Navan sat forward, interested in this bit of news. “Is this the woman who hoped to claim you as her husband?” he asked.
Both Duncan and Mrs. Dove-Lyon ignored Navan’s grin. Instead,the woman said, “I saw her on the street less than a week back. I was returning from the bank, and there she was striding along the street at a good clip. She carried a basket on her arm as if she were returning from the market.”
Caught up in the tale, Navan asked, “Where was this?”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon appeared to enjoy having the upper hand on Duncan. She sipped her whisky before answering, “Not Mayfair, but not in the shops area. A street with large houses for the gentry and minor aristocracy.”
“You do not know the street,” Duncan accused, as if he thought the woman was simply searching for the upper hand.
“In honesty, it took me a bit to realize who the figure on the street was, having only met the woman once. When she spoke to me of you, she was dressed as a proper, mature lady. When I saw her recently, she wore a dark, high-necked day dress similar to those one might view on an upper servant.”
No more could be said as Titan and the abacus woman stood waiting in the open doorway.
“Have I executed something to displease you, ma’am?” the woman asked with her head down.
Navan despised this act of submission whether it was a female or a male.Were the Irish employed by Mrs. Dove-Lyon also so submissive? he wondered. He had recently viewed Honfleur’s effect on both the man’s daughter and his niece.
“No, Li-Na. In contrast, Lord Duncan has asked for our cooperation in discovering someone who means to use our home to defraud the British government. Is such not correct, my lord?” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said in false sweetness.
While Duncan explained the method practiced by the Moreaus to lose the forgeries purposely, Navan began to wonder if the pretty redhead was part of Moreau’s scheme. He surely hoped she was not, for he had become quite fond of her in a… He could not think of a word to describe what he thought of the lady. Assuredly not brotherly, for she often appeared in his dreams. The British government paid him to watch her and Honfleur’s daughter and report what he observed, but as demented as it would sound to say so, he would gladly watch the niece for free. Like it or not, she fascinated him.
When it was finally his turn to speak, Navan explained, “If Lord So-and-So finally recognizes the five pound note he has in his purse is a forgery, who will he blame? Not his tailor or the man at his gentleman’s club. He will come looking for those that society already condemns. Depending on his rank, he could have everyone in the Lyon’s Den arrested and transported for uttering fake banknotes. Such is the reason we are here.”
Duncan then explained how it was the government’s plan to confiscate as many notes as they could, removing them from circulation, and how the Bank of England would replace all the notes turned over to them with real currency.
“How do we identify them?” Titan asked, politely overriding any more complaints his mistress might wish to express.
“Lord Beaufort will stay and train you three, and you may train your staff.”
Finally, Titan appeared to grasp the urgency of their task and the need for secrecy. “You are thinking people will do what they did in ’95, and there will again be another run on provincial banks?”
“Such is our true concern,” Duncan admitted, but he did not explain beyond offering Mrs. Dove-Lyon a promise that the English government would be willing to look the other way in regards to her establishment for a few years in exchange for her cooperation.
When Duncan and Marksman departed, Navan sat down with the three from the Lyon’s Den. They moved some files about on the lady’s desk to provide them room to work. “Let us look at several of the forgeries we have already confiscated and compare them to legitimate notes and see if we can distinguish between the two. We mustremember that not all the forgeries are the work of one man so we must be quite diligent. If you question the legitimacy, set the note aside. Arrangements have been made, ma’am, for you to have your deposits checked by one of our experts, so if something seems suspicious, we will permit that expert to decide. One thing in our favor is most forgers are a bit egotistical. By that, I mean they take great pride in including a signature mark—an extra curl on a letter or a dot where one should not be. Soon you will be an expert on when something is suspicious. This will assist you not only in this matter with Honfleur, but in further such attempts to rob you.”
“You mean for us to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, my lord?” Mrs. Dove-Lyon asked with a bit of skepticism.
“Silk is such a lovely material to touch, is it not, ma’am,” he teased.
“Much nicer than a grain sack,” the lady said with a smile in her tone.
It was anothertwo days before Navan learned that, quite by accident, Marksman and Lionel had discovered something important when they had made their way through a walled passageway behind all the houses on the street.
“Is such what you wished to share with Marksman yesterday?” Navan had asked Lionel when the man delivered a basket of food for Navan’s and Kepper’s evening meal.
“Yes,” Lionel said with the pleasure of someone who knows a secret he means to share. “The wall behind the houses yonder be hollow with a passage from each house to the mews. There is a door to each yard. Xander say there be a plate dating back to the time the Frenchies marched to overthrow the ruling class. Anyway, we beinside when Honfleur and his daughter returned to Amgen House, so we hid in their garden.”
“You were fortunate Honfleur did not see you,” Navan observed.
“Lucky two times over. Weren’t seen, but we heard Honfleur tell his daughter they were leaving on Thursday. Returning to France for a few weeks.”
“What of the niece?” Navan asked in concern, wondering if the Moreaus meant to abandon her.Were they leaving the girl behind to take the blame for what they had executed against British society or were they returning to France for a new supply of forged notes? More sophisticated ones than they had been passing of late?
“The daughter argued that they couldn’t leave her cousin behind, for Miss Moreau greatly fears being abandoned, but Honfleur say the girl must stay so Lord Amgen won’t be turning them all out. Say they’ll return in a few weeks—six at the most. Duncan believes they be returning for more forgeries of both British money, but also a few French notes, as well.”
“Interesting,” is all Navan said, but his mind was already wondering if there was a means not only to assist the young woman being left behind but also hold an actual conversation with her.
“Leaving?” Audrey askedin stunned disbelief. When her uncle called her before him after breaking his fast, she thought perhaps he meant to expound upon the recent restrictions he had placed upon her. She had certainly not expected her Uncle Jacobi to announce they were leaving England. “When do we depart?”
