Barnaby nodded. “I’ll take care of it.” He smiled and stood. “I know just who to ask.”
“Good.” Stokes handed him the copy of the list of names and rose. “Go and ask. I’ll do the same.” Following Barnaby out of the door, he added, “Time’s running out on us—we need to find those boys.”
That evening saw Penelope at another dinner, this one even more formal than Lady Forsythe’s. Lady Carlingford was an astute political hostess; her guests included a number of donors who contributed to the Foundling House’s coffers, making Penelope’s attendance essential.
She arrived with her mother; after greeting Lady Carlingford, they circulated among the guests, gathered in groups in her ladyship’s drawing room.
Penelope had parted from her mother, and was speaking with Lord Barford when Barnaby appeared beside her. Surprised, pleased, she gave him her hand. He greeted her suavely, then, tucking her hand in his arm, smiled at Lord Barford and asked him how his hunters were faring; his lordship was a keen rider to hounds.
In parting, his lordship assured her the Foundling House could count on his continuing support. “Don’t forget to remember me to your brother, m’dear. Best hound I ever had, the bitch I got from him.”
Smiling in reply, Penelope allowed Barnaby to steer her toward the next group. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” She glanced up at him.
The smile in his eyes warmed her. “M’father’s left town. I often stand in for him at gatherings such as this, especially when it’s to do with the police force, rather than his other concerns.”
“Your eldest brother isn’t interested in politics?”
“Not of the sort that involves the police. But anyway, both the other two, along with their wives, and my sister and her husband, are already at Cothelstone.”
She thought about that as they chatted briefly with Mrs. Worley. When they moved on, she said, “Your mother must be expecting you home. Will you be leaving town soon?”
He nodded to Lady Wishdale, an urbane smile on his lips. “That depends.”
“On our investigation?”
He met her eyes. “In part.” He hesitated, then added, “On that, and on when you depart.”
Their gazes locked—then Penelope was forced to look forward as Lady Parkdale swept up to them.
“My dears!” her ladyship exclaimed. “So lovely to see you both.”
As for all her gossipy avidity, Lady Parkdale was a major donor to the Foundling House, and Penelope bore with her dramatic utterances and arch glances with good grace.
“At least she’s never malicious,” Barnaby murmured as, having parted from her exuberant ladyship, they moved on.
Penelope smiled in companionable understanding.
Barnaby continued to steer her around the guests, continued to stand by her side and field questions from the men about Peel’s force and its workings. He knew everyone there, the ladies as well as the gentlemen; for all it masqueraded as a social gathering, the evening was, at its core, a serious affair.
In truth, he found such “entertainments” more to his liking than purely frivolous events; as he guided Penelope from one group to the next, he got the distinct impression that in that—as in so many things—they were as one.
Both of them were socially adept, and had more than enough wit to hold their own in the most demanding circles. And both preferred to have to use said wits while conversing; they enjoyed the challenge, the weightier repartee that in this setting, in this company, was the accepted norm.
He seized a moment between groups to tell her of their day’s endeavors, and Stokes’s subsequent decision to request permission to put more constables on the beat in Mayfair. “Unfortunately, Stokes holds out little hope. Equally unfortunately, learning the financial status of gentlemen isn’t something that can be accomplished in a few days.”
She was frowning. “There’s that man the Cynsters and my brother use whenever they need to do financial investigations.”
“Montague. I saw him this afternoon. He’s agreed to learn what he can about the gentlemen on our list, but until we narrow the field, it’s not feasible to do any in-depth searching.”
“Hmm.” He’d told her the names on their list. She shook her head. “I must admit I’ve never met any of them—but if they’re in the habit of frequenting gambling hells, our paths would be unlikely to cross.”
He thought of her in a gambling hell, and made no reply.
When they went in to dinner, he sent a special smile his hostess’s way on discovering he and Penelope were paired. They sat side by side and traded quips and pointed banter in between entertaining their other partners. At one point, glancing up the table, he caught Lady Calverton’s eye. Smiling in patent approval, Penelope’s mother raised her glass to him in an unobtrusive toast.
He inclined his head in acknowledgment, then lifted his own glass. Under cover of taking a sip, he glanced at Penelope—and wondered if she, like he, saw just how very compatible they were.
Too soon, the ladies rose and left the gentlemen to pass the port and discuss the state of the nation—the bills that hadn’t made it through Parliament during the autumn session, and the expectations for the legislative calendar in the coming year.
Penelope took the opportunity of the gentlemen’s absence to speak with all the ladies who, as administrator of the Foundling House, she should. Some were donors in their own right, while others were responsible for arranging their husband’s generosity. Still others were valuable contacts in other respects, such as Lady Paignton, patroness of a service—the Athena Agency—that placed young women as maids, governesses, and the like in ton households. The agency was much patronized by the matrons of the haut ton. As many of the Foundling House’s female charges left to make their way as maids of one sort or another, Penelope had known Lady Paignton for years.
An attractive matron with dark red hair, Lady Paignton smiled as Penelope joined her. “My husband is no doubt grilling Mr. Adair about this latest initiative of Peel’s. Now we’ve taken to spending so much time in the country, he’s taking his role as magistrate very seriously. There’s been talk, I gather, of setting up constables and watch houses in the larger towns.”
“So I believe.” The Paigntons had four children, two boys and two girls. Penelope said, “I met your eldest daughter a few weeks ago. I gather she takes an active interest in the agency.”
“Indeed.” Lady Paignton smiled fondly. “She’s determined to eventually take over the reins. Quite gratifying, really…ah, here come the men, back at last.” Her ladyship met Penelope’s eyes. “Do tell your people to continue to send any girls they deem suitable our way. We’ve been very happy with the girls the house has sent us.”
Smiling, Penelope inclined her head. “I’ll remind them.”
They parted; she watched as Lady Paignton swept up to a tall, well-set-up gentleman, extremely distinguished with silver wings in his dark hair. He was the first of the gentlemen to reappear in the drawing room. Viscount Paignton was one of the major landowners in Devon and had become increasingly influential, especially in Home Office affairs.
She hadn’t intended to visually eavesdrop, but the light in Lord Paignton’s eyes—a mixture of pride, joy, and happiness as he looked on his wife—was impossible to miss.
Impossible to mistake.
Entirely unexpectedly, Penelope was struck by a sudden, very specific yearning—that a man would, one day, look at her with just such a light in his eyes. Not the rather innocent and naïve light, the untested light one saw in a newly married couple’s eyes, but that deeper, mature, and abiding glow that spoke of an enduring love.
She blinked and looked away, and wondered where that thought—that want—had come from, from where within her it had suddenly sprung.
Lady Curtin paused beside her. “So very heartening, my dear, to see Adair dancing attendance on you.” Before Penelope could correct her—Barnaby was there in lieu of his father—her ladyship rolled on, “I’m an old f
riend of Dulcie, his mother, and I have to tell you that boy—well, man as he now is—has driven her to distraction with his absolute refusal to engage with marriageable females, let alone properly look about him for a wife. The way he avoids ton females—well, the marriageable sort anyway—you’d think they carried the plague! According to Dulcie, he’s elevated avoidance to an art form. Why, even when he appears as Cothelstone’s deputy, as he has tonight, he usually refuses utterly to play the game.”
Finally pausing to draw a longer breath, Lady Curtin studied her. “You aren’t quite the normal run of young ladies, yet regardless you’re entirely eligible. If an odd kick to your gallop is what’s needed to fix his attention, then so be it—I know Dulcie will swoon at your feet.”
With a brisk pat on Penelope’s wrist, Lady Curtin swept on.
Leaving Penelope slightly dazed.
Unbidden, her gaze traveled to the doorway through which more gentlemen were ambling, those at the rear still caught in discussions. At the very back of the crowd, she saw a gilded head, bent to catch what Lord Carlingford was saying.
Alone for the moment on the other side of the room, she seized the chance to study him. To consider…her recent thoughts, Lady Curtin’s revelations, Lady Parkdale’s arch comments, the light in Lord Paignton’s eyes.
Barnaby didn’t look at her like that…but could he?
If she followed the path her heart was increasingly urging her down, would he, one day in the future?
He parted from Lord Carlingford; scanning the room, he saw her, smiled, and started toward her.
She watched him approach, his attention fixed on her. Recalled she’d heard Lady Curtin’s comments echoed by others; the Honorable Barnaby Adair did not dance attendance on marriageable females.
Except her.
He smiled, reclaimed her hand and laid it on his sleeve. “I’ve said all I wish to about the police tonight. Have you any others you wish to speak with?”
Deciding to be wise, she smiled and directed him to Lord Fitchett.
Tonight she had to leave with her mother, which was, perhaps, just as well. She needed to think about Barnaby Adair. And thinking about him in a rational, logical manner was difficult, not to say impossible, while in his arms.
The man who called himself Mr. Alert stood in the shadows beneath the old tree at the center of the cemetery at the corner of St. John’s Wood High Street. The fog clung close as a shroud; he heard Smythe approaching long before the man came into view, slipping between two large gravestones to reach the tree.
Eyes screened beneath the brim of an old cap pulled low over his forehead, Smythe halted and scanned the darkness under the tree.
Alert smiled to himself. “I’m here.”
Smythe ducked beneath the canopy. “It’s a poor night for walking—a much better night for burgling.”
“I daresay tomorrow night will be the same. Are you ready?”
“Aye. The boys are as ready as I can make them, leastways in so short a time. Lucky they’re quick and sharp enough to know it’s in their best interests to work hard.”
“Good.” Pulling a set of folded papers from his pocket, Alert handed it to Smythe. “These are the details of the items to be lifted from the first four houses, in the order in which I want the burglaries performed. You don’t need to read any of it now. I’ve described each item, well enough so any fool could recognize it. Also noted is the location, in detail, of the item inside the house, not just where it will be found but what doors and locks might be in the way. There’s nothing the merest child couldn’t handle in the way of locks.”
Unfolding the pages, Smythe tilted them so they caught what light there was. He couldn’t read anything, but could see the wealth of detail provided.
“As we discussed,” Alert went on, “I’ll be driving a small, black town carriage, unmarked, around the streets. I’ll be dressed as a coachman. I’ll rendezvous with you at the corner noted at the bottom of each description, close by each house, and relieve you of the item lifted. None are too big for the boys to get out of each house, but all are unwieldy enough that you won’t want to chance walking any great distance with them.”
Smythe’s head came up. “And you’ll hand over the down payment for each item as we deliver it?”
Alert nodded. “Then once I’ve passed the items onto buyers, and they’ve paid me, you’ll get the rest of your share. As agreed.”
“Good.” Smythe stuffed the folded papers into the pocket of his heavy coat.
“One thing.” Alert’s voice grew cold. “As we also agreed, you are to ensure no other items are lifted from those particular houses by your boys. Once we’ve sold our items and have our cash, you can go back if you wish, but—and I can’t stress this enough—only the item I’ve listed must be lifted from each house at this time.”
Smythe nodded. “I agreed to that at the outset—I haven’t forgotten. We’ll run the job as you wish. But what about the police? You said you’d check.”
“Indeed. And I have. There will be no extra police on the beat tomorrow night.”
“And what about the second night—assuming you’re still set on doing your other four houses on the following night?”
“Yes—that can’t change. The explanation is complicated, but we can’t risk anything more than two nights.”
Smythe studied Alert for a moment, then nodded. “All right—but what about the police on the second night?”
Again Alert’s voice grew arrogantly cold. “Now you see why I wanted all eight houses done on a single night. There is, of course, a chance—a possibility, no more—that the police will be alerted and move to increase patrols in Mayfair. However, they’re unlikely to move fast enough to trouble us seriously on the second night. A third night would be foolhardly, but the second night will be only marginally more dangerous than the first.
“In addition, I’ve learned who’s driving the police interest in our scheme. I’ve taken steps to ensure they won’t be free to meddle in our activities on the second night. Through the first night, they’ll remain blissfully ignorant—even now that we’ve had to reorganize to two nights, if luck is with us they won’t even know we’ve struck until months from now.”
Smythe studied him through the gloom. “So we won’t be bothered—not by anyone?”
“Even if they’re alerted, the most likely scenario is one we’ll be able to work around.” Alert straightened; confidence infused his voice. “I’ll have the details of any extra forces out and about on the second night. And as for our interferring busybodies”—he smiled, a flash of white teeth in the darkness—“I’ve organized a distraction for them.”
21
As I feared”—Stokes slumped into what had become his usual armchair in Griselda’s parlor—“my request to put more constables on the beat in Mayfair fell on deaf ears.”
The others—Penelope and Barnaby on the sofa, Griselda in her chair—grimaced. They’d made no plans to meet that afternoon, but once her duties at the Foundling House had been completed, impatient and at loose ends, Penelope had come to call in the faint hope Griselda might have heard something from her East End friends—a hope Griselda, shutting her shop early, had dashed.
Barnaby had arrived shortly afterward; Stokes had been ten minutes behind him.
After a moment, Stokes went on, frustration ringing in his tone, “If I had some real threat—some proof of it—I’d get action without delay. However, the very fact that to us makes the burglaries much more likely, namely the absence of tonnish households from town and the resulting empty mansions, works against us in calling for more police on the streets—all the superintendents see is that with hardly any nobs in town, there’s little chance of some tonnish head being cracked during a burglary, ergo, no need for any but the lightest police presence.”
Accepting the mug of tea Griselda handed him, Stokes sipped, then rather glumly looked at Penelope. “When we were discussing Alert’s plan, you mentioned that those not of the ton might
not appreciate how many things of great value were left lying around in Mayfair mansions.” He grimaced. “You were right. My superintendent simply can’t imagine it. And none of the governors I know—like Barnaby’s father—are still in town.”
Stokes sighed. “I tried. I outlined what we believe Alert’s plan to be, but the higher-ups think I’m being fanciful.”
“Much as it suits us not at all, your superintendents are right—at least from their point of view.” Barnaby slumped back in his corner of the sofa. “We have no proof—everything we’re saying is conjecture and speculation.”
Griselda shook her head. “Missing boys and murder aren’t speculation.”
“Exactly.” Penelope’s voice was a great deal more decisive, not to say belligerent. “I don’t care about snuffboxes, or vases, or whatever Alert plans to steal, but we have to rescue those boys. If the police won’t patrol the streets of Mayfair, we’ll have to.”
As one Stokes and Barnaby sat up. “No.”
They’d spoken as one, too. Penelope looked from one to the other, a frown darkening her face. “But—”
“No.” Barnaby trapped her gaze. “We cannot go wandering the streets at night in the hope of running into Smythe and Alert.” And instead running into God knew who else. Pushing the image of Penelope stalking down dark deserted streets, cobbled mews, and dank lanes behind houses from his mind, he spoke quickly. “We’ll have to think of some other way to approach this—for instance, looking at how Alert plans to sell the stolen items.” He glanced at Stokes. “If these items are extremely valuable, they’ll most likely be rare and highly identifiable. The usual sellers of nicked goods know better than to touch such things.”
“True.” Stokes frowned. “So how…?”
“He must have something organized. I wonder…” It took a moment for the notion to clarify in Barnaby’s mind. “Could Alert be stealing on demand, as it were? Could he be stealing specific items that people he knew of wanted, and were ready to pay for if he delivered them?”