Moriarty Meets His Match: A Professor & Mrs. Moriarty Mystery (The Professor & Mrs. Moriarty Mystery Series Book 1) (8 page)

Chapter Eight

“Mercy, I thought Lucy would
never
go to bed!” Angelina closed the door of her bedchamber and leaned against it. “I pity the girl, but if she’s made me late, I’ll cut her best gown to ribbons!”

She had spent the whole day a virtual prisoner in Cheshire House, closed in by rain and the restrictions imposed on a house of mourning. She wouldn’t have minded a day curled up by a fire with a novel in her lap, dreaming about tutoring a certain mathematics professor in the arts of love, but Lady Lucy had dogged her every step from breakfast on, fretting about her lost Season and picking apart every phrase ever uttered by the most worshipful Reginald Benton. The skies had eventually cleared, but Lucy’s temper had only grown more peevish.

Angelina glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantel and started pulling pins out of her hair. “Help me, Peg. I’ve got to meet Sandy and Zeke at eleven o’clock sharp.”

Margaret “Peg” Barwick had attached herself to the Buddles as a dresser after the twins were born. Angelina had been six years old. Peg had only been thirteen, but she’d had a full measure of Cockney pluck and a rare talent for costumes. They’d been together ever since, through thick and thin, adventuring across two continents.

Peg dropped her tattered copy of
Varney the Vampire
on the floor and rose, yawning, from the chintz-covered armchair beside the hearth. “I nearly dropped off meself.” She started unhooking Angelina’s dress with her quick, strong fingers. “You should’ve given her ladyship a stiff brandy.”

“I gave her two. They only made her more talkative.” Angelina toed off her slippers. “Poor Lucy, I’m all she’s got. She was so looking forward to a glittering Season, and now she has to sit and do nothing in a house draped in black crepe. She can’t even receive callers until after the funeral.” She raised her arms for Peg to lift the gown over her head. Once free, she started unlacing her corset.

“Don’t pull so hard,” Peg scolded. “You’ll tear the eyelets.” She draped the gown over the sofa by the window to deal with later. She’d already laid out Lina Lovington’s old lad-about-town costume on the bed. “The servants are wondering how much work to put into this mourning business. Not much, is the general view. Do what’s proper and not one scrap more. Nobody downstairs seems to miss the old scoundrel.”

“Nobody upstairs either. Lord Carling was not a nice man. He did absolutely nothing for Lucy. He barely acknowledged her existence and cut her allowance to the bone just when she needed money the most.”

Stripped to the skin, Angelina went to the wash station and splashed a little cold water around to wake herself up. Shivering, she rubbed herself briskly with a warm towel, then plucked a pair of flannel drawers from the bed. She grunted as she tugged them over her hips. “These are snugger than they used to be.”

“Ain’t them that’s changed, ducky. You could do with fewer tea cakes. I had to let your trousers out a good four inches.”

“Four!” Angelina stood in front of the mirror, measuring her hips with her hands. “Well, it has been a dozen years. I’m not a slip of a girl anymore. And I like tea cakes.”

“Yer hips ain’t all that’s grown.” Peg held up a long linen bandage. Angelina sighed and raised her arms. She revolved slowly while Peg wound the bandage around her torso to flatten her breasts.

“Push ’em up or mash ’em flat,” Angelina said. “Nobody wants ’em
au naturelle.
”

“I should say not! Flapping in the breeze like a floozy at a ginnery.” Peg pulled the flannel shirt over her arms and head.

“At least I’ll be warm.” Angelina posed before the mirror in her boy’s underclothes. “I think I’m taller than I was last time I wore this kit.”

“Sorry, ducky. Only wider.”

“Hmm.” Angelina pouted at her reflection. She pulled on the shirt and trousers and buttoned them up. “I can’t believe you kept these things.” She sat on the stool before the mirror so Peg could do her hair.

“Far too good to throw away! That’s real Bond Street tailoring, that is. And I always thought you looked so natty done up like a toff. Never thought you’d need ’em for such a reason as this.” Peg picked up the silver-backed brush and went to work. Their eyes met in the mirror. “You won’t let the coppers nab you now, me old dearie?”

“Don’t even think it!” Angelina closed her eyes to enjoy Peg’s brushing. Some of the most important decisions of her life had been made under that comforting touch. “I think we have a decent plan. Little Zeke does seem to know his stuff.”

“Ha! I don’t doubt. Been in the game since birth, I reckon.”

“That’s what he says. He sounds very confident.” Angelina opened her eyes to meet her old friend’s gaze in the mirror. “We’re going to work through Viola’s list of front-sheeters, choosing whichever one is most likely at each turn. Zeke says the best times to sneak into a house are when the family’s out of town with most of the servants or when they’re entertaining on the other side of the house. Dinner parties are best, he says, because the guests are stuck at the table and the servants are fully occupied running up and down with the courses.”

“Which is it tonight, ducky? Full house or empty?”

“Empty, thank heavens. My nerves are tight enough as it is. Captain Sandy found a note in some army newspaper about the family going down to Brighton. Zeke has spied out the house. There’s only one old footman left behind, and he trots down to his local every night a little after eleven. Sandy and Zeke have planned this expedition like a military foray.” Angelina crossed the fingers of both hands and made a face at her reflection.

Peg frowned as she sculpted Angelina’s hair on top of her head, as flat to her scalp as possible. “I’ve got me doubts, ducky. We’ve run a gag or two and told our share of fairy tales, but we’ve never done nothing what you could call criminal. If the Old Bill gets you, our fun will be over. And I was looking forward to getting you back on the London stage when this business is done. I miss the smell of a theater.”

“Me too. Paint and sweat and gas lamps on the stage, roses and perfumed dandies in my dressing room. But nobody’s getting nabbed tonight.” Angelina picked up her boy’s wig and turned it right way around. Peg worked it onto her head, tucking up strands of hair as she went. “Houses are robbed every day in this city and half the burglars are never caught. We’ll just make sure we’re in the right half. With a dark moon and a basket of luck, we’ll be all right.”

“Lord knows we need the boodle,” Peg said. “Your dresses are a scandal. They make me blush whenever I go downstairs. And that Frenchy dressmaker’s been givin’ me the fish eye. She’s a shrewd one, she is. She can smell an empty purse from across the street.”

“We’ll be able to pay her and Lady Rochford too, I hope. But if Colonel Oxwich has the letters, we’ll only have to do this once. Then we can go back to the stage and earn our living like honest folks.”

Peg snorted at that idea.

Angelina pawed through the layers in her makeup box. “What happened to my little moustache?”

“Long gone, ducky. You’ll have to use paint. You’ll never pass a close inspection anyhow, not with those hips.”

“Oh, give it rest! You’re not exactly a slender reed yourself, you know.”

Peg put a hand on one ample hip and pretended to be offended. She started singing “Silver Threads Among the Gold” in her wandering, off-key way. Angelina picked it up, giving her a solid melody line to cling to.

Still humming, Angelina painted a thin brown moustache over her upper lip. She thickened her eyebrows a bit and then twitched her lips at her face in the mirror. “It’ll do from a distance.”

She rose and slipped into her waistcoat. She buttoned that up while lifting each foot so Peg could do her shoes. “I’d forgotten how much fun it is to wear pants. My legs feel so much leggier.” Angelina did a few dance steps in front of the mirror, singing “Slap, Bang, Here We Are Again.”

“They’ll make it easier for you to slither up the drainpipe, if you can do it, which I very much doubt.”

“Drainpipes are Zeke’s job. Once inside, he’ll unlock the back door for me and Sandy. This might turn out to be rather jolly, Peg. I haven’t done anything carefree since we started this charade. I get to walk down to Piccadilly all by myself, a solitary dandy returning from his club. Sandy and Zeke will be waiting for me. Once Zeke gets us into the house, we stuff our bags with whatever we can find. We bundle the swag into Sandy’s cab and I’m home again in an hour.”

“If nobody gets too close to you on the street or catches that Cockney good-for-nothing climbing in the window. And if nobody here catches you sneaking back in dressed like the very worst kind of chippie.”

“Oh, don’t be such a killjoy! The curtain’s going up in five minutes. Time to get into my role.” Angelina tied her cravat and bowed to her reflection. Then she began to dance around the room, bowing to Peg as she accepted her top hat and singing a made-up tune, “If burgle we must, my darling, my darling; we’ll start with old Oxwich and end with Lord Carling —”

She stopped dead in her tracks, one foot in the air. Lucy stood on the threshold with her hand on the knob of the open door, wearing a pink chenille dressing gown with a frilly cap over her blond curls. Her mouth gaped wide and her eyes blinked like a stunned rabbit. Then both eyes and mouth narrowed to a calculating smile. “Who’s Oxwich?”

All three women had frozen like girls playing Statues. Angelina recovered first. “It’s just a funny name I heard. No one we know. It’s just a silly song.”

“You said ‘burgle.’ I heard you.” Lucy cocked her head, the tight smile taking on a nasty twist. “You’re going to bundle the swag into Sandy’s cab, whoever Sandy is. And then you’re going to burgle Carling — my house, I presume you mean.”

Angelina licked her lips and glanced at Peg, who shrugged and made a face that said,
She’s caught us right and proper. You know what’s next.

Angelina nodded and flicked her fingers at the intruder. “Come in, my lady. And shut the door. We don’t want to wake your mother.”

She puffed at that idea. “Impossible. After two spoons of Dr. Trumbull’s Tonic, she’d sleep through a hurricane.” Lucy closed the door anyway and took two steps into the room. She cocked her head and asked, “Who are you, Angelina? You can’t really be an heiress; I’ve known that from the start. My maid says your dresses would be years out of date, even in New York.”

Peg made a grumbling noise but contented herself with tidying up the dressing table. Angelina merely smiled, struggling for a story that would fit the circumstances and coming up empty. “Ah, I . . .”

“Is that your burglar garb?” Lucy’s gaze ran from top hat to polished footwear with an expression torn between admiration and disgust. “I’ve never seen a woman in trousers. It’s indecent.”

Angelina, grateful for the distraction, laughed gaily. “It’s a costume, of course. It’s meant to be a trifle shocking. Don’t you like it?” She twirled full circle, doing a little kick-step at the end. “I’m sneaking out to a party, if you must know. Not the sort of party I’d like your mother to learn about. A little naughty, but nothing too outré, I assure you. I’m being escorted by a gentleman of the Lancers — a Captain Sandy, er, Gabrelson.
Swag
is just a fun word for the little party gifts they give you. You know: little ribbon-tied packets of sweets and whatnot.”

Lucy said nothing for a long moment, her lips pursed doubtfully. Then she lifted her chin and sniffed. “I don’t believe you. I know what ‘swag’ means. And I know I heard you say ‘burgle.’”

Blast the mulish little minx!
She was more stubborn than a dog that had got hold of your boot. But why didn’t she raise some alarm or start issuing threats? What did she want?

Angelina shot a glance at the clock. She’d been taught to let the mark begin the bargaining, but she didn’t have much time to haggle.

“You’re going to rob that Oxwich,” Lucy said, “and then come back here to take something of my stepfather’s. I don’t care about that. Or rather, I don’t care what you take. I want to get
out
.”

“I will not take you with me, Lady Lucy. That’s right out of the question. It’s too risky and there isn’t time. I must go now or it will be too late.”

“I don’t want to
burgle
with you. It sounds dirty. I want my Season. I want to go to dinners and musicales. I want to go to the theater. I want to dance. I don’t want to wait a year or even six months. Carling was only my stepfather, and I hated him. He didn’t think much of me either, and he was never particularly kind to Mother. Why should I have to sit at home like a bluestocking just because he got himself exploded? I’m nineteen, Angelina. This could be my last chance!”

Angelina let out a sigh of relief and walked forward to take both of Lucy’s hands in hers. “I sympathize with your plight, darling. Truly I do. I’ll do whatever I can.”

“Promise me,” Lucy said. “Mother will listen to you. She wants me
out
anyway. You must promise to take me everywhere you go.”

“I promise,” Angelina said solemnly. She started to move toward the door, but Lucy held her ground. “Was there something else?”

“I want Reginald Benton.”

“Really?” Angelina couldn’t help wrinkling her nose. “Reginald?”

“I love him,” Lucy said.