Page 44 of Miss Dignified
“Are they scolding you for trespassing?” Lydia asked, sitting back. “You have essentially disobeyed a direct order by going into the stews on your own.”
“I have not. My agreement is to avoid the slums alone after dark.” Dylan shifted his queen’s rook a few squares. “They are protecting William Brook, would be my guess, but why?”
“Has he broken the law?”
“If so, nobody—not MacKay’s streetwalkers, not Goddard’s urchins, not the constables I’m on good terms with—has heard of it. William is in hiding and does not want to be found.” Hughie Porter had all but told him so, and Dylan hadn’t listened. “The question is why. Solve the why of it, and William Brook can come out of hiding.”
Lydia should have been studying the chessboard, but was instead frowning at Dylan. “Perhaps the why of it cannot be solved? Perhaps that way lies Newgate, or worse.”
“Then leave London.”
“Your men tell me there are few jobs to be had in the shires, and wages are abysmal outside of London. How else could you go about looking for William if he does not want to be found?”
“Post spies, which I’ve done. Goddard’s juvenile henchmen are keeping a lookout, as are MacKay’s ladies. The constables, lamplighters, night-soil men are putting the word out. They are looking for a fellow who has a bad hand, doesn’t hear well, and resembles a sturdier Bowen.”
“I could make you a sketch. I met William on several occasions. He has a dimple…” Lydia stared off in the direction of the hearth. “His face is broader than Bowen’s, but Bowen could assist me with my sketch. Would a likeness help?”
“Your move, Lydia, and yes, a likeness would help show people which man I’m looking for, but it won’t explain why some of my former direct reports are now lying to me. That bothers me as much as William’s disappearance. Somebody could be holding a threat over the men, the same somebody who might have authored William’s disappearance and Bowen’s beating.”
“Sad thanks, after all you’ve done for them, to refuse you their trust.” She moved the knight that had been protecting her queen, then put him back where he’d been.
“Do you still have the note that was in that bouquet we found earlier?” Dylan asked.
“I tossed it on the coals. Why?”
“Bowen would know William’s handwriting, and the words might have included some sort of hidden message.”
Lydia did shift the knight in what might well be a bid for Dylan’s king, leaving her queen unprotected. “Your move, Captain.”
Dylan’s hours of walking had given him time to think, and to worry. Lydia had not been pleased at the sight of the flowers, and she’d all but crammed the note into her pocket after the merest glance. Now she admitted to not merely consigning that little message into the dustbin, but destroying it. The flowers were not in her apartment—Dylan had done that reconnaissance—but rather, in Bowen’s office.
Dylan weighed all the ramifications of taking her queen and, finding no consequences of particular concern, executed the move.
“You have become distracted, madam.” She’d won the first game with a brisk dispatch that had caught Dylan unaware. Now she was bungling the second. Sycamore Dorning’s questions about French songs, Shakespeare quotes, and fancy needlework came to mind.
“Resting on my laurels,” she said, scowling at his rook. “Or tired. I should have seen that coming three moves ago, but I was too focused on your king in the corner. I believe that puts you just a few moves from checkmate.”
“Four. Shall I escort you to your parlor?” Dylan expected argument, for form’s sake if nothing else.
Lydia began removing pieces from the board. “I meant to tell you that I’ll be out and about some tomorrow afternoon. I’ll take the market cart, if that’s allowed?”
“This is that family business you alluded to?” Dylan put away his army as well. “I’d be happy to escort you, Lydia, or lend you the coach. It’s not fancy, but it will spare you exposure to the elements.”
“The market cart will do, thank you. I won’t be going far.”
She did not want him tagging along, whatever her errand. Dylan considered having her followed, but put the decision off. Perhaps Lydia would tell him the nature of her outing, and perhaps it was none of his damned business.
Except that she was in his employ, and her safety was thus his business if it was anybody’s.
Complicated. Like the politics of moving an army across occupied Spain.
“We must have a rematch,” Dylan said, returning the chessboard to the shelf behind the library desk. “We’ve each won a game, and that is no place to leave matters.”
“Your soldier’s heart demands a victor and a vanquished?” Lydia asked, yawning behind her hand and rising.
“My sense of fair play means I should not have kept you up so late, and you must be permitted to trounce me for my presumptions.”
She gave him a look that said she knew balderdash when she heard it, then moved about the library, blowing out candles. “Do we leave Bowen to spend the night in a chair?”
