Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance) Read online

  The boy Versellion was seated between his parents. His hair was long, in the fashion of the day, and spilled over the collar of his coat. Like his father, the boy wore blue and buff, the Whig colors, and his placement in the foreground, as much as his dark hair and dark eyes, made him the focus of the painting, drawing the eye from his parents. The artist had captured something of the boy’s charm, and his reluctance to sit still for so long. His resemblance to his father was truly striking, but there was vulnerability there as well, as if his mother’s expression of uncertainty were the only thing he had inherited from her. Miss Tolerance noted that one of his hands lay open in his lap, as if he might raise it at any moment to ask for something.

  She turned away, blinking. If she meant to keep her resolve and deal dispassionately with Versellion, it would not do to examine this boy too closely. Again she walked a circuit of the room, stopping to look out on the empty street. Finally she took her chair again and closed her eyes, waiting.

  She became aware, after an indeterminate period, of noise downstairs, the noise of guests departing, voices raised to thank the host, the scurry of servants restoring hats and other property to the visitors, and then the door closing. A few more murmurs in the hallway and then Versellion had entered, closing the door quietly behind him. Miss Tolerance kept her eyes closed, acutely aware of him in the room, listening for him, feeling his warmth as he passed behind her chair and came to sit next to her. He reached to take her hand.

  “I am not asleep,” she said, and opened her eyes.

  He drew back, regarding her with confusion. There were a few minutes of quiet in which it was clear to Miss Tolerance that he was struggling to find the right thing to say to her. At last, “I’m sorry it took so long. The Prince … I meant to return to you immediately. Sarah, I have been thinking all this while of what to say to you. It comes to this. I’m sorry. I acted wholly with my head-that part of my head that thinks politically, in terms of getting and maintaining power.”

  Miss Tolerance looked away from him, fearing that in the repentant earl she would see too much of the vulnerable boy in the painting, and give way too easily.

  “You are a politician,” she agreed. “But if we are to continue together in any way—if I am to pursue the fan, if we are to be lovers—you cannot play the politician with me. Can I trust you? You hired me for my discretion, but discretion must flow two ways. Without that …″

  He nodded and reached again for her hand. “There has never been a reason to do it before, to keep the politician in check. You see that I need you.” His smile was rueful and wholly charming. “At the moment, in fact, I can think of far more reasons why I need you than you me.”

  She was not prepared to acquit him yet. “I am serious, Versellion. Trux believes that I sent Miss Ash that note. My reputation is my livelihood, and this tarnishes it.”

  His smile vanished. His grip upon her hand tightened. “I see that now, Sarah. I am not sorry for Trux—he played his game and got caught, and was punished for it. I am sorry for Miss Ash, although I think she’s well shut of a bad bargain. And I am heartily sorry if you were harmed by any action of mine. I will not allow rumors of your involvement to stand.” He raised her hand, unresisting, to his lips.

  Miss Tolerance sighed.

  “And this will never happen again,” he promised.

  She sighed again. He believed what he said, but she would take care to watch what she said to him from now on. Versellion must have sensed a giving-way in her, for he smiled again.

  “I have missed you. Are you quite recovered?”

  “I have been busy on your business. I met with Dr. Hawley,” she said. “And Mrs. Virtue.” She began to explain the little she had learned from Hawley and the Cheapside madam. Versellion stopped her.

  “We may dispense with Dr. Hawley and his associates, I gather. And Mrs. Virtue?”

  “I believe we may dispense of her as well. She was anxious that her involvement in forwarding the letter not come to light—she has even less chance than Hawley of defending herself. She says she did not remove anything from the fan in order to hide the letter there, and while there are many things she might be concealing, I think she is dealing plain with us upon this subject.”

  “Can you be certain? If she is hiding something—″

  “I have her word of honor. I believe her.” Miss Tolerance shook her head at Versellion’s expression of disbelief. “There is something else, Edward. I want you to promise not to act upon this information until we have thought the matter through.”

  Versellion promised.

  She explained what her attacker in the alley had told her.

  Versellion listened thoughtfully. “My cousin hired the men who attacked me. Was Trux working with him?”

  “I am not perfectly sure of it. ’Tis another reason I wish you had not written that letter to Miss Ash, for I certainly cannot ask Trux about the matter. I still believe he was working with Balobridge, which argues either that Balobridge and Folle are in league, or Trux was working both sides of a game I doubt he had the wit to understand.”

  “Christ.” Versellion loosed her hand and leaned back in his chair, running his hands through his hair. “You’re right, I must think about this before I act. I know my cousin hates me—but have me killed? My God. He’d have the title from it, I suppose that’s motive enough. But even our fathers at their worst never contemplated anything like …″

  “Like murder? You will need rather more evidence than the word of a footpad to catch him out. Just be on your guard for now.” Miss Tolerance sat up in her chair. “My God, what o’clock is it? And how did your meeting with the Prince?”

  “Well, I think.” With apparent effort, Versellion turned his attention from his own thoughts. “As well as I can expect. He was noncommittal but friendly. And he has agreed to come to the party my aunt Julia is holding here. It will be seen as a sign that he is declaring himself a friend to the Whigs.” He stood and looked at the ormolu clock on the mantel. “It is late. Will you stay?”

  Miss Tolerance bit at her lip, considering.

  “Sarah, please. We need to make a new beginning, you and I.”

  She had no more energy to resist him or herself, and what he said was true. “I am a great believer in new beginnings,” she said at last, and took his arm.

  Seventeen

  After a pleasantly restless night, Miss Tolerance was wakened by her lover’s kiss. Versellion, in the wake of their argument, was disposed to passion. Miss Tolerance put her wariness aside to return his embraces with her whole heart—but still insisted upon leaving early, shortly after sunrise, and making her way to Manchester Square as quietly as an unaccompanied woman might do at such an hour. Before she had left his house, noting the slenderness of her pocketbook, she had presented Versellion with a reckoning of all the monies she had advanced in his behalf, and of the time she had spent upon his business. Versellion had settled the account with only a mild tweak for her insistence upon mixing business with pleasure.

  “Indulge me,” Miss Tolerance said. “I work far more effectively when I know I shall not have to scramble for my supper. Now, you will promise me to keep your bodyguards about you when you leave the house?”

  He assured her he would do so, although he owned the accompaniment bothersome.

  “Death would be more bothersome still,” she reminded him, and with a kiss, and then a second, she left him.

  She went first to her own cottage, where she stripped off her evening dress, dozed, bathed, and finally dressed and took herself across the garden to her aunt’s establishment. She found Mrs. Brereton presiding over a pot of chocolate in a parlor overlooking Manchester Square, deep in conversation with one of the girls. The older woman’s dress indicated that she had not yet been to bed. Half past eight in the morning seemed a harsh time for so serious a talk, and Miss Tolerance kept herself out of the way until, at last, the young woman left looking chastened, and Mrs. Brereton signaled to her niece to approach.
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  “I am not certain at all that Clara is meant for this establishment,” Mrs. Brereton said coolly, and handed her niece a small gilded cup. “She exhibits very little ability to adapt herself to the requirements of her callers. I expect my girls to exhibit a little range, or at the very least not to subject me to displays of fastidious vapors.” She shrugged. “Clara plays the pianoforte and sings beautifully, and her manners are exquisite, but in matters of love, I begin to think her better suited to a bread-and-butter place in Southwark where all she would be expected to do was lie on her back and moan convincingly.”

  Miss Tolerance raised her eyebrow.

  Mrs. Brereton regarded her niece without irony. “My love, not everyone is up to the standard I set here. Your acquaintance at Blackbottle’s establishments—”

  “Acquaintance is a generous word for it. How did you hear I had been at one of Blackbottle’s houses?”

  Mrs. Brereton made a vague gesture with one hand, as though brushing away a fly. “Here or there, my love. Perhaps poor Matt told me before—You know how talk flies about.”

  Since it was Mrs. Brereton’s expressed policy that talk not fly about, at least not on her premises, and since Miss Tolerance’s recent experience with idle speculation had been painful, it was now on the tip of her tongue to say that she did not know. She was saved from making this observation by the appearance in the doorway of a departing client. The morning sun which filled the hallway lit the gentleman from behind; when she had blinked the dazzle from her eyes, Miss Tolerance was dismayed to see that it was Sir Henry Folle.

  Miss Tolerance composed her face into tranquil lines and prepared to study the bottom of her chocolate cup. She had no wish to disturb the early morning peace of her aunt’s parlor, and hoped Sir Henry would feel likewise. At first, it seemed that he did. His swagger, and the disorder of his clothes, suggested that he had just risen from one of Mrs. Brereton’s well-appointed beds. His hair was tousled, and his neckcloth was creased and would not hold the shape of the knot he had attempted. Miss Tolerance particularly noticed the gold-headed walking stick she had observed before; there was, she saw now, an intaglio jewel set on one face of the knob, deeply graven with the lines of a family crest. A glimmer of unpleasant suspicion occurred to her.

  “Good morning, madam,” Folle said to Mrs. Brereton. He evidently awaited Mrs. Brereton’s signal to join her, which she gave with an inclination of her head toward the sofa. Folle advanced easily into the room and turned to discover who Mrs. Brereton’s companion was. When he recognized Miss Tolerance, his demeanor changed remarkably. His back straightened, his eyes darkened, and his affable expression became hard and brazen. Mrs. Brereton, perhaps willfully, appeared to note nothing of the change.

  “Good morning, Sir Henry. Will you take a cup of chocolate?” She indicated that he might sit. Folle bowed crisply and took, not the sofa, but the chair opposite Mrs. Brereton, nearest Miss Tolerance. “I trust you passed a pleasant night?” Mrs. Brereton continued. She passed a cup to Folle.

  “Oh, very pleasant, very pleasant indeed.” Folle sprawled, one arm draped across the back of his chair, and eyed Miss Tolerance. “Interviewing new talent, Mrs. B? I swear, you whores work the damnedest hours!”

  Mrs. Brereton’s smile cooled. “You are pleased to be provocative, Sir Henry. You will kindly recall that this is not a tuppenny stew, and moderate your manner accordingly.”

  “Beg pardon, Mrs. B,” Folle said. “But let me just tell you—that one there is already employed at some mean business in Southwark. God only knows what poxes she carries about with her.” He eyed Miss Tolerance. “Though some men might think her worth the risk.”

  Mrs. Brereton frowned. “This is not one of my employees, but my niece. But perhaps you already knew that? You have been warned, Sir Henry. I shan′t think twice about refusing you entry if you continue—″

  “Exiled from the finest quim in England? That would be a sad thing.” Folle put his chocolate cup aside and inclined his head to Miss Tolerance in a mockery of politeness. “I am sorry I mistook your niece for something she ain’t. That leaves, of course, the question of what she is.”

  Miss Tolerance smiled brightly. “I know well what I am, sir. And curiously, I have been hearing a good deal of what you are.”

  Folle’s brow lowered. “From my noble cousin?”

  “From a Mr. Hart, sir.”

  Folle sat back with a lurch, as if the name had struck him a blow. If the hostility with which he treated Miss Tolerance had heretofore come from her perceived alliance with Versellion, it was obvious with the introduction of Mr. Hart’s name that Folle was ready to detest her for her own sake.

  “He recommended that I ask Mrs. Smith for more details.” Miss Tolerance watched to see if the lie hit home. “Sadly, that is not possible.”

  “Why is that?” Folle’s grip on his walking stick tightened.

  “Mrs. Smith is unavailable, having been murdered.”

  At the last word, Folle lifted his stick several inches from the ground. Then, with a gesture bespeaking conscious will, he let it drop again. Miss Tolerance was aware that one of the footmen was hovering in the doorway, sensing trouble.

  “What would an old dead whore know about me?”

  “I believe Mr. Hart thought you would know something about her, Sir Henry. Did I say that she was either old or a whore?” Miss Tolerance’s voice was low and mild.

  “You can’t trap me. And who cares what a lying blackguard like Hart says?”

  “Oh, I found him compelling when he had a knife to his throat,” Miss Tolerance said mildly. “He spun me a tale that he was hired to pursue a noble lord and bring him down. He seemed to think his employer would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. And I’m certain Bow Street would take an interest, sir. Attempted murder is a grave matter, far graver for ordinary mortals like ourselves.” She returned his look of malice, smiling. “A peer might ’scape prosecution where a commoner would certainly hang … .” Miss Tolerance watched the effect her words had been having, and at the last let her words trail as she might have run her fingers through a still pond.

  Folle rose to his feet, red-faced and unable to speak for his rage. Again he lifted his stick, but higher this time, nearly over his head. He would have brought it down upon Miss Tolerance except that the footmen, Cole and Keefe, had appeared on either side of Folle to restrain him.

  Mrs. Brereton rose from her chair and observed that Sir Henry might find it more commensurate with his dignity to leave under his own power. Folle, still furious but under control again, shrugged off the footmen and stalked out of the salon. Cole and Keefe followed him purposefully. Miss Tolerance put a hand to her head, as if to be sure that no blow had fallen. Mrs. Brereton sat again and poured more chocolate. The expression with which she regarded her niece was not a pleasant one.

  “I will thank you not to bring your business into my salon, to the detriment of my business, Sarah,” she said coldly.

  “I beg your pardon, Aunt,” Miss Tolerance said meekly. “Although, if you recall, the business brought itself to me.”

  “He started it? Spare me your nursery excuses. Was that an argument I just witnessed, or some peculiar sort of interrogation?”

  “Both, I suppose. Folle has confirmed for me the two things I believed, Aunt Thea. That he killed Mrs. Smith—the old woman in Leyton I told you about—and that he hired another murder done. He may even have been behind Matt’s death.”

  Mrs. Brereton put her cup down; the saucer rattled. “Matt?” She was silent for a moment, privy to a range of thought and grief Miss Tolerance could only guess at. Then, “Why would Folle kill Matt?” she argued. “His tastes do not run that way, it’s only ever been girls—″

  “Not all reasons for murder revolve around sex, Aunt Thea. Money, politics, family—all those can be excellent motivations for murder, and in Folle’s case, I think they were. But for now, whatever I believe, I have little evidence to lay before the magistrate.”

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p; Mrs. Brereton shook her head. This was the first time her niece’s business had so nearly coincided with her own, and she clearly did not like it. “But where did Folle learn you had been interviewing in Southwark?” she asked.

  “Here or there, Aunt. You know how talk flies about.”

  This sally failed to amuse Mrs. Brereton, who asked coolly if Miss Tolerance had learned anything useful from Humphrey Blackbottle. Miss Tolerance admitted that Blackbottle himself had been of indifferent assistance. “One of his … people … provided a good deal of help, however.”

  “I’m surprised to hear it. I should have thought that sort of person to be close as a clam and twice as suspicious.” Mrs. Brereton refreshed the chocolate in her cup and added sugar. “I cannot imagine that Blackbottle attracts a superior quality of help as a general rule, although—is there an Italian woman still manages his Cheapside house? I remember her from when I first came to London. She peacocked it around on the arm of her lover so boldly we almost thought he’d put his wife aside for her. It came to nothing in the end, though. The earl lost his interest in her and took up with that Deb Cunning, whom you say is now in Chelsea.”

  Miss Tolerance stared at her aunt in fixed amazement. “Do you mean Mrs. Virtue, ma’am? There was a connection between her and Mrs. Cunning?”

  “Only a man, my dear, and several years separated them, I think. Fanny Virtue, I believe she called herself. She was a few year older than I, very pretty, and new to London. Gave herself great airs, which made it sadder, I suppose, when her earl shifted his affections—″

  “And that earl was the late Earl of Versellion?” Miss Tolerance asked.

  “Of course. Within a year, I think, he had dropped her. He went through a string of light-o’-loves before he settled on the pretty, silly one.”