Reckless Rules (Brambridge Novel 4) (7 page)

“Oswald,” Victoria called softly. The coachman winced. But the power that Bill had exerted obviously still held sway. “Do take me home. I presume that Mr. Standish has already told you where we might drop him off?”

The coachman nodded and, clicking his tongue, shook out the reins. The all white horses set off at a sharp trot. The barouche proceeded in silence through the city and along the banks of the Thames as Victoria stared over Bill’s shoulder, trying to avoid his gaze which she knew was trained unwaveringly on her face.

“Seeing the water always reminds me of Brambridge,” Bill said quietly.

Victoria brushed at a wisp of hair that had escaped from her bronze hair pins.

“The way the light plays on the water. The way that the boats ply up and down. And then I see the press of humanity on either side of the riverbank, and am reminded that London is truly a place of contrasts.”

“Why, that was almost poetic.” Victoria did not want to let her guard down. She had almost done that before in Brambridge. “But it doesn’t take a genius to make that observation.”

“But Brambridge is also a place of contrasts,” Bill continued, deflecting Victoria’s barb as if she hadn’t spoken. “Where else could a smith become a landowner and employ his apprentices as footmen?”

“Oh Bill, you didn’t!” Victoria laughed despite herself. She could imagine the scene, hulking great men cluttering up the hall in uniforms attempting to polish silver with their beefy hands.

The smile on Bill’s face was like the sunshine on the water. “They wanted to. I couldn’t stop them. Life for a smith, like for those at your
establishment,
is hard. Work is physical, not predicable, and never constant. But at least you have a purpose and direction.” The smile on Bill’s face disappeared. “They wanted to try life as a soft servant.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t going to stop them. The estate needs employees. Edgar Stanton my cursed cousin deprived the place of that. I’m working on getting the place going again. Brambridge needs it.”

“I just can’t imagine them all serving you at the dinner table.”

“Who says that people can’t adapt? Just because they were apprentice smiths doesn’t mean to say that is where they needed to stay because that was their lot in life. Some of them have found the change rather good. Others however, let’s just say I may need to reassign them.” Bill grimaced at what must have been an unpleasant memory.

Determined to keep the tone light, Victoria pointed to a swan that was taking off on the Thames, its large paddle feet flailing at the water as its great wings flapped mightily to pull it upwards. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yes, she is,” Bill murmured.

Victoria turned to look enquiringly at him and just as quickly turned back to look at the Thames where the sun now set in the west. She clenched her fingers in her lap. Bill hadn’t been looking at the swan at all. He had never looked at it. She had turned to find his gaze fixed unfalteringly fixed on her.

“Something so beautiful should always be as free as a bird,” Bill continued cryptically.

Victoria continued to follow the swan’s flight. It wasn’t hard to know what he was referring to. The way she held tightly onto her emotions, her position in society, her life in general. He didn’t know what she risked if she let it go.

He did not speak to her again after that. Indeed Victoria could not bring herself to look at him as he left the carriage at Lord Lassiter’s mansion, clutching onto the brass handrails all the while as the coach made the short ride onwards to Colchester Mansions.

But it wasn’t short enough for Victoria not to dwell on some of the things that Bill had said.

Entering her drawing room at a trot, Victoria gathered up her small dog, Ponzi, into her arms and buried her face in his fur.

“Can I get you anything, my lady?” Her butler stepped quietly into the room and folded his hands behind his back.

“No, Carruthers. Please close the door behind you. I wish to be alone for a while.” Victoria could sense Carruthers was still standing in the doorway. But as she buried her head in Ponzi’s fur again, the butler withdrew, shutting the door with a soft click behind him.

The small dog began to squirm as Victoria tried to gather comfort from her soft body. A lick on the nose encouraged Victoria to put the small dog back on the floor.

“What should I do, Ponzi?” She pulled gently at the tufts of hair around the dog’s ears. “I thought Mr. Robertson’s establishment was one of the more honest of the pauper houses. But now I’m not so sure. The shoes have not been delivered to the poor, he doesn’t know how many he is looking after, and his thoughts about those women…” Victoria sank into one of the fragile tub chairs she kept in the room especially for her more difficult visitors. “There but for the grace of God, go I.”

Ponzi barked and pawed at her leg. 

“Yes, I know I never would have needed to have been a… streetwalker. But I made a similar choice when I jumped out of my gilded cage and entered into marriage with Lord Colchester. If we had entered into
intimate relations
then I would have been no better than those girls, those
women
. As it is, I have ended up richer because of it. And I am still alone… still in my own self-imposed cage and I am guilty of everything Bill accused me of. Giving to the poor to make me feel better, bowing to the strictures of the ton to make me feel better just not in the way he understands…”

Victoria buried her head in her hands, and her shoulders shook.
Oh God no—not now.
A black wall of despair threatened to rock her very defenses. If she gave in to it she would be useless for weeks. Her brother called it her
melancholia.
She had no name for it—she didn’t want to name it. To do so would be to give it a voice, a place in her life. The last bout had been when Colchester had died, although many times it had threatened to overwhelm her since then… her brother Henry marrying her best friend Agatha; Earl Harding, the man with whom she might have found comfort, finding his own love. They were leaving her all behind without a backwards glance. And then there had been the moment when she had fled Brambridge, running away from Bill’s continued requests to see her.

This was where the rules came in. They gave her life a
rigid
structure. That was why she acted in a strict fashion. They kept her
sane.

Victoria swallowed and looked at the ceiling. What was the first rule of investigation? She swallowed again. She couldn’t remember. Her shoulders shook harder. Ponzi ran from her legs to the drawing room door and pawed at the casement. Victoria tried to move but her legs wouldn’t let her.

The door opened silently and Carruthers entered with a large tea tray. Without looking at her, he navigated the small chairs and deposited the teapot, cups and cake on the desk that sat in the corner. Frozen, she followed Carruthers’ progress as he carefully set out the tea items, not once raising his own gaze to hers.

“Pardon me, my lady, but when I heard your voice, I assumed you had visitors, so I brought in a tea tray,” Carruthers said, placing a spoon in the sugar well. “Might I pour you a cup of tea?”

Victoria nodded slowly. The banality of Carruthers’ conversation had a soporific effect on her body. Her shoulders stopped shaking and the feeling returned to her legs.

“I assume it is just the two sugars?”

Victoria wanted to smile. Carruthers knew to the granule how much sugar Victoria put in her tea.

“Just the one please, Carruthers.” Victoria licked her lips. “I’m sweet enough as it is.”

“Of course, Madam, pardon my mistake. I will punish myself accordingly.”

“I would suggest a good session of silver polishing would do the trick.” Victoria put out her hand to receive the proffered teacup. She looked quickly up into Carruthers’ face and winked. His sigh was followed by a smile.

“Of course, my lady. There is nothing I should like more.”

Make friends with the servants for they shall carry you through
. That was the first rule of investigation. Victoria closed her eyes, relieved that the despair that had threatened to overcome her had receded to a safe distance. Lord Colchester couldn’t have realized when he had drummed those rules into her head that they would be so useful in many other ways.

When he had died, she had got rid of all the servants, naturally in a staggered manner so it wasn’t so evident that she was cleaning out his nest of vipers, and then she replaced them with those she trusted.

The first person she recruited was Carruthers, a former footman in her brother’s household, and now her butler and arch right-hand man.

“Sit down, Carruthers, and pour yourself a cup of tea. You’ve brought enough to feed a small army as it is.”

Without a murmur, Carruthers did as he was asked. Carefully folding the tails of his coat under, he sat, and stood again, bringing over the plate of cakes he had left on the tray.

Victoria took a cake without bothering to wait for a small plate and took a large bite. Crumbs brushed down her face as she bit into the confection. Three bites later, and the cake was finished. Ponzi snuffled happily around the floor, licking at the carpet as Victoria brushed the remaining crumbs to the ground. She took another piece of cake as Carruthers opened a newspaper.

“There is a very interesting article in this ‘Illustrated London News’ about a new attraction touring the country. Apparently it is called Pablo Moreno’s Grand Travelling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Hippodrome.” Carruthers stopped as if checking to see if she was listening. Victoria had hardly taken in a word but nodded. His voice was soothing and provided a good accompaniment to her chewing of the second slice of cake.

“The extraordinary feats of knife throwing, tightrope walking and other activities were very attractive as we anticipated in our Journal of last week. As we have already described, these performances are complemented by the no less stunning exhibition of exotic animals and humans…” Carruthers trailed off as Victoria put up a hand. She finished her last mouthful of cake and took a deep breath.

“Rosa Fanthorpe wishes me to investigate whether Mr. Cryne has had any other women interests in the last six months.” She was proud of herself. There was no wobble to her voice, and her energy returned as the cake’s sweetness rejuvenated her.

“I thought that once you had found out why Mr. Cryne wanted to marry Miss Fanthorpe, then the investigation was over?” Carruthers dropped the ‘my lady’ pretense, and after carefully putting aside the paper, took a large cake himself, and bit into its crust.

“I’m afraid that I may have made a comment that incited Miss Fanthorpe to think more clearly about her motivations in getting married to the odious man.”

“I assume she still made the payment?”

“Yes. It was a good suggestion of yours to choose those foundations.”

Carruthers nodded and sipped his tea.

“Simon, why did you choose those particular ones?” Victoria was curious. She hadn’t really cared at the start where the money went, so long as it wasn’t in her pocket. She had more than enough money as it was that she gave to other causes.

“I was born in the Mile End pauper farm.”

“Oh.”

He nodded. “Until I was twelve I lived that life, then your grandmother needed more staff and hired me as a kitchen boy.”

“And from there you became the footman in my brother’s household.”

“And butler in yours.”

“Hmm. Not just a butler.”

“Perhaps not, my lady.”

“I’ve told you to drop that when we are alone.” Victoria frowned. “If you had not come to me with that interesting conundrum regarding Maisie the housemaid’s bag after Colchester died, I’m not sure what I would have done with myself.” Victoria stopped. “I need another investigation, Simon. You saw me. Don’t tell me you didn’t. It’s back and this time it is not going to go away so easily.”

“What about Mr. Cryne?” Carruthers brushed the crumbs off his trousers for Ponzi.

“It’s not enough. I know all of the women he’s chased in the last six months. Although to be sure, I would like for you to make some discreet enquiries into his household if you could, just to make sure that we do a thorough job.”

“Of course. I have also been handed six other investigations that you might be interested in?”

Victoria waved her hand. “Go on?” She sat back and closed her eyes as Carruthers drew out a piece of paper and began to read.

CHAPTER 6

Bill’s men perched haphazardly at the dinner table in Brambridge Manor. They looked the most uncomfortable that Bill had ever seen them. Perhaps Victoria had been right—it was all too easy to see them through her eyes. Each man was at least six foot tall and burly, with muscles that threatened to spill through their carefully ironed uniforms. Although, in some cases Bill suspected that the muscles were now running to fat with the only exercise being undertaken a mild running up and down the stairs every time he returned home.

“Gentlemen.” Bill groaned when one of the men put his hand up tentatively. “Yes Percy, what is it?”

“Couldn’t you call us lads like you used to, Bill?” A quick elbow in his side caused Percy to choke slightly. “Mr. Standish, sir, I mean.”

“What’s wrong with being called gentlemen?” Bill paced back and forth behind the lined up chairs. The men watched him from the corner of their eyes as one might watch a bull in the field. “I would have thought you liked it. It’s a step up from what I used to be called as a lad.”

“Nothing, Mr. Standish,” the six men chorused like naughty school boys.

Bill sighed. There was obviously something wrong. It was just like being in the forge again, except this time the environment was not as dangerous. But it was still as important to work out what was bothering the men before he asked them to do something for him.

“I believe my fellow brethren are trying to point out, Mr. Standish, that they feel a little uncomfortable being called something that they are not.”

Ah. Trust George to be able to verbalize what the others could not. It was a pity that his butler had only now decided how to suitably communicate after his run in with Lord Granwich and disclosure of some of Bill’s night time activities.