Touch of Rogue by Mia Marlowe

all this to me yesterday,” Sir Malcolm Ravenwood said, wondering if the boy possessed sufficient intelligence to be a useful tool. His gazing ball could have told him as much, and without the odor of unwashed boy stinking up his study.
    “Aye, guv, so I did. It just helps me to remember things if I start at the beginning, y’see.” The boy’s eyes rolled up and right as he searched for the thread of his story again. “And when ye gave me that note for the lady, I nipped over to the inn and left it for her, like ye said. Then I found her again after that, taking tea with some old biddy from Drury Lane. And then, the lady goes to Blue Gate Fields.”
    Malcolm frowned. “What’s a countess doing in that part of town?”
    The boy shrugged. “She spent a bit of time at a house hard by St. George’s Chapel. All full of girls, it was.” He made the small grimace of distaste for females only boys too young to have hair on their balls could manage. “Mighta been a school. It looked to be in better shape than the other houses on the block. Them girls was all dressed alike when they come out to bid her good-bye. Made over her something fierce, so they did.”
    Malcolm considered this a moment. He hadn’t expected it of a former actress, but obviously, Lady Cambourne was a benefactress of the school.
    Good. People who championed an altruistic cause were easy to manipulate if that cause was threatened.
    “Then the lady makes for a house off Leicester Square,” the boy said with a triumphant grin.
    The grin faded when Malcolm continued to stare at him without comment.
    “It were a Mr. Preston’s house. I got the name straight from his housekeeper.” He shifted his slight weight from one foot to the other. “And a fresh bun from the kitchen when I asked could I sweep chimneys for her.”
    “Preston, hmm?” Sir Malcolm repeated, wondering why the name tickled his memory. Could it be the rakish brother of Lord Meade? Jacob Preston’s only talents of note were betting consistently on the right side of wagers at White’s and wenching his way through the unhappy wives of the Upper Ten Thousand. “Was the man’s name Jacob Preston?”
    “Aye, guv, that’s the one. The lady”—he pronounced the word as if it were “li-dey”—“were there a long time, waiting on him, I fancy, as the gentleman hisself come along much the later.” The urchin bobbed his head like a sparrow on a window ledge, as if that nervous tick added veracity to his words. “And then she come back early to his house again this morning. Then the lady and the gentleman bundled off in her fancy coach together, thick as thieves, so they were.”
    Malcolm drummed his fingers on his desk, setting the wings of the stuffed bat on one corner atremble. “Where did Lady Cambourne and Mr. Preston go?”
    The boy eyed the bat with suspicion, as if he half-expected it to leave its wire perch and flap around the room. “Well, your worshipfulness, I’m fair fast on me feet, but even I can’t outrun a pair of bays.”
    When Malcolm scowled, he hurried to add, “But I did hear the gent tell the driver as they wanted the King’s Arms Tavern, off Oxford Street. Once I heard that, I nipped off straight here. I thought as ye’d want to know directly.”
    The boy held out a grimy paw. His lips thinned in a tight, hopeful smile.
    Malcolm fished in his pocket and came up with two coppers. He flipped them across the desk. One rolled off before the lad could nab it and he was forced to scuttle on his knees after the coin. He came up with both of them, grinning and thanking Malcolm as if he’d been given diamonds and pearls.
    “There’s more where that came from for a lad who can keep his mouth shut and his eyes open. From now on, you may ignore the whereabouts of the lady. Watch Preston. I’ll expect a daily report.”
    The boy nodded vigorously. “Aye, ye’ll have it, sir. I’ll watch ’im like a hawk.”
    “Don’t let him know he’s being watched. No