Like the innkeeper, the lady seemed mightily curious about them. She kept turning to look at Peregrine. Though he had his back to her as they rode and he said as little as possible, he grew increasingly uneasy. As soon as they reached Reading, he was wild to get away from them.
Luckily, Olivia had noticed or sensed trouble of some kind, and when the couple offered to treat them to tea and biscuits, she suddenly remembered errands that couldn’t be postponed.
It was midafternoon, and Reading was bustling. It was easy enough to lose their brand-new friends in the crowd.
Olivia led Peregrine to a large group gathered in front of a bench from which a grizzled peddler sold trimmings, laces, buttons, and other such articles indispensable to the feminine sex.
“We must do something about you,” Olivia told Peregrine in a low voice. “You look too aristocratic.” She squinted at him critically. “It’s the profile. We shall have to find you a large cap—or perhaps a scarf would be better. We could wrap up your face and pretend you have the toothache.”
Without appearing to push, she somehow made her way to the front of the crowd, towing Peregrine along.
A large woman was haggling with the peddler over a length of lace.
“Oh, my,” said Olivia, “I can hardly believe my eyes. Is that the Santiamondo lace—made only in the one small village in Spain—and the pattern passed down through one family? But where did you get it?” she asked the peddler. “You can’t find that lace in London for love or money, you know, because it’s all the rage with the ladies. The Duchess of Trenton wore it to a ball at Carlton House. I read about it in the newspaper. She wore Santiamondo lace, and her famous diamonds.”
The woman snatched up the lace, thrust the coins into the peddler’s hands, and hurried away.
The peddler looked at Olivia. She looked back at him.
Another customer asked about a ribbon. Olivia spouted off some piece of nonsense about the ribbon. Every button and bauble had a story. By late afternoon, little stock remained.
When the peddler took down his bench and packed up everything in his cart, Peregrine and Olivia helped him. He invited them to dine with him.
They ate at an inn frequented by other peddlers and itinerants. The place was dark and smoky, the food plain and overcooked, but Peregrine was too fascinated by the company to notice.
He had never been in the midst of such people before.
He could barely understand some of them. It was like visiting a foreign country.
The peddler’s name was Gaffy Tipton. “Now, I know you’re no boy,” he said, pointing his pipe at Olivia. “What I don’t know is why you was so helpful.”
She crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward and said in a low voice, “My brother and me, we’re going to Bristol to seek our fortune. It’s a good ways from here, though, and all we got is three shillings. We don’t know any trades, except that I used to help a pawnbroker sometimes, and I know about dress trimmings and such. I know the names of all the great nobs, and I read about the parties and operas and plays they go to. I come and helped you today to show what I can do. I heard someone say you always come on Saturdays from Bristol. If you’d let us go back with you, we’d make ourselves useful.”
Gaffy looked at Peregrine.
“He’s very shy,” she said.
“Is he now?” said Gaffy skeptically.
“I’m a good liar but we don’t neither of us steal,” she said. “If you let us go with you, I can be a girl again. If we go with you, people won’t trouble us.”
Peregrine blinked. It had never occurred to him that she might be worried about their safety. It had not occurred to him, either, that she could be as effective even when she told almost the whole truth.
After staring at Peregrine for an aggravatingly long time, the peddler said, “All right, then. I’ll take you.”
BENEDICT CLIMBED INTO the carriage beside Bathsheba. “Bristol, then?” he said.
“As you said before, we cannot know whether they are ahead of us, behind us, beside us, or right under our noses,” she said. “We cannot even be certain we’re traveling the same road. The one thing we do know is that they’re headed for Throgmorton.”
“It is a gamble,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “But whatever we do is a gamble, and they will be at risk whatever we do.”
“Bristol, then,” he said, and gave the horses office to start.
AT THIS SAME moment, Rupert Carsington stood in the vestibule of his brother Benedict’s town house.
“Not at home?” he said to the butler, Marrows. “Has he left for Edinburgh already?”
“No, sir,” said Marrows in the completely noncommittal manner butlers had to master before they learnt anything else.
“Urgent government business got in the way, most likely,” Rupert said. “Well, no matter. I can see him anytime. I wanted to take my leave of the boy.”
“Lord Lisle is not at home, either, sir,” said Marrows.
“Really,” said Rupert.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where are they?”
“I cannot say, sir.”
“Yes, you can, Marrows. I don’t doubt you could say a great deal. But it seems you’d rather I blunder about the house looking for clues.”
“Sir, I cannot say where they are,” Marrows said.
Rupert walked past him into the hall.
“Sir, I do not know where they are,” Marrows said. His voice held a faint note of panic.
“Do you not?” said Rupert. “That’s interesting.” He continued on to Benedict’s study. “Maybe Gregson can clear up the mystery.”
Men who became secretaries to titled persons were usually gentlemen of good family and limited means. Unlike the butler, Gregson could regard himself as one of his lordship’s confidants. Unlike the butler, too, Gregson would not consider his position to require an impassive countenance and a stubborn determination to give no visitor, even a family member, any information of any kind whatsoever about anything.
Gregson sat at his lordship’s desk, which was not its usual well-ordered self. At the moment it more closely resembled Rupert’s desk. Letters, cards, and invitations lay carelessly strewn about. A stack of apparently untouched correspondence stood at the secretary’s elbow.
“What’s got into His Perfectionship, I wonder?” Rupert said as he entered.
“Sir.” Gregson stood.
“Sit.” Rupert waved at the chair.
The man remained standing.
Rupert shrugged and walked across the room to look out of the window. “What the devil is that back there?” he said. “Is my brother going to tear up the garden at last and put in a bowling green as I recommended?”
“There was some damage in the area near the back gate,” said Gregson.
“Intruders?”
“Lord Rathbourne.”
“My brother did that?”
“This is what the servants say. I did not witness the—er—”
“Demolition?”
“Thank you, sir. I did not witness the demolition.”
“My brother wrecked the garden,” Rupert said thoughtfully. “This grows more interesting by the minute. Any idea what’s become of him?”
“I am not at all sure,” Gregson said. “His lordship has been behaving rather oddly of late. As you know, he is scrupulous about keeping me apprised of his appointments. But late yesterday afternoon he departed without a word to anybody. It seems he took the footman Thomas with him. It is vastly puzzling. I was sure Thomas had gone out some hours earlier with Lord Lisle—to a drawing lesson, I believe. But no one has seen Lord Lisle since then.”
“So Rathbourne found Lisle a drawing instructor, after all,” Rupert said.
“Oh, yes, indeed, sir. Lord Lisle has been taking instruction from . . .” Gregson drew toward him a ledger and flipped the page. “Here it is. The instructor is a B. Wingate, care of Popham Print Sellers.” He gave an address in one of Holborn?
?s more dismal neighborhoods.
“B. Wingate,” Rupert said, careful to keep his countenance blank. He had no trouble recalling the evening Peregrine had uttered the famous name at Hargate House.
Benedict thought himself the coolest of customers, but both Rupert and their mother had sensed something in the air.
Gregson, the innocent, had no idea who B. Wingate was, or he would have loyally protected his employer.
Not wishing to distress the man, Rupert returned his gaze to the scene outside and choked back a whoop of laughter.
Lord Perfect had answered the siren’s call.