Page 8 of Miss Determined
“What is it?” Papa asked, rising and rubbing the back of his neck. “Has Viscount Thurston rescheduled his appointment yet again? I vow the man never knows what day of the week it is.”
“His lordship is due at ten of the clock. I’ve brought you his files and reviewed them thoroughly myself.”
Every Season, Thurston courted another beauty, and every Season he returned to the shires a bachelor. Old Purvis handled the settlement negotiations on his lordship’s behalf, and every year, those negotiations went on swimmingly until the time came to sign documents. At that point, the bride’s family became reluctant to execute the agreements.
“Who is it this year?” Papa asked, sounding as weary as if he’d been the one copying reports all night, when in fact he’d not been in the office above a half hour.
“No particular lady has had the honor of his lordship’s attentions yet.” Young Purvis passed over a thick sheaf of documents in a folder bound in red ribbon. “I thought you should know that Lord Tavistock left London the day before yesterday.”
“That one.” Papa grimaced. “I’ve the Brompton girl in mind for him.”
Miss Hecate Brompton had left behind any pretensions to girlhood several years ago. “He’ll need sons, and she’s getting a bit long in the tooth, isn’t she?”
“Still several years shy of thirty. Tavistock needs only one or two sons, and he does have a cousin rattling about on the Continent if all else fails. Miss Brompton’s family is venerable and wealthy—there’s an earl in the lot somewhere—and those are the prerequisites when it comes to wedding his lordship. If the Almighty is merciful to a poor, overworked solicitor, Tavistock will snabble the bride of my choosing, get her with heir, and decamp for France.”
Young Purvis, who thought rather highly of Miss Brompton, couldn’t see that happening, though one ventured to disagree with Papa at one’s peril.
“Tavistock struck me as ready to take up the reins of his marquessate. His father was the determined sort, too, as I recall.”
“The father had a sense of his own consequence and a proper respect for tradition. You young people and your radical ideas…” Papa resumed the seat behind his desk and pulled the draft settlement closer. “One despairs for the realm. Tavistock will likely kick his heels in Surrey playing lord of the manor, then trot back to Town in time for whatever social events his step-mother deems appropriate for a bachelor of his station. I never did care for her. A more uppish woman I have yet to meet.”
The step-mother—Jeanette Dorning, and by courtesy still referred to as the Marchioness of Tavistock in some circles—had put old Smithers through his paces every quarter. When she’d remarried and Smithers had gone into retirement, Papa had lit upon Tavistock’s accounts like a hog at his slops.
Careful observation of Papa’s behaviors, a few pints with old Smithers, and close examination of the files in Papa’s bottom drawer had given a dutiful son pause.
“That uppish woman married a Dorning,” Young Purvis observed. “The Dornings are related by marriage to half the peerage and to Worth Kettering.”
Papa produced a pair of spectacles and perched them on his nose. “If you value your inheritance, do not utter that name within these walls. Leave me to my labors, thankless though they are, and tell Tavistock’s housekeeper in Surrey to send word when his lordship plans his return to Town. He stated a desire to tour all of the marquessate’s holdings, but spring is when a young lord’s thoughts turn to opera dancers. Not too many of those running about in shires.”
“Sir, about Lord Tavistock…” According to Jones, the coaching inn closest to the Tavistock town house had sent his lordship’s fancy trunk not to Surrey, but to the small Berkshire village of Crosspatch Corners. Which could only mean…
Papa looked up for one instant, enough to convey absolute, unbending resolve. “Young man, if you have the leisure to poke your nose into matters that do not concern you, then clearly, I haven’t kept you busy enough.”
What Young Purvis did not know—or could credibly claim to not know—could not land him in Newgate.
“Yes, sir.”
Papa took up his quill pen and ran it slowly down the margin of the draft settlement. He could not read that quickly, he was merely pretending. More and more, Papa pretended to work, pretended to know the law, pretended to be concerned for his clients.
Young Purvis withdrew and closed the door. There was work to be done. There was always, always work to be done. He looked about at the dozen scribbling, ciphering clerks for one who could be tasked with taking notes during Lord Thurston’s meeting.
The yawning lad, one Pennypacker by name, had fallen asleep on his stool, the pen still in his hand. A few words in a tidy hand were inked across his cheek mirror-fashion, and his snores gently fluttered the edge of the document he’d been working on.
“I doubt Gabriel’s trumpet would wake Pennypacker,” Jones said quietly, but then, Jones did everything quietly—moved, ate, wrote, and cursed without drawing any attention to himself.
“Let him sleep until half past nine,” Young Purvis said, “then get him home until tomorrow.” Papa would rouse himself to make a short inspection of the clerks’ room before Lord Thurston arrived, but not leave his office before then. The clerks would anticipate Old Purvis’s tour and bestir themselves to earnestly attend their chores before Papa could ambush them.
And somehow, this mutual exchange of performances was supposed to be how business was conducted.
“Jones,” Purvis went on, “please send a note to the housekeeper at the Tavistock seat in Surrey. She’s to notify us when his lordship is making preparations to return to Town.”
Jones gently peeled the pen from the sleeping clerk’s fingers. “But, sir, Lord Tavistock hasn’t gone to Surrey.”
“For all we know,” Young Purvis said very softly, “Surrey has magically transported itself due west of Town. Old Purvis said to send the Surrey housekeeper a note, so a note we shall send. Tavistock might be looking up old school chums in Berkshire before turning south. He might be taking a scenic route to the family seat. Old Purvis was very clear that a note is to be sent to Surrey.”
Jones carefully lifted the clerk’s head, slid the document free, and let the laborer return to his slumbers. “I’ll get right on it, sir, just as soon as I recopy the final page of Mrs. Peele’s first-quarter report.”
“Excellent, and see that Pennypacker has at least enough coin in his pocket for a decent meal before we send him to deliver that report.” Clerks at Smithers and Purvis tended to slenderness.
