The Merchant and the Rogue by Sarah M. Eden
Brogan received a note from Vera two days after the discovery of Mr. Sorokin’s forged papers. Waiting to hear from her had stretched Brogan’s patience thinner than the parchment he now held in his hands. ’Twas more than worrying over whether she’d managed to secure a bit of the ambassador’s time, more than wondering how her da was behaving in light of everything. He wanted to hear from her. He wanted to know if he’d undone any of the damage his lies had inflicted. He wanted a reason to hope.
The note instructed him to meet her at Chesham Place at four o’clock that evening and to come dressed as he did when working at the print shop. That had struck him as odd. Gabbing with an ambassador called for one’s finest togs. Still, he trusted her and followed her instructions to the letter.
At four o’clock precisely, he stood within visual distance of the Russian Embassy. Vera peeked around the corner of Lyall Street.
“The servants’ entrance is this way,” she said.
Servants’ entrance. He caught up to her, not asking any of the questions flowing through his thoughts.
“I did try to secure a meeting with the ambassador, but nothing came of it,” Vera said. “Our best approach is to gab with the staff. I’ve an acquaintance among them, and few things happen in a house that the servants don’t know about.”
“Excellent.” Concerns expressed by the staff had first grabbed the attention of the Dread Master. Speaking with them would be wise.
“You’re not disappointed?” she asked, eyeing him through slightly narrowed eyes.
“I’m here to help,” he said.
Her brows pulled low. “You’re meaning to still follow my lead?”
“Following is what I do best.”
Vera’s head tilted, and she studied him closely. Trying to safely explain his vast history of “following” would set him firmly back in the same frustrating position of dishonesty he longed to leave behind.
They reached the servants’ entrance—modest door and no portico to protect arrivals from the elements. Yet, Brogan found it reassuringly familiar. He’d spent all his years in Dublin making deliveries to the humble back doors of that city. While he had occasion now to pass through fine entryways at times, he still felt more comfortable at the backs than the fronts.
Vera knocked, and they waited in awkward silence. How he wished they could reclaim the easy comradery they’d once shared.
A woman, likely the housekeeper, ushered them inside. She and Vera spoke in what he guessed was Russian, though Vera’s efforts were noticeably more stilted. When both women looked at him in the same brief moment, he kept his expression both pleasant and unobtrusive, knowing Vera was likely attempting to gain him entry into the gab she’d arranged.
After a moment, they were ushered down the narrow corridor to the servants’ hall. The room was in a state of ebbing chaos, the staff’s meal likely having only just come to a close. Vera searched the faces; Brogan mostly kept out of the way.
Soon enough, the bustling room, with its two long tables and mismatched benches, emptied of all its occupants other than Vera, Brogan, and a maid near in age to them.
“Katya,” Vera said to the maid, “this is Brogan Donnelly, the man I told you was helping me sort all this. Brogan, this is Katya Volkov.”
“Zdravstvuyte,”Brogan said, earning looks of surprise from them both. To Vera, he explained, “I asked Móirín to teach me a couple words.”
“I’ve never heard Russian spoken with an Irish accent,” Katya said with a broad smile. Her accent actually was Russian, unlike Vera’s, which sounded utterly London. “An odd combination, that.”
“I hope not one that offends your ears.”
Katya shook her head, then waved them both over to the nearest table. She sat on the end of one bench. Brogan sat beside Vera on the bench opposite.
“I’ll not muck about,” Vera said, “but jump right to the heart of things. I’ve reason to believe my papa is eyeballs’ deep in something he oughtn’t to be, and that something is connected somehow to the ambassador. What can you tell me?”
Katya leaned forward and lowered her voice. “The ambassador is upended, walking about with worry on his brow. He is seeing to his official duties but participating in little else.”
“Does he have callers?” Vera asked.
Katya shook her head. “Almost none. He turned Lord Chelmsford away only a few days ago. He used to call on the regular.”
“I heard the ambassador and Lord Chelmsford’s friendship has been strained of late,” Brogan said.
“The ambassador won’t see him, warns him to keep away.” Katya shrugged, her shoulders lifting, her hand spread wide beside her. It was precisely the same way Vera shrugged. Seemed it was a Russian gesture. “It’s an odd thing between the two gentlemen, as they’ve always gotten on well.”
The ambassador was keeping Chelmsford at bay. Perhaps Chelmsford was involved in the forgeries, meaning to do his one-time friend a bad turn.
“What could that have to do with my papa? He don’t know either man.”
“I’d say ‘nothing,’” Katya replied, “but Albie, our little knife-boy, saw your papa knocking about out by the mews about a week ago.”
“How did Albie know who he was?” Vera asked.
“Tugged me over there near the horses. Worried about something he saw. I knew it was your papa, seeing as I’ve met the both of you.”
“What worried the lad?” Brogan felt certain that answer was important.
“Can’t rightly say.” Katya hopped to her feet and moved to the door of the servants’ hall. She beckoned another maid closer. “Fetch Albie, would you?” She returned to the table and took a deep breath. “Near all the lower servants have been whispering about the change in the ambassador, how odd he’s being.”
“Is he tossing all callers out?” Brogan asked. “Or only Lord Chelmsford?”
Katya gave it a moment’s thought. “The ambassador hasn’t had many social callers, but the only one he’s told not ever to come ’round is Lord Chelmsford. There’ve been a couple others he didn’t seem too pleased to see.”
“Who?” Vera asked.
“Don’t know who they were. Didn’t seem like the fine-and-fancy sort. All the staff noted what a mismatch they were to someone of the ambassador’s standing.”
Unusual callers. The ambassador on edge. Forgeries and an interrupted friendship. Perhaps von Brunnow wasn’t entirely innocent in the matter either.
A boy, no more than ten years old, slipped into the hall. His frame was slight, but his eyes were knowing.
“The men you saw gabbing with the ambassador and then with the stranger by the mews,” Katya said. “What do you remember of that?”
The boy cast a suspicious glance at Vera and Brogan. On the off chance the child was part of the network of informers the DPS utilized, perhaps someone from whom the Dread Master had gotten his information, Brogan slipped a penny from his pocket and spun it casually in his fingers. The boy took note of it but didn’t say anything.
The signal might’ve been the reason the boy moved ahead with his story. It might’ve had nothing to do with it. Either way, the child answered Katya’s question.
“The two men what come ’round now and then were calling on the ambassa’or. He weren’t any happier about it than ever. One of them scoundrels said to ’im ‘Cooperate or your tsar’ll have reason to snatch you away.’ And the ambassa’or says that Tsar Alexander wouldn’t believe the word of a couple of thieves and liars and no-goods. Then the other one says something about how the ambassa’or knows they can make people believe near anything. And the ambassa’or says as how they won’t find anyone to print the things for them they need, especially needing some of it to be Russian. And then the both of them scoundrels just laughed.” Albie shuddered. “Didn’t like the sound of their laughs, so I nipped off, keeping out of sight. Weren’t more’n a few minutes later, I were going out to the mews to ask the coachman if I could brush one of the horses, when I seen these two good-for-nothings was out there whispering to a man with a beard. Katya came by about then. I told her I didn’t like them three men kicking about. She said not to kick up dust over it, seeing as the ambass’or was tied in knots and all.”
“Did you overhear anything the three men said?” Vera asked, remaining admirably calm for a woman who’d just learned her da was consorting with questionable people.
“The one without all his fingers said to the bearded man that they needed the papers in a hurry so they’d have time to slip them into the place they needed to be,” Albie said.
The one without all his fingers. ’Twas, Brogan was certain, Four-Finger Mike.
“The bearded man says he don’t like making trouble, and the other one said he didn’t have a choice, because they knew something about the new man that he’d not want people to know.”
Blackmail. Against the ambassador and Mr. Sorokin. And the forged documents were at the heart of it all.
“What did this other man look like?” Brogan asked. “Not the bearded man or the one with missing fingers.”
Albie took a step back, though he didn’t seem to realize he had. “I don’t ever want to see that man again. Made me feel that frozen sort of scared deep in my middle. I didn’t like him.”
Brogan would wager that was the Mastiff. Mercy and mercy.
“Is there anything else that might help me twig this mess?” Vera asked.
“Molly, she’s a chambermaid here, heard the ambassador mumbling to himself about how it was too late for Lord Chelmsford, that ‘it’ would be discovered soon enough.”
Vera muttered something in Russian that earned her a nod of agreement from Katya. Both women stood, so Brogan did as well. Farewells were exchanged. In a flash, they were on the pavement outside the embassy.
“Papa really is knocking elbows with scabby blokes.” Vera pushed out a forced and tense breath. “I’d hoped we’d twig it weren’t true.”
Brogan hated seeing her look so defeated. “He’s involved, yeah, but from what Albie heard, he’s doing so against his own wishes. And, based on the description Albie and Katya gave of the two men he was meeting with, I know full well who they are. Dangerous and manipulative criminals, the both of them. Your papa is being forced, threatened, and not idly. I’d wager everything I own on that.”
“Do you think you nicking the forgeries from the shop has stopped the scheme?” Vera looked as if she already knew the answer.
He gave it anyway. “They were drafts, not the final version.”
Vera met his eye, her expression anxious. “Where’s the final version, then?”
“If I’m twigging things right—” He paused to add a tiny bit of emphasis to his use of the bit of South London cant she’d taught him, hoping it’d lift her spirits, even if just for a moment, but his efforts didn’t have the effect he’d hoped for. “I’d guess those papers are already in place, waiting to be ‘discovered soon enough.’”
She rubbed at her temples. “And I’d further wager they’re ‘in place’ at Lord Chelmsford’s home, meant to look as though he’d written the letter but not yet sent it. Someone’ll discover it, and when he denies it’s his hand, the ambassador will likely insist the letter is about something they’ve talked over before.”
“Which’d mean Lord Chelmsford is the actual prey in this scheme, and von Brunnow and your da are simply being manipulated to that end.”
He motioned for her to walk alongside him. They’d garner too much notice if they loitered about outside the embassy.
“What can we do?” Vera asked.
We. ’Twasn’t precisely a renewed vote of confidence, but he chose to see it as a good step toward repairing what he’d broken.
“Mister!” a young voice called from behind them.
They both turned back. Albie stood just outside the embassy, motioning toward himself.
“Mister,” he called out again.
Brogan dipped his head to Vera. “Be back in a hop.” He crossed back to Albie. “What’s on your mind, lad?”
“Your penny,” Albie said in a low voice. “Are you needing me to send a message to Mr. Walker?”
The lad was one of Fletcher’s urchins. Who, then, was the Dread Master’s informant at the embassy? So many secrets. ’Twas little wonder Brogan still found himself drowning in them.
“Aye, Albie,” Brogan said. “See if you can’t ask that overgrown urchin you work for if he’ll call on ‘his Irish friend.’”
Albie dipped his head and rushed back inside. No doubt Fletcher would be at Brogan’s flat before day’s end ready to sort through these newest revelations.
Vera stepped up next to him. Having her there, even with the difficulties between them, was a comfort.
“What did Albie jaw with you about?” she asked.
He didn’t want to lie to her. Again. “The lad wanted to know if he could help.” ’Twas a more honest answer than he once would have given her. It was a step in the right direction, and one that gave him hope.
Brogan didn’t yet know how to save Vera’s father from the mess he’d landed in, but he knew an entire group of people who could and regularly did manage the impossible. If only he could convince them to listen to a man they believed had deserted them.
