Lady Derring Takes a Lover - Julie Anne Long Page 0,28

of a lion, or a unicorn? It was difficult to tell.

Honestly.

“Do you dole these tokens out about the ton, Mr. . . .”

“X,” he repeated, patiently.

He ignored her question, patted on his hat, collected his coat, and disappeared into the night without another word.

The stevens hotel’s dining room was brimful of men who were wearing, or had worn, or would wear when they were back on duty, the uniform of an English soldier. All attempting to eat a breakfast somehow striking in its flavorlessness.

“Number 11 Lovell Street appears to be a boardinghouse,” Tristan told Massey.

“A boardinghouse by the docks?” Massey repeated. Puzzled. “Is that another way of saying brothel?”

“If I meant brothel, Massey, I would have said brothel. I suspect it is nothing quite so interesting anymore, even if it might have been in days of yore. Save your envy.”

“What is it like?”

“It’s appears to be very clean and it smells like a church, I saw a healthy fire in a grate in one room and there’s a little pub adjacent.”

He looked wistful. “Sounds lovely. Just like me mum’s house.”

Captain Hardy eyed him balefully. “Did your mum live in a former whorehouse near the docks?”

“I hail from Dover, Captain. Me mum’s a saint.”

A saint with eight children and a mouth on her like a sailor, Hardy knew, but did not repeat.

“And Derring’s widow is apparently one of the proprietresses. I spoke to the barmaid at the pub adjacent.”

Massey gave a long, low whistle. “That is interesting. A countess come down in the world of a certainty. Is she pretty?”

Tristan regarded him quellingly. “How on earth does that signify?”

“Pretty women can get a man to do just about anything.”

“Not this man.”

He had an errant thought: how pleasant it would have been if the maid on the ladder had needed him to do something for her. He feared he might have scrambled to do it.

“No,” Massey agreed. Long experience and observation had shown him that no one could persuade Captain Hardy to do anything he didn’t want to do.

“I did not meet the countess yesterday, Massey, nor the other proprietress, a Mrs. Angelique Breedlove. I held a brief conversation with a maid.”

It felt somehow untruthful to summarize that encounter thusly. In the same way saying “I saw a rainbow” excluded a good deal about the actual experience. “I intend to attempt to let a room. My instincts tell me there’s something going on in that building. Wait for orders from me. I’ll tell you if and when I’m settled in there.”

Massey stifled a sigh. He missed action. “Very well, sir. I’ll use the time to write to my sweetheart.”

“You have a sweetheart, Massey?” he said idly.

“Yes,” Massey told him patiently. “Her name is Emily, sir.”

Chapter Eight

And with Mr. X, the floodgates, such as they were, seemed to open the very next day.

“Margaret is very shy, you see, so I do most of the speaking for both of us. She tends to whistle when she talks and it’s quite hurtful when people make fun.” Miss Jane Gardner’s watery pale eyes were pinkish at the rims.

Margaret Gardner glanced up from between her eyelashes. She smiled, swiftly and sadly, then looked down at her lap again.

Based on that glimpse, Margaret’s mouth was equal parts teeth and gaps.

Delilah, sitting alongside Angelique on the opposite settee, ached for her. Miss Margaret Gardner’s eyes were small and she had a blunt nose and what appeared to be a scar beneath her ear, as though someone had lunged at her with a knife with murderous intent.

Life had not been benign to the Gardner sisters.

Dot had admitted the two of them into the reception room at half past nine, ten minutes ago, then roared up the stairs to the little drawing room in a pitch of excitement.

“We’ve a pair of sisters what be lookin’ for a room! They look somewhat decent!”

While this was not a triumphant endorsement, hope surged painfully.

Delilah and Angelique removed their aprons, smoothed their hair and skirts, their version of donning battle armor, and headed downstairs.

They found two women sitting side by side on the blue settee, looking about the room with bemused expressions.

It was a bit difficult to quite get a sense of how old they were, but if their clothing was any indication, they’d been sealed up in a room for a decade or more, much like The Grand Palace on the Thames itself. They were swathed in shawls, probably two apiece. They were, in fact, dressed as modestly as nuns, in dark brown and