Chapter 5
Five
Dread dogging his every step, James made his way up Bond Street towards his family’s town house in Grosvenor Square, where the Duke and Duchess of Middlewich had invited him to partake in some early-afternoon tea.
It was unusual for his parents to be in town in October, but his father had been feeling poorly, so the trip back to Middlewich had been delayed.
James had not lived at the family town house for years.
During the Season, the house was crammed to bursting with his seven sisters as well as his parents, and there was not an ounce of privacy to be had.
Much better to be far away from all the family clatter and fuss and criticism and expressions of disappointment.
And the location of his own set of bachelor rooms was ideal—near the soon-to-be-finished Burlington Arcade, right around the corner from his club, and less than a mile from Madame Flora’s. He might take a seven-year lease on the rooms, with an option to buy. And why not? He had no plans to marry.
Golden curls and a bosom that surpassed the beauty of all others flitted in front of his mind’s eye. He shook his head as if to clear the vision away. None of that, now.
On his way up Bond Street, he passed a bustling modiste’s shop with pretty women going in and out. As the door opened for a matron he didn’t recognize, he could hear the tinkle of a bell and a burst of lively chatter.
What a shame it would be considered strange for James to go into the shop. He would be sure to hear some gossip there. He was always trying to suck up chat and rumors and whispered confidences. Mr. Bulverton, the man he most wished to please, craved all gossip.
I could disguise myself as a woman, a very tall woman, and go into the modiste’s, seeking a job as a seamstress. Rather like a reverse Twelfth Night.
He smiled briefly at that absurd idea before lengthening his stride, hurrying towards what promised to be a disagreeable encounter with his parents.
The sooner this skirmish began, the sooner it would be over.
“When are you returning to Middlewich?” The duke looked over his teacup at James, raising his bushy white eyebrows. “Haven’t you been in town long enough?”
“William always used to bring a big party of his friends up to the castle for the shooting in the autumn, didn’t he, dear?” his mother asked his father.
His father snorted. “Yes, William knew better than to spend all his time in town with wastrels, getting drunk every night.”
Sprawled across a sofa, James looked up from the cooling tea in his teacup and smiled indolently. “Don’t forget getting drunk every day, Your Grace.” The duke’s eyebrows mashed together in fury. “And I’m not William.”
“Yes.” Derision dripped from the word.
“We are worried for you,” his mother said, her voice quavering and her lips twitching. “We hear such stories. Bacchanals. And you have always been so easily led by your friends.”
“Weak,” his father said.
The duchess wrung her hands. “We know you are still young—”
“I’m eight and twenty, Mother.”
“But shouldn’t you be done—what is the phrase? Be done with the wild oats.”
James, still smiling, set his cup down in the saucer. “I’m sorry you don’t approve of my habits.”
His father roared, “It’s not your habits, it’s you! You’re not half the man your brother was!”
There. The stab of the knife to his chest. After all these years, James was surprised his father’s words could still wound so much. Surely, he should be calloused to it by now.
There was nothing for it but to sneer and grin and infuriate the duke even further.
James stood and made a mock-curtsy to his mother.
“Your Grace.” He bowed with an exaggerated flourish to his father.
“Your Grace. We agree my brother was the ideal heir. But was is the pertinent word. William is dead. I’m dreadfully sorry to be such a source of dissatisfaction to you both.
” He ran his fingers through his hair. “But, as disappointing as I am, I am all you have, what?”
“Good-for-nothing.” His father turned his head in dismissal.
His mother dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief.
James bowed once more and left the drawing room.
He walked to Madame Flora’s, not far from Covent Garden.
He climbed the stairs to the parlor where customers congregated and selected their courtesans.
It was a comfortable room, strewn with sofas, wing chairs, and tables where men might drink and play cards while they waited for their favorite doxy to become available or for their desire to return.
But the room was largely empty in the late afternoon.
Three women in near-translucent gowns sat on a sofa, chatting with their heads together.
As James entered, the women stood, pushed their shoulders back, adjusted their shawls so their bosoms were more fully exposed, giggled a bit more loudly.
However, when they recognized James, they relaxed their shoulders and pulled their shawls back up.
James had a well-known and long-held preference for the almond-eyed brunette Isabella.
He hadn’t selected a different whore in years.
As he crossed the room, he stumbled and almost fell but regained his footing with a laugh. “Upsidaisy.” He bowed extravagantly to the women who curtsied in return. “Good morning, Miss Lydia, Miss Nancy, Miss Sally.”
“Good afternoon, Lord Daventry,” the three women chorused and giggled.
Sally, the youngest of the three, a busty, plump temptress with very full lips, pushed those lips out into a pout. “Lord Daventry, when are you going to give one of the rest of us a chance? I know tricks that Frenchy Isabella has never heard of.”
Nancy elbowed Sally. There was a code of conduct, and the women were not supposed to poach customers from each other.
James fished for three coins and pressed one into each woman’s hand as he leered.
“I’m set in my ways, you lovelies, but I can’t say I’m not tempted by what’s on offer.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
He nodded and crossed the parlor and opened a gilded door onto a long corridor dotted with other doors. He walked as quietly as he could, knowing many of the women behind these doors had worked all night and were now sleeping.
At Isabella’s door, he knocked. Two quick raps, a pause, and a third rap.
He heard a key rattle, and the door opened to reveal the dark-haired, dark-eyed, olive-skinned Isabella DuMornay.
She wore a thin gossamer-like gown, similar to those worn by the women in the parlor, but had covered it with a robe embroidered with flowers.
She tilted her head to the side and waved James into the room.
He stepped in, and Isabella closed the door and locked it.
There was a man already in the room.
He was an ordinary, short man of indeterminate age, wearing a very poor sort of wig and simple clothes that were dusted lightly with flour, highlighting the patches sewn on both elbows of his coat sleeves.
His fingertips were stained with ink. He looked like a senior clerk and, indeed, he was one.
Or, at least, that was his official title in the ministry of the Home Secretary.
The man squinted, stood, bowed his head. “Lord Daventry.”
“Mr. Bulverton.” James bowed much more deeply than Mr. Bulverton had, and, when the man resumed his seat, James drew up his own chair.
Meanwhile, Isabella had gone into the little chamber that served as her dressing room and was singing softly to herself in French about planting cabbages.
James dug into his tailcoat pocket and took out a silk-handkerchief-wrapped bundle.
He handed it to Mr. Bulverton, who opened the handkerchief to reveal a golden locket and sapphire ring, the spoils of last night’s escapade.
Mr. Bulverton took the locket and put it in his waistcoat pocket, but, with a twinkle in his eye, he handed the handkerchief and the ring back to James.
“Very good. All’s well that ends well. Keep the ring, my lord.
You see, the ring is valuable in a monetary sense but has no sentimental value to, uh, the family.
And the, uh, person in question was planning to give the lady the ring, but she stole the locket first. Ha!
That put a stop to any idea of gifts. But in a moment of weakness, the, uh, person in question allowed a degree of access and the Most Honorable Marchioness of et cetera stole the ring.
And this, uh, person’s mother would be quite upset to find the locket gone, so that was the important item to retrieve.
The, uh, person in question wants you to keep the ring.
As a reward for your service. Well done. ”
James knew—and by extension, Mr. Bulverton knew that he knew—the, uh, person in question was actually the Prince Regent. The prince had a well-known habit of ill-advised love affairs, including most recently with the light-fingered Marchioness of Painswick.
“I wondered,” James said, shoving the ring into a pocket in his trousers and carefully folding the handkerchief, “whether there might be something else, some other service I could perform for the crown.”
Mr. Bulverton raised his eyebrows.
“I know I serve at His Royal Highness’ pleasure—” Mr. Bulverton cleared his throat at that, and James added hastily, “And of course, at His Majesty’s, his father’s, pleasure.
I just hoped, after five years, I might be asked to do something more essential than tidying up the indiscretions of my future king. ”
Keeping his elbows at his sides, Mr. Bulverton shrugged and put his hands up, spreading his fingers. “You are free to put an end to our meetings at any time, my lord. As you know, your service is entirely sub rosa, unofficial, and voluntary.”
James thought about what his life would be like without this.
Empty. Meaningless.
“No, Mr. Bulverton,” he said quickly. “No, you misunderstand me. I want to do more, not less.”