Page 18 of The Lady and the Secret Lord (The Duke’s Men #3)
W hen Robin returned to the Huntingdon ballroom, a waltz was in progress. He had secured a print of the tip of Bolton’s cane. Entering when he had, Bolton had left wet prints of the cane tip on the duchess’s entry tiles. With a little help from a footman, Robin had transferred one of the wet prints to a card of invitation. The print would place Bolton on the league’s premises the night of the murder. Now Robin needed to discover the extent of Bolton’s connection to the league’s activities.
The ballroom was much as Robin had left it, full of noise, gaiety, and movement, but when he got his bearings, two things bothered him. Bolton stood in easy conversation with Phoebe’s cousin, Miss Marchmont, and Phoebe danced, the rose dress unmistakable in the whirl of dancers.
He made himself study Bolton and Miss Marchmont, whose face now wore the happy, animated expression of a woman enjoying a man’s attention. She smiled and tossed her head coquettishly, and her ringlets danced. Robin did not like the connection between Bolton and Miss Marchmont. It was too direct. If he understood the family line, Miss Marchmont would not benefit directly from the disappearance of her young cousin Andrew, but if Andrew were gone, her father and in time, her brother would assume the title, Earl of Grafton. It was a stretch to think that the elevation of her father and brother to a title could motivate a young woman to plan a kidnapping. Nevertheless, she might have opened up to Bolton with a lack of reserve that would put her in his power. The question was whether Miss Marchmont knew anything of Bolton’s connection to the league.
He turned to the dance floor. Wenlocke and his duchess whirled past him. Phoebe and her partner came into view. When the dance ended, Phoebe’s partner would bring her to Miss Marchmont and Bolton, and when the evening ended, Phoebe would leave with her cousins, and Bolton could easily join them. As the movement of the dance brought Phoebe and her partner around to his side of the room, Robin stepped into their path, a breach of dance etiquette that caused her startled partner to whirl out of the stream of dancers like an errant eddy and come to halt.
The man turned an angry glare on Robin. “I say, fellow, you owe the lady an apology.”
Robin kept his gaze on Phoebe. “You’re dancing with me now.”
Phoebe’s expression changed from exasperation to alertness. “I’m sorry, Lord Eldridge,” she said to her partner. “Mr. Jones has something pressing to tell me. Please excuse us.”
Eldridge glared at Robin, but made a stiff bow and stalked off.
“You do have something to tell me?” she looked hopeful.
Robin took her hand and pulled her into his arms for the dance, looking for the moment when they could enter the swirling mass again. When a space opened up, he launched them, and for a moment there was only the dance, finding the rhythm, the silent communication of moving together in time to the beat. She was light and quick. In the waltz they moved easily without words.
Then he remembered a thing that troubled him. “You said you were going to hire a companion.”
“Yes. My cousin Mary recommended a Lucy Walker.”
“From which agency?” he asked.
Her eyes widened as she caught his drift. “I haven’t had a chance to look at her papers.”
“You have them?”
“At home, yes. You don’t think Lucy Walker is a league plant like Leary.” She shook her head at him. “My cousin Mary recommended the woman.”
“Look at your cousin. Look at the man she’s with,” he said.
She frowned at him, but glanced over his shoulder across the room. “The count?”
“Now look at me.” He waited for her puzzled gaze to come back to him. “In France he’s a count. In England he’s Bolton, the principal shareholder of Thames Property Recovery, Ltd., the ratepayer on the league’s office.”
He’d shocked her. In her eyes, awareness turned to instant alarm. “The cane! He was there in the league office.” She paused. “But not in Shattuck’s shop?”
“Keep looking at me,” he said.
“My cousin looks so happy. Is she in danger?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want you to go home with them. I can take you with me in Wenlocke’s carriage.” There was nothing selfish in the offer. It was his duty to keep her safe.
Her expression turned serious, resolute. He knew that look. “Ah, yes, but what you want does not govern what I do. I must go home as I came. Surely, you can see that. If, in fact, there is some terrible connection between my cousin and Bolton, I must appear unconcerned, ignorant.”
“Can you do it?” He tightened his hold on her waist. “Bolton is dangerous. He’s cold, and capable of brutality.” She shivered. Their brief partnership in the waltz was coming to an end. He had only minutes to convince her to agree to a plan.
She lifted her chin. “I have to. And you have to be less… obvious. You have charged across Her Grace’s ballroom twice to dance with me. What will people think?”
The question stopped him. Another difference between them. A policeman, even a detective, had no place in fashionable society. He never considered what others thought. He scanned the room, catching the covert glances of several ladies, and Wenlocke’s subtle but sharp attention.
“People will think you have an impertinent besotted admirer.”
Her gaze searched his face. He couldn’t guess her thoughts. “My very own admiring potted palm.”
To let her go back to her cousins and their friend, the count, went against every instinct he had sharpened in two years of policing. She gave him an unbending look at odds with the filmy lightness of her gown. “I will tell you what I find in those papers.”
“No,” he said. He could be as stubborn as she was. “I will come to your kitchen tonight. Be ready. We will look at those papers together.”
That earned him a faint smile. “Still believe you’re in charge, do you?”
“Maybe the partnership still has some life in it.” He turned and made his way to Wenlocke.
Wenlocke offered him a wry look. “You’ve caused a bit of a stir. I recommend a dance with my wife to silence the tongues that are already wagging. I will keep an eye on Bolton.”
Next to Wenlocke, the duchess smiled at Robin, and he succumbed, how could he not? She had healed so many wounds over the years since he’d offered her that toad, and with it, a part of his heart. He gave her his arm, and led her into the dance.
As their waltz came to an end, she told him with gentle seriousness, “The duke has something to tell you, will you listen?”
“Are you trying to scare me?” he asked, striving for a lightness he did not feel.
“If I could scare you, I would do it for your own good,” she replied, looking up at him.
He let Wenlocke lead him into an alcove between the palms. “You cannot make an arrest without knowing Bolton’s connection to your family.”
His family. Robin could not have heard properly. There was a good deal of talk and laughter in the room, the rustle of silks, the clink of glassware, music, and an odd roaring in his ears.
His friend’s expression was grim. “I have a confession to make.”
Robin’s every instinct was now alert. “You investigated my… past?”
“Last spring. When Lark found his people with such happy results, I thought I should look into your history, in case you ever changed your mind, and before that history was lost forever. I never meant to tell you unless you asked.”
“Are you trying to rid yourself of us? Your lost boys, one by one.” Robin had wanted only to be part of Wenlocke’s family.
“You can’t believe that.”
“Then don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I don’t have any other family. Excuse me. I must get back to work.” He had a boy to find and a murderer to identify.