Page 2 of An Unbending Lady for the Desperate Earl
“Have you heard much from the Pelsley residence?” The butler turned his weary face up to the streaked sky, taking in the vibrant bolts of orange and pink that signaled the sun’s rising.
The valet shook his head. “Not too much, to be honest. The family is beside themselves, as you’d imagine. I mean, wouldn’t you be? How can a young lady simply disappear without a trace?”
“It is very perplexing,” the butler replied, though he felt a hint of gratitude that these terrors had not afflictedhisplace of work. They had no daughters, which meant they were likely safe. Unless this vile individual started kidnapping the wives, too—he didn’t like to dwell on that too much.
“Shouldn’t you be at your work, instead of chattering away like a pair of finches?” A voice cut through the frosty dawn, making the two men turn in surprise. Miss Victoria McCarthy emerged from the rolling fog of the street opposite, her cloak giving a haunting silhouette as she approached. Her fierce near-black eyes narrowed at the duo, while she pushed away a strand of her unruly dark locks.
She had heard the two fellows talking on her way to the Pelsley residence and had not been able to resist stopping to chide them. She loathed gossipmongers with a passion, especially when they attempted to speak of whattheywould do in an investigation, when she knew they wouldn’t lift a finger if they were actually encouraged to.
“And who are you, to speak to us like that?” the valet scowled.
“An investigator, determined to get to the bottom of who has commited these awful deeds,” she replied coolly, bracing herself for the scorn that would undoubtedly follow. It was the same wherever she went. Sometimes, the words altered, but the sentiment never did.A female investigator? Why, how queer. You will be telling me you have garnered permission to vote, next! Should you not be at home, with a husband and some children to distract yourself from men’s duties. Surely, you cannot be serious? A female investigator—who would have thought it possible!
She had heard it all.
“You?An investigator?” the valet snorted. “Why then, these poor young ladies have no hope of being recovered.”
“Then perhaps you might like to make good on your proclamations, sir?” Victoria shot back. “As you said, if you were the one in charge, you would have the villain in chains by nightfall. If you think you are capable of doing a better job than I, then perhaps you ought to.”
The valet paused. “I haven’t the time, given my employment.”
“No, I thought not.” Victoria smirked. “Now, if you would be so kind as to point me in the direction of the Pelsley residence, I will leave you to your aimless witterings.”
The butler chuckled. “My, you are a spirited creature.”
“Someone has to be,” Victoria replied.
“I pity the man who falls in love with you.” The butler grinned, somewhat impressed by the feisty young woman.
“Then it is fortunate for me that I never plan to avert my attentions to the institution of marriage. I’m already married to the position of investigator—that is the only husband I shall ever need or want.” Victoria tucked the same wild curl of raven hair behind her ear. “Now, the Pelsley residence, if you please?”
The butler laughed. “Yes, perhaps thatisfortunate, for you are likely to eat any potential suitor alive.” He slowed in his hysterics. “As for the Pelsley residence—when you reach the end of the street, turn left, and then left again. Follow the road for a short while, past the gated garden, and you will find their townhouse midway along the curve of houses.”
“Gratitude, sir.” Victoria was about to move away, when she turned back. “And, if you do find an urge to assist in our investigation, please do make yourself known on Bow Street.”
“You’re a Runner?” the valet looked dumbfounded.
She smiled. “Goodness no. I am far, far better.” With that, she turned on her heel and set out for the Pelsley house, satisfied that she had managed to get the final word. For, if there was one thing she loathed more than gossipmongers, it was men who thought themselves superior to her. She didn’t care what the law or society claimed; there were very few in this world who could do what she did and, to her mind, that made her equal to any man in the same employ as she. And certainly equal, at least, to those who were not.
You’d be proud of me, Papa, for teaching him a lesson.She smiled sadly to herself as she walked, thinking of her beloved father, Solomon McCarthy. He was the man who’d taught her everything she knew about the investigative world. A family business, which had fallen to her when her parents hadn’t succeeded in siring a son and heir. Though her father had treated her as though she were a son, caring nothing for her femininity. She missed him every day, but more so when a case came calling.
Once, they had been a formidable duo, even though she had been the assistant then. Now, it was up to her to carry on the legacy that her father had created. Her mother distained it very much, but she understood Victoria’s need to help those who had been harmed, and to rid the world of dastardly creatures. Her mother’s, albeit reluctant, support would always mean everything to Victoria, as it was hard enough to have everyone else spurn and scorn her, without having to contend with the same from her remaining family.
Pulling her cloak tighter around her chin, to take the edge off the biting cold that crept in, Victoria stared up at the blank-eyed windows of the houses she passed. She thought of all those resting soundly in their beds. Well, perhaps not so soundly these days, considering the threat that loitered in the air. But no light shone outward, at least not from the upper floors. The staff would have been awake for at least an hour, but high society did not know the meaning of an early morning.
I wonder if there would be a such an uproar if one of the staff had vanished without a trace, or if a common young woman from the docks, or the markets, or the canals had been taken from their bed.
Her contemplation came with a bitter twist of irony, for she knew full well that such furor would not have manifested, had the victims been ordinary girls. She knew that, because ordinary young women went missing all the time, from every poor district, and none but their families and friends deigned to care for their fate. Even the Bow Street Runners could only do so much, with the magnitude of crime that infested the city.
Turning the corner onto the sweeping crescent of townhouses, just past the gated garden that the butler had mentioned, it became immediately clear which house belonged to the Pelsley’s. Carriages lined the cobbled road, and clusters of men in black, woolen cloaks stood talking to one another. Puffs of condensation drifted up like tobacco smoke with every hushed word.
Without hesitation, Victoria strode up to the first cluster of grim-faced men. She recognized a few of them—some worked for Bow Street, while others worked under their own steam as private investigators. All and sundry had come out to assist on this latest case, and for good reason. Whomsoever managed to crack this mystery would undoubtedly be lauded with fame and fortune.
“Ooh, watch yourselves, fellas. The Vixen’s sniffed out our scent.” A grizzled older man with thinning gray hair and tufty white whiskers smiled upon Victoria’s approach. Admiral Benedict Thomson; her father’s oldest friend, whom she’d known since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. Indeed, after her father passed, Benedict had become something of a father to her. As well as her continued mentor in the investigative realm.
“Ah, the name stuck, then?” Victoria chuckled, and refused the offer of a nip of whisky from another investigator’s hipflask. It might have been a cold morning, but she needed to keep her wits sharp.
Benedict nodded. “’Fraid so, McCarthy.”
