Page 8 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match
“I assure you, my references are impeccable,” Mr. Sumner said, his chin notching just a hair higher. “I’ve managed the financial interests of several gentlemen of some renown. Not titled, you understand, but gentlemen nonetheless. But with your patronage—”
Ah. Mr. Sumner thought to expand his clientele into the aristocracy; an echelon of society he had not yet managed to penetrate. “I see,” Thomas said, and pitched his voice lower, just in the event that someone might be passing outside in the hall. “Did Mr. Fletcher not give you a thorough accounting of my present situation?”
“The broad strokes of it, my lord,” Mr. Sumner said. “I understand that your previous man of business…shall we say, neglected his obligations to you and your family. Mr. Fletcher seemed properly convinced that this state was to be a temporary one.”
God willing, itwouldbe. “Can I be assured that what I say to you does not leave this room?”
Mr. Sumner managed to look credibly offended, his thin lips pursing as if he’d bitten into something sour. “My lord, I have yetto betray the confidence of a client.”
Good. And he had to be trustworthy, did he not, if Fletcher had let him have the handling of his finances? “I have nothing,” Thomas said. “Nothing at all. My bank accounts have been emptied, my investments dissolved—if indeed they were ever properly made in accordance with my wishes to begin with. I have no money with which to pay you for your services, and I won’t have unless and until I can find the miserable son of a bitch who robbed my family blind.”
Mr. Sumner’s brows drew together in a brief display of sympathy. “My condolences,” he said. “Unfortunately, it is hardly the first time I have heard of unscrupulous men taking advantage of their positions. However, I would be remiss if I did not inform you that when one is in such a business as I am, one makes a goodly number of contacts necessary to protect the families in one’s care. As safeguards, you understand, against unprincipled parties who might find themselves moved to unsavory acts.”
“Unsavory acts?”
“In indelicate terms,” Mr. Sumner said, “acts such as blackmail, extortion, coercion. When one is in a position of power and influence, one occasionally becomes the target of such schemes. On a number of occasions, I have been called upon to engage investigators to track down the villains responsible. Naturally, I maintain relationships with those that aid me in better serving my clients—”
“Do you mean to tell me,” Thomas said, laying down his pen, “that you can engage an investigator to aid me in hunting down my missing man of business?”
“I count several former Runners amongst my connections,” Mr. Sumner said. “Good men, all. Trustworthy, competent, and best of all, discreet. If they are not otherwise engaged, I could employ as many as ten.”
Ten? Hell, evenonewould be one more than Thomas would have preferred to have to make use of—even if he was the most discreet man in the damned country. So many men making inquiries, even subtle ones, were bound to be noticed by someone. Rumors were quick to spread and difficult to quell. Perhaps there had already been whispers, and he could hardly afford more. He swiped one palm across his jaw, feeling the raspy burn of a new growth of beard. “Just one,” he said. “Whomever you deem most capable.”
Sumner’s jaw worked in incredulity as he searched for the words that would convince Thomas to reconsider. “One? My lord, I must—”
“One.” Thomas pulled back his shoulders and lifted his chin in an affectation of the sort of arrogance a peer was meant to embody, to use to his advantage. “I cannot stress enough, Mr. Sumner, how imperative it is to keep my name off of the wagging tongues of the gossips who pervade theTon. My family’s reputation depends upon it. I don’t want half a dozen men combing London and beyond, no matter how discreet they might be. There is no surety that those to whom they might speak will prove equally discreet. One fellow poking about might be easily overlooked, but several? That is likely to draw attention. Too many cooks spoil the broth, so to speak.”
“I see.” Mr. Sumner said, though he plainly disagreed. “Of course, I shall defer to your better judgment in this matter.”
“Just the one, then. Your best,” Thomas said, and he passed the sheet of paper across the desk to Mr. Sumner. “These are the debts that must be handled immediately. Today, if at all possible.”
“With all haste, naturally.” Mr. Sumner tucked the paper into the leather-bound folio upon his lap. “I’ll have my man call upon you at his earliest convenience.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Thomas said. “In fact, I’m going tohave to insist upon it—discretion, you understand. He must report his findings to you, and you may pass them along to me to handle as I see fit. There is nothing worthy of gossip in a man corresponding with his solicitor.” But an investigator? That would be noteworthy indeed, and might well invite speculation.
Mr. Sumner rose to his feet, no doubt competent enough to understand that his interview was swiftly drawing to a close. “My lord, do I understand you correctly?”
“The job is yours, Mr. Sumner,” Thomas said as he rose. “Or it will be, once I’ve the funds to pay you the salary you deserve.” And that, he thought, would be all the motivation the man would require.
Chapter Four
Dressing for dinner was going to prove difficult, Mercy mused as she walked the deserted corridor. Her dressing room was full of the gowns she’d left behind after her first disastrous Season, all lovingly tended to and just as beautiful as when they had first been created. Several years out of fashion, but lovely nonetheless.
But they didn’t fit. She had been just eighteen when last she’d worn any of them, and while the once fashionably high waists of the gowns had accommodated her hips just fine, she’d grown too much in the bust to comfortably fit into them any longer. They could, however, be refashioned to fit Juliet, who was slender as a reed, and Marina, who was several inches smaller—but it was a certainty that Mercy would not be wearing them.
Worse still, she’d lost her shoes at some point in the afternoon. And her gloves. And her sketchbook. Well, notlost, precisely. She knew they were somewhere in the house. It was just that she couldn’t recall exactly where she had left them.
It wasn’t the first time she’d had to retrace her steps in the search for something she’d mislaid. Possibly it wasn’t even the thousandth.
Papa had always lovingly called her absent-minded, and the servants at home had acquired the habit of diligently collecting and returning to her anything she had happened to leave lying about, but despite her best efforts, she had never managed toquell the embarrassing pattern of misplacing things. Sometimes it felt as if they had vanished almost by magic, disappearing from her hands only to resurface elsewhere. She’d lost her house key no less than half a dozen times, left her reticule in dresser drawers or on a library shelf, or, on one particularly odd occasion, in the ice house.
Their house in the country would have been littered with her half-finished projects and discarded accessories if there were not a dozen servants about to collect them. But it had been almost a decade since she had last been in London, and the servants here had not had to wrest order out of her chaos in quite some time.
So the search for her shoes had fallen upon her own shoulders. She had had them when they had arrived, of course, but then Marina and Juliet had joined her in her bedchamber to rifle through the dressing room and exclaim over the gowns that had been left to molder in the darkened room.
She had had them when the girls had selected a few of those same gowns—most of which Mercy had never had occasion to wear—to see if the sumptuous garments could be refashioned into something less dated. She had had them, she thought, when she had taken a leisurely tour of the house to reacquaint herself with its winding corridors.
Had she had them in the library? She’d taken a glass of brandy there, while she had sketched in the afternoon sunlight until twilight had begun to purple the sky. At the very least, she had removed her gloves somewhere around then, since the graphite of her pencil lead tended to leave dark stains upon them. And if she had left the gloves there, then there was every chance the rest of her things could be found there as well.
