Daniel paid a boy to keep an eye on his horse, then entered the ramshackle building that stank of tobacco, blue ruin, and stale piss.
“Well, if it ain’t Danny Boy,” Clancy called cheerily as Daniel sauntered past the six tables in the small room that served both as dram shop and public house. “You want me to send for Sall?”
“No. And don’t tell the wench I came here, either.” Daniel dropped onto a stool at the bar.
Without being asked, Clancy took a bottle of gin down from the shelf, poured a dram, and set the glass before Daniel. “She’s in a pet, y’know. Says you tossed her out this morn for a fancier tart.”
Daniel knocked back the dram quickly, relishing the burn. “Lady Helena is no tart, and Sall knows it.”
“Oho, a lady of quality, eh? That explains it, then. Sall is probably jealous.”
“Not a chance. Sall doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”
“All the same, you ain’t been too friendly with the girls of late, and they’re all in a miff about it.” The brandy-faced Irishman grinned. “They used to make a good bit of their blunt from you—even with giving it to you free sometimes. In the old days, you used to call for one or two of ’em every night. Now it’s more like every week. Next thing you know, it’ll be once a month.”
Daniel hunched over his glass. “I’m getting too old for whoring.”
“Too old! You ain’t yet thirty! Besides, nobody’s too old for whorin’ or I’d have stopped going to Mrs. Beard’s years ago. More likely you’re gettin’ as tightfisted as Knighton.”
“P’raps,” Daniel retorted with a chuckle, though that wasn’t it, either. The truth was, Daniel didn’t find it half so much fun anymore. In his youth, when the hot blood raged in him, he couldn’t satisfy the needs of his John Thomas fast enough. But he was tiring of quick tumbles with women who wanted only his purse or his pego. Or the novelty of being bedded by the bastard son of the notorious Wild Danny Brennan.
Women like that weren’t interested in giving a man true companionship. Strange, but even in the midst of all his female “companions,” he felt lonely as the very devil. That was what came of watching Griff and Rosalind bill and coo. It made him ache for a lass of his own.
The trouble was, where to find one? Not in Griff’s circles, where he still felt uncomfortable, and not with his old friends, either. He’d grown just civilized enough to chafe at his current surroundings, a fact that annoyed him.
“So what’s the tale with this Lady Helena?” Clancy asked with a sly glance. “You thinkin’ of gettin’ married or somethin’?”
“To her?” He laughed. “Not bloody likely.” He tapped the counter with his empty glass, signaling he wanted another dram.
Clancy was more than eager to oblige. His wig curls bobbed as he reached for the bottle. “She must be ugly, then.”
“No, she’s beautiful. Not that it makes a whit of difference. The woman’s favorite entertainment is sharpening her tongue on my tough hide.”
“Surely you ain’t gonna let a bit of shrew stop you from making a conquest, are you, Danny? I’ve seen you tame the fieriest tart with a handful of compliments.”
“Fiery tarts are easy to tame. It’s the self-righteous spinsters aiming to freeze a man’s prick that cause difficulty. Besides, she’s much too fine for my sort, and she knows it only too well.”
Which was why he should get this business of Lady Juliet done with, so the Swan Queen could glide back to her fortress in Warwickshire and leave him be. Before he started thinking too much on Clancy’s fool notion of taming her. “Clancy, I know you keep a room available for the old crowd when they come to the city. Has anybody unusual come asking to use it lately?”
“Unusual? How?”
“A couple? A man and a woman?”
Clancy shook his head. “Most of the free traders know it’s small. If they’ve got a wife or ladylove with them, they go to Blackman’s. He’s got more room.”
The tension ebbed in Daniel’s body. “True.”
“Wait, I forgot. There was a man asking about it a few nights ago. I had to turn him away because somebody else was using it. That’s why it slipped my mind.”
Daniel straightened. “He had a woman with him?”
Clancy nodded. “Pretty little thing, too. Young and blond and dressed nice. Though the man dressed like a gent hisself.”
“Not a free trader then?”
“Aye, a free trader, but with the fine manners and speech of a gentleman. Funny thing, that. He said Jolly Roger told him about my room. Crouch is about as far from being a gent as a smuggler can get—can’t imagine why he even bothered to give this other chap the time of day.”
Jolly Roger Crouch. Oh, bloody hell. “Does this man work for Crouch?”
“Don’t believe so. You know the free traders; they all talk amongst themselves.”
Daniel tamped down on his unease. All right, so Morgan was a smuggler who knew Crouch. A smuggler could elope with a woman same as anybody else. Half the smugglers in England did their free trading only part of the time and spent the rest in a respectable profession. There were vicars, for God’s sake, who did a bit of clerking for free traders on the side. It didn’t have to mean anything awful. “And the girl? What did this chap say about her?”
“Said she was his fiancée and they were going to be married. Pretty thing, she was. He treated her like she was made of glass, made her stay far away from me, like he was afraid I might hurt her.” Clancy chortled at the thought.
That cheered Daniel enormously. “Did he give you his name?”
“Aye, he did. Let me think, what was it now?” Clancy pushed up his wig to scratch his forehead. “Mr.…Mr.…I think it was Pryce.”
“Not Morgan?”
Clancy slapped his hand on the bar. “Morgan! That’s it. Morgan Pryce.”
“You sure his surname wasn’t Morgan?” Daniel asked, though his stomach felt suddenly hollow. Why the alias?
“No, his name was Morgan Pryce. I remember it because it’s so Welsh.”
A Welshman named Morgan, and no doubt with dark hair and black eyes…Daniel drew out Helena’s sketch, now stained and crumpled. He laid it on the counter, then set the miniature of Juliet beside it. “Was this them?”
Brow furrowing, Clancy pulled the candle nearer and peered down at the two. “Aye, near as I can tell.” He lifted his gaze to Daniel. “What’s all this about?”
“Nothing,” Daniel said tersely, remembering Lady Helena’s admonishment to be discreet. “And I hope you’ll remember that if anybody else comes asking about them.”
“If you like.” Though there was no mistaking the curiosity in Clancy’s eyes.
Daniel stuffed the sketch and the miniature back into his coat pocket. Very odd, this. An elopement, to be sure, but with a free trader traveling under a false name. Perhaps the man just wanted to make sure nobody could follow them. But still…
It worried him a bit. And the man knew Crouch, too. Did that mean anything?
No, how could it? Daniel hadn’t seen Crouch in years. It was just a bloody coincidence, that’s all.
Still, it bothered him enough that he discarded the idea of having Lady Helena hire a Bow Street runner. If this was an elopement—and everything pointed toward that being the case—then they needed discretion as well as speed.
He hated having to tell Lady Helena that she’d been right about Morgan’s profession. Thankfully, that could wait until he found out where the pair had headed. It had to be to Scotland, but how? By ship? Carriage?
Pulling out his purse, Daniel set it on the counter. “I’m looking for this couple, and don’t ask me why, because I won’t tell you. But I need to know where you sent them from here.” He pushed the purse toward Clancy. “Name your price.”
With an angry snort, Clancy pushed it back at him. “Your money ain’t no good here, Danny Boy, and you know it. You think I’d take tuppence from you, after all you done for me and my son? Don’t be makin’ me come
across this bar and throttle you for your impudence, you big lout.”
The very thought of the portly publican attempting to thrash Daniel brought a smile to his lips. “You don’t owe me anything, old man.”
“The divil I don’t. My boy’s happy as a lark workin’ as your clerk, and I’m right glad to have him out of this life. So don’t be tryin’ to pay me. I’ll tell you what you need to know without all that.”
“At least let me pay you for the gin.”
Clancy broke into a smile. “Well, now, the gin you can pay me for. I ain’t givin’ that away to nobody for free.”
With a chuckle, Daniel fished out a few coins. Clancy took them, threw them in the till, then leaned over the bar. “Now about that Morgan chap…”
Chapter 4
“There’s a house in my father’s garden, lovely Willie,” said she,
“Where lords, dukes, and earls they all wait upon me.
And when they are sleeping in their long silent rest
It’s then I’ll go with you; you’re the boy I love best”
“Lovely Willie,”
anonymous Irish ballad
The next morning, Helena entered a small, neat building in the center of London. A written summons from Mr. Brennan had arrived at Knighton House: Come to my office at noon. It said nothing else, which she’d fretted over for hours.
At least he’d finally summoned her. Although she chafed at his refusal to say more, at present he held all the cards in this delicate affair.
She halted in a modestly sized foyer sparsely furnished with elegant chairs and a tasteful Oriental carpet, and wondered if she’d stumbled into the wrong place. She would never have associated elegance with Mr. Brennan.
At one end of the room, the bespectacled clerk who sat behind an impressive oak desk looked up from what he was writing and spied her. He jumped to his feet. “Good morning! You must be Lady Helena.” He showed a leg as if meeting the queen, so energetically that his spectacles dropped onto the floor.
“Yes, I am,” she said, watching curiously as he picked up the spectacles and fixed them back on his nose. They looked odd. It took a second for her to realize why.
“Mr. Brennan said as how you’d be coming,” the man was explaining, “though if he hadn’t told me, I would’ve never guessed who you were, for you don’t favor your sister a’tall, seeing as how her hair’s not so dark and—”
“I beg your pardon, but I believe you dropped the glass out of your spectacles when they fell on the floor,” she interrupted with concern. “Perhaps we should look for the pieces.”
“Glass?” He looked bewildered. Then comprehension dawned. “Ah, I take your meaning, but there’s no cause for concern. I haven’t any glass in my spectacles.”
“Then why wear them?” she blurted out.
The man drew himself up with a proud smile. “My da says they make me look more like a clerk, y’see. He’s a clever man, my da. Clancy’s his name. He owns his own gin shop. So if he says I ought to wear spectacles, then I wear spectacles.” He lowered his voice confidentially. “I tried wearing the ones with glass in them, but they gave me the headache, and I was always falling over things. These are superior, don’t you think?”
“Much superior,” she agreed, fighting the urge to smile. What an odd little man. Leave it to Mr. Brennan to hire the son of a publican as a clerk. “And what does Mr. Brennan say about your spectacles?”
“He says as how I don’t really need them. He says doing the work of a clerk will best make me look like one. But I expect he’s only wanting to save me the trouble.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” she said politely, then glanced around. “Is he here?”
“Oh! Yes, of course, I forgot to say, didn’t I?” He jerked erect and spoke as if reciting a set speech. “At present Mr. Brennan is occupied with a client. If you would be so good as to take a seat, I assure you he will be with you shortly.” Relaxing his stance, he added, “I expect he won’t be long, milady.”
“Thank you.”
Occupied with a client. Obviously, Mr. Brennan did not share her sense of urgency. No doubt he kept her waiting on purpose after her prickly behavior yesterday. She couldn’t blame him. Although she hadn’t expected to interrupt an orgy when she knocked on his door, she should have been more “well-bred” about it.
Today she would do better. She would not criticize his habits or raise her voice. She would be the perfect lady. She would show him she appreciated his help, even if it meant sifting her remarks through gritted teeth.
The Well-bred Young Lady scents her breath with cloves and her words with honey, Helena reminded herself. A pity she’d grown a trifle unfamiliar of late with the language of honey.
Ignoring young Mr. Clancy’s curious gaze on her, she walked haltingly to the nearest chair. There was a certain advantage to spending all her time in Warwickshire. At home everyone knew of her bad leg; they’d had eight years to get used to it. So she was spared the pointed glances of others.
She sat down, and only then did Mr. Clancy take his seat. Opening her reticule, she took out a packet of cloves, removed one, then put it in her mouth to chew. The spice exploded in her mouth, as bitter as the knowledge that time was flying by, sending her sister and that wretched Mr. Morgan farther away with each fleeting second.
What if Mr. Brennan had found nothing and was abandoning the search? What would she do? Hire one of those Bow Street fellows? The very thought of hobbling into a succession of strangers’ offices chilled her blood. But more chilling was the thought of what Mr. Morgan must be doing to sweet little Juliet…
She stiffened. It did no good to imagine the worst.
Yet that’s all she’d done since yesterday. What a night she’d had—fraught with vague worries and portents of disaster. And dreams…Merciful heavens, the dreams that had plagued her! She still remembered the one where she stood fully clothed in a brothel of naked fancy women who were pulling on her, urging her to join them. She’d resisted until Mr. Brennan had appeared in his drawers and begun removing her clothes until all she wore was her blue scarf. And just as he’d leaned closer to untie it, she’d awakened, hot and restless, her hands touching—
Face flaming, she groaned. No, she wouldn’t even think of that.
As if prompted by her groan, Mr. Clancy said, “Are you comfortable, milady? Is there anything I can get you? A cushion perhaps? We don’t have any here, but I imagine I could pop round to a shop and—”
“I am perfectly comfortable, thank you,” she put in, praying that her blush did not betray her indecent thoughts.
One thing she could say for Mr. Brennan’s clerk—he was certainly friendly. He quickly launched into another subject. “We were all very happy when Mr. Knighton married your sister, y’know. She’s a fine woman, a fine woman indeed.”
She swallowed her shredded clove. “Thank you. I’m sure she’s flattered by your regard.” If Rosalind even noticed it, with Griff around. The stars in her eyes undoubtedly blinded her to anybody but him.
“It did seem like a good match. She and Mr. Knighton looked happy as larks.”
“They are.” What else did one say to that? They’re blissfully, annoyingly, maddeningly happy?
She knew it was peevish, but Rosalind’s connubial bliss made her ache with envy. And a bone-deep loneliness. Until this summer, the one consolation of being called a Swanlea Spinster, that dreadful nickname society had given them, was that she shared the title with Rosalind. She’d always assumed that Juliet would marry someday—the girl was too pretty to do otherwise—but Rosalind was to have been her companion in old age. Now she was alone once more.
“They ought to enjoy their stay on the continent,” Mr. Clancy babbled on. “The weather’s fine for travel this time of year.” He leaned forward to wink at her—actually wink at her. “Besides, newly married couples never notice a drop of rain or two—”
“How long have you worked for Mr. Brennan?” she broke in before he could speculate
on what newly married couples did notice.
The clerk adjusted to the abrupt change of subject without blinking. “Nigh on two months now. Before that, I worked at Knighton Trading. But when Mr. Brennan set up his own office in August, I was awful proud he gave me the job as his clerk.”
August? Directly after his disastrous visit at Swan Park? Surely Mr. Brennan hadn’t parted ways with Griff over that. Yet she couldn’t imagine his leaving Knighton Trading simply because Griff was marrying. That made no sense.
Mr. Clancy warmed to the subject of his employer. “Mr. Brennan has fine prospects ahead of him, fine prospects, to be sure. Long before he set up for himself, he increased the fortunes of many a man with his advice. Indeed, if your ladyship has funds to invest on the Exchange, you couldn’t do better than Mr. Brennan for an adviser.”
“I shall bear it in mind.” She could well imagine where an unprincipled devil like Mr. Brennan had gained such knowledge and in what shady concerns he would invest her money. No, thank you.
Suddenly she heard voices in the hall, and Mr. Clancy leaped from his chair, hurrying around his desk and across the room to the coat rack, where he gathered up a gentleman’s many-caped box coat and beaver hat. Seconds later, a well-dressed young man of obvious refinement entered the foyer, followed closely by Mr. Brennan.
Despite herself, Helena’s pulse quickened at the sight of the burly Mr. Brennan. It was that wretched dream, of course, making her react to him like a silly girl. She must put it out of her mind at once.
She tried to guess from his expression if he’d found out anything, but he didn’t even look at her. He was too busy playing the man of business with his client.
A Notorious Love Page 4
