The Promise (13 page)

As they discussed issues and complications, they were blissfully unaware that circumstances would soon force their hands.

Chapter Ten

The editorial offices of the
Times
were crammed with cheap oak desks and disorderly stacks of paper. A half dozen rumpled reporters milled about in the mess drinking coffee. The fruitless wandering was viewed with much irritation by the newspaper’s editor, Myles Copeland. It was nearly noon and precious little copy had been turned in for the next day’s morning edition.

“Slow news day fellows?” Copeland called loudly from the doorway of his office. “Perchance you expect news to crawl through the window and bite you in the arse?
Lucifer’s ball sack,
what am I paying you for?” he barked.

“Precious little going on,” one said defensively. “Made the rounds of my contacts this morning and the nobs appear to be behaving. Not a breath of scandal to be found anywhere.”

The comment was met with general murmurs of agreement.

“How the hell would you know standing around in here?” Copeland shot back. “Get your sorry carcasses out on the street and dig up some news. If you can’t find any, make some up!
Barnes
!” he bellowed.

“Right here, sir.” A feral looking man with beady eyes, narrow shoulders, and fine, oily black hair rolled his chair out from behind a mountain of newspapers. He pushed up his spectacles with an ink-stained finger, transferring a black smudge to the bridge of his nose.

“Whatever happened to the luscious lady larcenist? Any arrests?” he arched an eyebrow.

“Luscious didn’t fit, remember? We went with lovely,” Barnes reminded him.

“Ah, yes. I would have preferred luscious, however. Either way, that headline was brilliant. We sold every copy. Talk on the street is they caught her. Have you heard anything?”

“I’ve been working it, sir. Was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time and saw the Duke’s brother rescue a woman from a gang of thugs. Seemed to know her
real well
, if you catch my meaning. I followed them to Carlisle House and she snuck in the servant’s entrance.”

“Probably a maid,” the editor speculated.

“Instinct tells me she’s more than that. Could be the woman with the necklace. Fits the description well enough.”

“Now
that
would be interesting. Can you prove it?”

“I dug around, but I haven’t put it all together yet. The servants are mum, but I’m running other angles. I have a contact in the Metropolitan Police, but he’s nervous. Word is Rutledge is passing around chink to keep everyone quiet, making threats, too. A child has appeared from nowhere. Could be the Duke’s, who knows? Details are fuzzy, but I’ve a lead to Sugarmann’s Bakery. I’ll let you know when I’ve it figured out.”

“Well, laddies, or should I say
ladies
?” Copeland glared pointedly at the other men in the room. “At least I have one reporter who’s worth his salt. And that would be Barnes, in case you’re too thick to take my meaning.”

The men grumbled indignantly as Barnes rolled back behind the stacks.

“I want this story covered nine ways to Sunday,” Copeland almost shouted. “Since you can’t seem to scare anything up anything on your own, I’m assigning all of you to serve as Barnes’ assistants. Leave no stone unturned. Now, get out of my sight and don’t come back until you have the skinny. Barnes, can you keep ’em all busy?”

“Aye, sir,” he called from his cubby.

Twenty minutes later a team of reporters spilled out of the
Times
, each determined to prove they could rake as much muck as the detestable toad-eating weasel Harry Barnes.

MRS. EAST TOLD JANE to cover the front counter while she ran to the bank to make a deposit. It was hot near the ovens, so Jane was more than happy to comply. She propped open the front and back doors for airflow and happily chatted with customers as she rang up orders.

She was tying string around a box of cinnamon crumpets when a short, square man slipped through the door. He dragged a sweat-stained hat off his head revealing a shiny, hairless pate. His cheap worsted suit was so rumpled it looked as if he’d slept in it.

His gaze was shrewd, assessing. She was seized by an uncomfortable premonition. It was rare for Jane to take an instant dislike to a stranger, but something about the man’s edgy bearing and the determined look in his eye told her he was up to no good. She appraised him with waxing antagonism as he rudely stared her down. He clutched a narrow notebook in one hand, a stub of a pencil in the other. Tufts of auburn hair sprang from his freckled knuckles.

“Are you Miss Jane Gray?” he asked abruptly.

“I am,” she answered cautiously. “And you are?”

He ignored her question and leaned over the counter, looking her over boldly from head to toe. Jane was startled when he let out a sharp bark of laughter.

“Barnes might’ve got this one all wrong,” he smirked. “You don’t look much like a larcenist, nor a lady neither. Do you bake to stay busy when you’re not stealing jewels and diddling dukes? ’Tis an unusual combination of occupations. I can hear Copeland’s headline now… ‘dukes, doxies, doughnuts, and diamonds.’ The man’s overly fond of alliteration.”

“You’re talking gibberish. What do you want and how is it you know my name, sir?” Jane asked nervously, even though she was beginning to suspect his purpose.

He quickly got down to business.

“I’m with the
Times
and I’ll give you twenty quid for your story,” he pulled several grimy, wrinkled pound notes from his pocket and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “You look like you could use the money, love, so I’ll give it to you straight. Play hard to get and I can go as high as twenty-five. It’s a lot of scratch for a few minutes of your time.”

He spread the notes into a fan and waved them at her. “It’s hotter than a six peckered alley cat in here. How do you stand it?”

“Please leave at once, sir,” she rushed out from behind the display case and made a shooing motion with her arms. “This is a bakery. There is no lady larcenist here, lovely or otherwise.”

He held his ground. “Is your little girl the Duke’s love child?”

“What!” Jane shrieked. “Absolutely not! I don’t know what you’re talking about! Get out! Get out now!” She panicked. Several customers were avidly listening to the conversation.

“The smart thing would be to take the money and talk. It’s better to have
your
side of the story printed, Miss. My sources say Lord Wallace has been introducing your girl around as his niece. Deductive reasoning makes Rutledge the father. If you don’t give us the facts, you can’t rightly complain if we get it wrong, can you?”

“Don’t you dare print those lies! Get out at once or I will summon the bobbies. I have asked you to leave several times; you are now trespassing, sir!” Jane was desperate for the rude little man to be gone before Mrs. East returned. She couldn’t afford to lose her job.

He raised his hands. “I’m leaving, but the street is a public place. I have the right to stand out there all day and interview anyone I wish. There’s nothing the law can do to stop me.”

“We’ll see about that,” Jane advanced on him, forcing him out the door.

He flashed her a confident grin.

“This story is going to be printed one way or another, I promise you that. Think what you could do with all this scratch. Don’t look to me like Rutledge is doing right by you. You’re aware he has another mistress, aren’t you? The pulchritudinous Alicia Vandenburg. He bought
her
a grand townhouse in Knightsbridge. You may not be as fine, but
you
bore his bastard. Surely that’s worth a house of your own?”

He held up the notes again as if to tempt her.

“I told you, I don’t know the Duke and I don’t want your money,” Jane stomped her heel into the foot he was using to hold the door open. He winced, but remained in place.

“I’ll try again tomorrow. In the meantime I’ll be easy to find if you change your mind. Just look out your window,” he said with a wink before he withdrew.

As Jane shut the door, she heard him say, “Twenty-five quid.
Twenty-five!
”

Apologizing to the other patrons, she ushered them out and hung a Closed sign in the window. She locked the door, pulled the blinds, and dashed off a quick note on the back of a Sugarmann’s receipt form. She peeked out the rear door and found a boy named Cooper loitering in the alley.

“I’ll feed you breakfast every day this week if you deliver this quickly,” she promised.

Cooper listened to her directions then took off at a run.

“BE YE PECKHAM?” The gamine face of a malodorous street urchin squinted up from the front steps. Dressed in rags that hung from his bones, he clutched a scrap of paper in his grimy paw and assessed the butler with suspicion. “To Peckham ’imself and naught other, I am t’ give this.”

“And who, pray tell, employed such a dapper courier?” Peckham asked the ragamuffin.

“Dapper wha’?” the boy frowned.

“Never mind. Who gave you this missive?” Peckham reached for the paper, but the boy snatched it away, holding it behind his back.

“Don’t know no Miss If.” A light went off. Sort of. “Oh, ye mean Miss Gray! She told me I wos t’ give this to a bloke by the name of Peckham,” he repeated.

“
I’m
that bloke,” Peckham said to end the torture. He gingerly took the paper between the tips of two fingers. The boy stared up at him hopefully until Peckham fished a coin from his pocket and tossed it in the air. The lad caught it and disappeared before the paper was unfolded.

Peckham,

Please inform His Grace or Lord Wallace that a reporter has been to the bakery. He told me the
Times
is running a story claiming Pip is the Duke’s love child! (And mine!)

I said nothing and asked him to leave, but he is causing a scene outside and I don’t know what to do. Help!

Jane Gray

The very proper butler let fly with a very improper string of expletives, cursing newspapers in general and the
Times
specifically. He dispatched three footmen in different directions with instructions to find Rutledge. Next he went to the library to show Miss Gray’s note to Lord Wallace whose response was similar to Peckham’s, but somewhat less restrained. He ran agitated fingers through his hair and weighed what he should do first.

“
Bloody hell!
” He stood and crumpled the note in his fist. “I presume you have already sent for His Grace?”

“Yes, my lord, but it may take some time to locate him. He could be anywhere in Westminster, dining at one of his clubs, with… er, a friend. How should I respond to Miss Gray?”

“I’ll go to her myself, then I’ll visit the newspaper to see if bribes, threats, or physical violence will deter them. There’s a good chance the reporter was only trying to trick Miss Gray into confirming a rumor. I’ll make it clear to the publisher that they are facing a ruinous libel suit if they print lies about us,” Finn huffed.

“I’ll have your horse readied.”

“If Cam arrives before I return, please ask him to wait. I’ll report back in an hour or two.”

FINN SENT UP A SILENT prayer of thanks that Jane had the presence of mind to send a note rather than speak to the reporter. Even denials could be twisted and misquoted, something he knew from experience from his work in the Commons.

It was one thing for the paper to print thinly veiled gossip about the exploits of society’s rogues. Finn and his bachelor friends often read about their amorous escapades in the
Times
with a great deal of amusement, but this was different. The vultures intended to broadcast lies that would have a devastating impact on the reputation of his entire family, Pip’s future, and would even hold Miss Gray up to public ridicule she had done nothing to deserve.

He ran to the mews behind Carlisle House and swung into the saddle. Heavy midday traffic tested his patience. When he neared Sugarmann’s, he was astounded to see a large crowd milling about in the street, peering into a large window under a pink and blue striped awning. Hack drivers bellowed and cursed as they merged around the throng.

Dozens of people were wedged into the front of the store where only half that number could be accommodated comfortably. The door was wedged open by the press of bodies.

Behind the counter a grim-faced Mrs. East flapped her arms. “This is a bakery, not sodding Drury Lane. Out!” She gestured toward the door. When not a soul moved, she shouted in her best Cockney accent, “If ye ain’t buyin’, ye ain’t stayin’!”

Men laughed, women huffed and clucked, but no one moved.

Finn dismounted and tied his horse to an iron stanchion, then walked over to the edge of the crowd to listen. He noted a short, bald man standing to one side with a tablet, the reporter who had bedeviled Miss Gray, he assumed.