“Thank you, Mama,” she said sincerely. “I will do my best to get to know him.” What she didn’t say was that she doubted a dozen years on a deserted isle with the man would endear him to her. Even so, she knew further open defiance of her mother’s wishes would only encourage her to be more determined about the matter.
They were silent for a moment as they both became lost in their thoughts. Then, looking up from her contemplation of her empty teacup, Mrs. Dauntry said, “I know you think me mad when it comes to this, but I do have good reason for my determination to see the two of you wed. I promise you.”
“I do not think you mad, Mama.” Only stubborn.
“So, no more flaunting your relationship with the Duke of Trent where Lord Goring might hear of it?”
Really, she was like a dog with a bone, Ophelia cursed inwardly.
“Not without good reason,” she said aloud, giving herself an out so that she could spend more time with Trent without gaining a guilty conscience. After all, they would likely need to go on one or two more outings before they were able to get Maggie out of that awful place.
Was it too terribly shameful that she was looking forward to it for reasons that had nothing to do with rescuing her friend?
Eight
After supper at Brooks’s with Freddy and Mainwaring, Trent left the two married men and returned home to dress for the card party at Viscount Wrotham’s lodgings where he knew the majority of the Lords of Anarchy would be that evening.
Because many of the newer members of the club were either familiar with one another or indeed were already friends, from their time together in the military, such gatherings as tonight’s party at Wrotham’s had become commonplace. Trent saw the frequency with which the men assembled outside sanctioned club meetings as a good thing. Something that would ensure the club’s strength even after his own tenure as president ended.
Still, as he handed the reins of his curricle to a waiting groom outside the apartments where Wrotham had lodgings, the sight of men spilling out of the entryway to the building did not reassure him that the club wasn’t up to its old, rowdy tricks.
“Trent!” shouted Lord Edward Findlay from where he leaned against the balustrade smoking a cheroot. “Just the man we wanted to see!” He turned to the man next to him, Mr. Adam Vessy, and clapped him rather hard on the shoulder. “Didn’t we just say that, Vessy?”
“S’truth,” Vessy said, screwing up his face to squint past the cloud of smoke shrouding both men’s heads. “Just this very moment, Duke.”
Trent fought back a cough as he stepped closer to the smokers. “While I am, of course, grateful to be missed,” he drawled, “I’m afraid I didn’t come to blow a cloud. I was wondering if either of you has seen George Grayson this evening.”
Lord Edward’s eyes widened at the mention of Grayson. “No,” he said, his mouth forming an O as he did so. “I heard there was a bit of trouble this morning with his lady wife.”
Vessy nodded, and added in a stage whisper, “Had her sent to the … the…”
“Bedlam,” Lord Edward finished for his friend with a sage nod. “Or someplace like it. Not sure precisely the lady’s destination. Only that Grayson sent her there, poor sod.”
If these two were to be the future of the club, Trent reflected with an inward sigh, then the club didn’t have much of a future.
Aloud, he said, “I had heard about that, yes. But neither of you has seen Grayson this evening? Or even earlier in the day?”
“Just at your fencing do this morning, Duke,” Vessy said with a shake of his head. “Fellow’s probably at home with a bottle. S’where I’d be.”
Lord Edward nodded his agreement, and Trent took his leave of the two men and pushed into the entrance of the building, making his way through the throng upstairs to Wrotham’s rooms.
Once there, he was greeted by the sight of multiple card tables set up throughout the large sitting room. Several of the players called out their hellos, as did the ladies of the evening who were seated on several of their laps.
Scanning the room, Trent finally saw his quarry at one of the far tables, his teeth clamped around a cigar and a drink in his hand.
“Trent!” cried Viscount Wrotham as the club’s president approached his side. “I didn’t think you’d be coming tonight after this morning’s debacle.”
“Bad business, that,” said the man to Wrotham’s left as he discarded. “Not the thing to shame the family publicly like that. Much better to have waited until she got home.”
Trent didn’t bother to suggest that it might have been even better for Grayson not to have his wife sent to an asylum at all. He wasn’t here to argue the merits or lack thereof of the way Grayson had handled things. He wanted only to know where the man was now.
“Haven’t seen him,” Wrotham said, glancing down at his cards for a moment before he discarded. “Which is a bit strange, now that I think of it. Grayson and I spend most Tuesday afternoons at Tatt’s. A bit horse-mad is our Grayson. But he disappeared this morning before the gathering at your house was finished and I haven’t seen him since.”
Trent leaned a shoulder against the wall behind the card table, deciding to wait for Wrotham’s game to end before he tried to speak further to him.
Finally, with a victory cry from the winner, who was not Wrotham, the game was over and, having seen Trent waiting patiently throughout the game, Wrotham indicated with a jerk of his head toward the French doors.
Stepping outside onto the small balcony, Trent took a deep breath of the foggy London air. It was hardly as clear as it would be in the country, but given the amount of smoke, alcohol fumes, and body odor inside the apartment, the balcony was relatively fresh.
“What’s the problem, Duke?” Wrotham asked as soon as he’d shut the door behind them. Trent was unsurprised to note that despite his having imbibed several drinks while he watched, the viscount didn’t sound the least bit drunk. “I know you’re looking for Grayson, but it’s not like you to get involved in a domestic dispute.”
Trent was hardly going to confess that most of his reason for coming here tonight had been related not to Grayson’s problems, but instead to the pleading in a certain young lady’s eyes as she sat next to him in the curricle earlier in the day.
Aloud, he said, “I’ve just managed to reestablish the club after two corrupt leaders have run the Lords of Anarchy into the ground. It concerns me that a club member might have recklessly endangered our reputation once more by lying to have his wife locked in a madhouse. If I can undo what damage this morning’s fracas caused, then I will do it.”
Wrotham’s eyes narrowed as if he were trying to determine whether Trent was being truthful. “I’m not sure why it would damage the club’s reputation for Grayson to lie about such a thing. It’s not as if he were acting on behalf of the club.”
“But you forget, Wrotham,” Trent said sharply, “that Grayson’s wife was a correspondent for the Ladies’ Gazette. Much as we might think Grayson’s actions shouldn’t be a reflection on the club, it is all too possible that the publication will use this opportunity to paint an altogether different picture of the club’s role in Mrs. Grayson’s incarceration.”
Swearing, Wrotham shook his head. “Damn Grayson for a fool. Any other man would keep his wife’s removal to the madhouse out of the public eye. But not George.”
“So you knew what he was planning?” Trent asked, turning to face the other man.
But the viscount shook his head. “No. Not in so many words. I knew he was having difficulty with his wife, but not that he was planning something like this. If I had you can be sure I’d have talked him into either not doing it at all, or at the very least keeping it under wraps.”
He stared out across the darkened back garden of his apartment building. “I’ve been proud to be a member of this club again. Thanks in large part to your leadership. I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy myself during some of the things that used to pass for entertainment in t
his group. But a man can only attend so many orgies before they begin to pall.”
Trent couldn’t help himself. He laughed. “I am sorry to hear you’ve become so jaded, old man. When even an orgy begins to pall, you know it’s time for a change.”
“You may well laugh, your grace,” said Wrotham with a shudder, “but there were some things at that last one that I can’t unsee. I could go the rest of my life without seeing Vessy’s naked arse again and it wouldn’t be too soon.”
“So noted, Wrotham,” Trent said, grateful for the moment of levity. “No more orgies.”
“I do not know where Grayson might have gone,” Wrotham continued, turning serious again. “If I did you can be sure I’d tell you. But to be honest, I’m rather surprised he’s gone to ground. If he were convinced he’d done the right thing by having his wife taken away, then what reason would he have to hide? And if he wasn’t the one who gave the order, then his disappearance is even more suspicious.”
Which is exactly what Trent had been thinking.
He might do worse than to have Wrotham’s assistance in this matter. He filed away the notion for future reference.
Thanking his host, he made his way back out of the crowded party and took himself home. Vowing to start fresh the next morning.
* * *
After a night spent tossing and turning as she worried about Maggie, Ophelia set out after breakfast the next morning for the offices of the Ladies’ Gazette in Fleet Street. Though she’d found some of her friend’s notes about the home for unwed mothers in her rooms yesterday, there was a slight chance that Maggie had left more at her desk in the newspaper offices. And Ophelia wasn’t quite sure which notes Maggie had referenced yesterday in the haberdasher’s.
She alighted from the Dauntry carriage outside the newspaper offices with its front windows crowded with colorful prints and lampoons related to political scandals of the day. Mr. Carrington produced the broadsides and prints to supplement the money earned from advertisements in the Gazette, which was hardly what the larger papers could bring in. And as she knew at times the editor paid his writers from the proceeds from the smaller print jobs, Ophelia didn’t begrudge their place of prominence.
Pausing a moment to gird her loins before her editor’s inevitable questions about Maggie, she had her hand on the door, when it opened suddenly to reveal the man himself.
“Are you going to come in or stay out here all day loitering, Miss Dauntry?” he asked with a raised brow and a grin.
Before she could reply, though, his eyes narrowed as he noticed the bruise the cosmetics hadn’t quite managed to hide fully.
Cursing under his breath, he took her by the arm and steered her into the newspaper offices and urged her into a chair near her desk.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded, his mouth tight as he stepped back to survey her. “And does it have anything to do with Mrs. Grayson? I was expecting her this morning but she hasn’t come. Which isn’t like her.”
In his way, Edwin was protective of his lady reporters as he called them. Not many men would take it upon themselves to provide the sort of stories enjoyed by the ladies of London’s middle and upper classes. But he was both a shrewd businessman, who could see a market potential when it presented itself, and a bit of a radical, who wanted to change the system from the inside. And he saw London’s ladies as the perfect conduit for that change.
Maggie had already worked for the Gazette for months before she convinced Ophelia to join her, and the relationship between her friend and the editor had at first made Ophelia uncomfortable. For it was obvious to her that not only was Edwin grateful for Maggie’s innovative approach to the news, but he was also head over ears in love with her.
That Maggie was a married lady seemed not to bother him one bit.
Whether they’d acted on that attraction or not, Ophelia had no idea. And she didn’t actually want to know. She was terrible at keeping secrets, and besides that, she didn’t want to sit in judgment of her friend. Someone had once told her that a marriage was only truly understood from inside it. And she had no wish to know anything more about Maggie’s marriage to George than she could see from the outside.
Still, she should have known that telling Edwin about Maggie’s predicament would be difficult.
Quickly she told him everything that had happened in the haberdashery from the moment the two thugs had arrived until they left with her friend in chains.
As she told her story, all the color drained out of Edwin’s face. “Dear God!” he said, leaning back against the desk behind him, as if afraid his legs would no longer hold him up. “Why would that bastard do something like that? Does he know what goes on in those places? We have to get her out of there.”
For the moment, Ophelia chose not to tell him about her visit to the Hayes Clinic with Trent, and the fact that Maggie wasn’t there. It would only worry Edwin further. And the fewer people who knew that Maggie was truly missing, the better.
“We won’t know his reasons until we can actually speak to George Grayson,” she said aloud. “And when I tried to ask him he was nowhere to be found.”
“Well, we’ll just have to keep looking for him.” Edwin thrust a hand through his untidy hair. “Miss Dauntry, you know as well as I do how awful some of those places are. My God. Of all the ways he could think to punish her, this is the worst.”
Ophelia didn’t ask why George should punish his wife, because she suspected that if that was the direction Edwin’s mind had run to, then he knew all too well for what. Considering the unhappiness of her friend’s marriage, she had little doubt that the punishment was related to some infraction real or imagined involving Edwin.
Still, that didn’t explain why Maggie had suspected her notes on the unwed mothers’ home would hold some clue to freeing her. It was clear that she needed to speak to Dr. Hayes himself to see if he could shed some light on both Maggie’s whereabouts and George’s motive in having her taken up in the first place.
Now, however, she needed to calm down Mr. Carrington before he tore across London searching for George Grayson to teach him some sort of lesson.
“A friend and I are going to see Dr. Hayes later today,” she said aloud as she watched her publisher stalk from one end of the room to the other. She wasn’t sure if Trent had a visit to Dr. Hayes on the agenda for today, but if he didn’t wish to accompany her, then Ophelia would visit the man herself. “But in the meantime, just as she was being led away, Maggie asked me to look for her notes. Could she have found something while working on the story about the unwed mothers’ home? Something that would put her in danger? Or would…”
At the mention of Maggie’s story, which he’d only rejected yesterday, Mr. Carrington looked stricken. “I told her—told you both—that I didn’t want stories like that. If this is what got her taken into that place then I’ll never forgive myself. I shouldn’t have encouraged the two of you to flex your journalistic muscles.” He thrust a hand through his hair. “Damn it!”
Ophelia watched as he turned his back to her, to regain his composure, she supposed.
Feeling a pang of sympathy for him, she touched him briefly on the shoulder. “Do not blame yourself, Mr. Carrington. I doubt there is anything you could have done to dissuade her from pursuing the story. We can be quite stubborn, you know.”
He gave a rueful, if pained, laugh and turned back to her. “I daresay you’re right. Though I will have your word that you will not pursue stories like that in the future. It is far too dangerous for ladies to go to the sort of places necessary to get these stories. And I know neither of you is willing to cut corners.”
“You have my word,” Ophelia agreed. “Now, let’s search for Maggie’s notes. I’m hoping we can find something that will give a clue as to who, if not her husband, wished to get her out of the way.”
Standing, she strode over to where four desks were pushed together into a table of sorts.
Maggie and Ophelia had the desks on the far side,
while two other reporters had the two on the other side. Ophelia was grateful that they were out today so that she and Mr. Carrington could search without interruption.
Unlike Ophelia’s desk, which was messy with scraps of paper, pots of ink, and past issues of the Gazette, Maggie’s was neat as a pin. Stepping up beside her, Mr. Carrington began to open drawers and rifle through them. Ophelia, meanwhile, pulled out sheafs of paper from the cubbies of the hutch atop the desk’s surface.
It wasn’t long before Mr. Carrington, squatting before the bottom drawer of the desk, gave a cry of triumph and held up a notebook bound in kid leather. Ophelia recognized it immediately as the journal Maggie often used to take notes for stories or longer pieces like the one she wrote about the unwed mothers’ home.
“This is the one,” he said, standing up and stroking a hand over the cover—as if trying to find some trace of Maggie on its surface.
“May I?” Ophelia asked gently, aware that he was more vulnerable at the moment than she’d ever seen him. With a sharp nod, he placed the notebook in her hand and stepped back, as if disavowing his response to both Maggie and the notebook.
Taking a seat at her own desk, Ophelia pulled the small oil lamp she and Maggie shared over to her own side of the desk surface. With an annoyed sound, Mr. Carrington brushed her hands away and set about lighting it himself.
Once the light was bright enough to read the pages, Ophelia began to scan Maggie’s notes, looking for anything that might tell them who Maggie might have upset during the course of her investigation.
The first was what looked to be an interview with the superintendent of a girls’ orphanage in Whitechapel where Maggie had been investigating some new method of teaching girls discipline. While the method sounded rather grim from Maggie’s description, there was nothing about it that might possibly place Maggie’s own freedom in danger. Indeed, the man she spoke to—a Daniel Swinton—seemed sincere if a bit harsh. From her interviews with the girls at the school, however, they seemed happy enough. And though they found the cold-water-bath punishments uncomfortable, and the food less than appealing, none of them would admit to having been mistreated at the school.
Good Dukes Wear Black Page 9
