Chapter Six

Steven answered General Padgett’s summons promptly, as commanded, and even though he’d planned on an outing with Louisa. He didn’t like to add even one more transgression to his list of offenses, but hopefully this would be the last of them. The runners and some of Padgett’s men had been monitoring Madame Dentelle’s and the Hind & Hound for several days now, and Steven had every hope he’d been called in for congratulations and his dismissal.

As usual, Steven handed over his card and was admitted. Unlike usual, the so-called butler gestured over a footman, saying, “Smith will show you to where you may wait, sir.”

An inkling of dread skuttled up Steven’s spine. “Wait? I was summoned with urgency.”

The butler stared at him a moment, then repeated, “Smith will show you to where you may wait.”

His unease growing, Steven turned to follow Smith, which would not be the real name of the man he trailed. Padgett preferred general, non-descript names be employed under his roof.

They proceeded deeper into the house, taking the familiar route to the general’s door. This, they passed, the thick wood permitting only muted, angry rumbling to escape, further dimming Steven’s hopes that this would be a cheerful visit. A few doors down from Padgett’s office, Smith halted and gestured to a room. Steven entered to find Fletcher coming to his feet on the far side of what would be a pleasant parlor if four hard looking benches, one against each wall, were not the only furnishings.

“You will be informed when the general wishes to speak with you,” Smith said before departing.

Fletcher crossed the room. “What has happened?”

“I was about to ask you the very same.” Was there any point in discovering precisely how uncomfortable the benches were?

“This is the building to which you report?”

“It is. You have not been here before?” That didn’t bode well.

Fletcher shook his head. “The other runners seem to find it quite dire that I have been summoned here.”

“It likely is.” Steven sighed. Whatever had gone wrong, Padgett obviously intended to share the blame about.

“The men we sent out confirmed that more of the windows who were robbed had suffered broken windows in the recent past,” Fletcher said, though his gaze still roamed the room. “Interestingly, no one could recall who hired the men who came to repair them.”

“Men?” Steven asked sharply. “More than one?”

“Yes. I found that interesting as well. In each case, several young men arrived to fix the broken window, were shown in, did their work politely and well, and left again. None of the staff our men interviewed recalled if the men were paid.”

“Several?”

“The most commonly reported number was three, but recollections vary. You know how unreliable witnesses can be, especially after time has passed.”

“Three seems like a great many to fix one window.”

“But not too many for one to sneak off and rifle through a lady’s correspondence or possessions.”

Steven shook his head. “They were never robbed then. Usually, it was weeks later. Longer, even.”

“Three, so one could discover the best way to return?” Fletcher suggested.

“Or even swipe a key.”

Fletcher shook his head. “That would be noticed.”

“Take a mold of one, then?”

“Perhaps.” Fletcher scrubbed a hand across his jaw. “No one has told me why I am here, but I have the suspicion it has all gone wrong. I know we were close.”

“Did your men get any useful descriptions of these youthful glazers?”

“Nothing worthwhile, no. We speak of recollections that are months old, after all. In some cases over a year.” Fletched leveled a frown on the open doorway behind Steven. “Whatever has gone wrong, it is not our fault. Your people took over watching the modiste’s and the Hind and Hound.”

“It will hardly be my fault either,” Steven countered. “I doubt Padgett will care, however. We will all be held to account.”

Down the hall, a door opened. Footfalls sounded, moving away from the room in which Steven stood. He stuck his head out to take in a man with military bearing and a bandaged head walking away.

“Hurst, Fletcher.”

Steven snapped his gaze to where Padgett stood in the doorway to his office. “Sir?”

“Come.” With that single command, the general pivoted, leaving the door open as he disappeared.

Steven tugged his coat straight, then his sleeves. He cast a worried look at Fletcher, then marched from the room. He may as well lead the way. He would be allocated the greater portion of blame, for no other reason than the excuse it gave Padgett to keep Steven in the King’s service.

At their entrance, Padgett looked up from his chair behind the desk. “Close the door, if you will, Sergeant Fletcher.”

As the chair had been removed, Steven did his best impression of standing at attention before the deep desk. The door thudded shut and Fletcher joined him, doing a far superior job of appearing military.

Padgett looked them up and down from his chair. “In the early hours of the morning, the men watching Madame Dentelle’s were subdued.”

“Subdued?” Steven blurted before he thought better.

“Yes. By various methods, most of which should have been avoided.” Padgett’s face, his voice, remained expressionless.

Another man might reveal his anger in a tick of the eye, or thrum of a vein. Padgett had no tell Steven had ever been able to find. Unless his rigidly composed lack of one could be considered such.

“Various methods, sir?” Fletcher prompted hesitantly.

Padgett waved a hand. “Lured from their position by a woman in distressed and clocked over the head from behind. Offered certain liberties by a pretty face and fed drugged liquor. Various methods, all underhanded. All smacking of feminine maneuvering. No direct attacks.”

Steven wasn’t so certain that was feminine so much as wise. Why would anyone attempt a direct attack on one of Padgett’s men when subterfuge had a far greater chance of success?

“Discipline has been meted out.” Padgett regarded them with flat eyes. “The shop now stands all but empty. Madame Dentelle and her daughters have fled and taken their wares with them, much of which already had deposits down. There will be no means by which to keep this from the papers.”

Steven grimaced. Padgett did not care for things to reach the papers.

“Surely, sir, that will not be tied to you?” Fletcher glanced at Steven, as if seeking support.

“No. It will not be. Any article about the subject will speculate that Madame Dentelle was not an astute businesswoman, could not pay her bills, and fled. Still, she will be sought, both by the watch and, I imagine, people hiring runners.” Padgett pinned Fletcher with his gaze. “Who will receive no information from you, Sergeant. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Steven breathed out in relief.

“But, if I may, sir,” Fletcher continued, earning a glare from the corner of Steven’s eye.

“You may not.”

“But, sir, little of what I could tell my colleagues has any real bearing on your—”

“Revealing any information to the Bow Street Runners will be considered an act of treason, Sergeant Fletcher. Am I clear now?”

Fletcher’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He nodded.

“It is our belief that a lack of obvious vigorous pursuit will draw Madame Dentelle and her daughters back out more quickly,” Padgett said, surprising Steven by giving any explanation at all. “We do not wish for them to suspect that we know who the Peacock is. She and her daughters are obviously skilled. The more they fear capture, the more difficult they will be to find.”

“Then you believe they know who the Peacock is, sir?” Steven would do whatever Padgett required to apprehend the man, be that everything or nothing. Anything to win free of the obligation placed on him by his relations’ treason.

“I believe they do, yes.” Padgett studied them for a long moment. “I believe the Peacock is one of them.”

“Madame Dentelle has a son?”

“Madame Dentelle has, by our best ability to tell, between two and four daughters.” Padgett placed a palm on his desk, a finger twitching ever so slightly, as if he would drum his digits in aggravation had he any less poise. “No one, not even those in the shops to either side or her most loyal patronesses, seems certain how many of them lived and worked in the shop. It is the extreme lack of information about them that raises my suspicions.”

Steven thought back to the two women with their paint and their lumps and their lank black hair. He winced. Changing out of a gown indeed. They had obviously been donning disguises. Effective ones, too. He might recognize their voices, but he doubted he would know either woman should she pass him on the street.

And that business about the glazer’s tools belonging to a beau. No wonder Padgett was angry with him. Steven should know better. A sobbing woman had that effect on him, though. Turned off his brain. He simply couldn’t think with a woman crying.

How neatly they’d directed him and Fletcher to the Hind & Hound, to watch for a Welchman who would never appear. He cleared his throat and offered, “We only saw two, sir, and neither was Madame Dentelle.” Of that, at least, he was certain. They’d both been too young to be the modiste.

Padgett waved that away. “Two. Four. It hardly signifies. They are likely well-funded and well hidden, but now they must choose. Attempt another such scheme, perhaps another shop where women set appointments, so the miscreants know when they will not be at home, or remain hidden forever.”

“So the Peacock is foiled,” Steven said in sudden hope.

“Foiled, but not apprehended. I doubt certain members of the peerage will accept ‘foiled.’ Moreover, without a Peacock to hang, there is simply our word and the hope that the villain never strikes again to mollify those who have been robbed.”

Steven dropped his gaze. So close. They’d been so close. He and Fletcher might very well have stood in the same room with the Peacock. “You are certain Madame Dentelle and her daughters are the Peacock?”

“No. How can I be?” Padgett jabbed a finger at Steven. “But you should have been certain they are not before you departed their shop that day.”

“But they may not be,” Fletcher protested. “And how could we have been? They would hardly have admitted as much and we were not going to press them into a confession. They are ladies.”

What Fletcher had learned about the glazers would tip the scales further in favor of Madame Dentelle and her daughters being behind the Peacock’s robberies, but Steven pressed his mouth closed over the information. Padgett already seemed convinced. Telling him about the broken windows would only fuel his ire.

“Your reluctance to rigorously question females is noted, Sergeant Fletcher, and is not relevant. As stated, your only task now is to fail to turn over any information you have gathered to your colleagues.”

Fletcher grimaced, but nodded.

Padgett turned to Steven. “As for you, Hurst, I am disappointed by your lack of success, both on behalf of the crown and you. You will remain at my disposal.”

Padgett’s way of saying that Steven’s debt was not yet paid. “Yes, sir, but, sir, if I may, I can continue to assist in seeking the Peacock. I did meet two of the ladies in question.” Not that he had much hope of recognizing them, but more than most. If he could simply locate Madame Dentelle and her daughters, perhaps then—

“No.”

That single, barked syllable cut into Steven’s hopes. “But, sir—”

“They may have been in disguise, but you were not. Neither you, nor you, Sergeant Fletcher, are to make any effort to locate Madame Dentelle or her daughters. Nor will any of the men stationed outside their shop or, for good measure, at the Hind and Hound.”

“There must be some way in which I can continue to assist, sir.” Some way for Steven to work for his freedom.

The hard edges of Padgett’s face softened ever so slightly. “Leave London for a time, Hurst. Visit your estate. Take a cottage in Brighton. I care not. Spend time with your wife while I clean up this mess. You can return refreshed and ready for your next assignment.”

I do not want another assignment. The words rang in Steven’s mind. He wanted to finish this assignment and be free. “Yes, sir.”

Padgett pressed his palms to the top of his desk, standing. “You are both dismissed. Fletcher, I hope there is no need to see you again.”

“Ah, thank you, sir,” Fletcher said.

Padgett reached for a bell pull. “Smith will escort you out.”

Apparently, Fletcher would not be permitted to travel Padgett’s halls unescorted, and Steven didn’t qualify as a competent enough escort. He tried not to take offense at that as ‘Smith’ reappeared to escort them away.

By the time they stood together on the street outside Padgett’s unassuming London house, Fletcher’s expression had taken on a decidedly aggrieved cast. As Steven signaled to a waiting groom that he required his mount, Fletched demanded, “Who is he, to order me not to assist in an investigation? Do you know how incompetent I am going to look when my fellows ask me for details on this case and I claim to have none?”

Steven grimaced, certain Padgett had some means by which to both see and hear them, and that didn’t even include the grooms who would bring around their horses. Padgett would know all that took place outside his residence. “Perhaps you should take some time in the country as well. Invent an excuse and be scarce?”

“They know I was investigating the Peacock.” Fletcher waved a hand in the general direction of Madame Dentelle’s. “They know I had that modiste and the Hind and Hound surveilled. There is scant chance they will not hear about Madame Dentelle and her daughters disappearing, or that none of the patronesses of the shop will cause their husbands to hire runners to look into the matter. What am I meant to say when asked for details?”

Steven slanted his gaze at the house before which they stood. “You are meant to give none. That was made very clear.”

Fletcher scrubbed a hand over his face. “Do you know how hard I worked to cause them to see past my birth and accept me?”

“No, but I know that threats issued inside that building are not idle.”

Fletcher scowled.

“Look, it was a pleasure working with you, Fletcher, no matter how it turned out,” Steven said. “You are good at what you do. I am certain your colleagues realize as much. This will pass.” Unlike Steven’s servitude, which seemed poised to stretch out interminably.

The nod Fletcher gave to that seemed grudging, but at least he clamped his mouth closed as two of Padgett’s men came around the corner with their horses.

“Until we meet again.” Steven added a tip of his hat to that, then strode forward to receive his mount, done with trying to mollify Fletcher. He needed to get home to Louisa, so try to soothe her feelings over how he’d disappeared when they were meant to go out, and to come up with some reason for them to leave London.

He reached his London house to a general hubbub, servants racing about and the screech of his sister-by-marriage’s voice calling for her trunks somewhere above stairs. Steven handed over his gloves and hat, noting, “The place seems to be in a bit of an uproar.”

“Yes, sir.” His butler’s strict politeness rang with rebuke, and Steven imagined the whole house knew he’d dashed off minutes before he’d been meant to take Louisa on a ride through the park. “Mrs. Hurst is…?”

“I believe Mrs. Hurst is in her chambers, sir.”

“Thank you.” After shucking his greatcoat as well, Steven took the steps two at a time.

In the upper hall, footmen carried trunks into both Miss Bingley’s room and Louisa’s, and Steven further hurried his stride. He burst in to the sight of his wife and her maid laying out gowns.

“The russet one, Millie,” Louisa said, not looking at Steven though she could not have failed to notice his hurried entrance. “And the evergreen. Both will come with us.”

“Come with us?” Steven crossed to peck Louisa on the cheek.

She did not so much as glance at him. “Do not forget the matching slippers, Millie.”

“No, mum.” Millie, a tall lass of about seventeen, peered askance at Steven as she rummaged in Louisa’s wardrobe.

“Where are we going, dearest?” Steven asked doggedly.

“Charles has taken an estate in Hertfordshire for the remainder of the year.” Louisa still did turn to him, but at least she answered. “Caroline and I are going to help him open the manor house. It is urgent as Mr. Darcy will join him shortly.”

“An estate in Hertfordshire?” Of all the good luck. “Splendid. When are we leaving?” Obviously shortly, given the state of the household.

“Millie, please excuse us.”

“Yes, mum.” Millie dropped a pair of brownish-red slippers onto the bed and hurried away.

Louisa finally pivoted to regard him, her expression flat. “Will you be joining us, then, Mr. Hurst?”

“Will I be…” She was very angry this time. “Certainly. Why would I not?”

“It simply seems to me that your interests lie in London.”

He struggled to contain a wince. “My interest is in being where you are, Louisa.”

“No. Your interest was in my dowry, and now lies in enjoying my brother’s hospitality.” She started to turn away.

Steven caught her hand. “Louisa, please, I am sorry for disappearing this morning. I realize I had promised you a ride in the park.”

“Do you? Because the staff tell me that you departed not five minutes before I came down to meet you for our ride.” Anger and hurt mingled in her eyes and pinched her face. “You could not even wait five minutes to tell me to my face that you would not honor your commitment to me. Not that you are obliged to, apparently.”

“I am obliged to. You are my wife. I wanted to ride in the park with you.”

That earned him a hard glare.

Steven drew in a long breath. She used to look at him with hope and adoration. He lightly squeezed her fingers. “I very much wish to accompany you to Hertfordshire, for your company, not your brother’s hospitality. I will be a most attentive husband there. You have my word.”

Her gaze roamed his face, searching.

Steven willed sincerity into his features.

Finally, Louisa shrugged. “You may want to ask your valet to begin packing for you, then. We plan to depart tomorrow after breakfast.”

“The sooner the better.” He brought her hand to his lips to kiss.

She looked down in obvious confusion. “Yes. Well. Please send Millie back in.” “I will.” Steven gave her fingers a final squeeze, feeling suddenly buoyed. He may not have his freedom yet, but Padgett exiling him from London might be the next best thing.