Dawn had been threatening in the east when Ivory returned to Covent Square. The square, its glory days long in the past, was never really quiet, being populated largely by actors, performers, musicians, and other manner of entertainers, those of the legitimate and intimate varieties. The piazzas and the coffeehouses were always crowded with people, as was the market that sprawled away from St Paul’s Church. But the traffic suited Ivory. She maintained wildly irregular hours, as did most of the residents of the square. Her comings and goings were invisible. Which was always helpful.
Unnoticed, she’d let herself into the town house, being careful to lock the door behind her. She’d eaten a few cold bites of food and then headed for her study. Now, an hour later, Ivory stood up from behind her desk and stretched. She moved closer to the hearth, where a bright fire burned, rubbing her chilled hands together.
The handling of the Earl of Debarry had gone about as well as could be expected, she thought to herself with some satisfaction. Dead aristocrats in beds they were not supposed to be in were always tricky. Explanations had to be airtight, and unfortunately, that usually required the involvement of a civilian.
Like the Duke of Alderidge.
Another shiver of heat snaked through her body at the mere thought of the man. There was no point in denying she was physically attracted to this captain turned duke, and there was little she could do about it anyway. But she had confidence that this fleeting attraction, like everything else in life, would eventually pass. What she could do in the interim, however, was keep the Duke of Alderidge at a safe distance until Lady Beatrice could be located, the Earl of Debarry buried and forgotten, and any residual fires that stank of scandal summarily stomped out.
“I’ve put the maid in the corner room upstairs.” Elise breezed into the room, coming to stand next to Ivory in front of the fire. “She’s sleeping with the help of one of my soothing draughts.”
Ivory slanted Elise a sideways look. Her draughts were usually enough to knock a rhino out for the better part of a day. Which was just as well.
“Could she tell if there was anything missing from Lady Beatrice’s room?”
“Anything that indicated that the lady had packed up and left London for good?” Elise shook her head. “No. There was nothing missing as far as Mary could tell, with the exception of her cloak. And all of her jewelry was still in her room. A lot of expensive stuff. Stuff that could easily have been pawned.”
“So Beatrice likely hasn’t gone far.”
“Not in a chemise with no money,” Elise scoffed.
“Mmmm.” That might make recovery easier.
“What did you find out about our duke?” Elise asked.
Ivory moved back to her desk, leaning against the side and glancing down at the ledger that lay open. “Born in April 1789. Third son of the late Duke and Duchess of Alderidge. Five years younger than his older brothers, Frederick and Peter, who were twins. Says here he joined the navy when he was thirteen. Went on to become a midshipman when he was sixteen, a lieutenant when he was twenty-one. He left the service after he inherited the title.”
“To do what?” Elise asked. “Because he hasn’t been in London these last years managing his dukedom.”
“It seems he purchased his own ships. The Aphrodite, the Calypso, and the Odyssey. All Indiamen. He commands the Odyssey and sails the routes between England and India.” Ivory picked up a paper. “Oh, and China.”
“The Duke of Alderidge works for the East India Company?” The words were saturated with disbelief. “Why would a bloody aristocrat do that?”
Ivory shrugged. “He’s also heavily invested in the company, and it’s made him richer than Croesus. Why he would choose to captain the ships himself, I don’t presume to know.” But the question intrigued her. Why indeed, would a duke, with every imaginable advantage, choose to ignore it all and risk his life out on the open seas? She put the page of notes down. “But it could prove to be useful.”
“True. Once located, Lady Beatrice could be taken to India and married to the first British officer with a title who will have her,” Elise suggested, twisting the end of her dark hair around her finger thoughtfully. “Gossip rarely travels with any strength across oceans.”
Ivory nodded her head in agreement. “I have already noted it as a viable option that I will present to His Grace.” It was doubtful the duke would agree to it, but Ivory could be very persuasive when required. It depended on how quickly they could find Lady Beatrice.
“The duke handled it all quite well,” Elise commented. “Once he got over the initial shock.”
“You could say the same about Lady Helen.”
“Aye, but Lady Helen didn’t help you redress a corpse.” There was amusement lacing Elise’s words.
“True. Though he was a gentleman about it,” Ivory pointed out.
“The duke is many things, but he is not a gentleman,” Elise said, her hazel eyes appraising Ivory.
Ivory ignored another thrill that tingled down the length of her spine, and frowned at her partner. She wasn’t sure if she was frowning at the remark, or her own reaction to it.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Elise chided, and came to join Ivory at the desk. “I didn’t say he was a blackguard. I just said he wasn’t a gentleman. He is not guided by rules of society, I think. He is a man of action, one who will do whatever is required to get what he wants.”
“And you know this after speaking all of three words to him?” Ivory scoffed, pretending a nonchalance she didn’t feel.
“Non, chérie,” Elise replied slyly, slipping into a suggestive French patois. “I know this by the way you looked at him.”
Ivory pushed herself away from the desk and stalked back to the hearth. To deny it would be foolish. Elise had been with her for far too long.
“The Duke of Alderidge is a client,” Ivory said instead. “I never get involved with clients.”
Behind her, Elise made some sort of sound. “The Duke of Alderidge is a man. And once his strumpet of a sister is found, he will no longer be a client.”
“Correct. He will be a captain once again, in India. Or China.”
Elise sighed dramatically in defeat. “It would do you some good, you know. Knightley would not have wanted you to lock yourself in a nunnery. Your husband, rest his soul, would have wanted you to live. When was the last time—”
“We are not having this conversation.”
“Oh, very well.” There was the sound of rustling papers. “Anything else of interest in Knightley’s notes on the duke or his family? What about the aunt?”
Relieved that Elise had abandoned the topic of Ivory’s personal life, or lack thereof, she turned back to face her business partner. “Lady Helen has never been married. She’s lived her entire life under her brother’s and now her nephew’s roof. She collects enameled vinaigrettes and is a current member of the Rare Purple Orchid Society.”
“Riveting,” Elise drawled. “What about the rest of them?”
Ivory shrugged. “Nothing of import. No outstanding debts, gambling or otherwise, no duels, or at least not one that was witnessed, no noted vices of the late duke or the older brothers. The brother called Frederick supported a mistress for the better part of two years, and it seems they parted on amiable terms. Loretta…” Ivory searched her memory for the name that had been written next to Frederick’s. “Ludwig. Her name was Loretta Ludwig.”
“Oh, I know her,” Elise said brightly. “She used to perform at the old Drury before it burned down. She’s a bit too old now to take as many roles, but she is very talented.” She paused. “That’s it?”
“I’ve got nothing. The entire family is quite dull, at least on paper.”
“Until the duke’s little sister went ahead and lashed an earl to her bedposts. And then ran away when he died.”
“Tsk. Assumptions, Miss DeVries,” Ivory reminded her. Though given the evidence, she was inclined to agree. But it fell on her shoulders to find facts. Assumptions could be dangerous.
Elise rolled her eyes.
“Debarry has a file here too, don’t forget,” Ivory reminded her. “A thick one full of sexual indiscretions of every sort you can imagine and some you shouldn’t. A regular Don Juan, that one. Perhaps he cuckolded one husband too many.”
“And so someone thought they’d get back at him by tying him to the bed of a debutante?” Elise said with derision. “That would accomplish nothing except giving the gossipmongers something to chew on for a day or two.”
“Perhaps they were hoping the duke would call him out. Kill him and do the dirty work for them.” Even in her own ears, it sounded farfetched.
“Except no one, including the duke himself, knew for certain that he would even be in London last night.” Elise was shaking her head. “No, you’re completely over-thinking this. This is a simple case of bed-and-dead if I ever saw one. It’s no different than that old bishop we pulled out of a certain baroness’s bedclothes last month.”
“You’re probably right.” Ivory pressed her lips together. She still felt as if there was something eluding her. “But I’d like you to speak to your brother. Debarry has undoubtedly patronized Alex’s gaming establishment in the past. Get him to find out what he can. Any quarrels, anything out of the ordinary. See if Lady Beatrice’s or His Grace’s name has come up recently in any circles that Debarry used to mill in. I’d like to be sure.”
Elise nodded agreeably and glanced at the clock on the mantel, and then out at the sliver of morning light now struggling through the curtains. “He’ll still be up. I’ll go now.”
“Thank you,” Ivory said, and watched as Elise disappeared. She put her elbows on the table, resting her chin in her hand. Silence descended, broken only by the sound of a coal shifting in the grate, and the quiet only served to remind her just how alone she really was. She reached forward with her other hand and ran her fingers over the pages of the familiar neat, slanted handwriting. It was moments like these when she missed her husband the most. Knightley had been so much more than a mentor, and so much more than an irreplaceable friend—
“Miss Moore?” It came with a quiet knock at the door.
Ivory looked up to see a boy standing at attention at the door.
“Yes, Roderick?” She stifled a smile and kept her face suitably grave. Such airs of superiority were usually found in butlers and not seven-year-old boys.
“The Duke of Alderidge is here to see you.”
A flutter started low in her belly again. She squashed it ruthlessly.
“Thank you, Roderick. You may show His Grace into the drawing room. I will receive him there in but a moment.”
“Very good, Miss Moore.” Roddy turned to go, and Ivory’s lips twitched despite herself at the untamable cowlick that stood straight up from the back of his head.
Ivory gathered the loose notes on her desk and carefully inserted them back between the pages of the ledger. She closed the tome and returned it to its recessed shelf, amid hundreds of others. Ledgers her late husband had kept for years, and that she had supplemented during their marriage and after. Ledgers that contained the most personal details, secrets, and scandals of almost every prominent society family in London.
There had been no shortage of people to come to her husband for help. Being a duke, and a very powerful one, Knightley had had the ability to manipulate every quarter of society, industry, and government. It had been a happy by-product of his position—every duke of the realm occasionally pulled strings on his own behalf or for those who enjoyed his favor. He had called himself a “fixer of unfixable problems,” and he’d attacked the job with a seriousness and professionalism that stole Ivory’s breath. It amused him, he had always said, to mete out quiet justice to those who deserved it, just as much as it pleased him to help those who were worthy.
It had been Ivory’s own skill at manipulating men that had first captured the Duke of Knightley’s attention. Not her beauty, or even her voice, though he had loved it when she sang for him. When he’d proposed, he had told her it was always her cunning that had so infatuated him. As a singer Ivory had navigated the thorny world of opera houses and the private stages of Europe, and her survival had depended solely on her wits and her resourcefulness.
Just as it did now.
When he was alive, her husband had traded their skills for future favor, but upon his death Ivory no longer had that luxury. Instead she traded the skills she had, the abilities that the Duke of Knightley had helped her hone, for currency. And a lot of it.
Because Ivory Moore was very good at her job.
One last time she ran a finger over the spines of the ledgers that had been instrumental in the founding of Chegarre and Associates. Satisfied that nothing had been left out, she moved to the corner of the room and leaned her weight against a heavy wooden partition. With a slight creak, an ornate Chippendale bookcase slid smoothly back into place, hiding the vast collection of ledgers and presenting the unaware with a pretty collection of poetry books and reference texts covering the joys of gardening.
Ivory left her study, locking the door behind her. One could never be too careful with secrets.