Brentwood's Ward (3 page)

With a doorkeeper such as this, mayhap guarding the place wouldn’t be as difficult as he first imagined. “I believe, madam, that if you don’t already know, then maybe you ought not.”

Her eyes shot to his, gunmetal gray and sparking. “A simple ‘imports or exports’ would have sufficed. Come in.”

She stepped aside, allowing him to pass, then cut him off before he could advance any farther. “Wait here, if you please.”

Removing his hat, he studied the grand foyer. Flocked paper lined the walls, graced with enough wall lamps and an overhanging chandelier that the light would likely give him a headache come evening. To his right, a carpeted stairway led upward. At its base, three paces past and to the left, a single door. Closed. Opposite, french doors opened to a sitting room before the rest of the home disappeared down a corridor. It smelled of wealth and lemon wax—

And a faint scent of linseed oil as the housekeeper reappeared from the hallway. “This way, Mr. Brentwood.”

He followed her swishing skirt as she retreated once more down the corridor. Stopping in front of the next closed door, she knocked, and a “Just let the man in, Mrs. Hunt,” bellowed from behind.

Twisting the knob, she nodded at him. “If you please.”

Out of habit, Nicholas scanned the room. Two floor-to-ceiling windows and a large hearth, besides the threshold he’d just crossed, presented four possible points of access. Four. In one room. This could prove a very tedious assignment.

“Mr. Brentwood.”

The first thing he noticed at Mr. Payne’s approach was the fellow’s round belly. Apparently Portman House employed a good cook. At least the eating part of this assignment would be agreeable. His gaze traveled upward then stopped, fixated on Payne’s amazingly horrible teeth—chompers any beaver would give a hind leg to own. Nicholas squinted. Were the front two really that big or the rest abnormally small? A man of his standing surely could afford to have them pulled and replaced with porcelain replicas. Or at the very least, could he not have the rascals sanded down and even them out a bit?

Before he breached protocol any further, Nicholas forced his gaze higher and held out his hand. “Mr. Payne.”

The fellow clasped his fingers in a firm grip followed by a squeeze. Confident and over so. Quite the contradiction to the man’s appearance, for the structure of the rest of his face made him look perpetually surprised. Fuzzy hair, thankfully short and sparse, stood on end, as if he’d just taken a great fright. Dark eyes, brown as dried tobacco, sat below wiry white eyebrows, high set and arched—apparently their normal repose. This man surely made children laugh, perhaps even his daughter.

“Have a seat. I understand you’re one of Ford’s men, eh?” The freakish teeth punctuated his words.

“I am.” Nicholas eyed the furniture to keep from staring. Anchored on an overlarge Persian rug, two library chairs faced a glossy desk. Interesting, though, that no inkwells or papers, ledgers or registers favored the topside. It was bare. Completely. What kind of businessman was this Mr. Payne?

The man sank into a seat behind the desk, cushions whooshing a complaint beneath his weight. “Please excuse the somewhat unconventional greeting at the door. I’ve given my butler a temporary leave. I hope you weren’t too put out by Mrs. Hunt. She can be a bit brash at times.”

Nicholas met the fellow’s even gaze. “Perhaps you ought to offer her the guardian position.”

“I said she’s brash, sir, not wily.”

After his short encounter with the woman, Nicholas was not convinced. That mobcap hid more than aggression. He tipped his head. “I was not aware that cunning was one of the qualities you desired.”

“Yet you are, Brentwood. Cunning, that is. Or you would not be employed as one of Bow Street’s finest.” Mr. Payne sat back and lifted his chin. “Am I not right?”

Nicholas said nothing.

“Very well, man. I can see you’d like to get down to business. My daughter, Miss Emily, is…” His eyes followed his brows upward, and he studied the ceiling as if a description of the girl might be found near the rafters. Silence stretched, revealing more than a score of words could accomplish.

A father speechless about his daughter did not bode well.

After excessive throat clearing, Mr. Payne finally spoke: “Let’s just say Emily knows her own mind, or at least she thinks she does. Because of this, I charge you with the oversight of her at all times until I return.”

“Which will be?” The thought of safekeeping a prideful girl for days on end—one who may have a beaver bite like her father—sounded as diverting as the time he’d lugged ol’ Nat Waggins, escape artist extraordinaire, from York down to Tyburn.

“I expect to be gone a month, give or take and naturally weather permitting, at which point I shall award you 250 pounds. It’s very straightforward, Mr. Brentwood. Keep my daughter safe, and the money is yours.” Payne leaned sideways and slid open a drawer, procuring a carved wooden box with brass hinges. From his waistcoat pocket, he fished out a tiny key. “Though I suppose you should like an advance, eh?”

“May I ask a few questions?” Not that he’d turn down the payment. Jenny’s life hung in the balance without it—and perhaps even with it.

Mr. Payne set the key in the box’s lock. A click later, he lifted the lid. “Of course.”

Nicholas drew in a breath, girding up for a salvo technique he’d mastered long ago. “I gather you are a merchant, hence the travel, and the import/export mentioned by your housekeeper.”

“I am.”

“Should the need arise, how do I reach you?”

“You don’t.”

“Then are there other relations I may contact?”

“None.”

“Yet you fear for Miss Payne’s safety.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

That stopped the man but only for the briefest of moments. A pause easily missed, one Nicholas had learned to listen for in the voices of swindlers and cons.

Payne scowled, the effect lightened by the ridiculous teeth peeking through his lips. “You can imagine, Brentwood, that a man in my position garners many enemies. Blood-sucking enemies, no less. Emily is my only heir, hence my one vulnerability.”

“What exactly is your position, Mr. Payne?”

The man slammed the box’s lid shut with one hand and held out a banknote with the other. “Commerce, Brentwood. The world’s wheels turn on the hub of commerce, of which I am the center, leastwise in the shipping industry. Now then, here is your advance.”

Nicholas leaned forward and pinched the paper between thumb and forefinger, expecting the man’s grip to lessen.

It tightened. “One more thing. There’s been a slight change of plans. I expect you to set up quarters here. Now. My ship sails by day’s end.”

A nerve on the side of his neck jumped. He’d have no time to dash over to the Crown and Horn to let Jenny know of his whereabouts. If she should need him, no one would know where to find him…unless he paid a courier to deliver a message. He lifted his gaze to meet Payne’s. “Then a change in remuneration should be in order as well, I think.”

The man frowned, yet the banknote loosened. He pocketed the sum as Payne withdrew another note.

“Very shrewd, Brentwood. I see why Ford’s runners have earned such a reputation.”

Runner?
Heat burned a trail up Nicholas’s spine and lodged at the base of his skull. The man might as well have questioned his parentage. He snatched the added check from the man’s pudgy fingers then rose and skewered him with a glance. “I shall give you the benefit of the doubt this time, Mr. Payne, for perhaps you are not aware that
runner
is a derogatory term. One I don’t take kindly to being associated with. I am, in your own words, one of Bow Street’s finest, not an errand boy or Ford’s lackey; I am a detective, sir, an investigator. A sleuth. The kind of man who will stop at nothing to hunt down a criminal and bring him to justice at the end of a rope. Now you are educated. See that it doesn’t happen again.”

“Well…I…” Payne’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, his brows ending where his white hairline began. “Of course.” He busied himself by tucking away the box then stepped to a velvet cord on the wall and tugged it.

Pocketing the rest of the payment, Nicholas allowed his blood to cool. It’d been a hard battle to become a man of integrity, a fight he’d not see belittled by donning a pejorative title.

“Aye, sir?” The housekeeper’s head peeked through the door.

“Summon Miss Emily straightaway, Mrs. Hunt.” Payne resumed his seat behind the desk.

Nicholas preferred to remain standing and meet the little heiress with the advantage of height.

“I am sorry, but she is gone out with Miss Mary. Will that be all, sir?”

Color started rising slowly, like mercury up a thermometer, slipping over Payne’s ears, diffusing across his cheeks, then inching up his nose. Judging by the rapid spread, his head might pop at any moment—and those teeth would be deadly projectiles. Nicholas retreated a step.

“The devil you say! I specifically forbade her!” Payne sputtered an oath. “Never mind, Mrs. Hunt. That will be all.”

As soon as the door shut, Payne retrieved his safe box yet again. He removed a fistful of assorted notes and held them out. “Take it, Brentwood.”

Nicholas narrowed his eyes. “You’ve provided a sufficient advance. What is this for?”

A muscle jumped near the hinge of Payne’s jaw before he ground out, “Hazard pay, for indeed, Emily is hazardous on more levels than one.”

Emily’s shadow arrived at the townhome before she did. Mary’s lagged behind, shorter and wider. As her maid caught up, hatboxes draped on each arm like Christmas ornaments, Emily stepped aside and lowered her voice. “Now don’t forget—”

“I won’t.” Mary nodded toward the door, bonnet askew. “Would you mind?”

Emily reached for the knob, grateful that Mrs. Hunt ran a well-oiled household. “Good luck,” she whispered as Mary passed then took care to shut the door behind her.

One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Mary ought to have made it to the base of the stairs by now. Three-one-thousand, four. Should have ascended at least a few treads. Five-one-thousand, six and seven-one-thousand…

Emily pressed her ear to the cool mahogany, shutting out the
clip-clop
s and grinding wheels of a passing carriage. Eight-one-thousand, nine. She held her breath.
Wait for it. Wait for
—

Mary’s shriek, while a bit over the top, trilled from within. The
thumpity-thumps
of dropped boxes were a nice touch. The girl was starting to grow on her, though she’d never replace the spot in Emily’s heart for her former maid, Wren. Nevertheless, a smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

And a deep moan leaching through the door wiped it away.

Muffled footsteps pounded across the foyer tiles. Voices, not words, filtered through the wood, but their emotion came through clear enough. Worry. Pain. Fear? La, it sounded as if the entire household congregated just beyond the threshold. She’d never be able to sneak in undetected now.

Slowly she withdrew her ear from the door then turned and leaned against it. What had gone wrong? Ignoring the fading light and passing coaches, she bit the inside of her lower lip and mulled over her plan. All Mary need do was create a diversion by pretending to have seen a mouse. A squeal, perhaps a feigned swoon, something to get the servants—and her father—to set their mind on something other than her late arrival, and she’d slip in unnoticed.

Now that would be impossible.

A gust of wind swooped beneath her bonnet and snagged loose a piece of hair. She flattened her lips and tucked up the stray. Standing on the stoop all evening wasn’t an option, and with twilight’s growing chill, tarrying much longer wouldn’t be pleasant, either.

Emily folded her arms, calculating her next move as she might in a hand of whist. She could waltz in, pretending as if nothing had happened, that she’d not technically disobeyed her father…but that wouldn’t stop his censure. Mayhap she might play on everyone’s sympathy and develop a cough. No, that would only add further restrictions to her comings and goings. Plus she’d have to remember to cough frequently. That wouldn’t do at all. Perhaps she ought—

The door flew open. She plunged backward, mimicking Mary’s earlier shriek. Strong hands righted her before she bruised her backside and her dignity.

Regaining her balance, she drew in a breath and turned. “I swear I can explain, Father—”

A man, decades younger than her father, studied her with an intense pair of green eyes—eyes that sifted and weighed the content of her heart and soul in one glance. Desire to run and hide from his curious inspection welled in her stomach—and the reaction annoyed her.

She lifted her chin and returned the stranger’s stare. A shadow lined his jaw. He’d not taken the time to shave, yet the look favored his rugged style. Dark hair breached his collar’s edge, wild and wavy, not quite long enough to pull into a queue. A good pomade would tame it, but she suspected the man would not give in to such folderol, considering the stark cut of his dress coat and plain-colored vest beneath. He might have stepped off one of her father’s merchantmen, but he didn’t smell of the sea…more like spent gunpowder and boot blacking. She wrinkled her nose. Who was this wild man?