Chapter One
May 1823
When Lady Isabella Merriweather dressed as a maid and entered a room, she might as well have been a clock for all the attention paid to her. Which was exactly what she wanted. Anonymity birthed knowledge. Because when you might as well be a clock, people talked.
And Isabella listened.
Head down, soapy, sloshing bucket held before her, she knelt beside the gentlemen sitting near the windows of Hotel Hestia’s green sitting room. The spice of the spilt brandy wafted up her nose, and the thick, sweet smoke of a cheroot drifted down onto her small lace cap. The curtains had been thrown wide open, and a hot ray of light drenched her. And as she swept up the broken glass, dodging a brandy-splashed Hessian lifting to cross a knee, gossip poured into her ears.
“Good as married,” the Earl of Sillsbury said with a slap of his thigh. “My little Mags will soon be a duchess!” Sillsburylikely had the right of it, but he didn’t have to crow. Isabella’s brother, the Duke of Clearford, did seem to prefer the earl’s daughter to all the others who hoped to catch his eye.
“Blast it all, Sillsbury!” Mr. Haws boomed. The powerful voice belonged to a powerful man, tall and thick like a barrel, his brown hair receding from his brows to create a point some inches above his nose. He stomped his foot much too close to Isabella’s backside for her comfort. She scooched farther away and continued picking up bits of broken glass as Haws pulled words out of an inarticulate growl. “My Bethy has just as much chance as your chit. She’s a prime one. Good teeth. Besides, I have an ace up my sleeve. The duke won’t be able to say no.”
Isabella swallowed a snort. How many blasted times had she heard these men compare their daughters to horses? If she ever discovered her brother using such language, she’d… she’d… she’d toss this bucket of dirty water right over his head. She reached into the water, shivered, and pulled out the cloth, wrung out the liquid and began to sop up the brandy. She kept her head down, her face tilted away from the conversation happening beside her.
Sillsbury grunted. “I’d hardly call good teeth and a wanton disposition an ace. Clearford won’t fall for that. You own a cotton mill, after all.”
“And it makes more money than you’ve inherited!” Mr. Haws’s cheeks were burning up and puffing out.
Sillsbury waved away the threat of his companion’s potential eruption. “Speaking of teeth, you know who else has ‘em?”
“Who’s that, then?” Haws did indeed forget his bluster, cheeks shrinking and paling as he leaned forward to hear the earl better.
“The mare we saw at Tattersalls this morning.”
Isabella sighed and used all her strength not to sink her head into the bucket and scream. Let the bubbles catch her frustration.
“Should we see her again?” Haws rocked to his feet. “I’ve got a mind to make her mine.”
Sillsbury stood, too. “Rather like the duke will do to Margaret.” His laughter hit Isabella like a brick, and she stayed curled over the bucketas the men argued across the room, their guffaws muffled only by the door slamming behind them.
She fell onto her backside with a groan, propping herself up on her arms behind her and stretching her legs out on the dry side of the bucket. She’d learned nothing new, except perhaps that Samuel was closer to choosing a bride than he let his sisters think. Nothing new there. He’d put an ocean of distance between himself and them since becoming a duke. He acted more like a distant guardian than a brother.
She missed him. But she refused to accept his silence. If he wouldn’t tell them his mind, she’d discover it in other ways.
Not like she’d be going out of her way to do so. She already spent every free moment collecting information on the members of theton. When one flirted with scandal, it helped to know which way the constant current of rumors in London swirled. She learned which way the soap swirled, too. A consequence of her information gathering.
Isabella rolled her legs beneath her and finished mopping up the spilled brandy. The gentlemen had barely acknowledged their mess, only enough to ring for a maid. When Isabella had seen the girl assigned to clean it up waddling toward the room with a bucket, she’d intercepted her, offered to do the work for her. The girl hadn’t even blinked. Her shoulders had relaxed as she’d handed the bucket over. No one ever questioned Isabella when she offered to do the work for them. In her Hotel Hestia uniform of a green gown and white apron, she fit the part. And young maids were only too quick to release a responsibility or two.
As she left the parlor, bucket gripped in both hands, she closed the door with her foot.Dump the water, then hunt down young Mr. Lemmings.
He’d recently moved out of his parents’ townhouse to find lodgings of his own. There were more permanent solutions for a gentleman with deep pockets. He spoke of the Albany but had quickly discovered a banker’s son had no shot at those prestigious lodgings. He’d gotten rather stuck at the Hestia. Good thing. Would be more difficult to eavesdrop on him at the all-bachelor lodgings. And otherwise, he was terribly easy to eavesdrop on. Always had a drink in hand, and thedrink always loosened his lips. She’d discovered a ridiculously easy way to get him talking on any topic, too.
And after she dealt with the dirty water, smoothed her skirts, and pilfered a silver serving tray and bottle of wine, she employed it. She marched down the long hallway through puddles of dusty light. Along one side of the hallway, large glass windows alternated with thick blue curtains. They were always thrown open during the day, brightening the narrow space and revealing the hotel owner’s good taste. Everything—wallpaper, sconces, mirrors, floral arrangements, furniture, and rugs—was ordered to perfection as if it had grown there, a garden of delights one wished to sink into and never leave.
And guests, as far as she could tell, did stay. Or they returned, paying whatever fee Hotel Hestia demanded to take cover beneath its roof.
The owner, whoever he was, would be a wealthy man, no doubt. She’d only ever seen glimpses of him, a large form slipping through the shadows. The maids whispered of him—devil, beast, cursed. Silly things. Clearly, he was either a recluse or a man who didn’t bother with his employees. Nothing mythic about him, certainly.
She climbed a set of hidden stairs reserved for the servants, then slipped into the parlor on the second floor (the Hestia had one on each level). Quiet as could be, she set the tray down. None of the three gentlemen leaning over the card table noticed her entry. They’d not ordered wine, but they would not reject it. She slipped her hand into and out of her pocket, a slim, folded bit of paper tight between her fingertips. She dropped it on the table beside the tray and cleared her voice.
Mr. Lemmings grunted and remained fixated on his cards. No one else even flinched.
Isabella rolled her eyes. “Pardon me.” She tried to sound timid even as she raised her voice.
Slowly, the three gentlemen, Lemmings included, considered her. Annoyed, all of them. She stepped to the side to ensure they saw the wine.
“Pardon me,” she said again, keeping her face lowered, “but shouldI post this letter over here?” She glanced behind her shoulder at the paper she’d just dropped on the table there.
