A Sinister Establishment

by Lynn Messina

  Very good, your grace, she thought in mild contempt, for knowing the name of the painting in no way helped her locate it.

  As one direction seemed as good as the other, Bea decided to turn to the left and was rewarded almost immediately with a staircase. It was not, however, the one she had climbed the night before, for although it served the same function of returning her to the first floor, it deposited her in an entirely different part of the house. Taking a wild guess, she went to the right. One long corridor led to a slightly shorter one, which brought her to a charming music room with pale yellow wallpaper and a daunting number of percussion instruments. A stroll down another hallway took her past the work by Correggio—finally, a landmark she recognized—and she realized she was not very far from Kesgrave’s study.

  It would be so very easy to abandon her plan to win over Mrs. Wallace and instead visit the duke. He would be happy to see her, she knew, and was most likely feeling as bereft in her absence as she felt in his.

  But he was bracketed with Mr. Stephens, addressing the many estate matters he had let slip during the past week whilst he was dancing attendance upon her.

  To be fair, identifying the man who murdered Mr. Hobson was not a trivial occupation, but just because he had been engaged in one worthwhile pursuit did not mean he could ignore all the others that demanded his attention. Fulfilling his obligations now meant he could devote himself exclusively to her later—a goal to which Bea heartily subscribed and the main reason why she did not wish to interrupt his meeting with the steward.

  Well, that and the appalling cowardice reversing course would imply.

  Staunchly, she turned in the opposite direction of the study and walked briskly past several tempting rooms, including a skylighted rotunda and a conservatory brimming with pink, purple and yellow flowers. The latter, in particular, caught her interest and she longed to inspect it further, both because it looked like a delightful place to read for a few hours and because close examination would postpone the inevitable.

  No, you must earn it as a reward, she told herself, resolving to seek out the room again just as soon as she gained the housekeeper’s support with a promise to defer to her on all domestic matters.

  I am not here, she would insist with all honesty, to upset your orderly routines or create chaos. All I want to do is ensure the continuation of the duke’s comfort, which you seem to have well in hand. Please let me know what I can do to assist you.

  ’Twould be easy enough to endear herself.

  Oh, but would it really? she thought, her gait faltering as a new horrifying concern struck her. Mrs. Wallace oversaw not just any house but one of the grandest in London and she was employed by a notoriously high stickler. Possibly, those things were a source of great pride for the woman, who might hold in contempt a duchess who failed to display an equal fastidiousness. Rather than earning her respect, a pledge to cede control might secure her disgust.

  Perhaps the better approach was to represent herself as a demanding mistress and make a series of outrageous requests such as…such as…

  Alas, Bea was far too rational a creature to come up with an outrageous request on a moment’s notice. If she took some time to think about it, maybe in the lovely conservatory…

  Before the appealing thought had an opportunity to take hold, she found herself standing at the top of a staircase leading down.

  Very well, she thought, her right foot falling lightly on the first step as she began her descent. Her progress was steady, if a little slow, and although she moved with the sluggish pace of a turtle, she reached the bottom soon enough.

  Anxiously, she examined her surroundings. The corridor was narrow and bright, with sunlight shining through the windows. She caught the wafting scent of baking bread, and it was an indication of her apprehension that it did not tempt her at all. In actuality, the familiar smell had the opposite effect, causing her stomach to lurch at the foolhardiness of her scheme.

  Every gently reared woman in the kingdom knew the basement was emphatically the servants’ domain, and it was an unseemly imposition for the new duchess to wander its halls.

  Months ago, in the Lake District, she had dared to visit the kitchens during the course of her investigation into Mr. Otley’s death, which had properly horrified the maids. At that time, she had been naught but an insignificant houseguest and still the women had trembled as if she were Queen Charlotte herself.

  Wryly, she reminded herself she had wanted to come up with an outrageous request and it appeared she had stumbled upon the most shocking one of all: the insistence that Mrs. Wallace meet with the Duchess of Kesgrave in the housekeeper’s office. Naturally, the only proper way to conduct a conversation with the servant was to summon her to the drawing room. The courtesy was not only what her rank required but also what the gracious home itself commanded.

  Standing there, at the bottom of the staircase, a beam of sunshine warming her hair, Bea felt an intense desire to yield to the dictates of status and architecture. Would it really be so terrible to submit to forces so much stronger than she? She would merely be dipping her head in respect, not raising her hands in surrender.

  Truly, there was no need to turn a simple discussion with a subordinate into a tug-of-war for her soul.

  But Bea was too clever to sway herself with a rhetoric appeal.

  The situation might seem trivial, but it was in fact hugely significant, for the choices she made now would reverberate long after the moment had passed. She had to establish the tone she wanted at the beginning of her tenure, for only a naïve fool would believe her confidence would grow the longer she occupied the position. If anything, greater exposure to Kesgrave’s magnificence—the innumerable estates and pineries—would cause whatever shred of assurance she had to shrivel entirely. Indeed, the Matlock family tree was so tall and illustrious, with its lords privy seal and chief justices of the king’s bench, she already felt her shoulders bowing under the weight of its many branches.

  If Mrs. Wallace objected to Bea’s lack of regard for the dignity of the duke’s staff, she would have to take up the matter with Kesgrave himself, as the unfortunate situation was all his doing. He’d had more than a decade to make the correct decision by selecting an elegant bride, a pattern card of respectability and restraint who had been raised since childhood to sit serenely on silk settees and pull bell cords with polite consideration.

  Instead, he had chosen her.

  Mrs. Wallace and the other occupants of the Berkeley Square residence would simply have to adjust their expectations accordingly.

  Brave words, Bea thought drolly.

  Regardless of how very uncourageous she felt, she could not linger at the bottom of the staircase indefinitely, for someone would surely stride by and notice her standing there stupidly. Roused to movement by the prospect, she followed the smell of baking bread and turned left when she arrived at the end of the hallway. Here, the passageway narrowed and she walked past several familiar rooms, including the scullery, meat larder and vegetable stores. The layout of the basement was quite different from the one at Portman Square—larger, of course, for that house could fit inside this one several times over, but also more commodious, with additional spaces for storage and preparation.

  Like the conservatory, several of the rooms caught her attention, and if it were not for the chatter of voices—a low hum indistinguishable in both number and gender—wafting from the kitchen or perhaps the servants’ hall, she would have paused to examine their contents. The stillroom in particular, with its pretty bottles and overflowing canisters, captured her interest, but she did not dally. In Portman Square, the stillroom was next to the housekeeper’s, which meant she was very likely near her destination.

  Bea’s heartbeat rose sharply.

  It was absurd to feel so much anxiety about a single conversation. Stridently, she reminded herself she was a duchess. Kesgrave House was her home now, and she was free to roam its halls without limitations. ’Twas not a castle in a gothi
c novel with mysterious locked doors and ominous black veils scattered about. Poor Theodore was not trapped in a high tower somewhere desperately trying to gain his freedom and rescue Isabella from the evil clutches of her dead fiancé’s father. If she desired, she could inspect every nook and cranny. Certainly, she was allowed to be in the passageway outside the housekeeper’s room, and flush with purpose, she took a step forward.

  But her defiance, so seemingly sharp and immutable, disappeared in an instant. All it took was one voice to rise above the others—oh, yes, just that one lone voice—and she dissolved into a frightened mouse trembling before a lion.

  It was Marlow!

  Marlow!

  The duke’s terrifying butler!

  How imposing he was, with his barrel chest and thick black brows that pulsed with disdain, and he already despised her for ruthlessly overriding his authority a few days ago.

  Would she have rather stood under the graceful portico and meekly begged entrance to Kesgrave House?

  Well, yes, of course, for she had never elbowed her way into any house before, let alone one so overwhelmingly large it cast a shadow on the square opposite for much of the day, and had found the experience to be deeply uncomfortable.

  More discomfiting, however, was the dead body of the actor hired by a nefarious villain to ruin her reputation and end her engagement to the duke. Making her betrothed aware of the shocking and unsettling development had taken precedent over appeasing Marlow’s vanity with a show of deference.

  But that was days and days ago, and now she was the Duchess of Kesgrave in fact, not supposition, and although her position was firmer, it felt more precarious. What would he do if he found her there, wandering the halls like a child lost in a forest?

  Treat her with impeccable courtesy, of course. He was butler to the finest home in London save Carlton House and would never debase either himself or his office by acting with anything save the utmost decorum.

  But that would just be for appearance’s sake and inwardly, silently, he would loathe her for being an inconsequential nobody whose education was so lacking she meandered through the kitchens as if to fetch a light meal for herself.

  Did she really care about the opinion of a servant?

  Verily, she should not.

  And yet she had been Beatrice Hyde-Clare much longer than she had been the Duchess of Kesgrave, and the former could not bear the thought of her own butler harboring a secret disgust of her. ’Twould be another thing entirely if he were honest about it such as her aunt Vera or the vicious Miss Brougham, whose scorn had derailed Bea’s first season.

  Marlow’s voice grew louder, and Bea, panicked at the thought of starting off her tenure with a humiliating faux pas, scurried into the stillroom to hide. Swiftly she closed the door behind her, pressed her back against it and sighed.

  She was safe.

  Only it was not the stillroom.

  No, this room did not have shelves lined with herbs and infusions but rather cabinets, which were filled with plates and glasses of all types. Next to the cupboard along the far wall was a safe, and beside the safe was a desk with an unadorned wooden chair.

  Swiftly, her mind took in the scene—plates, safe, desk—and she realized with dawning horror that she had taken refuge in the butler’s pantry. The stillroom was to the left, not the right.

  Curse it!

  Her face turned purple at the thought of discovery, and her heart pounded with such raucous cacophony it was almost the only thing she could hear. Faintly, though, through the door, she heard Marlow’s determined rumble. The words themselves were faint, but the disapproving tone came through clearly.

  Horribly, the disapprobation stopped in front of the door.

  Dear God, he was about to come in.

  Hide!

  Frantically, her eyes darted around the room, searching…searching for a space in which to conceal herself.

  Not the cupboard. Too small.

  Maybe under the desk? No, the area was too exposed.

  What about drapes? Could she hide behind the drapes? They barely covered the window, which was narrow to begin with.

  The door!

  Yes, yes, the door, she thought, running toward it with so much force she practically threw herself across the room. Obviously, the only place to hide was in the adjacent room. Gratefully, she turned the knob just as the door to the pantry creaked.

  “…a suggestion so catastrophically inane I would assume you had downed an entire bottle of his grace’s best claret if I did not know such a sacrilege to be impossible,” Marlow said reproachfully.

  As gently as she could, Bea closed the door and examined her surroundings: bed, clothespress, shelves.

  By all that was holy, she was in his bedroom.

  What a humiliating turn!

  Truly, she could not imagine anything in the world more devastating than being found in Marlow’s bedchamber on her very first morning as the Duchess of Kesgrave. What explanation could she possibly give for the outlandish behavior? What justification could she conceivably provide for the appalling invasion of privacy? If the butler’s own sleeping quarters were not inviolate, then nothing sacred remained.

  In one fell swoop she would lose the staff’s trust and all hope of earning their respect. At once, she would become a source of amusement, an object of mockery. To her face, of course, they would display the same untrammeled deference as if she had not been discovered in Marlow’s room, but behind her back they would ridicule and laugh.

  Bea could not blame them. She wanted to laugh herself.

  Yes, but that was because she was overwrought.

  She had to calm down, think rationally, respond sensibly. Panicking had done nothing to help the situation, and reacting without consideration again would only worsen it.

  Like hiding under the bed, for instance. Seeking concealment beneath it might seem like the best option in a room with few alternatives, but it would be disastrous if Marlow found her cowering under his mattress. How easily she could imagine the terrifying moment of discovery as the large man sank to his knees and lowered his contemptuous gaze until it was level with hers.

  ’Twas a scene so horrific not even Mr. Walpole could have conceived it.

  Better, she decided, to remain upright and stand behind the sweep of the door. Even if he had reason to enter the room, it was unlikely he would close the door behind him in the middle of the day, particularly while he was chastising a subordinate for performing his duties while inebriated or something equally transgressive. If necessary, she could stand on tiptoes and press her back against the wall just like—

  Abruptly, she dropped to her heels as a fragment of their conversation penetrated her frenzy.

  Had someone just said the Particular?

  Impossible, she thought. He had used the word as an adjective, not a proper noun—to wit: “the particular ninny with whom the duke has saddled us for all eternity.”

  The butler and his associate would have no reason to talk about the theater on the Strand where Kesgrave and she had concluded an investigation only the day before.

  And yet Marlow added, “I cannot believe any investigation of that nature was conducted at some ha’penny theater on the Strand. It is rank gossip of the most scurrilous kind, and I will thank you not to repeat it to anyone, especially the maids, who are susceptible to wild speculation with their impressionable minds. That being said, if such an event did occur, which of course it did not, I’m sure it was his grace’s ingenuity that carried the day, not the duchess’s. Granted, she is brazen enough to believe she could investigate a murder, but she is a woman and subject to the limitations of her sex, which include routinely overestimating her abilities.”

  “Explain the Stirling ball, then,” the other man insisted.

  “I beg your pardon,” Marlow said with faint contempt, as if insulted to be called upon to explain anything.

  His associate continued undaunted. “She confronted the Earl of Wem at Lord Stirling’s b
all and persuaded him to confess to killing her parents. You know it. I know it. Everyone on staff knows it. It is all we’ve talked about for days.”

  “You may have talked about it, Joseph,” Marlow said with formidable censure, “but I have not. And now that I know the deplorable tone of the conversation in the servants’ hall, I will make every effort to remedy it.”

  “That is not an answer,” Joseph said. “If her grace is incapable of investigating a murder because she is a woman, then how do you explain the way she persuaded the Earl of Wem to confess to killing her parents in a ballroom full of guests?”

  “A stroke of luck,” Marlow replied.

  Joseph’s unrestrained laughter was almost immediately transformed into a troublesome cough that he had a difficult time suppressing. He apologized for the outburst and asked what function luck had played at the Larkwells’ ball.

  “If you are referring to the vulgar display on the terrace with Lord Taunton that resulted in his lordship’s hair catching fire,” Marlow answered dampeningly, “I can only say it was the inevitable debacle caused by a brash and assertive woman straining above her station.”

  “They said his grace summoned the Runners to apprehend Taunton,” Joseph said. “He would not have done that without cause. You know he is a cautious man who never acts rashly.”

  “Never?” Marlow asked with so much pointed emphasis Beatrice’s cheeks turned bright red. “You have made your argument, Joseph, and although I found your proposal the single most preposterous thing I have ever heard, I paid you the courtesy of listening. Now you will pay me the same courtesy. You may not under any circumstance ask her grace to look into the matter of Monsieur Alphonse’s unfortunate demise. I understand that what happened to him is very upsetting to you—”

  “His head was sliced clean from his body!” Joseph interjected, clearly aghast at the understatement.

  “—but we cannot allow it to disrupt our day. Now please return to your duties,” Marlow said, “and let me never hear another word about it. I, for one, plan to never speak of it again. Have I made myself clear, Joseph?”