Somewhat Scandalous (Brambridge Novel 1) (11 page)

‘Pablo Moreno’s Grand Travelling Museum’ was inscribed on the sign in small words, followed by ‘THE GRAND SALVATORE’. Agatha blinked.

“Read on,” said the big man impatiently. “I paid a lot for that sign.”

“Come and watch the greatest knife thrower of all time.” Agatha’s tongue rasped against her dry mouth as she spoke. “I don’t see what this has to do with me.”

Pablo nudged her. “There’s more.”

“Watch as the Grand Salvatore, dressed in gold, throws knives at his able assistant Nathalia.”

“That’s what you are going to do for me tonight if you want to get your pelisse back.”

“Oh no no no, Mr. Moreno. You can’t! She doesn’t even know how to throw knives.” Nathalia thrust her arms out at Pablo in a beseeching gesture.

“I most definitely can’t—”

“It doesn’t matter that you can’t throw them.”

Agatha frowned. That was not what she was going to say. She was going to mention that she had a prior engagement that night from which she would be missed. A musicale, in fact, that Victoria wanted her to go to.

“All will become apparent when you perform.” Pablo stared at her, a hard look in his eyes.

“Mister Moreno! This is my life you are endangering.” Nathalia’s pleading became a screech.

The large man paid no attention.

“Bertino will be fine, Mister Moreno, it’s just a cough that he has. He will be ready tonight.” Nathalia fell to her knees. Agatha nodded vigorously. She assumed Bertino was the knife thrower.

“Pa,” the young acrobat said urgently. “Fanny has sent for the doctor. She says that Bertino has thrown up, can’t stand up and can’t even see properly.”

With a groan, Nathalia fell to the ground in a faint.

Agatha stared down at the ground. With the knife thrower out of action there was no escape for her.

“Oh dear.” She gasped as darkness appeared at the edges of her vision.

“Nathalia, Pedro? Go away.”

Pedro nodded at Pablo and walked away slowly with unnaturally high steps. Nathalia stuttered. “I, err. Pablo please.”

“I don’t know why I don’t get rid of you,” Pablo muttered. “Go away, Nathalia.”

Agatha shivered. Pablo seemed to be the man to whom ‘get rid of’ had rather permanent connotations.

He turned to her and brought his face down close to hers. “You know, the main reason why so many of the ton were coming tonight and have bought advanced tickets is to see the Grand Salvatore.” His voice sank to a low and deadly whisper. “The grand gentlemen with their obsession for shooting and danger are agog to see the precision throwing of the knife grandmaster. That man is even now lying in his wagon putting me severely out of pocket. If I have to refund the tickets, I will have to disband the circus.”

He didn’t need to tell her his livelihood depended upon her. She was already terrified enough. “You’ll have to refund them anyway if I miss,” she quavered, but Pablo shook his head.

“But then I had a job to do this evening that was also going to get me a lot of money.” He stared at her, perspiration beading his brow. “Perhaps I can
kill
two birds with one stone.”

CHAPTER 12

“What is it, Ames?” Henry stretched and put down his book on Umbria. His study filled with sunshine through the large sash window that stood slightly open. He longed to go out and enjoy the warmth.

“It’s the young lady, sir.”

“Victoria?”

“No, the other one. The one that you asked me to keep an eye on.”

Henry groaned. What had she done now? “Tell me.”

“After three days of shutting herself away, she finally left the house.”

“No one told me that she had left!”

“She left alone, sir.”

Henry took in a deep breath. “No maid? Please tell me she had a maid with her?”

“No. She even neglected to check on the little experiment she has running in the understairs cupboard, sir.”

“Good grief.” Henry flicked a glance to the book that he had confiscated. Agatha thought that no one knew about the jar of jam that she had secreted underneath the brushes and mops the maids had been using to clean the hall and which was now growing an interesting head of mold. Unfortunately she’d chosen the jar of jam that Henry ate with toast on special occasions when he was really upset. He’d been upset quite often since Agatha had come into his house.

Ames stood in the shadows, accustomed to his master’s silences. After a while Henry gave in.

“Where did she go?”

“Well, she ran, my lord. Jumped into a carriage and slithered out underneath.” Ames nodded approvingly. “But then she was robbed, and caught the thief by, err, I believe
not
punching her.” The whites of Ames’ eyes gleamed in the sunlight as he looked at Henry sideways.

“Good grief! Not punching her?”

“I’m not sure you can call it a punch if the person walks into the outstretched arm sir.”

“Good grief.” She really was rather unexpected. Gods, only at lunch the week before she’d been trying to explain to him the principles of momentum. When he had brought up again his ban on experiments she’d mentioned quite tartly that speaking about science was very different to enacting experimentiae principae.

So he’d banned speaking about it too.

“I assume that she is back now?”

“She is now…”

“But? Spit it out, Ames.”

“The owner of the circus—Pablo Moreno—caught her.”

“Good god, Pablo Moreno!”

“They had a rather serious conversation that I couldn’t hear.”

Henry grasped at his chair, tension filling his fingers. “You let her stay alone with that man?” Taking a deep breath, he lifted his hands and gestured impatiently. “Yes, yes, carry on.”

“She appeared again, and took a hansom cab back here.”

Henry sighed in relief and tapped heavily on his book. Agatha Beauregard was a handful. She didn’t know how lucky she was to have escaped Pablo Moreno. Bad luck and trouble followed the shadowy man everywhere.

Ames coughed. “I think, sir, that she is making preparations to go out.”

Henry raised his eyebrows.

“Without a maid again, my lord. I err…”

“Yes?”

“I saw Pablo Moreno holding a pelisse. One that Miss Anglethorpe normally sports my lord. He didn’t give it back to her. He pointed instead to a large sign that said something about a Grand Salvatore, sir.”

Henry took a deep breath and looked out at the window and sunshine again. Victoria was very loyal to Agatha. And Agatha was very loyal to her. She would want to get back the bag at all costs. “Ames, rather unusually I require your assistance as a valet tonight.”

Snapping open his pocket watch, he studied the scrap of paper inside. If only he had never brought her to London. If only Peter was answering his letters. Henry needed to find out more about Agatha. He was drawn to her like a moth to a naked flame. Once she was out of Moreno’s hands and in Fashington’s clutches he would not be able to ever get so close to her again.

“Very good, sir.” Ames stepped blinking into the sunlight. “And where will you be going, sir?”

“Vauxhall Gardens.”

“Vauxhall Gardens? But what about Miss Aggie, sir?”

“I’m not going there for
that
kind of thing, Ames.”

“More’s the pity. You need a good woman, sir.”

He did. In fact he’d wanted one. But she was not so good at being good in the usual sense of the word. And it seemed to keep landing her in hot water. Blast. She was someone else’s problem now.

Henry sighed. “That might be difficult, Ames. No. Vauxhall Gardens is where Pablo Moreno is having his grand show tonight.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Apparently his main act, Bertino, otherwise known as Grand Salvatore the knife thrower, is sick and refusing to perform.”

Ames looked at him admiringly. “How do you know all of this, sir?”

Henry sighed. “Because Bertino, Ames, is our good old friend, Albert Smith.”

“Albert Smith, as in Albert Smith the butcher that delivered meat here? But I thought all he was good at was knife work. I remember cook being very disappointed when he left. He… oh.”

“Hmm. Yes. I put him in with Pablo Moreno to find out exactly what the strange man was up to. Unfortunately he has reported to me that he believes Pablo has nearly broken his cover. Albert is as we speak feigning the symptoms of a very infectious influenza in order to escape.”

“Lucky escape for him.”

“Yes, not so much for us.”

“Pardon?”

“I have a feeling that he wants to use Agatha in some way in a replacement performance.”

“Not Miss Aggie!”

Henry nodded. “I’m not sure how yet, but something will have piqued his interest.” He sighed and clenched his fingers. “God knows, she’s piqued mine.”

In the dark manicured hedges of Vauxhall gardens, Henry paced amongst the shadows. He could see Agatha from where he stood, her face stark white against the gathering dusk. Her face had a pinched look to it, although now and then her brow smoothed as she obviously worked to control her nerves.

Henry leant against the bough of a sturdy bush and folded his arms as his heart clenched. She still disliked him, he reminded himself, now more than ever. That had been a positive. He’d wanted a bride that didn’t like him. He couldn’t end up with a woman that would pine away like his mother if anything happened to him. Despite all the other things he had done, he could never have that on his conscience.

It didn’t matter now, Charles was going to marry her. She had got herself into this mess, and who knew what else she was capable of? Besides, if Henry revealed himself, his cover as a spymaster would be blown, and Albert might not escape.

Henry grunted. He needed to redeploy Albert somewhere. Somewhere where an Italianate looking butcher would be useful. Hmm. He needed someone to keep an eye on a mysterious Asian man that had appeared at Wapping docks. It would be a long waiting game. But Albert deserved a bit of respite. From the information Albert had given him, it seemed that Pablo and some of his employees had been engaging in slightly puzzling activity.

He straightened as a couple passed him, putting out an arm to fade into the shape of the tree. The couple stopped not five feet from him, unaware of his presence, too engaged in arguing.

“I saw it with my own eyes, Miles
cheri
. And just after we had been together too. How could you?”

“I was bored.”

“Bored? What haven’t I given you that you can get anywhere else?”

“She was easy pickings.”

“Easy pickings? Some slut of a girl that hung onto your every word?
Bonne dieu
Miles, she mouthed the words—”

“—to the dance steps? Enough with your petty jealousy. I’ve dealt with her. A contact of mine has promised to sort her out for me tonight. Perhaps perm—”

Henry couldn’t hold in his sneeze any longer. Pulling his hand from the branches, he covered his mouth, but still the small explosion caused the couple to stop speaking.

“We are not safe here.” The woman walked away from Henry with quick steps, whilst Miles hurried past the tree under which Henry sheltered, towards the colonnade below where Agatha stood.

Henry ducked out from under the full leaves of the bush. The woman had gone, the tall figure of the man rapidly disappearing too, too fast to be recognizable. What an odious pair, but not unusual in Vauxhall Gardens where the unsavory dregs mixed with the more louche members of society.

A cheer rang out; glancing up, Henry could no longer see the small figure of Agatha. With a curse he lengthened his stride and ran towards where large torches had been lit. He’d been stupid to let his attention be diverted. He was meant to be there for
her
.

CHAPTER 13

The evening was mild, the March day had mellowed with some sunshine burning off the fog towards sunset. In a dark corner of Vauxhall Gardens, Agatha watched the acrobats finish their performance, her arms wrapped round her body against the sudden chill of dusk.

It had been easy to slip out of the house unseen once more. She had pleaded a headache when Victoria had knocked on her door for their evening’s musicale. And it seemed that as soon as Victoria left the house, the staff retreated downstairs for their own suppers. It was the work of a moment to unlatch the great door, scramble down the steps and fall straight into a passing hansom cab. She had paid him well to wait for her until the end of the night’s performance. It was obviously an arrangement he had had much familiarity with.

Agatha shivered as a small breeze ruffled the gold suit that Pablo had provided, along with a full glittering mask. Nathalia’s teeth chattered as she stood by her side, seemingly over her previous hysterics. Why on earth had Pablo made her dress as the Grand Salvatore if he thought that she couldn’t throw knives?

Straightening, Nathalia brightened. “Oooh, he’s a looker,” she said loudly, craning her neck as a gentleman strode by on one of the lower walks. Involuntarily Agatha turned—she couldn’t stop herself. Charles stared directly back at her from below.

“Fiddlesticks,” she exclaimed, clapping a hand to her mouth as she ducked down behind a marble pillar. This was just her luck. Hopefully from that distance and the unfamiliarity in the surroundings he wouldn’t have recognized her. Her eyes took in her resplendent clothes—especially not in the gold suit.

“I don’t know why you’re so worried.” Nathalia leaned over the balustrade. “He didn’t stop.”

Agatha had no answer for that. There was no way she was going to admit to Nathalia of all people, that the handsome man was actually a complete bounder and that she was going to be married to him under false pretenses in a few days’ time.

“Look, you aren’t going to start shaking, are you?” Nathalia said sharply, “I’m the one going to be standing next to a board having someone that can’t throw knives aiming at her. It’s going to be dark, and there are going to be lots of people.” She pouted and rubbed her arms. “Thankfully you probably won’t even manage to even reach the board and people will think it’s a bit of comedy.”