Blackstone's Bride (7 page)

Chapter Seven

“I am quite sorry . . . that you should be forced to have that disagreeable man all to yourself. But I hope you will not mind it. . . . and there is no occasion for talking to him, except just now and then. So, do not put yourself to inconvenience.”

—Jane Austen,
Pride and Prejudice

Madame Girard’s Hat Shop occupied a fashionable corner off Leicester Square. A pair of tall double green doors with elaborate glass panels led the way through an arch into the interior. The showroom was divided between shelves that held madame’s creations, and mirrored alcoves, each with a silk-covered bench, for patrons to try the wares.

As they entered, Violet leaned close to whisper in her betrothed’s ear, “Shopping! Frank is missing, and we are shopping.”

The prince’s party had split in two with Papa taking the men off to see those great monuments of commerce and government—the Royal Exchange and Hammersley Bank, while Blackstone and Violet took the countess shopping.

Violet hardly knew how the first half of the day had passed. Blackstone appeared when she emerged from her room. They’d left before her breakfast coffee cooled, accompanying the royal party to see the magnificent black horses the prince insisted on stabling nearby. They made a circuit of the usual London sights, churches, squares, and monuments. The prince never failed to admire England’s heroes when they appeared mounted. He seemed to view horsemanship as the chief quality of a monarch.

Blackstone was at her side every moment, to offer his arm as they crossed cobbles, or his hand as she climbed in or out of the barouche. His body seemed to anticipate hers, to move in relation to her. Her hand felt the weight of his ring with every move. Violet, who had been climbing in and out of carriages, passing through doorways, and managing packages with no more than the alert assistance of a well-trained and well-paid footman, was made to feel helpless.

The countess, on the other hand, seemed to relish Blackstone’s interference. His gaze followed her, and she threw him appealing glances and becoming blushes whenever they met a curb. The countess could turn a simple curb into an impassable country stile that required a strong male arm. Violet did not think she had ever blushed, not even when she had said the most preposterous things. She knew now, of course, that they had been preposterous, but then it had seemed that she could say anything to him and he would not scold or look aghast at her.

The day seemed an endless dance in which she shared a reluctant partner with a more captivating woman. The music played on, and one was obliged to go through the figures over and over and never advance to the end of the ballroom. The government would no doubt commend Blackstone’s devotion to duty.

In the hat shop the titled visitor roused the mercenary instincts of proprietress and staff alike. Madame turned to the countess and directed an assistant to help Violet with her coat, hat, and gloves. Violet allowed the countess to keep Blackstone’s arm and lead him about while she exclaimed over the cunning designs, madame’s staff trailing in her wake. In no time, she was seated on a silk bench, trying to win Blackstone’s approval for a youthful chip straw bonnet while the staff moved with quiet, swift efficiency to bring refreshments or new designs.

Just once Blackstone shot Violet a look that promised vengeance for her escape from the role of fond fiancé. His suffering look inexplicably cheered her as she turned to admire a high-crowned chocolate silk bonnet, its peaked brim embellished with a pair of dusky pink roses. It would suit her, she thought, simple and expensive. She nodded to the one clerk assisting her that she would like to try the piece.

An hour later as they made their purchases, Madame Girard’s mouth grew tighter and tighter. The countess explained in a gush of girlish breathlessness that her bill must be sent to her husband the count at the Milvert’s Hotel at the end of the week.

“Is it not done in England so?” she asked Blackstone.

The little shop bell tinkled, a lady stepped in, and Madame Girard abandoned them to greet her next customer. There was no mistaking the distinct countenance of Arabella Young, Lady Chalfont, friend of Penelope Frayne, and fellow patroness of Violet’s ball. Arabella nodded to Violet, but her gaze went straight to Blackstone.

“Lady Chalfont.” He strolled over to take her hand with an easy charm. “Your presence here confirms our good taste. Let me introduce my companions. You know Miss Hammersley? And her guest, the Countess Rezina of Moldova.”

The encounter was over in minutes. Blackstone managed to charm Madame Girard back into good humor, escort the frail countess from the door, and bid Lady Chalfont farewell. Violet calculated the amount of time it would take for the news to reach Penelope. Women did not wager on the relative speed of raindrops down a window or the life expectancies of flies, but Violet was willing to wager that in less than thirty minutes the Duchess of Huntingdon would know that Violet and Blackstone had been seen together.

She should go home and toss the cards of invitation to her ball on the fire.

* * *

Nate Wilde was on assignment far from Goldsworthy’s club passing through haunts he’d once known as a boy. At a corner where an old white church with pepper-pot turrets faced a sharp-edged brick charity school for girls, Nate turned and hunched his way down Nightingale Lane past opium dens to Wapping Highstreet in the center of London’s docks. Some might say that Lord Blackstone had the better part of the case, riding around in a fine barouche with highborn nobs, but Nate saw the promise in his work. He might be the one to find Frank Hammersley.

In the perpetual shadow of the high dock walls, carts and wagons rumbled past, shaking the ground. Nate had left off the fashionable clothes of the club for a rough jacket and a tweed wool cap with a bill that concealed much of his face. His walk and manner changed to match his secondhand attire. A brisk breeze blew the stench of burning tobacco in his face. Near the Thames, condemned cargoes burned in furnaces day and night next to the acres of warehouses. Every shift of the breeze wafted a competing scent over him—coffee or spice or sulfurous ore or hides or the rank mud of the great river. A day in the docklands could exhaust a man’s nose.

Goldsworthy’s informants in the customs office said the ship that brought the prince to London had carried Spanish wine and Ceylon tea. The barrels of wine had been off-loaded and sent to the vast underground vaults of the London Docks. The tea had followed a path to the merchant who bought it, Waring & Sons Bonded Tea Merchants. Nate picked out the route and followed it, noting lodging houses, taprooms, and derelict buildings along the way. If someone wanted to keep Frank Hammersley alive but out of the way in London, the dockside warren of lanes and quays made sense.

That was the best information they had so far. Someone wanted Frank Hammersley’s family to think he was larking about on the Continent or doing some banking business in Spain, and that someone did not know the government was already on the case.

Feeling nearly invisible, Nate wove his way through men and vehicles in the shadow of the dock’s huge walls. Flaxen-haired or brown-skinned sailors passed, speaking a medley of tongues, and grimy shop windows displayed all the gear a sailor could want, tins of meat and biscuits, brass sextants, ropes and lines coated with tar. None of the hardened men Nate passed would think twice to hear an odd accent or to see a man half dragged as if the worse for drink. Some would no doubt jump at the chance to knock a man senseless for a bit of extra coin. Once Frank’s captors had removed him from the ship, he would be as secure as any cargo in the locked warehouses or wine vaults of London.

How they had removed him under the nose of customs officers was another question. And there was the darker possibility that the government had in mind—that Frank Hammersley had chosen to disappear and that he didn’t want to be found. No one had mentioned it openly, but Nate could read Goldsworthy now after working with him for near a year.

The warehouse of Waring & Sons Bonded Tea Merchants proved a dead end in a row of derelict buildings. The
Madagascar
’s cargo could not have been delivered there. The row of buildings had suffered a fire. Though the brick outer walls stood, charred rubbish lay in heaps against them. The doors were chained and locked and only two portions of the roof remained at either end of the building. Nate made a note of doors and windows to sketch for Blackstone.

Beyond the row of warehouses the river lapped the shore. Nate could see a narrow weedy path along the bank above the river. He declined to investigate that way. No sense in falling in the river if one couldn’t swim. He would have to find another way to make a closer inspection. A burned-out building might make a good hiding place, and he looked for signs of recent entry.

Retracing his steps, he let himself slip back into his old ways. He’d once been a Bredsell boy. Before the Reverend Bredsell’s arrest for fraud and manslaughter, the larcenous vicar had run a school for orphan boys that trained them in thievery and spying rather than in honest trades. In his three years with the school, Nate had learned to work a street. In those days it had been his ambition to become a high mobsman with a purple silk waistcoat and a gold watch the size of a turnip. Now that he had the finest coats to wear, that ambition seemed hollow. He didn’t know yet how far he could go in his new profession, but he was sure he would beat the best mobsman all to pieces. He might even get a “Sir” to his name like Xander and Will Jones, men who had once been his enemies, but who had become steady friends.

Nate had come over to Goldsworthy’s operation from Will Jones’s employ. Sir William, as he was now called, was working with Peel on plans for a true Metropolitan Police Force, and when those plans hit a snag in parliament, Jones had found a place for Nate with Goldsworthy. Nate knew he would go back to straight police work in time, but for now he could not complain—the clothes, the digs, and the close proximity to Miranda Kirby—filled his days.

As he slouched along, he tried to put the pieces together the way he’d learned from the copper Will Jones. Somewhere between the dock and Waring & Sons’ ruined tea warehouse, Frank Hammersley was confined. That meant money had changed hands. A landlord or a watchman had been paid to look the other way, to lock a door, keep a watch on the prisoner, bring a plate of food. And someone had to empty the prisoner’s piss pot, the sort of someone who wouldn’t be above trying to make a little extra coin on the side for his trouble. A familiar sign caught his eye up a narrow lane, as promisingly disreputable as any in London, with the name Cat’s Hole painted on the bricks at the corner. Coming out of the lane was a small neat man in threadbare finery whistling a shrill, sour tune. It was second nature to Nate to notice others without being noticed, so he made himself part of the scenery until the fellow passed. When Nate looked back, the man had disappeared off the high. Nate turned up Cat’s Hole Lane to have a chat with the proprietor of the pawnshop. A friendly conversation today could mean needed information tomorrow.

* * *

Violet took up her vigil in Frank’s room at the end of the second day of his absence, or the beginning of the third day, depending on how one looked at it. Frank’s trunk still stood in the middle of the room next to his leather bench. Tonight there was no danger that she and Blackstone would end up on the bench again. She saw now how he meant to play the role of fiancé—ever politely solicitous and close, while flirting with the little countess. What she did not see was how his act helped them find Frank.

Papa had gone straight to bed after the prince’s dinner for the officers of the bank. He did his best to appear hospitable before the prince, but when the prince said anything particularly thickheaded about Frank’s absence, Papa’s expression flickered between mild annoyance and naked rage. Earlier in the day he had tried to enlist Bow Street, and the magistrate had refused to help, claiming the matter was a foreign office affair.

From the door Violet surveyed Frank’s room with care. She wanted to be sure Blackstone was not ahead of her, lurking in a dark corner. Last night when he had taken charge and acted like an investigator, she had hoped for Frank’s immediate recovery. Whatever pain their past history might bring, she had been sure she could endure it to see Frank safely home. But during the day, that hope had slipped away. In Blackstone’s manner she could detect no urgency, no concern for Frank. In all his interactions with the little countess he had seemed to be the man about whom Penelope Frayne and others would gossip—idle and carnal. Violet meant to take him to task about it as soon as he appeared. She took a stand by Frank’s desk.

Blackstone appeared from wherever he’d gone after dinner, looking as unperturbed as ever, as if they had all the time in the world to find Frank and no unease about his circumstances.

“I do not see how we will find Frank in a hat shop.”

“Good evening to you, Violet. I think we had a good day.” He closed the door and reached up to undo the knot of his neckcloth.

She looked away. “What could we possibly gain with the purchase of a pair of hats?”

He crossed to the fireplace and lit the coals in the grate, taking time to stir the fire to crackling life as if he’d forgotten her presence. She thought she might leave without his observing it, and then he spoke.

“Your confidence in me astonishes, as always. No one in the prince’s party got near Frank today. We kept them with us at all times. We appeared unsuspecting. We accepted their story of Frank’s delay. Occasionally, we appeared to be properly betrothed. We might want to work on that bit some.”

“If we failed to appear properly betrothed, it might have been because you flirted with the saucer-eyed countess at every turn.”

“She plainly wants me to think she needs rescuing. Doesn’t that rouse your curiosity, Violet?”

“Rescuing from what?”

He leaned an elbow on the mantelpiece. “A bad marriage, desperate circumstances? I don’t know.”

Violet thought about it. “Her helplessness hardly seems a threat.”