A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  Eight

  “That still does not explain why you need to know about Sir Henry’s household,” Lady Clara said.

  “Sir Henry was murdered mere hours after I threatened him. Is that a coincidence, or something more sinister? The focus of the magistrate and his men so far is on me, and also on the men Henry was seen arguing with, but given his behavior, the killer could be someone within his household.”

  Lady Sherringdon nodded. “Martha, if you don’t mind, Miss St. Germaine can visit and ask Sally some questions. I’ll see what I can find out from Molly, but it appears she was at Sir Henry’s only briefly, as was Sally, from what you say. When can Miss St. Germaine visit you, Martha, to speak with Sally?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Fidelity and I will call on you, Mrs. Adair.” Emmeline rose. “I shall be on my way. Lady Sherringdon, if I may speak with you before I take my leave?” She nodded to the others and swept out to the entry.

  As her friend joined her, Emmeline put her gloved hand on the woman’s arm. “What is wrong with Lady Clara? She appears to oppose my wish to investigate further who may have harmed Sir Henry.”

  Lady Sherringdon glanced back toward the drawing room. She motioned to her maid, who closed the door and toddled away. Turning to her younger friend, she said, “I can only think that the stress Clara is under is causing her great inner turmoil. The man who abused her is returning to London from the West Indies.”

  “Surely she won’t be expected to socialize with him?”

  “Few know what she suffered, which is how she wishes it to remain, else the stain of the abuse will be on her head despite what society says to the contrary. Once a woman loses her reputation or virtue, no matter how, it is gone forever,” Adelaide said. “There are those who would sympathize, but Clara would violently eschew such pity. I don’t believe she has told me everything, and I doubt she ever will. Without revealing all she has suffered, she knows there will be no avoiding him. I suspect he understands her all too well, her pride and resolution, and will use their past to taunt her. I don’t know him, ’tis true, but I know something of his type.”

  “We must help her!” Emmeline felt a thread of sick worry in her stomach. To have to face your abuser but never know when … it was unthinkable.

  “We’ll do all we can.”

  “I must go. Josephs will be waiting the carriage.”

  “Emmeline …”

  She gazed back at her friend and waited. “What is it, Addy?” she finally asked, using the pet name she seldom allowed to slip.

  “Be careful,” Adelaide said, laying one hand on her arm. “Don’t ask too many questions.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Just … be careful.” Lady Sherringdon gave her a brief, trembling hug, then returned to her other guests.

  Gillies was silent as she pinned her mistress’s hair into a more formal style for that evening’s dinner party at the home of Sir Jacob Pauling, Emmeline’s late mother’s brother. She then wove a string of creamy pearls through the dark braids, which had been wound together, and finished with an ormolu and seed pearl comb to fix it all in place. With a final pat, she stepped back and eyed the result.

  Emmeline examined herself in the mirror. The deep rose velvet of her gown was adorned with a lovely trim of gold thread that glinted in the candlelight. It flattered her coloring, giving her cheeks the pink of youth. It was a gown from last winter, but Gillies had altered it slightly. “Very good, Gillies. I’ll have the fur-trimmed cape tonight. I anticipate a freezing fog.”

  “Miss, may I speak wi’ you?”

  “Of course, Gillies. What is it?” Emmeline turned from picking up her reticule.

  Gillies stood, fiddling with a tortoise comb. She appeared to be marshaling her thoughts. “Miss, I took a bit of an excursion, ye ken, down to Clerkenwell. Thought I’d check up on Tommy.”

  “Yes?” The mention of Clerkenwell set Emmeline’s nerves jangling. She suspected there was more to the jaunt than Gillies’s desire to check on Tommy.

  “Happen I wandered into the next shop to the chandler where Tommy last was, though he’s no longer there an’ that’s another story. I stepped in to the haberdashery to get some thread to mend your green daydress and I talked to Mr. Benjamin Hargreaves, the haberdasher. The shop backs on the same alley, you ken.”

  “Yes, and …?”

  “He and his sister, a Miss Aloisia Hargreaves, live above the shop in rooms. Sir Henry insulted the young lady once, by the privy, and Mr. Hargreaves was sore angry. He’s the one who told the magistrate he saw the men arguing with Sir Henry. Says his sister didn’t see a thing, yet it’s her room that overlooks the courtyard. I think he’s protecting his sister from comment. Thought that information might help, miss.”

  Emmeline stared down at her fan, smoothing the feathers. She couldn’t deny that the information was valuable. She looked up. “Was he angry enough, do you think, to kill Sir Henry?”

  Gillies shook her head. “I dinna think so, miss. But you never can tell.”

  Since the young lady took in students for embroidery and French, the maid suggested, perhaps that was a way to approach her covertly and speak to her about it. The brother and sister may not be telling all they saw.

  “Mrs. Martha has two gairls about the right age for teaching, don’t she?”

  Emmeline smiled up at her maid. “True. You’re a clever woman, my friend. I’m going to Martha’s tomorrow and maybe I can speak to her. I could stand as the girls’ honorary aunt and take them myself to see if Miss Hargreaves would suit as a French or embroidery tutor.”

  “Aye, you must do it, miss. You can’t send Mrs. Adair,” Gillies said. She had no high opinion of Martha’s intelligence. “P’raps the missus don’t need to know the real reason for your interest in her gairls’ education?”

  Emmeline considered. Martha would undoubtedly be puzzled by Emmeline’s sudden concern for her children, since she had never shown any before, but the woman was an accepting soul and could easily be persuaded. Not telling Martha the truth was simply a wise and logical choice, given her friend’s inability to restrain her tendency to chatter.

  “I’ll send a note to this Miss Hargreaves tomorrow and ask Martha to let me take the girls to inquire about tutoring. Will you accompany me to Mrs. Adair’s? I wish to ask her maid, Sally, about her life in Sir Henry’s household, but she may speak to you more freely than to me.”

  That decided, Gillies gave a rare half-smile. “Aye. Nouw … on wi’ you, miss. Enjoy dinner at Sir Jacob’s.”

  “Check on Fidelity if you would, Gillies, before I descend.”

  “She’s ready to set oot, miss.”

  Emmeline was looking forward to dinner with her uncle at his

  St. James townhome on a quiet street off of Jermyn. With inherited wealth beyond that of many in his position as a judge, Sir Jacob could afford such an exclusive address, one of several townhomes that enclosed a private courtyard. He enjoyed the district because it was close to the theaters, and he dearly loved theatricals, music, and every kind of entertainment. It was also close to his gentleman’s club and all of the amenities it offered.

  He was one of Fidelity’s favorite people as well, since with him she could reminisce about her childhood, a golden time of joy in a life marked by suffering. Sir Jacob was one of the few living family members old enough to remember the blissful and innocent days of their youth, Fidelity often said, when he was a dashing Oxford student studying law and she the carefree little cousin whom he teased and petted, plying her with sugarplums and snatching all the best treats for her while playing Snapdragon. He had continued his affectionate treatment of her when she’d returned from France after being widowed, and Emmeline was grateful to him. Her companion had few joys in life; Sir Jacob was principal among them.

  It was a small dinner party, twelve altogether. Sir Jacob had
invited a few of his colleagues, three judges from the courts: Lord Quisenberry, Mr. Yarbrough, and their wives, as well as Mr. Fulmer and his betrothed, a Miss Purley. There were also Emmeline; Fidelity; Dr. Giles Woodforde, a family friend who had gone to college with Emmeline’s second-oldest brother, Samuel; and a Mr. William Wilkins, Solicitor—Sir Jacob’s man of business—with his betrothed, the lovely blonde daughter of a wealthy German brewer, Miss Gottschalk.

  They gathered in the drawing room. It was spacious, with moss-green walls above white paneling and tall windows draped in gold velvet, and furnished with settees and chairs upholstered in a soft green brocade that complemented the décor. A portrait of Sir Jacob’s parents—Emmeline’s maternal grandparents, who had passed years before—adorned the space over the marble mantel, but the other paintings were landscapes by William Marlow, whom Sir Jacob considered vastly underrated. As her uncle was not married, Emmeline acted as his hostess, greeting guests once he had introduced her to his colleagues and their wives, and following the procession to the dining table last, on the arm of her uncle’s colleague Lord Quisenberry. They dined in the modern fashion, ladies and gentlemen evenly spaced around the table with her uncle at the foot and she at the head, with his lordship on her right. Vernon, the butler, along with two housemaids—pert, pretty girls—served. The ladies were, of course, served first, helped by the gentlemen on their right.

  Sir Jacob, a jovial and humorous gentleman whose wealth came from his parents but whose knighthood came from his work in the legal profession, looked around his table with satisfaction. “Now this is what I call a congenial gathering,” he said heartily, raising his glass of Madeira. His full cheeks were suffused with red, his pale eyes glittering with good humor. “Welcome to you all, I say, and thank you to my lovely niece, Emmeline, for once more serving as my hostess, as I seem constitutionally unable to attract a wife.”

  There was polite laughter at his sally. Sir Jacob was a perennial bachelor, most fond of the company of other men. As Emmeline despised being chided on her own unmarried state, she had never delved into her uncle’s reasons for remaining single. It was enough, she had always thought, that he was happy; if he had had a private heartbreak in his past (which she suspected was the case), she would not pry.

  After that welcoming toast, conversation around the table became disjointed. Gentlemen engaged the ladies on either side of them, as was the custom. But during the fish course, as Lord Quisenberry applied himself to the dish of oysters in wine and cream sauce, Emmeline’s attention was claimed by the lawyer Mr. Wilkins’s loud voice as he disputed some point her uncle was making.

  “Sir Jacob, I must protest. For some of us, being a landlord of the tenement houses and rookeries is the only way to turn a penny! And we must make the lower classes pay, allowing no excuses, else we should be giving away space like some charity workhouse! Not fair at all to those of us who strive and work hard to build a better life for our families.”

  His betrothed, Miss Gottschalk, watched solemnly but did not comment. Emmeline eyed her uncle, who appeared gravely disturbed by his man of business’s protestations.

  When no one commented, she decided to speak. “Do you think, sir, that those who work on the docks and on fishing boats, in the mines and the mills, even on the mudflats of the Thames, don’t toil?” Her clear voice cut through the chatter. All turned to look at her.

  Mr. Wilkins’s gaze swiveled too. “I’m saying nothing of the kind, Miss St. Germaine,” he said, his tone biting. “I merely say why should we not, as landlords, be paid too? They are receiving a wage, are they not? It is up to them to budget their money and not throw it away on gin. They must meet their obligations as I must meet mine.” He turned back to stare at her uncle, his thick eyebrows raised. “Not all of us can afford to make so much from the canal enterprise, sir. Some of us must invest in economical ventures where we can.”

  “Mr. Wilkins, I did not say to let them live free, I was simply suggesting that you are charging excessive rent on your St. Giles building, and that perhaps you should consider lowering it,” said Emmeline’s uncle, his tone impatient, taking his niece in with a glance. “And now we should leave this business talk for a more suitable time. We’re boring the ladies.”

  She understood his message. This was not fitting dinner table conversation. She smiled and nodded, then turned toward the lawyer’s betrothed, who sat between Lord Quisenberry and Mr. Yarbrough. “Miss Gottschalk, how are you finding our autumn weather in London?”

  With the conversation successfully diverted—Fidelity ably assisted with talk of the opera season and a new play being mounted in Covent Garden—the rest of the meal passed uneventfully.

  Nine

  Emmeline led the ladies back to the drawing room for tea and gossip as the gentlemen remained behind for port and politics. The drawing room conversation idled on, becoming desultory. Lady Quisenberry was only interested in the latest fashion in hats; she wore a turban with what Emmeline suspected was a false front of auburn curls. Miss Gottschalk appeared to be bored by them all, and Mrs. Yarbrough, a plump motherly woman with deep-set eyes, only wanted to speak of her children. With such dissonance in conversational topics, Emmeline left Fidelity to hold a disjointed conversation between Lady Quisenberry and Mrs. Yarbrough while she, in turn, tried to draw out Miss Gottschalk and Miss Purley, Mr. Fulmer’s betrothed.

  After a labored few minutes, Miss Purley, a petite brunette with exquisite taste and figure, both of which were displayed by her gold-trimmed burgundy lace gown, concealed a quick smile and looked down at her hands, fiddling with her fan.

  “I said something to amuse, Miss Purley?” Emmeline asked.

  “Pardon me,” she said, her mellow, musical voice pitched for Emmeline to hear. “I am merely admiring your ability to labor on in the face of a discordant group where no common topic of interest to all is available to you. I hope I can emulate your commendable skill when Mr. Fulmer and I wed.”

  Miss Gottschalk drifted away from them and sat down at the pianoforte, leafing through the sheet music. Emmeline relaxed enough to smile. “I had hoped the effort was not noticeable.”

  “It is only evident to admiring eyes like mine!” the young lady said.

  They chatted easily from there, and Emmeline discovered that the young lady, born in India while her father was stationed there with the East India Company, had only moved to England with her family a year before. She’d had a belated presentation to society at the advanced age of twenty-two, and as a result felt out of step with the other ladies presented during the Season. Emmeline sympathized with her, finding her warmer and more gracious than the cool and distant Miss Gottschalk.

  “But you found Mr. Fulmer—or he found you,” Emmeline said. “You were a success.” As judged by society.

  The young lady nodded. “So everyone tells me when they congratulate me.”

  There was a hint of discontent in her tone, and it interested Emmeline. She longed to ask the young lady why she was hesitant to proclaim satisfaction in being a betrothed young lady in a society which valued her more now that she had achieved the goal of every sensible female. But she didn’t know Miss Purley’s temperament, nor did she know Mr. Fulmer well enough to understand if his betrothed’s dissatisfaction was occasioned by the state of marriage or by the man in particular.

  The gentlemen joined them and Miss Purley was claimed by her stout and hearty fiancé. Miss Gottschalk, still seated at the piano, was solicited for music by her betrothed, Mr. Wilkins, who stumped over gracelessly, with an awkward gait. He hung over her shoulder, leaning heavily on his walking stick—an ornate piece from its carved ebony slave’s head to the silver band near the base—as he turned her music, a favor she did not appear to require or appreciate.

  Dr. Giles Woodforde, who was also using a walking stick that evening, though it was not usual for him, limped over and took the seat next to Emmeline—the one abandoned by Miss Pur
ley, who had joined Miss Gottschalk at the piano since she had been implored by her betrothed to sing. He set aside his walking stick, a plainer piece than the solicitor’s with merely a silver head and a plain cap on the end. “Shall we hear your fine voice this evening, Miss St. Germaine?” he asked. He was an old friend, and so could tease her with impunity.

  “There is no song in the key of a croaking raven, or I would be eager to display my talents to the group.”

  “Come now, you underrate yourself,” Dr. Woodforde said with a sly glance. “I have heard you many a time in congenial gatherings and your voice is certainly not raven-like. It is not a pigeon’s throaty coo, true, but somewhere in between.”

  “Thank you for your confidence in my ability to not offend with my tragically unmusical voice. But I am not that raven, Aesop’s infamous bird, to drop the cheese at the slightest flattery.”

  “Miss St. Germaine, I know we jest, but I would not let you think I believe your voice anything less than pleasant.” His voice was warm, his breath on her cheek warm and scented with cinnamon. “You do not force your singing voice into what is thought of as a feminine warble, that’s all. I like that no part of you is a sham, not even your vocal performance.”

  Emmeline was taken aback and looked up, meeting his brown eyes with alarm. Her brother, Samuel, had once claimed that his friend had a susceptibility for her. She had dismissed the notion as impossible. She and Woodforde had too long been friends for her not to have known of it.

  “Thank you,” she said, despite the absurdity of his confidence in her. Her life, as he and the public knew it, was almost wholly fake. The most genuine parts of her, the Rogue and the Crone, were hidden from view. “But I do not think myself a songbird of any sort.”