“Well, we broke and ran, I tell ya,” he said, laughing. He was a very tall young man, pockmarked, with dark hair and smiling brown eyes. “Didn’t want to get caught, now, did we? Just got out of the stone jug, and had no desire to go visiting again.”
“The stone jug?” she asked, feeling very naive.
“Newgate,” he told her with a wink.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Wasn’t you that put me there, was it?” he asked, with a philosophical bent she had determined was typical of Wiley and his friends.
“No, indeed it was not,” she told him. “I’m afraid as a woman I haven’t the authority to do anything like that.”
“Too right,” Mr. Bardsley’s constant companion, Chuckles, said. He was a scrawny lad who never smiled, so she found his name rather awkward. “Only the lords got that authority, don’t they? And they like to use it on us all.” He nodded sagely. She could only ape his actions in an effort to mollify his sensibilities.
“So why don’t you just put the call out on old Faircloth?” Mr. Bardsley asked as he picked up the piece of pie Cook had brought over for him.
“The call?”
“Have him nicked. Plenty of grubbers or confidence men would take it on for a price.”
“You mean …” She swallowed nervously and looked around, then leaned forward and whispered, “Murder him?” The very idea made her sick to her stomach.
“Sure,” Mr. Bardsley said enthusiastically. “Take care of the problem, wouldn’t it?”
“Know a gypsy down on King’s Street who’ll do it,” Chuckles offered.
“No, thank you,” she rushed to decline the offer. “I don’t believe I could live with myself if I did something so drastic.”
“Here now,” Wiley said angrily from the kitchen door as he entered. “What are you introducing her to the gypsy for?” He cuffed the back of Chuckles’s head. “Hasn’t she got enough problems?”
“Aw, Wiley,” Chuckles whined, “we was only tryin’ to help.”
“Off with you now,” Wiley said, grabbing them both by the arm and shuffling them off to the back entrance onto the alley. “His nibs and I need to talk with her.”
“Wiley, have you got …?” Mr. Bardsley said, resisting Wiley’s hold.
He left the question incomplete, but Wiley seemed to understand. He dug a wad of money from his pocket and shoved it into Mr. Bardsley’s hands. “Here, and it’s for food, you understand? I heard you two weren’t eating regular. And I’ve set you up with Bess tonight.”
Chuckles actually grinned at that news, and Mr. Bardsley slapped Wiley on the back with a smile. “Now you are a real gentleman, Wiley, who knows how to take care of his friends. You need anything else, you look us up, hear?” He tipped his imaginary hat to Harry. “Good day, mum.”
Chuckles followed suit. “Good day, mum,” he mumbled and they both left quickly, whispering as Mr. Bardsley counted the money in his hand.
“I hope they use it to feed themselves,” Cook said drily, “but I doubt it. Since they’ve cleaned out the larder here they can’t have any room left.”
“I shall increase the kitchen budget this month, Cook,” Harry told her, “so you can replenish.”
“Thank you, my lady,” she said with dignity. “Are we to be having many more … guests?”
Harry looked at Wiley and he shook his head. “I don’t think so, other than me. We may have found a way to keep the wolf from your door. Come on, my lady.”
* * *
“You’ve found him?” she asked Sir Hilary in amazement.
“Indeed,” he said. “I believe he is the same man who tried to take little Lord Mercer in the park and the other night. Wiley did a bit of detecting and ran him to ground.”
Harry impetuously hugged Wiley. “That’s wonderful!”
Wiley squirmed and she let him go, surprised to see the brash young man blushing. “Well, don’t go rejoicing yet. Found him, haven’t spoken with him. So it’s just a hunch. We’re going to see him tonight.”
“I’ll go, too,” she said decisively.
“Wait. What?” Wiley asked in alarm. “No. No, that’s not a good idea.”
“I think it’s an excellent idea,” Sir Hilary said. “After all, you were the person who got the best look at him. Before we approach him you can see if it’s the right man.”
“I’m telling you it’s the right man,” Wiley said, glaring at Sir Hilary. “She doesn’t need to be coming down there. Too dangerous for her and for us. Can you imagine how much she’d bring if they got ahold of her?”
“No one will get ahold of her,” Sir Hilary said with a confident nonchalance. “It isn’t as if we’re going to parade her through the streets. I can certainly be more circumspect than that, and I know you can as well. And the lady will surely not wish to draw attention to herself.”
“No, the lady will not,” Harry told them, not caring for being discussed as if she wasn’t there. “Sir Hilary is correct.” She paced the room, biting her thumbnail. “If we can locate this criminal, then we have a connection to Faircloth. It is something I can use against him.” She spun to face Wiley. “When can we leave? Why can we not see him right now?”
“He’s got business,” Wiley said, not looking happy at all. “Best time to catch him is late at night when stumbling back to his crib.”
“Excellent,” Harry said. “We shall be waiting for him there, at his … crib.”
Wiley wiped a hand down his face. “Christ on a crutch, now she’s using cant.” He pointed at Sir Hilary. “This is your fault. I’ll not be taking the blame.”
“No blame shall be awarded,” Sir Hilary said. He bowed lightly at Harry. “We shall see you this evening, then. I’m afraid it will be quite late, perhaps around midnight, when we arrive to pick you up.”
“I’ll have Mandrake put rushes down to muffle the wheels,” she said, feeling very clever. “That way no one will know.”
“An excellent suggestion,” Sir Hilary said, nodding his approval. “We shall make a detective of you yet, Lady Mercer.”
Chapter Twenty-four
“Mr. Edward Lyttle’s rooms are down there,” the harried clerk said, pointing to the right. “There’s a sign by it.” Roger had never been to Gray’s Inn before so he had no idea where to find the actual barristers.
“Thank you,” Roger said, gritting his teeth at how loud they both sounded in his abused head. He made a mental note that whiskey was no longer an option when he felt the need to drown his sorrows. He’d cast up his accounts so much the night before that he wasn’t entirely sure Hil hadn’t snuck an emetic into his decanters.
So far Gray’s Inn wasn’t bad. One of the four Inns of Court that called barristers to the Bar, it was in Holborn, which was just outside the city. That would work well for Roger if they accepted him to study here. He supposed if they’d called Lyttle to the Bar, then they ought to take him, too.
He found the door the clerk had indicated and knocked.
“Come in,” a gruff voice called none too happily. Roger grinned. That was Lyttle, all right.
Lyttle was clearly surprised to see him when he peeked his head around the open door. “Good afternoon, Lyttle,” he said cheerily, stepping into the tiny office and closing the door behind him. Lyttle was a big, tall man, and it seemed as if he was crammed into the office like Gulliver in Lilliput. It was dingy and rather dark, with just one small, grimy window behind Lyttle’s desk. But it smelled of books, which Roger liked.
“Have you finally run afoul of the law?” Lyttle asked with resignation. “I knew it was only a matter of time.”
“Well, that hardly bodes well for this conversation,” Roger said, refusing to be baited. “Actually I have come to ask a favor.”
“What kind?” Lyttle was naturally suspicious. Even in school it had been nearly impossible to get him to join their youthful high jinks until they’d gotten him sufficiently drunk. Today Lyttle was as disheveled as ever, with hi
s full head of thick, curly dark hair mussed as if he’d been running his hands through it repeatedly. He didn’t look like he drank anymore, which was too bad. But then again, Roger had just sworn off liquor himself.
“I wish to study the law.”
Lyttle sat there blinking rapidly for several seconds. “What?”
“I wish to study the law. Here. With you.”
The explanation did not satisfy Lyttle. He grew annoyed. “Is this some sort of joke? What are you and Hil up to?”
“It is not a joke,” Roger replied, getting a little annoyed himself. He knew he’d spent the last few years doing … well, pretty much nothing, but it shouldn’t come as such a shock that he wished to enter into a career.
“You are serious,” Lyttle said with amazement. He surprised Roger by suddenly standing with a smile and holding out his hand. “Excellent. I think it’s brilliant.”
“You do?” Roger asked, warily taking Lyttle’s hand. He had a very odd sense of unbalance; as if the two men had just switched places so rapidly, his stomach was rebelling.
“Absolutely,” Lyttle said with authority. “With that face you could talk an angel out of heaven if you wished, or the devil out of hell.”
Roger peered at his reflection in the grimy window behind the desk, sliding his hand through his hair. “I could, could I?”
Lyttle laughed and let go of Roger’s hand. “Yes, you could. With my face I’m lucky to have any clients at all. With yours? We’re going to have a waiting list.” He walked around his desk.
“We?” Roger asked curiously.
“Of course,” Lyttle said, leaning on his desk in front of Roger. “You didn’t think I was going to do this favor for free, did you? We’ll be brilliant partners, you’ll see.”
“I see now,” Roger said drily. He had no strong objections to it. Lyttle was a serious, hard-working sort of fellow. “All right.”
“What do you know of it? The law?”
“Not much,” Roger admitted. “I know you practice at Chancery, of course, and that I must go through one of the Inns to be asked to the Bar. Naturally when the idea arose I thought of you and Gray’s Inn.”
“Naturally,” Lyttle said. He clapped Roger on the back amiably. “I need a break from these briefs. Let’s take a walk and I’ll tell you all you need to know,” he said, leading Roger out of his office and out of The Hall.
“How long will it take?” Roger asked, which was the most important question. He had other plans, too, plans that started here.
“Eager, are you?” Lyttle asked. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain widow, would it?” he asked slyly with a wink. “Can’t blame you for finally falling, my friend. And I can’t think of a better reason to give up your profligate life and settle into a career.”
“Well, I can think of several better reasons,” Roger answered, “but she seems to be the one that stuck.”
Lyttle laughed. “With your degree, three years, I should say. You’ll attend readings and lectures, and you’ll have to be here on a regular basis to dine, very important.”
“Three years should be enough time,” he mused.
“Enough time for what?” Lyttle asked as they approached the wrought iron gates leading to the famous gardens of Gray’s Inn.
He took a deep breath of the refreshing air in the garden, and it felt momentous, this change in his life. “Enough time for her to forgive me, of course,” Roger replied.
* * *
“We’re what?” Roger asked Hil late that night, absolutely sure he had not heard correctly. They were in Hil’s carriage with Wiley, destination unknown. In typical Hil fashion, he’d dragged Roger from his bed with no explanation and shoved him into the carriage. After a year with Hil, Roger had grown used to it. He’d supposed they were off on one of his midnight capers to solve a puzzle or some such thing. Which they were, but it was a caper far too close to Roger’s interests for his liking.
“We are going to get Lady Mercer and track down the man you ran down when he tried to kidnap her son in the park, and then again the other night. Wiley believes he’s found him.” Roger turned to glare at Wiley, who had slunk down in his seat and lowered the brim of his hat to cover his eyes, the very picture of guilt. Hil went on. “She feels that she would be able to identify him on sight. She is eager to find him, because she believes we can tie him to Faircloth and it will give her the ammunition she needs to drive him away.”
Roger took a deep breath and counted to ten. “So you are telling me you think it is a good idea to collect the lady at midnight and spirit her away to one of the worst parts of London in order to confront a known criminal?” His voice had risen quite a bit by the end of his question.
“Told you he wouldn’t like it one bit,” Wiley mumbled from behind his hat.
“Not like it one bit?” Roger ground out. “That is a gross understatement. In all of the harebrained, ridiculously dangerous adventures you have embarked upon, Hilary St. John, this is the most outrageous. And I refuse to let you drag Harry into it.” All his plans today would be for naught if Harry were hurt. “Absolutely not.”
* * *
“What are we supposed to do now?” Harry whispered three hours later as they were hiding in a dark alley off Tottenham Court Road. The alley stank like things Roger would rather not think about, and the very fact that Harry stood in that stink made him want to retch with horror. He had to close his eyes and clamp his mouth shut. Why had he not insisted more virulently that she not accompany them? Harry was the one who could talk the devil out of hell. This was a bad, bad idea. He knew Hil had some ulterior motive, most likely matchmaking. He had the oddest notions of how to go about that. This was taking it a step too far.
“We wait,” Hil said for the hundredth time.
“This isn’t terribly exciting, is it?” she ventured a few minutes later.
“No,” Roger said, spinning around to pin her with a glare. “Which is why I can’t imagine why you are here.”
She sniffed at him disdainfully. “He speaks.”
“What does that mean?” he whispered roughly. It was almost too dark to see her features, but her blond locks, what could be seen peeping out from beneath the hood of her voluminous cape, caught the moonlight like a beacon. He looked up at the roofs of the buildings around them, trying in vain to see if there was anyone there watching them. The hairs on the back of his neck had risen in awareness of their precarious situation. There were only three of them to protect her from a horde of potential villains.
“It means you have not said one word to me since we left Manchester Square,” she hissed at him. “Just because you didn’t get your way and leave me behind is no reason to be so childish.”
“Childish?” he asked, dumbfounded. “Who is being childish? You rushed headlong into this ill-begotten scheme, just as when we were children. You don’t think, Harry.”
“I don’t think?” she repeated his words with venom. “I don’t think? I beg your pardon, Mr. Templeton, but I thought a great deal about this evening’s scheme, as you put it. Can you think of a better way of catching him?”
“Yes,” he said. “We go to Lavender and let him catch him.”
She paled so quickly it was even noticeable in the dark alley. “You would tell Lavender?” she whispered in horror. She spun away. “Oh, you are horrible.”
Roger winced and cursed his stupid tongue. “No, that is not what I meant, Harry. Surely he can help without having to know the particulars.”
“Don’t see how, mate,” Wiley offered. “All clues lead to Faircloth, and seems the lady thinks he’d reveal all. So even if you didn’t speak it, he would. Specially if he’s got the threat of the law hanging over him.”
“Fine,” Roger agreed reluctantly. “No Lavender. But why must Harry be here? I saw the man, I could identify him.”
“You said yourself you didn’t get a good look at him, not from the front,” Hil said.
Before he could answer, Wiley shushe
d them, waving his hand at them to be quiet. He was point man at the end of the alley, keeping an eye on the flats across the way.
Harry plastered herself against the side of the building, and Roger rolled his eyes at her theatrics. She’d run screaming if she knew what she was most likely getting on her clothing. “Is it him?” she asked.
“Yes,” Wiley whispered back. He motioned for her to come forward. As she began to move, Roger instinctively reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her. She tried to tug it free with a frown. Resigned to seeing this through, he went ahead of her, keeping her behind him at all times, with Hil bringing up the rear behind her. She did not seem inclined to protest.
When they reached the end of the alley, Wiley moved out of their way. Roger looked first, but he couldn’t tell. The man was about the right height, and had whiskers. Other than that, he could have been anyone. He pulled Harry up next to him, between his body and the building. “What do you think?” he whispered very quietly, his lips pressed to her ear. She shivered.
“Yes, I think so,” she whispered back. Then she shook her head. “It’s too dark.”
Roger pulled her back into the alley to where Hil and Wiley waited. “We can’t be sure,” Roger told them in hushed tones. “It’s too dark and he’s too far away. But he seems to fit the description.”
“I have to … to take care of a delicate situation,” Harry said in a horrified whisper.
“What?” Wiley asked her in complete confusion.
“Now?” Roger asked incredulously.
She nodded miserably. “Yes, I’m sorry. I’m quite nervous, and you know that always happens.”
He did know. He’d lost count of the times he’d had to keep watch while Harry ducked into the bushes to do her business when they were children.
“Well, that does it,” Roger said flatly. “I’m taking you home.” He turned to Hil and Wiley. “You go and see him. Perhaps if Harry and I aren’t there, we won’t spook him into thinking we’re going to denounce him. Offer him a deal to turn on Faircloth.”
“Roger’s right,” Wiley agreed. “Best plan. Money talks.”
Samantha Kane Page 22
