The common room was fairly empty at this time of morning, with the day staff all on duty and the evening staff not yet ready to gather for luncheon, and she spread the books out on one of the long tables to work. Juliet Langtree, the evening butler, had delivered a note to her room last night, and she opened it first. Lord Gilbert Parglen missed her and wished to call on her this evening.
She tucked the note into her pelisse pocket to answer later, actually somewhat surprised that Lord Gilbert knew how to write. He certainly must have missed her, if he’d gone to the trouble of thinking of words and putting them to paper. But she would be declining his request, regardless. The occasional evening’s entertainment had lost most—all—of its allure now that she’d found someone whom she could imagine as more than a midnight friend.
“Emily.”
Starting, she looked up as Diane, Lady Haybury, strolled into the room. The marchioness was dressed in black as always. Even her hair was black, which made her deep green eyes all the more luminous. “Diane. Jenny spoke to you, I imagine?”
“She did.” Emily’s employer seated herself on the bench opposite. “In your opinion,” she continued in a low voice, though the only other people in the room were Mr. Jacobs, the largest of the Helpful Men, and his evening coworker Bartholomew, playing a game of whist by the fire, “is Ebberling more likely to attempt to murder you, or to have you arrested?”
She said it in such a matter-of-fact tone that for a moment Emily thought she’d misheard. “I’m … I’m not certain,” she answered. “If he could do as he wished, I think he would prefer me silenced. The arrest would make it a longer, more messy process, and there’s always the chance that he couldn’t bribe everyone involved to make certain it went his way.”
Diane nodded. “That was Jenny’s opinion, as well.” She reached over, taking the pen from Emily’s fingers, and set it aside. “Haybury Park will be fairly empty this time of year, but it has the benefit of being better than two days out of London, and Oliver will hire a few additional footmen to make certain you don’t have any unwelcome visitors.”
“I—thank you so much for offering me your home to stay in, but I’m not leaving London, Diane.” Her first instinct had been to flee not only the city, but the entire country. Things had changed, however. She’d met Nathaniel Stokes, and even if their relationship were to end, she had him now. She was loath to give him up. “I’ve done some things of which I’m not proud, but I never did anything to Lady Ebberling but flee from the man who killed her.”
“This is not about being ruined, Em. This is your life.”
“I know. And I’m not going to do anything foolish, but neither will I run again. Not yet, anyway.”
The marchioness sighed, though she didn’t look terribly surprised. “Then you are not to leave the Tantalus again without telling either myself or Jenny precisely where you’re going and when you expect to return. You will not set one foot into the club itself until this is resolved, and you will pack a portmanteau in the event that we need to smuggle you away quickly. Is that clear?”
“You realize that if he does find me and decides to have me arrested, I will be found guilty. The club will not fare well if that happens.”
“The Tantalus is my concern. Do you agree to abide by those rules, Em?”
“Yes.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she looked down, willing them away. “You know the rest, do you not? Jenny told you about my parentage, I assume.”
Diane stood. “She did. If I haven’t made it clear before now, you’re here because of who you are, not who you were. We are not a charitable organization.”
Her employer had said that before—many times, in fact, and in the past Emily had always considered it a good thing that the marchioness didn’t know the truth about her. Now, however, she’d abruptly begun to look at it differently. None of the Tantalus girls was here out of the kindness of Lady Haybury’s heart. They were here because they were strong, competent women.
With a slight smile she lifted her head to return to her work, then paused, setting the pen aside once more. She’d spent her entire life running from her past, and the previous three years actively hiding from it. So what did she mean to do now, continue peering out from behind the curtains while she waited either for Nate to solve her problems or for Ebberling to return to Shropshire? And then what? Did she continue as before until Ebberling returned to London with his new bride—or worse, as a second-time widower? Would she send for Nathaniel again and hope that he still liked her enough to ride to her rescue once more?
“Piffle,” she muttered, and gathered the ledgers up in her arms. Simply because she’d found herself with friends, and one dear, dear man that she’d already begun to dread losing, didn’t mean that she could no longer look out for her own well-being.
Once she’d returned the books to their place, she retreated to the room she shared with the very tolerant Lily, where she closed and latched the door. Then she walked over to look at herself in the dressing mirror. Over the past three years her face had thinned a little, and to her own eyes she looked … wiser, she supposed it was, but what would Ebberling see?
Her, if he looked beyond the darker color of her hair and the much less governess-appropriate clothing. Rachel Newbury, governess and witness to a murder. That would never do. In fact, the only two things in her favor were her red-brown hair and the fact that he would never expect to see her walk directly up to him. “Heavens,” she muttered, putting a hand over her pounding heart. She sat down at her dressing table. Could she do such a thing? Even to save herself?
A knock sounded at her door, and she jumped. “Who is it?”
“Betty,” came the answer. “Lady H said I was to bring up luncheon for you, but you weren’t in the common room.”
Emily rose again and went to open the door. She’d always had a special place in her heart for the cook’s assistant. Not only was the girl far too young to have to be fending for herself in the world, but she’d found a place where she could improve upon the life she’d been given. In some ways, they were very similar.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Betty asked, setting the luncheon tray on Lily’s bed. “Do I have something on my nose?” She rubbed at the offending member, which did serve to smear a dot of soot, but didn’t matter a bit to the smattering of freckles across her nose.
“Do you think we’re of a size?” Emily asked, taking the girl’s hands and spinning her in a slow circle.
“I think you’re a tad taller than me, and I’m not near as skinny. And your bosom’s grander than mine. Why?” The cook’s assistant eyed her suspiciously.
“Because I thought I might loan you one of my gowns, if you would lend me one of yours.”
“Mine? I don’t have any gowns. Just this work dress, one other like it, and a blue one for church.”
Emily went to her wardrobe and lifted first a pretty yellow gown from a drawer, then a slightly more practical green one. “I think this one would fit you,” she said, holding it up to the younger girl’s shoulders. “Would you care to try it on?”
Betty fingered the soft silk. “I’d love it, but where would I wear it? Not into the kitchen. Miss Charity would have my head, for putting on airs.”
“There’s to be a troop of Russian acrobats at Vauxhall tomorrow night. A group of the day girls are going. I’m not, so you could take my place. I know April would be happy to sit with you. And so would Sophie, or Lily.”
“Acrobats?” Betty breathed. “Yes, please!”
With a chuckle, Emily set the dress on the bed. “Then let’s go find your other work dress and a sewing kit. We’ll let this gown out a bit, and lengthen your dress hem out. It’ll be fun!”
“For me, yes. I still don’t know what you’re about, wanting one of my dingy dresses.”
“I’ve a mind to visit someone,” she said slowly. “And I want to surprise him.”
She wanted to do more than that, but if she could fool Nate, then Ebberling would be
simple. If she could make herself walk close enough for him to see, that was.
Once she had Betty’s dress let out at the hem enough to reach her ankles, she went to find Jenny. However much courage she might have found to attempt this, she wasn’t quite ready to face the world without the assistance of someone as skilled in subterfuge as she knew Genevieve Martine to be.
“What are you doing?” Jenny asked, when she opened the door of her own private sitting room. “This is not what Diane asked of you.”
“No, it isn’t. But I am not a damsel in distress. I want to be free of this, Jenny, and I’m the only one who can do it.”
“I could do it.”
Emily frowned. “Very well, I concede that you would likely be better at this than I would. But I should be the one to do it, nevertheless.” She forced a smile as she pushed past her friend into the room. “I do imagine I have the makings of a better servant than you do.”
Jenny put her hands on her hips. “And what do you mean to do, then? Find employment in Lord Ebberling’s house and trick him into confessing that he murdered his wife? He will never do that, not to a servant. And even if he did, you already have that information. He needs to confess in front of witnesses that a court would listen to.” Her eyes narrowed. “Unless you mean to murder him. I will not assist you with this.”
“Jenny, pl—”
“No. You know another spy. Go convince him.”
This, she hadn’t expected. “Jenny, I may not have everything planned completely yet, but I do not mean to murder anyone.”
“You do not understand at all what you may be facing, my dear,” Miss Martine said in an easier tone after a moment spent glaring at Emily. “What you mean or do not mean to do is not necessarily what you could be required to do.”
Blowing out her breath, Emily inclined her head. “Very well. I’ll ask Nate for his assistance. But do you at least have a portmanteau with wigs and face paint or something? I thought all spies carried such a thing about with them.”
“I’m not a spy any longer, Emily.” Grimacing, Jenny turned her back and walked toward her bedchamber. “Wait here. I may have a thing or two that would suffice.”
She returned to the sitting room a few minutes later with a leather-bound case that looked more like a well-used physician’s satchel than a portmanteau. Emily would never have given it a second look, which she supposed was the point of it. “Thank you, Jenny. Truly.”
“My thanks would be you forgetting about this and simply waiting here in safety until Lord Ebberling leaves London.”
“But he’ll return, won’t he? Sometime when I’m less ready for him to appear.”
Jenny gazed at her for a long moment. “You may have the right of it. Only promise that you’ll be careful, whatever you decide to do. Running is always preferable to dying, Emily, Rachel, and whoever else you have become. And whatever heroic men may say, dying is preferable to nothing.”
“I’ll be careful. And if Nate doesn’t think my plan, whatever it is, will work, I won’t do it.” Well, probably not, anyway. Emily pulled open her friend’s door to leave, until Jenny pushed it closed again.
“Oh, bother. I can at least help you learn to look like someone else. Come along. But if your gentleman asks, you forced me to assist you.”
Her gentleman. Nate. He wasn’t hers, though. Not the way she wished for. Not forever. “I agree,” she said aloud. He was hers for today, at least. And she would take all of those todays she could.
Chapter Fourteen
“Shooting him would be easier,” Nate snapped, flinging a stack of his notes across his office.
“It would solve Emily’s troubles,” Laurence agreed, squatting down to pick up the pieces of paper, “but it would begin several new ones for you.”
“Not if no one knew who’d done it.”
That made his brother straighten again. He could read Laurie’s face like a book—was he serious, had he done such a thing before, what was it like to kill a man? “But you wouldn’t, would you?”
“No. I make a point of not killing anyone who isn’t a direct threat to the safety of the nation.” Though at this moment he’d met someone whose safety he prized more highly than that of England’s. That was likely the reason Rycott had made a point of recruiting only single, unattached men and women; evidently a man in love was prone to taking insane risks to protect the woman he loved.
“That’s … good. You only need to continue what you’ve been doing, then. You’ll find something you can use. You said that you always do.”
So he had, back when he’d been stupidly naïve and hopeful. “The man’s remarrying in just over three weeks.”
“Once he marries, then, won’t he think that Emily’s not going to make an appearance after all? Won’t he let everything go back to the way it’s been for the past two years or so, when he wasn’t trying so hard to find her?”
“He might,” Nathaniel conceded. “Of course he might just as easily decide that he’s become even more vulnerable to blackmail. Or that he now has a taste for killing his wives. We have that chit to think of, too, now that we know what he’s about.”
“Can’t we warn her, then? What’s her name, Harriet?”
“Harriet Danders. Yes, we could. If she believed us, then Ebberling would wonder how we discovered that little bit of information, and he’d figure we’d found Rachel Newbury, which would put Emily in even more danger. If she didn’t believe us, she would definitely tell Ebberling, with the same results.”
Laurie planted his face into his hands. “This is very complicated.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever mentioned that it would be simple.” Moving away from his office window, he clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Straightforward is for soldiers, Laurie. Straightforward is often also bloodier.”
His brother twisted around to face him. “What would the ideal solution be?”
He considered that for a moment. “Ideally, he would still trust me, and I could buy him a great deal of liquor and convince him to chat all about it while a half-dozen uninvolved lords, ministers, judges overheard him.”
“Then you likely shouldn’t have told him you wouldn’t help him any longer.”
“I know.”
That small misstep had kept him awake for the past few nights. If he’d still been thinking as a spy he would never have burned the best bridge to a suspect like that. But he’d been thinking as a man with a conscience, and worse, one who was more than halfway to being in love with his target. It had been foolish and stupid, and the idea that it might cost him Emily terrified him.
“Evidently, Nate, you’re human. I’m rather glad to see it.”
Nate glared at his younger brother. “I’d be gladder not to have erred.”
“Yes, but that’s you. I was talking about me.”
“Mm-hm. Thank you for your—”
The butler knocked at the closed door. “My lord?”
“Come in, Garvey.”
The servant opened the door partway and leaned in. “My lord, you have a message.”
Hopefully it was from one of his new friends, who’d learned something that he hadn’t. “Let’s see it.”
“The message is still in the hands of the … person who delivered it. She will only give it to you directly, she says.”
Well, that was curious. “Send her in, then.”
The butler hesitated again. “I … do not think it wise to give her access to the house, my lord.”
Nate straightened, walking to the doorway. “And why is that?” he asked, moving past the butler and into the hallway.
“She has a certain … odor, Lord Westfall. An unpleasant one. I had her wait on the front steps.”
Who would send him a smelly messenger? The Duke of Greaves, perhaps, but it was more likely that she’d come from one of his less highborn sources. And that meant the information was more likely to be useful to someone of his background. Hurrying his steps, he descended the stairs and strode into th
e foyer, pulling open the door before Garvey could reach it again.
The odor that hit him as the door swung back was indeed unpleasant. Sour milk and rotted eggs, he decided, as the female bearing the scent faced him. “You Westfall?” she asked.
He eyed her. Plump, with an ill-fitting gown of uncertain color under a dirty silk shawl and matted black hair that likely housed a colony of lice. There was also the beginnings of a moustache, bad skin, and what looked like a syphillis sore on one cheek. Nate made her for some very poor quality inn’s resident whore. “I am,” he said. “What do you have for me?”
“I don’t think ye’d want yer highborn neighbors t’see,” she drawled.
Hm. Charing Cross, or Whitechapel, from her accent. That could be Abel Dooling, then, though he doubted that Ebberling was even acquainted with anyone from the area. “Come in, then,” he said, opening the door wider and stepping back both to allow her room and to keep upwind of her. “Into the morning room, if you please.”
“My lord,” Garvey squeaked in protest.
He leaned toward the butler. “We’ll open the windows and air it out after she leaves.”
“Or burn it down,” the man grumbled under his breath.
Nate followed the woman into the morning room, watched as she took in the furnishings and decorations. When she turned around he noticed the heel of one shoe, which made him narrow his eyes. They weren’t anything special, but they were of better quality than the rest of—
“Here ye are,” she said, producing a slip of paper from somewhere he didn’t care to question too closely.
He stepped forward, and the female grabbed his wrist, lifted up on her toes, and kissed him full on the mouth. Her tongue raked across his lips, and Nate recoiled. “What the devil are you—”
She started laughing. And then he realized what the devil she was about.
“Emily?”
Dancing a swift circle, she curtsied. “I fooled you,” she chortled, in her own cultured, careful accent. “I told Jenny it would work. She reckoned you’d see through it, but when I found that rotten egg in the alley on the way here, I knew you’d never get close enough to me to even guess.”
The Handbook to Handling His Lordship Page 21
