“Thank you for coming, gentlemen,” David said. “I went today to secure the post of valet to Lord Maltravers.”
“What?” Richard said explosively.
“I made him believe that I was your disaffected servant. He wanted to hear secrets about your lordship’s household and friends, something that would help him in his attack on Lord Gabriel and Silas. He engaged me on the spot—”
“What? Engaged?”
David winced. “I signed a contract.”
“Oh God, no, don’t do that,” Ash said urgently. “He’s a brute. Well, you found that out.”
“You contracted yourself to Lord Maltravers?” Richard asked. “Under law?”
“I needed to be plausible, my lord. I could not approach him for a post and then disappear, especially if a letter was to go missing. He could destroy my professional reputation if he accused me of being a thief.”
Richard opened his mouth to assure David he would never lack for employment but caught himself in time. “No, I see that would not do. But you cannot mean to work for the damned fellow. And why did he hit you?”
“I allowed him to think that I would give him incriminating gossip on Silas, and Lord Gabriel, and you,” David said. “I refused to answer questions until I was engaged with a contract. I made him increase the offered salary two and a half times as well.”
“My God,” Ash said. “That’s not a good idea. Mal hates being bargained with.”
“Yes, Lord Gabriel. I was trying to make him angry.” The cut on his cheek had opened again while he spoke. Richard pulled out his handkerchief and handed it over. David took it, glancing at the fine linen with a tiny twitch of a brow. Richard felt a sudden guilt at the thought that David would be getting the blood out of the cloth himself, then remembered that of course he would not.
“He had the contract of employment drawn up there and then,” David went on. “As soon as I signed, he began to interrogate me about what I knew.”
“Dare we ask what you told him?” Julius murmured.
“That Lord Gabriel—I beg your lordship’s pardon—had made a nuisance of himself with a maidservant who had feared she was with child, but wasn’t. That Mr. Webster is considered to gamble unwisely. Also, that Mr. Mason used to be a radical and Mr. Harry had worked with him in a political bookshop. He did not appear to feel any of that information was worth the salary.”
“I’m not surprised.” Dominic was grinning broadly. “That should teach him to buy a pig in a poke.”
“His lordship was not pleased,” David agreed.
“I bet,” Ash said. “What happened?”
“He asked me some leading questions, your lordship, about you and Mr. Webster, about Mr. Mason and the Cato Street raid, and then about Lord Richard.” David flicked a glance at Richard. “He demanded to know about your personal, uh, irregularities, my lord. He…speculated.”
Richard could feel the blood rising in his cheeks. He knew very well that Ash had laid that lure under David’s direction, but the knowledge did nothing to stem his sense of outrage.
“I made him spell out what he wanted me to say until he was quite furious,” David went on. “It lowered his opinion of himself, you see, to admit to what he wanted, and Lord Maltravers does not like to have a low opinion of himself. And once he was very angry indeed, I told him I would not say any of it, and that was when he hit me. Several times. And then he, uh, he reached for a stick, and I ran from the house.”
“I am going to kill him,” Richard said. “I will kill him.”
“Don’t hesitate on my account,” Ash said. “I am so sorry, Cyprian.”
“Let’s direct our indignation into whatever Cyprian’s next step is,” Julius suggested. “Since he is building a perfectly serviceable hell for his lordship already. What is our next move?”
“A moment,” Richard said. “Cyprian, you will oblige me by speaking to my lawyer about this contract with Maltravers. He is to be ready to deal with it as soon as you give the word. And if you go back to that man’s establishment, I shall break his neck with my own hands, and be damned to your plans. Understood? Then carry on.”
“Thank you, my lord.” David sounded very demure. “The next move is to retrieve the letter.”
“You know where it is?” Ash demanded, sitting bolt upright.
“I have an idea.” David took the bloodstained handkerchief from his face. “Lord Maltravers told you it was in safekeeping. I think that’s true. Certainly he was not concerned about allowing me unsupervised in his house. And, gentlemen, if you had a crucial letter that your opponent would be desperate to retrieve, would you leave it in Lord Maltravers’s possession?”