Chapter 5
5
CHAPTER 5
D uring her marriage Cassandra had spent a great deal of time in places like the Lamb and Flag. The wife of a sea captain had few choices if she wanted to spend time with her husband. In truth, this tavern was a step above the dockside hovels she’d haunted as the seventeen-year-old wife to her husband, Charles, a sea captain nearly twenty years her senior. Most of those had been in far flung ports of call as he sailed in the employ of the East India Company. Had he not died of a virulent fever a little over a year after they’d married, she’d likely have spent most of her life on board a ship or prowling dockside environs when they made shore.
Now, after nearly eight years away from that life and six years as housekeeper to the Earl of Framlingwood’s mistresses, she did not care for the noise, nor the smell, nor the sense of despair that permeated the very walls of the tavern sometimes known as the Bucket of Blood . She’d dressed in her oldest, most dowdy wool gown and borrowed a worn wool cape and a bonnet from one of the maids. She’d been nursing a tankard of ale for an hour now, and her disguise appeared to be working. No one had noticed her at all.
She was ready to leave. Lady Camilla had sent word that a maid from the house of one of her Mayfair neighbors had been visiting her young man at Bow Street when the woman claiming to be Shell’s sister had bumped into her and dropped her basket. The maid would not have noticed the woman had she not slapped the maid’s hand away when she tried to help her pick up the pasties that had fallen to the floor. This woman had made a great fuss and had used a heavy cloth serviette to retrieve the meat pies in spite of wearing thick gloves herself.
Cassandra did not want to consider how the information had made its way into Lady Camilla’s hands. When young George had delivered the message to her, she didn’t give pursuing this young woman a second thought. Saida and Lady Jane were off to the docks. The other ladies were searching the shops of various suppliers of writing papers. She’d sent George back to Lady Camilla with a note and as the Rutherfords were all otherwise engaged, she’d taken a hackney to Covent Garden and settled in at the Lamb and Flag. According to Lady Camilla’s note, the maid in question stopped here to purchase food to take to her young man, imprisoned at Bow Street for some contretemps involving a young student at Temple Bar with just enough legal knowledge to cause trouble.
A sudden stir at the bar caught her attention. A pale young woman in the stark black and white dress of a maid turned and looked to where the tavern keeper pointed to Cassandra. The girl’s face screwed into an expression of confusion, but she threaded her way through the crowded taproom to Cassandra’s table and sat in the chair opposite her.
“Yon Harry says you have paid for my man’s food. Do I know you, missus?”
“Did you order the food?” Cassandra split her attention between the maid and her surroundings.
“I did. And when its ready I’ll be leaving right quick. What do you want?”
“You bumped into a woman a few days ago. Do I need to mention where?” Cassandra would press, if need be, but she’d spent enough time in the streets between Charles’s death and coming into Derek’s employ to play things close to the vest rather than put someone’s back up first thing.
“The pasties,” the maid muttered. “Should have kept me mouth shut, I should have.”
“All I want is a description and anything you can remember about her.”
“What concern is it of yours?” She leaned across the table but looked all around them. “You work for the Runners, do you?”
Cassandra snorted and took a sip of her ale. “Hardly. Bunch of scurrilous lummoxes, the lot of them. She was visiting my husband.” She took a longer drink of her ale. “And she wasn’t his sister, if you take my meaning.” Cassandra had spent too much time with Derek’s mistresses. That lie had just popped into her head. The Grosvenor Street ladies would be so proud.
“No!” The maid looked about one more time. “I knew that one was up to no good. She had red hair. Irish by her brogue. And she had the evil eye.”
“The evil eye?” Cassandra flattened her arms on the table and leaned forward.
“One blue eye and one green eye.” The girl shook her head and crossed herself twice. “Tiny thing she was. Shorter than me and arms like matchsticks.”
“Anything else?” Cassandra glanced toward the tavern door. Shite! Two familiar figures strolled in and one of them spied her immediately. Derek, dammit all! “Can you remember anything else?”
The tavern keeper called out to the maid who leapt to her feet at once. “My man’s food is ready. I need to fetch it to him before my mistress misses me.” She turned to go and then turned back. “She had a brand on her arm, right ugly brand but old. Long healed I think.”
“What was it?” Cassandra cut one eye toward the front of the tavern. A man in a many-caped greatcoat had taken Derek by the arm and dragged him down on the bench beside him behind a round table loaded with the remains of a large meal.
“Letters, an R and a C. Good luck with your husband.” The maid went quickly to the bar and took the basket the tavern keeper handed her. In a thrice she was out the front door.
Cassandra took one deep breath and then another. She grasped the tankard of ale and finished the contents in a single draught.
“I take it you saw who came in with me.” Dickie Jones pulled up a chair next to her.
“When did you tell him?” she asked, whilst hiding her clasped hands under the table. “And why did you feel the need to tell him? You know I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”
“Tell that to Elias Shell. And I told him right after Obadiah tried to choke the life out of Miss Saida’s big Scot.”
“What? Where did this happen?”
“In Captain El’s office at Goodrum’s. Your earl put an end to it.”
“He’s not my earl.”
“That’s not what I hear.”
“Dickie Jones,” she said as she bent close enough to sniff his coat. “Do you want me to tell Lady Camilla you’re smoking cheroots when you’re dashing about London minding everyone’s affairs but your own?”
“You wouldn’t.” In that moment he looked like the worried boy he was rather than the jaded lad Seven Dials had made him. He shrugged. “She doesn’t mind.”
“Then you won’t mind me sending a note round to her, will you?”
“Yer a hard-hearted woman, ye are, Missus Collins.” His return to his Seven Dials tones let her know she was not off the mark even a little. If only her own worries were so easily solved. She sneaked a glance to where Derek and the other man she could not quite see sat arguing. They rose quietly and slipped out of the tavern.
“There was no need to fetch the earl,” she said. “I was perfectly safe here alone.”
“Ye were safe enough, missus, but ye were never alone.” He stood and beckoned to her. “Time to go. They’re waiting for us in the carriage.”
“They?” Cassandra stumbled behind him as they moved through the crowded tavern. “To whom do you…refer?” Derek stood on the pavement waiting to hand her into his carriage. Next to him, a slight smile on his face stood Captain Atherton in his many caped greatcoat.
“Good afternoon, Missus Collins,” he said as he followed her and Dickie into the carriage. “Lovely to see you.”
“Have you nothing better to do of an afternoon, Captain Atherton, than to sit and spy on a woman grown minding her own business in a tavern?” Cassandra moved closer to the window as Derek dropped onto the forward-facing seat next to her, arms crossed and a fulminating glare on his face. “You have a new baby at home. I expect your wife has far more need of you than I do.”
“A baby at home is why he had nothing better to do,” Dickie said. “Between his son caterwauling and her ladyship throwing things at the captain here he near begged me to come out and watch over you. A mad killer and a poison pastie might have been welcome, am I right?” He elbowed Captain Atherton and grinned.
“I’ll not answer that for all the raspberry macarons in Lady Camilla’s pantry.”
Now that she truly looked at the cavalry captain turned artist, Cassandra had to admit he looked nearly as exhausted as Derek. “It was no trouble, Missus Collins, and Lady Honoria rather insisted once she spoke with Dickie about your purpose at the Lamb and Flag. Neither Dickie nor I is very good at refusing my wife.”
“Too bloody right,” Dickie agreed. “Knife throwers at Astley’s aren’t as accurate as she is with a shoe or a perfume bottle, according to old Cheddars.”
“How is Cheddars?” Cassandra asked. She’d met Captain Atherton’s valet on several occasions. He was the dearest and sweetest of men.
“Well enough to talk too much,” Captain Atherton replied. “She doesn’t throw things at me every day, you know.” He scowled at Dickie who rolled his eyes.
“What the devil were you thinking?” The interior of the carriage went silent and still at Derek’s outburst. Cassandra opened her mouth to respond.
“Have you any idea what might have happened to you had Atherton not been there? Have you no care for your life at all?” A vein pulsed at his temple as Derek turned in his seat, his hands fisted at his sides. “Any number of my friends or I could have undertaken this task, Cassandra. Why would you put yourself in such a position and—”
“She would not have told any of you, my lord. That is why I went. Especially not a blustering lord who would likely shout at her and send her running into the street.” Cassandra met Derek’s gaze and refused to look away.
Poor Atherton and Dickie coughed and spluttered in a wasted effort not to laugh. “Marked you, your nibs,” Dickie said with a snicker.
“We will discuss the foolishness of your actions later. Did she?” Derek’s entire body seemed to simmer with the heat of some unspoken emotion.
Cassandra might deny all she wished, but she was drawn to him like this, drawn nearly beyond her control.
“Did she what, my lord?” Captain Atherton snorted and gave her a wink.
“You’re not helping,” Derek said, his petulance amusing if Cassandra didn’t have so much else on her mind. “I’m going to have my coachman set you two down at Lady Camilla’s.”
“You’ll receive no argument from me,’ Captain Atherton said. “I have no wish to watch Missus Collins take you to task, old friend. What say you, Dickie? Shall we raid Charpentier’s kitchens?”
“King George’s bollocks, Atherton, you just ate.” Dickie threw up his hands. “Ye’ll be after me raspberry tarts. We’re going to have words, you and I.”
“We’re looking for a short, thin, Irish girl with red hair, one green eye and one blue eye, and a brand on her arm.” Cassandra could tell by Derek’s frown that he’d have preferred she save the information for him alone. She had no intention of allowing him to go in search of this poisoner, even if the girl had done what she’d done under orders from another. Telling Dickie meant that Archer Colwyn and Stephen Forsythe would know by nightfall.
“We’ll inform Lady Camilla,” Captain Atherton said as the carriage rolled to a stop before that lady’s St. James Square townhouse. “She’ll have her coterie of spies on this by morning.” He stepped down to the pavement. Dickie jumped down beside him. “Which means you don’t have to be prowling the streets of London tonight, Framlingwood. Go home and get some rest. We’re all tired of taking turns shadowing you. My son does sleep sometimes, you know. Missus Collins.” He inclined his head and closed the carriage door. “Grosvenor Street, John.” The carriage rolled smoothly into motion.
“Derek, I—”
He’d snatched her into his arms and kissed her before another thought, let alone word crossed her mind. His mouth, hot and fierce, captured hers without mercy. She froze for a moment, had the fleeting idea to push him away, and then succumbed. He shoved her bonnet back. The lure of anger and primitive male possessiveness she’d detected in him from the moment he’d joined her in the carriage intoxicated her in a way she’d never experienced before him. Before Derek, the one man she would never claim as her own.
She curled her hands over his shoulders and kissed him back, hard and open-mouthed as their tongues intertwined and their chests heaved in want of breath. She poured her new fears and confusion into her kiss. He infuriated her with his imperious demands and judgments of her ability to move about London’s East Side. He took her breath away with his concern and desire to keep her safe.
He broke the kiss and clasped her elbows tightly in his powerful hands. “Have you taken leave of your senses? What possessed you to take such a risk with your life, Cassandra?” He shook her a bit and leaned in for an anguished kiss. “Do you have any idea what might have happened to you had Atherton not been there?”
“You’re shaking me. Derek, you’re shaking me.” She raised her hands to clasp his face. He blinked a few times and slowly loosened his grip on her arms. “I was never in danger. Even had Atherton not been there I was never in danger. But he was there. I was safe, and I was the only one to whom a maid might speak. You know that.”
“You had no business involving yourself in this. I want you away from the danger of this situation. Colwyn, Forsythe, and I can—”
Cassandra began to laugh, quietly at first and then loud and gasping like some Covent Garden bawd. He stared at her as a series of expressions crossed his face. When she finally caught her breath, she pressed her lips to his in a tender kiss. “Are you so oblivious you do not realize I am right in the middle of this situation? How can I not be when the Grosvenor Street ladies, their husbands, your friends, everyone, we have all been dropped into the middle of this?”
“I don’t want any of you to be any more involved than you must be, especially not you, Cassandra.” He pulled her back into his arms, gently this time. “I could not bear for you to be hurt.” He dotted tiny kisses down her neck before he drew back and rested his forehead against hers. “Do not make me…You have become too important to me for me to wish you in harm’s way.”
The carriage turned onto the cobblestoned lane behind the Grosvenor Street houses. Once the coachmen drew the horses to a stop, Derek stepped down and handed Cassandra out into the mews courtyard. They stood there, her hand in his, as the coachman awaited his orders. The earl gazed at her. He wanted her to decide. She needed to send him home. She had so much to think about and so many decisions to make. Yet in one glance she read what he needed, what he hoped, and for this little space of time, she would be selfish. She took Derek’s hand.