Page 5 of Better Off Wed

“Damn me.” He looked Jeremy’s uniform up and down with bleary eyes. “I’m in for it now, ain’t I?”

“I haven’t the pleasure of understanding you, sir,” Jeremy answered, a reply that only served to muddle Penhurst’s head further. “I’m here to ask a few questions about the events that transpired at Vauxhall last evening.”

“Vauxhall.” Penhurst spat out the word and then, evidently intending to wash its bitter taste from his tongue, lifted the tumbler to his lips. Finding it empty, he tossed aside the heavy cylinder in disgust, and Jeremy watched it bounce onto the stained carpet and roll beneath a table. “What’s there to tell that the papers don’t already know? That whore stole my purse and slipped off into the night, and I didn’t even get the spit ’n’ polish she promised.”

A flush of embarrassment rose into Jeremy’s cheeks, making him grateful for the darkened room. “Can you tell me anything that might help to identify, er, Lady Sterling?”

“The King’s army’s after her now, eh? Well, I wish ’em luck. Pity you didn’t set about the job sooner,” he grumbled. “I didn’t see much—she set upon me in one of the dark alleys.”

Those shrubbery-lined, lanternless paths perhaps had not been designed for lovers’ trysts, but they were certainly used in that fashion. For that very reason, Jeremy had intended to steer Julia far from them on their visit to the pleasure gardens last night. Julia, pertinacious and almost always more curious than wise, had had other ideas.

If Julia ever discovered that the infamous Lady Sterling had not only been at Vauxhall but had secreted herself in one of those dark alleys to prey upon her latest victim…perhaps the same dark alley where the poor woman had run into Jeremy, evidently fleeing an assignation gone wrong…

The same? Surely not…

Nevertheless, the even trot of Jeremy’s pulse shifted to an unsteady gallop. He drew a deep breath to calm himself, tasting the room’s fetid air.

“Dressed like a fancy piece, she was,” Penhurst continued. “An’ she spoke in that throaty way—you know the sort. Made me hard enough to hammer nails, just to listen to her. Had her on her knees in a trice, you can guess. But before I could even drop my fall, there was a commotion a little way off, and she scampered. Ran smack into some bloke—I tried to hail him, but he let her go and got away himself before I could give him what for for ruining my night.”

Jeremy’s head began to pound to match his heart, every one of Penhurst’s words another blow.

The woman in the shrubbery, the woman he’d held in his hands for the briefest moment, had been Lady Sterling? The Lady Sterling? And he had let her get away?

No, no, no

“Afterward, I realized she’d left this in place of my, er, valu’bles.” From the pocket of his waistcoat, Penhurst plucked a small rectangular card and held it out to Jeremy between his first and second fingers.

Jeremy leaned forward to snatch it from him. In the semi-darkness, he had to squint to make out the words printed upon it:

the Lady STERLING

thief-taker

The sight of the name always held a jolt of discomfort for him, even when expected, and he skated over it as quickly as possible. But thief-taker was an eye-catching appellation: a curiously old-fashioned word, in these days of the Bow Street Runners. Still, in an ever-growing city, wrong-doers too often escaped apprehension, and there were certainly those who preferred the traditional methods of justice.

Thoughtful, he flicked the card between his first and second fingers. On its reverse, someone had inked two words in delicate script: for Betty.

Did the handwritten message confirm Scott’s suggestion that Lady Sterling’s mission might be something other than the gossip pages made it seem? Thief-taker, the card read, not thief. The inscription for Betty suggested she had stolen Penhurst’s purse on behalf of another woman.

Was she in fact some sort of female Robin Hood?

He held up the card but did not offer to return it to Penhurst. “My lord, who is Betty?”

Penhurst shrugged. “No idea.” But even as he spoke, his gaze skittered away to a far corner of the room. A lie. “I hope to God she hangs for what she’s done.”

“First,” Jeremy reminded him, “she must be found.” For the first time since leaving Scott’s office, he felt a flicker of grim enthusiasm at the prospect. “I thank you for your assistance in that endeavor, Lord Penhurst.” With a crisp bow, the calling card still in his possession, he strode from the foul chamber and back into the comparatively comfortable entry hall.

The same footman waited there, near enough to have caught much of his master’s conversation. From the scowl on his face, Jeremy could readily guess that the young man did not like what he had overheard.

Jeremy jerked his chin toward the front door, indicating that the footman was to open it, hopeful the noise from the street would give some cover to their conversation.

“Have you by chance heard your master mention an acquaintance named Betty?” he asked, low.

“She was a parlor maid here, sir.” A muscle ticked in the young man’s jaw. “She had the right misfortune to catch Lord Penhurst’s eye, and when she turned up with child, he sent her packin’. No surprise he denied knowin’ her. She might’ve starved, for all he cared—and the babe besides.”

“What has become of her, do you know?”

The lad sent a quick glance around and dropped his voice lower still. “Every hired girl in London knows to call on Lady Sterling when things go bad. Gentlefolk call her a pickpocket, but if she is, she’s only makin’ ’em pay for what they’ve taken from girls like Betty.” He paused, his eyes following a crested carriage as it lumbered past. “’Course, some things can’t be made right again.”