Chapter 24 #2
The marchioness nodded her agreement, but absently, her eyes distant as she used her thumb to stroke her lower lip. She was thinking hard. “Sir Nathaniel is correct. And what is more… we should make no rash decisions. Marian’s actions must have an aim besides just punishing her son.”
“Stripping Fitzroy of his allies?” Thorne asked her softly, remembering how Lady Normanby’s scandal had bound her hands.
“That too,” she murmured. “If we are busy reacting to what she is doing to us, we cannot meddle with her plans. Think. She could have easily given Charity a more certain poison. What would Perry have done if Charity had died?”
Hodges scoffed. “He’d have hunted her down an’ done for her like a mad cur. Let the consequences go hang.”
“You are suggesting that she may be buying time. Bind her son with grief, so he cannot try to stop her, because he would have to abandon his sick wife to do so. The suffering she causes is naught but an added pleasure,” the dandy said, growing angry.
“And if some of us are forced to go into hiding for our lives or our reputations… then so much the better, as far as Marian Fitzroy’s concerned. Fewer hands to pry into her business, fewer eyes to watch for her work,” added Lady Normanby.
“I hate that woman,” Ravenscroft growled.
Thorne was rather certain that opinion was generally held.
“She is a devil. Even when we know what she is about, she is leading us by the nose. We have to be cruel enough to ask Fitzroy to make a choice to set Charity aside until we deal with his mother, or we take the reins ourselves and face the hazards that come with it,” he said, tilting his head in the marchioness’s direction unconsciously.
“And pray that we are equal to the task without him.”
“Uncertain of my skills, are you, Sir Knight?”
His attention stopped wandering and as his eyes focused, he startled, realising he was staring directly at Lady Normanby. Her green eyes twinkled in challenge rather than offence.
“I shall remind you that you were the one to tell Fitzroy that we were all in this battle together, and to never forget to lean on us. Let him lean,” she said serenely.
“But… I need to put at least a few questions to Perry. We need to learn as much as we can about what happened. I gather you did not want to invade his privacy.”
Thorne’s shoulders dropped. “No, Lady Normanby. It was not my place to impose. Not at that moment.”
“It is all right,” she told him, shifting to leave. “I will do the intruding.”
She headed back towards the stair, her footsteps purposeful, and Thorne looked at the two men beside him. Both were looking to Thorne with the expressions of someone hoping he would take command.
He scratched his eyebrow thoughtfully. “Ravenscroft, after Fitzroy, you stand to lose the most right now. It’d be folly to throw yourself on the sword, aye, but just as great a folly to think Marian Fitzroy would not turn that weapon against you herself if you stay.
There’d be no reproach from me if you put your own safety first and leave. What will you do?”
“I am no swordsman, but neither am I such a craven,” the magpie said sharply, fingers raking through his silvering hair. “Of course I will stay. Still… Antoine deserves the chance to choose his own course, even if it means withdrawing.”
Thorne looked to Hodges, who shrugged with one shoulder. “I’m already bound for hell, Sir Nathaniel. Least I won’t be lackin’ for company on the road.”
“So we are forced to ask now… where is Marian Fitzroy trying to keep us from looking?” Ravenscroft muttered, looking harassed. “Or where we might be able to pick up the threads of what she is up to now?”
“The man who killed Edmunds is still a threat we should keep watch for,” Thorne remarked. “I tracked him to the edge of the woods, where he had his horse.”
Hodges blew out a weary breath. “Near forgot that in the midst o’ all the devil’s din. Best I pay a call to Red Hand tonight. Sammy said that one was marked by a scar. Might be Red knows who we’re facin’. An’ with luck, it’ll be the sort we can grease with coin to leave us alone.”
“With our luck?” Ravenscroft muttered, his expression dour.
“I must speak with Antoine, of course. We would be fools not to place this before the Crown. For once, I think it wiser to petition Her Majesty than Prinny and inform her of what has transpired. She at least may be moved to sympathy. Or failing that, sufficiently alarmed to act.”
“Will you be able to speak with her today?” Thorne asked him.
“Tomorrow, early,” he said, lifting a hand in caution. “I want to make sure Antoine has sufficient time to leave London.”
The mood was grim as the three men stood in a circle, contemplating. And after long minutes, they heard the sounds of Lady Normanby returning from upstairs. Thorne realised then that everyone had been waiting to see what she had to say about the situation.
Her eyes were shadowed, and she went to the sideboard where Fitzroy kept his liquor, doling out four glasses of whisky and passing them out.
“How is Lord Fitzroy now?” Thorne asked delicately, running his fingers around the bottom of the glass.
“Overset entirely,” she said shortly. “It was better not to ask him for much. I limited myself to whether his mother had said anything about the poison itself. He said only that his mother learned it from another poisoner she met while in Russia.”
She lifted the glass, pressing its chill to her cheek with a brief closing of her eyes.
“I have to tell Sidmouth what has happened. Between my disgrace and the loss of Perry and Charity, we lack the means to easily approach any of the members of the Russian delegation. And perhaps… perhaps Xavier might know something about such an exotic poison. It is worth asking at any rate.”
Hodges nodded sharply. “I’ll put it to Red Hand an’ all as well. Plenty o’ killers keep a taste for poison.”
“Then we have a course.” Thorne inhaled through his nose. “Warn Antoine and the Queen,” he said, meeting Ravenscroft’s eyes before flicking his gaze to Hodges. “See if we can track Edmunds’s killer. And see if there is any way to speak to the Russians. About poison, if nothing else.”
“And you… guard the house and its people, Galahad,” Ravenscroft added. “We have to protect those unable to protect themselves.”
The marchioness raised her glass in a toast “To Charity’s recovery. May she not be so easily undone. Especially by the likes of Marian Fitzroy.”
The men murmured their agreement, tossing the whisky back.
“Martha, wait,” Hodges said, following his sister down the servant’s corridor.
Martha’s shoulders hunched in as she stopped, but she waited, head down. She held a basket of dirty linens to her stomach like a shield. “What is it, Will?” she asked, her voice tired.
Hodges settled his palm on her shoulder. “You all right?”
“Ye certain the master won’t blame Sammy for this?” she asked softly.
“Lord Fitzroy won’t. Sammy had no part in what happened to her ladyship.”
His sister turned to him, her lip caught between her teeth. “What’ve we been caught up in here, Will?”
“Somethin’ bigger than us, but you keep to your work an’ leave the rest to me.” He looked down at the basket. “You’ve been set to laundry?”
Her mouth tightened, and she shifted the basket against her hip. “I asked for work. Wanted to be useful.”
He nodded absently, taking in his sister’s face. The lines of worry, and the grey hair curling at her temples. “All right. I’ll let ye get back to it then.”
He did not say goodbye.
She hurried away, and Hodges lingered a moment in the dim corridor. Martha hadn’t commented on the weaponry he carried as he prepared to leave the house. That was just as well.
The air was thick with the air of a storm not yet spent. He’d experienced such before, every eve before the next battle. Every time he loaded the carbine. It was as if the world had inhaled and held its breath, waiting.
Quinn was walking towards him from behind. He recognised the butler’s gait without even looking. Before Fitzroy’s butler could ask if something was amiss, Hodges turned towards the other former soldier.
“Quinn, I’d ask a favour of ye, one man to another.”
The butler lifted one eyebrow, waiting. “Yes?”
“Don’t reckon on trouble, but I’d be grateful if ye’d see to Martha an’ the babes, should I not come back through that door. Got a bit o’ coin set by to help her.”
The butler paused for a moment and inclined his head. “Of course. I’ll see it done—should the need arise. But I expect you’ll come back.”
Hodges huffed in agreement, leaving through the servants’ door and heading to the stables.
Night was fully settled by the time he got back into London, and he made his way from Marylebone into the poorer areas, looking for Red Hand’s haunts. He was weary himself.
The last time Hodges had seen Red Hand, Fitzroy had been desperately seeking information about the Maker and Goldbourne’s counterfeit press. The duchess had been kidnapped, and Fitzroy himself had been like a man possessed, all but throwing money at the bludgeoner to gain his assistance.
This time, Hodges had nothing. And Red Hand was not a friend.
The bar was raucous, but the volume dropped considerably when Hodges entered alone, still armed to the teeth. He lifted his empty hands, squaring off against the hostile faces turned his way. “Not here for a fight.”
Red Hand stood up, his chair scraping loudly on the floor. “If it isn’t our friend Two-faced Will. Come without his master. No fight? Then you’ve come beggin’, or lyin’. Which is it?”
Hodges kept his hands open and his voice even. “Neither. An’ you’ll shut your jaw about the extra coin. That wasn’t kept to cross Fitzroy. It kept him alive. Now. I’ve questions that touch you, same as me.”
A ripple of laughter stirred among the men at the tables. Red Hand cocked his head. “You? With nothin’ in your pocket but air? What makes you think I’ve a mind to talk?”
“You sent word once that Fitzroy’s folk were marked. And now a cutthroat’s spilled his old butler’s blood. A man wi’ a scar.” He drew his finger in a half-moon below his eye. “An’ a knack for carvin’ messages in flesh.”
“Moxley.” Red Hand leaned over and spat on the floor. “That bloody nicker.”
“You know him then, do you?”
“Oh, aye. No subtlety in that mad gallows-bird.”
“Don’t suppose you know who hired him?” Hodges said casually. “Threatened me sister an’ her lad. I’ve half a mind to go pay the bastard a visit.”
“Don’t, so I don’t,” Red Hand said with a curl of his lip. “But I have a suspicion. Some foreign cove was playin’ at bein’ Austrian while he was askin’ around for a killer. Poor play, too. There was laughin’ about it. As if we’re soft heads what can’t tell one tongue from another.”
“Man?” Hodges barked, and Red nodded. “Russian?”
“Don’t know what he was. Only what he weren’t.” Red Hand set his elbows on the table and folded his arms.
“An’ why d’ye reckon it’s that man?”
Red Hand evaded the question. “Where’s yer master, Will? Strange sight, you steppin’ in here wi’out his shadow. Or is Fitzroy frettin’ o’er the debt he keeps pilin’ at me door?”
“Believe me, Red, your debt’s the last thing on Fitzroy’s mind.” Hodges looked around to be certain none of Red Hand’s men were too close. “His dam poisoned his lady yester morn.”
“The duchess? Poisoned?” Red’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead.
“Aye. An’ I’ll thank ye to keep that information close. But if ye’ve any knowledge o’ Russian poisons, we’d take it kindly.”
“I’ll nose about,” Red Hand said with a grunt. “But poison’s women’s work, sure enough.”
Hodges was not surprised that the Irishman didn’t have ready information on poison. That Red Hand seemed to have a bit of a soft spot for Fitzroy, and his lady’s plight, was not an opportunity to miss. “So then—this foreign cove,” he prompted again.
“I told him no,” Red Hand said harshly.
“What’d he ask for?” Hodges asked, frowning.
The Irishman cast another glance about, wary of ears too near. Then he leaned in close. “The blackguard was lookin’ for someone fool enough to take on a job at one o’ the Sovereigns’ doin’s. Even thinkin’ on it’s a death-warrant.”