A Kiss Away from Scandal
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Christine Merrill
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Chapter One
‘I have a problem.’
In Gregory Drake’s experience, most conversations began with exactly those words. But that was to be expected, given the unusual nature of his profession.
Gregory fixed things.
Not in the usual sense. Watchmakers fixed watches. Tinkers mended kettles. But Gregory was not a tradesman as much as a student of human nature. He fixed lives. When members of the upper classes were confronted with a situation that was difficult, embarrassing, or simply tedious, they came to him.
He made their problems go away. Quickly, quietly and without another word.
It was why he was welcome in the reading rooms at Boodle’s and White’s and most of the other clubs in London. He could claim membership in none of them. But he was so often found in attendance at them, sharing hushed conversations with important people, that no one dared to ask the reason for his presence. Though society might see him as an underling, even its most august members kept a respectful distance from him, not wanting to embarrass their friends. More importantly, they did not want to annoy the fellow who could be counted on to rescue them when trouble arose.
Today, Gregory stretched his legs towards the fireplace to warm the January chill from his bones. Then he looked expectantly to the man in the opposite chair. ‘Does your problem involve a woman?’ Until his recent marriage, James Leggett had been a well-known rake who courted scandal almost as actively as he chased the females that embroiled him in it.
At this, Leggett laughed. ‘It involves several women. But none in the way you probably expect, given my reputation.’
‘If not an affaire de coeur, then what could it be?’
‘It concerns my wife’s family,’ Leggett said, with a sigh. ‘Lovely ladies, all. But there are far too many of them for one man to handle.’
‘That is why you are speaking to me,’ Gregory said, with an understanding nod.
‘The branches of the Strickland family tree are so full of women that it is all but dead. My darling Faith has two sisters and a grandmother.’
‘The Dowager Countess of Comstock,’ Gregory supplied, to prove he was well aware of the circumstances. ‘The Earl had no brothers and all three of his sons are dead. But, I understand the Crown has found an heir to the earldom. There is a cousin of some sort, several times removed and living in America.’
Leggett nodded. ‘This leaves the ladies in a somewhat precarious position.’
In a just society, it would not. In Gregory’s opinion, men should be required by law to make provision for the future of female relatives and property should be divided equitably amongst all siblings, regardless of sex. But no one gave a damn for the opinion of a fellow without inherited wealth, nor did it make sense to argue reform with a man who had benefitted from the current system. Instead, he described the situation at hand. ‘The last Earl left them a pittance and the ladies fear that the new one will take even that away from them.’
‘It is not as if they will starve in the streets,’ Leggett said quickly. ‘I will provide for them, if no one else shall. But they are worried. The heir has called for an audit of the entail to be completed before he arrives.’
Suddenly everything became clear. ‘I take it there might be some problems in the accounting?’
‘The Countess is a delightful woman,’ Leggett said with a smile. ‘Charming and sweet-tempered, but a trifle foolish. She could not resist keeping up the appearance of wealth where it no longer existed.’
‘She has been selling off the family jewels,’ Gregory said. Women of titled men sometimes grew so used to the baubles they wore that they thought of them as personal property and not things meant by law to be passed down the generations, from one peer to the next.
‘Nothing as dire as that. It seems she’s pillaged furniture, paintings and assorted bric-a-brac.’ Leggett held his hands wide to indicate the variety in the theft. ‘It is all quite random. The only record of the sales exists in her faulty memory.’
‘You need someone to search the Lombard merchants for the missing items.’
‘With a dray and draught horses if necessary. God knows how much is missing. Buy it all back at my expense,’ Leggett said, closing his eyes in resignation. ‘And finish before the arrival of the new Comstock. There are rumours of rough seas between here and Philadelphia, but weather will not forestall discovery once his man of business arrives. With two sisters yet to be married, my wife is terrified that any scandal will spoil their reputation.’
‘I have contacts in the industry that might help me with retrieval,’ Gregory assured him. ‘You are not the first to come to me with such a problem. Once I am on the case, it will be sorted in no time.’
‘But in the past, you did not have to contend with the Strickland sisters.’ Leggett gave him a rueful grimace.
Gregory countered with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘If they are named for the three theological virtues, how much trouble can they be?’
‘How much trouble? As much as they can manage, I suspect.’ There was something in the quirk of his lips that was not quite a smile. It spoke of bitter experience. Then, his face gentled. ‘My Faith is a continual delight, of course. But she has a will of iron.’
‘The shield and bulwark of the family?’
‘Rather,’ Leggett replied. ‘She is the eldest and used to running things. I am removing her from the equation, for my pleasure and her piece of mind. A month in Italy will leave you free to do the work she would take on herself, if I allowed her to.’
‘That is probably for the best,’ Gregory said cautiously. ‘And the other two?’
‘Charity is the youngest,’ Leggett said.
‘A sweet child, I am sure.’
‘She is no child. She is fully nineteen and cold comfort, at best.’ Leggett glanced about him to be sure no one heard his candid assessment. ‘A whey-faced girl with a mind as sharp as a razor and a tongue to match. She will be a great help, if you can persuade her to put down her books and leave the library. But she has the brain of a chess master and, if she decides to work against you, your battle is lost before it has begun.’
Gregory nodded, already thinking of ways to win the favour of Charity. ‘And the third?’
‘The enfant perdu, in the military sense, of course.’
‘A lost child?’ Gregory waited in silence for an explanation as Leggett sipped his drink.
‘Are you familiar with the military concept of a forlorn hope? Those soldiers willing to risk certain death and lead a charge, straight into the enemy cannons?’
‘They seek great reward.’
‘Weighed against almost certain failure,’ Leggett confirmed. ‘That describes Hope Strickland. She is a girl with a plan. A rather stupid plan, in my opinion. But it is hers and she cannot be dissuaded.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘She means to wed the new Earl as soon as the fellow’s shoes touch British soil. She thinks his marrying into the family will soften the blow of learning that the Dowager has been pinching his property.’
‘Such a connection would be expedient,’ Gregory said.
‘It would save us the trouble of finding a husband for Charity,’ Leggett agreed. ‘She has spurned Faith’s offer to share our home and refuses to put herself in the way of gentlemen who might court her. But if Hope snags the Earl, Charity could remain in the Comstock Manor library as though nothing had changed.’
It sounded almost like he was describing a piece of furniture that was valuable, but too heavy to move.
‘All the same,’ Leggett continued, ‘a man should have some say in choosing his own wife.’
‘And you know nothing about him,’ Gregory added. ‘He might already be married.’
Leggett nodded. ‘Or he might be too young to marry. Or old and without the vigour for it. Also, he will have to be even-tempered enough to forgive the pilfering and inclined to care more for family than the money that this new title is bringing him.’
‘He might not be the sort of man a gently bred girl should marry at all,’ Gregory said.
‘He could be a drooling idiot, for all we know: a villain, a cad, a deviant or a toss pot. I cannot let Hope marry into misery just to maintain the status quo for her little sister.’ Now, Leggett had the worried look that so many of Gregory’s clients got when faced with an insolvable problem.
‘Women get ideas,’ Gregory said in his most reassuring tone. ‘Especially when they are thinking of the family and not themselves.’
‘My wife was guilty of similar foolishness. When I discovered her, she was about to marry for money over love.’ Leggett smiled. ‘I managed to set that to rights. But I cannot marry all of them to save them from themselves.’ Then he looked at Gregory in a way that hinted that the finding of lost objects would not be the hardest part of his job.
‘You do not think that I...’ Gregory paused. ‘You do not expect me to find them husbands.’ He prided himself on his ability to rise to a challenge, but matchmaking was not within his purview.
‘Lord, no. We are all agreed that Charity is a lost cause. But Hope is more than pretty enough and will have no trouble finding a husband if she can be persuaded to look for one. I do not want the Season to slip away, or offers to be refused, as she waits like a princess in a tower for a rescue that may never come.’
‘You wish me to make enquiries into the heir?’
‘Any information would be helpful,’ Leggett said. ‘Should you find that there is a wife and ten little Stricklands in America, make Hope aware of them so she will abandon her scheme.’
‘And if I do not?’
‘I would not object to your taking a certain creative licence with the truth,’ Leggett said, as optimistic in his own way as Miss Strickland was in hers.
‘You wish me to lie to her?’ Gregory put it plainly. Though he was not a gentleman by birth, he held his honour as dear, often more dearly than the men who hired him did. If he was to break his word with lies, he had no intention of hiding those untruths under elegant euphemisms like creative licence.
Leggett sighed. ‘I merely want her to set her sights on the men right in front of her. Do what is necessary to persuade her. I will leave the details of it to you.’
‘Thank you.’ That left him plenty of room to manoeuvre before resorting to falsehood.
‘And you will have ample opportunity to come up with something, since you will be forced to work directly with her. It is Miss Hope Strickland who holds the list of items you must retrieve.’ Now Leggett was smiling in satisfaction as if he had made the matter easier and not more complicated.
Gregory began cautiously, not wanting to contradict the man trying to hire him. ‘In my experience, the less the family is involved with these matters, the quicker they are handled.’
‘I did not claim it would be easy,’ Leggett reminded him. And there was that smug smile again, as if it gave him pleasure to see another man suffer what he had endured at the delicate hands of the Strickland sisters and their dotty grandmother. ‘I will give you double your usual fee, since, if I am honest, I have brought you two problems, not one.’
More money on the table before he’d even opened his mouth to ask for it. Gregory already knew he could find the missing heirlooms. How hard could it be to prevent a marriage that was unlikely to occur, even without his intervention?
He looked at Leggett’s smile and hesitated a moment longer.
‘Triple, then. I am eager to depart for the Continent and wish to be sure that the matter will be settled to my satisfaction.’
The offer was too good to refuse, even if he’d wanted to. ‘Consider it done.’
‘Thank you. Miss Hope Strickland, Miss Charity and the Dowager are in London for the Season at the Comstock town house in Harley Street. I will tell them to expect your visit.’
‘Very good.’ There was likely to be nothing good about it. Other than the pay, of course. That was enough to reinforce the smile Gregory gave his new employer.
‘And I trust this matter will stay between us?’ Leggett said, in the slightly embarrassed tone of someone not used to admitting he had difficulties, much less asking for help with them.
‘I shall be the soul of discretion,’ Gregory replied. When one made one’s living mopping up after the gentry, keeping secrets was part of the job description.
