Chapter 9
From his seat on a shabby cart, Nat Roberts watched the scarlet lady and the earl stroll through the streets.
He knew his people were at their posts nearby, but if any of them saw sight of Scots traitors it was more than he did.
’Course the streets were fair humming with people, but even so, if the Scots were around they were cunningly hidden.
He watched the couple go up the steps and enter the house. As the doors closed, he scratched beneath his tricorn with the handle of his whip.
Now what?
He’d figured right off that the lady in the red dress would be Lady Elfled.
A quiet word with Mam’zelle Chantal had confirmed that milady had just such a gaudy outfit, and planned to wear it tonight to the masquerade.
Gawd, but she was showing her old colors, for she’d been a rare handful as a child.
He’d pondered telling that stiff-rumped Grainger his suspicions, but it went against the grain. And anyway, what could anyone do?
She was a member of the family. Were they supposed to lock her in her room like a naughty child?
Nat had brought in some extra people, though—this area was thick with them—ready to snatch her from the earl at any cost if she screamed. But she hadn’t looked as if she wanted snatching. No. Not she. Judging from the way she’d been looking up at him, Milady wasn’t no prisoner.
Scandalous, it was, the way the quality went on, but it wasn’t his place to interfere.
Perhaps all that business of watching the earl had come out of female jealousy. Nat knew all about that, having a suspicious-minded wife.
But now what? None of his people had spotted anyone in particular watching Lady Yardley’s, though he hadn’t had a report since Lady Elf had come out with the earl.
He took a little sip from a rum bottle, contemplating the sticky situation.
He didn’t think the marquess would be too happy at his sister spending the night—and a naughty night at that—in any man’s house, never mind the Earl of Walgrave’s. He doubted, however, that his employer would be any more pleased if Nat Roberts dragged Lady Elf out of there by the hair.
Even if he could.
“Women,” he muttered, taking another swig. “Nothing but trouble.”
Like those two there.
A couple of maidservants strolled down the street, arm in arm, singing a ditty, and winking at any man they saw.
They paused by the coach. “Hello ’andsome!” called out the blond one and moved right to the side of the coach. “Give us a sip at the bottle?”
Nat grunted something and passed it over, saying quietly, “What’s up, Sally?”
Sally giggled as if he’d said something funny, then scrambled up beside him on the box. “Well, I don’t reckon she was kidnapped, do you?” She winked as she took a real drink of his rum. A right handful was Sally Parsons, but a tempting armful, too, with her generous curves and merry eyes.
If he were that sort of man, of course.
She was also a chatterbox about some things, so he could only thank God she hadn’t twigged to it being her ladyship.
“It was attack by the Scots we had to look out for, Sally.”
“That didn’t ’appen either. But—”
“But?” he asked, flashing her a quick glance.
She snuggled up against him. Gawd, there’d be hell to pay if his Hettie ever heard about this! “But, a group of street monkeys followed ’em.”
Children! The streets were always full of ragged urchins, thieves most of them, and he’d not given them a thought. He looked around and saw two crouched in a gutter not far away playing some game. Dice probably.
“Them?”
“Could be part of ’em. Most of ’em ran off, though. Roger and Lon’s following to see if they report to the Scots.”
Nat muttered a few curses. “But still and all, they can’t get at ’er in the ’ouse, can they?”
“Don’t suppose so,” Sally whispered into his ear, pretending to be enticing him. “But what’s the problem? Roger and Lon’ll follow the ratkins to the Scots. That’s the point, i’nt it?”
“Aye, that’s the point.” But Nat was distinctly uneasy.
He remembered now that the scarlet lady was supposed to sneak a look at whatever the earl had in his cellars.
Never mind her virtue, that could be bloody dangerous.
“Look, Sal, I’ll get this rig back to its owner.
Can’t keep the poor nag out ’ere all night.
I’ll be back as soon as I can, and we might ’ave to go in. You stay ’ere and keep your eyes open.”
Sally fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Don’t I always, ’andsome?” Then with a kiss on his cheek, she clambered down off the box, linked arms with Ella, and strolled off.
As he drove the coach back to the livery stables, Nat muttered to himself.
Women.
Nothing but trouble.
At the Peahen, Michael Murray, in his persona as the Reverend Campbell, listened to the leader of the pack of street monkeys.
How wise he’d been to hire the urchins. Besides being cheap, such ragamuffins went unnoticed by all, except that people held on to their purses and other valuables when they were about.
Yes, it had been wise to recruit the children, but he’d not expected such news as this. So, the scarlet doxy had turned up again, and at a society function. He knew that sometimes whores slipped into masquerades, or were sneaked in by their lovers, but everything about that creature unsettled him.
Pity the monkeys hadn’t noticed her go into Lady Yardley’s house. Murray would give a deal to know whom she’d arrived with.
Not Walgrave. He’d walked around alone in his monk’s costume. Mack had been following him.
And now they’d gone back together to his house, happy as rats heading for their hole. Perhaps she was his mistress after all. Some silly young wife deceiving her husband when she got the chance.
But that didn’t fit with those bloodstained garters.
Murray didn’t understand it, and he didn’t like that one bit.
He tossed the boy a sixpence to send him on his way, then sat there, chewing on his lip. No, he didn’t like it.
His plan was ready. Even now, Jamie was putting the stone in a safe place. Soon he’d have the device. Tomorrow the Hanoverian Pretender would die. He couldn’t abide uncertainties now.
He paid his shot and walked back to Lord Bute’s house, fretting about the earl and his scarlet trollop. Walgrave had always been an uncertainty and Murray regretted ever making the connection.
Walgrave had been one of the names he’d been given, however, on a list of English people who had been secret supporters in the Forty-five. Most of them had never had to reveal their hesitant support of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and some of the younger ones were now in high places.
When Murray had realized that his relationship to Bute wouldn’t get him close to the king, he’d started contacting people who had been particularly careless, ones who had left some evidence.
In no case was it strong enough to force them into supporting him, but it was enough to make them very reluctant to expose him.
Murray sneered up at the fine houses as he passed. Half a dozen peers of the realm were on his list, and these days they sat in fine houses like these, worrying about Michael Murray and what he might tell.
But not worrying very much. No, they told themselves, patting their fat paunches and pouring another glass of brandy, the days of the Stuarts are over. That Murray is just a madman. Their youthful follies would not come back to haunt them.
Murray would prove he was not mad, and that those days were not over. Soon these haughty Hanoverians would be out in the gutter scraping for a living, just as honest followers of the Stuarts were today.
When he’d met with Walgrave, he’d found his tool.
The incriminating evidence was strongest there—some firsthand accounts of a meeting with King James and Prince Charles.
Of course, the evidence was against the present earl’s father.
That had been a shock to Murray, but the new earl had seemed much concerned about scandal, as well as being bitter about royal ingratitude.
A wild young man, as well, much given to drinking and wenching.
A person easy to use, he’d thought.
He ducked into another house—a hovel really, cramped in an alley near grand houses—and quickly changed from his churchman’s clothes into his normal wear.
The old woman here gladly gave space and silence in exchange for a few pennies.
Then, as Michael Murray, he left by another door and continued on his way to his rooms in the Earl of Bute’s house in South Audley Street.
Yes, he reassured himself, Walgrave had been the right choice.
Murray had only needed someone who knew the Court well enough to devise a way to get a lethal object close to George of Hanover.
In that, the earl had done his part. Moreover, in the process he’d revealed his real driving impulse—a vindictive hatred against a certain marquess of Rothgar.
Murray had no interest in the marquess, but he’d been happy to know what rode the earl. He liked to understand people’s weaknesses.
He’d been satisfied with the situation until he’d heard reports of too many casual meetings between Walgrave and the new Secretary of State, Grenville.
That had led to the Vauxhall meeting, which in hindsight had probably been a mistake.
But Murray still wished he knew what part that scarlet doxy had played.
Had she been Walgrave’s spy? And if so, what had been the point of it?
At Bute’s house, he hurried to his small room before someone noticed the way his hands had begun to shake. He was so close. So close. Nothing could be allowed to upset his plans at this stage.
He pulled a miniature out of his pocket and opened it to look at the fine painting of a handsome young man with white powdered hair. Charles Edward Stuart. His friend.