Barbara Metzger (20 page)

Instead, Vida started crying. She set up such a racket that the nursemaid was there, Mona was there, and Private Waters was there with his pistol and his dog. But the baby didn’t need a clean nappy, a midnight snack, or protecting. She wanted Sir Parcival, now.

The wailing got louder. Senta arrived and took her hand at cuddling, patting, walking the halls with Vida, for Mona was exhausted from their trip. The nursemaid decided Vida was teething, and went off to find the coral ring somewhere in their unpacked baggage.

Still Vida screamed, turning all red and overheated. Now Sheba added her howls. Senta kept walking, Sir Parcival kept dangling shiny things in front of her, but Vida wasn’t falling for that trick again. There was never anything there when she reached out, nothing to clasp, nothing to chew on, only cold air. She screamed some more.

“What the devil is going on?” Lord Maitland demanded from the doorway.

Private Waters swung his pistol around, in the viscount’s direction. Sheba growled.

“Oh, put that away, old man, before you shoot someone by accident. And tell your mutt that this is my home. It seems I may owe you an apology. We’ll talk in the morning.” When Waters still didn’t lower the weapon, Lee told him, “But don’t think that means I’ve decided to keep you on, you insolent antique.”

“Nor I ain’t decided I want to be in the employ of anyone so hot to hand.” But the gun was tucked in the waistband of Waters’s trousers.

“Fair enough. But what did you think I was going to do anyway, run amok among all these women and children?” There seemed to be only one child, but the noise level was such that Lee wondered if his wife had any other surprises tucked in the old nursery’s odd corners. There were any number of ill-gotten children and stray dogs in the streets of London for her to drag home.

The females were eyeing him suspiciously, except the infant, who was howling like a banshee. Lee nodded to the nursemaid, then bowed slightly to the dark-haired
woman who was still dressed in black, although some of the gown’s buttons were undone, as if she’d dressed hurriedly. “Welcome to my home, doña. I share your grief.”

Mona nodded, but did not say anything. She was just too tired to fight with this toplofty aristocrat, and she was too embarrassed that her child was creating such a fuss in his house.

Lee bent his head toward where Senta was still jiggling the infant, to no avail. “May I?”

Mona bit her lip but gave her permission, since he’d asked so politely. Senta carefully transferred the furious bundle into his arms. Lee held the squalling infant gingerly at first, as if she were made of spun sugar that could crumple at his lightest touch. “So much noise from such a small person.” He tried to keep the child’s hands from thrashing around. “There, there, little one, shush.” Vida didn’t shush. Sheba started howling again.

“Thunderation!” Lee was about to hand the child back. Lud, his head was aching from the caterwauling. Besides, this scrap was nothing to him. He could tell. There was no resemblance in this dark-haired, dark-eyed foreigner, no bond, no affection. He felt nothing for her but the urge to have her gone. And quiet

Then Lee reached into his pocket for his fob watch and dangled it in front of the baby’s eyes.

Now, this was more like it! The watch hand moved, the casing glittered, the chain was a fascinating pattern, and the whole thing ticked loudly! Vida stopped screeching and reached for the watch, her tiny brows furrowed in concentration to see if this new toy would slip through her fingers. It didn’t. She hiccuped and tried to put it in her mouth. Three women came running, but Lee said, “It’s only a watch.” And it had only been in his family for generations.

Then Sir Parcival started singing, some “Hey Nonny Nonny” air from the parlor maids. Vida spat out the watch, keeping it firmly in her little fists, and she
grinned. If the direction of Vida’s gummy grin was somewhere over Lord Maitland’s right shoulder, he never noticed.

“You’re right,” he told Senta. “That’s Michael’s smile. He was always laughing. And thank you,” he said to Mona, even begrudgingly jerking his head toward Private Waters, “for bringing my niece home.”

*

There was no more talk of sending them all back to the Meadows. There were five new footmen and armed guards whenever Senta and Mona were abroad, which was often. Senta was determined to establish herself as Lee’s wife in society, to make it harder for the viscount to discard her. So she accepted invitations, paid morning visits, and held at-homes. Mona was equally determined to help unmask the criminals, so she entrusted Vida to the nursemaid and trailed Lady Maitland’s skirts, keeping a watchful eye for familiar faces, from behind her black veil.

Senta also decided to make herself indispensable to her husband. He wouldn’t come to her bedchamber, and she couldn’t go to his uninvited, but she could certainly make his home a more pleasant place. She threw herself into refurbishing Maitland House with a zeal that could have gotten Hannibal’s elephants back across those mountains, twice.

Surprisingly, Sir Parcival was a big help, better than Mona, to whom the English styles were overstuffed and overcrowded. Sir Parcival, on the other hand, liked everything and thought she should have it all.

“See? This parlor looks empty and bare. Needs more chairs.”

“Yes, and I can hang a picture right…over the mantel.”

When in doubt, Senta asked the viscount, then she
took Wheatley’s advice.

* * *

Town was beginning to fill as the
ton
trickled back, especially the more conscientious members of Parliament and their wives. There were no grand parties as yet where Senta felt the chances of Mona recognizing anyone were better, but there were the theater and the opera.

One night toward me end of January, they sat in the Maitland box, Mona to Senta’s left, with her opera glasses scanning the audience. Senta was wearing her diamonds and a new gown of silver tulle over a satin underskirt, with brilliants strewn across the bodice. She caught her husband’s frequent bemused glances. No, the décolletage wasn’t too low, as she’d feared. It was just right. For tonight she would be content to bask in his clear admiration, even if he wouldn’t let her any closer. For tonight she could imagine herself happily married, and escorted by the two most handsome men in all of London. So what if one of them was invisible to everyone else? He liked her dress, too.

Lee was not happy with this evening. His wife was exposing herself to danger. Hell, another half inch and she’d be exposing herself altogether. But she seemed so happy. Even Mona, whom they were calling Señora Vegas, looked more relaxed, although she did keep scanning the boxes. Lee’s contacts at the War Office and his own inquiries had brought him no new leads, so there was no other choice but to put his womenfolk at risk, much as it galled him. In truth, he couldn’t have stopped them.

At least the opera was good, the tenors in voice, the soprano dying gracefully to thunderous applause.

Private Waters, who’d seen the performance from the pit, sniveled, “Now, that is art,” when he joined them at the carriage.

“I don’t care how great the art,” sneered Sir Parcival
into Senta’s ear. “You can’t dance to it.”

* * *

Lord Maitland called a council of war. They were getting nowhere. His house was overrun with carpenters and upholsterers and painters, and his wife had him escorting her and Mona to some social function or other almost daily, but they were no closer to finding the blackmailer or the murderer.

The War Office list of wounded officers sent home at the right time was shrinking considerably as Maitland’s paid investigators tracked them down. Most were crossed off as having returned to England via troop ship or, if by private means, in the company of brother officers. Some had long since returned to the Peninsula; a few had died of their injuries. Either way, they were not available to be interviewed.

Lee read aloud the few names that remained under consideration. When he got to one Theodore Sayre, Private Waters spoke up: “That’d be Lieutenant Sayre. They called him Steady Teddy on account of he was so cool under fire. Never left his post, he didn’t, that last time, even with a bullet in the ribs. The general had to order him to surgery afore he’d leave his men. He couldn’t be no traitor, I’d swear on it.”

“He was Miguel’s
amigo
,”
Mona added. “We shared our food and our fires. He would not have betrayed Miguel.”

“Still,” the viscount said, “I’d like to see your Teddy Sayre.”

Sir Parcival stopped humming to Vida to listen. He shrugged and went back to his nonsense rhymes.

Lord Maitland ordered another log on the fire and went on: “The lieutenant may be a pattern card of an officer and a gentleman, but his brother is something of a dirty dish. Sir Randolph Sayre associates with a rackety crowd, gamblers and wastrels mostly. Unfortunately, the lieutenant, by all reports, is still in Bath recovering from his wounds. Sir Randolph could be anywhere. We don’t move in the same circles.”

Senta was all for throwing a grand party as soon as the
ton
started returning to Town and her house was in order. “If it’s big enough, we can invite everyone on your list, even Sir Randolph, without being obvious. Mona can sit on the sidelines and watch.”

“It’s too chancy. And I don’t want every loose screw in London in my home,” Especially if one was the basket-scrambler Senta might have married. “No, we’ll wait. Now that we are so visibly on the town, I think the blackmailer will make his move.”

Lord Maitland was right, for a few days later another extortion note was received. This one wanted twice the amount as the previous, and no tricks, or else Lord Maitland’s pretty young bride would be reading a nasty tale in the newspapers.

With his pretty young bride not knowing a thing about it, this time Lee was going to make sure the blackguard didn’t get away. The last time, the dastard managed to outfox all of the viscount’s spies and informants at the inn. A false cry of fire out near the stables had everyone running. The packet was missing when they got back.

Maitland would take the money himself tomorrow to the address on Olney Street, just over London Bridge. It was a commercial district, sure to be crowded at three o’clock, the designated hour. The blackmailer could be hiding anywhere, but so could the viscount, after he made the delivery. And Waters would keep watch.

“You, old man? You can’t even run after your hat, much less an escaping criminal.”

“Aye, but I can fit in with the ragtag street beggars. Or was you planning on stationing a squad of your footmen, in livery and wigs, at the street corners? Asides, Sheba can track what I can’t catch. And I reckon I’m a better shot than any of your staff. Mona’s a dab hand with a pistol, too. Had to be, at the front.”

“No! I am not putting a woman in danger. Why, that neighborhood wouldn’t be safe for her at the best of
times. Furthermore, she’d tell Senta, and I’d have another argument on my hands.”

So it was decided, without Mona or Senta’s knowledge. Sir Parcival would have told her, but he was busy learning the words to “Greensleeves” from an upstairs maid making the beds.

Before the viscount left, he gave orders to both Wheatley and his secretary, Calley, that if Lady Maitland was permitted out of the house, they’d both be dismissed. Or boiled in oil.

At the appointed time, Lord Maitland, in his caped greatcoat, dismissed the hackney at the foot of Olney Street and walked up the block, which was little more than a crowded alley. He tossed a coin to a bald, one-legged beggar and his mongrel, and kept going.

The others, footmen and grooms in disguise who had been stationed in the vicinity beforehand, were waiting nearer the bridge for Waters’s call to give chase.

The call never came.

The blackmailer wasn’t taking chances this time. He was waiting in a recessed doorway when the viscount went past, seeking the right number. He struck Lee on the back of the head with a lead weight, then dragged him inside before anyone could see what happened, not that anyone much cared, in this neighborhood. He searched the unconscious viscount’s pockets for his payment. Making sure the envelope held real money this time, he then emptied the viscount’s wallet, to make up for the previous fakery. After dragging his bleeding victim outside again, behind some barrels, the villain re-entered that back door on Olney Street and went through the run-down building to its front entry, on another street altogether, where he mingled with the clerks and costermongers.

Waters waited. And waited some more. Then he began to get a real bad feeling, like he was in battle and the enemy was behind him, not in his sights. He and Sheba moved into the alley.

Urchins playing in the dirt. Passed-out drunks. Mounds of trash. No viscount. Waters cocked his pistol. The ragamuffins disappeared. Sheba started nosing at some garbage, but the trooper called her back.

“No time for scraps, girl. We got to find his nibs.”

They found him, by Sheba’s nose and the viscount’s groans. He was only half-conscious, with a huge gaping wound in his head that bled through the soldier’s handkerchief in seconds.

Lord Maitland did manage to open his eyes a fraction and recognize the old soldier. He feebly grabbed for Waters’s hand. “Got to…get home, old man. Got to…return to Senta.”