Marcus Stockhaven tilted his head to one side, the better to appreciate the set of his neck cloth in the mirror above the drawing-room mantelpiece.
“Like a man who has spent three months trying to tie his cravat in a dark cellar,” his friend Alistair Cantrell said brutally.
Marcus grinned. “That bad?” He surveyed his reflection thoughtfully in the mirror and rubbed a hand over the stubble shadowing his chin. “I need a barber.”
“You need more than that.” Alistair looked around. “Where is your valet?”
“I gave all the servants leave of absence whilst I was away,” Marcus said. “Why do you think you are pouring your own brandy?”
He watched as Alistair folded his lanky length into the armchair beside the fireplace. Stockhaven House was small as London town houses went, and wholly unostentatious. The Earls of Stockhaven had never felt the need to boast their wealth and lineage through vulgar display, and Marcus was no exception. Nevertheless, a house like this required a staff to run it. The room was cold, for the June evening had turned unseasonably damp. No fire glowed in the grate. The dust sat thickly on the cherrywood furniture and the whole house felt faintly unloved.
“So,” Alistair said, turning from contemplation of his brandy to study Marcus’s face. “Why the change of plan?”
Marcus shrugged. “My business was all but complete,” he said, “and I was starting to draw attention in a manner that I could ill afford.” He took a mouthful of brandy, grimaced and put his glass down. “Either someone has been selling off my liquor whilst I was in the Fleet and replacing it with tea dregs or I have lost my taste for brandy.”
Alistair looked amused. “It has an excellent flavor, Marcus.”
“Then my sense of taste has definitely been ruined by the disgusting swill that passes for food inside,” Marcus said, sighing. “I thought as much. A man must be desperate indeed to tolerate such appalling slops.”
Alistair grinned. “Just like Harrow, as I recall. But did you discover what you wanted?” He gestured with his brandy glass. “Did you find Warwick—and his criminals? You must know that I am expiring with curiosity. Tell me all.”
Marcus stretched out his long legs toward the empty fire grate. He felt as chill as the house, cold and empty. One of the reasons he had been able to spend three months in the Fleet was that there was no one to notice his absence. In the years since his wife had died, he had traveled widely. No one was in the least surprised when he disappeared for months on end, and positions in his service were eagerly sought since his servants had the longest holidays in London.
In the three days since his release from the Fleet Prison, he had noticed more than ever before the emptiness of Stockhaven House. It was odd, for previously his solitude had never disturbed him. Now, however, he felt that he wanted more—although he was not sure exactly what more was. A house full of servants did not seem the answer.
“I discovered that the prison is a fertile ground for the recruitment of men to the criminal fraternity,” he said, in reply to Alistair’s question. “Debtors who are desperate for their freedom will promise anything to those who buy them out of jail.”
Alistair pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “Just as you thought. But surely it would be better to recruit a bunch of hardened criminals in Newgate rather than the Fleet?”
Marcus shook his head. “What is the point of recruiting a man who may well hang the next day? The debtors of the Fleet are a better class of criminal. Some may not even be criminals at all. But all are frantic for lack of money, and the man who can buy them out of prison has a hold over them for the rest of their lives.”
“Is Edward Warwick one such?” Alistair asked.
Marcus nodded. Hunting Warwick, a criminal mastermind, was the reason he had gone into the Fleet in the first place. “He is certainly one of the main players,” he said. “I spent three months in a cell with men who were terrified of his very name. All my cell mates were too afraid to tell me more than the merest scraps of information about him. I learned that Warwick buys a man’s debts—buys their very souls—so that they dance to his tune.”
Alistair narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “It sounds as though you were wise to make your inquiries incognito. You never met the man yourself during your time in the Fleet?”
“Unfortunately not, although he regularly visits the prison to recruit his men. But perhaps it was fortunate that Warwick and I have not yet met.” Marcus’s mouth took on a grim line. “We will one day and I would wish to be better prepared.”
Alistair Cantrell nodded. “So did you discover anything useful about the fire at Salterton? Can you tie it to Warwick for sure?”
“Yes, I can,” Marcus said. His gaze turned inward, away from the cold, dusty room. It had been bad, that winter night at Salterton six months ago. It was the night that his wife’s mother, Lady Jane Southern, had died. He had been up at Salterton Hall trying to restore order and bring comfort to the servants, many of whom had served the Southern family for years. Marcus had been grief struck and bone weary, and when he returned to his own house in the grounds at nigh on midnight, he had wanted nothing but the oblivion of sleep. Instead, he had caught a lad in the very act of burgling his late wife’s chamber. The boy had overturned a lamp in his attempts to escape. In a matter of seconds the tapestries and curtains were ablaze and so was the boy’s clothing. The lad had made a desperate leap from the window in an attempt to escape.
The evening took on a nightmarish horror.
Fire was a terrifying phenomenon. Marcus had seen it rip through a battleship more than once. Even now he could hear the crack as the arsenal exploded and feel the shock wave run through the water. The fire that had gutted the second floor of his house at Salterton had been on a much smaller scale, but it was no less devastating. He could still see the image of the young lad lying on the gravel, a small, crumpled figure barely more than eleven years old, too pitiful to think of as a criminal. When he reached the boy’s side he feared him dead, but the youth was alive and delirious. His eyes were open and he kept repeating the name Warwick like an enchantment. When Marcus questioned him gently, he murmured, “Mr. Warwick sent me to find what is rightfully his.” And then he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Marcus called the physician, who was still up at Salterton Hall, and paid for the treatment himself. He felt an obscure guilt over the boy’s injuries, as though he were responsible for the lad’s plight. The boy was the son of one of the Salterton villagers and they took him home to nurse him. There was puzzlement and embarrassment in their eyes as they tried to explain to Marcus that Edward was a good lad and they did not understand where it had all gone wrong. Marcus did not press charges, despite the disapproval of the constable. And then a few weeks later he heard that the lad had run away, although still dangerously weakened by his injuries. His parents shrank still further into themselves and became shadows of the people they had been. Once respected and sure of their place in the community, they became like ghosts. John Channing worked in his cobbler’s shop as he had always done, but was dour and unsmiling. Mary Channing took in laundry but turned her face away from the gossip of her neighbors. And when Marcus called, he soon realized that his presence was a torment to them, not a comfort, for it reminded them of the disgrace their son had brought on their name.
It was then that Marcus determined to find out what had happened to lead Edward Channing astray. He wanted to discover the identity of the mysterious puppet master whose manipulations drove Edward to ransack Marcus’s house and then burn it down. He needed to know what the lad had been searching for.
And there was another mystery. On the evening of her death, Lady Jane Southern had a visitor. No one saw him leave and, in the aftermath of her death, most people forgot him. But Marcus possessed a strange conviction that his appearance had something to do with both Lady Jane’s death and the fire.
“Mr. Warwick sent me to find what is rightfully his….”
Marcus