Page 19 of The Devil to Pay

“Oh, I wondered how long before we got to I told you so,” Jules muttered, tucking his hands under his armpits before his fingers froze.

“Well, and so I did,” Briggs said indignantly.

“Well, she’s not figured me for a nobleman,” Jules shot back. “She thinks I’ve hopped the twig.”

“She what?” Briggs said, his dark eyebrows tugging together.

“Thought I might bring the runners down on her because I was hiding out after some nefarious doings,” Jules explained with a short laugh.

“You? A criminal?” Briggs exploded with mirth.

“Laugh all you want, but criminal conversation isn’t exactly the height of respectability,” he said morosely.

“Ah, cheer up, my lord. It might not come to that. Lord Haversham will see sense, surely?”

Jules shrugged. “I bloody well hope so, or I might as well pack for a long voyage.”

“What?”

“His grace mentioned India during our last little talk,” Jules admitted.

Briggs sucked in a sharp breath.

“It’s all right, you needn’t look so horrified,” Jules said gently, knowing he could not inflict such a fate on his loyal valet. This little lark was above and beyond, and he knew it, but at least Briggs would make a tidy sum for his troubles. “I wouldn’t make you come with me. I’ll give you a glowing reference, of course, not that you’d need it. You’ll be snapped up before the end of the day once it’s known you’re looking for a new employer.”

Jules looked around to see if this had reassured the man, only to discover Briggs had stopped in his tracks. His expression was not encouraging.

“Not take me with you?” he said with quiet rage.

“Er…” Jules hedged, wondering if he’d managed to say the wrong thing as usual.

“I’ve been with you since you were barely old enough to grow a hair on your chin, and you’d go swanning off to foreign parts and not take me with you? Oh. I see how it is.” Briggs looked straight ahead and marched off.

“Oh, hold up there,” Jules protested, hurrying after him. “I thought I was doing you a favour. You don’t mean to say you’d want to come with me?” The sudden realisation that if he was sent into exile—and not the self-imposed kind—he might have Briggs beside him cheered him beyond measure.

Briggs shot him a look of such incandescent scorn Jules gave a bark of laughter and swept the fellow up, spinning him around. “You absolute diamond, Briggs. The very best of valets!”

“Get orf! Put me down, you great lunatic!” Briggs protested, struggling ineffectually.

Jules relented and let him go and Briggs glowered at him. Shaking his head and making much of smoothing out his rumpled coat, which was all for show, as it was too big for him and full of holes.

“As if I wouldn’t come with you. Pillock,” he added as an afterthought.

“My Lord Pillock,” Jules said with dignity. “And I am immeasurably relieved to hear it. You know I wouldn’t have survived a day without you.”

Briggs snorted, apparently mollified by this confession, and the two of them finished their journey to the house in brotherly accord.

Whilst he knew Davenport was not like other women—and he had stayed up far too late writing a description of her retiring to her black lacquered coffin after drinking the blood of innocent and unsuspecting gentlemen—Jules had not expected her to be up and dressed and about her day at six in the morning. It was unnatural.

“Ah, there you are,” she said, inspecting the fob watch attached to her chatelaine with a little moue of disapproval.

Jules gritted his teeth, for if it was over two minutes past the hour he’d be astonished and he had gone first to see Mr Dixey, who had sent him on to the house with a look of deep suspicion.

“As you see,” he said with a tight smile.

“Excellent. This way.” She strode off, with her usual mannish stride, skirts swishing as she went. Jules followed her, ignoring the curious gazes of two fresh-faced young housemaids who giggled as he passed. “About your business, please, Polly. Fran, should you not be in the laundry by now?”

“Yes, Miss Davenport,” the girls chorused and bobbed quick curtseys before scurrying off.