“I daresay you can ferret out his deep, dark secrets,” Longmore went on.
Her sisters entered before she could answer.
Fenwick stared at them.
Longmore couldn’t blame him. One Noirot woman was stunning enough, with all the lace and the great ballooning sleeves and skirts, and ruffles and ribbons. Three of them, in all the colors of the rainbow, all rustling as they moved, made for a hallucinatory experience.
“This is Fenwick,” Sophy said.
All three women regarded the boy with the same expression of polite interest.
Longmore wondered what was going on in their heads. No, the truth was, he only wondered what was going on in her head.
Fenwick said, “I had a bath.”
“With soap,” Longmore said. “Well, do you mean to keep him or not?”
The Duchess of Clevedon smiled. “I think he’ll do very well.”
Miss Leonie said, in her usual brisk way, “Yes, come along, Fenwick. Our maidservant Mary will take charge of you for now. We’re rather busy today. But we’ll talk later, after closing time.” She put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and steered him through the interior door.
“How very good of you to have him cleaned and re-upholstered,” said the duchess, still smiling.
“I thought it would be easier to simply take him to the baths and let them do a thorough job with him,” he said. “But now he’s yours, and I shan’t keep you any longer from your customers.”
He bowed, and was turning to leave when he heard the noise. The room wasn’t far from the back door, which someone seemed to be trying to batter down.
He remembered Dowdy’s hired ruffians.
He remembered Fenwick talking about his friends. Young thieves usually traveled in packs led by an older criminal.
He blocked Sophy from going out ahead of him, strode quickly down the short passage, and flung open the door.
His brother Valentine stood with fist upraised, about to thump on the door again.
“What the devil?” said Longmore. “Does everybody know about this door?”
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Valentine said. “I tried your house, then White’s, then I went to Clevedon House—but they hadn’t seen you and he wasn’t in and nobody knew where he’d gone. Then I thought maybe you’d made a long night of it, and so I came back, to look in at Crockford’s, and someone there told me he’d seen you turn into Bennet Street a while ago. I came here and saw your carriage. I tried five doors in this curst court. What is this place?”
“Never mind what it is. What the devil do you want?”
Valentine glanced past him.
Longmore turned and discovered that Sophy had followed him into the passage.
“I’d rather talk to you outside,” Valentine said. “Something’s happened.”
“It’s Lady Clara,” Sophy said.
Valentine’s eyes widened. “How the devil—”
“What’s she done now?” Longmore demanded. “Has she killed her fiancé? Our mother?”
“Does she know everything?” Valentine said, his glance flicking to Sophy.
“This is Clevedon’s sister-in-law, you nitwit. She’s practically family.”
“Not our family,” said Valentine.
“Don’t be pompous,” Longmore said. “Makes you look constipated. What’s Clara done now?”
“Will you not come outside? I’d rather the world didn’t know.”
“This world,” Longmore said with a nod at Sophy, “finds out everything anyway.”
Valentine muttered under his breath, let out a sigh, then stepped into the passage, closing the door behind him.
“Clara’s bolted,” he said.
Chapter Six
Some persons think the sublimest object in nature is a ship launched on the bosom of the ocean: but give me, for my private satisfaction, the Mail-Coaches that pour down Piccadilly of an evening, tear up the pavement, and devour the way before them to the Land’s-End!
—William Hazlitt, Sketches and essays, 1839
“Don’t be an idiot,” Longmore said. “Clara would never—”
“My lords,” Sophy cut in. “This isn’t the best place to discuss the matter. People coming and going. Doors opening and closing.”
“What the devil is there to discuss?” Longmore said. “You can’t possibly take this seriously.”
Her expression was all too serious. “I recommend you do so,” she said. “But a quieter place would be better.”
She walked away, back to the room Longmore had just left. She didn’t wait to see whether they followed. For a moment he watched her hips sway. Then he noticed that his brother was watching the same thing.
“Don’t stand there like a lump,” Longmore said. “You’re the one who wants to make a great secret of this.”
They followed her into the room. She closed both doors.
“This is a typical Fairfax family tempest in a teapot,” Longmore said. “Clara’s incapable of running away. She can’t dress herself. She barely knows how to feed herself. She has no money. Where could she go?”
“She took Davis,” Valentine said.
“You can’t be serious.”
“What sort of joke do you imagine I’m playing?”
“A lady can’t keep secrets from her personal maid,” Sophy said. “She’d have to tell Davis. Though Davis must have been extremely unhappy about it, she’d never tattle or let Lady Clara go alone.”
True enough. Davis was a bulldog of a maid, ferociously loyal and protective. As well, she had—or so Longmore had always assumed—both feet planted firmly on the ground.
“Clara drove out in her cabriolet near midday,” Valentine said. “She had a lot of parcels she said were old clothes she was taking to one of her charities. Then she was going to visit Great-Aunt Dora in Kensington and spend the night. She’s done that before. No one gave it a second thought. We might not have known the truth until tomorrow, if Great-Aunt Dora hadn’t come to see Mother today. Then we had a to-do, as you can imagine.”
Longmore was amazed he couldn’t hear the screaming from here. Warford House was only a few streets away, overlooking the Green Park.
“Did Lady Clara leave any message?” Sophy said.
Valentine got all stiff. He took off his hat and made an extremely correct bow. “I don’t believe I’ve had the honor,” he said.
Pompous ass.
Longmore said, “Miss Noirot, will you allow me to present my brother, Valentine Fairfax.”
Another excruciatingly polite bow from the nitwit, who said, “Miss Noirot, perhaps you’d be so good as to allow me to speak to my brother in private.”
She curtseyed. It wasn’t remotely correct. Down she went in a great flurry of bows and lace and muslin whispering like scandalized playgoers when a notorious tart appeared in her theater box. And up she came again, graceful as a ballet dancer. Then she looked up at Valentine, all wide blue eyes. “I’m not good at all,” she said. “Ask Lord Longmore.”
“I’m still undecided in that regard,” Longmore said. “I will say it’s no good trying to keep secrets from her.”
Valentine, now gazing raptly into the great blue eyes, didn’t hear a word.
“A message, Valentine,” Longmore prompted. “Did our sister leave a message?”
Valentine shook himself out of his trance and dug out from the recesses of his waistcoat a piece of notepaper. He gave it to his brother.
The message was short enough:
I will not marry that man. I’d rather be disgraced for the rest of my life and live as a beggar.
C.
“Oh, good,” Longmore said. “That’s what we need: drama.”
Yet he remembered the way Clara’s face had crumpled last week, when he’d brought her here. She’d said . . . What had she said?
Something about their mother harassing her. Something about the marriage. The hasty marriage.
The marriage she wouldn’t have had to f
ace had he done the one simple task even he’d understood was necessary: keep Adderley away from her.
Sophy held out her hand. He gave her the note.
She scanned the few lines quickly. She turned the paper over. On the outside Clara had written “Mama.”
“As soon as Mother realized that Clara hadn’t gone to Aunt Dora’s, she ran upstairs and ransacked Clara’s room,” Valentine said. “The note was tucked into Clara’s jewel box. She’d taken everything else out of it. Not that she’d much of value there. Usually our mother lends her jewelry—and she keeps the good things under lock and key.”
“She could sell her clothes,” Sophy said. “Her maid could do it for her. That’s why she took all the parcels.”
Both men looked at her.
“They’d fetch a fair sum, each of her dresses, especially the ones we made,” she said.
That was when Longmore felt the first stirrings of alarm.
Clara. On the road. With nobody but her maid to look after her.
He felt sick.
“I daresay our mother’s worked that out by now,” Valentine said. “She’d have found the wardrobes and such empty.”
“Has she stopped screaming long enough to work anything out?” Longmore said.
“She didn’t scream at all,” Valentine said. “First she fainted, then she started crying, then she locked herself in Clara’s room. She won’t let anybody in and she won’t speak to anybody.”
“Oh, no. The poor woman.” Sophy put her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. It was only for an instant. One hint of emotion. Longmore realized at that moment how rare a sight it was: true emotion. He didn’t know how he knew it was true, but he knew it in the same way he knew her, no matter what disguise she wore.
A glimpse of feeling, then it was gone, and she became brisk. “One could wish she’d left larger clues. But she did take her maid. And clothes and trinkets to pawn. So she planned, to a degree. But first things first. We need to discover which direction she’s taken.”
“We?” the brothers said simultaneously.
Lord Valentine Fairfax, whom Sophy had seen many times before, resembled his eldest brother only in size. His coloring was like Lady Clara’s. Yet it was obvious they were brothers. Both men regarded her with the same rapid succession of expressions: surprise, confusion, annoyance.
They were aristocratic men. Their brains were not over-large and definitely not attuned to subtlety.
She donned a look of confusion. “I assumed you’d wish to help me.”
“Help you?” said Lord Longmore.
Lord Valentine remembered his manners. “It’s very—er—kind of you, Miss—er—”
“Noirot, you idiot. I told you. Clevedon’s sister-in-law. And if she—”
“Yes, of course,” said Lord Valentine. “I daresay we can call on Clevedon to assist in organizing a search.”
“Ah, yes?” she said. “Where do you propose to begin looking?”
“Why . . .” Lord Valentine frowned and looked at his brother.
“Because I’m baffled where you’d start,” she said. “Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems to me that you’ll need a prodigious large search party, to search every way out of London for a sign of her, and then all possible routes to . . . well, everywhere.”
They looked at each other, then at her.
“I can’t help wondering, too, how you’d do this without calling attention to the fact that Lady Clara Fairfax has run away from home, with no companion but her maid,” she said. “Perhaps I’m wrong—I’m merely a shopkeeper—but I’d always thought that gently bred girls were not allowed to simply dash off by themselves. I’d supposed that if a girl did such a thing, her family wouldn’t want it known.”
“Well,” said Lord Valentine.
Longmore uttered a vehement oath.
Sophy could have added several equally vehement ones, in two languages. This was so bad, on so many counts. A gently bred girl, traveling unchaperoned and unprotected, except by one maid. She might as well paint a big red target on her back. And front. And if the Great World found out . . . after what had happened with Adderley . . .
Nothing could mend her reputation then.
One could only hope the girl had had second thoughts and was even now on her way home.
But Sophy knew better than to rely on hope.
Thanks to a lifetime’s practice, nothing of what she felt inwardly showed outwardly.
“I’ve a large network of acquaintances I can call upon in a situation like this,” she said. “Even better, we have Fenwick. I suspect he’ll be able to call on his own associates as well. Among the two groups, someone will have noticed two women in a vehicle of such-and-such description, going in such-and-such direction.”
She waited for arguments. The two men only stood and listened, both wearing the same intent expression. She supposed they were both thinking hard about what she’d said. One couldn’t expect them to do anything else at the same time.
“All I need from you is a description of the vehicle and its distinguishing features.” She took up the little pocket watch that hung from her belt and opened it. “It’s nearly half past four o’clock. With any luck, we’ll hear something before nightfall.”
“Nightfall!” said Lord Valentine. “My dear girl, she’s already been gone for hours. By nightfall she could be in Dover or Brighton or even on a vessel traveling to the Continent.”
“Miss Noirot is not your dear girl, you pretentious half-wit,” Longmore said.
“She’ll need papers to travel to the Continent,” Sophy said. Unlike the Noirots, Lady Clara wouldn’t know how to go about obtaining forged passports and letters of credit and such, or how to forge her own.
“That merely leaves all of Great Britain,” Lord Valentine said.
“Thank you for stating the obvious,” Longmore said.
“I only meant—”
“Never mind what he means, Miss Noirot,” Longmore said. “He doesn’t know what he means, and being high-strung, like the rest of our lot, he flies into a panic over everything.”
“I think there’s some reason to panic,” she said. “This isn’t good.”
“You said a moment ago that we might be of use,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Or me, of course,” said Lord Valentine.
There was no choice.
Sophy couldn’t do it alone. She’d never traveled outside London. She needed help.
“Lord Longmore, I suggest you go home and tell your valet to pack for a journey of several days,” she said.
“Several days!” Lord Valentine dragged a hand through his hair. “Traveling with only her maid! Clara will be ruined past mending!”
Lady Clara’s ruin was the least of Sophy’s worries at the moment. She could only hope the girl wasn’t assaulted. Raped. Murdered. She was completely vulnerable. She didn’t know a damned thing. Look how easily Adderley had taken advantage of her.
“Please pack for several days,” she said. She kept her voice low and calm, her expression tranquil. She didn’t wring her hands. Lord Valentine needed quieting, and Longmore needed to believe that she knew what she was doing. “The instant I have news, I’ll send to you, and we’ll set out.”
“We,” said Lord Longmore.
“I’m used to you,” she said. “I hardly know Lord Valentine and he hardly knows me.”
Longmore at least understood—to a point—what she was capable of. He knew about her work for the Spectacle. She wouldn’t have to waste time explaining every little thing. They’d worked together well enough at Dowdy’s.
She’d used him then and she’d use him now. An instrument. That’s all he was, she told herself.
She turned to the younger brother. “My lord, I advise you to return to Warford House. What you need to do is help your family memorize a simple excuse for Lady Clara’s not being at home to visitors. A severe cold or some such—the sort of thing that makes people keep a distance.”
&
nbsp; He looked at his older brother.
“Have you any better ideas?” Longmore said. “Do I need to point out to you that Miss Noirot has a good deal at stake in this? Clara’s the shop’s favorite customer. Everything they make for her is special for her. If she comes to harm, they’ll have her confounded trousseau on their hands, and they’ll go all to pieces—because no one can wear those clothes as Lady Clara can.” He mimicked Sophy as he said the last bit. “Not to mention they’ve hopes to sell her more, once they devise a scheme for disposing of Adderley.”
“It’s so like you to make jokes at a time like this,” said Lord Valentine.
“I’m not joking—as you’d know if you were the one blackmailed and browbeaten into escorting our sister to buy her curst clothes.”
“It’s no joke,” Sophy said. “My sisters and I want Lord Adderley out of the picture. We want your beautiful sister to marry someone with a massive income. She truly is our best customer, and we truly will go all to pieces if she can’t wear the beautiful bride clothes we’re making for her.”
No joke. Horribly true. Truer than they could guess.
Longmore turned away from his plainly bewildered brother. “Miss Noirot, you said you wanted a description of the cabriolet. I suggest you find a pen and writing paper. I ordered that vehicle specially for her, and I recall every last detail. And if I happen to miss anything, Valentine will let us know. He believes I ought to have bought a carriage for him.”
A short while later, the three Noirot sisters were in Sophy’s bedroom, helping her pack. She’d told them about Lady Clara and her plan—such as it was—for finding her. She’d hoped they’d come up with a better solution. Hers, she felt, was far from satisfactory on numerous counts.
But Marcelline and Leonie, who saw the problems as clearly as she did, hadn’t anything better to offer.
“I don’t see an alternative,” Marcelline said. “It’s not only dangerous to her reputation to advertise this disappearance, but it’s physically dangerous as well. Any number of scoundrels would start looking for her, too. She could be held for ransom—and that’s the best case.” She paused in the act of folding a chemise. “Mon dieu, her poor mother.”