3

Which Introduces Mr. Harry Carson

of the Bow Street Horse Patrol

Pickett arose before dawn and reached for the clothes which he’d allowed Thomas to lay out for him the night before. The fact that he had to grope in the darkness before locating them was, in his estimation, further proof of the advantages of performing such tasks for oneself rather than leaving them to a manservant, but he had long since yielded to Julia in the matter, and had been rewarded so sweetly for his capitulation that the inconvenience of fumbling for his clothes had seemed a very small price to pay. He wondered if she now felt the game had not been worth the candle; a rustling of the sheets beside him gave him to understand that his search had not been conducted as quietly as he might have wished.

“I didn’t mean to awaken you,” he said in an apologetic whisper. “Go back to sleep, and I’ll see you when I return.”

“And when will that be?” she retorted a bit sleepily. “I intend to spend every moment I can with you until you are obliged to leave, so you might as well save your breath.”

It was exactly the response he had expected—and, in truth, he would have been disappointed in anything less—so he made no attempt to persuade her. Having dressed, shaved, and packed the last of his things in a battered valise, he ushered Julia out of the room. Together they descended the stairs to the breakfast room, where Julia had instructed the cook the night before to set out a selection of pastries. Conversation was desultory; Julia was not a creature of matutinal habits even at the best of times, but quite aside from the early hour, both were too conscious of the approaching separation to incline either toward loquaciousness.

“What time will you reach Dunbury?” Julia asked at last, feeling some attempt at normality was in order.

“Tomorrow afternoon, barring any accident on the road. Tonight we’ll be stopping in Reading.” He gave her a reminiscent little smile. “I don’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did my last stay there.”

“Oh?” she challenged him. “And just how much to you remember about your last stay there? As I recall, I was obliged to dose you with laudanum as soon as we reached our room, and you fell asleep almost as soon as your head hit the pillow—hardly the wedding night every woman dreams of.”

“Let me point out that an extended visit to his new in-laws is hardly the honeymoon every man dreams of, either,” he responded in kind.

In fact, neither of their recollections told the whole tale, for the wedding Julia spoke of was essentially a legal protection, necessary only insofar as it prevented her first husband’s influential family from nullifying the marriage by declaration they had unintentionally formed in Scotland some three months earlier. As for the honeymoon, they had enjoyed a week of wedded bliss in Pickett’s Drury Lane flat before the legal ceremony and the trip to her parents’ house that had followed.

“Still,” Pickett continued, “I would gladly suffer another cosh on the head if that would mean exchanging my traveling companion on that occasion for this one.”

“Perhaps Harry Carson won’t be so very bad,” she said bracingly.

“Yes, and perhaps pigs will fly,” he agreed.

She gave him a reproachful look, but said no more on the subject. All too soon, the abbreviated meal was finished, and there was no more reason to linger. With some reluctance, Pickett pushed back his chair and rose from the table. Julia followed, and hand in hand they made their way to the foyer. When they reached the front door, Pickett stopped, took her in his arms, and kissed her lingeringly.

“I wish I didn’t have to go.”

“The sooner you leave, the sooner you can return,” she pointed out, although the arms she kept wrapped around his waist gave the lie to this encouraging farewell. “In the meantime, it gives you a little time to consider the matter before giving the prince your answer.”

“Sweetheart, you will be careful, won’t you?”

She smiled a little at the concern in his voice. “I think I’m supposed to be the one telling you that.”

“And you have—many times. I promise to try, but I have to do my duty, even if it puts me in danger. But you—Julia, if you ever feel unsafe, or if anything just feels wrong, don’t hesitate to go to Mr. Colquhoun. He and his wife will put you up for a few days if need be, until I come back.”

Her eyes narrowed. “John, what is it that you think might happen?”

Pickett, realizing he was overplaying his hand rather badly, hastily demurred. “Nothing, really. It’s just that I’ve never had to go off and leave you like this—not knowing how long I might have to be gone, I mean,” he finished lamely, knowing she was remembering, as he was, the one time since their marriage that they had been apart for more than a few hours. On that occasion, they had parted in anger, and then spent the next thirty-six hours in abject misery.

Julia’s arms tightened around him, and she laid her head against his chest. “Very well, then. If it will put your mind at ease so you may concentrate more fully on your investigations, I promise to go to Mr. Colquhoun at the first sign of trouble, real or imagined. Now, do I have your promise that you will do your best to return to me with a whole skin?”

“Believe me, I have every reason to come back to you in one piece.”

“The prince,” she agreed, nodding.

“No, not the prince,” he retorted, dropping a kiss onto the golden curls tickling his chin. “Now, is there anything else I should do before I go?”

The question was strictly rhetorical, spoken more to himself than to her, but she took advantage of it nonetheless.

“You could always make me that proposal of marriage, you know.”

He gave her a speaking look, but said, “I suppose I’d better be going, then. It looks like rain, and I have no desire to spend the next twelve hours sitting on the roof of the stagecoach.”

“What an excellent way to change the subject,” she said approvingly, and lifted her face for another kiss.

Pickett was nothing loth, and all too soon it was time to release her and step outside, where Thomas waited with his own bag as well as Pickett’s.

He gave Thomas a smile and tried to act happier than he felt. “Well, Thomas, are you ready?”

* * *

JULIA STOOD ON THE front stoop, watching them go—watching him go—and mentally chiding herself. What sort of wife was she? He’d been offered the opportunity of a lifetime, and she seemed determined to subtly turn him against it. If you found this house overwhelming, only wait until you see the grand staircase at Carlton House, she’d told him upon first hearing the news, knowing full well of the feelings of inadequacy that, she suspected, still plagued him on occasion. She hadn’t even given him a proper goodbye without inserting the Prince of Wales into the conversation, implying that he was being asked to choose between them.

And then, when he’d refused to take the bait, she’d badgered him about making a wholly unnecessary gesture for no greater reason than the sentimental pleasure of seeing him go down on one knee. It was not as if she’d never received a marriage proposal at all; Frederick had uttered all the flowery phrases any romantically-minded young lady could ask for, and only look how that had turned out. No, she and John had something deeper, something that went beyond mere words; why, then, did she insist on hearing those words, when one of the qualities she found the most endearing in him was his tendency to become somewhat inarticulate whenever he spoke of his love for her? What sort of woman wanted to put her husband at a disadvantage?

As if he’d read her thoughts from a distance, he turned back and raised a hand in farewell. In answer, she pressed her fingers to her lips and blew him a kiss, silently vowing to remove to Carlton House with all the eagerness he might wish, if only he would come home safely. She watched until he disappeared from view, then stepped inside, closed the door, and climbed the stairs to her room and her empty bed.

* * *

IN THE MEANTIME, THOMAS had hefted his own bag with his left hand and Pickett’s somewhat heavier bag with his stronger right, politely but firmly rebuffing Pickett’s offers to carry his own bag as he cheerfully speculated on what sights they might expect to see on the road. Pickett listened to him with only half an ear, knowing from experience that most of the valet’s expectations would die of sheer boredom after a few hours on the road. When they reached the point where Curzon Street intersected with Chapel West, he glanced back for one last look. Julia still stood on the front stoop, a small, pale figure in the gray dawn light. He lifted one hand in farewell, and when she put her hand to her face and blew him a kiss, it was only through a strong sense of duty and sheer force of will that he resisted the urge to turn around and go straight back to her, leaving Thomas standing on the street corner with the two bags he was determined to carry.

The quiet residential streets of Mayfair still slept, but by the time they reached Piccadilly, the darkness had lessened and the more commercial sections of London were stirring to life in spite of the rain that had indeed begun to fall. The vehicle that would convey them to Reading stood in the yard of the coaching house, the four stout horses stirring restlessly in their harnesses. Pickett, feeling something of the same impatience, suspected they wouldn’t be nearly so eager once they were actually on the road. As for the driver, he was overseeing the several underlings who fastened onto the boot various valises, bandboxes, baskets, and even a crate containing live chickens. Clearly, they would have plenty of traveling companions on the journey. Pickett instructed Thomas to leave their bags with the driver, and then the two young men went inside, where Pickett handed their tickets to the booking agent and glanced about the room at the others waiting to board the coach. He was displeased, though hardly surprised, to find no sign of Harry Carson.

“If he’s not here by the time we’re allowed to board, we’re going ahead without him,” Pickett told Thomas. “I have no intention of sitting on the roof in the rain, all because Harry Carson can’t get his carcass to the coaching house in time for us to get an inside seat.”

“I’ll sit up top,” Thomas offered. “I don’t mind.”

“I won’t let you get a wetting because of Harry—er, Mr. Carson’s tardiness,” said Pickett, hastily reverting to the title by which Thomas would be expected to address his master’s colleague.

“It’s still a few minutes yet,” Thomas said doubtfully, glancing up at the big clock. “Maybe he’ll—”

“Sorry I’m late,” a breathless voice interrupted.

Pickett, turning toward the sound, thought Harry didn’t look very repentant. In fact, “smug” might have been a better description. He’d exchanged the blue coat and red waistcoat of the Bow Street Horse Patrol for a rather gaudy tailcoat of mustard-colored wool with wide lapels and a double row of large gold buttons—Pickett would have bet his entire week’s wages that they were really pinchbeck—worn over a blue waistcoat made of what Pickett suspected was some of the cheaper silk produced in Spitalfields. Although these showy garments bore every appearance of having been donned in a hurry, the smile on Harry’s handsome face could only be described as self-satisfied.

“What took you so long?” Pickett asked, making no attempt to mask his displeasure.

Harry Carson shrugged. “Couldn’t disappoint a lady, could I?”

Yes, Pickett thought, definitely self-satisfied.

“Not that she’s a lady in the same sense as your wife,” Harry continued, “but—well, we can’t all have viscountesses.”

“You’re out of uniform,” Pickett said, uncomfortably aware of his own workaday brown serge and how it appeared next to Harry’s more colorful ensemble. The contrast, along with the fact that he was by some few years the younger of the two, would have led any casual observer to deduce that Pickett was there to assist Carson, rather than the other way ’round.

“I’m supposed to be taking the place of a Runner, aren’t I? You lot don’t wear uniforms, so why should I?” Seeing that Pickett was not convinced, he added with a disarming grin, “If you’re worrying about what the boss might say about it, well, I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Determinedly ignoring the suggestion that he might deliberately mislead his magistrate, Pickett turned to Thomas. “Thomas, this is Mr. Carson of the Bow Street Horse Patrol. Harry, meet Thomas, my—my valet,” he mumbled self-consciously.

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Thomas, obviously much impressed with Carson’s attire.

If Harry was aware of Pickett’s faux pas in presenting him to Thomas, he didn’t show it. Instead, his blue eyes widened. “Your valet? You travel with servants these days?”

“Not usually,” Pickett said hastily. “But I’ve been putting Thomas off for too long already, and—”

“This ought to be fun!” Carson said, his grin widening. “ ‘Thomas, my good fellow, go fetch me a cup of tea.’ ‘Thomas, shine my shoes.’ ‘Thomas—’ ”

“You’re not to be ordering my valet about like he’s your personal drudge,” Pickett interrupted, halting Thomas in mid-step just as that conscientious young man was about to go in search of the requested cup of tea. Just to prove a point, he turned to his valet. “Thomas, go outside and find out how long it will be before we’re able to board. Reserve three seats inside, if they’ll let you.”

“I don’t mind sitting on the roof, sir,” Thomas offered, unwilling to be the cause of any dissension.

“You’re not going to sit on the roof! You’re going to sit inside, and you’re going to sit next to the window, so you have a good view.”

“Yes, sir!” said Thomas, much gratified.

As it happened, Thomas was spared the necessity of carrying out this duty, as a general stirring in the room indicated that it was time to board the stagecoaches for the journey. They were fortunate enough to secure three seats inside, and Pickett, true to his word, made certain that Thomas was seated in the window; he’d put off his valet far too long not to make sure he got the most out of the long-awaited journey. Unfortunately, this seating arrangement had the unhappy effect of leaving Pickett with no more pleasurable alternative than that of making desultory conversation with Harry Carson.

“So,” Harry began, after they had crossed the river Thames, and Newington and its environs had given way to open country, “how did you do it?”

“How did I do what?” Pickett asked, fearing the worst.

Harry shifted impatiently in his seat. “How did you marry a viscountess?”

Pickett, having no intention of recounting for Harry’s edification the events that had led to his marriage, merely shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“Dixon said you kept her from hanging for her husband’s murder. Is that so?”

It was—at least, as far as it went—so Pickett nodded. “Yes.”

Harry let out a long, low whistle. “Wish I could get promoted to principal officer. You fellows have all the luck.”

Pickett might have pointed out several events in his career for which “luck” would have been a very peculiar description, but at that moment Thomas, having caught his first glimpse of an oast house, nudged his master and pointed at this curious structure, demanding to know what it was.

In such a manner the miles slowly passed. Pickett, his protracted farewells to his lady the previous night having left very little time for sleep, leaned his head back against the wall of the stagecoach and tried to make up for the deficit.

In this he was only partially successful, awaking at one point to hear Carson recounting to an enthralled Thomas, “ . . . so there I was, facing three of them down, each one with two barkers apiece, and me with nothing more than a cutlass . . .”

“What did you do?” Thomas demanded breathlessly.

“He served the summons like he was supposed to, and then reported back to Bow Street,” Pickett finished without opening his eyes.

“Much you know about it!” retorted Carson, perhaps justifiably goaded at having had his thunder stolen at the dramatic peak of his narrative.

Pickett opened his eyes. “I should think I do, considering that I did the work myself for almost five years.” Turning to Thomas, he explained, “I’m afraid it isn’t nearly as exciting as Mr. Carson makes it sound. In fact, any investigation is nine parts tedium.”

“And the tenth part is apparently ingratiating oneself with wealthy widows,” added Carson, with a sly look at Pickett.

“Better than ingratiating oneself with horses,” Pickett replied. “I never envied you fellows on the Horse Patrol.”

“You’re on the Horse Patrol, then?” Thomas asked Carson.

Carson, having discovered that here was a topic into which his colleague could not follow, nodded. “My father owns a livery stable in Cheapside, so I’ve been around horses all my life. He hoped I would take over the business one day. It makes a tidy living for him and Mum and my sisters, but it always seemed like deadly dull work to me. I wanted more excitement, so I asked Lord Grantham—he sometimes rents a hack from my father when he’s in Town—to recommend me to Bow Street. And he did,” he concluded proudly, “so here I am. Still, it’s not quite as exciting as I’d thought it would be, so I hope to be promoted to principal officer someday, like Mr. Pickett here.”

Pickett examined this speech for some hidden insult, and found none. In fact, Harry Carson’s account sounded strangely familiar: Even though his work hauling coal for Elias Granger had given him food in his belly and a roof over his head, he’d been aware of a craving for something more, something he could not have named, but which he’d looked for first in the books in Mr. Granger’s library, and then in the fetching form of Mr. Granger’s nubile daughter. Something he had eventually found, not in the position of a Bow Street principal officer, but in the arms of his lady wife. Perhaps, he conceded, he and Carson were more alike than he’d realized.

This charitable thought lasted until that evening in Reading. Having obtained a room at the White Hart for themselves and a place in the stables for Thomas, the three young men refreshed themselves with a hearty but plain meal of roast beef and potatoes before seeking their separate quarters for the night.

“Shall I come up for your boots, sir?” Thomas offered.

Pickett glanced down at his feet and discovered that his boots were indeed the worse for having traveled forty miles over dusty roads, even in an enclosed carriage. “Yes, thank you.”

The valet turned uncertainly toward their traveling companion. “And Mr. Carson?”

Pickett nodded. “If you would be so good, Thomas, I would be obliged to you.”

Upstairs in their room, they surrendered their footwear to Thomas, who bore them off for cleaning before seeking his own bed.

“You’ll need to give him vails,” Pickett advised Carson after they were alone.

Harry Carson looked bewildered. “I’ll need to give him what?”

“Vails. Money. To show your appreciation for his services.”

Carson was less than pleased with these instructions. “All very well and good if you’re married to a wealthy woman, but for the rest of us—”

“It needn’t be much, just a little something in recognition of the fact that you’re asking something of him that goes beyond his usual duties.” Seeing that his colleague was inclined to be skeptical, he added, “Trust me on this, Carson. Of course, if you can’t bring yourself to do so, I can always tell Thomas he needn’t put himself out for you.”

“Oh, all right, then.” Carson turned away and began stripping off his coat and waistcoat, muttering something under his breath, the only discernable word of which was “hoity-toity.”

Pickett, having made his point, shed his own coat, waistcoat, breeches, and stockings, and climbed between the sheets still clad in his shirt and drawers. These garments, which he found superfluous while in his own bed in Curzon Street, were preferable to bare skin against a mattress on which countless travelers would have slept before him—a mattress, which, to judge by the crackling sound that accompanied his every move, was stuffed with pea-shuckings, or perhaps straw; in any case, something other than the soft feathers upon which Julia was no doubt at that minute reposing.

Julia . . .

Obeying a sudden impulse, Pickett scrambled out of bed and padded in his bare feet across to the small table positioned beneath the window. He groped for the flint and lit the tallow candle, then fetched the small notebook and pencil he always carried in the inside pocket of his coat. He tore out a sheet, sat down before the table, and began to write:

My dearest love, I hope this finds you—what? Safe? Healthy? Alive? He didn’t want to frighten her to death—I hope this finds you well, he wrote at last. This is to inform you of my safe arrival in Reading. If all goes well, I shall reach Dunbury by tomorrow evening.

“What are you doing?” asked Carson, who had by this time staked his claim to the other half of the bed.

“Writing a letter to my wife,” Pickett said without looking up from the task at hand.

Once there, he continued, putting pencil to paper once more, I hope to make a summary end to this business, whatever it may prove to be, and return to you with all due speed. Until then I am, always and forever,

Yours,

John Pickett

He folded the paper and sealed it with a drop of wax from the candle, then wrote her name and direction on the outside before snuffing the candle and padding back to the bed. Alas, Carson, having been granted this brief glimpse into his marriage, had apparently lost all interest in sleep.

“What’s it like, then?” he asked.

“What’s what like?” asked Pickett, shifting on the crackling mattress in search of a relatively comfortable position.

“Having a viscountess in your bed,” Carson answered impatiently, as if the answer should have been obvious.

Heaven, thought Pickett. Paradise. Everything I ever dreamed of, yet never dared to hope for. On that thought, he drifted toward slumber, and had almost achieved it when Carson, apparently taking his silence for an answer, spoke again.

“She’s older than you, isn’t she?”

“Mm-hm.” In fact, Julia was two years his senior, but there were far greater differences between them than mere date of birth.

“So, what’s it like?” Carson asked again. “Do you have to beg her pardon before you—”

“Shut up, Harry,” growled Pickett, and turned his face to the wall.