The Spider's Touch (28 page)

“What you’re suggesting is that all these gentlemen are Jacobites. Is that it?”

Hester gave a quick nod, pleased that he had said it before she’d had to. In running through her memories, she had recalled the visit that she and Isabella’s friends had made to see the baby with the sign of the eclipse on her brow, and especially Sir Humphrey’s odd elation at the sight. Of all their party, only
he
had seen something prophetic in the mark, and he had likened it to a sign on the eve of King James’s departure. Lord Lovett had been impatient with him—surely for being indiscreet about the Pretender, which Hester had realized after Lord Lovett had practically admitted their sympathies with James. What she did not know was how much St. Mars had involved himself with the cause, and whether any discovery of hers could place him in even greater danger.

“I am not political myself,” she said. “And I cannot pretend to know the merits of one king over another. Nor do I know enough of the law to argue whose right it is to sit on the throne, not when even the legal authorities cannot agree. So, when I ask you about these people, my lord, I do it purely in the interest of uncovering the murderer.”

She wanted so desperately to ask him what his involvement was, but could not bring herself to be that impertinent. The frown on his brow was enough to keep her silent, and so they remained that way for a full minute longer.

“I am not committed to James,” he said finally. “And I will not be until I’m convinced that enough good would come from his victory to justify another civil war. I cannot deny, though, that my current plight makes me more sympathetic to his cause than I was. And I cannot forget that my father was willing to risk all he owned for the Stuarts, as you know.”

He paused, and Hester could understand his desire to honour his father’s loyalties. St. Mars did not dwell on this, but went on to discuss her statement about the gentlemen who had shared her box.

“You wonder if they are Jacobites? I suspect they are, though I don’tt know either the Colonel or this Blackwell you spoke of. I have glimpsed Lord Lovett at Court, but I did not know his name until you gave it to me the other night.”

He asked her to describe the other two, so she did her best. Colonel Potter was the easiest with his freckled complexion, his straight military physique, and his sullen expression, which, it seemed, was a constant feature. Mr. Blackwell was harder to describe since what she mostly recalled about him was his clothes. St. Mars agreed, however, that it sounded as if he spent a significant time France. There were other Englishmen who dressed that elegantly, but there had been a touch of something foreign in his arrogance, too.

“The simplest thing for me to do would be to talk to Lady Oglethorpe and ask her about them,” St. Mars said, startling Hester.

“But is that safe? I refuse to put you in more danger, my lord. I had rather Dudley hanged first.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” His laughter teased her. “And you won’t be putting me in danger. I was on my way to see Lady Fury myself, when I saw you entering and turned back. Next time, I’ll make certain she’s alone.”

A sense of foreboding ran down Hester’s spine, though she couldn’t say why. Perhaps from a dislike for the lady, which she only now admitted to herself. Surely there was something untrustworthy about a person who nurtured rebellion while begging favours from the crowned King?

“Just—please be careful,” she begged St. Mars, with a growing belief that they could not be certain whom to trust.

They discussed the first steps they should take, and Gideon asked her to discover where the Colonel lodged.

After arranging to meet again, they parted.

* * * *

 Gideon left the park feeling a surge of energy, which his meeting with the Duke had gravely sapped. Whatever faith he should keep with James and his agents would always be second to his duty to Mrs. Kean. And whether he liked it or not, she had become embroiled in an affair involving the Jacobites.

On his way back to the White Horse for breakfast, he tried to remember everything he could about Sir Humphrey Cove, but all he could recall was a harmless face and a pair of expressive hands. He found it hard to imagine any motive for putting such an innocent to death, but there was no question that Sir Humphrey had considered himself a Jacobite. How active he had been would be hard to say.

Regardless of the information he received from Lady Oglethorpe, Gideon knew that an investigation would take time. No murderer who was clever enough to get away with a crime in that hour and place would easily betray himself, which would mean that Gideon would be staying longer in town than he had originally planned. And given that, some things would be better changed.

* * * *

Tom had nearly lost all patience with his situation when his master’s letter reached him near dark on the following day. It was not that Tom had been uncomfortable. In many ways he had never lived so well. His work was easy, his room was more commodious than any corner he’d inhabited over a stable, and Avis, the boy, did the messiest jobs, leaving Tom to exercise the horses as he liked. By any man’s standards, he had begun to live a life of means, with excellent meals and beerand his wash attended to by a cheerful, brown-eyed woman.

But that was the source of his misery, though he did worry about his master, too. He alternated between fearing for his lord and being furious with him for leaving him in such a tempting place, where idleness had led to feelings he did not wish to have.

Tom eagerly paid the messenger, who had been promised more money for making the journey in two days. He broke the seal of St. Mars’s letter with hands made clumsy by anxiety. Reading St. Mars’s few words, he felt an immense relief, for the message ordered him to London immediately, along with whatever of his master’s belongings Tom thought best to bring for an indefinite stay. St. Mars told him to bring Penny, too, and to give Lade more money, so he would not be tempted to let Gideon’s bedchamber or to sell his things while they were in town. And St. Mars gave him the address where they would meet in three days time.

All of that was fine, but the postscript at the bottom of the letter gave Tom’s heart a jolt, for St. Mars’s had added as an afterthought,
“Bring Katy with you.”

The horror that filled Tom on reading these words was that of a man who knows that he is doomed, both in body and in his immortal soul. For if he could not resist Katy—and how would he, if she was continually placed before him?—then chances were in the end he would die of the pox that had ravaged his father.

Tom did not believe in fate; however, if there was a chapter in the
Bible
he believed in, it was the
Book of Job.
And he had no doubt at that moment that his faith was being tested with every weapon the Almighty possessed.

* * * *

When he told Katy that they were going to London, her eyes grew round and her pretty mouth gaped.

“To Lunnon—me?”

Tom nodded, feeling the darkness heavy on his brow. He growled, “If the master says you’re to come, then you’re to come, and that’s all there is to it. I tried to tell him this wasn’t no job for a woman. But you got it, so you’d better pack up his clothing this evening and be ready to leave before dawn.”

She asked breathlessly, “But how will we get them there?”

Tom noticed that she had ignored his cruelty, which meant either that he had lost the power to hurt her feelings, or that she had simply grown used to his surly ways.

Neither probability made him happy.

“I’m leaving now,” he told her. “I’ve got to find us a post-chaise. You’ll ride inside with the master’s things, and I’ll ride Penny and Beau by turns. We’ve only got two more days to get there, but we can make it with the good weather we’ve been having. You’ve just got to be ready, that’s all.”

“Me? Ride in a post-chaise?”

The idea seemed to stun her and tickle her all at once, and Tom could not restrain a grin. “Ay. You’d best get used to travellin’ like the Quality now.” He used this term, for Katy still didn’t know that her employer was an aristocrat. And he would never be the one to tell her, Tom vowed, trying to resume his glower, but he found it impossible to frown in the face of her delight.

Chapter Thirteen

On him, their second Providence, they hung,

Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue.

He from the wondering furrow called the food,

Taught to command the fire, control the flood,

Draw forth the monsters of th’ abyss profound,

Or fetch th’ aerial eagle to the ground.

Till drooping, sickening, dying they began

Whom they revered as God to mourn as Man:

Then, looking up from sire to sire, explored

One great first father, and that first adored.

Or plain tradition that this All begun,

Conveyed unbroken faith from sire to son.

III. vi.

Gideon penned a message to Lady Oglethorpe, using the same words he had used in his note to Ormonde, but he delivered it himself, feeling safer that way. None of Lady Fury’s servants knew him, and he rather thought he had perfected the posture and shamble of an older man. His request to have a word in private concerning her Cousin Jonathan received the immediate reply that he should call on her after dark that very evening, when he would discover her and her daughter Anne alone. He was asked to enter the garden through the mews, where a servant would be waiting to let him through the gate.

* * * *

He spent the rest of the day looking for better lodging for himself and his servants. He examined furnished rooms in the City of London, but found them all too small. There was not an abundance of empty houses, for ever since the Great Fire, the building had not stopped merely to catch up with the number that had been lost. Charles II had tried to regulate the style and materials used in the new buildings in order to avoid a future conflagration, but the displaced populace had not always had the patience to wait for shelter. Consequently, many houses in the City had been thrown up in the old haphazard way, with projecting second stories, in spite of the laws against them. Gideon doubted their soundness, for every now and then the news-sheets contained the tale of a house that had collapsed.

He combed the advertisements, and at last decided on purchasing a house. Only three had been mentioned, and one of those was in Covent Garden, much too near the people who could recognize him. The other two were across the river, one in Southwark and one near Vauxhall Wharf.

Gideon went first to see the property in Worcester Street in the Park. It had a spacious brick house, with four rooms up and down, stables, and warehouses, and had been advertised as suitable for any number of trades—soap-making, brewing, vinegar-making, and sweet-baking among them. Its location had many advantages, in that it was not too far from the Kent Road, while still standing well away from any principal street. Plenty of inns, taverns, and eating establishments were also near.

He wondered, though, what the neighbours would eventually think of an owner who sold nothing from those warehouses.

The acre and a half in Vauxhall stood right on the Thames. A good, high wall surrounded it on the east, west, and south, while an iron palisade protected it from the river. The house on the property was smaller than the one in Southwark, but since he did not expect to entertain any guests, it should be large enough for him. With a bedroom and two other chambers upstairs for his personal use, and another three downstairs for Tom and Katy, not to mention a separate counting house, stables, and a long pile of buildings for any purpose he might choose, the property seemed more than sufficient for his needs.

There was something about the location, too, that felt just right. From Vauxhall Stairs, or even from his own dock, he could take a boat to anyplace in London. He would seldom, if ever, need to take his horses across the river, but if he did the horse ferry was near. And, though this house was not as close to the Kent Road as the other, on horseback he could take Kennington Lane, then ride cross country until he joined up with the highway into Kent farther south.

He briefly debated the wisdom of living this near to Spring Gardens, where so many of his acquaintance would come to promenade, but the wall should shield him from their view.

Besides all the logical reasons, there was a strictly emotional one that compelled him to take this property, too. From the bank of the river, on a clear day, as this one was, he could see across to Lord Peterborough’s house. Beyond it were the streets of Westminster and St. James’s, Hawkhurst House in Piccadilly, and all his old haunts. If he could not live where he had been raised, he would at least be able to see it and feel it when he gazed out of his windows.

There were, also, plenty of country roads nearby on which to exercise his horses.

Gideon quickly settled with the seller of the property and arranged to take possession on the following day.

* * * *

That night, on arriving at Lady Oglethorpe’s back gate, he found the footman, as promised. The houses in the Palace Yard were closely clustered, and there was nothing to prevent the neighbours from seeing the visitors who paid a call on Lady Fury. Gideon was certain that many of her callers had the habit of arriving at strange hours. He was grateful, nonetheless, for even this much secrecy.

Lady Fury and her daughter, Mrs. Anne Oglethorpe, received him in the mother’s bedchamber, not giving the slightest hint of recognition between them. They stood in front of the curtained bed, and each made a brief curtsy while the servant withdrew, shutting the door behind him. Then, as his footsteps faded, Lady Oglethorpe curtsied again, much more profoundly, and spoke in a clipped voice.

“My Lord St. Mars, I had a feeling it would be you. What news do you bring from his Majesty?” Never a calm woman, in his remembrance at any rate, she seemed more than normally agitated now.