Queen of Diamonds (14 page)

“Are you feeling ill again?”

“Not at all. You were correct. The bread and butter was perfect.” It might have been if she'd eaten any.

Finding Harry's diamonds was a great deal more entertaining than discussing Queenie's megrims, and Hellen wanted to help. “We might know a person…” she began, only to be interrupted by Queenie.

“You and your mother?”

Hellen was not entirely feather-headed, only somewhat fluffed. “Yes, of course. We, my mother and I, might know someone who has such dealings.”

“A jeweler? I visited scores of them.”

“Not precisely. I would not take my necklace to him if the clasp were broken, say. But he would be perfect for finding the missing pearls.”

“That were not precisely lost?”

“Exactly. Ize is known to pay a pittance, but he does not ask questions. He is a great help to people who find themselves temporarily embarrassed by a lack of funds.”

“Ah, a philanthropist,” Harry offered, with a dash of sarcasm.

Hellen looked at Queenie. “I thought they called Ize a fence?”

“They call him many things, most less complimentary. Ize, that is, Ezra Iscoll, would take your money and your diamonds, as well as your watch, your back teeth, and your unborn son. Or so I understand from his reputation, of course. You do not want to have anything to do with him.”

“Oh, I do not think he is so bad,” Hellen said. “He was pleasant enough at the Cyprian's Ball.”

Harry raised an eyebrow.

“He was that small man with the protuberant eyes,” Queenie offered.

“By reputation?”

Queenie ignored his dry tone. “You will do better looking elsewhere.”

Browne wanted to know why Lord Harking had not gone to Bow Street. “That man who is on Lord Carde's payroll, Geoffrey Rourke, seems a decent sort. Competent, too, or Captain Endicott would not have kept him on. Of course, if he were all that competent he would have solved the mystery of their sister.”

Queenie wanted Harry going to Bow Street as much as she wanted him talking to Ize.

She wanted him talking about Lady Charlotte Endicott least of all. “You would do better asking young Charlie to speak with his friends. Street children know everything that goes on in the city, and work for far less reward money.”

Browne disagreed. “His lordship wants a professional thief taker, not false leads and rumors of sightings.”

Queenie realized she did not want Harry going after his brother-in-law on his own, either, so she swallowed her words.

Harry rubbed at his sore chin. “I can do both, speak with Charlie and visit Bow Street. The reason I have not gone to Bow Street already was that I dreaded making my family business public.” He laughed. “I suppose I do not have to worry about that any more, do I?”

Chapter Fourteen

Harry did not become the laughingstock he feared.

The sporting gentlemen, at least, appreciated a good fight. The bored husbands and fathers liked anything that could enliven an evening at the opera. The scandal sheets celebrated anything that sold newspapers. They termed Harry Viscount Vengeance, and pictured him as a warrior angel, complete with wings. Or an eagle, launching itself over the private boxes of the opera.

Harry preferred the angel, he supposed. He liked best the cartoon of a black-haired Blind Justice, with a beauty mark.

When he went to his club, after staying in his rooms at the hotel for most of the next day while his bruises turned from purple to yellow, he found himself welcomed with a camaraderie he had never known.

He was a hero now, one of their own, not the vicarish chap who made the other members feel inferior with his righteousness. Damn if Harking was not up to every rig and row, hunting for his diamonds, a Diamond on his arm.

Harry stopped denying that Madame Lescartes was his mistress. No one would have believed him anyway, the way she leaped to his defense, or the way he leaped to hers when someone spoke her name with disrespect. He ensured that the gentlemen spoke politely about her simply by inviting anyone who considered doing otherwise to a bout of fisticuffs. No, not at Gentleman Jackson's—that was too civilized for the new Harry—but in the nearest alley. After seeing him in action at the opera, the blood lust and the brute strength, no one took him up on the offer. Madame Lescartes? Lovely female, talented too. Maybe they would send their womenfolk around to her shop.

Sympathy was on Harry's side anyway. Martin was known in town, and not liked. Too many people had lost to him at cards under doubtful circumstances. Too many others had waited too long to be paid for Martin's losses. Play and pay, that was what the men admired, not cheat and chisel.

“I always knew he was a dirty dish,” Lord Cholmondely pronounced.

“Bad breeding,” another gentleman declared.

“Poor sport.”

Unfaithful on his wife? Feh. Letting tradesmen and tenants go begging? Bah. But holding a sword to an unarmed man? For shame! Harking was doing the world a favor by ridding it of that trash.

Harry could not like being the center of gossip, nor the skewed values that made him a hero. He did not like his own behavior, either, though, so he could not censure anyone else's.

Still, now everyone he knew was on the lookout for Sir John Martin.

Unfortunately, Harry had been the last to see the scum scuttling through the crowd, Martin's nose leaving an untrackable trail of blood. Lord Harking would have to go to Bow Street.

* * *

Queenie was not shunned either.

The morning after the opera she expected cancelled orders, missed fitting appointments, and an empty store. Instead she was busier than ever. The courtesans wanted their gowns, and a glimpse of Harry. Camden's sister wanted to look like a queen. Other ladies simply wanted a good look at Lord Harking.

Harry did stop by to speak to Charlie, bringing two bouquets of violets, one for the mannequin, one for the shop's owner. Violets became another emblem of the shop, along with a black gown in the window, the black dog inside, and high prices. Queenie was too busy to talk to the viscount, and she found his presence sent the customers into a dither, to say nothing of what it did to her pulse rate and concentration. She sent him off with her errand boy, leaving the shop less efficient and far less exciting for everyone, until bachelors like Lord Camden arrived with their sisters. Then she had even more unwed females passing by her shop window.

When her designs finally appeared in the new fashion journal, her success was assured. The magazine sold so many copies, the delighted publishers requested ten more drawings for the next issue, at double the price.

The store itself was inundated with customers. Women of high birth or low wanted to look as beautiful as Madame Denise herself, and as daring. Besides, the most observant women did not believe she was Harry's mistress after all, not the way she blushed and turned the subject back to flounces and furbelows. Why, they asked each other, would her prices be so high, and her work load so heavy, if she had a wealthy protector? As long as she was discreet and acted like a proper female, they would bask in her notoriety and bespeak her creations.

Other dressmakers benefitted from Queenie's imaginative designs, for she could never complete that many gowns. Unemployed seamstresses benefitted too, for Queenie had to increase her staff to meet her obligations. She employed other women to do piecework in their own homes, for lack of space in the back workroom. Fortunately the women she had first hired turned out to be as skilled and experienced as they had promised, so soon Queenie designated a master cutter, a head fitter, a pattern maker.

Hellen ran the front of the shop. She had moved in with Queenie temporarily, so her mother could travel north in hopes of a visit with her gout-ridden baron. Hellen could not manage the accounts, and she frequently mistook appointments, orders and delivery addresses, but she did pour wine and tea gracefully while Queenie herself dealt with the individual customers in their turns. Dressed like a sweet young miss, on her best behavior, Hellen reassured the matrons that Queenie could be trusted with dressing their young chicks, as well as the old hens and high flyers.

Charlie was not so sure about Hellen's place at the shop. He feared Miss Pettigrew would bring disgrace on his mistress—and cost him the best opportunity he was likely to find in his life. He had landed in clover, and now he would walk through nettles to please Madame Denise and Lord Harking.

With the best will in the world, though, and a wide acquaintance in the underworld, he could not find Sir John Martin. His friends spotted a score of bruisers with broken noses, a handful of battered bald men, and a swell selling emeralds, but none turned out to be the viscount's brother-in-law. As for the diamonds, it was assumed they were being cut up on the quiet.

Charlie could also not find half the addresses Hellen wrote out for him, for fetching supplies and making deliveries.

“Mebbe if you wasn't so busy making sheeps' eyes at Mr. Browne I wouldn't of taken so long getting back with t'biscuits.” Charlie was worried that some of the gentry morts would catch Hellen and Mr. Browne doing what no lady did, at least not in the day time, and with no ring on her finger. Then they would cancel their orders, Madame Denise would close her store, and Charlie would be back to living in the alley.

“You're a fine one to speak, off half the night doing who knows what, coming back with your clothes all filthy again.”

“That was the governor's business.”

“You work for Qu—my cousin.”

Charlie pretended not to hear the slip. “You ain't no more Madame Denise's kin than I am. She wouldn't go lifting her skirts in no back garden.”

“I did not!” Well, perhaps an inch or two. Or three. “And that is none of your business, either! You are nothing but a Paul Pry and a sneak thief. I saw you pocket that coin Lady Haversham dropped.”

“She left it behind!”

“An honest boy would have returned it. So I shall tell Madame Denise.”

Charlie could have countered with a threat to report Hellen's own backdoor misbehavior, but he was no squealer. Besides, he thought the mistress was too downy a bird not to know what was going on. She knew every bolt of fabric on the shelves and every matching ribbon in the drawers. She could draw like an angel. Sure and be damned she could draw her own conclusions as to why her assistant needed an escort to walk the dog, in the tiny fenced yard.

Instead of matching threat for threat, though, Charlie tossed a pearl in the air. “Then I s'pose you won't be wanting this back. Or t'others I come acrost on the governor's business.”

Hellen was so happy she did not have to show her mother a shortened necklace when she returned to London that she kissed the boy.

“'Ere now, none a' that! In fact, you keep away from kissin' anything what wears trousers and I'll give you the rest. We don't want no scandal here. A respectable shop, that's what this is.”

The dressmaking business was so respectable, and so successful, in fact, that Browne took over the bookkeeping. With the Ambeaux Silver School for Females at The Red and the Black not open, he had time on his hands, he told Queenie. With Hellen at the store, he had no better place to spend it.

Of course Queenie went over the accounts herself when she found time, and did all of the banking instead of trusting a near stranger—to her, at least, if not Hellen—with her income. That income was increasing despite the higher payroll and outlay for materials, and gaining momentum by the day. Soon she would be able to start repaying her debt. Her education, her sustenance, the nest egg Molly had left her that permitted her to start this very business—everything was owed to Lord Carde and his brother, Jack Endicott—or the man who had been paying her way at Molly's all those years.

No, she knew Phelan Stone did not deserve her gold, for he had started the whole kidnaping and extortion scenario. An honest man could not be blackmailed. And it seemed he had stolen the money from Lord Carde's estate anyway. Her debt was to the House of Carde, no one else.

With the Endicott family in the country, though, for who knew how long, Queenie would have to give her coins, and her information, to Bow Street. She should have already, she knew.

Now, however, there was Harry, who was stealing into her dreams and stealing her good intentions to come forth with her information. His good opinion of her suddenly mattered more than those strangers'. She had never felt so bright, so warm, so alive, as under the glow of admiration that shone in his soft brown eyes. If that light dimmed, so would her world.

On the other hand, Queenie realized she had found an ally. She even thought about telling Harry her story, or parts of it, anyway, and asking what he thought she should do.

Harry would not let her be sent to prison if worse came to worse, would he? They were friends, and he had some influence. Certainly more than hers. He would make the authorities see that she'd been a child kept ignorant of the crimes—and then too afraid to admit her part in them. But if Harry knew her circumstances, her upbringing, her uncertain heritage, perhaps he would not want to be her friend. Nor would such an honorable man take kindly to being lied to about her name, her background, her very hair color.

No, Queenie would not take the chance of confiding in Lord Harking. He did not have to know anything more than he did, she decided, unless the situation turned ugly. Then she would beg for his help finding barristers and bondsmen, and pray he forgave her.

In the meantime her information, or the tale she was prepared to tell, was for the Bow Street man and his employers only. She'd go soon, and perhaps sleep better after that, even though the guilt that had kept her awake for months was being replaced by midnight thoughts of Lord Harking. Who knew a sheltered virgin could have such warm notions? Warm? She'd had to toss the bedcovers to the floor, when she was not tangled in them.

Not all of those dreams were as deliciously intoxicating as others, though.

The night of the opera, she'd had a nightmare from ages ago, of falling and screaming for her mama. Of course she'd dreamed of falling, after seeing Harry nearly jump off the balcony, Queenie told herself. There was nothing odd in that or in an orphan crying for her mother.

She was worried about losing Harry, that was all. Losing his friendship, she told herself, which had become so important to her. Of course friends did not think about friends' bare skin when they stitched his arm, or how he must not wear his shirt outdoors to be so tanned, or…

Well, those made for better dreams, anyway. Tonight, Queenie vowed, she would think about new dress designs, rather than wonder if Lord Harking still had designs on her virtue.

First, she had to attend Lady Jennifer's afternoon salon.

When the lady actually arrived for her fitting and to approve the fabric Queenie had selected, Queenie was a bit surprised. “I thought I would be ignored or ostracized,” she told the duke's formidable daughter.

“What, because of the opera? Bosh, you simply became more interesting. Are you certain that figured gold fabric will not make me look like an upholstered armchair?”

Queenie was certain, and, once the material had been gathered and draped and pinned in a semblance of the style Queenie had sketched, Lady Jennifer was convinced too.

She was more convinced than ever that Queenie would make a fine addition to her Thursday gathering.

Queenie was too busy, too tired, too much in demand at the shop.

“Too fearful?” Lady Jennifer challenged.

Queenie went.

She dressed in a long-sleeved black gown, trimmed with pale rose-colored ribbons. For Lady Jennifer's sake, the neckline touched her collarbone. For fashion's sake, the sleeves were made of blush-colored lace, leaving her looking half bare.

Lady Jennifer's very proper butler nearly dropped Queenie's cape when he took it to reveal more than he was expecting from such a soft-spoken female who seemed almost reticent to join the company. “This way, madam.”

The ducal town house appeared larger than Carde House in Grosvenor Square, from the outside. Inside, it could have rivaled Carlton House for opulence, for all Queenie knew. The artwork on the walls alone far surpassed any museum or gallery she had visited. She would rather have studied the masterpieces than follow the butler toward the drawing room, but that would have been a dreadful breach of manners—as opposed to giving a false name, lying about her time in Paris, and pretending to be a widow.

Lady Jennifer laughed when she saw Queenie's interpretation of a modest gown, but took her arm and led her about, making introductions. A dozen people were in attendance that afternoon, most of them female, all of them seemingly pleased to meet Queenie and compliment her on her gown and her burgeoning success. A copy of
A Lady's World
was on a pie-crust table, open to one of her drawings.