Crispin waved the suggestion aside. “I wouldn’t dream of changing. All this dirt going to waste? Never.”
“Very good, sir,” Thurston replied, the eyes opening a hairbreadth more, but Crispin was already brushing by him on his way up the stairs.
He entered the room at a pace he knew The Aunts had treated in a chapter entitled “Unseemly Haste,” and was moving toward them when he stopped abruptly.
“Who are you?” he asked, frowning, of the man seated in a chair alongside The Aunts. These two august ladies, still beautiful and blond despite their years, would hardly have appeared to the casual observer as women who would as soon bite the heads off of flowers and young children as dine upon a trout, but Crispin knew better. The taller and more lethal one, Lady Priscilla Snowden, spoke first.
“This is our nephew,” Lady Priscilla told the seated man. “Please excuse his lack of manners. He was raised in Italy, you know.” She turned her steely eyes on Crispin. “This, nephew, is Mister Jack. He has been waiting many hours for your return and is telling us the most fascinating tales of—” She turned back to the seated man. “What did you call it?”
“Coney catching,” Mister Jack replied in a gruff voice. “Finding a gentleman as has come into London from out in the country and ridding him of his extra wealth.”
“He is writing a book about it,” Lady Eleanor Nearview, the Other Aunt, informed her nephew. “He is a very enterprising young man.” Her tone made it clear that there were other young men in the room about whom the same could not be said. “Very much like your father, Hugo,” she added, lest Crispin had missed the innuendo.
“‘Work need fear no task,’ that is what our beloved brother always said,” Lady Priscilla told their guest.
“No, sister,” Lady Eleanor corrected with a frown. “ ‘Worth need wear no mask.’ That is what our dear Hugo said, sister. I am quite sure.”
“Are you, sister? Quite sure?”
“Quite, quite sure,” Lady Eleanor confirmed. The two ladies regarded one another sharply, and for a moment it looked as though they might be headed for open conflict.
Then, sniffing, Lady Priscilla changed to a more amicable subject. “I say, do you smell something off, sister?”
“It’s His there Lordship,” Mister Jack volunteered. “Stinks like a sewer.”
Lady Priscilla and Lady Eleanor both nodded. “So he does,” Lady Eleanor agreed. “A fine turn of phrase.”
Crispin had been standing, stunned and silent, during this exchange, but he now found his voice. “It is a pleasure to welcome my two dear aunts to Sandal Hall.” He was drawing near to give each of them a kiss when Lady Priscilla’s raised palm stopped him.
“Do not lie to us, nephew,” she instructed in clipped tones. “We know your feelings. And we have a great deal to say on the subject.”
“A great deal,” Lady Eleanor reiterated.
“A very great deal,” Lady Priscilla continued, nodding. “But we shall contain ourselves until after you have met with Mister Jack. You have kept him waiting long enough.”
“Mighty fine of you two,” Jack said amiably. “My business with His Lordship will be over quicker than a bug’s eye, I promise you, provided he’s willing. Not that I can stand the smell too long neither.”
The Aunts each inclined a head to acknowledge Jack’s kindness, and he and his odiferous companion made their way in silence to
Crispin’s library. When they were both seated, Crispin behind his desk with the raven on its perch at his shoulder and his guest across from him, Mister Jack began the discussion.
“Damn fine ladies down there. It would be a pity if something happened to them.”
Crispin said nothing, just watched his companion.
“So you see,” Jack went on, “it would be best for you to mind your own business.”
“Disgusting slug,” the raven piped in, startling both men.
Crispin recovered first. “I am afraid I do not follow you.”
Jack glared at the bird. “All I’m saying is that the death of Richard Tottle is not your concern.” Jack reached into his tunic and extracted a paper that he carefully unfolded and pushed across the desk toward Crispin. “To prove it, I’m authorized to pay you one hundred pounds.”
Crispin frowned down at the bill of credit before him, then at his enterprising companion. “Let me get this straight. You are offering to pay me one hundred pounds to stop looking into the death of Richard Tottle.”
Jack gave his version of a smile. “That’s the shape of it.”
For a moment Crispin just stared at him. Then he tipped his head back and laughed. It was a luxury he had not allowed himself in a long time, not since before he had gone to Spain, and it felt wonderful to let it out. “A hundred pounds,” he repeated, still laughing. When he had subsided into the occasional chuckle, he returned his gaze to Jack. “A hundred pounds would scarcely keep my household fed for a day. Why don’t we do this? Why don’t I give you a hundred pounds right now, and you can tell me who you are working for?”
Jack seemed to hesitate for a moment, the enterprising gleam flickering in his eye, but then shook his head. “Ain’t no good. I got to get your promise that you will stop interfering in the death of Richard Tottle.”
“Why? What business is it of yours?”
“None of mine, I’m only the errand boy. But I am empowered to assure you that justice will be done in the death of Richard Tottle.”
Jack spoke the last phrase as if he had memorized it from a hornbook.
Jack’s pronunciation made Crispin chuckle again. “What exactly do you mean that justice will be done’?”
“Only that we already know who to have arrested for the murder and your meddling won’t help any.”
“You refer, I take it, to Sophie Champion?” Crispin asked offhandedly.
Jack struck an apologetic tone. “I ain’t empowered to say any names.”
“This is a problem.” Crispin sounded equally apologetic. “I couldn’t really agree without knowing who your intended victim is.”
“I can assure you it’s someone who is deserving,” Jack offered.
But Crispin only shook his head, a sad smile on his lips. “I am afraid your assurance is not enough. What if I refuse to stop investigating?”
“Then I am empowered to assure you that you will not like what happens.”
Crispin stopped smiling abruptly and leaned across the desk. “Please tell your employer that no one threatens me.”
“I ain’t threatening you,” Jack said with emphasis. “Only it would be a pity if them two ladies out there should happen to have an accident.”
“Have an accident, have an accident,” the raven chanted.
Crispin shook his head again. “No,” he mused. “No, I do not think they will experience any accidents in the near future. Indeed, I am sure of it.”
The look of enterprise returned to Jack’s expression. “Does that mean you agree to our terms?”
“Certainly not. It means that I am confident that nothing will happen to my aunts, or to any other members of my household. And I can be confident because if anything does happen, I will perform such acts on you that you will beg, in vain, for your death.” Crispin leaned back comfortably in his chair, adding conversationally, “If you care for a reference about what occurs when I am inclined to blame someone, ask Lord Grip how he came to be missing his left leg. Or, rather, don’t. I cannot recall how much of his tongue I left behind.” Crispin looked up to see his steward enter, as if on cue. “Ah, Thurston. Can you recollect in what state we left Lord Grip’s tongue?”
“I believe we left it in a very good state, sir. In a lovely glass carafe on His Lordship’s bedside table.”
Crispin nodded, then trained his cold blue-gray eyes on his visitor. “I feel that o
ur discussion is at an end. I wish you a good evening, Mister Jack. And I hope, for your sake, we shall not meet again.”
Jack said nothing, but the lack of color in his face and his unsteadiness as he rose from the chair gave a fair index of his state of mind. His hand trembled as he took his walking stick from Thurston and turned to go. But he was not completely without his wits, for he turned back and made a grab for the bill of credit from the desk.
“Certainly not,” Crispin said, retaining the paper. “This is my only link to you. How else will I know where to look if I need retribution?”
Crispin waited until he heard not only the door to his apartment but also the main door of the house close behind Jack before the chuckling resumed. Lord Grip joined in, hopping up and down and repeating, “Strip! Slug! Strip! Strip!” Crispin patted the bird fondly and decided he would have to give Thurston a raise for that comment about the carafe. Perhaps the bill of credit now lying on his desk.
Looking down at the paper, Crispin shook his head again. Only a fool would try to bribe the Earl of Sandal with a measly one hundred pounds, and the threats had been as pathetic as the offer. He mentally wished Enterprising Jack and his cronies good luck taking on The Aunts. But the offer did confirm what Crispin had concluded at the Worshipful Hall, that Richard Tottle’s life, as well as his death, was more complicated than it seemed.
Crispin closed his eyes for a moment and pulled up the image he had stored there earlier in the day, the image of Tottle’s register. Crispin had trained himself to make a mental portrait of any face he came across in his undertakings as the Phoenix, and the same skill worked with documents. He could see Tottle’s register in his mind as if it were lying on the desk before him. Scanning its pages mentally, he easily found what he was looking for. There were seven of them, seven names, all of them listed in the register as having paid either one hundred pounds a month or a lump sum of twelve hundred pounds. Perhaps one of them would be more eager to talk than Kipper had been. Crispin had just made up his mind to send each of them a message inviting them for an interview as soon as possible, when he moved his mental eye down the remembered page and saw the last name.
Sophie Champion.
She, too, was listed in Tottle’s register, indeed, hers was the final entry. With a strange tightening in his chest, Crispin had to admit that every corner he turned in this investigation seemed to lead him right back to Sophie Champion.
Her name changed to her face in his mind, and Tottle’s register melted away. Against his will he pictured her as she had been when he left her at Lawrence’s, and against his will he felt an unfamiliar twinge that had to be jealousy. Damn her and her unnerving effect on him. He knew next to nothing about her, and what little he did know, from Elwood, suggested she was a dangerous siren capable of luring men—even possibly her own godfather—to their doom. Yet never before had he had such difficulty concentrating on anything, particularly not anything as crucial as saving his own neck in seven days. Sophie Champion was not even the type of woman he liked. For one thing, she was too smart, too independent, and too irksome. And for another, she was not small and delicate, she did not have hair the color of the finest butter, or breasts that recalled Spanish oranges. She made him feel things—anger, annoyance, and frustration primarily—that he had set aside years ago. Not to mention amusement. Or desire.
There was something completely wrong about his reaction to her, and he was delighted when he hit upon a way of quashing his disturbing impulses and investigating the real nature of her relationship with Lord Grosgrain, simultaneously. First thing the next morning, he would pay a visit to Lord Grosgrain’s widow, the lovely Constantia, who, as the perfect embodiment of a shallow, sweet-tempered, light-haired, orange-breasted sylph, could answer his questions and reinforce his preferences simultaneously. Who knew but that he might not decide to propose to her after all? Then afterward, bolstered by Constantia’s charms and information, Crispin would march back to Pickering Hall and make Sophie Champion answer his questions at last.
But first he needed something for his thirst. Before he could reach for the bellpull to summon Thurston, the man himself materialized, carrying a carafe of burgundy wine in one hand and a small packet in the other.
“Fine work with the tongue,” Crispin commended him, reaching for the carafe and decanting its contents into a silver goblet. “I never would have thought of that myself.”
“Thank you, sir,” Thurston replied, unmoved. Then he extended the packet to Crispin. “This just arrived, sir, by special messenger.”
Crispin swallowed the goblet’s contents in one gulp and took the package. Using a magnifying lens, he closely examined the wax seal, and when he saw it was red and marked with a sundial over which the north star hovered at two o’clock, his thirst was entirely forgotten. “From North Hall,” he announced to Thurston, then added, tapping the seal, “Red book, second volume.”
North Hall was the house of Crispin’s cousin L.N., Lucien North Howard, the Earl of Danford. L.N. was the most mysterious of the six men known throughout Europe as the Arboretti, and the most powerful. Not simply because he was the titular head of the Arboretti—the enormous shipping empire Crispin and his cousins had inherited from their grandfather—but because he was the actual head of Queen Elizabeth’s secret service. Crispin alone of all the Arboretti knew this. Indeed, it was L.N. who had recruited Crispin into Queen Elizabeth’s secret service two and a half years earlier, L.N. who oversaw his missions, L.N. who, in fact, oversaw every branch of Elizabeth’s vast spy network.
Crispin had written to L.N. asking for any information he might have about the Phoenix, and had heard nothing, until now. But when L.N. wrote to Crispin from North Hall it was always about Arboretti affairs, never Phoenix-related, so Crispin knew that this missive was unofficial. The color of the wax, however, indicated that the red cipher had been used, one of their most sophisticated business ciphers, reserved for highly confidential messages. To the naked eye, the message read:
Welcome back. I should have written earlier, but I was at my house in the country. There was a faire in town, or rather half a dozen of them, some blonde, some dark, and two luscious redheads. Twins. I will leave the rest to your imagination, but suffice it to say that I, like Caesar veni, vidi, vici—came, saw, and conquered—although he might have had the order wrong. Remember Cecilia? She is married now, the mother of two brave blond boys. My, how the great are fallen. Best wishes, your cousin, L.N.
Crispin’s study with the magnifying lens had revealed an almost imperceptible shadow of red around the seal, revealing that it had been broken and refastened by an expert before its delivery, and he hoped that whichever of his enemies happened to be skimming his correspondence had enjoyed L.N.’s commentary on conquering the fair sex. For his part, Crispin was much more interested in the punctuation of the seventh sentence and the spelling of the word “faire.” Using these as guides, he consulted volume two of the red cipher and had the message translated in less than ten minutes.
‘“Bill of Credit found on Richard Tottle’s body signed by Sophie Champion was drawn on Loundes and Wainscot,’” Crispin read aloud, and then frowned. The bill of credit that Enterprising Jack had offered him in exchange for his silence was also drawn on that bank.
Crispin sat, glowering at the note for a space, then shrugged. It was probably just a coincidence.
“There is no such thing as coincidence,” Lawrence had told his brother, Bull, over a decanter of wine earlier that evening. “Nor luck. Nor destiny. We plow our own paths, Bull. I have told you that a thousand times.”
“Still, you have to admit it was lucky her coming here like that,” Bull had stubbornly asserted for the eighth time.
That had been hours ago, just after the soldiers left, but even now, alone in his office, Lawrence had grudgingly to agree. Indeed, for him it had been a very lucky day. Not only had his cooperation with th
e Crown in the matter of Sophie Champion versus Regina Britannia earned him five new licenses for gaming houses in the suburbs of London, enabling him to turn his already booming properties there from quiet illegal clubs to bustling places of public resort—he had particularly high hopes for a new place called the Velvet Slipper, where the women overseeing the tables would wear nothing but, yes, velvet slippers—but it had also been more personally gratifying.
He smiled to himself as he thought about the message he had just sent. It was certainly going to make its recipient very, very happy. He was about to ring for another decanter of his best wine, to toast himself and the success of his enterprise, when the panel in the wall behind his chair slid open and a woman came out.
She approached slowly, seeming to float toward him rather than walk, until they were facing each other. She knew he liked to watch her move, liked to watch her compact, lithe figure glide up to him, liked to see her hair, so blond it looked like the finest spun gold, fall between their faces as she dipped down to kiss him. She let him rest the wide palm of his hand against her hip and use it to guide her into his lap.
“Darling, this is a marvelous surprise,” Lawrence said when she was settled there.
“I only have a moment, but I was desperate to see you and find out how everything went this afternoon.” She brought his lips down to cover hers for a moment, then, seductively but firmly, pushed his face away.
Lawrence smiled down at her, his treasure. “Perfectly, my love.”
“You must be delighted.” She took a sugared almond from the bowl on his desk and ran it suggestively down her neck to the embroidered bee at the center of her bodice, drawing his eyes to her flawless breasts.
“I am,” Lawrence said in a voice newly husky, bending to retrieve the almond from its resting place with his tongue. “And I would be still more delighted if you would allow me to marry you right now. Tonight.”