Yet here he was, married to Alexandra, and finding it less of a chore to be partnered with her than he’d thought.
And they’d barely begun.
What would his wife say when she found all that out?
He shuddered at the thought and gave Dobson a very frank look. “By any chance, you wouldn’t happen to have some of that whiskey in a drawer of that desk, would you?
“Mmm, that is a delightful tea, Miss Gilbert. You have a gift.”
“Oh, Mrs. Carlton, really, you exaggerate.”
“I’m from the South, Miss Gilbert. Exaggeratin’ comes after learning the alphabet and before learning to ride. But I can assure you, this is a very fine tea.”
The thin woman smiled, which stretched her face in a peculiar way. She must have been dreadfully out of practice there.
Alexandra set her barely mediocre tea down into the rarely used and faded saucer, and looked about the plain, masculine office as though it were something worth looking at. “My, my, there is hardly a soul about, is there? You must get dreadfully lonely.”
Miss Gilbert sipped her tea with the precision of a London miss, her dark hair pulled tightly back into a severe bun. “Not particularly,” she replied after a loud swallow. “I’m not one for conversation or company. I never know what to say or how to behave. Solitude and business is best for me.”
“You’re conversin’ just fine with me,” Alexandra assured her, exaggerating her drawl, as she tended to do when performing.
The secretary seemed taken aback by that for a moment, then a wrinkle appeared in her high brow. “I suppose I am.” The wrinkle smoothed. “Fancy that.”
Alexandra saluted her carefully with her tea, then sipped again. “How did you come to work for the police, Miss Gilbert? You’ll forgive me for sayin’ so, but it’s not exactly what one would expect a lady to do for her occupation.”
“No, it isn’t,” Miss Gilbert agreed, a smile appearing, this one not so wide as to distort her face. “My mother was very keen to inform me how inappropriate it would be to work in a place surrounded by men constantly. She wanted me to be a governess, despite the fact that I have no patience with children and no desire to teach.”
“Oh, heavens,” Alexandra breathed, putting a hand to her chest. “I would never be able to be a governess myself. Knowin’ what I put own governesses through, I could not manage a single day, I am sure of it.”
Miss Gilbert nodded with a sigh. “Apparently, it is respectable and refined, though, which is all Mother cared about. Then she thought it would be good for me to work in the Post Office, but they wanted a pretty girl at the counter so as to encourage people to linger and give the appearance of being busy.”
Alexandra groaned and rolled her eyes. “What does one’s physical features have to do with one’s ability to sort mail, sell stamps, and retrieve parcels? That’s outrageous, positively ludicrous.”
“They’d have hired you in a blink,” Miss Gilbert pointed out, and Alexandra thought she detected a bitter note in the statement.
She could combat that easily enough. “I don’t think so,” Alexandra disagreed. “I am remarkably impatient and speak my mind without any sort of filter to make what I say pleasing to the listener. Quite unlikable, I am told, and that would not serve.” She shrugged as if it were completely helpless. “Not all about the physical features, as I said.”
Miss Gilbert was frowning again, which seemed to be her natural expression. “I suppose not…”
“Did Sergeant Dobson hire you himself?” Alexandra asked when it became clear that Miss Gilbert had forgotten the original question in the face of her prejudice against attractive women.
The thin woman shook herself, the high starched collar of her faded brown dress seeming to scratch her neck with the motion. “Um, yes. Yes, he did. They were looking for a clerk for the office, and all of the male applicants seemed to be under the impression that they would be junior police officers of sorts, potentially becoming full officers in the future.”
Alexandra shook her head sympathetically. “Oh, my.”
Her comment was ignored. “Sergeant Dobson wanted someone who wouldn’t be in the way, wouldn’t care about working conditions, could do the job, and wouldn’t have any grand ideas.” Miss Gilbert gestured to herself without any fanfare. “Enter me.”
“And here you are.” Alexandra shook her head once more as if impressed. “And I have heard the sergeant is not overly fond of women, but he could not have hired someone more capable.”
“Oh, he can’t stand women,” Miss Gilbert said bluntly. “Won’t talk to them, apart from those he meets in social engagements with his wife.”
“His wife? My, my, I wonder what she thinks of his opinions.”
Miss Gilbert suddenly looked so severe, it was as though Alexandra were back in the schoolroom. “He treats her with the utmost respect, Mrs. Carlton, and she is quite glad he feels that way. It is a certain way to be sure he does not stray from her, which is more than I can say for other men in this world.”
Well, that was an unexpected outburst.
Thinking quickly, Alexandra nodded, her smile gentling. “You are so very right, it had not even occurred to me that she would have such an assurance because of it. How fortunate is she? I’ve only been married to my Tucker for a short while, but I become so very jealous when another woman even looks at him. I cannot even imagine how Mrs. Dobson would have felt.” She directed her smile at Miss Gilbert more directly, and let it warm. “She must trust you so very much, Miss Gilbert. What a recommendation to your good character that must be.”
Miss Gilbert blinked in the face of the turn of events, and Alexandra was pleased to have blinded her so. She hadn’t risen to the height of popularity in Savannah without some effort and skills, after all.
But the woman was very much correct; she had no skills in socializing. Even Tucker was not this difficult, and she was tempted to beat him with a hatbox every other hour of the day.
Time for something a little more relatable.
“My husband says he’s going to be working with Sergeant Dobson on a very difficult case,” Alexandra simpered as she lifted her teacup again. “He mentioned something about missin’ people, but I know nothin’ of the particulars. It must be so very trying to have such a case hanging about you all.”
Miss Gilbert seemed to sag against her chair, and it was miraculous that her tea did not slosh with the motion. “Sergeant Dobson has been weighed down by this case so very much. We cannot spare anymore reserves on pursuing it, or we risk neglecting everything else in this city.” She rubbed one slender hand against her faintly lined brow. “And I cannot bear the thought of facing the families yet again. Sergeant Dobson cannot abide the sentimentality, so he leaves all of that to me. I’m not one for much emotion myself, but better me than him, I suppose. The appearance of compassion, and all that.”
Alexandra forced her expression into a sympathetic one. “That must give them such comfort, Miss Gilbert.”
The first sign of actual feminine impulses appeared in Miss Gilbert’s face. “It would, I suppose, if I was able to give them some relief. But I cannot. No answers, you see.”
“No answers?” Alexandra repeated on a gasp. “Miss Gilbert, how can there be no answers? Surely the criminal left a clue. There’s always a clue, isn’t there?”
The idiotic question earned her a pitying look, which was what she’d hoped for. “Alas, not in the real world, Mrs. Carlton. We can’t even be sure the same perpetrator has taken all of the missing individuals. Some might be runaways, but we cannot say for certain.”
Alexandra pretended to be absolutely bewildered and fished a lace handkerchief out of her sleeve, dabbing under her nose. “I had no idea… Miss Gilbert, how do you bear it?”
It was as if the concept of feelings had never entered the woman’s mind, and she was clearly of the opinion that Alexandra was short a few intelligent thoughts, if not all of them. “It’s a business, ma’am. If I shed a tear
over every unsolved case, I’d be crying constantly.”
“I cry all the time,” Alexandra confessed, now brushing her handkerchief over the corner of her eye. “I’d be a mess, I assure you. Might even form puddles on the floor just there.” Then she frowned and looked at Miss Gilbert more frankly. “But are there really no clues at all, Miss Gilbert? I’d expect such a number of missin’ people to go missin’ from the same place, or the same neighborhood, at least. Or is everybody in Portland suddenly at risk of disappearin’?” She giggled as though the thought were preposterous.
“Not everybody,” Miss Gilbert replied as she sipped her tea. “Only certain parts of town, and only at night, it seems. Every other situation seems rather safe.”
Now that was a detail omitted from the files, and Alexandra shifted in her seat almost anxiously, a thrill of excitement shooting into her gut.
The trouble with the fashions of the day was that the skirts of any fashionable woman rustled with any movement at all, making discretion impossible. Her reaction was obvious, and Miss Gilbert’s colorless eyes were on her in a moment.
Alexandra bit her lip. “I’m ever so concerned,” she whispered. “My husband is so daring, and he is so dedicated. He will go anywhere for his mission, and I know I cannot keep him from it, nor would I wish to. But I had hoped to convince him to take me about the town a little, if it would not interfere. I should not like him to take me into danger. Where would you suggest we go? Or, if it’s easier, where should we avoid?”
Her act seemed to do the trick. Miss Gilbert spent the next few minutes listing some safe areas, and some less savory ones, and did so with all the informative airs one might recite details from an encyclopedia.
It was a very good thing, she decided, that Miss Gilbert had not decided to go into the tourist sector for Portland, or for Oregon, or for anywhere else that actually wanted visitors. It would have become abandoned in less than a month, if not a week.
But information was what she had wanted, and information was what she had received.
She sighed and set her tea aside, smiling fondly at Miss Gilbert as though they were old friends. “You have set my mind so at ease, Miss Gilbert. I was ever so concerned about coming all the way over here to this side of the country, when I had never been so far is Missouri in my entire life. It’s Tucker’s first assignment since our marriage, you know, and I was not ready to be parted from him for the sake of it.” She shook her head, turning wistful. “I know I must eventually become one of those women who mutely accepts her husband’s dedication to duty, and his stepping into danger, but it is far too terrifying to fully comprehend.”
To Alexandra’s unending surprise, Miss Gilbert nodded with what seemed to be real sympathy. “Law enforcement is no easy occupation, Mrs. Carlton. It takes its toll on everyone it touches.”
There was some great wisdom in that, and she hadn’t quite considered Miss Gilbert to be in possession of anything of the sort.
How utterly bizarre.
“But I trust,” Miss Gilbert went on, “that his dedication to his duty is one of the reasons you married him, is it not, Mrs. Carlton?”
The question took Alexandra by surprise, and she had no guard against it.
Alexandra Waite had married her husband because of his sense of duty and dedication to it, there was no question. They wouldn’t have been married without that, she would have been married to a different agent and somewhere else. It was the reason she married him.
But Alexandra Carlton was a different creature entirely. Had she done so?
“Yes,” she found herself murmuring. “Yes, it was.”
“Gilbert!”
Both women jumped and looked towards the offices, Miss Gilbert scrambling out of her seat. “Yes, sir?”
Sergeant Dobson and Tucker came out, Tucker with a stack of papers under his arm. “Gilbert, I have given Mr. Carlton here everything on the case. If he needs anything else, you will see that he has it. He has full access to me whenever he needs, no matter what is on the schedule. Is that understood?”
Miss Gilbert didn’t even blink. In fact, she smiled and bobbed a bizarre sort of curtsey, nodding with an almost frantic edge. “Yes, sir. Of course, Sergeant.” She smiled at Tucker now. “I am at your disposal, Mr. Carlton.”
Oh, now she was pleasant and affable and remotely human? That figured.
Alexandra rose with all the grace she had ever wanted and beamed at Tucker and Sergeant Dobson. “There you are. We’d just been wonderin’ what the menfolk were up to.”
Tucker blinked almost unsteadily at her, no doubt confused by her warm tone. Then it seemed to come to him, and he smiled in the way that would have curled even Miss Gilbert’s toes, if she had the right view of it. “Sergeant, this is my wife, Alexandra. Darling, Sergeant Dobson, the man I was telling you about earlier.”
Strange how her toes tingled when he called her darling, but she didn’t have time to consider that much at the moment. “It is my sincere and honest pleasure, Sergeant.”
Dobson barely looked at her. “Hmph,” he grunted, turning back to his office. “Good day, Carlton. Gilbert! I need you!”
Miss Gilbert darted after him without any sort of farewell to them.
Alexandra stared towards the offices, then looked at Tucker with a wry brow quirk. “Got what you need?”
He nodded and gestured for the door. “Enough. We’ll need to go over it all, but only when we’re back in the rooms. I need a satchel.”
She sniffed as they exited the building. “I told you to bring yours, but you said no.”
“Yes, thank you, I recall.” He adjusted the papers beneath his arm, then offered his free one to her, which she took instinctively. “How was your interview?”
Alexandra snorted once. “Like trying to interrogate a saddle, and less entertaining. But I made some notes all the same, so not a complete waste of my efforts.”
Tucker chuckled, then seemed to look her up and down. “Did you? Where?”
She tapped her head twice. “Up here, Mutt. Everything’s safe there.”
“I’m sorry, Chickadee, where did you point? I can’t see anything with your shield on.”
Her elbow attacked with one swift blow, and he laughed through wheezes for a full block after that.
Chapter 4
Hours of poring over notes and interviews, and Alexandra suddenly had a great deal of sympathy for Sergeant Dobson and every other officer who had anything to do with this case at all.
No two stories were the same, even for the same missing person, and no two situations were the same. Different locations of last being seen, different stations in life, different circumstances of the actual disappearance…
Tucker had grown frustrated with the information, or lack thereof, and stormed out into the fading afternoon light some time ago, saying something about needing to see for himself, though what exactly he had expected to see that could help had been entirely unclear.
Whatever ideas he’d had, he was not sharing them.
No surprise there.
For all the companionable moments they had shared since arriving, they were still not partners in truth. She supposed that came later with time and experience, but surely working together would accomplish more than two independent beings working for themselves.
But then, there was likely a reason that Tucker had never had a partner. Maybe he worked better alone, and didn’t know the way of it. Or perhaps there had been no partnerships formed within the agency before now, and all were adjusting to this new way of things.
Whatever it was, they were going to have to figure it out. She refused to just sit here among the papers and do all the thinking for them, working out details as though they were the puzzles her father had given her for entertainment. Especially not while he went out and had grand adventures that would prove most fruitful, about which she would only hear after the fact, and which would likely not have all of the details she would have liked to hear.
Still, she
was not one to leave a task unfinished, no matter how tedious, so here she sat, making studious notes, a bowl of what was once excellent stew now growing weak and lukewarm on the table.
She’d never been overly fond of stew, but Mrs. Ames had managed to tempt her into trying it, and something in her stomach was infinitely preferable to the reverse.
It was better than she had expected, but still not her favorite.
More’s the pity.
Alexandra sighed and shook her head, returning her focus to the papers at hand. Interview lists, though none were particularly intriguing for a potential further questioning. It was entirely possible that Tucker would see it differently, but surely he would only want the most useful candidates first.
An Agent for Alexandra Page 5
