Chapter Twenty-Four
“T hat was not as successful as I was hoping it would be,” Kitty muttered to Yelena as they walked back to the carriage with the waiting brothers Winchester.
“Bu now you know for certain that Lady Caroline is more likely to be on the run than killed by Portsmouth.”
“I do?” She hoped so.
“If Lord Portsmouth murdered her, he would not be asking her lady’s maid anything about her whereabouts. And if he thought she saw something she should not have seen, I doubt she would be alive right now.”
Kitty nodded slowly. “That’s true.” It wasn’t much to pin her hopes on, but she would take anything. Both for Evie’s sake and for “Lady Caro.” She was feeling quite protective of the young woman she had never met. “I wish she had gone to the Spinster Society for help.”
“I suppose the society will have to go to her instead.”
“Are you acquainted with Lady Priya?”
Yelena smiled. “Lady Priya knows everyone.”
“Well, she knows everyone’s secrets, at any rate.”
“That too.”
“I wish I could talk to her.” But it was too risky to Evie. Lord Portsmouth would know immediately were Kitty to go anywhere near the Spinster Society house. She was lucky he did not know already, to be honest. “I guess I will settle for talking to Miss Campbell instead. Perhaps she still has some of the Duchess books and I can piece the rest of the letter together. Someone has to know where Lady Caro is if she doesn’t.”
She worried at it as the carriage was expertly handled around street sweepers, carts overfilled with wares, shouting hackney drivers. And when thinking and more thinking did not produce any miraculous results, Kitty let herself think about something else. Just for a moment. She had overheard a customer once say that the best way to solve a puzzle was to let yourself forget about it for just a moment. To walk somewhere new, bake a loaf of bread. Embroider a cushion. Anything.
Kitty was not sure if thinking about Devil counted, since he was a puzzle himself.
“Have you known Devil long?” She probably should not ask personal questions. It would make no difference whatsoever. Devil was Devil and she was…Kitty. None of that had changed, no matter how often she found herself thinking about his forearms, or his thighs, or the way he almost smiled. Mostly at her.
Yelena nodded. She was lovely in her walking dress, the ribbons matching the flowers on her bonnet. Kitty did not have a bonnet. And she knew she was already wrinkled from the day. “Lord Birmingham was friends with my husband,” Yelena replied.
“On the Continent?” Kitty asked tentatively.
“Yes. They saved each other’s lives more than once. But even Devil could not save him from a wound gone to rot. Lord knows he tried.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a few years ago. At least I was there to hold him.”
“Is that where you learned your hatpin tricks? The army.”
Yelena smiled. “The British Army is not keen on teaching women to fight. Especially women from another country. But my grandfather was as vicious as a cornered dog. He taught me what he could, and then my yaya taught me the rest. She was the only one who could best him. What of your family?”
Kitty snorted. “My grandfather likes to throw wet cabbages at my shop.”
Yelena frowned. “Why?”
“Because I am a disgrace.”
“Is that all?” she scoffed.
“But he’s also scared of my grandmother, and sometimes she writes him very long letters and he magically leaves London for a few weeks.”
“I think I would like your grandmother.”
“She is a termagant. I adore her.”
“And your sister?”
“Not a termagant. But I adore her as well. Enough to take on Devil and force him to help me.”
“Devil cannot be forced to do anything he does not wish to do.”
It was not much longer before they arrived at their destination, Yelena’s words still ringing in Kitty’s head.
They knocked at the door of a small house with a brass knocker in the shape of a fish. A man answered, pale, wearing a waistcoat slightly too large for his frame. He scowled at them.
“Hello,” Kitty said with her best shopkeeper smile, the one that did not dim even in the face of insults, arguments over prices, or the same questions repeated over and over again. “I am Miss Caldecott and this is Mrs. Dimitriou. We are here to see Miss Campbell.”
“She’s not here.”
“Oh dear,” Kitty said. “Do you know when she might be accepting callers? We have an appointment, you see.”
“Not anymore, you don’t, young lady.”
“Erm.” Kitty blinked. Did he recognize her from the bookshop? Was he insulted by her very presence? What a nuisance. “Why is that?”
“Because my daughter is missing and has been missing for the last two weeks.”
Kitty could only stare at him for too long a moment. With every step forward she managed on this investigation, she was yanked back another two steps.
Poor Evie. Poor Lady Caroline. And poor Miss Campbell. If they were waiting for her to save them, they would be sorely disappointed.
No. None of that. There was no time for wallowing and whinging. Only war. Target: Lord Portsmouth.
There were no defeats, only minor setbacks.
Still, she lowered her gaze so Mr. Campbell would not be alarmed by the martial gleam he would no doubt find there. She added a wobble to her voice for good measure. “I’m terribly sorry, you’ve shocked me. Missing?” She knew she went red then pale. She always did, at the least provocation. It was rather helpful this time. “Might I trouble you for a glass of water? I feel a bit faint.”
He took her arm and helped her to the nearest chair in the parlor. It was small and tidy, with a basket of knitting on the floor and a row of books on the windowsill behind her. She slid them a sidelong glance as Mr. Campbell called for his wife. She bustled down the stairs, snapping, “Shout at me again, old man.”
Mr. Campbell cleared his throat. Mrs. Campbell noticed Yelena, then Kitty, who did her best to look feeble. Unassuming. Wan.
“This lady needs some water. And some smelling salts?”
Gah. No, thank you.
Mrs. Campbell marched away, returning with a glass of water.
“I’m sorry to be such a bother,” Kitty murmured.
“This is Miss Caldecott, a friend of Elspeth,” Mr. Campbell said.
Mrs. Campbell pressed her lips together as if forcing herself not to cry at the sound of her daughter’s name. Then she narrowed her eyes. “I knew all of Elspeth’s friends.”
Kitty nodded. “We were not close friends.” A truth followed by a lie. “I run a bookshop, and she often visited with her friend. Lady Caroline, Countess Portsmouth? Perhaps you know her?” Also missing, incidentally. “I enjoyed our conversations very much.”
“She loved books.”
“ Loves books,” Mrs. Campbell corrected her husband fiercely.
“Of course, of course.”
“We haven’t seen her in over a month,” Mrs. Campbell continued, mostly, Kitty thought, because someone was listening to her. “We hired a Bow Street runner, but he’s found nothing. Poor Caro is gone too.”
“Are they together, do you think?”
“They always were. But…that man…her husband .” She spat the word. Kitty did not blame her.
“Hush, Mrs. Campbell.”
“I won’ t hush.”
“We are not friendly with Lord Portsmouth,” Kitty assured them. “What of Lady Portsmouth’s parents?”
“They left the country altogether barely a week after she married. They might not even know she is dead.” A strangled sob. “Poor Caro. They are in Italy. Or Istanbul. Somewhere it does not rain.” The disdain coating Mrs. Campbell’s words could have tarred every boat in the Thames.
“I don’t wish to presume,” Kitty said, “but you might try talking to Lady Priya Langdon. She might be able to help.”
“Another aristocrat?” More disdain, in heaps and heaps.
“She is more than a dowager countess,” Kitty said. “Please, believe me.”
“Can’t hurt, Mrs. Campbell,” Mr. Campbell said.
Kitty looked at Yelena, meeting her gaze. She widened her eyes in a way she hoped conveyed clear instructions.
If Yelena’s slight frown was anything to go by, it did not, in fact, convey any instructions whatsoever.
Kitty finished her water and set the glass down, deliberately too near the edge of the table. It toppled and hit the floor with a crack. Kitty scrambled back as though the shards had cut her, exclaiming all the while. “Oh, I’m so clumsy! My apologies!”
Yelena rushed in to help, giving Kitty the time she needed to once again prove the Ladies’ Association for Moral Standards right.
She was a Menace to All Good Society.
She had a reputation to uphold, after all.
“I should have hired a Bow Street Runner as well,” Kitty said as they stepped once more into the carriage after rushing out in a flurry of apologies. It would have normally taken her most of the day to walk this route across London. “They must be expensive.”
“Devil works with them,” Yelena said, unpinning her bonnet and tossing it aside. She massaged her scalp. “I cannot abide English hats, even all of these years later. The Runners come to Devil as often as he goes to them. If they knew anything, you would know it.”
“Oh. I suppose that makes sense, with all of the wagers and whatnot.” And he had mentioned it once. She had been suddenly desperate to know where the Bow Street Runners met and what she could sell in order to be able to afford their services. She swallowed, her throat itchy. “They must be together? Lady Caro and Miss Campbell? Two friends going missing around the same time cannot be a coincidence.”
“I would be very surprised if it were,” Yelena agreed.
“Well, the Runners might have a fancy office and an earl and actual skills, but I have something they do not,” Kitty declared.
“Aplomb?”
“Better.” She pulled three books from various parts of her person from her stays to her reticule. “I have these.”
She should probably stop stealing soon. It was not good ton . And it might get her in gaol, if not outright hanged.
On the other hand, a life of criminal pursuits might also help her find Lady Caroline and her friend and save her sister. With apologies to Lord Tadworth and the Campbells, she would carry on for the moment.
The Delights of the Duchess , volumes three, four, and five, papered in a very inoffensive concealing print of flowers that Kitty sold for just this purpose—hiding your naughty books in plain sight.
“However did you manage it?” Yelena asked. “Is that why you asked to sit down?”
“I was feeling faint,” Kitty said primly.
Yelena laughed. “Even I believed you were overcome for a moment there. Well done.”
“I’ll return them,” Kitty felt the need to clarify. “Eventually. With a little gift. And a new glass.”
Yelena shrugged, supremely unbothered with a spot of thievery.
Kitty requested they stop at St. George’s, where she tucked a note into the oak tree gate. Please help my sister. Please let me help you. K.C. Golden Griffin Bookshop.
When they reached the bookshop, Wulf was in his usual guard position but also eating a raspberry tart—mostly because a very diminutive lady insisted upon it as a thank you for carrying her packages to a hackney.
Inside, a large box had been delivered from Fortnum & Mason for Kitty: the tea she had enjoyed so much just this morning, sent by Devil.
Kitty stood clutching a tin of tea leaves to her chest for an embarrassingly long time.