Page 29 of Never a Duke
“Transportation for some is worse than a death sentence, but I am not here to discuss our rosy past. I’m looking for a young woman.”
Mrs. Nimitz made a face and left off playing with her pearls. “How young? I don’t deal in children, Ned, not even for you.”
“I am not searching for a child. I’m looking for two young women. Francine Arbuckle and Catherine Campbell. They were both lady’s maids in an earl’s household, and both have gone missing.” He passed over Rosalind’s sketches. “Have you seen or heard of them?”
Mrs. Nimitz studied the drawings. “Of course not. They will be Antigone and Electra if they’ve taken up the trade, orHeloiseandMimi Delacroix. Which earl?”
“Why?”
“Because some of the nobs are right bastards to their help and some aren’t.” A hint of the lady’s native Cockney inflection colored that observation.
“They were maids to Lady Rosalind Kinwood. She’s concerned for them.”
Mrs. Nimitz passed back the sketches. “The earl stopped making the rounds years ago, and Lindhurst can’t afford my rates. He’s enough of a rat to get a maid with child and turn his back on her though, taking for free what he ought to pay for.”
“Her ladyship says he leaves her maids alone.”
Mrs. Nimitz snorted. “What would an earl’s daughter know of her brother’s sporting tastes? Maybe the maids simply did a bunk and are kicking their ’eels back ’ome in the village.”
Ned saw, because he was watching closely, how those dropped haitches had mortified the speaker. She resumed playing with her pearls, but Ned now knew the topic of missing maids made his hostess nervous.
“Why leave an excellent post,” he asked, “earning good pay from a prestigious employer for…ruin?”
The lady folded her arms, which accentuated her natural charms. “Some people—some women, and from what I can see all young men—like to fuck, Ned. Why not get paid for something so pleasurable? But you always were an excessively proper boy.”
She hadn’t known him “always.” She’d known him for a span of weeks at Newgate, and their paths had crossed from time to time since. Ned had never offered to handle her money, and she had never offered him much of anything.
Not that he would have accepted. “If you haven’t heard of these two women, have you noticed an increase in the number of proper ladies abducted into the trade?”
“People exaggerate the dangers decent women face on London streets. Enough country maids, shop girls, and soldiers’ wives sell their wares that nobody need bother the delicate flowers. They are more trouble than they’re worth, truth be told.”
“But a lady’s maid is not a delicate flower. One of them had spent time in a Magdalen house.”
“So Lady Rosalind is a reformer? Ned, you disappoint me. Next you’ll be quoting scripture and closing down the print shops.”
“Never that,” Ned said, rising. “Will you keep your eyes and ears open for me? Her ladyship is very concerned, and neither woman was discontent with her post.”
“Maybe they fell in love,” Mrs. Nimitz said, getting to her feet. “Makes sensible people daft, I’m told. Try closer to the docks, Ned. Dora Hepplewhite likes the navy crowd, and if somebody’s snatching proper misses from the streets, the fastest way to get the goods out of London would be on a boat.”
“Not a cheering thought. I can leave the sketches with you.”
She walked with him to the door. “Don’t bother. I know where to find you. How is Artie doing?”
“Arthur is a work in progress. How did you know he’d come to us?”
“That child has a big mouth. He was bragging on his good fortune at the Pump and Tackle last night. Nebbins heard him.”
Meaning Artie had broken curfew and returned to his old haunts. Like a dog to his vomit, to use a biblical analogy.
“I will have a word with Arthur about his nocturnal excursions,” Ned said. “I’m off to put my questions to Mrs. Hepplewhite.”
“She’d let you put more than your questions to her, if you asked nicely.” Mrs. Nimitz laid a hand on Ned’s arm. “I’ll find Artie work in the stable or kitchen if the bank doesn’t suit him.”
“And he’ll be back on the street, picking pockets before sundown,” Ned said. “The temptations here are too great.”
“You can’t save them all, Ned, and you might be a jollier banker if you let yourself be overcome by temptation from time to time.”
Well, no. He’d been overcome by the temptation to kiss Rosalind Kinwood, and since allowing himself that lapse, he had not been at all jolly.
