“And if I choose not to keep away from trouble?”
“Then I am to arrest you and take you to Mr. Spendlove.”
His face was turning dark purple under my cane. I eased off a bit, but I had to resist the urge to punch him again along his unshaven jaw.
“I do not like being followed,” I said. “For any reason. Go back to Spendlove and tell him that.”
He gave me a nasty smile. “Can’t do that, sir. As long as you’re in Bath, I watch you. I work for the magistrates. You go to your Pump Rooms and assembly rooms with your wife and daughter, and we’ll rub along fine.”
My anger didn’t abate. Denis always had men watching me, which irritated me, but I’d grown used to it. Denis did as he pleased. But for a Bow Street Runner to hire someone to follow me about as though I were a common criminal infuriated me. Abigail Collins was missing, her life threatened, and Bow Street chose to watch me.
“Very well then,” I said as I took a step back. “Follow me. Be poised to arrest me. Meanwhile, I will get up to what I like. When you come to take me, better bring more men than yourself.”
Disgusted and in fury, I swung away from him and strode off, my walking stick beating the cobbles to punctuate my anger. I heard the man breathing loudly behind me, but I noted that this time he did not follow.
I was a while discovering the way back to the main streets of Bath and the Crescent. When I emerged to the elegant curve of houses and the park beyond it, the beauty and grace of the setting had turned gray and very much colder.
Chapter Eleven
Spendlove’s man watching me every moment meant I could not put plans in motion; at least, not how I envisioned executing those plans. In the morning, I told Bartholomew as he poured me coffee in the dining room that I’d need his help.
Society in Bath favored more daylight hours than did life in upper-class London, I’d learned—breakfast in the Lower Assembly Rooms either before or after drinking the waters or bathing in the Pump Rooms, then to the Upper Assembly Rooms for tea or cards. In the evening, to the theatre or whichever of the assembly rooms was hosting a ball or concert that night, and then home and to bed.
Donata had explained the schedule to me before she’d fallen asleep the night before, murmuring last thing that she rarely observed it. I woke at my usual hour, my nose in her back, inhaling her lovely scent. I basked a moment in the warmth of her, then kissed her cheek, rose from the nest of our bed, and left her to her sleep.
I went downstairs to find the dining room sideboard loaded with silver dishes, holding everything from simple toasted bread to slabs of ham to a whole fish pie. The cook had expected a crowd, it seemed. Or perhaps she believed army captains ate this much every morning. She might have been correct, because I loaded my plate.
Bartholomew entered to pour me coffee, and I drank deeply of it as I ate the good food. I’d noted that Bartholomew’s usual cheerful exuberance had deserted him this morning, but he brightened a trifle when I told him I’d need his help.
“Ah, good, sir,” he said, topping up my cup for the third time. “I wondered when you’d ask.”
“Is that what has you long faced? I always welcome your assistance in my investigations.”
“No, sir, not that. It’s the staff here. Had to nearly wrestle the first footman to wait on you at table this morning. For dinner and supper it’s the butler’s show, I understand, but I’m your valet, sir. Your man. I take care of you in the mornings.” He looked put out and angry.
Domestic troubles, something new to me. The entire staff of this house had been hired through one of Donata’s agents and had been in place before we arrived. “I know very little about all that, Bartholomew. Her ladyship will have to tutor me on the niceties.”
“Trust me, sir. A gentleman’s gentleman should be near to him until he first leaves the house in the morning.”
“I see you won the wrestling match,” I said, sipping more coffee. “Any casualties?”
“No, but a footman came nigh to a bloody nose.” He gave the absent footman a dark scowl. “What is this task you have for me, sir?”
“I need you to find a small boardinghouse on Cook’s Lane, which is near to the Old Bridge somewhere. The trouble is, I’m not sure exactly which boardinghouse, so we’ll have to narrow it down. I want to discover if Mrs. Collins is there, or has been there recently.”
“I can do that, sir.” Bartholomew’s eagerness returned, and he set down the silver pot. “Shall I go right away?”
“Not yet. I will be going out this morning. When I do, I want you to watch out the window without anyone seeing you. A man should follow me—he will likely be wearing a two-caped greatcoat and tall hat. Wait until he’s followed me out of the Crescent. Watch after that to see if anyone else comes after or remains to observe the house. Only when you are certain no one will see you should you pursue the errand. Return home a roundabout way and speak to no one about what you’ve discovered. I should be home again in time for Mrs. Lacey’s rising.”
Bartholomew listened to all carefully. He was an intelligent lad, and he’d follow my instructions to the letter.
I finished my breakfast, realizing that if I did eat to the cook’s expectations, I would need to hire that horse for a hard ride very soon. Bartholomew saw me out the door, handing me a new hat and leather gloves as I departed the house.
I pretended to ignore Spendlove’s man when I spied him and walked away with determination in my stride. As I’d hoped, he left his post and followed me. I passed the house Grenville had taken, assuming he intended to remain firmly in bed until the afternoon, and made my way several streets south to the smaller house Grenville had hired for Marianne.
Marianne was up, though not dressed, but she readily accepted my invitation. In a very short time, she came downstairs in a dark blue ensemble fit for walking about Bath in the winter. The maid handed her an umbrella in deference to the clouds building in the sky, and we walked from her house arm-in-arm.
“Thank heavens you came,” Marianne said as we strolled in the direction of the Pump Rooms. Under the bonnet lined with blue that matched her eyes, her expression was sour. “I wondered if I’d wait through a morning of tediousness before he deigned to rise from his bed and remember he’d brought me with him. But are you certain you want to be seen walking with me? Everyone knows I am that notorious actress the great Grenville is squiring about.”
“I am counting on that. We will search Bath together for Mrs. Collins—everywhere except where I suspect her to be, that is. There is a gentleman from Bow Street following me.”
Marianne’s expression cleared. “Ah, you are being underhanded.”
“Exactly.”
“I take it the gentleman in the rather ugly greatcoat is the Runner in question?”
“He’s a patroller, working for a Runner who has taken an interest in me. I have been ordered not to search for Mrs. Collins. But because I take orders poorly, and I am not certain that Mr. Spendlove’s motives are pure, I’d rather find her myself.”
“Good of you. Though now you have me even more worried.”
I walked with Marianne purposefully along a few streets, making certain we moved in a direction completely opposite to the one in which I’d sent Bartholomew. We crossed a bridge over the Avon, which flowed icily beneath us, then climbed a hill to a fine view of the town. Bath lay below us, only a few miles long and lesser wide, its layout a pretty symmetry beyond the mist of the river.
“Bath doesn’t have many permanent residents,” I reflected. Most of the Crescent was to let for anyone who could afford it. “How would someone as prominent as Mrs. Collins hide herself here?”
Marianne’s look told me she thought me a simpleton. “She’s an actress. If she wishes to play the part of a housemaid or cook’s assistant putting up her feet for a time, no one would look twice. She’s not gentry-born, and she can slide back in with her own class quite easily when she chooses. On a stage, she’s wearing powder and costumes, and how m
any people see her close to? Believe me, hiding in plain sight is easier than simply not being seen.”
“Is that what you are doing?” I asked. “Hiding in plain sight?”
Marianne looked swiftly up at me. The street leading to the hill was quiet this early, and no one was near. “Why on earth should you say that, Lacey?”
I regarded her for a time, taking in her carefully dressed hair, the blue wool spencer with puffed sleeves over her walking dress, the expensive bonnet with its blue silk trim. “I’ve known you for nearly four years now,” I said. “I’ve noted that you are not the same as the other actresses I’ve met—you admitted that acting is more a way for you to earn a coin than a true calling. You don’t come from a working-class background. More middle-class, I’d say, even gentry perhaps. Your accent is neutral, meaning you’ve learned to use one that will hide your origins, and you are not from London. You don’t much like the country, so I assume you come from a fairly large town, such as this one or something farther away. Bristol possibly, or even Leeds, though I wouldn’t have pegged you as from the north.”
Marianne jerked her hand from my arm. “Aren’t you the fine Bow Street Runner? My life and where I come from are hardly your business. I had no idea you were watching me so closely.”
“Not watching. Observing. You fit no pattern, and that always makes me curious.”
“Well, you will have to continue to be curious then.”
“We are friends, Marianne,” I said. “I’d hardly betray your confidence.”
“Friends, perhaps, but you are also great friends with his worship, Mr. Grenville, upon whom I now depend for my daily bread. I shouldn’t want you to have to wrestle with your conscience whether you should tell him all about me. You would win out on his side, because gentlemen always club together.”
“Not always. I told him nothing about David, remember? Until you asked me to, that is. I attempt to keep my patience with you, but you try the patience of the best of men, and I am not the best of men.”
Marianne’s snort was her only answer. She tried to walk on, but I latched my fingers around her wool-clad arm and pulled her back.
“Tell Grenville,” I said. “That way, I won’t wrestle with my conscience, and you won’t constantly wonder whether you can trust me.”
“Tell him?” Marianne laughed, but it held no humor. “My dear Lacey, remember I said he was my bread and butter? Shall I have him sling me out? Who will feed me then? You and your fine lady wife?”
“You thought he would toss you out about David. Instead, he gave you plenty of money to repair David’s little house, and he adheres to your wishes not to move him from it. That speaks of a generous man who cares for you.”
I hoped to see contrition, but Marianne showed none. “Yes, I know you and he are the best of chums. Live and die for each other, wouldn’t you?”
“How long will the poor man have to work to gain your trust? You’re putting him through a hell of a trial. One day, he will lose his patience, not for anything you’ve done, but because you refuse to give yourself to him. Your whole self.”
“Ah.” Marianne looked both sad and triumphant at the same time. “That way lies disaster.” She looked down the hill at carriages heading for the Pump Room so their inhabitants could take their morning cure. “We ought to be getting back now. I would not want wagging tongues to ruin things with your new wife.”
I released her and gestured for her to walk on, then offered my arm again after we’d gone a few paces. “My wife is highly intelligent,” I said. “As you are. The difference between you two is that Mrs. Lacey keeps no secrets. She has no closed doors about her past, even the most sordid bits of it.”
“But Mrs. Lacey is an earl’s daughter, and she always will be, no matter what gentleman she marries. Though people might question her taste in husbands, she will remain on her lofty pillar above the squalid masses forever. I do not have that luxury. Therefore, my secrets remain my own.”
I shrugged, though the more she spoke, the more curious I became. “My advice stands. Tell Grenville. Trust him.”
“So simple you make everything sound. I will decide what to do, if ever.”
“Very well. However, I believe Mr. Spendlove’s man needs more exercise. Let us walk the long way around the Crescent and then back to your lodgings, shall we?”
*** *** ***
I arrived home after seeing Marianne to her house to find that Bartholomew had already been on his errand and returned.
“She ain’t there, sir.”
I believed him, but I couldn’t help asking, “You’re certain?”
“Certain is pushing it a bit.” He rubbed his short, pale hair. “There were two boardinghouses on that street, one of them with a bit of a damp problem. The other was the one where your quarry liked to stay, but they ain’t seen her. I asked to have a look at the rooms anyway, but they were empty except for a few bits of furniture. The rooms were cold and smelled musty, like no one had opened the windows in a while. I asked, to see what the landlady would say, if I could take the rooms myself, but she said she always held them for Mrs. Collins the actress, had for years. She boasted of it. I said I supposed Mrs. Collins paid up for the whole year then, so they’d be available whenever she arrived. Yes, the landlady said. That’s what usually happened. Except this year, Mrs. Collins sent an agent to pay it for her, in October, instead of coming herself. Most unusual, the landlady said.”
“And did the talkative landlady describe this agent?”
Bartholomew turned his face to the ceiling as though seeking inspiration in the plasterwork. “Tall man, thick side-whiskers, bulbous nose, bushy brows, ugly sort.”
“Good Lord. Mr. Perry.” I had to rise and pace. “There cannot be two such men. But why would he pay Mrs. Collins’ rent? Did he come here to find her and then needed an excuse for asking at her rooms of her? Rather expensive excuse, I’d think. Or perhaps he wanted to maintain the fiction that she is living here, when she is, in fact, dead? Or instead of being a villain, perhaps he is hiding her, paying the rent for her to keep everything seeming as usual.” I shook my head, still pacing. “No, he must be a villain in this. He exploited Felicity and had me beaten. I refuse to look upon Mr. Perry as any sort of benefactor.”
“Not to mention he lost you your walking stick,” Bartholomew said.
“And for that, of course, I shall never forgive him.”
Bartholomew peered at me to see whether I was joking. I wasn’t, really—my fury at Perry had not abated.
“Would you like me to go back and ask more questions, sir?”
“No.” My leg began to twinge, and I sat down again. “I do not want Spendlove’s man or anyone else getting wind of our inquiries. Thank you, Bartholomew. You have been most helpful.”
Bartholomew looked much more cheerful than he had this morning. “You’re welcome, sir. Now then, her ladyship instructed me to have you take a light luncheon and a bath before your afternoon. She said she had a long day and evening planned.”
I tried not to grimace as I went upstairs, but truth to be told, I enjoyed bathing. Hot water on a cold day felt good to my limbs. I remembered the days, not so long ago, when I’d go for weeks to months without immersing myself. Such a thing was not practical in the army. But while I’d been sweating in India and again on the Peninsula, Mr. George Brummell and Mr. Lucius Grenville had made cleanliness fashionable. All gentlemen must now separate themselves from the great unwashed with large quantities of soap and water.
Bartholomew prepared my bath in the dressing room near the fireplace there, and by the time I was as clean as could be, Donata was out of bed and dressed, ready to begin the social whirl of Bath. We’d begin in the Upper Assembly Rooms, she informed me.
“We aren’t likely to find many we know here,” she said as Bartholomew put the finishing touches on my toilette. “Bath is hopelessly outdated these days, though my set does make its way down here for the quiet. But not usually until later in the Season. N
ever mind, we shall walk about and be stared at.”
An activity not to my taste. But it would look odd, Donata said, if we kept ourselves to ourselves and never went out. People would remark upon it. In order to attract the least amount of attention, it seemed, we must proceed to show ourselves as much as possible.
Grenville joined us for the outing. We all rode together to the assembly rooms in Donata’s hired landau, and all and sundry did indeed stare when we descended. Donata took it in stride, used to being watched, as did Grenville. Gabriella was too interested to notice the scrutiny, but I was painfully aware of heads turning when we passed, the murmurs that began behind hands.
I especially did not like how they stared at Gabriella. Donata declared that because Gabriella was not out yet, she would not attend any of the grand balls in the evening, though taking tea with us and visiting the sights of Bath would be fine. However, I disliked the curious stares turned her way, some of which bore rude speculation.
“Best we let everyone know she is under my wing,” Donata said in her practical manner. “I adore quashing gossip. Leave it to me.” Donata sailed off with Gabriella to the tea room, Gabriella giving me a rueful look behind her.
“Do you regret your rush to the altar now?” Grenville asked as he and I moved through the Octagon Room toward the card room.
“Not a rush. Took too long for my liking.”
“You could have remained as lovers in plenty of comfort, you know.” He gave me an amused look. “No need at all for matrimony.”
“I disagree. My rooms were devilish uncomfortable, and I didn’t wish to embarrass Donata any longer trying to discreetly leave her house in the early hours of the morning.”
Grenville shook his head. “Your attitude is deplorable, Lacey. All gentlemen are supposed to bewail putting their head in the noose. You will make the rest of us look shabby.”
I chose not to answer his teasing. Waking up next to Donata this morning had been a fine experience. I’d let myself be surrounded by her warmth, thinking of nothing else, a thing I hadn’t been able to do in a long time.