Maggie MacKeever (8 page)

Chapter Seven

Going to hell is easy; it’s coming back that’s hard.
— Virgil

Had Julie been inclined to guess Lord Ashcroft’s whereabouts, she might have predicted he would be somewhere amidst like-minded gentlemen, engaged in games of chance at White’s perhaps or
Brook’s, Boodle’s or the Cocoa Tree. London boasted numerous establishments the purpose of whose existence was parting young gentlemen from their blunt.

She wouldn’t have been far off the mark. Tony was passing his evening at the Argyll Rooms in the Haymarket, where a masquerade ball was underway. He was not a happy man.

Tony had nothing against the Argyll Rooms, which were fitted up in a splendid style with gilt lamps and Corinthian pillars and an extraordinary number of scarlet draperies. He especially didn’t mind the card chamber, where he’d whiled away no little time trying to catch the smiles of fortune by risking a few pounds he could ill afford to lose.

He no longer graced the card room, however, having been removed therefrom in a most discourteous manner. Currently he was sulking in the oblong grand salon. Tony cared no more for masked revels than for gaming with people he didn’t know, having already had the unpleasant experience of seeing on the gallows a fellow with whom he’d tossed the dice not that far in
the past. If his opinion had been asked, and as usual it hadn’t,
Tony would have said that his eviction from the card room was akin to locking up the stable after the horse had taken it in its head to bolt.

Above the entrance to the grand salon, on each side, were three tiers of boxes, ornamented with elegant antique bas-reliefs and enclosed with richly molded gold scrolls. Over each box hung a circular bronze chandelier with cut-glass pendants. The women present here tonight were as scarlet as the draperies, for no respectable female would dare set foot within these walls. Tony watched without enthusiasm as the dancers took their places, and the fifty-piece orchestra embarked upon a deafening waltz. He wasn’t one for the ladies, or either the not-so-ladylike, due to the influence of his mama, which was enough to put any man off the opposite sex.

“You’d think Maman would be grateful I brought her someone to keep her company,” he said to his companion, “but no. She demands to know what has become of Mildred, though she
didn’t like poor Milly above half. Come to think of it, so do I. Want to know, that is.” He paused to consider. “Or maybe I don’t, because I’ll wager it’s nothing good. Yes, and you needn’t say that it’s my little habit of making wagers that’s put me in this predicament because I already know that. Thing is, I don’t think I can stop. Miss Wynne says I’m a pigeon ripe for the plucking and that at the rate I’m going, I will soon be bald. Which may be true — I’m not saying it ain’t — but it’s hardly kind of her to say so when she’s living under my roof. I ain’t normally one to kick up a dust over trifles, mind you, but to be told to take a stranger into my household and swallow her with good grace is the outside of enough. And furthermore
, I’m not sure she
can
fix it up all right and tight, even if she said she could.”

If Jules could have fixed anything up right and tight, reflected Pritchett, to whom these comments were directed, she would
have long since done so. As he listened to the viscount’s laments —  Try as Tony might (and he
did
try, half-
heartedly), money ran through his fingers like water. Just the other day he had gone to Tattersall’s to look at horseflesh and ended up buying a Thoroughbred. Tony didn’t need another Thoroughbred. He didn’t
want
another Thoroughbred. But he had one, all the same — Pritchett observed the crowd. The regular pay from the Police Office being less than enough to support a family, most Bow Street officers supplemented their income with blood money and rewards. They were free to take inquiry work for anyone who could afford them. Some earned a guinea a night standing in theater lobbies and keeping a sharp watch out for miscreants.

Pritchett was paid more. He had long since amassed sufficient funds to withdraw from the business, were he not caught in the Cap’n’s net.

As was Lord Ashcroft caught. No matter how hard the viscount might try to sconce the reckoning, it would nonetheless be paid. Pritchett had scant patience with his fellow prisoner, who was a startling vision in cream kerseymere breeches, a fifteen-guinea embroidered waistcoat in a virulent shade of green, and a corbeau-colored coat with covered buttons; and who had indulged more than was prudent in the grape.

“I thought I was bad off when just the gull gropers had me in their talons,” the viscount continued. “It’s up all with me now, or it will be if Maman finds out. You’d know what I mean if she ever rang a peal in
your
ears. There’s never the least use disputing with her, for she always has the best of it, and if she thinks she don’t, she flies off the hooks. It’s more than flesh and blood can stand. Yet she
is
my flesh and blood, and so stand it I must.”

Lord Ashcroft had more to stand than a peevish mama. “Miss Wynne suits?” Pritchett interrupted.

“A monkey would suit,” retorted Tony, “if it could trail along after Maman like a tantony pig and carry her falderals and listen to her complain. Which is what I’m doing, isn’t it? Complaining, I mean.”

Yes he was, and there was precious little point in it. Pritchett said, “Talking won’t pay toll.”

Maybe it wouldn’t, but Tony saw no reason why he shouldn’t complain, if he was so inclined. “Tell me this: why me? It ain’t like I’m the only punter to be a trifle scorched.” He gazed wistfully in the direction of the card-room. “I would have come about if that damned fellow hadn’t shoved in his oar.”

Why the viscount? Expedience, perhaps. Cap’n Jack wasn’t one
to let an opportunity pass.

Tony was still bemoaning his ill luck. Pritchett would never understand the fascination of risking something valuable in the hope of winning more. But why
should
he understand? Gaming was the vice of the wealthy and high born.

Pritchett strolled around the perimeter of the crowded room. With the end of the French wars, officers fresh from continental battles were rushing to the tables, playing hard and raising stakes.

He did not go unnoticed. Some observers saw merely a neat, fastidious little man with thinning hair and spectacles, for his Manton pistol was not on display, nor his gilt-headed baton. Others knew exactly what he was. Pritchett had a reputation, and it wasn’t for fair dealing. Aspiring criminals gave him a wide berth.

Tony trailed behind him, talking all the while. “Lower your voice,” Pritchett interrupted. “You never know who may overhear.”

Tony stopped, mid-sentence, and moved closer. “Is he here?”

“Is who here?” Pritchett asked.

Tony looked nervously over his shoulder. “Cap’n Jack.”

Pritchett suspected that the Cap’n was indeed present, result of the small hairs on the back of his neck standing up as if to salute. “No one can say when the Cap’n will put in an appearance. He has eyes and ears everywhere.”

“Don’t want to see him,” muttered Tony. Or hear him or even know about him. I’d blow out my brains out except Maman would really
cut up stiff in that event.”

Pritchett sighed. “Go home, Ashcroft.”

Tony’s thoughts had been heading in a different direction, specifically the card room. “But it’s early yet.”

“Home,” repeated Pritchett. “Go.”

Tony was too well trained by his mama to argue with orders issued in so authoritative a tone. “I may not be a
downy
one,” he said with dignity, as he turned away, “but that don’t mean you may try and bamboozle me. I’ll lay odds you know more about this business than you are willing to say.”      

The viscount would lay odds on a fly crawling along a windowpane. Pritchett followed Tony through the crowd, watched to see that he headed for the exit and not toward the card room, though it was no skin off Pritchett’s nose if the young fool dug himself in more deeply than he already had.

He felt the menace hovering behind his right shoulder. It drawled, “I would be very displeased if you were to develop scruples at this late date.”

“I was just protecting your investment, sir.” Pritchett had no desire to turn around. “Ashcroft will be of no use to anyone if he blows out his brains.”

The voice was smooth and dark and dangerous. “You did not tell me Dorset spotted the girl at Carlton House.”

The girl, the viscount, the thief taker. Pawns each one of them, being set in place for some specific purpose, which Pritchett doubted was the pilfering of some society matron’s jewels. “I didn’t know. The earl will be wanting his statue back.”

“The earl will also want to know why she took it,” said the Cap’n. He was briefly silent. Pritchett held his breath.

“As do I.” The voice was thoughtful. “Dorset may prove to be of use.”

Pity Dorset, then. “You asked to be notified when the house in Curzon Street was ordered opened up.”

“So I did.”

Came a cool breeze at Pritchett’s back.

He exhaled. Dare the Cap’n, and be damned.

Chapter Eight

No one is able to flee from love or death.
— Pubilius Syrus

All was quiet within the library of ancient Wakely Court, save for the occasional rustle of a page and the snuffle of the dog, sneezing and snorting being among the beast’s myriad unpleasant traits. Clea was buried in Ovid, while Ned mulled over the recent dispatches from his friend, Colonel Sir Neil Campbell, whose exile on Elba was being enlivened by the hoards of British visitors flocking to view the Corsair holed up in his den, the passport office considering curiosity a sufficiently good reason for visiting the island, and Napoleon being not averse to conversation that not only relieved his tedium but also kept him abreast of events in mainland Europe. Cerberus lay on his back in a patch of sunlight, inviting a belly scratch, at which point the unwary scratcher would probably find his hand bit off.

The room looked even shabbier in the daylight, and no less untidy. Ned noted that the drapery had been put back in place. He found it far less fetching at the window than when wrapped around his thief.

The statue had not been similarly restored. Ned contemplated the empty spot on his desk where the thing had stood. Thanks to Hannah, he had precious little time to deal with stolen artifacts
or light-fingered lasses or Portuguese
bandidos.
He’d thought himself done with the latter, and wasn’t certain he was not.

Clea glanced up from her book. She was reading Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
today. Ned wondered what his sister meant to transform herself into. “You’re engaged with Hannah this afternoon?” he asked.

“I am. We are interviewing singing teachers. You may join us if you wish.”

“Thank you, but I would rather have my toenails pulled out.”

Clea wrinkled her nose. “I wish I could say Hannah improves upon acquaintance, but she does not. She certainly has a bee under her bonnet about you marrying.”

That she did. A whole swarm of bees. A veritable hive. Everywhere he went, there was Hannah, thrusting yet another marital prospect under his nose.

Ned was up to his elbows in females. He might have enjoyed this surfeit of damsels in another circumstance, but these young ladies were uniformly dull.

A frown marred Clea’s brow. “You won’t marry to suit her, will you? I am perfectly able to see what’s going on right beneath my nose. Hannah has told you she will oversee my come-out on the condition that you wed some properly blue-blooded milk-and-
water miss, and so you are leading her a merry dance. Which is all well and good as long as you don’t trip and stumble smack into parson’s mousetrap.”

Next he would have Clea trying to select his bride-to-be. “Don’t concern yourself, puss. Hannah can’t force me to do something I don’t wish.”

“Stuff!  Of course she can.
I
don’t particularly wish to learn to
sing, but Hannah insists.” Clea closed her book. “And so, like the sirens encountered by Odysseus, I shall lure sailors to their doom.”

Ned leaned back in his chair and regarded his sister. Clea was wearing a simple muslin gown. On the chair beside her lay a green sarcenet pelisse and a straw hat bedecked with yellow flowers and a green ribbon. Her hair had been fashionably cropped and styled in the current mode to cluster in ringlets around her face.

Already Hannah’s influence showed. Ned supposed he shouldn’t be regretful when it was what Clea wished. “I promise you,” he said, “that I shall allow myself to be nibbled to death by ducks before I marry where I don’t please.”

Clea studied him in turn. “I’ve been thinking
of P
ortugal.”

Bianca, she meant. “I haven’t,” said Ned, and it was almost true.

Clea shook her head. She loved her brother dearly; and while she meant to make a career of breaking hearts herself, she didn’t wish a similar fate for him. That he should break hearts was fine — or if not fine, it was what gentlemen
did
— but she didn’t care to see him have his own heart broke.

Ned believed her too young to know about such things. He sometimes was absurd. Bianca’s parents might have turned a blind eye to a casual flirtation — where better to hone a senhorita’s suitor-trapping skills than on a dashing military officer? — but, like other upper-class Portuguese families, were firmly opposed to their daughter marrying a British husband due to religious differences.

The obvious solution would have been to elope. Wellington, however, had made it clear that officers who misbehaved in such a manner would be placed under close arrest and handed over to the local authorities.