The Diamond Key (3 page)

“Of course, of course. Not every day a fellow gets to play Sir Galahad, eh? Wearisome business, rescuing maidens, eh?”

He’d never know how wearisome. The last one had cost Wynn six years. He stepped toward the door.

“But what can I do for you in the meantime, sir?” the earl insisted, following him. “A horse? No, I am sure Mallen will already have my carriage waiting to see you home. My tailor’s direction? You’ll send the bill for a new coat to me, of course.”

“No, truly, I need nothing.” He nodded toward the earl’s sister. “Lady Ann has been everything kind.”

“Surely I can do something for you. My gal means everything to me, you know.”

Wynn knew. He also knew how the earl’s stance would change when he learned about the old scandal. “No, nothing. Seeing the lady restored to her loving family is ample recompense for what, in truth, any man would have done.”

Lady Ann made an unladylike noise. “George St. Brenner did not so much as soil his gloves.”

“What, that man-milliner was at the dress shop? Likely having lace sewn on his unmentionables.” The earl dismissed Lord Boyce with another swallow of champagne, but returned to his resolve to reward Wynn somehow,
“I
know. I’ve never seen you at White’s. I shall put your name up at my clubs.”

Wynn could not let this kind man suffer the ignominy of having his protégé blackballed. “Thank you, but I doubt I will stay in London long enough.” He studied his ruined boots, understanding that the earl would not wish to be so indebted to another man. “You could ... you could give me the name of a reputable employment agency. I fear my new valet will give notice after this day’s work.”

* * * *

He did. The third valet in a week left Wynn’s employ. The first one, Nolan, was so old his hands shook, not something one could overlook while being shaved. The next, Andrews, was too short. He could barely reach to adjust Wynn’s neckcloth, and there was something about the petite chap’s poetical dark looks that did not feel right in a gentleman’s boudoir. This last one, Herne, Wynn thought his name was, had the airs of a duke. Dog hairs sent him into a tizzy, but the afternoon’s grime had him throwing his hands in the air. This was not what a gentleman’s gentleman had the right to expect, he announced on his way out the door, leaving Wynn in the same sorry state as when he entered his Division Street lodgings in Kensington.

Viscount Ingall had a fine town house in fashionable Mayfair, fully staffed, he was certain, from the size of the household accounts. Any number of footmen could have served to help him dress. The butler could have shaved him. The potboy could have polished his boots. Why, his deceased brother’s valet might yet be on the premises, the salaries at Ingram House were so extensive. Unfortunately, his deceased brother’s widow, Marissa. was most likely also in residence. Wynn had not checked. He preferred his modest rooms away from his sister-in-law and away from the
ton
—until it came time to hiring a valet. The premiere valets refused to take up such an unfashionable address, with so few under-servants. High-nosed Herne had been the last man on the nearest personnel agency’s list.

“At least I got the name of a new employment service,” Wynn told his man-of-all-work, who never seemed to work at all. “With the earl’s recommendation, they are bound to send over a reliable, respectable man at last.”

Barrogi grunted.  “Your fancy neck pieces need  a snake charmer, not a caper merchant,
padrone,
they have so many ends.”

Wynn held the soiled one he was unwinding from his neck. It had a beginning and an end, that he could see, but Barrogi had never mastered the knack of tying a proper cravat—on purpose, Wynn suspected. He never managed to get a shine on a pair of boots, either. A world traveler whose mostly Italian ancestry was as muddled as that of Homer the dog, Barrogi could speak thieves’ cant in six languages, and knew the back alleys of at least twenty foreign cities. The short, broken-nosed man might be a fugitive from justice in all twenty, but he’d proved invaluable to Wynn the past few years, especially at gathering information.

The viscount intended to send Barrogi out again, this time to discover what he could about Lady Victoria Ann Keyes, Lord Boyce, and Madame Michaela’s dressmaking shop, but not until Barrogi stopped at the Day & Day Placement Service, and not until Wynn had a bath.

“Hot water, she is not good for a man,” Barrogi grumbled as he hauled the cans of water. “Softens him, like a Chinook about to be plucked.”

“A salmon? Don’t you mean achicken?”

“Nondimeno.
Same difference.”

Wynn did not care. The hot water felt heavenly, especially when he added a drop of that oil the smooth-skinned little valet had left. It felt even better when he leaned back in the copper tub, a glass of brandy in one hand and a cigar in the other. He had not realized how sore his muscles were from the rescue, nor how many cuts and bruises and burns he’d accumulated without feeling them at the time. He hoped Lady Torrie was not so afflicted. It would be a crime to mar the perfection of that pale skin he’d caught sight of.

Maybe the steam was melting Wynn’s brain after all, making him think warm thoughts of the earl’s disturbing daughter. Hell, he already had more women in his life than he knew what to do with.

He had a former mistress who was breeding and wanted to marry him to give another man’s child his name.

He had another former mistress who was outrunning the duns and wanted to marry him to pay her bills.

He had a former sister-in-law—he supposed his brother’s widow was still his sister-in-law, unfortunately—who wanted him dead. Barring that, Marissa wanted him respectably married, thus restoring luster to the tarnished family name. Not surprisingly, she had an impeccable candidate for his bride already selected: her cousin.

No, the last thing Viscount Ingallneeded was another woman trying to push, poke, or prod him into parson’s mousetrap. No matter how pretty he imagined her to be.

Barrogi returned with information and a valet, thank heaven and the earl’s intercession. The gentleman’s gentleman was a strapping fellow, as big as a Canadian moose, and he obviously took pride in his calling. After introducing himself, he walked around the viscount, then declared Lord Ingall a well-set-up cove who would advance his, Larsen’s, reputation. The weathered complexion would fade, he allowed, and, of course, a suitable wardrobe would have to be ordered, one befitting a viscount, not a vagrant. Wynn’s fumbling, out-of-practice attempt at tying his own neckcloth was instantly replaced with something Larsen termed the Triple Crown, which was certain, Wynn knew, to impress the most discerning eye. He was sorry to tell poor Larsen he’d merely be dining at a dark coffeehouse with some business associates, not Carlton House with the prince.

Larsen shrugged as if to say a pub today, a palace tomorrow, and immediately set to inspecting Wynn’s meager wardrobe and rearranging his bedroom.

Wynn happily left him to it, joining Barrogi in the sitting room to hear his tidings. His right-hand man had his left hand wrapped around some of Wynn’s best port, and he was lounging in the most comfortable leather armchair the room offered.

Wynn poured himself a glass of wine and raised his brow. “Odd, I thought you were an employee here, not a guest,” he hinted.

“You want my news or not,
padrone?
You seemed panting like the dog to learn more about the, how they say it? The gentry mort before.”

Wynn took a seat on the couch, and Homer jumped up next to him to have his ears rubbed. “That’s a lady we are talking about, my friend.” A seat and a sip were one thing, a gentlewoman was another.

Barrogi nodded, heeding the warning. “I had to lay out much of the
denaro
to get the details so fast. No time to befriend the servants.”

Wynn nodded. “You will be repaid, as always.”

“Just checking,
padrone.
Now that you are wrapped like a present and smelling sweet as roses, I wondered.”

Wynn loosened his neckcloth. The Triple Crown was now a Double, more fitting for a merchants’ meal. “Go on.”

Barrogi’s information only confirmed what Wynn already knew or suspected: Lady Victoria Ann Keyes was the belle of this London Season, and had been for the last three. She was pretty as a picture, well educated at a fancy finishing school, and wealthy in her own right from an Irish laird grandfather’s bequest, to say nothing of the handsome dowry her father offered.

The Duchamp earldom would fall into abeyance with her father’s passing, but the lands and fortune were not entailed, so Lady Torrie, as she was called, stood to be one of the richest heiresses in the kingdom. She would bring to her marriage more money than a man could spend in a lifetime, and more than any one man deserved. Besides the blunt and the breeding, her strawberry-blond looks and her father’s influence, the female could ride, sing a sweet tune, dance like a dream, and stay on the good side of all the old biddies. “A regular paradox,” according to Barrogi.

“A paragon?”

“Same thing, in a woman.”

The Keyes Diamond, they also called her, Barrogi went on, especially in the men’s clubs’ betting books, where her name figured frequently.

“Fussy female, they say,” he added, “although no one says the mo—the young lady puts on airs. Just that she has not settled on a suitor yet, but not for lack of offers.”

Boyce’s name was often linked to the lady’s in the wagering, although his odds of winning her hand were not considered favorable. His odds of going to debtor’s prison were a lot better, if the cents-per-centers did not choose more permanent ways of making good on their loans.

“Punting on River Tick, is he?”

“More like swimming with the sharks. No one thinks he is swift enough to outrace them.”

“A lot of noblemen live beyond their means, hoping for a windfall or a lucky wager. Does Boyce stack the deck?”

“You mean does he cheat? If so, he has not been caught yet. Your
Elegantones
will game with
un oumo
what beats his footmen and tups his maids, but they do not hold with a Captain Sharp.”

Wynn took another swallow of wine. “What about Madame Michaela?”

“The mantua-maker? Now, there is
una femmina
what bends the truth like a braided rug. A regular—how do you say?—straw damsel she was, Dora Mickles, until some rich cit set her up in trade. All the nobs go to her on account of her free-for-alls.”

“She holds mills?”

Barrogi screwed up his face. “Laces and stuff.”

“Ah, folderols.”

“That’s what I said. Smuggled goods. Dorrie, she does not give anything away for free.”

“Could someone be trying to put her out of business? A competitor, perhaps, if she is so successful, or a rival smuggling gang?”

Barrogi shrugged. “Who is to say? Perhaps one of the wealthy aristos did not like her new gown, no?”

“Look into it, will you?”

Wynn decided to do some investigating of his own after supping with his business contacts. He walked Homer back the way they’d gone earlier this afternoon, to the alley by the dressmaker’s shop. He poked through some of the debris and detritus left by the fire brigade, and knelt to sniff at a damp spot near the rear door. Soon the viscount’s gloves were stained with an oily substance, his knees were torn on the sharp splinters, and his coat was covered in grime when he picked up the dog before harebrained Homer could step on an ember.

The fire was arson.

An invitation to call on Lady Victoria Ann Keyes waited back on Wynn’s mantel.

And his new valet quit.

* * * *

Torrie was not having a fine evening, either. Her head hurt from the laudanum. Her throat was raw from the smoke. And her parents were arguing.

She was alive, so would not complain too much about the aches and pains; she did protest as loudly as her poor throat would allow about her mother and father’s quarrel.

“I say she cannot marry that man,” Lady Duchamp was saying from the right side of Torrie’s bed.

“I say she gave her word,” Lord Duchamp countered from the left.

“He told you himself our girl was not in her right mind. He will not hold her to the offer.”

“I knew precisely what I was saying, Mama,” Torrie whispered from the depths of her pillows. Both of her parents ignored her.

The earl pounded his fist on his knee, which sounded like a hammer inside Torrie’s poor aching head. “Well, she gave me her word, by George. I told her she could marry the man of her choice, and this is the chap she has chosen.”

“Fate chose him,” Torrie tried to say, but her words were lost as the countess uttered a phrase she would have chided her husband for using. Torrie pushed herself up on the pillows so her parents could no longer ignore her. “He saved my life, Mama,” she said.

The countess took Torrie’s hand. “I know, my darling, and for that I shall be eternally grateful. But not grateful enough to hand him my most precious gift.” She turned back to face her husband. “I say offer him a reward, an estate, a fortune, the Irish stud.”

“My Irish stud?” Lord Duchamp was taken aback for a moment, thinking of the magnificent hunters he’d acquired along with his magnificent Irish bride. Then he rallied. “You heard the girl. He saved her life.”

“And he will ruin her life. Is that what you want for your daughter?”

“Now, Maggie, you cannot be sure the chap is a loose fish.”

Margaret, Lady Duchamp, might not have an international espionage agent to hand, but she had something equally as effective: the servant’s grapevine. She knew all about Wynn Ingram, the recently elevated Lord Ingall. “The man is an outcast. His reputation is so tarnished he will not be received in polite company.”

Daniel, Lord Duchamp, brushed that aside. “With my influence and your social standing, he will be invited everywhere.”

“Not when it is known that he fought a duel.”

“Pish-tush,” her spouse chided. “Young men have always fought duels, illegal or not. Some old hotheads do, too.”

“And do any of them have to flee the country for killing their opponent?”‘