the shelf, “it’s not why I’ve come.”

He took a few steps toward the main counter, pulled a box from his pocket, and laid it atop the glass.

“There we are. The gem is inside, along with detailed instructions for how I’d like it cut. A gold setting, I think, and the chips along the side. It’s to be a gift for my daughter, you see.”

The more he talked, the less he sounded like the man she’d heard in the coffeehouse. Had she imagined the similarity the first time he’d come in?

He was tall and carried himself with the same air of confidence, though he lacked the menace.

“You’ll give it to him, will you not?”

“Of course, Lord Holcroft.”

“Very good. Then I should be on my way. So many appointments to attend to.”

He spun away from her with the adroitness of a younger man, but then stopped, frozen in place, and turned back. “I almost forgot that you may have disposed of my card after my failure to turn up. Here’s another.”

A crimson gilded calling card appeared between his fingers as if by magic. She hadn’t seen him reach into his pocket, and yet the card was there.

He laid it on the counter and then made his way to the door.

“Good day to you, Miss Prince,”

he all but shouted over his shoulder.

Allie scooped up the box he’d left and slid off the lid. Inside, a rather crude-looking stone sat on a little pillow of black satin. It was larger than she’d expected, and when she took it out, the stone was heavy and cool against her palm.

Lord Holcroft and the whole matter of his uncut stone seemed quite simple now. Quite believable, and she felt like a fool for all the assumptions she’d made about the rather jolly man who simply wished to create a gift for his daughter.

She scooped up his calling card. The same crimson hue with gilded writing, but one significant difference. This one listed an address. Number eight in Grosvenor Square. Perhaps the other had just been a misprint.

Holcroft looked odd, but he was nothing more than a new customer.

Though that left the man at Hawlston’s an odd and unsettling mystery.