Love's Harbinger (17 page)

“I hope you didn’t take that sitting down!”

“Oh, no! I called him worse. I don’t know what all I said,” she replied, but remembered a few of her choicer insults, every one of which brought forth another tear or hiccough.

“I really do not understand Guy,” the aunt admitted. “He has a very odd kick in his gallop. Why would he subject you to such an indignity? I hope—Faith, I hope you did not steal his watch!”

“He put it in my reticule himself. He was angry because I caught him with Millie in the lobby.”

“I daresay it has something to do with Thomas, if the truth were known,” Lady Lynne said. “He was upset, no doubt, about that little wild-goose chase I sent him on. He was afraid you’d find Thomas and warn him. We must get busy . . .”

Faith turned a startled face to her aunt. “Delamar has already found him. Did I not I tell you?”

“Found him! You never mean it! Why didn’t you tell me! Where is he?”

Faith explained what she had learned, and her aunt filled her in on the strange appearance and disappearance of Mr. Elwood. As they talked, Lady Lynne noticed that concern for Thomas had taken second place to vexation with Guy Delamar. What a troublesome gel Faith was turning out to be. Bringing Emily and her viscount to terms had been a holiday compared to handling this chit.

Faith noticed that the carriage was returning to the hotel. “What should we do now?” she asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I intend to have a stroll in the Pleasure Gardens. This whole matter has gone beyond my grasp. No matter. Guy will certainly get my money back, but I cannot help regretting that Thomas must be exposed and your skirts splattered with the filth as well. Pity.”

Faith drew a deep sigh. “As much as I despise Mr. Delamar and everything he stands for, he is at least right about Thomas. He had every advantage. There was no excuse for him to do what he did. Stealing from innocent people, and people who needed their bit of money, too.”

“It is kind of you to worry about me,” Lady Lynne said.

Faith blinked at such colossal insensitivity. “You, of course, Auntie, and others who are much worse off. Some friends of Mr. Delamar put all they had into the fund. That is why he is so determined to catch Thomas. I begin to regret some of the harsh things I said to him. My temper, alas!’’

Faith had no more temper than a teapot. Her coolness was considered her greatest virtue, but at that moment the carriage reached the hotel and Lady Lynne was thinking of something else.

“Who is in that hackney behind us, Faith? I swear it followed me when I left; it was at the roundhouse, and now here it is, still on our heels. Good God, it couldn’t be Thomas, seeking our help!”

The look in Faith’s eyes had nothing of hope or joy in it. Fear and anger were more like it. The ladies entered the hotel, taking peeps over their shoulders to see who followed them.

“That’s Millie, the lightskirt who was at the dock with Guy this morning,” Lady Lynne exclaimed. “He was hiring her to help him find Thomas and not to warm his bed as we thought. There’s something havey-cavey afoot her, Faith. I’ll have a word with her.”

Faith so far forgot propriety as to accompany her aunt back out to the street to accost Millie. The wench ran back to the carriage when she saw what was happening, but she was no match for Lady Lynne. The dame let out a bellow that would have deafened a sergeant major, and a very reluctant Millie came forward.

“Why are you following us?” Lady Lynne asked imperiously.

“To see where you were going, mum.”

“Brilliant. Did Delamar put you up to it?”

“Oh, no, mum!”

The dame got a tight grip on the girl’s elbow and entered the carriage with her, for she had no desire to be seen on the street in such low company. Faith followed them in. “Now see here, miss, I didn’t come down in the last rain. I recognize the fine hand of Delamar at work here, and you’ll sit in this rig till you tell me what you know.”

“I don’t know nothing. I’ve got to go to work.”

“Not one step till you open your budget. And if you don’t, I’ll have you delivered promptly to the roundhouse.”

Millie cast a sly smile at Faith. “I wager there’s a cell free right about now.”

Lady Lynne’s eyes narrowed and she turned to her niece. “She’s in on the whole affair, you see.”

“She was with Guy when he put his watch in my reticule,” Faith pointed out.

“Aha! Collusion in a fraud! Direct the driver to the roundhouse, Faith.”

“I’ve got to go to work!” Millie howled.

“Your regular line of work is also against the law, if you don’t know it already,” Lady Lynne added in her most threatening voice.

Millie shook her head in resignation. “Well, if you two ain’t a pair of sapskulls. You’d think you’d be happy to set back and let Guy look after you. He’s only trying to get your money back, milady,” she said to the elder. Then she turned a pair of dancing black eyes on the younger. “And he was afraid you’d whiddle the whole scrap to that Lord Thomas. Why you think the world of a common thief when you could have Guy Delamar is above and beyond me.”

This reasoning had the marvelous effect of conciliating the ladies, but it still didn’t quite satisfy their curiosity.

“But where is Delamar?” Lady Lynne asked. “We are only trying to help him. Lord Thomas is a wicked fellow with a pistol. He will certainly have a pistol. If he shoots Delamar, it will be on your head.”

“Oh, my God!” Faith gasped. “You’re right! Thomas will have a pistol! And if he’s already stolen, who is to say he won’t kill as well?”

‘‘Belle did say he was mean when he was in his cups,” Millie said.

“Belle who?” Lady Lynne asked.

“The girl he . . . At the Cranborne Arms, where I work,” she said vaguely.

“The lightskirt he was with, is that it?”

It didn’t hurt Faith at all to hear in so many words that Thomas was carrying on with the muslin company. Fear for Guy’s safety overrode it. “Auntie, we’ve got to warn Guy,” she said.

They both turned to Millie. “Where is he, Millie?” Faith asked. Her voice wasn’t hard or demanding or arrogant, but something in her face commanded an answer.

“I don’t know. Maggie—that’s our madame—figured out where Thomas had the blunt. Guy said he’d be back for it before he hopped the ship and he’d be there waiting for him, but Guy didn’t say where it was.”

“Then we’ll have to talk to Maggie,” Faith said calmly.

“You can’t go there!” Millie said, deeply shocked.

“Please direct the driver to the Cranborne Arms and tell him to spring the horses,” Faith directed.

“Oh, miss, you really shouldn’t.”

Hard times demanded hard actions. “Do as she says,” Lady Lynne decreed, and it was done.

At the Cranborne Arms, Maggie looked with little interest at the hackney cab drawing up in front of her establishment. Private carriages were preferable, and if they had a lozenge or strawberry leaves on the side, so much the better. It was time for her evening girls to be coming home, so the three female heads within caused no surprise. The alarm rose in her breast when she observed that two of the women were ladies. Very few ladies were so enamored of their husbands that they came scampering after them to the Cranborne Arms. In all her years of experience, it had only happened once to Maggie. Once was enough.

She bolted to the front door to waylay them. “Ladies, can I help you?” she asked demurely, then turned a blistering glare on the hapless Millie.

“Are you Maggie?” Lady Lynne asked.

She adopted her most refined voice and said, “I am Miss Maggie Levine. What can I do for you?”

“Tell us where you sent Mr. Delamar. It is a matter of life and death.”

“What?”

Millie jumped in, eager to diminish her employer’s wrath. “They don’t mean to do him no harm, Maggie. It’s just that Lord Thomas—well, Belle said he’s a mean one.”

“The silly chit said nothing of the sort to me!”

“She said it to us girls,” Millie insisted. “I’ll get her.” She ran into the house.

Lady Lynne was curious to see the setup of such an establishment and followed her in against Maggie Levine’s most violent protest. It was a great disappointment. She had envisaged red and purple satin, incense burning, women half draped, and other such garish splendors. What she looked at was not much different from any elegant home but newer and in better repair. It was only the few light-skirts adorning the sofas that gave any idea that this was a house of ill-repute. The females were fully clothed but in much grander style than usually seen in the provinces. They were also prettier than most gels. There was much tittering and open-mouthed staring at the feminine intruders.

Maggie herded the ladies into her office and sent for Belle. The girl entered nervously, fearing chastisement. It was clear at a glance that she was not a clever girl. The question had to be put to her a few times before she answered.

“He was all right at first. It was only when he got into the second bottle that he hit me,” she said.

“You’re supposed to call for help if you run into trouble,” Maggie told her severely. “Why do you think I pay three husky footmen to stand twiddling their thumbs all night long?”’

“You get mad if there’s trouble!” Belle said simply.

Faith felt an awful wrenching of pity in her chest, but time was flying, so she firmed her voice to discover more important items. “Did Thomas have a gun with him?”

“He had a dandy silver-mounted pistol and said he had its twin in his rooms. Nobody was going to stop him, he said. When I asked him stop him from what, he said, ‘Never you mind that. That’s for me to know.’ Mind you, he was real bosky.”

Faith looked fearfully at her aunt. “Thomas is a crack shot,” she said.

“Give us the address you gave Mr. Delamar,” Lady Lynne demanded.

She didn’t bother to write it down, and they returned at once to the carriage. Millie had become so engrossed in the affair that she went with them, and the others were so distracted they didn’t try to stop her.

“What are you going to do?” she asked Lady Lynne, but it was Faith who answered her.

“We’re going to warn Guy.”

“He’s no flat. He’ll be expecting trouble. I think you should go back to your hotel, ladies. I’ll warn him for you.”

Faith wore a faraway look as though she wasn’t listening. Her next question confirmed it. “How old is Belle?” she asked.

“Seventeen, nearly.”

“So young to be living a life like that.”

“Crikey, I was fifteen when I started! I figure us girls with Maggie are lucky. We live in style. The gents ain’t allowed to beat us, we eat real good.”

The shadows were lengthening, softening the harsh lines of Millie’s face. She looked not only pretty, but also not at all vulgar till she opened her mouth. “How did you . . . come to—to be a . . .” Faith stammered to a stop, but her meaning was apparent.

“I was hungry,” Millie answered. “That’s all. I was in the kitchen at Bloeburn Hall, up north of here. They turned me off. I daren’t go home. Six mouths to feed—and my pa’s got a hard hand. I walked to Bournemouth and met a fellow in the Maze. I stayed with him for a week. He was real sweet, bought me a dandy new dress—silk! I was on my own for a while after he left. You don’t get the good customers that way. Sometimes you don’t get any. I spent a few nights at Mather’s hotel. It’s warm at least and the pap isn’t too bad. Maggie seen me hanging around the lobby of the theater, trying to pick up a gent, and invited me to join her crew. That was three years ago. I been there ever since. You don’t have to feel sorry for me!” she said tartly when she noticed the effect of her tale on the ladies. “I’m better off than most, I can tell you.”

“You should go up to London, Millie, and throw your bonnet at a royal duke,” Lady Lynne advised her.

“Coo, the likes of me?” Millie scoffed.

“You haven’t seen the ugly dumplings they usually consort with. You put them all in the shade.”

Millie frowned in perplexity. “That’s funny. Guy said you were such toplofty ladies. You’re not so bad.”

Faith smiled. “You’re not so bad yourself, Millie.”

The carriage turned on to Poole Hill Road, and Millie pointed out the row of flats ahead. “We’d best not drive up. We should get out and sneak up on foot. It’d be quieter.”

“Yes, you do that, Millie,” Lady Lynne said. “Faith and I will wait here in the carriage.”

“Auntie!” Faith objected. “I am going.”

“That you are not, my girl. What would your papa say if I had to take a corpse home to him?”

“And what would
I
say if it’s Guy who is a corpse because I hadn’t the nerve to warn him?”

“It seems to me you’ve changed your tune since an hour ago when you were wishing him at Jericho.”

“This is different,” she countered. “A matter of life and death.”

More important to Lady Lynne, it was a matter of nabbing a husband, so she made no further protestations, for, of course, Thomas would not be gauche enough to kill a lady. The carriage stopped, and Millie made one last effort to stop Faith from going with her. It was overborne. The two girls climbed quietly out of the carriage and darted to the side of the street, to proceed in the shadows toward the row of flats across from St. Michael’s Church.

“Guy’s carriage should be around here somewhere,” Faith whispered.

“Lud, he wouldn’t leave it standing by to warn Thomas he’s here.”

“That’s true,” Faith agreed. She remembered him telling her the same thing back in London. “I wonder where he is.’’

“You’ll never see him. He learned sharp tricks in the Peninsula. He told me about it when he caught the smashers that were working here.”

“You’ve known Guy for a long time, I take it?”

“On and off for a few years, ever since I’ve been here.”

“He . . . frequents Maggie’s establishment, does he?” she asked, trying for an air of detachment.

“He might. He never used me, if he does. I met him at the roundhouse when Mather was trying to catch the forgers.” She drew to a stop and pulled Faith back by the elbow. She pointed to the top window in the east block and said, “That’s it, the flat Lord Thomas has.”

“There’s no light on. I wonder if they’ve already left.”