A Heartless Design (17 page)

“I’m quite intimate with him.” Cordelia swallowed. “We are friends.”

“Then you can arrange a meeting.”

“That would be difficult.” She looked out over the water, resolutely not facing him.

She was so evasive whenever the subject of Lear came up. “You implied as much last night. Why should it be difficult?”

“He’s a retiring individual,” she said. “Virtually a hermit.”

“I’ll be brief. You can’t pretend that this isn’t important.”

An indefinable look crossed her face. “I’ll bring it up with him,” she promised.

They had reached the end of the quay. Thorne paused for a moment, looking out at the river. “I suppose we should head back,” he said.

  “I haven’t promised to give you any papers yet.”

Sebastien still looked over the water. “I wanted to give you until the other end of the quay to get used to the idea.”

“I already know that the sooner they are in a safe place, the safer I’ll be.”

He sighed. “I am glad you admit that, Cordelia. Can you at least promise me they are safe for the moment?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now I have to ensure Hayden won’t try for them again. I’m going to find him.”

“You must be careful,” she said impulsively.

“You’re worried about me?” he asked.

“Of course I am, Sebastien.”

Her declaration troubled him. He did not want Cordelia to worry about him. He did not want her to care about him. He only wanted to keep her attention long enough to get what he needed.

The rest of the walk was silent.

Cordelia and her chaperone left him at the end of the docks, returning to the carriage they arrived in. Thorne caught a dark look from the driver, the same lanky young man he’d seen before.

Thorne watched the carriage roll away. Cordelia Bering seemed designed to infuriate and intrigue him. For every scrap of truth he pried from her, more questions emerged. She pretended ignorance about her father’s work, but she obviously understood both the details and the import of the designs. Why? And her maid! The woman all but threatened him physically, and what was more, she nearly convinced him she could follow through. The Bering house must be utter madness.

But before he could tease out the layers of secrets that Cordelia was hiding, he had other work to do. Thorne knew that he must return to the Kingston China Company and find Helm. The weasel he’d caught the night of the robbery was only that…a weasel, a hired thief who knew nothing about what he was supposed to steal. Fortunately, Bailey had wisely given up the name of his direct employer.

Thorne had to keep climbing this ladder until he got the real prize. In the international game Thorne played, even Helm would only be a low-level rat, with a dim idea of the importance of the papers he was after. Thorne hoped he’d know something, however. What Cordelia had shared about the plans frankly scared him. The little information he knew was already enough to make some guesses as to who might be working hardest to get the plans. He just had to use those scraps of knowledge to fool Helm into revealing more.

But first he had to find the man.

He headed for his private home near St James. When he was working for the Zodiac, the place was his only safe haven.

Once again dressed in clothing most inappropriate for a man of his station, Thorne headed back to the poorer, working district of the city he’d been in before. He wasn’t known to the residents of the neighborhood, but a few were happy enough to talk once he passed out some small coins. He got the name of the building where Helm usually spent his time, not far from the supposed china company.

He let himself in the building and found his way to a cramped office that might have doubled as a junk room. A portly man was inside, facing away from the door as he rifled through a box of odds and ends.

“Jerrod Helm,” Thorne guessed. The man’s whole back stiffened up. He moved suddenly, but Thorne moved like a cat and caught hold of his shoulder as he spun around. Helm had half-drawn a knife, but Thorne was faster. “So you are Helm.” He pried the knife from Helm’s grip. “Aren’t you?”

“Sure. Who does that make you?” Helm watched the knife vanish with keen disappointment.

“No one you need to remember.”

“Then what do you want?”

“You’re after some ship designs. I want you to tell me about them.”

Helm’s eyes widened just slightly, but then he let out a blustery laugh. “Where’d you get that idea? I look like a clerk?”

“You look like a man who knows something I want to know. And I’m not feeling very patient.”

“I’m not telling you anything.”

“You already have, actually.”

“Oh, is that so?” Helm sneered.

“You regret getting involved, for one. You thought it would be easy. The one who hired you seemed to know where the papers would be. He described the address, the room, even the box they were in. But you’re lazy, so you got a smaller rat to do the dirty work. Bailey tried and failed to get all the papers. You tried to silence Bailey, but he got away.”

“How do you know all that?” Helm asked, looking less sure of himself.

“I’m the one who let Bailey get away. You see, I also want the papers.”

“But I don’t have the Andrews papers, or whatever they’re called,” Helm pointed out, growing more nervous.

“Because Hayden already took them from you?”

“Yeah. Wait, how do you know about him?”

Thorne grinned. “Never mind. You have something else I want.”

“Which is?”

“The name of the other person who wants them. Not Hayden. Tell me who he works for.”

“I can’t tell you that!”

“How good a thief will you be once I cut off your right hand?”

Helm jerked, trying to escape. “I can’t tell you.”

Thorne sighed. Slamming Helm’s hand against the wall, he pressed Helm’s own knife against his wrist. “I hope you keep this sharp.”

Feeling the blade bite into his flesh, Helm choked off a scream. “Stop!”

“Tell me a name.” Thorne pressed the blade in.

“Wait!”

“Why?”

“I don’t know who he works for. But I can tell you something you don’t know.”

“Which is what?”

“What his boss looks like.”

Thorne pulled the blade back. “Very well. Impress me.”

“I saw the two talking from my window. Hayden was taking orders from the man. He never got out of his carriage. He looked like he was shorter than you, though. And all white hair. Not a wig. A gentleman, by his clothes and the carriage. Very posh. Not that you’d know a thing about what makes a gentleman, you dog!” 

The gentleman in laborer’s clothes gave that bit of insight exactly the weight it was due. “And what precisely did Hayden tell you?”

“Just what you said. He wanted the box of papers. Didn’t say why. Just that he couldn’t be seen taking them because he was in the middle of a long con. I was to get them from the house and let him know the moment it was safe so he could get them from me. He offered a pretty sum.”

“How much?”

“One hundred.”

Thorne almost burst out laughing. He suspected the
Andraste
designs were worth a thousand times that amount. “What was he planning to do with them?”

“Sell them, I think.”

“Why let him? Once you had the papers, you could sell them yourself.”

Helm shuffled. “Not me. Wouldn’t know who’d be interested.” That part was probably true. Helm would typically fence far more mundane things.

“Did he mention anyone as a customer?”

“No. All I know is that it sounds like something I don’t want to be tangled in.”

“Then why agree to do it at all?”

“He…” Helm paused. “He was persuasive. Polite, like a gentleman. But some men got a way about them. I didn’t want him to get angry. I saw him angry after Bailey bungled it. He was furious that not all of the them were there, but…”

“Tell me.” Thorne’s eyes narrowed.

“He let something slip while he was screaming. Seems the papers Hayden was after weren’t all in the one swell’s house. There were others.”

“Where?” Thorne was suddenly excited, but hid that from the other man.

“At this place called the Atheneum. A sort of club for inventors, I think. Hayden thought he might need something from there.”

“Is that so?”

“He tried to hire me to get them, too. But after Bailey messed up the first job, I told him to shove off. I don’t want any more to do with this. It stinks of politics.”

“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said. Trust me when I say you want no part of this,” Thorne assured him.

“What’ll I tell him, then, if he comes asking about you?”

“Tell him whatever you want. But if he thinks he’s getting those papers without a fight, he’s wrong.”

Thorne left Helm in his rubbish heap of an office. Thorne knew that Helm was too greedy and scared to stop entirely. But he hoped that his appearance would jolt either Helm or Hayden into doing something without thinking first. A rash move would give Thorne an opportunity to strike at his real adversary.

As it happened, one man did something quite rash.

Cordelia returned to the house
more pensive than before. Bond’s silence throughout the drive hinted that the maid was lost in her own thoughts. Perversely, Cordelia wished the younger woman would say something, even if it was only another tart comment about Sebastien Thorne. Cordelia knew that the man wasn’t motivated by simple concern for her. She guessed that he was using her, though in a slightly different way than Hayden had. Could she take advantage of that somehow?

Cordelia drifted into her study, though she had no head for working right now. Instead, she stared at all the items on the shelves. That was where Stiles found her.

He cleared his throat. “My lady? I have to tell you someone has been asking questions about this household. About everyone who lives here.”

She looked up. “You mean the burglar asked about the people who work here to learn our habits?”

“Perhaps the thief is part of the issue. But as recently as this morning, a neighbor’s footman was asked about how long Jem has worked here. And not because they wanted to hire him away from you! No, someone is trying to find out about everyone’s past. Also, I suspect the house is being watched.”

Though he didn’t come right out and say it, Cordelia knew exactly what he feared.   Every worker at Quince Street had a secret to keep. If someone was snooping around, they would all pay. Jem and Bond would likely end up in prison again, or possibly transported to New South Wales. Even Cordelia, as their employer, would face serious consequences for hiring people of such dubious reputations. Stiles, on the other hand, would be sentenced to die by hanging for his previous crimes. He had cheated death before. It was unlikely he could do it again.

“What can we do? And do not tell me to let you all go.”

He looked down at the floor. “The situation is not so simple, my lady. You took us in when no one else would. We won’t abandon you.”

“But there must be something we can do.”

“You have an enemy who wants something of yours. As long as you have it here, we’re all in danger. It must be moved and hidden more securely.”

“If you really think the house is being watched, then I have another idea,” said Cordelia. “Let’s take away their reason for watching.” She wondered who was watching. Hayden? Thorne? Both?

She had thought that hiding the plans would be enough to keep them safe. It was now clear that powers far larger than her were interested in the plans. Hiding them was no longer an option. But maybe she could exploit her watcher, or watchers, to solve her own difficulty. Though her idea was impulsive, she knew it would work. It would hurt, but not as much as losing her reputation and all her household.

“Hiding won’t do, Stiles.” Cordelia stood up. “It’s time I did what I should have done long ago. And we can’t wait a moment longer.”

She summoned Bond. Together, the women went up to Cordelia’s room, where she instructed the maid to pull out her plainest outfit and help her dress.

“What are you planning to do, madam?” Bond asked.

“I’m going to set several things on fire,” Cordelia said airily. Her heart, though, was quaking. “Follow me. I need to gather fuel.”

To Bond’s credit, she had learned enough of her new role to know that asking questions at this point would do no good at all. Stiles joined the two women in the study, where Cordelia sorted through things and put several notebooks and rolled diagrams aside.

“Those must all be burned,” Cordelia instructed. “Jem keeps a barrel by the stables, doesn’t he?”

Bond nodded. The trio gathered up all the papers and books. Stiles frowned at the idea of Cordelia doing the dirty chore of disposing of rubbish, but he knew better than to object. He definitely appreciated the need to see a job done personally.

Outside in the small courtyard by the stables, Jem, who had been tending to the horses, quickly turned his attention to the new task.

He lit a fire in the wide barrel he used to burn rubbish. Slowly, Cordelia fed every scrap of paper into the fire, watching as the paper caught, the ink darkened, and everything turned to ash.

She was startled when the butler offered her a handkerchief, because she didn’t even realize that tears were running down her face.

“You should go inside, my lady,” Stiles said quietly. “It’s all gone now.” Cordelia blinked, seeing that in fact all the papers were burning, and that Bond’s hands were empty.

“Well,” she said, an empty feeling settling in her chest. “That’s that.”

Stiles nodded to Bond. “Take the mistress to the drawing room and bring her something to drink. She needs to rest.”

The maid took Cordelia by her arm, and led her back to the house. “This way, madam. I could ask Mrs Wharton to join you in the drawing room after she returns home, if you would like. I bet she has some stories of your father as a young boy that you haven’t heard yet.”

Stiles overheard the maid’s remark, and smiled at her insight. Cordelia surely was thinking of her father, and needed happier memories to replace the darker thoughts in her head. How many housemaids would understand that, and offer a solution? He reflected, not for the first time, that Lady Cordelia had created a very rare family in this house. A motley collection of disgraced souls and outcasts had found a harbor.