The Husband Hunter's Guide to London

by Kate Moore

  “Good girl. And don’t forget the book is for a case.”

  * * * *

  After coffee and a brief debate about which should be the first of their errands, Hazelwood agreed to take Jane on a late-morning trip to the bank. There, in a private meeting with Violet, Jane turned over her father’s letters for safekeeping and arranged to send letters of her own through the bank. When she and Violet ended their conference, Violet reported that her grace, Lady Penelope Frayne, had invited them to a select dinner party.

  Hazelwood once again drove the curricle. He claimed she had no need of her chaperone to visit her grandmother. He drove with careless confidence, never flinching as approaching drivers rushed into the shifting openings in the throng. A pewter sky pressed down on the chimney pots and slates, but no rain threatened. Instead, London had turned beastly cold with patches of slick black ice on the streets and people slipping as they passed, some wearing no more for warmth than hats and long wool scarves wrapped around their throats.

  Jane had not remembered how many horses there were in London. Even English persons of low condition appeared to think nothing of hopping onto a horse’s back or whipping an animal drawing a laden cart. In the desert cities where her father traveled, it was a high crime, punishable by death, for an infidel to ride a horse, and though he disguised himself as a believer, her father never rode a horse in the East.

  She clutched the edge of the high seat, and thought about the likelihood that they would be followed again after the invasion of her room the night before. She still wore the borrowed bonnet that impaired her vision. They passed close enough to persons on the flagstones for her to touch the rabbits dangling from a stick across a hawker’s shoulder or to snatch a ginger cake from the head-top tray of a man selling them. None of the passersby appeared to note or follow them.

  She had lain awake thinking about the intruder and what he had wanted, and she’d concluded that he must want the names of her father’s hosts as he traveled on his secret journeys across Asia. If she possessed that information, it must be in code either in his letters or in the book he had given her through his bankers. His letters were now safe in Hammersley’s Bank, and she would guard the little book with her life.

  The government believed her father’s last journey had taken him east from Halab and south along the River Oxus to his inevitable death in some hostile caliphate on the road to Afghanistan. But Jane believed he had traveled north to Tabriz and Baku and made his way across the great sea to the steppes and the road to Askabad in search of the Russian engineers laying plans for a railroad that would take them deep into the belly of Asia and allow them to take Merv. She pictured him along his route, stopping for the night with other travelers, sitting around a fire, drinking black tea with the old men, a lump of sugar between his teeth to sweeten the bitterness.

  She felt that telling Lord Chartwell she believed her father was alive had been a mistake. Now an enemy wanted to know what Jane knew, and that meant whoever betrayed him still had access to Foreign Office information.

  “Do you think anyone follows us today?” she asked Hazelwood as they passed through a narrow gate, leaving the Strand behind.

  “If we’ve acquired a watcher, we probably won’t spot him until we reach your grandmother’s neighborhood, where he won’t have the crowds for cover. By the way, what is your grandmother’s ailment?”

  “I don’t know, and you’re changing the subject.”

  “She’s chosen her address well for a lady in ill health. Her neighbors on Conduit Street are London’s most fashionable doctors.”

  “Fashionable doctors? Wouldn’t a genuinely ill person seek an effective doctor?”

  “Not in London.” He turned another corner. “We’ll make only a brief call.”

  “Are you opposed to maintaining close family relations?” she asked as they crossed a wide, open square in which every sort of vehicle and several flocks of animals mingled like the churning waters under a dam. The height of their vehicle made them visible above the crowd. She almost missed his answer as she turned to scan the sea of bobbing headgear around them.

  “Not at all. I’m sure there are families in England in which warm and genuine affection prevails. I’m opposed to leaving horses standing long in cold weather.”

  She studied his profile and noted the tightness of his jaw. “What did happen between you and your family? You might as well tell me. Someone will.”

  “Let them,” he said. “Nothing’s more boring than a man sharing his grievances.”

  She looked at him again. For a minute their eyes met, his that rare green like cool, shadowed grass. “I should think you’d like a chance to dwell on your faults.” It was almost the first thing she’d noticed about him, his capacity for self-mockery. She’d not met a man like that before.

  He laughed. “A true leveler. You’re dangerous, Jane. You see right through me.”

  They passed uphill to the north leaving the square for a narrower street. She turned back again, obliged by her bonnet to twist in the seat. “And, do you think, we might now be able to tell whether we’re being followed?”

  “More likely we’ll catch a common pickpocket. The girls are notorious.” He gave his full attention to the traffic.

  “Girl pickpockets?” Jane had seen girls with the thinnest of shawls around their narrow shoulders.

  “Are you shocked?”

  “I’m impressed. You must know that girls in Halab have no such avenue of self-reliance.”

  He’d laughed again. “An admirer of female enterprise, are you?”

  “I am. A woman can always do what necessity requires, you know.” She twisted to look around, but no seemed to note their passing.

  “I have been followed before. I wouldn’t let it cause you any alarm.”

  “And what have you done to invite a dogged pursuit through the streets of London?”

  He gave a slight jerk to the horses’ mouths at her tone. “It’s what I’ve not done. You’d think any self-respecting tradesman would be good for thirty-four pounds, six and eleven, but Poole and Davies hound a man as if he’d borrowed the whole of the royal treasury.”

  He meant it as a joke, she knew, though he might have creditors, and creditors in England might be a ruthless lot. But it was an evasion as well to pretend that he was the one being followed. His hotel room had not been ransacked. He was unwilling to acknowledge that he was something other than a protocol officer. She would do well to remember that he was the government’s man and as interested in her father’s information as the enemy was.

  At the house on Conduit Street, habit stopped her from entering. There was one door only, through which both men and women passed.

  He read her hesitation as something else. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “Tell me. What do you remember of your grandmother?”

  “Almost nothing.”

  “And what do you want from her?” The warm rumble of his voice was almost gentle. A sudden ache rose in her throat.

  She closed her eyes. What she wanted was in the word grandmother itself. She had heard the term for grandmother often enough in the souks of Halab—teta. Teta, the word conjured warnings about the evil eye and offers of sweet treats and always fierce pride in a child. So what did she want from her English grandmother? Kindness. A warm welcome. A chance to talk about my father. Support for the search. She opened her eyes again. It was probably foolish to want those things and definitely foolish to admit that she did.

  “My book says that one’s relations are the best source of introductions to potential husbands. Perhaps my grandmother knows a rich widower.”

  He only raised a brow at her and reached for the door knocker.

  A solemn butler of advanced years and stooped aspect greeted Hazelwood’s knock and ushered them into a black and white tiled hall with no place to shed their shoes. Jane looked. A f
ootman took their outerwear, and the butler led them up to a blue-walled sitting room crowded with dainty furnishings and warmed to roasting by a crackling fire in a white marble hearth.

  “Remember,” Hazelwood advised on the threshold, “a short visit.”

  The butler announced their presence sonorously to the room’s two occupants. Jane’s grandmother, Lady Eliza Fawkener, daughter of an earl and widow of a wealthy gentleman, was a diminutive woman with a shock of white hair under a lace cap. Her pale, blue-lined flesh was pared down to the thinnest covering over her bones. She sat in a red and gold tapestried armchair, swathed in a silver silk wrapper, her slippered feet resting on a low red velvet ottoman. A collection of jars and vials vied for space on a silver tray at her right hand. The other woman, Margaret Leach, who looked perhaps forty, with soft rosy features, chocolate brown curls under her lace cap, and round wire spectacles on her nose, stood at Lady Eliza’s elbow, offering her a drink from one of the vials on the tray. Margaret offered Jane’s grandmother each of the vials in turn in a ritual of medicine-taking.

  After a final sip of water from a glass, Lady Eliza spoke. “Margaret, don’t hover.” Margaret retreated to a chair on the opposite side of the fire, taking up a closed book and holding it in her lap. Lady Eliza curled a pale, fine-boned hand to urge Jane closer. “Let me see you, girl.”

  Jane stepped forward, conscious of a small pang of disappointment. She could see nothing in Lady Eliza’s appearance or manner to remind her of her father. She guessed that her grandmother meant to frighten her by the frankness of her scrutiny, but Jane felt her courage rise under the icy blue stare. Hazelwood had temporarily deserted her to stand at the window looking down into the street.

  “I suppose my wayward son sends you as a peace offering for getting himself killed. You know that you must marry now,” Lady Eliza began, her strong voice at odds with her frail appearance.

  “So I’ve been told, ma’am.”

  “You’re twenty-three, if you’re a day.”

  “It’s true.”

  “You’re on the shelf. What was your father thinking to stay away so long?”

  Jane had no answer for the obvious, and Papa would advise her not to bait an angry person.

  “And what am I to do with you? You’ve none of your mother’s beauty, have you? Oh, you’re tall enough, that’s something. Nothing to be done about your nose and chin, but with the hair there’s some possibility of improvement. Do you own a curling iron?” Lady Eliza twirled a boney finger vaguely in Jane’s direction.

  “I doubt any man will notice her nose.” Hazelwood spoke from the window, his back to them, his voice a low rumble, lazy and distinctly masculine in the frilly room.

  “How right you are, Lord Hazelwood. Gentlemen don’t fall in love with noses, do they?” added Margaret from her chair.

  “Don’t spout twaddle, Margaret,” scoffed Lady Eliza. “Margaret reads romances, you know. What gentlemen will fall in love with the girl at all? She has no fortune. I don’t suppose you have any of the usual accomplishments, do you girl? Languages? Drawing? The pianoforte?”

  “I speak Arabic and Greek and read Latin.” Jane did not mention certain other skills her father had taught her, like detecting when one was being followed and relying on tact when under verbal assault.

  “Humph. You might as well be mute as let a man know you’ve outdone him in the schoolroom.”

  Hazelwood laughed and turned from the window. “She does that every time she opens her mouth.”

  Lady Eliza made a most unladylike snort in reply. Jane shot Hazelwood a glance to say that he wasn’t helping. In reply he crossed to her side with his lazy stride.

  Lady Eliza fixed her sharp gaze on Hazelwood. “The girl’s too solemn, too colorless, too old. Men like flutter and vivacity.” She paused to pick up the water glass at her side. “And what is my granddaughter doing in your scandalous company, young man, if she hopes to enter London society?”

  “You must blame the government, ma’am. I am Miss Fawkener’s protocol officer.”

  “Impudent jackanapes, you and protocol have never been remotely acquainted.”

  A racking cough seized Lady Eliza. Jane reached out to steady the glass of water wobbling in her grandmother’s hand. Competing scents from the silver tray assaulted her nose, a strong vinegary smell from a pierced silver box, something salty like the sea from an open jar, saffron and cloves, and sweet wine and boiled meat. In the warm room the combination was quite overpowering. Her father would never approve of her grandmother dosing herself with half a dozen questionable remedies that must be at odds with one another in her slender frame.

  When Lady Eliza had recovered from the coughing fit, she stared at the fire, her thin hands fretting the folds of her wrapper. “I suppose you expect me to launch you in society.”

  Jane shook her head, but her grandmother appeared not to see the gesture.

  “At my age, I can’t do a thing.”

  “I thought, Grandmother, that you might have some of my father’s things, his books or his boyhood treasures.”

  “Why would I keep maps and heathen gewgaws? Your father should have made arrangements for you before he went off on some fool trek in the desert.” Lady Eliza stared into the fire with unseeing eyes for a long moment before she turned back to Jane. “I suppose I could present you as a novelty. You probably ate lamb brains and wore next to nothing.”

  “Not at all, ma’am, I assure you. A modest woman in Halab must be covered from head to toe at all times in public places. I wore the veil.” Jane was being provocative, but she couldn’t help it. Her grandmother’s ignorance of Papa’s world was appalling.

  Lady Eliza shuddered, and the coverlet over her shoulders slipped. Margaret rose and crossed the room to right the fallen cover.

  “You could take her to services on Sunday, ma’am,” Margaret suggested.

  Lady Eliza sagged against the chair back. “Go to services in my condition? I’ve not been in months.”

  “Not been to services, Grandmother?” Jane asked. Somewhere inside the cross and hurting woman in front of her was a teta, and Jane wanted to find her. “An outing will do you good, I’m sure, and I’d be happy to accompany you.”

  “Hah! If you think you’ll meet some eligible beau on the back bench of Grosvenor Chapel, you’re as romantic as Margaret. What’s that group of yours called, Margaret?”

  “We’re the Back Bench Lending Library. We have the last pew, you see, and we do have three single gentlemen members of our group.”

  “Foolishness,” commented Lady Eliza. “What was Fawkener thinking to die in some heathen country and leave a perfectly good fortune to those wretched Walhouses? In two years’ time, Teddy Walhouse will burn through what has taken generations to build.”

  “Ma’am, if I may be so bold,” Hazelwood interrupted.

  “You’ve always been a bold one, boy.”

  “The king himself has taken an interest in your granddaughter. He intends to bestow the Order of St. Michael and St. George on your late son. Miss Fawkener will receive the honor in her father’s name.”

  “The king favors her, does he?”

  Jane stiffened at the sly gleam that came into her grandmother’s eye. Her chin came up. “I do not plan to attend any investiture ceremony.”

  “Not attend when the king is honoring your father? You will if you want me to have anything to do with you.”

  “Of course she will, ma’am,” said Hazelwood, turning to Lady Eliza. “She has a gown for the investiture ceremony. You will receive an invitation, and Miss Fawkener will be glad to accompany you for Sunday services.”

  Her grandmother looked from one to the other of them. “Well, you’d better bring her round, boy. Be off with you now. I’m tired.”

  * * * *

  On her grandmother’s doorstep, Jane’s breath frosted instantly,
and Hazelwood caught her arm as her foot slipped on an icy step. By turning her head, she could look down Conduit Street. Neat townhouses lined the flagstones on either side. No twists or turns offered hiding places for lurking villains. A few doors down, at number thirty-seven, a group of ladies and their attendants waited for admittance where a sign on the building indicated a doctor had his practice. Turning in the other direction, Jane saw only a gentleman’s carriage moving at a brisk pace.

  At her side, Hazelwood signaled his groom to bring the horses forward. “I rest my case about families,” he said.

  “At least my grandmother was frank about my prospects as a husband hunter.”

  “Prospects, which you did nothing to improve by deliberately setting her back up.” He grinned at her.

  “I had some excuse. She’s woefully ignorant of the East, and she thinks London is the center of the universe.”

  “A bear with a toothache is equally ignorant, but one doesn’t poke him with a stick.”

  “You didn’t help the situation any.”

  “Didn’t I? Haven’t you heard of drawing the enemy’s fire? And didn’t she agree to go to services with you?”

  “I hope she does. It cannot be good for her to spend all day in such heated rooms abusing that sweet woman and mixing draughts of who knows what.” Somewhere behind her grandmother’s peevish voice and medicinal odor was a teta. An outing to church would help Jane find her.

  “Dr. Sydenham’s formula, I expect.”

  “What?”

  “A potent brew of opium, saffron, cloves, and canary wine. It does wonders for a cough apparently.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Feeling unlucky in relatives?”

  “Not at all. My grandmother just needs to get out in the world.” He was too perceptive. She did feel an unexpected disappointment. No matter what she’d been told about her family, she had expected to feel a more instant connection with her grandmother, but she would not give up yet on Lady Eliza.

  He cast her a doubting glance as his groom brought the carriage to her grandmother’s door. Hazelwood helped her up to the high seat, vaulted up after her, arranged a rug over their knees, and set his horses in motion. She tucked her bag between them on the seat. It made a slight barrier between his hip and hers. She stared straight ahead.