A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  Emmeline gave Woodforde a look. There was a motive, perhaps, but there had to be more, given the brutality of Sir Henry’s murder.

  “I intended to offer to buy him out anyway,” the man continued. “My partner had other investments he seemed more interested in. Couldn’t hardly get him to pay attention anymore to business.”

  “Other investments?” Emmeline said.

  “Started chumming about with higher-toned folks.” He gave her a sneering look, scanning her up and down from her plumed hat to her kid gloves. “Always on about his investments and who he was hobnobbing with.”

  “Did he mention any names, Mr. Wright?”

  It was too far too fast, and the man squinted, eyeing her with disfavor. “Here, what’s any of this got to do with buying beer?” he said, half rising. “You aren’t from them newspapers, are you? Had to chase a feller out yesterday, trying to ask my workers about Sir Henry.”

  “I assure you, we are not from the newspapers,” Woodforde said, giving Emmeline a warning look. “But I am concerned about the future of any deals we make with you. When I spoke to Sir Henry, he offered very good terms for delivery.”

  Wright sank back down into his seat, but his expression was mulish. “Present the terms in writing, doctor. Whatever Sir Henry said, and I’ll consider ’em. Things have changed and I can’t be bound by anything Henry said, y’see. Now, I have business to take care of, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Moments later, they were out the door. Woodforde was silent as he accepted the reins of the curricle from the stable lad. He helped Emmeline up to her seat, then started the horses on their way. As they regained the road and headed back toward Chelsea, Emmeline chewed her lip. “Woodforde, before we go too far, pull over and listen to me.”

  “It is almost November, Miss St. Germaine,” he said, his tone crisp. “Have sympathy for my hands, if you won’t for the rest of me.”

  It was true that the wind was cutting, though he had the head—the folding top—of the curricle half up, and it did protect them somewhat, depending on what direction they headed. Once they got back into the city proper and among close buildings, the wind would be less noticeable.

  “You are wearing gloves, sir,” she said tartly, “but I will talk while you drive. Mr. Wright seemed not to especially mind his partner’s death.”

  “Which means little. I may have found out more, but you were insistent on inserting yourself into the conversation.”

  She threw an exasperated look his way. “I will not be made silent, doctor. I’ve done that for a good portion of my life, and now that I am on my own, in most senses, I will not suffer you or anyone else to muffle me.”

  “Then you will always be fighting upstream against a waterfall.”

  “Trimming my nose to spite my face, is that it?”

  He glanced over at her. “I don’t say that I wish you to be silent, Miss St. Germaine, but you must choose one or the other; either you wish most effectively to gain the knowledge you require, or you wish to speak up as an equal member of society.” He expertly guided the curricle into a line of carriages and coaches that were held up by something ahead. His team, a matched set of dapple grays, was calm but fast, responsive to his slightest touch of the reins. “You must know that there are some who will laud you for your refusal to remain silent, but many more who will look askance and think you speak out of turn. I am not one of the latter, I hope you know.”

  Emmeline nodded, taking in a deep breath, quelling the anger that seemed to simmer in her soul. Woodforde treated her as an intelligent woman, and only occasionally spoke in any manner that could be considered condescending. But even so, he expected her to suppress her true self.

  It seemed, if she were being fair, that the more resolute she became about asserting herself, the more determined she was to live as she chose rather than buckle under pressure, and the more likely she was to view any statement through a lens of offence. Had she become so sensitive to insult that she saw it where none was intended? Perhaps she twisted words and statements into criticism when none was implied. How would she know? Like Adam and Eve and their knowledge of good and evil, she could not go back and unlearn what it was to be patronized as less than a man. She now saw it in so many statements she had never noticed before.

  That was a discussion for another day. As the doctor got the curricle moving again, after the muddle ahead had been cleared, she said, “I have my reasons for seeking answers, Woodforde. And I do trust you to help me in my quest for the truth. You saw the body of Sir Henry Claybourne, and so have an entrée where I have none. Would you be willing to visit Lady Claybourne and to … to take me with you?” She had been able to think of no other way to meet the widow.

  He gave her a horrified look and snapped the reins to hasten the team. “I can’t believe you would even consider something so indecent as to worry that poor woman in her time of grief. It’s despicable, Emmie, intrusive and blatantly wicked, a ghoulish desire to satisfy your curiosity. You must know that deep in your heart.”

  So she could still shock him. In that moment, Emmeline realized how much she respected Woodforde and cherished his good opinion of her. So instead of retreating into frosty irritation, she made the effort to see things from his perspective. He didn’t know her reason for asking such a favor, nor her intentions for visiting Lady Claybourne; how could he? Of all the men she knew, he was the only one she would even think of trusting with the secret of what she did: rescuing abused scullery maids and other unfortunates, masked and cloaked when necessary. She considered revealing to him why the solution to the murder of Sir Henry was most definitely not idle curiosity.

  But still, it was far, far too dangerous. Which part of Woodforde would surface: her reliable friend, or the conservative gentleman of means? The wrong move would be the destruction of everything that currently made her life worth living. And she could never take it back if she told him. She concluded that she’d rather appear ghoulish and idly prying than expose her most carefully guarded secret. “I’m sorry, Woodforde; I didn’t consider.” She would need to find another way in.

  The afternoon had been a waste of valuable time.

  Birk delivered the mail and newspapers to Emmeline at breakfast the next morning, but she had only time to notice there was no package nor letter from Miss S. Kinsman as of yet. She could not have expected Simeon to come through so quickly with information on Ratter or the Hargreaves, and yet she had expected it. The gentleman had produced miracles before. She worried that he was being hounded by the magistrate. Not knowing what was going on gnawed at her stomach.

  The papers had little real information to offer, and she could glean nothing beyond that the magistrate was “asking questions” of the household and neighbors. Their firmest lead was the absconding scullery maid and the masked female, who was, it was implied, a discarded mistress of the knight who, after stealing the silver and the scullery maid (for some reason no one could understand), came back to kill the master.

  The other newspaper scandal columns, her competitors, were positively salivating over the prospect of a society lady gone astray as the Avengeress, a wanton she-devil invading men’s homes and absconding with their property. Some even offered ideas as to who the woman was, and it appeared some of the demimonde were considered for the role. It was amusing, if a bit unsettling.

  Emmeline set the papers aside, finished her breakfast alone, as Fidelity was having a good long lie-in in advance of the tiring work of the literary salon that afternoon. She descended to the workrooms belowstairs and met with Mrs. Bramage in her office, a tiny windowless room, where they went over the details of the affair. The housekeeper was a dour woman, although Gillies said she could be animated after a glass of wine at the holidays, but other than that, Mrs. Bramage kept herself to herself. If she had any enjoyments beyond reading the Bible and knitting, Gillies didn’t know about them.

  “Mrs. Bramage,
who is our scullery maid?”

  “Her name is Annie, miss. Annie Jenson.” The woman’s pale, narrow face, covered in a net of wrinkles and creases, revealed no emotion. She closed her accounts book, where she had recorded the purchases made for the literary salon. Leopold would receive a detailed list of the expenses—how much Congou tea, how many jars of blackberry preserves, how many bottles of sherry—in her and Birk’s monthly budget accounting.

  “And you hired her?” Emmeline asked. The housekeeper nodded. “How did you find her, if I may ask?”

  “My sister, who is in service near Malincourt, miss; folks as supplied the big house with fish had a daughter they were looking to place, and she weren’t opposed to coming to London. I said we’d try her out, if they could send her along here.”

  “And how is she working out?”

  “Well enough,” Mrs. Bramage said. “She is frightened of Mr. Birk, and that’s no lie. He shouts at her when she gets in his way,” she added, airing her grievance in a rush. “But she’s a hard-working child and not sullen. I can teach anyone so long as they are not sullen.”

  “I’ll speak with Birk.” Whether it would do any good or not, Emmeline could not imagine. “Is that how you normally get your girls, by word of mouth?”

  She nodded. “We needed a new scullery maid. I had moved Arbor up to being chambermaid once Linda Charles left to return home when her mother fell ill.”

  “I thought I noticed a new face. Arbor is doing a wonderful job,” Emmeline said with a smile. The housekeeper nodded. “Fidelity quite likes her, I know; she has been most obliging to the Comtesse. Would you ever employ a girl from a workhouse or orphanage?”

  Mrs. Bramage sniffed and made a sour face. “Not in my household. Begging your pardon, miss; not in a home where I am employed. Those girls … dirty, sullen little street creatures with who knows what parentage? Could murder us all in our sleep. Look at that scullery maid what was taken by that masked woman! In league with her, no doubt; a guttersnipe and her bawd. It’s a wonder the whole household wasn’t murdered in their sleep.” Her tone was bloodthirsty and her dark eyes gleamed, almost as if she enjoyed the notion. Perhaps she was getting her information from the papers, which, in their unusually liberal household, the staff were allowed to read once Emmeline and Fidelity were done with them. “Probably their intent, only they were startled by the knight and killed him in revenge. Mark my words, that’s what happened.”

  With that earful, Emmeline had heard enough. No wonder word of the masked woman’s perfidy was spreading so fast. It was the simplest thing to imagine and the most exciting to believe.

  “Tell Mrs. Riddle I will have the iced punch brought up first,” Emmeline said. “After the salon we’ll have our luncheon in the dining room, as we decided, and we’ll finish with sherry back in the sitting room. Thank you, Mrs. Bramage.”

  Seventeen

  Emmeline and Fidelity greeted their guests in the sitting room, which had been rearranged for the event. They discussed Anna Seward’s work and lamentable death, and then Fidelity did a reading of Seward’s Sonnet 84. Her voice trembled and sighed through it, until the final lines: “ ‘More pensive thoughts in my sunk heart infuse/Than Winter’s gray, and desolate domain/Faded, like my lost Youth, that no bright Spring renews.’ ”

  There was silence, and then a smattering of applause and murmurs of appreciation. Fidelity had a lovely speaking voice, but the subject—loneliness, decline, and death—was gloomy.

  It had all taken far longer than she had expected. “On that cheerful note,” Emmeline said, standing, as a couple of her guests chuckled, “let us forego our literary discussion and descend to the dining room for luncheon.” Everyone needed a few glasses of wine to liven their mood.

  Birk had borrowed two footmen from a family friend and fitted them with St. Germaine livery. They served as he stood in august majesty, directing the meal. After the revivifying luncheon—turtle soup, plaice, oysters, beefsteak, and salad, followed by Madeira cake and fruits—the group returned upstairs to the sitting room for tea, sherry, and chat. It had been rearranged during luncheon into conversational groupings of chairs and settees. This, for many, was the best part of the afternoon, a time to trade gossip with folks they didn’t often see. Two of the Crones were in attendance: Lady Adelaide Sherringdon and Miss Juliette Espanson. Also present were Mr. Lessington, who owned the Dionysus Theater, accompanied by a young friend of his, a poet who had recently published a book funded, Emmeline suspected, by the theater owner, as Mr. Lessington was a stalwart supporter of the artistic endeavors of others.

  A fire in the grate burned cheerily. Copious amounts of sherry and claret were imbibed; voices increased in volume, laughter echoed, cheeks glowed, and smiles enlarged. Emmeline was pleased to watch Fidelity light up with joy. Poetry and literature were her great comforts. In some ways, though she was supposed to be Emmeline’s companion, lending her the safety and credibility of an older widow, it often seemed that Emmeline was the companion, giving her older cousin comfort and entertainment. Mutual benefit was derived, for Fidelity was the mildest of companions.

  As the young poet friend, sweeping back a long curl of hair from his forehead, regaled a group of women, who laughed gaily at his sallies, Mr. Lessington took a seat by Emmeline and regarded her narrowly.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Have I broken out in spots?”

  “Not at all, my dear. However, the other night in my theater I noticed you speaking with Mr. Simeon Kaufmann, owner and publisher of The Prattler. And it did lead me to wonder what a young lady like you would have in common with a married man of the Hebrew persuasion, a radical-leaning gentleman who employs a web of gossips and numbers informers and rabble-rousing writers among his friends?”

  Frowning, she examined his face, which was lightly lined, his hair unfashionably collar-length and swept back off his high forehead, his gray eyes mild. “I’m sure I don’t know who you mean.”

  He nodded, crossing his legs and taking a sip of sherry. “I understand.” He smiled and patted her hand. “My dear, of all the young ladies I know, you interest me the most. You are, I suspect, an actress, playing the part of a demure and modest lady of means.”

  Emmeline stiffened and glanced around the room, then back to him. “You are on the verge of insult, Mr. Lessington.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, my dear.” He smiled and sipped. “I dissemble, too, except within the bosom of my little circle.”

  “I resent the implication, sir, that I am somehow false,” she said, her heart thudding in her chest.

  “Ah, yes … when cornered, bare your fangs and growl.” Another pained smile flitted across his mobile, expressive face. “I mean no offence, Miss St. Germaine. I am not among those males who believe women should stay in their sphere, and that to deviate is to unsex themselves.” He smiled kindly, but his expression sobered. “If ever you need a friend with many gossipy connections, you have him in me.”

  Emmeline stared at him, uncertain of his meaning. “Let us speak of other things. Do you personally know Mr. …what was his name? The newspaper publisher you spoke of? I don’t believe I’ve ever met him.”

  “Mr. Simeon Kaufmann. I know him slightly. Perhaps I was mistaken; at the theater the other night you were in close conversation with him, so I thought you knew him.”

  “Ah, the gentleman’s whose sleeve button got tangled in my lace cuff? I did not know his name. And he owns The Prattler? Very amusing paper.” Her tone sounded stilted, even to herself.

  “They have a column I particularly like, the Rogue.”

  “I hear it condemned as gossip.”

  “My dear, what is gossip but the human fascination with the trials and tribulations of men and women? I have a theory that all great art starts out as gossip, tales told over and over from human to human until they become ingrained in us and are spewed out as literature. Or opera!”

 
She glanced around at the chatting, gossiping groups, noticing glances thrown, whispers and widened eyes, expressions of joyous shock. She thought of her most recent column, and the scandal she had passed on about the wife wishing her husband dead so she could wed her younger lover. She had named names and given details; anyone could guess who Lady H__ was. From the anonymity of the printing press she had hurled accusations and perhaps made one woman’s life a trial.

  Should she be ashamed? Or had she saved the man’s life? “Mr. Lessington, do you think gossip harmful? I sometimes feel guilty when I pass on a tale I have heard secondhand.”

  “As someone who has had to fend off the horrors of gossip, I may be supposed to be biased against it, but I’m not. Stories, either true or untrue, can cause great harm. But the first whispers of gossip are also what occasionally brings an evil-doer to justice. We use gossip to test news, to spread concerns, to hint at danger. Every man and woman must judge for themselves what is fit to disseminate and what should be suppressed, and live with the consequences of their decision.”

  She nodded absently.

  “Take, for instance, the gossip I have recently heard about a group of women of good birth and gentle upbringing who go about saving waifs. I thought it was idle gossip, but now I am wondering if this magnificent masked woman—the one in all the headlines, the Avengeress, as they call her—is a part of that group.” He watched her closely.

  Emmeline’s blood ran cold. At that very moment, Fidelity, looking weary, sent her a beseeching look. Her cousin was tiring, it appeared. “Excuse me, Mr. Lessington; Fiddy appears to be in distress,” she said, and hastened away, but when she looked back over her shoulder, the theater owner was regarding her with thoughtful eyes.

  Too close … he was too close to the truth. Emmeline wondered, had Mr. Lessington brought up the Rogue and her group of Crones within minutes of each other because he suspected her of being one or the other, or both, or merely because the masked woman was on the tip of everyone’s tongue and they had been speaking of gossip? That’s the problem, she thought; her consciousness made her see danger where none, perhaps, lay. Was she blind, then, alternately, to true danger all around her? She didn’t know.