Most Eagerly Yours (44 page)

Several factors had contributed to that happy circumstance. First, ever since sending Laurel on her fact-finding mission to Bath, Queen Victoria had seen to it that the Sutherlands had everything they needed, including weekly deliveries of the finest food to fill their cupboards. The queen had also let slip to several key individuals word of a charming little bookshop she’d once visited in Knightsbridge. Ever since, the bell above the door had tinkled nonstop, until Ivy had grown so weary of the sound she had finally torn the bell from the ceiling.

Then there was the most fortuitous change of all: Laurel’s recent marriage to the dashing and quite wealthy Earl of Barensforth. Despite rumors to the contrary, Ivy’s new brother-in-law had proved to be a kindhearted gentleman who insisted that his wife’s sisters no longer needed to earn their own living; indeed, they were welcome to take up residence in any of his lavish homes.

But the Sutherland sisters had spent their lives tucked away on a country estate, and they had no intention of relinquishing their newfound independence now. They had developed a true fondness for their Readers’ Emporium and took pride in its success. Even Laurel still enjoyed spending occasional afternoons sorting through books and helping customers with their selections. Her new society friends thought it eccentric, but rather charming.

At present, however, she and Aidan were away in France. Talk about Laurel hadn’t stopped at her penchant for shopkeeping. Her ambiguous family background and supposed widowhood had fueled a wealth of speculation when she and Aidan married, and they had decided that taking an extended trip abroad would be just the thing to stifle the gossip.

“Will there be anything else tonight, miss?”

Mrs. Eddelson, the Sutherlands’ new housekeeper, waddled downstairs from the living quarters above, puffs of exertion escaping her lips with each thump of her wide feet on the steps. As part of the compromise that allowed the girls to remain in their London home, Aidan had hired Mrs. Eddelson to look after them. The woman lived in the tiny rooms on the third floor of the house with
Mr.
Eddelson, who served as their driver and man-of-all-work, but who looked to Ivy like the sort of man who should be guarding the door of a gambling hell.

“I have locked up for the night,” Ivy said. “You go on up to bed now, Mrs. Eddelson. When Mr. Eddelson arrives home with the girls, I’ll let him know him you’ve retired.”

Perched on her stool again, Ivy picked up the morning edition of the
Times
. She had not found a moment to read it that day. As she scanned the headlines, her eyes were immediately drawn to the lead story.

What was
this
? A priceless jewel stolen from Buckingham Palace? No leads as to who or why, or where the piece might be now . . .

Ivy slapped the paper down in astonishment. Well, if anyone could recover the stolen property, it would be Laurel and Aidan. But they were not due home for weeks yet.

At a knock on the door, she started. It was far too early for Holly and Willow to be home. Who could possibly be seeking books at this time of night? Peeking round the edge of the window shade, she received a shock of surprise.

Quickly she drew the latchkey from her apron pocket and unlocked the door. A figure draped from head to toe in thick black wool hurried inside, drew back her hood, and grasped Ivy’s hands in her own plump ones.

“Something dreadful has happened.”

“I know,” Ivy said. She pointed to the newspaper angled across the countertop. “I just read about it.”

“My dear, there is more to the story than the papers—or anyone, for that matter—knows. Please, Ivy, I need your help. May I count on you?”

Ivy didn’t hesitate. Smiling down into the queen’s somber dark eyes, she said, “I am your friend and servant, Your Majesty, happily and most assuredly so.”

 

I
vy Sutherland slapped the edition of the
Times
onto the counter in front of her. Her shocked gaze darted over the books lining the walls of her family’s tiny shop. Had she read correctly? She snatched up the paper again, rereading the headline: PRICELESS JEWEL STOLEN FROM BUCKINGHAM PALACE.

Her eyes skimmed over phrases such as “without a trace,” “no clues,” and “queen distraught.”

The rap of knuckles against the shop door made her flinch. She had locked up not ten minutes ago, shortly after her two sisters, who helped her run the Knightsbridge Readers’ Emporium, left for the opening of a new play across town. Ivy hesitated. Ever since her eldest sister, Laurel, had returned from Bath last spring, there had been changes in the Sutherlands’ lives. Laurel’s new husband, the Earl of Barensforth, saw to it that his three sisters-in-law enjoyed heretofore unattainable luxuries such as plays, new frocks, and more books than Ivy could ever hope to read.

There had been other changes, too, such as a pair of servants, the Eddelsons, who lived in the third floor garret. With his once-broken nose and tree trunk of a neck, Mr. Eddelson seemed, in Ivy’s estimatation, to be more suited for prowling London’s back alleys than for carrying in deliveries and driving the sisters about town in their shiny new phaeton.

Then, there was that morning not long ago when Ivy had spied Mrs. Eddelson sharpening the kitchen knives in their tiny rear garden. As Ivy had watched, the woman had cast a circumspect glance over her shoulder before grinning and sending the meat cleaver sailing end over end to sink some two inches into the trunk of the stunted birch growing in the corner.

It hadn’t taken Ivy long to conclude that their brother-in-law’s precautionary measures stemmed from more than mere prudence. Something had happened during Laurel’s adventures in Bath to warrant stringent safety measures—such as never opening the door to strangers at night.

Another knock resounded, louder and more insistent than the first. Slipping off her stool, Ivy went to the window and peeked through the gap in the curtains. A coach and four of the finest quality stood at the curbside. No identifiable crest adorned its sleek panels. The plain livery of the three attending footmen gave no clue as to the individual they served.

No clue, that was, to anyone but the Sutherland sisters, who had seen this coach before. Recognition rushed through Ivy. With a gasp, she hurried to the door and turned the key.

A figure draped from head to toe in black wool stepped over the threshold. “Quickly, shut the door!”

Once Ivy had complied, a pair of softly plump hands flipped back the cloak’s hood and then reached for Ivy’s own hands. “Something dreadful has happened.”

“I know.” Ivy pointed to the newspaper angled across the countertop. “I just read about it.”

“Yes, well, there is more to the story than the papers, or anyone for that matter, knows. Please, Ivy, I need your help. Can I count on you?”

Ivy gazed down into the dark solemn eyes and sweet features of England’s nineteen-year-old queen and smiled. “I am your servant, Your Majesty. Now please, dearest, come up to the parlor and tell me everything.”

 

The hired barouche jostled laboriously along the weather-pitted highway north of Cambridge. Inside, the single passenger—dusty, hungry, and exhausted from the two-day journey from London—entertained grave doubts about the rash decision that had brought her here.

Lady Gwendolyn de Burgh had done a very,
very
bad thing, and now she didn’t know how to set about making it right. It hadn’t seemed so terrible when the idea to take the queen’s stone had first occurred to her. It was really nothing but a rock, after all—not shiny and faceted and richly hued, but a jagged, granitelike hunk speckled with bits of silver. Other than the odd, tingling energy that emanated from its surface, there was hardly anything remarkable to be said for Her Majesty’s stone.

Except that it had been a gift from that German gentleman, the one the queen strictly forbade her ladies-in-waiting from mentioning outside the private royal chambers. That man, Albert, believed the stone held special properties—electromagnetism, the queen had said—which was what had prompted Gwendolyn to steal—
borrow
—the stone in the first place.

Gwendolyn’s gaze fell to the ornate box on her lap. Even through the carved wood, with its inlaid design of jade and ivory, she thought she perceived a faint vibration beneath her fingertips. Or did the sensation originate from her jangling nerves?

In the distance, beyond the flat, boggy fens streaming past the carriage window, a lingering splash of sunlight turned Cambridge University’s highest towers to amber. As the vehicle rambled farther away from the city, a box hedge sprang up along the roadside, replaced all too soon by familiar high stone walls topped by lethal-looking spikes and a wrought-iron railing.

Gwendolyn was almost home.

With a rap on the carriage ceiling, she called out, “Stop here.”

Here
was the base of the curving drive that snaked through a heavy growth of oak and pine planted nearly a hundred years ago by the first Marquess of Harrow. That the iron gates stood open did not make the shadowed entrance of Harrowood any more welcoming. Clinging to the safety of the open road, Gwendolyn hesitated before ordering the coachman to turn in. Would the present marquess, her brother, welcome her back after all these months?

A chill of doubt crept across her shoulders as the last of the sunlight slipped away, plunging the road into sudden darkness. The box on her lap seemed to give off a cautionary tremor.

Above the trees, a fiery burst of light illuminated the house’s sloping rooftops. Gwendolyn gasped. From Harrowood’s central turret, an angry conflagration of sparks shot upward. The carriage jolted as the pair of grays whickered and tugged at their traces. In the stillness that followed, a crack like thunder echoed down the drive, rousing a flock of black birds from their nests; in a panicked flurry they scattered across the twilit sky.

“Ma’am?” The coachman’s voice rose an octave and caught.

This was a mistake, Gwendolyn concluded, a foolish, dreadful, ill-advised mistake. Now what? A new idea occurred to her, a better, safer plan.

“Drive on,” she cried as another flash lit the night sky.

 

Simon de Burgh, Marquess of Harrow, cursed the cinders that showered back down into his laboratory through the turret’s open skylight. With an exasperated sigh, he seized the woolen blanket from the table behind him and smothered the tiny flames dancing among his equipment. Then he moved through the room, stamping out each glowing ember to prevent the oak floor from catching fire.

Only when he was satisfied that flames no longer threatened his ancestral home did he pause to survey the damage to himself. His singed cuffs indicated the ruination of yet another shirt. His palm and fingertips stung as well. At least this time he smelled no burning hair, though his ears would undoubtedly ring for the next day or two.

Taking up the blanket again, he waved it up and down to clear the smoke from the circular room set high above Harrowood’s sprawling wings. Damn and double damn. He had been so certain that
this
time his calculations had been correct, that the current flowing from his electrical generator was at the proper level. He believed he had taken all the necessary precautions, made all the needed adjustments to negative and positive charges. He had recalibrated the force of the steam passing through the conducting coils and positioned the electromagnets with meticulous care.

But flipping the lever and releasing the energy that had accumulated in the steam duct had brought only flames, sparks, and dashed expectations. Cursing again, he crossed the room to the brandy he kept on the bookcase beside the southern window. The wide stone still offered a convenient perch. He loosened his neckcloth, propped up a booted foot, sipped the burning liquid, and considered.

Perhaps it was time he admitted defeat. Perhaps, as people continually said behind his back and occasionally to his face, he
had
been tilting at windmills in this laboratory of his.

But as the pungent spirits spread warmth through his veins and eased his smarting fingertips, the old tenacity surged back. Simon was far from ready to surrender, and he couldn’t deny a certain fondness for windmills, with their wide-open arms and their ability to harness one of nature’s greatest powers and tame it for practical use.

That was all he wished, really: to tame a natural force and put it to good use. But perhaps he couldn’t do it alone.

Alone.
How he had come to hate that word and the way it had redefined his life, his very identity. How he detested the sidelong glances of his acquaintances, their gentle queries into his welfare, and, worst of all, the pitying whispers they thought he couldn’t hear. How he dreaded waking to the deafening roar of those midnight silences that could not be filled because . . .

Because he was
alone
, and there was no longer anyone to talk to or reach for or hold.

With another generous draft he banished those and other pointless broodings. Life was what it was. His gaze drifted out the open window. From this vantage point, he could see clear across the open fenland to the cluster of lights twinkling in the city. Something closer caught his attention. Was that a coach speeding away down the road? Had someone passed his gates as the flames and sparks had shot up, or had they simply remembered that the Mad Marquess lived here, and urged their team to a gallop?

It didn’t matter; it was no concern of his. No, Simon knew what he needed to attain his goal. But he also knew that what he needed would not come easily if indeed it came at all.