Saving Grace (Victorian Vigilantes Book 1) Read online

  Hardly surprisingly, the rest of the household had been delighted by her spectacular fall from grace, unaware that Stoneleigh had taken her in. His cock twitched as he anticipated returning to the room he had installed her in. He’d already thought of a few inventive ways in which she could express her gratitude.

  ‘Hey up!’

  Mary and Grace had arrived at the lake. Stoneleigh had stationed himself there a while back, aware that the lake was their regular destination because Grace enjoyed feeding the ducks. Several other children were doing the same thing, closely supervised by their nannies. There appeared to be a mother or two amongst them as well. One such had crouched down beside Grace, talking to a little boy of about the same age, including Grace in whatever she was saying. Both children laughed, as did Mary. ‘Who the devil is she?’ he asked aloud. ‘Wouldn’t mind introducing myself.’

  She was obviously a lady so that was out of the question. Still, a man could dream, couldn’t he? It wasn’t Lady Eva, but could it be one of her friends? The woman retreated to a bench, a safe distance away from the lake. Her child attempted to bowl a hoop that was almost as big as he was, under the watchful eye of his nurse. It was a pleasant day and the nannies seemed in no hurry to return to their respective households. Many stood in groups gossiping, others occupied the benches surrounding the lake. Grace ran out of food for the ducks and Mary encouraged her away from the lake. She looked around and then sat in the only remaining seat, beside the woman who had attracted Stoneleigh’s attention. Grace sat at her feet and appeared happy to play with a doll.

  Stoneleigh’s suspicions were alerted, although he couldn’t precisely say why. He watched closely to see if the woman engaged Mary in conversation but was interrupted when one of his men came up behind him.

  ‘Who’s the woman, Barker?’ Stoneleigh asked.

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘They seem to have a lot to talk about.’

  Barker shrugged. ‘Well, that’s women for you.’

  After several minutes the woman stood up, called to her nurse and walked away, her hand holding onto her little boy.

  ‘Barker, you and Hill stay with Mary. Don’t on any account lose her. I’m gonna follow the lady.’

  ‘She might be no one.’

  Stoneleigh ground his teeth. Barker seemed to think he could challenge Stoneleigh’s rightful position as the master’s right hand man and had recently started questioning everything Stoneleigh told him to do.

  ‘And she might be the key to it all. Just do as you’re told and leave the thinking to those with brains in their heads.’

  Stoneleigh followed in the woman’s wake but stayed a good distance back. There were a lot of people about in this area of the park, mostly women with children, but a few men as well. He probably stood out because he wasn’t as well dressed as the others but since the woman he was following didn’t once look back he had nothing to fear.

  She reached the main walk, where a carriage awaited her. Her coachman wasn’t wearing a livery, which seemed odd. Stoneleigh jumped into Woodstock’s waiting carriage and told the driver to follow the woman. Her carriage headed toward Knightsbridge and then actually along Sloane Street. That surprised Stoneleigh. He had expected her to head to a more fashionable part of town.

  Her coachman looked back several times, vindicating Stoneleigh’s decision to follow her. Coachmen didn’t generally look behind them. Fortunately there was enough traffic for Stoneleigh not to concern himself with being seen. The woman’s carriage reached Sloane Square and pulled to a halt. Stoneleigh cursed and had no choice but to drive on. There were four exits leading from the square. Which one would she take?

  ‘Go straight home,’ Stoneleigh told the coachman when their carriage was obliged to halt in traffic.

  He leapt from the conveyance hoping that the lady, whose carriage was still on the other side of the square, hadn’t noticed him. Luck was with Stoneleigh and a vacant Hansom passed him just as the lady’s carriage moved off again, blinds closed.

  ‘Follow that carriage,’ Stoneleigh told the jarvey.

  It led them to a reasonably-sized house in Chelsea—a house that it would be easy to gain access to. But first Stoneleigh needed to find out who it belonged to. He paid the driver and looked around. There was a tavern situated on the corner, which would be the perfect place to discover all he needed to know.

  ***

  Eva felt more alive with every minute she spent beneath Lord Torbay’s roof, even though she saw nothing of the gentlemen for the rest of the day and was left to her own devices. With a library of books at her disposal that was no hardship. The servants were polite and attentive, every courtesy was extended to her and, best of all, William wouldn’t appear unexpectedly, making unreasonable demands.

  ‘I am pleased to inform you that your daughter is well,’ Lord Torbay told her across the dinner table that evening.

  ‘You have heard from Mrs Grantley?’ Eva was filled with anxiety and excitement. ‘Please tell me everything.’

  Lord Torbay laughed. ‘Grace and Olivia’s son fed the ducks together.’

  Eva wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and sat forward, greedy for any scrap of information about her daughter’s welfare. ‘Gracie loves to feed the ducks. But is she all right? Did she seem unhappy about my absence? We have never been parted before.’

  ‘By all accounts she appeared well, if a little subdued.’

  ‘Hmm, subdued.’ Eva bit her lip. ‘What do you mean by that exactly?’

  Lord Torbay threw up his hands. ‘I can only tell you what has been told to me, Lady Eva.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Did Olivia notice anyone watching her?’ Isaac asked.

  ‘No, but I had one of my men driving her carriage and he thought they might have been followed from the park. They managed to lose their pursuers, if indeed they were being pursued, so all is well.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Panic surged through Eva. ‘Mrs Grantley could be in danger.’

  Lord Torbay remained perfectly unruffled. ‘Olivia can take care of herself.’

  Eva frowned. ‘You don’t seem terribly concerned about her.’

  ‘Olivia wouldn’t thank me if I interfered. Trust me, I know what I am doing.’

  ‘He usually does.’ Isaac’s censorious tone lightened the mood. ‘It’s infuriating.’

  ‘Was it worth Mrs Grantley exposing herself?’ Eva asked, unable to treat the matter in the same casual manner as Lord Torbay. ‘It doesn’t sound as though she learned anything to assist with your enquiries. Unless, you are not telling me everything.’

  Lord Torbay sighed. ‘On the contrary, I learned a very great deal, but in your anxiety for your daughter, you haven’t given me an opportunity to enlighten you.’

  ‘Then please do.’

  ‘Once Mary made the connection between Olivia and you, Lady Eva, she was most forthcoming.’

  ‘I told you she would be.’ Eva leaned forward expectantly.

  ‘It seems your husband tells everyone you have gone to the country to visit your family.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s the story he is putting about. I did wonder.’

  ‘None of his servants believe it. They all know he never lets you out of his sight and rumours abound in the servants’ hall. Anything from white slave trading to running away with a rich lover, apparently.’

  Eva glanced at Isaac, who winked at her. She was furious with herself, and with him, when she realised Lord Torbay had noticed the gesture.

  ‘I can well imagine,’ she said with asperity. ‘However, news of my absence doesn’t help your situation. What else did she tell you?’

  ‘You have a parlour maid named Rose?’

  ‘Yes, what has she to do with anything?’

  ‘Tell me about her.’

  ‘She’s my husband’s…er, well, you know.’ The gentlemen exchanged a speaking look. ‘She is always at odds with the other servants, but I actually feel quite sorry for her. It
’s shocking that William takes advantage of her, especially when she can’t refuse him if she wants to keep her position.’

  ‘Unfortunately that’s not the case. She is no longer in your husband’s employ.’

  Eva widened her eyes. ‘She is not?’

  ‘Mary says everyone below stairs is delighted by her spectacular fall from grace. She’s expecting a child, you see, presumably your husband’s, and he has turned her away.’

  ‘How dare he!’ Eva shook her head. ‘Poor Rose. I hope he at least provided for her.’

  ‘That I couldn’t say.’

  Eva shared a glance between them. ‘I am very sorry about Rose’s situation, but it doesn’t help you.’

  Lord Torbay shrugged. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘I feel rather useless, remaining here with nothing to do except put your servants to the trouble of looking after me. Tell me how I can help your investigation, Lord Torbay.’

  ‘By thinking where your husband might hide anything he has written down regarding the theft of the diamond. If we could point Franklin in the right direction, it would help enormously.’

  But it would help a great deal more if she was there to do the searching for them. Once again, someone would be endangering himself because she was afraid of her husband. ‘It will be somewhere in his study,’ she replied adamantly. ‘He has an ornate desk. It’s a monstrosity but he is inordinately proud of it. It has all sorts of drawers and hidden nooks and I believe it makes him feel like a person of consequence when he sits behind it. I have always suspected whatever evidence he collects against people must be hidden somewhere within it. He is so proud of it that he only allows the servants to polish it when he’s in the room. He doesn’t trust them not to scratch it, you see.’

  ‘His obsession over his desk and his privacy tell their own story,’ Isaac remarked.

  ‘Unfortunately he always locks both the desk and his study when he leaves the house, and he has the only key.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Lord Torbay said, ‘but I thought you said the room adjoins his bedroom.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true.’ She brightened when a thought occurred to her. ‘He also locks that door but I happen to know he doesn’t carry the key with him. He places it in a nook on a shelf behind some books.’

  ‘Franklin could get to that then,’ Lord Torbay mused. ‘He doesn’t need a key, come to that. He could easily pick the lock when the house is quiet.’

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend that he tries it,’ Eva replied. ‘My husband is resourceful and mistrusts everyone. I believe he leaves things in a certain way and would know immediately if anything had been touched. His suspicions would be aroused and everyone in the house would be under scrutiny as a consequence.’

  ‘If Franklin found the evidence we need, that wouldn’t matter. He could simply leave the house with it in his possession,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Yes, but that would warn Woodstock we were on to him and give him and whoever recruited him time to cover their tracks.’ Lord Torbay fell into momentary contemplation. ‘Franklin doesn’t need to actually remove any documents. He just needs to find the name of the man we seek.’

  ‘It sounds far too risky,’ Eva said, shaking her head.

  Lord Torbay sent her a charming smile. ‘Risk is what we excel at, Lady Eva.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps, but…no wait!’

  ‘What is it?’ both gentlemen asked at the same time.

  ‘When I said the servants polish his desk, that wasn’t exactly true. Rose was the only one allowed in there, and not just for the purpose of polishing.’ Eva paused to consider the matter, her heart racing. Perhaps she had thought of a way to help them. ‘He trusted her more than any of the others. If anyone knows where things are hidden in that study it will be her.’

  ‘And if your husband has turned her away without a second thought for her condition then she will no longer be feeling charitably inclined towards him,’ Lord Torbay said, completing Eva’s thought.

  ‘Precisely. Find Rose, offer her money and you will gain your information.’

  ‘Thank you, Lady Eva, you have been a great help. I must get word to Franklin and see if he can discover where Rose took herself off to.’

  Having finished their dinner, Lord Torbay excused himself.

  ‘I shall arrange to meet with Franklin and then I have an engagement with the Home Secretary. Please excuse me, Lady Eva. I dare say Isaac will keep you entertained.’

  ‘Good night, Lord Torbay, and thank you.’

  ‘Shall we remove to the small salon?’ Isaac suggested after Lord Torbay left them.

  Eva agreed, thinking about the house in Sloane Street as she did so, wondering if there was something she had overlooked that might be of help to Lord Torbay. She felt so useless and was convinced there must be some way in which she could help that had not yet occurred to her.

  She stole constant glances at Isaac; a gentleman in every sense of the word—handsome, principled, protective, attentive. She watched him as firelight cast his rugged profile in light and shadow, making him appear remote, unreachable. Then he turned to meet her gaze, fixed her with a lazy, somnolent smile and her heart did a strange little flip in her chest. Something was about to happen between them. She instinctively sensed it, even though he had not said or done anything inappropriate. There was just something—a tension fuelling the atmosphere that made her understand she was on the brink of a discovery that would change the entire path of her life.

  Eva waited for guilt to grip her when she realised she was thinking the previously unthinkable. She ought to be disgusted by her lack of self-restraint. There was a name for women like her. Then she remembered Isaac’s shocked reaction when he learned she had never had any control over her own destiny and decided she was overdue for a little pleasure. Disgust could mind its own wretched business.

  It was wonderful to be amongst people whom she respected and whose good manners were as natural to them as breathing. That was something William would never understand. No amount of money could make him what he was not.

  ‘Are you really all right?’ Isaac asked, having taken the seat beside her, from which he watched her with unnerving stillness.

  ‘Yes, thanks to you. I feel better than I have for a very long while. But for Grace I would be−’

  Isaac smiled at her. ‘You want to help.’

  She permitted her surprise to show. ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘You’re a mother, frightened for your child’s welfare. Inactivity must be difficult.’

  ‘Well yes, it doesn’t seem fair that Mrs Grantley should take all the risks.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Olivia. She can be charmingly inventive.’

  ‘Why does Mrs Grantley involve herself with your work?’

  ‘She’s a free spirit. Her notoriety, as she likes to refer to it, sometimes works in her favour, enabling her to do more or less as she pleases. Olivia enjoys breaking rules and living up to people’s poor opinion of her.’

  ‘I don’t blame her for that.’

  ‘People are very careful about being seen in her company, mainly because she discourages them if they get too intimate.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Her husband left her reasonably well provided for so she’s in a position to please herself.’ Isaac shrugged. ‘It has always been my belief that having endured one unhappy marriage, she has no particular desire to try the institution again.’

  ‘I can certainly understand that point of view. Why be beholden to a man if you have the means to remain independent?’

  He focused a speaking look upon her. ‘Unless, of course, you meet a man who excites your passions and makes you smile.’

  She swallowed but didn’t meet his gaze. ‘Perhaps she already has.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘We were talking of Mrs Grantley. It is my belief that if Lord Torbay were to pursue her, she might have a change of heart about remaining independent.’

  Isaac arched a b
row. ‘What makes you say that?’

  Eva laughed. ‘Surely you have noticed for yourself how the atmosphere literally sizzles when the two of them are in the same room?’

  ‘Well, I suppose, now that you mention it.’ He rubbed his chin, clearly not having previously given the matter any consideration. ‘Jake and Olivia are so often together, always bickering, that I thought nothing of it.’ He shook his head and grinned. ‘Olivia and Jake? Now there’s a notion.’

  ‘Why are men so blind to the obvious when it comes to affairs of the heart?’

  ‘You ladies are better qualified to notice the signs.’

  She shrugged. ‘Much good it may do some of us.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He took her hand and laced his fingers with hers. ‘That was insensitive.’

  ‘It is perfectly all right, Lord Isaac, you—’

  ‘Isaac,’ he replied. ‘It would please me to hear you use my name.’

  She paused for a beat. ‘Very well, Isaac.’ She tugged her fingers free, even though she felt very comfortable—safe and cherished—with her hand engulfed by his. ‘You seem very much at home in Lord Torbay’s household. Do you always live here when you are in London?’

  ‘I have my own rooms in Brook Street but Jake keeps me so busy I seldom see them.’

  ‘You are a gentleman of leisure, free to do as you please?’

  ‘Hardly that, but I am comfortably situated. My parents still live and they run the family estate in Hertfordshire with the help of my brothers. Fortunately my grandfather left all of his grandchildren provided for and so I am free to pursue my own interests.’

  ‘Now let me see if I recall.’ Eva toyed with her lower lip, plucking at it with her forefinger. ‘Your father is the Marquess of Hereford. You are the youngest of five, having two older brothers and two sisters, and you were probably horribly spoiled and indulged as a consequence.’ She abandoned her lip and smiled at him. ‘You see, I haven’t forgotten everything I learned about eligible gentlemen prior to my come-out.’