The Love List (34 page)

She blushed a little as she recalled Aldmere’s secretary’s office, tucked in a shadowed corner, but found nothing in the four corners of the room.

The back wall was filled entirely with bookshelves.  She took up the lamp and trailed along them, running a finger along the spine of every book, looking for something suspicious—a lever perhaps, or a false book to hide a latch behind.  Damn Marstoke, but she found nothing except the fact that he possessed quite a credible library.

She reached the end and stopped.  Light from the lamp reflected off of the last of the carved and gilded wall sconces that were placed in intervals between the bookshelves. She reached up and explored the finely wrought metal with her fingers.  Nothing.  No hidden button or switch.

She went back to check the others, but each was the same as the last—until she reached the second sconce from the end.

There.  Tucked onto the back plate, but nearly invisible beneath the shadow of the elaborate metal work—a tiny keyhole.

Heart racing, fingers shaking, she set down the lamp and ran to fetch the ring of keys.  She fumbled a little as she tried the smallest specimen, but it wouldn’t fit.  The next one did.

She heard the tiny snick—and the bookcase to the left of her silently rotated out until it stood perpendicular to the wall.

Brynne froze.  She couldn’t help looking over her shoulder, though she knew she was alone in the room.  Triumph and excitement flooded her veins, along with the cold chill of fear.  She pushed it all aside.  This was what she had come for.  Dropping the keys into her pocket, she took up the lamp again and stepped through the narrow entrance.

It was a larger space than she had expected.  Cozier, too.  The wall opposite boasted a finely carved mantle, though the hearth looked clean and cool.  The wall at her left was lined again with books.  To her right a stack of paintings leaned against the wall.  In a far corner stood a curio cabinet.  From here she could see strange animal skeletons, a ratty old wig and old bits of rusted metal.

But it was the small and elegantly masculine desk in the center of the room that grabbed her attention.  Lacquered a shining ebony, she knew with a glance that it held what she was looking for.

Turning, she swung the bookcase door, leaving it cracked open a bit.  She crossed to the desk and tested a drawer.  Locked.  She sat down, uncomfortable here, as she had not been in the study.  She could well imagine Marstoke here.  He would feel safe, comfortable.  Free to scheme, to destroy and to indulge his wicked fantasies.  She fished for the correct key, burning with the need to shatter that complacent, superior image.  At last a key turned in the lock.  Determination quickened in her breast as she reached for the first drawer.

It didn’t take long this time, to find something useful.  Right away she pulled out several years' worth of copies of
The Harris List of Covent Garden Ladies
.  Each volume was well worn, with pages marked and notes made in the margin.  She stacked them on the desk and kept going.

Soon after, she found a thick file containing multiple clippings from last year’s newspapers, all pertaining to the leaked documents of the ‘Delicate Investigation’ against the Princess Caroline.  It also held a complete transcript of the original testimony from the neighbors and servants of the Princess.  All of the accusations of her flirtations and infidelities, of harassment, strange behavior, and of the supposed birth of an illegitimate child, were heavily circled, underlined and noted.  She placed the whole file with the Lists on the desk.

One find puzzled her.  In a bottom drawer sat a pile of ledgers.  She took up the smallest, perched on top, only to find several lists of initials and women’s names.  Each entry was followed by a set of dates and short notations such as
Wynwood Chapel
,
Falstaff presiding,
or
in lieu of Sarler’s debt.
  In addition, each entry ended with one of several labels:
Traded, Discarded, Transported
or
Deceased
.  An odd shiver went up her spine as she closed the cover, although she could not make heads or tails of it.  This one she replaced, although she resolved to discuss it with Hestia.

A clock struck in the study beyond, its chimes indistinct from here.  Brynne quickened her pace, though she paused at a drawer full of files labeled with individual names—dozens of them, crammed together.  She saw the Prime Minister’s name, and others from government and society’s circles, even those of well-known scientists, bankers and tradesmen.  She caught sight of her father’s name and shut the drawer abruptly.  She didn’t want to know.

In the last drawer she found only an ornate, wooden box.  She pulled it free and set it on the desk.  When she lifted the lid, a flowery, feminine scent drifted out.

Letters.  A thick stack of them.  She gasped as she caught the signature on the first one.

Quickly she began to read, one after the other.  These were airy, girlish letters, written to a confidante.  They were filled with emotion and a subtle need for understanding.  Copies of Marstoke’s replies were included, in timely order—and Brynne could only marvel at the sheer arrogance and confidence that led the man to keeping such a record.

For the coquettish missives, rife with shy confessions, indignant outrages, and pleas for advice, were written by the Princess Charlotte, only daughter of the Regent and his wife, and heir to the throne of England.  Marstoke’s answers were sympathetic, humble, avuncular and subtly steering.

Brynne set the stack down carefully.  It felt treasonous and wrong to even be reading this private correspondence.  Clearly these were not letters channeled through the Princess Charlotte’s normal post—those, it was rumored, were examined by her father’s representatives.  No, for these were full of the Princess’s loneliness, and her frustrations with both her selfish parents.  They detailed her growing resentment and reluctance toward her betrothal to the Prince of Orange, of her growing wish to break it off completely.  And through it all she thanked Marstoke again and again for being her confidante, her support, her advisor.

Brynne couldn’t imagine how difficult it must have been, how long he must have labored to nurture such a relationship.  The Princess was rarely in Court or at public functions.  Years, it might have taken.  And clearly he had the sympathy of someone in the Princess’s household too, someone willing to smuggle their clandestine correspondence.

Brynne felt nauseated.  How like Marstoke to prey upon the miseries of a young girl!  And not just any young girl, for the Princess Charlotte was the nation’s great hope.  On the whole, the English populace despised the Regent and sympathized with his wife, Princess Caroline, but it was their daughter they looked to for a bright future. 

She understood now.  The Love List would both stain the Princess of Wales and set the people into a frenzy of anger and discontent against the Prince Regent for acting the bully.  Marstoke and Hatch spoke of grand changes to come, and the Prince was so unpopular, Brynne didn’t think it would take much to spur the people to protest widely against him. 

And all along, Marstoke would be standing behind the scenes—manipulating events and acting the steady, caring mentor to the Princess as she grew into her sovereign role.

Brynne stood.  She replaced the box, but kept the letters along with the other papers she’d accumulated.  She paused, staring at the unwieldy stack, and after a moment’s contemplation she tossed the ring of keys on top, whipped off her cloak and bundled them all inside it.  She turned to go . . . then hesitated again.

Reaching into her bodice, she pulled out a wooden token—another one with a swan etched into it.  Carefully, she placed it in the very center of the ebony desk.

She wanted to leave a sign.  Marstoke would not immediately know what it meant, but imagining his puzzlement, his anger and frustration, elevated the height of this triumph.  Eventually he would learn the meaning behind it—and then he would know who had violated his inner sanctum.  He would know who had derailed his plans—just as he had knocked her life askew. 

She took the bundle, left the lamp, and paused at the cracked bookcase door.  No sound came from the study beyond.  Slowly she turned the bookcase on its pivot—and came face to face with Hatch.

Shock rippled down her spine and rooted her feet to the floor. 

“You!”  Hatch must have spotted the light coming through the cracked doorway.  Brynne had caught her creeping close, a pistol drawn and leveled. 

“You do turn up in the unlikeliest places,” the pimp marveled.  “My God, when that fool footman said my girl was already here, I had no idea what he was talking about—but I never expected you.”  Hatch looked her up and down.  “I see we both had the same idea.  Find the dirt on Marstoke while he’s guaranteed busy elsewhere.”  She gestured with the pistol toward the bulky package in Brynne’s arms and then stood on tiptoe, peering past her.  “Back inside,” she ordered.  “This I must see for myself.”

The other woman stopped to examine the pivoting bookcase.  “Where’s the trigger?”

Brynne stared, silent.

“Where?” Hatch barked, waving the gun again.

She gritted her teeth.  “The keyhole is in the wall plate of the sconce.”

The pimp reached up to examine it.  “Ah.  I knew there had to be a bolt-hole, but I admit I might not have found this.  You did well.”  Brynne grunted as the other woman shoved a shoulder into her.  “Now, move away.  I want to see it.”

Hatch pushed them both in.  “Stand away from the door,” she ordered.

Brynne moved stiffly to stand by the stacked paintings while the pimp took the few steps around the small space.  She glared at Hatch’s steady hand as the other woman kept her pistol level and trained in her direction, even as she examined the books, trailed a finger along the mantle and stopped to examine the curios in the cabinet. 

“Thumb screws?” Hatch asked with a laugh.  “Ancient torture implements?  Marstoke is in danger of appearing predictable.”  The pimp moved on to the desk.  She picked up the token and raised a brow at Brynne.  “Yours?”

“Hatch?  Hatch?  Where’d ye get to?”  The low-pitched call came from the study.

“In here!” 

The large bodyguard Brynne had encountered in the pimp’s den lumbered to the narrow entrance.  He peered inside.  “Oh, there ye are.  Found somethin’.”  He took a step back.  Shifting position, he dragged Francis Headley into view by her collar.  “She was lingerin’ outside.”

Hatch looked from Brynne to the child.  “Search her pockets.”

“I did,” the man answered.  He held up a wooden token.  “All she had was this.”

The pimp looked to Brynne again as a wide smile stretched across her face.

Twenty-One

Lord M— anticipated my collapse.  He awaited tears, pleading, paralyzing fear and despair.  He is still waiting.

—from the journal of the infamous Miss Hestia Wright

“What say you, your Grace?”

Aldmere drew himself straight, but kept a position close to the bookcase.  “I say that you’ve forgotten one important fact, Marstoke—my brother’s friendship with the Regent.”

The other man’s eyes lit up.  “On the contrary, I am counting on it.  When the List is released with your brother’s name on it, it will easy enough to convince the world that the Prince of Wales was in truth behind such an immature and slanderous attack on his wife.”  He tilted his head.  “Or did you think that you could take your tale to the Regent?”  He laughed.  “You’d be doing me a service, setting him into a paranoid frenzy.”

The marquess narrowed his gaze and Aldmere saw the moment that he decided to make the gamble.

“Do you not see how easy this will be?” Marstoke asked.  His mood had become light, almost carefree.  “Think on it.  The Regent himself has done half the work for us.  The people see him for what he is:  a deceiver, a drunkard, a voluptuary, a wastrel.  They lost respect for him years ago.  Then Brougham and his reform-minded Whigs came along and nearly finished the job.  They’ve waged a campaign against him and shown him to be an evil, abusive husband and an uncaring father.”

Aldmere kept still, but Marstoke didn’t require encouragement.  “I admit I thought first of Caroline.”  He shook his head.  “But she is too strange and unpredictable.  I leave her to Brougham, though he’ll be hard put to convince her to even stay in England.  His ambition has blinded him and he does not see her as she truly is.  No, Caroline wants to go abroad more than she wants power.  There will be no place for her in the new order.” 

Aldmere nearly choked.  “The new order?  Is that what you are calling it?  And what do you imagine your place will be?  There are a damned lot of people between a marquess and the throne.”

The man’s feral smile sent a frisson of unease up Aldmere’s spine.  “My place is in the Game, and it shall be as it ever was.  I am the Master, the Manipulator, and ultimately—the Winner.”  He waved a hand.  “The Love List will go out.  The people will be outraged.  Easy enough to drop the right hints, to seed the whispers of another ruler fallen prey to madness.  It will be the work of a moment to topple that fat fool.”  His grin shifted and a predatory gleam came into his eye.  “And that will leave the daughter.”

Rage and nausea nearly choked him.  Aldmere thought of the damage Marstoke had done to Brynne, of the further horror he’d meant to subject her to.  He recalled how that little Russian servant girl’s eyes had shifted when she mentioned his name.  He dredged up the faint rumors concerning Marstoke he’d heard whispered among the men of the ton—and he willingly shouldered yet another burden.  He could not allow the man to harm the innocent young princess.

“You do flatter me, your Grace.”  Marstoke’s expression had faded to a pleased half smile.  “But while I don’t need the throne, England’s people do need their royalty.  They shall have it, too.  I shall be content to be the power behind the crown, the hand holding the reins.  Already I hold the girl’s confidence.  Soon she will be alone and in need of an advisor.  She must marry soon, as well, and we shall choose together.  When she is ready, I will be there—her mother will lend me her support, as will most of her cousins in the Royal Houses of Europe.”