I wished for pen and paper so I could make notes about my thoughts and what I needed to discover, but I did not bother asking. I finished the bread and coffee, and at last heard Brewster noisily descending the stairs.
I’d been left on my own in the dining room, though as soon as I stepped into the hall, two large men flanked me. Denis trusted me somewhat by this time, but he’d not allow me to run tame in his house.
Brewster reached the ground floor. He said nothing to me but departed through the front door, and I could only follow.
Gibbons had procured a hackney for us. I had become accustomed to walking the few blocks northward up South Audley Street to my new home, but Brewster hustled me into the cab, darting suspicious glances across the sparsely populated street.
“Not safe to walk,” he said as we rumbled the short distance. “Matter of fact, why don’t you go off to the country for a time? Her ladyship has that great house in Hampshire you could visit.”
The house, strictly speaking, belonged to her son, Peter, but he would not run it until he reached his majority.
“They’ll be harvesting,” I said. “Mrs. Lacey does not want to disturb the steward by opening the house and distracting everyone from that business.”
Brewster, not a country man, looked a bit baffled, but shrugged. “Or your own estate in Norfolk. In the back of beyond, that is.”
“Why the sudden whim to rush us out of town? What did Denis tell you?”
I expected Brewster to give me one of his put-upon sighs, but his face set in grim lines.
“That chess piece you delivered to Mr. Creasey. It was a signal. Creasey has been interfering in Denis’s business of late. They dance around each other, those two, neither wanting to confront the other, have done for years. His Nibs has just told him that their truce is at an end. That’s why Creasey said he could kill you where you stood. It means you are no longer untouchable to His Nibs’ greatest enemy. None of us are.”
CHAPTER 5
A s Brewster’s words fell around me, my ire rose. “He sent me to deliver a threat? He’s given me such an errand before. I did not appreciate it the first time.”
That had been in Norfolk, and I’d ended up hastening the threat’s recipient out of the country.
“This isn’t the same, guv. Not so much a threat as a challenge. His Nibs had no choice. Creasey has been nicking things what belong to Mr. Denis, apparently, costly merchandise he acquires for clients who aren’t happy they’re not getting their goods.”
“Why use me?” I scowled out the window at the spattering rain. “He could have sent any of his men to hand over the parcel, or had a delivery service take it, or even dispatched it by post.”
“Because any of his lackeys, including me, might have been beaten and sent back on the spot. You, Creasey didn’t know what to do with.”
I returned my glare to Brewster. He retained his grim expression but his tone was much too calm for my liking. “Why didn’t you explain this before I went to see Mr. Creasey?”
“I didn’t know.” Brewster shrugged his large shoulders. “I didn’t understand what the white queen was about until His Nibs told me just now. He instructed me to look after you, is all.”
“I see.” I made myself cease speaking lest I rage at him, and this situation was not Brewster’s fault.
The coach halted, and I opened the door and climbed to the ground before our footman Jeremy could hasten out of the house to assist me. Jeremy held the front door open for me, reaching for my hat, and I barely remembered to give it to him.
“Is my wife at home?” I asked him as I stumped by.
“Yes, sir.” Jeremy blinked at my brusqueness. “Upstairs, sir.”
Brewster had followed me inside instead of simply heading down to the kitchen. He seated himself on a chair in front of the main staircase without a word, his scowl daring anyone to argue with him. Barnstable, gliding from the rear of the house, raised his brows in disapproval, but I knew Brewster wouldn’t move. He’d not let anyone up the stairs who wasn’t above suspicion, and Brewster could be suspicious of everyone.
Barnstable took my greatcoat but I couldn’t stop long enough to remove my gloves, still grime-splotched from Creasey’s filthy warehouse. I clutched the railing as I went up the stairs and peeled off one of the gloves while I limped down the hall.
Donata’s sitting room, as always, was an island of calm. Her most recent portrait, with her two children, dominated a wall, her painted face gazing serenely down at me. In her previous portraits, which had been done when she’d still been Lady Breckenridge, her face had held sharpness, but now it was a softer oval, the eyes showing a woman who’d found peace.
My wife sat at her desk, a delicate thing of mahogany with tapered legs and a rounded top holding a few small drawers and pigeonholes. I paused as I stripped off my second glove, a part of me enjoying Donata’s slender form half turned to me, pen poised, as she glanced up at my intrusion. A peignoir, clasped down the front with a line of bows, flowed over the graceful lines of her legs. It was barely noon, and she would have just risen from her bed.
“Did you have an interesting outing?” she asked. “You ran off with Brewster directly after breakfast, looking like a thundercloud, so Jacinthe told me, so I cannot imagine it was anywhere pleasant.”
“It was not. Mr. Denis sent me on my task.”
Donata knew all about Denis’s condition for what he’d done for me in Brighton. She and I had occasionally speculated during the previous months what the task might be.
Her dark brows arched. “Indeed?”
I threw the gloves to a table, where they landed near a vase filled with fresh hothouse flowers. I dragged a chair next to the desk and sat down to face her. “Why don’t we go to Hampshire? Peter would love to ride his own grounds.”
A pucker appeared on Donata’s forehead. “As I explained, we never return home in September. Opening up the household will take too much time, and everyone on the estate is busy.”
“Oxfordshire then. To visit your parents.”
“Why the haste, Gabriel? We agreed to stay in London to take care of any business and then journey to Grenville’s home in the Cotswolds and await Gabriella’s visit.”
Earlier this summer, we’d planned a trip to France from Brighton with my daughter Gabriella to take her home. However, her French aunt and uncle had turned up, and they’d escorted Gabriella to her mother instead, with the promise she could return in October. This was to be Gabriella’s first Christmas with us.
Lucius Grenville, a famous dandy who was now my closest friend, had invited us to his large new home in Gloucestershire to enjoy autumn revelries and hunting. We’d arranged for Gabriella to meet us there.
“Because Denis has thrown down a gauntlet to a rival.” Rapidly, I told Donata what had transpired this morning. “If this man, Creasey, will strike at Denis through his associates, I do not want you in London.”
“I am hardly his associate,” Donata said, though I knew she was not dismissing my concern. “Even a hardened criminal—a smuggler and a thief, I am assuming—would hesitate to murder the mother of a viscount and daughter of an earl. The consequences would be dire.”