13. November, 1826

13

NOVEMBER, 1826

BERKLEY SQUARE CHELMSFORD MANSION

M ayfair, London

Dickie Jones helped himself to another rich, buttery biscuit after a prolonged gulp of honeyed tea to wash down the first two he'd practically inhaled whilst they'd been sitting across from each other.

Col had decided to meet his young spy in the massive, newly refurbished Berkley Square kitchen of their graces, the Duke and Duchess of Chelmsford. Their conversation was too dangerous for the curious eyes and ears of a Mayfair tavern.

"Odds bodkin, boy…don't they ever feed you over on St. James Square?" Col had left a warm bed and his warmer woman on the lean side of town near Covent Garden. He'd hauled himself out at an ungodly hour for the sole purpose of hearing what Dickie had discovered in their mutual threads of inquiry into what Framlingwood's blackmailer was up to now.

Dickie, however, had become the ward of his old school chum, CB, or Lionel Carrington-Bowles, who was the sole heir of his elderly, wealthy aunt, Lady Camilla Bowles Attington Carrington Whitby. The length of the lady's name and the depth of her power derived from the long line of wealthy, influential husbands she'd buried.

CB lived with his friend, the society chef, Nathaniel Charpentier, as well as a house full of children rescued from the rookeries of London. They all shared Lady Camilla's cavernous mansion on St. James Square. CB had also made use of his many years of medical studies to open a free clinic for the poor in Seven Dials.

"Cor—" the boy spat out in between bites.

Col extended a palm to forestall Dickie's usual stream of unintelligible talk picked up from the streets of Seven Dials. "We both know Lady Camilla's put you under the tutelage of a speech instructor, so please spare me the colorful meandering."

"Can't talk as fast that way, though." Crumbs spilled from the side of Dickie's mouth, along with indignation.

Col gave him a murderous look, but waved away his own earlier complaint. "Just spill it out. Tell me what you know."

"Madame Clarot, that tonnish seamstress lady over on Albemarle Street?"

"Yes? Go on." Col gestured with a sweep of his hand for Dickie to get to the point. He needed whatever the boy had been able to gather from his vast network of street urchins and other unsavory sources Col didn't want to know about.

"Seems she has this assistant, Marianne, who's working both ends…if you get my meaning?"

Col shook his head hard. "No, I don't follow."

"So, Madame Clarot pays her a bit more to keep her gob shut about what all the fine loydies, I mean ladies , will be wearing for the season. And then she gets more money from the gossip sheets to spill wot she knows." Dickie took a furtive look around the bustling kitchen as if Lady Camilla might be lurking amongst the copper pans piled high in the center of the room's work table. "I mean what she knows."

"How did you find out about the modiste's assistant to begin with?"

Dickie gulped down a few more bites of biscuit, looking longingly at the remaining pyramid of pastries on the plate. "Are you going to eat any of those?"

"No. Eat them all, but for the love of Zeus, get on with the story."

"Well, Molly-that's the downstairs maid at No.3. The modiste's assistant started asking lots of questions about why the mistresses needed so many dresses. And Molly, she says to old Toplofty, ‘That girl's turned into a regular snoop.'"

"And then Lofty sets his people to following her and where do you think she goes? To that tavern where we all got into a hooley of a fight that one time. She goes right up to the tavern wench and they start talking all cozy-like. And Lofty don't know for sure, but swore the two of them looked a lot alike."

"Sisters?"

"Well now, mebbe, mebbe not. That kind of information might cost you more."

Col was tempted to fling his head down onto the tiny tea table between them and sob. "For the love of all that's holy, what does that have to do with our investigation into the blackmailer?" In spite of the noise and bustle of the ducal kitchen, Col had leaned in and whispered low when he'd uttered the word, "blackmailer."

"Thought you'd never ask, guv." The superior smile the infernal boy turned on him made Col want to snatch one of the heavy pot lids and smack him.

A passing cloud filtered the sun streaming through the Duke of Chelmsford's elegant drawing room window. The mood inside the room shifted with the light, matching the scowl on the face of Her Grace, Duchess of Chelmsford. Today she seemed a combination of a Mayfair social terror of the ton as well as the actual terror of the Mediterranean where she regularly still smuggled under the aegis of her alter persona, Captain Eleanor Goodrum.

Even after her sudden marriage to Perseus Whitcombe, the Duke of Chelmsford, she still reigned over the infamous Goodrum's House of Pleasure. She was referred to as the terrifying "Captain El" by slavers, abusers of women, or anyone else whose extreme misfortune it was to run afoul of her.

Col had known and worked for the tall, elegant beauty long enough to know she deliberately nurtured her bloodthirsty reputation to keep her enemies and detractors at bay. However, he'd seen enough scofflaws laid low at a single word from her to harbor a healthy respect, if not fear of her power over the London underworld. She ruled with an iron fist wrapped in silk on the docks along the Thames.

The only people in the room, in addition to Her Grace, were Col, the Barrister Stephen Forsythe, and Hamish.

Once everyone was seated, she wasted no time on pleasantries. "What have you found out so far from your sources?" She gave Col a pointed look.

He rested one booted foot on his knee and leafed through the small journal he carried with him everywhere. He whetted the lead of a small pencil he'd extracted from behind one ear, and began to check off what he knew so far. "At first I thought the blackmailer had an informer amongst the servants, but recently I discovered that was false."

"Then how in blazes is he getting so much information on the movements of, erm, Framlingwood's women?" Sythe knew better than to say anything derogatory about the mistresses, because Captain El considered them "her girls."

"It's their dressmaker's assistant. She's built quite the little business based on revealing all sorts of tidbits to the highest bidder." Col paused a few moments to give them time to digest the latest information.

"Who is she? Where is she?" The tone of El's staccato-like questions matched the look of fury on her face. "How is the blackmailer communicating with her?"

"She's been passing along what she knows through an intermediary. He's apparently taken on another tavern wench down by the docks as his go-between after he killed the last one."

"Why haven't you hauled her in today so we could force her to tell what she knows?" Hamish demanded.

Col pantomimed slowing down the heat of the conversation with his hands. "I felt much the same way until I realized, the mistresses given us the perfect way to draw the blackmailer out into the open."

Silence filled the room only to be broken abruptly by El. "You want to use my girls as bait?"

Since he knew there was no safe answer to that dangerous question, he remained silent long enough for the brilliant tactician side of his employer to come to the surface. He could almost hear the cogs turning over and over in her brain.

"They'll have every guard we can muster…"

"Done," Col answered. "The Rutherfords have already volunteered to accompany them, disguised as river pirates."

"We'll bring out some of our guards from the warehouses as well that night."

"I'll see to it."

"And you…" She pointed a long, slender finger at Hamish. A hulking Highlander like you should come in handy."

"But, but…" he stammered. "I've never been to a masque ball before. I don't have a costume."

"Do you have a kilt?"

"Of course," he assured her, but his face turned a dark shade of crimson.

"Just add a mask that covers your face, and the women at the ball won't care who you are. Go as a berserker and scare people. Just be there."

"But…" Hamish couldn't help the doubts racing through his mind and hadn't realized they were actually spilling out of his mouth.

Sythe raised a hand. "Haven't you forgot one thing?"

The irritable look she turned on him would have stifled a lesser man. "What?" she spat out.

"Tickets to events at the Argyll Rooms are as scarce as ruined women at Almack's. How the devil are you going to procure enough tickets to cover all the keepers you'll be sending in to keep them safe?"

Col was surprised the haughty look she turned on Sythe didn't produce a block of ice in the center of her drawing room.

"Do you doubt my ability to get whatever I want in this town?"

Sythe was one of the few people Col knew who was brave enough to challenge El the way he did.

She gave him a warning smile and explained, "I'll have tickets for everyone by tomorrow, including you. So you'd better figure out what costume you're going to wear."

"Me?" Sythe used his most affronted tone.

"Yes. Be there. We need every hand we have to catch this bastard."

"And since you had the clever idea to put my girls in danger, Mr. Colwyn, I'll expect you to attend as well."

Col merely smiled. I wouldn't miss this party for the world.

"And I will be there as well," she warned all of them. "We cannot afford to have anything go wrong."

Hamish rose suddenly, bowed, and made to excuse himself.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" El demanded, her voice as cold as a winter night in the wilds of the Highlands.

"I…I need to get back to Saida. She's probably alone at No. 3 now."

"Saida has plenty of protection from the Rutherfords, and God knows, those women are all armed to the teeth and won't hesitate to inflict bodily harm on anyone stupid enough to attack them at home. I know what's going through your besotted mind right now, and I forbid you to tell Saida what we're planning."

"Why, I'm not…I mean, that is, I wouldn't…"

"You cannot let any of what we discussed here today leave this room."

"Why not? Shouldn't they know they're walking into a trap where they're the bait?"

"Mice who know a cat is about to pounce are unlikely to act normally. We need the blackmailer to think he's invisible, and we want him to go on believing we can't see him coming.

"I want to be there when we throw the net over him and drag him back here for a good beating and questioning. It's been a while since we've administered a decent beating. The boys are losing their touch.

"Since they haven't engaged in thuggery in a while, Dr. Douglas, would you like them to practice pounding on you? Because if you whisper even the slightest whiff of what we're planning to Saida, I'll unleash the Rutherfords on you."

"You wouldn't," he said, and made a nervous pull at his collar.

"I suggest you pray you don't find out." She walked close to him and poked a long fingernail into his chest. In a low voice, she revealed, "I heard you received a small taste of what the Rutherford boys are capable of. They're scrappier than they look. Don't. Press. Your luck." With that warning, she dismissed him. "Go back, keep your gob shut, and take care of my girl."

Col exhaled the breath he'd been holding in a rush. He'd have to get that uppity Highlander alone soon and explain the facts of life. As an employee of Captain El, one did not dictate what one would do on one's own. El was in charge. Always.