Mystery Loves Company

by Sheri Cobb South

  Seeing the appreciative gleam in his eye, Julia spun around in a little pirouette that made her skirts flare out, exposing trim ankles in white silk stockings. “Do you like it?”

  “I like it,” he said emphatically. “Can’t we just stay here tonight, so I can appreciate it in private?”

  “Lady Washbourn might have something to say about that,” she reminded him. “Don’t forget your hat,” she added as he turned, bareheaded, away from the mirror.

  He gave her a speaking look which left her in no doubt as to his opinion of the wide-brimmed black hat with its jaunty red ostrich plume, then snatched it off the chair and set it on his head. He felt for the hilt of his sword, just to assure himself that it was still there, then offered his arm to his lady and escorted her down the stairs.

  Rogers waited at the front door, beaming paternally upon them. “Very nice, sir, madam, if I may say so.”

  “Thank you, Rogers, you may,” Julia said, smiling mischievously at the butler.

  He threw open the door with great ceremony, revealing the closed carriage that was already awaiting them. Pickett handed Julia inside and then climbed in after her, albeit not without banging his sword on the doorframe.

  “Do you realize,” she said, once the carriage started forward, “we haven’t made a social appearance in London together since that night at the theatre?”

  “Probably not the best comparison, when you consider that the theatre burned to the ground that night,” Pickett observed.

  She smiled at him. “You acquitted yourself rather well on that occasion, if I recall.”

  “I didn’t have much choice, did I?”

  They could laugh about it now, the harrowing escape from the balcony of the burning building, the blow to his head that had left Pickett unconscious for the better part of a week, and Julia’s adventures in fending for herself (and him) in a two-room flat without servants or any of the amenities to which she was accustomed. And Pickett could hardly regret the experience, given the fact that during that time Julia had decided, against every stricture of the class to which she belonged, that she wanted to remain his wife, and in more than name. Still, it could not be much of a life for her, cut off from the fashionable world of which she had once been a part. Small wonder that she had seized with such enthusiasm upon the opportunity to attend a ball! For that reason alone, he supposed it was worth making a fool of himself in fancy dress.

  “I hope you will enjoy yourself,” he told her. “I wish I could spend more time with you, but I’m afraid Lord Washbourn’s movements will dictate my own.”

  “Will you have to follow him the entire evening?” She wrinkled her nose. “How tedious for you!”

  “ ‘Follow’ is probably too strong a word,” he said, considering the question. “I can’t appear to be tailing him too closely, lest he notice and get the wind up, but I will certainly have to keep my eye on him. I’ll need to keep a weather eye out for Lady Washbourn, too; both of the earlier attempts—assuming they were attempts, and not merely unfortunate accidents—were carefully orchestrated to take place when Lord Washbourn was nowhere near, and could not be connected to them.”

  “And yet Lady Washbourn managed to connect him. John, you will be careful won’t you? I’m glad you’ll have a sword, anyway.”

  It was probably not the best time to mention that he’d had no training at all in fencing. “Swords wouldn’t be much use against falling chandeliers or strategically placed pearls on the stairs,” he pointed out.

  She grimaced. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “No.” He caught her arm to steady her as the carriage lurched to a stop before the Washbourns’ Park Lane residence. “It’s to remind you to keep your wits about you. Falling chandeliers aren’t particularly choosy about whom they land on, and I may not be there to protect you.”

  A liveried footman opened the door at that moment, rendering further private conversation impossible. Still, Julia tucked her hand into the curve of his elbow once they had disembarked, and gave his arm a little squeeze. Pickett interpreted this unspoken message (quite correctly) as a warning to him to heed his own advice.

  At the top of the stairs, they were admitted to the house, where Julia divested herself of her evening cloak and Pickett shed his plumed hat before they followed a stout King Henry VIII and one of his queens (Pickett was not quite certain which one she was supposed to be, although the red “bloodstains” on her starched ruff suggested her fate) up yet another flight of stairs to the ballroom above. Here Lord and Lady Washbourn waited to receive their guests, along with a somewhat older lady who bore a marked resemblance to his lordship.

  As the event was a masquerade, guests were not announced, anonymity being (as Julia said) half the fun. Instead, the new arrivals presented their engraved invitations to the butler in order to be granted admittance. Unfortunately, the invitations had gone out weeks before Lady Washbourn had sent to Bow Street, and so she had been obliged to drop a word in her butler’s ear to ensure that the Picketts, man and wife, were not turned away at the door in spite of their lack of an invitation. Now, as they reached the top of the stairs, Pickett had only to inform this individual of his identity to be ushered at once to his hostess.

  “Mr. and Mrs. John Pickett, my lady,” murmured the butler, in accordance with the instructions he had received earlier in the day.

  “Mr. Pickett, I’m so glad you could come,” Lady Washbourn, charmingly attired in the guise of a rosy-cheeked milkmaid of the previous century, greeted him warmly before turning to Julia. “And Mrs. Pickett, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. May I offer my felicitations on your recent marriage?”

  “Mr. Pickett.” Lord Washbourn had eschewed a costume (lucky man, thought Pickett) in favor of a long black domino and black half-mask. The eyes that glittered through the slits seemed to regard Pickett with some misgiving, but the earl shook his hand nevertheless. “Since she lost those blasted rubies, my wife has taken the idea into her head that there’s some jewel thief lurking about waiting for the chance to strip our guests bare of their baubles. I appreciate your willingness to humor her in this matter, but I trust your professional services will not be needed.”

  Pickett stammered something about prevention being better than cure.

  “I think it very wise of you, Lady Washbourn,” Julia said warmly. “One can never be too careful.”

  “Quite so, Mrs. Pickett,” put in the older woman standing beside her hostess, a tall, slender female who appeared even taller in the flowing gown and great horned and veiled headdress of a medieval lady.

  “Mother Washbourn, allow me to present Mr. and Mrs. John Pickett. Mr. Pickett, Mrs. Pickett, my husband’s mother, the Dowager Countess of Washbourn.”

  “La, my dear, that title makes me sound so old!” the dowager protested laughingly as she offered Pickett her hand, upon which a great red stone winked. “Had Edward chosen a less agreeable female to marry, I must have been quite cross with him for taking a bride and relegating me to dowager status.”

  Pickett had put the woman’s age at about forty, but now he realized that, if she were indeed Lord Washbourn’s mother, she must be at least fifty, and very likely more. He found himself mentally contrasting her with his own mother-in-law; Julia’s mother, Lady Runyon, was a tiny woman whose head didn’t even reach his shoulder, and whose figure was so frail she looked as if a strong wind might blow her away. She was also the most terrifying woman he had ever met. Looking into the elder Lady Washbourn’s smiling eyes, he hoped the younger knew how fortunate she was.

  A fat Friar Tuck, red-faced from his climb up the stairs, “harrumphed” behind them, and so the Picketts were obliged to cut short their conversation and free their host and hostesses to greet the new arrivals. Once inside the ballroom, Pickett blinked at the transformation of the room he had stood in only a few days earlier. The scorched carpet had not been replaced, but then, the carpet laid down to protect the floor at other times would have been rolled
up on this occasion to permit dancing. The chandelier overhead, apparently none the worse for its recent adventures, glowed with the light of dozens of wax candles, while at the far end of the room, massive floral arrangements adorned Ionic pillars strategically placed to conceal the small orchestra providing music from a raised dais.

  More remarkable than the decorations, however, were the guests that milled about the crowded room. A harlequin in motley performed the complicated movements of the quadrille with a nun whose severe black habit contrasted sharply with the jeweled cross that bounced on her breast with every step, while a Turkish sultan in a feather-topped turban was similarly partnered with a well-endowed angel whose broad, sequined wings caused no small degree of inconvenience to the other couples in the set. Some of the costumed guests declined to dance altogether. A Roman centurion paused in his conversation with Cleopatra long enough to snag a glass of champagne from the tray of a liveried footman, while on the other side of the room, a crusading knight in silver cloth cleverly constructed to resemble armor paid extravagant court to a Greek goddess wearing a clinging linen chiton with very little underneath it. As Pickett watched, an Egyptian Pharaoh separated himself from the crowd and approached the place where they stood.

  “Madame, your most obedient,” the Pharaoh addressed Julia, making an elaborate leg. “Will you allow me the infinite pleasure of being the first to lead you onto the floor?”

  Insufferable ass, thought Pickett, even as he answered Julia’s silent query with smiling acquiescence. Too late, he realized that he had let himself in for a long night of observing Lord Washbourn from a discreet distance while watching out of the tail of his eye as men in various disguises attempted to practice the promised “licentious behavior” with his wife.

  “I fear I must beg your pardon, Mr. Pickett,” Lady Washbourn observed, joining him against the wall. “I had not realized how very dull this must be for you, not being able to join in the dancing.”

  “It is your safety, not my own amusement, that concerns me,” he assured her. “As for the dancing, I don’t know how in any case, so it is a relief to be excused.”

  She nodded in understanding. “Papa engaged a dancing master for me when I was seventeen, but I have never become entirely comfortable with it. Perhaps if I had begun earlier—” She broke off, shrugging. “I suppose it is just as well that I can claim my duties as hostess as an excuse.”

  They were joined at that moment by Lord Washbourn, bearing a glass of pale champagne in one hand and another of a somewhat darker beverage in the other. “Accept my compliments, my dear,” he said, offering the amber-colored liquid to his wife. “You have surpassed yourself. It is a splendid party.”

  She accepted the glass with thanks. “Do you really think so?” she asked, her fine grey eyes filled with mingled hope and fear.

  “I’m sure of it. I overheard no fewer than five ladies speculating as to the name of the florist who created the magnificent arrangements adorning those pillars, and I have no doubt that come tomorrow morning, they will be lined up at our door to inquire. Will you tell them the truth, my dear, or will it amuse you to keep the information to yourself, and send them chasing after mares’ nests by naming some fellow who doesn’t exist?”

  “As if I could be so cruel! If they ask, I will furnish them with his name and direction, and take their interest as a compliment.”

  The earl unbent sufficiently to smile down at her. “Somehow I expected nothing less of you. All the ladies of the ton could take a lesson from your kind heart.”

  Blushing rosily, Lady Washbourn covered her confusion by seeking recourse to the glass in her hand. Her lips had scarcely touched the rim when an interruption occurred in the form of a serving girl in a starched and ruffled cap.

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” she said, twisting in her hands the white apron covering her dark dress, “but Lady Carrington has fainted.”

  “Oh, dear!” Lady Washbourn set her glass down on a nearby table. “Where is she?”

  “One of the footmen fetched her into the ladies’ retiring room and laid her on the sofa. It seemed better than just leaving her there on the floor,” she added apologetically.

  “Yes, he did exactly right. I shall go there at once. In the meantime, Annie, go upstairs and have my abigail bring my smelling salts.”

  Annie bobbed a curtsy and took herself off. A short time later, Pickett saw Lady Washbourn return to the ballroom with one arm tucked solicitously beneath the elbow of a pale female who appeared not only unharmed by her ordeal, but actively relishing the attention it had won her, as those guests who were aware of the crisis flocked around to inquire as to her health. Shaking his head at the vagaries of gently bred females, Pickett turned his attention back to the task at hand, and found Lord Washbourn leading the scantily-clad goddess into the set just forming.

  As the night wore on and the champagne flowed more freely, the behavior of the guests grew more abandoned: the voices more boisterous, the dancing more reckless, the flirtations more brazen. Pickett, allowing himself nothing stronger to drink than the very mild peach ratafia flavored with almonds, watched as Lord Washbourn led one lady after another into the increasingly rowdy sets (including, on two occasions, Julia, her face becomingly flushed with champagne or exertion, Pickett was not quite sure which), but saw no actions on his host’s part that might be considered suspicious, either of murderous intent toward his lordship’s own wife, or amorous interest in Pickett’s.

  And then, just as he had decided the entire evening was a waste of time, and wondered how long it might be before he could collect Julia and return with her to Curzon Street, he realized the set was over and the dancers were dispersing—and Lord Washbourn, whom he had last seen partnering the angel with the large, er, wings, was nowhere in sight.

  Grumbling under his breath, he pushed his way through the crowd in search of his host, to the considerable displeasure of those persons whom he accidentally whacked in the shins with his sword. He recalled the numerous small alcoves that lined the perimeter of the ballroom and, seeing no sign of Lord Washbourn anywhere else, charted a rather circuitous course for the nearest of these when his sword once again made violent contact with one of his fellow guests.

  “Pardon me,” a feminine voice said coldly, turning to glare at him. Upon getting a good look at her attacker, however, she took a step toward him, and her eyes took on a rapacious gleam. “Pardon me!” she said again, in a rather warmer tone.

  “I—I beg your—I’m sorry,” Pickett stammered, falling back a step, as he recognized the insufficiently garmented Greek goddess. “I didn’t mean to—it’s this sword—I’m not used to it—”

  “What a waste,” she purred, giving Pickett to understand that she was less concerned with the sword in his belt than she was the one in his breeches.

  She closed the distance between them with another step in his direction, and once again Pickett fell back—and found his shoulders brushing the blue velvet curtain that closed off the small anteroom from the ballroom proper.

  “Who are you?” she asked, reaching up as if she would untie his mask then and there. “I’ve never met you before, have I? I’m sure I would remember.”

  “That—that would be telling,” Pickett said, casting a desperate glance over her shoulder, for Lord Washbourn, or Julia, or anyone else who might rescue him from the predatory Persephone who was now pressing her insufficiently contained breasts against his chest.

  “Is that your real hair?” she cooed appreciatively, running her fingers through his unbound curls. “Have you the least notion how many hours I spend with my hair tied in rags to make it curl like that?”

  “No, I—I can’t say that I do.” Having caught sight of Julia across the room, Pickett strove without success to catch her eye.

  “So much time that could be better spent,” she continued, gently but inexorably backing Pickett through the curtain and into the alcove.

  “You—you don’t understand,” he protested,
trying (and failing) to keep the determined Diana at arm’s length. “I’m married.”

  “Lud, so am I! What difference does that make? Come along now, sweeting, and you can show me your sword!”

  One more step, and the light suddenly grew dim. Pickett realized with something akin to horror that they were now completely enclosed within the antechamber, and the heavy curtain had fallen into place behind them, blocking out the light from the ballroom. He wondered fleetingly, as the amorous Aphrodite set upon him in earnest, if it would also stifle the sound of his screams.

  No sooner had the idea formed in his brain than a high-pitched shriek rose over the muffled sounds of music and conversation beyond the curtain, and for one dreadful moment, Pickett feared the thought had given birth to the deed. An instant’s reflection was enough to reassure him on this head and, finding the interruption had momentarily distracted the goddess from her single-minded pursuit of his person, he seized the opportunity to free himself. Tossing a hasty “excuse me” over his shoulder, he ducked through the curtain, and found most of the Washbourns’ guests huddled in one corner of the room. He hurried to join the crowd, making a beeline for a familiar figure in a blue satin gown.

  “There you are!” exclaimed Julia in some relief, finding him at her elbow. “Where have you been?”

  “Hell,” was his emphatic reply. “What happened? Who screamed?”

  “I don’t know. That is, I don’t know who screamed, but as to what happened, it’s one of Lady Washbourn’s maids. John, she’s dead!

  5

  In Which a Masquerade Ball

  Comes to an Abrupt End

  “Stay here, my lady.”

  Pickett set his wife gently aside, then pushed his way to the front of the crowd, whacking several people in the legs with his sword (quite deliberately this time) in order to clear a path. A petite young woman—or what was left of her—lay facedown on the floor near the wall. Beneath her, and apparently brought down by her fall, a small table had tumbled onto its side, littering the floor with broken glass, spilled liquid, and stained table linens.