“A sound philosophy, indeed. Perhaps you could apply it in your valet duties.”
Kane snorted. “You could hire a real valet.”
“I could,” Crispin agreed, “but it sounds like too much trouble.”
In reality, he was content with Kane. He might not perform his duties to the standards expected of a distinguished valet, but he also never complained—no matter the state of Crispin’s attire when he returned home.
He allowed the younger man to assume the lead, unobtrusively following in his stumbling wake. To an observer, Kane appeared to be a drunken fool. For Crispin’s purposes, he became the distraction.
Kane tripped and banged into a table as he neared a guard stationed outside the door to the private room. Ale and wine sloshed onto the battered tabletop.
“Watch yer bloody step,” a man seated on the bench growled.
Kane turned around, wobbling, and made a lewd gesture in his direction. Crispin sighed. This could only go badly for the whelp.
The man, who was built like a bull, slammed his fleshy palms against the table and lumbered to his feet. “Come a little closer and do that again.”
Kane looked back at Crispin with dulled eyes. “Bollocks.”
Under normal circumstances, Kane could defend himself handily without suffering a scratch, but to do so now would ruin his cover. Laborers did not fight like a Regent’s Consul man, which meant Kane would leave Ye Olde Black Griffin with a few more lumps than he had when he had arrived.
His opponent raised his brick-like fist. Kane winced, steeling himself to take the hit, but Crispin couldn’t allow him to return home with a pulverized face. He drove his shoulder into the man’s back and shoved. Caught by surprise, Kane’s opponent pitched forward and tumbled on top of two men sitting at the table. The fellows’ companions sprang to their aid and tugged on the bullish one’s arms, which served to anger the larger man even more. Shouting ensued and soon fists were flying.
Crispin ducked a punch that came his way, then pulled Kane from the fracas while he still had all of his teeth. More men joined in the fighting, and the guard stationed outside the private room left his post to grab a man’s arm before one of the serving wenches was struck with a tankard by accident. Sobbing, she turned into the guard’s chest, and he ushered her from the tavern.
“A brawl was not part of the plan,” Crispin yelled over the racket.
“No half measures, remember?” Kane grinned. “You asked for a distraction. I have delivered.”
The door to the private room flew open. One of the merchants stood at the threshold. His jaw dropped; his skin paled. He slammed the door, and Crispin was certain he turned the lock. With the tavern’s male employees occupied with breaking up the fight, and the serving wenches hiding under tables or behind the bar, no one seemed to notice Crispin and Kane approach the private room.
The tavern wench Crispin had spoken with earlier reported the owner had commissioned a secret room to be built next to the private dining room for easy listening. Nothing occurred behind closed doors without his knowledge—usually. He had been called to his ailing mother’s bedside in Hampshire, and he was not expected to return before the end of the month.
Crispin located the false panel in the wall, and he and Kane slipped inside the narrow room. It was dark except for scant light filtering through the wall where the planks didn’t quite meet one another. The voices next door were as clear as if he shared a table with the men. They were arguing, speaking over one another until one cultured voice rose above the rest.
“Do not be alarmed, sirs. Allow me to reassure you our agreement remains intact.”
“It is the baron,” Kane whispered.
Crispin agreed with his deduction. Baron Van Middleburg had been the only peer to enter the room.
“Balderdash!” one of the men said. “Our agreement was with Lord Geoffrey, and he is dead. I refuse to extend further credit. This ill-advised venture ends here tonight.”
Several voices rose in agreement.
“You cannot withdraw your support now,” Van Middleburg snapped. “The wheels have been set into motion. Likely, our emissary has already engaged the group. If we do not keep our covenant and pay what is owed when the deed is done, they will come to England to collect.”
The baron’s detractor scoffed. “Do you expect us to believe a group of Egyptian ghosts will come to England to exact revenge? You are cracked, sir.”
The other men laughed and derided the baron. Encouraged, his opposition proceeded with his argument.
“Lord Geoffrey probably made up the tale to swindle us out of our riches. I wager there is no Black Death.”
Crispin’s gut clenched.
“You are wrong,” Van Middleburg said. “Lord Geoffrey’s source is well-connected in the British government, a man of unique power.”
The mysterious connection was unmistakably a Regent’s Consul man. After Napoleon’s invasion of Iberia, a fellow Regent’s Consul spy had uncovered evidence an advisor to the Emperor had hired the Egyptian mercenaries to quash the rebellion by murdering rebel leaders. Their deaths created an uproar and strengthened the resistance instead.
In an attempt to deflect blame from the new King of Spain, the advisor had arranged for the assassinations of his own enemies among Joseph’s cabinet, but it was too late. The Spanish refused to give up the fight.
The Consul had been tracking the Black Death’s movements ever since, although they lost sight of the group from time to time. The mission to study the Black Death was surreptitious, sanctioned by the Counsel’s leader but hidden from the Regent. Farrin had insisted sharing knowledge of the group and their work for the French would create panic in England.
Besides, the Prince Regent had been more interested in building and redecorating his palaces in an effort to wage a war of prosperity between himself and Napoleon than he was in the actual war. Even Charles Wedmore had conceded this was true and vowed to keep the secret.
“Without the assistance of Lord Geoffrey’s connection,” Van Middleburg said, “our aims would be unachievable. His strategy has carried us to this point, and there is no return. We must forge onward.”
Another naysayer joined in the attack on the baron. “Where is the mastermind now? Why does he not address the board himself?”
A rumble of discontent circled the room. A few men spoke up, demanding Van Middleburg bring the contact before them so they might judge the man’s qualifications.
The baron cleared his throat. “I’ve never met the man in question, and my wife’s cousin did not share his name. That was the condition for his assistance. I am certain everything is all right, and he will find me when it is time to make the final payment.”
Loud grumbling ensued, but the baron’s original nemesis called for quiet.
“Surely, you’ve corresponded with Lord Geoffrey’s American contact,” he snipped. “You must know his name.”
“Er, not exactly,” Van Middleburg murmured, “but his identity will be known shortly. We have the matter in hand.”
The room exploded with shouts and curses at this revelation. When it seemed unlikely Crispin and Kane would learn anything of further use, they exited the hidden room and used a back door to leave the tavern. They avoided conversation on the walk back to the sanctuary.
In the dank two-room hovel, Kane set about stirring the embers in the hearth and adding kindling until a small fire crackled in the fireplace. He swung the kettle over the flames.
“Why would a handful of merchants and a baron need the services of mercenaries?” he asked.
“I do not know.” Crispin crossed to the washstand to pour water from a pitcher into a chipped basin and grabbed a cloth and a bar of lye soap. He didn’t wait for the water in the kettle to warm to begin scrubbing away the soot on his face and hands. He needed to think. The cold sharpened his senses.
Kane plopped into a chair by the hearth and tugged off a boot. “Van Middleburg is right, isn’t he? If the men do no
t honor their debt, the Black Death will come for them.”
“Yes.”
The Egyptian warriors would make the battles with the Norsemen of the ninth century look like child’s play. The Black Death were formidable warriors, because no one ever saw them coming. The ability to slip in and out of any camp undetected, leaving behind nothing except dead bodies, had earned the group their moniker. They were a plague on their enemies, and their employer’s enemies alike.
Kane dropped his boots on the floor and shrugged out of the oversized coat he wore. “Will you inform the Lord Chamberlain?”
“I must.”
The younger man whistled. “I do not envy you the task. When Hertford learns His Majesty’s men have kept knowledge of the group’s existence from him, he could recommend locking you all in the tower.”
“And where will you be while I am wasting away in a cell?”
Kane smiled. “I have always been fond of the master’s chambers. The bed appears comfortable enough.”
“Do not count your chicks before they hatch, whelp. I will not be imprisoned, and neither will our colleagues. We are the only ones likely to be standing between England and death.”
Crispin folded the cloth and left it on the washstand before sitting at the small table close to the fire.
“This was Farrin’s doing,” he said. “He kept His Majesty in the dark, and he orchestrated this deal with the Black Death. It had to be him. He was with Lord Geoffrey the night of his murder. They dined in secret at Claudine Bellerose’s home many times over the last few years. What I cannot fathom is why. What were they plotting, and why did it end in homicide?”
“Maybe Miss Darlington knows more than she realizes. Question her. She has already shown an interest in helping.”
Crispin scowled. “Sophia has told me everything. She is of no further use.”
“But—”
“I will not hear any more.” Crispin shoved away from the table to change in the back room.
To think he had considered confiding in her, allowing her to dip her toes into the dark waters where he was often submerged. He had lost his damn senses. If the Black Death was involved, Sophia must be kept as far away as possible.
Tomorrow.
“I will send her to the country with her aunt where she will stay until I come for her,” he said from the other room.
“The lady might have something to say about your plans for her.”
“I do not care,” Crispin snapped. “I will hear no more arguments or nonsense about having no sway over her. She is mine—mine to protect—and if she gives me grief, I will remind her this is exactly what she wanted.”
Kane popped his head through the doorway; his smiling reflection was captured in the looking glass. “I hope you plan to revise your marriage proposal before speaking with her.”
Heat climbed into Crispin’s face, and his collar felt too tight. “I was not intending to propose to her with those exact words.”
“Smart thinking,” Kane said and tapped two fingers to his temple. “She might have you tossed out on your arse otherwise. Ladies like romance. I could tutor you if you like.”
Crispin chuckled. “Thank you, but I am capable of romancing a lady on my own.”
Thirteen
Sophia paced alongside the manicured hedges bordering Lord and Lady Seabrook’s closely cropped lawn of their country home. The ground was still soft from yesterday’s rain and gently grabbed at her boot heels as she walked. A large crowd had turned out for the Seabrooks’ garden party, despite the half hour ride from London. It seemed everyone and their second cousins had turned out for the event—everyone except the one person Sophia was eager to see.
Blasted Margrave!
Impatience expanded inside her, tightening her chest. She walked faster in an attempt to outrun the urge to scream in frustration. She had anticipated cornering him at some point today to demand he answer for not calling at Wedmore House yesterday. Instead, she was left waiting again.
“His vanishing act has grown too tiresome,” she said to Octavia. “I do not know how much more I can tolerate.”
“I...understand. Will you please slow down?” Octavia’s distressed voice jolted Sophia to the present; she stopped abruptly to attend to her friend.
“Oh, dear! Are you all right?”
Octavia’s face was bright red, and her chest heaved with each breath. “Just...a little...winded.”
“I am so very sorry. Please, come sit while you catch your breath.”
Octavia nodded. “Splendid...suggestion.”
Sophia took her friend’s arm and led her to a bench beneath a willow tree. Sometimes she forgot other ladies were not accustomed to vigorous activity. She walked with her aunt daily, and before Regina married and set off on her honeymoon, she had often coaxed Sophia into sparring with her. Sophia was no match for her older sister, but she never would have heard the end of it from Regina if she had not put forth adequate effort. A turn about the lawn was easy in comparison.
When they reached the bench, Octavia plopped down and heaved a sigh. She stared in the direction of the tents her parents’ servants had set up around the vast lawn.
“Forgive me,” Sophia said and sat beside her friend. “I was preoccupied and lost a sense of how fast I was walking. Would you like a glass of lemonade? I will retrieve one for you.”
Before Sophia hopped from the bench to visit the designated tent, Octavia grabbed her wrist. “It is still early. Lord Margrave will make an appearance. He accepted mother’s invitation.”
Sophia hoped so. “Every time I believe our relationship is advancing, he disappears.”
Octavia narrowed her eyes; her mouth scrunched into a tight circle. “I am beginning to suspect the viscount stays up at night plotting ways to drive you insane.”
Sophia laughed at the absurd thought of Crispin standing before a large battle map of Mayfair, complete with toy suitors, carriages, and horses. “I am perfectly sane, and Lord Margrave has better ways to occupy his time.”
“I suppose most gentlemen do,” Octavia said with an indignant huff. “Business keeps Ramsdell away today. I hope it is very dull, and he is filled with regret for abandoning me.”
“I am certain your betrothed finds everything dreary compared to you.”
Octavia smiled coyly and smoothed a wrinkle from her skirt. “That is my aim.”
Sophia changed the subject before her friend returned to criticizing Crispin. She might be incensed with his behavior, but she did not like when others found fault with him.
“It was kind of your mother to plan a party,” she said. “From what I understand, the gentlemen deserve a day away from London to clear their minds.”
“Yes, Papa comes home every night from the Lords exhausted. I overheard him telling Mama the situation does not look promising for the Queen.” Octavia lowered her voice to a whisper. “One of her servants testified she paid an unsavory man to dance for her.”
“Unsavory?”
Octavia leaned closer, her breath quickening. “He did not wear a stitch of clothing. Can you imagine? The patronesses of Almack’s will faint dead away if the scandalous tale reaches the assemblies.”
“Indeed.”
Most ladies did not possess the same fortitude as Sophia’s friend, who repeated the salacious rumor without the hint of a blush.
Octavia sat up straighter. “Speaking of scandals…”
Sophia swiveled on the bench to follow her friend’s line of sight. Several guests had yet to venture beyond the terrace, foregoing lawn bowls or archery in favor of conversation. Her eyebrows rose in surprise when she spotted a tall figure lingering at the fringes of the crowd.
“The Duke of Stanhurst has come,” Sophia said. “He hasn’t attended a large gathering since the accident.”
“Accident.” Octavia snorted softly. “I would not be surprised if it was murder. Papa said the old duke had many creditors and made enemies with his erratic behavior. Someone had a debt to se
ttle. I would stake my reputation on it.”
“Please, do not.” Sophia’s friend was surprisingly close to the truth, and fortunately, too astute to speculate on the Stanhurst deaths within earshot of anyone who was not a confidant. “Does your father know you like to eavesdrop?”
Octavia sniffed. “No, because I am very good at it. Do you want to know what I overheard, or would you prefer to lecture me for my bad habits?”
“I never lecture.” Sophia would like to take the highroad and not fall prey to gossip mongering, but curiosity overrode her honorable intentions. A thread of truth binds every rumor, her mother had written in her diary. Perhaps Sophia could learn something useful to pass along to Crispin. “You mentioned a scandal?”
“Word has it Stanhurst is desperate for a wife, one with a large dowry. He offered for Lady Mary’s hand last week, and her father chased him away with a fire poker.”
Sophia frowned. “If that is true, it says more about Lord Pitkin’s character than the duke’s. Why shouldn’t His Grace be in want of a wife? He will need an heir, especially now that his brother has passed.”
“I suppose.” Octavia tipped her head to the side, presumably studying the dark-haired duke. “I cannot deny he is handsome, but the devil has been known to use attraction to his advantage.”
“Stanhurst is not the devil.” That did not mean he was innocent of any wrongdoing, however, and Sophia was not one to ignore an opportunity. She grabbed Octavia’s hand to pull her from the bench. “Come, be a gracious hostess and challenge the duke to a game of lawn bowls.”
“Yes, let us get the story from the horse’s mouth. What a marvelous idea!” Octavia shot to her feet and nearly dragged Sophia toward the terrace.
They weaved past the other guests as Octavia marched up to the duke. Sophia’s friend lifted her chin, boldly holding his chilly silver gaze. “Your Grace, Miss Darlington and I are in search of competitors for lawn bowling. Will you join us?”
A spark of warmth flickered in his eyes. “You wish to challenge me to lawn bowls?”
“Did I not address you directly, Your Grace? You are the only duke in attendance.”
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