puzzlement to her. She pursued me with a doggedness almost comical, I suppose assuming that one day, she would eventually wear me down. In her world, she was considered to be growing elderly-in mine, she was still a child.
She wore her favorite gown today, a worn russet velvet cut to show off her generous bosom. She'd topped it with a blue wool jacket at least ten years out of date. She was good-humored, but she hunted her flats-the gentlemen she lured to her-with a ruthlessness that made Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign to conquer Russia look like a frivolous Sunday outing.
'I'm a poor man, Nance,' I began, embarking on the familiar argument.
She winked. 'I know. Maybe I fancies ya.'
One of the other girls laughed. 'He likes ladies as bathe, Nance. You ain't had a bath in a twelvemonth.'
'Shut your yap, Margaret. I seen him first.'
Nance tucked her arm more firmly through mine. The other girls grew bored with teasing me and dropped away, turning to likelier marks. Nance lingered, strutting along beside me, smiling with her red-painted mouth.
'Ain't seen ya in a few days, Captain. You hiding from me?'
'I've been busy.' I stopped, thinking. Every day and well into the night, Nance moved all over Covent Garden, up and down the Strand, and everywhere in between. If anyone was likely to observe things there, it was she.
'What're you thinking, Captain?' she asked. 'Your eyes go all dark when you do that. Do you really know how handsome you are, or are you just teasing me?'
I ignored her. 'What would you say to earning a few shillings?'
Her eyes lit, and she melted against me. 'Ooo, thought you'd never ask.'
I frowned. 'Not for that. I am looking for a coachman. Do you speak to the ones who wait at Covent Garden Theatre?'
She gave me a look of disappointment and pushed herself away. 'Sometimes. They share a nip of gin when the weather's cold. What you want with one of them? You don't have a coach.'
'I am looking for one in particular, a coachman for a family called Carstairs. Do you know him?'
Carstairs was the name of the family who'd sent their coach for Miss Jane Thornton and her maid that fateful afternoon, so Alice had told me.
Her look turned sly. 'I could find him for ya. For a price.'
'I can give you a shilling now, and another when you find him.'
She smoothed the lapel of my coat. 'You keep your money, Captain. I'll find this coachman to a gentry-cove. You pay me then. If I don't find him, you're out nothing.' She slanted me an inquisitive look. 'What you want him for?'
'I need to ask him something. You find him and tell him to visit me in my rooms.'
'Now you got me curious. Ain't you going to tell me? I won't peep.'
'I'd rather not until I speak with him.'
Her fingers drifted down my coat. 'You know how to string a girl along. I'll find him for you, Captain. Maybe you can pay me another way.' She glanced at me from under her lashes.
I tried to give her a severe look. 'I am old enough to be your father.'
She cackled, but withdrew her hand. 'You're older than me dad, but you're that much prettier.'
'You are too kind. Now I am hungry. Let me go and have my dinner.'
She obeyed, uncharacteristically. I felt her small hand on my backside as she departed, and I watched her dart away, her hair swinging in a black wave.
As I walked on toward the Gull at the end of the square, I surreptitiously checked my pockets to make sure that all my coins were intact.
Much later that night I was wandering Cockspur Street near Charing Cross, on foot, in my regimentals.
My coat was a deep blue, with white facings and silver loops and braid. This uniform-which had cost me almost a year's pay-I had kept fine for social occasions, but on the Peninsula, I had worn another like it to ruin with sweat and mud and blood. With a carbine on my saddle and a saber at my side, I and the light and heavy dragoons had charged at everything: French cavalry, squares of French infantry we wanted to scatter, and even artillery. We'd been trained to draw our sabers at the last instant before our lines merged and met-the sound of ringing steel and the sight of a glittering forest of sabers were meant to strike fear into the enemy. But I never discovered if the enemy even noticed this spectacle, because at that very moment, they had been busy trying to shoot us, bayonet us, or slice us to pieces in return.
Now I fought a different battle, one for social acceptance and good public opinion. Both Louisa and the loathsome Horne had been right when they'd told me that recognition by Grenville was an advantage to me. Those who might not have spoken to me or even noticed the existence of an obscure gentleman from a remote corner of East Anglia-a captain who'd made no famous name for himself on the Peninsula-now sent me invitations to some of the most sought-after events in the social season.
I had been correct, too, when I'd told Louisa that they invited me only to speculate why Grenville had taken up with me.
I'd met Grenville earlier that year, at a New Year's rout at his own house. Lady Aline Carrington, a spinster who loved gossip and Mary Wollstonecraft's Rights of Women, in that order, had persuaded Grenville to allow her to bring me along. I had escorted her and Mrs. Brandon to the rout, and there met the famous Mr. Grenville.
Admittedly, I had not thought much of him on first glance, dismissing him as a dandy too full of his own opinion. I believe he sensed that, because he was cool to me, though he did not actually turn me out of his house.
Things changed when I discovered, quite by accident, that several of the extra staff he, or rather his butler, had hired for the evening, had planned to rob him. Grenville kept rare artwork and antiquities in his private upstairs sitting rooms; only a privileged few were ever allowed to view them. The gang of thieves, led, as it turned out, by the butler, had arranged an elaborate scheme to carry off these artworks.
I had made so bold as to approach the disdainful Grenville and tell him my suspicions. To his credit, he dropped his pose, listened to me, then asked me why the devil I thought so. I told him, because the footman's livery did not fit him.
The staff hired for the night had not been allowed anywhere but the kitchens and the grand reception rooms on the ground floor. It turned out that several had laid out Grenville's large footman, Bartholomew, and one had stolen his livery in order to access the upper floors. They supposed that great gentlemen never noticed what their own footmen looked like-they were hired by butlers, housekeepers, or stewards. True, very few people at the rout looked into the faces of the servants circulating with champagne and macaroons.
But Grenville had hand-picked his servants-though, he confided later, he had made a grave mistake with the butler. When we found Bartholomew, trussed up, sore, and most angry, in a retiring room upstairs, Grenville had been furious. We had rushed to the sitting room and caught the thieves in the act. Bartholomew had returned the blows laid on him in a fine show of pugilism, and I of course had the sword in my walking stick.
The next morning, Grenville had sent his carriage for me, inviting me to breakfast with him and to discuss the incident. Thus had begun our interesting acquaintanceship.
This acquaintanceship with Grenville gave me another advantage-he knew nearly everything about everyone in London, being a cultivator of minute gossip about his fellow human beings. He'd know about Horne, and possibly the Carstairs family, and what he did not know, he could easily discover.
The advantage of his acquaintance at the moment seemed small, because I couldn't run the devilish man to ground. I'd written, and he'd not replied, and I refused to write again pleading to be allowed to speak to him. I would not reject his friendship, but I refused to be his sycophant.
However, I needed his knowledge, so I'd accepted an invitation tonight, issued by one Colonel Arbuthnot, who was hosting a viewing of the latest work by an up-and-coming painter called Ormondsly. I'd accepted because I had every expectation of finding Grenville there.
Grenville was foremost in the art world, and artists cultivated his every opinion. The cream of society would wait, breaths held, as Grenville would lift his quizzing glass, candlelight glinting on the gold eyepiece, and run his slow gaze down the painting. I'd seen crowds biting lips, pressing fingers to mouths, or shifting from side to side while Grenville cocked his head, pursed his lips, backed a few steps, and then started the process all over again. At last he would render his judgment-he would either pronounce the painting a work of genius, or an abysmal failure.
