He looked at me skeptically. “And you know Drake?”
“I know he’s now missing.”
“Bad luck for him. He won’t get another penny until he reappears.”
“Oh? You pay your thief?”
He jerked back a half step and then snatched up his purchase. “Of course not.” He turned and rushed toward the front door.
“Then why did you say—?”
The bell jangled as the duke yanked the door open and stepped outside between our two show bow windows. With a quick glance in each direction, he stepped onto the sidewalk and marched up the street.
*
LATER THAT DAY, I left my bookshop in Emma’s care and traveled by foot and the Oxford Street omnibus to search Hyde Park Place. The day was brisk and the sun tried to break through the gray coal-tinged clouds, encouraging people to come outside. The sidewalks were full and there were plenty of top-hatted men, but not the one I searched for.
Turning my feet toward Grosvenor Square, I vowed I’d be back soon and I’d find my parents’ killer. Now I had just enough time, if I hurried, to reach Lady Westover’s neighborhood of grand town houses. I had the sidewalks to myself. No one but servants walked there except on the finest of days.
I made certain to arrive at Lady Westover’s after lunch but before visiting hours. As was often the case, I found her ladyship in the south-facing greenhouse she’d built onto the back of her house.
She looked up when I entered, a mist sprayer held in one glove-swathed hand. “Ah, there you are, Georgia. Sir Broderick sent a note saying you’d be round to see me today. How is the dear boy? Have you a new case? How exciting. Help me off with this apron, child.”
I spent the next five minutes unwrapping Lady Westover from her apron, duster, gloves, hat, and boots. Underneath was a countess in pristine dress, unmarked, unwrinkled, and undeterred. “Come along,” she said, taking my arm, “we’ll find someone to get us some tea.”
Once we were settled in front of the fire in Lady Westover’s cheery yellow and white morning room with a pot of tea and delicate sandwiches, the countess said, “Now tell me all about this new case.”
“Have you ever heard of Nicholas Drake?”
The lines in her face turned into deep furrows. “No. I haven’t. Should I have?”
“Supposedly his mother is descended from French royalty and his father is the younger son of a younger son.”
“Whose younger son?”
“So far we’ve not learned his name.”
“Well, I really doubt that story. It’s so easy to say these things if one can keep them general. Once the story is given specifics, it all blows away like dust. What has this Nicholas Drake done?”
“He’s vanished. Either by abduction or by running away, depending on which story you prefer.”
“And you want to find him.”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you with him.”
“It’s not him I came to ask you about. It’s his victims. Nicholas Drake has been accused of being a thief by the Duke of Blackford, the Duke of Merville, the Earl of Waxpool, Lord Dutton-Cox, and Lord Hancock. We need to know what you know about these men, and whether you can deduce any other victims.”
Lady Westover set down her cup and said, “Oh, my. Where to begin. Dutton-Cox is a stingy soul, the kind who throws large parties and then is miserly with the food. The heir is in the country with his family. There were two daughters. One was supposed to marry Blackford two years ago, until she died just before the wedding. He had a lucky escape. She was a vain thing, just like her sister, who recently wed Viscount Dalrymple. Lady Dutton-Cox is still grieving the daughter who died and has become something of a recluse. Sad, really. I’m fond of Honoria.” She glanced at me. “Lady Dutton-Cox. We’ve been close friends for years and I refuse to believe she or her husband could be involved in an abduction.”
Lady Westover rose to pinch a dead leaf off one of the many ferns hung or set on stands around the room. While she examined three of the plants, I pulled my notebook out of my pocket and jotted a few notes in pencil.
She sat down and said, “Where was I? Waxpool is a sharp old man, an older version of the Duke of Blackford. At least five years my senior. His heir, a fat, puffed-up piece of buffoonery, will destroy all Waxpool has built up over the years. The old man prefers his grandchildren, a boy and a girl who take after him. The boy is at Cambridge and doing quite well, from all reports. The girl has been presented to the queen, but doesn’t spend much time at social events. She’s found the men swarm around her money rather than her, and she’s been rather put off by it.
“I don’t know the Merville family at all. By reputation, they are conservative, politically and financially.”
“I met the Duke of Merville today in my shop. He offered more for an antiquarian Bible than I expected to receive after hard bargaining.” I hoped to do more business with him. Much more.
“Odd. I’d heard he was given to underpaying.” She was up again, closely examining a dead frond on a large and ugly fern.
“And while I was godmother to the last Lord Hancock’s wife, I don’t know his brother, the current Lord Hancock. I wasn’t asked to sponsor his ward, my goddaughter’s child, when she came out last season.” She made an expression of disgust, which could have been for the leaf or Hancock’s failure to ask for Lady Westover’s help.
“And Blackford. Oh, my. Sir Broderick said you’d met him.”
I’d been enjoying the tea and sandwiches while I wrote. I swallowed and said, “Yes. He seems to have either a strange sense of humor or a kind nature behind his gruff exterior. I expected to get thrown out of his house on my rear, but he was polite enough to tell me his side of the story. He claimed Drake was a thief and they figured it out after the Duke of Merville’s daughter’s engagement party. He wouldn’t tell me who ‘they’ were, but Lord Hancock supplied the names.”
“I’ve never heard the Duke of Blackford described as kind, but I’d believe he has a perverse sense of humor. He hasn’t been rumored attached to anyone since Victoria Dutton-Cox’s death a week before their nuptials. He has a brilliant head for investments and has made an absolute fortune.”
“What can you tell me about his sister?”
“His half sister. Margaret. He raised her after the deaths of both her parents. She was the old duke’s child with his second wife. She was presented to the queen, but by the next season, after Victoria Dutton-Cox’s death, she was up north at their castle and has never returned to London. Can you imagine a young society belle not coming to London for the season?”
“Was her season successful?” Maybe she’d been ignored by the men despite her brother’s fortune. I considered the possibility and discarded it immediately. From the royal family to the poorest in East London, everyone gravitated to money.
“Oh, yes. She had her pick of men, but she was too busy having a good time to settle on one.”
“Would her brother have made her miss the next season to be in mourning for his fiancée?”
“No. The two girls came to hate each other. He wouldn’t have expected Margaret to do more than a token mourning. He kept his mourning for the entire year, but it didn’t keep him from conducting his financial affairs.”
I looked out the window past the plants hanging there for a minute while I thought. “The only thing these men seem to have in common are young ladies in the family who were recently involved in the London season. Can you think of anyone else who fits into the same group and might have had something stolen from them by Mr. Drake?”
“Plenty of young ladies have been out in society the last few seasons. I don’t know of anyone who had something stolen. Still, it’s odd this Mr. Drake could get away with it for so long. Margaret hasn’t been in society the past two seasons. Daisy Hancock just came out last season. Why didn’t the word spread through society that the man was not to be invited?” Lady Westover raised her eyebrows before she took a sip of her tea.