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“More than I care to admit,” Peggy sighed as she sat aside the cool water that was masquerading as tea. “I almost believe him that we can be freed, all of us.”
Marilee nodded. She too had felt that there was not a mean bone in Mr. Crowley’s thin frame.
“I was thinking. Perhaps you should tell him about your son,” Marilee suggested after they had exhausted their repetition of the man’s merits. While she certainly could not tell him the fullness of her own secret, for the risk was still too great, she had allowed him to broaden his investigation in search of hercousin.Peggy too might be able to request his aide in the search for her child.
“After all, is that not one of the tasks that generally falls to the plate of a solicitor?” Marilee replied with a hopeful shrug. “Don’t they often locate people for an inheritance or debt collection or other legal matter? This would not be so very different, I think.”
“What if he discovers…something I don’t want to hear?”
Marilee saw the fear in Peggy’s eyes. If her son was not well, or worse no longer alive, the knowledge would be crushing. For four years it was only through the strength derived of a mother’s love that Peggy had continued on.
“What if he finds him and when we are free you are that much closer to reaching him?” Marilee countered. “Think of all the months it could save you searching on your own.”
“I have no way to pay him for the service,” Peggy groaned. In four years, she had not been given a single coin. Not a pittance for her sweat and tears.
“I do not think Mr. Crowley the sort of man to turn you away,” Marilee said, and she hoped that she was right. “At worst you could offer a promissory note to repay when you are settled.”
Peggy nodded. “I suppose it cannot hurt to ask,” she sighed. “So long as he keeps the secret so that it can never be used against me by these monsters.”
Again, Marilee stated that she did not think that Mr. Crowley was the sort of man to betray them. She had somehow come to trust him whole heartedly and while that knowledge surprised her, she felt that it was deserved. If any harm befell the maids for their activities, it would not be the result of his betrayal. Merely, Mr. Crowley might well fail. Despite their best efforts this whole ploy could still go awry. If it did, it would not be because of his villainy, but because he had tried to save them, and could not. She hated to think what such a blow would do to a man as kindly as Mr. Crowley. His entire evaluation of this world hinged on success. Without it, like other good men who had fallen, like the Baron Wickham had changed overnight, he might be ruined from the man that she had come to know quite well.
* * *
Mr. Crowley enteredthe wash room just as they were hanging the last of the wrung garments on the racks. Nowadays there was space enough to move around without discomfort; more space than Marilee had even realized the room possessed. The only piles lie on the two tables on either side of the room and the floor had been cleared for the first time since Marilee had arrived.
“You’ve made remarkable progress,” he said by way of greeting.
“It is what they pay us for,” Marilee grumbled, but offered a smile at her jest when his features clouded with anger. Not at her, no never at the maids, but at Lady Lydia and her villainy.
“How are you feeling, Kate?”
“It still drives me to want to scratch, but you said that meant it was healing,” she prodded the nearby vat with her paddle, gave the bedclothes a hearty turn, and then leaned her paddle against the wall and took a seat on one of the newly revealed stools. The others joined her and they sat in a close circle.
Mr. Crowley had not viewed her back since the second day contrary to Mrs. Cavendish’s belief. Peggy did a fair job of applying the salve and changing the dressings.
“Any news?” he dropped his voice to a low hum even though the door was shut.
“There is a young man named James who visits the lady every few days,” Marilee revealed. “He brings her letters, which she promptly burns after reading before she pens her reply and sends him away. As such, I have not been able to glean their contents, but the fact that they are burnt lends me to believe they are the very letters you should see.”
“Do you have any thought of who this James might be?” Mr. Crowley asked as he rubbed his chin. He must have been long at his office for he was sporting a shadow of a beard and appeared more tired than usual. Marilee was surprised when the thought drifted into her head that she found the gesture and the scruff quite appealing.Focus, she chastised. It did not matter how endearing or attractive Mr. Crowley may be, she did not have time for such thoughts. She countered the mental betrayal by determining that the hint of affection was only the result of her gratitude and respect. She liked him as a person. She certainly did not care for him like… like that.He had said she was beautiful.
Both Peggy and Marilee shook their heads.
“It is too common a name for me to deduce much from that alone,” he said in frustration. “He could be anyone, work for anyone, or simply be an errand boy that she employs.”
“That is true,” Peggy interjected, “but then why burn the letters?”
“There are all sorts of reasons that a lady might wish for secrecy but I’ll be deuced if those letters aren’t just what I need. The address may give me something more to go on.”
“Perhaps you ought to have him followed?” Peggy suggested on a whim. Mr. Crowley pondered the suggestion and agreed that he might be possible for him to hire someone to tail the fellow. He could not afford to spend hours or days loitering in Mayfair on the odd chance of catching the visit. Besides, the neighbors would find it odd.
“I have some resources that I could employ…” he muttered as he jotted a note on the folded scrap of parchment that he always kept in his pocket.
Marilee felt that this was just the time for Peggy to ask him about those resources, so she gave her companion a pointed look. It was now up to the laundress to decide to trust the man, or wait.
“While we are discussing your unique resources…” Peggy hemmed. “I have a request.”
Mr. Crowley’s full attention went to the maid. He listened to her tale in silence, only stopping to take a note here or there or ask for clarification on some detail or other.
