Dukes Prefer Blondes (The Dressmakers 4)

Oy! You!”

Radford glanced toward the voice.

A young male in fantastical lilac and gold livery jerked his head toward a passage near the shop window where Radford lounged.

The boy had taken notice of him some minutes ago, but didn’t leave his post at the dressmakers’ shop door immediately. After he’d ushered in a lady, the footboy or porter or whatever he was casually crossed St. James’s Street, summoned Radford in this suave manner, and stepped into Crown and Scepter Court.

Radford followed him into the narrow passage. He saw that from here the boy could keep an eye on Maison Noirot’s door and dart across the street, should he be needed.

“Well, then, whatchyer want?” the lad said.

Radford regarded the blinding livery for a moment. Then, “Jonesy,” he said. “That’s a clever disguise.”

“It’s my clothes,” the boy said. “I got a job.”

“Ah.”

“And it ain’t Jonesy, neither. It’s Fenwick.” The boy’s eyes narrowed, daring Radford to laugh.

“I heard something to that effect.” Though he advised others to hire detectives, Radford was quite a good one. His profession often required it. His nature demanded it. He was drawn to mysteries and puzzles the way other men were drawn to gaming or drink.

He’d pursued the Fenwick riddle among his numerous contacts on the London streets.

“The French dressmakers,” Radford said, nodding toward the shop opposite.

“They stole me right off the street.” The boy leaned toward him, his face a picture of shocked innocence.

“I heard it was off the back of a carriage, when you were trying to empty a gentleman’s pockets. That was stupid. And you were one of the few of that lot with a brain.”

“It’s a long story.”

“Don’t tell it to me,” Radford said. “I haven’t time. I need to send a message to a female.” He explained.

Fenwick stared at him for a moment, then went off into whoops. The hilarity lasted for some time.

Radford waited.

“You!” the boy said when he caught his breath.

“It’s not—­” what you think, Radford very nearly said. He caught himself in time. What the boy thought was immaterial.

“Yer barkin’ up the wrong tree, Raven,” the boy said. “All her gennelmen is nobs, mainly, and you can get in line behind the other five hundred and sixty.”

“Yes, well, I’m cleverer than any of them.”

Fenwick cogitated upon this, his expression skeptical.

“It’s about the truant boy, Toby Coppy,” Radford said. “You do remember? You led her to me the other day.” He studied Fenwick’s face. “By the way, I notice the swelling has gone down.”

“He looks worse’n me!”

“Tilsley does look a good deal worse, and his bruises, unlike yours, don’t match his regalia.”

Fenwick narrowed his eyes at him.

“Your ensemble, I believe the dressmakers would call it,” Radford said.

Fenwick looked down at his lilac and gold splendor. “They said I could pick what I wanted.”

“And you wanted to look like Louis XIV,” Radford said.

Fenwick’s brow knit. “I fink I know which one he was,” he said. “They been teaching me. I can read and write now. And I can do ands.”

“Hands?” Radford said.

“Ands,” Fenwick said more loudly, as if to a deaf person or foreigner. “What’s fourteen and six and six again? Twenty-­six. Ands!”

“Ah. Well, then, what does sixpence and sixpence come to?”

“Twelvepence. A bob!”

“Exactly.” Radford took out a shilling. “Here it is, if you’re clever enough to smuggle a message to the lady.”

Fenwick folded his arms and eyed the coin with disdain.

“A shilling, you little thief,” Radford said. “That’s twelve times the going rate, and you know it.”

“The other fellers pay me more,” the brat said.

“I’m not the other fellows,” Radford said. “If you won’t do it, I’ll find another way, and you know I can.”

Fenwick shrugged and started to exit the passage.

Radford told himself to walk away. His was idle curiosity, no more, and he hadn’t time for it. He’d a new case to prepare for. He had to shield his parents from the accursed Bernard.

Radford had his own life, and she wasn’t and never would be part of it.

Her path would never have crossed his if not for a missing boy who by now was either permanently lost in the thieves’ kitchen or already a corpse.

If he sought her out, she’d think he wanted to help. And her mission was futile. It wouldn’t turn out as she hoped. Boys went wrong all the time, and the best he could do was spare them the gallows. He didn’t always succeed.

He would leave it alone, as he’d advised her to do.

It was the only rational course of action.

“Wait, you little brigand,” he said. “Here’s another shilling.”

Chapter Three

Such a place of filth, and tipsy jollity, and nocturnal rows, and squalid wretchedness, is no where to be found, except on “Saffron Hill” in the vicinity of Fleet Ditch, where a large portion of the indigenous poverty of the metropolis is congregated.

—­Nathaniel Sheldon Wheaton, A Journal of a Residence During Several Months in London, 1830

The following day

The Milliners’ Society for the Education of Indigent Females stood in a row of narrow, grimy buildings not far from the Bow Street Police Office.

The rear of the building looked out upon a cramped courtyard. Undersized and starved for light, this patch of ground strove, like the girls within, to be something better. Someone had created a facsimile of a garden under the stunted trees. Someone had swept every trace of debris from the ground. Only one lonely leaf marred its neat order, and that, Radford felt sure, would soon be dispatched. Here and there a pot of flowers brightened the gloom. A bench, whose paint had been refreshed within recent months, stood under one of the dingy trees.

Head bowed, face in her hands, Bridget Coppy sat on the bench and wept.

Lady Clara chose that moment to arrive.

Actually, calling it an arrival was like calling the eruption of Vesuvius a fire.

Her ladyship wore a pink explosion of embroidered organdy boasting the gigantic sleeves still, against all reason, in fashion. The dress revealed more of Lady Clara’s creamy neck than ladies usually displayed by day, and the satin handkerchief, edged in ruffled Valenciennes lace and looped rather than tied at the neckline, didn’t fully cover the indiscreet-­for-­day bits.

Though no fashion connoisseur, Radford had an eye for detail. This and a quickly acquired fluency in the arcane language of dress had proved crucial in two burglaries, one fraud, and one assault with violence.

This must explain why he noticed exactly how low from the shoulder the sleeve was cut, the size of the waist the belt encircled, the snugness of fit above the waist, and the amount of satiny skin, in inches, visible above the handkerchief’s loop.

A rice straw hat topped off the lunacy. Blond lace framed the inside brim, where a pink bow fluttered near her right eye. On the outside, flowers, leaves, and sprigs leapt skyward from a bower of ribbons and bows, to add some ten inches to her height.

None of this explained why the wan little garden seemed to perk up and brighten, nor did he choose to pursue the question.

Bridget had jumped up from the bench and curtseyed the instant Lady Clara appeared. Now, though, as she took in her ladyship’s ensemble, her mouth fell open and only her gaze moved, up and down and all over the apparition in organdy. This stopped the waterworks, in any event, for which he was grateful.

“Lady Clara,” he said. “You’re pun

ctual to the minute.” He didn’t take out his pocket watch. He had an accurate idea of time, especially when it was wasted. Of the last five and twenty minutes, all but four, by his measure, fell into that category.