Never a Duke, page 3
“And you won’t tell us who has tasked you to search for this missing maid?” Walden asked, slipping his watch back into its pocket.
“The matter requires discretion.” Lady Rosalind would not want it known that she’d needed help only a convicted felon and former street thief could provide.
“You can trust us, Ned,” the duke said gently. “You are donning a bit of shining armor and cloaking yourself in thankless decency. Sooner or later, you might need some henchmen, and we will be honored to serve.”
“We’ll rescue you,” Stephen said, rising.
He need not add: again. When Walden had been pardoned by the Crown for a crime he’d not committed, he’d exercised a peer’s consequence and hauled Ned out of Newgate with him. A boy facing transportation had never been more grateful or bewildered.
And Ned was grateful, still. Always would be, until his dying day.
“I must be going,” Walden said. “Stephen, can you give me a lift?”
“Of course. I’ll have copies of Neddy’s sketch done by tomorrow morning, and I will put the mystery to Abigail.”
“I will consult with my duchess,” Walden said. “Jane worries about you, Ned.”
“I am all of two streets over,” Ned said. With the arrival of the fourth child to the Walden nursery, Ned had made a discreet exit from the ducal household and set up his own quarters. The privacy was marvelous, while the loneliness was…a bit, well, stultifying.
“Jane worries anyway,” Walden said, passing Stephen his second walking stick. “You are to call on her early next week. Don’t put in a quarter-hour’s penance at her at-home, call upon her. She hears gossip that would never reach male ears, and you are now the family bachelor.”
“Is that a warning?” Ned replied, taking another sip of his brandy.
“Matilda and Duncan are coming in from Berkshire next week,” Stephen said, “and Constance and Althea are in Town to do some shopping. Your fate is sealed.”
Duncan was a Wentworth cousin, a sober fellow a few years older than Walden. Althea and Constance were siblings to Walden and Lord Stephen, and both had found husbands in Yorkshire. They had dragged their spouses south to remark the occasion of Stephen’s wedding ball, and annual spring sojourns had followed.
“My fate was sealed when I was eight years old,” Ned said. “With some help from His Grace, I unsealed it.”
“You did,” Walden said, extending a hand, “and I have ever been proud of you as a result.” He thumped Ned on the shoulder as they shook, a display of affection that had become His Grace’s habit right about the time of Lord Stephen’s nuptials.
And every time it happened, Ned was surprised, pleased, and embarrassed.
“When the right lady comes along,” Stephen said, “you will go meekly and gratefully into the wonderous light of her affection, Neddy. You will scheme to win her favors and bless the day she grants them. Trust me on this.”
With the occasional willing woman, Ned went gratefully to bed, but as for the rest of it…
“Good night,” he said, bowing to Stephen rather than extending his hand. When a man relied on two canes, handshakes could become awkward.
“You were born for domesticity, Neddy,” Stephen said, tucking one cane under his arm and downing the last of his drink. “Jane and her legion of Valkyries will have you married by June. It’s your turn.”
No, it was not. “That reminds me,” Ned said, pausing by the private parlor’s door. “You were right, Walden. Cadwallader is rolled up. He’s trying to marry off the self-same daughter whose entertainments have been bankrupting him for the past three years. Clotilda is vain, dimwitted, and chattery. Cadwallader isn’t titled, so I don’t see it ending well.”
“He’s old money,” Walden said. “Somebody might take the bait in hopes of a title for a grandchild.”
“He’s apparently old debt,” Stephen said. “How did you come by this on dit, Neddy?”
Lady Rosalind thought to thrill me with the news. “I hear things that don’t reach titled ears.”
“I’m glad you do,” Walden said. “Cadwallader almost had me convinced to offer him a mortgage. We’ll send him on to Barclays.”
When Ned was once more alone in the cozy parlor, he took Walden’s untouched brandy to the wing chair Lord Stephen had occupied. That last little bit, about Cadwallader, had been nice. To for once know something Walden or Lord Stephen hadn’t yet learned was gratifying.
As the waiters cleared the table and Ned finished the brandy, his mind wandered back to a question Lady Rosalind had asked him: Did he want a big family?
Of course not. Families were expensive and complicated. They required worrying about and feeding and keeping track of. Children especially were prone to getting into scrapes, and life was uncertain. What foolish god had thought it a sound plan for the human young to require years to reach independence when a parent could be carried off well before the child’s need for that parent was at an end?
Besides, Ned had a family. He was a Wentworth in name and by association, and that should be enough family for anybody, certainly for gallows bait turned banker.
Ned finished the duke’s drink and left the club, though he still had much to do before he could seek his bed.
* * *
“Miss Arbuckle is young,” Mr. Wentworth said. “She’s attractive and…” He waved a gloved hand.
Today he wasn’t even pretending to search through the biographies. His eyes were shadowed, and he’d been five minutes late.
“She’s smart?” Rosalind said. “Hardworking? Trustworthy?”
Mr. Wentworth dipped his head to speak very softly near Rosalind’s ear. “Virginal. If the likeness is accurate, she has an air of innocence.”
“I told you,” Rosalind said, making no effort to keep her voice down. “Arbuckle is a decent girl. My father would only employ domestics of sound character, and the agencies we consult before hiring—”
Mr. Wentworth touched her forearm. The most fleeting brush, through three layers of fabric, but the shock of it, the intimacy, stilled Rosalind’s tongue.
“I do not mean to impugn anybody’s character or choice of domestics, my lady. I mean to suggest that to a certain unsavory business, a young woman with an air of innocence has particular appeal.”
Oh. Oh. Rosalind paced off between the bookshelves. “You mean she’s been taken up by an abbess?” One heard of such things, mostly in shocked whispers and bawdy jests, but it did happen. Otherwise, Rosalind herself might be permitted to cross the occasional street without her companion to her right and a muscular footman to her left and three paces back.
“I’ve asked questions,” Mr. Wentworth said, following Rosalind deeper into the biographies, “but the answers will take some time, and every day the likelihood of finding her diminishes. She’d be traded up to York or the Midlands, possibly as far as Edinburgh or Dublin.”
“Traded, like, like a horse or a pair of pistols?”
He nodded once, and today his gaze was all business.
“That’s awful.” That Ned Wentworth would know of such goings-on, and know how to investigate them, was also awful…and fascinating. “I’ve brought you a sketch of Arbuckle’s predecessor.” Rosalind withdrew the folded paper from her reticule. “If Arbuckle has an air of youthful innocence, Campbell is positively elfin. I doubt she is fifteen years old. Young enough that her disappearance could be attributed to an unsteady temperament.”
Mr. Wentworth took the sketch, glanced at it, and tucked it into a coat pocket. “The next maid you hire must be plain and older, please.”
“The less experience they have, the less they cost,” Rosalind said. “And I prefer a lady’s maid with some wit and mischief to her, provided she doesn’t flaunt her wares at my brothers.”
Rosalind had paced to the end of a row, right into a dead end. In the close confines of the shelves, Mr. Wentworth’s height was more apparent, as was the immaculate care he took with his turnout.
George and Lindhurst could learn from his example. Rosalind’s brothers fussed at great length about how their cravat pins rested amid the linen and lace of their neckcloths, but their gloves were often less than pristine, and they tended to smell of horse or tobacco, not of a sunny glade in an old, quiet forest.
“Your brothers would bother the help?” Mr. Wentworth asked. “Would they bother the help and then send a maid packing when she conceived?”
“You do not shrink from difficult topics, do you, Mr. Wentworth?”
“Would they?”
Rosalind sidled around him, which resulted in her skirts whispering against his breeches, her shoulder brushing his chest. The contact was fleeting, but…
But nothing, Rosalind sternly reprimanded herself. The topic at hand was Arbuckle, not Ned Wentworth’s masculine splendor.
“George likes books and political debates,” she said, “and would have gladly taken holy orders. Papa wouldn’t allow it, not until we get Lindhurst married off.”
“Viscount Lindhurst is the heir,” Mr. Wentworth said, this time following Rosalind more slowly. “He takes liberties with the domestics?”
The English language had too many ways to trivialize male philandering, and Mr. Wentworth apparently knew them all. “I’ve heard the housekeeper grumbling to Cook, but Lindhurst would not impose on my lady’s maids. Even if he had, neither woman would leave her worldly possessions behind when she quit the household.”
Mr. Wentworth gazed off across the room, which was deserted but for him and Rosalind. “You don’t know that. Two pretty young maids going missing in the space of a few weeks is unusual, my lady. If your lady’s maids got with child, Lindhurst’s responsibility as a gentleman is to see to the support of his offspring. That’s much easier to do if the mothers are willing to return quietly to their villages and dwell in rural penury.”
Why had Rosalind not seen this possibility for herself? “I fear Lindhurst cannot afford to see to anybody’s support. Word of his finances has reached your ears, which suggests his problems are chronic.”
Mr. Wentworth’s generally reserved expression acquired a cool edge. If Rosalind were seeking a loan from him, that glint in his eye would presage very strict terms indeed.
“Men who are profligate with their funds often cannot exercise restraint in other regards. Lindhurst might well have mis-stepped and taken extreme measures to hide his perfidy.”
Rosalind moved to a different row of books. “If Lindhurst has ruined my maids, I will kill him.”
“No,” Mr. Wentworth said, sauntering after her, “you will not.”
“A woman in service risks her position if she refuses the overtures of a scion of the house,” Rosalind said, “and she risks everything if she accommodates him. Lindhurst can be charming, though, and I suppose love can make fools of even sensible young women.”
Philosophers said that, most of whom happened to be men.
“Lindhurst wasn’t offering your maids love,” Mr. Wentworth said. “I will ask a few discreet questions and explore his potential culpability.”
Mrs. Barnstable’s voice drifted down the steps, a recitation of her preferred recipe for a tisane to settle the nerves.
“If Lindhurst is not to blame,” Rosalind asked, “what is the next step?”
“I’m working my way through the sponging houses. I’ll have inquiries made on the docks, and I’ve put the word out among my badgers. They notice much that otherwise goes unremarked.”
“Badgers?”
“Flower girls, crossing sweepers, links boys, bank messengers, children at large, streetwalkers. They are the eyes and ears of London, and for a bit of coin, they will take a matter under advisement. I have consulted with a few of them, and they will compare notes with each other, but you must not get your hopes up.”
Did Ned Wentworth have hopes? Rosalind’s own hopes were limited to enduring the Season without becoming the butt of too much gossip, and hoping that Lindhurst would for pity’s sake marry well. Maybe Clotilda Cadwallader would have him.
Mrs. Barnstable’s quackery at the top of the steps was drawing to a close with admonitions to take care, mind the damp, and God bless.
“My hopes are not up,” Rosalind said, “but when can we discuss further developments, Mr. Wentworth?”
“Shall I take you driving in the park on Monday?”
“That will serve.” Though Rosalind hadn’t driven out with a young man since…had it been two years or three? “Do you truly know those sorts of people, Mr. Wentworth? The links boys and flower girls?” The streetwalkers? Not even the London gossips alluded to him having connections such as that.
His smile was a little mischievous and a little sad. “Until Monday, shall we say one of the clock? And as for your question, my lady, I am those sorts of people.” He bowed over her hand and strode away, just as Mrs. Barnstable began a dignified descent of the steps.
* * *
“I should be able to pay back the rest next quarter day.” Evander, Viscount Lindhurst, smiled at George in his vanity mirror as if payment long overdue and short by half was a great benevolence between brothers.
Well, no matter. George was the Kinwood spare, and a loyal spare at that. “No rush, Lindy. Not as if I have the expenses you do.”
“You don’t have the amusements I do,” Lindhurst said, wiggling his eyebrows. “I’m for Drury Lane tonight. Will you join me?” He selected a cravat pin from the jewelry box his valet, Higgins, held open for him.
A crumb of brotherly recognition was to be the interest paid on George’s loan—on his loans, plural. Except that Drury Lane was silly, and George had seen everything on offer there at present.
“You’ll fill the box without me, I’m sure. You could take Rosalind.”
Lindhurst shuddered delicately on his vanity stool. “Please, George. My nerves. Rosalind expects to watch the performance. She’s always shushing everybody and muttering the correct line when the actors blunder. The lads complain about her when they aren’t composing odes to her unattractive attributes.”
A spare’s lot was that of peacemaker. Nobody had had to explain that to George, though Rosalind and Lindhurst made the job challenging.
“Perhaps the Cadwallader girl will favor you with a visit to your box.”
“The gent does the visiting, Georgie darling.” Lindhurst held up a gold pin tipped with lapis. “A bit daring for daytime, but it brings out my eyes, don’t you think?”
George thought all of Lindy’s sapphires had been pawned, and those gems truly had done justice to his lordship’s Saxon-blue eyes. The gold would complement Lindy’s beautiful blond curls, the towering maples in Hyde Park would accentuate his height, and the sun itself would attempt to rival his smile.
All the charm and looks in the Kinwood family reposed in the earl and his heir, leaving George to share Rosalind’s dark hair and modest height. George had never stammered, but he’d never memorized entire plays either.
“Shall I fetch the matching sleeve buttons, my lord?” Higgins asked.
Lindhurst turned on his stool, so Higgins could insert the pin into the lacy cascade at Lindy’s throat. Higgins managed this without brushing Lindhurst’s chin, or otherwise presuming on the lordly person. The whole exercise of dressing, a ritual young men of leisure enjoyed performing before their peers, struck George as a reinvention of nursery routines.
Help me, Nurse, for my little thumbs cannot manage my own buttons.
“You should let Higgins dress you,” Lindhurst said, rising. “And yes, Higgy, please do fetch the lapis sleeve buttons. One wants to be properly turned out, eh?”
George made do with the good efforts of Papa’s valet, a venerable soul by the name of Coop. Coop looked after George’s clothes, and George got himself into them on all but the most formal occasions.
“Will you pay a visit to the Cadwallader girl between acts?” George asked.
“I should,” Lindy replied casually, rising as Higgins backed away with the jewelry case. “She’s said to be worth ten thousand a year. No title, but titled families can be inbred.”
The Kinwoods were titled. Had been for centuries. “Miss Cadwallader is pretty,” George observed, which was surely an understatement. Clotilda’s golden beauty outshone even Lindhurst’s.
“They are all pretty, given enough time with the modistes and finishing governesses.” Lindy held out one wrist, then the other, while Higgins substituted gold-and-lapis sleeve buttons for plain gold. “Clotilda could do far worse than to attach an earl’s heir.”
She could do better than to attach this earl’s heir. Lindy wasn’t a bad sort, but as Rosalind had observed, he was lazy. In her estimation, if a man could not make the effort to manage his own exchequer, how could he be trusted to oversee the management of a household, much less an estate, much less a share of responsibility for governing an entire empire?
Rosalind was afflicted with great stores of logic and exhibited them at the worst possible times, poor dear. She’d further opined that the Crown, perpetually in debt while reigning over the wealthiest nation on the planet, was the apotheosis of irony. Lindy had opined in his turn that women were not to use words of more than three syllables.
To which Rosalind had replied that for Lindy to boast of his ability to count all the way to five was beneath the dignity of a peer’s heir, though she understood why he took pride in his accomplishment.
And that, blessedly, had been enough for Papa to send the combatants to their figurative neutral corners.
“You’re off to lounge at shop windows?” George asked.
“As one does,” Lindy said, slipping a cloisonné snuff box into his pocket, surveying the result in the cheval mirror, then removing the snuff box. “Ruins the line. Why must snuff boxes be so boxy?”
Higgins busied himself collecting the half dozen discarded cravats festooning the dressing closet.
“You don’t even take snuff,” George said.
“I know how to take snuff is the point, and one wants to offer same to one’s friends. Lady Walters sent along an invitation to her Venetian breakfast. Do you suppose Roz will inflict herself on that gathering?”
