corporal in his time, before he’d bettered himself and gained employment in his brother’s detective agency. But what he really wanted was to set up in business on his own account.
The Squire’s precise speech and confident manner proclaimed him to be a man of good stock. The steely strength in his grip, taken together with the battle wounds on his knuckles and cheeks, spoke of his employment entertaining the crowds in a makeshift boxing ring that sprang up illicitly in the neighbourhood, then disappeared equally swiftly. Thadeus knew that the purses could reach quite a sum and attracted talented pugilists from far and wide. There were no holds barred with these men and wily assailants used every bodily weapon they possessed, from head to foot, to gain victory.
‘Stay there, while I read it,’ Drew commanded. Taking back the parchment, he stepped clear of a group of rowdies who had been loitering outside the Cock and Hen. He’d been on the point of entering the tavern when Pryke intercepted him a few moments ago.
A laugh grazed his throat as his eyes flitted over the few lines of thick black script.
‘Have you a pencil?’ he enquired of Thadeus, sticking the cheroot back between a set of even white teeth.
The investigator immediately produced one.
Drew scrawled two words across the bottom of the paper, then refolded it and resealed the broken wax with hot ash flicked from his cigar and strong pressure from a calloused thumb. ‘Return it, if you please.’
From beneath a pair of wiry brows Thadeus watched Rockleigh’s impressively broad back as the fellow strode away into the inn, a pretty blonde tavern wench greeting him eagerly at the doorway.
* * *
‘Where is he?’ the Duke of Thornley demanded to know when the detective returned alone. In his note he’d commanded Rockleigh to accompany Thadeus Pryke to meet him and claim his reward.
Alfred had taken the precaution of garbing himself in a sober suit of clothes and hiring a creaky rig to take him to the Eastern Quarter. He had wanted to blend in with the prevalent atmosphere of lower-middle-class aspiration; lawyers and shopkeepers had colonised an area in Cheapside in which Alfred had instructed his driver to stop. The Duke of Thornley had decided that if his daughter were brave enough to journey into the bowels of the Wapping docks to school children, then he must have sufficient backbone to park on the outskirts to pay the man who had ensured her safe passage home to Mayfair.
His young son and heir was away at school and as much as Alfred adored George, he doted equally on his eldest child, trial that Joan was, because she reminded him of the love of his life—her late mother. He would do his utmost to protect Joan from scandal...and in that he hoped—but was not convinced—that he and the boxer were of a single mind.
Thadeus executed a deep bow, his hat secured beneath an arm. Climbing aboard the rig, he closed the door so they might converse in private. Drawing forth the letter, he proffered it. ‘The Squire returned you a message, your Grace.’
‘The Squire?’ Alfred echoed quizzically.
‘Beg pardon, your Grace... I have inadvertently used the fellow’s nickname.’ In fact, Thadeus had intentionally aired the sobriquet in the hope that the Duke would find the boxer risible. The impatience with which his Grace snatched the missive disappointed Thadeus. Whether he was Rockleigh or the Squire, the man was obviously of great importance to Thornley.
Impatiently Alfred broke the seal and gaped at Rockleigh’s answer to his offer of fifty pounds’ compensation for time and trouble expended on his daughter’s behalf. Nothing required was the sum of the man’s response and he hadn’t seen it necessary to add either his gratitude, or his signature.
Alfred slouched back against the upholstery, feeling miffed by the snub. He was a duke with several lesser titles and a number of ancestral estates established in the countryside from Cumberland in the north to Devon in the south. Yet a man who was rumoured to have lost everything in bad business deals, and was reduced to brawling to earn a crust, wanted nothing from him. And Rockleigh hadn’t even been sufficiently flattered by the Duke of Thornley’s interest in him to come and pay his respects.
Alfred dismissed Thadeus, who on reaching the pavement swivelled on a heel to jerk an obsequious bow. The investigator then rammed his hat back on his head and strode off. Alfred banged on the roof of the rig for the driver to head towards Mayfair. Far from accepting that that was the end of it, he was more determined than ever to have a meeting with Joan’s saviour. Curiosity about Drew Rockleigh’s decline played a part, but overriding all else was Alfred’s prickling suspicion that no impoverished fellow would turn down the opportunity to exploit his secret knowledge. If Rockleigh was playing a long game and heightening Alfred’s anxiety with uncertainty, then the tactic was working. The Duke sourly acknowledged that he was tempted to turn the rig about and drive straight into the heart of the rookery to demand Rockleigh spit out how much he did want if the sum offered wasn’t sufficient for him to drag himself out of squalor.
He pressed his shoulders against the lumpy squabs, rueing his missed chance of quizzing his son-in-law over Rockleigh the last time they’d been in each other’s company. Luke was sure to know a good deal about his friend’s degradation, yet Alfred had not previously been interested enough to probe. He was not one to want to pick over another chap’s misfortune. But now things were different.
* * *
‘I expect your father will put a stop to our meetings now.’
Vincent had sounded sorrowful. He had always been chary of upsetting the Duke of Thornley. His cousin Louise was very friendly with Lady Joan and their mothers were close, too. Years ago, Lady Joan’s infatuation with him had initially been flattering, but having the Duke’s good opinion was crucial to Vincent. Rich and powerful patrons of the church were hard to come by, and Vincent had been relieved rather than disappointed when Lady Joan’s flirtatious behaviour waned as she grew more mature. Vincent was a pragmatic man. He knew there was no real prospect of a clergyman marrying a duke’s daughter, so he had accepted early on that their relationship must remain platonic.
‘Oh, Papa is just up in the boughs over my misadventure, but he will calm down in a week or so.’ Joan gave her companion a smile as they strolled side by side in Hyde Park.
A short distance behind the couple, Aunt Dorothea was stomping along assisted by her silver-topped cane and her maid. The young servant was wielding a parasol to shield her mistress’s lined complexion from the April sun.
Joan would sooner just a maid accompanied her when she went out, but her father insisted that she be properly chaperoned even though he’d recently deemed his sister unequal to the task.
‘I don’t think Lady Dorothea cares for me at all,’ Vincent said, slanting a glance over a shoulder. ‘But for her manners forcing her to respond, I believe your aunt would have ignored my greeting earlier.’
‘She took the upset very badly that afternoon,’ Joan explained.
On the day in question Joan had entered Vincent’s back parlour to find nine children grouped in a semi-circle, sitting cross-legged on the rug. They’d ranged in age from about six to ten years old. She’d gladly assisted Vincent in chalking letters on the children’s slates for them to copy, but her aunt had refused to get involved or to budge from the front room of the vicarage. Dorothea had huddled into her widow’s weeds and sat all alone for two hours rather than make herself useful.
‘My aunt prefers it when we take a drive round the park, or head towards the emporiums where her cronies congregate. She has a fine time being scandalised by the latest on dits during their gossips.’
‘No doubt she had quite a tale to tell them after that drama.’
‘I believe my aunt is too ashamed to breathe a word about it...other than to her brother, of course,’ Joan added flatly. ‘But let’s not dwell on what disasters might have been.’ She slipped her hand through the crook of Vincent’s arm.
She had written to Vincent to inform him that she’d be unable to visit the vicarage again as soon