already worked it out,” he snapped, dragging his hands through his hair. “She worked for me occasionally, attending meetings, warning me of anything dangerous that came up.”
“She cleaned the study,” Griz recalled. “You left her the addresses to find.”
“On the desk. It worked well, meant there was no need for communication in front of the rest of the household.”
“Were you her lover?” Griz blurted.
His jaw dropped. “What do you take me for? She was Her Grace’s maidservant!”
Griz shrugged. “I know nothing of how you conduct your affairs.”
“Discreetly and away from home,” he said flatly. “Which is so much not your business that I shouldn’t even need to say it.”
“Well, the household noticed her penchant your company.”
“For my study. She left brief reports here, too.”
“Did you send her to the opera house? To Mudd Lane?”
“No.” His lips twisted. “Actually, the last place I asked her to go was the Blue Horse.”
“The Hungarian evening,” she said slowly. “That’s why you were there because she couldn’t go. And that must have been why she wanted to see Dragan, to warn him… Horace, are you investigating him?”
“He and one or two friends have come to our notice,” Horace said carefully. “But I cannot discuss that.”
“You will have to. I like him. He is a friend.”
“Don’t you find him a dashed odd friend for a duke’s daughter?”
“No,” she said uncompromisingly.
To her surprise, he merely shrugged, and since she didn’t have to fight for her friendship, she returned to the matter of Nancy’s notes.
“Seven Dials,” she said abruptly. “Why did you send her there?”
“I would never have sent her to such a place,” he said, clearly affronted.
Griz raked through the scraps and found the alehouse address. “That is an alehouse in Seven Dials.” Even as she said it, she realized the writing was in a different hand.
She hadn’t noticed before. She had merely assumed it had just been scribbled in more haste than the others, but now that she truly looked…
She reached for the document with Gabriel’s note, but Horace had already swiped the scrap of paper from her fingers.
“I didn’t give her that. It’s in her own handwriting.”
Griz stared at him. “She sent herself to Seven Dials? Why would she there? Horace, do you have cause to know underworld characters like Art Dooley and Goddard?”
“Goddard dabbled in sedition, so yes. But I would never have sent Nancy into such a place. It was a damned rookery, and I doubt that tavern of yours is any better.”
“It’s run by his rival in Seven Dials. Art Dooley.”
“Maybe it was just a name she heard and wrote down the address to give it to me. Perhaps he is up to the same tricks as Goddard.”
Perhaps he was. After all, the unused pamphlets had ended up in Art’s alehouse. But she could hardly tell Horace she had been there to witness that, not when he had been so appalled about the idea of Nancy going there.
“Do the police know Nancy worked occasionally for you?” she asked.
“No, there was no need. She was not in Covent Garden about my business. Her killer is some random cut-throat that they will find in time. Please, Griz, stop poking around!”
Chapter Nineteen
Nick, who seemed quite contented with his life at Kelburn House, had clearly got over his fear that Griz would send him back to Art or someone very like him, for he accompanied her to the soup kitchen without fuss on Saturday. He worked with a will, greeting their “customers” with good cheer and just a hint of superiority. He even spoke to Mr. Wells, Bill, and the ladies without swearing.
It was Nick who saw Dragan first, dropping his broom and haring over to meet him. However, he skidded to a halt before anyone could imagine he might want to hug him and thrust out his hand, grinning.
Dragan shook it solemnly, and the boy immediately raced back to work. Looking amused, Dragan strolled through the hall to join her in washing and drying dishes. “He seems to have come a long way.”
“He has. He barely swears at all now, and nothing at all has gone missing.”
“Your Mrs. MacKenna must be a fearsome woman.”
“She’s strict,” Griz allowed. “But she never bullies and does not tolerate such behavior in anyone else. He goes to bed every night warm and well-fed and unafraid. And he isn’t afraid of working for it.”
“Will you keep him on, train him in service?”
“I don’t know yet. I was thinking of taking him to the country when we go in the