Point of Honour (10 page)

“I had surmised it, my lord,” Miss Tolerance said.

“Had you?” He raised one eyebrow. “May I ask how?”

“If you truly wish to keep your guests in the dark about your identity, don’t send a carriage for them with crested cushions.” She smiled and took another sip from her glass. “But perhaps you were not so much interested in baffling me as in confusing observers as to the origin and destination of your coach. The point on which I am not entirely clear is the reason for your flattering summons. I was promised information which would be useful to me.”

“And you shall have it. Prudence is all very well, but it was becoming apparent to me that my wish for discretion was hampering you in the inquiry you are conducting on my behalf.”

Miss Tolerance tilted her head.
“Your
behalf, sir? Which inquiry is that?”

“The matter of the Italian fan you are reclaiming for me.”

“
If
I were undertaking such a thing, sir,” Miss Tolerance said carefully, “I regret that it would not be on your behalf.”

The gentleman nodded. “Your discretion is everything I would wish it, Miss Tolerance, but I assure you: you undertook to act for Lord Trux, who was acting as my agent.”

“If that is the case, then this will be the first time someone has come to me with a job to undertake for a
friend
where such a friend actually existed! I hope you will not take it amiss, my lord, if I ask if you have any proof that you, and not Lord Trux, are the person with whom I should discuss this matter?”

“I can show you this.” Versellion handed her a slip of paper. “And for the rest, I will tell you some things which Trux, I believe, has not. I believe the information will make more sense of your task, and that must be my best proof of who I am.”

Miss Tolerance opened the paper, apparently written to Versellion by Trux: it contained the details of the inquiry Miss Tolerance had related to Trux the evening before. She returned it to Versellion.

“The matter of the fan may be one of some delicacy, and arose at a point when Lord Trux was pressing for a way to be of service to me. Lord Trux,” Versellion said dryly, “wishes very much to be of assistance to me.”

“How very agreeable that must be,” Miss Tolerance said in the same tone.

Versellion laughed. He had a very flattering manner, Miss Tolerance thought, unsettled. One who fell under his gaze might feel as though she were the only person in the world. “Trux has his uses,” he was saying now. “But to the subject of the fan, Miss Tolerance, it
is
a matter—”

“Of some delicacy,” Miss Tolerance finished. What could there be about this fan that the Earl of Versellion would set such an inquiry in motion? He was head of one of the most politically inclined Whig families, the target of matrimonial gambits by mothers and marriageable daughters, a man of power and wealth, singularly blessed by fortune. Even if an ancient courtesan chose to publish memoirs which named him as one of her lovers—but that was not the case, or did not fit the facts she knew—what damage could seriously be done him?

“Whatever delicacy you require, my lord, the inquiry will go more smoothly if you are candid with me.”

Versellion frowned. “I have every intention—”

Miss Tolerance shook her head. “You, or rather Lord Trux, have given a story which is false upon its face. I shall be hard-pressed to help you unless you deal straight with me. I was told that the fan was given to Mrs. Cunning by her lover, and it was strongly implied that
you
were that lover.”

“And?”

“Whatever habits of secrecy politics has bred in you, sir, I hope you will abandon them with me. I may have left my schoolroom under unorthodox circumstances, but I learnt to add. Everything I have learned suggests that Mrs. Cunning retired from her profession almost twenty years ago, and nowhere has it been suggested to me that her last lover was a boy of—you would have been, what? thirteen? fifteen? If you were not the last of her lovers, that would make you younger still at the time. Whatever her morals, I cannot quite believe that Mrs. Cunning would have taken a nine- or ten-year-old boy into her bed. May I presume that it was not you, but your father who had the honor to be Mrs. Cunning’s lover?”

For a moment she believed the earl would dissemble; then he laughed. “My God, Miss Tolerance, you must forgive me. Trux suggested the story, but I should have realized from your reputation that it was ill-considered. You are right, of course.”

“If you do not deal straight with me, sir, it will only take me longer to decipher the truth. Had I not been able to find several persons who remembered Mrs. Cunning, I might have been looking for a woman far younger and in different circumstances.”

Versellion downed the remainder of his whiskey in a quick toss and stood up, pacing rapidly across the room. “I see that now. But I collect you have found Mrs. Cunning?”

“I have a good idea where I might find her, sir, but I cannot be certain until I have interviewed her. I can tell you that from what I understand, the lady is poor and lives upon the proceeds of her needle.”

Versellion looked bewildered. “Her needle?”

“She does piecework embroidery. She may, as well, have an annuity, or she might have sold off her jewelry—”

“Has she sold the fan?”

Miss Tolerance shook her head. “I cannot know that until I speak with her, sir. And I remind you that at this point, all I have is a woman I
believe
to be Mrs. Cunning. I will know more tomorrow. But my lord, you brought me here with a promise of information which would assist me in your commission. Did you merely intend to identify yourself as my client, or was there some other matter you wished to share with me?”

Versellion turned his glass between his fingers, seeming to examine the amber crawl of whiskey as it splashed along the side of the glass and dripped downward. At last he smiled slightly and looked up at Miss Tolerance.

“You must forgive me. Sometimes I am too much a politician. We are not a breed known for its candor, and I cannot help but weigh what I tell you—”

“My lord, if you do not feel secure in my discretion—” Miss Tolerance started.

He waved the protest aside. “I was told that I could place complete reliance in you,” he said “But I cannot help but weigh what you would need to know to accomplish my commission against—”

“What you would prefer not become a public matter?” Miss Tolerance finished for him. She was becoming impatient, and thought her impatience might have a salutary effect upon the discussion. “My lord, as you have seen, I will reason my way around the problem. But you will make it easier for me—and less costly for you—if you are candid. I have questions to ask.”

Versellion nodded and fixed her with that potent gaze. “Perhaps that is where we should start, Miss Tolerance. With your questions.”

Nettled, Miss Tolerance returned his look evenly. “In that case, my lord, I wonder why retrieving this fan is of such importance to you?”

Versellion frowned. “The sentimental meaning of—”

Miss Tolerance shook her head emphatically. “Politics being such a sentimental business? That will not do, my lord. If the fan was given to Mrs. Cunning by your father, it has been in her hands for most of your life. Why is its retrieval suddenly so important?”

“My father’s reputation—” Versellion began again.

“
Stop, please
.” Her tone would have done credit to a nursery maid. “You have done me the honor of saying I am astute and it is no good to lie to me, but then you continue to tell tales. Your family is wealthy, you are a member of the House of Lords and a fixture in your party. What kind of warmed-over trouble could your father’s liaison with an unimportant
fille de joi
cause you now?”

“
I don’t know.
” From his tone it was clear that Versellion’s patience, no less than her own, was being tried. More quietly, he went on. “Miss Tolerance, you are right in that I do not believe Mrs. Cunning or her liaison with my father to be important. It is the fan itself which I must reclaim. I had rather not say why unless you particularly require it.”

Miss Tolerance shrugged. “My lord, I have no personal curiosity about the fan. My only concern is to accomplish the assignment with which you have honored me, However, I must point out that if the reason you wish to recover the fan is material to its discovery, you will only render my task more difficult and more costly.” She rose, went to the table which held the decanters, and poured a little more into her glass, waiting for his reaction. She was not unaware that she had taken a great risk; one does not lightly upbraid the wealthy and powerful, and despite his charm and apparent affability, she doubted Versellion liked her polite unwillingness to accept false coin for the truth.

She became aware of the ticking of an ormolu clock upon the mantel, and the disturbance of the curtains by an evening breeze. At last Versellion spoke again.

“I owe you an apology, Miss Tolerance. Telling politic half-truths is a difficult habit to break, as you see. I should not be surprised at your acuity; everything I have heard of you should have prepared me for it.”

“I am acute enough, sir, to realize that that is the second—no, it is the third time you have referred to what
you
have heard of
me.
Are you trying to intimidate me with the wealth of your intelligence about me? I assure you, if you have a question, you have only to ask.”

Versellion smiled pleasantly. “I know only what I have been told, Miss Tolerance. You are the daughter of Sir William Brereton, you were raped by your brother’s tutor and turned from the door of your father’s home, and you live in a brothel run by Mrs. Dorothea Brereton, one of the few … professional … women of her generation with whom it seems my father did not have a liaison. I would be curious to know how you hit upon your unorthodox profession, Miss Tolerance.”

He had rattled off his account of her life coolly, apparently without malice, but Miss Tolerance suspected there was in it an attempt to regain the upper hand. She laughed lightly.

“What a Covent Garden melodrama you’ve been fed, my lord!” It cost her something to be so blithe, but her expression was one of genteel amusement.

“Were my informants wrong?” Versellion frowned. “A politician lives by information.”

“As does an agent of inquiry, sir; the exact point I was trying to make earlier.” Miss Tolerance drained the last of the whiskey from her glass and set it down firmly upon the table. She took her seat again. Her tone was as cool as his own; she had no intention of letting her past be used as a lever against her. “Your information is what the world might believe, but you should always look closer than that.”

“What would I find upon closer examination?” Versellion asked. He seemed genuinely curious, as if she had at last won him from his careful political manner.

“I was not raped, nor was my seducer my brother’s tutor. He was a fencing master, with whom I fled to the continent and lived quite happily for some years. If you seek the origin of my unorthodox profession, my lord, you must find it there.”

“With your seducer?”

“With what I learned from him. When I saw the things he could do with a sword, I wanted to learn. And he taught me.”

“Too well, by the sound of it,” Versellion said.

“In my line of work, one cannot be too well trained in the uses of the smallsword.” Miss Tolerance shook her head as if to clear it. “Sir, if you are satisfied as to my pedigree, I have one more question. You wish the return of the fan for its own sake, correct? If it has so valuable a character, is there any likelihood that someone else is pursuing it as well?”

He shook his head. “I cannot imagine it, Miss Tolerance.” His expression indicated that he could imagine it, but rather hoped not.

Miss Tolerance smiled. “Then, my lord, if you have no more information to share with me, perhaps I may be returned to London?”

Versellion rose. “But you have not answered
my
question, Miss Tolerance.”

Miss Tolerance tilted her head to one side. “Have I not, sir? Please remind me: what was the question?”

“How you came to do the work you do.”

Again, she smiled. “What else was I to do, sir? Acting as an agent of inquiry seemed to draw upon the skills I had. I was an inquiring child and have grown into an inquiring woman—with a facility for swordplay and a familiarity with Society. Now, sir, I have my notes to write up and some other work to do. If I may ask to be excused?”

Versellion nodded. “I will have the carriage brought round immediately—unless I can persuade you to take your supper with me?” Miss Tolerance shook her head. “Very well. I thank you for making the journey to see me, Miss Tolerance. It has been unexpectedly pleasant. I shall be in Town for the next week or so if you have need to reach me.”

During the ride back to Manchester Square, Miss Tolerance amused herself by considering what she thought of Edward Folle, Earl of Versellion. He was attractive, certainly. Among tonnish mothers looking to marry their daughters well, he was likely the great catch of the season: wealthy, highborn, good-looking, and with good address. His lack of candor did not weigh overmuch with her; if there was anything that her profession had taught her, it was that everyone had secrets to keep. So long as Versellion’s secrets did not keep her from doing her job, Miss Tolerance could control her curiosity. Still, as she had told the earl, she was of an inquiring disposition.

The whiskey had left her pleasantly relaxed. She closed her eyes and fell into a doze which was not interrupted until the brougham moved into the more heavily trafficked streets of London itself. The carriage drew up in Manchester Square and the footman was immediately at the door, ready to hand her out and escort her into Mrs. Brereton’s. Miss Tolerance, loath to deal with the noise and bustle of the brothel, waved away his arm, thanked him, and pressed a coin into his gloved hand with instructions that he and the driver should drink her health with it. Then she turned away from the door of her aunt’s establishment toward the private gate on Spanish Place.