Barbara Metzger (21 page)

"No one'll talk much to a Redbreast there, m'lord, so gathering information ain't so easy. Still, my man says no one answers his knock when Mason ain't there, and no one calls on him when he is. Solitary kind of bloke. Happens my fellow would have accidental-like found the door open, to have a look-see, but the man has three or four locks on his door. The landlord swears he ain't got the keys. Suspicious, I'd say."

"Deuced suspicious. I'd give a monkey to know what's in that room."

"For five hundred pounds, I'm sure we can get us a warrant. A'course, we ain't got nothing to charge the blighter with."

Lesley agreed they ought to wait a bit before taking such a drastic step as calling in a squad of officers. The Runners were as liable to be injured by the neighbors as they were to find anything incriminating.

Nesbitt nipped another page. “In the pub they're saying how Mason's drinking heavier than normal, on account of the Parkhurst sprig. Don't improve his personality any, it seems. Staff is leaving like rats deserting a ship, between Mason's temper and young Parkhurst half the time not paying their wages. A regular Johnny Raw, that one, gambling away the blunt as fast as he can get it from the bank. And drinking hisself to death, if one of his bone-crunchers don't break his fool neck for him first."

Lesley wondered who would get the house then. Not Carissa, so the unprepossessing heir could go to hell in a handcart for all he cared. “About that other matter?” he prompted, eager to get out into the fresh air.

"The war records?” Nesbitt shuffled his papers some more. “Aye, here we go. There ain't any."

"What, no Phillip Kane on the casualty lists? The War Office is notoriously haphazard about its reporting, but there should be some record."

"Not on the casualty lists, not on the regimental rosters for the years you gave us. A'course, not every common soldier had his name spelled right, but you did say as how Kane was an officer, didn't you?"

"From the braid on his uniform in the miniature portrait, yes. And my godmother recalled the gossip of the time naming him lieutenant."

"Aye, that's what I thought. Something havey-cavey there, so I set my man to a bit more digging. Had to part with more of your lordship's brass for access to the records."

Lesley waved away such minor concerns. “What did he find?"

"Well, nothing I'd swear to, but there was a Phillip Cantwell on the deserters list from about six years ago."

"A deserter?” He whistled. “But that was before Mrs. Kane wed him. She couldn't have known. She'd never have married a turncoat."

"No one could of known, what with him using another name, if Cantwell was Kane, in truth. You say you saw his likeness, eh? Happens the army puts out a description of its deserters, with a reward. Cantwell'd be about thirty now, medium build, medium brown hair. Just like you said the picture had. What color eyes did you say?"

"Hazel,” Lesley promptly recalled, thinking that Pippa's brown eyes were just like her mother's, nothing like her father's.

"Says greenish here. Seems like a match to me. Too bad Mrs. Kane's a widow. The army'd still pay to get their hands on the dastard."

Lord Hartleigh was considering if Carissa had first found out that her husband was a deserter when she went to the army seeking a widow's pension after the craven died. Perhaps that was why she was so reluctant to speak of him, and why she was too ashamed to marry again. Damn, Pippa's father had been a coward.

Nesbitt poked at the bowl of his pipe with a nail, to get it going better. Lesley coughed, brought back to the matter at hand.

"What about the man I had you look for? I wouldn't be surprised if he was Cantwell's brother or something, come to extort money to keep mum about the bounder."

"Aye, you did say as how he ‘peared sandy-haired and average height. No way of knowing, a'course, till we find the chap. But here's something else what I find interesting.” Nesbitt found the appropriate paper and smoothed it on his desk, brushing ashes away. “I went to see the solicitor fellow, that Nigel Gordon, myself. Went to his room in Hans Town. Thought he might be willing to talk about that will you're so anxious to find if I invited him to take a wet with me, friendly-like, don't you know. He weren't there."

"That's not so surprising. The man likely came into a nice bit of change from Parkhurst and Mason. He was out spending it, I'd wager."

"I would've thought so m'self, but a fellow don't go off and leave his purse on the dresser. The landlady opened the door for me, you see, when I told her I was needing a will drawn up, quick-like, and wanted to leave the lawyer a message to call."

And Nesbitt had undoubtedly bribed the woman with more of Lesley's money, but he did not care. “And he hasn't been back?” he asked, knowing that the inspector was too thorough to leave such a stone unturned.

"Landlady ain't seen hide nor hair of him, and was helping herself to the rent money from his wallet. Only fair, I s'pose. Anyways, I took myself over to his office, an upstairs cubby over a print shop off Bond Street. The door was open."

Lesley wasn't surprised, he only wondered how much it was costing him. “And?"

"And Gordon wasn't there, but someone had been. The place was fair ransacked, papers everywhere, file drawers dumped out.” The inspector tidied his own neat stacks. “Someone were looking for something real bad. Couldn't tell if they found it."

"There's no way of knowing if that has anything to do with Sir Gilliam's will, though. It tells us nothing."

"No, excepting here's where it gets interesting. I spoke to the clerk at the print shop and he hadn't seen Gordon since Monday, but on Wednesday a gent came calling. Asked Gordon's direction, he did. After the clerk said he didn't think Gordon was upstairs, the fellow allowed as how he'd leave a note. He was there long enough to write a book, but the clerk didn't think anything of it, till I showed him the office in shambles."

"And?” Lesley knew there was more.

"And the clerk remembered the caller had sandy hair, average height, and brownish-green eyes. Do you believe in coincidences, m'lord? I sure as Hades don't."

Lesley was more determined than ever to get Carissa to Hammond House. Who knew if the man who'd accosted her in the alley had done away with Gordon, or if he'd be back for more money, more threats? She was too vulnerable in Kensington. Now all he had to do was convince her to go, without intimidating her or frightening her.

Mice ought to do the trick.

"There are no mice in this house!” Carissa insisted, trying to see behind the stove and under the sink at the same time. She shivered, as if tiny, scaly mice feet were running up her spine.

"Yes, there are. Cook told me she saw two this very morning."

Carissa looked over at the table, where Cook was making piecrusts. ‘Two of the plaguey beasts,” Cook agreed, as eager as the viscount to see Mrs. Kane returned to a proper way of life. “And their leavings in the flour."

"In the flour? That flour?” She might never eat one of Cook's pies again.

"Oh, I picked ‘em out. I didn't want to upset you with them."

"Perhaps Cleo could catch them?” Carissa sounded dubious even to her own ears. Cleo wouldn't know a mouse from a muffin; at least Carissa didn't think so.

"1 wouldn't want her to tangle with one of them,” the viscount told her. “London's vermin are more often rats, half the cat's size, I'd wager. No, we'll do better to call in the ratcatcher. He'll try ferrets first. Have you ever seen them working?"

More furry fiends, Carissa was thinking, that sent rodents rushing in all directions. Wriggly, weaselly nasties that crawled under a woman's skirts and up her legs and—And she was tempted to leap atop the kitchen table.

Lesley was going on: “If the ferrets don't work, the ratcatcher will lay poison. Cleo would have to be locked in a room somewhere. No, much better to take her away. I thought to have the house painted at the same time. What do you think?"

She thought the walls should have had a fresh coat five years ago, but that did not mean she thought they should all pick up and move to Hammond House. She'd pick up a paintbrush herself, rather than that. She'd pick up the ferret and dip its tail in the paint, rather than move to the viscount's grand house in Grosvenor Square. He was making it harder and harder to refuse, though.

"Paint fumes cannot be good for the children. They'd kill Aunt Mattie's canary for certain."

If the ferret or the rats didn't.

"Cook and Byrd will stay on here to oversee the workmen, to make sure the ferrets don't filch anything. Crafty little devils, don't you know. Most of the other servants you hired haven't been here long enough to earn paid vacations, and I'd hate to see them turned off if you and your aunt and the children put up at a hotel. If a decent inn would take you with the cat and the canary and Glad. I daren't leave Gladiator here where he might get into the poison."

Carissa agreed, but only because Glad wouldn't leave enough poison for the rats. The monstrous mongrel at a hotel? She could sooner imagine bald, barbaric Byrd butlering at Hammond House.

"And with the Season in midstride, I really do not wish to travel to Hart's Rest in Norfolk. No, it will have to be Hammond House."

"Pippa and I can go ... go...” For the life of her, Carissa could not think of one place they could go, not without eating into her hoarded savings.

"And Lady Mathilda?"

She couldn't throw Aunt Mattie to the wolves, or the rodents. “But you cannot need a housekeeper there, my lord. We'll do better in a cottage somewhere, as I said."

"And I said I did not have time to find a suitable location. Besides, I am not asking you to work there. You'd be a guest, with no duties except for ensuring the children get all the care they need. You deserve the holiday after the wonders you've accomplished here. Oh, but my godmother might call on your assistance now and again, with her correspondence and such."

Now, that sounded more promising. Carissa had never considered becoming an old lady's companion because she doubted any would tolerate Pippa, but if his godmother took a liking to her daughter...

Then she remembered the perfect excuse for not taking up residence at the viscount's family home: the viscount's family. “You are forgetting Lady Hartleigh, my lord."

"I only wish I could,” he muttered, but spoke up to say, “Agatha's health is uncertain, so she and her companions are leaving for Bath. Perhaps the waters there will improve her constitution.” Or drown her.

The only uncertain thing about that woman's health, Carissa thought, was how she'd lived so long without being throttled. But if Lady Hartleigh was gone, so was her last chance of avoiding the move.

"Are you sure there are no mice at Hammond House?"

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Were all men so stupidly stubborn? Were they born that way, or had a lifetime of authority made them think themselves invincible? Carissa had thought her father was intractable, but here was Lord Hartleigh, insisting she do precisely what she least wanted, because
he
decided she should be recognized by Society.

He was calling in every favor owed him, it seemed, to get her accepted, approved, even acclaimed for sacrificing herself for her daughter's sake. The retiring old lady Carissa had thought she was companioning turned out to be one of the leading doyennes of the Polite World. The viscount's godmother would be no less than a duchess, of course. And the few letters Mrs. Kane was supposed to be assisting with turned out to be hundreds of invitations to dinners, teas, and musicales—to introduce Carissa to the duchess's wide and lofty circle. If it wasn't miracle enough that anyone accepted the politely worded summonses, Her Grace of Castleberry had managed to convince Carissa's father to make her an allowance and to hand over a chest of her mother's jewelry. Macclesfield did not come in person—he wouldn't make that much of a concession—but he had added a note that Carissa's dressmaker's bills, modest ones, mind, should be sent to him. It wasn't seemly, he'd been persuaded in an uncomfortable interview with the duchess, for the viscount to be buying her shifts and stockings. It was seemly enough for her to starve, Carissa fumed, all the way to Bond Street to buy new wardrobes for herself, Pippa, and Aunt Mattie. Carissa did not suffer the least prick of conscience at spending the earl's money since she considered the expenditure to be her dowry that had never been paid out.

The earl's purse was one thing; the viscount's plotting was another. Carissa wanted to tell Lesley that his efforts would be in vain, that he should be looking about himself for a kind-hearted woman who would not mind mothering another female's child, a woman from his own class, of impeccable reputation. Since Sue would not be cutting the rightful heir out of the succession or making the least dent in Hartleigh's deep coffers, many a wellborn miss would accept the baby if that was the price of a title and fortune. And how could anyone not love Sweet Sue? Or her father?

Carissa wanted to tell the viscount to stop thinking of her as that woman, to stop pushing her where she did not belong. He'd only be disappointed, although his suffering would not be deep inside, where Carissa was aching. No, he'd be displeased, not devastated, to lose the mother he'd chosen for his child. Lord Hartleigh would not miss Carissa for any other reason, for he did not want her for any other purpose. That was a fact Carissa could not forget. Neither could she ever feel attractive or desirable again, no matter how many new gowns she had.

She wanted to tell him about Phillip so he would give up and let her go away before she was hurt worse, as she knew she'd be. But she never got the chance. Dress fittings and shopping took up hours of her time; socializing with the duchess's friends took up more, all to prove she was a well-behaved, proper female. It was not proper, the duchess informed her, for Carissa to be alone with Lord Hartleigh. She wanted no hint of misconduct, no tales for disloyal servants to carry. Therefore there were no private interviews. Aunt Mattie or the duchess was at Carissa's side, or Lesley was out of the house. She took tea with the dowagers; he took himself to White's. She was with the children; he was with his friends, for the duchess did not consider two youngsters, a nursemaid, and a footman adequate chaperonage. In fact, she decreed, any semblance of appearing to be a family was to be thoroughly discouraged. Even Pippa understood that was why Lord Hartleigh didn't take them riding anymore, having absorbed Her Grace's dictates.