The Earl With the Secret Tattoo (4 page)

“Exactly,” said Stubing.

“But
we
know what it means,” said Reeves.

“And God knows we’ve been trying to find it,” Patrick added.

“It will turn up,” James assured his compatriots, “and when it does, Pritchard’s life
as he know it will be over.”

There was a moment’s silence as they all looked at the dull copper circle.

James blew a few motes of flour off it and put it back into his deepest pocket. “Today
I’m going to risk talking to the Sherwoods about the robbery. I looked over the old
reports again, but there’s still nothing that leaps out at me. Lord Westdale never
mentioned the talisman to the constables. He probably didn’t realize it was what they
were after.”

“But we know he had it,” said Reeves.

A bribed servant in Lord Pritchard’s house had told James so, the same servant who’d
also informed James that Lord Pritchard had sent the thugs after the two Sherwood
carriages carrying the six siblings, as well as Lady Eleanor and Lady Clare, to London.

Stubing sighed. “The servants in the House of Brady, even after all these years, are
too damned loyal. When I was among them, it was like pulling teeth to get them to
say anythin’ about the family, much less talk about a talisman that might be tucked
away in a drawer in the house.”

“And as for speaking with the Sherwood family itself,” James said, “I know we’ve also
reached a dead end. But I hope you don’t regret now that we drew a line in their case—no
seduction of the young ladies. No setting up friendships with the boys only to drop
them later.”

Patrick scratched his jaw. “Damn us for taking the high moral ground.”

“Which we abandon when we have to,” James reminded him, and remembered how he’d kissed
the selfish Clare, much to his distaste. “We know in our gut when we can and when
we must.”

“Well, the Sherwood brood can’t know you were at the robbery, Tumbridge,” Reeves warned
him. “Your maintaining cover is more important than our finding that talisman.”

“Is it?” asked James. “For five years, I’ve agreed with you. But now I don’t.” Eleanor’s
face came to him. “How much longer can we pretend we’re oblivious of Pritchard’s perfidy?
If I risk being exposed by pushing too hard on the Sherwoods, then so be it.”

“You’re too clever to bungle this, James,” said Patrick. “It’s our only hope, really.
We’ve come to the end of the road. We’ve ransacked the Brady house on Grosvenor Square—what,
four times now when the skeleton staff was there?”

They were each expert burglars.

“And if I have to take another bloomin’ trip to Ireland to paw through Lord Brady’s
estate looking for that thing, I’ll wind up shooting myself.” Stubing made a face.
“The blue-smocked housekeeper there don’t take kindly to servants with Cockney accents.”

“That’s not it.” James grinned. “She fired you—”

“’Cause I didn’t make that soda bread the way the marquess likes it,” the baker interrupted
him with a great deal of temper. “Damn her for her impertinence. I make the best soda
bread in the world!”

“Well, she dismissed me for being too slow with the candlestick polishing.” Reeves
huffed. “I’m detail-oriented, more than she. I think she was jealous.”

“Good thing she takes a few drinks once a year on her birthday,” said Patrick. “It’s
coming up, by the way. Are we making another trip?”

Stubing groaned. “Oh, God, please no. Someday, she’ll catch us. I fear her more than
I do the end of a rifle. Or Mary when she’s in labor.”

James chuckled. “All the more reason to call on the Sherwoods this morning. Only Lady
Janice and her younger sister Cynthia are in Town, but they and their mother will
have to do. Perhaps one of them will drop a clue about the talisman’s whereabouts.”

“I don’t know.” Stubing scratched his head. “Maybe we should keep going, wait for
him to slip up, or to die—”

“No,”
said James. “Because Lady Eleanor is next on the chopping block. I doubt Pritchard
will be long satisfied with Clare’s dupe to settle his debts. He’s probably accruing
new ones as we speak.”

“Yes, Viscount Henly’s wealth isn’t as vast as he lets on.” Reeves shrugged. “He cuts
corners at the shop when he can.”

“Not a good sign,” James said. “Plus Lady Eleanor’s caught on that I’m involved in
her life a little too much, and she’s out to find out more about me.”

“That’s a bit of a mess, Tumbridge.” Stubing stuck out his stubbly chin. “I might
have to dock you a week’s pay for that. How did that happen?”

James sighed and told them about the night before, from the moment Lady Eleanor burst
in on him kissing Clare to her hiding behind the curtain when Lord Andrew Wells showed
up. “The fool hoisted himself on his own petard, but she blamed me, as I purposely
brought up the whole matter of his proposing to her. She took the opportunity to let
me know she hated me for always ruining her life.”

“But we’ve nothing against
him,
” Reeves protested. “The other one who was after her, however—”

“The one we invented a job for in Australia, Rupert Hawthorne—,” said Patrick.

“Yes,” continued Reeves, “that one was an out-and-out bounder.”

“I know,” said James. “But Lady Eleanor recently found out through Hawthorne’s sister
that I’m the one who steered him in that direction. She said she’d have thought nothing
of it except that I also ruined her chances for a governess position in Yorkshire
six months ago.”

Stubing slapped a floury palm to his forehead. “Just what we need. How’d she figure
that out?”

“She wouldn’t accept the estate owner’s letter telling her he’d changed his mind about
employing her,” James said. “She wrote the housekeeper, who told her that her master
was dissuaded from hiring her by a talkative henchman who couldn’t handle their potent
Yorkshire beer and told her he’d been hired by me. Said henchman has since discovered—with
my help—that he’s better off in America.”

“And what if Lord Pritchard knows you arranged for her to lose that job?” asked Reeves.

“He might,” said James. “But I doubt it. Lady Eleanor wouldn’t tattle to a man she
despises, and he doesn’t care enough. Even if he did, I’d tell him I did it as a favor
to him to protect his stepdaughter. The baron in Yorkshire was an unfit employer,
a seducer of governesses. How angry can Pritchard be with me about that? He’ll look
cold-blooded if he is, and that’s the last thing he wants to appear.”

“Understood,” said Stubing, “but as for Wells, we’ve got nothing on him but that’s
he’s a bit lacking in social polish and has an excessive amount of pride.” He eyed
James balefully.

“You shouldn’t have interfered last night. Lord Kersey said protect her, but he didn’t
mean suffocate her. She’s an intelligent young woman. She’d have figured out Wells
on her own.”

“I know. I took it too far.” James said nothing else. What could he say? That he was
in love with her? He didn’t even want to admit it to himself, much less anyone else.

“You don’t want her with anyone, do you?” asked Reeves without a trace of his usual
disparaging tone.

Ah, the truth always came out, sooner or later, with or without help. Which sometimes
made James’s occupation as a expediter of truth feel redundant to him—even hypocritical,
because he had to hide his true identity to bring those truths to light.

“No,” he admitted to his friends in a low voice. “I don’t want her with anyone else.”

He fell in love with her during the one waltz they’d shared—the one in which she’d
upbraided him for interfering with her goal to become a governess in Yorkshire. During
that dance, he’d been everything she expected him to be: aloof, rude. He’d refused
to explain his actions in Yorkshire, and she’d been properly angry.

But the spark in her eyes had mesmerized him; her spirit had awakened something in
him he’d no idea he possessed: a sense of longing—

For home.

For someone who really knew and understood him.

By the end of the waltz, he realized it wasn’t just any bright, strong, and kind woman
he longed to look favorably upon him—to
love
him—rather than scorn him.

There was only one woman whose heart he longed to possess, and that was Eleanor.

From the first time he’d seen her as a young girl, she intrigued him. But until that
moment in the ballroom, she’d always been just that—a girl. Not a woman. Above all,
she’d been an obligation, one he’d undertaken willingly and with a heart dedicated
to his mentor’s memory.

But after a few spins about the dance floor and a softly delivered but spirited tirade—an
entirely reasonable one, if one considered the matter from her point of view—she’d
become something precious to him, all on her own.

Something precious he couldn’t have.

“It’s a bit dicey,” he said, “but I’ll not let any personal feelings get in my way.
Trust me.”

“But if you love her the way I love my Mary,” Stubing said, “you might lose your head
when we need you to keep it.”

All three of his fellow members of the Brotherhood looked at him with skeptical concern.

“I said I’d handle it.” He was annoyed with himself for confessing. “We’ve gambled
long enough. Pritchard’s our priority. All others must fall by the wayside, including
my future in the Brotherhood and—” He paused. “—my foolish interest in Lady Eleanor.”

“It’s not foolish,” said Patrick quietly.

“It is when the lady despises you,” said James, “for good reason.”

“But James—,” Stubing began.

James held up his hand. “I’m not at liberty to correct her perception of me. I knew
that when I signed up for this duty.” He knew he was glowering, but so be it. “Let’s
move on. Reeves, who’s the latest dandy to fall into serious debt?”

<#>

The drawing room at the Brady mansion was overflowing with morning callers when Eleanor
arrived. She couldn’t help feeling a bit nervous. This self-reliant household was
one of the most popular among the beau monde, and for good reason.

The blended family the Marquess and Marchioness of Brady had created when they wed
was charming, each member colorful and compelling—especially as they refused to kowtow
to the bland expectations of the polite world.

It seemed the only approval they required for being who they were was each other’s.

No wonder outsiders wanted to become a part of the Brady world in any way they could.

“Lady Eleanor Gibbs,” their butler, Burbank, announced to the crowd.

The marchioness, her vivid blue eyes sparkling and her white-blond hair coiled high
on her head, looked up from her conversation with a matron in an emerald gown and
a peacock feather in her hair. “Why, Lady Eleanor,” Lady Brady said, “it’s been such
a long time!”

Everyone else in the room seemed to stop and stare. Eleanor wasn’t exactly a social
butterfly. Much like her father, she enjoyed her own company. When she wasn’t occupied
with obligatory social functions, she preferred to meet one or two friends at the
circulating library or for walks through the park. And when she was entirely alone,
her favorite pastime was to sit at her desk and write stories about a mysterious tattooed
hero and his daring lady love.

So far, she’d sold three, anonymously, to a small publisher in London.

“It’s lovely to be here,” she said as two golden-haired young ladies sprang from their
chairs, came one on either side of her, and took her elbows.

“You must sit by
me,
Eleanor,” the younger one said. She was Cynthia, and probably no more than fourteen.
“Mama said I could join her today. The Jensen sisters always demand toast and need
help preparing it. And Mrs. Pepper is here. She always talks Mama’s ear off—”

“Cynthia,”
said the other young lady—Janice, a lithe beauty who must have been home between
terms at her boarding school in Switzerland. As Eleanor recalled, she probably would
make her come-out the following year.

Cynthia blushed. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“You can sit between us, Elly,” suggested Janice, and gave her arm a squeeze. “You
know we always love to see you. You’re like a sister, you know.”

Their enthusiasm touched her heart. Eleanor didn’t know what it was like to have a
sister who genuinely cared for her.

“Yes, we’ve all taken baths together,” said Cynthia stoutly, and plopped down on the
sofa. “At least that’s what Mama told me. I don’t remember. I was too young.”

Eleanor and Janice laughed.

“Yes, we did bathe together,” said Eleanor lightly. “How we all managed to fit into
the copper tub is beyond me. Marcia and I took turns holding you. That was the secret
to our success.”

Cynthia giggled.

Janice and Eleanor exchanged a fond look. Those days were long ago, when Eleanor’s
father had been alive and he and Mother had often taken her to stay with the Sherwoods.

“It really has been too long,” Eleanor said, laying her hand on both girls’ arms.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so…distracted.”

She had. Nothing was the same since Papa had died and she’d had to get used to her
stepfather.

But the sad truth was, Mother had not been a great friend to the marchioness, especially
after Papa died. It was as if a wall had sprung up between them. The Sherwoods had
made overtures, but Mother and Lord Pritchard always seemed to find something else
to do.

And time had passed. Happy childhood memories faded.

But today, it was as if it were old times again.

“Janice, I want to hear all about boarding school,” Eleanor said. “I long to see the
Swiss Alps. Are they as beautiful as paintings portray them? And Cynthia, what are
you studying these days?”

Both Janice and Cynthia were happy to relate their latest news and interests and catch
her up on family gossip. Marcia was still at her school in Surrey, having just achieved
the status of headmistress. Peter and Robert were away at Exeter, Peter in his final
year before he was off to Cambridge. And Gregory, Lord Westdale, had recently finished
his studies at Oxford.