A Flaw in the Blood Page 8

  Three shillings richer, courtesy of a bank clerk with an eye for quality, he spent his largess on a pork pie and a tankard of ale in Bow Street—then wasted several hours in such jobs as boys of his ilk were fitted for: walking horses or sweeping crossings. When customers proved scarce on the ground, he tried cadging pennies in St. Paul's churchyard—with the Consort dead, the nobs' hearts might've softened. But he ended the day only a few coppers richer, and just as hungry.

  He was cursing his hard luck as he mounted the stairs of his tenement, fists thrust into his pockets and eyes on the filthy treads. So great was his self-absorption that he failed to see the hand before it snaked out at the landing, grabbing his neck.

  “You dirty little frog-spawn,” the man muttered, his black eyes boring into Davey's choking face. “Thought you could nobble Jasper Horan, did ye? Take yer prize villains up the roof and diddle an honest man? A mate o' mine 'as been coshed in the head, and ain't likely to wake this side of Judgment. Murder's a hangin' offence, I'm told. I think I just caught me a murderer.” He swung Davey hard against the cracked plaster wall, stunning him, then released his punishing grip on his throat. “Where've they got to? Yer lady doctor and her fancy man?”

  “Dunno.” Davey staggered, gasping.

  Horan hunkered down on the landing beside him. “Tell me where they've gone, boy, or by all that's holy, I'll see you swing for my mate.”

  “I was never on the roof!”

  “Sing it to the magistrate! Yer old whore of a mother might not care if you dance on the nubbing-cheat, but yer sister will. If she lives, that is. Last I saw, she were right poorly. Comes of poking around where ye didn't oughter.”

  Davey hurled himself without warning at Horan, his thin fingers clawing at the man's face, and with a cry of pain the watchman teetered back against the banister. Quick as lightning the boy darted down the stairs and out into the foggy dark, making once more for Covent Garden.

  Horan let him go. He'd already found Button Nance and her girl—and knew all he needed to.

  “Evening, Mr. Fitz—and a pleasure to see you again, miss, if I may be so bold,” Gibbon said as he drew off Georgiana's wraps in Bedford Square. In all the confusion of her ravaged home, she hadn't bothered to change her twilled silk gown. The valet preserved a serene countenance; perhaps he was accustomed to ladies sporting muddy and torn attire.

  “Have you anything for us to eat?” Fitzgerald inquired. “We're famished.”

  “Couple of nice soles and a brace of partridges in half an hour, with leg o' mutton to follow.”

  Fitzgerald glanced about at the tidied rooms. “Well done, lad. A glass of sherry for Miss Armistead, when you have a moment. She's chilled to the bone.”

  Georgiana was already standing before the roaring fire in the sitting room, her hands extended to the warmth. It was probable, Fitzgerald thought, that she had not yet accepted the necessity of flight; although she had a satchel of hastily-packed clothes, she had refused to bring her maid. If they were to flee London together, he would have to take care her reputation wasn't ruined.

  She's safe enough with you, John Snow barked in his head; you're old enough to be her father. Don't flatter yourself she's fighting shy of your Irish charm.

  “I'll need you to run an errand for me, Gibbon, when you've carved the mutton—and tell me: Have any shady characters come nosing about?”

  “Couple of coves holding vigil over a nice bit o' fire in an ashcan,” the valet returned promptly, “but they're beyond the square. Happened to clap eyes on 'em when I returned from the butcher.”

  “Did ye now?” The gate that barred traffic in Bedford Square was manned by a private watchman, and only known tradesmen and residents were admitted—but such watchmen could be easily suborned, in Fitzgerald's experience. He would have to look to the pair of strangers.

  “I won't lie to you, my Gibbon,” he said. “Miss Armistead and I have been set upon. A nasty scrap of it we had, but gave as good as we got. I'm thinking it's possible the same devils attacked Mr. Taylor in chambers this morning.”

  Gibbon halted on his way to the pantry, brow furrowed. “Then the murderin' louts will be disappointed, sir, for they shan't be admitted here.” He drew a letter from a silver salver. “Speaking of Mr. Taylor, this come round from Great Ormond Street about an hour ago. Private messenger.”

  Fitzgerald took the envelope; the direction was penned in an unfamiliar handwriting.

  “What is it?” Georgie asked as he entered the sitting room.

  “A note from Sep's doctor.” His eyes flicked up to meet hers. “The skull is fractured. But the sawbones says he's not without hope of eventual recovery—”

  He broke off, crumpled the note in his fist, and tossed it into the flames. “God, I'm in want of a drink.”

  “Had the blow been going to kill Sep, it should probably have done so well before you even found him,” she said gently. “He's fortunate you did.”

  “If the man dies, Georgie, I swear—”

  “He will not die.”

  “If he dies,” he repeated with sudden savagery, “that's two lives we put down to your German princeling's account. And by all that's merciful—”

  “He's not my German princeling.”

  “—yours won't be the third life he takes.”

  Gibbon appeared in the doorway with sherry. Fitzgerald tossed off a glass, though he'd have preferred good Irish whiskey. He knew this feeling, as though the slightest pressure might cause him to snap; it invariably preceded one of his momentous rages.

  She waited until the valet quitted the room to say, “I have decided to trust you, Patrick.”

  “You'll leave London tonight?”

  “I will go to a hotel, if Gibbon will be so good as to secure me a room—and thence to my cousin's home in Hertfordshire. It is nearly Christmas, after all—I might spend the interval among family . . .” She broke off. “You do not look as though you approve! I thought you would pay me vast compliments, Patrick, on my humility and good sense!”

  Abruptly, he set down his glass; the crystal clanged like a bell. “Georgie— Forgive me, darlin', but I cannot let you out of my sight. The key to this coil is in your hands—and if I'm to unravel it, you must help me.”

  “What do I know of Windsor that you do not? It was you the Queen summoned last night, Patrick.”

  “Those letters. Why should the thieves take them, above all else?”

  She did not reply. There was mutiny in her looks, as though Fitzgerald had trespassed on private ground.

  “You did not summon the police,” he persisted, “though your house was robbed and your things were destroyed.”

  “Of course I did not inform the police.” She said it scornfully. “You have yet to report the coachman's murder, though you fear murder was done.”

  She was too protective, too combative, for a woman whose home had been plundered. Jealousy flared in Fitzgerald's gut. “Were they von Stühlen's letters? Bound up in pink ribbon? Are you in love with the rogue, Georgiana?”

  “How dare you,” she retorted, her fists clenching. Her fine grey eyes sparked with sudden contempt.

  “I will know,” Fitzgerald said through his teeth.

  “By what right? You don't own me, Patrick. You're not even my guardian! You're a man I keep about me on sufferance—to honour the wish of one who is dead. But if you try to rule me, so help me God, Patrick Fitzgerald—”

  Her words cut as cleanly and deeply as one of her lancets. He wanted to cry out that he loved her, that he'd ever loved only her, that from the time she was a wee lass he'd watched her grow in strength and intellect and beauty as though she were meant only for him, for his arms and his bed and his delight—and now she had scorned him. A man I keep about me on sufferance. Why stay at heel then, tugging on her leash? —So that she could use his blind, doglike devotion to keep other hunters at bay? His passion for her clouding his senses, while she pursued bigger game? Was she holding out for that dandyish German count to mar
ry her?

  She saw that he was stunned. A ready flush suffused her delicate skin and for an instant, remorse flooded her eyes. But she did not run to him, as she might have done at seventeen. She merely bit her lip and clasped her arms under her breasts, as though suddenly chilled.

  “I did not mean that. Patrick—I should not have said such ugly things. You have been my dearest friend, my dearest . . .”

  “Slave.”

  Her lips compressed. “I am sorry. What I said was unforgivable. It is just that you assume a right—”

  “—I have no right to assume,” he finished. “Granted. It's become a habit in me to offer advice—though the Lord knows you never take it. But as a lawyer, my fine girl, I'd say those letters were stolen for one of two reasons. To be destroyed, by one who fears them—or used, by a canny blackmailer. Which are we to expect in the coming days?”

  She studied his angry face, the self-control he was barely managing. Fitzgerald could see her striving for balance: so much weight of argument on this side, so much on that. The scales of justice.

  “Very well,” she said at last. “I will tell you. The stolen letters were written by the Prince Consort. You understand now my reticence. I would not expose His Royal Highness to the impertinence of strangers if he lived—and shall never do so, now that he is dead.”

  “I'm afraid,” Fitzgerald returned with bitter irony, “the time for discretion is over. Your letters are gone. You can no more conceal their existence now than you can raise Albert from the grave.”

  They stood for a moment in utter silence, Georgie's hands defiantly on her hips, as though she intended to do battle. The enemy, however, was beyond her reach. Fitzgerald had no intention of serving as proxy.

  “Is there scandal in the letters?” he demanded. “Is that why a body went the length of stealing them?”

  “Scandal? They were almost entirely about the nature of the London poor!”

  Fitzgerald made a sharp sound of annoyance, unable to believe her, and threw up his hands.

  “Prince Albert honoured me,” she said with difficulty, “by soliciting my opinions on a range of subjects. The condition of housing, for example—he had designed a model tenement himself, for the use of charitable organizations. Or reform of the waterworks, and the construction of Mr. Bazalgette's new system of sewers—you will have seen the works of the tunnels presently being undertaken . . . the Middle Levels near Piccadilly are actually complete. I toured them in the Consort's party only a few weeks ago—”

  “Sewers,” Fitzgerald repeated sardonically.

  “They are vitally important, Patrick,” she persisted. “Recollect that Uncle John established that the transmission of cholera is through tainted water; indeed, were it not for his researches, I am sure Bazalgette should never have been commissioned to embark on this massive reform—or at least, not in my lifetime. It requires an Englishman to fear for his life before he will consider of his drains. Prince Albert wished me to consult with Mr. Bazalgette regarding the sewers' outfall. They are far down the Thames, almost to the sea, where the chance of contamination with drinking water must be minimal. The various London waterworks are also undertaking programs of filtration, which should go far in improving public health.”

  “Your Prince cared about public health?”

  “He was intelligent enough to know the Crown would pay for trouble, soon or late,” she returned crisply. “Better sewers now, than an epidemic later. And water hit home—Buckingham Palace, to my knowledge, has some of the very worst in the city. And Windsor's drains are not to be spoken of. It is no wonder that he died of typhoid fever—it, too, is a disease of fouled water. Poor man.”

  “Did the Prince seem ill, when you toured the Middle Levels?”

  She considered an instant. “I didn't notice. Not that afternoon—there was too much to be viewed and decided. And I am never entirely at my ease, you know, in such a company of gentlemen—all of them distinguished in some field or another, and drawn to the Consort because of his power. Only he accorded me the kindness of listening to my observations—and because he did so, Bazalgette was forced to attend. I wonder how many of them believed me to be Albert's paramour?” she added on a note of bitterness.

  “And were you?”

  He had not been able to stop himself; he needed to know the answer too badly.

  She turned and stared at him. “I should strike you for such a question, Patrick.”

  “You should strike me for any number of reasons, Georgie—but not my frankness. Look you, there's never been a breath of scandal about Albert and the ladies, but you'll admit it's dodgy business to be adding a girl like yourself to a company of engineers! I never met the man. I want to know how deeply he went with you. How much pain his death has caused.”

  She drew a shaky breath. “One need not have . . . intimate relations with a gentleman . . . to mourn his loss.”

  “No.” Fitzgerald rubbed his hand over his eyes. Why hate a dead man so much? It was he, Fitzgerald, who was dining with her, after all. But Georgie's voice, whenever she spoke of Albert, was taut with respect. And something else. Was it yearning?

  “So he looked well,” Fitzgerald said with effort. “And yet, a few weeks later—”

  “I did not say he looked well,” she broke in quickly. “Indeed, I do not think he has been in health for some months. That particular afternoon I should describe him as preoccupied. He listened to Bazalgette—he asked all the appropriate questions—but there was no Albert in his eyes.”

  Fitzgerald snorted.

  “It was an art he perfected, Patrick—a sort of inward flight. How do you think the man endured twenty years in this country else? A foreigner—and from that Germany which so many English despise—a person compelled by social reform and the advancement of science, rather than his own gain. He was inexplicable to most of those he met.”

  “But not to you,” he countered. “That was a bond between you, wasn't it—being out of step with your peculiar worlds? You have your own form of inner flight, love.”

  “Perhaps. I may say that the Prince was never truly at ease with women.”

  “No?” Too much hope in his voice.

  “Females made him acutely uncomfortable. He had a horror of impropriety; and he seemed to consider it a woman's disease. I suspect he regarded me as he did his daughters—intelligent, and safe.”

  Fitzgerald flushed; he'd caught the echo of regret in her voice. She'd have preferred to be dangerous.

  “Patrick—if I thought the correspondence between us should be publicly exposed—and by some mischance diminish the Prince's reputation in the eyes of the world—I should . . . I should . . .” Her fists were clenched again, and a storm of futile anger swept over her face.

  “It may not be the Prince those thieves thought to strike at, love,” he said wearily. “You may be the one they intend to harm.”

  She frowned. “What can you mean?”

  “Revenge.”

  She was very still for a moment. “Von Stühlen. You believe he paid for the ransacking of my house? He does hate me. I humiliated him too publicly.”

  “You'd have done better to slap him, that morning at Ascot.”

  “But to laugh was irresistible.” She began to pace before the fire, her lips working. “My God, Patrick—if von Stühlen should presume to attack Albert publicly—one of the Consort's oldest friends—and at such a time—”

  He noticed that she cared nothing, in that instant, for her own reputation.

  “What else did Albert write, in his bit letters?”

  There was a pause; in the silence he caught the soft thud of coals dropping from the grate, and the discreet clink of cutlery from the dining room.

  “What was written, was written in confidence—”

  “Aye! And now the letters have been stolen, the whole world may soon read them!”

  She met his eyes frankly. “He consulted me about his son. Prince Leopold.”

  Fitzgerald was about to speak
when the front bell rang through the rooms. Both of them froze.

  “News of Septimus?”

  There was a murmur of conversation from the front passage; then Gibbon appeared at the parlour door.

  “A letter for miss,” he said. “Sent round from Russell Square. I've told the man to wait.”

  She tore open the flap and read the brief message.

  Fitzgerald watched her colour drain.

  “Georgie?”

  She looked up. “It's that girl in St. Giles. Lizzie. She died an hour ago.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I've decided the funeral shall be on the twenty-third of December,” Bertie said diffidently, “so as to salvage something of Christmas. Mama does not attend—she goes to Osborne in four days.”

  “And I shall have to go with her.” Alice kept her head bent over her needlework, aware of a creeping sense of oppression. “Christmas! I have not the heart for it. Mama will shut herself in her rooms, and stare at the sea. There is nothing so wretched as Osborne in winter. You'll return to Cambridge, of course?”

  “On Christmas Eve. The funeral party shall be entirely gentlemen. The service here in the Chapel Royal. No public parades, no scenes about the cortege to remind one of Wellington—”

  “No. Mama would not have it. She abhors such display.”

  “Mama hasn't said a word about the arrangements,” Bertie mused. “She left everything to me—though she refuses to speak directly, or remain in any room I enter. It's almost more than one can bear, her stony looks. Her contempt for one.”