Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
“ I t has been a fortnight. How is it possible that you have not yet found her?”
The smallpox-scarred man who’d been waiting across from his desk shuffled nervously. “I—I can’t say, boss. We searched every inn in Southampton. Nobody seen 'er.”
“ Cannot say . I see. How interesting.” He straightened a stack of papers. “Well. I sent you to intercept Miss Talbot and bring her to me. That was not a difficult task—was it?”
“I—no, boss.”
“No. It was not. She is one young woman, alone in the world. She has no money, no family, and no friends. And yet, somehow, she has been able to evade three grown men.” Wilkes sighed. “Imagine that, Gooley! Imagine it! Why, the man who employs those men must be a fool indeed.”
Gooley stared at the floor.
“What do you say to that, Gooley? Am I a fool?”
“No, sir.”
“Eh? What’s that?”
“No, boss. You ain’t a fool.”
“Ah.” Wilkes rose slowly from his chair. The air of menace seemed to congeal around him. “Well. It is kind of you to say so.”
Gooley’s scarred face was greyish and shiny with sweat. He kept silent.
“Shall I continue?” Wilkes paced across the thick pile of the luxurious Turkey carpet. “Or—no. Let us, instead, start at the beginning—when Miss Talbot first arrived in London, and managed to slip past you. And then, when you picked up her trail and followed her, you were clumsy. She saw you, and gave you the slip. In Grosvenor Square! Marvel for a moment at the incompetence required, Gooley! Grosvenor Square .” He tutted. “It would be almost amusing, were it not so pitiful.”
“But boss, the young lord?—"
“Oh, spare me your sniveling about the viscount!” Wilkes’ voice was a hiss.
Gooley was silenced. Wilkes straightened his cuffs. “Well. And so you lost Miss Talbot.” He ticked his index finger to the left. “You found her again.” He ticked his index finger to the right. “Lost her again.” Left. “Found her, lost her, found her, lost her.” Right, left, right, left. “Dear me, Gooley! Is it any wonder that—when I ask myself what it is that I pay you for—I find myself all-a-mort?”
Gooley stared fixedly into the carpet.
Wilkes studied him. He was beginning to think that the little man had reached the limit of his usefulness. His neckcloth was a wrinkled and grimy strip of yellowed cotton. He was unshaven. His hat was battered. His neck bore an ancient and blurry tattoo. In short, he was instantly recognizable as what he was: A small-time criminal.
Wilkes needed cleaner men. Cleverer men. Men who used their brains as well as their fists. He sighed again. “So. Now we come to Fenton. Refresh my memory, Gooley. What was it that you were to have done about Fenton?”
“Found 'im?”
“Correct. And did you find him?”
“No, boss. 'E scarpered.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “I see. Most interesting. And these failures were caused by… what, Gooley?”
Gooley thought for a while. “Dunno, boss. Ill luck?”
“Wrong. They were caused by you.”
Wilkes strolled to the fireplace. At one time, he’d enjoyed bullying his underlings. Now it had lost its luster. After all, he already knew that nothing he said would make them any more competent.
He considered himself in the glass over the mantel. He was cut out for bigger things than this. Already, his hair was cut every fortnight by William Truefitt himself, in the style known as the Titus, and swept forward and arranged in artful waves with the help of pomade. His neckcloth was fastened with a sapphire stick pin of perfect clarity—from Rundell, Bridge and Rundell, of course. His jacket was of dark blue superfine, in the understated fashion approved by Beau Brummel. In every detail of outward appearance, he was a gentleman—from the crown of his freshly barbered head to the soles of his glossy top boots.
But what good was it to appear to be a gentleman, unless he could actually live as a gentleman? And how could he live as a gentleman when he was surrounded by these incompetents?
He sighed. “Well. Humor me, Gooley. Where do you think Fenton and Mowcher might be, if you had to guess?”
“I—I couldn’t say, boss.”
“So it has not occurred to you that they might simply be drunk somewhere between here and Southampton?”
“I—I dunno, boss.”
Wilkes leaned against the mantel. Was Gooley really this stupid? Or was he lying? Or were he and Fenton conspiring together—against him?
On the day that Miss Talbot had vanished, he’d sent Fenton and Mowcher to search the road southwards, while he and Gooley had checked all the inns northward into London. And then Fenton and Mowcher simply hadn’t returned.
Fenton, in particular, was a worry. He’d been with Wilkes a long time. He knew too much… and he drank too much to keep it to himself. If Fenton were to tell anyone what had really happened to Squire Talbot… A chill passed through Wilkes—a chill that no gold cufflinks or sapphire stickpin could alleviate.
“Boss?”
He came back to the present to find Gooley gaping at him. He had to get a grip on himself.
“Boss? You want me to look for Fenton—or the lady?”
His grating London accent rendered the word as “lie-dee.” Wilkes’s patience was slipping. “I do not want you to look for either of them.”
“Boss?”
“I want you to find them.” He folded his arms. “Do I make myself plain?”
“Yes, boss. Where… where should I start? To look for the lie-dee, that is.”
Wilkes stared down at him. “I am the one who is paying you , Gooley. Where do you think you might find a lady?”
Gooley thought. “Dunno, boss. A… a brothel?”
Wilkes had the little man pinned up against the wall before he could breathe again. “ What did you say?”
“Sorry, boss! Sorry!” Gooley held up his hands, his panicked breathing loud. “I don’t mean nuffink by it, I swear!”
Wilkes gave him a couple more hard shoves into the wall. “ Miss Talbot is not in a brothel. Miss Talbot is a lady . Do you understand me?”
“I—no, boss. No. I—I understand.”
“Good.” Wilkes shoved him again, banging the back of his head into the paneling, and let him go. “Now. Get out of my sight.”
Gooley fled, his rotting boots loud on the stairs to the street before the armed guard, who stood on the landing at all times, could even shut the door behind him.
A brothel! Why, that sniveling, useless little… Wilkes slammed his hand down onto the mantel.
To his relief, his enquiries hadn’t uncovered the slightest connection between Celia and Lord Alford. This tallied with what he already knew. Squire Talbot had had a wide acquaintance, but his daughter was a sheltered girl who for eighteen years had never been farther from home than Chichester. She knew nobody and nothing. Indeed, he’d never detected in her the slightest hint of spirit—which was one of the things that he liked about her.
No. It was simply impossible that she should ever have met the viscount before.
Wilkes began to think that the situation was as he’d surmised: The young lord had simply been drunk and looking for a fight that first evening. Apparently, he was known to frequent Jackson’s boxing saloon. And his interference the next day could be explained by the unfortunate coincidence that he’d seen Fenton on the Strand—Fenton was hard to miss—and had stopped to confront him.
Yet the fact remained that the viscount ought to have stayed out of Wilkes’s affairs in the first place. He’d caused a great deal of trouble and inconvenience. People could not be allowed to cross Wilkes, so the viscount’s interference would have to be punished. The only question was how.
Fortunately, Wilkes’s informants had provided some interesting and useful information. Lord Alford’s father had been a notorious gambler and womanizer. And, while the details weren’t public knowledge, the late fifth viscount was said to have mortgaged many of the estate’s income-producing properties. Rumor had it that his son’s financial position now hung by a thread.
Well, as it happened, Wilkes was just the man to snip that thread. Men all over London owed him favors. The next time the young lord needed to renegotiate a mortgage or borrow money, he’d get a nasty surprise.
But Wilkes couldn’t shake a feeling of unease. From the very moment that Celia Talbot had reappeared, nothing— nothing —had gone according to plan. It was as though she’d brought with her a statement of accounts for what Wilkes had done… and payment was overdue.
But that was impossible. She was just a girl. She’d do as she was told—or at least, she would —as soon as he got her back.
And yet the fact remained that two of his formerly most reliable men were missing. And Celia—powerless and unworldly as she was—had managed to vanish yet again.
“Has Miss Ryder gone yet?” Mrs. Ellesmere’s querulous voice floated down the stairs.
“Not yet , madam.” Mr. Tate, the middle-aged and solemn butler, gave Celia a reproachful look.
Mr. Tate didn’t approve of her. His view seemed to be that lady’s companions were somehow unreliable—though why he thought that, she didn’t know.
“Tell her that I shall want the second volume of The Children of the Abbey !”
“Yes, madam.”
“Tell her that under no circumstances is she to accept any more excuses from that clerk!”
“Yes, madam.”
“Tell her that she is not to come back without it!”
“Yes, madam.”
“But…” began Celia in a whisper.
Mr. Tate held his finger back to his lips and shook his head.
Celia finished collecting the letters from the tray on the hall table, placed them in her reticule and arranged her veil. The dim illumination provided by the fanlight over the door made it difficult to see through the fabric.
But then, that was the point: Even if her ruse hadn’t made Wilkes believe that she’d gone to Southampton, her face was so well concealed by the dowdy brown veil that she almost felt safe.
Almost .
She took up her armload of parcels and books. Mr. Tate opened the door and stood on the top step, frowning at the spring morning as though it wasn’t up to his standards. He folded his arms and glared at the house next door, where two tradesmen were unloading a large, rolled rug from a delivery wagon. “They are at it again, I see.”
Mr. Tate was a barrel-chested man with salt and pepper hair and fierce dark eyebrows. In his starched neckcloth and black superfine jacket, he was an intimidating figure. Or, at least, he would have been, if the tradesmen had paid him the slightest notice at all.
“Good morning, Mr. Tate.” Celia hurried past him and into the square. She had a great many errands to run, as she did almost every morning.
Mrs. Ellesmere was a demanding woman. As soon as Celia returned, she would be expected to answer her correspondence, play the pianoforte, read aloud, pour tea, and agree with her employer’s observations on politics, bad servants, and other things that annoyed her—especially her next-door neighbor, a widow named Lady Morton.
In fact, from the time Celia rose in the morning to whenever she could finally lie down again at night, she was almost too busy to think. But then, not thinking was preferable to thinking—especially when thinking meant going over and over the episode with Lord Alford.
She hurried east toward the City, the thick veil tickling her nose. For obvious reasons, she’d been afraid to take a position in London. But it had been her only option—and she was beginning to think that a crowded, bustling city of over a million people wasn’t a bad place in which to hide in plain sight.
She stopped just in time for a massive dray cart drawn by a team of draft horses to roll past only inches from her face. She was still becoming accustomed to the traffic in the capital, and had to keep her wits about her. But she was beginning to learn her way around—and even the past two weeks had seen spring advance enough that the lengthy errands Mrs. Ellesmere made her run were becoming more tolerable.
At present she was on her way to Leadenhall Street, in the heart of the City. Mrs. Ellesmere subscribed to the Thetis Library, and every two or three days she sent Celia there to borrow another volume—and to add her name to the waiting list for whichever sensational new novel she wished to read next.
Celia pushed open the polished wood door and joined the line of smartly dressed ladies waiting for the clerks at the counter. The library was always crowded with fashionable people from all over London. The Thetis Press—which was upstairs—published many of the most popular titles itself, and they were available here before anywhere else.
Today the queue moved quickly. Fortunately, the volume of The Children of the Abbey that Mrs. Ellesmere had demanded was finally available. The clerk wrapped it in brown paper and handed it to Celia.
And now came the test.
She glanced around. She ought not to do it. She ought to leave this very instant and walk straight back! After all, each time she gave in, the compulsion to look again the next time only grew stronger.
But it was too late. Her heart was already thudding with guilty dread as her feet carried her into the reading room, where arched windows overlooked the street and a crowd of well-dressed gentlemen lounged about gossiping and eyeing the stylish ladies queued at the counter. Others stood at the tall, angled reading desks, perusing newspapers and magazines and consulting their expensive pocket watches.
Celia crept toward the desk where The Times lay, nearly sick with apprehension. The gentleman who had been reading closed it and turned away. Before another gentleman could move in, she darted forward and scanned the first page.
Nothing. Nothing .
She turned the pages, her hands shaking and the ink smudging the fingertips of her gloves. Nothing at all… not even a small notice on the back page.
She checked the Morning Call as well. There was no mention there, either. Her heart began to slow. The sick tightness in her stomach eased slightly.
But… what could it mean? Viscount Alford was a peer. His marriage would be reported in the newspapers. Yet she had seen nothing here—or in the print shop windows.
She came out of her daze to realize that a gentleman was scowling at her through his quizzing glass. She scowled back. She knew quite well that she looked as though she didn’t belong here. Her gown was drab, and her bonnet had seen better days. By contrast, the fashionable ladies crowding the front room were like a colorful flock of exotic birds in their smart walking costumes, swansdown muffs, and plumed and beribboned bonnets.
Still, his stare reminded her to rearrange her veil to conceal her face before she left the library. She hefted the parcel containing The Children of the Abbey and struggled through the throng to the door. At least she would be too busy reading from it to be able to think of Keynsham this afternoon.
But when she finally reached Red Lion Square, Mr. Tate opened the door and held his finger to his lips. Annie, one of the housemaids, tiptoed past toward the stairs, carrying an armload of linens and looking terrified.
Celia was alarmed. “What is wrong? Is someone ill?”
“Mrs. Ellesmere has been agitated ,” Tate whispered, as he shut the door. “There has been a disturbance .”
“A disturbance?”
“Keep your voice down!” Tate made a frantic shushing gesture. “Mrs. Ellesmere’s nerves are at their breaking point !”
The house was unusually silent. Celia lowered her own voice to a whisper. “I do not understand. What has happened?”
“It has been most shocking. Most shocking indeed!” He looked nervously from side to side. “For almost the whole of the time that you were gone, Miss Ryder, there was… an odor of paint .”
She blinked. It seemed best to treat this seriously. “I see.”
“Mrs. Ellesmere called me into the sitting room to ask my opinion, and I opened a window to check.” His brow was furrowed. “After some efforts at detection, we were quite certain that the smell was emanating from Lady Morton’s residence.”
Celia’s arms were aching. She set the parcels down. “How dreadful.”
Mr. Tate shot another nervous glance about the hall. “You must be perfectly quiet . She must have absolute rest.”
“I shall do my best.” She unpinned her veil and began to take off her bonnet.
“Poor Mrs. Ellesmere has been singularly unlucky in her neighbors.” Tate seemed to be in a mood to confide in her. “The previous tenant of the house was an artist who hosted the most disgraceful entertainments.”
“Oh dear.”
“Oh, that is not the worst of it. Can you guess where that artist is now?”
“I—I am afraid that I cannot.”
“Well, of course you cannot. No reasonable person could. So I shall tell you: He is in the House of Lords.”
Celia wasn’t sure what to say. “How, er… surprising.”
“ Surprising !” He recollected himself and lowered his voice again. “Poor Mrs. Ellesmere has never fully recovered from the shock! ‘Tate,’ she will say, ‘That man is the very last man who ought to be anywhere near His Majesty’s government. No wonder the country is in such a state.’ You see, he inherited the title from his uncle, the late Earl of Foxborough. Poor Mrs. Ellesmere! She took to her bed for several days when the news reached us. She had prayed that God would strike him down—so you may imagine her sufferings upon learning that he had, instead, been elevated to the peerage. And now we have Lady Morton, and her endless refurbishment of the house!”
Celia folded her gloves and took up her bonnet. “Well, if you do not think that she will wish me to read aloud today, I had better go to my room.”
“ Quietly , I entreat you, Miss Ryder. Quietly !”
She tiptoed upstairs.