Chapter 14
A papery crackle, punctuated by a low woof, sounded in answer to Raven’s knock on Eddy’s bedchamber door.
“Here—I would have brought these treats to you three earlier,” she said, after clicking open the latch and holding out several brightly colored bags of Gunter’s confections. “But Harper’s hangdog expression warned me that I wouldn’t be welcome at your private meeting.”
Hawk and Peregrine shuffled their feet in embarrassment, but Raven responded to the statement with a grim nod. “Oiy, we were having a Weasel council of war.” A pause. “However, it was decided that it was wrong to do so without you.”
“But not by you, I would venture to guess,” challenged Eddy.
“May we come in?” responded Raven.
She stepped aside. “You might as well.” A brusque wave indicated the rug by the hearth, where the glow of fire-gold coals offered a cozy warmth in contrast to her decidedly frosty greeting. “I can’t eat all these sweets by myself without getting sick to my stomach.”
Harper’s ears pricked up at the mention of sweets.
“It’s … complicated,” mumbled Raven, after taking a seat and allowing her and the others to settle into place.
Eddy crossed her arms and waited for him to go on.
“Hell’s bells, this isn’t easy,” he ventured. “I—I’m not quite sure where to begin.”
Silence.
And then a sigh. “I suppose as good a place as any is for all of us to acknowledge that I was dropped like a rock into your comfortable camaraderie,” said Eddy. “And broke it all to flinders.”
“That’s not true!” exclaimed Hawk. “Well, ummm, not exactly.”
She quirked a ghost of a smile.
“W-What Hawk means …” began Peregrine, only to pause and his voice trail off.
“What Hawk means,” said Raven, “is that you are every bit a Weasel in spirit and deed, showing courage, loyalty, and fortitude. But …”
“But I’m a girl,” finished Eddy.
Raven gave a wry grimace. “As I said, it’s complicated.”
“Well, just spit it out,” she urged. “One can’t put together a puzzle without having all the pieces.” Another sigh. “And I’d like to understand why I can’t fit in.”
For a moment, the only sounds in the room were the gentle hiss of the burning coals and the tentative thump-thump of Harper’s tail.
“Fair enough,” murmured Raven. “I might as well start with the thing that you’ll dislike the most …”
She maintained a brave face, but a tiny flicker in her eyes betrayed her apprehension.
He drew in a ragged breath and let it all come out in a rush.
“Wrex has absolutely forbidden us to allow you to come along on any forays into the stews because it’s too dangerous.
Horrible things can happen to a girl if things go wrong …
and we didn’t want to tell you because we knew that you would be madder than a wet hornet and confront Wrex …
and the confrontation would upset him because he wants you to be happy here. And so—”
“And so you felt damned if you did, and damned if you didn’t,” finished Eddy.
“Oiy,” agreed Hawk and Peregrine.
She reached out to ruffle her fingers through Harper’s shaggy fur. “I’m not such a termagant that I don’t understand there are certain rules that can’t be broken. I may not like it, but I accept that the possible consequences must be considered and the risks deemed to be too great.”
Her hand stilled. “Although my mother was very unconventional, she was also very practical. She explained to me that females face a great many more perils and pitfalls than males and stressed that we had to be smart about choosing which rules to challenge.”
A wry smile. “As you said, it’s complicated.” After a tiny hesitation, Eddy added, “I am very happy here, and I would never wish to place Wrex—or any of you—in a difficult position.”
“I’m sorry,” said Raven. “We—that is, I—should have trusted that you would understand.”
She brushed a lock of hair off her cheeks. “S’all right. I should have tempered my tongue on certain occasions.”
“I shall refrain from commenting on that,” he murmured.
Her lips twitched. “A wise decision. No point in sparking a new war of words.” Her expression quickly turned serious as she added, “Now please tell me what’s going on. I may not be allowed to take part in your night forays, but perhaps I can help in other ways.”
Hawk opened one of the bags that was sitting in the center of their small circle and pulled out a handful of Pontefract cakes. “Anyone want some licorice before we begin?”
Peregrine took a peek into the two other bags. “Along with some candied pineapple and barley sugar drops?” he added. “Having a council of war is hungry work.”
The sweets were quickly passed around, earning a baleful stare from Harper.
Eddy slipped him a piece of ham from her pocket. “Sorry. You, too, have rules for your own good. That doesn’t mean your skills won’t come in handy at some point.”
The big hound sidled closer and laid his head in her lap.
“Go on,” she said, fixing Raven with an expectant look. “And don’t leave anything out.”
Through a mouthful of sticky licorice, he explained about how Wrexford and Charlotte had agreed to look into the murder of Hawk’s drawing teacher …
which had led him—accompanied by Hawk and Peregrine—to make a midnight foray to the stews to see if any of their urchin friends could offer a clue to the killer’s identity …
and how the mission was interrupted by the sudden encounter with the false Horse Guard officers and a chase in which the three of them had nearly came to grief.
“Bloody hell.” Her eyes widened. “What does Wrex think?”
“The more he probes into the murder, the more it appears that it may relate to a scandal from the past.” Raven made a face. “However, he and m’lady aren’t telling us very much.”
“I think the incident with the soldiers spooked them,” said Hawk.
“It was very brave and very clever of you and Peregrine to save Raven from a ghastly end,” murmured Eddy.
“We were all lucky,” intoned Peregrine. “But Wrex and m’lady are of the opinion that Luck is awfully fickle and have warned us that it would be a grave mistake to assume it will always be there when we need it.”
Eddy nodded thoughtfully. “My mother used to say much the same thing.” She watched a flame suddenly lick up from one of the glowing coals. “Which is why she always stressed that it’s better to depend on our wits rather than—”
A gust of wind rattled the window glass, followed by a sharp rap.
Harper shot up, a growl rumbling in his throat.
Raven hurriedly opened the casement and leaned out into the flutter of fog and shadows.
“It was just a bit of branch that broke off from the plane tree,” he announced, after drawing his head back inside.
His glance then strayed to the clock on Eddy’s bureau.
“But it reminds me that I need to go wait at the rendezvous point in case Scratch and Muffin have something to report on MacArthur’s movements—”
“MacArthur?” exclaimed Eddy. “You have someone spying on MacArthur? Ye gods, why?”
“I’m sure he’s up to something havey-cavey,” began Raven.
“You’re wrong,” she interrupted. “There is no aura of evil emanating from Jack.”
Raven rolled his eyes at her use of his given name. “Look, it’s clear that you’re smitten with him—”
“Smitten with him?” Her eyes narrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He huffed out an exasperated breath. “You like him, and you’re letting that cloud your judgment.”
Her face went very pale for an instant, and then her cheeks flamed to a red-hot hue. “Because girls are so hen-witted that a handsome face turns their brains to mush?” She sucked in a ragged breath. “That was an egregiously insulting comment.”
“The empirical evidence indicates that MacArthur is up to no good,” he muttered, and quickly recounted what he had overheard at Egg’s shop. “The fact that he was skulking around in Wrex’s workroom is further indication—”
“Bloody hell! That was because he offered to sharpen my pencils!” snapped Eddy. “Is that a crime?”
“The papers on Wrex’s work counter had been shifted,” countered Raven.
“Maybe it’s you who are letting your emotions cloud your judgment,” fired back Eddy. “I could sense that you had taken a dislike to him—only the devil knows why—from the moment you met him.”
“We can argue about this later.” Raven got to his feet.
“Right now I need to go change into my urchin clothes. Yesterday, Scratch told me that he and Muffin followed MacArthur and several other men to a warehouse, where they unloaded a wagon-load of crates. Tonight, we agreed that they would show me where it is so I can have a look around.”
“You two had better go with him,” said Eddy to Hawk and Peregrine as he hurried into the corridor. “The new house rule forbids any of us to go out at night alone. And …” A watery sniff. “Heaven forfend that I’m the cause of any further discord in this house.”
“Matthew Boulton? The famous inventor?” said Sheffield, after Wrexford recounted the conversation he had just had with his colleague from the Royal Institution.
He buttoned up his overcoat as he trailed Wrexford out to the grand cobbled courtyard of Somerset House before adding, “Didn’t he pass away five or six years ago? ”
“In ’09,” confirmed Wrexford.
The evening was uncommonly cold for early autumn, and the gusty wind blowing up from the river had a sharp bite. Sheffield chafed his hands together and took shelter behind one of the marble columns of the covered walkway before replying.
“Why would Boulton’s foreman have useful information about Langdon?
” he continued. “Granted, Boulton himself was a genius, both in innovating and in marketing his new products. After partnering with James Watt, the two of them created a new type of steam engine and, in effect, gave birth to our industrial revolution. But that was at the end of the last century.”
A frown. “And besides, how would Boulton have any connection to counterfeiting?”
“You weren’t paying much attention to serious matters ten years ago,” drawled the earl. During a long and difficult period in his life before meeting Cordelia, Sheffield had been wont to drink and gamble far too much than was good for him …
Pulling himself back from such memories, Wrexford hastened to explain.
“After helping to make radical improvements to steam engine technology with James Watt, Boulton took that knowledge and decided to apply it to the craft of producing money.
He founded the Soho Mint—and was the first person ever to mint coins with a steam-powered production process.
He invented a special press for the specific task and had eight of them installed in his mint, each of which could strike approximately eighty coins per minute.
Sheffield pressed a palm to his brow. “Ye gods, how could I have forgotten that! As I recall now, Boulton won a very lucrative contract from the East India Company to make a private currency for them to use in their trading monopoly over there.”
“He did. And he also minted coins for Russia. Indeed, he soon became the largest supplier of coins in the world,” said Wrexford.
“Not only was his method efficient, but he also created design innovations, which included making the shape of coins slightly concave and adding grooves around the edge, so that it was difficult for counterfeiters to reproduce them.”
The earl frowned. “I’ve been told that by 1786, three quarters of the coins in Britain were counterfeit …”
Sheffield let out a low whistle.
“And yet our government was slow to commission Boulton to make coinage for us,” continued Wrexford.
“He eventually designed the cartwheel penny, in 1797, which was a great success. But the government’s finances were in trouble due to widening military conflicts with France, so coinage was stopped for a time as they addressed larger issues. ”
“But getting back to Langdon, coins and banknotes are two very different things,” mused Sheffield, as the two of them resumed walking toward the main archway leading out to the street.
“Yes, but I imagine that Boulton, clever and curious fellow that he was, paid attention to the larger financial issues challenging the government. So there’s a chance his senior supervisor may know if his employer had any dealings with Langdon concerning counterfeiting.”
“A fair point.” Sheffield hesitated and then came to an abrupt halt on the pavement as the wheels of a dray cart clattered over the cobblestones. “I’m damnably sorry, Wrex …”
His harried exhale turned into wisps of silvery vapor as they dissolved in the breeze.
“But I promised Cordelia that I wouldn’t stay out late tonight.
We have a large shipment of woolen goods scheduled to sail for America tomorrow, and as our logistics manager took a leave of absence to tend to her ailing aunt, there are still some manifests and pricing documents to finalize. ”
Another quick sigh. “And as the Bristol Road Commission had several extra meetings this month which required my attendance, Cordelia has been dealing with the lion’s share of the work for our company on top of her computations for Ricardo—”
“Swallow your stammering, Kit, and start moving your feet instead of your tongue,” interjected the earl with a smile. “Much as I always appreciate your company, I have no need of an escort to meet with Mr. Sykes—assuming that I find him.”
“But Raven mentioned that Charlotte has forbidden any of you go out alone at night,” replied Sheffield. “Can’t you delay looking for Sykes until tomorrow evening?”
“Charlotte’s dictate applies to poking around into murder and mayhem, not a quiet conversation with the former manager of a very reputable business.
” The earl flagged down a passing hackney and opened the door.
“Get in. I’m more afraid of Cordelia’s ire if the papers don’t get done because of me than I am of any phantom footpads. ”