Page 9 of The Lady and the Secret Lord (The Duke’s Men #3)

W hen Phoebe looked up from the work of sorting her father’s papers, the last light was fading from the day. Mrs. K stood in the door of the study. “My dear, we thought we’d lost you,” she said, reaching for the bell pull.

Clearly, Phoebe had lost awareness of the time, and now the cold overtook her. Her teeth chattered as she tried to explain what she’d been doing.

Mrs. K gently pulled Phoebe from the desk to a chair by the hearth. Betty appeared in answer to the bell summons, and Mrs. K ordered the fire built up, tea sent for, and a shawl fetched for Phoebe. In minutes, all was accomplished, and Phoebe sat wrapped in a soft creamy pashmina shawl, sipping tea, and feeling the fire’s warmth thaw her toes.

Mrs. K watched her closely. “Are you ready to tell me what this is about?”

Phoebe nodded. “Someone opened father’s desk drawer, without the key. I don’t know who opened it or when it was done, or what the unknown person was looking for. I’ve been trying to make sense of it this last hour.”

“Near two hours, dear girl. I fear you’ve turned to ice.”

“But you must see what I’ve found so far.” Phoebe led the way back to the desk and held the lamp to illuminate the lock. “See the scratches on the brass? Whoever opened it, picked the lock.” Phoebe was indebted to Jones for the particular bit of understanding.

Mrs. K nodded gravely.

“The papers were in a jumble when I opened the drawer. I’ve been sorting them.” Phoebe indicated the piles she’d made and explained her system. First, a pile for bills of little consequence, and then, old letters, some in her mother’s hand, and some in her father’s, a black ribbon, which she suspected had bound her mother’s letters, and the pages of a paper her father must have been reading about Roman artifacts found in a farmer’s field in Sussex, not far from the village of her mother’s birth. Their father had taken Phoebe and Andrew there once a year to pick apples and visit their mother’s grave at the small church where Grandfather Clark had been the vicar, and where their mother now lay among her people.

Phoebe explained that the article had missing pages that she believed must describe the items found by the farmer.

“Seems an odd theft, doesn’t it? Your father’s papers?” Mrs. K remarked.

“It does, and the thief could not be Ned Bartling.”

“You’re sure of that?”

Phoebe nodded. “Andrew and I were in this room after Bartling was dismissed, and I don’t remember seeing the desk disturbed.”

“So, who opened the drawer and when?” Mrs. K asked. “Boyle?”

“Possibly.” Phoebe looked at the neat piles in front of her on the desk. Their meaning eluded her. She had spent two hours with them, and she was no closer to finding Andrew. In the cab with Jones earlier in the day she felt they were making headway, but now the mystery around Boyle had deepened. “I must tell you what Jones and I discovered today.”

“Jones, is he?”

“He prefers it. He is quite determined to be plain, though he has such a noticeable appearance.”

Mrs. K took her by the shoulders and firmly steered her back to the chair by the fire. “You need sustenance. You may tell me about plain Jones over tea.”

Phoebe took the offered chair. Mrs. K’s invitation was a chance to think aloud and to put the pieces of the day’s puzzle together. Phoebe made herself go slowly, taking sips of tea and bites of biscuit. She gave her impression of Shattuck and the shop, and of finding the coat with the embroidered M . It was necessarily an account of how she and Jones had worked together, and she wondered what he would make of her father’s disturbed papers, what he would see in them. The thought made her sit up and put the tea aside. She wanted Jones to see the papers, which made no sense. She was in charge. The papers were evidence, and she would figure out what they meant. She had a functioning brain and hardly needed his to stimulate hers.

Still, her search for Andrew was different with his help. Her cousins’ sympathy and support weighed on her with a kind of heaviness, a reminder of how wretched she should be feeling, not what she should be doing. Jones did not coddle or protect her. He might not like her company, but he did not stop her from the search. He had lifted her through the air, and set her on her feet, then he released her. His help did not extend a moment beyond what she needed.

She couldn’t sit any longer, but popped up and began to pace. “Shattuck knew of Father’s collection. He slandered Ned Bartling and prepared false papers so that Boyle would be hired at Marchmont House. Once hired, once trusted, Boyle had opportunities to enter Father’s study. But why? Why take pages from a scholarly article, if he did? And what does any of it have to do with Andrew?”

She stopped and threw up her hands. “It’s not making sense, and tomorrow, I must call upon Great-Aunt Serafina. You don’t suppose I could come down with a fever and take to my bed?”

Mrs. K shook her head. “Best to get the required visit out of the way. Then you may carry on the search with Jones.”

“I know that’s the wise course of action, but it means that tomorrow will be a lost day. Jones will go to the watchmaker without me.”

“That bothers you? It is his job. Should you not let him do it?”

She should. It was sensible to let the detective do the detecting, but Phoebe had let Tanner run the first search, and Andrew had not been found. She had marked her diary again this morning. Now her lawyer and her cousins wanted to end the search all together, as if she could simply declare Andrew dead and return to the London social whirl.

She had never felt so constrained by being who she was, by the things that defined her. She was underage, a woman, a lady, and a Marchmont. She had never felt the limitations of her sex so keenly before. Until Andrew’s disappearance, she had assumed that she was free, that she could come and go as she wished, that she could spend as she wished, that she would be accepted in society, that someday she would marry a man she chose to marry, that her authority in running a household would be unquestioned. But she realized that what she saw as freedom was merely conforming to a set of expectations, lovely expectations, who could deny that? But now that she wanted to do a thing that men had reserved for themselves, she understood how narrow a path had been laid out for her.

Jones, with no title, no trappings of wealth or power, needed no black garments, no veil to confer freedom of movement. He could go anywhere in London. No one expected him to be polite or patient or merely decorous. While she sat making conversation in her great-aunt’s drawing room, enduring the slights of her great-aunt’s friends, Jones would uncover the evidence that could lead them to Andrew.

She had important evidence, too. She merely had to figure out how to share it without having Jones think she was some delicate creature who couldn’t fend for herself. She stopped pacing and turned to Mrs. K.

“In the morning, I will walk the dog.”

*

Before the bells rang eleven, Robin left his desk, closed up the office, and headed for the Chequers. Mrs. Kendall was probably right that Shattuck ran a side business preparing false papers for position seekers. Robin had not expected the quickness of her wit or her capacity to connect details. He had to admit that she kept him sharp. But there was a piece of the puzzle she had not seen—the red tie on the man entering the Benevolent Assistance League office. That connection had taken hold in Robin’s mind. The letter from the leather case hinted that Boyle had been paid ten pounds for doing a task other than his duties as a footman. Robin wanted to know who sent the letter and what the task had been.

On the way to the pub, Robin fell in with Constable Haynes and walked his beat with him. Lately, Haynes had been in on attempts to recover first, a doctor’s case stolen from outside a club in Pall Mall and then, a cabriolet and horse taken in Regent Circus. Neither crime sounded like the work of a radical political group. The groups Robin knew of, like the Young Ireland Movement or the Welsh Workers Union with its red flag, were more likely to be found in Holborn. Still, when they reached the pub, Robin asked Haynes to keep watch for men wearing red ties.

Inside, the Chequers was a modest public house of the sort that every London neighborhood relied on, with a cheerful fire, oaken wainscot, dark sanded floors, and darker tables and chairs. The scents of ale, smoke, beef, and onions mingled in the warm air. Empty coat hooks by the door indicated that the pub’s patrons had not come far to grab a pint on a cold night. A dozen men sat in twos or threes around the edge of the room, smoking pipes and trading stories. Nothing smelled of sedition. Robin didn’t recognize the faces of any known miscreants. No one had pretensions to fashion, and only one table, with an abandoned beer mug, was empty near the fire. It seemed unlikely that a radical group used the place to exchange messages, but Robin trusted his instinct that Boyle’s unknown benefactor had left letters for him at the pub.

He drew all eyes as he entered. Though he was the youngest, and had once been the smallest of Wenlocke’s lost boys, now he stood over six feet. He had learned the advantage of height and its disadvantages as well. People tended to notice, so he dressed plainly in clothes that did not mark him as belonging to any particular level of society. He had changed his appearance in only one small detail tonight. He wore Boyle’s red tie. It had taken some doing to get a small, relatively undamaged portion of the tie to appear in the space between his shirt points.

He approached the bar in an unhurried way, and put a coin on the counter without speaking. The trick was to investigate without appearing to investigate and without giving away his connection to the police. When the public was ready, detectives would operate openly, but that time had yet to come. Solving the case of the missing boy had to be done without notice.

“New to the neighborhood, are ye?” The tapster wiped down his counter, leaving Robin’s coin untouched.

“Am I speaking to Sedley? The landlord?”

“Who’s asking?” Sedley’s manner turned wary.

Robin kept his voice cordial. “I think you have something that belongs to a friend of mine. I can take it off your hands.”

Sedley’s gaze caught on the bit of red showing at Robin’s throat. “A friend, you say?”

Around them the pub quieted. “John Boyle. He comes in from time to time.”

Sedley paused in his counter wiping. “You’re misinformed. Nothing here for Boyle. Boyle’s not come round for some time.”

Robin reached in his breast pocket. He had anticipated the landlord’s reluctance to share information. From his coat he withdrew a facsimile of the letter from Boyle’s leather case. “Would it be any trouble for you to keep a letter for him until he returns? I can make it worth your while.”

“And if it’s not?”

“I’ll have a pint and be on my way.” Robin spoke pleasantly and pushed the coin across the counter.

Sedley didn’t move, didn’t take the coin, didn’t look at Robin. It was one of those moments when Robin let his size speak. He made himself an immovable object. Wenlocke had seen to it that all the boys learned the pugilistic arts, including the art of letting an opponent make the first mistake. Behind Sedley’s carefully blank face Robin knew was a quick calculus of the force required to eject Robin from the pub and the likely effects of the use of such force on furniture and persons in the room. Other men had made similar calculations about Robin. He was prepared to act whichever course Sedley chose. If Sedley chose force, Robin doubted the crowd would back the landlord.

“Sedley, go on, give the fellow a pint,” someone called from one of the tables.

Sedley glanced sharply in the direction of the voice, but he nodded to Robin, and filled a mug. Robin took the drink, and Sedley slipped the facsimile letter under the counter.

One question answered. Robin carried his drink to the unoccupied table by the fire.

The pub door opened, and another man entered. The new man was a little the worse for drink, and fragrant in the way of men who’ve worn the same soiled garments too many days in a row. His coat was of good quality and cut, but he appeared to have fallen on hard times, and done heavy work that involved clay, for splashes of it marked his trousers.

“I’ll have another, Sedley,” the newcomer ordered, with a grand wave of one hand, a man used to better times.

“Bartling, go on now,” Sedley said. “No coin, no drink for you.”

Bartling ignored Sedley and lurched across the room. “That’s my table,” he growled.

Robin stood. “Sit,” he invited. “I’m buying this round.”

Bartling’s glare faded as his gaze rose to meet Robin’s. After a pause, he sank into the offered seat. Robin signaled Sedley, who brought another mug to their table. At once, Bartling took a long thirsty pull of the drink.

“Mind yerself, Bartling. This fellow’s a friend of Boyle’s,” Sedley said.

Bartling’s head came up sharply. He pushed the drink away. “No friend of mine then.”

Sedley returned to the bar.

“I could be a friend,” Robin said. “If you tell me what you know about Boyle.”

“Who are you? Not another cheater like Shattuck.”

“Shattuck cheated you?”

Bartling grew sullen again, but then he reached for his ale. “Aye. They were all in on it. Shattuck and Boyle and Trafford, too.”

“What were they in on?”

“Taking away my position.”

“Which was?”

“Footman at Marchmont House. And what I don’t understand is why not go to another house, a house that was looking for a footman? Why take a place away from a man who had one?”

And, that, Robin thought, was the question. Why had Boyle’s mysterious benefactor wanted a man inside Marchmont House?

Bartling drained his mug. “Another?” he asked.

Robin stood. He wanted the man ready to talk, not to snore. “Let’s find you a decent room for the night. Tomorrow will be a better day.”