The Purloined Heart (The Tyburn Trilogy)

by Maggie MacKeever

  Came a scratching at the heavy door. A slight, slender man slipped into the room. Gully had the knack of blending into his surroundings without attracting any more attention than a housefly.

  Of Horus’s servants, Gully alone had entry to the cenotaph. If any of the other staff were curious, they kept their speculations to themselves, knowing (as the cook had put it) not only on what side their bread was buttered, but also what became of burnt toast.

  Horus said, “And?”

  A bead of perspiration broke out on Gully’s brow. “I searched top to bottom. The documents weren’t there.”

  Those damnable documents, thought Horus. If someone found them, what then? Would they be turned over to the authorities?

  And which authorities might those be?

  “Do you have the lists?” he asked.

  Gully held out several sheets of paper. Horus took them from his hand. A Burlington House guest register. Descriptions of the costume each guest wore.

  If he hadn’t known Diana, Horus had recognized her companion. To disguise Angel Jarrow required more than blue-powdered hair. Whoever Diana might be, she wasn’t Mr. Jarrow’s current inamorata, a circumstance worthy of note, since Angel was faithful in his fashion to the lady of the hour.

  If it had been Horus’s Diana that Angel embraced and not another. Horus’s Diana was distinguishable in that she wasn’t distinguishable at all.

  He would have dealt with her at once, had he not been forced to waste precious time dealing with the Henry business. And so she had eluded him.

  But not for long.

  Horus began to read. Perspiration trickled down Gully’s cheek and dripped off his chin.

  Chapter Eleven

  Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. —Sir Walter Scott

  “It’s more than a man can bear!” moaned Viscount Ashcroft. “Or should be expected to, at any rate. First she goes into one of her takings, saying you are an excellent creature and she begins to despair of me — and why she should say she ‘begins’ to despair I don’t know; she’s been combing my head for the last fortnight — and I also don’t know why a man would want to take a lawful blanket when he already dwells under the hen’s foot!”

  Maddie glanced at the other occupants of the viscount’s landau, who were intent on their own conversation, Matthew explaining to the twins that Hyde Park had been appropriated from the monks of Westminster when Henry VIII decided to extend his hunting ground.

  Was she never to escape Henry VIII?

  “That was just the start of it,” Tony continued. “Maman felt she should drop a hint or ten. It’s time I pled my case, lest you’ve mistook the reason I’ve been dangling after you. I said I didn’t think I’d taken your fancy to any marked degree, because I remembered Romeo and Juliet and all that romantical fiddle-faddle and thought Maman might stop ringing a peal in my ear if she believed my heart was broke, though why I should have thought it I can’t say because if Maman has ever cared a button for anything I feel, I ain’t seen indication of it yet — and then she flew into her tantrums and accused me of behaving scaly and said I should make sure you knew I had matrimony in mind.”

  “High flights!” said Maddie, because Tony was waiting for her to say something, and calling his mama an archwife, however fitting, wouldn’t set a good example for her sons. Fortunately the boys were more curious about how King Henry had disposed of his numerous inconvenient wives.

  “So you may say!” said Tony. His companion in humbuggery was according less consideration to his mama’s crotchets than he felt she should. “I asked what else Maman thought you’d think I had in mind, and said if she figured me the kind of fellow who went around offering females a slip on the shoulder she was all about in the head. Not that you’re the kind of female a fellow offers a slip on the shoulder, didn’t mean to say you was.” Maddie made a stifled noise, and he eyed her anxiously. “You ain’t mistook it, have you? Me dangling after you?”

  “Oh, no!” she gurgled. “How could I? After that pretty speech?”

  Dashed if females didn’t find humor in the oddest things! “We could tell Maman you’ve taken me in dislike.”

  “Then she’d find someone else for you to dangle after,” responded Maddie, having got her giggles under control. “And we’d both be in the suds. We will do much better to go on as we are.”

  “Maman thinks you’re a biddable female,” Tony muttered. “That shows all she knows. I hope you know enough to get in out of the rain.”

  “I am not a child,” soothed Maddie. “At the moment there’s not a dark cloud to be seen, so relax and enjoy the drive.”

  No dark clouds, were there? In Tony’s opinion, not that anyone ever heeded his opinion, Maddie should keep an umbrella at the ready, sunshine or no.

  Later in the day, the haut ton would congregate in Hyde Park, eager to see and to be seen. At this hour, the park was nigh deserted, only an occasional rider or carriage rattling by. Deserted, that was, save for workmen busy with preparations for the Great Fair, and gawkers who had come to watch, and the cows and deer and assorted wildlife found along the shore of the Serpentine Lake, which had been built, according to the knowledgeable Matthew, by Queen Caroline, consort of George II, in 1730, and was so called because of its sinuous shape.

  The viscount craned his neck to take a better look around him, no easy feat due to the height of his cravat. He for one grew weary of the round of celebrations that began with Bony being banished and hadn’t ended yet, the most recent a great thanksgiving ceremony at St. Paul’s featuring Wellington and the Sword of State. But Tony wasn’t a shabbing fellow, nor begrudging either, so when Maddie mentioned this expedition he’d offered his landau and, entering into the spirit of the occasion, rigged himself out in a bottle green frock coat, sage pantaloons and a white waistcoat dotted with embroidered purple posies, at the last minute setting aside a many-caped driving coat because, since he wasn’t driving, it wouldn’t be the thing.

  Tony wished he’d set aside his corset. He hadn’t realized he would be required to bend, and as a result was finding it difficult to draw breath.

  The lesson had progressed to the plague of 1665, when a large number of the poorer inhabitants of London, who couldn’t escape into the country, brought their household goods and set up tents in the park. Benjie demanded to know the location of the camp. “Now you’ve done it,” sighed Maddie. “He won’t be satisfied until you’ve shown him the spot.” Tony found this schoolboy energy exhausting, but their mama didn’t seem to mind. She looked more the thing today, for which he took full credit: he’d refused to take her up in his carriage if she wore a single stripe.

  The landau halted so Benjie could inspect the site of the plague camp. The next thing Tony knew, the small party was strolling through the park. Stiffly strolling, in his case, his new corset not having been designed for the taking of exercise.

  The boys, and their tutor, were a short distance ahead, discussing Mr. Oliver Cromwell, who during his tenure as Lord Protector of Parliament had suffered an attempt on his life while riding through Hyde Park. Maddie drew closer to Tony, as if she expected Mr. Cromwell’s ghost to be lurking among the trees. Which reminded Tony that she still hadn’t explained why she’d fled Burlington House as if the hounds of hell were snapping at her arse. And so he asked.

  Since he phrased the inquiry rather more politely, Maddie merely said, “I thought I saw — but I must have been mistaken. Did you notice a pharaoh? Or anything unusual?”

  The queerest thing the viscount had noticed was one Colonel Armstrong, dressed as a patched and painted lady from the reign of Queen Anne, who had sat fanning his hooped and beruffled person while his maids of honor clustered round. Tony reminded himself to discover what manner of corset the colonel had employed. “That depends on what you’d consider ‘unusual’.”

  “Well, I did.” Dare Maddie tell Tony what she’d seen? “It disturbed me very much.”

  “Then you shouldn’t h
ave watched!” he scolded. “Warned you, didn’t I? Lightskirts and libertines?”

  “Not that manner of disturbing. I met your cousin-in-law there.”

  Tony said, bewildered, “Bea?”

  “Not Mrs. Denny, Mr. Jarrow.” Maddie fell silent, debating with herself. Matthew’s voice drifted back to them, explaining how, after Mr. Cromwell died of natural causes, his body had been exhumed and executed posthumously and left to dangle in a cage at Tyburn as warning to others who might conspire to depose the monarchy, which prompted the twins’ curiosity about the gallows that once stood at the northeast corner of the park.

  Tony recalled the time his cousin-in-law had spent talking with Maddie at Bea’s musical party. “I’m supposed to drop a word. Maman says to tell you Angel is on the downward pathway to perdition and she don’t doubt he’ll arrive there before long. Seems to me it’d be deuced uncomfortable to be forever tripping over females, but each man to his own taste.”

  Maddie smiled to imagine Tony thus tripping. Confidences, she decided, would be unwise. “Lady Georgiana needn’t concern herself. I’m hardly the sort of female to catch Angel Jarrow’s eye.”

  “I shouldn’t say there is a sort. I recall a dark marchesa and a little opera dancer whose hair was yellow as a crow’s foot—” Tony broke off, wondering how best to extricate his foot from his mouth. His embarrassed gaze fell on a grubby, curly-headed urchin wearing patched boots and a shabby dress, who was sauntering along the pathway. She gave him a gap-toothed grin.

  Tony reached into his pocket, tossed her a coin. She caught it in mid-air. “Ta, guv.”

  “Poor mite. That was kind of you.” Maddie watched the urchin continue along the path. “Do you dislike Mr. Jarrow, too?”

  “Angel ain’t going to offer me carte blanche! I like him well enough. Everybody does. Or everybody but the highest sticklers, and they probably like him too, but daren’t say so out loud.” Tony’s voice trailed off as he noticed a handsome phaeton drawn by a pair of matched bays pulling up so the driver might speak with a woman mounted on a dainty dappled mare. Tony knew a great deal about the Contessa DeLuca, his mama not needing to be acquainted with someone to air her opinion of them. He admired the contessa’s emerald green riding habit, the jaunty cap that perched on her chestnut curls. Less appealing was the sulky expression on her face as she spurred her mare and rode away.

  “Hah!” ejaculated Tony. “Speak of the devil and he’ll come calling. I never heard it was also true of angels, but there he is. And hat, my girl, was the sort of female a fellow offers a slip on the shoulder, and you’re not to have anything to do with her if she should come in your way!”

  Chapter Twelve

  I am better than my reputation. —Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

  Angel glanced at the young woman perched beside him on the phaeton’s high seat. She wore a carriage dress that didn’t suit her, steel blue with a white lace collar and matching capelet; an unflattering bonnet trimmed in the same color as the dress; and a bemused expression on her face. “Air-dreaming?” he inquired.

  She regarded him reproachfully. “I’m trying to determine how you detached me from my companions, and even induced them to bid me have a nice drive around the park. Are you in the habit of abduction, sir?”

  “Abduction?” echoed Angel. “Hardly. That would require too much concentrated effort on my part.” He felt the touch of her gaze on his brass-buttoned blue coat, nankeen breeches, gleaming top boots. The effect was startlingly erotic. “There is concentrated effort there,” she said, as her eyes returned to his intricately tied cravat.

  “The credit goes to my valet. I have but to raise and lower my chin.” Angel’s hands were firm on the reins, his horses having already displayed displeasure at finding themselves in company with the creatures that made their home along the shores of the Serpentine. He had himself displayed displeasure during his recent encounter with Daphne. Why was it women must always plot and scheme?

  Mrs. Tate didn’t have it in her to plot and scheme. Or she was damned good at it, which was not an impossibility. “Are we to welcome you to the family? My sister tells me that you are Ashcroft’s ‘dear dear friend’.”

  “I daresay I am. But it’s not what you think. Tony doesn’t wish to take a lawful blanket. Being as he already lives under the hen’s foot.”

  Her chuckle was infectious. Angel joined in. In that moment of inattention, an ill-tempered swan came to the notice of his team. An intricate bit of maneuvering ensued. Angel said, “That is called feathering a corner. You may compliment me, Mrs. Tate.”

  “And so I do!” She clutched the seat with one hand and her bonnet with the other. “Your vehicle is, ah, well sprung.”

  His vehicle was unstable and high off the ground, its front wheels smaller than the rear, the sides left open to the elements; and Maddie Tate hadn’t managed to convince him she didn’t dislike sitting so far above the ground. “Don’t worry. I shan’t dump you out.”

  “I am glad to hear it.” She unclamped her fingers from the carriage seat. “You will consider me the merest country mouse, but I have never ridden in a phaeton before. My son’s tutor told us that your carriage is named after the son of the Greek sun-god Helios, who tried to drive his father’s chariot and was destroyed by Zeus with a thunderbolt to prevent him setting the earth on fire. You understand why I might suffer a qualm.”

  “Several qualms, I should imagine. In the country, were you accustomed to driving yourself?”

  “Oh, yes. I drove a gig, and a wagonette. And several times, although Mr. Tate did not know it, I drove his curricle.”

  “Very daring!” Angel approved.

  “It seemed so at the time. But you are mocking me, I think.”

  “Never!” said Angel, although he had been. “Shall we be serious, then, and discuss — I have it — Mr. Wilberforce’s Society for the Suppression of Vice?”

  Maddie still gripped her bonnet. “Is it your intention to remind me that I am driving around the park with a gentleman of doubtful morals? I’ve been warned that you are irresistible to most women — well, to all but the highest sticklers, Tony says.”

  “Doubtful morals?” echoed Angel. “I’m offended. There shouldn’t be any doubt that I have no morals at all.”

  She turned to study him. “You’re flirting with me again. Why?”

  Angel might have pointed out that he flirted with everyone. But the lady had asked a serious question, and so he would answer her. “I flirt with you because I enjoy your reactions. You don’t know how to flirt and therefore your reactions are sincere. Now I am being sincere, and I marvel at myself. Tell me about your country home. You would prefer to be there?”

  Maddie returned her attention to the street. “I would prefer to be anywhere other than I am.”

  “Driving around the park with a man of doubtful morals?”

  She shook her head but did not reply.

  Her silence deprived him of the pleasure of listening to her voice, which if it hadn’t curled his toes today, had definitely made them twitch, and so Angel made an effort to draw her out. Soon Mrs. Tate was telling him of Meadowmount, and the leaking roof which had resulted in her husband’s demise. Angel’s own spouse would never be so agreeable as to tumble off a roof, but he savored the idea.

  Her sons weren’t happy in London, confided Maddie. While she felt her boys had the rest of their lives to be hemmed in with rules and regulations, and at their current age should be permitted to enjoy themselves, this point of view was not popular in her father’s house. Sir Owen didn’t care for any of his dependents to enjoy themselves.

  Sir Owen’s daughter looked guilty. “I shouldn’t have said those things. You bring out the worst in me.”

  Maddie Tate was an unusual young woman. Angel was enjoying this exchange. “I would enjoy bringing out the worst in you, my goddess. But that isn’t my current aim. I fear I must — much as I dislike it! — speak seriously with you for a moment. Regarding the masquerade.�
��

  Color blossomed in her cheeks. “I behaved in the most outrageous manner. I hope you haven’t mentioned — I beg that you won’t mention — if Sir Owen found out — Oh, pray tell no one you saw me there!”

  “I won’t betray you,” Angel promised, and hoped the same might be said for Lords Saxe and Castlereagh. “Will you tell me what you were running from? If you kissed the pharaoh the way you kissed me, I can’t blame the man for pursuing you.”

  Maddie glanced sideways at him. “It was a nice kiss, was it not?”

  “I’ll have you know,” retorted Angel, “that I am accustomed to my kisses being considered rather more than ‘nice’.”

  “Ah, but I kissed you!” she reminded him. “And I haven’t had half — a quarter — a tenth! — of your experience along those lines. For you, it would have been an enjoyable moment among countless other enjoyable moments. One pair of lips is much like another. You cannot be expected to remember them all.”

  But Angel did remember, rather to his surprise. Granted, the circumstances had been unusual. “Burlington House,” he reminded her.

  Her amusement faded. Maddie related what she’d seen and heard. Thought Angel: Damn and blast. “And how did you come to witness this encounter?” he inquired.