Ruby seized her hand and gripped it hard. ‘Promise me!’
Jacob’s momentary guilt had given place to anger. ‘What right do you have to deny your friend her happiness?’
‘Because if you… and her… if you do that, then he’ll… you know what your brother will do!’ Crystal tears trickled down her cheek which she dabbed away with Dora’s napkin.
If Jacob married Dora, Ruby thought his brother would not continue to house Dora’s best friend as his mistress. It would be too embarrassing– too complicated. Arthur wanted to keep actresses in their place as mistresses, not as society wives.
‘Dammit, Ruby, this isn’t about you!’ hissed Dora.
Ruby rose swiftly, bumping the table with her stomach and making the cutlery rattle. ‘Isn’t it? Then think of the child.’ With a sniff worthy of a duchess, she sailed out, beckoning her maid to join her with a flourish of her lace parasol. Jacob and Dora were left to face down the disapproval of the clients and the glee of the waiters.
Jacob’s whispered curse was Anglo-Saxon and crude. ‘That could have gone better,’ he said aloud.
Giovanni brought unbidden two little flutes of champagne and placed them on the table. ‘Per i fidanzati!’
‘Now you’ve done it,’ muttered Dora to Jacob, while smiling sweetly as the society ladies whispered behind their hands. ‘Grazie.’
Well aware he’d set the cat among the pigeons with his bold declaration, Jacob raised the glass to the onlookers. ‘Salute a tutti!’
Chapter Six
Bruton Mews
After the excitement of the confrontation in Gunter’s, Dora and Jacob retreated to the office. Dora’s nerves were still humming from Ruby’s departure, though she tried to maintain her pretence that it was amusing rather than alarming that her friend declared Dora was risking her happiness by seeking her own. Jacob was quietly fuming at the embarrassment, his expression set. Her lover was usually a mild-mannered gentleman, but he had a tipping point where his temper would flare– as she did. They had to talk this out, but they needed privacy for that.
This was not immediately forthcoming. When they got back, Alex and Kir were eating the dinner brought over from Lady Tolworth’s kitchens while listening to Susan Napper deliver her report on the cheating maid. Susan, a mature actress with a matronly figure, had taken to investigation with tenacious skill over the past few months since they’d hired her. If there was a tedious watch to be kept on someone, Susan was the person to send. She didn’t give up and appeared to have bottomlessinternal resources to prevent boredom. She’d told Dora she spent the time reciting all the lines from all the plays she had ever appeared in, the parts belonging to others as well as her own. As Dora knew from personal experience, the training an actor acquired in quickly conning parts for the ever-changing repertoire resulted in an excellent memory.
‘She finally met her contact in the rag trade today,’ Susan said, nodding to Jacob and Dora as they came in. ‘You never guess what they were doing?’
‘What, Mrs Napper?’ Kir watched Susan with wide, adoring eyes. Susan was a hugger and Kir appreciated her warmth, regarding her as an honorary grandmother.
‘They were only taking off the Brussels lace and replacing it with poorer quality stuff, expecting no one would notice, love. Who looks too closely at their petticoats after they’ve been purchased? Only washerwomen. If the lady’s maid doesn’t say anything, then it’s a rare mistress who pays such close attention. They’d think it was just ordinary wear and tear making it look bad. They’d go out and buy a new one and it starts all over again.’
Dora squeezed Susan’s shoulder in greeting. ‘Did you get a name for the contact?’
‘What do you take me for, duckie? Mrs Lamb. Lamb?’ Susan crowed with laughter. ‘She’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing if ever there was one.’
‘Excellent. Please write it up and I’ll take our findings to the client.’ The butler in the household had become suspicious of his mistress’s maid who appeared to have more money than she ought but had not known what she was doing to earn it. ‘Kir, did you do your lessons yet?’
Kir wiped his mouth on a napkin in a gesture that mimicked Alex’s impeccable manners. ‘Yes, Miss Dora.’
She ruffled his mop of black hair affectionately. ‘I’ll mark them, and if you got your sums right you can go and play with your friends.’
He looked worried. ‘What if I made mistakes?’ Mathematics wasn’t his strong suit. He was picking up reading far more swiftly.
‘I’ll still let you play, but we’ll go over where you went wrong first, agreed?’
Looking relieved, he nodded.
Jacob had quietly been serving them dinner from the pot on the sideboard, handing her a plate of chicken casserole with summer vegetables. They joined their colleagues at the desk that served as a table when they ate. Dora made a note that they really should invest in a trestle table that could be set up for meals if this became a habit. It was nice to eat together– a makeshift family was forming around the agency.
‘Where are Ren and Hugo?’ asked Jacob, sitting down beside her in the chair Alex had vacated for him. Goliath Renfrew, the actor who specialised in Tom Thumb and other parts for small people, was out with Hugo Ingles, the portly player who was known for his Falstaff. With Drury Lane closed for rebuilding after the fire, there were many out-of-work actors happy to redeploy as investigators.
‘They were following the husband from Harley Street. We found out that he has a mistress in Battersea and another in Lambeth,’ said Alex. ‘Lambeth’s turn today.’
‘Busy boy,’ said Susan.
‘Then the wife was right.’ Dora frowned. It was an unpleasant case. The lady had noticed that the household finances were strained, but the husband claimed he had no money to pay the bills despite her generous dowry but a few years earlier. Her family had thought he would invest it, but he’d been frittering it away. She’d pawned some of her jewels to pay for aninvestigation rather than settle the accounts that happily were her husband’s legal duty. He would be the one to go to debtors’ prison, but it was no fun being the wife of a debtor, especially if she had little chance of extracting money out of him before the bailiffs arrived. ‘I’m not sure what good the truth will do her.’
