Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
A s it did every day, Spry’s enormous house presented an indifferent face of pale cream stone to Grosvenor Square. Keynsham climbed the steps to the large front door. In the center of the door was a heavy brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. He rapped it and waited.
He could have sworn that each day he came here, he was made to wait a little longer. He rapped again. Still no answer. He leaned against the iron railing and turned to face the square. The weather had been chilly and unsettled all spring, but today the air was warm and honey-scented. Meltingly golden afternoon sunlight streamed through the leaves of the trees, and the purple rhododendrons were in bloom. The street was swept and not a leaf was out of place. Birdsong rang from boughs hanging over the street and echoed from thickets deep within the square.
The peak of the season was approaching and London—or at least its wealthiest neighborhoods—was busier by the week as families continued to arrive in town. Several luxurious open carriages rolled past, doubtless on their way to the park.
Keynsham rubbed the back of his neck. To outward appearances, he too was a gentleman of leisure. But the reality was very different. He rose every day at dawn and spent the day at the building site. He and his men were racing to finish the second terrace of houses, and he couldn’t afford to have the work slowed down by problems. He had to be on the spot, heading them off before they cost time—and money.
This morning he’d arrived to find Downey inspecting a pile of wood that had just been delivered by dray cart. “Well, well. Mr. Neate has sent us inferior timber, it seems.” He slapped the pile with a large hand. “Look at the knots in these boards. And these ones here are warped.”
Keynsham frowned. “I shall pay him a call, and clarify that we are perfectly happy to take our business elsewhere.”
He got back into his old gig and drove himself north again to the river, where ships delivered wood from all over the world directly to the docks of the timber yards that lined the Southwark riverfront. If they couldn’t get the boards today, the framers’ work would be delayed… which would mean that the roofers’ work would be delayed… which would mean that the glaziers’ work would be delayed… and so on, and so on.
As he drew up in the yard at Neate’s sprawling and busy establishment, he was greeted by the sharp, sweet scent of freshly cut boards. “Good morning, sir!” Mr. Neate puffed out from his office, bowing. He turned to shout into the open doors of the warehouse. “Davis! Lord Something is here.”
That was Keynsham’s nickname. Downey had started it, of course. The other men at the building site had picked it up, and now Lord Something was just what everyone called him. He was quite certain that Mr. Neate didn’t realize that he was actually a peer. “Mr. Neate. Good morning. The timber that you have sent us is entirely unsatisfactory.”
Neate turned red under his bushy side-whiskers. “My apologies, sir! I 'ave no idea which of the men loaded that order. I’ll make sure it don’t 'appen again.”
“Please ensure that it does not. And in the meantime, I shall personally select the timbers for a replacement order—with your warehouse to cover the cost of immediate delivery, of course. We require the wood today.”
“Of course.” Mr. Neate winced, but went off to shout at his staff. “Davis! Where 'ave you got to? 'Oo loaded the Grange Grove order? Lord Something’s 'ad to drive all the way 'ere on account of it!”
The nickname was useful. After all, if it became known in the ton that Viscount Alford was spending his days haggling over terms for orders of glass and bricks, people would talk.
Yet his long hours and attention to detail were beginning to pay off. The first terrace of houses was complete. Families were moving in as the rest of the development took shape. Smoke rose from chimneys and washing hung on lines—and the first quarter rents had covered the second loan payment.
How he longed for Celia to see the place, now that the empty shells of buildings had become real houses! If he could spend just a single day with her…
But of course, he couldn’t. He’d ruined everything. And he was still bound to Miss Spry.
Which brought him back… here.
Freshly bathed and dressed in clothes that suggested that he’d done nothing strenuous all day, Lord Something had become Lord Alford again, just in time for the fashionable calling hour of five o’clock.
He rapped on the door again. Finally, it opened. “Ah. Good afternoon, Job. How are you this fine spring day? I have come to call upon Miss Spry.”
Job couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “I—I… Unfortunately, Miss Spry is… er… not at home.”
“Thank you, Job. Please give her my card. Good afternoon.”
“Very good, your lordship.” The door closed.
This little pantomime complete, Keynsham had fulfilled his obligation. Now all he had to do was find some way to keep his mind off Celia for the rest of the day, until it was time to go to bed so that he could get up early in the morning and do it all again.
He glanced at the sky and checked his watch. “Young! I believe that I shall go to Jackson’s. You may take the horses home.”
Young touched the brim of his hat. “Very good, your lordship.”
“Well, well, Alford! Something wrong? You are mightily Friday-faced! Shall we have a turn up?”
Keynsham looked up, surprised. He’d been steadily pounding a bag in one corner of the boxing saloon, practicing his jabs, for over an hour. With its dark blue papered walls hung with framed engravings of famous bouts of decades past, and its incongruously academic air, Jackson’s had always been his refuge. So long as he was here the world outside faded away, and people left him alone. That was the unspoken etiquette of the place.
“Well? What d’you say, viscount?”
Now he recognized the fellow who was addressing him so familiarly: Mr. Bartlett, a loud-voiced young man he knew only to speak to at his club.
He nodded, concealing his irritation. “How do you do, sir? I should be happy to, but I am leaving presently.”
“Oh, come now, Alford! It will do you good. I think that we can all guess why you look so glum! Thirty thousand pounds!”
Keynsham was so surprised that he stopped hitting the bag. “I beg your pardon?”
Bartlett sucked air through his teeth and shook his head. “Damme, but fate is cruel! To think of all that money being swallowed up by the Cheshire coffers! Why, they are already so rich that they will not even notice it! Whereas everyone knows what a difference it would have made to you .”
“I am afraid that I do not know what you mean.”
Bartlett laid a roguish finger next to his nose. “Oh-ho-ho- ho ! You are a deep one! I was told that you keep your cards very close to your vest, sir—and now I see that my informants were correct!” He winked. “Well, you need not fear. I am the very soul of discretion! I know all about Miss Spry and the marquess, and I have told scarce four people.” He thought a moment. “Or, well—six. Or seven. At most.”
Miss Spry and the marquess…? The Cheshire coffers? Was Bartlett referring to the Duke of Cheshire’s son—the Marquess of Ladbrooke?
Bartlett appeared to take his silence as confirmation. “Ah, well. Now, you see, a bout will do you good. Left! Right! Another left!” He raised his hands and jabbed at the air. “You will be over her soon enough—take it from me. But damme, the loss of the money is a plump in the old breadbasket, eh? Particularly as your father lived on the top ropes and left you under the hatches!”
“I beg your pardon,” said Keynsham in his frostiest tone.
“Oh, no shame accrues to you , your lordship! Everyone knows that you are an out and outer! But damme, a bit of the Spanish would have come in handy, eh? Always does. Always does.” He sighed heavily and shook his head. “ We all know how it is these days. Lud ! And whatever the talk about her, no one can deny that Miss Spry is a pretty girl.”
He hadn’t realized that there was gossip about his financial position… or that Miss Spry had so much as met the Marquess of Ladbrooke. This conversation was filling in gaps in his information that he hadn’t known that he had.
“Then there is Townley!” Bartlett shook his head again. “Damme, but this business of setting the young marquess at odds with him over her—for they have quite fallen out now—is not at all the thing. No, sir—not the thing at all! You know Townley?”
At odds? “I cannot say that I do.”
“Not surprised.” Bartlett snorted. “Nothing to recommend him but twelve thousand a year. And as for the talk that I am jealous of him… well, that little minx may be many things—but she is certainly not worth dueling over. The daughter of a cit, and no better than she should be, as anyone…”
He broke off. The blood drained from his face. “That is, I… I beg your pardon, your lordship. I mean no… I had assumed that your, er… your engagement to the young lady was not…”
Keynsham could bear it no longer. “Miss Spry and I have no understanding.”
“ Indeed , sir?” Bartlett let out a breath. “Well. Well! ” He produced a modishly spotted handkerchief and swiped it across his brow. “I am vastly relieved! For a moment I thought that I was about to get a thrashing! Your face was what I should call thunderous! And of course, you are a legendary giver, sir! Legendary !” He mopped his brow again. “Damme, but I do put my foot in it! Everyone is always saying so. ‘Bartlett, you do put your foot in it,’ they say—but then I go and do it again!”
Keynsham regretted saying anything. He could be certain that Bartlett would spread his denial all over Brooks’s, White’s, and Boodle’s by midnight… and that it would be all over Mayfair by noon tomorrow.
On the other hand, if even half of what Bartlett said was true, Miss Spry had been playing him for a fool.
“Well, she is the young marquess’s problem now, I should say!” Bartlett clapped him familiarly on the shoulder. “Of course, the duke is up in the boughs! Says it was a bad day’s work when his son went to Twickenham, and that he hopes that he will not live to see the day when an underbred chit like Miss Spry is addressed as the Duchess of Cheshire. Which, when you think on it, he will not!”
He laughed. “Am I not droll? Won’t live to see the day…! Yes, I should think not! Because you see, if she were the duchess, the present duke would be dead, of course! That is my joke. Rather good, is it not? Every so often I do hit upon a good bit of banter.”
He rattled on, but Keynsham wasn’t listening. Instead, he was recalling the number of times that he’d gone to the house in Grosvenor Square, only to be met by the barely opened door and Job, the awkward footman—who must have been under orders to lie to him. “I beg your pardon. All of this happened at Twickenham?”
“Why, yes, of course!” Bartlett was still laughing at his own witticisms. “Spry has a house on the river. You have not seen it? After Miss Spry had that driving incident on the bridge… well, her dear papa thought it best to remove to the country until the upset died down. They have been there near a fortnight. Poor Townley! He actually believed that he had made an impression on Miss Spry! But then along came the marquess, and no doubt the girl began to imagine what it would be like to be addressed as ‘your grace.’”
Nearly a fortnight. Keynsham blotted his face with a Turkish towel and pulled out his watch. “Please excuse me.”
“We are not going to spar?” Bartlett’s face fell. “Dear me! I hope that I have not offended you.”
“Not at all.” With effort, Keynsham kept his face smooth. “I am afraid that I simply did not realize the time. I have an appointment.”
“Well, Gooley. It is good of you to join me. What tidings of our missing colleague?”
The little man looked blank.
“I am asking you if you have found Fenton.”
“Oh. That. No. No one’s seen 'im.”
“What’s that, Gooley? You are mumbling again.”
“We 'aven’t found 'im, boss.”
“And no doubt you are leaving no stone unturned.”
Gooley didn’t seem to recognize this as sarcasm.
Wilkes folded his arms. Something was wrong. People he’d once cowed into obedience had become defiant. His men couldn’t seem to accomplish anything at all. Every bit of luck seemed to break in someone else’s favor.
He stared out the window at the dirty brick wall a few feet away. The view depressed him. But then, so did all of it. Oh, these rooms were luxuriously decorated enough. Indeed, many of the furnishings—including the carpets—had been seized in lieu of cash from various wealthy creditors. But the place overlooked a narrow alley where sunlight only penetrated at midday, and the neighborhood was noisy—and frequently stank.
Perhaps Fenton was dead. If he’d taken everything he knew about Wilkes’s history to the grave… well, Wilkes would shed no tears.
“Well. Let us move on to our final item: Miss Talbot.”
“What about 'er, boss?”
“What about her?” He had to hold himself back. “You were to trace her.”
“Oh. That. No. No sign of 'er.”
“Let me clarify something for you, Gooley. From now on, finding Miss Talbot is your first objective.”
The little man nodded. “Yes, boss.”
Wilkes considered. If Fenton was dead—and if he had Celia—he wouldn’t have to lie awake at night worrying. And then, once he got rid of Gooley and the rest of these useless men, a move to the country and a new life as a gentleman of leisure might suit him. Yes, it might suit him very well indeed.
“Boss?”
He glanced up. “Why are you still here, Gooley?”
“I—I might 'ave some information.”
“Well?”
Gooley shuffled nervously. “Prob’ly it ain’t nuffink important.”
“I am the judge of that.”
The little man cleared his throat. “The young lord is giving a ball. At 'is 'ouse. I 'ad it from a lady 'oo knows a friend of one of the 'ousemaids. She says as they spend all day every day moving furniture back and forth and suchlike.”
Wilkes narrowed his eyes. “Did you say a ball ?”
“A party, like.”
“Yes, Gooley. I am aware of the meaning of the word ball .”
He steepled the tips of his fingers together and sat back . Well, well, well. For once, Gooley had brought him something useful.
And now it all began to make sense: The reason the viscount had been trying to borrow money was to pay for a ball.
He ought to have realized that it would come down to something as inconsequential as this. They were all the same, the gentry—putting on fronts of wealth, when in reality half of them were living on credit. Not that he could complain. After all, the desperate financial straits of the gentry had made him rich.
A rare smile—lopsided from disuse—twisted his face. Gooley’s eyes widened in alarm.
Wilkes didn’t notice. His streak of bad luck had just ended. He could feel it. Oh, Lord Alford delayed his plans for Celia. But now Wilkes could see that he wasn’t faultless, or invincible. Indeed, he was just as much of a fool as all the other swells.
And more importantly, on the night of the ball his seemingly impregnable house would be open.