Page 92 of Miss Dignified
“Powell would never have missed that shot.”
“Powell could have ridden straight though.”
“The lady would have offered Powell much more than a smile.”
Marcus would have hated Powell, except that Dunacre had hated Powell, and that was penance enough for any officer.
“If justice involves a certain element of drama,” Marcus said, “then that is to better inspire proper behavior from those observing the punishment. I took Finchly’s life, and I was denied an honorable death in Spain. I am troubled by the notion that I have avoided justice, Wesley, as any gentleman would be.”
“You bloody choirboy,” Wesley said, recovering his good cheer as he screwed together the parts of his cane. “Justice is what Finchly got for trifling with Lydia. I know you are easily confused, but do try to keep your facts straight. You were the instrument of justice when you dropped him, discreet justice, because a lady’s good name was at risk. Stop thinking of your grand philosophies and think instead of Lydia and Auntie Caroline. Think of old Reggie, and if those good people cannot inspire you to take ship as you ought, think of me.”
And there was the problem. Marcus longed to end this discussion and take himself down to the Goose, where he could order a pint and park his arse at a corner table, there to while away the afternoon with the whores and old sailors. When the post came, they’d all gather ’round while Marcus read them the latest news from somebody’s nephew in Dorset or cousin in Nova Scotia.
The whores would steal half of Marcus’s drink, and he’d pretend not to notice.
Wesley, sporting about in the first stare of fashion, with his fancy walking stick and French mistress, didn’t need anybody thinking about him. Big Nan and the other streetwalkers, Old Blind Harvey, who refused a place at the Chelsea seamen’s home, they needed thinking about.
They needed somebody to see that the pawnbrokers didn’t cheat them.
They needed somebody to read those horrendously misspelled letters from far-flung family.
They needed somebody to help them write the replies, so cheerful and dishonest, but so full of genuine love and concern.
Wesleyneeded a few years marching under the command of a lying martinet, and Marcus was instead handing him an earldom.
“Bring me the money,” Marcus said, “because there’s no point my getting on theRebecca Louisewith empty pockets, Wesley. I’ll surely starve in a foreign land without some means of making a new start. If I’m to die anyway, I might as well die honorably here in England.”
Marcus mostly did not mean that, but he was beginning to suspect that Wesley, who could afford Bond Street finerysomehow, was turning up miserly simply because he pleased to.
Wesley stared at Marcus as if he’d become a puzzle box, the solution not readily apparent.
“I do believe the Spanish sun baked your brainbox, dear boy. You owe me a final letter, I believe. On the eve of battle, farewell to mother dear, premonitions of death, and so forth. I will bring you some coin when I see you off and you will produce that letter. Then you shall make your new start, and all will be as it should be. You are getting cold feet, which is understandable before any ocean crossing. Keep your wits about you, and trust me to see the business through.”
Wesley assayed a small bow, saluted with his fancy cane, and departed.
Marcus settled into the single, hard little chair behind the rickety desk and considered the ticket of passage before him. Wesley had booked that passage under the name of Marcus Glover, which surely had to be an oversight. They’d agreed that a pseudonym was in order, Mark Lovelace, an unremarkable name for an Englishman.
Wesley had provided Marcus no coin.
He’d booked passage for Marcus in steerage, the most uncomfortable and dangerous way to make a sea crossing—also the most crowded and thus the least discreet.
Perhaps Wesley wasn’t quite as bright as Marcus had believed him to be, or perhaps what was lacking was the cousinly loyalty Marcus had always attributed to Wesley.
Marcus resumed readingTheMeditations, but the words refused to penetrate his mind. The ticket of passage sat on the corner of his desk, putting Marcus in mind of one of Dunacre’s more foolish and risky orders, the kind Dunacre had always assigned to the dauntless Captain Powell.
“Dorning was out all day yesterday,” Dylan muttered, pacing Orion Goddard’s office at The Coventry Club. “He was out all day today. I left word with his butler that I needed to speak with him, but the great man hasn’t seen fit to respond to my note.”
Dylan’s host watched him with the same maddening calm Goddard had shown all across Spain and into France.
“Dorning and Jeanette were out at Richmond yesterday,” he said. “They own a property there and are having it kitted out as a market garden. Today, they were off to sit for a portrait done by one of the Dorning brothers. Oak, I believe. He’s in Town for the start of the Season to negotiate commissions while the missus does some shopping.”
Dylan ceased pacing. “What the hell is Dorning up to now?” And why hadn’t Dylan thought sooner to ask Goddard where Dylan’s quarry had got off to? Goddard managed Dorning’s fancy club, where Dylan had seen Wesley Glover relieved of a substantial sum at the gaming tables.
“Why are Sycamore Dorning’s whereabouts abruptly of burning interest to you, Powell? You don’t even like him.”
One did not dissemble before Orion Goddard, but neither did one admit to having blundered enormously. “I need to shake your employer until his handsome teeth rattle, because Lydia has left Town for parts unknown. After four days, I have had no word from her, no note explaining where to send her things.”
“You told us she’d piked off. MacKay has alerted his streetwalkers, and I have asked the urchins to be on the watch for her. What’s the rest of it?”
