Page 20 of A Ruse of Shadows
Eastleigh Park, the country seat of the Dukes of Wycliff, was also Lord Bancroft’s—and Lord Ingram’s—childhood home.
“Underwood rose rapidly through the ranks,” continued LordBancroft. “But twenty years ago he left Eastleigh Park to work for me.”
Charlotte waited. He said nothing more. Was that all he was going to tell her about Mr. Underwood? “How did you learn that he was missing?”
Lord Bancroft tossed the biscuit that had so displeased him back onto the plate, also made of wood. “I had a mistress. Once we parted ways, she took up with Underwood—and became engaged to him in time. After my imprisonment, he had her act as a go-between, and she came on regular conjugal visits.”
This was more gossip than Charlotte had anticipated. Had she been playing any kind of role, her brows would have shot up to her hairline.
Strictly speaking, we are not allowed conjugal visits. But when palms are sufficiently greased, eyes look elsewhere.Those had been Lord Bancroft’s words, as relayed to Charlotte by Lord Ingram the previous February.
She was curious as to whether the woman came only to deliver and fetch messages or whether hers functioned as true conjugal visits—but not so curious that she asked the question aloud.
Lord Bancroft seemed equally disinclined to discuss the matter. “She was here a fortnight ago, distressed, because Underwood hadn’t visited or sent a message for some time.”
A cloud occluded the face of the sun; with the shade came an abrupt drop in temperature. “And it’s unlike Mr. Underwood to disappear in this manner?”
“Extremely unlike him.”
“So most likely he is already dead.”
“I’d put his chance of survival at no more than twenty percent. But these are not impossible odds.”
It was usually harsher illumination that revealed flaws in a person’s appearance, but in the relative dimness, the lines on Lord Bancroft’s face stood out more starkly. “Any enemies of his—and yours—that I should know about?”
Another look of distaste passed over Lord Bancroft’s countenancebefore he took a sip of his tea. “I have asked myself the same. We and the work we did for the crown were not known to the public. We collected information. Others, not I and certainly not Underwood, made decisions based on what we learned. If any ramifications of those decisions provoked anyone into retaliation, I should think their wrath would first fall on the decision-makers, and not on those of us who were mere intelligence gatherers.”
Charlotte knew something of his official responsibilities because of Lord Ingram, but it had always been evident that she knew only a fraction of what Lord Ingram did and that he in turn had known only a fraction of everything under Lord Bancroft’s purview.
No doubt Lord Bancroft’s subordinates had gathered intelligence. But had that been their sole activity? What else had he—and Mr. Underwood—done during those years when he had been entrusted with many of the empire’s secret portfolios?
“Ash once said to me, ‘Empires are not built with clean hands.’ Surely you have staged less benign schemes during your tenure.”
“And surely, had I done that, I’d have been careful to leave no calling cards. Underwood likewise.”
In other words, Mr. Underwood’s disappearance was not related to their work on behalf of the crown. “Then what about activities that were not sanctioned by the crown? Could they have caused someone to harm Mr. Underwood?”
Lord Bancroft gave her a thin smile. “I have never participated in or condoned any activities that were not sanctioned by the crown. And neither has Underwood.”
Of course, Lord Bancroft had never officially admitted to any wrongdoing. The parties who had purchased state secrets from him were not going to step forth to help with his prosecution. And the properties that the crown had confiscated, in the wake of the discovery of his treachery, could still, if barely, be explained away as having been paid for by some long-ago parental largesse combined with subsequent gains on the stock market.
But why this insistence of blamelessness? It was not going to convince her, the discoverer of his guilt, otherwise. And incomplete knowledge would only hamper her search for Mr. Underwood.
“If Mr. Underwood’s disappearance had nothing to do with his professional life—or yours—then what could have caused it?”
Lord Bancroft ran his fingers down his sparse beard. “He might have made enemies in boxing gymnasiums.”
“He boxed?”
Boxing was a sport beloved by gentlemen and ruffians alike. But the kind of gymnasiums Lord Bancroft referred to, which seemed to exist on every other street in London, were not genteel establishments. They used the upper floors or back parlors of pubs, ran matches that didn’t follow the Marquis of Queensberry rules, and engaged in prizefighting, which was not precisely legal.
“Why, hello, young lady!”
Charlotte glanced over her shoulder at the man who stood at an upper-story window, waving at her from behind bars.
“My goodness!” the man exclaimed further. “I thought I was hallucinating. But you are real and you are a vision, miss!”
“Thank you,” said Charlotte, squinting.
