Albin was asleep, cocooned in blankets in the armchair, when Marcus returned. An empty tankard and the remains of a substantial repast were on the table alongside. A fire filled the grate, throwing out heat. The lad’s hair was dry, curling up from his brow.
“Excellent, Mrs. Kerr.” Marcus stripped off his riding gloves. “You’ve looked after him well.”
“The conservatory, sir—”
“The fire wasn’t lit by anyone local. Mr. Albin discovered a clue that leads us back to London. I’m leaving as soon as the carriage is brought round.” He glanced at his watch. Seven o’clock. Dawn soon. “A tankard of ale, please, Mrs. Kerr. And a basket of food for the journey.” As if to reinforce this order, his stomach gave a low growl. “Bread and cheese is fine.”
“I should hope I can do better than bread and cheese, sir!” Mrs. Kerr hurried down the corridor in a flurry of skirts.
Marcus turned to his butler. “Gough, please see that my valise is packed and brought down.”
“I’ll attend to it myself, sir.”
Marcus stroked his jaw. Stubble rasped beneath his fingers. There was no time to shave. He crossed to the chair where his secretary slept. “Wake up, lad.” Albin was so deeply asleep that he had to shake him.
For a moment the lad seemed not to know where he was—confusion and alarm crossed his face—then he blinked. “Sir.” He struggled to free himself from the blankets.
“I’m leaving for London in fifteen minutes. You may stay here if you wish and travel back later by post—”
“The two men?”
“Went to London.”
Albin stumbled slightly as he stood. “I’ll come with you, sir.”
“Good lad.” Marcus gripped Albin’s shoulder briefly. “Gough is upstairs. He’ll help you pack.”
He strode around to the smoldering ruins of the conservatory, whistling under his breath. A dozen men stood watching flames gnaw the embers. Marcus beckoned to the bailiff and the head gardener. “Whoever lit the fire wasn’t local. The trail leads back to London. I’m leaving immediately. Clear the debris once it’s cooled. Take it right back to bare earth.”
“Will you be rebuilding, sir?”
“No.” He saw the flash of anxiety on the head gardener’s face, and understood it. “You may assure the men they won’t be turned off. There’ll be employment for all of you—if not here, then on another of my estates. You have my word.”
Fifteen minutes later, as the carriage lurched and swayed down the driveway, Albin asked him the same question: “Will you build another conservatory, sir?”
“No. I shall sell Hazelbrook.” With the conservatory razed, the obligation to his mother was gone.
“It . . . it has an unhappy history,” Albin said, clearly trying to show that he understood.
“Yes.” But it wasn’t only Lavinia’s memory that tainted Hazelbrook. “My grandfather purchased it from the profits of the plantation in the West Indies. Slave labor.” Marcus opened the basket Mrs. Kerr had provided. He took out a meat pie wrapped in a linen napkin. His stomach clenched in anticipation. “The conservatory was built from those profits, too.” The thousands of pretty blue and white tiles, imported at great expense from Constantinople, had been paid for by the sweat and blood of slaves in the tropics, as had each pane of glass, each exotic plant, each statue and fountain.
Marcus bit into the pie. He’d sell Hazelbrook, buy another plantation, give the slaves their freedom. The money would go full circle.
Across from him, Albin yawned. “Sir, what did you discover at the village?”
Marcus chewed and swallowed. “The two men arrived yesterday, by post-chaise from London. They hired horses from the inn and went out twice—in the afternoon, and at midnight. They arranged for the post-chaise to convey them back to London at an unspecified time this morning.” Five o’clock, as it had turned out. “They paid well, so the landlord asked no questions.”
Albin nodded and smothered another yawn.
“The post-chaise was from the Bull and Mouth in London. With any luck, we’ll find them there, or information that will lead us to them.”
“What were their names, sir?”
“Smith. Clearly false.” Marcus bit into the pie again.
Albin asked no further questions. By the time Marcus finished the pie, he’d fallen asleep.
Marcus covered the lad with a blanket and settled back in his own corner. He rummaged in the basket, whistling softly. He was rid of Hazelbrook, and in a few hours he’d know who was behind the arson, and perhaps the attack and the vandalism, too.
He took out a second pie and sank his teeth into it. Outside, wisps of pink and gold lit the sky.
They reached the Bull and Mouth just on midday. Albin was so deeply asleep that Marcus hadn’t the heart to wake him. He leapt down from the carriage and crossed the courtyard, anticipation humming in his veins. The clamor of the posting-inn engulfed him—shouts, the clatter of hooves and coach wheels, a baby’s wail. He sidestepped a pile of trunks and skirted an argument between two postilions and a red-faced country squire. The taproom was crowded, the din of voices pushing out through the door.
Marcus stood in the doorway and scanned faces. Were the men he wanted in here? In the coffee room? Upstairs asleep?
He halted a waiter carrying a tray piled with plates of roast meat. “The post-chaise-and-four that arrived from Tewkes Hollow this morning, where would I find the passengers?”
The waiter shrugged and continued on his way.
Marcus plunged further into the bustle of the hostelry in search of the innkeeper. “The post-chaise-and-four from Tewkes Hollow this morning,” he repeated, when he found the man. “Where would I find the passengers?”
As the waiter had done, the innkeeper took in his appearance with a glance—hair unbrushed, face unshaven, wearing the clothes he’d thrown on in the middle of the night, no waistcoat or neckcloth, everything filthy and stinking of smoke—and dismissed him with a shrug.
Marcus gritted his teeth. I’m an earl, not a vagabond. He resisted the urge to comb his hair with his fingers and instead dug into his pocket for a guinea. “The passengers who arrived from Tewkes Hollow in one of your post-chaises. Where would I find them?”
The innkeeper was most apologetic. The chaise had arrived half an hour previously and the passengers had immediately departed, not pausing to dine or slake their thirst. No, he had never seen them before. No, he didn’t feel he could describe them—they had been a most ordinary pair. No, he couldn’t remember their names, but he had a record . . . ah, there it was . . . Smith.
“The postilions? May I speak with them?”
“Joseph’s gone home to bed, but Samuel may still be here,” the innkeeper said, his eyes on the golden coin.
“I’d like to speak with him.”
The postilion was in the stables, chatting with a stableman and nursing a tankard of ale. At the sight of his employer, the stableman remembered the broom he was leaning on and began sweeping up scraps of straw.
“Samuel,” the innkeeper called curtly. “Here!”
The postilion drained his tankard and obeyed. “Sir?”
“Answer this gentleman’s questions, then off to bed with you.” The innkeeper took the empty tankard, cast a glance of disapprobation at the stableman, and hurried back into the inn.
The postilion huffed a scornful breath through his nose. “An old woman, ’e is.”
Marcus fished in his pocket for a half-crown. “The passengers you took to Tewkes Hollow and back. Tell me about them.”
The postilion’s eyes fastened on the coin. “What d’ you want to know?”
“Their names.”
“Smith,” the postilion said promptly.
“What did they look like?”
The postilion scratched his head. He had a weather-beaten face beneath ginger hair. “They was big men, like you.”
Marcus waited, but Samuel seemed to have nothing more to say. “That’s it? That’s all you can remember about them?”
The postilion shrugged. “They wasn’t men as stood out, sir. I don’t rightly know I’d reco’nize ’em if I saw ’em again.”
Marcus kept his patience with effort. “You’d never seen them before?”
“Not so’s I remember, sir.”
“Your employer says they didn’t stop to dine here. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir. They left as soon as we got ’ere. In an ’urry, like.”
“Did you hear anything they said? Either today or yesterday?”
“I was riding the leader,” the postilion said regretfully, looking at the half-crown as if he expected it to be withdrawn. “I didn’t hear but one word they said.”
“Your colleague, Joseph, do you think he might have?”
The postilion shrugged. “I couldn’t rightly say, sir.”
“Where would I find him?”
“He’s got hisself a new girl. Dunno where she lives.”
Marcus clenched his jaw. “When is he due back here?” Some of his frustration leaked into his voice, but the postilion didn’t appear to hear it.
“We’s booked for a ride to Watford at five o’clock.”
“Then I shall return later this afternoon.” Marcus gave him the coin.
“Thank you, sir.” The postilion tugged his forelock and headed in the direction of the taproom.
Marcus strode back to the street. The anticipation that had hummed in his veins was gone. Half an hour. He’d missed them by half an hour.
He wanted to snarl at the elderly lady who stepped unwittingly into his path, wanted to yell at the footman who held the carriage door open for him. Marcus took a deep breath and released it with a slow hiss.
He climbed into the carriage. Albin still slept in the far corner.
Marcus shook Albin awake as the carriage entered Grosvenor Square. “We’ve arrived, lad.”
Albin sat up groggily. He peered out the window. “What about the Bull and Mouth?”
“I’ve been there.” Frustration leaked into his voice again. The postilion hadn’t noticed it; Albin did.
“What happened, sir?”
“They’d gone. I spoke to the innkeeper and one of the postilions and learned nothing.” The carriage slowed. “I’ll return this afternoon to speak to the second postil—” Marcus gave a snarl of rage and wrenched the carriage door open, jumping down before the vehicle had fully halted.
Albin scrambled down after him.
Eight windows. Broken.
“Does today’s date have any significance, sir?” Albin asked. A cold wind blew through the square, sending dead leaves scurrying. “The fire and now this—”
“And there was shit left.” The steps leading up to the front door were damp. The smell of scrubbing soap was strong.
Impotent rage swelled in Marcus’s chest. He felt like picking up a cobblestone and smashing what was left of the windows himself.
The door opened. His butler hurried down the steps, wringing his hands. “Sir, I’d hoped that by the time you arrived—”
Marcus forced a smile to his mouth. “It’s of no matter, Fellowes.” Two glaziers were at work installing new panes of glass. “What time did it happen?”
“Between two and three this morning, sir. The night watchman was good enough to knock on the door and let us know. The back door, I should say, sir. The front steps were . . . er—”
“Piled high. Yes, I can see.” Marcus turned back to the carriage. The coachman and two footmen were dusty from the journey, their faces unshaven, weary. The coachman had a smear of soot across his brow. “Thank you for your service at Hazelbrook last night,” Marcus said. “You may have the rest of the day off.”
The coach clattered around to the mews. Within minutes the tale of the conservatory burning down would be circulating among the servants.
“Mr. Albin will be staying for a few days, Fellowes. He may have the Blue Room.”
“Very good, sir.”
He climbed the damp steps. Fellowes closed the door, shutting out the scent of scrubbing soap. Marcus could smell beeswax polish, his own sweat, the stink of smoke. “Tell Mrs. Maby we shall both want baths.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m going to bed,” he told Albin. “I suggest you do the same. I’ll be leaving for the Bull and Mouth at four o’clock, if you wish to accompany me.”