M Is for Marquess

by Grace Callaway

  Lady Davenport waited, smiling, as murmurs rose in the room. Then, with dramatic flourish, she produced a piece of white cloth. Bustling over to her model, she made a great show of tying and tucking in the fabric, so that the scarf covered the woman from bosom to chin.

  Stepping back, Lady Davenport declared, “I introduce my newest pet project, which I like to call Fichus for the Fallen.”

  Thea blinked as applause broke out, excited murmurs rolling through the room.

  “After lunch, we will retire to the sitting room to sew these mantles of modesty,” their hostess went on. “Thanks to our efforts, these Fallen Women will regain dignity and virtue—and be an eyesore to civility no more.”

  A lady dressed in blue satin waved her hand.

  “Yes, Miss Simpson?” Lady Davenport said.

  “I was thinking we might add a touch of embroidery to the fichus. Perhaps a cross—or some other reminder of piousness?” the lady said in simpering tones.

  “An excellent suggestion.” Lady Davenport beamed. “Any others?”

  Why not sew hair shirts for the poor and be done with it? Thea wanted to snap. But she restrained herself. She couldn’t afford to attract attention when they were on a covert mission.

  “Time to go,” Pandora whispered.

  Thea gave a quick nod. As the crowd debated vital issues such as embroidery designs and thread color, she and Pandora slipped unnoticed from the room. Outside, she drew a breath, trying to put the scene of smug pretension behind her. She must concentrate on the present task.

  If Pandora had been affected, she showed no sign, leading the way through the hallways with focused intent. They rounded a corner into another corridor, and, as they approached the end, voices could be heard coming from the intersecting hallway. Pandora pressed against the wall, and Thea immediately did the same, waiting with bated breath until a pair of maids passed. Once the servants disappeared, the marchioness turned right, and moments later she and Thea arrived at a set of double doors.

  Pandora tried the door—locked.

  “Keep watch,” she murmured, removing a length of wire from her reticule.

  Nerves prickling, Thea did so as the other worked on the lock. A minute later, there was a click, the soft sweep of the door giving way. Pandora went inside first, and Thea followed, closing the door with damp palms.

  With the curtains drawn, Davenport’s study was dim and cavernous. It seemed ordinary enough with its dark wood and leather furnishings, the book-lined shelves. The large portrait over the fireplace dominated the room. It depicted Lady Davenport sitting beneath an oak tree in a gown of frothy lace, her hat dripping with plumes. Thea presumed that the man in the painting—the one Lady Davenport gazed up at such with wifely adoration—was Lord Davenport. The viscount was a distinguished-looking man in his forties, with slight greying at the temples and a tall, fit figure.

  Yet there was something disturbing about his eyes, which met the viewer’s straight on. That pale gaze seemed so penetrating and life-like that Thea had the sudden panic that she was being watched. A shiver chased over her nape.

  “We don’t have much time.” Pandora’s urgent tones broke the spell. “Both of us will have to search. You start with the desk. Try not to disturb anything.”

  With a quick nod, Thea padded over to the desk, its surface neatly organized with a silver tray of writing instruments and a thick leather blotter. With trembling hands, she pulled open the top drawer and carefully rifled through the contents. Nothing remotely suspicious. She continued onto the two other drawers. Still nothing, not even a hidden compartment.

  If I were Davenport and had something to hide, where would I put it? As she mulled, she drummed her fingers against the desk… and awareness prickled over her at the faint hollow vibration. The resonance was similar to the sound she made when tapping against the lid of a pianoforte. Crouching, she placed her ear close to the top of the desk, repeating the rhythm of her fingers, and she heard it again—a muffled echo coming from within. There’s an empty chamber inside. Heart thumping, she ran her hands under the ledge of the desk, her fingers encountering a hidden button. She pressed it, and the entire blotter slid to the side, revealing a hidden cache.

  Excitement rushed up her spine at the sight of papers.

  “Pandora,” she called softly.

  The marchioness arrived just as Thea lifted out the top document for inspection. Written in a bold hand, the string of words was strange and nonsensical. She heard the other’s sharp indrawn breath.

  “Spectre,” Pandora whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Thea and Pandora returned just as the ladies were beginning to file out of the ballroom.

  Emma hurried toward them. “Find anything?” she whispered.

  Thea nodded, barely able to suppress her excitement.

  Em huffed out a breath. “Thank heavens. Let’s get out of here. Because if I have to listen to one minute more of this patronizing claptrap, I swear I’ll—”

  “La, there you are!” The voice rang shrilly from behind her. “Oh, Duchess!”

  Em froze like a hunted deer.

  Lady Davenport hurried over. “We’re just about to begin sewing the fichus. You shall have the seat of honor in my circle, Your Grace.”

  “That sounds lovely, but I’m, um, getting rather tired—”

  “I shall call for caviar and champagne to keep our energies up. I won’t take no for an answer.” The viscountess’ hand wrapped like ivy around Emma’s arm. “You wouldn’t want to let down a good cause, would you?”

  “No,” Em said, looking desperate, “but truly I have to go—”

  Thea let out a gasping breath, grabbing her sister’s free arm.

  “What is the matter, Miss Kent?” Lady Davenport said, looking alarmed.

  “I… I c-can’t… breathe.”

  Emma’s brown eyes rounded with worry, her arm going instantly around Thea’s waist. “Breathe deeply, dear. In and out. Just as Dr. Abernathy taught you.”

  Seeing Lady Davenport take a step back, Thea wheezed, “Yes, stay back. It might be catching.”

  Instantly, the hostess retreated farther. “Er, can I have anything fetched for you?”

  “Air… just need… air…”

  “Let’s get you outside,” Em said.

  “Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Davenport,” Pandora said.

  The three of them left the townhouse.

  “We’ll get you home straightaway,” Emma fretted, “and call for Dr. Abernathy—”

  “I’m fine,” Thea said in her normal voice.

  “You are?” Her sister blinked. “But back there… what happened?”

  “I was improvising.” Thea felt absurdly proud of herself.

  Pandora’s lips curved. “As I suspected from the first, you are a lady of hidden talents.”

  Just then, Thea caught sight of a mob-capped figure leaving from the servant’s entrance several yards away. The woman paused, tugging the fichu from her neck, crumpling it in her hand. Shoulders hunched, she began walking in the opposite direction.

  Thea gave her sister a hopeful look. “Couldn’t you use another maid?”

  “Let’s talk to her,” Em said.

  Thea and Emma approached the young woman, who bobbed a startled curtsy and identified herself as Sara Tully. Miss Tully eagerly accepted Emma’s card and direction, promising to come by the house for an interview. They were saying goodbye when Gabriel’s carriage arrived. He jumped down from the vehicle with predatory grace. His grey gaze went from Thea to the departing Miss Tully.

  “Who was that?” he said, frowning.

  “A new acquaintance,” she said.

  He tipped her chin up with a gloved hand, his eyes radiating concern. “How did things go in there?”

  “Splendidly, thanks to Miss Kent’s ingenuity,” Pandora said. “She’ll explain in the carriage.”

  ***

  “Lord Davenport will see you now.”

  The se
cretary led Gabriel, Strathaven, and Kent into well-appointed chambers paneled in dark wood. Sun shone through the mullioned windows, gleaming off heavy furniture and the burgundy carpet of Oriental design. The secretary closed the door discreetly behind him.

  Rising from a carved desk, Lord Cecil Davenport came over to greet them. Tall, fit, possessed of patrician features made even more distinguished by the greying at his temples, the viscount was every inch the polished politician. His light blue eyes showed polite curiosity and nothing more.

  Cicero had always been a master of disguising his true intent.

  “Gentlemen.” He bowed. “To what do I owe the honor?”

  “We’re here to talk about blackmail,” Gabriel said.

  Davenport’s brows lifted, his gaze skirting for the briefest instant toward Strathaven and Kent. He adopted a puzzled smile. “Is this some sort of jest, Lord Tremont?”

  “No jest, Cicero,” he said steadily.

  The other’s tone remained light. “I’m afraid I don’t follow. Now I’m a very busy man and—”

  “We found the blackmail notes in your study. In the hidden compartment of your desk.” Despite the volatile situation, Gabriel felt a flash of pride at Thea’s cleverness. She continued to amaze him with the depth of her spirit and strength. “You are being blackmailed by the Spectre,” he said.

  A faint crack showed in Davenport’s composure. At his sides, his manicured hands curled.

  “There had better be a good reason for you betraying our code of anonymity. What do you want, Trajan?” he said in level tones.

  “Your help in catching the Spectre. With the help of Strathaven and Kent here, I’ve been hunting down possible suspects,” Gabriel said.

  Davenport’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve just confessed to breaking into my study and ransacking my personal effects. Why should I trust you?”

  “Because someone tried to kill Tremont,” Kent said, “and succeeded in murdering your mentor, Octavian. You could be next.”

  Davenport’s lips thinned, and Gabriel understood the other’s struggle. They’d had the same teacher, after all. Keep your guard up, and trust no one. After a taut silence, the viscount gestured to the sitting area.

  The men took their seats, and Gabriel gave a terse summary of the facts. Out of habit, he gave the least amount of information necessary. Octavian’s summons and death. The recovery of his dagger at Cruik’s. The extortion of Pompeia. All the while, he monitored Davenport’s expression and saw nothing but bleak acceptance.

  “When did you begin to receive the blackmail notes?” Kent had his trusty notebook out.

  “Around two months ago,” Davenport said after a hesitation. “The first one appeared with the morning mail, out of nowhere. For a moment, I thought I was hallucinating.”

  Gabriel exchanged swift glances with Kent and Strathaven. What Davenport described was almost identical to Pompeia’s experience with the blackmailer.

  “The note threatened to expose my activities as a spy. To ruin my reputation, political career, and all I have built if I didn’t pay him five thousand pounds.” Anger simmered in Davenport’s voice. “I had no choice. I have a wife—I couldn’t let him destroy her life as well. So I paid.”

  “What happened next?” Strathaven said.

  “More demands came.” Davenport’s jaw clenched. “I should have known better. Blackmailers are never satisfied.”

  “Do you have any culprits in mind?” Kent said.

  “My first thought was one of the Quorum.” The politician’s cool, assessing gaze centered on Gabriel. “Only one of our inner circle would be in possession of such facts about me. Thus, I made inquiries into the activities of my three former colleagues.”

  Cicero had had him investigated. That came as no surprise.

  “And?” Gabriel said.

  “Of the three, you’re the one who could use money the most. It seems your circumstances have improved, however, since your business venture with Strathaven last year.” The suspicious gleam lingered in Davenport’s pale eyes. “Still, one can never have too much money.”

  “I’m no blackmailer,” Gabriel said coolly.

  “Apparently not. If you were, I doubt you’d have hired on an investigator and exposed the secrets of espionage to those outside our world.” Davenport’s eyes formed pale slits. “So that leaves Pompeia and Tiberius. The lady was always a treacherous sort. After all,” he said, his tone darkening, “she was the only one of us who managed to avoid Normandy.”

  The mention of the hellhole awakened the ghosts in Gabriel, the muscles of his back tautening. Kent and Strathaven, whom he’d told about the ambush, sat in somber silence.

  “Apparently she had her reasons,” Gabriel said curtly. “She’s being blackmailed by the Spectre too.”

  “If Pompeia isn’t a suspect and assuming for now that you and I are also innocent,”—Davenport smiled without humor—“then that leaves one clear culprit, doesn’t it?”

  “Heath,” Gabriel said.

  From the moment Thea and Pompeia had shared their discovery—that Cicero, too, was a victim of extortion—he’d been contemplating the fact that Tiberius, also known as Tobias Heath, was the sole remaining suspect. It made sense. Unstable at best, Heath had always lived life by his own moral compass; it wouldn’t have taken much to steer him in a criminal direction.

  Yet some part of Gabriel resisted the notion that Tiberius was the Spectre. He wondered if a fellow on the brink of madness could be capable of such calculation. Then again, sanity wasn’t a requirement of being evil. He’d encountered his share of crazed despots during the war. And maybe Tiberius had been faking his mental instability all along.

  “Recall how Tiberius escaped imprisonment unscathed?” Davenport murmured. “Unlike the two of us.”

  The memory trickled into Gabriel’s awareness. Spectre’s men had kept the three of them in separate cells, yet they could hear each other’s screams. Gabriel and Davenport’s cries had echoed through those stone caverns but never Heath’s. The latter had emerged dirty, nonsensical, and terrified… but he hadn’t been beaten. Gabriel had assumed that the younger man had broken down and blurted out secrets or had simply been deemed too cracked for torture tactics to do any good.

  Now another explanation raised its ugly head. Could Heath have been deceiving them all these years, pretending madness whilst all the while he’d been double crossing them? Was he even now blackmailing and killing off his former comrades one by one?

  “We’ll still need solid evidence that he’s the Spectre,” Kent said.

  “If he’s the guilty one, I don’t want him slipping from the noose,” Gabriel agreed darkly.

  “Heath keeps a place near Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” the investigator said. “According to my men, he’s got a meeting with the radical group tomorrow night. We could take the opportunity to search his place.”

  “Are you in, Davenport?” Gabriel said.

  The other inclined his head. “Anything to prevent the ghosts of the past from rising.”

  “The Spectre’s already risen. Tomorrow night,” Gabriel said with grim determination, “we put him down for good.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  That night, Thea made her way stealthily down the dark hallway of the guest wing. A sense of urgency fueled her flight, the hem of her wrapper whispering over the carpet, her lamp casting a moving shadow until she found the door she sought. Casting a furtive glance this way and that, she drew a breath and rapped softly.

  Heartbeats passed. She leaned in, pressing her ear to the door, listening for any sounds from within. She couldn’t hear anything above the thudding in her ears. Her hopes fell. Perhaps he was already asleep—

  The door opened so suddenly that she toppled forward.

  Strong arms caught her, dragged her inside. Her lamp was summarily deposited on a table. Breathless, she found herself with her back against the closed door, Gabriel towering over her, his hands planted on either side of her shoulders. He�
�d clearly just risen from bed. A tempting expanse of hair-dusted muscle rippled in the vee of his hastily donned robe. His hair was tousled, his eyes glinting silver in the semi-darkness.

  He looked dangerous, deliciously predatory. Her desire for him saturated her being like a watermark through fibers of parchment.

  “What are you doing here?” he said in low tones.

  “I missed you,” she whispered back. “I wanted to see you.”

  He ran a finger along her jaw, his touch rasping over her nerve endings. “As much as I appreciate and return the sentiment,” he said huskily, “you can’t be here. You’ll be ruined if we’re caught.”

  “I don’t care. Everyone knows we’re getting married anyway.” Earlier, he’d told her that he’d broken the news to Strathaven. Which meant Emma already knew and the rest of the family wasn’t far off. “You’re going to capture the Spectre tomorrow, and life is too precious to waste. I don’t want to lose a single moment with you.”

  “There’s nothing to fear, princess.” He took her hands, kissed them one by one. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

  How could she convey the desperation she felt? Knowing that he would be out there tomorrow night, chasing after evil—she wanted to give him a part of her, a talisman for safekeeping. If he didn’t want words of love from her, then she would show him how much she cared. Whenever they made love, she felt the bond between them strengthen.

  “We could just lie in bed together,” she coaxed, “and not do anything but hold each other.”

  “Yes, and hell could bloom with roses.” He sounded wryly amused.

  “I need to be with you tonight.” Impassioned, she reached for him—only to have him grip both wrists, this time pinning them above her head.

  “No, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m going to see you back to your room.”

  Whereas once she would have been hurt by his refusal, attributing it to some failing in herself, now she saw his protectiveness for what it was, and it only made her love him more. With her wrists still anchored by him, she couldn’t use her hands, so she leaned upward on her toes, feathering her lips over his in soft persuasion. She felt like the mouse of Aesop’s tale, seeking clemency from a lion—the moral of the tale being that even smaller, frailer creatures have their power.