by Merry Farmer
“And just where have you been this week?” Mrs. Harris asked him with a scowl when he finally joined the rest of the Eccles House servants in the downstairs hall after unpacking his things and dressing in his work clothes the day of his return.
“I went to the seaside,” Joe answered truthfully. They didn’t need to know where he was or whom he’d been with before going there. When Mrs. Harris continued to frown at him, he went on with, “Burbage is gone, and I haven’t had a holiday since I came on here.”
Mrs. Harris hummed, then moved to the end of the table, where servants’ tea was set, to fix herself a cup. “There are duties a valet could fulfill, even without his master being home.”
Joe ignored the comment as he moved to help himself to a much-needed cup of tea. If he were truly in trouble, it would be Mr. Vine who took him to task, not the housekeeper. All the same, he’d always been on good terms with the rest of the staff at Eccles House, but now it felt as though things had changed. Perhaps he shouldn’t have vanished for a few days after all.
“I’m certain it will be the wedding of the decade,” Lucy said to one of the other maids, Martha, as the two of them walked into the hall and made their way to the table. “A match like that is sure to end up in all the newspapers.”
“According to Lady Burbage, her sister won’t settle for anything less than a full-page announcement in the Times,” Martha laughed.
Every nerve in Joe’s body snapped tight. It felt as though his heart stopped beating. He did his best to casually sip his tea, but it suddenly seemed difficult to breathe, let alone swallow.
“Lady B is beside herself with envy,” Lucy went on in a quiet voice, peeking at Mrs. Harris, who clearly didn’t approve of the maids gossiping about their mistress, but who also seemed interested in what they had to say. “Word is that old Lord Winslow doesn’t have much longer, which means her sister will be a countess before she is.”
Joe’s chest squeezed tighter. Any hope he had that the maids were gossiping about someone other than Alistair was gone. He moved slowly to the bench on one side of the table and sat heavily before his legs and his hope gave out.
“I wouldn’t count old Lord Winslow out yet,” Martha said. “Certainly, he’s mad as a hatter, but he didn’t seem as frail as all that when he was here for the ball.”
“He left the ball early,” Lucy reminded him. “Poor Lord Farnham and his brother practically had to drag him out to keep him from making a scene.”
Joe arched one eyebrow subtly. That wasn’t what had happened, but it was interesting to see how the story had grown in the past week.
“Either way,” Lucy went on with a wave of her hand as she and Martha sat, several feet down the table from Joe, “the old bat will be pleased that his son is marrying into such a prominent family.”
Misery flooded through Joe. He shouldn’t have run off. He should have stayed with Alistair and battled things out between them.
“Any man who is destined to inherit an earldom will marry into a prominent family,” Mrs. Harris told the maids, a light in her eyes as if she, too, found the whole topic fascinating.
“Do you suppose this means we’ll be seeing more of Lord Farnham?” Martha asked as she sipped her tea. “You could say he’s marrying into the family, in a way. I do hope he comes to Eccles House more often. He is a treat to look at.”
Martha grinned and Lucy giggled. Joe’s heart sank to his feet. Alistair was a treat to look at. The silly maids had no idea. The sight of Alistair, naked and aroused and spread across the bed, jumped to Joe’s mind, bruising his heart further. He would have given anything to see Alistair like that again, to run his hands over Alistair’s chiseled body and to bring him to orgasm with his hands, his mouth. What kind of a damned fool was he to let his pride get in the way of all that?
The kind of fool who knew that searching for vanished children was just as important as sex.
That thought sprang into his mind as a small boy he didn’t know dashed into the room with a bucket of shoe polishing supplies and took a seat meekly in the corner, where several pairs of servants’ shoes were piled.
“Toby never returned?” he asked no one in particular as he stared at the boy, his heart sinking so far it felt like it would dissolve into dust.
“No,” Mrs. Harris replied unkindly. “Neither did that Emma. If the two were older, I’d bet my best brooch they eloped.”
“They were only six or seven,” Joe reminded her.
“Doesn’t mean they aren’t old enough to get fool ideas in their heads and to run off,” Martha commented with a sneer.
Joe felt sick. He should have done more to look for Toby and Emma rather than going home to Leeds. He should have stayed in London to work things out with Alistair. Guilt assailed him from all sides. He couldn’t have made the right move if he’d had an angel standing on his shoulder, telling him what he should do every step of the way.
He stood suddenly, leaving his half-empty teacup on the table. He had to do something. Anything. Any action at all to figure out what had happened to Toby and Emma, and to Lily. Anything that might help him heal the rift he’d caused between him and Alistair, and hopefully before Alistair went through with a marriage that was, apparently, already in the works.
Without a word to the others, he left the servants’ hall, taking the stairs to the ground floor two at a time, then striding through the halls of Eccles House until he reached the out of the way office where he and Alistair had experienced their first moments of passion together. If Alistair had managed to find the cryptic letter mentioning Adler and Brighton there, perhaps he could find more information.
To his surprise, the door was locked. He tried the handle twice, but it was definitely locked. Joe’s heart raced. A locked door was proof that something sinister was going on, as far as he was concerned. Especially if someone had discovered the office had been infiltrated the night of the ball. He only hoped that whoever had discovered the state of the office—which, admittedly, he and Alistair hadn't had the time to tidy up—didn’t know what had happened there. Either way, he wasn’t about to let a locked door stop him.
It only took minutes for him to head back downstairs to Mrs. Harris’s office. The housekeeper had keys to every room in the house tucked away in her desk. Fortunately for Joe, she was still in the servants’ hall, listening to Lucy and Martha speculate about Alistair’s upcoming wedding to Lady Matilda. There were advantages to working in a household where the servants were far laxer than they should have been. He was back upstairs, unlocking the office door, before anyone noticed.
The office seemed vastly different in the light of day than it had in the black of night when he and Alistair had been there. The small room was crowded with papers, books, and newspapers, none of which were arranged in any sort of order. Dust covered a few of the shelves, telling Joe that the maids didn’t clean the office regularly, if at all. That explained the slightly musty smell he had noticed the night of the ball. The room didn’t have an abandoned feeling, however. Quite the contrary. It felt like a room that was used often.
He strode around the desk, pushing a large chair aside so that he could study the documents on the desktop. At first glance, they looked like any business records. There was a ledger that held information about sales and transactions, profits and losses. More telegrams, similar to the one Alistair had showed him referencing Brighton and Adler, were stacked in a corner. Nothing held specific information, though. There wasn’t a trace of what merchandise was being delivered or sold, which sent a chill down Joe’s back. He had a horrible feeling he knew just what commodities Burbage—or whoever used the office, it might have been Lord Chisolm—was selling.
An odd, sick feeling filled Joe’s gut. He’d spent months assuming there was no way Burbage could be involved in something as trivial as one of his maids disappearing. He’d figured Burbage wouldn’t see Lily as a person and that she would, therefore, be beneath his notice. But Burbage—and his father—guarded their ass
ets zealously. The more Joe looked at things from the point of view of Burbage seeing Lily—and possibly the others—as an asset, the more likely it seemed that he could very well be involved. And he’d been serving the man for months.
Nothing on the desktop stood out to Joe, until he noticed a crisp slip of paper, a telegram, with that day’s date on the top. It simply read, “Thursday. Dock. 11:30.”
Joe held his breath. It was the most specific information he’d seen about whatever business dealings the owner of the office was up to. And with Toby and Emma missing, with Lily gone for months, he had a terrible feeling he knew what might take place at some London dock on Thursday. But which dock? London had hundreds.
That thought had just begun to slither down his back, giving him a chill, when Burbage stepped suddenly into the doorway. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Panic made Joe clumsy, and he knocked the ledger he’d been looking at to the floor. He met Burbage’s eyes, but there was no point in even attempting to explain his presence or his activity.
Burbage’s initial shock shifted into a wry grin, as though Joe were an insect specimen he was about to pin to a board. “You’re the one who was in here the other night, no doubt,” he said, stalking menacingly closer to Joe. “Thought you could catch me out at something? Servants are never satisfied with what they have,” he went on without Joe’s prompting. “Always trying to get more out of their betters.”
“You aren’t my better,” Joe said, standing straighter and squaring his shoulders.
Burbage laughed. “Of course, I am. You’re a pitiful country slob and a sodomite at that.”
Joe’s chest squeezed so hard the edges of his vision went black. How could Burbage possibly about him?
“Don’t look so surprised,” Burbage went on with a sneer. “It’s obvious, if one knows how to look for the signs. The way you linger a little too long while undressing me, the way you study me out of the corner of your eye. And I’ve heard whispers from downstairs that you aren’t even remotely interested in the maids, no matter how blatantly they flirt.”
Acid filled Joe’s stomach at the idea of Burbage thinking he had even a shred of attraction for him. “You are mistaken,” he growled, hoping Burbage would take the statement as a whole and not just as it pertained to him.
“I am not,” Burbage said with absolute certainty. “I had a valet before you who was just as perverted and thought he could act on it.” A vicious, lopsided grin tugged at his mouth. “I believe the only employment he could find afterwards was servicing peculiar sailors down on the docks.”
Joe didn’t try to hide his disgust, though it was all for Burbage and not the unfortunate soul he’d driven to ruin.
But before he could say more, Burbage continued with, “Don’t think I didn’t see the way you and Farnham were ogling each other the night either. Farnham is a notorious pouf, in spite of this supposed liaison with my wife’s sister. I’ve known that much since university.”
Whatever confidence had been building in Joe flattened. Damn him, but Burbage was more observant than he seemed. “You’re wrong,” he said, knowing there wasn’t enough conviction in his words.
“I’m not,” Burbage said with too much confidence. “I despise men like you and Farnham. Sick bastards. The lot of you should be exterminated.”
“And crooked businessmen, like yourself, shouldn’t?” Joe asked, scrambling for a way to keep from being humiliated and also hoping to provoke Burbage into a confession of some sort.
Burbage merely laughed and shook his head. “So that’s what you’re after, is it? Some kind of proof that I’m engaged in untoward business? Well, you won’t find it. My business dealings are none of your concern.”
There was something sinister, something far less confident, in the way Burbage spoke than before. His eyes flashed with defensiveness, giving Joe the distinct impression that the man was hiding something. Something that would take place on Thursday at eleven thirty at an unspecified London dock.
But before Joe could think of how to approach the subject, Burbage took a breath, shifted his stance, and said, “I’ll give you twenty minutes to get out of my house. If you are not gone by then, never to darken this doorstep again, I will inform the police that you are an unrepentant sodomite.” Joe opened his mouth to protest, but Burbage went on with, “Furthermore, I understand that a hall boy went missing from this house a week or so ago. I will also inform the police that the poor lad ran away because you were buggering him at every chance you got.”
“It’s a lie,” Joe hissed, repulsed by the thought.
Burbage shrugged. “Whom do you think the police will believe? A gentleman or a queer valet?”
The truth was so bitter that it turned Joe’s stomach. He knew as well as Burbage whom they would believe. He had no choice at all but to take Burbage at his word. With nothing more than a look of seething hatred for the man, Joe turned and marched out of the room. He’d never known hate so potent, and he vowed he would bring an end to Burbage, if it was the last thing he ever did. But there was no point in firing those words at the bastard and no time.
He sprinted up to his garret room and packed his things as fast as he could. He wouldn’t put it past Burbage to call the police immediately instead of waiting twenty minutes. If he wanted to have any chance of putting Eccles House behind him, he had to get out.
The trouble was, he had nowhere to go once he was out. He fled Mayfair only to wander aimlessly through Westminster, for how long he wasn’t sure. The only friend he had in London was Alistair, and under the current circumstances, he wasn’t certain if he could turn to Alistair.
It wasn’t until he spotted the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in his wandering and headed toward The City that he realized there was somewhere else he could go. He could go where men like him went when they were in a tight spot.
With a seed of his confidence renewed, he marched on toward the heart of London and the offices of Dandie & Wirth.
Chapter 15
The moment Joe stepped through the door into the offices of Dandie & Wirth, Lionel Mercer raised his head from the paperwork on the desk in front of him, smiled broadly, and said, “The prodigal son returns.”
Joe blinked, freezing with his handle on the door as he shut it. “How did you know I was gone?” he asked, letting go and taking a few more steps into the heart of the room.
Lionel sent him a flat look, as if to ask, “Have you learned nothing about me?” as he stood and stepped out from behind the desk. His suit was expertly tailored as usual, with a lavender waistcoat that made the blue of his eyes stand out like beacons. The vaguely supernatural feelings Joe had had the first time he and Alistair had met Lionel returned.
“Is that Joe Logan?” David Wirth’s voice sounded from the adjacent office, moments before he strode into the front room.
“It is,” Lionel answered, approaching Joe and taking his satchel from his shoulder. “Right on schedule.”
Wirth nodded and moved in to shake Joe’s hand as Lionel stepped away with his satchel, crossing to rest it on one of the sofas, then moving on to the stove to make tea, as if Joe had entered a home instead of a place of business.
“I thought you would show up here eventually,” Wirth said with a sympathetic smile.
“And why is that?” Joe asked, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. He hadn’t known he would turn to Dandie & Wirth until half an hour ago.
Wirth shrugged, then stepped back to sit on the edge of Lionel’s desk. “Alistair told me everything.”
A chill passed down Joe’s spine, one that was sharp with jealousy. He fought to hide his emotions, but feared it was impossible to hide anything from Wirth and Lionel. “You saw him?” he asked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers, since he didn’t know what else to do with them.
“At The Chameleon Club.” Wirth nodded again. “Last week. He said he was there because he’d told his family he would be out of town for a few days.
It only took one glass of port to get the real story out of him, though.”
Wirth grinned sympathetically. The man was as dark as Lionel was luminescent, but just as perceptive. Where Lionel had the effect of an avenging angel who could force confessions from a stone, Wirth radiated brotherly compassion and confidence. His soothing smile put Joe at ease. So much so that he stepped to the closest sofa and slumped to sit against its back.
“I was an ass to leave the way I did,” he said, rubbing a hand over his tired face and feeling as though he was putting down a burden he’d carried for a week. “I know he was just trying to be helpful.”
“But he could have done it in a less aristocratic way,” Wirth finished the thought for him, arching one of his dark brows.
Joe eyed him with consideration. “You’re not a nob, are you? I mean, you have a certain poshness about you, but you don’t act like one of them.”
Wirth let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m as middle-class as they come. My father was a solicitor, and his father before him. My mother was a school teacher.” He nodded to Lionel. “Lionel there’s the nob in this operation.”
“Leave my nob out of this,” Lionel said with a charmingly lopsided grin as he brought a cup of tea to Joe. “It’s on sabbatical at the moment anyhow.” He handed Joe the tea—which was prepared exactly the way Joe liked it—then went on with, “And I’m not aristocracy, just gentry, and a younger son at that.”
“So really, you’re nothing,” Wirth teased him with a grin that was wry enough to make Joe wonder if there was something between the two men.
“Honey, I am everything,” Lionel replied with an equally flirty flicker of one perfect eyebrow, then moved to sit on the arm of the sofa beside Joe.
