The King of Threadneedle Street (4 page)

Alysia opened her mouth to explain, but Andrew interrupted, “Earlier, Miss Villier was all business, visiting my father’s tenants. Now I intend to lead her off the road and debauch her in the woods.” He wagged a brow at Alysia, who groaned aloud while Mrs. Jennings grasped the edge of the door and gulped for air.

“Good day to you, Mrs. Jennings.” He tipped his hat. “If you will excuse me, I am off to find a nice meadow, if you catch my meaning.”

Andrew nudged his gelding and rode past a speechless Mrs. Jennings. He turned and stretched out a hand to Alysia. “Will you come, my love?”

Alysia nodded to Mrs. Jennings and followed after Andrew, certain he must feel a prickling of her wish for him to be smitten by lightning. The tension charged, taut like a cord stretched between them. Finally Andrew turned in the saddle and half-shouted, “What? What is it?”

Alysia tilted her head to arch an eyebrow at him, and he shifted his weight. Her silence clearly unnerved him.

“I can feel your wrath burning on my skin! Are going to strike me down?”

“If only.”

“Come now. You can’t be upset about my teasing that old hen.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes in forbearance. “What may be a lark for you may have serious consequences for me.” He scoffed, and Alysia tried to control the frustration in her voice. “The world doesn’t fit in my pocket. Can you not understand that everyone,
excepting you,
must play by the rules or be punished?”

“Perhaps I want
you
in my pocket, Lisa.” He used a deep, buttery voice, but she was in no mood to play.

She looked away over the hills, communicating that she didn’t wish to discuss it further. Andrew stared a long while, and she refused to meet his gaze. The longer the silence drew on, the more she condemned his thoughtlessness. No doubt Andrew would be quoted verbatim, without the sarcasm, at the church social. Unfair, but she also resented his freedom. One wrong word from
her
, and—

He steered his gelding close, lifted Alysia’s free hand and unfastened the tiny buttons at her wrist. Without breaking eye contact, he pulled off her glove one finger at a time.

He kissed the points of her knuckles. “Forgive me.”

She nearly fell off her horse when he turned her palm to his mouth and kissed it with a pull of his lips, leaning into her hand as though it were her face he held. She felt the brush of his tongue and a nibble with his teeth as he moved along each of her fingers.

Heat crawled from her core to the roots of her hair. He was being rather indecent with her fingers, and she had no idea what to do about it. Mercy, what he could suggest with his mouth!

He sucked the tip of her little finger into his mouth, playing with it. He pulled it from his lips to make a popping sound, adding a villainous bounce of his eyebrows. Never serious for long.

Regardless, Andrew had successfully disarmed her. She sighed, irked he could manipulate her so easily.

At least he quit badgering her with questions. They rode in silence the remaining few miles to Mill’s Hill. Andrew left her at the milliner’s shop, where she waited twenty minutes past the time he had promised to fetch her. She sat with half a dozen parcels at her feet, contemplating riding back to Ashton alone when Andrew strode into the shop in a flurry of commotion.

No,
he
was calm. It was Marsden, his valet, and a crowd of six or so agitated men trailing after him who caused the ruckus.

“Oh, sorry, Lisa. Ready?” He eyed the boxes on the floor and was jostled by an elbow belonging to a twitchy, gaunt man in a plain brown suit and spectacles. He carried a book and pen, as did the others. Andrew shoved back and glared a warning at the man, who backed away while trying peer over Andrew’s shoulder.

“Just
one,
ye please, guv?” said another from the crowd, his pen poised to write.

“Fire insurance for Rome,” Andrew groused, then turned to pick up the largest of Alysia’s packages. “What is all this?”

“Ask your sister,” Alysia answered while trying not to stare at the strange men.

“This is ridiculous. Here.” He dropped three boxes into the arms of an unsuspecting follower, whose book and pen fell to the floor. Andrew turned to his valet. “Marsden, call a cab for these. I am
not
riding home with half of all the lace in Paris.”

“Lace? Paris?”
came muttering from the crowd of men. Clerks, by their appearance, and Londoners by their accents. Why were they hounding Andrew and scrutinizing his every word?

Andrew led Alysia by the elbow out of the shop ahead of the crowd. “We are going to take tea at Hamilton’s, all right? I need a moment longer with Marsden; we want to wire the Exchange today before it closes.” He paused. “Oh. Alysia, you remember Marsden? Marsden, my dear friend Miss Villier.”

His hurried introduction was the last she understood of his speech for the next several minutes. At first she wondered if he was speaking in a foreign language to Marsden, then noticed the two were comparing notes from small pocket ledgers. The crowd of clerks trailed close behind, eager to overhear the hushed conversation. Alysia chuckled at Andrew’s coded phrases. Even his written notes were encrypted.

“Pickles, hemp, washboard: what were the returns?”

Marsden flipped a page in his ledger. “Only a kneecap. Waist-high, and collarbone plus elbow.”

“Fine. Hold only washboard, then. Sell the others.”

“Sell! Sell washboard!”
one of the clerks murmured, and they all scratched it into their books and in turn scratched their heads.

“When?” Marsden asked seriously, unbothered.

“Who has folded so far?”

“Buster, Geisha, that is all.”

Andrew rubbed his chin. “Not Achilles? No? Then wait until Coldsday.”

“Coldsday!”
The group echoed.
“What trio of stocks had two poor returns and one profit?”
came one of their voices.
“Grain? No, not commodities. The railway? Steamers?”
Another chided,
“No, Preston never matches them by industry — it could be any combination.”
A chorus of grumbles answered the last comment.

During a short lull, Alysia dared whisper, “Do they have any idea what you mean?”

“Not at all,” Andrew answered. “And we change it every week to be sure.” Then she understood; he was managing his stock market trades the only way he could in secret. So it was no exaggeration that he was a celebrity now. She looked over the clerks who had followed his valet to the country. They were probably hired by banks or competitors to hound Andrew in hopes of discovering his secrets.

Andrew slipped inside the café with Alysia on his arm and took a table. Marsden sat opposite Andrew, who asked without lowering his voice, “What is the word on the crickets?” The clerks huddled around a neighboring table.

“From Straw?”

“No, Dots. Shipped by Jack Spratt’s, I remember.”

Marsden flipped a page over and compared it with the top page. “Made port at Babylon on Hensday. Ahead of schedule.”

“But what about Ahab?”

“A day behind schedule, and avoided the port at Hades.”

Andrew tapped his chin, and the others watched eagerly. “Yes, but Ahab’s clipper is fast. Remember Jack Spratt will take port at Troy.” Andrew leaned to Alysia’s ear. “Large shipments of brocade silk from China and India are racing to England, carried by competing shipping companies.”

Several anxious clerks inclined their heads in comical synchronization, straining to hear. “Sherry, the owner of the shipping company returning from China, is ahead, and the market is favoring him. But he also carries contraband and will likely stop in Hampshire to unload it. Ahab is Grondel, sailing from India, and he will ultimately draw the highest shares.”

The harried men with pinched expressions studied Alysia and fell to fits, realizing she had just been informed. They would probably harass her too now.

Andrew turned to Marsden. “Wait until Jack Spratt has a two-day lead, then transfer the shares to Ahab. But first—” He paused, the clerks held their breath, then Andrew smiled as he put his lips to Alysia’s ear again. “Lisa, what is something completely absurd to invest in? An unusual or embarrassing product?”

She answered, “Female sanitation.”

He blinked once, twice, then burst into laughter. The waiter placed tea and sandwiches on the table, regarding Andrew with a puzzled expression. The other women in the parlor whispered behind opened fans or tilted hat brims.

“Perfect.” Andrew wore a devilish smile and shook his head, then said to Marsden as he dragged a finger down a list of encoded items and corresponding numbers, “Move heart plus elbow to, ah…” He looked at Alysia again. “I don’t believe I have a code for that,”

Alysia took his pen and wrote in the margin,
Madam Bree’s.

Laughing and shielding the print from prying eyes, he showed Marsden, who recorded it, pursing his lips and blushing. Andrew didn’t seem embarrassed. “Move double that amount onto hog pen, within the same hour.”

Marsden’s eyes twinkled at this, as he apparently understood something.

Andrew paused again to explain with his lips at her ear, “I have just invested twenty-five thousand pounds in
Madam Bree’s,
then fifty in Hartford’s railway shipping. It will make the others believe I have given up on the silk in favor of a more lucrative deal that hasn’t been announced yet. It will drive up the shares on Madam Bree’s as well as Hartford’s while Sherry and Grondel’s go down. I will sell the first two while they are high, then buy the latter two while they are low.”

Marsden clucked. “Miles will loathe you, Lord Preston.”

“Miles!”
the clerks echoed.
“Stanley Miles of Hartford, or Miles Jones?”
asked one clerk, and another groaned,
“Or is it the American?”
Then they all groaned in complaint.

“Stanley,” Andrew announced. They went berserk. Andrew breathed to Alysia, “Miles owns Hartford.” Then to Marsden, “Send him a lifetime supply of M.B., with my regards.” He chortled and smiled at his boots, thoroughly pleased with himself.

“When?”

Andrew studied his list, compared one page with another, then declared, “Friday, at noon.”

It was the only discernible thing he said, and the herd of nervous clerks scrawled
Friday at noon,
along with
Stanley Miles
in their books. What would they do when they learned it was a prank Andrew planned to play on a competitor? Undoubtedly it would then be no secret that Stanley Miles received a gift of hundreds of boxes of
Madam Bree’s
from Lord Preston, after he inflated his shares then abandoned them after taking a profit.

Alysia gasped, stricken by his ruthless tactics. “Is this legal?”

He laughed again and exchanged smug glances with Marsden. “Absolutely. Only a bit of well-deserved payback.” He held out his hands in defense and gestured to the clerks, “I am not responsible for the actions of others.” Clearly he meant other investors who followed his misleading tips, which only played them to his own benefit.

It was dastardly. It was clever. It was certainly typical of Andrew.

“Heaven help anyone who stands in your way,” she said, shaking her head. She glanced at the opposite table. The clerks looked like a nest of rooks. Or more like vultures, picking at each other, watching for scraps.

“There are none who stand in my way,” was his cocksure answer, which he delivered in absolute seriousness. He may well have declared himself King of the World. Ah, but now she remembered; they called him
King of Threadneedle Street.
She remembered he had said before, something about how gold for coins, not steel for swords, ruled the world. Andrew believed money was power, and he wielded it with the skill of an artist. Or more like a pirate?

She should have paid closer attention to the papers so she would have seen this coming. He had changed, or had been changed by his newfound power. Did anyone realize what it meant to have an arrogant, brilliant young lord with such a command of the stock market unleashed and unchecked? Was he so charming and clever that everyone admired him and indulged him? Alysia could not help admiring him as well.

As though he heard her thoughts, Andrew took her hand in his, causing commotion among the ladies in the shop, who were not minding their own business. He kissed her hand again, which was mortifying enough with the way he looked at her, but then he moved his lips to brush her wrist as he laced his fingers between hers.

She snatched her hand back and glared at him. Andrew gave her an unrepentant half-smile-half-smirk, and then she identified what had made her uneasy. Not so much that he was a mad genius and powerful, but that he seemed to lack the requisite sobriety for such a mantle. This truly was sport for him.

At twenty and one, he could hardly be expected to comprehend the realities of cause and effect. His careless way with other matters illustrated that shortcoming, in her estimation. No one knew Andrew quite like she did, so was she the only one to see it?

She tried to dismiss the feeling of ill-abode but couldn’t see it any other way but dangerous
.
Perhaps not Friday, when Stanley Miles realized he was a pawn in Lord Preston’s game of subterfuge, but eventually that sort of high-stakes gambling would catch up to Andrew.

She couldn’t even imagine what would happen when it did.

Chapter Three

If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.

King Henry V,
William Shakespeare

Alysia paused as she heard a thumping on the door, then the sound of a man’s boots on the marble floor. Lord Preston called, “Lizzie? Lizzie! I need you. Alysia? Where
are
you?”

Wiping her hands on the toweling, Alysia raced to the door of the dressing room. Andrew had already passed through the bedchamber. She stopped him in the doorway and gave him a backward shove.

Lady Elizabeth and Lady Remington squealed and scrambled for their dressing robes, spattering gray and pale yellow paste about the room. Andrew caught a glimpse of his sister and the baroness, and gasped. They wailed in indignation as Alysia led him away and shut the door.