Page 2 of The Lady and the Secret Lord (The Duke’s Men #3)

London

Monday, 11 October, 1835

L ady Phoebe Marchmont stood before her housekeeper’s critical gaze in that lady’s room at Marchmont House on Charles Street off St. James’s Square, London. The room, a cheerful space at the back of the house, overlooked the garden and the roof of the mews. Even in the earliest morning light on a foggy October day, with a small fire in the grate and the lamps lit, the room’s soft rose-papered walls glowed. Phoebe’s housekeeper, Mrs. Kendall was a stout widow with a round rosy face and a head of dark curls that belied her practical nature. In the years since Phoebe’s mother had died, Mrs. Kendall had become Mrs. K, less of an employee and more of an aunt or a godmother to Phoebe.

Phoebe lifted the hem of the black bombazine gown sagging around her. Though she and Mrs. K were alike in height, a difference in their waistlines meant the black gown dragged on the floor.

“We have to add something to your middle, I think, Phoebe, or the disguise will never work.” Mrs. K had a son abroad in the English navy, and fifteen years of communication with him had given firmness and rigor to her manner of thinking and speaking.

“What do you suggest?” The plan they’d hatched over the past two days depended on Phoebe passing for Mrs. K when she left the house. It seemed simple enough. Phoebe was to wear one of Mrs. K’s black gowns and veiled hats. The ruse would allow Phoebe to pass unremarked, if as they suspected, someone had been set to watch the house. At the moment the borrowed gown hung on Phoebe’s slight frame like the silks of some collapsed balloon before an ascent.

Mrs. K went to the tall mahogany wardrobe that dominated one wall, and threw open the doors. “Don’t despair, Phoebe. I think I have a length of flannel in here somewhere. If we wrap it around your middle and secure it with a corset, that should give you my silhouette and lift the gown from the floor.”

Phoebe undid the buttons cleverly concealed in a pleat down the front of the bodice, and the heavy gown slid down and pooled about her feet. In an hour she was to meet Commissioner Mayne of the Metropolitan Police and put to him her request for a clandestine search for Phoebe’s missing younger brother, Andrew. No one else in Marchmont House was to know they’d begun a new search.

For nearly three days Phoebe and Mrs. K had discussed a shocking development in the case. A year-long public search with the aid of Phoebe’s second cousins, Henry and Mary, and an old Bow Street Runner they’d hired had not revealed Andrew’s fate. And then, a ragged girl of some twelve or thirteen years had delivered a message to the kitchen door.

boy safe. stop serch.

Wrapped in the odd scrap of paper was an old Roman coin from their father that Andrew kept in his pocket at all times. The unexpected message had jolted Phoebe out of despair and made her hope as she had scarcely allowed herself to hope for months. At the same time, the note made her question what had been done to find Andrew and made her ashamed that she had let others lead the search.

In the terrible days of misery that followed Andrew’s disappearance, Phoebe had relied on the advice of cousin Henry, who had thrown himself into making handbills, placing advertisements, and hiring a Bow Street Runner. At the time she had believed the gruff old runner’s assurances that everything that could be done would be done. Now she doubted.

Phoebe and Mrs. K, and Phoebe’s dearest school friends had parsed every implication of the brief message. It made no sense, but the note implied that their search for Andrew now put him in danger. From whom was the question. Phoebe did not see where the danger came from, but the plan was to keep the new search known only to their small group, Mrs. K, and Maddie, Georgie, and Bree, Phoebe’s three school friends. Bree’s father, a distinguished barrister, appealed privately to Commissioner Mayne of the Metropolitan Police, who had agreed to meet with Phoebe.

With the new search, Phoebe meant to remain firmly in charge. Andrew was her brother, her responsibility. This time she would not rely on men who patted her hand and offered manly assurances that they knew the business better than any mere female could.

Mrs. K straightened and turned back to Phoebe with a bolt of gray flannel and a short black corset with front fastenings. “Let’s wrap this around you. Then the corset should hold it in place and give you a more substantial middle.”

Phoebe raised her arms. Mrs. K pressed one end of the flannel cloth to Phoebe’s side, and Phoebe held the fabric in place. As Mrs. K wound the flannel around her ribs, Phoebe considered what to tell Commissioner Mayne. They needed his help. He needed the facts, but the search had to remain secret without the sort of public notice their first efforts had attracted. She would ask him to refer to her as Mrs. Kendall .

Mrs. K secured the flannel with a pair of pins and handed Phoebe the short black corset. Phoebe pulled the corset around her and did up the hooks in the front. Now Phoebe’s middle resembled a small beer keg. Mrs. K lifted the gown, and Phoebe shrugged back into it, doing up the bodice. This time the skirts fell to her ankles, and she smiled at Mrs. K. The disguise was going to work. Dressed as Mrs. K, Phoebe could go anywhere without drawing any particular attention. She would use that freedom to find Andrew wherever he was.

“Now,” Mrs. K said, as she glanced at the fog outside. “Have you ordered the carriage?”

“No. I shall walk. I will take Trajan with me.”

“You’re sure?”

Phoebe nodded. Calling for the carriage would alert others in the household more than she would like.

“Very well. I have black silk netting to cover your hair, and you’ll do.”

Phoebe allowed Mrs. K to tuck her light-brown hair into a dark net snood. She knew her dear friend did not entirely approve of young women going about London alone, but Phoebe was counting on the disguise to keep her from the notice of strangers.

“Is Mr. Wigmore coming today?”

Phoebe nodded, and Mrs. K gave her a quick hug. “Then hurry back.”

A further urgency to the new search came from Wigmore, the Marchmont solicitor. Earlier in the week, he had requested an appointment with Phoebe. She feared that Wigmore would advise her to end the search. It was both customary and necessary in such cases, the solicitor wrote, to consider the practicalities of managing an estate. Phoebe, he pointed out, was a woman who had not reached her majority, and therefore had no actual authority over the Marchmont household.

It was perhaps that line in the solicitor’s letter more than any other that fixed Phoebe’s determination to go to Commissioner Mayne. She would begin a proper search for her brother. In a sad little ritual, she and Mrs. K had marked the days since Andrew went missing in Phoebe’s diary. They had come to the three hundred and sixtieth day. Phoebe would not let being underage and female hold her back another day.

*

A gust of wind off the Thames tugged at Robin’s great coat and whirled brown leaves in his path as he crossed the Yard. He was not a man to regard a few dead leaves as an omen, but a summons from Commissioner Mayne meant a case was in the works. The early hour meant the case was to be kept particularly quiet, even from the other members of the experimental new force Mayne was secretly training.

The chill breeze, heavy with the smell of river muck and coal dust, had yet to dissipate a low brownish fog. The sharp-pointed gables of the Yard’s odd assortment of buildings came dimly into view. London’s relatively new police force had been allotted this cluster of old buildings that had once belonged to Scottish lords so that the Home Secretary, a few steps away, across Whitehall, could keep a close eye on police operations. The inhabitants of London were inclined to regard Peel’s six-year-old Metropolitan Police with suspicion and distrust. And police popularity had not improved as many of Peel’s early recruits had been sacked for drunkenness. Even now a parliamentary committee was investigating police spying.

The public’s distrust meant that Commissioner Mayne had good reason to keep his pet project of training a few chosen men as inspectors under wraps. Robin and a half dozen other plain clothes officers had an even more obscure office overlooking the loading bay at the back of the building with a view of coal heavers at work filling their drays from barges on the river. The prospect of a new case, even one he would have to pursue discreetly, made Robin quicken his steps. If he wanted to be among those chosen for the new force, he had to prove himself. Mayne was determined not to repeat the mistakes of Peel in setting up the larger Metropolitan Police and losing the public trust.

At Mayne’s door, a black-and-white setter lifted its head from its paws and regarded Robin alertly. Mayne had a visitor. Robin didn’t recognize the dog and offered his hand to let the animal catch his scent. The dog shook its loose collar, and Robin spotted a name engraved in the leather, Trajan . Not an ordinary citizen then, but possibly an old boy like Hodge, the legendary old grinder to the Jones brothers. Not every dog was named after a Roman emperor. Robin patted the silky head, and the dog subsided into a well-trained waiting stance.

Robin’s knock raised Mayne’s gruff, “Enter.”

Mayne’s office was a man’s space, full of the scents of leather, tobacco, cold coffee, and truth to tell, some sort of musky pomade Mayne used on his thick black hair. Behind the big desk piled with papers, Mayne made a striking appearance with his craggy pale face, snapping eyes, and full sideboard whiskers. Hanging on the wall above him in a simple black frame were the words of a prominent MP that summed up the public’s anti-police attitude.

Better a few dead bodies in Bethnal Green than police spies in the streets of free Englishmen.

That attitude was the enemy as far as Mayne was concerned. He meant to develop a disciplined force that could keep the citizens of a million-peopled city safe.

The other person in the room was wholly unexpected. A stout woman in a voluminous black bombazine gown and a fashionable black hat at odds with her dowdy dress sat in one of the green leather chairs reserved for Mayne’s visitors. Robin gave her a quick glance. The dog had misled him about Mayne’s visitor. He had instantly imagined a pedantic old gentleman. That would teach him not to rush his deductions.

“Jones.” Mayne glanced at his watch. “Mrs. Kendall here has a case I want you to look into.”

“Sir?” A case was good news. Robin was less certain about the woman herself. The black gown proclaimed a widow of middle years and middle income, but the face behind the black netting looked smooth and lean. A slim throat disappeared into the lace collar with room to spare. Either the gown was borrowed, or Mrs. Kendall had recently lost about two stone.

Frank gray-blue eyes regarded him critically. “You don’t have a more senior man?” she asked. The voice was low, but youthful, and definitely the voice of a toff. Robin suspected the woman was used to having her way. The dog must be hers. She turned to Mayne. The black netting obscured her face except for the youthful line of her jaw.

“Jones is your man, ma’am, unless you wish to go back to Bow Street.”

She shook her head and turned those doubting eyes to Robin. He was conscious of looking a bit rough after spending the night on duty with a couple of constables in his old division, E, the Holborn Division. They were working out the pattern of a gang of housebreakers. He let her look, as she weighed her options, judging him. Her gaze had none of the melting feminine quality he was used to in a woman asking for help. It was detached, steady, and intelligent.

Mayne spoke again. “Jones looks young, but he’s a hardened veteran of our Holborn Division. He’ll recover the boy if anyone can.”

The words hit Robin like a gut punch. He flinched. If the case involved a missing boy, he wanted no part of it. “What boy?”

“My employer’s young brother,” she said. “He disappeared from St. James Park last October on the night of the fire.”

A whole dictionary of expletives from bleeding and sodding to that most fragrant of old English words came to Robin’s mind. She didn’t look like a madwoman, but to imagine they would find the boy a year later when London swallowed up lost children daily in a dozen dark ways, did seem mad. He should turn the case down, let someone else handle it. To prove himself, he needed a case he could solve, not a lost cause. It was a fact of London life. Boys got lost. They got abandoned, given to baby farmers, admitted to the Foundling Hospital, taken in by doss-house landlords and trained to be pickpockets or worse, sold. He should know. He had been a lost boy.

At a sharp glance from Mayne, Robin shed his coat. The woman must have more influence than her appearance suggested. If Mayne wanted him to hear the woman out, then he would. “What was done when the boy went missing?”

“We”—she looked away—“my employer was advised to hire a runner to investigate.”

“Name?”

“Bill Tanner. There were handbills, advertisements in the papers, interviews with everyone who might have seen something.”

“But,” he said, “it was the night of the fire, and people did not remember seeing a stray lad. How old?” He noted the we , but the gown plainly said that there was no Mr. Kendall.

“Five. He was five.” The youthful voice wavered, then steadied. “He’s six now.”

Her certainty that the boy was alive surprised him. She reached out a small, gloved hand to a crumpled piece of paper on Mayne’s desk and drew it to Robin’s notice. In its folds was an old bronze coin with a hole in it, and a leather thong looped through the hole. “My employer’s brother carried this with him everywhere. It was returned to me three days ago with this note.”

Me. Another interesting pronoun. Robin studied the note. On a bit of scrap parchment, someone had written in crude letters:

boy safe. stop serch.

“The note came to you? Who brought it?” Three days. Robin wondered at the delay.

The coin was Roman. The paper was the usual sort from the scrap pile in some office, easy enough to come by from a dealer in odds and ends. The writer apparently had a rudimentary education, and had gone to an effort to bring the message from some meaner street to Mrs. Kendall’s employer’s more respectable neighborhood.

“A girl. She came into the garden from the mews, knocked on the kitchen door, and ran when the scullery maid opened it.”

Robin pulled out his notebook and pencil and took the chair opposite Mrs. Kendall. She scooted back as if he’d come too close, as if he’d presumed in some way. “Did the maid describe the note-bringer?”

“Perhaps thirteen, black shawl over brown skirts, bare legs in a man’s boots, dark haired.”

He liked the detail, but the words might describe a thousand waifs. “Time of day?”

“Early morning. Just gone six.”

Robin made the note. The girl at the door was likely only a messenger, hired for a few pence. Whoever sent the message knew there was a search, and knew where the boy came from. There was no demand for ransom or reward. Instead, the note was meant to warn the searchers away, which meant that the first search, however fruitless it appeared, must have come near where the boy was safe . Safe from whom? From those who were looking for him? For the case to make sense there had to be a reason for someone to wish the boy harm.

Robin picked up the coin, heavy and time-darkened, stamped with the image of a Roman face, a beak of a nose, and a pair of laurels about the forehead. He did not know the face, but chances were, it was some emperor. He and his fellow lost boys had learned their names once under their old tutor. “How did your employer’s brother come by the coin?”

“He likes to visit building sites where men dig water or gas lines. If they go deep enough, the workmen often find a bit of Roman London.” She paused and held out her hand for the coin. Robin laid it in her gloved palm. Her fingers closed briefly around the coin, and her manner changed. For a moment she clutched it tight, as if by holding on she could conjure up the missing child. Then she straightened.

“A worker gave the boy the coin.” She opened her palm, her voice cool and reasonable again. Her gaze met Robin’s and gave nothing away. It was true enough that Roman London was under their feet, but Robin doubted that a small boy clung to a coin given him by a stranger. And he doubted that Mrs. Kendall was merely acting for her unnamed employer.

“Your dog, is it? Waiting outside, Mrs. Kendall?”

She glanced at the door, a brief confusion in her eyes at the change of topic. “Yes.”

“Trajan?”

He couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if a rosy flush had come into her cheeks behind the veil. She returned the coin to Mayne’s desk. “Yes, Trajan,” she said.

“After the Roman emperor?” he asked.

A quick flash of vexation darkened her gaze, but she nodded.

Robin turned to Mayne. He didn’t know who Mrs. Kendall was, but he knew she wasn’t anyone’s housekeeper. “I don’t think this is a case for me, sir,” he said. He tucked his notebook back into his pocket.

*

Through the black netting on her hat, Phoebe studied the man who refused to help her. Mr. Jones was not what she expected in a detective. He was too young and too big—tall and broad-shouldered with a head of hair like ripe wheat, shrewd blue eyes, and a beard-roughened jaw more suited to a ruffian than a police officer. He had the muscular physique of a pugilist, the sort of man who appeared shirtless on broadsheets plastered over the walls of London, advertising boxing matches. Phoebe didn’t see how he had penetrated her disguise, but she had underestimated his intelligence. She had forgotten the dog, but he had noticed, and had put the details together.

She had been open with Commissioner Mayne. He understood Phoebe’s need for disguise and agreed to keep her confidence. He explained that a clandestine search suited his purpose, as well. Whatever Mr. Jones’s objections to the case, Phoebe wasn’t going to let him spoil it now that she had Mayne’s support.

She straightened in the leather chair. “If the name of my dog offends you, Mr. Jones, perhaps it is as well that we not work together.”

“Work together? You brought this matter to the police, Mrs. Kendall. It is for us to investigate.”

“Which,” she said. “You don’t want to do. Is there someone else, Commissioner Mayne?”

“Oh, I think Jones will reconsider his position on the case, ma’am. It is precisely the case we’ve been waiting for, and he will want to be in on it rather than having me assign it to a colleague of his.” The commissioner turned to Jones with one brow raised. “Well, Jones, is it to be you or Lumley on the case?”

Mr. Jones groaned. “Sir, not Lumley. What about Tibbs?”

“You or Lumley. Do I make myself clear, Jones?”

The two men exchanged a long look that Phoebe could not read.

At last Jones stood. “Clear, sir.”

“Then take Mrs. Kendall to your office and get her statement. You and I will speak later.”