A Pretty Deceit Page 25

  Sidney and I were both quiet as we returned to our flat in Berkeley Square. The long days and restless nights had taken their toll, and I wanted nothing more than to retire to my bedchamber and remain there until the morning, but there was much to be done before we set out for Littlemote. Regardless, I knew my mind would never let me sleep for long. It was too busy turning over all the facts we knew and reexamining the questions we didn’t. Not to mention my recurring nightmare of what had happened along the road to Bailleul.

  Sidney set our bags down next to the bureau in the entry while I removed my hat and gloves and fluffed my hair in the mirror. His valet Nimble wandered in to greet us, and as usual I could hear his clumping approach before I saw him.

  “Take our luggage into the bedchamber, if you please. And best start repacking them,” Sidney added wearily. “We’ll be off again at first light.”

  “Yes, cap’n,” he replied, addressing him as he had when he served as his batman during the war. Sidney had told him numerous times he was merely a mister now, but Nimble persisted in this form of address all the same. It was a peculiar bit of stubbornness from a man who otherwise seemed incredibly compliant.

  As such, when he stood his ground, instead of bending to pick up the bags, I looked at him in question. But his gaze was trained on something over my shoulder, and I turned to see our housekeeper, Sadie Yarrow, standing in the opening to the corridor that led to the dining room and kitchen. She wrung the hem of her apron in her hands, at first seeming to dry them and then to buff them to a pristine finish. It was clear that something had unnerved her, and just as clear from the quiet challenge in Nimble’s eyes that he expected her to tell us about it.

  “Y-you had a caller while you were gone,” she stammered, looking up at me through the fringe of her heavily lashed doe eyes. “A Lord Ardmore.”

  I struggled not to show my shock, for I knew it would only alarm Sadie more, but I was not very successful.

  She hunched her shoulders, making her already tiny frame even smaller. “I-I tried to tell him you weren’t at home, but h-he pushed his way past me.”

  “Barreled over her, more like,” Nimble grumbled. “Him and his man.” His large hands clenched at his sides, and the scar blistering the left side of his face near his hairline stood out white against his pink skin, telling me how much he was repressing his anger. “They musta waited until I left, off to purchase more starch and laundry soap, knowing they could intimidate Mrs. Yarrow.” He turned to Sidney. “Found his man in the bedchamber when I returned.” He nodded at Sadie. “And his lordship out here bullying Mrs. Yarrow.”

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled tearfully. “I didn’t know what to do, and . . .”

  “There’s no cause for apology,” I told her, pressing a hand to her shoulder as she dabbed at her eyes with her apron. “Had I even dreamed that foul man would come here, I would have warned you. And Nimble.”

  “Did they take anything, as far as you can tell?” Sidney asked his valet while Sadie only seemed to weep harder.

  “Not that I could tell. But then he scurried out right fast when he caught sight of me.” He rolled his broad shoulders. “There are some advantages to bein’ this size.”

  “Whatever he said to you must have been perfectly terrible,” I said, trying to empathize with Sadie.

  She nodded jerkily.

  “Will you tell me what it was?”

  She sniffed and hiccupped. “It . . . it wasn’t just what he said. He . . . he tried to . . . to . . .”

  “He was tryin’ to blackmail her,” Nimble finished for her, his glower promising Ardmore retribution for upsetting Sadie so.

  As relieved as I was to discover Nimble harbored quite a chivalrous and protective streak, I was more concerned with our maid. For I had long suspected she was hiding something. Something that, with all my own secrets, I’d been content not to pry into. But if Ardmore had been attempting to blackmail her, then he must have uncovered it, and I didn’t know what that meant for her if he followed through on his threats.

  “Come with me to the kitchen,” I urged her, knowing this conversation would be easier conducted without the men listening.

  She went with me willingly, with the look of a woman going to the gallows. It made my nerves tighten with dread at what she might have been keeping from me. I sat her down at the kitchen table and then sank into the seat across from her. Late sunlight filtered through the floral curtains, falling across her drawn features.

  “I know I promised you I wouldn’t pry into your personal affairs.”

  Her shoulders tensed.

  “But if Lord Ardmore is attempting to blackmail you, then I can only assume he discovered something you wish to remain hidden. That he threatened to reveal it if you didn’t tell him what he wanted to know about me and Mr. Kent.”

  Her eyes flickered like a frightened animal.

  “Am I right? Was he asking you to spy on us?”

  She nodded, just the barest movement of her head.

  I cursed Ardmore for the piker he was, intimidating someone as meek as Sadie, simply to get to me. That was lower than low. And I wasn’t about to let him get away with it.

  “We can help you,” I assured her. “But I’m afraid in order to figure out how to foil him, I need you to tell me what he threatened to reveal.”

  Her hands shook as she lifted them to the edge of the table. She laid them flat against the wood, staring intently at them as if they somehow held the answers.

  “I hate that it’s come to this. I truly do. But without knowing how he’s threatened you, there isn’t much we can do short of whisking you away from here.”

  She looked up in distress.

  “And I know you don’t want that,” I continued carefully, wondering if she realized how much she’d just exposed. “I know you go home to someone every night. Someone that perhaps relies on you to care for them.”

  “H-how do you know that?”

  “It’s a logical deduction. I know you value being allowed to live out. That without that perk, you might resign your post.” I studied her skittish demeanor. “Am I right?”

  Her brow furrowed, perhaps refusing to confirm this in words, though her silence spoke volumes.

  I reached across the table to take one of her hands. “Please, Mrs. Yarrow. Let us help you.” I could feel her trembling as she considered my offer.

  But then she shook her head, pulling her hand away. “No. No,” she repeated. “He didn’t actually say . . . outright . . .” She broke off, seeming short of breath. “Maybe he doesn’t know.”

  “And if he does?” I asked softly.

  “Then . . . then . . .” She rocked back and forth. “I don’t know. But my secrets are mine! You . . . you promised that.”

  “You’re right. I can’t make you tell me. I won’t make you tell me,” I spoke calmly, hoping to soothe her agitation. “Perhaps Nimble’s interruption will make Lord Ardmore change his mind. After all, he must expect that Nimble has told us. And so anything you might relay to him will automatically be suspect to manipulation by me.” My gaze searched her wary one. “Did he tell you how to get in touch with him?”

  She sniffled and shook her head. “He didn’t get that far.”

  I turned toward the window, wondering how much of his bullying of Sadie was real and how much for effect. After all, I already suspected him of tapping our telephone. Perhaps his attempt at blackmailing Sadie was merely a ploy to unsettle me, to make me question everyone around me and wonder who was his eyes and ears.

  “Then we’ll hope for the best.” I laced my voice with a hint of steel. “But if he should contact you again, if he should make further threats, I want you to promise you will tell me.”

  She began to nod, but I wanted to hear her say it.

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise,” she whispered.

  I figured that was as good an answer as I was going to get. Whatever Sadie was hiding, she was desperate to keep it, and that made me une
asy. I wanted to believe she would honor her promise to me, but I couldn’t be certain. Not when Ardmore had already proven to be a master manipulator and blackmailer. I would have to ask Nimble to keep an eye on her.

  I pushed to my feet to leave the kitchen when she stopped me. “He left you a message,” she murmured. “In an envelope. I set it next to the telephone.”

  I dipped my head once before retreating. I wasn’t actually surprised by this discovery. In fact, I’d initially suspected it when Sadie first told us of Ardmore’s visit. But there was a sour taste at the back of my mouth as I approached the entry bureau, one that told me I was not going to like the contents of this missive, whatever they were.

  I found it easily enough, and was surprised by the swirling cursive letters. I’d expected something more hastily scrawled, not this dramatic flourish. Sliding the vellum paper from the envelope, I unfolded it to read six words.

  Berkeley Square Garden, Sunset. Come alone.

  CHAPTER 21

  I frowned. A swift glance at the ormolu clock told me it was half past four, and on this mid-autumn day the sun would already be setting around five o’clock. How on earth could he have known I would return in time to meet him? Perhaps we’d detoured toward Littlemote, perhaps we’d cracked the code and moved on to the next drop, what then? Or maybe he’d intended to wait in the garden at the center of our square every evening until I returned. Though that seemed a tremendous waste of time.

  I could hear the murmur of Sidney’s and Nimble’s voices coming from the bedchamber at the far end of the flat, and joined them. “Nimble, when did Lord Ardmore call here?”

  He turned toward me attentively. “Just this morning, madam.” His gaze dipped toward the letter in my hand, perhaps surmising whom it was from. Sidney certainly seemed to have guessed if the black scowl he directed at the page was any indication.

  “Thank you. That will be all,” I said, dismissing him.

  He looked to Sidney for confirmation and then exited, closing the door behind him.

  “Who the devil is that from?” my husband queried once we were alone.

  “Aptly worded,” I quipped. “But first, has anything been taken?”

  “Not that I can tell.” His expression turned wry. “Though, I may not be aware of all your hiding places.”

  Ignoring this, I strode toward my vanity bench. “What of Max’s father’s letter?”

  “I didn’t want to check while Nimble was in the room, but the bench doesn’t appear to have been tampered with.”

  I nodded, deciding I would check it myself once I showed Sidney Ardmore’s message.

  “The devil you are!” he exclaimed as I knelt to flip over the bench and carefully began to remove the appropriate leg. “You are not meeting him alone!”

  “Of course, I’m not,” I replied, darting an annoyed look over my shoulder at him. “Why else do you think I showed it to you?”

  These words seemed to tame the fury leaping in his eyes. “But you mean to go?”

  I grunted as the leg came loose, and then reached into the drawer of my vanity table for a pair of tweezers to extract the rolled paper from the hollow of the leg. “We are going to go. I don’t see how we cannot. I want to know what else the bounder is up to besides frightening my maid and ordering his men to run us off the road.” Having confirmed the paper was, indeed, Max’s father’s birthday letter and not some decoy, I slid it back into place. “It’s here.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe Ardmore gave those orders.”

  “I can change my mind,” I retorted, replacing the leg on the bench and standing to stomp it back into position.

  “Allow me.”

  I backed away to sit on the edge of the bed while he drove the wood home with two solid kicks. Picking up the letter from where he’d tossed it aside, I stared down at the words with some misgiving. Not that I thought Ardmore would have us murdered in the middle of Mayfair, just steps from our flat, or that he would try to physically harm us, but whatever reason he wished to meet with me, it could not be good. Not for us.

  Glancing up, I noted that the painting of bluebells that hung across from our bed was tilted askew. “I suppose it’s a lucky thing I was trained not to keep any written documentation if it could be avoided. No letters, no codes, no notes.”

  Sidney followed my gaze to the wall, and moved to straighten the frame.

  “I know there were other agents who ignored this edict, but I always thought they did so to their own detriment.” How many times had the German Secret Police apprehended a subject because of carelessness—a report tucked under a mattress here, a suspicious list concealed behind a drainpipe there. Whenever possible, memory was safer.

  He sank down on the bed beside me. “Yes, well, be that as it may, it sounds to me like you’ve frustrated Ardmore. And that could make him dangerous.”

  “It’s not as if he’s about to assassinate us in the middle of the street,” I argued.

  He flashed me a look of irritation. “I never said he would. Such a method wouldn’t be Machiavellian enough for him. He’s more likely to stage an opium overdose or send us careening off a cliff in the Pierce-Arrow.”

  I started. “What of the... ?”

  “Rufus is taking a look at her.”

  Rufus was employed as sort of our man-of-all-work, performing the duties of mechanic, chauffeur, and any other eventualities that might arise outside our flat.

  Sidney removed a cigarette from his case, tapping it against the battered silver as he ruminated. “I told him the old girl had to be ready by morning. Not sure much can be done for the bumper in the meantime.” His gaze narrowed on my fatigue-shadowed eyes. “You truly mean to go through with this?”

  I glowered at the swirling pattern of the rug below my feet. “We need to know what he knows. And I’d like to hear what sort of misdirection he’s going to try to fob off on us.”

  Sidney’s eyes dipped to the high collar of my leaf-green traveling suit. “I’ve got a few things I’d like to say to him myself.”

  I lifted my hand self-consciously, knowing the bruising along my neck and collarbone was terrific at this point. “So long as you don’t start a brawl. You’re unlikely to come out the winner if Ardmore has his henchmen lingering about.”

  He pushed to his feet. “All the same, take that pistol Ryde loaned you.”

  “I planned to.”

  “Then if you’re determined in this, we’d best be on our way.”

  In short order, we exited our building, crossed the street, and entered the gardens through the north gate in the iron railing that surrounded the green space. For once no reporters or photographers were lingering about, wondering why we’d been missing from our usual nightly haunts. They must not have caught wind of our latest exploits. Or Ardmore had paid them to leave.

  The tall plane trees that dominated the square had burst into glorious color, their oranges and yellows bright against the purple sky. Though the sun hadn’t yet set, it was hidden behind the tall buildings to the west, which cast their long shadows over the grass. We cut straight across the gravel path that ran down the center, mindful of those around us. A number of people still lingered in the gardens, strolling the oblong circuit of the square and relaxing on the benches spaced here and there. Regardless, it was not difficult to pick out Ardmore’s men. They did nothing to draw attention to themselves, having been too well trained for that, but I knew their tricks all the same.

  We approached the weathered pump house with its Chinese-style roof at the center of the gardens, and to the left I spied Ardmore, seated alone on a bench beneath the overarching limbs of perhaps one of the oldest trees—its trunk was so wide. He didn’t look up as we drew near, instead continuing to read whatever story had captured his interest in the newspaper opened before him. His walking stick was propped between his legs. A fashionable accoutrement, to be sure, but I also suspected it doubled as a weapon, the same as it had for gentlemen in the last century.

  Whe
n he looked up, I could tell that he had been aware of our approach all along.

  “Ah, Mrs. Kent,” he declared smoothly as I sat down on the bench beside him without waiting for an invitation. “And Mr. Kent.” He cocked his head in amusement. “Why am I not surprised you insisted on accompanying her?”

  Sidney arched a single eyebrow. “Because I’m no fool.”

  “Yes, well, if you suspected me of wanting to harm your charming wife, I’m afraid, then, you are. I have no such intentions.”

  “Tell that to the bruises around her neck.”

  I hadn’t intended to reveal as much, and cast a quelling glare at Sidney, lest he give anything more away.

  “Ah, yes. And so we come to the reason why I asked you here.” He turned to look at me with his brilliant mossy-green eyes. “I’m afraid I must apologize to you, Mrs. Kent.”

  Of all the things I’d expected him to say, this was not one of them. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.

  “Major Scott and his cohorts were under strict orders that you should not come to harm, but it appears he elected to take matters into his own hands.” His gaze dipped to my collar. “So to speak.”

  Given the fact that in the past Ardmore had always been careful never to admit anything outright, I stifled the bemusement and anger simmering inside me and instead latched on to his revelation. “So you admit you sent him to follow Lord Ryde?”

  “Come now. That’s no surprise to you. Yes, I sent him to monitor the situation.” His jaw briefly tightened, hinting at his own fury. “Not interfere.” He crossed his legs, brushing an invisible piece of lint from his trousers as I continued to stare at him in vexed disbelief. “I wished to warn you, for Major Scott is no longer acting under my orders.” His eyes searched mine, avid curiosity glinting in their depths. “He seems to have a personal vendetta against you, Mrs. Kent.” That he didn’t know precisely why was obvious, just as the fact he was asking me to divulge this information without blatantly doing so.