The Lady Chosen (42 page)

They all nodded. Then Charles grimaced. “Why are we still doing this—taking orders from you?”

Dalziel looked at him, then softly said, “For the same reason I’m giving those orders with every expectation of being obeyed. Because we are who we are.” He raised one dark brow. “Aren’t we?”

There was nothing else to say; they understood one another all too well.

They rose.

“One thing.” Tristan caught Dalziel’s questioning look. “Duke Martinbury. Once he has the formula, this foreigner is liable to want to tie up loose ends.”

Dalziel nodded. “That would be expected. What do you suggest?”

“We can make sure Martinbury walks away from the meeting, but after that? In addition, he’s due some punishment for his part in this affair. All things considered, impression into the army for three years would fit the bill on both counts. Given he’s from Yorkshire, I thought of the regiment near Harrogate. Its ranks must be a little thin these days.”

“Indeed.” Dalziel made a note. “Muffleton’s colonel there. I’ll tell him to expect Martinbury—Marmaduke, wasn’t it?—as soon as he’s finished being useful here.”

With a nod, Tristan turned; with the others, he left.

“A fake formula?” His gaze on the sheet containing Cedric’s formula, Jeremy grimaced. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Here! Let me see.” Seated at the end of the breakfast table, Leonora held out her hand.

Tristan paused in consuming a mound of ham and eggs to pass the sheet to her.

She sipped her tea and studied it while the rest of them applied themselves to their breakfasts. “Which are the critical ingredients, do you know?”

Humphrey glanced down the table at her. “From what I gathered from the experiments, shepherd’s purse, moneywort, and comfrey were all crucial. As to the other substances, it was more a matter of enhancement of action.”

Leonora nodded, and set down her cup. “Give me a few minutes to consult with Cook and Mrs. Wantage. I’m sure we can concoct something believable.”

She returned fifteen minutes later; they were sitting back, replete, enjoying their coffee. She laid a neatly written formula in front of Tristan and retook her seat.

He picked it up, read it, nodded. “Looks believable to
me.” He passed it to Jeremy. Looked at Humphrey. “Can you recopy that for us?”

Leonora stared at him. “What’s wrong with my copy?”

Tristan looked at her. “It wasn’t written by a man.”

“Oh.” Mollified, she poured herself another cup of tea. “So what’s your plan? What do we have to do?”

Tristan caught the inquiring gaze she directed at him over the rim of her cup, inwardly sighed, and explained.

As he’d anticipated, no amount of argument had swayed Leonora from joining him on the hunt.

Charles and Deverell had thought it a great joke, until Humphrey and Jeremy also insisted on playing a part.

Short of tying them up and leaving them in the club under Gasthorpe’s eye—something Tristan actually considered—there was no way to prevent them appearing in St. James’s Park; in the end, the three of them decided to make the best of it.

Leonora proved surprisingly easy to disguise. She was the same height as her maid Harriet, so could borrow her clothes; with the judicious application of some soot and dust, she made a passable flowerseller.

They decked Humphrey out in some of Cedric’s ancient clothes; by disregarding every edict of elegance, he was transformed into a thoroughly disreputable specimen, his thinning white hair artfully straggling, apparently unkempt. Deverell, who’d returned to his house in Mayfair to assume his own disguise, returned, approved, then took Humphrey in charge. They set out in a hackney to take up their positions.

Jeremy was the hardest to easily disguise; his slender length and clear-cut, well-defined features screamed “well-bred.” In the end, Tristan took him with him back to Green Street. They returned half an hour later as two rough-looking navvies; Leonora had to look twice before she recognized her brother.

He grinned. “This is almost worth being locked in the closet.”

Tristan frowned at him. “
This
is no joke.”

“No. Of course not.” Jeremy tried to look suitably chastened, and failed miserably.

They bade Jonathon, unhappy but resigned to missing out on all the fun, farewell, promising to tell him all when they returned, then went to the club to check on Charles and Duke.

Duke was exceedingly nervous, but Charles had him in hand. They each had defined roles to play; Duke knew his—had had it explained to him in painstaking detail—but even more important, he’d been told very clearly what Charles’s role was. They were all sure that come what may, knowing what Charles would do if he didn’t behave as instructed would be enough to ensure Duke’s continued cooperation.

Charles and Duke would be the last to leave for St. James’s Park. The meeting was scheduled for three o’clock, close by Queen Anne’s Gate. It was just after two when Tristan handed Leonora into a hackney, waved Jeremy in, then followed.

They left the hackney at the nearer end of the park. As they strolled onto the lawns, they separated, Tristan going ahead, striding easily, stopping now and then as if looking for a friend. Leonora followed a few yards behind, an empty trug hung over her arm—a flowerseller heading home at the end of a good day. Behind her, Jeremy slouched along, apparently sulking to himself and paying little attention to anyone.

Eventually Tristan reached the entrance known as Queen Anne’s Gate. He slouched against the bole of a nearby tree and settled somewhat grumpily to wait. As per his instructions, Leonora angled deeper into the park. A wrought-iron bench sat beside the path wending in from Queen Anne’s Gate; she sank onto it, stretched her
legs out before her, balancing the empty trug against them, and fixed her gaze on the vista before her, of the treed lawns leading down to the lake.

On the next wrought-iron bench along the path sat an old, white-haired man weighed down by a veritable mountain of mismatched coats and scarves. Humphrey. Closer to the lake, but in line with the gate, Leonora could just see the old plaid cap Deverell had pulled low over his face; he was slumped down against the trunk of a tree, apparently asleep.

Without seeming to notice anyone, Jeremy slouched past; he made his way out of the gate, crossed the road, then stopped to peer into the window of a tailor’s shop.

Leonora swung her legs and her trug slightly, and wondered how long they would have to wait.

It was a fine day, not sunny, but pleasant enough for there to be many others loitering, enjoying the lawns and the lake. Enough, at least, for their little band to be entirely unremarkable.

Duke had been able to describe his foreigner in only the most cursory terms; as Tristan had somewhat acidly commented, the majority of foreign gentlemen of Germanic extraction presently in London would fit his bill. Nevertheless, Leonora kept her eyes wide, scanning the strollers who passed before her, as an idle flowerseller with no more work for the day might do.

She saw a gentleman coming along the path from the direction of the lake. He was fastidiously turned out in a grey suit; he wore a grey hat and carried a cane, held rigidly in one hand. There was something about him that caught her eye, tweaked her memory, something odd about the way he moved…then she recalled Duke’s landlady’s description of his foreign visitor.
A poker strapped to his spine.

This had to be their man.

He passed by her, then stepped to the verge, just short of where Tristan lounged, his gaze fixed on the gate, one
hand tapping his thigh impatiently. The man pulled out his watch, checked it.

Leonora stared at Tristan; she was sure he hadn’t seen the man. Angling her head as if she’d just noticed him, she paused as if debating with herself, then rose and sauntered, hips swinging in time with her trug, to his side.

He glanced at her, straightened as she came up beside him.

His gaze flicked beyond her, noted the man, then returned to her face.

She smiled, nudged him with her shoulder, angling closer, doing her best to mimic the encounters she’d occasionally witnessed in the park. “Pretend I’m suggesting a little dalliance to enliven the day.”

He grinned at her, slowly, showing his teeth, but his eyes remained cold. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“That’s the man over there, and any minute Duke and Charles will arrive. I’m giving us a perfectly reasonable reason for following the man when he leaves, together.”

His lips remained curved; he slid one arm about her waist and pulled her closer, bending his head to whisper in her ear, “You are not coming with me.”

She smiled into his eyes, patted his chest. “Unless the man goes into the stews, and that hardly seems likely, I am.”

He narrowed his eyes at her; she smiled more brightly, but met his gaze directly. “I’ve been a part of this drama from the beginning. I think I should be a part of its end.”

The words gave Tristan pause. And then fate stepped in and took the decision from him.

The bell towers of London’s churches tolled the hour—three clangs, echoed and repeated in multiple keys—and Duke came striding swiftly along the pavement and turned in at Queen Anne’s Gate.

Charles, in the guise of a tavern brawler, came sauntering along a little way behind, timing his approach.

Duke halted, saw his man, and marched toward him. He looked neither right nor left; Tristan suspected Charles had drilled him until he was so focused on what he had to do, so desperate to get it right, that paying attention to anything else was presently beyond him.

The wind was in the right quarter; it wafted Duke’s words to them.

“Do you have my vowels?”

The demand took the foreigner aback, but he recovered swiftly. “I might have. Have you got the formula?”

“I know where it is, and can get it for you in less than a minute, if you have my vowels to give me in return.”

Through narrowing eyes, the foreign gentleman searched Duke’s pale face, then he shrugged, and reached into his coat pocket.

Tristan tensed, saw Charles lengthen his stride; they both relaxed a fraction when the man drew out a small packet of papers.

He held them up for Duke to see. “Now,” he said, his voice cold and crisply accented, “the formula, if you please.”

Charles, until then apparently about to stroll past, changed direction and with one step joined the pair. “I have it here.”

The foreigner started. Charles grinned, wholly evil. “Don’t mind me—I’m just here to make sure my friend Mr. Martinbury comes to no harm. So”—he nodded at the papers, glanced at Duke—“they all there then?”

Duke reached for the vowels.

The foreigner drew them back. “The formula?”

With a sigh, Charles pulled out the copy of the altered formula Humphrey and Jeremy had prepared and made to look suitably aged. He unfolded it, held it up where the foreigner could see it but not quite read it. “Why don’t I just hold it here, then as soon as Martinbury has checked over his vowels, you can have it.”

The foreigner was clearly unhappy, but had little choice; Charles was intimidating enough in civilized garb—in his present guise, he exuded aggression.

Duke took the vowels, quickly checked, then looked at Charles and nodded. “Yes.” His voice was weak. “They’re all here.”

“Right then.” With a nasty grin, Charles handed the formula to the foreigner.

He seized it, pored over it. “This is the right formula?”

“That’s what you wanted—that’s what you’ve got. Now,” Charles continued, “if you’re done, my friend and I have other business to see to.”

He saluted the foreigner, a parody of a gesture; taking Duke’s arm, he turned. They marched straight out of the gate. Charles hailed a hackney, bundled a now trembling Duke in, and climbed in after him.

Tristan watched the carriage rumble off. The foreigner looked up, watched it go, then carefully, almost reverently, folded the formula and slipped it into his inner coat pocket. That done, he adjusted his grip on his cane, straightened his back, pivoted on his heel, and walked stiffly back toward the lake.

“Come on.” His arm around Leonora, Tristan straightened away from the tree and started off in the man’s wake.

They passed Humphrey; he didn’t look up but Tristan saw that he’d produced a sketch pad and pencil and was rapidly drawing, a somewhat incongruous sight.

The foreigner didn’t look back; he seemed to have swallowed their little charade. They’d hoped he would head straight back to his office rather than into any of the less salubrious areas not far from the park. The direction he was taking looked promising. Most of the foreign embassies were located in the area north of St. James’s Park, in the vicinity of St. James’s Palace.

Tristan released Leonora, then took her hand, glanced
down at her. “We’re out for a night of entertainment—we’ve decided to look in at one of the halls around Piccadilly.”

She opened her eyes wide. “I’ve never been to one—I take it I should treat the prospect with enthusiam?”

“Precisely.” He couldn’t help but grin at her delight—nothing to do with any music hall but the result of pure excitement.

They passed Deverell, who’d got to his feet and was brushing himself down preparatory to joining them in following their quarry.

Tristan was an expert at trailing people through cities and crowds; so, too, was Deverell. They’d both worked primarily in the larger French cities; the best methods of the chase were second nature.

Jeremy would collect Humphrey and they’d return to Montrose Place to await developments; Charles would be there ahead of them with Duke. It was Charles’s job to hold the fort until they returned with the last, vital piece of information.

Their quarry crossed the bridge over the lake and continued on toward the environs of St. James’s Palace.

“Follow my lead in all things,” Tristan murmured, his eyes on the man’s back.

Just as he’d expected, the man paused just before the gate leading out of the park and bent down as if to ease a stone from his shoe.

Sliding his arm around Leonora, Tristan tickled her; she giggled, squirmed. Laughing, he settled her familiarly against him, and continued straight past the man without so much as a look.