Page 47 of An Honorable Deception
She lifted her water goblet and took a dainty sip. “Flies and honey, my lord.”
He watched the front of the house and wondered idly who the woman was who had locked up. A secretary? Liaison to the ladies who would visit throughout the day? Housekeeper? He had to think someone stayed overnight with the boarders, but he could detect no movement on the premises. The windows had curtains—not so much as a shaft of light broke through into the gathering dusk.
Lavinia’s foot connected with his shin—not hard enough to hurt but enough to get his attention. She blinked lazilyout the window. “Isn’t that your old friend Lord Arnold?” She nodded toward the street.
Perhaps she was better at this surveillance thing than he’d given her credit for. He turned to face the direction she was, narrowing his eyes at the figure strolling down the pavement. Definitely Desmond Arnold. Yates didn’t know him well, praise be to the Lord, but there was no mistaking the swagger.
He fully expected him to stroll directly by, his aim some other place along the Strand. A shop still open, a restaurant. He wouldn’t even have been too surprised had he gone up to the front door of the Empire House and tested it. He bypassed that, though ... and then turned at the corner of Frith and rapped on a side door of the house.
“Interesting,” Yates muttered when the door opened. A man stepped out, nodded a moment later, and then ushered Arnold in.
Lavinia trailed a finger around the rim of her goblet. “Did the doorman just examine his tie? Or its pin, perhaps?”
Had he?Yates hadn’t had a clear view. “Very interesting. If so, then the pin gets one in at the side after the front doors have been locked.”
“But why?”
The question of the hour—quite literally. They placed their orders, ate their meals, and during the hour it took, he counted six well-dressed gentlemen go to that same side door, five of whom he recognized either from Parliament or general social gatherings. The same doorman stepped out, took a look at their ties—she was definitely right about that—and then showed the men in.
“Three have now come out again,” Lavinia said as she dabbed at her mouth with her serviette. “There’s Lord Arnold.”
And the duo laughing their way to the side door now was Lord Dunne ... and a man that Yates was fairly certain was a higher-up in the police force, one Butterfield had cautioned him not to trust with anything sensitive.
“What is going on over there?” Lavinia murmured.
Yates had an idea, and it made his dinner roil in his stomach. He kept replaying what he’d overheard in the club—and Xavier’s opinion on the men afterward.Good friends of Mrs. Jeffries...catering to the aristocracy ... perhaps he’d prefer some fairer company ... they will make good patrons. Better allies.
Mason? Was that the name of the chap walking up to the side door with Dunne now?Ready for an invitation.
He watched as maybe-Mason practically puffed out his chest with pride to show his tie pin to the doorman. Invitation given and accepted, it seemed.
“Yates? You’re glowering.”
He pulled his gaze away from the window and back to Lavinia, but there was no way he could make himself smile, even for appearances. “I think I know what the Empire House really is—and it’s no charity.”
Lavinia’s brows creased. “What do you ... oh.” He hoped the enlightenment in her eyes was mistaken, that she wasn’t immediately capable of making the leap he’d made.
But the way she pressed a hand to her mouth said she probably had indeed leapt to the same teetering ledge he had. “Do you think Samira is there? Is that why those men targeted Alethia? Because she was too close to discovering it? Did Mrs. Rheams perhaps find out? And—oh! The other young ayah she saw being carried out? Not drunk, but not ill.”
“Drugged.” Yates hissed out a breath and tossed a bill to the table to cover the food. “Come on.”
She scrambled after him, neither of them bothering with any pretense as they strode out the doors and into the balmy August evening. Lavinia did snag his arm again, though. “What is the plan? See if Graham has access to schematics? Find a way in tomorrow morning, beyond what they no doubt show the ladies?”
If Samira was there? Or that other young ayah? Or rather, if it was what he suspected? How could he in good conscience wait another day? “I have the pin. I’ll ... go in.”
“Are you mad?” She steered him out of the center of the pavement, under an awning of whatever business was beside Kettner’s. “And then what? You waltz back out with them in tow?”
He was clenching his teeth so tightly his jaw ached, but it did nothing to hold back either the wisdom of her objection or the fact that he still had to dosomething. “I simply try to ascertain if Samira is there.”
That was the case. That was the focus.
But if this was what he thought, then he swore here and now he’d see the whole sordid operation exposed and shut down.
He had the sinking feeling he wasn’t the first to think it. And that it was, as Lavinia suggested, what had killed Mrs. Rheams.
She shook her head. “Think it through. Even if the pin gets you in, even if you find her—you’ll be recognized. You’re not in costume. You’reyou, and while you may be exactly the sort of patron they’re looking for, you won’t be able to undo walking through those doors. All those men will think you want to be there. That will become your reputation.”
She was right. He let out a slow breath. His general mode of operation was to avoid undue notice from therest of the aristocracy, to do what was expected, be pleasant but not draw attention to himself. He didn’t mind the occasional display like they’d put on at Brooks’s—people might talk for a minute or two about it, but mostly with a chuckle.
