The Lady Chosen

by Stephanie Laurens

  Leonora looked into his eyes, then quickly hugged him. “Never mind—it worked. That’s the important thing.”

  Jeremy humphed and looked at the closed library door. “Just as well. We didn’t want to knock and draw attention to ourselves—didn’t know if it would distract someone at the wrong moment.” He looked at Tristan. “I take it you caught him?”

  “Indeed.” Tristan waved to the library door. “Let’s go in—I’m sure St. Austell and Deverell will have explained his position to him by now.”

  The scene that met their eyes as they filed into the library suggested that was the case; Mountford—Duke—sat slumped, head and shoulders drooping, in a straight-backed chair in the middle of the library. His hands, hanging limp between his knees, were bound with curtain cord. One booted ankle was lashed to a chair leg.

  Charles and Deverell were propped side by side against the front edge of the desk, arms folded, eyeing their prisoner as if imagining what they might do to him next.

  Leonora checked, but could see only a graze on one of Duke’s cheekbones; nevertheless, despite the lack of outward damage, he didn’t look at all well.

  Deverell looked up as they headed toward their usual places. Leonora helped Humphrey into his chair. Deverell caught Tristan’s eye. “Might be an idea to get Martinbury in to hear this.” He glanced around at the limited seating. “We could carry his chaise in.”

  Tristan nodded. “Jeremy?”

  The three of them went out, leaving Charles on watch.

  A minute later, a deep woof sounded from the front of the house, followed by the click of Henrietta’s claws as she loped toward them.

  Surprised, Leonora glanced at Charles.

  He didn’t shift his gaze from Mountford. “We thought she might prove helpful in persuading Duke to see the error of his ways.”

  Henrietta was already growling when she appeared in the doorway. Her hackles had risen; she fixed glowing amber eyes on Duke. Rigid, frozen, lashed to the chair, he stared, horrified, back.

  Henrietta’s growl dropped an octave. Her head lowered. She took two menacing steps forward.

  Duke looked ready to faint.

  Leonora clicked her fingers. “Here, girl. Come here.”

  “Come on, old girl.” Humphrey tapped his thigh.

  Henrietta looked again at Mountford, then snuffled and ambled over to Leonora and Humphrey. After greeting them, she circled, then collapsed in a shaggy heap between them. Resting her huge head on her paws, she fixed an implacably hostile gaze on Duke.

  Leonora glanced at Charles. He looked well pleased.

  Jeremy reappeared and held the library door wide; Tristan and Deverell carried the chaise from the parlor with Jonathon Martinbury reclining on it into the room.

  Duke gasped. He stared at Jonathon; the last vestige of color drained from his face. “Good Lord! What happened to you?”

  No actor could have given such a performance; he was transparently shocked by his cousin’s state.

  Tristan and Deverell set the chaise down; Jonathon met Duke’s eyes steadily. “I gather I met some friends of yours.”

  Duke looked ill. His face waxen, he stared, then slowly shook his head. “But how did they know? I didn’t know you were in town.”

  “Your friends are determined, and they have very long arms.” Tristan sank onto the chaise beside Leonora.

  Jeremy closed the door. Deverell had returned to his position beside Charles. Crossing the room, Jeremy pulled out his chair from behind the desk and sat.

  “Right.” Tristan exchanged glances with Charles and Deverell, then looked at Duke. “You’re in a serious and dire position. If you have any wits at all, you’ll answer the questions we put to you quickly, straightforwardly, and honestly. And, most importantly, accurately.” He paused, then went on, “We’re not interested in hearing your excuses—justifications would be wasted breath. But for understanding’s sake, what started you off on this tack?”

  Duke’s dark eyes rested on Tristan’s face; from her position beside Tristan, Leonora could read their expression. All Duke’s violent bravado had deserted him; the only emotion now investing his eyes was fear.

  He swallowed. “Newmarket. It was last year’s Autumn Carnival. I hadn’t before dealt with the London cent-per-cents, but there was this nag…I was certain…” He grimaced. “Anyway, I got in deep—deeper than I’ve ever been. And those sharks—they have thugs who act as collectors. I went up north, but they followed. And then I got the letter about A. J.’s discovery.”

  “So you came to see me,” Jonathon put in.

  Duke glanced at him, nodded. “When the collectors caught up with me a few days later, I told them about it—they made me write it all down and took it back to the cent-per-cent. I thought the promise would hold him for a while…” He glanced at Tristan. “That’s when things went from bad to hellish.”

  He drew breath; his gaze fixed on Henrietta. “The cent-per-cent sold my vowels on, on the strength of the discovery.”

  “To a foreign gentleman?” Tristan asked.

  Duke nodded. “At first it seemed all right. He—the foreigner—encouraged me to get hold of the discovery. He told me how there was clearly no need to include the others”—Duke flushed—“Jonathon and the Carlings, as they hadn’t bothered about the discovery for all this time—”

  “So you attempted by various means to get into Cedric Carling’s workshop, which by asking the servants you’d learned had been closed up since his death.”

  Again Duke nodded.

  “You didn’t think to check your aunt’s journals?”

  Duke blinked. “No. I mean…well, she was a woman. She could only have been helping Carling. The final formula had to be in Carling’s books.”

  Tristan glanced at Jeremy, who returned a wry look. “Very well,” Tristan continued. “So your new foreign backer encouraged you to find this formula.”

  “Yes.” Duke shifted on the chair. “At first, it seemed quite a lark. A challenge to see if I could get the thing. He was even willing to underwrite buying the house.” His face clouded. “But things kept going wrong.”

  “We can dispense with a list—we know most of it. I take it your foreign friend became more and more insistent?”

  Duke shivered. His eyes, when they met Tristan’s, looked haunted. “I offered to find the money, buy back my debt, but he wouldn’t have it. He wanted the formula—he was willing to give me as much money as it took to get it, but it was get the damned thing for him—or die. He meant it!”

  Tristan’s smile was cold. “Foreigners of his ilk generally do.” He paused, then asked, “What’s his name?”

  What little color had returned to Duke’s face fled. A moment passed, then he moistened his lips. “He told me if I told anyone at all about him, he’d kill me.”

  Tristan inclined his head, gently said, “And what do you imagine will happen to you if you don’t tell us about him?”

  Duke stared, then glanced at Charles.

  Who met his gaze. “Don’t you know the punishment for treason?”

  A moment passed, then Deverell quietly added, “That’s assuming, of course, that you make it to the scaffold.” He shrugged. “What with all the ex-soldiers in the prisons these days…”

  Eyes huge, Duke dragged in a breath and looked at Tristan. “I didn’t know it was treason!”

  “I’m afraid what you’ve been doing definitely qualifies.”

  Duke hauled in another breath, then blurted out, “But I don’t know his name.”

  Tristan nodded, accepting. “How do you contact him?”

  “I don’t! He set it up at the beginning—I have to meet him in St. James’s Park every third day and report what’s happened.”

  The next meeting was to occur the following day.

  Tristan, Charles, and Deverell grilled Duke for a further half hour, but learned little more. Duke was patently cooperating; recalling how keyed up—how panic-stricken, she now realized—he’d been earlier, L
eonora suspected he’d realized that they were his only hope, that if he helped, he might escape a situation that had transformed into a nightmare.

  Jonathon’s assessment had been accurate; Duke was a black sheep with few morals, a cowardly and violent bully, untrustworthy and worse, but he wasn’t a killer, and he’d never meant to be a traitor.

  His reaction to Tristan’s questions about Miss Timmins was revealing. His face a ghastly hue, Duke falteringly recounted how he’d gone up to check on the ground-floor walls, heard a choking sound in the dimness, and looked up, to see the fragile old woman come tumbling down the stairs to land, dead, at his feet. His horror was unfeigned; it was he who had closed the old lady’s eyes.

  Watching him, Leonora grimly concluded justice of a sort had been served; Duke would never forget what he’d seen, what he’d inadvertently caused.

  Eventually, Charles and Deverell hauled Duke off to the club, there to be held in the basement under the watchful eyes of Biggs and Gasthorpe, together with the weasel and the four thugs Duke had hired to help with the excavations.

  Tristan glanced at Jeremy. “Have you identified the final formula?”

  Jeremy grinned. He picked up a sheet of paper. “I’d just copied it out. It was in A.J.’s journals, all neatly noted. Anyone could have found it.” He handed the sheet to Tristan. “It was definitely half Cedric’s work, but without A.J. and her records, it would have been the devil to piece together.”

  “Yes, but will it work?” Jonathon asked. He’d remained silent throughout the interrogation, quietly taking things in. Tristan handed the paper to him; he scanned it.

  “I’m no herbalist,” Jeremy said. “But if the results as laid out in your aunt’s journals are correct, then yes, their concoction will definitely aid clotting when applied to wounds.”

  “And it was lying there in York for the past two years.” Tristan thought of the battlefield at Waterloo, then banished the vision. Turned to Leonora.

  She met his eyes, squeezed his hand. “At least we have it now.”

  “One thing I don’t understand,” Humphrey put in. “If this foreigner was so set on finding the formula, and he was able to order Jonathon here killed, why didn’t he come after the formula himself?” Humphrey raised his shaggy brows. “Mind you, I’m deuced glad he didn’t. Mountford was bad enough, but at least we survived him.”

  “The answer’s one of those diplomatic niceties.” Tristan rose and resettled his coat. “If a foreigner from one of the embassies was implicated in an attack on, even the death of, an unknown young man or even two from the north, the government would frown, but largely ignore it. However, if the same foreigner was implicated in burglarly and violence in a house in a wealthy part of London, the house of distinguished men of letters, the government would assuredly be most displeased and not at all inclined to ignore anything.”

  He glanced at them all, his smile coolly cynical. “An attack on property close to the government’s heart would create a diplomatic incident, so Duke was a necessary pawn.”

  “So what now?” Leonora asked.

  He hesitated, looking down into her eyes, then smiled faintly, just for her. “Now we—Charles, Deverell, and I—need to take this information to the proper quarters, and see what they want done.”

  She stared at him. “Your erstwhile employer?”

  He nodded. Straightened. “We’ll meet again here for breakfast if you’re agreeable and make whatever plans we need to make.”

  “Yes, of course.” Leonora reached out and touched his hand in farewell.

  Humphrey nodded magnanimously. “Until tomorrow.”

  “Unfortunately, your meeting with your government contact will have to wait until morning.” Jeremy nodded at the clock on the mantelpiece. “It’s past ten.”

  Tristan, heading for the door, turned, smiling, as he reached it. “Actually, no. The State never sleeps.”

  The State for them meant Dalziel.

  They sent word ahead; nevertheless, the three of them had to cool their heels in the spymaster’s anteroom for twenty minutes before the door opened, and Dalziel waved them in.

  As they sank onto the three chairs set facing the desk, they glanced around, then met each other’s eyes. Nothing had changed.

  Including Dalziel. He rounded the desk. He was dark-haired, dark-eyed and always dressed austerely. His age was unusually difficult to gauge; when he’d first started working through this office, Tristan had assumed Dalziel to be considerably his senior. Now…he was starting to wonder if there were all that many years between them. He had visibly aged; Dalziel had not.

  As cool as ever, Dalziel sat behind the desk, facing them. “Now. Explain, if you please. From the beginning.”

  Tristan did, severely editing his account as he went, leaving out much of Leonora’s involvement; Dalziel was known to disapprove of ladies dabbling in the game.

  Even so, how much missed that steady dark gaze was a matter for conjecture.

  At the end of the tale, Dalziel nodded, then looked at Charles and Deverell. “And how is it you two are involved?”

  Charles grinned wolfishly. “We share a mutual interest.”

  Dalziel held his gaze for an instant. “Ah, yes. Your club in Montrose Place. Of course.”

  He looked down; Tristan was sure it was so they could blink in comfort. The man was a menace. They weren’t even part of his network anymore.

  “So”—looking up from the notes he’d scrawled while listening, Dalziel leaned back and steepled his fingers; he fixed them all with his gaze—“we have an unknown European intent—seriously intent—on stealing a potentially valuable formula for aiding wound healing. We don’t know who this gentleman might be, but we have the formula, and we have his local pawn. Is that correct?”

  They all nodded.

  “Very well. I want to know who this European is, but I don’t want him to know I know. I’m sure you follow me. What I want you to do is this. First, tamper with the formula. Find someone who can make it look believable—we have no idea what training this foreigner might have. Second, convince the pawn to keep his next meeting and hand over the formula—make sure he understands his position, and that his future hangs on his performance. Third, I want you to follow the gentleman back to his lair and identify him for me.”

  They all nodded. Then Charles grimaced. “Why are we still doing this—taking orders from you?”

  Dalziel looked at him, then softly said, “For the same reason I’m giving those orders with every expectation of being obeyed. Because we are who we are.” He raised one dark brow. “Aren’t we?”

  There was nothing else to say; they understood one another all too well.

  They rose.

  “One thing.” Tristan caught Dalziel’s questioning look. “Duke Martinbury. Once he has the formula, this foreigner is liable to want to tie up loose ends.”

  Dalziel nodded. “That would be expected. What do you suggest?”

  “We can make sure Martinbury walks away from the meeting, but after that? In addition, he’s due some punishment for his part in this affair. All things considered, impression into the army for three years would fit the bill on both counts. Given he’s from Yorkshire, I thought of the regiment near Harrogate. Its ranks must be a little thin these days.”

  “Indeed.” Dalziel made a note. “Muffleton’s colonel there. I’ll tell him to expect Martinbury—Marmaduke, wasn’t it?—as soon as he’s finished being useful here.”

  With a nod, Tristan turned; with the others, he left.

  “A fake formula?” His gaze on the sheet containing Cedric’s formula, Jeremy grimaced. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “Here! Let me see.” Seated at the end of the breakfast table, Leonora held out her hand.

  Tristan paused in consuming a mound of ham and eggs to pass the sheet to her.

  She sipped her tea and studied it while the rest of them applied themselves to their breakfasts. “Which are the critical ingredients, do you know?�
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  Humphrey glanced down the table at her. “From what I gathered from the experiments, shepherd’s purse, moneywort, and comfrey were all crucial. As to the other substances, it was more a matter of enhancement of action.”

  Leonora nodded, and set down her cup. “Give me a few minutes to consult with Cook and Mrs. Wantage. I’m sure we can concoct something believable.”

  She returned fifteen minutes later; they were sitting back, replete, enjoying their coffee. She laid a neatly written formula in front of Tristan and retook her seat.

  He picked it up, read it, nodded. “Looks believable to me.” He passed it to Jeremy. Looked at Humphrey. “Can you recopy that for us?”

  Leonora stared at him. “What’s wrong with my copy?”

  Tristan looked at her. “It wasn’t written by a man.”

  “Oh.” Mollified, she poured herself another cup of tea. “So what’s your plan? What do we have to do?”

  Tristan caught the inquiring gaze she directed at him over the rim of her cup, inwardly sighed, and explained.

  As he’d anticipated, no amount of argument had swayed Leonora from joining him on the hunt.

  Charles and Deverell had thought it a great joke, until Humphrey and Jeremy also insisted on playing a part.

  Short of tying them up and leaving them in the club under Gasthorpe’s eye—something Tristan actually considered—there was no way to prevent them appearing in St. James’s Park; in the end, the three of them decided to make the best of it.

  Leonora proved surprisingly easy to disguise. She was the same height as her maid Harriet, so could borrow her clothes; with the judicious application of some soot and dust, she made a passable flowerseller.

  They decked Humphrey out in some of Cedric’s ancient clothes; by disregarding every edict of elegance, he was transformed into a thoroughly disreputable specimen, his thinning white hair artfully straggling, apparently unkempt. Deverell, who’d returned to his house in Mayfair to assume his own disguise, returned, approved, then took Humphrey in charge. They set out in a hackney to take up their positions.