The Conundrum of a Clerk Read online

  “Oh, Father,” Daisy said as she sighed. She half-stood, turned around, and sat down next to him in the velvet squabs. Her head angled to rest on his shoulder. “Even after all this time.” Her mother had died when she was eighteen. Now Daisy was nearly nine-and-twenty.

  One of his arms wrapped around her back. “I love Helen. I do. But there are times I miss your mother very much,” he said, his words so quiet she almost couldn’t hear them over the noise of the coach wheels.

  “Me, too,” she replied, just as the coach came to a halt in front of Ariley Place.

  When she stepped down from the coach, her hideous wig and hat hidden beneath the pelisse draped over her arm, she allowed her father to escort her up to the white painted door. Ariley Place would be her home for a few days, it seemed. But just a few.

  She had no intention of living under her father’s roof. Although she adored him, she feared if she did live with him, she would end up married to a fat, balding viscount.

  Chapter 4

  A Meddling Owner on a Mission

  Meanwhile, at Bostwick Place

  Elizabeth finished her chocolate about the time George returned from escorting Teddy to the vestibule. “How is it Mr. Streater never knew his mother owned Warwick’s?” she asked, suspicion evident in her voice.

  George shook his head. “Probably for the same reason I never knew my uncle owned gypsum mines and was in possession of a fortune when he died,” he replied with a shrug. He had inherited all of it upon Joseph Bennett-Jones’ death in January of 1815, but it wasn’t until the will was read that he learned the details. Learned he not only owned the Sussex estate at which he spent some summers with his uncle, but also a townhouse in London and three mines in Sussex. “My uncle was a miser, and I rather imagine Mrs. Streater was as well, especially after having been left in debt by her late husband.”

  Elizabeth frowned at his description. “Did your uncle have any other business concerns?”

  Angling his head to one side, George said, “Not that I’m aware of, but that’s not to say I would be surprised should some solicitor approach me with news that I own a mill, and, oh, by the way, I’m several years in arrears on the taxes,” he said in a quiet voice. He had often wondered if there was a mill somewhere near the manor home in Sussex.

  “I’m going into the office today,” Elizabeth stated as she stood up and turned to lift David into her arms.

  “It’s Sunday,” George said, moving to take the heavy toddler from her.

  “Which is exactly why I wish to go. No one will be there, and it will give me a chance to look for that woman’s application,” she replied as she gave up her hold on David. “I don’t know why, but I can’t seem to get the thought of her out of my head. I only caught a glimpse of her that day, but for some reason, I think I should have...” She paused and sighed. “Recognized her.”

  Frowning at the odd comment, George asked, “Because you’ve met her before?”

  “I’m sure I have not,” Elizabeth countered. “But... she was so familiar, I’m thinking she may be related to someone I do know.”

  George angled his head to one side. “May I escort you?”

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “I would like that,” she replied. “Are you sure, though? I would hate for you—”

  “I am sure. Besides, I haven’t been to your office in an age. And I admit to a bit of curiosity about your recent applicants.”

  Allowing a shrug and deftly capturing David’s chubby fist as he was about to grab an earbob, Elizabeth said, “Let’s go directly after breakfast.”

  George lifted David into the air, which had the toddler giggling in delight. “I think you mean luncheon, my sweeting. It’s well after one,” he chided.

  Her eyes widening in surprise, Elizabeth dared a glance at the clock on the mantle. “Poor Charlotte must be starving again,” she said as she hurried to the bassinet. “I’m taking her to the nursery right now,” she replied, disappearing through the door to the dressing room with the swaddled infant.

  George tossed David into the air. The boy giggled in delight as he landed in his father’s arms. Then George gave the boy a frown. “You wet your nappy,” he accused, suddenly aware his sleeve was damp where the boy’s bottom landed.

  David continued to giggle as George raced to the nursery, arriving just ahead of his wife.

  “Your son peed on me,” he said as he passed the toddler to the startled nurse.

  “That will teach you to toss him about like a rag doll,” Elizabeth countered, her grin wide as she held Charlotte in her arms. The infant appeared to be sound asleep.

  George kissed his daughter on the forehead and kissed his wife on the lips, ignoring the nurse’s gasp of embarrassment. “Join me in the breakfast parlor, won’t you? You can bring Charlotte, of course,” he added when he noticed her conflicted expression. “She doesn’t appear to be starving.”

  “I’ll come with you,” she finally replied, bussing David on the cheek. “But I’ll leave Charlotte here.” She gave up her hold on the infant as the nurse took the babe. Rather stunned when one of George’s arms snaked behind her waist, Elizabeth asked, “What’s this about?” when he had closed the nursery door behind them.

  “Your idea,” George replied. “For matchmaking. Were you sincere?”

  Elizabeth blinked. “But, of course. I cannot imagine Mr. Streater finding a wife on his own,” she replied.

  “Neither can I,” her husband agreed. “But Teddy...” He paused and sucked in a breath, which had Elizabeth pausing on the landing of the stairs.

  She stared at George. “What is it?” she asked, worry evident on her features.

  “Remember, he has been married before,” George replied carefully.

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “What happened?” she asked in a whisper filled with alarm. In all her dealings with the clerk, he had never mentioned having been married.

  “Widowed,” George countered right away, his head shaking. “He wasn’t married long before he went off to war the second time. His childhood sweetheart, I think she was. Anyway, he went off to the Continent, came back, got the position at the bank, we resumed our weekly fencing matches, and then...” He sighed again.

  “What?” she asked, becoming more alarmed.

  “When the wars on the Continent started again, Teddy resigned his position and returned to the army for a third stint. He is a soldier, first and foremost. An officer, of course. While he was off losing his arm, Gertrude died of influenza. Even with this windfall inheritance and a new venture to keep him occupied, I fear he may be a difficult match for just any woman.”

  Elizabeth entered the breakfast parlor and waited for a footman to pull out her chair. “He seems agreeable, though,” she argued.

  “He is. I just... I’m not sure life with an English miss is going to suit him,” George countered as he took a seat.

  “You’re saying he needs a woman who can... challenge him?” she queried.

  George winced. “I’m not sure what I’m saying,” he finally admitted as he acknowledged the footman who set a plate of breakfast foods before him. “Perhaps if women were allowed in the army, that’s the type we would be seeking on his behalf.”

  At first, Elizabeth frowned. Despite having read novels featuring females in the oddest of situations, she couldn’t imagine a woman dressing in a uniform and shooting a gun, let alone stabbing someone with a bayonet. But then she considered the other positions a woman might hold if they were attached to an army regiment.

  Or not attached to a regiment at all, but sent to war for other reasons.

  Elizabeth held her fork over her plate and stared at her husband. “That’s brilliant, George,” she said, her aquamarine eyes wide. “Perhaps I’ll find just such a woman when I search the applications this afternoon.”

  About to tuck into his meal, George gave her a curious expression before allowing a nod of acknowledgement. One thing he knew for certain—when his wife put her mind to something, she wou
ldn’t let go until it was sorted.

  And she wanted Teddy sorted.

  Chapter 5

  An Application is Discovered

  An hour later

  As George held open the door to Finding Work for the Wounded, he glanced up and down Oxford Street. He had thought traffic would be slight on a Sunday, but a parade of horses and equipage passed by, apparently on their way to the country.

  Elizabeth stepped into the offices, removing her gloves as she made her way to a desk in the back corner. “You should probably throw the bolt,” she said when her husband closed the door.

  Not about to argue, George did so and then turned to survey the small office. On a busy day, three people would be at the desks, and a line of former soldiers and sailors—and those claiming to have served as such—would be in the vestibule awaiting their turn at telling their tale of woe and listing their qualifications. At one time, the stacks of paper on each desk might measure a foot in height, but these days, they were barely an inch high.

  “May I help?” George asked, noting how Elizabeth was perusing a stack of notes left by the two employees, Mr. Augustus Overby and Mr. Nicholas Barnaby. The two “By’s” were also her first employees, hired the day after she had first opened the doors to her charity.

  Elizabeth lifted her head and nodded at one of the desks. “Are you quite sure you wish to do this?”

  George wondered at her hesitance. “Why wouldn’t I?” he hedged.

  She sighed. “I’m afraid you’ll feel sorry for every applicant and hire them on the spot, regardless of their qualifications or your needs,” she claimed.

  George blinked, realizing she had a point. “May I at least help you find the woman you’re looking for?”

  Elizabeth allowed a grin. “Yes,” she said as she glanced toward a stack of paper on a small table at the very back of the office, opposite her desk. “Those are applicants we haven’t yet been able to match with positions. I’m afraid that’s where we’ll find the woman I am remembering.”

  “Why do you say it like that?” he asked, noting her tone of sorrow.

  Sighing, Elizabeth replied, “I’ve not placed but five women in any positions for the past two years. Two were nurses. They work at St. Bart’s now. Two more were placed as seamstresses. Not exactly jobs that pay very well.”

  “Neither are jobs making hats, but what else is there?” he countered.

  Elizabeth straightened, a note held in one hand and an expression of disbelief on her face. “Governess, housekeeper, companion, chaperone.... factory worker.” This last was said as she gave an involuntary shiver. “I would never consider sending a woman to work in the mines, but I understand some do.”

  “They push carts in the coal mines,” George commented as he picked up the stack of applications. He settled in at one of the desks.

  “Do you employ any women in your gypsum mines?” Elizabeth asked.

  George started to shake his head and then frowned. “I’ve absolutely no idea. Each mine has a foreman that sees to the hiring.” He received regular reports from each mine—yields, costs of operation, auction results—but nothing specific about employees other than a total number. “I shall have to write and ask,” he murmured.

  He started to thumb through the applications, turning each over onto the desktop so as not to mix them up. It was possible that whoever stacked them did so in some kind of logical fashion. He soon realized there was no rhyme or reason to their order. Every applicant listed some sort of ailment or malady, any one of which might preclude them from employment.

  Except for one.

  Slight limp.

  The reason for the limp was listed as “shot in the leg”.

  George blinked and set aside the other applications, his attention fixed on Mr. Barnaby’s less-than-stellar handwriting. D. Albright was the name written at the top of the form he held. The other attributes—age, eight-and-twenty; height, five-foot; languages, French and Italian; and education, governess and tutors—could have been any sort of soldier of middle class background.

  Except for the reference to an office in Whitehall, and a note that a character would be provided upon request.

  “How many five-foot tall soldiers do you suppose were shot in the leg?” George asked as he straightened in the chair.

  In the middle of penning a note for Mr. Overby, Elizabeth considered the question. “Deliberately?”

  George furrowed a brow. “How else would one be shot in the leg?” Then he frowned. “If they were running, I suppose, or—”

  “If they were a courier,” Elizabeth offered. “I overheard Mr. Comber telling someone that the courier in his unit in the Kingdom of the Netherlands barely came to his chest. Thought the man was merely a boy at first.”

  Thinking most men were shorter than Alistair Comber, the second son of the Earl of Aimsley, George wasn’t about to argue. However, it had him wondering about this particular applicant. The mention of the office in Whitehall had him imagining all sorts of scenarios. “What about a spy?” he asked, holding up the form he held.

  Elizabeth looked up from the missive she was writing and angled her head. “A five-foot tall spy? Why, I can’t imagine...” She inhaled sharply. “That’s her,” she said, getting up from the desk to join her husband.

  He offered her the form before she could reach for it, noting her impatience. “You think D. Albright is your man?” he asked with a grin. Then he sobered and seemed in deep thought for a moment. “Albright,” he repeated.

  “What is it?” Elizabeth asked as she quickly read the application, becoming more and more excited as she realized it had to be the woman she remembered.

  “Well, he’s been happily married for a few years, but Ariley used to have a mistress with that name. Lily Albright, I think her name was. A courtesan of some renown. Her father was Sir Ronald—a baronet—but he never acknowledged her as his own, even though everyone knew she was his daughter. Ariley had two daughters with her, although they always stayed in Kent.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Diana Albright. She was the youngest.” She almost immediately let out a sound of disappointment. “It can’t be her. She just married Alistair’s brother, Viscount Breckenridge.”

  Angling his head to one side, George asked, “Didn’t Miss Albright teach at Warwick’s? Arithmetic or some such?” Although he had never stepped foot in any of the buildings associated with Warwick’s Grammar and Finishing School, Teddy had done so a number of times simply because his mother’s office was there, as was her apartment. The late headmistress had worked at the school for over thirty years. Owned it, George corrected himself.

  Which had George realizing why it might be a baroness had become a headmistress of a finishing school—necessity. Teddy had said his father had left them in debt. His mother had probably been forced to seek a means to keep the family out of debtors’ prison. And what baroness wanted her meager title associated with the work she performed?

  “And she taught the dance classes,” Elizabeth put in, her thoughts still on the Viscountess Breckinridge. “Which means she’s definitely not this D. Albright.”

  George furrowed a brow and then realized his wife had a good point. Besides, a limp would probably have prevented Diana from teaching dance at the finishing school.

  “But this is the woman I was thinking about, I’m sure of it,” Elizabeth said, looking in vain for a means to contact the woman. “The older sister. I’m trying to remember her name. There’s no address,” she said with a sigh of frustration. “How are we to find her?”

  Frowning, George gently took the paper from her and re-read the entire page. “Ah, here at the bottom. Says she will return to the office to learn if anything has come available.”

  Elizabeth sighed, obviously disappointed. “That’s no help. What if she never comes back?”

  George hesitated to suggest the woman’s failure to return would be an indication that D. Albright had managed to secure a position somewhere else. Besides, if she r
eally was Ariley’s daughter, why would she be in search of a position at all? “May I ask why it is you think a former spy would make a good headmistress for Warwick’s?”

  Blinking, Elizabeth gave him a quelling glance. “I wasn’t thinking of her for that position,” she countered. “Although, now that you mention it, she might be a good candidate.”

  “Well, if not Warwick’s, what did you have in mind?”

  Elizabeth sighed. “Matchmaking,” she replied. “I was thinking of her to be in charge of Finding Wives for the Wounded.”

  His wife’s logic having escaped his reasoning, George gave a shake of his head. “My sweeting, I love you dearly. You know I do. But there are times you leave me perplexed. Addled.” He reached out and pulled her onto his lap. “Truly vexed. Now is one of those times.” He kissed her cheek.

  Dimpling, Elizabeth arched an elegant eyebrow before she settled her head against his shoulder. “Perhaps ‘matchmaking’ isn’t one of her skills, but I should think she can run an operation.”

  “An operation?” George repeated.

  “Yes. If she truly was a spy, I should think she had to have her wits about her. Be able to think on her feet. Investigate. Improvise when necessary. Finish the job at hand,” she reasoned.

  “Isn’t that what a headmistress has to do?” he teased. “You make her sound like a Bow Street Runner,” George murmured.

  “Oh, is that what they do?” she asked with a teasing grin.

  “You read too many novels,” he accused, before he captured her lips with his own. He kissed her thoroughly, rather glad to know there wasn’t a chance they would be interrupted by a curious toddler or a crying babe.

  They were interrupted, however, by a loud knock at the door.

  Chapter 6

  Interrupted

  Elizabeth scrambled to get up from her husband’s lap, as if she was embarrassed at being discovered sitting on it.