Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Bruton Mews
After the excitement of the confrontation in Gunter’s, Dora and Jacob retreated to the office.
Dora’s nerves were still humming from Ruby’s departure, though she tried to maintain her pretence that it was amusing rather than alarming that her friend declared Dora was risking her happiness by seeking her own.
Jacob was quietly fuming at the embarrassment, his expression set.
Her lover was usually a mild-mannered gentleman, but he had a tipping point where his temper would flare – as she did.
They had to talk this out, but they needed privacy for that.
This was not immediately forthcoming. When they got back, Alex and Kir were eating the dinner brought over from Lady Tolworth’s kitchens while listening to Susan Napper deliver her report on the cheating maid.
Susan, a mature actress with a matronly figure, had taken to investigation with tenacious skill over the past few months since they’d hired her.
If there was a tedious watch to be kept on someone, Susan was the person to send.
She didn’t give up and appeared to have bottomless internal resources to prevent boredom.
She’d told Dora she spent the time reciting all the lines from all the plays she had ever appeared in, the parts belonging to others as well as her own.
As Dora knew from personal experience, the training an actor acquired in quickly conning parts for the ever-changing repertoire resulted in an excellent memory.
‘She finally met her contact in the rag trade today,’ Susan said, nodding to Jacob and Dora as they came in. ‘You never guess what they were doing?’
‘What, Mrs Napper?’ Kir watched Susan with wide, adoring eyes. Susan was a hugger and Kir appreciated her warmth, regarding her as an honorary grandmother.
‘They were only taking off the Brussels lace and replacing it with poorer quality stuff, expecting no one would notice, love. Who looks too closely at their petticoats after they’ve been purchased?
Only washerwomen. If the lady’s maid doesn’t say anything, then it’s a rare mistress who pays such close attention.
They’d think it was just ordinary wear and tear making it look bad.
They’d go out and buy a new one and it starts all over again. ’
Dora squeezed Susan’s shoulder in greeting. ‘Did you get a name for the contact?’
‘What do you take me for, duckie? Mrs Lamb. Lamb?’ Susan crowed with laughter. ‘She’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing if ever there was one.’
‘Excellent. Please write it up and I’ll take our findings to the client.’ The butler in the household had become suspicious of his mistress’s maid who appeared to have more money than she ought but had not known what she was doing to earn it. ‘Kir, did you do your lessons yet?’
Kir wiped his mouth on a napkin in a gesture that mimicked Alex’s impeccable manners. ‘Yes, Miss Dora.’
She ruffled his mop of black hair affectionately. ‘I’ll mark them, and if you got your sums right you can go and play with your friends.’
He looked worried. ‘What if I made mistakes?’ Mathematics wasn’t his strong suit. He was picking up reading far more swiftly.
‘I’ll still let you play, but we’ll go over where you went wrong first, agreed?’
Looking relieved, he nodded.
Jacob had quietly been serving them dinner from the pot on the sideboard, handing her a plate of chicken casserole with summer vegetables.
They joined their colleagues at the desk that served as a table when they ate.
Dora made a note that they really should invest in a trestle table that could be set up for meals if this became a habit.
It was nice to eat together – a makeshift family was forming around the agency.
‘Where are Ren and Hugo?’ asked Jacob, sitting down beside her in the chair Alex had vacated for him.
Goliath Renfrew, the actor who specialised in Tom Thumb and other parts for small people, was out with Hugo Ingles, the portly player who was known for his Falstaff.
With Drury Lane closed for rebuilding after the fire, there were many out-of-work actors happy to redeploy as investigators.
‘They were following the husband from Harley Street. We found out that he has a mistress in Battersea and another in Lambeth,’ said Alex. ‘Lambeth’s turn today.’
‘Busy boy,’ said Susan.
‘Then the wife was right.’ Dora frowned.
It was an unpleasant case. The lady had noticed that the household finances were strained, but the husband claimed he had no money to pay the bills despite her generous dowry but a few years earlier.
Her family had thought he would invest it, but he’d been frittering it away.
She’d pawned some of her jewels to pay for an investigation rather than settle the accounts that happily were her husband’s legal duty.
He would be the one to go to debtors’ prison, but it was no fun being the wife of a debtor, especially if she had little chance of extracting money out of him before the bailiffs arrived.
‘I’m not sure what good the truth will do her. ’
‘If he’s catting about, then at least she can deny him the marriage bed – save herself all sorts of nasty diseases that way,’ said Susan philosophically.
‘The law won’t protect her.’ It was nearly impossible for a woman to gain a divorce; separation was the best she could hope for.
‘But the husband doesn’t seem the violent sort, just weak. You can tell from the chin.’ Susan pointed to her own firm jaw. ‘If she has any brain, she’ll work out an arrangement with him.’
‘Perhaps we should send you to counsel her,’ said Jacob. ‘She might appreciate the voice of experience.’
Susan, a widow, scowled. ‘I’ll have you know my husband never strayed – he didn’t dare!’
‘But you’ve seen plenty who have done – that’s all I meant,’ said Jacob, quickly trying to dig himself out of the offence he had unwittingly caused.
Dinner eaten, schoolwork marked, everyone departed, Dora and Jacob were finally left alone in the office.
‘Well, darling,’ said Jacob, folding his arms. ‘We appear to have a Ruby-shaped problem.’
‘You don’t have to keep to the engagement,’ said Dora quickly.
She had been thinking about it. She had barely got used to the idea that he was serious about his offer and was expecting it to fall apart at any moment, so this didn’t come as a surprise.
Someone of Jacob’s exalted social status did not marry a bastard daughter of a Liverpool merchant, especially not one who had made a profession for herself on stage.
Jacob shook his head. ‘You said you would consider marrying me, which from you is almost as good as agreement, and I’m not letting you back away from that – it was hard enough to persuade you.’
‘But if your brother—’
‘My bloody brother has nothing to do with it.’
‘But he does. Ruby! The child!’ The more Dora thought about it, the bleaker she felt about their situation, trying to go against the wishes of everyone they knew. What good could arise from a marriage under those circumstances?
‘Your friend should be thinking of you for once.’
‘I can’t do this to her!’
‘Why not? I can’t understand why you are even friends with her. All I’ve seen is that she takes from you while offering scant back.’
How to explain the years of surviving together on the northern circuit, the laughter in rehearsals, the shivering together in winter, the dusty walks in summer sweating through the last item of clean clothing?
Ruby had saved her life once, sending fishermen out to save her when she got in trouble in the water.
They were comrades in hardship. For all her selfishness, Ruby would be there if Dora needed her, she was certain of that.
And Ruby needed Dora now – needed her not to mess up the situation she had found for herself with a gentleman who was prepared to look after another man’s child. ‘I don’t expect you to understand.’
Jacob looked like he was biting back several choice responses to that. Instead, he said:
‘I refuse to live my life to please others. I suggest you do the same.’
He was right, of course, but how exactly was one to achieve that when aware of the cost? ‘Maybe after the baby … when things settle down.’
‘Settle down? Dora, look at our last few months. When will things ever settle down?’ He paced to the map and scowled at England.
She knew what he was thinking. They had gone up and down the country several times recently, grieved for lost loved ones, hunted killers or been hunted by them – they hadn’t chosen a profession that promised peace and quiet.
She really didn’t want to hurt him, but neither did she want to hurt Ruby. ‘I’m sorry.’
He turned on her, real anger in his expression. ‘No, Dora, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to spoil what we have because my brother is keeping a woman while he has a perfectly decent wife of his own. I save my pity for Diana.’
‘But Ruby has nothing—’
‘The fact that his mistress is a friend of yours is neither here nor there. He is the one at fault, not us.’
‘But Ruby—’
He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging at the roots in a frustrated gesture.
‘I’m not blaming your friend, Dora. I do realise that a woman in her situation has few good choices.
But Arthur? He can bloody well reform and be the upright model husband and father he pretends to be and stop preaching at me for loving someone of a lower social standing! ’
‘This isn’t about the quarrel you have with your brother,’ said Dora.
‘Oh, but it is. If he is prepared to throw over Ruby because I marry you, then that is on him, not me.’
‘We have to acknowledge that what we do has consequences.’
‘Yes, it does, but we aren’t responsible for all of them. We offered to support her in town before all this, remember? That offer still stands. We’re not sending her to the workhouse.’
Ruby wouldn’t want that now, not swimming in silks and jewels with a house to furnish.
That was the height of her dreams and she wouldn’t recover from having that ripped away from her.
Intellectually Jacob knew about poverty, but he hadn’t lived it.
Dora could tell that the gap between her and Jacob on this was too big to bridge at the moment.
Yes, she had agreed to consider marrying Jacob, but she had not said if or when she would go through with it.
That should give them enough time for second – and third – thoughts. Time for a change of subject.
‘The Austens.’
With a sigh, Jacob accepted they were moving on and took a seat. ‘The Austens – and chaperoning the spinster.’
‘Shall we have the usual division of labour: you do the checks on the comte and comtesse in the court and high society, and I take the opera singers and the servants?’
He nodded. ‘We play to our strengths. What about Miss Austen?’
‘If she wants us to solve this quickly, then she will just have to swallow her pride and her prejudices against people of my station and come along in her observer capacity.’ Dora grimaced. ‘Quite what my connections in that world will make of her, I do not know.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t smuggle her into my club or the Houses of Parliament so I can’t offer to swap places. You’ll have to come up with a story to explain her presence with you.’
Dora came around the desk and sat on his knee, hoping he understood the signal that they were signing a truce between them. ‘Do you think she’ll wear a disguise?’
He snorted. ‘Remember that I’m in debt to her brother. Please return her to the Austens unchanged.’
‘I can promise unharmed but not unchanged,’ said Dora. She smoothed a finger over his very kissable lips. ‘Now, how about letting me show you my new room? I’ve finally got around to unpacking.’
He grinned and lightly bit her finger, sending delighted shivers up her spine. ‘Oh, yes, show me your shoebox. I can truly say I’ve been looking forward to that all day.’