“Letter?” Lemmings scowled at his friends. “Any of you writing letters?”
The men grumbled and shook their heads.
Isabella picked up the paper, frowned at it. Now for the trick. “It’s addressed to a Cathy…?”
Lemmings fell into the back of his chair with a chuckle. “That’s my sister’s name.”
Yes. Yes, it was. “If it belongs to no one here, I’ll take it to Mrs. Smith.” The Hestia’s head housekeeper. “So, she can find its owner.”
But the men were ignoring her again, playing, chatting. About Cathy. She didn’t need an answer, anyway. Only invisibility would do. Isabella opened the parlor door and closed it without leaving. No one noticed. She slipped behind a tall folding screen in the corner of the room, sidestepping the chamber pot and wrinkling her nose. How long could she hold her breath? Hopefully, Lemmings got to the point quickly.
“How is old Cath doing?” one of the men asked.
“How’m I s’posed to know?” Lemmings answered.
“She married yet?” A third voice. Interest rolled its tone higher. Good to know. At least one gentleman possessed an interest in Miss Cathy. Mrs. Garrison would like to know about any competition.
Lemmings grunted, and the sound of cards slapping against the table followed. Cheers, groans, then Lemmings said, “Not yet. But there’s a man who’s interested. So my pa says. He can talk about nuthin’ else. Cath, though… seems like she’d rather run in front of a speeding carriage than let the fellow court her.”
“Who is he?”
“Dunno. Some fellow connected to an admiral. Cath says she’s never met him. Any time he’s supposed to call, his mama shows up instead.” Silence, theshhhhof cards being shuffled. “Not his mama, I don’t think. The fellow in question is a ward of the admiral’s. A nobody who’s made a mountain of money for himself. Now the admiral’s wife wants him to wed.”
“Doesn’t sound like this Midas wants to be wed.”
“Damn shame he’s avoiding Cathy. She’s not so bad.” Those words muffled. Isabella peeked between a crack where two panels were hinged together. One man at the table slumped and hid behind a fan of cards. No doubt he was the one Mrs. Garrison had to worry about. Or perhaps not. He didn’t seem likely to do more about Cathy than grumble, which was perhaps more than Mrs. Garrison’s ward was doing about the girl.
“Cathy’s the least annoying of my sisters,” Lemmings said. “I’d take her over Mary any day. But she does like an awful lot of attention. If she’s being ignored, she tends to pout.”
Oh, Mrs. Garrison, her ward more precisely, was in trouble. If he did not start lavishing the young Cathy with attention, he’d never make her his wife.
That was enough information. She picked her way carefully around the chamber pot and out the door. She didn’t stop in the hallway and only breathed deeply once in the alley behind the hotel. She grabbed her cloak from where she’d stashed it on a hook in a dark corner of the mews and set her steps for the admiral’s house. Mrs. Garrison would benefit from this information. A bubble of glee grew in her chest. Some might say Isabella crept about for her own amusement, but she gathered gossip for everyone else.
For the women on the marriage mart, who needed to know if their suitors would make happy husbands. For her older sisters and her twin, who needed to know what rooms thetonhad abandoned, so they could hold their secret meetings. For her younger sisters so she would know what families it would be best for them to marry into when the time came. For Samuel because he shared nothing with them. And for Mrs. Garrison because she’d asked, because that older lady wanted to see the young man she calledsonfind happiness and love.
What was his name? Randal? Gavin? She’d heard it so long ago and never once met the man. Since she had no face to put with the name, it had quite dissipated. And asking Mrs. Garrison now would only offer insult.
Isabella paused at the corner, the admiral’s strong, tall, gray-faced townhouse just in sight. A man strode with long, powerful legs toward the door. A hat pulled low and a tall coat collar popped high coveredhis hair. He’d shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets, and he swept inside without knocking, his broad shoulders swallowing the dark space between the frame before disappearing behind the slammed door. A family member? A friend? The nameless son Isabella had never met?
No matter. She wasn’t here for whomever that had been.
Isabella scurried toward the house, knocked, kept her cloak when the butler offered to take it, and rushed into her friend’s sitting room.
Mrs. Garrison rose from a little writing desk, her face a broad smile below red hair streaked liberally with white. She never wore a cap inside and always seemed to peek into mirrors as she passed them, to poke at her hair with the grin of a pleased cat. “Lady Isabella, what a lovely surprise. What brings you to my corner of London?”
“What else?” Isabella sank into a chair, glad to be off her feet. “Gossip.”
Mrs. Garrison joined her, rubbing her palms together. “You always do know everyone’s secrets. Now, tell me everything.”
Chapter Two
Rowan Trent sneezed. Then sneezed again. Why was the admiral’s study always full of sunlight? Hateful stuff. It got into every nook and cranny, and even though Rowan Trent had mastered the art of hiding in shadows, sunlight banished those. He’d rather be back at his hotel in his study, where the curtains were always pulled tight. But he’d been summoned. And Rowan possessed just enough remaining sailor in his bones to jump when the admiral called.
“Sit, boy, sit.” Admiral Garrison defied conventional fashion to sport a large and fluffy mustache of a startling steel gray. Facial hair, he always said, was the way of the future. He rubbed his hands together as he rounded his large desk to join Rowan at a group of chairs near a wall lined with books. The wall next to it sported large maps of England, of the world, and in the corner was a sturdy globe. The admiral opened it, revealing that the center of all life was indeed good whisky. The glasses clinked together as he poured a few fingers for them each before handing one to Rowan and settling across from him. “Stop squinting.”
“Too much sun.”
“Never too much sun.” When the admiral grinned, his eyes almost entirely disappeared, and he resembled, if Rowan squinted, a fox.
