Page 10

A be hadn’t lingered for much longer in the Wharton house gardens. What he’d observed through the windows had been enough to update Freddy on his mother’s doings, and to be frank, he was feeling a little too silly to do investigative work after his encounter with Miss Millie Yardley.

He had practically floated home, whistling to himself all the while. He didn’t think he’d been quite so giddy over a woman since his doomed two-year infatuation with Elspeth MacElroy from the ages of twelve to fourteen.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have a roving eye and an appreciation for the ladies. Abe prided himself on being able to draw a giggle out of all sorts of women in all manner of situations. It was a good bit of fun, and of course he generally enjoyed what followed.

This felt a little different. Perhaps it was because she was the one who had drawn out the giggling tonight and because he only seemed to make her roll her pretty brown eyes. But he didn’t think it was that. No, it was nothing so base and common as wanting what he couldn’t have.

She had flirted back. She’d reacted to his nearness.

He couldn’t define it, and that didn’t much surprise him. He’d never been much of a poet. But he liked it. A lot.

Next time, he meant to kiss her, and perhaps, if he was truly lucky, he might get his hands on that lovely, soft figure for a moment.

He sighed all the way into bed and enjoyed the direction his dreams took for those few lucid moments before total oblivion.

Waking up was not half so pleasant.

“Ruined it! You ruined my best cast iron!” shouted a shrill, female voice from the ground floor. “Oh, and the ceiling! Look what you’ve done!”

Abe stumbled out of bed and down the stairs with his dressing gown half on, blinking away bleariness as the muffled sounds of Freddy sputtering and their housekeeper crying soaked into the walls.

“What in the absolute hell …?” Abe rounded the corner into the kitchen to find a scene that looked much like it sounded.

“I didn’t think it would catch fire!” Freddy was telling the distraught older woman, his fingers dug into his blond hair and his expression panicked. “And when I threw water on it, it shot up into the air like I’d used gunpowder! I had no choice!”

“You threw water on it?!” the housekeeper wailed, aghast. The poor thing sank her face into her hands, likely questioning why she’d ever agreed to work for them at all. “Water!”

“I fished it out to scrub clean afterward with soap, but there’s a hole—”

“You scrubbed my cast iron?! ” she shrieked. “With soap?!”

“Freddy, you feckless insect of a man,” Abe barked, drawing the attention of both of them for a brief and glorious moment of silence. “What have you done now?”

Freddy dropped his hands at his sides, leaving his hair in a ridiculous shape from his anxious tugging. “I tried to fry an egg,” he said with a defeated sigh. “It caught fire.”

“You tried to fry an egg,” Abe repeated, certain he must still be dreaming.

Freddy’s face contorted into something between juvenile frustration and indignation. “Well, I had to abandon my breakfast yesterday morning, didn’t I? I came home and tried to make my own. The grease caught fire, and I tried to put it out. It didn’t go out!”

“No, I can see that it didn’t,” Abe replied, glancing up at the layer of grimy residue that was currently adorning their kitchen ceiling, just above the stovetop. “You can’t use water on a grease fire.”

Or soap on a cast iron, apparently.

“Well, how exactly was I to know that?!” Freddy whinged. “What do you put it out with? Wind and prayers? I took the flaming, bloody thing outside and threw it in the canal. Little fires popped up even after it had sunk, and floated off like water was nothing but a jest to them!”

The recounting of events seemed to spark a realization in Freddy. “By God, I could have been burnt horribly running out with that tinderbox, spitting flames in my face as it was. It’s a miracle I wasn’t harmed.”

“Christ and all his disciples,” Abe grumbled, rubbing his eyes so hard, he could see spots.

The offending pan was propped in the sink, light shining through the tiny hole that had formed at the crease. Apparently, after sinking the thing, Freddy had fished it back out again for good measure.

Abe wondered if he’d waded all the way in or just bent over and thrown his top half under the water to find it again.

“I tried to clean up the char too!” Freddy added, though his tone was already deflating.

It was true. Upon raising his eyes, Abe could see whirling cloth marks in the blackened stain on the ceiling, as though the idiot had climbed up onto the stovetop and slapped a dry rag at it in his panic.

“I can’t stay here. I … I can’t,” said the housekeeper—Mrs. Harrison, if Abe remembered correctly. She made a dash for the door before either man could stop her.

“Freddy,” Abe managed through his teeth.

“What! What do you want me to do?!” Freddy answered with a toss of his hands up in the air and a tinge of wildness in his tone.

“Obviously I can’t manage a single thing without causing a disaster.

In the future, I’ll just go hungry, I suppose!

I might have to do anyway if the woman who keeps us fed has just abandoned us. ”

“Freddy,” Abe repeated.

“When I bought the eggs, the lady at the market said it was as easy as just tossing some lard in a pan and throwing the egg on top. Why did she lie to me?!”

“Freddy!” Abe shouted, finally seeming to catch the other man’s attention.

“You are going to go buy the nicest cast iron pan you can find. You are going to go to Covent Garden or Tottenham Court Road or somewhere respectable and beg them to give you their most expensive, most ornate cast iron pan, and you’re going to pay whatever they ask for it without complaint. ”

“I don’t think that—”

Abe raised his voice. “Then you are going to take that pan to Cheapside and beg Mrs. Harrison to take us back. You are going to agree to whatever penance she demands from you. Do you understand me?”

There was a beat of silence, which felt oddly loud after all the shouting and commotion.

“Yes, all right,” said Freddy. “Anything else, master?”

“Yes, actually. You’re going to stop by Bow Street on your way home and pay Mr. Cresson back for yesterday’s breakfast.”

“The breakfast I didn’t eat?” Freddy shot back with a bit of shrillness in his voice.

“Yes.”

Another beat of silence. And then Freddy did the most sensible thing he’d done all morning, or perhaps in all his life.

He obeyed.

By the time Freddy returned, Abe had dressed and begun his work for the day. He was deep into his review of Cresson’s notes from Bow Street.

He looked up from the file and released a breath of pure relief that Mrs. Harrison’s distinctive voice seemed to be sounding from the hall alongside a much calmer version of Freddy's tenor than had been heard today in their little flat.

“Bentley!” he called from his office, leaning back in his chair. “A word?”

There was another exchange of voices and then Freddy appeared, slipping in and shutting the door to the office closed behind him. He was a little dirtier than usual from all the traipsing about the city he’d done, but he looked much better than he had this morning.

He wasted no time in crossing the room and throwing himself onto the chair opposite Abe’s desk. “Oh, it’s a pleasure to sit,” he groaned, stretching his neck back and forth.

“I see you reclaimed Mrs. Harrison,” Abe prompted with a raise of his brows. “Good work.”

“I went to her first, actually, and offered to take her down to the shops to replace her pan and buy a few new things besides,” Freddy said happily, as though he were the brightest boy in school. “She accepted but said she still wouldn’t come back to work for us.”

“Then why is she here?”

“Because I agreed to some other things too,” Freddy said with a shrug. “She wants an extra day off every week without losing any pay and she wants … uh.” He cleared his throat. “Well, you know, the shopping trip softened her a little, I think.”

“What else did you agree to?”

“She … uh.” Freddy looked supremely uncomfortable. “She asked me to do her work with her for a little while, until I understood everything. That way, I can’t muck it up when she isn’t here and … and I won’t take her for granted again.”

Abe had managed to hold it in all the way through that sentence, but now he laughed, loudly, then laughed again at Freddy’s obvious disapproval of his laughter.

“You never did!” he snorted, dissolving into another fit of laughter.

If nothing else, he appreciated amusement taking over any annoyance he might have still been feeling. “Oh, I cannot wait to see it.”

“You won’t be seeing it,” Freddy snapped with a frown. “You are going to be doing the job I hired you for if you know what’s good for you. Besides, how hard could it be? She picks up a discarded waistcoat here and there and boils water. It will not be very entertaining.”

This sent Abe into another fit of laughter, tears beginning to form in the corners of his eyes. He only stopped when Freddy made a disgusted sound and stood like he was about to leave.

“No, wait,” he managed, forcing himself to heave great big breaths in place of another fit of hilarity. “Sorry. Wait a tick. Please. I need to talk to you about that.”

Freddy crossed his arms over his chest and raised his brows, doing his best to maintain a stern facial expression.

Abe took one more breath, brushing the tears from his eyes and shaking his head.

“I have some updates on your mother to go over with you, but it’s been brought to my attention that I can only collect so much information hovering outside garden windows.

Perhaps you ought to make an introduction or two if you want me any closer. ”

“To whom?”

“How should I know? Someone to get me into the correct rooms if you want me to eavesdrop. I can’t just stroll in with everyone on high alert for imposters, anyhow.”

“Imposters?” Freddy repeated.

“Yes. Someone was stealing jewels from rich women all last Season. I happen to be investigating that as well as the good dowager. It’s a ‘two birds, one hand’ situation.”

“You mean one stone,” Freddy corrected.

“Lots of stones, actually,” Abe replied with a shrug, winning a roll of the eyes from the other man. “Diamonds, sapphires …”

“Yes, I understand,” he said with an impatient wave of his hand.

“You do know I am persona non grata with the ton after those gossip sheets that went out while I was in the Netherlands, don’t you?

Even if I knew who to introduce you to, no one would agree to see me, and your association with me would only hurt your chances of opening any doors at all. ”

“Come now, you must know someone ,” Abe pressed. “If not, then I may soon reach my limit on what I can gather for you.”

Freddy frowned. “Maybe someone who owes me money, I suppose. But you had a rule about that, didn’t you? I’m not to gamble if we cohabitate.”

Abe paused. That was true.

“You’re right,” he said. “Forget it. I will find my way. You focus on your housekeeping.”

“I shall focus on what serves me best.” He said this with airs, as though it weren’t blatantly offensive. “What about my mother?”

“Sit back down and I’ll tell you what little I know,” Abe said, gesturing to the chair as though it were their own private olive branch. “It isn’t much, but it’s a start. And I’ve a lead on something a bit scandalous that should be occurring in the next couple of days as well.”

Freddy looked at the chair and sighed before sitting. “Oh, all right,” he said, “but make it quick. I don’t want to lose Mrs. Harrison again, and she did say she’d leave if I didn’t keep my side of the bargain.”

“Bentley, no one wants you to make good on that deal more than I do,” Abe assured him.

And he meant it.