means of obtaining same.
Their time in London had been productive, however. It had been Cheevers’s suggestion to check the employment agencies, and with others set to watching in the park, Helmsley had taken his sisters’ miniatures and made the rounds. The third agency had recognized Anna’s portrait immediately, as her case was memorable: Young, not particularly experienced but obviously very genteel, they’d been able to place her in the household of a ducal heir, no less, and she had worked out there
Not too beautifully, Helmsley hoped, as Stull could be very nasty when thwarted. In the brief glimpses Helmsley caught of his sister the previous night, Anna had seemed comfortable with the earl but not overly familiar. He hoped for her sake that was the extent of the earl’s interest in his housekeeper.
And Morgan, he realized, must have been stashed somewhere else, perhaps absorbing all of Anna’s wages with her upkeep. The agency had been forthcoming—for a price—with the information that his lordship was again in the market for a housekeeper, this time for a newly acquired property in Surrey.
Stull’s plan had been to draw the earl out to Willow Bend then hie into the city and snatch the housekeeper from under his nose. With Anna in their grasp, it would have been short work to extract Morgan’s location from her. It was, like most of Stull’s endeavors, clumsily done—and now they had the King’s man nosing about, looking for arsonists, which was no small worry.
Arson, even if only the stables burned, was a hanging felony, though they’d be tried in the Lords and probably get transported instead. Helmsley wondered for the millionth time why
Stull, greedy shoat, wanted them both, and Helmsley had agreed it would be better for the sisters that way —and easier for him, than if he had to live with either of them when this debacle was complete. And deaf as she was, Morgan’s options were limited at best, earl’s granddaughter or not.
Stull patted his lips with his napkin, chugged his ale, and belched contentedly. “What say we check in with those fellows watching the park, and perhaps find one of their confreres who might keep an eye on this Westhaven’s townhouse, eh? Sooner or later, a housekeeper must go to market, run her little errands, or have her half-day. We can snatch my Anna then, and the earl will be none the wiser.”
“A capital idea,” Helmsley agreed, rising. It had actually been his idea, proffered as an alternative to torching the earl’s country retreat, but Stull was not the most receptive to another’s notions once he’d got the bit between his teeth.
Stull rubbed his hands together. “And then we can have a lie down through the worst heat of the day, before turning ourselves loose on the evening entertainments, what?”
“Splendid notion.” Helmsley dredged up a smile. In London, the better brothels kept out the likes of Stull and himself. Titled though they were, Helmsley had never taken his seat, and Stull had probably voted exactly twice since coming into his title. They were not… Connected. They were instead caricatures of the sophisticated lordlings on the town, having neither savoir faire nor physical appeal.
With any luck, they would soon be in possession of both of his sisters and on their way back north. Helmsley’s pockets would be heavily lined with Stull’s gold and his conscience numbed by as much alcohol as a man could consume and remain alive.
“I tell ye, guv, the bird ain’t there.” The dirty little man spat his words, disdaining his betters with each syllable.
“She has to be there.” Helmsley threw up his hands in exasperation. “You set men to watching both the front and back of the house?”
“Lads, not men,” the man replied. “Lads be cheaper, more reliable, and not so fond of their ale, nor as apt to wander off when they’s bored.”
“And in four days,” Helmsley went on, “your… boys haven’t left the place unattended once?”
“Not fer a bleedin’ minute. No bird, at least not the one in yer little paintin’. Maids and laundresses and such, but no lady bird like you showed us. Now where’s me blunt, guv?”
“Stull!” Helmsley bellowed, and the baron lumbered out of his room into their shared sitting room. “The man wants his blunt.”
Stull frowned, disappeared, and reappeared, a velvet bag in hand. Too late, Helmsley realized the cretin they’d hired to manage surveillance of Westhaven’s townhouse was eyeing the velvet bag shrewdly.
“Your coin.” Stull counted out the payment carefully and dropped it into the man’s hand from a height of several inches above his palm. “Now be off with you. She’s there, and we know it. Your job is to tell us when she leaves the house.”
“Not so fast,” their hireling sneered. “You pay us for the next four days, too, guv. Unless you want me sorry self gracin’ yer ’umble abode again.”
Slowly, Stull counted out another fistful of coins.
“My thanks.” The man smiled a gap-toothed grin. “If we see the bird, we’ll send a boy.”
He took his leave, and Stull shrugged, much to Helmsley’s relief.
“We’ll find her,” Stull said. “She’s got a decent job, probably making enough to look after Morgan, for which we must give my Anna credit, and when she pokes her nose out of that earl’s townhouse, we’ll snatch her up and be gone. I’m for a little stroll down to the Pig, Helmsley. You can come along and put in a good word for me with Wee Betty?”
Helmsley smiled thinly and reached for his hat and gloves. He was of the mind that Anna had once again given them the slip, just as she had in Liverpool a few weeks after leaving Yorkshire. He was damned,
Anna had given her word, in writing, and Helmsley was going to see she kept it—or died trying. Either way, the result was the same for him: His troubles would be over, and so would hers.
“I TELL YOU, IT’S TIME TO GO HOME,” HELMSLEY SAID for the fourth time.
“Not when we’re so close,” Stull argued in a whispered hiss. “The lads in the park saw that girl again, the one who looks like Morgan, and they trailed her to Mayfair, just a few streets over from the earl’s home. I’m telling you, we’ve found them both.”
“Morgan is deaf and mute,” Helmsley shot back. “No deaf mute is going to be coddled in the great homes of Mayfair, not in any capacity. Even the footmen have to be handsome as lords, for chrissakes.”
Stull glared at him sullenly. “I am beginning to think you don’t want me to find your sisters. You’d rather have them wandering the slums of London with no protection whatsoever, when their every need will be met in my care. What kind of brother are you, Helmsley, to abandon the chase now, when they’re almost in our grasp at last?”
He was an awful brother, of course. The question was ludicrous coming from Stull. But he wasn’t a stupid brother, particularly, and if he was ever to get out of debt, he needed to find Anna and Morgan, hand them over to Stull, and let them make shift as best they could. They were damnably resourceful; their haring all over the realm for two years on little more than pin money proved that much, at least.
But did he really want to be there when Anna realized what he’d done? When Morgan dissolved into tears? When they realized the extent of his betrayal?
“What aren’t you telling me, Helmsley?” Stull’s look became belligerent. “You threw in with me when the old man died, and don’t think you can turn about now. I’ll go crying to the magistrate so fast the Lords won’t be able to protect you.”
Lie down with dogs, Grandpapa used to say, and you wake up with fleas.
“I’m not like you, Stull.” Helmsley tossed himself down in a chair, affecting a manner of dejection. “I have been nothing but a burden and an expense to you on this trip. One has one’s pride.” He managed just the right ashamed, glancing connection with Stull’s eyes and saw the baron’s ponderous mind catching the scent.
“You found those fellows to watch the park and the earl’s house,” Helmsley went on. “You thought of drawing Westhaven out to the country with that fire, you provide all the blunt for the whole scheme, while I merely stand by
