The Road to Scandal is Paved with Wicked Intentions (The May Flowers Book 6)

by Merry Farmer

  “He most definitely was,” Lionel said with a look of complete knowing. “I could tell you stories….” He shook his head. “Some other time. Lord Cosgrove, as I said, was Lord Darlington’s friend. He knew far more about Lord Darlington’s affairs than most people realize.” He paused again, brow knitting in thought. “It is my understanding that Cosgrove has been pursuing Lady Phoebe. Do you know if this is true?”

  Something visceral ignited inside of Danny. “He is, but he won’t get anywhere with her,” he growled. “She’s mine.”

  Mercer’s eyebrows flew up. “Interesting. I must say, I’m glad to hear she has a protector. She’ll need it with what Cosgrove is planning.”

  “How in God’s name do you have any idea what Cosgrove is planning?” Dandie asked, clearly baffled, and yet also amused by the oracle that was Lionel Mercer.

  “The solicitor I mentioned,” Mercer said. “Mr. Grey. He was also Lord Darlington’s solicitor. He happens to be prone to extensive pillow talk and sharing more than he should.”

  Danny’s brow shot up so fast he was surprised his eyebrows didn’t fly right off. So that was how Mercer got his information, was it?

  Mercer went on, pushing away from the desk and pacing across the room, knowing he had the full attention of all three men. “There is a point of contention in Lord Darlington’s will,” he said.

  “But Darlington died years ago,” Wirth said with a confused shrug. “Hasn’t the will been processed yet?”

  “It hasn’t,” Mercer said. “For a particular reason. Cosgrove and Grey have deliberately sought to delay proceedings, though I’m certain they’ve come up with some sort of excuse to tell the dowager marchioness and her daughter about the delay.” He paused, tilting his head to the side. “If they even know about it at all. Grey was the one they would have dealt with, and since he has a stake in keeping the whole thing secret….”

  “What are you talking about, man?” Danny boomed when Mercer seemed to disappear into his own thoughts.

  The outburst shook Mercer back to attention. “There is an issue of whether the estate of the late Lord Darlington is entailed away to a male relative or not. As I understand it, it may be inheritable by Lady Phoebe after all.”

  Danny’s jaw dropped. “Are you saying that Lady Phoebe might not be as poor as a church mouse after all?”

  Mercer winced and shrugged. “It’s hard to say. She could inherit the property in question, but whether it is profitable or not remains to be seen.”

  “Can we see it?” Danny asked, not a clue how inheritance worked with the aristocracy.

  A mysterious smile formed on Mercer’s face. “We could pay a visit to Grey and ask.”

  “You’re joking,” Danny laughed. It was laughable. There was no possible way that the solution to Lady Phoebe’s problems could be as simple as marching into a solicitor’s office and asking if she was an heiress.

  “I never joke in matters of business,” Mercer said. An impish grin crossed his lips, and he added, “I can take you there right now, if you’d like.” He glanced to Wirth and Dandie. “If my new employers wouldn’t mind. Grey’s office is only a block away.”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” Wirth said, eyes wide enough to indicate he was amazed by the turn of events.

  “This is why we hired you, after all,” Dandie added.

  “Then we’ll just be off,” Mercer said. He crossed to the stand by the door to fetch his overcoat and hat.

  Danny followed him. He hadn’t removed his hat or coat in the first place, so he simply followed Mercer out the door.

  As they reached the street, Danny leaned closer to Mercer and asked, “So were you a rent boy, then?”

  Mercer sent him a look that was equal parts offense and confirmation. “I prefer the term ‘particular friend’.”

  Danny laughed. “I’m surprised working in an office pays more than working in a bedroom.”

  “It doesn’t,” Mercer said with sudden seriousness. “But I have other reasons for changing professions.”

  Danny shrugged. “I don’t suppose your former one is the sort anyone would want to stay in, if they could avoid it.” Mercer didn’t answer. “Still,” Danny went on. “It sounds like it’s set you up right nice to work with Dandie and Wirth.”

  “I believe it has,” Mercer said, his smile returning. “We’ve arrived.”

  “What, already?”

  They’d only walked the length of the block and crossed a side street to reach the front of a building that looked the same as any other on the dull street. Mercer marched through the front door and along the foyer to a door marked with a small plaque that read “Grey and Young, Solicitors”. He entered without knocking.

  “Good morning, Healey,” he said to the clerk at the front desk in the small, cramped reception room, treating the man to a wider than usual smile. “What a delight to see you again.”

  “Lionel.” The man behind the desk lit up like the new, electric streetlights popping up all over the city. He stood and skirted the desk to greet Lionel with a handshake that looked as though it wanted to be something more.

  “Listen, Healey,” Mercer said, tugging the man so close Danny wondered if he should be there to witness the exchange. “We’re in a bit of a hurry. We need to take a look at Lord Richard Darlington’s will. Can you help us?”

  “After the way you helped me,” Healey said with a flicker of one eyebrow, “I’d do anything for you.”

  “You’re such a precious doll,” Mercer cooed, stroking a hand along Healey’s smooth cheek. “Could we view it somewhere private? I’m not sure Percival would be happy to know you let me have a look.” He glanced down at the man’s trousers as though asking to look at something else entirely.

  “Certainly,” Healey said in a rough voice, gesturing for Mercer and Danny to follow him to a room off to one side. He had to unlock the door with a key kept in his pocket, but once they were inside of what looked to be a dusty, old records room, he left the door open. “It’s this one right here,” the man went on, scrambling to fetch a flat box from one of the alphabetized shelves.

  He placed the box on the table and gazed at Mercer as though seeing Apollo himself. It was all Danny could do not to burst into snorting laughter at the young man’s eagerness, or at Mercer’s cunning.

  “You’re a tricky little cunt, you are,” Danny said, nudging Mercer with his elbow after Healey left the room to see to some other business.

  “I have been called that before,” Mercer said with a teasing, sideways look.

  He removed the cover from the box and rifled through the pages. There wasn’t much to rifle through. Lord Darlington’s will was one of the few documents the box contained, though it was as long as a novel, as far as Danny was concerned.

  “I’ll never be able to read through this fast enough to find mention of Lady Phoebe’s claims,” Danny lamented, starting in on the first paragraph.

  “It’s all a matter of knowing how to read a will,” Mercer said, taking the pages and thumbing through them. “Wills follow a prescribed pattern. Much of the language is the same in any one you look at. The specifics of inheritance, particularly when it comes to property claims, are generally located in the same—ah! Here you go.”

  He handed the will back to Danny, pointing at a certain spot farther down the page. Danny read it with a frown. He knew his way around legal language, considering how many real estate contracts he’d dealt with, but it never failed to frustrate him. Worse still, the particular terms of the will were as convoluted as he’d ever seen.

  “The estate in Herefordshire goes to Lady Phoebe, provided she’s past her twenty-fifth birthday. If not, it should be administered by her mother?” Danny glanced at Mercer in horror. “God save us all from that. If Phoebe isn’t yet twenty-five, Grey and Cosgrove might be doing us all a favor.”

  “Read on.” Mercer nudged him.

  Danny did as he asked, fairly certain Mercer had managed to read the entire page in full already. Once
he saw what must have put the sly grin on Mercer’s face, he glanced at the man again.

  “If Phoebe marries, the whole kit and caboodle goes to her husband?” Danny slammed the will pages together. “Women really do get the thin end of the wedge, don’t they.”

  “They most certainly do,” Mercer agreed. “But think about it. Why else would Cosgrove be so adamant about courting Lady Phoebe? If he marries her, he gets the estate.”

  “And if there’s any chance of Darlington’s estate making so much as a cent, he stands to profit handsomely, the nasty bugger.”

  “Careful who you assume is nasty, sir,” Mercer said with pretend offense. It was clear to Danny that Mercer was enjoying the investigation and the subterfuge of it all as much as he was.

  Their fun was interrupted by voices from the main part of the office, though. Particularly Mr. Healey’s overly loud greeting of, “Lord Cosgrove. How unexpected to see you today.”

  Danny leapt into giddy motion, rushing to the door and shutting it as far as he could while still leaving enough of a crack for them to hear whatever conversation might take place with Cosgrove. Mercer joined him at the door. The two of them turned their ears to the inch-wide crack like daft schoolboys about to pull a prank.

  “I’m here to see Mr. Grey,” Cosgrove said.

  “Lord Cosgrove,” a new voice—Danny was certain it was Mr. Grey—greeted Cosgrove. “What brings you to my office today?”

  “I need your help, Grey.” Cosgrove crossed so close to the cracked door to the records room that Danny and Mercer both held their breaths. “I need you to free up a bit of funding for an important project I must undertake.”

  “You don’t sound too happy about it, whatever it is,” Grey said.

  “I’m not,” Cosgrove grumbled. “It’s this damnable Earl’s Court land deal.”

  “Oh? I thought you were enthusiastic about that,” Grey said.

  “I was,” Cosgrove said. “Until I discovered I have competition. I cannot lose that deal, Grey. I need to convince the members of Parliament who are on the committee to award the contract that I am the one they should award it to.”

  “What did you have in mind?” Grey asked. Their voices moved farther from the door, and Danny feared the two would step into another office and seal themselves away before he could hear what he needed to.

  “Something,” Cosgrove said. “Anything. Some sort of fete to show the gentlemen a good time and remind them whom they should be dealing with.”

  “A day at the races?” Grey suggested. “A musical evening? A ball?”

  It was all Danny could do not to snort, even though Cosgrove and Grey disappeared into another room and their conversation became too muffled to hear.

  “I told her he would bloody well try the same thing I’m trying,” he said to himself.

  “Her being Lady Phoebe?” Mercer asked.

  “Exactly.” Danny stood straighter, stepping out of the room. There was no need to hide, now that Cosgrove and Grey were safely tucked away in a back office, but he didn’t want to overstay his welcome, now that he knew what he needed to know. “She’s in more danger than I thought.” The thought brought a scowl to his face.

  “Thank you, Healey,” Mercer whispered as he and Danny hurried out of the office.

  “Wait. When can I see you again?” Healey chased after them.

  “I’m afraid I’m out of the game now, love,” Mercer called back to him. “But we’ll be in touch.”

  They rushed out of the office, leaving a disappointed Healey behind.

  “Heartbreaker,” Danny teased Mercer once they were on the street, elbowing his arm again.

  “I’m surprised you view me so cavalierly, Mr. Long,” Mercer said with genuine surprise.

  Danny shrugged. “When you’ve come from where I come from and seen all that I’ve seen, you take humanity as it comes, not as society says you should take it.” He picked up his pace as they strode back toward the offices of Dandie & Wirth.

  “How very progressive of you,” Mercer said with a smile. “Lady Phoebe is a lucky woman.”

  Danny laughed, though his laughter had an edge to it. “She hasn’t been lucky so far. After reading that will, it seems to me that the very people who should have helped her all this time have, in fact, dealt incredibly poorly with her.”

  He had never meant his words more in his life. Phoebe was entitled to so much more than anyone was giving her. She shouldn’t have had to struggle and work in a shop to put a roof over her head. She had money coming to her, or an estate at the very least. Even if the estate wasn’t profitable, he could think of a thousand different ways to develop it for her and make a pretty penny.

  But if Phoebe did inherit and became an independent woman of means, she wouldn’t need to rely on him anymore. And he could already feel that pull of reliance on him, though their acquaintance was short. He might not have been a rogue, like Cosgrove, but he’d be lying if he didn’t admit to himself that he liked being able to be Phoebe’s champion. If she inherited the way she was supposed to, there was a fair chance she would leave him behind, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for that.

  Chapter 9

  Phoebe was a bundle of nerves as she approached the door of Campbell House after her early shift at Harrods on Monday afternoon. She stepped back as soon as she’d rung the bell and adjusted her new gloves nervously. The gloves Danny had gifted her were the only nice thing she owned anymore, and considering the importance—and the audacity—of her mission, she needed every little hint of refinement she could get.

  She was surprised when the door was opened not by Lady Cecelia Marlowe’s butler, but by Natalia.

  “Good. You’re here,” Natalia said, reaching through the doorway, grabbing Phoebe’s hand, and pulling her into the grand, Mayfair house. “And not a moment too soon.”

  “Have you taken to answering doors now?” Phoebe asked, her nerves bursting into a full-blown butterfly riot in her gut.

  Natalia laughed aloud. “I knew you were coming,” she said.

  “It was your idea,” Phoebe whispered as Natalia dragged her farther down the hall.

  And it certainly was Natalia’s idea for Phoebe to seek the help of the May Flowers with Danny’s ball. Phoebe never would have dreamed of approaching her old acquaintances for anything, let alone help with an event of this magnitude. She had met Natalia at church on Sunday and spilled out the problem of hosting a ball for members of Parliament without any resources or even a location, and Natalia had come up with the May Flowers as a solution.

  “They’re meeting in Cece’s conservatory,” Natalia whispered, lowering her voice as she tugged Phoebe to the end of the hall. “They’ve been arguing since they arrived about whether to support the new, more radical movement for women’s suffrage that is beginning or whether to take a quieter, more domestic approach.

  “As I understand it, that’s the same argument they’ve been having for years,” Phoebe said.

  Natalia giggled as she led Phoebe to the entrance of the conservatory. “Don’t tell them that. The May Flowers certainly aren’t what they used to be when Henrietta led us and we were deeply involved in The Irish Question.”

  “Are you still a member?” Phoebe blinked in surprise. She’d thought that perhaps Natalia had been ousted for marrying beneath her.

  “As long as Cece has any sway with the group, I am allowed to attend,” Natalia said. She held a finger to her lips and pulled Phoebe into the conservatory.

  “This new, radical approach is scandalous,” Lady Maude was in the middle of saying. Phoebe’s heart sank at once at the sight of the young woman. It hadn’t even been a week since she and Lady Jane had come to Harrods to pester her. “How are we supposed to convince the men of Parliament to grant rights to women if we behave like hellions instead of the stable, domestic, moralizing force that we are?”

  “How can we hope to gain a voice at all if we continue to relegate ourselves to mere household decorations?” Lady Diana Pickw
ick argued. Phoebe was shocked to see the usually soft and demure woman standing and gesturing as though she were about to go to war.

  Lady Maude scoffed at her. “The only reason you despise being seen as a household ornament is because you are still a fixture in your father’s house at, what age are you again, Lady Diana?”

  Lady Diana’s expression was downright thunderous. “I believe I am a month younger than you, Lady Maude. And where are you currently residing?”

  Lady Maude snapped her mouth shut, her face turning puce with embarrassment. “I, at least, have a beau,” she said in an undertone.

  A strange feeling of otherness hit Phoebe square in the chest. The argument seemed somehow small and petty in her eyes. Two ladies of wealth and breeding, with every advantage the world could give to them, with upstanding and noble parents and fortunes that were secure, were arguing about being unmarried in their mid-twenties. She peeked down at her work skirt, noting the frayed edge of its hem, and became aware of the way her feet ached and pinched from standing behind a shop counter all morning. There was so much more for a woman to worry about than her marital state. Just as there were so many more ways for a woman to be proud of herself and her place in the world than having a husband.

  Danny would approve of her assessment.

  The thought struck her out of nowhere, causing her to draw in a quick breath. Or perhaps that intake of breath was due to the fact that Lady Maude spotted her standing by Natalia’s side in the doorway.

  “Well, well. What have we here?” she asked with a venomous smile.

  “This meeting is for members only,” Lady Jane said, rising to stand by Lady Maude’s side. “And it is certainly not for common shop girls.”

  A flutter of shocked whispers spread through the room. Some of the ladies seemed horrified by Lady Jane’s comment. Most merely widened their eyes and stared between Phoebe and Lady Jane, as if the curtain were rising on a stage drama.

  Lady Cecelia rose from her seat and walked regally to Natalia’s side. “Lady Phoebe is here by my invitation,” she said, taking Phoebe’s arm with a kind smile and leading her deeper into the room.