Victorian Vigilantes Book 6
Elegance and Grace
Edited by Perry Iles
Cover Design by Jane Dixon-Smith
Copyright © Wendy Soliman 2017
ISBN: 9781543918830
This e-Book is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations contained are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance of actual living or dead persons, business, or events. Any similarities are coincidental.
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The Author – Wendy Soliman
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
About the Author
Also available by Wendy Soliman
Chapter One
London: Spring 1854
Jacob Morton sank back into a leather wing-back chair in a quiet corner of the reading room in the exclusive White’s Club and crossed his elegantly tailored legs at the ankle. To the casual observer his bland expression projected disinterest. Only those well acquainted with the 4th Earl of Torbay would have recognised the infinitesimal tightening of his freshly-shaven jaw and the storm clouds gathering behind his eyes as signs of his growing fury. Jake was angry—almost too angry to trust himself to speak—and regretted accepting his notoriously manipulative companion’s invitation to join him for a glass of wine when their paths had crossed, supposedly by accident, in the club’s entrance vestibule.
‘I am sorry to learn that Annabel Aitken has disappeared.’ Jake paused to take a sip of the excellent burgundy a steward had just presented to him, appreciating the explosion of flavours that burst onto his tongue, tantalising his taste buds. ‘But I fail to see what that has to do with me. I have better things to do with my time than to worry about the reputations of rather silly debutantes.’
‘She was the sensation of the season.’
Jake eyed Thorndike with an expression of mild surprise. ‘I was unaware that you took an interest in chits fresh from the schoolroom.’
Thorndike gave a dismissive shrug. ‘There is a great deal you don’t know about me.’
Jake didn’t doubt it, but resisted the urge to point out that he would much prefer for it to remain that way. Thorndike was a shadowy figure, haunting the corridors of power as he served successive prime ministers in an unspecified role, fixing situations that politicians couldn’t be seen to publicly involve themselves with. He had helped Jake avoid a scandal shortly after the death of his brother, at which point Jake acceded to the earldom. Thorndike hadn’t stopped demanding interest on that debt ever since.
Jake and his band of vigilante aristocrats had done Thorndike’s bidding successfully and discreetly many times, but upon his marriage to Olivia Grantley, Jake had decided that the score was finally settled. Thorndike appeared to accept that decision and had left him alone for over a year. But when Jake observed the tall, lean figure that put him in mind of a praying mantis bearing down upon him in White’s he wasn’t so naïve as suppose that the meeting was the accident Thorndike made it out to be.
‘Aitken occupies an important position in Aberdeen’s coalition.’
Jake nodded. ‘Keeping the Irish and Radical supporters from one another’s throats.’
Thorndike inclined his bony head. ‘Something of that nature.’
Jake took another sip of his drink. ‘I dare say Annabel has been swept off her feet by some convincing jackanapes and is living in sinful indiscretion.’ He waved an elegant hand in casual dismissal of the subject, aware that it wouldn’t actually be dismissed until Thorndike himself brought the conversation to an end. ‘I really don’t know what you expect me to do about it.’
‘Aitken and his wife are desperate to discover their daughter’s whereabouts. As a father yourself now, I dare say you can appreciate their anxiety.’
‘Then perhaps they should have taken better care of her.’
Jake kept his tone deliberately off-hand. One sign of interest and Thorndike would pounce upon the weakness like the predator he had a reputation for being. Jake could tell that Thorndike was seriously concerned about the chit’s disappearance and suspected that she would not have been persuaded to elope with one of her many admirers. The girl had been out for an entire season and had disappointed half the young bucks within the ton at the end of it by rejecting all their proposals, so Olivia had told him. Whose affections she was holding out in the hope of attracting was less certain. Her reputation remained unsullied and she had appeared to enjoy the stir she created wherever she showed her pretty face too much to do anything that would create a scandal.
The disappearance had to be politically motivated, Jake assumed. One of the many factions within Aberdeen’s coalition was using her to manipulate Aitken, but Jake had no interest in resolving this particular conundrum for Thorndike.
‘Olivia told me that she has gone to the country to recover from an illness.’
‘That is the story that’s been put about, but the fact of the matter is that she disappeared off the face of the earth three days ago and no one has any idea where to start looking for her.’
Jake drained his glass and waved the hovering steward away when he approached with the intention of refilling it.
‘Then I wish you luck in finding her,’ he said, untangling his ankles and pushing himself to his feet.
‘It’s vital to the government’s interests that we discover her whereabouts before Aitken does something stupid.’
‘He is a politician,’ Jake said, yawning behind his hand. ‘So it follows that he will act foolishly sooner rather than later.’
‘At least say you will call upon Aitken and hear the facts,’ Thorndike said, strolling the length of the room at Jake’s side.
‘No.’ Jake signalled the porter to bring his hat.
‘Don’t make me beg, Torbay.’
‘You?’ Jake sent him a look of amused forbearance. ‘You have never begged for anything in your entire life. Coercion or outright manipulation is more your style.’
‘Believe what you want about me, but I don’t relish what I am often forced to become.’
‘Then do something else. The government will survive without you.’ Jake paused. ‘Probably.’ Jake glanced at his companion in the periphery of his vision and could almost hear the cogs inside his head grinding.
Thorndike clearly hadn’t expected an outright refusal. He must, Jake conceded, have been fairly desperate to have approached him at all. It was obvious now that he was considering reminding Jake of the scandalous situation he had rescued him from all those years ago when Jake’s brother had died under questionable circumstances—circumstances that would have tarnished his family’s reputation beyond recall. Circumstances that could well have seen Jake hang had the shadowy Thorndike not intervened and removed all traces of Jake’s presence at the scene.
Jake was forced by Thorndike’s unwelcome presence to confront once more a period in his life that he had struggled to put behind him. A period when the death of a favoured son—a debauched, degenerate son—had rendered his parents distraught with grief. If Thorndike had the audacity to remind Jake of that situation…but of course, he was far too wily to do anything quite so obvious.
‘I am not here of my own volition.’ He allowed a significant pause, probably well aware that he now had Jake’s complete attention. ‘Mrs Aitken put the idea into her husband’s head to approach you. Aitken doesn’t consider it necessary to involve an outsider, and is only prepared to consider doing so in order to placate his distraught wife.’
Jake quirked one brow, refusing to allow Thorndike to see that his interest was piqued. ‘I cannot imagine why Rose Aitken would think of me. I haven’t seen her for years.’
‘Not since you were children together in Devon, her husband assures me.’
Their connection had been slightly more complicated than that, and Thorndike appeared to know it. Of course he did! ‘She is desperate for news of her daughter, as you can imagine. She has heard rumours about some of the situations you have resolved with tact and discretion.’
‘And yet Aitken didn’t feel that he could approach me directly. He sent you to sound me out instead.’
‘You and he are not acquainted, and Mrs Aitken barely knows your wife. It would seem peculiar if she called upon you claiming to be an old friend.’
‘She was not my friend.’
Thorndike cleared his throat. ‘Quite.’
‘What is Aitken…what are you doing to try and find the girl?’ Jake could have bitten off his tongue the moment the question left his lips, implying interest. Thorndike’s mention of Rose Aitken had reinforced memories of his brother’s lack of morals, distracting Jake, making him incautious. Once again, Thorndike had played him with the skill of a virtuoso. ‘No, don’t answer that.’ Jake held up a hand to ward off Thorndike’s response, his expression openly cynical. ‘He is first and foremost a politician, so naturally discovering his daughter’s whereabouts has been left to you. God forbid that he might do something to derail the coalition.’
Thorndike inclined his head. ‘I know you won’t believe this, but I would not have come to you of my own volition. It was Rose Aitken, weeping and wailing all over the place, declaring that her life was over that forced her husband’s hand. Sound familiar?’
It did. His mother had reacted in exactly the same way when his brother had met his grisly end. She had taken no comfort from the fact that she still had Jake, and that with his steadying hand at the helm there was an outside chance that the aura of decadence Edward’s extravagance had brought to the family name could be dispersed. It had been, but his mother had failed to acknowledge Jake’s achievement to her dying moment, and his father had barely spared him the time of day.
‘It was actually Rose’s elder daughter who brought your name into the conversation in the first instance, so I understand.’
‘Good God!’ Jake’s brows shot up. ‘I’ve never met the girl, as far as I can recall.’
‘Jemima is the polar opposite of her sister. A year older, she eschews society and allows Annabel to shine. Jemima was prevented from enjoying a season of her own due to illness. She is fully recovered now but adamantly refuses to make her curtsey. She has a small deformity that makes her self-conscious and she prefers not to display herself. However, she is exceedingly intelligent, and extremely astute. I was left with the impression that she had often heard your name pass her mother’s lips and read about some of your undertakings in the newspapers.’
Thorndike, ordinarily a man of few words, stopped speaking and allowed what he had said to sink in. Jemima’s circumstances, but for the deformity, were a mirror image of Jake and Edward’s. Jemima was seen as insignificant. Annabel was clearly the jewel in her family’s crown, much as Edward had been in his own.
Clever, Thorndike. Very clever.
‘I will discuss the matter with Olivia,’ Jake said, accepting his hat from the lurking porter and placing it firmly on his head. ‘No promises.’
Without waiting for a response, he strode from the club, aware that he had been reeled in, much as an expert angler lands a prize catch, using patience and cunning.
*
Jemima Aitken sat at a small writing desk in her bedroom at the family home in Bolton Street, running her pen distractedly through the fingers of her good hand. The persistent drizzle pelting against the glass perfectly reflected her sour mood. A mood that found her quite out of patience with Annabel, who had managed to turn the routine of the entire household on its ears, even though she was not there to revel in the resulting chaos. Annabel, who gloried in being the centre of attention, had most definitely excelled herself on this occasion.
Their mother had taken to her bed, blaming everyone other than herself for the disappearance of her overindulged child. Jemima had thus far refrained from rolling her eyes at Mama’s oft-repeated lament that Annabel was too innocent, too trusting, too everything to understand the nature of the scandalous liaison she must have been persuaded to enter into. There was no evidence to make anyone suspect that she had eloped, but Mama claimed she had received similar petitions from persuasive young men when she had been Annabel’s age and could understand the temptation.
Annabel had, Mama insisted, been most grievously deceived and would be in urgent need of her mother’s reassuring presence and forgiveness. Jemima knew it would be a waste of breath to attempt putting her mother straight on that particular point, but there was one specific area in which mother and daughter were in perfect agreement. Annabel must be rescued before her reputation was compromised beyond recall, affecting all of them, not least Jemima’s father, who would be forced to resign from his vital and difficult work for the government.
Papa continued to slave away at his ministerial post, maintaining the stiff upper lip for which the British were renowned. But Jemima could see that he too was profoundly affected by Annabel’s selfish determination to have her own way. Papa probably thought that she had been abducted by one of his many political opponents in order to force him to support their particular cause. Perhaps she had been, but Jemima had her doubts. Annabel could pull the wool over the eyes of just about everyone else, especially their doting parents, but Jemima saw her for what she actually was. Annabel herself had taken pleasure in ensuring that she did, simply because Jemima was the elder of the two and Annabel couldn’t abide competition for their parents’ attention. Nor was she willing to bide her time whilst Jemima was presented, the attention focused upon her rather than Annabel.
Jemima was the only person in the universe who saw glimpses of Annabel’s real character, formed at an early age. Annabel was a spoiled, demanding, manipulative little madam, presented in an exquisitely beautiful package and with a smile to turn the angels green with envy.
Annabel charmed, simpered and cajoled her way through life—had done so since birth when she discovered early on that smiling and looking angelic almost always got her what she wanted. But Jemima, a year older than her only sibling, had shared the nursey with the precious little thing and saw her at unguarded moments. She recalled the way she had ripped apart Jemima’s precious rag doll simply because it mattered to Jemima, and then pretended that the puppy was responsible for tearing it to shreds. Annabel couldn’t have been more than four years old when she instigated that particul
ar act of pointless spite. Jemima, in her innocence, had tried to tell their mama the truth and was punished for her efforts. She could still recall Annabel’s vindictive smile—a smile that she ensured no one else saw—when Jemima was restricted to bread and water for the rest of the day for telling untruths.
Annabel’s character emerged before she reached her fifth birthday. And still no one realised it, so well did she maintain the pretence of modest docility. Jemima, by contrast, was branded resentful of her fairer sister’s goodness and popularity, and had long since curbed her tongue, learning the hard way that pointing out Annabel’s little acts of malice got her precisely nowhere—other than to be chastised for her jealousy. One glance at her despised withered hand was all that was necessary if she ever felt in danger of forgetting.
Much as she had always resented Annabel’s manipulative behaviour and the inability of those closest to her to see beyond her admittedly beautiful face and artful behaviour, Jemima conceded that something had to be done about her disappearance. Efforts must be put in hand to find her before her rebellion disgraced the entire family. Jemima hadn’t bothered to share her opinion that Annabel had disappeared of her own volition because for once in her life she had been denied something that she very much desired, aware that her assertion would be brushed aside as further evidence of her resentment.
Only Jemima knew that her sister had taken more than a passing interest in a gentleman who, horror of horrors, had not been instantly captivated by Annabel’s charms. Jemima was aware just how infuriated Annabel had been by such an unprecedented reaction—she had overheard her most unladylike outburst regarding the behaviour of the gentleman in question. Accustomed to the idea that every man she favoured with a smile would grovel at her feet and follow her like a faithful puppy, Annabel had for once had a taste of her own medicine and found it bitterly unpalatable. It would not be in her nature, Jemima knew, to permit the gentleman to have the last word.
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