Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
The sensation came again, stronger than Joshua had felt it before. He was being followed, and the follower did not care if his presence was detected. Not a footpad, on this sparkling, bustling Boxing Day. Not a thief, but rather…
Ah. Of course. One who had the arcane skills of a street criminal, but no longer exercised them for nefarious ends.
Joshua strolled around a corner, ducked into the doorway of a chandler’s shop, and waited. Half a minute later, a slim, dark-haired fellow teetering between youth and manhood sauntered around the corner as well. His appearance was nevertheless something of a shock.
“You’ve grown up, Neddy Wentworth.” He’d grown civilized in addition to taller, more muscular, and exquisitely groomed. Ned of Newgate had become Ned of Bond Street, though a lurking wariness about the eyes betrayed a past the finest tailor could not disguise.
“You’ve come home, Joshua Penrose.” Ned studied him with a seriousness the boy had lacked. “Or you’ve returned to England. Jane and Quinn are worried witless about you.”
Foot traffic swirled around them, the chandler’s shop bell tinkled in the sunny air, and an annoyance of boys was having a snowball fight over, between, and around the wheeled vehicles on the thoroughfare.
The conversation with Ned was utterly predictable—of course Quinn and Jane were worried, of course Ned would scold. Even as a boy in filthy, tattered attire, he’d been prodigiously talented as a conscience-at-large and not shy about exercising his office.
And yet, Joshua still felt a sense of unreality, as if he’d gone too many days without eating and had trouble distinguishing the products of his wandering wits from true earthly experiences.
“I am on my way to call on Their Graces,” Joshua said as the bell went on tinkling and a stray snowball caused a coach horse to shy. “These are for Jane.” He gestured with his bouquet of camellias that Holly had helped him arrange and Hope had discreetly rearranged.
Hope and Holly were real. Ned was… taking some getting used to.
“And here I thought those were for me. Come along, then, and you’d best have an explanation for why you waited until after Christmas to pay this call.
The weather has been miserable, your absence has hung over the household like a foul miasma.
I have been forced to consume so many anise biscuits to keep Cook’s spirits up that I will swear off them for the next year. ”
“I told Quinn I would return by the New Year.” A weak argument, at best.
“And in typical fashion, His Grace knew the instant your ship was spotted in the Pool. You do not send a note. You do not pop by after a good sleep and a wash. You can’t be bothered to—”
“The holidays are a trying time for me, Ned.” This discussion was trying as well. Ned the young man looked well on his way to a career as a solicitor or even a barrister, of all the ironies, and he’d be very good at cross-examination.
“The holidays are a trying time for many of us. Those of us shivering in church doorways, for example. A surfeit of London’s relatively unfresh winter air does little for one’s joie de vivre.” His French accent was perfect.
He flipped a coin to a crossing sweeper, who tipped his cap and grinned.
“I take your point,” Joshua said as the next section of street grew wider, the snowball fight fell behind, and the shops grew more elegant.
“Now imagine that it’s Christmas, the time of year when your worst, most unimaginable nightmare has been visited upon you.
You are doing your best to put the past behind you, but your best is a feeble effort. ”
Ned, who usually had a comment ready for any occasion, remained silent.
“Then imagine,” Joshua went on, “that you are invited to spend the holidays in close proximity to people who are happily sharing what had been your fondest dream. The dream you thought you had earned, but saw dashed to pieces in the cruelest possible way. They will try to understand the burden you carry, but they cannot.”
“Quinn and Jane aren’t as…”
“Yes?”
“Oblivious as they used to be. Not as heedless.” Said with a certain stoic patience.
“I am not as heedless as I used to be either, and, Ned, I miss that ability to ignore what annoyed me or made me sad. I miss it a lot.”
They turned another corner and beheld the snowy expanse of Hyde Park.
“No, you don’t, Joshua Penrose. You don’t miss that fellow who was in some ways a fool, for all he was a happy fool. Tell me about Mrs. Burdette.”
Of course Ned would have done his homework, but at least he’d left off lecturing.
The bank relied on Ned’s acumen in human affairs, and he had raised a natural intelligence-gathering instinct to a high art. Quinn’s letters suggested he was very proud of Ned and more than a little worried for him.
“Hope Burdette is a widow who thinks her late husband bought the house where I am dwelling. I am nearly certain I did not sell it. We have agreed to settle our legal differences after the New Year.”
“You’ve turned the front parlor into a bedroom, then?”
How could he…? Joshua took the length of four shops to puzzle it out. The chimneys. The kitchen and conservatory accounted for one plume of smoke, and the parlor was the second. No candles had been lit above the ground floor. Therefore…
“I have. We’re conserving coal. I arrived in the middle of the latest storm, without English coin and without my trunks. Still don’t have much blunt in hand.”
Ned snorted. “If you were truly wealthy, you’d have none at all. You’d go through your whole week without sight of tuppence, and yet, somehow, you’d spend and get a fortune. It’s magic.”
The holidays were apparently a challenge for Ned as well. He tossed another coin to another crossing sweeper and got the same jaunty nod. How many crossing sweepers were dependent on Ned’s casual charity?
“What about the girl?” Ned asked a bit too casually. “Holly.”
“Hollister Ann is blessed with a devoted mother. She’s very bright, somewhat forward, and needs more challenges.” Also a pony, some siblings, tutors, frequent doses of country air, books, a patch of the garden to work as her own…
“You spent Christmas with strangers. Jane and Quinn won’t understand that.”
“I spent Christmas at home, Ned, and all I can do is apologize for not sending Jane and Quinn word of my return. I assume you told them where to find me?”
“You assume correctly, but every time the knocker sounds on the front door, Jane exchanges a hopeful look with His Grace. His Grace is set to pummel you if you don’t show yourself soon.”
“He still engages in fisticuffs?”
“Of course not. His Grace decimates with a lifted eyebrow, passes sentence with a silence, and condemns with polite commonplaces. All the lads at the bank practice imitating him. Jane has made quite the duke out of our Quinn, and he’s good at it.”
“Is he happy?”
Ned paused to allow a roaming dog of no particular pedigree to sniff his glove. The beast was thin, not starving. Not a stray, in other words.
“If Jane is happy, Quinn is happy, and conversely. I think Stephen moved out in part to be spared the daily sight of such bliss.”
Stephen being Quinn’s younger brother and the present ducal heir. Lord Stephen Wentworth, in point of fact. Two sisters rounded out the family portrait. Formidable women who suffered neither fools nor fortune hunters.
“Do you recall any mention of me selling my town house while I was a traveling, Ned?” Ned’s formidable memory was rooted in years before he’d been taught to read. He could accurately sketch nearly anything he’d seen and repeat short conversations verbatim.
“None. I thought it ridiculous you didn’t rent the place out and asked old Chumley about it once over a pint.
A lovely house like that could bring in hundreds of pounds a year leased to the gentry on their annual rounds.
Chum said that place is like your family seat, and you would no more rent it out than you would swear a vow of celibacy. ”
Odd comparison, given that Joshua had, until recently, been prepared for indefinite celibacy. “What do you know of a solicitor named J. Bartholomew Peters?”
The dog moved on, and Ned watched him trot through the holiday throng.
“Bad actor, that one. A few years ago, there was some donnybrook over him watching the Society pages to see who had left for extended travel. He aimed for the families who shut up their London properties rather than rent them. Too high in the instep to be seen as a landlord, not high enough to keep the properties staffed during a long absence.”
A sinking feeling joined the day’s already-full complement of emotions.
“Let me guess. He presents himself as the property agent and rents the houses out to the unsuspecting, collecting rent all the while and then canceling the lease when the owners are on the way home. Has anybody put notice of my return in the papers yet?”
“Neither Jane nor Quinn would allow that. It’s for you to say when you’ve come home.”
Quinn and Jane had doubtless wanted to see in what condition Joshua presented himself before announcing that he was once again biding in London. Prudent of them, and thoughtful.
“Well, keep mum, if you can. I suspect Mr. Peters is swindling Mrs. Burdette in very grand fashion. Her husband bought the house, if you can call it that, after he’d fallen ill, but Mrs. Burdette has been told there’s also a mortgage on it.”
“I can have a look around if you like. Mortgages require documents and loans and such like.”
“Please have a thorough look around. If my suspicions are accurate, Mr. Peters is overdue for a very large lump of coal.”
“He was caught before,” Ned said as they crossed to Park Lane. “Best as I recall, it all blew over as a misunderstanding, meaning nobody wanted the scandal of legal repercussions. A pity, when here he is, preying on widows and all.”
“You will not resort to the law of the knife, Ned.”