Marry The Man Today Part 6

"Indeed, madam." The man rose up off his perch as though the effort pained him, then peered down at them through his pale brows. "However, according to company policy, opening an account here is a matter for your husband't o -"

"Miss Moore is unmarried, young man." Elizabeth rapped the tip of her cane against the foot of the counter.

The man gave a satisfying flinch and then narrowed his eyes at her. "Indeed."

"Indeed, yes. She has come into some money and would like to deposit it and any future gains in the Bank of England. Unless, of course, you do not want her money."

He studied Lady Ellis for another moment, his brows pinching together into a single wriggling, caterpillarlike object. "Indeed, madam."

He hemmed and hawed then spoke in hushed tones to the teller beside him, but when the man finally, grudgingly, poked a card through the bars and growled at his new depositor, Elizabeth knew they were going to wi n - a gain.

"Fill this out, Miss Moore. Over there at the counter." He pointed to a slanted writing s.p.a.ce at the side of the lobby. "Then bring it back here."

"Thank you, sir." Elizabeth gave the frowning clerk an elderly grin then led her hobbling companion to the desk. "Good work, my lady."

"Dear Lord, Miss Elizabeth! If I'd known it was as simple as that, I'd have opened my own accounts years ago and saved myself from my dear husband's constant carping about every farthing I ask of him. I ought to be able to collect quite a pot over the course of a year. Do whatever I want with it."

Fifteen minutes later the deed had been successfully done; Miss Althea Moore was the proud owner of her very own account at the Bank of England, and Elizabeth was leading her out the door onto the porch of the wide steps.

"This is the tidiest d.a.m.ned back alley I've ever seen." Drew stood frowning at the dry cobbles and the row of barrels against the back of the row of shops.

"No sign of a skirmish anywhere along here." Ross had walked the length of the alley, looking for indications of a scuffle etched into the granite. But there wasn't a single sign of iron wheels sc.r.a.ping against the stone for a quick getaway. No drag marks leading out of the open back door of the millinery shop.

Not a single window looking out onto the alley. The bulk of a carriage would easily mask the commotion of an abduction from the streets at either end.

He'd awakened early to set the Factory's best forensic experts onto the evidence. They would search out the haberdasher who made the bonnet, the chemist who formulated the chloroform, and the glovemaker. Simple tasks that the Factory's experts did on a daily basis.

Walking through the methods and madness of a criminal required an altogether more ref i ned set of skills.

"Find anything, my lord?" The plump-cheeked clerk watched them from just inside the back door of the shop, her brown eyes a familiar mix of concern, horror, and curiosity.

"The police report says that Lady Wallace was here for nearly an hour. Was that normal for her?"

"Normal for most all of our clients. Miss Verdon encourages her customers to take all the time they need. Attends to them herself, while we girls help out with fetching feathers and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and ribbons and such from the boxes."

"Did she seem different? At any point? Fearful, distracted?"

"Not any more than usual."

"Meaning?"

"I shouldn't really say, my lord. Miss Verdon doesn't like us to speak about her customers."

"This is a police matter, Alice. Anything you tell us, no matter how inconsequential it may seem, might just be the information that saves Lady Wallace's life."

"Oh, dear. But it's nothing much, sir. Only that the lady wasn't ever very happy. Seemed afraid all the time."

"Not just yesterday?"

"That's right." Alice leaned out the doorway. "A l ways jumpy, you know. Fretting about what her husband might think of her hats."

"And that's odd?"

"Most husbands don't care. Wouldn't know a poke from a leghorn."

The one thing Ross knew already about Lord Wallace was that the baron was opinionated, unbending. The sort of man who attempted to control every moment of his existence, and all the people who crossed his path.

"I see. Did she meet up with anyone in the shop? A friend, perhaps? An acquaintance?"

"Sometimes customers meet someone they know. And they chat and gossip while they try on hats."

"But not this visit?"

"We only had three other customers while she was here. I gave their names to th e officers yesterday."

"I'll check on those, Blakestone."

"Thanks, Wexford. Now if we could go back inside."

"Yessir."

Ross let Alice precede them through the back door, then he stopped in front of the dressing room. "It says here in the report that Lady Wallace went into the dressing room with her bag and the blue hat she'd come in with, and then she never came out."

"That's right. As though she just turned into a ghost and vanished into thin air."

Drew swung the door open and peered inside. "How long before you noticed her missing?"

"Five minutes, my lord. Maybe a little longer."

Ross stepped inside the windowless, ten-by-ten room, noticing the barest hint of chloroform that still clung to the chintz. "Did anything strike you as unusual at any point after Lady Wallace stepped inside here?"

"Odd noises?" Drew prompted. "Smells, voices, a demanding customer?"

"The police asked us that yesterday, but I don't remember a thing."

"All right, then, Alice, what happened next?" Ross asked as he knelt to inspect the pristine area around the door latch.

"The footman came in asking about the lady. I knocked on the door here, and there was no answer. So Mrs. Verdon opened the door and there was nothing. No Lady Wallace."

"Nothing but a folded handkerchief on the floor, right here, according to the report. Near the dressing table."

"That's right, Lord B lakestone."

"And her bonnet outside in the alley." Ross ran the flat of his hand along the floor at the edge of the wall. Three small, blue gla.s.s beads stuck themselves between his fingers.

"Miss Verdon says it was a good thing it wasn't a hat from our shop."

"Why is that?" Ross asked, pleased to have settled that particular question.

"Because it's a complete fright. Ugly as a blue toad, she said. And I have to agree with her."

Ross stood, palming the beads and sticking them into his trouser pocket. "Did Lady Wallace mention any plans she might have for later in the afternoon?"

"No, not yesterday. But she did once in a while talk about visiting an elderly uncle."

"Lord Tuckerton?" Ross asked, pulling his notepad out of his jacket pocket.

"That's it, my lord." Alice nodded as she thought more deeply. "And a club of some sort."

"The Huntsman?" Drew asked, striding toward them.

"No, sir. It was a lady's name. My mother's name. Abigail."

Ross's hand froze in midair, his pencil poised above his notepad. "The Abigail Adams?"

"That's the one!" Alice beamed.

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!

"Now there's a coincidence, Ross. We were mentioning the place ourselves only yesterday."

"Weren't we, though." h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation, the woman had played him for a fool. "Come along, Drew, I'll drop you at the Huntsman. Then I've got a call to make on my own."

A call that Miss Dunaway wouldn't soon forget.

Elizabeth and the very smug, very, very happy Lady Ellis were celebrating their stunning victory over the Bank of England in the public tea room of the Abigail Adams, still a pair of well-appointed elderly ladies, sharing a very English ritual.

A ritual that always made the new account holder more comfortable with her new role.

"Dear Elizabeth, you are a wonder!"

"And you, Lady Ellis, were the perfect spinster, still look the part to a T." Elizabeth loved her popular publi c tea roo in - 't he cozy chintz, and especially its subversive elements. With a fresh selection of newspapers to read without the husband looking on. With intelligent conversation encouraged. With scones and chocolate and sticky toffee pudding and perfectly brewed cream teas.

Yes, the tea room was proving the perfect tool to recruit new members to the ladies' club.

"I've never had quite so much fun!" Lady Ellis gave a girlish giggle. "I felt just like a spy!"

"You'll have no trouble managing your new account, as long as you come and go from the tea room in an anonymous hack and wear the same wig and bonnet as part of your disguise every time you return to the Bank. You can change into your costume upstairs in the Adams."

"You've thought of everything, Miss Elizabeth."

"I've tried to." Elizabeth poured Lady Ellis another cup of Darjeeling, pleased that she was taking to the disguise so eagerly, even after the fact. "But the important thing is that you never raise suspicions and that your husband never finds out that you have become a woman of independent means."

"One miserly pound at a time. But at least the money will belong to me." Lady Ellis sighed as she idly stirred cream into her tea. "Poor Arthur isn't a bad man, really, he's jus 't... well, thick, when it comes to understanding that I might have a life intellectually separate from his. After all, I speak and write seven languages, and he can barely handle the one he was born with."

Such a sadly common complaint among the women she'd come to know and admire. "Besides which, you manage a household of how many servants every day?"

"Twenty-five."

"And Lord Ellis manages how many employees at his investment f irm?"

"Eight." Lady Ellis tsked as though she now pitied the man's insignificant fate. "My mother always said that women ran the world."

"But wouldn't it be better if we had a vote in the casting of the laws that rule the land?"

Lady Ellis shook her head. "You are so wise for one so young."

"Thank you, my lady." It was wisdom hard-won, inspired and encouraged by so many brave women who'd come before her.

"Just think, my dear, if I hadn't joined the Abigail Adams and attended the weekly club meetings, if I hadn't listened to the lectures by the Strickland sisters and Mrs.

Green and all the other speakers you've brought't o us, if I hadn't met you, then I would never have found the nerve to break out of my prison."

"I merely provided the opportunity, Lady Ellis."

"And the courage. For which I thank you."

"You're welcome." Though she disliked taking credit for the wise decisions made by people who only needed to be shown the way. "Now if I might suggest one last thing regarding your new account."

The woman's eyes sparkled with her smile. "More intrigue, I hope."

"It's just that you should try to carry out each of your transactions with the same clerk, every time. He'll grow so used to you, he'll soon not even notice you."

"Just like my Arthur. He barely notices me at all anymore. Not like when we were first married." Lady Ellis leaned forward, arching a brow into her fusty wig, her words conspiring, barely audible. "You know... in the bedroom."

"I see." Though she didn't really, not fully. Elizabeth hadn't meant to still be completely virginal at the ripe old age of twenty-two, but there were such risks for a woman in all things s.e.xual.

And she'd met very few men worth a scandalous pregnancy, let alone an unsuitable marriage.

Which made her think instantly, unreasonably, of that great lout Blakestone.

With his enormous shoulders and broad chest, his rumbling voice that had simply turned her knees to jelly.

And made her heart scamper around like an unhinged hare.

"Which, my dear, is the very reason I'm going back into the Abigail Adams right now, change out of my disguise, and sign myself up for that cla.s.s on how to seduce your own husband. I've heard so much about it."

"Excellent, Lady Ellis."

Word-of-mouth at work! The cla.s.s was getting more popular by the day. Taught by an ex-madam who'd married a marquis twenty years ago and had, apparently, kept him the happiest, most faithful man in the kingdom.

Not that she herself ever planned to marry. But at least now, if the worst should happen and she should lose not only her independence to a man, but the control of the substantial inheritance that her aunts had left her, she would know what to do to keep her husband from taking comfort in the arms of a mistress.

At least in theory.