The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy (3 page)

“I don't know what your game is, Sis,” he'd said to her. “But money's money, and I dare say you come by it honest, for if you didn't you'd be looking over your shoulder for Ma to strike you down, and you ain't got any such shifty look in your eyes. I reckon it's some prank to do with that Miss Alethea you was used to work for, and what tricks that sort of lady gets up to isn't anything to do with me. I don't ask, and I don't want to know.”

“Just as well, young Joe, for I wasn't about to tell you. And if Ma starts asking where I am, which she may, you tell her that I've gone back into service with my last lady, and we're away in—oh, I don't know, tell her Yorkshire.”

“Are you? You don't look like you're in Yorkshire to me.”

“Don't be cheeky, Joe, and look lively about getting those shirts done for me. Then I'll hand over the ready for the coats and for you to pay the seamstresses for the other work, and you forget you ever had this little job to do. Seeing it's outside your regular work, and your master would hang you up by the fingers if he knew you'd been sewing on your own account, that's best for both of us.”

“It's not like making for strangers,” Joe said uneasily. “It's my own flesh and blood, after all. There's no harm in that.”

“No, there isn't, and no harm in keeping your trap shut, neither.” She was busily tucking away coats, shirts, and small clothes into a large bag she'd brought with her. Finished, she bent forward and gave her brother a peck on the cheek.

“Mind you visit Ma regular and don't let her get worrying about me.”

“And you did come by that money honest?” he asked again as he opened the door for her.

“It belongs to the person as will be wearing those coats and trousers, and every penny of it rightfully”—a slight pause—“rightfully his.”

And it was honest come by, too, Figgins reflected. Most of the roll of soft, as the gents called it, and a heap of clinking gold coins besides were now tucked away about Miss Alethea's person, with a reserve entrusted to Figgins, more money than she'd ever seen in her life.

“Eggs in baskets and all that,” Miss Alethea had said. “Go on, take it. We might be separated, and I don't want you alone and penniless in a strange country.”

Alone in a strange country? Perish the thought. And no danger of that; she was going to stick by Miss Alethea's side like she was her shadow. She felt in her pocket, where one of the notes was attached with a pin to the lining.

That had been a tricky moment, though, going into Trimble and Kedges, jewellers to the nobility, with the diamond necklace and bracelet and hairpiece tucked inside her cloak.

The jewellers were used to maids bringing in their mistress's jewellery for cleaning or resetting, so the assistants took little notice of her, seeing to other, more important clients first and leaving her standing until one of the more junior attendants found himself free.

She drew out the velvet box and laid it on the counter. Then she pressed the catch and lifted the lid. His eyebrows went up as he took in the quality of the diamonds lying there on their soft bed.

“For cleaning?”

“To be sold,” Figgins said boldly.

His expression changed. “Sold? And how did you come by jewels such as this?”

“They belong to someone else, and she desires me to sell them on her behalf.”

An older, more experienced man, hearing her words, came over to his junior's side.

“She says she wants to sell these.”

“I'll call Mr. Kedge,” the older man said smoothly. “Leave it to me; you may go and attend that customer who is waiting.”

Mr. Kedge was a lean, short individual with tufts of greying hair about a neat bald head. He glanced down at the diamonds, and then at Figgins.

“On your mistress's behalf, you say?”

“I do, and I have a letter to prove it.”

“Come this way.”

In the private room, he waved Figgins to an upright chair, and sat himself down on the other side of the table. “I don't need to examine this set, I remember it well. Give me the letter, please.”

Figgins unfolded the sheet and passed it to him.

“These jewels were not included in the inventory of Miss Alethea Darcy's jewels at the time of her wedding. I believe they were left to her by a great-aunt, and were lodged with us for cleaning. When I mentioned the oversight to her, she laughed and said it was of no importance, she would tell her father to make sure they were added to the list.”

Thank goodness Miss Alethea had never done so; by a lucky chance she forgot to mention them, and on her wedding day some instinct had led her to thrust them into Figgins's hands, bidding her in a hurried whisper to take care of them for her. Which she had, and what a blessing that was, for running away without a penny in your pockets was a sure way to disaster.

“They belong to Miss Alethea, personal, and she wants to sell them.”

Mr. Kedge was quite used to ladies of the highest ton who needed to sell jewels for cash in hand, usually for gambling debts acquired without a husband's knowledge. In one or two cases he had known, the money had been needed to pay off a blackmailer. It was all the same to him. He recognised Figgins, who had accompanied Miss Alethea Darcy to the jewellers on more than one occasion. He knew all the Miss Darcys, as they had been, and was well acquainted with Miss Alethea's father. Mr. Darcy had dealt with his firm for many, many years.

If his daughter were in want of money, for whatever purpose, it was only right for him to help her out, in the interests both of business and of serving an old and valuable customer. As to Mr. Napier probably being unaware of the existence of the jewels and almost certainly ignorant of the contemplated sale, that didn't bother him. He had taken Mr. Napier in dislike the one time he had met him, and owed him no kind of loyalty.

“Normally, as jewellers, we advance only a proportion of the value of such a set,” he said to Figgins in an austere voice. “For we have to make a profit when it comes to selling the items.”

Figgins was alarmed. A vision of the set displayed in the bay windows of the shop, to be recognised by a passing Darcy, or even Lady Fanny, came to her.

Mr. Kedge read the alarm in her face. “We are always extremely discreet in disposing of such jewellery. There is no question of the diamonds being set out on public display. And, in this case, it might be that at a later date, Mrs. Napier may wish to repurchase the set, given that they are family jewels and will have some sentimental value to her. So assure your mistress that I shall put them aside for a while, so that she can redeem them if she so wishes. Of course, we cannot keep them for ever, but shall endeavour to hold on to them for as long as seems reasonable.”

He opened the safe and drew out a money box. “This is more than I would pay in normal circumstances, but I would not wish Mrs. Napier to be the loser by any such transaction.”

He handed her the notes and coins. “Hide that away, if you please, and I will instruct one of my young men to summon a chair for you. You are not to be wandering about the streets of London with such a sum about your person.”

Gambling debts, Figgins reflected as she looked out of the small window of the coach at a spring morning that promised a fine, warm day. Well, it was true in a way, for what Miss Alethea had planned was indeed a gamble.

George Warren had no scruples about retrieving Manningtree's painting and passing it on, for a substantial fee, to His Majesty, George IV. By doing so, he would pay off several old scores against Manningtree, whom he held in dislike, he would earn the gratitude of his monarch, always useful to a man on the make, and he would pocket a tidy sum.

Scruples were for lesser men, he told himself as he extended his neck for the slick flick of the razor. Trust, now, that was a funny thing. He trusted his barber not to slit his throat, for example, yet maybe it was only fear that kept the man from doing any such thing—and also the knowledge that to draw so much as a drop of blood was to lose his payment and also his customer.

Not that he cared one way or the other for this barber. Barbers, even skilful ones, were two a penny. For all he cared, this barber might cut his own throat, and it wouldn't bother him a jot; he wouldn't even have the inconvenience of finding another, equally skilled barber to shave him. His manservant would see to that.

Servants stayed with you and did their duty out of pure self-interest. You trusted them because it was easier that way, and because, with one's considerable knowledge of the world, one knew that a treacherous servant was easily spotted and removed. Provided one had an ally in the servants' hall, such as his own invaluable man Nyers.

He trusted Nyers, then. Yes, because the man relied on him for his wages, for a roof over his head, and to keep up his reputation as a first-class gentleman's gentleman. If he, Warren, let the man down by going to an inferior tailor or becoming careless about his neck cloths, then Nyers would up and leave him and find a better master. But while he remained in his service, he was trustworthy, simply because their interests coincided.

He tilted his neck so that the barber, whisking away a trace of soap from his chin, could attend to the hairline.

In the polite world, trust was a different matter. A man trusted a friend or a mistress at his peril. Either could turn on him without so much as a by your leave, and very likely would. Even so faithful, in her fashion, a lover as Mrs. Beecham was worthy of no more trust than an afternoon's intimacy would warrant. And she had, he believed, a genuine interest in his well-being.

He trusted his stepmother. Probably no one else in the world did, for she was fickle and vengeful and spiteful. Her husband, his father, feared her, and her acquaintances were apt to be wary of her. But he trusted her with his money, his moods, his secrets.

He would go and call upon her this morning. She would be delighted to hear of his coup with regard to the Manningtree Titian, as he liked to call it, to add zest to the satisfaction of doing the man an ill turn.

She was, when he told her of it a mere hour later. He arrived without ceremony, her butler knowing better than to tell Mr. Warren that Lady Warren was not at home. She was seated in her morning parlour, writing letters, a little heap of correspondence and invitations lying before her on her exquisite walnut writing table.

He regarded her with approval. Perfectly turned out himself, not the slightest crease in his coat or wrinkle in his pantaloons or the breath of a smudge on the mirrored surface of his boots, he liked to see a woman who took care how she looked, even when not, as it were, on duty.

Caroline Warren had never been a beauty, but she had taste and money at her disposal, and chose to present a stylish appearance both at home and abroad. The rich ginger of her dress suited her dark complexion, and the amber ornaments at her throat and dangling from her ears complemented the silk admirably.

George had given her the amber pieces, and he was pleased to see them looking so well.

Lady Warren kissed her stepson, and told him that she had had the dress made up especially to go with the amber. This also pleased him; he liked his gifts to be taken seriously.

“Shall I be on the look out for a fine cameo or two while I'm in Italy?”

She pursed her lips. “Off again so soon? And to Italy, at this time of the year? Will it not be a tedious sort of a journey, with snow and avalanches in the Alps, and no doubt rivers in flood on the other side of the mountains?”

“How right you are, but it is a matter of business, urgent business that will not wait for more certain weather. Besides, spring is well advanced. I dare say it is all sunshine and daisies in the Alps.”

She gestured to a chair, and sat herself down on a chaise longue. “Business? What kind of business?”

“Royal business,” he replied with a wolfish smile. “Money-making business, business that will put me in well with the king and may lead to more commissions of a similar nature.”

“Tell me.”

So he crossed one leg over the other with deliberate ease, leant back in his chair, and told her about the missing Titian.

She laughed heartily at the thought of the rage that Titus Manningtree must feel when he had to accept that any plans he had of retrieving the painting had been thwarted by the cleverer plans of George Warren. “Be careful,” she warned her stepson. “He is an angry man when crossed, and a good shot.”

“Oh, a fig for that. He won't dare to do anything more than rant and fume, not once the painting's safely in the royal possession.”

“His father was quite a royal favourite, I seem to recall. Mind you, he wasn't a man I ever cared for, and his son is just the same, hawk-nosed and far too sure of himself. I'm never impressed by these military reputations for courage and leadership; they are mostly made up after the event.”

“The son is no kind of a favourite with King George. Quite the contrary, in fact. There was some matter over a bill in the House, and it cost Manningtree his political career.”

“I know that. Everyone knows that.”

“Ah, but everyone doesn't know that his schemes so infuriated the king as to earn his most bitter enmity. That was why Manningtree had to give up any hope of political advancement. However much the country and Parliament alike hate the king, he still wields a lot of power, not to mention influence, and is well able to break a man if he chooses. Besides, Manningtree did himself no favours; he is too outspoken to do well in the House, and there were several others more than willing to see him brought down. No, he'll have to swallow his resentment over the Titian and retreat to Beaumont again for another bout of brooding and temper.”

“He was hard struck by Emily Thruxton's rejecting him.”

George Warren's face lit up with the delight of a true gossip. “Did she do so? Did he actually offer for her? Do you know that for sure?”

“I know that he wanted to marry her and that he's taken it very ill that she preferred an Italian nobody to him; what a blow to his pride! Not that it would be anything so very great, to get her for a wife, for she married beneath her, and that kind of thing carries a taint.”

“I knew of the nobody, of course, but I took it for granted that she'd married him because she couldn't bring Manningtree up to scratch. Well, well”—rubbing his hands together—“so the Italian gets Thruxton's fortune; let's see how quickly he gets through that. Manningtree will be feeling sour indeed, and on top of it all he will have to watch his precious Titian flaunted before his eyes on the wall of the Pavilion or whatever other unsuitable place the king chooses to hang it.”

“When do you leave?”

“I'm posting down to Dover today, to catch the packet. I shall very likely pass through Paris either on my way out or on my return; are there any errands I may do for you?”

There were indeed. Silks smuggled in by George would save her a great deal of money, also scent. Her requests were precise, and George, who liked the ways of women, took a keen interest and made several suggestions of his own.

She kissed him on his cheek to send him on his way. “Does your father know you are leaving the country?”

“I shall call on him, briefly, and tell him. I shall need some extra money, I suppose.”

His stepmother took the hint, and removed several notes from the little drawer in her desk.

George ran lightly down the steps of the house, pleased with his visit. He had every intention of touching his father for some funds, as well; he would probably find him in his club at this time of day. One could never have too much of a good thing when travelling abroad; who knew what expensive companions one might meet up with, or what objects of beauty or curiosity one might wish to acquire?