Page 82 of An Extraordinary Lord

“Then who’s been using your carriage?”

She blinked. “My carriage?”

“It was seen three nights ago in front of the Ship’s Bell near the Strand. A man who has been connected to the leaders of the recent riots was seen climbing inside. The question I have is who was he meeting inside your carriage?”

“It wasn’t me.” Her face turned white. “It must have been the general. He’d asked to borrow the carriage, so of course I let him.” She took a comforting sip of tea, but her color didn’t return. “He was here at Malmesbury’s behest, and I am not foolish enough to deny a request from an old friend of the earl’s. But I don’t know where he went or what he did. I don’t know anything about the riots.”

Clayton’s face remained inscrutable. “Liggett didn’t tell you that he’s been given orders to use his soldiers to put down the unrest? That innocent men and boys might be killed in the clash?” He paused just long enough to draw her full attention to his next question. “Or that he knows the men who are responsible for starting them?”

“No, he never…” She pressed the back of her hand against her lips and whispered her confession through her fingers. “I saw him for only one night, for a few hours at most. I wanted to please Malmesbury, that’s all…just please my protector.”

Clayton put a concerned hand on the woman’s arm to comfort her. She sobbed into his handkerchief.

Madame shifted closer to Merritt. “She’s lying. Her relationship with the general isn’t at all what she claims.” She muttered against the rim of the cup as she raised it to her lips, “Oh, she’s a good actress—very good, indeed. But she’s lying.”

Merritt narrowed his eyes on Miss Jones. “How do you know?”

“I know men, remember?” She nodded over her teacup at Miss Jones. “What man—and a general no less—would lower himself by using the carriage of another man’s mistress? And a mistress he’d tupped only because that man was in his debt?” She shook her head at the idea. “None I’ve ever known, and I’ve known all kinds.”

No, she’d beenintimatewith all kinds. And for that hard-won experience, Merritt was willing to hear her out. “If he’d already visited her bed, what would he care as long as the carriage was convenient?”

She slid him a look as if he were a bedlamite. “All those years you spent studying the law yet learning not one thing about men…” She gave a long-suffering sigh at the waste of it, then explained, “After intimacy is exactly when a man strives to show off how manly and powerful he is. Trust me. He’d walk his boot soles thin before he allowed himself to be seen in the carriage of another man’s mistress.”

A low warning prickled at the backs of Merritt’s knees, and his gaze flicked back to Miss Jones. If she was lying, then—

“Merritt?” Veronica called out from upstairs. “I think you should come up here.” A short pause, then far more firmly, “Now.”

He hurried up the stairs and found her in the front bedroom. The door to the old servants’ passageway that was meant to blend into the paneling and wallpaper of the bedroom’s walls stood open wide. Veronica stared inside.

She mumbled, “I think the Home Office might be interested in this.”

“Then grab it,” he said as he entered the room. “Clayton’s nearly done interrogating Miss Jones. We’ll take it away with us in the carriage.”

Both of her brows rose in incredulity. “We’re going to need a bigger carriage.”

Merritt came up behind her and peered over her shoulder. He blinked. “Good God…”

The space that had once been used by servants to come and go unseen had been filled with shelves stacked full with small bags of coins, banknotes, account books, and various goods that hungry and poor men living on the streets would find to be a godsend. All of which Merritt had no doubt was meant to pay former soldiers to riot.

“I think we’ve found the person who’s been giving money to Smathers,” he muttered and picked up one of the small bags of coins. They jangled softly as he bounced the bag on his palm.

“I should say so.” Veronica turned to face him, leaning a shoulder against the wall. “But why would Miss Jones be involved with riots? And how did she acquire all this money?”

“I don’t know.” He tossed the bag back onto the shelf and closed the door. “But I bet we can find out.”

“There’s something more.” A grim tone edged her voice. “I also found this in her jewelry box.”

Veronica held up a necklace, letting it fall from her fingers by its long chain. A large pendant in the shape of a key dangled from its end. The same symbol that had been tattooed on the men who had attacked them tonight.

The same symbol that connected all of them to Liggett.

Veronica followed on Merritt’s heels as he hurried downstairs to Clayton. He put his hand on Clayton’s shoulder and leaned down to speak quietly into his ear.

Clayton’s gaze swung from Merritt to Miss Jones, where it narrowed with such intensity that Veronica shivered, even on the other side of the room.

Merritt surreptitiously slipped the wadded-up necklace into Clayton’s hand and retreated to Veronica’s side as she lingered with Madame Noir.

“Miss Jones.” Clayton leaned back in the chair. “Is there anything about your story that you would like to amend?”