A Devil of a Duke by Madeline Hunter (13)

Chapter Thirteen

Gabriel dismounted from his horse in front of a town house on Green Street. He paused before approaching the door. It would take a saint to maintain grace during what he was about to face, all for the excuse to see Amanda again.

That did not even cover the potential cost to his pride. Instead of being delighted at his tenacity, she might be angry. Which begged the question of why he was here.

Because your conceit and pride refuse to accept she could give you up so easily. No, that was not why. The truth was that he refused to give her up so easily. He did not begin to understand anything about how he had reacted to the way she’d broken with him. He only knew he would not accept it.

A woman answered the door. Not the housekeeper from the looks of her. If he did not know better, he would say she was a female footman. She performed the usual ritual, bearing his card off on a silver salver. With any luck, the lady would decide she was not at home to him. Then he could ask to speak with the secretary instead.

It was not to be. The footwoman returned to escort him into a library with riots of blooms covering all of the upholstered furniture. It looked like a flower bed tended by an incompetent gardener.

Lady Farnsworth stood at a desk near a window, pawing through some papers. She glanced over at his entrance. “Welcome, Langford, welcome. I will join you shortly. Serve yourself some refreshment. The decanters are on the table over there. Now, where is that letter?” Her attention returned to the desk.

The decanters held a variety of spirits. He decided some whisky would not be out of order. It might ease the torture to which he was subjecting himself.

“I do not understand it. Miss Waverly is nothing if not organized. The first draft should be right here, but I am not seeing it.” She flustered and sighed and walked away from the desk. “It will turn up, I am sure. I just need to check the stacks again. I fear I have made a mess of things.”

“I am sure she will rectify that quickly.”

Lady Farnsworth did not seem to hear him. She took a seat and gestured to one for him. “Sit, sit. I am honored. I daresay I never expected a call from you, of all men.”

“I have come for advice.” He almost choked on the words. Instead he smiled.

“Well, now, that is a surprise. You are not the first man to sit there and say that, but I did not think you would request my counsel.” Her dark eyes sparkled. “Of course, your interests have changed somewhat this last year. Expanded, so to speak. It is possible in some small way they intersect with mine.”

“It has to do with a bill being brought forth. Two actually. One a reform of the criminal laws, and one on penal reform.”

“I have heard of both and followed their progress with interest.”

“I thought you might have some thoughts on which lords are most likely to be open to arguments in favor of them.”

“You seek to line up the votes in advance. That is very wise, especially with a controversial bill. On this particular topic, it will be a difficult battle. However, there are some peers who have on occasion voiced views in this room that were more liberal than they are known for publicly. Now, let me see. . . .”

He waited for her to choose which names she would share. He doubted she could provide more information than Brentworth could, but that bill really had nothing to do with his call. He kept waiting for the secretary to return to her desk.

Lady Farnsworth launched into her response, complete with tangents regarding each peer’s preferred spirits in the event Gabriel chose to entertain the man in his home, which Lady Farnsworth kept suggesting was a wise way to grease the wheels of legislation. “I think my influence is as much to the credit of good Scotch whisky as my own cleverness,” she confided.

On and on she went. Gabriel nodded and frowned and in general tried to appear impressed and grateful. All the while, he kept watching the door, for it to open and for Amanda to appear.

“I have perhaps been long-winded,” Lady Farnsworth finally said with a chortle. “You must forgive me. I so enjoy political discussion. I trust that you have found some of this useful to your endeavor, an endeavor of which I most approve.”

“Thank you, you have been most helpful.” He stood. “You can find that letter now. Perhaps you should call for Miss Waverly and let her aid you.”

She looked up at him and blinked her eyes, surprised. “Oh, I can’t do that. She is no longer here. She has left me. All the papers were in order, she promised, and I am sure they were, but in my impatience, I mixed them up and now—well, it is quite the mess.”

He barely heard most of what she said. “She has left you? How unfortunate.”

“It could not be helped. Her mother needed her. She had to depart quickly too. I am distraught and at a loss without her.”

“Perhaps she could come for a few hours at least and fix the papers.”

“That is impossible. She is gone from town with no idea of when, if ever, she will be able to return. No, I must seek another but I do not look forward to it.”

Gone from town. “I am sure you will find someone who almost will do.” He bowed and took his leave of her. He left and mounted his horse.

No longer here. Gone from town. She had not told him. She had not explained that family duties took her away.

She had not told him because he had no right to know. Because, in truth, he did not matter.

* * *

Gabriel received the note from Harry while he ate breakfast three mornings after seeing Lady Farnsworth. It was unlike his brother to summon him. Presumably Harry did not want to ride through Mayfair and risk seeing Emilia.

It was possible Stratton or Brentworth had put him up to this as part of a plot to distract him from his disappointment. If so, he would tell them he was surviving that well enough on his own. He no longer drank himself into oblivion. He had left the house often, groomed and ducal, and thrown himself into garnering support for those bills.

Lady Farnsworth’s advice had born fruit, much to his annoyance. He would have to thank her now if the bills passed. The notion of doing so hardly improved his spirits.

That afternoon, he dismounted in front of Harry’s house, remembering his visit of mercy not so long ago. Perhaps it was fitting that he spend an hour with his brother today. They could commiserate on the hell women put men through and shake their heads over feminine inconstancy and whims.

Harry himself came to the door. “Gabe, good of you to come.”

“I would not let you leave town without seeing you.”

“Yes, of course. Only that is not really why I asked you to call. I confess that I engaged in a bit of subterfuge. I have need of some advice. Or rather a friend of mine does.”

“Not about women, I hope. I currently question everything I thought I ever knew about them.”

“What an odd thing to say. Have you had your own defeat?”

“Most notably. However, if I can offer advice, I will do so.”

“It is not to do with a woman. Come with me and I will explain all.”

He followed Harry into the library. Another man sat there. A nervous one, from the way he jumped to his feet upon their arrival. Of middling height and skinny as a reed, the man’s short red curls already receded up his forehead. His large, aquiline nose dominated a long, pale face. Nature had conspired to make him appear twenty years Harry’s senior but Gabriel doubted this man was older than thirty.

Introductions indicated the visitor was Thomas Stillwell. “Stillwell is with the British Museum,” Harry explained. “He and I have known each other for five years. He allows me to muck about in the storage rooms there. He has a serious problem.”

“Put simply, we have had a theft,” Stillwell blurted. “No one knows yet outside the museum. I confided in Harry and he said you may have some ideas about how we should go forward. As you can imagine, the situation is delicate.”

Gabriel looked at Harry, since he could not imagine anything of the kind.

“There is concern that someone employed there will be accused of either the theft itself, or of negligence,” Harry explained. “Of interest to me is that this is two thefts in the same neighborhood. I think it may be the same person.”

“How did this one occur?”

“Boldly. Most boldly,” Stillwell exclaimed. “The brooch was in a locked case. Whoever took it broke the lock—picked it, actually, and helped himself. It must have been one of the visitors. What kind of man does that with such a high chance of discovery? To just stand there and work the lock while others milled around?”

“That is a very different kind of theft than the one at Sir Malcolm’s house,” Gabriel said to Harry.

“Different but equally bold. I have learned that entry to Sir Malcolm’s house was through his dressing room window on the second level. The thief must have scaled the wall.”

Through a window.

“He also risked being seen. That window faces the side of this house. Had I been home, I might have looked out and seen his progress. What really makes me think it was the same thief are the items taken, however. Show him, Stillwell.”

Stillwell handed over a paper. The drawing on it showed an ancient gold brooch covered in intricate lines and studded with small jewels. “It was among our earliest British artifacts. An odd choice. Most people prefer the classical works.”

“Still valuable, however,” Gabriel said. The window faces this house. “Its lack of popularity may be why it was the item taken. There would be fewer visitors near it.”

“I think it was taken deliberately,” Harry said. “Here is a drawing of the item taken from Sir Malcolm.”

That drawing showed an object of similar construction and style, of two pieces that should join together.

“It is a buckle,” Harry explained. “Do you see what I mean? All of that trouble for only these two objects. There were cameos, rare coins, a medieval emerald ring, and two small classical bronzes in the same case that held this buckle. But the thief scaled a wall, entered that window, descended to the gallery, and only took this when he could have fit the rest of it in his pockets.” Harry practically buzzed with excitement. “This thief is a collector, Gabe. There is no other explanation. He wanted these and nothing else.”

“What collector would possess the skill at thievery, though?” Stillwell asked. “I can’t imagine there being one.”

“He could have sent someone else who was skilled,” Gabriel said. “How high up is that window? How far did he scale?”

“At least twenty-five feet from the ground,” Harry said. “I will show it to you later.”

“There cannot be many who can do that. The Home Office may know their names.”

“I told you he would know whom to ask,” Harry said to Stillwell.

“We cannot go to the government,” Stillwell said, desperately. “If it is known we lost a precious artifact—”

“Someone will be blamed,” Gabriel said.

“Yes.” Stillwell’s forlorn expression indicated who that someone would probably be.

“Then perhaps it would be better first to ask who collects such things. Brentworth inherited a massive collection. He may be aware of those who favor jeweled artifacts from early Britain.”

“I would not want to accuse—”

“No accusations. We would only seek information that may or may not be useful.”

Stillwell looked at Harry. Harry nodded in reassurance. “My brother will be discreet.”

Gabriel had not offered to be the person to ask questions. His mind wanted to move elsewhere, however, so he did not object. An odd sensation had centered in his gut. It demanded attention even though he tried to ignore it. Through a window. Took only this.

Stillwell left then. Harry bounded to the library door. “Come with me. I will show you the window.”

Gabriel followed him. At least something had finally distracted Harry from his misery over Emilia.

They went up to Harry’s bedchamber. Harry strode to one of the windows and pointed. “Up there. That one. His ceilings are much higher than mine, so his first story is above this one. I expect the moldings and such allowed the thief to climb up.”

Gabriel looked out the window. He opened it and stuck his head out. Just as he had after that first night with Amanda. He gazed at the window across the narrow separation of the buildings. Then he looked down at the hedge where a dark shawl had lain that morning.

The sensation in his gut churned.

He examined Sir Malcolm’s house. Could a man climb all that way with nothing more than moldings and mortar depressions as holds? Down, perhaps one could lower from sill to sill. But up?

Again he looked down at the hedge. He brought his head in and looked at his brother and saw a shepherdess pursuing him. He heard a woman in his own arms suggest an assignation on the other side of town after learning that Harry would be gone.

“Excuse me, Harry. I want to see something. Wait for me in the library, will you?”

Perplexed, Harry left. Gabriel waited a few minutes, then followed, only he went up the stairs to the third level.

A row of chambers lined the side of the house up here. Servants’ chambers, he expected, most of them unused by his Spartan brother.

He entered the last one at the back. He moved a table from in front of the window and looked out. The window to Sir Malcolm’s dressing room could be seen just below across the wall and hedge. He looked down on the hedge not far from where the shawl had lain. He opened the window to see how high the sash rose.

He saw Amanda at their first meeting in this house, in pantaloons. Her insistence that her face not be seen suddenly made much more sense.

An odd emotion broke through him, one that combined raging anger and profound sorrow.