Dangerous Deceptions (14 page)

“Your mother might know.”

Olivia froze with a fresh bite of pie halfway to her mouth. “Mother?” she cried, setting her portion gingerly down. “Peggy, Mother’s a dear, loving woman, but she’s not exactly clever. Besides, Father doesn’t speak to her of business any more than he does to me.”

“But she’s still his wife, and she knows something’s happening, Olivia.” I remembered Aunt Pierpont’s face as she spoke her parting words to me.
Peggy, you must stop this game. If he gets truly angry, it will not go well for anyone.
“You need to talk to her. Try to draw her out. She likes me. She tried to warn me against being foolish.” We shared an appreciative pause at the irony of this. “She might be coaxed into saying something.”

Olivia took a stab at her pie before she answered. “I could try, I suppose.”

“Only if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Forgive me if I appear surprised,” she answered in a tone equally arid. “I did not anticipate that my first commission as an aide to my cousin the spy would be to have a cozy chat with my mother.”

“Or look after a breeding dog.”

Olivia smiled a little at my quip. “Do you know,” she began thoughtfully, “I think I might see some merit to your scheme after all, cousin.”

A distinct feeling of unease stole over me. “Oh?”

“Yes. In fact, it’s quite perfect, because when I am occupied drawing my mother out about Father’s business, you can be occupied searching his book room.”

This suggestion was delivered with such unparalleled delight, it was a full minute before I could gather breath and wit enough to answer. But when I did, I answered firmly.

“Olivia, that is a
dreadful
idea.”

This simple declaration of unvarnished fact failed to dim my cousin’s excitement, which circumstance, sadly, I could have predicted. “It’s perfect,” she repeated slowly, as if I’d misheard her the first time. “You can come during the day when we know he’s away at the bank.”

“It is not perfect. If we need to risk our necks searching anywhere, it should be the bank itself.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Olivia waved her fork. “He won’t keep anything important there. Anyone might walk in and find it.”

“As opposed to keeping it at his house, where you might be nosing about at any hour of the day?”

“I never nose!” Olivia was able to meet my gaze for all of five seconds before she slumped back as far as her corsets permitted. “Oh, very well, have it your own way. Let us agree we’ll search the book room. Then, should there perhaps be anything else we need to find, we will search the bank.”

“Olivia, I am not going into the house.” There was nothing to prevent my uncle from having me arrested for theft and housebreaking. I had no interest in being transported to the colonies for a fool’s errand. The climate of Virginia would not suit me in the least.

“You won’t come into the house when Father’s not there, but you’ll go into the bank when he is? And you accuse me of being witless!”

I will admit that when she laid the situation out in those terms, it looked less promising. “Obviously, I would not be the one to go into the bank.”

“Then who would be? I’m afraid I’d be rather easily recognized.”

“I hadn’t formed the entire plan yet,” I confessed. “But that is not the point. The point is that a man with something to hide is not going to keep it in his home.”

“Nonsense. A man with something to hide will keep it with his most private and valuable possessions. That indicates his home.”

This was a ridiculous argument. Neither one of us had any direct experience with men’s secret papers. Pointing this out, however, would do nothing to convince Olivia to drop the subject. I could tell as much by the set of her jaw and that dark light her inner obstinacy kindled in her eyes. I would have to find another way to get round her.

It does not speak well to my character at all that another way came quite quickly to hand.

“We’ll draw cards for it,” I told her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“We’ll draw cards.” With only a little difficulty, I squeezed myself into the space between the table and my writing desk and pulled an ivory box from one of the lower drawers. Guinevere, of course, shoved her way around my ankles to bark at the drawer, and I had to hand her to Olivia so she wouldn’t accidentally be shut inside. When I returned to the table, I slipped back the box lid to reveal my personal deck of pasteboards.

“Whoever chooses the winning card decides where we search first.”

Olivia petted Guinevere as she eyed my pack of cards with their diamond-patterned backs and gilded edges. Her expression was shrewd enough to cause me to shift my weight uneasily, even though it was just directed at the cards. When she turned that expression toward me, I became very afraid I might lose my countenance altogether.

“You recently informed me you have learned new methods of cheating, and now you expect me to draw cards with you?”

“Do you believe I’d cheat you?” I replied, as calmly as I could manage.

This question did nothing to lighten the scrutiny my cousin leveled against me. “Peggy, if you thought it was to keep me from doing something you considered dangerous, you’d cheat the king himself.”

I was not sure whether to be flattered or insulted by this statement. Fortunately, I was also not entirely surprised by it. “Very well. I won’t even touch the cards.” I pushed the box toward her. “You shall shuffle and cut them yourself.”

Slowly, with her gaze fixed on me, Olivia set Guinevere back down. She lifted the pack from its box. Still watching me, she shuffled them, not once but again, and again. Then she cut them, twice. And shuffled them again. I waited. Patience is essential whenever a card pack is involved. Neither did I drop my gaze from hers.

“High card to win?” I asked her.

“Low card.” Olivia continued to watch me with great care and attention. Let me state for the record, I was in no way enjoying this. I had no doubt as to what I was doing, but the fact that I was playing such a game with Olivia, even for the best of reasons, was digging into my skin as sharply as any pin.

Olivia turned over the top card from the pack and laid it down. It was the ten of diamonds.

I nodded. “You will draw for me as well. Shuffle the cards.”

This was the tricky bit. This was where luck might actually come into play, and as Monsieur Janvier had told me a thousand times, luck could sink any enterprise at the table. I was grateful to all my practice in the glare of court, because without it, I would not have been able to keep from biting my lip.

Olivia shuffled the cards, once, twice, and three times, just as she had before. She cut them once, shuffled them three times, and cut them twice more. When circumstances allowed, I would have to warn her against such patterns. They made one predictable.

Olivia lifted the top card.

“Are you sure?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Very well.”

Olivia turned the card over. It was the five of clubs.

“And there it is,” I said to her. “We go to the bank first.”

For a long moment, Olivia did not move. Then she picked up the cards. She sorted through them, looking at the backs and then the fronts. I let her look. Unless she thought to run her fingers across the edges, there was nothing for her to find.

“You did something,” Olivia said, as she set the card pack down.

I did not answer.

“You did something, and you’re not even going to have the decency to tell me what it is.”

Again, I said nothing. On the list of things I had learned from my eclectic assortment of tutors was that when one is queried about actions that might contain some hint of dishonesty, it is better to remain silent. I did not want to provide Olivia with any excuse to cry off our bargain. Therefore, I did not tell her that I had previously marked those cards using a discreet methodology taught to me by a Mr. Peele and refined by Monsieur Janvier. Thanks to those marks, I could tell by looking that the first card Olivia agreed to having turned was of relatively high value. Therefore, I declared high card would win. This prompted my justly suspicious cousin to counter that it would be the low card. Although she thought she was further complicating any chance of deception, she was giving me an advantage. In a full pack, the majority of the cards are worth less than a ten. When she finished her shuffling, my marks allowed me to see that such a card rested on top, so I had no need to urge her to cut or shuffle one more time.

This was, of course, a sneaking and deceitful practice, especially when used against my beloved cousin. There were times, however, when Olivia needed to be saved from her own dramatic instincts. This, I felt quite certain, was such a time.

“Are you going to cry off?” I asked her.

Olivia shook her head. “No. I said I would do this thing, and I will, just as soon—my dear and entirely too clever cousin—as you work out how we are to lay siege to a stout English bank without being seen.”

I felt myself smile. “I was hoping you’d help me with that. I’ve been to look at the banking house, but I confess, I am stumped.”

Olivia shut her mouth hard. For a moment, her face tightened in disapproval and the awareness she had just been manipulated into a corner. But Olivia, being Olivia, could not resist a challenge. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table.

“Tell me everything.”

FOURTEEN

Most evenings saw a gathering of some sort in Her Royal Highness’s apartments. Large, formal parties such as the drawing room occurred at regular intervals, but Princess Caroline liked to intersperse these obligations with relatively intimate occasions with particular friends or people whose friendship she particularly wished to cultivate. Ceremony and protocol eased at these parties. Of course, cards were played. Her Royal Highness also made sure a great deal of very good wine was served. In combination with the lightening of the ceremony, this encouraged people to speak their minds freely, and Princess Caroline had very sharp ears.

During such gatherings, we maids were not only allowed, but encouraged, to circulate and enter into conversation with as many people as possible. This would give me the perfect chance to find Molly’s Mrs. Egan.

Only heroic efforts on Libby’s part allowed me to make my entrance before the clock touched the hour of Unforgivably Late. It had taken longer than I expected to convince Olivia that I had given her all the details I had regarding her father’s bank, that I really did need to get dressed, and that I was not going to change my mind and decide to break into the book room instead of the bank. I made my curtsy to the princess, had it accepted, and was then allowed the freedom of the room.

Perhaps two dozen persons had gathered, all of them dressed in a shining array of colored silks and velvets, and most of them strolling about the room to take one another’s measure. The effect was a little like the arena at the start of a cockfight, only the birds were more finely plumed and the spurs less immediately obvious.

Eventually, I located Mrs. Dorothea Egan. Standing alone by the windows, she watched the currents of the gathering with a serious demeanor. There are levels of courtiers. Some on the lower tiers manage to maintain a decent income by providing services of various sorts to those of us farther up the twisted Jacob’s ladder that is aristocratic society. Not all of these are services anyone will admit to needing.

“Mrs. Egan?” I pasted on my blandest and most pleasant courtier’s smile as I reached the lady’s side. “I beg your pardon, but I hoped I might be allowed to introduce myself. Margaret Fitzroy.” I dropped a shallow but still respectful curtsy.

“Oh, there is no need to beg pardon, I assure you.” Mrs. Egan bobbed her own curtsy. She had a deep and raspy voice, the sort that made your throat itch as you listened. “I’ve been hoping to make your acquaintance, Miss Fitzroy.”

Mrs. Egan was an inch or two shorter than myself. She still wore the fontange, as well as a black lace veil indicating her widowed state. Her round-skirted gown was mostly dark green velvet, instead of the lighter silks that were in vogue. The effect was of a confirmed dowdy, but her faded blue eyes were very much of the calculating kind.

I flipped open my sandalwood fan. “There was a matter I was hoping to consult you about.”

“I am extremely flattered, Miss Fitzroy. How may I be of assistance?”

“It is my understanding that ladies of the court sometimes have duplicates of select jewels created, in order that the genuine might be stored away securely. To deter theft,” I added. My patience strained at having to go about this in such a circuitous fashion. But I was a maid of honor and therefore a Delicate Lady. A Delicate Lady could no more discuss business transactions directly than she could be seen in public without her corset secured, especially if that business involved her jewelry.

Fortunately, Circuitous proved to be Mrs. Egan’s native language. She would have gotten on well with Mr. Tinderflint. “Why, yes. Acquiring a paste or glass copy of the original to have when traveling, or for more everyday occasions, is common practice among many of our best ladies.”

I nodded in languid agreement. One did not appear too enthusiastic in public. “That’s exactly the sort of thing I was thinking. Do you know of any workmen who could take on such a task?”

Mrs. Egan looked me in the eye. The dowdy receded, and the business woman peeped out.

“There are several reputable houses who can be relied upon to make the copy and value the original,” she said. This last was important because a house that could assess the value of a piece of jewelry could also be relied on to purchase that same item, should the lady wish to sell the original and keep only the duplicate. “It would be my pleasure to contact any of their principals on your behalf, if that would be of use to you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Egan. That is most kind.”

We said our polite goodbyes, and I promised that I would write soon. Already, I was enumerating which of my various pieces I could safely copy and sell. I did not wear many jewels at one time, so the temporary absence of this bracelet or that pin would not be much remarked upon. I fingered the jeweled brooch with its long, straight pin that decorated my stomacher. That one I would keep, come fire or flood.