Three Nights with a Scoundrel (Stud Club #3)(14)

With grave deliberation, he selected a set of clothing for that evening. He had a new waistcoat in pigeon’s blood red, and this he laid aside for pressing, along with a royal blue topcoat with brass trim and charcoal-gray pantaloons. From his row of sixteen hats, he selected a jaunty blue felt with a red band. The color combination was revolting. But he needed to draw notice tonight, even more so than usual.

Though he’d opposed the idea initially, on reflection he saw the potential in this social scheme of Lily’s. His investigative efforts were going nowhere. By withdrawing from public life, he’d given his enemy a sense of complacency.

These were the inescapable facts: In trying to kill Julian, someone had killed Leo instead. If Julian wanted justice for Leo’s murder, he would have to draw the cowardly rat out of hiding—by making himself the bait.

He’d start with dinner tonight, then a genial round of the clubs. All very friendly, all very tame—even if he had to sit on his hands when Morland drew near, just to keep it so. He would remain on good behavior through a few scattered, sedate appearances—the three evenings he’d promised Lily. Once he’d reestablished his place at the top of every guest list and Lily’s marital prospects were assured … only then would Julian Bellamy lay his trap.

At the moment, however, Julian Bellamy was retiring to bed.

Once inside the richly appointed bedchamber, he locked the door behind him. And then he waited. When a few minutes had passed and he was certain no one was listening, he followed the golden path of the carpet’s Greek maze border, skirting the four-poster bed with its crimson velvet hangings, until he stood before a bookcase in the room’s farthest corner. He pulled a lever in the hidden recesses of the third shelf, then stepped back to let the panel swing out on its hinges.

On the other side of the false wall was a narrow, humble closet that belonged to the mercantile building in the rear.

The small space held a shelf of starched white shirts and cravats, a few folded pairs of trousers in neutral shades. Plain brass hooks supported a row of four coats: dun, gray, black, and dark blue. Two hats.

Tossing his banyan aside, he stepped through the hidden passageway and closed the panel behind him. His night as Julian Bellamy was over.

He was very late for his day as James Bell.

Chapter Four

Mr. James Bell did not employ a valet. Nor a cook, nor a butler, nor indeed a single footman. Just a charwoman to come in and sweep twice a week. She was an illiterate and perpetually harried woman, unlikely to snoop.

Mr. Bell was, however, a generous employer. He compensated said charwoman thrice the normal amount, and he treated his clerks well. Paid wages promptly, with annual rises in pay and bonuses at Christmas. Well-paid employees did not question or complain.

Mr. Bell lived in rooms above his business offices, and he kept eccentric hours. Though his dedication was above question, the clerks never knew at what time he might appear belowstairs. He’d let spread a vague rumor that he suffered from recurrent bouts of headache. Some mornings, they found him already behind his desk at eight, cravat-deep in accounting ledgers. Other days, like today, he didn’t appear until well after noon. This inconsistent schedule kept his clerks on constant alert.

Mr. Bell dressed in unremarkable though well-tailored attire. He parted his black hair severely and combed it with pomade until it lay flat against his scalp. “Fastidious,” some might have described him. The less charitable might have said, “Dull as toast.” Rarely was he observed going out-of-doors without a hat, and he wore spectacles at all times.

There was only plain glass in the lenses, of course. Julian didn’t wear them to see. He wore them so he would not be seen.

And the disguise had worked quite well for several years.

It was midafternoon when he came down the back stairs today and entered the offices from the rear. As usual, he found his eight clerks hunched over two neat rows of desks that ran the length of the room. They all hastened to their feet with a chorus of “Good day, Mr. Bell.”

He nodded in reply.

The errand boys threw him guilty looks from a corner, where they no doubt had been dicing until a few moments ago. Julian decided to overlook the infraction. For now. He’d provide tasks enough to keep them hopping the rest of the day.

“As you were,” he said, retreating into his office—a partitioned section at the back with a glass window for supervisory purposes and drapes he could pull when privacy was desired. The frosted pane set in the door was lettered in gilt: “J. Bell. Manager, Aegis Investments.”

So far as his employees understood, Mr. Bell managed the interests of several wealthy investors. These unnamed investors—aristocrats, it was presumed, who could not be seen sullying their hands with trade—had pooled their money toward various business endeavors: in particular, several wool and linen mills to the North, and commercial real estate holdings in most of England’s larger cities. Mr. Bell oversaw the operations and management of these investments with the assistance of his clerks and a personal secretary, and he reported to his superiors regularly.

In reality, Mr. Bell had no superiors, and there was but one investor: Julian himself. He not only owned the mills in the North and the buildings in Bristol, Oxford, York, and beyond—but he in fact owned most of this very block, including the mercantile building that housed the Aegis Investments offices and the residential row to the rear. He was, by any standard, a man of great wealth. And key to all of this was maintaining his status as a man of many secrets.