by Aileen Fish
“Well, what do you suggest I write in my reply?”
A woman stepped forward. Cookie. She was likely the person to blame for his cold breakfast.
He encouraged her with a nod.
“I would tell her you were in conference all night with your band o’ spies, that you are closin’ in, like.” Cookie opened her mouth again, then shut it tight.
“Go on. I insist.”
Mary, the maid to her right stepped on her toe, but brave Cookie shook her off.
“I would give ‘er the thumb to the nose, sir.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I would put on all my red finery and gad about town in them all day, no matter how many folks laugh at me.”
“You would?”
Cookie blushed. “Oh, no sir. I would never!”
North laughed. “That’s all right, Cookie. I think it is a fine idea. I like that a bit better than the spy idea.” That band of spies was a little too close to home. In fact, he was hoping to have a few reports before his friends arrived that evening. The tables had turned from the night before. He was now mindful of keeping his friends distracted instead of the other way ‘round. If he failed to do so, Ash might get the daft notion to relieve him of his writer—or rather, his duty.
His staff fidgeted and stole glances at one another. Clearly, they were uncomfortable having him in their quarters.
“You know, I do expect perfect loyalty in my staff.”
“Yes, my lord, we are aware,” Callister said.
“I expect there are some who would come with bribery to learn anything they can from you.”
From the way a few people looked away, he suspected it had already happened.
“I know you are a loyal bunch. I am sure every seamstress in town was happy to spread the news of my new...wardrobe.” He walked the line, inspecting his troops, so to speak. “If...no, when...anyone tries to bribe you, I want you to do two things.”
“What is that, my lord?”
“I want you to remember that they may well have been sent by The Scarlet Plumiere.”
A dozen white mob caps nodded slowly. They would unite in his defense if they believed there was an enemy to thwart. They would all be outraged the next time The Scarlet Plumiere exposed too much information to all and sundry.
“And what else would you have us do, my lord?” Callister also seemed pleased with the sudden unity in his own ranks.
“I want you to report to me how much you were offered and I shall double it.”
“Cor!” Sarah’s eyes bulged.
“And trying to bribe each other does not count.”
Sarah frowned. “Oh, no, sir.” Then her brows rose in understanding. “Oh! No, sir!”
North turned to his butler. “Callister?”
“My lord?”
“I apologize for calling you a traitor last evening. I’m sure if my mother were here, she would have clouted my ears on your behalf.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“And Cookie?”
“Yes, my lord?”
“An early luncheon, if you please.”
The round woman laughed. “Of course, my lord.”
“Now, if you will excuse me, I have a letter to write.”
Chapter 5
As it turned out, that letter took the better part of the day to compose.
By noon he had been called upon by three Bow Street runners offering their services for various, but exorbitant sums. None were happy to be turned away. In fact, the last man was not the type to take no for an answer. He seated himself before North’s desk without invitation and went on listing his successful missions for both the crown and the common man.
“I beg your pardon, what was your name?” North asked politely—too politely, but the man remained oblivious.
“Mister Wilbur T. Franklin at your service, your lordship. Now, as I was saying—”
“Franklin, are you by chance familiar with the Earl of Ashmoore?”
The man’s mouth snapped shut and his eyes widened. He nodded. He waited.
North smiled pleasantly and took a sip of his tepid tea. Took another. Cleared his throat. Set down his cup.
“I only ask—Franklin is it? I only ask because Lord Ashmoore is expected at any moment. And you happen to be sitting in the chair he favors.”
The man’s rump shot up off the seat as if fired from a canon. Then he wheeled, arse first, toward the door, mumbling the word ‘appointment’.
North went on as if he hadn’t noticed. “He prefers to keep his back to the wall. I am sure you understand.”
Wilbur T. Franklin swung the study door wide, peeked his red face toward the front of the house, then scurried down the hall in the opposite direction. Callister ran—yes, actually ran—past the opening in close pursuit, no doubt to ensure the Bow Street Runner was assisted in his exit. North was half tempted to follow just to watch, but he abstained, vowing to lure the details out of his butler at the first chance.
It was rather poor form to use Ash’s name as a threat, but the earl would hardly mind. He rather enjoyed his dark reputation as the most lethal man of the aristocracy. It ensured he was left in peace. North was also given a wide berth, as it were, but whether it was due to his association with Ashmoore or his own mysterious reputation, he could not say. That this Franklin fellow seemed oblivious of both bothered him slightly, but he would rather suffer oblivious buffoons than to have all of London learn the details of those missing years in France.
While he awaited Ash’s arrival, he was content to allow his mind to wander into more pleasant arenas, such as the possible form and figure of a certain writer. However, his imagination functioned so well that by the time his friend made an appearance, he was nearly out of his mind with determination to find the woman before night could fall.
Ash stopped in the doorway, but North felt compelled to finish walking the length of the windows before turning to his friend.
“That bad?” Ash waited.
North nodded to the chair Franklin had recently vacated and forced himself behind his desk once more.
“It is a sickness now. I spend every moment perusing the lists we compiled, conjuring up this image, you see. One particular form seems to push the rest aside and I am afraid I will be inconsolable if she does not at least resemble that image.”
“Voluptuous?” None but Ash could ask such a thing and remain objective.
“Quite.”
“Beautiful?”
“Of course.” North began to feel like a silly boy.
“Dark or light?”
“Dark, I think.”
“Tall or short?”
“Tall. Definitely tall.”
Ash frowned for a moment, and when he looked up, North expected the man might just spit out the true identity of The Scarlet Plumiere then and there.
“That’s it then. We must convince ourselves she is a flat-chested, plain woman. Short, and blond. If we can do that, we will not be disappointed. The question is, can we do it?”
That’s how it had always been with the four of them. It had always been ‘we’.
North closed his eyes and gave it a go.
The small, less-than-fairly endowed woman was not an entirely unpleasant package. After all, she possessed a quick wit. And she must be blessed with a dazzling smile, a smile sculpted from genuine laughter.
“At least you have stopped pouting,” Ash interrupted.
“I do not pout.”
“No. You do not. At least not lately.” Ash looked away, then down at his hands.
North could not remember a moment of awkward silence between them. Even in France, when horror lay at their feet and painted their hands red, they had always been at ease with each other. Surely, with just the two of them in the study, Ash would feel comfortable discussing anything. The fact that he did not filled North with dread.
“Now who’s pouting?” North teased, but sat back and braced his hands on the arms of his chair.
<
br /> Ash continued to look at his hands. “I came early this morning because you and I have things to discuss—things that do not concern Stan and Harcourt.” Finally, he looked North in the eye.
The dread in his chest turned to fire. Some things he would never discuss. Some things Ash would never discuss. They had an agreement.
“You are thinking of France. Do not.” Ash shook his head vigorously.
North expelled a breath and waited. The fire in his chest took a moment to smother, but he managed it. Then for good measure, he imagined pouring cold water on the ashes, just in case.
“In spite of how much I drank last night,” his friend began, “I still remember the conversation.”
“As do I.” North swallowed and tried not to imagine his writer being tugged from his grasp. Of course he could hardly be in love with a woman he’d never met, but he was rather fond of his new sense of hope—a sense he might not have known had she not stirred up his soul. And hope seemed as worthy a mast as any to which to tie himself.
“My lot was drawn,” Ash said.
“No.”
“No? You deny that my lot was drawn?”
“Yes. I mean, no.” Breathe. “Of course your lot was drawn, but it should not have been. There should never have been a lottery in the first place. It was my idea. It is my responsibility to see it through.”
Ash stood abruptly and walked to the window, wrapping his fist in his hair, then smoothing his unruly locks back into place. He turned and faced North across the room—across a battlefield of sorts. But North could not allow his friend to win this one. The undefeatable Earl of Ashmoore must be defeated! And just this once, North prayed he might be the man to do it.
“I cannot allow you to make such a sacrifice for me.” Ash squared his shoulders, as prepared for battle as he was, it seemed.
“I am not doing it for you, if that helps.” North decided to take a tip from Wilbur T. Franklin and refuse to take no for an answer. “I am doing it for myself. It is time I settled anyway, and with whom better to settle down than a woman who intrigues me?”
“I will not allow—”
“See here,” North got to his feet. “I am going to find this woman. If God is merciful, I am going to find her today. You can either help me, as a true friend would do, or you can fight me. But understand this—you will not take my writer from me!” Dear lord! He had gone and said it aloud! With his words ringing in his ears, he grimaced at how childish he had sounded.
“Someone’s going to fight the Earl of Ashmoore? Do tell.” Harcourt stood in the doorway that had been closed a moment before. Stanley strained to see around him, then gave up and shoved the Marquis out of his way.
“Pardon me, Harcourt, but I would like a front row seat for this myself.” Stan ungraciously flung himself into a chair and waited.
North shut his eyes and willed them all to go away. The room stilled. When he checked to see if his wish had been granted, he found Stan and Harcourt watching Ash, who had turned to face the window. But the man’s shoulders were shaking. Then the man began to sob.
At least he would have thought his friend was sobbing if he did not know the Earl of Ashmoore so bloody well.
Stan looked to North. “What is the matter with him?”
Harcourt looked equally concerned.
“Nothing is the matter with the son of a bitch. He is laughing. At me.”
Ash apparently took that statement as an invitation to vent any and all emotion he might have been suppressing for the last decade. He whooped. He hollered. He drenched his face with tears.
Callister came to the doorway. “I beg your pardon, my lord. Should I fetch a doctor for His Lordship?”
“You see, Ashmoore? You have upset my staff. I insist you control yourself.”
“Ashmoore lost control of himself? Never!” Stanley turned to their dark friend. “What gives, old boy? You must let us in on the joke.”
The ever-decorous earl finally folded his legs beneath him and sat upon the floor. Callister appeared at his side, offering a towel with which Ash first dried his face then blew his nose.
“Shall you tell them, or shall I?” Ash asked ominously.
“Oh, by all means.” North made a grand gesture and dropped into his chair, prepared to lose all respect of his fellows.
“It seems North has fallen madly—” He look at North. “Vehemently?”
“Indeed.” He’d be damned if he’d try to explain hope to the jackal now.
Ash gave a nod. “Vehemently then...in love with The Scarlet Plumiere, sight unseen.”
Harcourt frowned. “Amusing, yes. But enough to throw you into fits?”
“Oh, I am not amused. I am relieved. North did not throw himself on the sword for me after all. It seems our Earl of Northwick was not completely honest with us last evening, were you old chum?”
“Apparently not,” North murmured.
“More secrets, North?” Stanley tisked.
North tried distraction. “It occurs to me, Ashmoore, that your detecting skills might be put to better use today—”
“Shut up, North. Ashmoore was about to tell us something. Go ahead, Ash.” Harcourt waved a royal hand of permission.
Ash gave Harcourt a nod, then continued. “He never intended to allow anyone else’s name to be drawn, did you old boy?”
“Of course I did. In the beginning.”
“And when did you change your mind? When Germaine spoke up?” Ash stood and brushed imaginary dust from his trousers, then sought a seat with his back to a wall.
“No.”
“When Strothsbury offered one of his horses?” Stan grinned.
“No.”
Harcourt frowned. “Well, you could not possibly have done it to keep from giving that thousand pounds away.”
North’s face grew uncomfortably hot before he opened his mouth to confess.
“If you must know, it was right after Landover donated his Scottish property.”
A few moments later, Callister sent for four dry towels.
~*~
Over dinner, Stan made his report.
“The owner of The Capital Journal is a hen-pecked man by the name of Malbury. He is a minor baronet. Lady Malbury is said to run the establishment, but only in the afternoons. Her mornings are apparently spent in the parlors of the gentry, collecting gossip for various scandal sheets that are printed between editions of The Journal. She was accused once of being The Plumiere, but she denied it, of course. As far as I have learned, no one suspects her now.
“Whose houses does she frequent? Do you know?” North speared a beet with his knife. The mystery gave him an appetite he had not known in years.
“Everyone’s.”
“Everyone’s?” That was hardly helpful.
“I beg your pardon. She frequents only those households in which ladies reside.”
“Well, thank you, Stanley. That narrows it down a little.” Harcourt snorted.
“My driver spoke with her driver. She visits different ladies each day. None of them twice in a week.”
“Does she have a daughter?” Ash was back to his sober self. Not a trace of a laugh line on his tan face.
“Two sons who fight over who will inherit the business. No daughters.”
North was relieved. There was still a good chance she was a member of the ton.
“We should assign three men to the building. One to follow anyone suspicious. One to report to us. One to stay on the building.” North plotted and ate at the same pace, shoveling food into his mouth as quickly as he could empty it.
“Already done.” Stanley, too, was eating like a starved man. “And Malbury’s driver was happy to join my employ.”
“Have you written your response yet?” Harcourt studied a roll as if he could not detect a way inside it.
“Not yet. I have written it in my mind a hundred times of course.”
“Excellent.” Harcourt ripped open the roll and buttered it generously. “I have an idea.”<
br />
Chapter 6
The Capital Journal, February 5, Morning edition, Personal advertisements
To The SP from Mr. Lott
If the quarry is found not to be marriageable in some way (say, she is already “taken,” so to speak) then the appropriate thing to do would be to murder this husband whose failure to control his...chattel...has resulted in these works of fiction. Thus another might take up the reins, or the whip, so to speak.
I do pray this is not the case, as I am more than willing to woo and win you in a traditional manner. But rest assured, I will stand by my word as I gave it to my fellows.
Oh, but The Scarlet Plumiere was furious. There had been nothing in the evening edition, and now she had choked on insults for breakfast!
“Stella!”
Though she had never been introduced to the Earl of Northwick, she had been led to believe he was one of the few men of the ton whose honor was without question. Since she had entered society years before, she had listened for his name. But alas, he had been so rarely the subject of conversation, her suspicions should have been roused long before.
Of course, he had never been betrothed before. And he was not betrothed now, admonished a little angel in her ear, but she was in no mood to be listening to angels. She would send a note to Lady Malbury by the usual means and have the man investigated on the morrow. But her response to his insults could not wait.
“En guarde, Mr. Lott. If you have got skeletons in your closet, they will not remain for long!”
A presence behind her made her jump. It was Stella. She did not look as though she had heard her little monologue, but merely waited to hear why she’d been summoned.
“I have an errand to attend to. Please make me presentable.” The lad who usually picked up her letters for The Journal would not come around until it was dark again. The staff must never know her alternate persona, so she could not very well send one of them.
“An errand? Outside the house?” Stella’s hand froze as she reached for the brush.
“Of course. I am not a prisoner here.”
“Of course not, my lady.” Stella looked doubtful, but picked up the brush and set herself to her task.
