Lily Lang (9 page)

He reached his office and pushed all thoughts of Miranda aside. He would need all his wits to deal with the man who waited for him. Turning the handle of the door, he pushed it open and stepped inside.

William Crockford, the operator of London’s other great gaming hall, had been pacing the length of the room. He now came to a stop and spun around.

He was a tall, thin, balding man, with a coarse, florid face strongly marked by the pox. His massive bulbous nose resembled nothing so much as a lump of cheese. Like Jason, he was dressed simply but expensively, though his signature white cravat contained its usual surplus of cambric. His gaze, as he peered across the room at Jason, was as shifty and suspicious as ever.

“Well, Blakewell?” he demanded in the slurred Cockney accent he had never bothered to conceal. “I don’t enjoy being summoned here like a damned servant.”

“Good evening, Mr. Crockford,” said Jason coolly. “Very good of you to call on me tonight. Won’t you have a seat?”

“Hrmph,” said Crockford, lowering his spare frame into one of the chairs by the fire.

“Cigar? Brandy?” inquired Jason, moving to the mantelpiece where he kept his decanter.

“Brandy’ll be fine,” said Crockford, and accepted the glass Jason handed to him. “Your Mr. Harvey said you had some sort of proposition for me.” He gave Jason a narrow, speculative look. “Thought about my offer, did you? Finally decided to sell this place to me? About time, I should think.”

“No,” said Jason shortly. “In fact, I wish to buy.”

“
Buy
?” repeated Crockford incredulously. “You wish to buy Crockford’s? Are you mad, sir? I would never sell.”

“Not Crockford’s, no,” said Jason, and explained what he wanted.

When Jason finished speaking, Crockford blinked in astonishment. “Ye want to do
what
?”

Jason regarded his rival impatiently. “You heard me,” he said.

“I see,” said Crockford, still looking utterly flabbergasted. “May I inquire as to why, sir?”

“You may not,” said Jason.

Crockford shrugged. “’Ave it yer way, then,” he said. “Don’t matter none to me, not if you’ll take it off my hands.”

“I most certainly will,” said Jason. “I will have Mr. Harvey complete the transaction as soon as possible.”

A crafty gleam now lit Crockford’s pale eyes. He leaned back in his chair and swirled his brandy glass.

“Not so fast, Mr. Blakewell,” he said. “We haven’t yet settled terms.”

Jason smiled at him coldly. “No terms, Mr. Crockford. Consider yourself fortunate you will be paid for those IOUs at all.” He rose to his feet and bowed to his old rival. “After all, the young man in question is not, as I understand, in the habit of paying his debts.”

At half past six the next morning, Miranda gave up on the effort to sleep, rose from bed and dressed. She had not heard Jason return to his suite the night before, and she wondered with rather more curiosity than was proper where he spent his nights now that she had commandeered his suite.

She once again made her way down to the hall beside the kitchens, where the staff members of Blakewell’s greeted her like an old friend and quickly ushered to a seat of honor at the head of the table. They had told her this huge, vaulted chamber with its massive oak table and constantly replenished cold buffet was a place of rest, where they could come whenever they had a spare moment to ease their aching feet and take a cup of tea.

Polly, the pert kitchen maid, slid into the seat besides Miranda, carrying a plate of ham and eggs.

“Morning, Miss Thornwood,” she said cheerfully as she ate her breakfast. “Will ye be helpin’ out in the kitchens again today?”

Miranda smiled at her. “If Monsieur Leblanc wishes it.”

“Oh, he’ll wish it all right,” said Polly. “It was right nice of ye, helpin’ out Harriet like that.”

Miranda shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I don’t have anything to do here, anyway. How’s your palm?”

Polly, who had accidentally picked up a hot bowl with her bare hand the day before, held it out and showed it to Miranda. “Not too bad, thank you.”

Miranda, well acquainted with burn wounds from tending to the kitchen maids of Thornwood, examined the blistered area carefully. “We’ll soak it in milk and honey again today,” she said. “And don’t use this hand to pick up anything heavy. It’ll irritate the skin.”

Polly grinned at her, showing the space between her two front teeth. “I’ll leave the heavy liftin’ to ye, Miss Thornwood.”

Miranda laughed. “We had better leave all the heavy lifting to Mr. Briggs, I think.”

Peter Briggs, the footman who so resembled a bullfrog, took one look at Polly and flushed scarlet. Polly gave him a bold wink, then turned back to Miranda.

“Is it true ye knew Mr. Blakewell when he was a lad?” she demanded.

Immediately, all other conversation at the table stopped. A dozen avid gazes fixed on Miranda. Disconcerted, she picked up her cup of tea and took a sip before saying cautiously, “Yes.”

“Truly?” demanded one of the footmen sitting at the other end of the table. “What was he like? Was ’e always such a cold-blooded blighter?”

“Ye mind yer language in front of Miss Thornwood, Daniel Pooley,” said Polly sharply.

“I was jist curious,” said Daniel, looking injured. “I meant no disrespect, Miss Thornwood.”

“Of course not, Mr. Pooley,” said Miranda, smiling at him. “As for Mr. Blakewell…” She trailed off, remembering the baby sparrow Jason had raised in a box in his room, his daily visits to play cards with old Mrs. Tilford, the housekeeper’s ancient and bedridden mother. “I suppose he’s changed a great deal.”

“What was he like?” demanded Polly. “I can’t think of him as a wee lad. Every time I try I just see ’im like he is now.” She frowned. “Only smaller, I guess.”

Miranda couldn’t repress a smile. “I assure you Mr. Blakewell was a boy once,” she said, and recounted, to the great hilarity of the assembled staff, the time he had let loose two dozen frogs in the carriage of a certain Mrs. Finchly.

This very dignified and obese lady had called to criticize Miranda for not only running, but running barefoot
and
bareheaded, through the main thoroughfare of the village. Having delivered her lecture to a very sullen ten-year-old Miranda, whose hair had not been brushed in over a week, Mrs. Finchly finally departed. The carriage had barely rounded the first corner of the long drive when the door had flung open, ejecting the hysterical lady, now shrieking like a choleric piglet and covered in frogs. Afterward, Jason had been found doubled over and overcome with laughter in a rose bush behind the stables.

As for Mrs. Finchly, Miranda concluded gravely, she had never again dared set foot on Thornwood land.

“I don’t believe it!” declared one of the smaller hall boys, who evidently worshipped Jason and would brook no such undignified tales about his hero. “Mr. Blakewell would
never
put frogs in a lady’s carriage!”

This provoked a flurry of discussion about Mr. Blakewell’s disposition and whether or not he was capable of playing practical jokes. The staff all agreed it was very unlikely.

Mr. Blakewell did not
play
at anything, Briggs explained to Miranda. Mr. Blakewell simply won. Always
.
At dice, at cards, at the Newcastle races.
He had long ago exchanged an abacus for his heart, while his brain appeared to be largely filled with a sort of Domesday Book in which he recorded the whole financial history of the great English families and which he consulted whenever he was in a foul mood and wished to ruin someone.

“And I ain’t never seen Mr. Blakewell laugh,” Daniel Pooley concluded, as though this were an irrefutable argument against the veracity of Miranda’s story. “Never. Even when he finds something funny, his mouth kind of goes up, but he don’t laugh.”

Miranda looked down at the hands she had folded in her lap. It hurt, unexpectedly, to know that Jason, who had laughed so often with her, never laughed anymore.

“But he is good to you?” she asked, looking around at the faces assembled around her.

On this score at least the response was swift, enthusiastic and universal.

“He’s the best
I
ever worked for,” declared Polly. “After all, looked what ’e did fer poor Bruno. Sendin’ him that great big hamper because his wife broke her leg.”

There was a chorus of assents. Mr. Blakewell might not know how to laugh, but he was, one and all of the staff members agreed, the best and most generous of masters.

Late that afternoon, Jason was sitting at his desk when a firm knock sounded on the door.

“Enter,” he said, looking up as the door swung open, admitting John Martin, one of the men he had sent to Hertfordshire. He had asked Martin to return as soon as they concluded their investigations, allowing the others to travel on to Middlesex to find William and convey him to his estate in Buckinghamshire.

“You’re back,” he said. “Excellent. Come in.”

As Martin removed his hat and cloak and sat in a chair on the opposite side of the desk, Jason poured the man a glass of brandy. Martin grunted his thanks. He had clearly not washed before coming to see his employer, but Jason didn’t care. He wanted to know what the man had to tell him, and a general lack of hygiene and cleanliness would not affect his report.

When Martin had drained the glass, he let out a long sigh.

“Thank ye kindly, sir,” he said. “That just ’bout hit the spot.”

“Would you like more?”

“No, thank ye. Not now.”

Jason nodded. Martin, though not a staff member of the club, had been in Jason’s employ for over seven years and was one of his most trusted men. Jason had been in the habit of employing men such as Martin from his earliest days as the operator of a gambling establishment, finding it useful to have spies capable of investigating the finances of his clientele, business partners and associates.

“Tell me everything you’ve learned,” said Jason.

Martin nodded, launching into a detailed if grammatically incorrect account of the current goings-on at Thornwood. When the man had given his full report, Jason thanked him, gave him an extra gold guinea and dismissed him.

For a while he contemplated what Martin had told him. Then he rose to his feet and set out in search for Miranda. He found her, as he had expected, in the kitchen, showing Monsieur Leblanc how to bake one of Cook’s mouthwatering cream-filled pastries.

For a moment Jason stood without moving in the doorway, watching her. She wore the same massive apron she had worn the day before, and she had a streak of flour running across her face. Every now and then she raised a hand to her face, brushing aside a loose strand of hair. She laughed as she explained something to Monsieur Leblanc, who looked deeply intrigued.

When the pastries were safely in the oven, Jason made his presence known.

“Miss Thornwood,” he said. “If I may speak to you for a moment. In private?”

She whirled around, looking startled. “Mr. Blakewell!” she said. Her face flushed faintly, and she wiped her floury hands on her apron. “Yes, of course, sir.”

She removed the apron, revealing the same prim gray gown she had worn yesterday.

He scowled at her. “I explicitly asked Madame Beaumont to make you a variety of gowns,” he said. “Have they not yet been delivered?”

“I only permitted Madame Beaumont to fit me for one dress, thank you,” she said. “This is perfectly sufficient.”

He frowned, but said nothing. When they had reached his study, Jason shut the door behind them and took his place behind his desk. If he was to be alone with her, it seemed safer to have a large slab of oak between them.

“One of my men has returned from Hertfordshire,” he said.

She leaned forward eagerly, and the light fell full across her face. In the two days since she had been at Blakewell’s, she already looked far healthier than she had that first night. Her skin glowed; the hair slipping from its knot was lustrous.

“Yes?” she asked. “What did he say? Did he see my brother?”

“I asked Martin to return as soon as their investigations in Hertfordshire were complete so he could give me his report first,” said Jason. “The rest of men, who were to escort your brother to Buckinghamshire, have not yet returned.”

“Yes, of course, I understand,” said Miranda, though she gave a small sigh and her gaze dropped to the hands folded in her lap.

“Apparently,” said Jason, “your aunt is giving it about that your brother is volatile and dangerous, liable to murder someone at the drop of a hat. She has all of Hertfordshire and several of the surrounding counties up in arms about the matter.”

Miranda looked up at him, her dark eyes flashing.

“Nonsense,” she said. “William is not in the least volatile or dangerous. I told you he was provoked the night he accidentally killed Uncle William.”

Jason regarded her for another long moment.

“Then perhaps you had better explain to me again,” he said, “why William hit your uncle with that poker.”

He watched as she hesitated, obviously deciding whether or not to tell him the truth.