Page 63 of One Night with a Rake

“Are ye quite well, milady?”

“I’m fine, though I suspect I may be catching a cold.”

Cold, my eye. Mercy studied her more closely. Could it have been Lady Georgette in Lord Nathaniel’s bed last night?

That might be cause for tears, especially if the gentleman was acting like most men did after a night of swiving. Of course, there were other reasons a gently bred lady might be weeping. They were a sensitive bunch. Mercy had even caught her mistress in gushing torrents of tears over one of her silly novels.

And last night had been a trying one for her mistress. After all, she’d seen a dead girl in Covent Garden.

The high and mighty didn’t generally get a taste of death what wasn’t done up with a bow and wrapped in a pretty service in a chapel somewheres. Seeing a dead body for what it was—a slab of cooling meat that used to be a laughing, breathing person—was enough to undo sterner folk than her mistress.

But then, Mercy had all but dared her to step out and act on the way she felt about Lord Nathaniel. Of course, she never dreamed Lady Georgette would actually do something so outlandish as to join the fellow in his bed.

Mercy itched to ask, but for once, she decided she’d ought to stick a gag in her curiosity. If milady wanted to tell her, she would.

But wouldn’t it be delicious if Lady Georgette kicked off her prim ways and had a good old game of hide-the-sausage like the rest of us?

It’d prove she and her mistress were more alike than either of them had suspected.

“I didn’t ring for you,” the lady said. “What are you doing here, Mercy?”

Mercy twined her fingers before her. “I was just wondering if you knew when Reuben would be coming home.”

One corner of Lady Georgette’s mouth turned up in a sly smile. “I’m sure Mr. Darling will be pleased to know that you missed him.”

“That great ox? I don’t miss him a bit,” she protested. “But with him gone, it only makes for more work for the rest of us here. Let me tell you, when Mr. Rigsby is on a tear because he’s missing a footman, it don’t make for pleasant scenes below stairs.”

“Mr. Darling will be home as soon as Lord Nathaniel sends a replacement for Mr. Bagley.” Then her mistress’s smile faded and she cocked her head as a new idea obviously took root in her mind. “But I think we might arrange for you to see him sooner.”

“Oh?”

“Fetch my pelisse, if you please.” Lady Georgette rose, tucking a fresh handkerchief into her sleeve. “You and I are going to pay a call on Madam Bouchard this morning.”

Mercy’s mouth gaped for a moment. “Beggin’ yer pardon, miss, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea. You see, today ain’t the bully’s half day off and—”

“That’s why we’ll go to the House of Sirens and borrow Mr. Darling for a bit. He can surely be spared long enough to accompany us across the lane while I speak with Madam.”

“Well, I suppose Reuben could do that, but why would ye be wanting to?”

“I’m sure Madam Bouchard knows everything that goes on in Lackaday Lane. I need to discover what she knows about Vesta’s death.”

Mercy swallowed hard. “What if she’s the one who had it done?”

A steely resolve stole over her mistress’s features. “Then she needs to know that we won’t look the other way and are determined to see justice done. And if she threatens us, well, that’s why we’ll have Mr. Darling with us.”

Without waiting for any more argument, Lady Georgette strode from the room. Mercy stood there a moment shaking her head.

No, she and her mistress were not a bit alike.

Mercy had enough sense not to be poking her nose into places where it had no business being.

Places where it was like to get chopped off.

Twenty-four

Hiring a replacement for Mr. Bagley was more difficult and more costly than Nate expected. Once he reached O’Roary’s gymnasium, where he’d hired Bagley in the first place, he was informed that the former pugilist’s body had been dragged from the Thames only that morning.

“Poor devil was garroted afore he was fed to the fishes. Saw the gash across his neck myself. Seems guarding a bunch of reformed whores is a more dangerous enterprise than ye might expect,” O’Roary observed wryly. Then he called for those interested in filling the empty position to come forward.