Chapter 4
Ives entered the Home Office in Whitehall, too aware that this was the third day of his precious respite that he would spend on what he had come to call Miss Belvoir’s Dilemma.
Pride prevented him from including yesterday, too, even though while finally enjoying a good country gallop, he found himself mulling over Hadrian Belvoir’s case.
One thought had led to another, and soon he was imagining Miss Belvoir’s dark eyes alight with pleasure and her tall, lithe body naked and bending to his erotic lessons.
The fantasy had been so engaging that he had not relinquished it easily, and suffered last night from its insistent presence.
He had been involved in enough dealings with the Home Office that almost everyone he passed greeted him.
More than once in his career he had undertaken tasks for the Crown that might best be described as extralegal.
A friendship with the prince regent had first brought one of these little investigations his way, as a favor.
Success at that turned him into the man the royal family called on when an awkward problem arose that needed someone to ferret out a few facts discreetly, and perhaps bend a few ears. Or arms.
That he might on occasion do such favors did not mean that he approved of an entire government apparatus doing the same thing. That was what the Home Office had become under Viscount Sidmouth, the secretary of state for the Home Department.
As the political situation grew more tense in the country, this branch of the government had resorted to domestic spying and even agents to infiltrate and disrupt what its leaders considered potentially treasonous activity.
The French excesses of thirty years earlier were never far from the minds of some of Ives’s social equals, and the calls for reform and other radical notions sounded far too dangerous to them.
And so while he walked the halls of the Home Office as a friend, there were those within who knew he fully expected to one day serve as prosecutor when they themselves stood trial.
That was not the case with Ivan Strickland, whose office door he opened.
Strickland remained a sane voice that argued against the more serious invasions of old-fashioned British liberty.
Ives believed he could trust Strickland if he could trust anyone at the Home Office.
They sometimes did favors for each other, so they shared a history of mutual debt.
Strickland was a hearty, fair-haired fellow who possessed the kind of strength that could turn soft if not kept in check with regular exercise.
He greeted Ives enthusiastically, and they enjoyed catching up.
Strickland of course wanted to know whatever Ives would share about the untimely death of Ives’s eldest brother Percival the prior spring, and the suspicions still surrounding his other brother Lance, who had now inherited.
It was not until a good half hour into the visit that Ives broached his reason for coming.
“I received a letter from the prince regent a month ago,” he said. “You were not in town then, I think.”
“Up north,” Strickland said. “That business in Manchester. What a hellish mess. Try as we might, we will not be able to make it what we want. History will damn us.”
He referred to the deaths at a large demonstration of workers in Manchester, a disaster now popularly called Peterloo.
“In that letter he made reference to a case I would be asked to prosecute. A man named Hadrian Belvoir.”
“Belvoir?” Strickland’s brow furrowed in thought. “Ah, now I remember. Coining, it is. Have you found it interesting?”
“It never went beyond that letter. He has not been brought to trial yet. Nor does it appear he will be soon.”
“I know how you feel about men not getting speedy trials. Don’t lecture me on it. I seem to remember the magistrate said they intended to use this fellow as fish bait to catch a whale.”
“The gaoler at the prison said counterfeit money was found in his home. Anything else?”
“Printing press and such? No. Just bad money.”
“Who laid down information on him?”
“Some thief who with an eye to burglary broke in and saw enough to bargain for his lover’s reprieve from the gallows, as I remember it.”
It all made sense, yet Ives’s instincts kept waving at his mind.
“You know a lot of particulars about Belvoir, Strickland.”
Strickland beamed a smile. “Well, that magistrate was the loquacious sort.”
“I don’t suppose he explained just how big a whale he hopes to catch with his bait.”
“Let me think about that.” Strickland pondered. “More a giant octopus, actually. All those arms going this way and that, if you understand me.”
Ives understood well enough. Someone thought Belvoir could lead them to a criminal involved in much more than this incident of counterfeiting.
If Strickland knew so much, the Home Office was either involved, or monitoring the situation closely.
And if the Home Office showed this much interest, they probably thought this octopus was dangerous, and had an arm or two tied to political radicals seen as threats to the realm.
“I trust the magistrates, or whoever is investigating, are being thorough. I have seen the man, and he is an unlikely culprit. I would not want another case like Waverley’s.”
Strickland’s face fell. His gaze shifted. “That was unfortunate.”
“It was not unfortunate. It was a tragic miscarriage of justice.”
“You really need to forget about him. Mistakes happen.”
“I sent an innocent man to the gallows. That is not something one forgets.”
“You did not send him. The process sent him.”
“Carelessness sent him. Settling for the easy solution did, and indifference to finding the truth did.” He heard his voice rising.
Let it go? He would forever regret that day in the Old Bailey.
“If I learn Belvoir is being sacrificed to the Home Office’s notions of expediency, there will be hell to pay. ”
“This is not like that,” Strickland said. “There’s no politics here. As I’ve heard, it is counterfeiting, and other normal sorts of crimes.”
“If you have only heard, you do not really know. If others in this building are crossing legal lines, they would not inform you.” Ives conquered the anger that had gripped him.
It had been unfair to throw that burden at Strickland, who had not even been involved in Waverly’s case.
“They cannot hold Belvoir forever without trying him,” he said.
“He is a citizen and does have his rights.”
“I expect you will be meeting him in the Old Bailey within the month. According to that magistrate, of course. Although if you are so suspicious, maybe you should not prosecute. You can still beg off.”
He grinned when he said it, because of course Ives could not beg off. When the Crown indicated it wanted one to serve as its prosecutor, one did it.
They turned the conversation to other things, but all the while Ives calculated the ramifications of Strickland’s confidences. Padua Belvoir had better find that lawyer she sought, and quickly. And if she were not careful, she might end up needing legal counsel for herself.
* * *
Padua strolled between the tables, looking over the girls’ shoulders while they worked on their geometry lesson.
The few who showed the worst mistakes were not the ones who lacked the ability to learn mathematics.
Rather they were the ones worldly enough to know that no matter how well they mastered the subject, no one would celebrate their achievement.
Padua’s efforts to encourage learning for one’s own satisfaction made little headway with some of the girls once they became distracted by thoughts of parties and suitors.
Before the hour ended, Jennie, whose lessons on comportment and etiquette the girls never treated as useless, came to the classroom’s door.
“You have a caller,” she said, after drawing Padua aside. “I will take over here, so you can go down.”
“I am amazed that Mrs. Ludlow allowed me to be pulled away from my duty to receive this person.”
“I’m not. Go and see why.”
Stepping into the reception hall solved the mystery.
Mrs. Ludlow herself already sat with the caller, in a little chamber off the hall decorated with frail gilt furniture and a nauseating combination of pink and rose fabrics.
“Ah, here is Miss Belvoir now,” she chirped when Padua entered the room.
Mrs. Ludlow’s high color blotched her cheeks, and she all but giggled when she gestured at Padua with a silly flourish.
Her caller was none other than Ives. Padua suspected his calling card would sit in the salver in the reception hall until it turned yellow from age.
Mrs. Ludlow appeared at cross minds regarding leaving the chamber. Padua smiled at her reassuringly. The chamber had no doors, for heaven’s sake, and its interior was in full view of the hall. Nor, at twenty-five, did she require a chaperone, especially with this man.
After Mrs. Ludlow left, Padua turned expectantly to Ives. “How did you find me?”
“You left your address with my man that first day. Remember?”
She did now. She sat on a little silk-covered bench. He took the only decent-sized chair.
“I apologize if my arrival will create difficulties with your employer,” he said.
“I do not expect any problems. She is probably eavesdropping right now, so I will even be spared her curiosity.”
From out in the hall, very close to the entrance to the sitting room, a sharp intake of breath could be heard. Then very light footsteps, receding in sound.
“Expect her to tell parents that you visit frequently, have relatives here, and patronize the school with donations,” she said. “She is a sweet woman, and essentially honest, but this is her livelihood, and there is much competition.”
He smiled. He appeared quite kind. But then the light was soft here, due to northern-facing windows and the early hour.
“Did you come to patronize the school?” she asked, when he did not explain why he had called.