Touch of Rogue (5 page)

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Authors: Mia Marlowe

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Fantasy, #Historical Romance

BOOK: Touch of Rogue
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“We are not friends.”
“Yet,” he said with cheer as Fenwick draped a silk banyan over his broad shoulders. Jacob dropped the sheet and inadvertently gave Julianne a final look at his private parts, quiescent now, but still of formidable size, before he knotted the sash at his waist. Then he settled into the only other chair in the room while Fenwick stropped the straight razor.
“What did you learn about the dagger?” When he didn’t answer immediately, she added, “Jacob.”
He flashed a quick smile. Then he assumed the tortured expression men adopt to flatten the angles of their face for a shave while Fenwick lathered his cheeks with foam.
“For one thing, I can offer you the comfort that I’m certain your husband didn’t take his own life.”
She blinked in surprise. “How were you able to prove that so quickly?”
“I didn’t say I could prove it. Simply that I know it. He was murdered. Without question. We’ll get to the issue of how and by whom later.”
While it was gratifying to find another soul who agreed with her about Algernon’s death, evidence that he hadn’t killed himself would have been much better. “I assume we’ll need to go to Cornwall for that, so you can examine his study.”
“I already know what happened in his study.”
“How do you—”
“That’s none of your concern,” he said briskly. “What I don’t know is the precise mechanism of how the deed was done and at whose behest, but you’re right. We will need to eventually return to your husband’s home. Am I correct in assuming the other daggers are there?”
She nodded.
“In a safe?”
She shook her head. “But no one will ever think to look for them in their present location, I assure you. When the time is right, I will explain.” When he started to protest, she held up her hand. “I’ve not demanded to know how you came by your knowledge of my husband’s death. I was warned your methods might seem mysterious. I ask you to extend me the same courtesy.”
“Fair enough. Let us make a pact. Mysteries are allowed, but no lies. What we share with each other must be the unvarnished truth,” Jacob said, rising as Fenwick wiped a dab of soap from his earlobe. “The etching on the blade is the symbol for the Ancient Druid Order. Today, you and I will visit the old chaps and see if we can find a true believer among the poseurs and fakes.”
“Druids?”
It seemed the height of anachronism in Queen Victoria’s thoroughly Christian England to imagine the existence of a group dedicated to that ancient pagan practice.
“My husband received a number of letters from ... oh, I can’t remember the name of the fellow now, but the letterhead was from the Ancient Druid Order.” When she’d gone through her husband’s correspondence after his death, she’d found several missives from someone connected with the Order. She’d assumed it was merely a club of some sort, not a serious religious group. “He kept asking most insistently for the earl to come to London to speak to their group about his collection of daggers.”
“Hmmm,” Jacob said. “A name would have been helpful, but the fact that your husband received those letters means we’re on to something. Did the earl contact them first or they him?”
Julianne cast about in her mind, trying to remember the contents of the letters. “It’s difficult to say. When I was going through Algernon’s things, my mind was ... preoccupied. I missed him. I thought reading his papers would help me through a difficult time. These letters were very esoteric, very scholarly in nature, so it’s hard to say which of them initiated their common interest in the daggers.”
“He never visited the Order, I assume.”
“No.” One more letter came after Algernon’s funeral, still urging the earl to visit. She’d sent back a short note explaining that her husband was deceased, and received a stilted note of condolence with no further mention of the daggers.
Then as her period of mourning drew to a close, the other letter came, the cold, business-like one, from a gentleman who wished to remain anonymous. He made an offer that seemed the answer to all her problems. Could there be a connection?
“Druids,” she repeated softly. “Algernon said the daggers were old, but I never dreamed—”
“Oh, the metal is far older than the Druids,” Jacob said with confidence. “But I hope we’ll find someone who’s familiar with the lore about them among the members of the Order. Fenwick, see what you can discover about where this group meets, who its leader might be.”
“Right-o, sir. I’ll send for a runner straight away.” Fenwick gathered up the tea service.
“Oh, and while you’re at it, contact Mr. Marleybone and tell him to sell all my brother’s railway shares. Today, if possible.”
Fenwick nodded, disappeared out the door, and turned toward the back staircase. “Should have something for you within the hour.”
“That quickly?” Julianne said. “Your Mr. Fenwick is a man of many talents.”
“He is that.” Jacob chuckled. Of course, it also helped that several Bow Street investigators owed their most public successes to Jacob’s private assistance. He wasn’t shy about calling in favors when the occasion warranted.
His brows drew together. “Be warned. Once we peel back the social club aspects of this group, I suspect we’ll find a core of adherents with some ... bizarre rituals and private activities.”
“Theatre people live for bizarre ritual,” she quipped.
“Not like this. At least I doubt it. These sorts of groups usually have a ... primitively sensual component. You’ll have heard of the Hell Fire Club, I expect.”
Lily Parks, who served as a prop mistress for Drury Lane Theatre, told her once about attending a meeting of the Hell Fire Club back when Lily was still young enough to “trod the boards.” Lords and their ladies, members of Parliament, and judges used the Hell Fire Club as an excuse to throw off convention and commit acts of lewd and flagrant immorality. Surely the person who’d sent Algernon such dry, intellectual letters wouldn’t be involved in that sort of thing.
“The Hell Fire Club is no longer in existence,” she said.
“No, but the spirit of the club lives on, and I suspect it has found a new incarnation in some faction of the Druid Order. I’d bet my best shirt on it.” His gaze sizzled over her in unspoken lust. “If we commit to this course, once we’re in with these people, we won’t be allowed to bow out gracefully. You have your title and wealth. Be sure you want to risk your reputation for the sake of this search before we proceed.”
Julianne swallowed hard. She’d always have the title of dowager countess. Her stepson had no control over that, but now that her mourning period was all but finished, he could wreck havoc with her finances and personal freedoms. Unless she produced all six daggers for her mysterious buyer by mid-December, her choices would dwindle considerably. A title wouldn’t buy bread, wouldn’t clothe her and put a roof over her head, or keep her promises to the ones who were depending on her.
The fact that she could claim a “milady” wouldn’t help Mrs. Osgood and the foundlings under her care one bit. Julianne knew what it was to live hand to mouth. She couldn’t bear to see the school for orphaned girls she’d founded crumble and its residents thrust back onto the unkind streets of London.
Her stepson was committed to beggaring her if she didn’t marry some horrid little backwater baron who was a friend of his from his days at Eton. So she considered her remaining options with a practical dispassionate eye.
Julianne loved the theatre, but she couldn’t go back to that vagabond life. Besides, her years of playing a convincing in-génue were dwindling fast. She’d seen plenty of leading ladies end their days sewing costumes for others in nearsighted poverty. She wouldn’t settle for that.
She had the education and style to be a top-tier courtesan, but if she wouldn’t surrender to a loveless marriage, she’d also be no man’s plaything, something to be used and cast away on a whim. She’d be her own mistress.
Reuniting the daggers was the only way to bring about that happy state. Her anonymous buyer was prepared to part with a king’s ransom for them. But, once she reached London, another note in the same handwriting had been left for her at the Golden Cockerel with terse instructions that if she missed the deadline, all deals were off.
This was her only chance. She’d endure whatever she must for a season in order to live as she wished for the rest of her life.
“My mind is made up,” she said. “We proceed as planned.”
“As you will,” he said with a nod of grudging respect. “Now I suggest you repair to the parlor.” His smile turned wicked. “Unless of course, you’d like to help me dress. We could practice for our sojourn among the pagans.”
She hurried out of the chamber, his masculine laughter chasing her all the way down the stairs.
C
HAPTER
4
 
“T
he countess come to town by coach, just like ye said she would.” The ragged boy swiped his nose on his sleeve and continued with his tale. “Then she settles into the Golden Cockerel, y’know the one, that fancy new inn hard by Victoria Station. After that, she visits a few shops for gewgaws and such and—”
“You related all this to me yesterday,” Sir Malcolm Ravenwood said, wondering if the boy possessed sufficient intelligence to be a useful tool. His gazing ball could have told him as much, and without the odor of unwashed boy stinking up his study.
“Aye, guv, so I did. It just helps me to remember things if I start at the beginning, y’see.” The boy’s eyes rolled up and right as he searched for the thread of his story again. “And when ye gave me that note for the lady, I nipped over to the inn and left it for her, like ye said. Then I found her again after that, taking tea with some old biddy from Drury Lane. And then, the lady goes to Blue Gate Fields.”
Malcolm frowned. “What’s a countess doing in that part of town?”
The boy shrugged. “She spent a bit of time at a house hard by St. George’s Chapel. All full of girls, it was.” He made the small grimace of distaste for females only boys too young to have hair on their balls could manage. “Mighta been a school. It looked to be in better shape than the other houses on the block. Them girls was all dressed alike when they come out to bid her good-bye. Made over her something fierce, so they did.”
Malcolm considered this a moment. He hadn’t expected it of a former actress, but obviously, Lady Cambourne was a benefactress of the school.
Good.
People who championed an altruistic cause were easy to manipulate if that cause was threatened.
“Then the lady makes for a house off Leicester Square,” the boy said with a triumphant grin.
The grin faded when Malcolm continued to stare at him without comment.
“It were a Mr. Preston’s house. I got the name straight from his housekeeper.” He shifted his slight weight from one foot to the other. “And a fresh bun from the kitchen when I asked could I sweep chimneys for her.”
“Preston, hmm?” Sir Malcolm repeated, wondering why the name tickled his memory.
Could it be the rakish brother of Lord Meade?
Jacob Preston’s only talents of note were betting consistently on the right side of wagers at White’s and wenching his way through the unhappy wives of the Upper Ten Thousand. “Was the man’s name Jacob Preston?”
“Aye, guv, that’s the one. The lady”—he pronounced the word as if it were “li-dey”—“were there a long time, waiting on him, I fancy, as the gentleman hisself come along much the later.” The urchin bobbed his head like a sparrow on a window ledge, as if that nervous tick added veracity to his words. “And then she come back early to his house again this morning. Then the lady and the gentleman bundled off in her fancy coach together, thick as thieves, so they were.”
Malcolm drummed his fingers on his desk, setting the wings of the stuffed bat on one corner atremble. “Where did Lady Cambourne and Mr. Preston go?”
The boy eyed the bat with suspicion, as if he half-expected it to leave its wire perch and flap around the room. “Well, your worshipfulness, I’m fair fast on me feet, but even I can’t outrun a pair of bays.”
When Malcolm scowled, he hurried to add, “But I did hear the gent tell the driver as they wanted the King’s Arms Tavern, off Oxford Street. Once I heard that, I nipped off straight here. I thought as ye’d want to know directly.”
The boy held out a grimy paw. His lips thinned in a tight, hopeful smile.
Malcolm fished in his pocket and came up with two coppers. He flipped them across the desk. One rolled off before the lad could nab it and he was forced to scuttle on his knees after the coin. He came up with both of them, grinning and thanking Malcolm as if he’d been given diamonds and pearls.
“There’s more where that came from for a lad who can keep his mouth shut and his eyes open. From now on, you may ignore the whereabouts of the lady. Watch Preston. I’ll expect a daily report.”
The boy nodded vigorously. “Aye, ye’ll have it, sir. I’ll watch ’im like a hawk.”
“Don’t let him know he’s being watched. No more hanging about the kitchen door hoping for scraps. You’ll attract someone’s notice that way.” Malcolm narrowed his eyes till the boy seemed to shrink into his grubby collar.
Power was useless if one was hesitant to employ it, and Malcolm rarely hesitated. Grown men had been known to cower under one of his silent curses. He wasn’t surprised to see the boy’s thin hands shake as he surreptitiously made the sign against evil alongside his trembling flanks.
“N-no, sir, I won’t let no one see me.”
“Good. Now go.”
The boy took to his heels. Malcolm’s lips twitched in a satisfied smile. Properly motivated by enough fear, the lad just might be able to outrun a pair of bays.
Malcolm stood and looked out his gothic arched window. His home was on the Penton Rise, so from his top floor vantage point, London spread out before him, its spider-leg streets stretching in all directions. If Jacob Preston was headed for the King’s Arms, he’d likely already made the connection between the daggers and the Order. That tavern was their regular public meeting place.
It wouldn’t be right for Preston and the countess not to be met by someone who could send them in the correct direction, so Malcolm threw on his cloak and descended four flights to the street. He’d call on Lord Digory, the nominal head of the Ancient Druid Order, and offer to stand the old windbag to a midday pint.
And if they should fall into chance conversation with a countess from Cornwall and a rogue from Leicester Square, Malcolm would be in perfect position to take his enemy’s measure.
Oh, he meant to use Lady Cambourne and her associate, right up until they uncovered the remaining dagger. But there was no doubt in his mind that they were the enemy and not to be trusted beyond that.
When a person spent too much time near a thing of power, it called to them, drew them to it with silken cords, making it impossible to part with. Surely Lady Cambourne had already been in contact with the daggers long enough to realize they were more than simply interesting artifacts.
Perhaps her husband had even explained their true function before his tragic demise,
Malcolm mused as he pushed through the knots of people crowding the narrow streets around St. Paul’s. He’d learn more once he arranged for Lord Digory to be his unknowing shill for this morning’s outing.
The yeasty smell of bread and beer greeted Julianne’s nostrils as Jacob held open the door to the King’s Arms for her. The interior of the tavern was dim, the wooden benches and booths dark with age. Decades of soot stained the stone face of the massive fireplace along one wall. Nearly every seat was filled with rough-edged patrons hoisting pints or falling to their trenchers with gusto. Evidently, the quality of fare offered at the venerable establishment was beyond the common in both food and brew.
Curious eyes raked over her and she realized there were no other women in the tavern who weren’t wearing a serving apron. Several men nudged their neighbor with an elbow as she passed by. Julianne felt decidedly overdressed for the King’s Arms in her mauve merino wool skirt and bodice with its smart cream rosettes. She’d have caused less stir if she were still wearing the horrid black crepe of deep mourning. No one looked twice at a woman in widow’s weeds.
She gave herself a stern mental shake. When did she ever fear making an entrance? She raised her chin and strode forward into the gloom.
Jacob steered her to an empty booth in the far corner and ordered shepherd’s pie and ale for them without consulting her. Julianne bristled a bit. She was his employer, not his companion. He ought to defer to her more. The serving girl deferred enough for all three of them, dimpling prettily when Jacob smiled at her. She scurried away to do his bidding with a saucy flip of her skirt.
Julianne scanned the sea of faces. There were burly, stub-nosed workmen, spindly shopkeepers and ink-stained clerks with scarves wound around their necks against the autumn chill. An odd assortment, but none of them looked as if they’d have a scholarly interest in a set of Druidic daggers.
Julianne imagined more than a few of the laborers would know how to handle one in a brawl, though.
“How will you be able to tell if there’s anyone here who—”
Jacob cut her off with a wave of his hand when the serving girl returned with frothy mugs in each hand.
“Pulled that meself, so’s it’d be fresh. Your pie’ll be up in a bit, sir. I do hope everything’s to your liking.” The girl leaned forward, offering him a long look down her low bodice. As an afterthought, she tossed a glance at Julianne. “Yours too, ma’am.”
Julianne decided the girl was fetching in a speckled pup sort of way. And as annoying as one who’d just piddled on the floor.
“Thank you, m’dear, but you should address her as ‘milady, ’” Jacob said. “This is the Countess of Cambourne.”
The girl’s eyes widened and she dropped a quick curtsey. “Begging yer pardon, milady. We don’t generally get no quality folk in here, except some o’ them Dru—” She stopped herself by worrying her bottom lip.
Julianne smiled thinly at her.
Jacob leaned toward the girl confidingly. “Were you about to say Druids?”
The girl cast a quick glance toward the tavern’s owner and nodded. Then her gaze dropped, as if she wished to guard her thoughts. “Yes, sir, I was about to say ... them.”
“In that case, I’m wondering if you could help us with something.”
“O’ course, guv. Anything,” she gushed, obviously hoping for a change of topic.
The chit’s expression turned positively puddingheaded. By her breathy “anything,” Julianne suspected the girl really meant she was ready to bear Jacob’s children.
“So it’s true that the Druid Order frequents this fine establishment from time to time?” Jacob said.
“Aye.” The wary look was back, like a doe sensing menace in the thicket, but not quite able to identify its source. “It’s not their regular day, ye understand.”
“No, I suppose not, but I’m wanting to make their acquaintance,” Jacob said. “Do any of the members drop by at other times?”
The girl shrugged and then nodded. “When they take a notion.”
He laid a coin on the table. “If any come in while we’re here, if you could point me in their direction, there’s another guinea in it for you.”
She scooped up the coin, her cornflower blue eyes glinting with renewed interest. Her broad smile returned. Clearly whatever trepidation she felt over the Druids’ occasional presence could be overcome with the right amount of money. “If I see any of those gents, I’ll be sure to tip ye the eye.”
Jacob’s gaze followed her for a moment as she flounced away.
“That’s not all she’ll tip you,” Julianne said, irritated that the thought of Mr. Preston tumbling a barmaid made her feel so waspish.
“But it’ll do for the present,” Jacob said with a wicked grin as he hefted his pint. “To the success of our endeavor, milady.”
Julianne clinked her mug with his. “To our
timely
success.” The note her anonymous buyer had left for her at her inn was unequivocal. The deadline for delivering the six daggers was set in stone.
But that wasn’t the only thing she found troublesome about the note. The fact that it came to the Golden Cockerel for her at all, and within only a few hours of her arrival in London, meant someone was aware of her movements. She glanced around the common room again. She didn’t catch anyone at it, but she couldn’t get over the sensation that someone was watching her.
She decided to return the favor, marking each newcomer who pushed through the front door. After a few minutes, a pair of gentlemen who stood out from the normal clientele entered the tavern.
The shorter one was dressed in a fashionable walking suit, though the horizontal stripes on his gray trousers did nothing to add the illusion of more height. However, the felted beaver top hat more than made up for that oversight. The little fellow seemed to be arguing with his more imposing associate, gesticulating wildly as he spoke.

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