Chapter 27 #2
She leaned over and kissed his cheek. He felt his face grow red from the pleasure of her attentions. He wondered who of his circles had seen them, and what strange story would reach his mother! Then her expression changed, and she seemed to be looking at something over his shoulder.
“Emily?”
“I thought… but no, it could not be. But for a moment, I thought I saw a face I recognised in the group of people there, just by the cluster of trees. But whatever would he be doing here?”
She was not one given to flights of fancy. If she thought she saw something, Richard was certain she had indeed seen it. “Who was it?”
She furrowed her brow and stared at him with concern etched on her cherished features.
“It looked like Major Weekes!”
The following morning Richard stopped past Lyons’ office. If he was surprised that the investigator was not at church, he did not mention it. After all, neither was he. The young man was at his desk with a sour expression on his face.
“Colonel. I was about to set pen to paper for you. I have news, and it is not good.”
Richard took the chair at the other side of the massive desk. “Speak.” He reclined into the wooden seat and blew the hair off his brow.
“It seems,” Lyons sneered, “that our man has taken to providing further ‘entertainment’ to his gamers in the form of women.”
“Prostitutes?” Richard’s lip curled in distaste.
A look of disgust came over the investigator’s face. “Just so. He does not run a brothel, so he is skirting the limits of legal practice, but it is repugnant nonetheless.”
“The girls?”
“Seemingly the sort that often find themselves in that profession, sadly. They seem to be poverty stricken with no other chance of employment. It is a sad state of affairs.”
Richard nodded. This was true. He had seen the sort that sold their bodies in dark alleys and near the docks.
Rather than revulsion, he mostly felt pity for them.
Too many young women, some little more than children, found their only recourse to keep body and soul together was to sell their bodies for the enjoyment of men.
He had, he knew, inconsistent views on this.
The image of a young girl forced against her will to take clients on a filthy cot in a grimy room filled him with disgust; however, many of his friends—instead of engaging in discreet dalliances with young widows or the like—had mistresses or entertained courtesans, which was considered a perfectly normal and acceptable way of life.
He must examine these notions at some time and find some resolution to an issue which was problematic at best.
“Has he crossed the line into illegal activity? This might be a place to catch him out at last.”
Lyons shook his head. “Not that I have been able to discover. Thus far, anyway. If he sets up a house, or offers rooms in the tavern for this purpose, I shall inform you immediately.”
There was little else to do but nod.
“I have a further question,” Richard said at length. “Yesterday, I thought I saw Weekes near the War Office buildings. Do you know if he has business there?”
Lyons rifled through a short stack of notes.
“I see nothing. We have primarily been watching him in the evenings and at night. He might have legitimate reasons to have been there—a visit to a tailor or an acquaintance, for example, or he might have finally been seeing about selling his commission. He must have realised by now that he had not received his purchase back. Still, if you wish, I can set another man on him for the earlier hours of the day.”
“Very well. Please do it.” Richard reached into a pocket and withdrew a small wad of bills. “This should cover immediate expenses.”
He left feeling unsettled. Weekes was not living in the parts of town where he needed a fine society tailor to construct or repair his wardrobe; indeed, a well-cut coat or pair of fashionable trousers would mark him out as a stranger in his adopted neighbourhood near Blackfriars.
What possible other reason could he have to be in this part of London?
It was not a district known for its shops or establishments, other than government offices and small houses off the main streets.
Did he have a friend who lived there? No previous reports had suggested such.
And it would be odd for the man only now to determine that he had not completely resigned his commission.
There might be a perfectly innocent explanation for Weekes’ appearance in the square by the Barrows’ house the previous day, but Richard was still disturbed more deeply than he ought to be.
He spent the afternoon with the Barrows and took some time to sit with the colonel to make light and meaningless chatter, and then to read to the bedridden man to allow his wife to rest, before calling for the carriage to take him back to the camp.
He had almost no luggage, and the vehicle was rolling down the streets short minutes after arriving at Darcy’s front door.
But as he gazed absently out the window, Richard thought he saw that same unwelcome face that Emily had spotted the day before.
Whatever was Weekes doing outside of Darcy’s house?