Queen of Diamonds (3 page)

First, Queenie had to speak with Ize.

First, Ize dragged her to the bank. Then he cursed, tore down a broadsheet posted beside the bank's door and, with a foul look at a Robin Red Breast from Bow Street who was studying the patrons inside the bank, he dragged Queenie away.

“Bloody hell, they must have caught Godfrey's pigeon. He's the only one who would have told them about the account. Godfrey didn't, by Satan, ‘cause dead men can't talk, and Molly sure as hell wouldn't, not when she lived off the take for all those years. Damnation!”

Queenie was gasping for breath by the time Ize slowed down when they reached Green Park. He was so angry he did not notice when she pulled the poster from his hand and sank onto a bench.

Queenie gasped again. She was looking at a picture of a young woman who might have been her sister.
Blue eyes
, the notice said,
pale blond hair. Eighteen years of age.

“Why, that might have been me!”

“Well, it ain't,” Ize said, trying to grab the reward notice back from her. Queenie held on and read further.

“Gracious, look at the money being offered for information or her return. Lady Charlotte Endicott, once known as Lottie, is being desperately sought by her brother, the Earl of Carde. She has been missing since she was three years of age…lost in a carriage accident.” Images of a falling coach and screams and blood flashed through Queenie's mind. “I remember…”

“You remember what Dennis Godfrey told you. You ain't her, and that's that.”

“Of course not. How could I be the legitimate daughter of an earl when Molly was my—Molly was my mother, wasn't she?”

Ize took a knife out of his boot, then looked around to see who was watching them. He tossed the knife from hand to hand, as if undecided what to do with it. He finally chose to scrape the dirt from under his fingernails.

“‘Bout time you learned the truth, I'd say, iffen only to keep you from bumbling your way into jail.”

Queenie's face paled even further. “Jail?”

“Righto. Jail, or transportation. Maybe hanging. They'd hang me first, which is why you ain't going to say nothing to nobody, no matter the reward. You hear?”

“Nothing about what? Do you mean I am actually connected to this lady?”

“Connected, but not on the right side of the blanket, so to speak. Molly never wanted you to know, she loved you that much, and she were ashamed.”

“I was her brother's by-blow?” Queenie guessed. At least that rogue was dead.

Ize made a sound that might have been a laugh. “As if that no-account would have taken in a bastard of his. He'd of left his own get to starve in the gutter. But he did have big plans.”

“For the earl's daughter?”

“She were already dead. He bungled the job and kilt the countess, the driver and the nursemaid too. He was going to hang for sure, except the bloke what hired him was just as guilty. That's who was paying us off all these years. But before then old Godfrey had the knacky notion to hand back the dead heiress for the ransom.”

“But she was dead. You just said so.”

Ize spit on the ground. “But a hundred orphans were just begging for a home. He picked a pretty one, one that looked like the little lady. Blond hair, blue eyes. Close enough from a distance. They would of paid, too, but the old earl died, and then Godfrey. And then Molly went and fell in love with you and wouldn't hear of handing you over, ‘specially knowing they wouldn't keep no foundling. Asides, she was already guilty of aiding and abetting her brother. And taking the blackmail money. She would of been convicted without a trial, mucking about with an earl.”

Queenie set aside Molly's guilt or innocence. “Then I am an orphan?”

“Twict, now that Molly's gone.”

So Queenie was not even her mother's daughter. She had no parents, no one at all. Her name was not Dennis. Neither was Molly's, it appeared. She must have taken her brother's first name, when Dennis Godfrey became a fugitive. Heaven knew where the Queenie came from. She supposed she had to be grateful to the wretched man for taking her from the orphanage. Foundlings had a poor survival rate in such institutions, living amid filth and poverty and disease, with no chance to improve their lots. Still, he was guilty of so many heinous crimes she was glad he was dead.

She looked back at the poster. “Someone should tell the current earl and his brother. You see, it says information may be brought to Bow Street.”

“Someone should tell 'em what? That you've been living off their money for sixteen years? That you were meant to be the decoy? That your own mother was a blackmailer and your uncle was the murderer? Or maybe you'll tell them that I helped, that I knew about the crimes all these years, too?”

“No, I wouldn't.”

He tossed the knife, with the point landing a scant inch from her shoe. “Damned right, you wouldn't. I hear about you going near the earl or to Bow Street and you won't have to worry about going to jail.”

“I just thought they should know their sister was dead, that they should stop looking. They can bury their memories once and for all, instead of wondering forever.” As she would be forever wondering about her own background.

“Pshaw. Who cares about them? They've got their fortune. And we're not getting any more unless we can think of a way of getting into the bank without being noticed.” He eyed her blond hair under the black bonnet. “Maybe a veil.”

Queenie did not think that would work. If the earl had men watching the bank, surely they had notified the tellers. Besides, they did not know what name Molly used on her account. Molly Dennis, as she was known in Manchester? Molly Godfrey, which was her true name? Furthermore, although Molly's will clearly stated that all of her estate and property was bequeathed to her daughter, Queenie had no way of proving that she was, indeed, Molly's child. Now she understood why she had found no baptismal records, no proof of her parentage.

“The money is not ours,” she said.

Ize pulled his knife from the ground and wiped it on his trousers. “Then maybe I better have a share of that dowry Molly set aside for you. You think on it, missy. How you'd be nothing without my help.”

Queenie was a nobody, she was not nothing. “That money is mine, to start a business. Our business, on the other hand, is finished. I will not speak your name, and hope you never speak mine again. Good day, Ize.”

She went back to the Pettigrews.

Valerie Pettigrew knew all about the old story, the sadness of the old earl's passing and the tragedy of his young wife's death, all made worse by the disappearance of their baby daughter. There were rewards posted all over town, Mrs. Pettigrew recalled, but the little girl was never returned. She knew the new tales about Captain Jack Endicott coming home from the war, setting up a gambling den to find young women of the appropriate age—and those who might know about his half-sister. He was hiring the prettiest ones, and treating them well, by all reports.

“The Red and the Black, he calls his club, because he won't let any blondes deal or go with the men, in honor of little Charlotte,” the older woman said, wiping a tear from her eye.

Queenie thought the tear might have been from the touching story of a brave young hero giving up his standing as a gentleman in society to go into a shady business, out of an oath sworn when he was a boy. On the other hand, Valerie Pettigrew might be weeping because, without her baron's patronage, she could not visit the latest fashionable spot among the demi-mondaine.

Queenie could. Leaving Hellen behind, to her friend's disappointment, Queenie took a hackney coach into Mayfair. The driver knew the address readily enough, having taken many a hopeful woman to the club. He agreed to wait for her for an extra coin, trying to stare behind the veil she wore, dubious of her black mourning outfit. “You got to have red hair or raven, miss. And be ready to smile at the gentlemen,” he offered his polite and generous fare. “Good luck.”

Queenie did not have good luck. She was last on line, it seemed, to speak to the man in charge of interviews. She did, however, get a good look at a portrait of the missing child's mother, a woman who looked enough like herself to make Queenie wish for the impossible. How sweet and ladylike, how perfect in her pearls, with a lovely house behind her. How Queenie could picture herself there, a cherished daughter. How foolish!

She lowered her veil and studied the other women who were waiting to be called to the desk at the front of the long, narrow receiving room. Most had either red or black hair as the driver had warned, dressed in flamboyant, low-cut style, defining their attributes and their ambitions. A few blondes, artificially yellow or otherwise, were there seeking a different position than hostess in the gambling casino. One woman, dressed in somber clothes, even had a child with her. Queenie could not imagine what that female was seeking here, but the woman was kind enough to speak to her before taking her turn at the front of the room.

“You need to know that your brothers are Alex and Jack. They'll ask about your pony's name and your doll's,” she whispered, leaving the sleeping child on the bench when she walked toward the desk.

Queenie had heard from Mrs. Pettigrew about Alex, or Ace, as he was nicknamed, the current Earl of Carde, and Captain Jack Endicott, of course, the proprietor of the club. Neither name resonated in her mind. She thought she might have known a boy named Andy or Endy at the orphanage, and surely there would have been a Jack or a John.

She never had a pony. Molly wanted her to learn to ride, like a lady, but Queenie was afraid of horses, so never had. As for Dolly, she had disintegrated ages ago, and Queenie supposed half the girls in England named their toys Dolly.

Then the man at the desk half fell off his chair. He declared interviews over for the day and rushed through the rear door, where Queenie could see a dark-haired man with a crooked nose sitting behind another desk.

Queenie left.

She tried again the next week, after a fruitless sennight of seeking a position with an established modiste in London. No one wanted her dress designs or her sewing skills, except for positions that paid little for long hours in deplorable conditions.

This time she thought she spotted Ize near the club, but what business could he have there? She was unlucky again, for the interviewing office was closing for the day. A more forceful woman might have insisted that her information was important, that Captain Endicott would be relieved to hear her, but she supposed every one of the claimants to the heiress's place said the same thing. She raised her veil to stare at the portrait again, before going.

A few days later, Mrs. Pettigrew looked up from her morning chocolate and her newspaper and said, “Now isn't that strange. We were just talking about that Cap'n Jack and his club, and now they had a fire there last night. No one was hurt, thank goodness. They think it might have been a disgruntled gambler who set it on purpose.”

Queenie thought it was Ize, giving warning to her or to Captain Endicott. Gracious, now she was bringing more trouble to that poor family, when she only wanted to give them an end to their search and sorrow. She thought about sending a letter, but she felt that would be cruel, not being there to answer their questions, not taking responsibility for her unwitting complicity in their grief.

She tried to call at the gaming parlor one more time, dressed in one of her colored gowns, with a veiled pink bonnet instead of the mourning black, in case Ize was watching. She paused outside the door to read a new broadsheet that was posted there, one Ize had not managed to tear down. This time the reward for information was higher, and more detailed. Now they were looking for a young woman of about nineteen, once known as Lady Charlotte Endicott, or Lottie, now possibly identified as Queenie.

Great heavens, they were looking for her, naming her by name. Only that was not her name, nor was Charlotte or Lottie. She was nobody, a criminal through no fault of her own. She owed the Endicott family a debt beyond measure, but how could she hope to repay it from jail, if Ize did not kill her first if he suspected her intentions? Or he could cause more trouble at The Red and the Black, or Carde House in Grosvenor Square. She had the hackney coachman drive her past that mansion, while she debated what to do. The elegant town house was under renovation, and did not look the least familiar to her. How could it, when she was naught but an orphan?

The Pettigrews were bound to see the new reward notice—and Valerie was constantly in need of money. Then too, some of the dressmakers where Queenie had applied for a position were bound to recall her distinctive name. She would be hunted down, turned in, arrested, if Ize did not get to her first.

She had to leave. To go—where? She had funds, and she had ambitions. The war was over, and France was once again becoming the fashion capital of Europe. The dressmakers there were couturiers, not seamstresses and modistes who copied images from illustrations in magazines. Men were the designers in France, setting the styles for women everywhere. Queenie decided she would apprentice herself to one or another. Her French was impeccable, by her tutor's standards, and she knew her looks were attractive, if her skills and her bank notes could not win her a position. She would study hard and become a designer of distinction, an arbiter of English elegance, a businesswoman with a future. She might not have a name to call her own—she would find another, in France—but she would be somebody. And then she would begin to repay her debt of conscience to Lord Carde and his brother Jack…and Lady Charlotte.

Chapter Three

1816

Harlan Harkness, Lord Harking, hated London. Oh, the viscount liked the camaraderie of the clubs, the lectures at the Agricultural Society, the bookshops, and Tattersall's. Harry, as he was universally called, appreciated having his tailor, his bootmaker and his hatter all close by, and all knowing his preferences. What he disliked was the dirt and the smell, the crowds and the crime. And the matchmaking mamas.

The whole society business irritated Harry: the wearing of uncomfortable formal dress to make uncomfortable conversations with young females who would be more comfortable in the schoolroom—while their Machiavellian, maneuvering mothers tried to snabble every available bachelor.

What was wrong with a chap of twenty and nine staying unwed? Harry had plenty of time to create an heir, and if he did not, his cousin would make an admirable viscount. Leonard already had two sons, and a shrewish wife. Besides, Harry was no prize on the matrimonial market that he could see. His face would not frighten dogs or small children, but he was no Adonis. His hair was an ordinary brown, his eyes an ordinary brown, and his cheeks took on a silly schoolboy blush in the cold, the heat, or in ballrooms. His physique was nothing out of the ordinary for a big man who worked along with his tenant farmers. He was not slim and graceful like the Town tulips—not when he had to help repair bridges and fix roofs after storms. In fact, he was clumsy on the dance floor, clumsier at light flirtation, and an outright clod when it came to courtship—to which it had not yet come, thank goodness. His fortune was not even large enough to raise eyebrows, or expectations, although Harking Hall was a handsome pile, if he had to say so himself. The Hall was attractively set amid parks and profitable farmland with a racing stable, oval course and paddocks, all in sight. He loved the place. He wished he were there now.

The London ladies did not care about fine horses or fertile farms or fine, old architecture. They cared about filling their dance cards, fittings for their fancy clothes, being seen at the right parties, catching the best
parti
. The most advantageous match, the highest title and deepest pockets, seemed to matter more to the misses than affection, respect or mutual interests.

They sure as the devil could not be interested in a plain country lumpkin like him. Yet they were setting out lures everywhere he went. Hell, they were digging mantraps for Harry, in Town less than a week.

He was staying at the Grand Hotel, rebuilt after the fire, where at least he could see Green Park from his suite's windows, imagining himself back in Lincolnshire. Invitations somehow found their way to him, for everything from Venetian breakfasts—after noon—to waltzing parties. Hah! Were the wallflowers so desperate they were willing to sacrifice their toes for his minor viscountcy? Then there were the invites to six dinners, routs, debutante balls, and theater parties—each and every night, even now in late winter before the height of the Season, with half of Society at their country homes, where Harry longed to be.

Harry thought that might be what he most disliked about London and the
ton
, the mad rush to fill every hour with the pursuit of pleasure. What was wrong with sitting by one's own fireside with a good book and a good dog after a day of satisfying accomplishment? Harry found plenty of pleasures in his life, without having to leave his home or shave twice a day.

As bad as the women were, the men were worse.

Harry enjoyed a fine wine, but not waking up wishing he were dead. He played a decent hand of whist, but was not about to gamble away what he'd worked so hard to restore and preserve. As for women, he was no monk, but neither was Harry a libertine, needing a woman, a different woman, every night, like so many of the town bucks. He regretted that females had so few choices in life that so many had to sell their bodies, but he did not like buying a woman's favors. He liked the occasional tumble, with the kind of willing woman one could bed without having to wed—or pay.

Most of all he despised the morals of the
beau monde
that were anything but beautiful. Adultery was rampant, and no one seemed to care.

So-called gentlemen tossed their marriage vows aside like so many flower petals at the wedding. The ladies were supposed to wait until they had presented their husbands with an heir before taking a lover, but who could trust an unwritten social rule when a holy sacrament was without value? No one seemed to honor their word.

Harry intended to, when the time came, and he intended to marry a woman with the same scruples. The thought of Harking Hall going to some other man's by-blow had kept him from looking for a bride, fearing he would never find that rare, virtuous female.

Maybe he was a prude, a prig, and a Puritan, as his brother-in-law called him. But Harry liked his life, and saw nothing wrong with taking pleasure in his accomplishments, instead of merely accomplishing pleasure.

He'd come by that sense of responsibility and hard work the hard way, haphazardly raised by parents who were precisely what he least admired. His father was a dissipated debauchee, paying his estate no attention except for what he could sell off to finance his gambling and expensive ladybirds. Lady Harking was the scandal of local society, flaunting her young lovers at the neighbors' dinner parties in revenge, Harry supposed. By the time the former viscount succumbed to the pox and his wife drowned off a boat in Italy with some mad poet, Harking Hall was dilapidated, deep in debt, and Harry's sister's dowry was long gone.

Harry'd spent the last nine years making repairs: to the tenants' farms, the ancestral home, the Harkness family name, and the family coffers. He'd even managed to repay the money he'd had to borrow so his sister could wed respectably, her dowry restored.

Respectable, hell! Olivia's head had been turned by a handsome baronet, thrilled that a fine and fashionable London gentleman had paid her attention at the local assembly. Harry should have made her wait. He should have investigated Sir John Martin's background. He should have taken a horsewhip to the dastard. But Olivia was his only sister, edging toward spinsterhood, and Harry could not afford a London Season for her. She was older than Harry, and he thought she was wiser. Hah!

So here he was in London, choking on the air and dodging hopeful hostesses, chasing a drunkard, a gambler and a womanizer just like his father had been, only this one happened to be his brother-in-law.

Good riddance he'd thought, when Martin had left Harking Hall in the middle of the night. Olivia would be far better off without the muckworm who had a mistress in the village, an ongoing affair with the vicar's cousin, and a room at the inn—Easy Ellie's room—when he was too foxed to ride home. Olivia had her son and her daughter and the management of Harry's home. She would not miss the pitying looks from the neighbors or the shouting and the tears, or the bruises she tried to hide. Neither would Harry.

Harry's niece and nephew would be better off without seeing their father stagger home, his clothes awry, stinking of cheap wine and cheaper perfume.

And Harry would have been a great deal better off if he had not had to keep paying his brother-in-law's debts. He had not wanted another blot on the family name, though, the scandal of having his sister's husband hauled off to debtor's prison.

Now he would not mind seeing the maggot hauled off to Hades. In fact, he'd drive him there himself, if he could find the shabster.

Martin had ridden off in the dark after a Valentine's Day celebration at Harking Hall, the first grand party the Hall had seen in ages, now that Harry was in funds. Olivia had worn the Harkness diamonds.

Martin had worn out two horses—Harry's best carriage pair—getting away with the family jewels.

The Harkness diamonds had been in the family since the day some fool trumpeter had shouted “Hark, the King,” at just the right moment, or so the family legend went, saving the ruler's life from an assassin's arrow and thereby earning a title and a reward. The diamonds were meant for Harry's wife, which he did not have, and Harry's son, which he did not have, and hopes of perpetuity, which Harry did have.

No one stole from Harlan Harkness, Lord Harking. Not his money, not his good name, not his heritage. And not his heirlooms.

The coach and Harry's horses had been headed to London. Harry followed, sure he could find the rotter before Martin sold the gems and gambled the money away. Now he was not so sure. He'd asked at the gentlemen's clubs, even visited scores of unsavory gaming dens, without unearthing a clue to Martin's whereabouts, or his diamonds. He did not want to go to Bow Street, to air his family's dirty linen in public, but thought he might have to before too much time elapsed. First, he had one more place to try.

An old schoolmate of his had opened a gambling casino, Harry'd heard, shocking the polite world but making a success of it, titillating the
ton
with the search for his missing sister. Mad Jack Endicott was just the scamp to thumb his nose at social conventions. Besides, he was a war hero and the brother of an earl, to boot. He could get away with much and still be accepted.

The Red and the Black was supposed to be an elegant gaming parlor, with lush appointments and luscious beauties dealing at the tables. Harry did not suppose Sir John Martin was spending his time—and Harry's money—in such expensive surroundings. What he was hoping was that Jack Endicott, now that he had dealings with London's underworld, dabbling in the demi-monde, would know where a man went to sell stolen jewels, where a man hid out from his family.

Harry pulled his knit muffler up against the cold and walked to The Red and the Black. The city fops would have dragged out their horses and drivers for the brisk jaunt. Of course their cheeks would not have turned rosy, their hair would not be windblown, and their boots would not be dusty. What did Harry care? He was here to find a loose screw, not a lady wife.

Unsurprisingly for mid-morning, the club's black door marked
Guests
was locked and no one answered his rap. The red door's sign said
Interviews
, but the long office was nearly empty except for two women and a clerkish looking younger fellow. Despite Harry's intentions and his supposed disinterest, he hurriedly straightened his neckcloth and tried to brush back his hair when he entered the door and saw the women. Trust Mad Jack Endicott to attract the most beautiful ladybirds in London.

The smaller woman was a rounded dumpling of a brunette who flashed him a saucy smile while her friend spoke to the clerk. It was the friend who stole Harry's breath away. No, that was the fast walk and the cold. No bird of paradise was going to distract him from his mission, attract him to indiscretion. But, Lord, the black-clad female was stunning. The color of her clothes might be somber, but the cut was anything but, delineating her tall, slim figure under a velvet cape. The velvet did not look half as soft as her skin, either. He could not see her eyes, but he could glimpse a halo of shiny ebony curls under a scrap of ruffled black lace, with a plumed black feather held with a bright blue ribbon. Style, grace and beauty all in one woman—and didn't she just know it? Hell, the woman had a dog that matched.

Harry admired the dog too.

A long-legged black poodle, closely cropped in raven curls, had a blue collar fixed around his neck. He stood calmly, after giving Harry an inquisitive, intelligent look and one wag of a powder puff tail. The woman ignored the new arrival altogether, leaning toward the young man, concentrating on what the bespectacled secretary was telling her.

Harry took a seat on a hard bench, waiting his turn and enjoying the view of her animated profile and admirable bosom. No, he told himself, that was rude, and would give the wrong impression, besides. He was here for information, not a liaison with a dealer in a gaming parlor.

So he stood and turned his back, and studied the portrait on the wall and read about the reward for Jack Endicott's missing sister. Now there was a true lady, Harry could not help thinking, looking at the angelic blue eyes in the painting, the serene smile, the erect posture, the composed features. Surely Lady Charlotte—or her mother or her cousin, whoever was used as a model for the missing child, now grown—would not be cursing, and not in French.

“
Sacre bleu
,” he heard, his lips turning up at this latest affectation among London's high flyers.

* * *

Queenie had not meant to curse, especially not when there was a gentleman in the room. She had noticed the new arrival, of course. How could she not, when his entry pushed a cold draft into the nearly empty reception office? Then too, his size was impressive and so were his hearty good looks, slightly disordered by the weather and his errand. Here was no London fribble, come to gamble away his fortune in the daylight hours or still castaway from the night before.

She turned her back on him, trying to ignore Hellen's forward smile to the gentleman. She could not bother with the stranger's reasons for coming to The Red and the Black in the morning, not when her own were so important, and not when her hopes, her plans, and her dreams were being disordered.

Besides, she was more used to the French volatility than the somber British stoicism. So she cursed, then blushed and held her fingers to her mouth. Botheration. Now the young man in charge of this office thought she was no better than a strumpet, and heaven knew what the well-formed gentleman thought.

Nothing had gone right since her return from France, after all her grand efforts and preparations. For that matter, nothing had gone quite as she had hoped in Paris, either. Her expectations might have been too high, or her desperation too low.

Oh, with a bit of diligence and a new identity she had found a position with a well-regarded couturier, Monsieur Guatheme, who dressed royalty and wealthy women, the new aristocracy of France. Impressed by her drawings and her eagerness to learn, he was willing to let Queenie study in his studio and sewing room. After seeing what she could do, taking charge of the chaos of his creative muse, the dressmaking maestro was willing to let her manage his day-to-day business while he made love to his beautiful clients. What he was not willing to do was pay Queenie. Monsieur expected her to study for free, or repay him for his lessons in a coin she refused to spend.