A Masquerade in the Moonlight(124)
Thomas headed for the door, stopping only when he had his hand on the handle. “Marco, you deliver the packet, but not until eleven. Stay with her while she reads the confession, then sit on her if you have to, but don’t let her out of your sight until I come for her. Paddy, you go with him, to make sure he gets in to see her, then come back here and pack, for we’ll be leaving for Chertsey tomorrow afternoon—and most probably Philadelphia soon after that.”
“Always the valet,” Dooley muttered, sighing. “I’d much rather go around town banging heads with you. You can’t count on that fool Harewood to do any of the work for you, even if he does hint in that sorry confession of his that he plans to murder Laleham. Precious lot of courage the man’s gotten, now that he has Marco’s Shield of Invincibility. Immortal, is it? Bloody fool! Even the leprechauns can’t promise that. So that’s what you’ll be doing early tomorrow morning, isn’t it, Tommie? Having some of your own back on Harewood and the earl before we’re on our way? Marguerite would want that.”
“No, Paddy,” Marco said, his head cocked to one side as he regarded Thomas solemnly. “He’ll not be beating on them. He’ll be killing them. Killing them dead. Won’t you, my friend?”
Thomas smiled, although his heart wasn’t in it. “I didn’t hear that, Marco, because you didn’t say it. You’re welcome to come to Philadelphia with us—you and Giorgio both. If anything goes wrong, Marguerite and I won’t be the only ones to have worn out our welcomes in England.”
“Many thanks, but we’re late joining the others for our summer trek. I’ve a taste for pilfered chicken that must be satisfied. We’ll be leaving London tomorrow, once we know Marguerite is safely with you.”
Thomas nodded, silently agreeing to the plan. “My thanks to you, Marco. Marguerite couldn’t have been half so brilliant without you, although I like my head too much to ever say such a thing to her face.”
“The plans were hers, my friend. Giorgio and I were only her instruments. Good luck to you.”
“Tommie—have a care.”
Thomas looked to Dooley. “Do you worry I can’t handle them?” he asked, already thinking ahead to his confrontations with Harewood and the earl.
“Not those bastards, boyo,” Dooley shot back. “Marguerite. She might not take kindly to you climbing into her window in the middle of the night.”
“Perhaps, Paddy,” Thomas said, opening the door. “But I think you can trust your Tommie to change her mind.”
Laleham didn’t care for late-night assignations, but Ralph had been insistent they meet two hours after midnight. Ralph had been acting strangely these last days, nearly daring to contradict him on more than one occasion, so that the earl was thoroughly out of patience with him. Which partially explained his foul humor as his man drove him away from the ball he had been attending and through the still busy streets to Harewood’s lodgings.
The remainder of Laleham’s black mood was due to the steady aching in his jaw that, no matter how much better his physicians swore the cracked bone to be, still pained him like the devil. The pain kept his hatred for Thomas Donovan alive—so much so that he had begun to believe he could find a way to dispose of the man and deal only with his minion, Patrick Dooley.
But that had to wait. Everything had to wait until this business with Arthur and Perry and Stinky was straightened out. How could one of them, yet alone all three, be so monstrously inept, so perilously stupid?
And why now? One or two of them falling from grace could be looked upon as coincidence. But three? And so quickly, one directly after the other, within a space of days? That smacked of some sort of intrigue meant to bring them down. But only the five of them knew they were connected in any way other than simple friendship.
Yet all wasn’t lost. The groundwork for the deal with the Americans had been well laid, and Perry’s and Arthur’s liberally bribed—and decidedly more competent—assistants were still in place, so that neither of the two blockheads were needed anymore. Not really. Perry’s replacement at the War Ministry and Arthur’s at the Treasury would only continue on the way things had been set up for them by their predecessors, for originality—and brainpower—never had been requirements for government service. Assistants and secretaries had always run the offices, and always would. No one had any reason to believe this first shipment and those to follow, neatly delivered to Phillips and Delphia, would be anything but customary.