by Heather Boyd
He had already made room for Theodora, but waited on her to realize it, too.
Chapter 28
“As you see, they are quite fine,” Theodora said, shifting the gems about on the velvet cushion with her fingertip. Behind her in the shop, the proprietor’s two sons were commenting on the pretty lasses walking past on their way to somewhere else.
Mr. Walter Brown, a man Theodora had met before in her father’s business dealings, nodded sagely. “Aye, they are still as fine as the day your late father brought them to me for setting. A shame the gold didn’t survive the heat, but it would have melted right off the stones.”
Theodora shuddered. She did not like to think about the heat melting the gold of the necklace, because the same had happened to her father’s skin in that fire.
Brown set the small magnification glass aside, returned the gem to the pile, and set his hands on the display counter. He thought in silence for a long time, and Theodora knew better than to interrupt. Negotiations required delicacy and patience, if a good result was to be reached.
Eventually, he raised his head. “What did you want for half of them?”
Selling half now, half at a later date, although not her original query, was a perfectly sensible outcome, as far as Theodora was concerned. Their value as a whole would have been well beyond Mr. Brown’s reach, but half was a good compromise and more than affordable for him. If they could settle on a decent price for half today, Brown might seek her out if he needed more of these same stones in the future.
And by that time, their value could only have increased.
Mama had expressed a wish for a quick settlement, so Theodora suggested a higher sum than she really wanted as payment for half the stones and waited to see what Mr. Brown said in return.
Mama wanted money to quietly purchase a little home somewhere beyond the busyness of London. She wanted the purchase completed well before the false engagement to Lord Templeton ended, so they had somewhere to go immediately.
Mr. Brown scowled, and made a counteroffer of a sum far below their fair worth.
She shook her head, and they began to haggle over the price in earnest.
Theodora had extensive experience at wringing the last shilling from her opponents in negotiations, and although Mr. Brown underestimated her intelligence at first, he soon discovered her his equal by offering an amount that was both reasonable and fair.
“Done,” she exclaimed.
“Done,” he said, gazing at her with admiration. “You are your father’s daughter indeed.”
For the first time, Theodora didn’t feel the pinch of tears at the mention of her father. He’d taught her the ropes of managing business negotiations, and it was fortunate for Mama that he had. Mama had no head for business, and had chosen to remain behind in the carriage outside. A fact for which she was grateful. Mama would have most likely taken his initial offer and prevented Theodora from arguing a higher valuation. “Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Brown. My father spoke very well of you, too. We can conclude our business today.”
“I believe we can.” He went to his safe and counted out the funds for half the gems, and put them in a small leather coin purse. He slid that across the desk to her, and remained silent while she put the funds into her satchel. “We’re all very sorry to hear of your father’s death, and your terrible loss. Honest men like your father are rare in my experience.”
“We are managing as best we can without him,” she assured him, and it wasn’t a lie. She was challenged every day, navigating in Lord Templeton’s complex world. She did not understand why Quinn wasn’t more excited by a future filled with endless possibilities.
“Your father would be pleased you landed on your feet, and now find yourself engaged to marry an earl who will be a duke one day,” Brown confided.
Rumors of the engagement had spread quickly through the ton. But what Theodora hadn’t expected was for a trader, wholly outside the upper circles Quinn moved in, to have already heard the news. Brown was usually the sole of discretion, and for him to have mentioned her situation was alarming. Someone had to have passed him information already knowing they had a prior acquaintance.
“The new Lord Templeton is a man of great character, compassion, and generosity.” Theodora smiled. “May I ask who told you the particulars of our current situation?”
He scratched his head. “Mr. Litton and I were talking about the news just yesterday outside his shop. I told him I was well pleased to claim to know your family well, and that, should your lord ever be in need of a goldsmith, my shop would welcome his business.”
She smiled, although unease gripped her. She had a slight acquaintance with Mr. Litton, but how he’d heard was beyond her understanding. He was a needle maker. One of her late father’s old acquaintances.
Feeling exposed and a little paranoid about being the subject of speculation everywhere, Theodora clutched the heavier satchel against her thigh. She had not informed anyone of her destination today because she had been carrying Mama’s gems and would be returning to Newberry House with a small fortune. “I must be going.”
“Oh aye. Best not linger here when you’ve somewhere better to be.” He smiled kindly. “Not when you’ve all that to carry about. Make sure you keep your mama’s fortune under lock and key from now on.”
“Most assuredly I will. I have a carriage of Lord Templeton’s waiting to take me directly home.”
Brown peered down the street to where Lord Templeton’s carriage had pulled up to wait for her. “Well, it’s a fine thing to have a smart carriage like that to ferry you about London. Do give my condolences to your mother when you see her. Your father adored the ground she walked upon.”
“Indeed, he did. Mother has taken his death very hard. I don’t think she’ll ever be the same.” She shook hands with him like a man concluding business would and turned for the door. Mr. Brown’s sons, openly impressed by the gleaming carriage, unlocked the workshop door and slipped outside ahead of her.
Lord Templeton’s carriage was very quick to appear before the shop. A groom jumped down from the back of the carriage and rushed to the carriage door before Mr. Brown’s sons could even get a look inside.
Theodora stepped out onto the street and quickly clambered inside the safe, dark interior. “Why on earth did you close the carriage blinds, Mama? It’s so stuffy in here now,” Theodora complained as she placed the satchel on the cushion beside her. So much money. They would never want for anything again. “Do you have a megrim?”
The door snapped shut and at the very moment the carriage lurched forward, Mama cried out suddenly.
Theodora snapped up her head at the sound to stare at her.
Dennis Small, hiding almost beneath her mother, cracked Mama on the head with the butt of a pistol, and she slid sideways without another sound, eyes glazed.
“Mama!” Theodora shrieked, reaching across the carriage.
Dennis Small, very much alive, pressed his pistol into her temple to hold her back. “Screaming for your silly mother won’t do any good.”
“Mr. Small? What are you doing?” She took in his ragged appearance quickly in the dim light, chest tight with shock. The burn on his face was healing but looked quite awful. “You’re alive?”
“Not that you care.”
“Of course I care! You’re my friend. My father’s most trusted companion.”
“Come now.” Small snorted. “I was his slave.”
“That is not true. We mourned you!”
“I doubt you gave me another thought once you’d wormed your way into the new earl’s life. Just like you did with that fool Daniel. You went after him for a reason. You fluttered your lashes at Daniel so your father could purchase his shipments at a substantial discount.”
“What discount? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, didn’t you know your father had a deal almost stitched up tight as a drum that would have guaranteed him exclusive rights to trade with that company Daniel was
partners in?”
“No!”
“Well, it would have, if dear old Daniel hadn’t croaked.” Small laughed callously. “Your father was so disappointed when Daniel’s partner took one look at the contract we’d so carefully drafted and ripped it into shreds. Your father could have fought, but he wouldn’t have won. Why do you think we came back to England so suddenly? He’d already bled his friends dry in India.”
Theodora shook her head, dismissing Small’s words as false. Father had been a good man. Fair and honest. “What do you want with us?”
“I don’t want either of you.” Small smirked. “But I want everything your father hoodwinked from everyone else. I want the gems that you have in that satchel.”
He knew too much about her life. Theodora licked her lips. “What right do you have to any of it?”
“He nearly worked me to death! Sunrise till sunset and longer. Seven days a week. I poured over his papers for a pittance, until I almost couldn’t see the letters anymore. When he discovered my weakened eyes were beginning to be a problem, your father began interviewing new candidates for my position behind my back. The only choice I had was to sink to his level and demand he compensate me fairly at last, for all my years of devoted service.”
She swallowed hard, knowing Father had expected a great deal from Mr. Small, and recently had found him lacking. But she had not known about his eyes, or that father meant to replace him. But there had been a few strangers calling on Father for private meetings when Small was out. “You killed him?”
He shrugged. “Stupid old fool. Stubborn till the end.”
Theodora closed her eyes briefly, appalled that she’d been right all along. It couldn’t be true, but he never denied it. She opened her eyes and searched his face for any sign of regret. “I remember the day Father found you starving on the docks of London. We fed and clothed you, well before you began to work for him. Father invited you to go to India with us, and all you asked for was the position of his secretary. We made you part of our family.”
Small laughed. “One of you? There was nothing he cared more about than his money and his clever daughter’s future. He’d be so proud of the way you’ve secured yet another betrothal so easily. Playing the helpless damsel in distress again. Let’s hope this new one lives long enough for you to actually marry his fortune this time around.”
“It’s not like that. I’m not—”
Small swung his pistol at her head.
Chapter 29
“It seems you were correct. Mr. Dennis Small is very much alive, and given the description you furnished, following the Dalton’s about London, I’m afraid,” Mr. Banks told him after a perfunctory greeting in Quinn’s drawing room.
Quinn clenched his fists at his sides. “What is to be done to stop him?”
“There is no law against a man merely following a woman about.”
“There should be, if he thinks he can touch one hair on her head.”
“We must be vigilant.”
Quinn would be more than vigilant. He’d never let Theodora out of his sight again. And if he caught sight of Dennis Small anywhere near her, they’d have more than a few words said between them. “What else did you learn about him?”
“A few things. Small has taken lodgings at the White Goat tavern. It’s a mean place, and he only talks to one other man staying there. Keeps to himself, but they do walk past this house each day, which is quite a distance from his lodgings.”
Quinn ground his teeth. That was more often than he’d considered likely. “What’s the other fellow look like?”
“Big, terrible smell about him, and one of my men concluded he’s not quite up to snuff in the intelligence line.”
Quinn remembered another man beside Small on the night of the fire. He’d thought them strangers at the time, but he suddenly remembered Small had prevented the other man from speaking for himself. “What would a former secretary be doing with someone like that?”
“Nothing good, given the way he treated the fellow last night. Small is the brains of the pair. The other hasn’t the wits to stay out of the rain when it’s falling.”
“And Small is most likely the most dangerous of the pair,” Quinn reasoned.
“You still wonder about the fire, don’t you?”
“I do. Even more so now that I’ve learned Mr. Small faked his own death. He hasn’t fled London. He followed us from Maitland House to Newberry House, and follows Theodora when she’s in my carriage. I would say I have reason to wonder what more he might manage if she and her mother were making calls on their own.”
“There’s absolutely no evidence to point in his direction about the fire.”
That was the worst of it. Small couldn’t be convicted without presenting evidence of his crime. Their hands were tied unless Small made a move against the Dalton women. “I know.”
“The gems would certainly have been motive, but he didn’t get them, did he?”
It made no sense to light a fire to drive everyone out so he could steal, and then remain in the vicinity weeks after. “I wonder if Mr. Small didn’t know where the gems were that night. There are not too many men who would wear their wives’ jewels about their neck instead of keeping them under lock and key.”
“I agree that he might not have known.” Banks smiled quickly. “I doubt that was Dalton’s intention when he donned them. Most likely he planned to reveal them to his wife later, in the privacy of the bedchamber. It is a good thing they are safe now. Do be careful with them.”
But Quinn didn’t have the gems anymore. Mrs. Dalton had requested them back last night after his engagement dinner, and he’d gladly deposited them in her hand before he’d retired to bed with Theodora.
Now, he was a little worried about the matter of their safekeeping. A greedy servant could be bribed to steal unsecured items of value. It was an unpleasant thought. But there was a safe upstairs in another room he could make available to Mrs. Dalton for their continued safety. He would offer the use of it to Mrs. Dalton immediately.
He stretched out his hand to Banks. “Thank you for coming to see me.”
“Of course, my lord. Always a pleasure to be of service. Do keep an eye out, and when you can, please convey my apologies to Miss Dalton. I doubted her telling of events, but what she said might have merit.”
“I will do so.” Immediately. Theodora would like to know her instincts about the night of the fire were right.
He waited for Banks to leave the building then made a beeline for the study, ignoring the whine of Mrs. Dalton’s dog above him.
Theodora wasn’t at her desk, and he looked to the other secretaries. “Sever, where is Miss Dalton?”
“I’m not certain, my lord.”
“Kemp?”
“She never does say where she goes, my lord, but I believe she and Mrs. Dalton went out some time ago.”
Quinn stilled. “Do you know why, or where they went?”
“No milord.” Kemp stood. “Miss Dalton prefers not to confide in us.”
Quinn wasn’t surprised by that. Kemp had proven himself particularly disapproving of females who work. He would deal with the man later, but for now he was more concerned about where Theodora and her mother had gone. “Mother will know,” he muttered, and hurried upstairs to his mother’s private sitting room.
He found Mother, Sally and Hastings, and, surprisingly, Lord Deacon sipping tea and ale together. Mrs. Dalton’s pup, leashed unhappily to the leg of mother’s chair, whined pitiously.
He got straight to the point. “Where is Theodora?”
Hastings smirked. “Chasing her already?”
“I haven’t seen her since breakfast,” Sally advised. “Shouldn’t she be working?”
“No, she and her mother went out.” He glanced at his mother, who was frowning in silence. “Mother, where are they?”
“Gone to sell Mrs. Dalton’s gems, I’m afraid.”
“Now?”
“Indeed. Very rash, I thought. I
told her she needn’t bother with another house. We have plenty of room here. I expected them back by now, too.” She glanced sourly at the dog pawing at her for attention. “Miss Dalton claimed I’d need to amuse Soot only an hour.”
Quinn grew cold. “When exactly did they leave?”
“A little after ten. Mrs. Dalton is determined to waste no time in buying a little house for herself.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “Christ.”
“Language, Quinn,” Mother chided.
He stared at Hastings. Theodora was nothing but efficient. If she was considered late, then it was entirely out of character for her. He had an uncomfortable feeling about the reason for her late return.
Hastings stood. “What is it?”
“I was right. Mr. Small lives, and he has been watching the house.”
Hastings swore, and then kissed his wife. “I have to go out, love.”
“I’m coming, too,” Deacon said, as he stood and joined them without being asked to come along.
“Why? Devil take it,” Sally protested. “What is going on? Who is this Mr. Small you speak of, Quinn?”
“It is complicated, but it seems Mr. Dalton’s secretary faked his death, most likely killed Theodora’s father, and has taken to following my betrothed about.”
“You never said you had found a bride, too,” Deacon complained.
“I couldn’t find you. I intended to mention it when I finally tracked you down,” Quinn promised. “And ask you to stand up with me at the wedding.”
Deacon beamed. “I couldn’t be prouder to.”
“Oh, dear heavens, Quinn,” Mother gasped. “They’re defenseless.”
“They will be fine, Mama. I’m probably worrying for nothing. My men are with them.”
“I couldn’t bear to lose either of them,” she claimed, bursting to her feet with the dog now wrapped tightly in her arms. “You must hurry.”
“I will,” Quinn promised. He strode for the door and rushed downstairs—only to be confronted by one his own men, his coachman, staggering through the front door, holding his head.
