Curry’s dark eyes held truth. He was not a finely trained servant from an agency, but a pickpocket Cameron had rescued from the streets years ago. Curry got away with his rudeness and outspokenness because he looked after Ian with as much tenderness as a father would a son. The brothers believed that Ian had survived the asylum because Cameron had sent Curry to him.
Ian finally set down his pen. “Curry doesn’t want to lose forty guineas.”
Eleanor stared at him. “Forty guineas?”
Curry turned brick red and didn’t answer. Ian said, “The wager that Hart will marry you. We made it at Ascot in June. Curry wagered forty guineas that you will say no. Ainsley wagered twenty on yes, and I wagered thirty. Mac said he bet thirty-five that you’d plant your heel in his backside. Daniel said…”
“Stop!” Eleanor’s hands went up. “Are you telling me, Ian Mackenzie, that there’s a wager going around about whether I will marry Hart?”
“Sorry, your ladyship,” Curry said. “You wasn’t supposed to know.” He shot Ian a glare.
Eleanor curled her hands to fists. “Is Hart in on this?”
“’Is Grace declined to participate,” Curry said. “So I’m told. I wasn’t there at the original wager. I came in after, like, when it went ’round the servants. But what I heard was that ’Is Grace mentioned the possibility of marrying, and your name came up.”
Eleanor lifted her chin, her heart pounding. “Absolute nonsense. What was between me and Hart was long ago. Finished.”
Curry looked embarrassed but not ashamed. Sorry he’s been caught, but not sorry he made the wager. “As you say, your ladyship.”
Eleanor made herself march to the door. “Please send word when you’re finished, Ian, and we’ll talk then.”
Ian had gone back to writing. Whether he’d heard Eleanor, she couldn’t be certain.
Curry made a perfect butler’s bow to her. “I’ll tell ’im, your ladyship. Leave it to me.”“Thank you, Curry. And I will see to it that you win your wager.” With another glare at the small man, Eleanor lifted her chin, swept out of the room, and closed the door with a decided click.
Blast you, Hart Mackenzie, Eleanor thought as she strode down the Strand, the maid assigned to look after her hurrying in her wake. Starting a wager that you’ll marry me. She gathered from Curry’s explanation that Hart had thrown out the announcement like a fizzing bomb and stood back to watch what happened. That would be just like him.
She stopped and looked into a shopwindow, trying to catch her breath. She’d hopped out of the landau near St. Martin’s Lane, to the maid’s dismay, hoping a brisk walk would soothe her temper. It hadn’t quite worked.
As she looked at the secondhand clocks displayed, Curry’s exact words came back to her—’Is Grace mentioned the possibility of marrying, and your name came up.
The Mackenzie brothers had been quite keen that Eleanor should marry Hart when Hart first courted her, had rejoiced when Eleanor had accepted him. They’d been vastly sorry when Hart and Eleanor had parted, but Mac and Cam had told her, privately, that though they were unhappy about her decision, they completely understood. Hart was an arrogant bully and an idiot, and Eleanor was an angel for putting up with him as long as she had.
Perhaps the brothers had taken Hart’s suggestion that it was time he married again to mean he’d set his sights on Eleanor. Wishful thinking and high hopes. Hart, she was certain, had never mentioned a name. He’d have been too careful for that.
She would have to quiz Isabella closely about it. Isabella had much to answer for over this wager, and so did Ainsley, Cameron’s wife. Ainsley was one of Eleanor’s oldest friends, but neither she nor Isabella had bothered to mention this family betting pool to Eleanor.
Eleanor walked on, her anger somewhat lessened but not quite. She decided to push her troubling thoughts aside and focus on her errand at hand.
She’d decided to follow up on her idea that the photographs might have been found in a shop. People sold off photographs all the time to collectors or photography enthusiasts either privately or through shops dedicated to photos or photographic equipment. The Strand had several such places. Eleanor decided it worth her while to find out, subtly, whether any of them had acquired a collection of photographs of Hart Mackenzie in his altogether, and if so, to whom they’d sold them on to.
The first two shops Eleanor entered turned up nothing, though she found a landscape photograph she bought for a tuppence to put in a little frame for her desk.
A bell tinkled as Eleanor pushed open the door of the third shop, which was dusty and dim. Her maid, a young Scotswoman called Maigdlin, plopped herself down on a chair just inside the door, sighing in relief. She was a bit plump and disapproved of tramping through streets when there was a perfectly good landau handy.
Eleanor seemed to be the shop’s only customer. The sign on the window announced that the proprietor specialized in photographs and other ephemera of actors and famous aristocrats. Boxes upon boxes stood on long tables, and Eleanor started patiently looking through them.
Stage actors were popular here, with entire boxes devoted to Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry. Photographs of Wild West traveling shows livened up one corner, with Buffalo Bill Cody and a string of dancing girls and trick ropers filling one box, another holding American Indians of various tribes in exotic costume.
Eleanor found pictures of prominent Englishmen on a table against the far wall—an old one of the Duke of Wellington with his characteristic nose, quite a few of Mr. Gladstone and the now-deceased Benjamin Disraeli. Pictures of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort were popular, along with photographs of the Princess Royal, the Prince of Wales, and other members of the queen’s large family. Another box was filled with photographs from The Great Exhibition.