Chapter 10 #2
Anthony shrugged. “War Department officials. Braxton.” Anthony himself had memorized the code and knew where the key was found.
All correspondence between agents and the Home Office was communicated via that code.
Each of the agents he worked with knew it as well, but it was something none of them ever admitted—to do so meant to risk one’s life.
That Braxton had created a sensitive roster of information using such a familiar system had frustrated Anthony ever since the night Braxton had shown up in his library.
Dylan consulted his timepiece. “I’m needed back at the post for an hour. Do you join me or return to the Residency?”
Anthony reached for the official log, which Dylan handed him. He placed it back in the drawer but put the smaller diary in his coat pocket. “I believe I’ll chat with the three sailors up on deck. See if I can learn anything useful.”
Regrettably, nothing useful came to light.
Anthony spent the better part of the afternoon tracking down sailors in Bombay’s multitudinous bars, gaming holes, and brothels and introducing himself as a “friend helping Major Stuart with an investigation.” The few men he spoke to had no idea where Captain Miller had spent his days following the ship’s arrival, or with whom he might have spoken.
The one assumption each of them made, however, was that he had gone to the Residency—a fact Anthony already had established.
When he finished learning absolutely nothing of value, he returned to the Residency hot, tired, and dusty, the scent of Bombay’s squalor still heavy in his nose. He bathed, took tea in his chambers, and allowed his valet, Pierre, to fuss over the condition of his sweat-stained clothing.
He put a hand to the back of his neck and rolled his head to release tension. He was tired. He hadn’t slowed down since leaving London and desired a vacation far away. Preferably with a bride named Sophia. “What has been the tenor of the gossip below stairs today, Pierre?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir, as I never gossip.
” Pierre sniffed. He had served Anthony in Paris during the war and had willingly accepted the post again when Anthony had found him two years ago.
Anthony’s London valet, Faring, was aging and not the sort to go off on an adventure.
Pierre was middle aged, proper, enjoyed travel well enough, and took an inordinate amount of satisfaction in trying to transform Anthony into a respectable peer of the realm.
Although Pierre himself was a Frenchman, his mother had been English, and he regarded duties of nobility in any country as a serious responsibility.
Anthony smiled. “Let us assume, for the sake of discussion, that you did gossip. Or listen with an attentive ear. Which I happen to know you have. What might you have overheard today?”
“I suppose I may have heard one of Lady Pilkington’s maids conversing with a cook, a Hindu woman with three sons and two daughters, all of whom are employed here at the Residency.”
“Mmm. And the Hindu cook and the maid spoke in English, yes? Unless you are trilingual and have hidden it from me.”
“They spoke in English.” Pierre held up Anthony’s suit coat and slapped at a smudge of dirt on one of the sleeves.
“Apparently Lady Pilkington’s young son is quite distraught about the missing sea captain.
Lady Pilkington does not know what to make of the child’s sudden reluctance to speak to anyone, and she seems to believe his ayah must be mistaken about the child’s actual knowledge of events.
Certainly he would share such details, if he had them. ”
Anthony frowned. “The lady doesn’t believe her son witnessed something distressing?”
Pierre lifted a shoulder and examined the other sleeve of the jacket. “It is my opinion, sir, that the lady is easily overwrought and prone to avoiding unpleasantries over which she has no control.”
“And the inciting matter itself? What does the household have to say about that?”
“Chatter in the servants’ third-floor sitting room, of which I take no part, indicates a popular belief that the sea captain is not merely missing, but most definitely dead.
There was a particularly distasteful cleaning task awaiting the staff in Lord Pilkington’s study.
” Pierre disappeared into the adjoining dressing room with the offending suit coat and returned with fresh dinner attire.
Anthony glanced at the waistcoat, cravat, and coat that Pierre placed neatly over the arm of a chair.
He had lived his entire life as a member of the aristocracy, so piling on the clothing was second nature to him.
There were times, though, when he dearly would have loved to flout convention and show up to dinner in just trousers and a shirt.
Fighting back a sigh, he put on the uncomfortable garments, Pierre rolling his eyes the entire time and muttering about an Englishman’s constitution being inferior to the French.
Pierre dusted off Anthony’s shoulders, tugged the coat into smooth perfection, nary a wrinkle in sight, and made quick work of his neck cloth.
He stepped back, examining his handiwork as would a proud parent or a Bond Street modiste, and pronounced Anthony fit for dinner.
Anthony made his way to the drawing room where many of the guests gathered before the evening meal and heard snippets of conversation about a missing sea captain.
Missing, not dead. Stuart had promised the Pilkingtons that he would keep the details of the crime as vague as possible for as long as possible, but Anthony wondered how long it would take for the gossip to spread from below stairs to the guests’ chambers.
He noted Dylan, who stood half a head taller than anyone else save himself, and crossed the room to see Rachael and Sophia conversing with him.
To his irritation, Mr. Gerald, the forward-minded, educated-women-adoring professor also approached the trio, and Anthony ground his teeth in frustration.
Dinner the night before had been an exercise in agony as he’d watched Sophia turn the full blast of her charm on the other man.
“ . . . hope you’ve enjoyed your second day in India,” Gerald was saying as Anthony reached them.
“We have indeed.” Sophia smiled at the man and extended the pleasantry to Anthony. “And so good to see you again, Lord Wilshire. Major Stuart tells us you’ve gone into Bombay today.”
“We did, although we saw only a fraction of the city. I understand there’s more to experience here than one can comfortably manage in a week. And although I’ve been in Bombay that long already, my time has mostly been spent here at the Residency or at the military compound nearby.”
“As I’ve spent the last decade at home here in India, I must rely on visitors from England to keep abreast of news,” Mr. Gerald said. “Major Stuart mentioned your military time in France—was it a lengthy engagement?”
Why did the man have to be so blasted affable?
Handsome with pleasant manners, charming and humorous in conversation, sincere in the most basic of exchanges.
For once Anthony wished Sophia was a snob and wouldn’t deign to socialize with a mere academic.
Feeling peevish and petty, Anthony fought to keep himself from scowling.
“Three years,” he told Gerald. “Some of it pleasant enough, much of it not nearly so, most of it tedious.” How he wished it were true. His entire tour in France had been fraught with secrets and lies, the danger of discovery hidden in every exchange.
“But he made so many acquaintances.” Sophia spoke to Gerald, not bothering to glance at Anthony.
“Lovely, accomplished people he still communes with to this day. His sojourn in France must not have been nearly so tedious as he implies.” She turned to Anthony with a smile that certainly seemed sincere enough on the surface.
He knew her, though. The smile did not reach her eyes.
His heart sank. He’d thought they were making progress.
She was clearly still bitter, and his distracted behavior the night before hadn’t aided his cause.
Dylan cleared his throat and saved Anthony from having to fashion a response.
“I believe we’re being summoned to the dining room.
” He motioned his head toward the door where Himmat was indeed informing the group that mealtime was at hand.
They followed the crowd, and Dylan murmured in Anthony’s ear, “Sorry, old man.”
Anthony shrugged. He didn’t want sympathy.
He didn’t want anyone else knowing Sophia’s barb stung.
She was not a mean woman, or cruel, but he had intentionally led her to a place of ignorance and the level of hurt she clearly felt at his desertion was hardly the boon he might have imagined it would be.
He’d wanted to know she still cared for him, to know that she would have welcomed his suit.
Realizing he’d truly caused her pain, though, dampened the thrill.