It was early afternoon before Selbourne’s Books opened.
Ignatius settled behind his desk, reaching for a pen and paper. ‘I’ll send a note out to Hampstead for Barclay. Best they know about this immediately. And I’ll send Morgan to Huntercombe.’
Kit stared. ‘Morgan?’
Ignatius glanced up at her briefly, then kept writing. ‘Yes. One of the boys at the Lion can take a note to Barclay, but for Huntercombe—’ He let out a breath. ‘That’s a little more sensitive. Morgan can take it and come back in with Huntercombe tomorrow.’
‘Won’t he come in anyway? Lord Huntercombe. When he receives a note from Sir Richard asking about Caleb, surely—’
‘He will.’
‘You can speak to him then, can you not?’ It was difficult for Ignatius to manage alone in the mornings. He needed Morgan more than he’d admit.
Ignatius shook his head. ‘Best he knows as soon as may be.’ Another glance. ‘There are others he may wish to alert quickly.’
The cat, Hodge, leapt up on the desk, butted at his shoulder. Ignatius petted the creature.
Puzzled, Kit asked one of the questions that had been jostling in her mind all the way from Bow Street. ‘Uncle, why did you request Lord Martin’s help? Just our testimony would have been enough to clear Caleb of suspicion. And how did you know where to find him?’
She had deliberately waited until they were alone to raise the subject.
Over the road, since word of his release had spread rapidly and the rest of the staff had appeared, Caleb had opened the Phoenix. Customers flooded in, eager for a soupçon of gossip to flavour their coffee. No doubt several of them would come across to the bookshop after they had squeezed as much news as possible from the Phoenix.
Ignatius drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I wanted a little more weight behind it.’
‘Sir Richard would have listened to you. And I think he would have—well, he did listen to me.’ And why Martin in particular?
The old man shook his head. ‘There’s something fishy about this, girl. Can’t quite put my finger on it, but it stinks to high heaven. It’s not as simple as Staverton leaping on the chance of Harbury’s death to strike back at Psyché and Will through Caleb.’
For a moment Kit didn’t understand what her brain was telling her. ‘You...you think he planned it? This is what you need to tell Lord Huntercombe?’
‘Staverton?’ Ignatius snorted. ‘I wouldn’t have thought him clever enough to plan this. He’s not entirely stupid, but he’s not much on tactics if what I hear from the Lords and elsewhere is anything to go by. He’s the sort to fall in with someone else’s plans and help carry them out.’
‘But Harbury was his son-in-law!’ Although she loathed Staverton, she couldn’t see him arranging the murder of his son-in-law merely to get revenge on Will and Psyché.
He drummed his fingers again. ‘I know. I need to think about that and write these notes.’
Adjusting his eye glasses, Ignatius dipped his pen in the inkwell. The purring cat had settled, paws neatly tucked under him, on the desk in front of him.
She hesitated. Sometimes oblique was better. ‘Moth offered Martin her paw.’
He looked up over his glasses, the pen poised. ‘Did she now? Well, well, well. Something else to think about.’ He directed his gaze at the dog sprawled by the fire. ‘I’ll wager she didn’t offer Staverton her paw.’
Kit grinned. ‘No. She growled at him.’
‘Sensible. Why don’t you run upstairs and let Morgan know I’ll need him?’
He started writing and Kit let it go. If Ignatius said he wanted to think about something, you wouldn’t get another word out of him on the subject until he’d finished thinking.
Reordering and dusting the biblical commentaries in between serving customers, Kit focused her mind on what she knew already. If Ignatius thought Staverton had been carrying out someone else’s plan, who was pulling his strings?
What could she infer about this shadowy someone from what they already knew? It had to be someone utterly ruthless. Carefully she replaced Calmet’s Dictionary of the Holy Bible on the shelf. While she couldn’t rule out a woman, it seemed more likely to be a man. Women, she thought, thinking of Martin’s mother the duchess, could be ruthless enough, but ladies, for the most part, had so much less freedom to go where they pleased, meet any man they pleased without being encumbered with servants. A gentleman would find it easier to plot and Staverton would be unlikely to take orders from a woman.
So probably a man, which didn’t get her very much further forward. What else? A man, one Staverton wouldn’t perceive as being beneath him, a man who understood tactics, strategy, and surely one who had something to gain from Harbury’s death. Although... She frowned as she dusted the first volume of Coke’s Commentary. What did Staverton have to gain from Harbury’s death? The man had been his son-in-law, after all, and from what she knew the marriage had had his complete approval. He’d been furious when his daughter successfully negotiated a deed of separation from Harbury... Ignatius’s words slid back into her mind...
‘It’s not as simple as Staverton leaping on the chance of Harbury’s death to strike back at Psyché and Will through Caleb.’
Ignatius was right. The sooner Lord Huntercombe knew the better. Morgan had left as soon as the letter was written, although he’d plainly not liked leaving Ignatius overnight.
Kit had walked out to the pavement with him.
‘I promise I’ll look after him, Morgan.’
‘You do that, Miss Kit. Make sure he eats his supper. Be firm. It’s the only way.’
Smiling a little, she put the first volume back and took out the second...
What if Harbury’s death hadn’t been the point? Or not the main point. What if accusing Caleb had been the point?
And striking at Psyché and Will through him.
She perched on the ladder, her hands shaking so that she had to grip the book to stop it sliding from her grasp. If Staverton had a motive to cause trouble for Psyché, she didn’t have to look very far to find someone else who had been made to look a fool last year.
Her own father.
The man who had given orders for the murder of Martin’s ten-year-old nephew, Harry. Huntercombe’s stepson. He’d tried a hold up there, too. From what she’d been told, only Lady Huntercombe’s courage and quick thinking had saved the boy. Harry Lacy, formally known by the courtesy title Viscount Thirlbeck, was heir apparent to the Duke of Keswick.
Her sire—damned if she’d ever call him father again—had been so eager to marry her to the heir to a dukedom that he’d ordered the murder of a child. Her stomach lurched. Very likely the death of Martin’s elder brother, the erstwhile Viscount Thirlbeck, killed in another supposedly botched hold up two years ago, lay at Carshalton’s door as well. Lord Huntercombe believed that, although it had been impossible to prove anything.
Carshalton’s views, his hunger for political power to shore up support for the slave trade in Parliament, sickened her. From his point of view her projected marriage to Martin had been all about political influence. Her stomach churned; she wanted to shove away the accusing knowledge of Carshalton’s criminality, but she forced herself to look at it head-on. Bitterly she accepted that his blood ran in her veins. Even if she never used his name again or acknowledged him, she couldn’t ignore the truth: she was his daughter—tainted.
But it didn’t seem quite right. Oh, she could see him doing it for revenge; But to have Harbury murdered just to revenge himself on someone else? She couldn’t see how striking at Psyché and Will through Caleb would advance him. And surely no one had needed to die. All they’d needed to make the accusation was a shot fired during the hold up. They hadn’t needed Harbury’s death to make an accusation stick; merely being convicted of holding up the coach would have been enough.
She frowned. Pistols weren’t terribly accurate at any distance. Maybe killing Harbury had been accidental and...
The crash took her unawares.
Mr Daly had knocked the writing slope Ignatius kept for the use of his customers on to the floor. Several regulars used it for casual correspondence. It was kept stocked with paper bearing the shop’s letterhead, a quill, a pen cutter and an inkwell. Occasionally the ink well had spilled, or someone had broken the pen.
A new customer, a man she’d seen only a couple of times before, had been using it a few moments earlier, making notes about a couple of books he was apparently interested in. He’d purchased an inexpensive volume of sermons and left. On his previous visit she’d asked if he wished to be entered in their customer catalogue with notes on his interests. She was proud of the catalogue. Ignatius kept it all in his head, but she had spent hours working on the cards over the past twelve months. Most of their customers liked the idea. This fellow had declined roughly so she’d left him alone this afternoon.
Now the slope lay upended on the waxed floor, the inkwell shattered and ink advancing on the Turkish rug by the hearth. Probably because Mr Grumpy—her private name for him—had left it too close to the edge.
Shoving the Reverend Coke back into his place on the shelf, Kit scrambled down the ladder as fast as her abbreviated skirts allowed.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Daly. Here. Let me.’ She had another dusting cloth tucked into her pocket and whipped it out to block the flood of ink he was attempting to control with a pocket handkerchief.
Moth had risen from her snooze in curiosity, but subsided since no walk offered, nor danger threatened. Kit concentrated on blocking the ink from reaching the rug—
‘Here.’
Ignatius dropped another dusting cloth into the fray. She slapped it down in the path of a rogue rivulet, unspoken curses jostling in her head.
‘Thank you, Uncle.’
‘I’m most frightfully sorry, Selbourne. Miss Selbourne.’ Daly wrung his hands. ‘So very clumsy of me. I lost my balance a little when I stood up and grabbed at the table. Think I caught the slope instead.’
‘Never mind, Daly. Accidents happen,’ Ignatius soothed the man.
Kit, having staunched the flow of ink, looked at the slope and winced.
The broken inkwell could be replaced along with the broken quill. But the slope itself was damaged. In one corner the dovetail joint had broken and the lid had ripped free of one hinge, splintering the wood. She was clever enough with a screwdriver, but this was more than she could repair.
‘I think it requires Talbot’s skill, love.’
Wrinkling her nose, Kit nodded. ‘I’ll bring down my slope first.’
She ran up the stairs to the apartment. The writing slope Ignatius and Aunt Agatha had given her for her eleventh birthday sat on the table in their front parlour. Picking it up, she hurried back down.
Setting it in place of the broken one, she smiled at Ignatius. ‘I’ll take the other around now.’ She glanced around. ‘Where is Mr Daly?’
Ignatius had the broken slope on his own desk. ‘Bought his books and gone. Thank you, love.’ He hesitated, glanced up at her. ‘Take Moth. You shouldn’t be going about alone at the moment.’
Kit stared. ‘Very well.’
‘Take your muff.’ He held out the plain velvet muff she used to keep her hands warm in cold weather.
‘Uncle, it’s not that cold and I’m carrying a writing slope.’
His gaze narrowed. ‘Only one way. Take it.’
Puzzled, she took it, felt the familiar extra weight and stared at him. ‘Why—?’ Her breath caught. ‘You don’t think Staverton—’
‘Better safe than sorry.’ His mouth settled in a grim line.
Letting out a breath, she took the muff and slipped the chain over her neck. ‘Very well. I’ll let Moth run in the Square on my way back.’
The cabinetmaker examined the damage.
‘Made a right mess of this, didn’t he?’ His fingers touched the splintered wood tender as a mother with an injured child. ‘You’ll have to leave it with me a few days. Joint to rebuild and I’ll have to match the veneer.’
He set it down gently, then bent closer, frowning. ‘What’s this, then?’
Scarred, sensitive fingers ran over the leather writing surface where it had come adrift at the lower right corner. The craggy brows snapped close in a scowl as he lifted the triangular flap as tenderly as a doctor might have examined an ailing infant. ‘Someone’s used a knife on this!’ His outraged glare skewered Kit.
She stared. ‘What?’
Talbot returned his attention to the damaged lid, poked at the rent in the leather. ‘Something under here.’ He ran his fingers around the edge of the leather. ‘See? Someone sliced an opening and...’ He drew out a heavy, folded paper.
He began to open it, but Kit reached across and took it quickly. ‘It must be something of my uncle’s. I’ll give it to him.’ She slipped the paper into her muff.
Talbot shook his head. ‘Love letters, eh? You take my advice, Miss Kit. Fellow you can’t tell Mr Selbourne about isn’t the one for you!’
Kit felt her cheeks burn. ‘Honestly, Mr Talbot, if I was using it to pass or receive love letters, don’t you think I would have checked the hiding place?’
Talbot chuckled. ‘No telling what foolish thing a female will do. Off you go now. I’ll send a message when it’s done.’
Reaching the corner where she would have turned north for Soho Square, she glanced down at Moth who wagged her tail expectantly, tongue lolling.
‘Sorry. We can’t. You’ll have to chase the pigeons another time.’
The tail slowed and Moth nudged her hand.
Kit shook her head. ‘Come on.’
She set off along the street, the dog at her side. She had to get the document, whatever it was, back to Ignatius. Part of her wanted to take it out and look, but it wasn’t hers. She couldn’t think of anyone who would send her clandestine letters, let alone hide one in the slope. Nor could she think of any good reason for anyone to pass Ignatius a letter in it. Nevertheless, she wouldn’t breach his trust by reading it without his consent.
She lengthened her stride. The afternoon was closing in with a light mist. Lights were appearing in houses and shops. She doubted there would be many customers left in the bookshop, but she frowned, seeing the heavy window shutters on the bookshop were closed. That was supposed to be her job these days. Hopefully one of the neighbours had helped Ignatius.
Whisking into the shop out of the chill, Kit slammed to a stop under the jangling bell—
Instead of an empty shop, or maybe one or two lingering customers chatting with Ignatius, several men were in the shop, including one at the top of a ladder, pulling out books willy-nilly, shaking them and tossing them down to another man who stacked them roughly.
Moth growled.
‘Sit. Wait.’ She quelled the dog with a sharp gesture and strode forward. ‘What are you doing? Some of those books are—’
‘Kit.’
Ignatius, seated at his desk, spoke softly.
She stared. ‘What are they—?’
‘A search, my dear. These officers are from Bow Street. Perhaps you would slip over to the Phoenix and order coffee?’
‘Sir, there’s no need to send Miss Selbourne. One of the men may go.’
The familiar deep voice struck at her senses. She turned slowly, shaken to the core.
Tawny gaze fixed on her, Martin stood holding aside the curtain that covered the entrance to the back storage and kitchen area. Shock held her speechless as he came forward and another officer came out behind him. To her absolute disgust, Moth trotted forward, tail wagging.
‘Here! You up there. Handle those books carefully unless you wish to pay for them!’ Scratching the dog’s ears, Martin glanced at another man at the desk the customers used. ‘Smithers, I don’t know what you think to find in such an obvious place.’
One hand still in the muff, Kit’s breath caught sharply as the officer he’d spoken to ran his finger along the seam of leather and wood on her own writing slope. Her lungs seized as he tried to get his fingernails under the leather. First one corner, then another.
Frowning, he scratched at the seam. ‘Seems the right place for a letter, my lord.’ He poked at the corners again.
Kit forced her breathing to steady. ‘Of course,’ she said, dripping sarcasm, as she slid her hand out of the muff, careful not to rustle the paper inside. ‘We keep all our most private correspondence in a writing slope available to the customers.’
He gave her a sharp look. ‘Didn’t say anything about private, Missy.’
Martin took a step forward. ‘Smithers—’
‘Smithers, is it? How do you do?’ She spoke straight over Martin, determined to speak for herself. ‘One does rather assume that when an officer from Bow Street is hunting for a letter it’s something one would very much rather keep private and that box is there for the use of any customer who needs it. Which makes it not very private at all.’
So, who had used the broken slope to hide something? Her mind went to the man who had used it earlier... And how the hell did Bow Street know about whatever it was? Because judging by the very specific way Smithers had checked and rechecked the writing surface, it looked as though he’d been sure of finding something under there.
‘Be that as it may, Missy, there’s something—’
‘Smithers.’ Martin’s voice held the snap of command. ‘You will speak to Miss Selbourne with all respect. Meanwhile, you may go and order the coffee.’
The man rose slowly. ‘As you wish, my lord.’ He shot Kit a narrow-eyed glare. ‘Beg pardon, miss.’
Martin inclined his head. ‘Take this.’ He handed over half a crown. ‘Ask Wright to please send over coffee for seven.’
Smithers looked somewhat placated as he took the coin and walked out.
Kit steadied her breathing. She’d checked the shop slope that morning to ensure the inkwell was full and there was enough paper and so forth. If the leather had been cut then, she would have noticed. As far as she had noticed only the newcomer had used it. She could ask Ignatius once they were alone.
Kit glanced at Ignatius. His face was grey—in the half-hour since she had seen him he’d aged. ‘Uncle, are you feeling—?’
‘I’m perfectly well, love.’ A touch of asperity. ‘Merely surprised. The magistrate on duty received a tip-off.’
‘A tip-off? About what?’
He shrugged. ‘That I might have had something to do with the murder of Lord Harbury.’
‘What?’ She rounded on Martin. ‘And you lent yourself to this...this charade—’
‘Kit, Lacy called on me privately.’ Ignatius spoke lightly. ‘Most fortuitous. His presence has kept things...civilised.’
She nodded, knots slithering and twisting in her stomach. Ignatius might adopt a light tone, but he didn’t know about the damn letter. It was sheer luck it hadn’t been found, but what if it had? She should show it to him, but she couldn’t take the risk with Bow Street searching the shop and if they found it on her...
‘I think I’d rather tea than coffee at this hour. Excuse me.’
She whipped through the curtain into the kitchen. Trembling, she forced herself to think, weighing the risks as she untied the ribbons of her bonnet, then hung it on the hook by the door. Decision made, she turned to the fire.
If it was the wrong decision, so be it: she had to protect Ignatius. It was the work of a moment to stir up the coals, add more and swing the kettle over the fire to cover her actions. Her hand trembled as she reached into the muff, and her fingers touched the heavy paper—she hesitated. Before simply destroying whatever it was, maybe she should first read it, then—what the devil was the teapot doing there? Distracted, she looked around. The teapot was on the window ledge, not the table, and what was the caddy doing on the chair? Or—
‘Kit. I’m sorry. You’ll find things a little out of order in here.’