by Gaelen Foley
Connor nodded.
Trumbull sat back down slowly. “If this is true, and they were killed under my very nose, then I am thrice shamed, and in no wise deserve the post.”
“Nonsense,” Maggie said gently. Leaning forward, she laid a hand on his arm, which startled him. Her gaze teemed with kind reassurance. “Even Bow Street has failed to find the answers, and you had no reason to suspect. Nothing is confirmed yet, Trumbull, so, please, do not trouble yourself so. It may prove that the first and second dukes’ deaths were indeed the accidents they seemed. We simply aren’t sure yet.”
“Maybe even Richard’s crash, too,” Connor added. “If the truth proves otherwise”—he shrugged—“there is no way you could have known.”
“But it would put both our minds at ease if you were there at Amberley House once more, only now, alerted to whatever mischief is afoot.”
“However, it could be dangerous,” Connor warned. “That is why I dare not marry Lady Margaret until this threat is removed. Given your advanced years, sir, if you do not wish to get involved, I would thoroughly understand—”
“Oh, to be sure, Your Grace, I will be there.” Trumbull lifted his chin and stood tall once more, rising creakily from his cozy couch, ready for duty. His dejection faded as he straightened his shoulders and looked at them with flinty determination. “When would you like me to begin?”
* * *
“I’m very proud of you,” Maggie told her handsome fiancé as they walked back out into the sunshine a short while later. “You quite impressed me in there.”
“Me?” Connor glanced at her in surprise, then opened the little garden gate for her at the end of the flagstone path. “You’re the one who charmed him.”
“Come, it is a rare man, let alone a duke, who would have the humility—and the integrity—to apologize to a servant.”
“Trumbull deserved it.” He followed her out and pulled the gate shut behind him. “I’m glad you got him back for me.”
“Me too.” Maggie smiled at him as they headed toward their two parked carriages. “We’ll need an expert to get that house of yours back in order after you turned it into an army camp.”
“At least my aunts will be happy now,” he said, but his brief grin faded. “We’ve got to track this poor Saffie girl down as soon as possible and find out the name of her dragoon. If she’s still alive.”
Maggie froze. “You think he might’ve killed her?”
His glance was grim but matter-of-fact, and the dark realization promptly sank into her mind.
“Of course,” she murmured to herself. “If the scullery maid knows what really happened, then she could lay information against our dragoon and send him to the gallows.”
Connor gave a taut nod. “Exactly. We need her address.”
“I’ll fetch the servant records.” Maggie strode ahead to Connor’s town coach, parked alongside the sleepy dirt road ahead of the carriage that Edward had lent her for her “errands” today.
Nestor and Will leaned against the glossy black side of Connor’s town coach, chatting with Penelope, while Hubert, Delia’s usual coachman, sat atop the driver’s box of the second carriage, waiting for Maggie.
All the Birdwell servants were still in mutiny toward Delia after what she’d done to Maggie in Hyde Park, so Hubert had been more than happy to drive her around today, and had promised her his discretion.
After much consideration, Maggie had told Edward but not Delia about Connor’s proposal. She’d told her trusted brother-in-law to expect a visit from the duke in due time so he could make his formal request for her hand.
Until that day came, Maggie had implored Edward to keep her big news quiet for now, so that Delia could not spoil it for her again.
Good old Edward, he’d agreed, and had even poured them both a glass of champagne so he could toast to her triumph. “Are you sure about this man?” had been his only question. Maggie had given a heartfelt yes and joyfully admitted that she was in love with their new neighbor.
Hearing that, Edward had gladly put his extra coach at her disposal for the day, assuming that her errands had to do with preliminary wedding planning.
In a sense, this was absolutely true. She should not have liked to lie to him.
But she saw no reason to tell him about the attempts on Connor’s life and this mystery they were determined to resolve, for protectiveness might have caused him to forbid her from involving herself in this.
With that, Maggie flipped the bound folio of household records open and whisked through the pages listing the employment details on each staff member.
“Here she is. Saphronia Diggs. She lives in Muggeridge Lane.” Maggie looked around at the others. “Does anyone know where that is?”
No one had heard of it, so Connor went back to ask Trumbull for directions, since he had said Saffie’s kin lived nearby. The butler came to the door, leaving the front window where he had been discreetly peeking out at them.
He soon pointed them in the right direction, but warned that Muggeridge Lane was a ramshackle place, peopled by the rugged bruisers who made their living doing backbreaking labor at the mill and nearby brickyard.
“Maybe we should part ways here,” Connor said as he ran his hand quickly over his hair to smooth it down, then pulled his top hat on.
“Nonsense. I shall be perfectly safe with you there, Major. Besides, Trumbull said it’s right by Sadler’s Wells theater; how dangerous can it really be? And once more, you’ll most likely need me,” Maggie reminded him.
“She’s right, sir,” Will spoke up. “Saffie was afraid of you even before you fired her.”
“You know her?” Maggie asked the skinny lad.
Will nodded. “She was a sweet girl. I felt sorry for her, the way the others picked on her. Half the time she didn’t even know they were making fun of her. I wanted to punch them,” Will mumbled, “but I didn’t.”
“See?” Connor said in amusement. “Will can help me get her to talk.”
Maggie cocked a fist on her hip. “Your Grace, if you were a frightened girl, would you sooner trust a scowling, oversized duke and two ex-soldiers, or a lady and her maid?”
One corner of his handsome mouth quirked upward. “Point taken.”
“Good, for after everything she’s probably been through with this blackguard…”
“If she’s even alive,” Connor said, and Will blanched.
“You think he might’ve killed her?” the lad cried.
“What if he’s there?” Nestor interjected, silencing them all for a moment.
Maggie and Penelope glanced at each other; the maid looked a trifle worried at being included in this bad business.
“Then I’ll shoot him,” Connor said blandly. “You ladies can look away. If you still insist on coming, that is.”
“You’re armed?” Maggie asked.
“Always,” Connor said, and behind him, Will nodded emphatically, glancing at the major.
“Shall we?” Nestor asked, opening the coach door.
Maggie nodded, then she and Penelope hurried back to their own carriage.
With Trumbull watching from out his cottage window and Society still ignorant of their as-yet informal betrothal, Maggie had insisted on them observing propriety by traveling in two separate carriages.
Hubert and the liveried footman posted on the standing bar at the back of her coach were the only two residents of the Birdwell household other than Edward and Penelope who knew of her pending engagement.
All four had been sworn to secrecy.
“Follow the duke’s coach again, Hubert,” Maggie instructed the driver. “We have an unexpected stop.”
“Yes, milady.” Beneath the brim of his tricorn hat, however, the coachman looked a bit puzzled as he got the door for them, so she explained to avoid any risk of gossip in the servant hall.
“We just found out that one of Amberley’s former servant girls may have fallen into most perilous circumstances. We need to make sure she i
s safe at home with her family.”
He bowed his head, looking relieved at the explanation. “Of course, ma’am.”
Maggie climbed in and took her seat, and Penelope followed. In short order, their little two-coach caravan wove through the rural peace and quiet of Islington, heading back southward toward Town.
Sadler’s Wells was on the way—home of the famous aquatic spectacles.
Genteel folk went there all the time to enjoy a night’s lively entertainment, but Maggie had never even realized there was a mill of some sort tucked away behind it.
She desperately hoped that when they found the brother’s residence, Saffie would be there, safe and sound.
What they would do with the former scullery maid once they found her, Maggie did not know, but she supposed they had to remove her somehow, given the threat to her life that her dragoon still might pose, if he was indeed the ruthless soul responsible for the three dukes’ murders.
Whoever he was, he sounded like a most unpleasant fellow.
She thought again of that stranger, the dragoon, who had offered her the ride home during the rainstorm. Could that be the man? The notion that she might have stood there talking to a killer that day sent an arrow of pure ice down her spine. He knew my name. And now he knows where I live…
A shudder ran through her, but she was glad that, at least, she had told Connor about the incident. She hadn’t thought much about it until they had found that button off a dragoon’s uniform in the coach house.
Trysts taking place there between Saffie and this man would explain how it got there.
With gooseflesh marching down her arms, Maggie pushed aside her anxiety over it all to focus on the next task at hand. The sooner they found Saffie alive and well, the sooner they would learn her lover’s name.
Then Connor could track the blackguard down and put an end to this, and they could start their new lives together without having to constantly look over their shoulders.
Trotting on through the bright spring day, they passed a pond, open fields, and a herd of grazing cows.
In the hazy distance, they could just make out the London skyline and the gleaming dome of St. Paul’s.
Then, about a mile farther down the road, they veered off to the right into the Sadler’s Wells complex, with its music hall and aquatic theater, tea gardens, and the old Sir Hugh Middleton Tavern, named after the founder of the waterworks there.
Indeed, they had passed several peaceful reservoirs, owned and operated by the powerful New River Company. This august firm had built the artificial New River, channeling the region’s many underground streams into a proper system that supplied half of London with its drinking water.
The ingenuity of the man-made river was most impressive, Maggie thought, considering it had been built two hundred years ago.
Weaving past another of the spas established in this area, so rich in mineral springs, they admired the New River, with its locks and genteel brick promenade. Youngsters stood fishing atop its thick cement wall.
Deeper into the winding, tree-lined lanes around Sadler’s Wells, they came upon the New River Head, the largest of the reservoirs. It had an oblong shape with a walled pond at its center.
With the carriage windows open and the breeze blowing through, Penelope and Maggie enjoyed the view of shimmering waters under blue May skies, with the bright green fields rolling out behind it.
Just a little taste of the countryside…
It made Maggie think of Kent and Halford Manor, and just for a moment, she was homesick.
Hubert followed the duke’s carriage onward, however, and there, tucked away at the back corner of the reservoir, stood the mill.
It was a large, plain redbrick building with great chimneys billowing white clouds of smoke, as if some great furnace burned within, and when Maggie spotted a yard full of cast-iron pipes, it dawned on her that that was what they manufactured here.
Come to think of it, she had heard that sections of London were in the process of having their ancient, leaky wooden water pipes replaced with new cast-iron ones. Since the mill sat upon New River Company property, it made sense that the waterworks would also be supplying the replacement pipes throughout the city.
The mill yard bustled with activity, but they hurried on by; many of the men hard at work turned to scrutinize the two fine coaches rolling past.
Just beyond the mill, they found the rows of terrace dwellings set up for the millworkers.
Sure enough, per Mr. Trumbull’s directions, the last street there proved to be Muggeridge Lane.
But apparently, the butler was more of a snob about such things than Maggie was, for the place looked respectable enough to her—a neighborhood of hardworking people, poor but decent.
The redbrick terrace houses were identical and small, with walled gardens in the back, laundry flapping in the breeze of many of them.
When they spotted Number 62, Saffie’s home address listed in the servant records, they glided to a halt and got out. Jittery anticipation building as to whether the girl was here or alive or dead, Maggie and Penelope exchanged a worried glance as Connor walked over to them with Will in tow.
“Ready?” Connor asked.
Maggie smoothed the tassel on the end of her reticule as her heart began to pound. Then all four of them proceeded to the door of Saffie’s brother’s house.
Will stepped forward and knocked, then retreated to stand behind Connor.
Nothing happened.
They looked around at each other.
“Maybe he’s at work,” Penelope said.
Maggie shrugged. “Yes, but if he’s got a wife, she should be at home—with Saffie. Don’t you think?”
“Did the butler tell you if Mr. Diggs is married?” Will asked with a frown.
“He didn’t say.” Connor knocked this time, louder. “Anybody home? Mr. Diggs?”
The door suddenly jerked open and a rumpled man appeared.
With his fist raised mid-knock, Connor nearly rapped the fellow in the forehead.
“Wot?” he barked. “You woke me up! What do ye want?”
Maggie blinked at this greeting.
Connor lowered his hand to his side. “We’re looking for Miss Diggs.”
The bearded man stared blearily at them, red-eyed, surrounded by a cloud of fumes from last night’s ale. He appeared to have fallen asleep in his clothes; his plain, wrinkled shirt hung open down his hairy chest, and his feet were bare.
Maggie supposed she should be grateful that at least he had on breeches.
Well, Trumbull had warned them this man liked his drink.
“Your sister?” Connor prompted impatiently.
“Why?” Diggs glanced skeptically from him to Maggie, eyeing their upper-class garb. “Wot’s she done now?”
“She hasn’t done anything,” Maggie said in a gentler tone. “We are concerned that she might be in danger—”
“Oh, she’ll be in danger, all right, next time she shows her face around ’ere, the little slut.”
Maggie jolted. And she thought her sibling was bad! At least Delia had never called her such a name.
“Why do you say that?” Connor demanded.
“Never mind it.” As he warily scrutinized them, Diggs’s glance flicked to the two fine carriages with gleaming horses and liveried footmen standing at the ready. “Who are you lot?”
Finally recovering her tongue, Maggie nodded politely toward Connor. “This gentleman used to be your sister’s employer.”
“Ohhh, I see.” The stinky fellow looked Connor up and down. “So it’s your fault, then.”
“Pardon?” Maggie asked in surprise.
Diggs pointed at Connor, who was scowling. “He sacked her, and now she’s ended up a whore.”
“Mind your tongue in front of the lady,” Connor ordered.
“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,” the man corrected sarcastically. “A soiled dove.” Then he gave Connor a cold look. “I hope you’re pleased with yourse
lf, sir. Not that I’m surprised. In the end, it’s probably all she’s good for, anyway. Chit’s barely got a brain in her head.”
Maggie was nonplussed.
“Do you know where she’s working?” Connor growled.
“Are you joking?” Diggs retorted. “I’m her brother! If I did, I’d have dragged her out by her hair months ago, wouldn’t I? But she’s hiding from me, see. Knows I’ll tan her hide. Little numbskull. Useless, she is. Only way to manage that girl, beat some sense into her.”
Maggie’s jaw dropped, and Connor’s fist clenched, but Diggs noticed neither, dismissing the whole matter with a weary wave of his hand.
“Eh, let her make her living on her back for all I care. Just another mouth to feed. But that little simpleton had better not show up here with some faceless fool’s brat in her belly, that I can tell you. Because I’ll send ’em both on to the workhouse.”
“If you see her”—Connor’s voice sounded slightly strained with the effort to hold his anger in check—“will you have her call on me at Amberley House?”
“Aye, I suppose,” Diggs grumbled. “But if you see her first, you tell Saffie that our mum’s rollin’ over in her grave with what she’s gone and done. Now, if you fine people will excuse me. The mill closes late and opens early, and some of us have to work nights.”
Slam!
Maggie blinked as the door banged shut in their faces.
Connor and she both stared at it for a moment, then glanced at each other, speechless. “Well!” he finally said. “What a charming fellow.”
Maggie shook off her astonishment, still marveling at the man’s casual brutality. “I daresay Mr. Trumbull was not exaggerating after all.”
“Criminy,” Will muttered from behind them. He shook his head, looking stunned and saddened at what his little friend had had to endure. Penelope shook her head.
Then they all turned away and headed back slowly toward the carriages.
“Saffie’s not simple,” Will muttered. “She just daydreams all the time.”
