Page 43 of Snowy and the Seven Doves
“My lord,” Fortescue greeted him. “Good day.”
“And to you, Mr. Fortescue.” Snowy supposed he was going to have to get used to being addressed as ‘my lord’. “I trust you are keeping well?”
“Indeed, my lord. Indeed.” Fortescue got straight to business. “You will be pleased to know that Sir Thomas Brockton has filed your case against Richard Snowden.”
Snowy expected the news but he still felt a surge of fierce satisfaction. “What is the next step, Mr. Fortescue? What can I expect?”
“He will be served with a summons to appear before a magistrate to answer the charges. Sir Thomas is confident that, with the information you have collected, the case will go to trial. Can I offer you a cup of tea, my lord?”
“Not for me, thank you. Perhaps another time. I will have to leave for another meeting shortly, but I wanted to give you this.” Snowy produced a copy he had made of her Grace’s list. “The Duchess of Winshire sent me a list of names of people who might be able to tell us more about my kidnapping and about what happened to my mother. You can have this copy. I have made another for the enquiry agent.”
Fortescue read through the list, nodding. “Worth pursuing, Lord Snowden. Worth pursuing. As you know, we need to strengthen the link between the boy in the garden and the boy in the slum alley. This maid who saw you both before and after the abduction would be ideal.”
“Wakefield, the enquiry agent, knows how important that could be. Unless there is anything else, Mr. Fortescue, I will give you my thanks and wish you a good day.”
Fortescue frowned. “Just a warning, my lord. If we are correct, your cousin is guilty of serious crimes and some of them done to cover up earlier crimes.”
Snowy wanted to protest the ‘if we are correct’ disclaimer, but he understood it was just a solicitor’s reluctance to prejudge the case before it went to trial. He nodded in agreement. People who were in Richard Snowden’s way or who displeased him had a habit of suffering anonymous assaults and fatal accidents.
“You may expect an attempt on your life, I should think,” Fortescue said. “Please take care, Lord Snowden.”
“My valet attempted to garrote me this morning,” Snowy told him. “I daresay there will be other attempts. Perhaps the Bow Street runners will be able to get out of the valet who hired him. We can add that charge, then, to all the rest.”
Fortescue had paled. “You are taking this very calmly, my lord. Please, do be careful.”
*
Snowy’s next stopwas the office of Wakefield and Wakefield, where he handed the duchess’s list over to Mrs. Wakefield, herself a skilled enquiry agent. He told her about the attempt on his life that morning, and suggested she check on the valet’s letters of reference, and the whereabouts of his predecessor.
From there, he went straight to the House of Blossoms. He needed to let Lily know what had happened with the valet, check how Orchid was getting on with the bookkeeping, and persuade Poppy to feed him. Not necessarily in that order.
At this time of day, the house was quiet. He found Poppy alone in the kitchen, kneading dough for the evening’s bread.
“Here’s trouble,” she greeted him, as she had been doing since he was a small boy. “I recognize that sheepish grin. Get a load off your feet, my duck, and I will find you something to eat. Can’t have our Snowy going hungry.”
He grabbed her for a hug and a kiss on her cheek. “You’re the best, Poppy.”
She beamed at him even as she scolded. “Get along with you. No hugging the cook. I’ll just leave this to rest.” She patted the dough into a large, round ball and nudged it off the table into a bowl, which she covered with a cloth.
She then bustled around between kitchen, scullery, and pantry, moving the kettle over the fire, collecting a plate and cutlery to put before him, fetching a pie and some cheese from one place, a loaf of bread from another, a grinder for the aromatic coffee beans, a cake tin, and half a dozen other things.
She talked as she worked, telling him the gossip of the house. Orchid was thriving as the new bookkeeper. Lily had commented on the neatness of her hand and her accuracy, and Orchid was over the moon about the compliment. Jasmine was feeling well, and the girls did much better with her there to monitor their moods and intervene in any scraps.
Snowy knew better than to offer to help. She would soon tell him if there was anything he could do.
Sure enough, she handed him a toasting fork and a couple of thick pieces of bread she sliced off the loaf. “It is yesterday’s bread and will be better if you toast it a bit. I have relish or jam to go on it.”
The toasting fork was long enough to take both slices. By the time he’d crisped up both sides, so that the inside would be warm, moist, and soft, she had spread a veritable feast around his place at the kitchen table, including a lovely slice of apple pie she said he could have after his toast. “The last of the stored apples, duck, so make the most of it.”
Once she was happy he had everything he needed, she sat down across the table from him with a slice of cake and a cup of tea. “Now then,” she said. “Tell your Auntie Poppy everything. How is your brother? How is our lady countess? Have you kissed her, yet?”
Before Snowy could answer, Lily spoke from the kitchen door. “Is there more tea in that pot, Poppy?”
She entered the kitchen with Jasmine in her wake; Lily slid onto the bench seat beside Snowy, and Jasmine took the chair at the end of the table.
“Coming up,” Poppy said, standing to find two more cups.
“Carry on, Snowy,” Lily told him. “We all want to know.”
