A Dangerous Madness (23 page)

She wanted to press back against him, but forced herself to take her seat.

When he’d closed the door, he didn’t take his.

Uncaring of his trousers on the filthy floor, he crouched down in front of her and steadied himself with his hands on her shoulders.

“I didn’t think it would be so hard not to touch you.” His eyes crinkled in the corners. “I think I’m going to stop trying.” He leaned forward and brushed a light kiss over her lips, but before he could deepen it, he was thrown back against his own seat as the ancient coach lurched forward.

Sheldrake would have cursed the driver. He would have had a tantrum that would have embarrassed her to watch, and then humiliated everyone who was associated with his own humiliation.

Wittaker grimaced as the small of his back made contact with the hard bench behind him. He pulled himself up, rubbing his back with a rueful look on his face. “I suppose I was the one who insisted on an old carriage. And the lads would have expected me to be sitting down, not worshipping at your feet.” He suddenly smiled at her. “Although I doubt they’d be surprised.”

She gaped at him. And in that moment felt the stomach-dropping, heart-pounding sensation of falling. She reached out both hands to the tatty inner walls of the carriage to steady herself.

But it was far too late.

Chapter Thirty-one

T
he idea there was a woman who held something of Bellingham’s that he didn’t want anyone to find was one that had stuck stubbornly with James since he’d read the hearing transcript. So it made sense to find out what they could at the tavern Bellingham had frequented, before going on to speak to the mysterious, money-giving Mr. Wilson. Legge’s Tavern was less than five minutes from Mrs. Robarts’s house.

They pulled up across the road from it, and James watched the customers come and go for a few minutes, getting a feel for the place.

It would have been just the establishment an aspiring and self-conscious man like Bellingham would have been comfortable visiting.

It was clearly prosperous, with the right look for the level of income and standing of the people living nearby, and perfectly acceptable as a place a husband and wife dressed as he and Phoebe were to have a small mid-morning meal.

As he held out his hand to help her from the carriage, James tried to work out what was going through her head.

Something had happened after his attempt to kiss her. She had gone very quiet, and he hoped she wasn’t having second thoughts about him. Being kissed in a dirty old carriage may not have been what she had in mind when she had offered to be his lover, but he’d thought she’d pressed back against him for a moment as they’d climbed into the carriage outside Mrs. Robarts’s house.

It had pushed him over the edge, and he’d been on his knees in front of her before he’d had a chance to think it through.

Now she put her hand into his, and gripped tight as she held her skirts to one side and negotiated the rickety carriage steps.

There was a blush on her cheeks, and to test her reaction, he did not move back as she took the final step, so she brushed up against him.

She leaned forward and, almost unwillingly, rubbed the soft skin of her cheek against his jaw, and took a deep breath, as if inhaling his scent.

Then she stepped around him, and stood waiting while he tried to move.

The most explicit strip tease at the bawdiest gaming hell he’d ever frequented could not touch the eroticism of the moment.

“You all right, Your Grace?” Jimmy jumped down from the driver’s bench, and James managed to pull himself together at the cheeky mischief in his footman’s eyes.

He turned without answering and Phoebe regarded him gravely.

“I didn’t think you’d let me accompany you to every place you intended to visit today,” she said, and linked her arm through his.

He slid his hand over hers, and felt her tremble. “Our next destination will be tricky. I won’t be able to take you with me into the coffee house where Mrs. Robarts said we could find Wilson.”

She acknowledged that with a nod. Coffee houses in general didn’t allow women, and certainly not ones like the Baltick, where trade and business were conducted.

He led the way forward, making sure his men were correctly in place. His driver sat quiet and half-slumped in his seat and up ahead, Jimmy strolled into the tavern. The other two footmen vanished amongst the crowds.

It was as safe as it could get.

They stepped into a warm, welcoming room that was clean and smelled of simple food made well.

“Apple pie,” Phoebe whispered in his ear, and he had to fight the shiver her warm breath caused.

Even though it was only mid-morning, the room was half-full, and a big, aproned man appeared and showed them to a small table near the window.

James saw Jimmy up against a long bar that ran down one side of the room, a mug of ale and a plate of something beside him. He was talking to a rosy-cheeked girl with a tray of ale mugs balanced on her hip.

“What can I get for you?” The publican looked harried.

They gave orders for a light meal and apple pie, and he nodded and turned from them almost immediately and went through a door at the back of the room.

The girl Jimmy had been talking to came over to ask them what they would like to drink.

“You seem more busy that usual today,” James said to her with an easy smile, laying the groundwork for questioning her a little later.

She nodded, looking them over a little more carefully, no doubt trying to remember when they might have come in before. “Margie is late, is all. She starts permanent today, but she hasn’t come yet.” There was a shout for her from the kitchen, and James ordered ale, Phoebe tea, and then she wound her way back between the tables to the bar, collecting empty ale mugs along the way.

There was silence between them for a moment, and then Phoebe began to fidget.

“What did Harmer think we’d come to talk to him about? In the beginning.” She asked the question in a rush of words.

James frowned. “Harmer?”

“Something about a delicate situation.” She blushed and laid her hands flat on the table, as if to stop them moving too much.

“Ah.” He’d forgotten about that. He lifted a finger and stroked across her knuckles. “He probably thought I was there to ask him to draw up a contract, although the women usually aren’t invited to that discussion. That’s most likely why he was so confused.”

“A contract?” She seemed genuinely puzzled.

“Between a man and his mistress. Laying out the terms of the agreement. What she can expect, what will be her due when the liaison is over. What will happen if a child is conceived.”

She frowned. “Men draw up contracts like that?”

James nodded. “Some do. It’s in the woman’s interests, as well, to know what provision will be made for her.”

“Have you?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never taken a mistress.” He would have had to keep up the appearance of the dissolute rake with a mistress, more than he was willing to in his private time, because when it was over, he couldn’t risk her telling the truth about him.

Phoebe lifted her head suddenly and their gazes clashed. Her cheeks were flushed. “You couldn’t let down your guard with them, could you? Until now.”

He covered her hand completely with his own. “What we have is not the same thing at all. You have agreed to be my lover, not my mistress.” Just thinking of her in those terms,
lover
, made him want to find a quiet room and a bed.

“I hadn’t thought of what would happen if I…” She forced herself to meet his gaze, and he could see it was an effort for her, delicately raised, polite young woman that she was. “I became with child.”

She was rethinking the whole thing. He watched it happen behind her eyes.

“There are ways around that.” He kept his voice light. She was too intelligent to be fobbed off, and he would have to make his true intentions known soon, or he risked her rejecting him completely.

She hesitated. “Why is it such a fear then? Why is it written into the contract?”

“Because—”

“Here you go.” The girl was back with their tea and ale, and both of them jolted at her sudden intrusion.

James suddenly wanted this side trip over as fast as possible. To have Phoebe alone in the carriage again so he could speak with her in private. “I hear the man who assassinated the prime minster, Bellingham, used to come here often. Did you know him?” He broached the topic earlier than he’d intended.

The girl glanced behind her, then leaned in closer. “Mr. Bob don’t like us to say anything ’bout that. Just in case it stirs up trouble. But yes, he were a regular. Took all his meals here. I didn’t serve him often, but once or twice I did.”

“I think I know who he was. Tall and dark-haired, well-dressed, the papers said? Didn’t I see a man like that here talking with one of the serving girls often as not.” James took a guess, based on her comment earlier about the missing serving girl. If he were wrong, there would be no harm done. If he were right…

The girl nodded. “That’d be Margie. Only part-time, she was then. Just coming to lend a hand during lunch, Mr. Bob said. Right handy it was, having her. But she did take a shine to Bellingham, all right. Always insisted on serving him. Thought she’d find herself a fancy-man, no doubt. Not that that got her far.”

There was another call for her from the bar, and she gave them a wink and swung off, hips swaying.

“Sounds like the woman we need to talk to isn’t in.” Phoebe started to remove her hand from under his, but he gripped it a little tighter.

“Or isn’t coming at all, now her part in the plot with Bellingham, whatever that was, is done.”

The publican was back, balancing their food with the food from at least one other table. He set the dishes down and James paid him so they could leave when they wanted to.

“I see Margie isn’t here today,” James said as he started to turn away.

“Oh.” The publican, like the serving maid, looked more closely at him, trying to recognise him. “Yes. You a friend?” He looked between them, his eyes taking in their well-cut clothes and rejecting the notion.

“No, just to talk to the few times we’ve come in here,” Phoebe spoke to him for the first time, and it seemed to put him more at ease.

“Well, if she’s much later, she won’t have no job here at all.” He turned away again, and James thought it useless to question him further. He was too busy and annoyed. They would have to leave Jimmy here, have him watch the place, find the mysterious Margie, and follow her home.

They ate the food served to them in silence, while the gentle hum of the tavern swirled around them.

A sense of goodwill and general ease settled over him, and James struggled for a few bites of apple pie to identify it. Despite the circumstances, despite everything, in the end, he decided on contentment.

* * *

The short walk from the tavern to the carriage felt like one of the longest Phoebe had ever taken.

Wittaker had not tried to speak to her about their liaison again, or address her concerns about falling pregnant, and she knew he had decided they needed more privacy for such a conversation.

She still didn’t know why she had raised the topic. It was as if her mouth was operating without her, in a desperate bid to divert his attention from the way her heart was chaining itself to him, a link at a time.

There was a flurry of activity to their right, and Phoebe noticed one of the footman step out from under the shaded awning of a nearby shop as a woman came hurtling through the crowd toward them.

But she veered toward the door of the tavern after a few steps, and Phoebe realized she must be the missing Margie.

The girl glanced their way before she crossed the street, watching for traffic, and Phoebe gripped Wittaker’s hand.

“I know that girl. Margie…yes, I think Jackson called her Margie. I never put the two together, but it’s her.”

Wittaker kept leading them to the carriage, but his head had turned and he watched the girl until she had disappeared through the doors.

“Where do you know her from?” He bent his head close to hers, lowering his voice.

“Sheldrake’s. She’s his scullery maid. I saw her this morning when I went to speak to the butler about helping them.”

Wittaker stopped, brows lifted. “You don’t say?”

Sheldrake was so involved in this, he’d been up to his neck, Phoebe realized. No wonder he’d run.

James helped her into the carriage, and waited for his men to join him. “The girl who just ran into the tavern, one of you needs to watch her, follow her when she leaves. But most likely she’ll be going back to Lord Sheldrake’s residence.”

“I wonder about that.” Phoebe leaned forward through the partly open door. “She seemed in trouble with the butler this morning, perhaps she’d just handed in her notice to come work here full time. She only has a day or two left at Sheldrake’s as it is, with the Wentworths due to move in soon. Jackson said they intended to keep the cook, himself and one maid, and were letting the rest go.

“If they’re expecting new masters, butler’d be right miffed if someone upped and left early, so everyone else had more work to do, gettin’ the place ready, an’ all.” Jimmy leaned against the carriage, keeping his eye on the door of the tavern.