Barbara Metzger (5 page)

Sometimes, he heard from his contact at the War Office, the placement of the little swords told the French generals’ directions, or the number of tiny riflemen in the box with them told their troop strength. Other times their hollow bases were filled with minute codes. Unlike dispatches and sealed orders, no one bothered to intercept deliveries of children's playthings. And no one outside the highest office at Whitehall knew of Viscount Stanford's contribution, which suited Wynn to a cow's thumb.

He dabbled in painting, which was his excuse for the smell of turpentine and varnish that often lingered on his hands. Just for his own amusement at odd moments, he always explained with a self-deprecating laugh, nothing fit to be seen. That was why, Wynn said, he kept his studio in a locked room off his office, lest anyone see his poor efforts. Someone had seen them, however. Two of the lead legionaries had gone missing. Marching off with those particular toy soldiers was no child's prank.

The head of security at the War Office had been upset when Wynn reported the loss immediately after changing his waistcoat after breakfast, especially when he'd seen the viscount's bruised face.

"My word, is nothing safe, when a man is attacked in his own home, for toy soldiers?"

Even when Stanford told him that such was not the case, claiming he'd been sparring at Gentleman Jackson's, the bureau chief was still unhappy. The miniatures could be replicated, unlike the real soldiers they helped defend, but the ease and security of the communication could not. Worse, who knew what the enemy would do with the figures? Worse still, there was a spy in the highest ranks of army intelligence. No one else was supposed to know about Viscount Stanford's work.

He'd returned home with a new employee, one of Wellesley's injured subalterns hurriedly briefed, pretending to be Wynn's recently hired secretary. Young Stubbing might be a crack officer and an excellent detective, but he was a terrible secretary, letting two pages of claptrap from a cork-brained clunch arrive on Wynn's desk. Besides, Wynn didn't think Lieutenant Stubbing would find anything.

All of the staff had been at Stanford House for years, so they couldn't be accused. After that, the entire
belle monde
might as well be on the suspect list. Between his mother's cronies and his sister's cadre, the house was never empty, never secure from strangers. Just the night before Susan had held an impromptu ball, meaning she'd planned it for only weeks instead of months. Wynn hadn't known half the people drinking his champagne and eating his lobster patties, so he'd gone on to Maude's. He hadn't thought any of the guests even knew about the locked workshop next to his office.

Stubbing was going over the guest list now, comparing the names to suspected traitors. He was also going to take over some of Wynn's escort duties so that his lordship could get to work on the replacement gifts for the generals’ godsons.

Meanwhile, Viscount Stanford was pursuing his own inquiry, when he wasn't being besieged by one female or another. His mother had wheeled herself into his office as soon as he returned from Whitehall, and he had steeled himself for another lecture on late nights, loose women, and what was owed his lineage. Instead the dowager had been in a dither that one of the guests’ hat had also disappeared last evening. Her favorite cisisbeo, Theodore, Lord Hume, could not find his top hat when he left the ball after the other guests had departed. Wynn didn't ask what Old Humidor was doing at Stanford House so late, because he didn't want to know. He did ask, “What is the big catastrophe, Mother? Most likely some other gentleman went home with Old Humi—ah, Lord Hume's topper."

"Well, they didn't, for there were no hats left, which there would have been if it was a simple mix-up."

"So someone forgot he came without a hat. It's no great mystery, Mother. The fellow will realize his error this morning"—as soon as he got a whiff of Hume's pervasive cigar smoke—"and return the thing. I trust Lord Hume's initials are inside."

Lady Stanford fidgeted with the handkerchief in her hand. “Yes, but that's not all."

Wynn could have sworn his mother's cheeks were flushed. “It's not?” he asked reluctantly, wishing he were in his workroom, shutting out petticoat problems.

The dowager stared at the cloth in her hands, avoiding her son's scrutiny. “You see, Theo kept something very dear to him in the lining of his hat."

"What kind of cocklehead keeps his treasures in the lining of his hat?” Wynn asked impatiently, one eye on the door to his workroom.

His mother snapped back, “The same kind of cocklehead who plays with toy soldiers."

Lady Stanford should have been working at the War Office.

"Yes, well, I'll check into it, Mother, and I'll tell Wilkins to be on the lookout. Now I really am quite busy."

Wynn would have discounted his mother's botheration as peculiar but not unusual except for the loss of his soldiers, which would have fit handily and unobtrusively in Old Humidor's hat, without making a bulge in someone's tailored coat. The tobacco stench might have peeled the paint off the castings, but no one would have noticed anything untoward.

But Wilkins would not have given Lord Hume's hat to just anyone. When asked, the butler did not recall an odd request or a guest straying to the cloakroom. And he always, Wilkins declared with stiffened spine, checked the initials inside every hat.

As soon as Stubbing completed his examination of the guest list, Wynn was going to go over it, matching initials. Then he'd pay a few calls just to make sure Tripp Hayes or Townsend Haverhill didn't have Theo Hume's chapeau by mistake.

Haverhill had attended Susan's party in hopes of foisting his shrewish daughter off on Wynn, but the baron wouldn't get any false encouragement if Wynn bumped into him by chance at White's. Haverhill was known to spend most of his days—and nights—at White's, for which no one could blame him, so Wynn could avoid any potentially risky encounters.

That rakehell Hadfield had been at Stanford House last evening, too, and Tully's pockets were perpetually to let, but insolvency didn't automatically make a man a thief or a traitor. There might be others with the initials; he'd have to check. And what the devil could Theo Hume be carrying in his hatband that had his mother in a fidge?

Deuce take it, when was he going to have time to work on his painting?

No time soon, it appeared, for the viscount's sister was next to arrive at his erstwhile private office. One look at her and Wynn's heart sank. Susan's face was red, her eyes were swollen, and she clutched a sodden handkerchief in one hand, a crumpled piece of paper in the other. Sarah Siddons before noon. Just what he needed.

"No."

Susan stopped short in midsob. “No? But I haven't said anything yet."

"No anyway. No whatever. No. No matter what it is you are hoping to wheedle out of me with your histrionics. No. And if you throw something else at me, Sukey, I swear I'll marry you off to the next man I see."

Stubbing coughed and backed out of the open door, red-faced.

Susan's gaze followed the officer's ramrod-straight back. “Who was that, Wynn?"

He groaned at the sudden interest in her voice. “My new secretary. No one for you to know. Now, please, Susan, I am busy...."

"But, Wynn, we have to do something.” She waved the paper in his face. “Miss Lockharte is dying! She might even be dead by now."

"Lockharte, is it? I couldn't tell. I got one of her missives also. High melodrama to make herself interesting, puss, nothing to send you into a decline."

"Oh, no, Wynn. There really is an epidemic at Miss Merrihew's. Most of the girls have been sent home. And Lady Mary did die. It was in the newspapers this morning. So, you see, you have to go to Brighton."

"
I
have to? She's your friend, Susan. Why aren't you going?"

"The Farragut rout is tonight and Almack's is tomorrow, then there is a theater party on Thursday. Besides, you'd never let me traipse off to Brighton by myself."

"True, but why the deuce should either of us be going to Brighton in the first place?"

'To help Miss Lockharte, noddy. I told you."

"I appreciate your confidence, puss, but if your friend is already dead, I'm afraid she's beyond even my help. I'm only a viscount, you know, not God."

"I know that you are being purposefully dense. You have to go to Miss Merrihew's at Worthing, outside Brighton, to make sure, to offer aid if need be, and to lay flowers on her grave."

"Good grief, why should I do any such thing? I never met the woman."

"Yes, you did. And you—we—did her a Great Wrong."

Wynn could hear the capital letters. He sighed for his lost morning, sure Susan was about to elucidate.

She dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “I wanted her as my companion when I left Miss Merrihew's, but you said no."

Wynn vaguely recalled something of that nature, but he brushed it off. “You knew Cousin Lenore was coming. She's the perfect companion, up to every rig and row, widowed and respectable. And she needed the position."

"But Lenore is old, and Rosellen was my friend."

Lenore was Wynn's own age. He shrugged. “I am sure your friend found another post."

"That's the problem. She never did. Miss Merrihew wouldn't give her any references once she had given notice. Then the old witch was horrid to her, and now she's dead, and it's your fault. The least you can do is lay some flowers on her resting place. That was her last request."

Wynn seemed to recall that the termagant's last request was for his head on a platter. He rustled through the trash until he found her letter. He reread what he could of the splotched, crumpled mess. “It's no wonder she couldn't find another place teaching penmanship,” he muttered.

Susan didn't wait for him to finish reading. “And she told me I had to be firm, I had to stand up for myself and not let you control my life with your high-handed ways."

"And you think I should have hired some ... some seditionist to encourage you in this fustian, thinking you know better than your guardians?"

"It's not fustian, it's my future. And I will not marry your friend, no matter how many times you invite him for dinner. Doesn't the man have a cook of his own? For sure he doesn't have any conversation."

"Lenore has no trouble talking to Tripp Hayes."

"Then let Cousin Lenore marry the dullard. I will not.” She stamped her foot for emphasis. “But that's not the point. Miss Lockharte encouraged me to learn resolution, to stand up for what I believe. I believe we owe her a decent burial, so what are you going to do about Miss Lockharte?"

"If she's dead, puss, there is nothing to be done. And if she's alive, there's no need to do anything."

"But Miss Merrihew is cruel."

And no other school would have an opening for a heretical, hysterical harridan with slovenly handwriting and a sharp tongue who wrote goosish letters. “Life can be cruel, puss."

Then Susan was in his arms, weeping. “But she was my friend, Wynn. She cared about me and my happiness, not just about money and titles."

Wynn patted her shoulder awkwardly. “I'm a trifle busy, puss, but I'll think about what we can do."

She sniffed. Then she sniffed again and stepped back. “You mean you're too busy with your ladybirds to help an honest lady."

"Dash it, what do you know of ladybirds, Sukey?"

"I know that Mama said you stank of cheap perfume, and she was right."

"She was wrong, my dear. It was very expensive perfume."

Sometimes the post brought glad tidings at Miss Merrihew's Select Academy for Young Females of Distinction: inquiries about new enrollments, cheques of deposit for current students. This was not one of those times.

"What are we going to do, Mirabel? The bitch seems to know everything. We have to get rid of her."

Miss Merrihew tore her letter in half, then half again and again until the pieces of her own expensive writing paper were smaller than her narrow, beady eyes, smaller than her sense of charity toward the letter's author. The paper was costly, but not nearly as costly as the wench's words would be, if made public. If the sanctimonious little scold told anyone about the rancid meats, the unqualified instructors, the pin money gone astray, to say nothing of the roving-eyed reverend, Mirabel Merrihew could move to the antipodes, for all the wealthy, well-born chits she'd be schooling.

She tossed the bits of paper into the flames of her sitting room's fireplace, the only fire kept constantly burning at the school. Then she held her bony fingers out for her companion's letter. “We'll get rid of her, all right, one way or t'other."

Sometimes the mail was early, sometimes the mail was late. And sometimes the Royal Mail was a trifle too diligent.

"Vivian, my love, this rather sad excuse for a letter has traveled after us from Bath to Bristol and back again. It is addressed to you, my precious."

Lady Comfrey,
née
Vivian Baldour, took the letter from her husband's hand, exchanging their squalling son for the penciled post. The earl jiggled the infant and cooed at him while his wife read. The babe stopped screaming and cooed back.

"Comfy, dear,” Vivian said, looking up, “I think we are being blackmailed."

Lord Comfrey was holding his son, the son he never thought to have. The boy was surely the sturdiest, smartest infant in all of England. If the lad wasn't the handsomest, he soon would be, taking after his beautiful mother. Nothing could mar the earl's pleasure in this moment. “Ignore it, my love. That's the best way of dealing with such nuisances."

"But it's a tiresome letter from my old school, Comfy."

"I still say ignore it, precious. That Merrihew chap won't open his mouth, not if he knows what's good for him, and that old stick of a sister of his surely won't cry rope on you. Her school would suffer the same exposure. More, for you are a countess and she is a cit putting on airs."

"No, the letter is from one of the schoolteachers, Miss Lockharte. I recall that she was pleasant enough, if somewhat starchy."

"So what does she have to say for herself?"