Chapter Sixteen
The habits of duty were strong in Isabel, and after an adventuresome week, she was not sorry to retreat onto the firm ground of normality.
On Monday, after viewing the house in Bedford Square, she had paid calls to all the duennas of society who had offered her an invitation. Determined to win approval for her ward, she dragged along a Lucy who smiled politely and directed pointed remarks into Isabel’s ears at all the wrong times. Thus, Isabel was able to contribute little to the gossip that flowed more freely than tea. However, all that was required of a good caller was an interested expression and the occasional “No!” and “You don’t say!” By the time she returned to her house, Isabel was certain she had acquitted herself well enough to move upward on a few upper-crust invitation lists.
On Tuesday, she was at home to callers while Lucy pled a headache. Isabel suspected her of wanting to play with Brinley. But no matter: if friends could be won with delicious edibles, Isabel would be the most popular woman in London.
On Wednesday, there were more calls to pay, including one to Lady Selina and the Duchess of Ardmore to congratulate Lady Selina on her engagement. At last, Lord Liverdale’s heir had bent his knee and asked the lady to do him the honor. Privately, Isabel wondered if Butler’s near arrest, which had forced the duke to admit that he still had his painting, had reassured the marquess’s son that Ardmore would clear his debts.
Better yet, after paying these calls, Isabel visited a mantua-maker and a milliner. For the first time in a year and a half, she chose colorful garments. She ordered hats in cunning shades of gold and green and red, all of which she liked against her dark hair. A black hat, black clothing, simply made her look vanishing. But in color, she might regain a bit of her brightness.
She might develop some she’d never had before.
At the modiste’s she flipped through pattern books, then decided on something entirely different. She’d no interest in the fat, puffy sleeves and fussy trimmings in fashion at the moment. After all, where had following the rules got her? It had got her a hidden room, a distant marriage, and a clinging, shameful feeling of ignorance.
No, she would dress in bright color and beautiful fabrics; perfect tailoring and simple lines. In fact, she had the modiste rip changes into a ready-made gown of green silk striped in gold, and once it was stripped of its flounces and tightened below the breasts, she wore it home. She liked the fit of it, spare and sleek. It was neither fashionable nor unfashionable; it was a gown apart from fashion, heedless of it.
And it made her bosom look marvelous, her hazel eyes dance. It flattered her lean form. Best to dress for the way she looked, not the way she ought to look according to a Parisian designer.
Did such color make a difference in her appearance? She hailed an acquaintance on the street, a Lady Riordan on whom she had called on Monday. This woman was a generation older, and while she was a bit gossipy, she wasn’t unkind. She also had a son a few years older than Lucy, and he wouldn’t be a bad matrimonial prospect at all.
“Lady Isabel!” Lady Riordan flicked back a plume leaning from her extravagant hat. “Goodness me, I hardly recognized you, dressed like that. How unconventional of you.”
This was not exactly a compliment, but Isabel pretended it was one. “Thank you!” she said brightly. “Since it has been more than eighteen months since my dear Morrow died, I thought it was time to dress in color again. He loved color so, you know, with his eye for art. What could honor him better?”
Lady Riordan seemed not to know whether this made perfect sense or was utter rubbish. “Quite,” she replied. “Well. I must be going, Lady Isabel—the horses are standing. Shall I see you at the Rushtons’ musical evening tonight?”
A musical evening at the Rushtons’? Catherine Rushton was about the age Andrew had been, fifteen or twenty years Isabel’s senior. She had been quite friendly to Isabel before Andrew’s death, but she’d not called since. Isabel could not remember seeing an invitation in her recent correspondence.
“I cannot say,” she excused. “My plans are unfixed just yet.”
Lady Riordan nodded knowingly. “No invitation, eh? Don’t let it get to you, my dear. She is matchmaking for her daughter, newly out in society, and will not want competition from you or your pretty ward. Riordan and I have been nothing of the sort for this thirty years at least! And we shall bring our son, the guest she truly wants.” The older woman laughed, and with a friendly squeeze of the hand, she heaved herself into her carriage.
Isabel smiled her farewell, but her joy had been dimmed a bit.
By Thursday, the life of a proper widow had thoroughly lost its savor. She had kept busy, yet had done nothing of value. How many weeks had she carried out these same ceaseless inconsequentialities? And how many more weeks of the same loomed ahead?
She tried to make a game with Lucy out of their social obligations. They each took the stack of invitations in turn, pulling forth any they wished to attend. If they agreed on any, they would respond with an acceptance.
There were two problems, though. The first was that Lucy shrank from the sort of ball and ridotto and evening gathering at which one might have a significant chance to meet gentlemen. The second was that Isabel didn’t receive nearly as many of those invitations as she had expected to.
During her marriage, each day of the Season had brought more correspondence than one could answer and more invitations than one could accept. During her year of mourning, a sparse acquaintance had been forced upon her out of respect for, if not a widow’s grief, the conventions of a society that determined she needed to be shut away.
But Lady Riordan had seen more clearly than Isabel had: now that she had shaken off the remainders of mourning and reentered society with a pretty young ward at her side, fewer people seemed to want her at their parties. There were never enough gentlemen, and a rich widow was far less attractive to hostesses than a friendly wife had been.
Maybe she should arrange a dinner party after all. Though . . . to what end? Whose acquaintance was she attempting to cultivate? Once Lucy was wed, there was no one Isabel particularly needed to know. She wasn’t hunting another husband, she didn’t have a seat in Parliament that required her to exercise diplomacy, and she had an independent income.
She was sufficient unto herself. She answered to no one. There was nothing she need do.
Which also meant there was nothing to distinguish one day from the next. No one who needed her, particularly, or who relied upon her, save her servants—and theirs was an impersonal sort of need. Whether they worked for Lady Isabel or for someone else who paid them well and treated them courteously, it didn’t matter.
She’d never been particularly well churched, but there was a quotation from the Gospel of Matthew that had often caught in her mind—especially since Morrow’s death.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
How apt the wording, for Andrew Morrow had taken thought for the things of himself. Even after his death, his evil remained. Not dramatic evil of the sort that caused death and destruction; evil of the quotidian sort. Selfishness and greed; mistrust and deception.
He was hardly alone in this. There was not a person alive innocent of these faults; Isabel herself certainly was not.
How did Callum Jenks walk to the Bow Street court every morning, knowing there would be sufficient evil—more than sufficient—to fill his every hour? Did anything he did or tried or said make a difference?
Yes. It did. It had made a difference to Isabel, when Andrew Morrow’s body had lain on the floor of his own bedchamber, to be spoken to with sturdy calm. To be looked at with dark eyes that held questions, but no blame. Eyes that saw her as a person, and wondered about her.
Callum saw stories everywhere. Not only everyday crimes and trespasses, but the people committing them. Sometimes heedless, sometimes needing, hungry, desperate.
As she walked with him through London streets, he had shown her how to see that too. It had opened her eyes, and they had never quite closed on the same London since.
There was something she might do, then. Before she thought better of it, she scrawled a note to him. “Have this delivered to Officer Jenks,” she told the footman, Douglas, and gave him the direction.
For the time until he returned, she paced. Wondered. Sat at the pianoforte and plunked out a few notes, but couldn’t chain them into anything coherent.
Douglas returned with Callum’s promise to call later. When he arrived, it was long past the dinner hour.
She had Selby show him into the morning room, remembering how tenderly Callum had kissed her last time amidst the litter of biscuits and nuts. The room was tidy this time, but she thought he hardly noticed his surroundings as he dropped into the chair she offered.
“Sorry I couldn’t come earlier. I was working.”
She leaned forward in her own chair, curious. “Another mock auction?”
“Something like that.” He shut his eyes. Dark stubble stippled his jaw; dark shadows marked his lower lids. He looked unutterably tired, and she understood two things at once.
First, that his days were as full as hers were empty. He was accountable to many, and he would go without sleep or food before he would let them down.
Second: she was one of those people. He would never refuse to come when she asked him to.
“You didn’t have to come,” she excused. “I didn’t mean to tire you further.”
“You are not a frivolous person, Isabel. If you wanted to speak to me, I assumed you had something of import to say. You’ve got another scheme, haven’t you? That’s why you summoned me here.”
She had, yes, but it wasn’t the sort he imagined. “It’s not more stolen paintings.”
I want to become an investigator, she almost said. But now that she saw the hard slashes fatigue had made at the corners of his mouth, it didn’t seem to matter after all.
“Maybe I just wanted to see you,” she teased. Not that he would smile, because he hardly ever smiled, but maybe he’d get that lighter look on his face that was even better than a smile.
With an effort, he opened his eyes. “To what end?”
She blinked. “I . . . well, because . . .”
He rubbed his eyes. “Never mind. That was ungracious. Forgive me, please.”
“Of course.” Yet it was a fair question, and one he was far more willing to ask than she.
To what end?
To become friends? To pleasure each other? To concoct another scheme? What could a marquess’s daughter and a Bow Street Runner be to each other?
She could put the question a different way, though. What could become of a gentleman’s widow and a man who’d made arrests in the Royal Mint crime that had captivated all England?
What could become of a woman who wanted to learn everything and a man who wanted to help everyone?
Anything. Maybe something quite wonderful.
Maybe everything she’d never dared to dream of. Respect. Devotion. Trust. Love.
She wasn’t quite sure, yet, which of these questions she wanted to ask. It depended on the answer he would give, she thought—and she wasn’t at all sure what that answer would be.
So she said none of this. Instead, she said, “Come and have a rest.”
“Nonsense.”
“Not at all. I’ve a spare bedchamber. Are you due back in court? Surely not, for it is . . .” She checked the clock on the mantel. “Eight o’ clock in the evening.”
“There’s something I could be doing.”
“But must you?”
He looked at her, then away. “I suppose not. I like your gown. You look lovely in green.”
“I’m glad you like it. I do, too.” She smiled. “Have you eaten?”
“Enough.” Every syllable seemed wrenched from him.
Now she frowned. “Callum Jenks. You never run off at the mouth, but this is too much. Are you angry with me?”
“Not angry, no. Just tired. Too tired to keep from wondering things I’d rather not wonder.”
“Such as?” Her breath caught.
A corner of his mouth lifted. “To what end, Isabel?”
She reached for him, catching his hand. “We don’t have to ask that right now, do we? Can’t we just . . . be?”
“Can we? I’m an Officer of the Police. Have you emptied out that hidden room yet?”
Stung, she dropped his hand and drew back. “You know I haven’t. I don’t know what to do with the paintings. I thought you would help me find a safe place for them.”
“I will if I can. And I won’t reveal your secret.” He sighed. “The thing about secrets is you always have to keep those walls up. Every brick, every stone. Every word, every action. You’re not Lady Isabel alone. You’re Lady Isabel and Secret. A team.”
“It’s not even my secret!” she exclaimed. “That damned hidden room is part of my legacy from Morrow.”
He looked at her. She looked back at him.
“If I am to choose a team”—she picked her words carefully—“I want it to be with you.”
“We were a team for a bit.” He paused. “I liked it.”
Unmistakable opening. So she tried again. “I liked it too. Come and have a rest, won’t you?”
He sighed. “You slay me, lady. I cannot fight you anymore.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” Taking his hand, she led him upstairs. Not to her bedchamber; not with all the servants knowing she had a caller. Instead, she showed him into a spare room, unused for . . . how long had it been? Yet there was a fine bed in here, with a mattress that was turned and re-stuffed as often as her own was.
“This is an elegant room,” Callum observed.
True enough. The chamber was done in white and cream and crystal and glass, all colors of colorlessness. “Morrow picked it all out,” she said. “This was his house. Never mine.”
“You’ll soon remedy that, though.” He sat on the edge of the bed, then tugged off his boots with a groan of relief that made her grin.
“What about a bath?” she asked.
“No baths, temptress. But I wouldn’t mind a moment off my feet.”
Without even pulling back the counterpane, he flopped onto the bed. He fell hard to the pillow, like a brick being dropped, and rolled onto his front.
And he was out.
For a moment, Isabel hesitated. Should she move? Would she wake him?
Probably she wouldn’t. Already his breathing was slow and regular. He must have been desperately tired.
Yet he had come to see her. An obligation alone, or had he wanted to see her as much as she him? Was she the part of his day without which there was no savor, no interest, as he was for her?
Probably, she admitted to herself, she was not. There was much more to his days than Lady Isabel Morrow. The knowledge made her ache, and she sank to the bed, balanced on the edge.
This was a small pleasure, giving him a place for the rest he needed. Getting him to accept it. She rested a hand on his back. Feeling the hard line of his spine, the thick muscles of his back. She had clutched it in passion. Just now, she felt something much different.
Fondness. Protectiveness. A desire entirely separate from lust.
He took care of others so often, it was a triumph to take care of him. And she wondered, what would she do for him, if he would only ask?
She eyed the boots tumbled to the floor, one of them sliced by a bullet he had taken because of her. And she had an idea.
After she crept from the room, she found Selby and asked him to bring her a tape-measure.
* * *
Callum had apologized for falling asleep on Isabel’s bed—not once, not twice, but until she shoved him out the door with a laugh. A pity he hadn’t made better use of her bed with her. There was really no excuse for that.
But he wasn’t altogether sorry. They’d been together this evening without a murder or theft or flight or fraud to motivate them. If they had kept company in this way once, maybe they could do it again. And maybe the next time he wouldn’t sleep through the whole encounter.
It really had been a long day, and despite his unintentional sleep, his footsteps were heavy and slow through the darkening streets. When he reached Drury Lane, almost home at last, he realized the day was to become longer still.
The street was lit by lanterns and gas, a comparative blaze of light when one turned from the neighboring darkness. In the center of the thoroughfare, a group of people—some of them familiar from the stage—were dancing. It was as if the stage show had spilled out of the theater and into the street. Certain members of the orchestra were out there, fiddling their elbows off, and the tipsy-looking dancers were swinging through what might have been a country dance if they had been steadier on their feet.
Statutes reeled through Callum’s head. Public drunkenness. Dancing without a license.
Damnation.
They weren’t hurting anyone, not like a murderer or rapist did—but he had already slept away several hours during which he ought to have been on duty. And being so close to the Bow Street court, the dancers were all but flaunting their lawbreaking in the face of the officers there.
The officer here. He was here, and a representative of the law, and if that meant anything to him at all, then he had to bring these people in.
Damn it all.
He went to the fiddler first, putting a staying hand on the man’s bow arm and bringing the music to an instant end. “Sir. You can’t play here.” Raising his voice, he added, “Come with me, all. We’re but a street away from the magistrate.”
The violinist protested, belligerent. The dancers scattered—all but one. A man of about forty years began to cry, the sort of desperate weeping one heard only from a child or from a man deep in his cups. “I can’t go to jail!”
Callum rolled his eyes. “You’ll only be going to the watch house. You can see the magistrate in the morning.”
“I can’t wait until then! That’s too long.” The man fished in his pocket, held out a fistful of bills and coins evidently intended as a bribe. The coins rattled through his fingers, clinking on the street.
“Have a seat.” Catching the man’s elbow, Callum eased him to the curb. “For God’s sake, man. Get off your feet before you injure yourself.” With a few swift scoops, he gathered the fallen coins from the street and dribbled them back into their owner’s hands. “Now. What is so bad about sobering up in the watch’s house?”
“My wife will miss me.”
“Nice for you,” Callum said. “And nice for her to know you were doing something wrong.”
“I wasn’t, though. She’s bound in a chair, and she knows I like to dance. She doesn’t mind. But if I’m not home by midnight, she’ll think I’ve left her.” He covered his face, crying again. “I’d never leave her. I love her.”
The violinist, a grim-looking older man, hesitated, uncertain. “Officer, is this necessary?” His expression softened as he looked down at the weeping inebriate. “He’s too drunk to lie, and he’s not hurting anyone. Can’t he just go?”
Callum had been thinking the same before the elderly man spoke the words. Why should he take anyone in for dancing outside of a licensed room? Who the devil cared where people danced?
But what else could he do with himself? He was no tea seller, no grocer. He couldn’t spend his life behind a counter catering to the whims of irritable servants and cits. He was an Officer of the Police, and either that meant everything or it meant nothing at all. And if it meant nothing, who was he, and what use had been the last years and years of his life?
“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it. “You’ve both got to come with me.”
For the first time since joining the police force, Callum hated the sight of the court at Bow Street. He took the drunken man, the annoyed violinist, to the watch house and spoke to the man on duty there. They’d be transferred to court as soon as Fox was on duty the next day.
Callum patted his pockets, found a shilling. He handed it to the Watch. “Find a boy,” he said, “and have him take a message to the man’s wife that all is well, and he’ll be home in the morning. Surely he’s not too drunk to give you his own direction.”
Exasperated, distracted, troubled, Callum turned his steps in the direction of his lodging again—only to be jerked from his thoughts by a crash and shatter and yelp of rage. He turned in the direction of the sound. In the illuminated circle of a gas lamp was a carriage; at its front, hardly visible in the dark, was an overturned table, and the smashed remains of plaster busts.
He recognized the scam at once: worthless broken pieces, arranged as if they were valuables destroyed by the careless driving of the innocent dupe in the carriage.
In grim admiration, Callum watched as the vendor pleaded and begged with the driver of the carriage. It was not a crested carriage—best not to aim too high—but a nice shining one. A merchant’s carriage. A man who could see a bit of himself in the desperate vendor, maybe, and who would pay anything to banish that realization.
Callum wasn’t of a mood to stop the transaction—and since he hadn’t seen the table, he couldn’t prove the busts had been smashed already. But he suspected the same plaster sculptures had been smashed again and again, all to the feigned shock of their supposed sculptor.
He let the scene play out, the carriage depart, then crossed to the vendor and gave him a word of warning. Helped him dispose of the broken pieces in such a way that they could not be retrieved, pretending he was doing the man a great favor and ignoring his sourness.
He could never so much as go home to his rented rooms without coming across some trespass against the law, could he? The more time he spent with Isabel, the less he worked.
The less he worked, the less good he did.
Or had he really done any good, just now? Who was better off today for having encountered Callum Jenks?
Maybe no one. But Callum Jenks was better off for having spent time with Lady Isabel Morrow. She was becoming indispensable not only to his happiness, but to his contentment. Without her . . . it didn’t bear thinking of.
He forced himself to think of it anyway. He had been more honest with Isabel than he intended: he was too tired to keep his thoughts along their usual proper lines.
Then at last he reached his rented rooms, ate a cold meat pie, and fell into bed feeling as if there was nowhere he belonged.