Every Whispered Word (10 page)

“That's right, I am.” Bert knit his dark brows together, considering. “We'll head over to Bond Street an' ask about in some o' the fancy shops if they know where Lord Redmond lives,” he decided. “We'll explain we've a note to deliver, only we're confused about which street his house is on. Once we got the street we'll mention a number, an' they'll say ‘Here now, that's wrong, it's number such an' such.' An' then we'll know where to go.”

“That's a rum bite, Bert,” enthused Stanley, impressed.

“It is that,” said Bert, pleased with himself. “Come on, then, Stanley. The old puff guts said there'd be some extra brass in it for us if we could give 'im a full report next time we see 'im. I'm thinkin' if we can keep this job goin' a while, we'll soon have enough to get a bigger flat—an' maybe get ye yer own bed, too.”

“Really?” Stanley's eyes widened. “With a feather pillow?”

“We'll see,” Bert said, trying to manage his expectations. “If we stop her ladyship from goin' to Africa, who knows what the cakey old toast might pay? As long as she's here she needs watchin', an' who better to keep their peepers on her than us?”

“I like watchin' her,” Stanley declared happily. “She's a real spanker.”

“A spanker that's goin' to see us well breeched,” Bert promised, narrowing his dark gaze on Camelia's house. “As long as we keep her penned.”

T
hen I place the coin like so, wave my hand in the air, say the magic word, and—the coin is gone!” Simon wiggled his fingers to show his enraptured audience he wasn't hiding the shilling anywhere.

Byron knit his little red brows together in confusion. “You forgot to say the magic word.”

“Honestly, Byron, what does it matter if Simon says it or not?” asked Frances, rolling her enormous sapphire colored eyes. At fourteen she was emerging from the last vestiges of childhood, and she was most anxious to demonstrate that she wasn't a little girl any more. “It isn't really magic—it's just a trick.”

“But it's a very clever trick,” Melinda declared loyally, not wanting Simon to think they didn't appreciate his gallant attempts to entertain them. Melinda was seventeen, with the same elegant cheekbones and brilliant red-gold hair that graced her mother. She bore the slender, slightly coltish demeanor of a young girl who would very shortly blossom into an exquisite young woman. “Didn't you think so, Eunice?”

“Canna see what's so grand about slippin' a bit o' brass up yer sleeve,” Eunice returned as she pummeled a floury hillock of bread dough into submission. “Ye'd all be better off helpin' me make my Scotch collops,” she added, tucking a strand of snowy hair back under her crisp white cap. “Miss Genevieve and his lordship will be home soon, and ye'll all be cheepin' for yer supper.”

“When I was yer age I was fleecin' swells all day long, an' there's nae that ever saw so much as a penny cross my palm,” boasted Oliver, gripping a tarnished silver spoon in one wizened hand while he rubbed at it vigorously with a blackened cloth. “'Course I didna skitter about waitin' to see if they'd notice they'd just been made a wee bit lighter—I was quick as a rabbit in those days, so all they'd feel was the wind on their arse. Now there's a bit o' magic for ye!” He snorted with laughter.

“Why don't ye teach the duckies how to turn one coin into three,” suggested Doreen, her lean, withered face drawn even tighter as she savagely beat some thinly sliced veal with a rolling pin. “At least that would be practical.”

“You mean like this?” Simon placed his right hand flat on the kitchen table, knocked upon his knuckles three times with his left hand, then raised both to reveal three shiny shillings.

“That's splendid!” squealed Byron. “Now turn them into six.”

“I'm afraid three is my limit for today,” Simon admitted. “Maybe next time.”

“Only six?” Oliver scoffed. “On a good day I'd make two dozen coins or more—that's what I call magic!”

“That's what I call pinchin',” observed Doreen wryly.

“'Tis an art all the same, an' wee Byron here has shown a real talent for it.” Oliver's eyes crinkled with pleasure as he gazed fondly at the boy. “Maybe after dinner I'll put on my coat an' we can play pinchin' in the park. What say ye, Frances and Melinda? The last time we played, Melinda nicked my snuff box from me so nice an' quiet, I didna feel a thing.”

“Aye, and his lordship had somethin' to say about it afterward when Melinda went to give him a hug and nipped his best gold watch right from his pocket without his knowin',” Eunice reminded him sternly.

“He said he didna understand why all his bairns had to be trained as pickpockets afore we was willin' to send them off in the world,” added Doreen, slapping the veal slices onto a frying pan.

“Just because ye have the skill doesna mean ye need to use it,” Oliver said philosophically. “Simon here has turned out all right, but if he hadna been able to steal when he needed to, the poor lad would've starved, an' that's the sad truth o' the matter.”

Byron regarded his older brother with awe. “Were you really starving, Simon?”

“No,” Simon assured him. “Oliver just likes to exaggerate.”

Byron was only eleven—barely two years older than Simon had been when Genevieve rescued him from a filthy cell in the Inveraray jail. But his little brother had lived his entire short life safely ensconced in comfort, privilege, and unconditional love. Although Genevieve had tried her best to help her three youngest children understand that there were much less fortunate people who struggled every day to exist, eleven-year-old Byron had no real understanding of what that meant.

Simon saw no reason to enlighten him.

“Now that ye've finished yer magic, I'd like ye to squeeze those oranges for my orange cream.” Eunice waved a plump, floury hand at the bowl full of oranges on the counter behind her. “I'm makin' it special tonight on account of Simon stayin' here—I know 'tis one o' yer favorites. Melinda, ye can help me peel these tatties for the pot. Frances, ye can chop those onions over there.”

“What can I do?” asked Byron.

“Ye come over here an' give this silver teapot a polish with this piece o' leather,” Oliver suggested. “Rub it hard 'til ye can see yer face in it.”

Simon rose from the table, removed his jacket, and rolled up his sleeves. “You should have seen the lemon squeezer I made for you, Eunice—I think you would have really liked it,” he said as he took a knife and began to cut the oranges in half. “You put the halved orange in a box and all the juice was extracted instantly, without any wringing or pressure on your wrist. Then the pits were strained from the liquid, and you took out a drawer and poured the juice wherever you wanted it.”

Eunice looked at him in bewilderment. “Ye put the juice in a drawer?”

“A small one. It had a little spout on one end, to make pouring easier.”

“An' where did the pits go?” wondered Doreen.

“They stayed in a sieve in the box.”

She frowned. “Forever?”

“No, just until you cleaned them out and washed it.”

“Now that's a fine idea,” Oliver declared, sensing that the two women were having trouble envisioning Simon's contraption. “I canna tell ye how many times I've wished there was a machine just like that, to save me the trouble o' fishin' out the pits with a spoon.”

“I'm sure 'twas a fine invention, lad.” Eunice didn't sound terribly convinced as she piled her dough into a bowl and covered it with a clean cloth.

“I'll make you another one, Eunice,” Simon promised as he set to squeezing the oranges on a plain glass juicer. “Then you'll understand how much better it was than this old thing.”

“That old thing has served me well enough for more than twenty years,” Eunice informed him. “An' 'twould serve ye well, too, if ye remembered to roll the oranges hard against the table afore ye cut them. That's what makes the juices run sweet.”

Simon took the next orange and slowly rubbed it against the table. “I'd forgotten about that. I wonder if I could make something that would roll them for you?”

“Have ye any thoughts for cleanin' silver?” asked Oliver. “'Tis one job I wish could be made easier.”

“I tried making a machine where you put the silver item inside covered with hartshorn paste. Then you turned a crank which caused round brushes to remove the polishing paste and tarnish.”

“That sounds brilliant,” said Melinda. “That means you would never have to get your hands all blackened and dirty.”

“Unfortunately, it also removed most of the silver plate,” Simon confessed. “I ruined more than two dozen forks and spoons before I finally gave up on it.”

Oliver chuckled. “Dinna fash yerself, lad—if there's nae silver on it, there's nae reason to polish it!”

“Some things are best done by hand,” Doreen reflected.

“Nae sweat, nae sweet,” added Eunice, nodding. “Still, I've grown very fond o' the tattie masher ye made for me—it smashes them 'til they're just like pudding.”

“An' dinna forget about the eggbeater ye made for me last Christmas,” said Doreen. “It whips the eggs so light an' fluffy, ye'd think they might float away.”

“I'm sure if ye took that idea to someone in the business of makin' such things, ye'd soon have a fortune on yer hands,” Oliver speculated.

“Simon doesn't want to have a fortune on his hands,” Genevieve observed fondly as she entered the kitchen. “He just wants to invent.”

Simon looked up and smiled at her. Although his mother was nearing fifty, she still maintained the extraordinary beauty that had overwhelmed him from the first moment he had seen her. He had been a ragged, rawboned lad of barely nine years, who had scraped by on nothing more than his quick wits and even quicker hands from the time he was about five or six. He had thought his life was over when they put him in prison. He was tough for his age, but after he had been caught and given a dozen lashes for stealing, he had felt small and broken and ready to die.

Then Genevieve had walked into his cell, with her brilliant red-gold hair and those magnificent chocolate brown eyes. She had knelt down beside him and gently laid her hand upon his cheeks and forehead, her expression filled with outrage and concern.

And for the first time in his life, he had believed that just maybe God had not forgotten about him after all.

“But he's sure to make a fortune anyway, Mummy,” Byron informed her seriously. “Simon knows how to make money appear just by knocking on his hand.”

“Now that's a skill I'd like to learn,” Haydon joked as he joined his wife.

The Marquess of Redmond surveyed the busy, crowded kitchen with pleasure. Before he met Genevieve, he had never spent any time in his kitchen, even when he was a lad. Now he found it was one of his favorite places.

“Eunice and Doreen, whatever you are preparing smells absolutely wonderful,” he said appreciatively, lifting the lid off the pot heating on the stove.

“We'll be havin' Scotch collops with onion an' sherry, baked salmon with caper sauce, tatties with peas, spinach dressed with cream, and date pudding with sticky toffee sauce an' orange cream for dessert,” Eunice informed him. “I'm thinkin' that should be enough to keep yer bellies full 'til mornin'.”

“I'm helping to make the potatoes,” Melinda told her father.

“And I'm chopping onions,” said Frances.

“Then I'm sure supper will be even more delicious than usual. What are you up to, Byron?”

“I'm polishing this teapot,” Byron informed his father seriously. “Can you see yourself in it?”

Haydon took the smeary-looking teapot in his hands. “Indeed I can,” he assured him, gently ruffling his son's hair. “Well, Simon, you will be happy to know that as of tomorrow you will be back in business inventing things in your own laboratory.”

Simon regarded him with excitement. “Did you get the lease on that house we looked at yesterday?”

Genevieve smiled. “Yes.”

“The owner was a bit hesitant when he learned we were taking it for you,” Haydon reflected. “Unfortunately, it seems most of London has heard about your house burning down.”

Simon had known the fire would make it difficult for him to find a house, which is why he had asked Haydon to arrange the lease for him. “Did you have to offer to pay him more?”

“A little.”

“I'm sorry, Haydon. Whatever the amount is, I'll pay you back just as soon as I'm able.”

“I don't want you to worry about the money, Simon. Genevieve and I just want you to have a place where you are comfortable and can concentrate fully on your work. I know the loss of your laboratory has been a serious setback for you, but hopefully you will be able to recover from it quickly.”

“Jack has told me he's very anxious for you to come up with a better steam turbine for him to try in one of his ships,” Genevieve added. “He's trying to make all of his routes even faster, and with the right engine, his shipping company will be able to expand its market and take over even more of the routes from his competitors.”

“Jack's engine will have to wait a bit,” Simon told her. “I have another project I'm working on at the moment that I have to finish first.”

“Is that the clothes-washin' machine you were telling me about?” Eunice asked, curious.

“No, that is going to have to wait as well. I have been approached by Lady Camelia Marshall to build her a steam-powered pump.”

Oliver frowned. “Ye mean for fillin' the bath?”

“No. Lady Camelia is an archaeologist. She needs a pump to clear the site she is working on of water.”

“Isn't that Lord Stamford's daughter?” asked Genevieve.

“You've heard of her?”

“Yes. She has only been in London a short while, but she has already commanded quite a bit of attention.”

“I can well imagine that,” said Simon wryly.

“What kind of attention?” demanded Eunice, wondering if she should disapprove.

“The kind of attention a beautiful, intelligent, unmarried woman is bound to attract if she goes about unescorted, trying to raise money for her dig in South Africa.”