Stephanie Laurens - The Lady Chosen

They all nodded. Then Charles grimaced. “Why are we still doing this—taking orders from you?”

Dalziel looked at him, then softly said, “For the same reason I’m giving those orders with every expectation of being obeyed. Because we are who we are.” He raised one dark brow. “Aren’t we?”

There was nothing else to say; they understood one another all too well.

They rose.

“One thing.” Tristan caught Dalziel’s questioning look. “Duke Martinbury. Once he has the formula, this foreigner is liable to want to tie up loose ends.”

Dalziel nodded. “That would be expected. What do you suggest?”

“We can make sure Martinbury walks away from the meeting, but after that? In addition, he’s due some punishment for his part in this affair. All things considered, impression into the army for three years would fit the bill on both counts. Given he’s from Yorkshire, I thought of the regiment near Harrogate. Its ranks must be a little thin these days.”

“Indeed.” Dalziel made a note. “Muffleton’s colonel there. I’ll tell him to expect Martinbury—Marmaduke, wasn’t it?—as soon as he’s finished being useful here.”

With a nod, Tristan turned; with the others, he left.

“A fake formula?” His gaze on the sheet containing Cedric’s formula, Jeremy grimaced. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Here! Let me see.” Seated at the end of the breakfast table, Leonora held out her hand.

Tristan paused in consuming a mound of ham and eggs to pass the sheet to her.

She sipped her tea and studied it while the rest of them applied themselves to their breakfasts. “Which are the critical ingredients, do you know?”

Humphrey glanced down the table at her. “From what I gathered from the experiments, shepherd’s purse, moneywort, and comfrey were all crucial. As to the other substances, it was more a matter of enhancement of action.”

Leonora nodded, and set down her cup. “Give me a few minutes to consult with Cook and Mrs. Wantage. I’m sure we can concoct something believable.”

She returned fifteen minutes later; they were sitting back, replete, enjoying their coffee. She laid a neatly written formula in front of Tristan and retook her seat.

He picked it up, read it, nodded. “Looks believable to me.” He passed it to Jeremy. Looked at Humphrey. “Can you recopy that for us?”

Leonora stared at him. “What’s wrong with my copy?”

Tristan looked at her. “It wasn’t written by a man.”

“Oh.” Mollified, she poured herself another cup of tea. “So what’s your plan? What do we have to do?”

Tristan caught the inquiring gaze she directed at him over the rim of her cup, inwardly sighed, and explained.

As he’d anticipated, no amount of argument had swayed Leonora from joining him on the hunt.

Charles and Deverell had thought it a great joke, until Humphrey and Jeremy also insisted on playing a part.

Short of tying them up and leaving them in the club under Gasthorpe’s eye—something Tristan actually considered—there was no way to prevent them appearing in St. James’s Park; in the end, the three of them decided to make the best of it.

Leonora proved surprisingly easy to disguise. She was the same height as her maid Harriet, so could borrow her clothes; with the judicious application of some soot and dust, she made a passable flowerseller.

They decked Humphrey out in some of Cedric’s ancient clothes; by disregarding every edict of elegance, he was transformed into a thoroughly disreputable specimen, his thinning white hair artfully straggling, apparently unkempt. Deverell, who’d returned to his house in Mayfair to assume his own disguise, returned, approved, then took Humphrey in charge. They set out in a hackney to take up their positions.

Jeremy was the hardest to easily disguise; his slender length and clear-cut, well-defined features screamed “well-bred.” In the end, Tristan took him with him back to Green Street. They returned half an hour later as two rough-looking navvies; Leonora had to look twice before she recognized her brother.

He grinned. “This is almost worth being locked in the closet.”

Tristan frowned at him. “ This is no joke.”

“No. Of course not.” Jeremy tried to look suitably chastened, and failed miserably.

They bade Jonathon, unhappy but resigned to missing out on all the fun, farewell, promising to tell him all when they returned, then went to the club to check on Charles and Duke.

Duke was exceedingly nervous, but Charles had him in hand. They each had defined roles to play; Duke knew his—had had it explained to him in painstaking detail—but even more important, he’d been told very clearly what Charles’s role was. They were all sure that come what may, knowing what Charles would do if he didn’t behave as instructed would be enough to ensure Duke’s continued cooperation.

Charles and Duke would be the last to leave for St. James’s Park. The meeting was scheduled for three o’clock, close by Queen Anne’s Gate. It was just after two when Tristan handed Leonora into a hackney, waved Jeremy in, then followed.

They left the hackney at the nearer end of the park. As they strolled onto the lawns, they separated, Tristan going ahead, striding easily, stopping now and then as if looking for a friend. Leonora followed a few yards behind, an empty trug hung over her arm—a flowerseller heading home at the end of a good day. Behind her, Jeremy slouched along, apparently sulking to himself and paying little attention to anyone.

Eventually Tristan reached the entrance known as Queen Anne’s Gate. He slouched against the bole of a nearby tree and settled somewhat grumpily to wait. As per his instructions, Leonora angled deeper into the park. A wrought-iron bench sat beside the path wending in from Queen Anne’s Gate; she sank onto it, stretched her legs out before her, balancing the empty trug against them, and fixed her gaze on the vista before her, of the treed lawns leading down to the lake.

On the next wrought-iron bench along the path sat an old, white-haired man weighed down by a veritable mountain of mismatched coats and scarves. Humphrey. Closer to the lake, but in line with the gate, Leonora could just see the old plaid cap Deverell had pulled low over his face; he was slumped down against the trunk of a tree, apparently asleep.

Without seeming to notice anyone, Jeremy slouched past; he made his way out of the gate, crossed the road, then stopped to peer into the window of a tailor’s shop.

Leonora swung her legs and her trug slightly, and wondered how long they would have to wait.

It was a fine day, not sunny, but pleasant enough for there to be many others loitering, enjoying the lawns and the lake. Enough, at least, for their little band to be entirely unremarkable.

Duke had been able to describe his foreigner in only the most cursory terms; as Tristan had somewhat acidly commented, the majority of foreign gentlemen of Germanic extraction presently in London would fit his bill. Nevertheless, Leonora kept her eyes wide, scanning the strollers who passed before her, as an idle flowerseller with no more work for the day might do.

She saw a gentleman coming along the path from the direction of the lake. He was fastidiously turned out in a grey suit; he wore a grey hat and carried a cane, held rigidly in one hand. There was something about him that caught her eye, tweaked her memory, something odd about the way he moved…then she recalled Duke’s landlady’s description of his foreign visitor. A poker strapped to his spine.

This had to be their man.

He passed by her, then stepped to the verge, just short of where Tristan lounged, his gaze fixed on the gate, one hand tapping his thigh impatiently. The man pulled out his watch, checked it.