Page 5 of The Lady and the Secret Lord (The Duke’s Men #3)

P hoebe secured a booth in the West End Coffeehouse on Oxford Street. She was not the only woman in the place, as the West End served shoppers and shopgirls alike from the Pantheon Bazaar. Oxford Street liked its lady shoppers, but no one gave her a second glance in Mrs. Kendall’s gown. She had learned a lesson from the startling moment when Mr. Jones put his hands on her waist at their first meeting and had devised a better way to wrap the flannel around her middle.

The coffeehouse was plain and a bit spartan with tall, wood-paneled booths along the walls, a few tables in the center, high ceilings, and a quiet comfort. The subdued hum of conversation never quite reached the babble of a crowd. Gentlemen who stopped in mostly lost themselves in their papers.

A serving girl brought Phoebe coffee and a roll. It was not the dark Turkish brew her friends liked, but she hoped it would clear the tired haze from her head. A late night at the theater and rising early to question her staff did not make for a clear head. It was the second day of the new search, and she did not mean to waste a minute of it. She lifted her veil, secured it to her hat brim, and took a first sip of coffee. Revived at once, she spread the notes from her bag on the table. Somewhere in the details there must be a clue, something that made sense of what had happened on the day of the fire. Jones thought she could not contribute to the investigation, but he was wrong. She would be thorough and precise and ask a thousand questions if she had to, the way her father had always investigated finds of Roman remains in London. The way her mother had challenged any piece of gossip that came her way. Is it true? Is it kind? Does it bear repeating?

The wall clock struck the hour with a sonorous chime, and Jones appeared. He shed his great coat and hat and slid into the seat opposite hers. His broad-shouldered person shrank the roomy booth to an intimate space. When he glanced her way, his eyes lingered on her face, and his expression grew abstracted. She reached to pull her veil down and stopped. He already knew that she was not a middle-aged woman, and what she looked like hardly mattered. She was going to be her version of Mrs. Kendall like an actor in a play.

She wondered if he, too, had had a late night with his policing. Today he was clean shaven, his jawline firm and square. He preferred a plain style of dress, a brown coat, a dove-gray waistcoat buttoned up nearly to his black tie and white linen collar. He was nothing like the gentlemen theater-goers of the Adelphi with their colorful waistcoats, velvet collars, gold fobs, and jeweled tie pins. She suspected that his plainness of attire was something of a disguise. But it could not dim the intensity of his eyes or the golden brightness of his hair, or his air of cool assurance. He was a man people noticed.

The waitress came to take his order, and he lowered his gaze to Phoebe’s papers spread on the table, and seemed to collect his thoughts. “What can you tell me about your missing footman? Looks, manner, habits, associates?”

“Good afternoon,” she said. Mr. Just Jones might be ill-mannered, but she would not be.

He flashed her an impatient look. “You want to find the missing boy.”

“Andrew,” she said. Andrew was not some boy. He was Andrew, curious and impish, impulsive, sweet, and stubborn. She wanted Jones’s mind focused on Andrew and not on the footman. “Here is one of the handbills posted to identify him.” She shoved the sketch across the table. He glanced at it, opened his notebook, took up his pencil. “Tell me about Boyle, the footman.”

“Fine. Boyle was thin and dark-haired, with large dark eyes and long lashes. He was wan-looking, taller than I am, but not of your height.” Phoebe consulted her notes. “Mrs. Trafford, our cook, thought he needed meat on the bone and always gave him something to eat when he passed through the kitchen. Peggy, the scullery maid, said he had a habit of pinching a roll or a bit of cheese behind cook’s back. Betty, the maid of all work, said he was quick to lend a hand with anything heavy, and to offer a smile when no one was looking. Nell…” She consulted her notes.

“Nell?” he said, looking up.

“She’s an upstairs maid. She thought him sharpish .” Phoebe read from Nell’s page. “Chin, elbows, knees very pointy.”

He made a note, the pencil small in his large hand, his movements precise. “And how well did Boyle do his job?”

“Mr. Trafford, the butler, believed him to be a promising lad and was shocked by his disappearance. But Trafford also thought there were moments when being in service didn’t quite suit Boyle’s notion of himself.”

“Did Boyle accompany the boy to the park as a regular thing?”

“No, but there were times when… no one else was available.” How she blamed herself for that! She had often been engaged with her cousins in the weeks leading up to Andrew’s disappearance. She had perhaps neglected her brother without realizing it.

“And the dog, how did Boyle get on with the dog?”

“He was unsure of himself with the dog.” Boyle’s uneasiness had surprised her, but not everyone liked dogs.

The waitress put coffee and a roll on the table next to Jones’s elbow. He appeared not to notice. His focus on the case was a good thing. There was something in the way he kept asking questions in that deep, confident voice that raised her hopes for finding Andrew at last.

He looked up from his notes. “What pub did the fellow frequent? Was he a Chequers man or a Red Lion man?”

“I don’t know. Is his pub important?”

“Never mind. Your man Trafford will know. You don’t want me coming to the house, but at the pub I can find out who Boyle’s associates were.”

“Associates? You think he had what… an accomplice?”

Jones leveled a penetrating look at her. “Boyle wore a red tie to the park that day.”

“A red tie?” She shook her head. “No. Our footmen wear plain gray suits with black ties.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Mrs. Bell, the milk vendor, remembers the tie very clearly. And I found it.”

“Found it?” Now she was confused.

“Concealed under a shrub near the place where the dog’s collar was found.”

Phoebe’s mind came alert, the haze of fatigue gone. In one day, Jones had discovered something that Tanner had missed in months of work. She couldn’t make sense of the red tie. What did a small bit of flash that Boyle put on for the park have to do with Andrew’s disappearance? Where had the tie come from? Why had Boyle worn it? Did it mean he met someone and forgot Andrew or deserted him? Or worse did it mean that Andrew had been the victim of a plot? And how did the red tie get left behind? Had there been foul play? Had Boyle been protecting Andrew from some ruffian?

“You’re shocked,” Jones said.

“I am trying to think logically. There may be more than one interpretation of the tie. Why would a friendly young footman, even a half-starved one, kidnap a boy?”

Jones regarded her steadily. At least he listened to her. “I doubt he would. A man in his position would have no reason to take the boy. At best, one boy is worth very little to the sorts of persons who traffic in the young. It would take some inducement to tempt a footman with a good situation to risk losing his place, or worse, risk arrest.”

A sudden chill shook her. “But if someone else was involved, why was there no demand for ransom?”

He glanced at her notes. “Did you get the name of the rag man?”

“You didn’t answer my question.” She met his stare with one of her own. Her confidence of the minute before vanished. Maybe Jones was reluctant to help her because he thought the situation hopeless. She would not be led on again with false hopes. “Do you think the worst, that Andrew is dead?”

“Not if the note you received is valid.” He put down the pencil, and gave her an exasperated look. “Look, Mrs. Kendall, Mayne told me the boy is a lord. I want to know who stands to gain from the disappearance of the Fifth Earl of Grafton.”

His presumption shocked her. How dared he, knowing nothing of her family, make such a charge? “What a terrible thing to suggest, that someone in Andrew’s family might harm him.”

His face took on a severe expression. He would be a formidable opponent. “You think no one of rank behaves badly over a significant inheritance?”

“I think you don’t know… the Marchmont family.”

Across the room, a gentleman stood, folded his newspaper under his arm, and turned toward the door. The man’s action caught Jones’s eye. Abruptly, he slid out of the booth to block the fellow’s path.

“Mackett, if you want to be taken up”—Jones’s voice was cordial—“keep moving. Otherwise, take the newspaper, but leave the lady’s purse behind.”

“See here, fellow. Who are you ?” The gentleman looked up at Jones, appeared to recognize him, and then glanced at the door. Jones looked perfectly at ease, but Phoebe sensed in him a dangerous readiness to spring.

“Perhaps you didn’t see the lady’s bag under the paper.” Again, the voice was cordial, but Jones gripped Mackett’s arm and pulled it away from his body. A lady’s bag fell with a thump to the floor, and the newspaper fluttered down after it.

Mackett twisted in Jones’s hold and made a dash for the door. Jones picked up the fallen purse, and placed it on a chair next to a woman at a table in the room’s center. He had a brief word with her, and returned to Phoebe. It was another side of him, an alertness to his surroundings that she hadn’t realized he possessed, a quickness, and under the easy manner, a capacity for danger.

“How did you know that man had stolen a purse?”

Jones shrugged. “It’s what that sort of thief does. Mackett’s known for it. You’d be surprised at how many there are.”

*

Robin closed his notebook. Mrs. Kendall’s information was not bad for an unprofessional. The theory forming in his head made sense. The false employment record suggested a deliberate attempt to get the footman into the Marchmont household. The young man had been friendly by nature, but not inclined to the life of a servant. Instead, he’d been lean and in need of money. Whoever placed him in the household had given him time to get established, and then asked him to remove the boy. Robin would be surprised if that was all that they had asked.

The outing to the park while visitors occupied the family provided an opportunity. After leaving the house, John Boyle had tied on the red tie. At some point he’d loosened the dog’s collar, and the chase had led boy and man far from the old nanny’s gaze. The map of their movements in the park suggested that someone had waited to take the boy. If the boy was alive as the new evidence suggested, the handoff had never happened. Robin didn’t know why. Perhaps Boyle had lost his nerve for such a cold-blooded, mercenary transaction. Or perhaps the fire had offered an opportunity for both the footman and the boy to disappear in the huge crowds.

He had one more question for Mrs. Kendall. “Did you get the name of the rag man?”

“I did.” The gray-blue eyes sparked with purpose.

“And?” he asked warily.

“I can take you to his shop.”

He swore, silently, in his head. She was every bit as difficult as he’d anticipated.

*

Samuel Shattuck’s secondhand clothing shop occupied a four-story brick building in a narrow street west of Soho Square. It was not Bond Street, but the shop kept company with perfectly respectable enterprises, tallow chandlers, chemists, ancient furniture dealers, and makers of electromagnetic devices. Beside Phoebe, Jones stopped. While she had been intent on finding the shop, he surveyed the neighborhood. Under cover of adjusting the bag on her arm, she followed his gaze.

On the opposite corner a sign proclaimed, Offices for the Registration and Hire of Governesses and Household Staff , the very agency from which her missing footman, Boyle, had presented false papers. She wanted to nudge Jones, but they remained several feet apart as agreed, on separate paths. The closeness of the hiring office to Shattuck’s shop could not be mere coincidence, but Jones’s gaze was on the next door building with a smaller sign, The Benevolent Assistance League . A gentleman, with his back to them, entered and closed the door behind him.

Jones spoke without looking at her or acknowledging what they had seen. “Ready? You know what to do?”

“You’ve made it clear.” They had agreed in the cab that she was to provide a distraction while he looked at Shattuck’s ledgers. He didn’t trust her to be of use, and he was still annoyed that she had made him take her along to the used-clothing store. He walked on without another word.

A little bell tinkled as Phoebe entered the shop. A musty odor hit her, and the array of greatcoats and capes, jackets, waistcoats, shirts, and trousers along one wall caught her eye. The old garments fluttered gently in response to the door opening like a crowd of disturbed ghosts. She supposed there was nothing sinister in the well-ordered shop. It was merely sad, but her nerves were on edge. Beyond the men’s clothes, ladies’ gowns and cloaks extended into the gloom at the rear of the shop. Bins on the floor contained boots, shoes, umbrellas, gloves, and more. Mirrors behind a long counter on the opposite side multiplied the effect. Jones might dismiss her as a distraction, but Phoebe meant to look for anything remaining from Boyle’s room, no matter how well hidden in the display of past lives.

In the dim recesses of the shop a woman in a lace cap and straw bonnet held up a lilac-checked gown for her companion’s inspection. From behind the long, glass-topped counter opposite the wall of old garments, a gentleman looked Phoebe over. The man had to be Samuel Shattuck himself, and his appearance momentarily stopped her. Not his lean face or the glasses on his nose, not the loose brown coat or green waistcoat with their continental flair. Not the small black cap on his head, but the red silk tie around his neck.

“Come in, ma’am,” he invited. “How may I help?”

Phoebe gave the answer she and Jones had planned. “A coat for my nephew, who has a new situation.”

“You’ve come to the right place.” Shattuck walked along his side of the counter, lifted a piece of it, and stepped through. “Woolen, worsted, or broadcloth?” With a sweep of his arm, he indicated an area of the wall lined with men’s coats hanging from hooks.

“Gray worsted,” said Phoebe. If the coat she’d given away all those months ago, were still here, she would find it, no matter what Jones thought. Mrs. Kendall regularly supervised the house maids in embroidering the Marchmont M on clothing or linens. It was a precaution against loss when they sent items to the launderers. Every garment belonging to Marchmont House was marked by that black silk M .

Shattuck took up a long, hooked pole, and began to prod the men’s coats hanging above them. “Worsted, always a good choice,” he said. With a sharp upward jab and a twist of his wrist, he brought down a coat and laid it on the counter. “Here’s a fine one, hardly worn. Your nephew will make a good impression.”

Phoebe thanked him, and held up the coat for inspection. The cloth was excellent, but she did not have to look for the Marchmont mark. The shoulders were too wide for Boyle, and the coat gave off a sour yeasty odor, as if the previous owner had spent his time in a brewery.

“Do you have others?” she asked.

“That’s my best one, ma’am,” Shattuck said.

“I’d like to see them all if I may.”

“All?” Shattuck peered at her, a little less amiable now, as if he could penetrate her veil.

“My nephew is quite thin-shouldered.”

With a quick glance at his other customers, Shattuck shrugged. He snagged a half dozen more gray coats with his hook.

Phoebe sorted through the pile, taking her time, waiting for Jones to enter. Deep in the pile of coats, she found one of good quality wool made for someone thin. She did not immediately recognize it, but she turned up the cuff, and there was the Marchmont House sign. Her hands froze. Seeing the black silk M stirred memories of that day a week after Andrew’s disappearance, when she and Cousin Mary entered Boyle’s room, to look at what he’d left behind—a pair of shoes, a Marchmont House coat, the suit of clothes he must have come in, and a small leather traveling case, locked. Phoebe had wanted answers, and there was only the silence of an empty room. She didn’t know whether to blame Boyle or worry about what happened to him. Mary suggested that Phoebe stop thinking about the footman altogether. Think of Andrew. Clear Boyle out of this room and out your mind. With Mary’s help, Phoebe bundled up Boyle’s clothes for the rag man. Emptying that room had been satisfying. Now she thought she had acted hastily, driven by raw feeling.

Phoebe looked up from the gray coat and found Shattuck’s narrow gaze on her. She put the M -marked coat aside and made herself lift up another.