Sixteen
Lavender
After Lord Fortescue unlocked the door of Monk’s Tavern, Lavender studied the dark tomb beyond. They both carried lanterns but the hovel had only one small window. “Men come here, why?”
His lordship stepped inside, throwing a lantern beam around the shabby stone interior. “Conviviality? To get drunk? To gossip?” He located another lantern and lit it. “Not my sort of entertainment, but we’re all different.”
It felt extremely strange to be in this dim chamber, alone, with a gentleman. Strangely, she felt quite safe and even a little. . . excited? Despite his dashing looks and arrogant habits and title, Fort was disconcertingly still the quiet tutor she’d known this past year.
“A drunken sewing circle?” she suggested, turning her foolish thoughts to follow his example and light more lamps. “Is that Patience?” She held a light up to a mural on a properly plastered wall.
“Henri apparently enjoys gazing upon his wife while he works. Arnaud must have painted it. It’s far better than those ancient murals in the east wing.” Fort admired the image of the manor’s buxom gardener. “You’re prettier.”
She was glad of the dark when her cheeks heated.
He’d said things like that before, but she really didn’t know how to take his admiration.
Pretty wasn’t what she wished to be known for.
The world was full of pretty people who accomplished nothing more than a bad mural.
That Lord Fortescue thought. . . No, that way lay danger.
By the time they had inspected the contents of the bar, men were already shuffling in, asking after Henri and making themselves comfortable.
And women. One of her lead seamstresses, and perennial flirt, entered. Lavender winced and pulled her overlarge mobcap further down her forehead. Vivien generally had no eyes for any other female.
While Viv negotiated with Lord Fortescue over singing for his customers, Lavender studied the men calling for ale. She hadn’t spent much time meeting farmers and apple pickers and stablemen and couldn’t tell them from whomever she was supposed to be spying on.
Reluctantly, she approached the bar, where she heard Vivien exclaiming over the newcomers and eyeing them with interest.
“How do you know who’s new?” Lavender asked, lowering her voice to surly.
As predicted, Vivien scarcely gave her a glance. “Shirts and neckcloths. The usual lot are filthy, or at best, shabby. These new ones are citified, with proper starch and all.” She grabbed a glass from Fort and carried it over to the table of strangers.
“Keep Viv at the bar, singing, if you want me to learn anything,” Lavender recommended. “She’ll take them all home with her otherwise.”
“Doesn’t she have siblings she’s looking after?” Vaguely rakish with his day-old beard stubble and unbrushed hair, looking more like a bartender than a noble, he didn’t seem too concerned. He pulled the pints she’d ordered.
“The children are old enough to look after themselves, probably have been doing so since they were toddlers. Viv’s a decent worker but ambitious. Be careful.” She certainly hoped Lord Fortescue had better taste in women than Viv.
Lavender took the pints and carried them to a customer she recognized as the Priory’s field steward. She kept her head down. Recently wed, he didn’t look twice. Good man, that.
A graying, long-haired man going bald on top signaled from the table of strangers. His companions seemed younger. Lavender hurried over while Viv had her back turned.
“Pints all around,” he ordered. “Why ain’t this place been open afore?”
“Owner ill. You new here?” she tried to ask in an accent similar to Viv’s.
“Passing through. That your man?” Gray-hair nodded in Fort’s direction.
No stabbing the customers. Yet. keeping her head down, Lavender counted their coins. “Yep. He’s mean, so keeps yer hands to yersef.”
“Don’t look mean,” a younger, slender man said, eyeing the bar with interest as Viv started her caterwauling. “I’m Tatum. Can I buy the singer a pint?”
Lavender had no experience at flirtation and no interest in learning, but somehow, she must discover more about the inn’s guests. “I’ll ask. You one of the gents stayin’ at the Knight?”
“Don’t let Tat’s pretty face fool you,” Gray Hair said. “He sleeps in the attic with the best of us.”
Lavender wiped their table with her rag. “That so? Heard the gents mean to buy us up. We might head for me family if we had a little coin.” She was proud of that little story. She wasn’t much of a storyteller.
Gray Hair shrugged. “Them fat culls are better equipt than Prinny. This dump could do worse.”
“You work for them?” Lavender wasn’t certain what to do with her hands while she asked questions. The men didn’t seem to mind showing off by answering.
“Nah, I work for Haggarty, young pup of a solicitor. Tatum there is Featherstone’s man.”
“Mr. Featherstone probably has more blunt than the pope,” Tatum agreed. “We do better than the snobs what work with the nobs.”
Interesting, servants had their own class system. And Mr. Featherstone wasn’t a nob?
Viv’s song ended. When none of the others at the table were forthcoming, Lavender returned to the bar to fill their orders. “Ask Viv to take their pints over,” she murmured to Fort. “Tell her you’ll give her a farthing if she finds out why their employers are here. Pretty boy is interested in her.”
Fort looked startled. “Are you sure you want to send Vivien over? I’m not interested in starting a brothel.”
Lavender snickered. “Viv might be. She makes her own choices. And I’m bad at this. I told Gray Hair that you’re mean. He works for a solicitor called Haggarty.”
He whistled under his breath. “His firm caters to royalty. No wonder they haven’t called on Bosworth. Anyone hiring Haggarty and Sons can buy an entire bank and properties with petty cash.”
That sounded ominous. “Pretty Boy claims his employer has more money than a pope. A Featherstone?”
Fort shook his head. “Never heard of him but Monty might know him. You did well.” He regarded her with admiration.
She was scared, but she’d received so little praise in her lifetime, it was hard not to feel warm all over at his. With a bit more boldness, she waited on the poor farmers who nursed their mugs all evening, while Viv had a fine time with the newcomers.
By the time Lord Fortescue cried for light’s out, he looked as exhausted as Lavender felt. She wanted to pat his stubbled, stubborn jaw. . . or fall into his arms in exhaustion. She had far too much self respect for that.
Viv, on the other hand, counted coins and grinned. “I hope you tend bar more often, sir.” She still knew Fort as Birdwhistle, the tutor. “You’re my lucky penny.”
At least she wasn’t going back to the inn with anyone, Lavender thought wearily. They hadn’t corrupted her seamstress entirely.
“You learn anything worth a farthing?” Fort asked.
“The one with the slick dark hair, Bobbert, works for a Mr. Calendar. They draw buildings. Darley, the blond curly-haired one with a soldier’s mustache, valets a rich moneyman who pays for buildings.
And the quiet one with the spectacles counts coins.
Don’t know who he works for but they talked a lot about a Humphries.
” Not in the least shy, she held out her palm.
Fort placed a farthing in it. “Good work, thank you.”
Viv bobbed a curtsy and ran off, pleased with herself.
“I’ll have to start thinking better of her, I suppose.” Lavender helped him set the room to rights.
“Given the way she was raised, she’s doing well,” he agreed. “We shouldn’t be encouraging her worst instincts though.”
This time, Lavender didn’t jump in shock when he placed a hand at her back to escort her out.
After this evening, she might even have to call him Fort as the others did.
Perhaps all men were liars, but at least he was polite and spoke to her as if she might have a few wits. “Do we have enough information yet?”
“We haven’t found anyone remotely resembling a killer and have no solid notion of what they’re planning, but we have a few names to start inquiries.
Weston will know the names better than I.
” He seemed to relish the evening’s experience more than she did.
But then, he spent his days cooped up in a schoolroom with little boys.
The night was chilly as they strolled through the village and up the manor drive.
“You enjoy spying?” she asked, just to make conversation. Looming over the village from the top of a hill, the Priory was almost entirely dark at this hour.
“Not as much as I thought. I am bad at storytelling. I like applying my mind to problems, but there is no particular career for problem-solvers.”
“You are a very good tutor,” she said diffidently, knowing she was a very bad student. It was safer to stay angry at him, but she supposed the sons of dukes sometimes had to conceal themselves as he had tonight. “Might you be a professor, like Baron Greybourne?”
“I have no expertise. What would I teach?” Before she could answer, he froze near the shrubbery, sticking his arm in front of her to prevent her heading for the service door they’d been using.
Lavender supposed she ought to object or be frightened or react in some way, but oddly, she trusted him. She froze in place and remained silent.
“Prowler,” he whispered. Leaving her hidden behind the shrub, he raced up the drive toward the stable. Lavender strained to see what he had, but she only spotted a shadow. . . stabbing a stick into the ground?
Before she could puzzle that out, Fort leaped on the prowler’s back, bringing him down to the ground with a war cry. His victim shrieked. In an instant, the yard filled with shouting men and howling dogs.
Not knowing what else to do, she simply ran to the portico entrance and shouted at the footman, “Intruder! Lock the doors.”
The servant ran off, leaving her gasping for breath. Fort was unarmed! She needed weapons. There could be an army out there killing the duke’s son—
She raced toward the east wing where Arnaud ought to be watching over the earl and the boys. They should never, ever let all the men leave at once ever, ever again.
Before she reached the rear of the manor, she met a battery of servants emerging, wielding brooms and fire irons, led by Thea and Minerva, the manor’s female army.
The housekeeper handed her a brass candlestick.
Minerva divided and steered her troops. “You, tower door to the drive. You, to the courtyard. Lavender, come with me.” The curate’s petite wife led Lavender and Thea back to the east wing tower, where an army of male servants poured up the service stairs and into the yard.
Arnaud blocked access into the east wing like a giant colossus bearing rifle and sword.
“Go slay dragons,” Minerva told him. “We’ll guard the earl and the boys.”
His eyebrows soared, but he didn’t hesitate. Handing over his rifle, he ran for the exit.