A Study in Scoundrels Read online

Sophia hesitated to flip open the journal. Desire to respect the girl’s privacy vied with the potential of what she might learn about her whereabouts. “Did she mention anything about Cambridge?”

  “Yes, several times.” Cate reached for the journal. “May I?” As she took the little folio, she began flipping pages to one near the end. Near the page where Sophia and Grey had read Phyllida’s last entry. “She mentions the River Cam and how she’d always wished to go punting.”

  “Anything about visiting the city or university?”

  “You mean her stay with Mrs. Greenlow?”

  “Who?” Sophia moved to stand next to Cate as she pointed to an entry dated two weeks past.

  All is arranged with Mrs. Greenlow in Grantchester. Hope I needn’t burden her for long. The waiting will be hellish.

  “Grantchester is a small town near the university,” Cate explained. “Seems a friend of Lady Phyllida’s resides there.”

  Sophia wasn’t so certain. “If this Greenlow woman is a friend, why would the girl feel she was a burden?”

  “Even friends can overstay their welcome,” Cate very astutely opined.

  But what would Lady Phyllida be waiting for in a small town near Cambridge? Perhaps Clive Holden intended to rendezvous with her there. But why would he send her ahead? And why would they travel to Cambridge at all?

  “He left you a gift.” Cate’s words cut into Sophia’s woolgathering.

  She blinked at her in confusion. “Lord Winship?”

  Cate crossed the room, parted the sliding wooden doors, and crossed the hall. A moment later, she returned with a small rectangular box, held out in both hands like an offering. “From Mr. Ogilvy.”

  “He shouldn’t have brought me a present.” Gifting someone who was not a friend or close acquaintance was a breech in etiquette, especially when presented to a young lady. The indelicacy arose from the appearance of placing her under obligation or attempting to buy her goodwill. However, Ogilvy’s gift was the wrong size for a ring. She suspected she was safe in opening the box. Inside she found a lovely fountain pen with a pearlized barrel and silver accents. “It’s lovely.”

  “Seems a bit too practical for my taste, but it’s a pretty writing implement.”

  “I like practical gifts.” Or perhaps she was simply used to them. Her parents had never given her any gifts that weren’t useful.

  Cate grinned indulgently. “You can use it to send him a thank-you note.”

  “I should.” Sophia nodded, but she was struggling to spare a single thought for Mr. Ogilvy or his pen.

  “Or you could thank him in person.” Cate slid a calling card from her Pandora’s box of an apron pocket. “He plans on remaining in London to see to his business affairs for a few days. He made a note of the hotel where he’s staying.”

  Sophia took the card from Cate and flicked her thumbnail against the edge. “Seeing Mr. Ogilvy will have to wait until I return.”

  Cate’s brows knitted in confusion. “Are you leaving again?”

  “I must go to Cambridge.” Grey needed to know about Mrs. Greenlow, though Sophia had no idea how she’d contact him once she arrived.

  Cate strode from the room and soon returned with a small Bradshaw’s Guide of train timetables that Sophia wasn’t even aware they kept in the house. “You won’t make the last train this afternoon,” Cate informed her.

  “First departure in the morning, then.” She’d make an early start. Despite not knowing her way around Cambridge or how to contact Grey, she did know one thing. The most important fact of all.

  She knew where to find Lady Phyllida Grey.

  After two days in Cambridge, the Eagle and Stag pub proved to be a haven. Cozily small, its dark-paneled walls offered a welcome retreat from the summer sun.

  Grey ordered a pint of ale and a plate of bread and cheese, then retreated to a corner booth and hunkered down. Gulping at the sour beer, he glanced around the sparsely populated public house for any sign of Holden. After taking a bit of food, he’d begin questioning the proprietor. Search every damned room if he had to.

  He’d visited his old haunts, the pubs and gathering places he and his classmates had frequented when he’d been at university. On his second day in the city, what had begun to seem an aimless ramble turned fruitful when he encountered a mutual friend of his and Clive’s, who now served as professor of mathematics at the university. From him, Grey learned that Clive visited a few weeks past and had lodged at the Eagle and Stag, a coaching inn turned pub.

  Grey examined the worn table under his elbows and slid his foot against the sticky floor as the first bite of bread turned to dust in his mouth. Such a grimy interior might suit his debauched tastes, but he loathed the idea of Liddy lodging in such a place.

  She’d been brought up gently, sheltered, even from much of their parents’ ugliness toward each other.

  Damn Clive Holden.

  After another swig of ale, Grey straightened his neck cloth and buttoned up his suit. Now was the time to play the role of gentleman. He waited until the publican served another guest before approaching the bar.

  “Fine establishment you have here.”

  “Thank you kindly, sir.” In one long scrutinizing glance, the man took in the cut of Grey’s garment and the glint on the ebony buttons of his waistcoat. Apparently satisfied, he offered a tentative grin and nod of acknowledgment. “What can I do for you?”

  “Sir Clive Holden recommended your accommodations. Says he lodged with you recently.”

  “We’ve no rooms available.” A buxom older woman approached to stand beside the publican. Grey guessed her to be the innkeeper’s wife.

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” Grey said, catching the lady’s wary gaze. “But you do recall Sir Clive’s visit?”

  Her husband nodded, but the lady shook her head vehemently. “Can’t say as I do,” she added to emphasize her denial. Her husband immediately ducked his head and began moving away down the bar.

  Grey smiled at the older woman. “Memory is such a bugger, but I find this helps.” He lifted a folded five-pound banknote from his pocket and unfurled the thin paper on the counter.

  She sniffed as if the lucre held no interest. “The Holden gent came and went. That’s all I recall, sir.” She rushed the words and grabbed the five pounds, folding the note quickly, and shoved it between the top two buttons of her bodice. “Anything else we can do for you, you’ll have to ask my husband.”

  Gladly. Grey waited patiently while the woman returned to wiping off tables, eyeing him with suspicion as she went. After she’d moved out of eavesdropping distance, her husband approached again.

  “Refill your glass, sir?”

  Grey shook his head. He needed to keep a clear head, though moderation had a terrible way of allowing bad memories to come screeching back to life. “Information is what I’m thirsty for, and I’m willing to pay.”

  “You’ll have to forgive the missus,” the man said quietly, keeping one eye trained on the lady in question as she began loading discarded glasses onto a tray. “She’s protecting her sister.”

  “Come again?” Grey pinched the skin between his brow and eyed the bottles of hard liquor behind the bar. His mouth watered for a nip, if only to ease the thunder in his head.

  “She provides bed and board, doesn’t she? My wife suggested her the moment Sir Clive inquired about private lodgings for a lady acquaintance of his.” The man sniffed and wiped his cuff across his nose. “Thought at the time it all sounded rather suspicious. The last thing we want is trouble, sir.”

  Grey reached across the bar and gripped the man’s shirt front. “What’s your sister-in-law’s name? Her address?”

  The man’s eyes bloated like overfilled balloons, and he shifted his gaze across the room, as if signaling for his wife’s assistance. Grey twisted his head as the woman stomped toward him, knotting a towel in her hands. She lifted her palm when she reached his side. “Another five pounds and we’ll tell you.”

  So much
for family loyalty. Grey had never been more grateful for a fellow mercenary spirit in his life. He drew out two five-pound notes. “One for your sister’s address,” he said, holding the offering out to the pub owner’s wife, “and another not to send warning that I’m coming.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mrs. Greenlow’s lodging house appeared to be a quaint cottage from the exterior but proved to be a spacious hive of activity on the inside.

  “We’re at sixes and sevens today, miss,” a young maid informed Sophia as she swiped a wrist across her flushed brow. “New lodgers coming and two departing. Wait here, if you would, and I’ll let Mrs. Greenlow know you wish for a room.”

  “Thank you.” Sophia hadn’t asked for a room, but the fib worked as well as any for securing a meeting with the proprietress. After entering the small sitting room the servant indicated, Sophia waited until the young lady shut the door before rushing forward and peeking through the crack in the frame. With so much busy comings and goings in the outer hall, could she sneak up the stairs and search for Grey’s sister without drawing notice?

  Yes, she decided, if not for the lady and gentleman blocking the sitting room door as they donned hats and gloves. A young man helped them gather luggage at the front door. When a maid approached the sitting room door, Sophia ducked back and quickly took a seat, trying to appear as if she’d been waiting patiently.

  In the end, no one entered, and Sophia sprang up from her chair, too anxious to sit. Her legs still ached from being stuck on the train all afternoon.

  The journey from King’s Cross Station to Cambridge had taken so long she’d managed to read an entire book of mystery tales and work on her own story, writing out two new chapters as the train drew to shuddering stops at various stations along the way. Unfortunately, when reviewing her new words, she’d found a disturbing description of an aristocratic rogue who would turn out to be an ally for her detective, helping Effie solve the crime.

  Hair of cinnamon brown and clear gray eyes, like frosted panes of glass, she’d written, before slashing through the words and struggling to envision any man other than Jasper Grey.

  Mr. Ogilvy’s bearded visage came to mind, but her character wasn’t meant to be a proper gentleman. He was the sort Mr. Ogilvy would likely consider less than respectable. The kind her father would decry as a wastrel. Just the type Jasper Grey—she had to begin thinking of the man as Lord Winship—would no doubt be proud to call a friend.

  Now, as she pondered the next complications in her plot, she lifted a notebook and pen from her traveling satchel and tapped her fountain pen against her lower lip. Not the implement Mr. Ogilvy had gifted her. That one felt as if it didn’t quite belong to her, especially when the man himself remained a mystery.

  Unfortunately, Mr. Ogilvy was an enigma that would have to wait.

  “Thank you for your patience, miss.” A middle-aged woman bustled through the sitting room door, tucking a few strands of dark hair into pins with one hand and pushing a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles up her nose with the other. “We’re not usually in such a scramble, I assure you. Most days, I keep the house quiet and calm. And no unmarried gentlemen are allowed here, if that’s of concern to you.” Turning to a shelf near the door, she took a tall ledger into her hands, pulled a pencil from behind her ear, and opened the book to a middle page. “How about a room with a view of the fields toward town?”

  “A friend recommended your establishment, Mrs. Greenlow. In fact, she may still be lodging with you. Lady Phyllida Grey?”

  The lodging house proprietress tipped her head down and stared at Sophia over the rim of her glasses. “Name doesn’t ring a bell. When did she make this recommendation?”

  Sophia swallowed a lump in her throat and continued doing what she’d never done before in her life. She lied. “Quite recently, ma’am. As I said, I hoped she might still be stopping with you.”

  Mrs. Greenlow stepped back near the door she’d just entered and gestured toward the front of the house. “Only one unaccompanied young woman has been staying with me, and she’s departing today.”

  Through an oblong front window, Sophia spotted a petite lady in a pretty pink day dress. A wide-brimmed straw hat with matching pink ribbons covered her hair. She stood near the carriage circle with several traveling bags at her feet, as if waiting for a conveyance.

  “What’s her name?” Sophia strode forward to get a better look. Perhaps she’d recognize Lady Phyllida if she looked like her brother.

  “Miss Longcross,” Mrs. Greenlow said. “Not your Lady Grey, I take it. You’re welcome to her room now that she’s off.”

  Longcross sounded like a fanciful surname, but if Grey’s sister arrived in Cambridge under improper circumstances, she’d be a fool to use her own name.

  “I can have the room ready within the next quarter hour,” Mrs. Greenlow continued, laying her ledger on a low side table and bending to make a notation. “If you’d just add your name and details here.”

  Sophia wasn’t certain when to end the pretense, though securing a room seemed the easiest way to be admitted to the house’s upstairs. Bending at the waist, she picked up Mrs. Greenlow’s discarded pencil and began writing her name, then stopped herself. A moment’s thought and another name came to mind. She wrote Euphemia Breedlove in a slow, careful script, scanning the list of names printed above hers. Miss L. Longcross was listed near the top of the page, her entry dated over a week prior.

  Grey referred to his sister as Liddy.

  Sophia snapped her gaze toward the girl waiting out front, just as a carriage rumbled into view. A footman disembarked to load luggage, and then a man’s arm shot out from the carriage’s interior. The young lady stepped up just as a breeze caught her bonnet, loosening a coil of burnished copper hair.

  “Excuse me,” Sophia muttered as she dropped Mrs. Greenlow’s pencil, rushed into the hall, and pulled open the front door. “Wait!”

  The carriage door slammed shut, but the young lady tipped her head to gaze out the window. Behind her, a man’s face loomed into view. He was blond, but Sophia could make out little else among the interior’s shadows.

  “Lady Phyllida?” Sophia dashed toward the carriage, but the coachman urged the horses on and the vehicle began rolling away.

  The girl lifted one gloved hand to press against the glass. Sophia waved frantically, but the carriage didn’t stop. In fact, the horses picked up speed as they left the carriageway and entered the main Grantchester road.

  “Was it her?” Mrs. Greenlow called from the front step.

  “I don’t know.” Sophia pressed a hand to her belly where a roil of queasiness had begun. Her gut told her she’d just looked into the face of Grey’s sister. Looked at her and lost the girl again.

  “Do you still want a room, Miss Breedlove?”

  “May I have a look first?” She didn’t expect to find anything useful in the room, but she had to discover if the girl had left something behind.

  “Suit yourself. I’ve another new lodger to see to.” Mrs. Greenlow pointed to the stairwell once Sophia entered the house again. “First room on your right. Rosebud wallpaper. Very ladylike.”

  Sophia retrieved her travel satchel from the parlor and made her way up to the room. The air inside still held a hint of violet water, and she moved around slowly from corner to corner, scanning each surface for the merest scrap Phyllida may have unknowingly discarded. She found nothing on the bedside table. The desk drawer held only fresh sheaves of paper, a nib pen, and a pot of ink. Lifting the mattress edge, she slid her hand down the length of the bed but discovered nothing there either.

  Dropping into the wooden rocking chair in front of the room’s fireplace, Sophia racked her mind for why Phyllida would have lodged at the house for a week. Assuming the young woman she’d seen out front had, in fact, been Grey’s sister.

  A glint of metal under the bed caught her eye, and she kneeled to find a lady’s hair pin. A simple, unadorned hairpin, similar to those worn by every woman
in England. The tiny bit of bent metal might have been Phyllida’s. Or one of dozens of women who’d lodged in the room.

  Sophia shoved the pin into her pocket with a sigh.

  From her position near the floor, she heard several voices downstairs. More guests, no doubt. Who knew a lodging house in a sleepy little Cambridge village would be so popular. It was only fair to depart and allow Mrs. Greenlow to rent the room to a paying lodger.

  As she gained her feet, Sophia took one long last look around the room, scanning nooks and every cranny that might hold a clue to finding Phyllida Grey. A shape on top of the wardrobe caught her eye, an elevation just a bit higher than the furniture’s edge. A book, perhaps? Another journal?

  Even on tiptoes, she wasn’t tall enough to grasp the object. But she tried, stretching up, straining, her bosom smashed against the wardrobe’s door and her cheek pressed to the polished wood.

  Body stretched out like a bowstring pulled taut, perspiration pooled on her forehead. Sophia bounced, trying to find another inch in her body to stretch. A sound froze her in place. Her skin prickled and she held her breath. The bedroom door creaked on its hinges as someone slid it open slowly and started inside.

  “Sophia?” Grey whispered harshly. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  She let out an exhale and drew away from the wardrobe she’d been attempting to climb. “I would imagine that’s obvious,” she snapped.

  Grey lifted a finger to his lips and shut the door behind him. “I snuck by Mrs. Greenlow, but she’ll come for me soon enough. Is this the room Liddy rented?”

  “I believe so.” Sophia retrieved a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and wiped the dust from her fingers.

  Despite the shock of finding her in an empty lodging house room, the warmth in Grey’s chest was very like relief. From the moment he’d sent Sophia back to London, she’d plagued his thoughts. Not knowing if she’d returned home safely irked him. And more so when she wasn’t there across from him when he awoke from a nap on the train ride to Cambridge.

  Catching him staring, Sophia turned away. When she looked back again, her gaze didn’t fix on his eyes but on his mouth.