Deadly Engagement: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance)

by Lucinda Brant

  “Time to change for afternoon tea, Tam. One must always look one’s sartorial best, be it for tea and cake or the Fireworks ball,” he said, rolling down his shirtsleeves. “Did you bring back the silver threaded waistcoat for tonight?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the letter to Yarrborough and Yarrborough; did you personally deliver it to their chambers?”

  “Yes, sir. Sir—!”

  “Was there any reply?”

  “Mr. Yarrborough the Younger said he’d have something for you tomorrow afternoon if at all possible—Sir! I didn’t finish telling you about Simon Tremarton.”

  Alec stopped. “So you didn’t. What about him?”

  “I’ve seen him before, sir.” When this revelation produced nothing more than a blank look, Tam added in a rush, “I seen him at Mr. Dobbs’s, sir. I did! I was never more surprised when he showed up at your house. I don’t think he recognized me, so you can rest easy, sir.”

  “And had Mr. Tremarton recognized you, would there be a need for me to be uneasy?”

  “He—he didn’t come into the shop for the usual reasons, sir,” Tam answered slowly, not meeting his master’s gaze.

  Alec leaned against the low stone wall and crossed his arms. “You surprise me. Why did he visit Dobbs?”

  Tam was silent a moment. He looked up at Alec’s impassive face with its mop of disordered curls. “I-I haven’t exactly been truthful with you, sir.”

  “Haven’t you?”

  “You wouldn’t have let me stay if I had!” Tam burst out. “And it’s not as if I lied to you! I didn’t. I was Mr. Dobbs’s apprentice, and that’s all I was! Not that you’ll believe me.”

  “I thought you knew me better than that.”

  Tam hung his head. “Well, you wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told you straight out when I asked to be your valet,” he amended. “It’s not as if I’ve done a wrong. I haven’t. Still, you wouldn’t have had me.”

  “Do you want to tell me what it was Dobbs was engaged in, other than his apothecary business, or shall I make an educated guess?”

  “I’ll tell you. I had been meaning to. It was just… I was going to tell you.”

  “But Mr. Tremarton’s appearance at St. James’s Place prompted this sudden willingness,” Alec stated. “If it makes the task easier, I’m not about to dismiss you for something Dobbs did, legal or otherwise. You say you were his apprentice and confined yourself to those duties. I take you at your word.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Tam breathed easier. “I just hope you’ll believe me about Mr. Dobbs, sir, because he was a good man. There ain’t a grain of truth in what they said about him. It’s all lies. Lies and treachery. He couldn’t have done what they said he did. I tell you, sir, Mr. Dobbs was a good man. Kind, honest, and nothin’ nobody says will have me believing otherwise!”

  “Perhaps if you were to tell me exactly what it was Dobbs was supposed to have done?” Alec prompted gently.

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It just makes me as mad as anything to think a good and worthy man was convicted of something he didn’t do!” He took a deep breath and began his story. “Mr. Dobbs had his premises just off the Fleet Street, and we did a brisk business at most times. He preferred to live in the back two rooms behind the preparation room. I had a cot under the work bench and had my meals at Mr. Dobbs’s table whenever he was in the mood for company. Sometimes his temper was short, especially if he’d been out in the parish. He’d go with the vicar, Mr. Blackwell, to treat the poor and such. I guess that’s why he didn’t turn much of a profit. He didn’t talk about that side of the business, or about his family. Except I knew Mrs. Hendy was his sister—”

  “The housekeeper at Delvin?”

  “Yes, sir. When her ladyship died Mrs. Hendy sent me to be apprenticed to Mr. Dobbs.”

  “Do you know why?”

  Tam shook his head. “All Mrs. Hendy would say was that I couldn’t expect to live on the charity of his lordship now his mother was gone. She said his lordship wouldn’t take too kindly to having me under his roof.”

  “And Dobbs…?”

  “Mr. Dobbs had his apothecary shop on the ground floor,” explained Tam. “And he forbade me to trespass to the other three floors. He said if ever I did then I’d be dismissed. On the first floor there was a gaming hell called the Jack of Hearts, and the other two floors were rented out to this club too. It was frequented by fashionable gentlemen, with lace at their wrists and expensive frocks, who came and went at all hours of the night. On some nights there was so much noise and carrying-ons above our heads that we didn’t get much sleep.” He glanced at Alec, whose face betrayed no emotion, whatever his thoughts, then continued.

  “One day in walks Mr. Tremarton. I recognized him because once he’d come into the shop drunk and demanded to see a lad named Phillip. Said he was his regular. When Mr. Dobbs told him he was in the wrong place, Mr. Tremarton got angry. It was only when a soft-spoken gentleman came in and coaxed Mr. Tremarton outdoors that we got rid of him. The soft-spoken gentleman returned a few minutes later. He apologized to Mr. Dobbs and as he left he threw a couple of guineas on the counter.

  “When Mr. Tremarton came into the shop a second time he wasn’t drunk and he demanded to speak to Mr. Dobbs in private. But Mr. Dobbs tried to get rid of him quick, saying he didn’t want his kind in his shop; that he ran a respectable business. But Mr. Tremarton wouldn’t be persuaded and said if Mr. Dobbs wouldn’t talk to him quiet like he’d get the law onto him! So Mr. Dobbs took him through to the preparation room. They were there for some time before the same soft-spoken gentleman friend of Mr. Tremarton’s came in and fetched him.”

  “Would you recognize this soft-spoken gentleman if you saw him again, Tam?”

  “I’m sure I would, sir, because he spoke to me directly. He asked me if I liked living in the city and if I missed the country air, and then he offered Mr. Dobbs his regrets for disturbing us. I opened the door for them to pass out and I remember Mr. Tremarton saying to the soft-spoken gentleman in a gleeful voice that if he wasn’t very much mistaken they’d found the golden fleece, and what did he, Jack, think about that?”

  “Jack? Are you certain Tremarton addressed his friend as Jack?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered Tam, watching his master set to pacing in front of the wall, the greyhounds remaining obediently still yet their eyes never leaving their master for a moment. “I remember it particularly because the gaming hell upstairs was called the Jack of Hearts and I thought the circumstance an odd coincidence, that’s all.” When Alec merely nodded, a frown between his dark brows, Tam licked his dry lips, adding quietly, “I don’t know what Mr. Tremarton and Mr. Dobbs talked about but after that Mr. Dobbs said if ever I spoke to any gentleman stranger with fine lace at his wrists he’d beat me raw. Sir…”

  In the silence of Tam’s hesitation, Alec turned and looked at him with an understanding smile. “Whatever you tell me goes no further, Tam. And I’ve seen a reasonable slice of life not to be shocked by anything you may wish to confide.”

  Tam nodded and cast his gaze to the uneven flagstones. “Living in that part of the city one gets to know about—about life, sir. All sorts of life. Whores on every corner and in every second building a brothel or one of them with the fancy name, Turkish Baths. But I never expected, what I’m trying to say is, I know the gentlemen who visited the Jack of Hearts weren’t there just for the gambling and the wine! But I had no idea that the brothel on the third floor was a male brothel. It’s beyond anything, sir!

  After a pause that seemed an age to Tam, Alec said, “How did Dobbs get caught?”

  “Mr. Dobbs had nothing to do with it!” Tam said with mutinous pout. “He kept his shop. That’s all he did!”

  “He obviously knew what was going on over his head.”

  “Yes, I guess he must’ve. But just because he knew about those carryings-on don’t make him a party to it, sir.”

  “Why didn’t he report what he knew to the authorit
ies?”

  “To what purpose, sir? What would the beadles have done?” He forced himself to look Alec in the eyes. “Plenty of gentlemen visit brothels and the law don’t give a tester because they’re getting their cut. They turn a blind eye, none the wiser but a whole lot richer for doing so!”

  Alec held the boy’s gaze. “That’s very true, but the law finally turned its eyes on this male brothel. Why?”

  Tam felt tears in his eyes and he again dropped his gaze to the stones under his boots. “I don’t know. That is, the beadles kept their distance all right, for a time, and then one day without warning the militia turned up and cleared the place out. And not only the floors above us. They wrecked the shop too. They overturned tables and smashed bottles and—and… All those years of work! All Mr. Dobbs’s apparatus…”

  “What did you do?”

  “Me? I hid up the chimney. I knew if they found me they’d think I was one of them. Mr. Dobbs never gave me away. He kept his tongue. Sir!” Tam said suddenly, “I know Mr. Dobbs had nothin’ to do with the goings-on upstairs. How could they blame him for what those gentlemen got up to behind closed doors?”

  “If what you say is true, then it seems your Mr. Dobbs was used as a scapegoat for the crimes of others,” Alec said gently. “Perhaps if he’d come forward when he first realized what was going on he may have avoided prosecution? To stand back and let such perversions continue… He deserved to be punished for—”

  “Well they hanged him!” Tam burst out rudely, tears spilling down his burning cheeks. “They branded him a sodomite and a pimp and hanged him! No one came forward to defend him. Not one of those wretches he doctored for free with his medicines. Not Mr. Blackwell. Not Mrs. Hendy. Not me; no one. And I’ll lay you any odds you care that not one of those gentlemen who amused themselves with those lads was touched by the law. Look at Mr. Tremarton. Here he is at St. Neots House enjoying her Grace’s hospitality! It ain’t fair and it ain’t right!”

  Alec gave Tam his handkerchief. “No it isn’t. Especially for those with no recourse to privilege and power. That’s a fact of life and there is very little you or I can do about it. I’m not saying it’s right. It’s not. My uncle tries his best to voice his concerns in Parliament, yet his is a lone voice. Those gentlemen who paid for the sexual favors of those young boys deserve to be dispatched in the same manner as your Mr. Dobbs. In fact, they deserve worse. To be publicly flogged and put in the pillory for all to see. There is no greater punishment for a gentleman than to have his character and good name besmirched.” He sighed. “Tam, I can’t bring Dobbs back. I don’t even know if I can believe out-of-hand what you’ve told me. I’m not saying that I don’t credit your story. I do. Yet, there may be circumstances that you don’t fully understand.”

  Tam blew his nose and sniffed. “Mr. Dobbs was an honest man!”

  “So you have said. I will make a few inquiries of my own—”

  “Can—Can you, sir?”

  “I will do my best. Now, tell me: Are you in any danger from the law?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I don’t think so. Nobody came looking for me. Nobody but Mrs. Hendy knows I was Mr. Dobbs’s apprentice. Oh, except Mr. Tremarton and his friend. Do you think they—”

  “No. The soft-spoken gentleman certainly won’t bother you,” Alec assured him. Poor Jack can be of bother to no one now, he thought sadly as he joined the rest of the guests for afternoon tea in the opulent Oriental drawing room, where there was laughter and music and the clinking of fine porcelain. He went immediately to the tea trolley, as if a dish of coffee could somehow wash away the disgust and anger he felt knowing Dobbs the apothecary had gone to the gallows a scapegoat to appease the sins of his betters. He saw Simon Tremarton standing by the pianoforte, where Lady Sybilla and Sir Cosmo were banging out a duet, and avoided his eye, seeking refuge at the back of the room, in no mood to make small talk. It was a simple matter to remain by the window unnoticed while dishes of tea and coffee and plates of sweetmeats and pastries were passed around. He even managed to avoid saying more than a polite word to his hostess, as much as she seemed to want him to remain at her side when she handed him his dish.

  His uncle was chatting with one of the guests. His brother strutted about the room dressed in a magnificent saffron satin frock embroidered at cuffs and skirt with vines and fruit, and matching breeches with diamond knee buckles. He smiled benevolently on all who fell under his gaze; he even smiled on his brother. Alec had to turn his back lest anyone see the look on his face. He stared out the window at the forest below, stretching out like a dense green carpet hugging the river as it meandered east toward the city, and felt hooped petticoats brush his stockinged legs. He turned to discover Lady Gervais smiling up at him with a perfectly painted and patched face. There was a twinkle in her eye as she sipped her tea and watched him under her long, darkened lashes.

  “You will save a dance for me tonight, won’t you?” she asked sweetly, the slight tremble in her voice indicating that she feared his rejection.

  Alec smiled down at her but his response was not what she was expecting. “Did you go directly to Delvin’s apartments after leaving the Chinese drawing room last night, my lady?”

  She blinked. “Before I came to you? I told you: He wasn’t in his rooms—”

  “But you didn’t go to his rooms, did you?” When she looked bewildered he added, “There was no need. You saw him somewhere else in the house first.”

  “And if I did?” she asked defensively.

  “Where did you see him?”

  She took a small step closer, to press herself against his leg, her voluminous petticoats making those in the room none the wiser. “Later, shall we finish what we started last night?”

  His smile was almost enough to make her swoon.

  “Had we started something, my lady? So where did you see my brother?”

  She huffed. “I told you: He was with Selina Jamison-Lewis.”

  “Not when you saw him.”

  She pretended an interest in the sticks of her carved ivory fan. “If you must know, I caught him in the shrubbery with a plain faced kitchen slut.”

  “Was this immediately after he left the Chinese drawing room?”

  “Not straight away,” she said sullenly. “He had to escort his little bride up to her rooms because the excitement had given her the headache.” She opened her fan with an agitated shake. “Edward was to meet me on the terrace but when he didn’t show after some five freezing minutes I went in search of him. I was never more mortified when I discovered him being pleasured by a servant. Imagine preferring a cheap slut to me?”

  “How ill-mannered of him.”

  “That’s when I came to you.”

  “To have your pride restored and to teach Delvin a lesson?” Alec bowed over her hand. “Forgive me for not being more sensitive to your needs, my lady.”

  This restored her mood and she giggled. “But how did you know?”

  “You’d been out of doors. There was mud on your shoes and the stockings covering your lovely feet were damp,” he said and watched her eyes widen. “Oh, and you may rest easy, my lady. Mrs. Jamison-Lewis and my brother are not lovers.”

  “I do have lovely feet, don’t I?” she said with a self-satisfied sigh then, taking in the rest of what he had said, a spark came into her eyes. “Not lovers? Truly? But Edward said…”

  She was either a first rate actress or amazingly dull-witted. Alec inclined to the latter belief. As vacant as she was beautiful. Just the sort of female to suit Delvin. So his brother was out in the shrubbery with a servant; he would hazard a guess that the girl was none other than the chambermaid sent to fetch Emily’s milk. Tam had described her appearance as disheveled. No wonder she was closed mouthed with Neave. A chambermaid was not likely to confess to entertaining one of the gentleman guests; that would bring instant dismissal.

  But what of Delvin? According to Cindy Gervais, he had taken Emily up to her rooms but he must have left her at the door. And
according to the boys Charles and Oliver, Lewis and Cousin Harry had stumbled upon Delvin in the servant passage at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Emily’s rooms. If he had been playing at billiards then he could easily have heard the boys running about in the passage. But was he playing at billiards before or after his liaison with the chambermaid? And who was the unknown gentleman who had growled at the boys? Perhaps Delvin had bumped into the chambermaid in the passage? Had he been in the shrubbery when the attack took place? So why hadn’t he said this and used the girl as an alibi? But how would that look for him, to admit to fornicating with a servant while his bride-to-be was being attacked in her own rooms?

  Alec hoped Cosmo had some news for him. He at least had spent the day mingling with the guests, while he, Alec, had played nursemaid to a gaggle of children. Not that he was complaining. He had enjoyed himself, and Charles and Oliver had unwittingly told him a piece of interesting information. Aware that Lady Gervais was still looking up at him expectantly he said,

  “If you have space on your list I will be honored to dance with you, my lady.”

  Satisfied, she smiled and would have spoken but for a diversion at the double doors that saw her swirl about to see the Lady Charlotte, and at her side Emily, dressed in a confection of floral gauze petticoats, a simple string of pearls about her throat. The girl looked neither right or left and went to the tea trolley under her aunt’s escort. Lady Sybilla left the pianoforte and spoke a few hurried whispered words to her niece before she was put in her place by a sharp word from her elder sister. But when the Earl of Delvin joined them the Lady Charlotte bestowed a warm smile upon him and gave Emily into his care before retiring to the tea trolley to assist her mother. Lady Sybilla lingered, and it did not go unnoticed by Alec that Emily tried to go to her, but the Earl led her away to join a group of his intimates sitting adjacent to the pianoforte.

  “I hope the ball is more lively than this lot,” said Plantagenet Halsey, taking the place of Lady Gervais at Alec’s side. He followed his nephew’s gaze. “She’s the spit of her mother, m’boy.”