My Inconvenient Duke (Difficult Dukes #3)

Chapter 29

London

Thursday 5 September 1833

Parliament rose on the day Alice and Blackwood frightened the Tollstones out of their school. Since then, the majority of

the upper orders had left London, some for their places in the country, some for the seaside, and some for the Continent.

The Blackwoods planned to leave, too, and the house was in the throes of packing and reorganizing. To escape the turmoil and

keep out from underfoot, Alice and Blackwood were about to set out for Regent Street, where a curiosity was being exhibited

at the Cosmorama rooms. “Napoleon Breathing,” a life-size figure of the late emperor, was reputed to be exact in every detail,

with remarkably lifelike features. Apparently its chest rose and fell in an exact representation of breathing. The numerous

newspaper articles had made Blackwood curious about what it was made of and how the illusion of breathing was done.

They had stepped out of the house and were about to climb into the cabriolet when the groom Pratt ran into the forecourt.

“They’ve taken him!” he cried. He stopped short when he saw the duke and duchess standing, staring at him.

He dragged off his hat and bowed. “If it please Your Grace.” He was gasping.

“What’s happened?” Blackwood said. “Who’s been taken?”

“Jones, Your Grace. The new boy.”

It had happened very quickly. Pratt and Jonesy had been returning from their weekly errands for the head groom. They’d paused

at Hatchett’s White Horse Cellar to buy muffins from the muffin man there, Jonesy being partial to the delicacy and owning

a prodigious appetite.

An altercation of some sort broke out, as often happened at that busy place, resulting in a lot of shouting and pushing. In

the tumult, a large man, who appeared to be a coachman, had grabbed Jonesy and dragged him away.

The boy hadn’t gone willingly, Pratt told them. He’d shouted and struggled, but suddenly stopped. Amid the general chaos,

it was hard to see what happened next. Then Pratt saw the boy flung into the back of an old coach. It looked like a hackney

coach but bore no identifying number.

Pratt had started to chase after the vehicle when a stagecoach arrived, adding to the general confusion. With everybody pushing

and shoving and arguing, all busy with their own concerns, nobody paid Pratt the slightest heed. By the time he was able to

break through the crowd, the vehicle was long out of sight.

“I found a constable,” he said. “I told him what happened, but it was too late by then. They was long gone.”

He was distraught. Jonesy had become a favorite in the stables. He worked hard and he didn’t complain, but above all, he had a way with the horses.

“It was like they was brothers and sisters, Your Grace,” Pratt said. “Him and the creatures. He learnt their ways so quick.

I don’t know what the world’s comin’ to, Your Grace, I don’t. What’d anybody want with him?”

A good question.

After Alice and Blackwood had collected as much information as they could from the groom, they sent him back to the stables.

Alice stood in the forecourt, looking about her. “I had resolved to be philosophical if he ran away,” she said. “But he didn’t

run away.”

“Apparently not.” Blackwood, too, looked about him, but he was thinking, not seeing. “Needle in a haystack comes to mind,”

he said.

“Yes.”

“I’d better apply to Bow Street for a principal officer,” he said. “Nobody is more skilled at finding people.”

They returned to the house, and to his study. He wrote a short letter to the chief magistrate at Bow Street and was about

to ring for a servant when Dawson appeared, bearing a folded piece of paper on a tray.

“This just arrived, Your Grace,” he said. “In view of today’s events, I took the liberty of detaining the ticket porter.”

Alice rose from the chair where she’d been sitting, staring at her shoes—obviously as much at a loss as Blackwood was—and

moved to the desk where he stood.

The folded paper was cheap and none too clean.

He unfolded it. Written in pencil, in coarse capitals, was the message:

EFF YOU WANT THE BOY BACK, SEND YOUR LADY WITH 500 POWNS SEELT UP SAFE INSIDE OF A TRAVELL BAG TO SAINT BOTOLF CHURCHYD BY THE BULL AND MOUF AT 6 OCLOCK TOMORROR. NO PLEECE AND NOBODY ELLS ONLY HER LESS YOU WANT HIM IN PEECES.

He passed it to Alice, who read it once, twice, then looked up at him with a puzzled expression.

“Five hundred pounds?” she said.

“Leave it to you to notice that first. You don’t turn a hair at the prospect of going, alone, to a churchyard in Aldersgate

to meet somebody who threatens dismemberment. No, you take note of numbers.”

“It doesn’t ring true,” she said. “Somebody who can’t spell, writes in pencil on cheap paper, demands such a sum?”

“That isn’t the only false note,” he said. “I can’t be sure of Maggie Proudie’s territory, but I should have guessed it encompassed

that part of London. She and I had a bargain.”

“More than a year has passed since we collected him from her,” Alice said.

“She let me know when Jonesy was taken up, only a few months ago.” He shook his head. “Either somebody has dared to be a renegade

and risk her displeasure, or this is not what it purports to be.”

He met Alice’s gaze.

“We’d better talk to the messenger,” she said.

The ticket porter, John Ridding, awaited them in the same room where Alice had awaited Blackwood as a laundress.

Ridding offered little enlightenment. His stand was near Hatchett’s. A coachman had given him the message to carry here. The coachman said that a passenger had asked him to send it, the passenger needing to be elsewhere urgently. No answer was wanted. The coachman had paid Ridding sixpence, though he’d had to travel so short a distance—not even a quarter mile.

No, Ridding didn’t know who the coachman was but was sure he wasn’t one of the regular drivers. Still, they were always coming

and going, changing routes. It might have been one of the night coachmen.

Blackwood paid the ticket porter a crown to make up for any revenue lost while he was delayed at Blackwood House, and let

him go.

“It isn’t difficult to dress like a coachman,” he told Alice. “Noblemen have done it.” He smiled at her. “You could do it.”

“I suppose I could, but that won’t help us find Jonesy.” She moved across the room to look at a picture. It was the one she’d

been studying on the morning more than a year ago when she’d arrived to demand his help. It was a print of one of Henry Alken’s

steeplechase paintings.

Life with Alice was rather like a steeplechase, Blackwood thought. An adventure, certainly.

Apparently, a never-ending one.

“A man pretending to be a coachman at a coaching inn,” she said, turning away from the picture. “A coach pretending to be

a hackney coach—old and nondescript. Nothing elaborate here in the way of arrangements. Except the ransom note. Five hundred

pounds, Giles. For a stable boy. Would Maggie expect that much?”

“Maybe fifty, if she was in a humorous mood. But that’s the sort of sum one might expect for, say, government secrets. Or

a duchess.”

Alice shook her head. “I find it difficult to believe she’s behind this.”

“As do I. Maggie is no fool, and kidnapping Jonesy would be dangerously foolish, considering our bargain.”

“Would she be willing to help us, do you think?”

Yes, this was Alice, he thought. She didn’t pause for a moment at the prospect of employing a gang leader whom hardened criminals

feared.

“For a price, certainly,” he said.

“Then the question is how to find her.”

“She seemed to think I could.” Blackwood still had in his hand the ransom note, as well as the letter he’d written to Sir

Frederick Roe at Bow Street. He looked from one to the other. “Maggie or Bow Street. I can’t do both.”

“Certainly not,” Alice said. “Bow Street would like to get their hands on somebody like her. Not that I blame them. But she

did alert you when Jonesy was captured. We can’t betray her.”

“One or the other,” Blackwood said. “We risk failure either way. Which one, then?”

“The note warned us against police,” she said.

“The principal officers are quite good with disguise,” he said.

“Yet some miscreants can detect them from a furlong away. Keeffe would tell you so.”

He glanced down again at the ransom note. “If this didn’t smell of trickery... But never mind. I’m going to put my money

on Maggie. She believed I could find her. I’d rather she didn’t discover she’d overestimated my intelligence.” He considered.

“I might as well start at the Cock in Fleet Street. She did not seem to be a stranger there. Will you accompany me?”

She shook her head. “If I go to a tavern, I’ll need a disguise. That would take time I can spend more pro ductively. Not to mention that she likes you better. I’m going to see Keeffe.”

Blackwood told himself not to have high hopes of locating Maggie in time. Her lair would be a closely guarded secret, which

nobody but persons tired of life would reveal. Still, one must begin somewhere. Having decided to begin with Maggie, he could

only follow where his intellect and instincts led.

The Cock was busy at this time of day. He loitered outside for a time, examining his surroundings, especially the other loiterers,

including some unpromising young specimens. He didn’t see the youth who’d found him at the Haymarket last month. After a few

minutes, he went inside.

He wasn’t hungry, but he ordered a meal and a tankard of porter. He found a newspaper and read it. And waited. And waited.

The waiter came to ask if there was anything else. Blackwood ordered more porter and said, “I was expecting to meet somebody

here.” He took out his pocket watch and shook his head. “Women have a curious sense of time.”

A humorous conversation ensued. Coins changed hands, and Blackwood said, “I breakfasted with the lady here a good while ago.

Last year. I wonder if she forgot our appointment today. Or perhaps she mistook the place.”

The waiter regarded the coins in his hand. “Last year, Your Grace? In the forenoon, was it? Not very busy then, I’ll warrant.

May I ask some of the others if they recollect?”

To assist the others’ memories, Blackwood added more coins and a description of the dilatory female.

Time passed. In the Cock’s dim light, Blackwood read the shipping news and the sporting news. He sent for another paper. He perused the positions wanted and the list of books published this day. He read the accounts of the wrecks of the Amphitrite and the Talbot Ostend Steamer . He read on. He came to the last page and was perusing the latest report from Bow Street when he heard a familiar voice.

“Missed me, did’yer?”

Maggie Proudie slid into the seat opposite.

“That was quick,” Blackwood said.

Maggie shrugged. “One of these coves tole one of my lads who was outside. They said you was waitin’ for me.”

“I guessed one of your lads might be in the vicinity.”

She nodded. “Then, when I was comin’ here—you know, not wantin’ to miss our randy-voose—I heard some things. I heard somebody

nabbed a boy, the one you took last year. I tole you he was more trouble than he was worth.”

Blackwood passed the ransom note across to her. “Somebody thinks he’s worth a great deal.”

She read the note and laughed. “If all his teeth was gold, he wouldn’t fetch fifty pounds. Unless he’s your squeaker. But

he ain’t, is he?”

“Most certainly I never fathered him—or anybody else, to my knowledge.”

She returned her attention to the note. “I’ll tell you somethin’. Mebbe I’m wrong, but it looks to me like somebody tried to make this look like the note I wrote for you that time. The one for the gentry cove in Golden Square.” She pointed. “See? That’s how I made my letters, to scare ’im. I don’t write like that usually. I know readin’ and writin’. My pa taught me, ’n I can do it proper. Another thing: I spell better ’n this. Not like you, mebbe, but better ’n some. I know how to spell what’s on an inn sign. That’s one o’ the ways I learnt.”

Blackwood sat back. “That’s interesting. The coincidence. The same boy. Copying your writing.”

“Ain’t it?”

“Let me buy you dinner,” he said.

“I’ll let you,” she said. “But first let me talk to some of my lads.”

Word traveled more quickly through London’s underworld than even among the upper orders. By the end of her dinner, Maggie

had received several verbal messages, and Blackwood had sent two written ones to Alice, reporting on progress.

The second was short:

We’re about to set out. I’m to keep in the background, and let the mistress of crime manage matters. We must act quickly,

though. The kidnappers have Jonesy in an unpleasant neighborhood well away from the rendezvous point. They won’t expect us.

I’m sorry to leave you out of this part of the excitement, but I do it in hopes that you will be well-compensated by tomorrow,

if not sooner.

I remain

Your humble and obedient husband,

B

Alice, meanwhile, was not idle. She’d received Blackwood’s first message shortly after she returned from visiting Keeffe. By then, she’d put together a few clues and developed a theory.

She sent a message to Lord Consett.

Locating him wasn’t difficult. Like so many other gentlemen, his lordship was a creature of habit. His servants had suggested

to the footman Thomas three places where he was likely to be found. Thomas found him at the second.

By late afternoon, Consett and Alice sat in Blackwood’s barouche under the trees in Berkeley Square, across from Gunter’s

Tea Shop. They were enjoying ices. That was to say, Alice was enjoying hers. Consett regarded his as though it bore a skull

and crossbones.

“But I can’t say,” he said. “Gave my word, you know.”

“And a gentleman doesn’t break his word,” she said. “It simply isn’t done.”

“I’m so glad you understand, Duchess.”

She leant toward him. “Here is what I also understand. If you do not tell me where Lord Worbury is hiding, I shall break all

your teeth. That way, you’ll be able to say ‘I can’t say’ in perfect truth.”

He covered his mouth.

“You must have heard about my encounter with the miscreant in Kensington last year,” she said. “I am not afraid to bruise

my knuckles. And do not think of trying to run away, because Thomas is on watch to make sure you don’t get in an accident.”

She frowned. “Or maybe to cause one. I forget.”

Consett looked from her to the burly Thomas.

“Or maybe I’ll simply tell your mother about a few of your and Lord Worbury’s not very gentlemanly activities.”

His face went white.

She waited.

“Ch-chelsea,” he said.

She smiled. “Well done. That’s a start. Where in Chelsea, precisely?”

Like so many malefactors, the kidnappers, Bill Ford and Abner Grigg, made up in brawn, brutality, and bluster what they lacked

in brains.

When Maggie Proudie turned up unexpectedly in their hiding place, the bluster crumbled. Two of her assistants—men, not boys—relieved

the kidnappers of their various weapons, and nobody argued about it.

At present the two who’d taken the weapons lounged by the door. A third leant back near a window, to discourage flight via

that route. Other gang members waited on the stairs and on the street below.

I envy her power , Alice had told Blackwood. Until this moment, he hadn’t truly understood .

He wished Alice could see that power in action: the effect of one not especially large or threatening-looking woman on this

pair of brutes.

“But this kid ain’t the same ’un, Missus Maggie,” Bill was saying, trying to make light of matters. One didn’t contradict

Maggie Proudie without long and careful thought, not to mention cartloads of tact.

Bill’s body, however, had got all the power, leaving his brain nothing to work with. “That ’un you didn’t want bothered, why,

he was a street brat. This ’un—only look at ’im.”

True, Jonesy wasn’t at his best, having been manhandled into a coach and bumped along numerous side streets and alleyways to elude pursuit, then tossed onto a pile of second- or possibly fifth-hand clothes. On the other hand, one could hardly mistake the quality of his attire. A neat cap. Sturdy boots. Nothing torn or patched.

Unlike the grooms, Blackwood’s stable boys didn’t wear livery. All the same, their attire declared them gainfully employed

by a prominent personage.

Jonesy remained mute, obviously waiting to see which way the wind blew.

Blackwood, who was dressed as a hackney coachman, had him by the hand. Nonetheless, a child as quick-witted as this one wouldn’t

necessarily feel safe while Maggie was nearby with her minions.

The boy’s hand was cold in Blackwood’s, and he trembled a little.

A child. He was only a child, after all.

“I’m lookin’ at you ,” Maggie said.

She slapped Bill in the head.

The whack must have been audible at the bottom of the three flights of stairs they’d climbed to find their quarry. Jonesy winced at

the sound. As did Abner. Bill staggered and clutched his head.

With his ears ringing, Bill wouldn’t be useful for a bit, and so Maggie turned to Abner. “Who tole you to steal the boy?”

Abner looked at Bill. Maggie raised her hand to assist the cogitation process.

The men began to talk.

Blackwood House

Hours passed. Midnight passed.

Finally, shortly after two o’clock in the morning, Alice heard the rattle of wheels in the forecourt. She hurried down the stairs to the entrance, arriving in time to see Blackwood disembark from a hackney cab and Jonesy hop out after him.

Alice raced out into the forecourt.

While Blackwood paid the driver, she crouched in front of the boy.

“You’re unhurt?” she said, taking off his cap and smoothing his hair.

He pulled away from her ministrations and looked down at himself, as though not certain he was all there. “I ain’t hurt. Only

I orter ’of seen ’em comin’, Yer Highness. Wasn’t watchin’ proper.”

“Probably on account of the large muffin in your mouth at the time,” Blackwood said.

Jonesy looked up at him. It was a long way up. “Vey knocked it outer my mouf!”

The hackney rattled away, out of the court and into Piccadilly.

“Let’s be thankful they didn’t break your teeth in the process,” Blackwood said. “You were so quiet back there, I did wonder

if they’d cut off your tongue.”

Jonesy shook his head. “Vey tole me to stopper my jaw. Vey said it was a job, and don’t make it hard. Vey said they’d let

me go tomorrow, arter vey got the money. I din’t believe ’em. But vey wasn’t so bad as some.”

Alice looked up at Blackwood. It was hard to read his face in the dark.

“I were more scairt of Maggie,” the child said.

“So were they,” Blackwood said. “I’m sorry you weren’t by to see it, Duchess.”

“As am I, but I had my own business to attend to,” she said. “We can talk about it later. Let’s see to Jonesy first. He’s had a long, trying day—and he was cheated of his muffin. Nobody in the household has wanted to sleep. They’re all worried about him. I daresay Cook will find something for him to eat.”

The sun was sending up its first exploratory rays by the time Alice and Blackwood got to bed. After time spent in Bill and

Abner’s lair, Blackwood had badly needed a bath. He’d come to his wife’s bed mainly to make sure she was asleep, and not fretting

about anybody or anything.

He found her sitting up, book in her lap. She set the book aside.

“Are you not tired?” he said. “This has been a long day, wearing on the nerves, I should think.”

“My nerves are made of iron,” she said. “I am tired, but I can’t bear to keep my triumph to myself.”

She told him about her conversation with Consett.

Blackwood laughed. “You threatened him with his mother. Oh, Alice, that is...”

“Brilliant,” she said.

“Wicked, I was about to say.”

“Not that I actually knew anything to accuse him of,” she said. “But the threats of violence weakened his resolve. He was

primed by the time I administered the coup de grace. Still, I do wish I could have slapped him in the head the way you said

Maggie did Bill. Consett needs to be slapped. Repeatedly. With a cricket bat.”

“It won’t help,” Blackwood said. “One can only hope he finds less villainous friends in future.”

“I did let him know it was unwise to continue Worbury’s acquaintance,” she said.

“Ah, yes. Worbury. One last matter to clear up. But we’ll talk of that tomorrow.”

“It is tomorrow.”

“Later today, then.”

“Yes, but let me say one more thing. You rescued Jonesy. You found Maggie, and you found the kidnappers, and you got that child away safe. In a matter of hours. I can’t imagine another nobleman doing what you’ve done this night. I’m glad I chose you.” She ran her hand down his chest.

“Am I a victim of wishful thinking, or are you feeling amorous, Duchess?”

“I feel particularly fond of you at the moment.” She slid her hand down farther.

“Do you know, I’m growing fonder and fonder of you at present.” He drew her into his arms. “There must be a way to express

my feelings. Let me think.”

“Thinking doesn’t come into it,” she said.