Chapter 7
Arch had not seen Miss Vale for several days, and he disliked the circumstance with an irrationality he would have condemned in another man.
He told himself it was simply imprudent.
If she had sent for the duplicate ledgers, they might already be in her hands.
If they were in her hands, she would examine them with the same brisk thoroughness with which she conducted every other portion of her life.
She would not hasten to share them with him.
She would not, in all likelihood, share them with anyone until she had reached a conclusion she considered undeniable.
Arch understood that sort of pride. He had served with men who would sooner bleed quietly than admit a wound required stitching.
It did not, however, improve his temper.
London continued about its business with indecent unconcern.
Carriages rolled by, hawkers cried their wares, and gentlemen walked as though nothing more perilous existed than a poorly folded cravat.
Arch, who had once considered himself immune to the petty agitations of drawing rooms, found that a woman’s silence could unman him more completely than a French battery at close range.
He told himself, sternly, that this was nonsense.
Miss Vale’s accounts, her solicitor, and the possibility of impropriety were matters of duty, not sentiment.
Hers was a task he would complete. He did not require Miss Vale’s presence to maintain his attention on the task.
Yet his attention persisted in straying to the very point he had told it to avoid.
He had begun to anticipate, with an absurd and unwelcome keenness, their next meeting. There was something about her that intrigued him.
He had always endured Society entertainments as one endures rain: tolerable, unavoidable, and not to be encouraged.
Now he found himself glancing at the pile of invitations upon the desk as though it were a stack of possible reliefs.
It was an alarming development. He was not a boy.
He was not, to his knowledge, an idiot. Yet his thoughts drifted, in moments of inattention, to auburn hair caught by lamplight, to bright green eyes that did not soften for flattery, and to a voice that spoke of wages and responsibility with a severity Society insisted women ought to avoid.
He wondered again, despite himself, whether she had received the ledgers, or whether she had discovered something and chosen to conceal it from him out of pride.
He wondered whether Kendall had discovered her request. Would attempt to confront Kendall alone, believing she could manage him by the sheer force of her intellect and moral certainty.
She could manage many men, Arch had no doubt. She could probably manage Parliament if she were permitted to sit in it.
He doubted, however, she could manage the man who was convinced of both his own virtue and willingness to bend principles to finance it.
Arch had always disguised his dislike of helplessness as impatience.
It had served him tolerably well during the war.
It served him badly in London, though, where one’s actions were constrained by propriety, and where preventing a disaster often meant smiling through a conversation while one’s mind sketched the disaster’s outline in advance.
He had spent the morning in the house, not in idleness but in the careful maintenance of outward normality.
He had read the newspapers and written two letters he had no wish to write.
At noon, Stuart returned with his usual quiet efficiency and the air of a man who carried information the way another man carried a weapon.
“You appear discontented,” Stuart remarked, setting his hat aside.
“I look sensible,” Arch replied, looking up from his desk.
Stuart’s mouth twitched in amusement.
Arch did not dignify this with an argument. “Have you learned anything useful?”
Stuart sat down on a worn chair, removed a folded page from his pocket, and handed it over. “Kendall’s name appears twice in association with the Friends of Liberty.”
“Appears,” Arch repeated, scanning the page, “in what context?”
“Meeting attendance,” Stuart said. “Once at a coffee-house in Holborn, once at a private supper in Lambeth. Both were within the past month.”
“Have you aught about the society itself?”
Stuart’s eyes narrowed. “It is not formally unlawful. However, it attracts men who admire reform as an ideal and men who are prepared to use force to bring it about.”
Arch exhaled slowly. “Do we have evidence of force?”
“I have found nothing conclusive,” Stuart admitted, “but there are rumours of funds being directed to printers who produce rather more incendiary pamphlets than Miss Vale might endorse.”
Arch lifted his gaze to his comrade. “Funds which may have originated from her?”
Stuart nodded once. “Potentially.”
Arch set the paper down, restraining the impulse to rise and go directly to Sir Percival’s house.
He had promised himself restraint, and she had earned, however unwillingly, a measure of respect.
He would not barge into her drawing room with accusations built on inference.
He would do it properly. He would do it with evidence.
He would do it with that careful discipline that kept a man from making a fool of himself.
Fielding strolled in then with the mein of a man who had been mildly entertained by the world’s nonsense and had returned to share the amusement.
“You look as though you have swallowed a thistle,” Fielding observed to Arch.
“Nonsense,” Arch replied.
Fielding looked at Stuart. “Bad news?”
“Ambiguous news,” Stuart said.
Fielding sat down and crossed his legs. “Ambiguity is London’s greatest talent. It is how we keep the French from understanding us.”
“It is how we keep ourselves from understanding us,” Arch said.
Fielding smiled.
Renforth entered while the three of them were speaking, and the energy of the room altered at once. The Colonel did not raise his voice, yet attention followed him as naturally as shadow follows a man in sunlight.
“Report,” Renforth said in his usual direct manner.
Stuart delivered it with the clipped economy of a man who valued accuracy over drama.
Arch watched Renforth’s expression as Stuart spoke.
Renforth’s face did not change much, but Arch had learned to read the small shifts: the faint narrowing of the eyes, the slight pursing of the lips, and the pause that suggested something was being compared against another piece of information already held.
When Stuart had finished, Renforth turned his gaze on Arch. “How goes Miss Vale?”
Arch felt the question as a pressure he resented, not because it was unfair, but because it demanded that he expose his uncertainty.
“I have not seen her in several days,” Arch said. “She was to request duplicate ledgers. I do not know if she has received them.”
Renforth’s expression remained composed. “Would she tell you if she had?”
Arch hesitated. “Probably not immediately.”
“She would read them first,” Fielding offered with insufferable ease, “discover something alarming, and then attempt to resolve it without admitting she required assistance.”
Arch glanced at him. “Do you know her?”
“I know pride,” Fielding replied. “It is a common trait among the wealthy.”
Renforth’s gaze remained on Arch. “Do you believe she might confront Kendall alone?”
“I believe she might consider it her responsibility,” Arch answered, “and she is not entirely wrong.”
Renforth’s voice was calm, but there was steel under it. “Responsibility does not equal safety. If Kendall suspects scrutiny, he may act.”
“Then we must not alert him.”
“Precisely,” Renforth said. “We proceed quietly.”
Baines, who had not yet appeared, chose that moment to swagger into the room with the air of a man who had collected gossip and was pleased with his own success. “You are all talking as though the Devil himself is hiding in Miss Vale’s desk,” Baines announced.
Fielding raised a brow. “Is he not?”
Baines grinned. “Not in her desk, no. In Kendall’s pocket, perhaps. I have heard his name in two places that do not speak of philanthropy.”
Renforth’s eyes did not leave him. “Explain,” he ordered.
Baines accepted a glass from O’Malley. “Kendall is known to a printer in Fleet Street, who claims to be a Friend of Liberty and is, in fact, a friend of money; and also to a fellow who once served as a clerk to a man convicted of sedition. Kendall’s name passes between them as though it opens doors. ”
“Does it?” Arch asked.
Baines’s grin widened. “Not respectable ones.”
Stuart’s voice was quiet. “Did you discover aught of the funds?”
Baines shrugged. “Money seldom admits its origin, but I heard mention of ‘a lady patron’ in connexion with the printing costs.”
Arch felt something cold settle in his chest. ‘A lady patron.’ It could mean anyone. It could mean no one. It could mean Miss Vale.
“We still need dates and amounts,” Baines added. “The printer was going to look for them, once he had been greased in the fist, of course.”
Arch stood up, unable to remain seated under the weight of possibility. “I should call upon her.”
“Not without cause. Not without a reason that does not sound like surveillance. We must tread carefully,” Renforth warned.
Arch fought the irritation that rose inside. “I have cause.”
“Maybe so, but cause can be a liability if it makes you clumsy,” Renforth replied evenly.
“When have you known me to be clumsy?” he asked, a dash too defensively.
Fielding watched Arch with an expression that was too perceptive for Arch’s comfort. “The Colonel is right,” Fielding said.
Arch forced himself to breathe. “Then I will pay a visit as a matter of duty.”
“Personally, I would wait until the ball tonight. Ask her to dance and then exchange information, if you will,” Stuart suggested.