A Mystery at Carlton House

by Jennifer Ashley

  The Duke of Dunmarron gazed back at Grenville with more intelligence in his eyes than I’d expected. He was a fairly tall man, not quite as tall as I was but had half a head over Grenville. He was about my age, forty-odd, with black hair cut short as though showing his disapproval of the flowing poetic curls now the rage. His suit was subdued and well tailored, no flopping trousers and definitely no rouge.

  He was a beefy man, stocky and not athletic of figure, although not rotund either. When he bowed over Donata’s hand, he moved with ease. In short, he was a country man who counteracted the effects of beef and port by riding and hunting, an old-style squire who happened to be a lofty duke.

  His eyes were small and dark, and I saw in them a flicker of anger so deep it alarmed me. This was not a man simply stealing another’s mistress to tweak his nose, I realized. There was something else behind this matter, and despite Donata’s earlier reassurances, I felt a sudden and profound qualm of fear for Marianne.

  Chapter 11

  Before Dunmarron could respond to Grenville’s question as to why he’d come to town, Rafe broke in.

  “Are you looking for something, Grenville?” he said with false joviality. “Something you’ve lost, perhaps?”

  Irritation crossed Dunmarron’s face, though a few around us strove to hide laughter. The encounter had been paced to the moment, and now Rafe had ruined it by being obvious.

  Grenville won the round by ignoring Rafe utterly. “Good evening, Lucas,” he said. “Did you enjoy the lecture? The phases of the moon were fascinating—I must look up more often at night. If we can see anything through London’s wretched fog and smoke, that is.”

  Dunmarron finally spoke. “The lecture,” he said, his voice a booming baritone. “Yes, that is why I came out tonight. I heard it was most instructive.”

  “A pleasure after a day of sitting,” Grenville said to him.

  His words meant sitting in Parliament, but his tone conveyed sitting as in on his arse. More titters surrounded us.

  “Indeed,” Dunmarron said.

  My wife’s voice cut in. “How tedious for you, Dunmarron. And how fortunate that London is rife with entertainment.”

  Dunmarron was obviously not skilled at verbal sparring. He only rumbled uncomfortably, “Yes. Of course.”

  “Quite a lot of entertainment this evening, in fact,” Donata went on. “If you will excuse me, we are moving forward. So much to do. Give my best wishes to your wife—dear Olympia, I see too little of her.” She gave Dunmarron a nod of dismissal.

  Dunmarron was a duke, outranking Donata’s father on the aristocratic scale, and far outranking her first husband and now her son, but she was refusing to unbend with a curtsey or a “Your Grace.” She knew everything there was to know about everyone, including their family trees. No doubt she’d explain to me later that Dunmarron’s family were merchants or some such from a hundred years ago, while her ancestors—and mine—had been gently born for centuries. It was not a title that made a man for Donata, but breeding.

  Dunmarron nodded back. He fixed Grenville with a freezing stare then moved around him toward the doors to the boxes.

  Donata smiled, said a “Good Evening” to Lord Lucas and Rafe, and turned to wave at another lady in greeting. She and Grenville floated on toward the doors, and I followed with Mrs. Froehm.

  Grenville kept his aplomb until we were in the carriage, he handing in Donata, then Mrs. Froehm, and climbing in after them. Grenville’s footman assisted me inside while Brewster stood by on the lookout for pickpockets and other thieves.

  As soon as I was in and the carriage jerked forward, Grenville snarled, “What the bloody hell is he playing at?” He threw his walking stick to the floor, a display of temper rarely seen in him.

  Mrs. Froehm apparently was aware of what had happened with Marianne, because she showed no surprise at his anger. “He has come to goad you,” she said to Grenville with sympathy. “To see how you will respond.”

  “He expected me to fly at him,” Grenville snapped. “Shout at him, call him out. Make a boor of myself. To what end? What have I done to incur the wrath of the Duke of Dunces?”

  “Perhaps he is madly in love with Miss Simmons,” Donata suggested in a neutral voice.

  Grenville gave her a cold look. “Hardly a matter for jokes, dear lady.”

  “Hardly a matter for letting him, as Mrs. Froehm says, goad you,” Donata said.

  I broke in. “He wants you angry.”

  “Do you suppose?” Grenville returned, opening his eyes wide. “Well, he has succeeded. I can only hope that my outburst will be kept private among friends?”

  “Of course,” I said at once. “But when you have calmed yourself, I want you to think of these facts.” I waited until Grenville had focused on me, ready to listen, before I continued. “Marianne did not rush to him in delight, as we concluded from the note. She asked to meet Mrs. Lacey and me and then did not keep the appointment, from which we suppose she was prevented. As Mrs. Lacey remarked, even if Marianne had been staying with you purely for the love of material comfort, she would lose money, luxury, and esteem by going to Dunmarron. Therefore, there is a more sinister reason Dunmarron has taken her from you.” I let out a breath as I finished. “I am worried for her.”

  Grenville’s anger slowly drained from him as I spoke. “The question remains, Lacey, why should he do this?”

  “That I do not know. I believe we should find Marianne as soon as possible and then try to understand Dunmarron’s motive.”

  Before Grenville could respond, Donata said, “I have been asking all my acquaintance about Dunmarron, but so far I have not been able to discover where he is keeping her. I am awaiting a few more responses, but it seems odd.”

  “Blast and bloody hell.” Grenville clenched his hands, stretching his kid gloves over his slim fingers. “Damn the Regent for dragging me out of the house—I was listening to him wail about his treasures while my greatest treasure was stolen from under my nose.”

  Mrs. Froehm looked distressed for him. Donata and I shared a glance. Never had Grenville come so close to admitting how much he cared for Marianne.

  I said to him, “We will find her. Never fear that.”

  “I too will look,” Mrs. Froehm said. “Many from the aristocracy, they speak to me, as do the musicians. We will find where he has her.”

  Grenville heaved a sigh, though his hands remained fisted. “I beg your pardon, Anastasia. I do not mean to spoil our friendship by dragging you into my troubles. I will take you back to your hotel, and you can pay me no mind.”

  “No, indeed, mein freund, I wish to help you, as you have helped me in the past. I can be—how is it in English?—discreet.”

  Grenville let out another breath then gazed about him as though becoming aware of his surroundings. “I see I have commandeered your coach, Donata. I have spent all evening abusing my friends, and you are being cloyingly kind to me.”

  Donata leaned forward and patted his knee. “Nothing is more touching to your female acquaintances than to see you concerned for a lady, Grenville. We shall be nothing but rude to you once you are happy again.”

  Grenville was not mollified, but he fell silent as we continued across St. James’s and back to Mayfair.

  * * *

  We devised plans for how to search for Marianne before taking Mrs. Froehm to her hotel and Grenville home.

  Marianne and I had not always seen eye to eye—in fact, she’d driven me to distraction when she’d lived above me in Covent Garden, but I’d come to care for her in my own way. She was to me like a wayward sister who had to be looked after, even if she didn’t like me doing any such thing.

  Then there was her child. Marianne had a son who dwelled in Berkshire—no one knew this secret except me, Grenville, and Donata, and a few of Marianne’s oldest and most trusted friends. If Dunmarron had somehow learned of this, he might have threatened to harm young David to make Marianne behave. If so, I would return to his club and beat the man,
never mind he was a duke and possibly a lord lieutenant.

  I knew a man who could put his hands on Marianne if he wanted to and wouldn’t give a tinker’s damn about Dunmarron’s power. That would mean returning to Curzon Street, apologizing for my outburst, and pledging my obedience in return for Denis’s help, but I would if necessary.

  When we reached home, Donata bade me come to bed. We could not tear around London looking in every house in the middle of the night, and she assured me she’d cast a wide net to discover where Dunmarron might have hidden Marianne.

  Truth to tell, it was a relief to sink down into my bed, Donata at my side. She rested her hand on my chest and whispered that she was feeling quite well, mended once again.

  I understood what she meant, and in my agitation, I fell upon her hungrily. I had not been with her since before Anne was born, indeed, before I’d gone to Egypt. Donata laughed at me, but I tried to keep myself gentle, the surgeon’s warning whispering in my head, fearing she might not be as recovered as she claimed.

  But Donata was as lively as she’d ever been. For a time, I forgot my troubles, forgot Spendlove and his threats, Denis and his constant presence in my life, and my fears for Marianne. I reminded myself why I’d taken this courageous lady to wife, for her beauty and intelligence, and above all for the incredible tenderness she showed to very few.

  She showed it to me tonight, and afterward I sank down into oblivion, my body wrapped around hers, and fell into a powerful sleep.

  * * *

  It was still dark when Bartholomew shook me awake, a candle in his hand.

  “What the devil?” I growled, coming out of slumber. I had not wanted to waken from my deep sleep, and I became doubly unhappy when I realized Donata was no longer beside me. She must have retreated to her own chamber, not wanting a snoring lump of a husband next to her all night.

  “Mr. Brewster, sir,” Bartholomew said. His six-foot frame towered over the bed, the candle throwing a monstrous shadow onto the wall behind him. “He says it’s time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “I don’t know, do I, sir? Mr. Brewster ain’t one to encourage questions, if you take my meaning.”

  “I understand.” Brewster had likely grunted at Bartholomew to run up and fetch me and expected to be obeyed.

  I heaved myself out of bed and reached for a shirt. Bartholomew had a clean one ready for me as well as freshly pressed trousers, and clean undergarments, stockings, and boots. I didn’t bother with a cravat, but Bartholomew persuaded me to a stock, a stiff cloth that could be simply tied and at least cover my throat.

  I was downstairs in less than a quarter of an hour, unshaved, but that couldn’t be helped. Wherever Brewster was dragging me, I doubted anyone would care about the state of my dress.

  “Time for what?” I barked at him when I met him in the street.

  Brewster gave me a puzzled look. “For the market, guv. The one Poppy told us about.”

  “It’s bloody early for a bit of shopping,” I said. I was groggy, barely awake in spite of Bartholomew splashing water into my face upstairs. If a few hours with my wife could lay me out like this, I knew I was not a young man anymore.

  “Best to get there before sunrise,” Brewster said.

  He put his hand on my shoulder and more or less pushed me along the road to Mount Street, where he led me to a hackney stand. The driver was yawning but he tapped his horse awake as we climbed aboard, and he clattered us down the street.

  We drove through Berkley Square and from there to Piccadilly. The length of this led us to Leicester Square, and then the hackney navigated narrow streets to St. Martin’s Lane and down to the Strand. My old rooms were not far from here, just off Covent Garden. I gave them a passing thought as we rolled by Southampton Street, thanking the Lord for Donata’s warm, snug house this chill February. I’d spent too many nights shivering and alone.

  At the moment, I was shivering again and in no mood to pursue the Prince Regent’s lost trinkets. But Brewster was correct that we should get an early start. It was four in the morning, and the streets were already teeming with carts trundling goods to market.

  We crossed the river on the London Bridge, a span of arches marching its way across the Thames. The quaint houses and shops that had been perched along the bridge’s length were long gone, abolished half a century ago; only paintings and drawings survived to tell us what they’d looked like. Likewise the heads of traitors and murderers were no longer affixed at its ends, for which I could only be thankful. The bridge itself would not be with us much longer—plans for it to be pulled down and replaced were already in the works. London ever remade itself.

  On the other side of the river, we plunged into darker streets, until we reached the place Brewster looked for, a wide square of open ground that had not yet been filled in by buildings. Areas south of the Thames could open to fields and meadows without notice, as I’d discovered on a previous journey to Bermondsey. The hackney driver let us out where Brewster indicated, and departed.

  The open field Brewster steered me to was covered with market stalls jumbled with goods, much as the Nazareth had been, but with far less elegant wares. I saw for sale battered tin buckets, iron rods that had seen better days, chipped porcelain tea sets missing a few cups, pretty pictures in frames of tarnished brass, clock parts, broken children’s toys, and dinged cutlery. A larger muddle of junk I’d never seen in my life. Anything that hadn’t been melted down and repurposed, it seemed, had found its way to these stalls.

  There were gems among the dross, I discovered before long. I found an ell of silk in a glorious blend of red and orange among piles of threadbare muslin and worn wool, the silk unmarred and shining in the stall’s lamplight. The large woman who ran the stall, muffled to her ears against the cold, mumbled that she wanted a shilling for the silk. I bought it.

  “How could the prince’s things end up here?” I asked Brewster in his ear. “It’s a motley mess.”

  “Because this is a market overt,” Brewster said. “Know what that is?”

  I did. A marché ouvert was a place in which the goods, once sold, became the legal property of the buyer without question, no matter where the stall owner had obtained them. In other words, if a vendor wanted to sell me a piece of silk stolen from a warehouse on the Thames, once I purchased it, that cloth was mine without argument. The warehouse owner or shipper, or shop owner who’d ordered it, had no more claim on it.

  The marché ouvert was a quaint holdover from medieval times, but from the crowd at this market, I saw that its popularity was alive and well.

  We walked about the place for a long time, looking over every table. The vendors watched us carefully, though many recognized Brewster, which did not surprise me. I imagined many goods had passed from his hands to the vendors here, likely for a split of the price.

  At a stall filled with cogs and wheels that looked like spare parts for milling machines, I found the statue of Theseus and Antiope.

  The bronze had been coated with white paint, making it resemble a cheap plaster replica of a wealthy man’s object d’art. I nearly missed it, buried among the rubbish, but the raised bow in Antiope’s hand caught my attention.

  I paused, my heart beating swiftly, as I pretended to flip through the junk around it. Casually, I rested my finger on the bronze. “Pretty thing.”

  The vendor, a small woman with wiry hair sticking out from under a wool cap scowled at me. “Venus and Mars,” she said. “If you like that sort of thing. Give me a quid for it.”

  This statue must be worth thousands of guineas, but I did not need to appear too eager. “A crown,” I said, offhand.

  She gave me a look a disgust. “A quid, and that’s givin’ it to ye.”

  She wasn’t wrong. “Six shillings,” I said, pretending to be annoyed. “The paint’s chipped. I’ll have to restore it.”

  “Don’t make no never mind to me what ye do with it. Give me half a guinea, and it’s yours.”

  Half a g
uinea was ten shillings and sixpence. An amazing bargain, but I frowned at her. “Ten shillings,” I said, firming my voice. “I still have to buy my breakfast.”

  The woman shrugged. “Let’s see your coin then.”

  I reached into my drawstring bag and extracted two crown coins, laying them on the table in front of her. They disappeared quickly.

  “Go on then,” she said. “Take it and get on with ye.”

  I lifted the statuette, which was heavy, and carried it back to Brewster. He raised his brows when he saw it. “You have the devil’s own luck. I ain’t seen nothing. You sure that’s what you’re looking for?”

  “Very certain. But one man will know better than I.”

  Brewster shrugged, not wanting to talk too much or name names while we were in the middle of a marché ouvert. We ambled along like two men interested in the wares, Brewster purchasing a small porcelain bowl he liked the look of for tuppence.

  “Your wife will be pleased with all these gifts you’re buying her,” I remarked as we climbed into another hackney.

  “Oh, aye. I like to surprise her now and again. She deserves it, the old girl, for putting up with me.”

  I rested the statuette on the seat beside me, the two striking nudes incongruous against the battered leather seat of the hackney. Brewster gave them a critical eye.

  “His Highness likes to look at a bit of flesh, don’t he?”

  Considering the number of nude figures and paintings I’d seen both in Carlton House and on the list Higgs had showed us, I had to agree. The prince’s appetites for ladies was well known—he rarely had been without a mistress since he’d come of age, and likely he’d had them before that.

  “Not what I’d want in my front room,” Brewster said decidedly. “This will be more to my Em’s taste.”