He would have to wait to have it satisfied. Familiar footsteps heralded the return of Mrs. Ludlow. A servant followed, carrying a tray. “Lord Ywain, would you honor us by joining us while we partake of some coffee?”
He graciously accepted. Padua noticed the tray had only two cups and saucers. Mrs. Ludlow’s “we” had been the royal one.
“Miss Belvoir, should you not return to your classroom? The younger girls are waiting for you now.”
Padua excused herself. Ives managed to appear welcoming as Mrs. Ludlow turned an ingratiating smile on him, but Padua thought she glimpsed a few seconds of pain first.
Well, if the man insisted on interfering, he had to expect a little discomfort every now and then.
***
Losing hours and days to Miss Belvoir’s Dilemma was bad enough. Now Ives found himself subjected to Mrs. Ludlow’s social blandishments. She spent half an hour talking about her educational endeavors.
“We do our best here with the girls,” she confided after treating him to a description of her school. “As well as possible, I like to think, considering their backgrounds.” She lowered her voice. “Most of their fathers are in trade, and if ever the results of breeding trump those of money, it is in young women like these.”
“How long has Miss Belvoir taught for you?” he asked. “I sought her out today on a matter concerning relatives of hers, and do not know the particulars of her own situation.”
“She has been here three years. She came with only one reference, and a qualified one at that. I took her on with some risk because she can teach subjects it canbe hard to staff. I do not deny her qualifications, and I enjoy her company. However, I find her opinionated and proud at times too. She is given to radical ideas, I regret to say, enough that I have debated asking her to leave.”
Ives would have preferred the wordradicalnot be associated with Padua Belvoir, under the circumstances. He hoped Mrs. Ludlow only referred to those reformist ideas that he knew about.
“I trust she does not advocate eliminating all the aristocrats,” he said with a little laugh.
Mrs. Ludlow thought that very funny. They chortled together at the absurd notion. “No, she is not that kind of radical. Goodness, if our parents ever thought that.” She patted her heart, as if in danger of fainting. “She has some inappropriate ideas about women, however. You know the sort I mean. All that boring Wollstonecraft sort of thing. Her own mother attended a university abroad that allowed women. With a mother like that, you can imagine the strange notions Miss Belvoir has inherited. Our parents would not find it amusing.” She looked at him like he were an old friend worthy of confidences. “Am I remiss in keeping her on? I go back and forth on the question.”
“It cannot be easy to find a teacher of mathematics who will take employment at a school for girls. If Miss Belvoir is competent in the schoolroom, I do not think you are remiss, or need to rush to send her away.”
Mrs. Ludlow looked at him with gratitude. “How good of you to advise me. You are correct, of course.Unless she does something that will harm the girls or the school, I can overlook her way of thinking.”
It seemed an excellent time to take his leave. He did so, believing his good deed for the day done several times over. Miss Belvoir would keep her employment, and would make herself scarce at Newgate. With luck, anyone following her father’s case would lose interest in her in a week or so when she no longer made her appearances at his cell.
He would not mind being done with Hadrian Belvoir completely for the time being, but one more thing needed his attention. He knew from sorry experience that sometimes magistrates, eager to identify a culprit, overlooked inconvenient evidence that might call a person’s guilt into question. It sounded like they had Hadrian Belvoir tied up in a neat package, but before he prosecuted, he wanted to make sure.
CHAPTER5
More had been achieved by Ives’s visit than Padua’s reluctant agreement to no longer visit her father. Of more interest to Padua had been Ives’s reference to her father’s rooms on Wigmore Street.
Her father’s use of a mail drop all these years had been especially wounding. She now knew where he lived, however. She hoped this was the property he had inherited too. If so, she would not need to pay Mr. Notley ten shillings to locate that legacy. And if her father used only some rooms in the building, perhaps that meant he let out the other rooms, and it served as a source of income.
She had to wait three days before she was able to leave the school with Mrs. Ludlow unawares. Fortunately, Mrs. Ludlow had a ritual of social calls every Fridayafternoon. She always took Jennie with her because Jennie’s connections, severed though they might be in reality, enhanced Mrs. Ludlow’s social standing and even opened a few doors.
Padua bided her time until then. As soon as the hired carriage bore them away, she donned her spencer and bonnet and let herself out the garden door.
Time would be short today, so she hired a hackney and gave the driver the name of the street. She hoped it was not far away and she could walk back. It surprised her when the carriage stopped on a street near the northeastern edge of Piccadilly. She paid the fare, stepped out, and took a good look at her surroundings.
There was nothing fashionable about Wigmore Street. The houses appeared solid, and she guessed many of them contained several homes. Since she did not know which was her father’s, she asked at a grocer’s on one corner. She did not have to describe her father in much detail for the proprietor to recognize the man she wanted. He pointed her to a brick house on the next block that stood three stories tall over its raised cellar.
A blond woman sat at the window of the first storey. Padua asked after Mr. Belvoir.
“He lives above,” the woman said. “He is not there now. Hasn’t been for some weeks.”
“Does he own this building?”
The woman laughed until she cried. “That odd duck own this building?” She wiped her eyes with the edge of her apron. “What would he know with owninga building. Nah, he lets his rooms same as I let mine, thank you.”
Padua opened the door. She mounted the stairs leading to the next level.
As expected, the door to her father’s rooms had not been locked. Hadrian Belvoir would never bother with such practicalities. When she entered, she had to admit there would be little purpose in doing so anyway, because he had nothing to steal.
