St. Raven (27 page)

“I require no assistant, Your Grace, other than suitable clerks.”

“Then I must be selfish. I require that you have an assistant, and for two reasons. One, I need someone able to travel around the estates, to travel posthaste to deal with an emergency. I do not like leaving matters so completely in the hands of inadequately supervised local employees. Two, when you do decide to rest, I want someone ready to take on your burden, someone who already knows my affairs.”

For a fleeting moment, Leatherhulme’s expression was like Uffham’s pout, but then he glared at Tris. “You are a surprise to me, Your Grace.”

“You were hoping for an idle nodcock?”

“Not idle, no…” Leatherhulme took off his glasses and rubbed the marks on either side of his nose. “Your uncle gave me complete control, and I confess I have become accustomed. What you say, however, is judicious and wise. If I have clung to the reins, it is—forgive me— because I have not held a high opinion of the morals and judgment of your predecessors.”

“Good God. You served under my grandfather, too?”

“And your great-grandfather, though he died shortly after I joined his service—as assistant to his aging secretary.”

Tris laughed. “At least they had the wisdom to hire and keep good servants.”

Leatherhulme nodded in acknowledgment of the compliment. “I assume you wish to hire my assistant yourself?”

“Yes, but I’ll give you a veto. It will not serve if you take each other in dislike.”

“Very well, sir.”

Sixty years in the family’s service. Gad!

Tris glanced again over the explanation of the case of the Duke of St. Raven versus the Sisters of Divine Purity. In the end, he authorized it, feeling that a lightning bolt should shoot down to fry him.

He pushed the final paper back across the desk and accepted the heavy summary account book for his perusal at leisure. He’d never had a tutor as exacting as Leatherhulme. Which gave him a mischievous thought.

“I wonder if you have any advice about brides, Leatherhulme.”

“I sincerely hope you mean that in the singular, Your Grace.”

Tris smiled. “Certainly at a time. And if I marry, I hope never to wish my wife dead.”

“In my opinion, sir, there is no
if
. You are the last of a long and noble line.”

“Of whom you have not held too high an opinion.”

The thin lips tightened in what might even have been a suppressed smile. “I have hopes for the future, sir. As for advice, I recommend that you choose a sensible woman who will be a good companion and helpmeet. To a young man that doubtless sounds dull, but the fires of love often burn down, and the fires of—your pardon, sir—lust always do.”

“I promise not to marry out of lust. One of the benefits of my rakish lifestyle is that I have no need to.”

He didn’t know what reaction he’d expected, but it wasn’t a sober nod. “An excellent point. I have observed some straitlaced young gentlemen who fell into that trap.”

Tris couldn’t believe he was having this conversation, but he leaned back in his chair. “Do you have any suggestions?”

“I do not study the social registers, sir.”

“But should I go for birth, wealth, or helpmeet?”

“All three.”

‘“Struth! Plums like that don’t hang on every tree.”

“But they hang on plum trees in season, sir. Have you been looking in the right orchards?”

Tris laughed and stood. “Damn you, man, you’re right. Perhaps I should go to Brighton and peer more closely at the fruit. But I have business here first.”

“Business?” Leatherhulme queried in obvious alarm.

“Nothing in your sphere. More like Nun’s Chase business.”

“I see.” Leatherhulme replaced his spectacles, becoming the withered dry stick Tris was accustomed to. “That will be all, Your Grace?”

Despite the query, it sounded like dismissal.

“It will.” But Tris added, “Thank you.”

He left feeling strangely lightened, even though he was sure that Leatherhulme’s advice would be against a penniless bride of ordinary birth and training.

The old man had no need to worry. It could never be.

Was Cary back yet?

An inquiry turned up no evidence of it. Tris tossed the account book on a chair and paced his room.

London, even in August, was ripe with amusements designed to wipe foolish attachments from a young man’s mind, but he ran through them and found nothing that appealed.

He picked up the book and sat to go through it. As for the evening, he found himself looking forward to a plain dinner and an early night.

It wasn’t that he was becoming a dull dog, he assured himself. It was simply that he’d need a clear head if he was going to get that statuette from Miranda Coop without obeying the woman like a dog on a leash.

A growling stomach alerted Cressida to the fact that it was a long time since her picnic breakfast, and a body must eat. She went to the kitchen to beg kindness from the cook, who cheerfully cut a slice from a pie and arranged some fruit on a plate.

“If you’ll pardon the suggestion, miss, why don’t you sit down here with Sally, Sam, and me and have some tea? We’re about to, and it must be lonely for you upstairs.”

Cressida accepted, though she worried that the servants wanted to question her about their futures. They chattered among themselves, however, about their families and other servants. Cressida sat there, drinking tea out of a plain cup, relaxing in this very ordinary world. Even in Matlock, she’d not taken tea in the kitchen.

Then they started on a scandal. According to the Onslows’ maid—met just this morning when filling jugs from the milkmaid’s pails—Miss Onslow was growing plump. Not surprising that there was to be a hasty marriage to a Lieutenant Brassingham, who wasn’t what the family had hoped for when they’d brought the young lady to town. And what’s more, according to Miss Onslow’s maid, he was not likely to be the responsible party…

Poor Miss Onslow. Cressida sipped her tea, finding it all too easy to imagine her scandalous story trickling all over London over pails of milk and baskets of bread.

That Miss Mandeville. Rumor says she was at a gentlemen’s party in a wicked costume. And according to her kitchen maid, she wasn’t at home that night. Visiting a friend
…
Or so she said
…

How could she have been so foolish? But, of course, originally she had seen no choice. And as Tris had said, by last night it made no difference what they did. Except to her guilty conscience.

Someone rapped the knocker, and Cressida started, imagining scandal on the doorstep.

Sally leaped up. “Who can that be?” She hurried out, but was soon back. “It’s for you, Miss Mandeville. A Mr. Lyne.”

St. Raven’s messenger! At least something was turning out right.

“It is to do with my father’s affairs. I had better see him.”

She hurried to the reception room and immediately read his expression. “You don’t have the jewels.”

“I’m afraid not. But don’t panic!”

Cressida shut the door and sat down. “I’m not panicking. Yet. What happened?”

He sat down nearby. “St. Raven went to the house as planned, but the woman would not immediately give up the statuette.”

“Why? What can she possibly want with it?”

He pulled a face. “St. Raven’s company in public. He’s agreed to it, Miss Mandeville, never fear, but it’s not till the weekend.”

Agreed to what? She pushed that aside. “Won’t she think it strange that he agreed just for a statue? Its value is not very great.”

“His concern exactly, but he thinks he played it all right. His story is that his little houri wanted it—that’s you, if you’ll excuse the notion. He cut up stiff at the idea that he demean himself to please a whore—if you’ll excuse the term.” He was beginning to blush. “He let himself be persuaded to give only his escort, and only for one day.”

Could she believe that? Here was a whole new layer of society beneath the balls and promenades. No wonder gentlemen were often in short supply at the more respectable events!

“Saturday. I wish we didn’t have to wait so long.”

“Please don’t worry, Miss Mandeville. St. Raven bade me to assure you that you’ll have your jewels within the week, no matter what.”

No matter what he had to do for them? Yet what right did she have to disapprove of his behavior if he was acting in her cause?

She rose and gave him her hand. “Thank you, and please convey my thanks to the duke. This is no affair of yours or his, and I do appreciate your help.”

He squeezed her hand for a moment. “He will do whatever he can to ensure your happiness, Miss Mandeville.”

Cressida watched him leave, contemplating that. Happiness at the moment seemed out of reach. She was a practical person, however, and knew that such feelings would pass. In the meantime, she had the numbing inventory to soothe her.

Except that it no longer soothed.

As she plodded along with the task, impatience began to nettle her. Her statue was so close. Was it impossible to get into the house and… repossess it? It wouldn’t exactly be stealing, especially if she took only the jewels.

Even as her mind spun out the adventure, she knew it was fantasy. She didn’t even know where Miranda Coop lived.

She had the
Directory of London
.

Just as it lacked a section for “Peers of the Realm,” it lacked a section for “Prostitutes,” but Cressida was not in a mood to give up. The book did list each street, and the names of the householders.

Where would a woman like Miranda Coop live? Not in one of the most select areas, surely, but not completely outside them. A fashionable whore would want to be close to her clientele.

Not in the City. That was for merchants and businessmen.

This wasn’t a rational occupation, but it obsessed her—or perhaps just distracted her anxious mind. It felt as if she were doing
something
.

She unfolded the street map and began a check of every street on the fringes of Mayfair against the directory. Her eyes began to tire, but by now she couldn’t stop until she’d checked each street in London.

And then she found it.

Number 16, Tavistock Terrace, Miranda Coop. Not, in fact, that far from this house. She felt as if she had achieved a miracle, but she had no idea what to do with the information. She couldn’t visit such a woman. It would be improper and could stir dangerous speculation.

It wouldn’t hurt, however, to walk past the house tomorrow. It was, after all, a respectable street, and it would be something to do other than waiting, waiting, waiting.

The next morning, Cressida dressed in one of her Matlock gowns. Though of good quality, it was made of a quiet print of blue on gray that would never attract attention, and it was, of course, high necked and long sleeved. She added her deepest-brimmed bonnet with the curls beneath. When she looked in the mirror, she was sure that even if she came face-to-face with Miranda Coop, the woman would never imagine she was St. Raven’s houri.

In the night, the memory of him cradling the Coop woman’s full breast and kissing it had come back to her again and again like torture.

“That is what he is,” she reminded her reflection, and turned to leave. “Be grateful to be saved from the misery such a man would cause you.”

She visited her parents and told her mother that she was going to the lending library.

“Take Sally, dear.”

“She’s needed here, Mama, and I’m not going far.”

Her mother sighed. “Very well, dear.”

Tavistock Terrace turned out to be exactly what Cressida had expected—a line of new houses, stucco shining white, large windows gleaming. Railings at the front guarded steps leading down to the basement doors used by servants. These houses would be owned or leased by those on the fringe of the highest circles, or by merchants and other professionals who aspired to wriggle their way in.

Like her father.

She put that aside and amused herself with wondering whether the worthy inhabitants of Tavistock Terrace knew the profession of the woman who lived at number 16. She doubted that the mother and daughter emerging chattering from number 5 did, or the sober man striding out of number 8 to enter a waiting hackney. She walked down the street purposefully, though not too fast, but in the end it did no good. What had she expected?

Miranda Coop’s house was just like the others. A passing glimpse through the front bow window showed an ordinary drawing room with no sign of the figurine. Cressida turned left at the end of the street and walked on, thinking.

She could return and go down the steps at the front to the servants’ area and… what? Pretend to be looking for work? She should have dressed even more plainly for that. Pretend to be lost? Pretend to be looking for an old servant?

Possibly, but it was still a risk. An unnecessary risk, because it would gain nothing. The figurine wouldn’t be in the basement, and the servants were hardly likely to give her the freedom of the house.

However, she couldn’t simply go home. When she saw a sign saying tavistock mews, she realized that the narrow road must circle behind the houses. She turned into it. A little more strange to be back here, but not a crime.

The lane was bordered on either side by a high stone walls concealing back gardens. Above the wall to her left, she could glimpse the roofs of Tavistock Terrace broken by the small gable windows of servants’ rooms. On her right lay houses that looked much the same.

The walls were broken by wooden gates. Tempting to try one, but they would be bolted on the other side.

She arrived at the mews area and paused. The yard was surrounded by buildings with large wooden doors, all closed. Some would contain coaches, some horses. Poor city horses, to spend all their time here with scarcely anything green around them.

This might be more of a livery stable with horses and coaches for hire. After all, only the very rich kept their own horses and carriage in London. Her father certainly didn’t, even before the calamity.

Another fascinating aspect of London that she hadn’t explored—the whole business of how people moved around, of how the thousands of horses were provided and cared for.