“I beg your pardon, Uncle? Olivia give you quarters to your liking?”
“Yes. Emily St. Neots is the image of her mamma.”
“Is she?’
“The Duchess of Beauly was a beautiful woman. Turned heads wherever she went. Still does if my Italian correspondent is to be believed.”
“Indeed? If I’m posted into Italy should I present myself?”
“Do. Whatever the woman’s failings, don’t let anyone convince you she was solely to blame for that humiliating divorce. Beauly was a cad and a womanizer. And she was in love with a man other than her husband.” He looked uncomfortable. “Don’t believe in forced marriages. Females sold off like pieces of furniture. Pah!”
“I should like to read your latest pamphlet…. On conjugal rights?”
Plantagenet Halsey grunted and put his dish on the window ledge. “Nothin’ in it that you haven’t heard me preach before.”
“Olivia tells me you narrowly missed being sued for defamation over that particular publication.”
The old man’s bushy brows went up. “Blames me for that scoundrel’s death, does she?”
“She sounded most grateful to you for having the audacity to name the fellow.”
“She may be grateful but I’ll tell you who ain’t and that’s the widow. Still, you can’t blame her for that I suppose. I did expose her marriage to the world.”
“’Tis a pity you didn’t see the necessity in telling me before you told the world.”
Plantagenet Halsey eyed his nephew curiously. “She was miserable enough. Having you lurking in the shadows would only have made matters worse for her. Better for you to stay right out of it. Her husband was a possessive lunatic.”
Alec leaned in to his uncle and spoke while looking out across the room at Emily sitting mutely beside Delvin who was chattering away to Sir Cosmo and an unknown woman in outrageous plumage. “Better that she be beaten than tell me so that I could put a stop to it?”
“Better to have you both alive!”
“Uncle?! He’d not have bested me in a duel!”
The old man looked at him squarely. “No. But he’d have killed her than let you near her.”
Alec looked away, a tightness in his throat behind the expertly tied linen stock. “Then if you knew about the beatings I’m surprised you didn’t write that pamphlet years ago.”
“My boy, it wasn’t my pamphlet that caused him to blow his brains out,” Plantagenet Halsey responded sympathetically. “Her Grace and the rest of her ilk may think that; let ’em. Right up to the day they found Jamison-Lewis dead in the wood he had every intention of pursuing me in the courts. His lawyer made that plain and simple. So you’ll have to go elsewhere to find the reason for his death.”
“Perhaps his death was an accident?” When his uncle snorted his skepticism Alec added, “Then why did he shoot himself?”
Plantagenet Halsey shrugged. “Now that’s something you’ll have to ask his widow. And here comes the virago now.”
Alec was surprised by his uncle’s expression of admiration as he watched Selina Jamison-Lewis sweep across the room in a very fetching gown of oyster gray silk with petticoats of silver tissue, fluttering a large gouache painted fan of stiffened silk with a heavy silver tassel. She acknowledged Alec with a brief nod, not meeting his eye, and playfully extended her hand to his uncle.
“I’m so glad you’ve come, sir. It has put your other nephew out of all countenance and stirred the toothless lions from their slumber!” she said with a smile and laughed when he bowed over her hand with a flourish. “My boredom is at an end and for that I am prepared to forgive you your impertinent writings.”
Far from taking offense the old man chuckled and squeezed her hand. “Thank you, my dear. Allow me one last impertinence by tellin’ you you look very well indeed as a widow!” He glanced significantly at Alec, “Ain’t that so, my boy?”
But Alec wasn’t attending. He was now wholly preoccupied with Emily and his brother and without excusing himself crossed the room to Emily’s side and said without preamble, “Are you quite well, my dear?”
She did not look up. “Yes, Mr. Halsey. Perfectly well. Thank you.”
“Perhaps a walk about the terrace would restore your color?”
“No. No, thank you.”
“Emily—”
At that Lord Delvin cut short his sentence to the lady on his left and stood up to face his brother. Laughter, music, and the chatter of voices persisted all around them, but more than a few powdered heads turned in their direction. The Earl opened his gold and enameled snuffbox and took a pinch. “I can’t—really I can’t allow you to take Emily away from me, Second. She belongs to me. Don’t you, Emily dearest?”
“Let her tell me that herself,” Alec enunciated.
But Emily, who had also risen, stared through him, her face like carved stone.
“Gentlemen, please,” Lady Charlotte whispered stridently. “Mr. Halsey, you will please leave Emily to the care of her betrothed!”
The Earl offered Emily his arm. “Remember Oliphant’s advice, my dear. You must have no more upsets.”
Alec frowned. “Oliphant? The physician?”
“So this is Miss Emily,” interrupted Plantagenet Halsey and stepped between the brothers to take Emily’s hand and bow over it. “You must excuse me if I introduce myself but my nephews are sadly lackin’ in manners. And you’ll forgive an old man’s forwardness if you’re anythin’ like your dear grandmamma.” While he spoke he wrapped Emily’s arm about his own and patted her hand comfortingly. “Need a breath of fresh air, m’self. Care to take a walk? Mrs. Jamison-Lewis has kindly offered to show me the terrace. I ain’t been out that way yet. We’ll leave this lot to their tea and manners.”
The Earl took a step forward then retreated when his uncle snarled at him. “A capital idea, Uncle!” he said with a fixed smile, turned on a heel, and strolled off to join a group of gentlemen gathered round the fireplace.
“I’ll accompany you, Mr. Halsey,” stated Lady Charlotte, shaking out her petticoats.
“You’ll stay where you are, madam, if you don’t want me to make a public exhibition of your meddlin’,” retorted Plantagenet Halsey. He nodded to Selina and she went with him and Emily out of the drawing room.
Alec was left standing in the middle of the room with an empty coffee dish until Sir Cosmo took him by the elbow and led him to a far corner by a draped window.
“A word of advice,” Sir Cosmo said under his breath as he surveyed the room through his quizzing-glass. “Keep your uncle away from William Gervais. The man is foaming at the mouth to come to cuffs with him. Hates your uncle’s politics. Who doesn’t? But that’s no reason to want to lock him up! And Gervais will if he can find an excuse. Sits on the bench at Westminster Hall.”
“Looks more pig farmer than judge.”
“Doesn’t he, what!” Sir Cosmo answered with a snort. “But our William adores a good hanging. Sends all the poor sods who come before him to the gallows—”
“Is that so? He isn’t the judge the newssheets have dubbed Lord Gallows?”
“The very same. Always hangs his man—woman or child for that matter, does our William Gervais. And—er—somethin’ else,” Sir Cosmo stumbled on, slightly embarrassed. “Best stay away from his wife.”
Alec grinned. “My dear Cosmo, if only she would stay away from me!”
Sir Cosmo gave a bark of laughter and nudged his friend. “Who wouldn’t prefer a stallion to an ass, aye?”
“The wonder of it is, Cosmo,” said Alec, gaze on the gentleman in question who was devouring a cream pastry as he chatted to a distracted Lady Sybilla and a thin woman of advanced years, “if the man is as you say, then why does he permit himself to be cuckolded by Delvin?”
“That’s simple,” Sir Cosmo said matter-of-factly. “The man’s dazzled by us; the nobility that is. A title is everything to a self-made man like that. He’s only a life peer: For services to the law, you understand.
He has to be eaten-up with frustrated jealousy because his bird-witted wife shares her couch with Delvin. But Delvin is an earl. What can Gervais do? An earl has favored him by bedding his wife. Thus, the golden rays of the nobility shine down upon him, too.”
“Good Lord! Is that what he thinks?”
“Fascinating, ain’t it? I thought all that sort of rot died out in the Middle Ages. Ah, I think Mr. Tremarton wants a word.”
“Alec, may I speak with you?” asked Simon Tremarton, who had been hovering close by and took Sir Cosmo’s step away as a signal for him to interrupt.
“Not here,” Alec answered curtly.
“It’s rather urgent,” stammered Simon, taken aback by the cold reception.
Alec showed him the way out of the room, taking his leave of the Duchess with a slight nod, and when he reached his sitting room flung wide the door. “So what is it you want of me, Simon?”
Cromwell and Marziran gave a lazy yawn and looked up from the Turkey rug in front of the fireplace as their master entered the sitting room. They were unsure of the visitor and would have gone to sniff at his shoes had Alec not called them to heel beside his wing chair. He offered Simon the chair opposite but the man could not sit still and after pacing the floor sat on the chair’s arm biting a fingernail. He wondered the best approach, his task made all the more difficult when Alec offered him nothing more than a blank face and cross-legged expectant silence.
“I’m not surprised you’re annoyed,” Simon said with a self-conscious laugh. “You’ve every right. I didn’t keep our dinner appointment in Paris, and I didn’t show for the departmental briefing. And then when you kindly invited me to your house I was impolite enough not to turn up. I can only say I’ve not been myself lately, what with Mother’s illness—”
“Your mother has been dead these past five years.”
“So you know that?” Simon was only mildly surprised. “I suppose Cindy told you. Did she tell you I went into Yorkshire?”
“No. I worked that out for myself.”
“Mother’s illness is better than the truth, isn’t it?”
“The truth, whatever that may be, is always preferable. If you were ashamed of your connection with Jack Belsay it’s a wonder you accepted his invitation.”
“Tell the department I was off to Belsay’s shooting box? Do you think they’d have given me the time?”
“You needn’t have lied about it to me. I’d not have said a word to the department. As for suspecting anything else, who in London, apart from his most intimate friends, knew Jack to be homosexual?” Alec’s eyebrows rose when Simon winced at the word. “You’re not very comfortable with the truth, are you, Simon?”
“You can sneer! You’re comfortable. You want for nothing. You could leave the service tomorrow and it wouldn’t hurt your pocket or your prospects! You needn’t be an ambassador’s lackey if you don’t choose. It’s a wonder you bother. I wouldn’t if I was in your position.”
“I choose to because I want to be of use, and I enjoy the work.”
“That’s just it, you can choose! It’s different for me. I must work or I starve,” Simon said sullenly. “I must do—do things I don’t enjoy to get ahead. It’s all part of the game. You can play or not. More often you don’t. And with your noble connections you needn’t lift a finger. You’re one of them. They’ll look out for you, give you an embassy of your own one day. Tomorrow, if you whispered in the right ear tonight!”
“I’ll grant that the system of sinecures and patronage reeks of corruption, Simon, but it can be overcome, used to advantage, if you are prepared to work hard and play the game, but not lose sight of your principles. Look at Sir Harold Hegarty. He was the son of an illiterate wainwright!”
Simon gave a snort of contempt. “The man’s five and fifty. I can’t wait that long. Others aren’t obliged to. I’ll do whatever it takes to get ahead, but working long hours and sweating over someone else’s portfolio because they’re off toad-eating with their good and titled friends isn’t for me! I can’t afford to be as noble as you.”
“And was Jack part of the game, Simon? Something you had to do but did not enjoy?”
Simon stared into the fire in the grate. “If I said no, you wouldn’t believe me. Yes and you’d despise me all the more.” He took out his silver snuffbox and tapped the lid before offering it to Alec who declined. “I forget,” he said with a twisted smile. “You don’t dip. Is there a vice that you do indulge?”
Alec’s mouth twitched but he gave no reply.
Simon took snuff and watched Alec tend the fire, prodding the flames to new life with a brass poker.
“I need a thousand pounds by Monday afternoon,” he stated bluntly. “I borrowed from a moneylender named Reubens. Delvin said for eight hundred pounds he could get me a sinecure in the department. It came to nothing. He got me noticed but that was all. Belsay was going to give me the money but he stupidly got himself killed, leaving me in this fix.”
Alec returned the poker to its elaborate stand. “You didn’t give two straws for Jack, did you, Simon? You were only interested in what you could get out of him.”
Awkward embarrassment made Simon grin. “Jack Belsay was a fool, romantics are, but he wasn’t fool enough to think I’d be his lover without pecuniary reward. That he fell in love with me was his problem, not mine. And if Delvin hadn’t run him through I’d be wealthy now. Jack would’ve done anything to keep me.”
“Then he was indeed a fool. A man in love can be forgiven much, whereas you—you—”
“Is that how you justified your behavior towards that redhead downstairs?” Simon jeered. Yet, the look on Alec’s face made him move away from the fireplace. “Jack told me you deflowered his cousin on her wedding day. Is that the particular vice of the department’s Greek statue, deflowering virgin brides—”
Within the blink of an eye Simon Tremarton found himself thrust against a wall, his neck cloth twisted so excruciatingly tight that nothing else mattered but to breath. His arms hung helpless at his sides and he had the distinct feeling his feet were off the ground. All he could do was gasp and splutter and stare pop-eyed into a face full of utter contempt and rage.
“You dare. You dare sneer at me? You disgusting little catamite!” Alec seethed. He dropped Simon with a contemptuous push. “No, Cromwell! Marziran! He isn’t fit to maul.” He turned away and leaned outstretched arms on the mantle, head bowed. “A word of advice, Tremarton, ’though, God knows why I offer it! Flee to the Continent. It’s your only hope of avoiding Newgate.” He glanced over his shoulder. The man was still recovering his breath. “With your predilections I’d go as far as Persia. Anywhere else and you’ll be strung up!”
Simon rearranged his neckcloth. “Your advice is noted. However, I prefer to try my luck with your brother. He’ll give me much more than a thousand when I’m through with him.”
“Don’t be an ass! Delvin won’t give you a tester. He ran Jack through so what’s to stop him murdering a contemptible worm such as yourself?”
“You think Jack was blackmailing Delvin and that’s what got him killed?” Simon was incredulous. “Belsay couldn’t threaten a gnat!”
“Then why did they cross swords? Perhaps I was wrong in choice of sibling. Perhaps they fought a duel over you?”
This made Simon laugh heartily. “Me? Much you know about your brother! He loathes our kind with a passion bordering on lunacy. He hated Belsay more than most.”
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with Jack’s visits to a particular club above an apothecary’s shop?”
Simon’s brow puckered for a moment then he smiled. “You’d be surprised how many fine, upstanding gentlemen of good birth and character indulge in all sorts of deviant behavior. The Ganymede Club was just one such club catering to every taste and perversion, and populated with the likes of your drawing room crowd downstairs.” He took another pinch of snuff, a sidelong glance at Alec. “Your new valet tell you what happened?”
“Tha
t the gaming hell and club were raided and the apothecary Dobbs strung up for sodomy, a crime for which, his apprentice is convinced, he was wrongly convicted.”
Simon Tremarton shrugged his indifference. “Someone had to fall and, luckily for the rest of us, Dobbs was at hand.”
“You’ve no remorse—”
“Remorse?”
“That an innocent man was hanged for a crime he did not commit.”
Simon pulled a face full of disgust. “For God’s sake, Halsey, the man was one rung above a muckraker. Better he than one of us.”
Alec wrenched open the door onto the passageway. “You’re despicable and conscienceless. Get out before I wring your neck!”
But Simon Tremarton was infuriatingly calm and hovered in the middle of the Turkey rug. He produced a yellowed envelope from an inner pocket of his frockcoat and held this up. “For three thousand pounds you can have this letter. It proves your brother murdered Jack Belsay and why.”
“I’ll not pay you a penny for it. Get out.”
“No matter,” said Simon with a sigh and pocketed the envelope. “I’ll squeeze five thousand out of our dear Earl. He can’t afford not to agree to my terms.” And with a flourish bowed. “If you’re not careful I shall ask you for the first minuet!” he called out from the passageway. “Au revoir, mon beau.”
Alec slammed the door so hard it shook on its hinges. He paced the room, a hand to his hair, hoping the anger would burn itself out before he did damage to an inanimate object, and very possibly his hand. Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement and looked round with a jerk to find Sir Cosmo lounging sheepishly in the doorway that connected sitting room to dressing room.
“I see your valet has a turn for chemistry,” he said conversationally. “Heard the commotion out in the corridor and thought you might need a hand. Wandered in and found the lad hunched over all sorts of scientific apparatus. He was telling me about his apprenticeship as an apothecary. Interesting lad. Good of you to let him continue to mess about.”
“Yes, and having an apothecary’s apprentice as a valet is rather odd. I know. But there you have it. Frankly, Cosmo, it’s a long and complicated story for which I don’t have the patience or the time to appraise you.”
Deadly Engagement: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) Page 19