Lady Notorious (Royal Rewards #4) Page 10

  “She changed her pattern,” Cass realized. “And you knew what it meant.”

  “I always know,” replied the older man. “It’s more disturbing that way.”

  All right, Cass was beginning to like Angelus. She suspected that when the panther pounced, it would not be on her, or anyone present in this room.

  “Congratulations and disturbances aside,” said Jenks, “my wife asked you here at the request of her friend.” He nodded toward George. “Lord Northbrook suspects foul play related to the tontine formed by his father and nine other men some forty years ago.”

  Still eating biscuits and drinking tea, Angelus listened to George’s theory about the recent mysterious deaths, the unsuccessful attack on Lord Deverell, and Cass’s involvement in the investigation under an assumed name.

  “You ask good questions,” concluded Angelus when the tale was complete. “For one hundred thousand pounds, many men would not ask questions at all. They’d seek their own solutions, maybe with one of those knives that almost did for Deverell.”

  George blanched. “One hundred thou—no, surely not. The tontine is worth one hundred thousand pounds?”

  The older man shrugged his black-clad shoulders. “I’ve managed the investments well. And they’ve had decades to grow. The last survivor will be a rich man.”

  Such a fortune was so immense, Cass couldn’t even speak the amount. “They’re already rich men, though,” she said. “Or so they seem. We wondered if you knew anything to the contrary about any of them.”

  “I have a list of the ten investors.” George took a folded paper from his coat pocket and handed it over.

  Angelus unfolded it and scanned the handwritten lines. “Henry Rose, deceased. Ellis Murchison, deceased. Thomas Whiting, shot. Gregory Knotwirth, drowned. Francis Lightfoot, poisoned.” He took up a final almond biscuit, pointing it at George. “Bad odds, being in this group. Half of them dead before they reached their dotage.”

  “A tontine is no health tonic,” George said grimly.

  Nodding his agreement, Angelus set aside his plate and cup. “Two of them don’t have a cause of death listed. Henry Rose? I don’t know the name.”

  “He died of consumption perhaps thirty-five years ago,” George replied. “Ellis Murchison is the other man who died young, ten years or so after Rose. Some sort of liver disease. He turned all yellow, my father said.”

  “And then no deaths for nearly twenty-five years,” said Cass. “No suspicious accidents or sudden illnesses.”

  “Right,” said George. “I believe something changed recently in the circumstances of one of the survivors. Something in the past year or two that meant he couldn’t wait for time and chance to bring him a fortune.”

  Angelus drew a fingertip down the list, name by name. “If so, the news has not come to my ears, nor the borrower to my door. Only Lord Deverell has tried to get money of me, yet he was almost a victim. Were any of these deaths investigated through Bow Street as suspicious?”

  “No,” said Cass. “None of them.”

  “Are you certain?” George twisted on the seat, regarding her more closely. “Don’t you want to look at records, or—”

  “She’s sure,” interrupted Jenks. “She remembers Bow Street cases like you remember what you wore to parties.”

  George twisted back, now looking at Jenks. “Is that meant to be an insult?”

  Jenks eyed him mildly. “Why? Is it insulting?”

  Cass stifled a smile.

  Angelus, ignoring this conversational diversion, pulled a bit of pencil from a pocket and began marking on the list. “Knotwirth vanished last year, didn’t he? There was betting about it at White’s, whether he’d turn up safely or be found dead. More than one gentleman needed my assistance”—a loan, Cass guessed he meant—“in covering a debt of honor.”

  She hoped he charged a towering rate of interest to those who wagered on a man’s safety.

  “It seems cold, in hindsight,” George said, as if he could read Cass’s thoughts. “But Knotwirth was known to vanish, sometimes for days on end. He was a scatterbrained sort, and his fondness for eating opium didn’t help.”

  “He drowned, you say.” Angelus was still making notes on the list.

  “Accidentally,” said George. “Or so one guesses. It took ages for his body to turn up.”

  Lady Isabel was managing the bleak subject with complete composure. “How could one be sure the body was Knotwirth’s, then? Surely the condition was not good.”

  “The teeth,” said her husband. “He’d several of gold.”

  “And they weren’t stolen by mudlarks?” she asked.

  “They were. The jaw was missing just the teeth that had been gold in life.”

  Lady Isabel’s brows knit. “It’s not much to go on.”

  “It’s as much evidence as there ever is,” said Cass. “Unless the unknown person happened to be carrying a card case that didn’t degrade and wasn’t stolen, and his clothing still had its labels. But as that never happens, at least coroners can tell a bit about the height and even the age of a person.”

  “True enough, and they had to conclude it was Knotwirth,” George said. “We’d all been looking for him.”

  “Had you?” Angelus asked, sounding as if he thought the opposite were more likely true.

  “Well, his wife had,” George admitted. “No one else thought it was a particular surprise when he vanished. As I said, he was an opium eater.”

  Angelus looked back at the list. “And the man who was shot? This wasn’t at first regarded as a suspicious death either. Was he a duelist or a terrible hunter?”

  “Thomas Whiting,” George said. “A terrible hunter. He went out alone and was found all sprayed with shot. His gun had misfired, or something of that sort.” Now he sounded as if he thought the opposite were more likely true.

  “What about the man who was poisoned?” asked Lady Isabel.

  “Lightfoot.” George sounded grim. “He was morose over the death of his only son from consumption. Calling Lightfoot’s own passing an accident was a kindness to the family, to allow him a churchyard burial.”

  “So he ended himself.” Angelus scribbled another note.

  “Maybe,” George granted.

  Talk, talk, talk, and no further clues were surfacing. Cass gritted her teeth; they were solving nothing. “There’s no pattern here. If there were, Lord Deverell would have drunk himself to death, and your father would be bashed on the head by a falling painting.”

  “Or choked by a deck of cards,” Angelus suggested.

  George made an unspeakable noise.

  “What I mean,” Cass explained, “is that the earlier deaths made sense with the men as they were known in life. The attack on Lord Deverell draws attention to itself. There’s no way it could pass for a natural death, even should it succeed. And who will suspicion inevitably turn to?”

  “The other members of the tontine,” said Jenks.

  Isabel laid a hand on his, an unconscious gesture of intimacy. “Is it possible,” said her ladyship, “that someone would want to kill Lord Deverell and avert suspicion by blaming the tontine? Who would gain by his death other than the remaining survivors?”

  “This is a grim conversation,” said George.

  Cass rubbed at her temples. When was the last time she’d slept as long as she wished? “It is, but there are to be more just like it. There will have to be if we’re to sort this out.”

  For a moment, George’s fingers touched hers—then they were gone. “I can find out the terms of Lord Deverell’s will, if that will help. At a guess, his wife and the daughters of his second marriage would benefit from his death. But that’s not to say they’d be well off.”

  “Had he no children of his first marriage?” Angelus was looking at George as if he already knew the answer.

  “One daughter,” George said calmly. “Lily. She is no longer living.”

  Lily. Cass had heard that name before, from Selina. Hmm.

/>   Lady Isabel nibbled at some confection of cake and glaze, her expression thoughtful. “It cannot be right to look for his attacker within his household. Why should his wife and daughters wish for his death? Lord Deverell is a gentle-natured man, and Lady Deverell does as she pleases.”

  So it had seemed to Cass, too. Yet even as a terrible maid and superior spy, she hadn’t pierced the secrets of Deverell Place in a week—for if she had, surely his lordship would never have been in danger. “Without living in a household for some time, one can never know what goes on within it,” she said to her hostess.

  As a guest under the Ardmore roof, Cass had quickly seen that not even the privileged and titled were spared from ordinary human heartaches. The duchess was ill, the duke was lonely, the dogs were afraid, the servants were weary of it all.

  And George? She couldn’t capture him in a single adjective. There wasn’t a word for what she thought of him—at least not one that remained the same for any significant length of time.

  All this she knew about the people of Ardmore House, but she didn’t know why, and why mattered in a case far more than what. And George was part of this case, as much as Lord Deverell and a stiletto and a note that said FOUR LEFT. George was the one who had seen the case for what it was.

  Angelus folded the list and slipped it back into his pocket, along with the pencil. “The ton is more bloodthirsty than I ever knew as a youth. Fancy betting on one’s survival at the expense of others.”

  To Cass’s eye, George appeared tired for the first time today. “I wish the tontine had never been formed. Have you any insight into the most likely culprit behind these attacks—if attacks they even were?”

  The lord of the criminal underworld looked at George with pity. “In my experience, people are neither as complicated nor as clever as they wish to believe they are. Which of the survivors gambles and is constantly short of money?”

  Lady Isabel bit her lip. Jenks locked eyes with Cass for a moment, then squeezed his wife’s hand.

  At Cass’s side, George’s shoulders sank. “You mean my father.”

  Slowly, Angelus nodded. “The Duke of Ardmore always needs money, and last year he lied to me about the painting he owed me. Why should we believe he would not go to the necessary lengths to secure himself a fortune?”

  “He’s my father,” said George. “I can’t believe—no.”

  Cass wasn’t sure whether she should reach out to him or not. “Because you think he’s not capable of hurting people?” she nudged.

  To her surprise, George hesitated before answering. “It’s not that. More that he’s not capable of planning to such a degree. He looks only to the next game, and maybe to the one after that. He’s got a gambler’s heart, such as it is. Risk and games are his lifeblood. He might gamble for other shares in the tontine; he wouldn’t kill for them.”

  From the thoughtful expression on Angelus’s face, he—like Cass—was far more convinced by this analysis of the duke’s flaws than he would have been by an insistence on the duke’s good character. “Even so,” said the older man. “Someone is reckless, and you believe that same someone is willing to kill. You do not know who. It’s wise to have Miss Benton staying with you.”

  George tried for a smile. “For my father’s protection. Yes, I told him this.”

  “And for your own,” Angelus replied. “Spying and listening at doors has never been more important, Lord Northbrook. Lives may depend upon it.”

  “If the members of the tontine are targeted, then I’m not in danger,” George said.

  Cass shook her head. “If someone is targeting the tontine, and they know you’re investigating, and they’re desperate, you could be in grave danger.”

  “You can’t do better than having Cass look after you,” Jenks said. “No one will suspect it.”

  Cass laughed. “Because I am such a delicate female, looking after a large strong man?”

  George looked pleased. Jenks looked stern, but that was how he looked ninety-eight percent of the time.

  Lady Isabel looked amused. “I think my husband meant the compliment to your acting skill rather than to Lord Northbrook’s heft. But of course he is a big strong man, too, and cannot speak about emotions.”

  Jenks regarded his wife. “I’m having another emotion right now. Can you guess it?”

  “Not in front of friends, darling.”

  Angelus struck his cane against the carpeted floor. “Flirt later. Plan now. What will you do next?” His black brows raised, he regarded each of the others in turn.

  Now George looked blank. Isabel looked troubled. And Jenks, of course, looked stern.

  Cass sighed; only one answer came to mind. “We do just what we’ve been doing for the past week. We gossip.”

  * * *

  Thus charged anew, Cass spied and listened, gleaning knowledge wherever she could. The next week flew by in a whirl of calls and teas and dinners, with a new gown—thanks to Selina—on each occasion.

  She owed her embrace by society to Selina too, who seemed to enjoy the secondhand adventure and introduced Cass to all her acquaintances. Elegant old Lady Teasdale, with sharp eyes and a dry sense of humor; young Mrs. Gadolin, whose deep pockets were matched only by her frank eagerness to be thought tonnish. Lady Helena Selwyn, a brittle woman of careful dress and manner who turned every conversation to the accomplishments of her young sons. Any number of pleasant, wealthy young women on the verge of marriage, or just married.

  Cass had been charged with placing herself at the center of gossip, and surely she had reached it. The women of the beau monde seemed to talk of nothing except what other people were doing, or what they might be doing, and with whom.

  There was far more talking than there was doing, with the result that every action was picked over and dissected until all the life was gone from it.

  It was strange to Cass, but she rather liked it. For the first time, she was experiencing leisure, and the novel realization that she had resources enough to solve a case—given time and clues, too.

  Besides the proper sorts of calls and teas, Cass tossed in a more scandalous outing every day or two. George was a great help with this, reminding her that she ought not to rap at the door of White’s and ask for him; nor should she be seen smoking a cheroot in public, whether it made her cough or not—and it did. She also trespassed against the oughts of society in smaller ways, by carrying her own bandbox and hopping herself down from a carriage. Only some of these mistakes were intentional.

  The women of the ton seemed to welcome Cass for her novelty, and since she’d nothing else to recommend herself, she traded upon it with little subtlety. The familiar five names of the tontine survivors—Deverell, Ardmore, Gerry, Cavender, Braithwaite—she dropped into conversation and listened for echoes of gossip, but they simply sank without ripples of information. For her own amusement, then, Cass mentioned George to see what tittle-tattle surrounded the ducal heir.

  Nothing shocking, alas. Much giggling from the unwed maidens; much exasperation from Selina. “Better than most young men,” sniffed Lady Teasdale. Lady Isabel looked at Cass with a curiosity that made her regret mentioning his name.

  Damn. The noblewoman had taken on her husband Jenks’s noticing ways.

  But it wasn’t all leisure, Cass’s time in society. She wasn’t always in society, for one thing. Cass stopped in at Bow Street whenever she could. If anyone were following the eccentric Ardmore cousin around London, they would indeed wonder about that lady’s fascination with the magistrate’s court.

  There was little progress on the cases left before Charles. The Watch thought to be entrapping young women had done nothing wrong—at least when anyone was watching.

  “Janey is doing as much of that as she can,” Fox told Cass during one of her visits to the courtroom. A social call, it almost felt like, in her grand clothing and with a ducal carriage waiting outside.

  Cass opened her mouth to protest Janey’s involvement, but before a syllable left her lips,
Fox held up a hand. “I know. You said you’d see to it. But really, Miss Benton . . . how? When you’re not even here?”

  She fumbled for words, but there were none to be found. Informants were not puppets, to be yanked on and made to do one’s bidding. A Runner’s success depended on relationships with people like Janey, and those had to be built from trust and cultivated over time.

  Fox was right. With Charles injured, Cass had to be here to do the work. And right now she simply couldn’t.

  She retreated from that thought, skittering away like a startled crab. “What about the pockets being picked at Drury Lane?”

  “They’re still being picked. When are you going there under your exotic new identity?” Fox’s tone was not unkind, but it held reproach. Cass felt all the shame that she’d once felt when her grandmother looked at her with disappointed eyes.

  Overall, the passage of the week gave her a feeling of not being in the right place, not doing enough. Her work in Bow Street was being neglected or covered by someone else—and how was Charles to keep his job if a Benton didn’t do the work?

  At least Charles had been forced to restrain his spendthrift ways while confined largely to bed. With the start of a new week, George paid Cass another five pounds, and this time it stayed in her own pocket.

  She felt guilty about taking the payment. Keeping it for herself. Not using it at once, not needing it at once.

  And maybe not even deserving it. After all, no one else from the tontine had been attacked. The Duke of Ardmore was beginning to grumble—well, was grumbling more loudly—about the plan. About being watched, or having to be careful. About it not being so serious; after all, Lord Deverell’s wound had healed enough for him to return to society, and if one didn’t look for a limp, one would never know it was there.

  Did she need to be here anymore, in Ardmore House? If she didn’t, would she admit it to herself—much less to George?

  Oh, she was in danger, but not the sort for which an investigator was used to watching out. No, she was in danger of believing in it all: the role, the fantasy, the notoriety.