Ivy woke up, stiff and cold. The journey to London had drained her. She took a moment to adjust to the dim atmosphere of the unfamiliar chamber. It was supposed to be a respectable hotel, but during the night there had been a party in another room that had gone on into the wee hours. Ivy wasn’t certain whether she had dreamt Rue sneaking into the hall to investigate.
She sat up in bed and shook Rue gently awake. “It’s not raining. With any luck we’ll make it to the pawnbroker’s shop and be home before supper. I’ll have to buy a new dress in the village and shoes and stores for the pantry. We all need cotton stockings and shifts. If we have enough money left over, we’ll buy rose water and gloves.”
Rue sat up and combed her fingers through her hair. She was avoiding Ivy’s eyes. “What a horrible place this is.”
“Why did you leave the room last night?” Ivy asked.
“There was a party down the hall, and I was hoping to catch a servant in passing and have him ask the guests for a little consideration. You were sleeping peacefully. I couldn’t sleep at all.” She slid from the bed. “Come. We’ll do what we have to do.”
Ivy glimpsed her sister’s face in the mirror. “Do you feel well? Look at those circles under your eyes. I wonder if you took ill in the rain.” But then the four sisters had all been on edge lately. “Everything will be better soon.”
Rue smiled wanly. “Yes. I believe it will.”
Ivy told herself that whatever was wrong with Rue would have to wait until they returned home. She had to keep her wits about her when she dealt with Mr. Newton, the pawnbroker. She’d never had the sense that he cheated her, but business was business, as he said, and he paid her the best price she could expect due to the fact that he’d once gotten into trouble with the authorities for receiving stolen goods.
An hour later she watched him open her mother’s old jewel casket on his counter to examine the diamond-
and-pearl necklace. Rue stood at the door, her face turned to the street. “Oh, Lady Ivy, this is a magnificent necklace, crafted indeed to be worn by a noblewoman. I cannot pay you what it’s worth.”
“I’ll take whatever you can pay me, then.”
“It’s come to that?” he said in a worried voice.
“Take the pearls, and the casket. Fenwick is at stake.”
He removed his spectacles, laid the pearls on a velvet swath, and turned his attention to the intricately carved casket. “Keep the box,” he said after a while. “Only a few were made during Royalist times and carried secret messages for the exiled king.”
“It will only make me miss the necklace.”
“This is a unique item. There are panels hidden within that held secret messages, but, alas, all appear to be empty.”
“Yes. We opened them countless times as children.”
“I will pay you, my lady, but I do hope that this is our last encounter. You deserve better.”
“I’ve nothing left to sell, sir.”
When the time came, she almost could not bear to part with the necklace—ten pounds was generous for a pawnbroker but little compensation for what her family had lost. Rue stifled a sob, which so upset Ivy that she accepted her payment with a hurried thanks and steered her sister out of the shop. “It’s all right, Rue. Everything will be fine once we’re back at Fenwick.”
Rue pushed through the throng of pedestrians, presumably to reach their parked carriage. “Nothing will ever be right again. We should never have come to London. It’s only a place of endings, and dreams that can’t ever come true.”
Ivy hurried after her in concern. “You’re not making any sense. Stop a minute. You’re going the wrong way. I wouldn’t have sold the pearls if I’d known you felt like this. Rue, stop.”
But Rue didn’t stop.
And in her distress Ivy stepped straight out into the street in front of a speeding phaeton. The driver swerved to avoid hitting her. The lady in a plumed hat beside him covered her face with her hands.
Ivy would have done the same had she not reared back and fallen hard to the cobbles. A crowd drew around her, preventing her from getting to her feet. The driver jumped down to the curb and instructed his companion to move the phaeton from the flow of traffic. As his long brown hair swung against his face, Ivy braced herself for a public scolding.
Instead, he looked her over for obvious injuries and shook his head in consternation. Ivy wished he would speak his piece and allow her to disappear. She was famished, weak, and worried sick because Rue was acting oddly, and Ivy suspected that her behavior was not due only to the sold pearls.
The gentleman standing before her spoke in a museful voice. “I almost hit you.” He grasped her by the wrist and helped her to rise.
“It was my fault, sir,” she said, shaking out her skirt.
He glanced past her to the pawnbroker’s shop. “I shall write a sonnet to you. What is your name?”
Ivy studied him. She could hardly hear what he was saying for all the chatter that had arisen. “What in the world is he wearing?” she whispered to the kind matron who was brushing off Ivy’s cloak. “That long coat and ruffled shirt look like the castoffs of a pirate captain.”
“Oh, no. He pays a fortune for his wardrobe on Bond Street,” the matron assured her. “It’s essential for an artist of his standing to represent the romantic without appearing to try. He gives me palpitations.”
“Is he an actor?” Ivy asked.
“I am a poet, my dear,” the gentleman answered, apparently amused by this conversation. “You must be from the country not to recognize me.”
At last, a constable arrived, and the poet’s admirers broke apart. Ivy looked about for an avenue of escape and spotted Rue, waving to her from their carriage. She was laughing helplessly at Ivy’s predicament, a welcome state compared to her earlier despondency.
Still, Ivy couldn’t help noticing that Rue seemed to be stealing glimpses of people in the street as if she were searching for someone she knew.
But Rue didn’t have any friends in London. At least none that Ivy was aware of. She couldn’t be looking for an acquaintance, unless, against all odds, she had met someone during the night. Her sister in a rendezvous with a stranger? Never. Rue chased away callers from Fenwick.
* * *
Sir Oliver Linton found it disconcerting that a lady would ignore him in public. The unfortunate woman appeared unaware of his fame. In this case, however, perhaps it was for the best. Upon reflection, he decided that being seen entering a pawnbroker’s shop did not enhance his reputation, and so he drove about for a good half hour before he parked, leaving his adoring passenger to manage for herself. Alone, he walked back, his head bowed, to the shop he frequented more and more these days.
The pawnbroker did not glance up at his entrance. “Good afternoon,” Oliver said with false cheer. “Any steals today?”
“For me or for you, sir?”
Oliver approached the counter, his gaze lighting on the strand of pearls laid out by the man’s gnarled hands. “Are those genuine?”
“Yes,” was the curt reply. The pawnbroker rubbed a soft cloth over the necklace and slipped it into a bag. “A sad transaction, though.”
“I’m no judge of jewelry, but that necklace appears to be very old. Did it belong, by any chance, to the lady in the gray cloak I noticed outside?”
The pawnbroker looked up steadily. “It was her last valuable possession, or so she believes.”
Oliver laid his elbow on the counter. The pawnbroker nudged it off. “Is hers a tragic tale?”
“As you shall never meet, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. She lives far from here in an old manor. As legend goes, in days past, a royal visitor to the house hid a treasure inside. As a thank-you for the family’s hospitality.”
Oliver mulled this over. “Wouldn’t the visitor have gifted the owner in gratitude before leaving?”
“I have told you enough. History has it that the royal visitor escaped the house an hour before his enemies descended upon it.”
“Then there wasn’t time to explain.”
“One assumes.”
“Does the young lady know of this?”
The pawnbroker evaded an answer. “I underpaid her.”
“How ruthless of you. She seemed to be an innocent lady in dire straits.”
“And that is why she is grateful to accept whatever I offer her.” He gave a droll laugh. “I show you the same courtesy.”
Oliver glanced up at the weapons mounted on the wall above the counter. “Except that I’m not a gullible young lady in dire straits.”
“You’re always in trouble, sir. That’s why I enjoy your visits. By the way, Lady Moffatt’s husband was in the other day. He noticed the cuff links you had pawned and remarked that his wife had bought him a similar pair.”
Raising his brow, Oliver turned briefly to watch a potential customer peer into the window. For an instant he thought the owner of the necklace might have changed her mind. “So,” he said, returning his attention to the pawnbroker. “Did he buy the cuff links back?”
“No. He was looking for a bracelet as a surprise for his mistress. He was also looking for the man whom he suspects cuckolded him.”
Oliver shook his head. “London is such a sinful city, isn’t it? Where did you say the lady who pawned the necklace lives?”
“I didn’t. Leave her be. At least when she comes to me, she returns home with something to show for her trouble.”
“Do you believe that the tale of the hidden treasure is true?”
“I’d stake my life on it.”
At that moment the doorbell gave a discordant ring. The pawnbroker made a face, indicating Oliver had overstayed his welcome. Then he turned to greet his new customer. Oliver tipped his hat and inched to the end of the counter where an account book lay open. A smudge of fresh ink drew his eye to the last entry.
Receiv’d a double strand of pearls from Lady Ivy. Fenwick Manor. Kent.
Oliver murmured his farewell and hurried out into the street. He should be sitting in his garret working on the ode he had promised to write for Lord Moffatt on the occasion of his fortieth birthday. But Oliver had spent the advance a month ago, and his lordship was neither pretty nor in need of rescue.
Oliver, however, was in need of funds to buy those pearls and return them to their owner. This was the second time today he’d been warned that his affair with Lady Moffatt had been discovered by her husband. It wouldn’t hurt to have a place to escape to in the country. Oliver had fought and won two duels in the past year. There was no point in pushing his luck.
He ought to wait until January before fighting the next.
A treasure hunt appealed to his imagination. It was a gamble, of course. But it was preferable to being arrested for killing a nobleman in a duel.