Page 9 of Cousin Conundrum

“You do not know?” Elizabeth asked with a laugh.

“I imagine I did know when I was thinking it.” Kitty kept her eyes wide as she spoke, trying to appear slightly confused. “But now I have forgotten.”

Mr. Bennet snorted, raising his paper.

“It seems as if we will have another lovely day,” Jane said brightly.

Kitty nodded. Jane always sought to keep the peace, a quality Kitty greatly appreciated in her eldest sister. Jane didn’t mock like Elizabeth could, or pester and poke as Mary did. Kitty’s eldest sister was also stunningly perfect in appearance, with glowing skin, cornflower blue eyes, and the sort of lovely blonde locks depicted on princesses in fairytales. It baffled the mind to find that, at two and twenty, Jane was yet unwed.

Mrs. Hill’s words returned to Kitty and she turned her gaze to her father. Rather, to the paper he held like a shield between him and his daughters. Was Mr. Bennet neglectful? Were they indeed fortunate that Willy Steeple hadn’t set his sights on Lydia?

Sadly, Kitty felt Mrs. Hill might have the right of it.

Well, she would watch over Lydia. If Willy Steeple, or any other gentleman, tried their wiles on Lydia, Kitty would stop them. That was what older sisters were for.

That decided, she returned to composing her sheep, and to wondering when Mama and Lydia would join them. When they did, Kitty could make her excuses and return to her room. While Lydia ate breakfast would be the perfect time for drawing sheep.

Chapter Four

Steven sat back, rubbing his neck. He’d been bent over the Bow Street Runners’ notes on the Peacock thefts all morning. And the whole of the day before. And the one before that. And… He let that thought trail off with a sigh. “We must be missing something.”

Where he sat across the table in the cramped, windowless room the Runners had allotted them, Sergeant Fletcher looked up. “I daresay we are. The product of incomplete information, I should not wonder. Such as these.” He tapped a pile of files, the ones where the wealthy, like Lady Catherine de Bourgh, had used their influence to have their identities reduced to initials, deeming it unacceptable for their names to appear in such context, even as the injured parties. “I have requested a list of the actual names of the Peacock’s victims, but for now, I sent out two of our best to do more complete interviews with those we can identify.”

“That is something, at least.”

Fletcher shuffled through some papers. “Here is what they have come back with so far.” With a toss, the pages landed near Steven’s elbow.

Sergeant Fletcher returned his attention to the reports before him while Steven studied the sandy-haired head. Fletcher, perhaps half a decade Steven’s junior, presented a conundrum. A sergeant in the regulars, yet already retired, and Steven’s liaison with the Runners, Fletcher also possessed the measured, precise diction of a member of the ton. Members of the ton did not become Bow Street Runners. Nor did they generally join the regulars without purchasing a rank, which Fletcher’s former standing of Sergeant showed he had not.

“It puts one in mind of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave,” Fletcher added, not looking up. “We have only shadows of the truth.”

Steven continued to stare. Now the man would reference The Republic?

“You may ask,” Fletcher said, raising his head to meet Steven’s gaze.

With a wince, Steven hedged, “My curiosity is so acute, then?”

“Everyone asks.”

“Very well. How is it that you are a retired sergeant and a Bow Street Runner, Sergeant Fletcher?”

“Fletcher will do. I am, as you say, retired, and I am a Runner by choice. Second choice. My first choice was the regulars, but my parents, or rather my mother, was so opposed, they refused to purchase me a rank. Obviously, I joined regardless.” He shrugged. “Then, when my father and eldest brother died, making me the spare, my mother badgered me, and used her family’s influence, to see me retired from service.” Fletcher sat back in his chair. “I am not an idle man, Mr. Hurst. Nor can I see myself as a clergyman. Joining the Bow Street Runners was my novel solution and, to answer your next question, yes, my upbringing is why I am stuck in this room with you. The others said I understand you ‘swells, bucks, and pinks,’ and that I could deal with you.”

“Splendid,” Steven muttered. “Dare I hope you have some idea what you are about, then?”

“I have every idea. I earned my rank in the regulars, and my place here. Do you think they wanted me when I applied?”

“Fair point,” Steven said, wishing he hadn’t voiced his doubt aloud. Silence heavy about him, he turned his attention to the reports Fletcher had tossed over.

Among information about what was taken and when, the pages held lists of where the robbed widows were on the day they presumed they were robbed, mostly as told by their staff, for many were not in town or refused to humor the Runners with renewed interviews. Ladies of the upper set, it seemed, were not often at home to Bow Street Runners. Steven could have helped there, were he permitted to mingle with his own class, but he was under strict orders not to compromise his position as Padgett’s asset. An order that made him nervous about this truly being his final assignment for the general.

Steven longed for his freedom.

Which would be more likely secured by success in the capture of the Peacock, so he pulled free a clean sheet of paper and readied a pen. The greatest link between the robberies, aside from the victims of the Peacock being widows, was their absence from home when they were robbed. Going through both old and new notes on the cases, he made a list of where the widows were when the Peacock called. Curiously, he also noted that three of the widows had reported broken windows. Not when they were robbed, but in the weeks before.

Had anyone looked into that?

“And you?” Fletcher asked into a silence that had lasted nearly two hours.