by Erica Ridley
“I see.” Miss Grenville’s eyes lost some of their sparkle. She had not needed him to enumerate his reasons to understand that he would not be back. “Before you go, I too would like to thank you. Not just for last night, but for today. You were very good with the children. Have you some of your own?”
“No.” His answer came out more forcefully than intended. “I am unwed.”
The dark brow she arched was meant to be ironic. From dukes to paupers, “marriage” was hardly a prerequisite to spawning offspring. Some were simply more circumspect about it than others.
Simon felt differently.
London already had more than enough unwanted children, without Simon adding to the problem. He wouldn’t start a family unless he could be a family. A proper one, with both parents at home and plenty of time for the children.
However, none of that was in the cards. Every moment of every day was already spoken for. When the city no longer needed inspectors and constabulary, perhaps then he would reconsider. But for as long as he did more good on the streets, saving lives, catching criminals…
His life was more than full. And he had dallied here long enough.
“Good luck, Miss Grenville.” He bowed, and stepped out onto the front step. “If you or your students need anything at all, Bow Street is a short distance away.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Spaulding,” she replied softly as she shut the door. “Keep rescuing people.”
“I will.” With determination, Simon adjusted his hat, mounted his horse, and set off to do exactly that.
Chapter 4
Simon tossed his hat onto the corner of his desk and glared at the scraps of paper littering the mahogany surface. Each square of parchment bore his small, precise hand. Notes. Details. Clues. Questions.
An insidious thief was loose in Mayfair, and he was no closer to solving the mystery.
He frowned. It had taken months to determine that a crime was even being committed.
In a room full of riches, only one small object would be stolen. Something easily concealed in a trouser pocket. Something unlikely to be missed. Something of more sentimental value to its owner than its comparative worth.
But the thief was not coldhearted. He chose an item of sentimental value not in an attempt to bring pain to the owner, but to ensure the object’s safe return.
Within twenty-four hours of being pawned for cash, an anonymous missive would arrive, informing the owner his lost object could be retrieved for a paltry sum at varying pawnshops.
The person who pawned it, however, was not so easily found. Street beggars were paid to make the exchange. The same faces were never seen twice. The thief was a ghost.
Simon ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
In some cases, the owner didn’t even realize an item was missing until he received instructions on how to retrieve it. In every case, the monetary value of the stolen items was so inconsequential to their wealthy owners that reporting the crime rarely crossed their minds. His notes only contained a few documented cases.
If Simon did not possess a compulsion to protect and serve all people, he would be tempted to lower the priority of this case to the bottom of the pile.
London was brimming with real problems. People robbed of their lives, their innocence, their last penny, their last hope.
But right was right, and wrong was wrong. Just because the wealthy victims could afford their loss did not mean a crime should go unpunished. Someone needed to stop the Thief of Mayfair. And that someone was Simon Spaulding.
He dipped his pen into the inkwell and began transcribing the details of the case in a fresh way.
Instead of grouping each known crime chronologically, he began to create individual lists. A list of stolen items, a list of the rooms they were stolen from, a list of the pawn shops and their characteristics, a list naming and describing all the victims, a list of the monies received for each stolen good.
Somewhere in all this data was a clue he could use. A trick to predict the next robbery. A way to catch the criminal.
“Spaulding, did you hear me? It’s half six. Join us for a drink before we go home?”
Simon glanced up to see the daytime inspectors hovering impatiently just outside the door to his office. Every evening at half six, they put on their hats and headed out for an after-work drink. Every time, they invited Simon to join them.
And every day he said no.
“I’m busy,” he said, jabbing his pen back into the inkwell. He had just arrived for the night shift and was already buried in casework.
Perhaps he wouldn’t be so busy if the other inspectors didn’t trade the office for the pub every evening at half six. Then again, perhaps they wouldn’t feel compelled to do so if the city would grant funding to hire a few more investigators.
“Suit yourself,” the other officers murmured, as they did every time. “You know where to find us.”
He did indeed. But Simon needed his mind to stay sharp. When working twelve hour days from dusk to dawn, clear thinking was the only way to do his job.
Besides, Simon didn’t need sleep. Not when the city needed him. He didn’t get drowsy when the sun went down. He came alive.
Criminals might believe they owned the darkness, but Simon Spaulding was the Lord of Night. At the end of the day, no felon could hide from justice.
“Inspector?”
Simon glanced up to realize another hour had slipped by. The office was empty, save for the secretary—who had a wife and small child he ought to get home to. “What is it, Mr. Webb?”
“Footman just dropped this off for you, sir.” The secretary handed Simon a sealed document. “It’s from the Justice of the Peace.”
“Splendid.” With a sigh, Simon broke the seal.
The Justice of the Peace frequently sent politically motivated missives to the department. Round up the prostitutes, the vagrants, the poor. Clean up London’s streets.
This one had a different target.
“It appears that Lady Pettibone’s nephew has taken to frequenting what she suspects to be an illegal gaming hell,” Simon informed his secretary. He gave a sardonic smile. “His Honor believes that I alone am inspector enough to ensure Lady Pettibone’s nephew loses his fortune in legal gentlemen’s clubs.”
“Well…” Mr. Webb’s encouraging expression was devoid of irony. “You are the best investigator in the entire history of the department.”
“It’s not an old department,” Simon muttered. “Don’t we have real cases to solve?”
“It’s a direct order from the Justice of the Peace,” Mr. Webb pointed out. “You can’t say no.”
Shaking his head, Simon pushed to his feet. “I know.”
Mr. Webb hesitated. “You must investigate the matter, but you needn’t start tonight. If you don’t have plans for supper, Mrs. Webb is cooking a goose in honor of our son’s birthday.”
“It sounds like a family affair.” Simon reached for his hat and snugged it down to his ears. “Go home and enjoy your goose. The sooner I investigate this gambling establishment, the sooner I can return to my other cases.”
Mr. Webb nodded and turned away.
Simon doubted his secretary had expected to be taken up on his offer. It was not the first time Mrs. Webb had cooked a goose or a pigeon or learned a new sauce. He had no doubt the invitations were sincere and the meals toothsome.
But if Simon had no free time for a family of his own, he had even less call to intrude upon someone else’s.
He exited Bow Street and set out for the direction listed in the Justice’s missive.
The address was right at the edge of the fashionable district. The club was not quite close enough to St. James’s Street to be confused with White’s or Brooks’s, but more than far enough from the rookeries to be considered a respectable location.
Simon observed the nondescript brick building carefully. The gaming den was called the Cloven Hoof. Run by one Maxwell Gideon, history unknown.
Unlike
most public houses, the door was unopened. No sound could be heard from outside. He tied his horse to a post and rapped firmly on the closed door.
It opened a crack.
“Wrong knock,” said a gruff voice. “Don’t recognize you.”
“I am not surprised,” Simon said, suddenly more interested in the case. A man with nothing to hide would not hire an enforcer to keep potential customers out. “This is my first time here. Do allow me inside.”
The door did not budge. “Who are you?”
“I am Mr. Simon Spaulding. Who are you?”
“Vigo,” came the answering growl. “And unless you know the knock or someone vouches for you, you’re not coming in.”
Something gave Simon the impression that “knowing” a Justice of the Peace was not the sort of connection Vigo was looking for.
“Does Maxwell Gideon own this establishment?” he asked instead.
“Do you know Gideon?” Vigo countered skeptically.
Another tack, then. Simon affected a clueless grin. “Lady Pettibone’s nephew promised—”
“Egbert,” the enforcer spat in disgust. “Always sending his Cambridge prats here.”
The door swung open to reveal a large, burly gentleman with a resigned scowl.
“At least you culls are good for the money,” the enforcer muttered as he gestured for Simon to enter. “Games up front near the bar, private tables in the back.”
“What’s the correct knock, for next time?” Simon asked innocently.
With a roll of his eyes, the enforcer’s scarred knuckles rapped out a two-one-two pattern on the doorjamb.
“I’ll try to remember,” Simon murmured, and stepped inside.
The interior of the Cloven Hoof was dark, but cozily so. Cleverly placed mirrors refracted light from low-hung chandeliers with unusual efficiency.
A long, simple bar to the left separated the stores of alcohol from the gamblers who imbibed it. Behind the counter was a single barmaid, who poured drinks with a cheerfulness not usually found in such establishments.
To the right were the gamblers. Green felt Faro tables covered in chips. Hazard tables with flying dice. Plain wooden tables with clumps of men playing whist, casino, piquet, speculation.
“You lose!” squealed a man in dandified clothes as he gathered a stack of chips. “I’m going to buy so many actresses with this money… There’s absolutely nothing they won’t agree to do!”
“Shut it, Mapleton.” A man in lesser finery shrugged off his greatcoat to expose his shirtsleeves as if the temperature in the club had suddenly increased. “You won this hand, not the night. It’s my turn to deal.”
Simon walked past the bar and the gaming tables to the rear half of the establishment. Here were the private tables the enforcer had referred to, though they were currently empty. In the back was a single closed door marked Office.
These sorts of establishments usually came in one of two flavors. Either they were exclusive gentlemen’s clubs catering solely to the titled and very rich—the sort that Lady Pettibone undoubtedly expected her nephew to frequent would never have allowed someone as lowborn as Simon to enter—or they were seedy underground gaming hells, where whatever money one failed to lose at the rigged tables would be just as efficiently pickpocketed before leaving the premises.
The Cloven Hoof appeared to be neither of these things.
The loud-mouthed dandy at the Faro table had been wearing an embroidered waistcoat so fine, it must have cost twice Simon’s annual salary. On the other hand, the rest of the patrons clearly were not Quality. No matter how warm the room, a true gentleman would never expose his shirtsleeves in public.
Indeed, Simon was far better tailored than a fair percentage of the dice-throwers and whist-players. Which was probably why the door enforcer had believed Simon to be an old university friend of Lady Pettibone’s spoiled nephew.
He stepped back into the shadows as a distant office door swung open. His blood cooled.
The handsome, well-dressed blond gentleman who stepped out from the office was definitely not Maxwell Gideon.
It was Lord Hawkridge.
Simon’s half-brother.
He sucked in a shocked breath and slid down into a dark corner table.
Not that Simon expected Hawkridge to have any clue who he was. But now that he’d determined he was in the midst of a true investigation, he could not risk giving away his true identity so soon.
If he could have had his way, he wouldn’t recognize Hawkridge either.
Once Simon had determined to make his own way in the world, he’d gone out of his way to learn as little as possible about the half-brother who didn’t even know he existed. It was the only way to save his sanity.
As an investigator, it would have been easy to torture himself with researching every tiny detail about the marquess’s marvelous life. Simon had refrained. If anything, it had become an obsession not to investigate anything unrelated to active casework.
Besides, even if he’d wanted to, he didn’t have time. London had more than enough footpads and gangs on the loose for Simon to waste time peering into the private lives of ordinary citizens.
Except when he had nowhere else to look because the man was right in front of him on the other side of the room.
Lord Hawkridge didn’t even look Simon’s way. His gaze was on the tall, dark gentleman stepping out of the office and locking the door.
Simon straightened. That must be Maxwell Gideon.
Conversing in low voices, the two men strode up front to the main area and disappeared out of view.
Simon’s skin danced with nervous energy. Now what?
The only way out of the establishment was through the front door, which would mean walking past everyone in the main room. He would have to wait.
Quickly, he found a table with a better view of the front gaming salon, and nestled himself in the shadows to observe the others.
It was already torture.
He could scarcely think about Maxwell Gideon or the Cloven Hoof when all he could see was the expensively tailored Lord Hawkridge.
Although they had both been sired by the same marquess, they had been raised in separate circles. Lord Hawkridge’s mother was a marchioness.
Simon’s had been nothing more than a mistress.
As he watched, Gideon murmured something. Because Simon’s only view was to the back of Hawkridge’s head, he could not gauge the reply.
Whatever the marquess said caused the club owner to burst into laughter and wave a swarthy hand in the direction of the bar.
Simon tried not to hate his brother. Had spent the last two-and-thirty years trying not to blame the son for the crimes of the father.
But it wasn’t easy.
How many times had Simon thought his circumstances would have been so much easier if he hadn’t known who his father was? If he had never so much as glimpsed his brother?
But of course he knew. How could he not? His brother’s name was listed in Debrett’s Peerage, right next to everyone else who mattered: Zachary Nash, Lord Hawkridge.
Absent from Debrett’s Peerage: Simon. And his mother.
How Simon had longed for his father to acknowledge him, to be proud of him. He didn’t want to be marquess; he knew he couldn’t. Simon just wanted to have a few of the same things his brother did. To sail toy boats on the lake. To go on a carriage ride in the park. To have ices on Berkeley Square.
He didn’t want riches.
He just wanted his father’s time.
Such a foolish wish could never be granted. His father was important. Simon and his mother were not. They could not be acknowledged publicly, because they were an embarrassment to the marquess and his real family. The ones who got carriage rides and sweet ices and sunny afternoons by the lake.
Simon and his mother, on the other hand, were to stay out of sight, out of town, out of the way.
You understand, the marquess would say. Out of respect for my wife. And my son.
<
br /> As if Simon were not.
He watched, teeth clenched, as the barmaid brought over a glass of port and made some sort of eye-fluttering cooing comment at Hawkridge.
Men like that believed a rakehell lifestyle made them seem manly. Simon was proof of the opposite. Unwed sexual encounters had devastating consequences for everyone but the rake.
Gideon and Hawkridge rose from their chairs and made their way to the Hazard tables on the other side of the salon.
Simon pulled out his pocketwatch and growled in frustration. If the marquess intended to start a game of dice, that meant he wasn’t planning to quit the Cloven Hoof any time soon.
As much as he preferred not to be in the same room with the man, Simon had already wasted a full quarter hour in the shadows and was not prepared to waste the rest of his night.
When he was a child, and he and his mother accidentally passed little lord Zachary on the street or in the park, Simon’s half-brother had always looked straight through him as if there were no spark of recognition at all.
At first, Simon had thought his highborn half-brother was ignoring him because he believed commoners were inconsequential.
His mother had gently explained that the marquess’s real son literally had no idea who Simon was…because he truly was nobody.
From that day forward, Simon was determined to be somebody. He might never be important enough for recognition to flash in the marquess’s eye, but he was bloody important to all the Londoners he and his colleagues helped every day. And he had much better things to do than stare at his half-brother from afar like he’d done when they were younger.
Simon’s years of living in the shadows were over.
He pushed to his feet and strode past the Hazard table and out the front door without looking back.
Chapter 5
Two days had passed since Dahlia had seen Mr. Spaulding.
Perhaps the inspector continued to ride past the school once per day as promised. Perhaps he did not. Bow Street Runners were busy men. She had no business trying to monopolize even a fraction of his interest. Not when the entire city could use more men like Mr. Spaulding.
