No Place for a Dame (21 page)

“He might be one of Strand’s little rabbits,” Jameson mused, using the term that he’d coined for the boys who carried gossip and bits of overheard conversation.

They scurried about all strata of society, unnoticed and unremarked, their ears aquiver as they swept streets, emptied slops, sold nosegays, and bore the torches that lit dark streets. Later they would find people like Strand to whom they could sell all sorts of interesting information about
the people who used their services without realizing that even guttersnipes had ears and eyes and mouths.

Vedder shook his head. “Too old, and besides, I think he’s what he says he is: a scientist. At White’s, old Ned Coles asked him some sort of astronomical question and the boy spouted off the answer quick as a penny is lost in a faro game. No. I think he’s here for just the reason Strand claimed he was, to broker an invite to this star club. But there’s more to it than that.”

“So you keep repeating.” Jameson’s tone hadn’t modulated a bit, but Vedder could feel his impatience. “Pray make every attempt at elucidation.
Why
do you think this?”

Vedder wet his lips. If he were wrong, things could get worse for him, and they were bad enough as they were. He was on the rocks again, the creditors lining up outside his door, damn their impertinence.

“I swear there is more history between Strand and this Avery Quinn than can be accounted for in a few weeks’ time, a familiarity that is not altogether comfortable. Perhaps a bit, well, strained.”

He had Jameson’s full attention now. “Strained. What do you imagine is at the root of this strain?”

“I don’t know. Douphton thinks Strand has predatory designs on the young man.” He laughed to show how ridiculous he considered this suggestion.

Jameson did not laugh. His eyes narrowed to slits, all but hidden beneath the heavy overhang of his lids. His fingers drummed lightly atop the map. “You don’t think so.”

“Patently absurd.” Vedder did not want Strand coming after his head should such rumors find their way to him. One never knew what information Jameson might leak, nor when and certainly never why. “Never heard so much as a whisper in that direction. Not even the shadow of a whisper.”

“And you would know.”

“I appreciate a catholic variety of acquaintances,” Vedder allowed. “I believe I would have heard had there been any suggestion of such, yes.”

“But you can’t be certain.”

Of course, Jameson would like Strand to be a madge cull. Then he could bring him to heel with hardly any effort at all and finally find a worthy replacement for Jack Seward.

“No,” Vedder agreed. “I can’t be sure. But even if Strand were so disposed, the boy’s formed like a misshapen dumpling and with the same
complexion: pasty and soft. Strand’s mistresses have always been prime pieces. Can’t imagine that developing a predilection for young men would affect one’s eyesight.”

“That’s because you think every sexual encounter fulfills the same need. Different desires require different partners.”

Vedder shivered, not because Jameson had said anything he did not already know—he understood the varied compulsions to which men were subject—but because of the gloating in Jameson’s pronouncement. Jameson was relishing the idea of all the useful men out there whose weaknesses were just waiting to be exploited.

“I don’t think so,” he repeated.

Mild disappointment flickered across Jameson’s face before he raised his hand, flicking his fingertips invitingly. “Then, by all means, tell me your theory.”

“I think the boy saw or heard something in Ghent and is canny enough—Lord knows, he seems smart as a whip—to realize that Strand doesn’t want him talking to anyone about it. I suspect he’s offered Strand quid pro quo: Strand uses his influence to get him into that astronomical society and Quinn stays dutifully mute under Strand’s watchful gaze.”

“You think this dumpling of a boy is
blackmailing
the Marquess of Strand?” Incredulity filled Jameson’s voice.

“No. Of course not. Strand would squash him like the bulbous little fly he resembles. No, I think it’s subtler than that. An agreement made and met. But it’s clearly caused friction. Strand was furious when the boy showed up with Demsforth’s halfwit cub this afternoon. My theory accounts for both his ire and the boy’s sudden appearance. At least, it is a better tale than the one Strand used to explain his sudden interest in acquiring a protégé.”

“And what was that?”

“Something about his mother wanting him to have a higher purpose. In other men I might accept it, but I’ve known Strand a long time. He’s never mentioned his mother before. I’d actually thought she was dead.”

Jameson leaned over the table, his deep-set eyes as fathomless as awl holes in his elegant old head. “Do you think this boy knows where Jack Seward is?”

The slightest tremble had entered Jameson’s voice, a violin string still quivering after the bow had been drawn. There was also a fervor in his face Vedder had never seen before. Frankly, it frightened him.

He recalled the king cobra his uncle had brought home from India. It had looked dangerous enough just lying in the sun in its cage. But then his father had put a rat into the enclosure. The snake had come to sudden, stunning alertness, rising up and spreading cape-like flanges wide on either side of its head. From dangerous to lethal. Vedder felt a sense of recognition; Jameson had become lethal.

“No,” Vedder said. “If his knowledge had been that specific, Strand would have had him silenced.”

Even now, even after all the things he’d done, it still surprised Vedder that he knew men who “silenced” people simply because of what they had seen or heard. It surprised him even more that he had become one of them. But he wasn’t going to think about that now. “I suspect rather that he
might
know something that would lead to them.”

Jameson thought a moment then shook his head, his frustration and disappointment manifest. Vedder watched him warily. This was not the same man who’d enlisted Vedder’s “occasional help” some years back. Jameson had never before allowed anyone a glimpse into his emotions.

“So, you believe that Strand brought the boy to London, arranged for his nomination into the Royal Astrological Society, and is keeping him under his thumb so that he will not unintentionally let slip a piece of information he may or may not be aware he possesses?”

“Yes.”

Vedder sank back in his chair, his lips thinning with derision. “And how long do you think he intends to keep the boy around? A year? Two? Perhaps he’ll adopt him.”

His words startled Vedder. Sir Jameson never mocked. He considered it coarse and unmannerly.

“Sir, if I may pose a theory?” he asked carefully, recalling that when the cobra had finally struck its prey, the rat had been scrambling futilely, trying to climb sheer glass in its terror to get away. Vedder had always thought the cobra had struck not out of hunger but out of simple irritation. Jameson might destroy him for no other reason than that he was irritated.

“By all means.”

“It is my belief that whatever the boy knows is time sensitive. I heard Strand say to him, ‘a few weeks and this will done.’ I hypothesize that wherever Seward is, he will not be there in a few weeks’ time and it will not matter then what the boy says or does.”

For long moments Jameson said nothing, his gaze fixed on the map of England on his desk. Little pins with various colored flags dotted the coastline, a cluster over Brighton.

“He’s somewhere,” Jameson whispered. “And Strand will tell me where. By God, he will.”

Vedder did not ask him what he meant. He did not want to know.

Chapter Twenty-One

B
y the time the dinner hour had arrived, Avery had worked herself into what Mrs. Bedling would have recognized as “a fine fettle.” The magnitude of Giles’s shabby behavior that afternoon had grown with each passing hour, until she had gone from feeling hurt to furious. When Travers announced that Lord Strand would be dining in and requested the pleasure of her company, she sniffed and quite seriously considered declining the invitation.

But that would mean she would forfeit the opportunity to put a large and noisome bug in his ear and that, she decided, was a pleasure she could not quite deny herself.

So, it was with considerable anticipation of the battle to come that she pushed open the dining room door and announced in her coldest voice, “Lord Strand.
So
kind of you to condescend to dine with me. However do you control such charitable impul—” The rest of her words faded into silence.

Because rather than Giles’s polished golden perfection, she found herself facing a large, barrel-chested man with thinning,
thatch-colored hair and enormous side whiskers, standing on the far side of the dining table. He was dressed immaculately and tastefully, a testament to his tailor’s skill, as not a single crease marred the cut of cloth across his meaty shoulders or thick middle. He had the affable, blocky features of a yeoman except for his nose, which was unexpectedly small and neat. At the sight of her, his brows climbed towards his receding hairline.

“Is
that
your boy genius, Lord Strand?” he asked, looking past her.

Avery swung around to find Giles standing beside the door. He gave her a lazy smile before returning his attention to the stranger. “Yes, Sir Samuel. This is Avery Quinn.”

She started and stared.
This
was Sir Samuel Isbill, the president of the Royal Astrological Society, inventor of the Isbill refractory lens?
Oh, my
.

Burke, who’d been hovering behind Sir Isbill, angled the dining chair behind him a bit closer, making it easier for him to sit down. Wincing, Sir Isbill lowered himself into it then returned his speculative gaze to Avery, still standing transfixed in the doorway. “Gout,” he explained. “I am a martyr to it. What’s your excuse?”

“My excuse, sir?”

“For your deplorable lack of manners? My excuse is the gout. What’s yours?”

“I… I…” Helplessly, Avery looked at Giles.

“I did mention he lacked polish, did I not?” Giles asked.

“You did,” Sir Isbill allowed. “I suppose it makes no matter. We must make allowances for genius.” Then he smiled. It transformed his face and she suddenly saw Neville in him. “Suspect there’s more than a few out there who think I’m a bit of a clunch myself. What strange bedfellows the stars make, eh, Lord Strand? Great bear of a man like me and this little duck-shaped fellow.”

He spoke so matter-of-factly she could not take offense.

“Please, Mr. Quinn, come in. You do speak. I heard you. Now it only remains to be seen whether what you say is worth hearing. Is it?”

“Yes, sir. I mean, I think so, sir. I hope so.”

“Good. Lord Strand here tells me you have discovered amazing things. Come and tell me all about them.”

And with a sense of unreality, Avery did as she was told.

“Do you realize that Sir Samuel Isbill just agreed to read my treatise on predictive anomalies influenced by the orbital patterns of Jupiter and Saturn on the Quinn comet?” Her hands were shaking. “The
Quinn
comet! And
he took it with him
. He said he would give it his every consideration. Do you know what this means?”

“I am confident you will tell me.”

“If he likes it, he will nominate my name to become a member of the society at its meeting at the end of the month. If I become a member, I will be eligible for this year’s Hipparchus Award.”

“I am agog.”

He was teasing her; she didn’t care.
Sir Isbill had taken her monograph
.

The illustrious scientist had refused to “talk stars” during the lengthy course of dinner, devoting himself fully to enjoying each dish as it appeared. Avery, overwhelmed with the importance of the meeting, knowing she had to be on her very best behavior, and sadly aware that her best might not be near good enough, had retreated to silence over the three-hour span, drawing curious looks from Giles, who, thank heaven, took it upon himself to provide the congenial company Avery so categorically could not.

But as soon as the last Eccles cake and jelly tart had been cleared away and they had retired to Strand’s library for port, Sir Isbill had turned to Avery and said, “Now, then. What is this Strand tells me about a comet?”