She was boarding the London coach.
Jane caught up with her before she reached the door and handed her the folded shawl. “For your journey,” she said.
“But—”
“I insist,” Jane said. “It would bring me great pleasure to think of you holding the new babe with this warming both of you. My, er, late husband was a merchant, and I have others similar to this at home.”
“Hurry along now,” the innkeeper said. “Leaving in moments.”
The woman quickly pulled off the knitted brown wool draping her. “Take this then, with my great thanks. Made it myself I did.” She curtsied. “And may your pretty daughter give you many happy grandbabes.”
Jane swallowed tears and slipped back into the corner with Jenny.
“I’m sorry,” Jenny whispered.
Her insides shook. She pulled the brown knit close. It smelled faintly of rosewater.
“Don’t be. It’s just as well.”
She was embarking on a criminal enterprise. It was time to let go of the sentimentalities of the past.
She stroked the brown shawl, examining the stitches. “The work here is very good. We’ve made a good bargain. It was cold on the water yesterday. This will be much warmer.”
Jenny nodded, her face a pasty oval. The girl had reluctantly boarded Davy’s skiff, only because the other option was to stay behind. And now they’d be sailing on a larger ship.
“I’ve been back and forth to Ireland many times with no trouble,” Jane said. “And I’ve heard that the Channel packets are very clean and comfortable.” She patted Jenny’s hand. “And if your stomach gets queasy, I’ll show you some tricks that will help.”
Jenny sighed. “How long ’til we reach London?”
“Days. How many will depend on the wind.” And she wasn’t sure if it would be better to arrive in London earlier or later. By now, Kincaid knew she had left, and knowing him, he was up and out and on her trail. And perhaps he’d tear his wound open again and be laid up again for a while.
Though she didn’t wish the man any ill, truly she didn’t.
“They’ll look for the cart and the horse,” Jenny said.
“And not find it for several more days.” Davy had promised that.
“They’ll be checking the inns,” Jenny said, “but maybe not the docks.”
“With luck. And then we must find a place to stay when we arrive in London.” Thanks to Perry, they had enough money for a few nights’ lodging.
Jenny nodded. “I’ve been thinking on that and I know just the place.”
* * *
The nondescript terraced house at Number 18, Gerrard Street, stood shoulder to shoulder with its neighbors, all looking glum on this rainy afternoon. As planned, Jane and Jenny continued on past to the junction, where they turned.
Proceeding too far would put them on a street perhaps less than safe for a respectable mother and her daughter walking alone, traveling cases in hand. They soon turned into a narrow mews and found their way through the house’s back gate to the servants’ entrance.
How far she had fallen. Though they’d had exceptionally fair winds and made good speed, she’d still had much time for thinking in the days and nights aboard the packet boat. Her chances of being tried as a thief and transported—or worse, hanged—grew exponentially with each passing day.
She squared her shoulders. She must be grateful and just as wily as the man she’d robbed. The Earl of Shaldon had not found out about her theft yet. Or if he had, he was biding his time before pouncing.
Jenny pounded the door rather loudly. “Mr. Lewis is hard of hearing,” she explained.
An older man in simple workman’s attire appeared and squinted at them.
“Who is it, then?” asked a small woman peering around him, the lace on her mob cap fluttering.
“Jenny?” The man’s face broke into a gap-toothed smile. “Well, if it ain’t our Jenny. And I thought you were lady’s maid to a countess.”
“I am, but I’m serving Lady Jane Montfort here for a time.”
“That is true,” Jane said. “May we enter, Mr. Lewis?”
He pulled the door wide and scooped up their bags one-handed, while the older lady ushered them into the kitchen.
Mr. Lewis introduced her as his wife. “Our little Jenny has done well for herself,” he told his wife, “though I’m wondering why she’s appeared on our doorstep with her lady and is entering through the kitchen door.”
This came with another smile that eased Jane’s nerves. Jenny had promised she’d be welcomed at this house, which belonged to Lady Steven Hackwell. Jane was acquainted with the warmhearted lady, an eccentric, a bluestocking, and a not entirely acceptable member of the ton. Before her marriage, the former Annabelle Harris had filled this home with children like Jenny.
Her own presence here, if known, would likely bring more gossip down on Lady Hackwell. She had business to see to, and an important call to make, but she mustn’t stay long.
“We’re but seeking a few night’s shelter,” Jane said. “With the crush of the coronation, the inns and hotels are filled. I’m acquainted with Lady Hackwell and will send her a note tonight. Jenny suggested the lady wouldn’t mind our presence. I do have a friend I may lodge with when she returns to town in a few days.”
There. That was the story they’d prepared, and one the Lewises readily accepted.
They ushered her to a bedchamber and served her a warm meal on a dinner tray, while Jenny helped her out of her dress and into one of Lady Hackwell’s old dressing gowns, and brought her ink and paper.
Later, Jenny slipped out to see to the letters to Lady Hackwell, Jane’s dear friend, Barton, and Madame La Fanelle.
When the girl had left, Jane picked up the two rolling pins she’d taken from the Gorse Point Cottage kitchen and examined them. Both were undamaged. The striped tube she set aside as a gift for Mrs. Lewis. She placed the gold painted one carefully on the fireplace mantle, bracing it with a heavy candle holder, and then went to the chair by the dead fireplace and waited.
* * *
Shaldon gazed out of the window of the dark coach, watching a stream of porters and maids and ladies entering and leaving the busy modiste’s shop.
“You were up all last night,” Kincaid said. “Let me take this watch, and you get some rest.”
It had been little more than twenty-four hours since he’d received confirmation of Lady Jane’s disappearance, just as his daughter and her new husband were departing St. George’s for their wedding breakfast.
He’d left that celebration early.
Where had Lady Jane Montfort gone?
“What of the Duque’s movements?” he asked.
“The usual. Balls, gaming hells, and brothels. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Fear gnawed in his stomach. He’d sent men to all of Jane’s London acquaintances, as well as to the home of her only relative, her cousin, Lord Cheswick. No one had seen Lady Jane or the maid, Jenny, who’d also gone missing.
Where the devil was Jane?
She’d stirred his suspicions and he’d ignored them. He’d misjudged her.
The temptation to touch her, to test her reactions, to seduce her if she would let him, had overwhelmed him. He’d pushed her too hard. He’d frightened her away. She’d bolted, as Kincaid had predicted, and now she might be in danger.
“That man of the Duque’s, the Major, arrived back in town,” Kincaid said. “Might have been him behind the attack on Boyd. Follow him, and we’ll find the painting.”
Boyd MacEwen and his men escorting the painting to Cransdall had been set upon on the road; one had been killed, the rest wounded. The attackers—and the painting—had vanished.
Had the Duque’s man taken Jane also?
He couldn’t think about the painting with Jane missing. In any case, no doubt, the Duque had taken it.
“Remember that Lady Jane was seen on the London stage line,” Kincaid said, reading his thoughts.
&n
bsp; “A sighting based on a shawl.”
“A very distinctive and valuable shawl. Ewan says it was her. By now, she’s arrived here. I’ve men checking all the inns and her last lodgings, but never you fear; your lady will find her way to her old friend, Barton, soon enough.”
Kincaid’s smug certainty grated. “Or perhaps she’ll seek out her new friend, Madame La Fanelle.” He glanced at Kincaid and caught a flash of anger in his longtime acquaintance’s face. “And there’s the lovely Madame as we speak, boarding a hackney with an armful of dresses. She’s a wealthy tradeswoman now and as attractive as when you first met her in France. Perhaps you should follow her.”
“I’d rather take men and comb every furlong of the London road.” Kincaid growled. “No point in following Marie. Unless a few gold crowns dropped into her bag, she’d not rouse herself for the intrigue. Barton’s the one that will lead us to your missing lady. Providing the lady and maid are not lying beside that London road somewhere.”
Shaldon gritted his teeth against a rising panic. “She’s here.” He had to believe it. It had to be true. “What the hell did I miss?”
“You were distracted by sudden lust.”
The lust hadn’t been sudden—it had crept up on him, from the moment he’d seen her at the Hackwells’ ball earlier that year.
Hell, he’d noticed her before, many years ago when he’d visited her father in Kent. She’d been a bright, beautiful, cheerful young girl with flattering stars in her eyes, so of course he’d noticed her, even though he’d been too old, too married, and a father to boot.
When next they’d met at the Hackwells’, her beauty had matured, her cheerfulness had sobered, and her brightness had clouded to an opaque mystery that intrigued him. She was no longer young, but also no longer too young for him.
She’d lived quietly after her father’s death and only returned fully to London society in the last year. What had happened to her in those intervening years?
The only one likely to know was her cousin, Cheswick.
He must speak to the man himself.
Chapter 7
Shaldon paced the drawing room of the Earl of Cheswick’s small townhouse on an older street of Mayfair. Faded but comfortable furnishings filled a room strewn with evidence of family life, including books, games, and an embroidery bag. Cheswick was known to be reclusive and bookish. He and his lady were seldom seen at society events.
After an impolitely long interval, the porter returned and escorted him up to another room, the home’s library. Books crammed every shelf and nook. Cheswick rose from behind a desk piled with newsprints and journals and came around to shake hands.
A dour-faced man of medium height with a physique gone to middle-aged pudginess, Cheswick had been on course for an academic life at Oxford when Jane’s father dropped dead shortly after his son’s murder. Cheswick had wanted his title even less than Shaldon had desired his own. But here they were.
“I assume you have come to inquire about Lady Jane,” Cheswick said. “I’m sorry she’s inconvenienced you. Have you uncovered her whereabouts?”
A slow burn churned within him. Cheswick’s polite concern was more about Shaldon’s discomfort, not the lady’s absence.
“I have not,” he said. “And it occurred to me that you might be able to give me more insight as to where to start looking.”
Cheswick blinked. A sheen of dampness formed on his brow.
Technically, Cheswick’s was the older title. He could tell Shaldon to go to the devil if he wished. But he was not, as Shaldon had suspected, a man inclined to direct confrontation.
Cheswick crossed his leg. “Lady Jane is the independent sort.”
“Is that why you never insisted she marry?”
He pulled a face. “One does not insist much with Jane.”
That was a trait he hadn’t seen in the lady.
“Is that why you didn’t marry her yourself? When her father died, everyone thought a marriage between the two of you would be likely.”
Cheswick’s lips pressed together, his distaste evident.
Shaldon’s stomach clenched but he kept his fists unfurled, waiting.
“She was too young. We didn’t suit. How will this topic help you to find her whereabouts?”
“I should like to determine her state of mind. I’m concerned for her.”
“She has done this sort of thing before. She will turn up, perhaps in Ireland. She has a cottage there and visits it from time to time.”
“She has property?”
Cheswick waved a hand. “It’s a house and garden only. No tenants attached and much in need of repairs, I fear. I transferred it to her name when she reached her majority. In the last few years, she’s spent little time there and neglected its upkeep. It wouldn’t surprise me, though, if she traveled there.”
With no clothing and no word to her friends?
“She disappeared for some time after her father’s death. Is that where she went?”
Cheswick tapped a finger on the chair arm. “Yes.”
Some part of that answer had been a lie.
“She was grieving precipitously.” Cheswick’s eyes narrowed. “Her brother’s death was especially painful. You will recall his unexpected passing, since you were present.”
Since you were present.
A trickle of perspiration rolled down Shaldon’s back, under his shirt and coats. Since the death was your fault. The unspoken words batted around in his head, starting an ache that reached to his neck.
Jane had gone to Ireland after her father’s death. What had she done there? The country was always awash in rebellion and betrayal. Had she been involved?
What had he missed about Jane?
“Her activities there were of no concern to the Crown, if that is what you were wondering,” Cheswick said.
He reached for calm, composing his face back into a careful mask. “It was said that she’d been left a comfortable income, yet she lives very frugally.”
Cheswick’s jaw firmed. “A blunt enough comment, Shaldon, and let me be equally blunt. I’ve not embezzled, stolen, or otherwise squandered my cousin’s inheritance. If you’d like to know why she lives frugally, you must ask her.”
“When I find her.”
Cheswick pushed to his feet. “Now, I have an engagement to see to. I shall send word to you immediately if Jane contacts me.”
“Please do so, and let me know where she is.”
Cheswick’s lips firmed. “I will, if she allows it.”
Thunderstruck, Shaldon rose and followed the man.
If she allows it. Cheswick would preserve Lady Jane’s secrets—was keeping her secrets, he was sure of it.
They must put a man to watch Cheswick also.
* * *
It was nearing midnight when Jenny scratched at Lady Jane’s bedchamber door. She opened it and ushered in the dark-haired Madame Marie La Fanelle. Petite and still beautiful, Madame had supposedly escaped France as a young woman just in time to dodge the guillotine.
Madame clutched her hands and examined Jane from head to toe. “Safe travels?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The French woman’s gaze ran over Jane’s flannel dressing gown again and she smiled. “I should have brought night clothes as well as the dresses I have made up for you.”
Jane shook her head. She would have to pay Madame later for those dresses commissioned for the coronation and never worn. She hoped the debt would keep. “Thank you for coming. Barton surely would have been followed.”
“She is hard at work, as are all of the girls.” She kissed her fingers and flung them out. “Merci, King George, from the bottom of my heart.”
Jane laughed along with her. Away from her regular customers, Madame was good company.
Upon their first meeting, Madame and Barton had come to an immediate mutual respect. Individually, each woman was an excellent designer, but together they were exceptional.
“I should like to come and help
you,” Jane said. “I ply a good needle.”
“Non.” Madame shook her head. “I prefer you out in the highest society wearing our gowns.
“I fear I may not be able to afford them.”
“My dear Lady Jane, whether you pay us or not, we shall be offended if you let anyone else dress you. It is a pity you missed the coronation and the grandest fêtes, but the parties have not ended, and your new gowns are still hanging in the shop. Barton cried when you were not here to wear them.”
Jane laughed at the picture of Barton crying. Her former lady’s maid had a mountain of good sense and very little sentimentality.
“I cannot pay you for the gowns, unless…” She eased in a breath. “I would ask for your help, Madame.”
“In what way?”
“Once you mentioned an elderly cousin who handled…antiquities and art.”
Madame’s dark gaze became hooded, her manner more careful. “And?”
“And you said that he’d been primarily an artist before escaping the Terror.”
Madame nodded.
“Will he help me? Privately? I shall pay a handsome commission, once I am able.”
“And if you are not able?”
If she were not able, she would be dead, or locked in the Tower.
She must not think about that. Either result would mean she’d failed the most important person in her life.
“I know there are very few sure things in this life, but I believe I have found one.”
Madame waited.
“I’ve come into possession of a valuable painting. I should like to find a buyer for it.”
“Quietly, I surmise.”
Jane nodded, her pulse quickening. Yes, she would sell the painting quietly, just as quietly as she had slid into this criminal pursuit.
“You must know, my cousin, Guignard, is also skilled in copying such art.”
“Yes, and that is a consideration also. The work has been copied once already, but I know I have the genuine article.” She went to the mantel and retrieved the gold-painted tube. “I’m afraid it has suffered much abuse.”
Avenging the Earl’s Lady: Book Five, Sons of the Spy Lord Page 6
