A Wicked Gentleman (17 page)

Aurelia handed him a glass of wine. “We wanted to thank you for your help, sir,” she said, indicating the magazines. “We are making good use of these, and Miss Claire is such a sensible woman—”

“Yes, so Lady Dagenham told me,” he broke in. “My housekeeper is a fund of knowledge about such matters. She has a wealth of friends and acquaintances eager for work. I am happy to have been of service, Lady Farnham.” He sipped his wine. “Do you have a date when you think you'll be ready to receive callers?”

“Any day now, sir,” Cornelia said, her focus returning to the room. “Our cards have been engraved. Since both Ellie…Lady Farnham…and I have been presented at court, we thought we would pay some calls, then, depending on who returns the calls, send out invitations to a small soirée.”

She frowned at him, trying to assess his reaction. “Does that seem a sensible way to proceed, my lord?”

“Eminently,” he said, crossing one booted leg over the other. “You're right, this is an excellent burgundy…I will engage to bring Lady Sefton to call upon you. She's the easiest of the patronesses at Almack's to deal with, and once you have the vouchers, then you may spend as much or as little time as you wish in the social whirl.” His tone managed to convey his own lack of interest in such a whirl.

“I take it you have little time for the social dance,” Cornelia observed, idly twining a curling lock of her child's hair around her finger.

He shrugged. “It has its amusements.” His gaze darted towards Nigel, who had contributed little or nothing to the conversation. “Isn't that so, Dagenham?”

Nigel shook himself. “Yes…yes, of course, viscount. Quite so…quite so.”

Harry was certain the man hadn't heard a word spoken in the last fifteen or twenty minutes. Matters were presumably going from bad to worse as they had a habit of doing. Creditors could be put off, satisfied with a little on account; but if it was gambling debts that he couldn't pay, then he was in serious trouble.

Was it
that
trouble that had attracted the dangerous attention of those men who were following him? If they were after the thimble, then they might see Nigel Dagenham as a possible tool to help them to it. A vulnerable, green youth who found himself in a desperate situation, one that could be exploited. Maybe he'd be open to
persuasion
of some kind or another. They were up to no good, that was for sure.

And they were far too close to these women and their children for his comfort.

His eye darted once more to the drum table. The workbox was closed. He rose leisurely to his feet and began to stroll around the room. He looked through the rain-smeared windows, refilled his glass, kicked a falling log back into the fire. Each step brought him casually closer to the workbox.

The door opened as his careless peregrinations landed him beside the drum table. Stevie and Franny tumbled into the parlor, squealing with delight. “Mama, our Ada showed us how to roll out pastry,” Franny gasped. “See my flower.” She held an approximation of a flower in unbaked pastry reverently on the palm of her hand.

“An' our Mavis showed me how to make a dog,” Stevie crowed, waving his own creation vigorously in the air. It collapsed in on itself and he stared at it in puzzlement as he caught the detritus in the palm of his hand. “It broke.”

“Because it hadn't been cooked, sweetie,” Cornelia said, laying the sleeping Susannah carefully down on the sofa beside her. “When it's baked it'll be hard, then it won't break.”

“I knew that,” Franny said, touching her flower with a tiny fingertip. “Mine's not broke.”

Stevie visibly gathered himself for battle, but Harry, a veteran of such frays, moved swiftly. He sat down on a low ottoman. “Give it to me, Stevie, and I'll show you something.” He held out his hand to receive the lump from a small hot hand. “While the dough's still soft, you can make a soldier,” he said. “Better still, a knight.” His fingers began to fashion the dough.

Cornelia was rapt as she watched those long, slender fingers, deft and skillful, kneading the rather grubby dough, pinching, shaping the mass into an utterly recognizable shape of a medieval knight complete with sword, shield, and helmet.

“I don't like this flower,” Franny cried. “Make me a knight.” She thrust her dough at Harry.

He took it, giving the child a quick smile. “Do you really want a knight, Franny? How about a horse, or a swan?”

“I want what Stevie has,” Franny declared firmly.

“Then you must have it.” He cast a glance up at Cornelia, who was leaning forward watching, and he was rewarded by a frank smile of appreciation. He produced the required knight and got up from the ottoman, every muscle of his body straining towards the workbox on the drum table.

He had to open it, to confirm what he knew in his blood.
His
thimble was in there.

“You know children, Lord Bonham,” Aurelia said, as Stevie and Franny raced off to the kitchen to persuade the twins to bake their knights. “You must be close to your sister's children.”

Harry remembered with a shock that Annabel had supposedly left him with five nephews and nieces to take care of. “I have several sisters, Lady Farnham,” he said with complete truth.

“An extended family must be a great help to your late sister's family,” Cornelia remarked with quick sympathy.

“Yes,” agreed Harry without too much enthusiasm. The ramifications of his convenient white lie were making him uncomfortable. “What a pretty workbox,” he observed, wandering across to the drum table. He ran a finger over the mother-of-pearl inlay. “French?”

“No, Italian,” Cornelia said. “It belonged to my mother.”

“May I?” He lifted the lid without waiting for permission. The thimble lay neatly in a compartment beside the skeins of colored silks. He could palm it in a second, and this would all be over. But Cornelia had come up behind him and now stood at his shoulder.

She reached over and took the workbox, “I love the painted panel in the lid. Aren't the colors exquisite?”

“Delightful,” he agreed. He wasn't going to be able to liberate his thimble now, but confirmation of its presence was a huge step forward.

Cornelia closed the box and set it back on the table.

 

Harry took his leave shortly thereafter. Dagenham's shadows were not immediately visible, but he knew they were there somewhere, waiting for their quarry to leave. Would they lose interest in Dagenham once the thimble was safely in English hands? Or did they have a more far-reaching interest in the young man? He wouldn't be the first unlucky creature to have exposed a vulnerability that could be turned to good purpose by enemy agents. He'd need to alert his own side to keep an eye on Nigel. But first things first.

He walked home, his mind thrumming with various strategies for getting hold of the thimble. Lester was well placed for the retrieval, since he seemed to have established a presence in the household. It needed to be done quickly. Particularly with the ominous presence of Nigel Dagenham's watchers hovering so closely.

He reached his own house just as it began to rain again. “Miserable day, my lord,” Hector observed as he took the viscount's outer garments. “Will you want the carriage this evening?”

“Am I going somewhere, Hector?” Harry asked in surprise.

“I understood you were dining with Her Grace, sir.” Hector smoothed the brim of his master's beaver hat.

“Oh, Lord, I'd forgotten.” Harry grimaced with annoyance. The lady in question was his great-aunt who was paying one of her infrequent visits to town. She was a
grande dame
of the old school and never let her relatives forget it. A summons from the duchess of Gracechurch could not be ignored with impunity, although the evening promised to be dull as ditchwater when he wasn't attempting to defend himself from unexpected attacks. But the old woman had stood by him when the scandal broke, as had all his family, and for that he reckoned he owed her his presence at her dinner table however lamentable the fare and irksome the conversation.

“Yes, I'd better take the carriage,” he said, heading for the stairs. “What time am I supposed to be there?”

“Her Grace's invitation said six o'clock, my lord.”

Harry nodded, unsurprised at the unfashionably early hour. His aunt was set in her ways that themselves were firmly rooted in the mores of a world some two decades earlier. At least it promised an early end to a tortuous evening.

“Is Lester around?”

“I believe he came in half an hour ago, sir.”

“Ask him to come up to my office.” Harry strode up the stairs.

“I'll have the carriage brought around for five thirty, my lord,” Hector said to his retreating back.

Harry raised a hand in acknowledgment and continued up to his attic sanctuary, where a fire crackled merrily in the grate, and the lamps were lit banishing the gloom beyond the windows. A letter with a familiar seal lay on the desk. He poured himself a glass of wine from the decanter on a side table and stood with his back to the fire as he slit the seal with his fingernail. He frowned as he read the letter's contents.

He was still frowning when a brisk knock at the door heralded Lester's appearance. “You sent for me, m'lord?”

“Yes, come in. Wine?” Harry gestured towards the decanter.

“No, thank you, m'lord. A pint of ale is more my tipple,” Lester said. He saw the frown. “Something up, sir?”

“I need you to go to Portsmouth this afternoon,” Harry said, tapping the letter against the palm of his hand. “Which is a damned nuisance, because I've found the thimble.”

Lester whistled softly. “You've got it then, sir?” His gaze darted around the chamber in search of the precious object.

Harry shook his head. “No, not as yet, but I've seen it. It's in Lady Dagenham's workbox, as I suspected.”

“Well, it's all right and tight there then.”

“Yes, but not nearly as right and tight as it will be back in my possession,” Harry said grimly. “And safely destroyed,” he added. “There's no time to waste, Lester. It's as near out in the open as it could be.”

Lester nodded his comprehension. “And I've got to go to Portsmouth,” he stated. “Can't that trip wait a day or two?”

Harry shook his head. “No, it's Ministry orders. There's a fishing boat expected from Le Havre on the dawn tide. It'll have a message from one of our men in Rouen. It needs to be decoded at once.”

“What about the man in Portsmouth? Can't he meet the boat and bring it up?”

Harry sighed. “He broke his ankle jumping from a boat to the quay. He can't ride.”

“Ah.” Lester nodded. “Then I'd best be off, sir. It's close to a hundred miles. I'll be back tomorrow evening. I could get the thimble then.”

“I'm not prepared to wait that long. Every moment is dangerous.” Harry sipped his wine, his gaze somewhat distracted. “I intend to take it myself tonight and, since it's absence will be noticed, I'll substitute another in its place. I don't want to start a hue and cry in the household.” He frowned slightly, his long fingers playing with the stem of his goblet.

“Do you by any chance know where Lady Dagenham keeps her workbox?”

“Well, as to that, sir, it weren't in the ladies' parlor this morning when I went in to fix a loose cupboard door. I'm guessing she took it up to her bedchamber at night.”

Harry turned to gaze into the fire, the frown vanished, an amused smile instead playing over his lips. “That would certainly make sense,” he said softly. “Do you know where her ladyship's bedchamber is?”

“Oh, yes, sir. It's a big one at the back on the first floor just above the library.”

“At the back, eh…” Harry turned back slowly. “Secluded then?”

Lester nodded. “Reckon so. There's a bit of a walled garden out back but nothing to speak of.”

“Nothing overlooking the back of the house?”

Lester considered. “Not much. The wall's quite high, and there's a few fruit trees in the garden to block a straight sight line. What are you thinking, sir?”

“Just an idea…a possibility, Lester. Can you go back to the house on your way to Portsmouth, find some excuse to go upstairs, and do something with Lady Dagenham's bedroom window. Loosen the latch, perhaps?”

Lester nodded, comprehension dawning. “You're going in that way?”

Harry shrugged with apparent insouciance. “It's an avenue. If she keeps the box in there at night…”

“I thought we'd done with the breaking and entering, my lord,” Lester said with a hint of disapproval.

“In this case I see no alternative,” Harry said with a cool smile.

“Whatever you say, my lord.”

Lester's expression revealed nothing of his inner thoughts.