Mystery Loves Company

by Sheri Cobb South

  Mr. Granger regarded him with narrowed eyes. “I said you hadn’t changed, but I was wrong. There is something different about you. Your speech is part of it—my Sophy, bless her, has never quite got the hang of talking like the nobs, although it appears you’ve taken to it readily enough—but there’s something else, too. Or maybe it’s just that you left here as a boy, and now you’ve come back a man.” He wagged his head regretfully. “I should have made Colquhoun pay me fifty pounds for your release, like I asked, or else refused him outright and kept you for my Sophy.”

  Pickett had known that Mr. Colquhoun had paid generously in order to persuade Mr. Granger to release him from his apprenticeship, but he felt compelled to protest this casual assumption that his master could have ordered his future so easily. “I’m not a lapdog!”

  Mr. Granger chuckled, and his belly shook. “No, but I’ll wager there was a time you’d have come to heel readily enough at Sophy’s bidding.”

  Pickett couldn’t deny it, but neither did he like being reminded of the fact. “Yes, well, as you said, that was a long time ago. But why would you wish Sophy had married me, when you’ve got, what did you say, the fourth son of a duke for a son-in-law? Is she not happy with him?”

  “Oh, she’s as merry as a grig, but—”

  His account of Sophy’s marriage was interrupted when the door opened, and the lady herself flounced into the room. “Papa, Smithers says—” She broke off abruptly at the sight of her father’s visitor. “John!”

  Pickett had stood at her entrance, just has he would have for any lady, and now executed a little bow. “It’s been a long time, Sophy.”

  She gave him a coy smile as she offered her hand. “Actually, I’m called Sophia now.” She pronounced it with a long “i,” so that it rhymed with “pariah,” which was what Julia had become when she’d married him.

  His first impression was that Sophy had not changed much, but a closer inspection proved that this assumption, like her father’s impressions regarding himself, was erroneous. Her glossy black hair, once worn simply and fetchingly in loose curls, was now crimped into ringlets according to the latest fashion, and her demure schoolgirl dresses had yielded to stylish gowns lavishly bedecked with ribbons and lace. Nineteen-year-old John Pickett might have been dazzled by this display of wealth, but then, nineteen-year-old John Pickett had not yet met Julia, Lady Fieldhurst, who had worn the severest black mourning with more grace and elegance than Sophia, Lady Gerald Broadbridge, in all her modish attire.

  More telling than Sophy’s clothes, however, was her face. Sophy—or rather, Lady Gerald—was still a very attractive woman, but the black eyes that had once sparkled with mischief had grown hard and calculating, and lines of discontent now bracketed her mouth.

  “You are called Sophia?” Pickett echoed in surprise. “Your father had given me to understand that you were called Lady Gerald Broadbridge.”

  “Oh, that!” she flapped one hand as if to rap him on the arm with an imaginary fan. “I’m sure we need not stand on ceremony, John, such old friends as we are. After all, if it hadn’t been for my dear Gerry, I might have been called Mrs. Pickett.”

  “Speaking of which,” her father put in, “is there another female of that name?”

  “There is,” Pickett said with some satisfaction, and found himself wishing he’d dressed for the day in some of the new clothes his wife had given him.

  “You’re married?” Sophy’s mouth tightened in displeasure, deepening the creases in her cheeks.

  “Congratulations, my boy!” exclaimed Mr. Granger, seizing his hand and shaking it with enthusiasm. “How long has it been?”

  Pickett was not quite certain how to answer. Should the length of the marriage be calculated from October, when he and Julia had claimed to be husband and wife as a matter of expedience, not realizing that in Scotland such a claim might constitute a marriage by declaration? Or should he date it from the end of February, when they had thrown away all the arrangements that had been made for obtaining an annulment, and consummated the union?

  “Not quite two months,” he said, opting for the latter.

  “Still newlyweds, in fact,” Mr. Granger observed. “Well, I hope you and Mrs. Pickett will be very happy.”

  “Thank you, sir, we are.”

  “But who is your wife?” Sophy demanded in dulcet tones belied by her brittle smile. “Someone I know? One of the downstairs maids, perhaps? I always suspected Betty, the second chambermaid, of casting lures in your direction.”

  “If she did, I never knew of it. No, my wife is the former Lady Fieldhurst, widow of the sixth viscount of that name,” Pickett said, trying unsuccessfully to keep the smugness in his voice to a minimum.

  “A lady? Do you mean to say you’ve married a lady?” Sophy had never been one to conceal her feelings, and her consternation was all too clear for a moment, until she recollected herself and gave a little titter of laughter. “How strange to think that, if we were all invited to the same dinner party, I should take precedence over your viscountess.”

  He knew exactly what she was about, but found he had no interest in playing the sort of games in which she apparently still delighted. “I’m afraid you’re fair and far off there, Sophy.”

  “I can assure you, I’m right,” she insisted, thrusting out her full lower lip in a pout. “Younger sons of dukes take precedence over viscounts, and so their wives take precedence over viscountesses. I’ve made quite a study of these things, you know.”

  Of that, Pickett had no doubt; in fact, he wouldn’t have been in the least surprised to learn that she had picked out her husband from the pages of Debrett’s Peerage. “But my wife is no longer a viscountess,” he pointed out. “She is now Mrs. John Pickett, and seems happy with her new title, humble though it is.”

  “Oh, I see!” Sophy exclaimed, brightening. “But it is quite cruel of you to tease me so. What a pity that women become ladies when they marry lords, but men do not become lords when they marry ladies! Then you could be ‘Lord John.’ Wouldn’t that be droll?”

  “Hilarious,” muttered Pickett, and rose to take his leave, citing his need to return to Bow Street.

  “I say, John,” put in her father, “I wonder if you would be willing to take Patrick Colquhoun a copy of the Observer I promised him. I know he takes an avid interest in manufacturing, and there’s an article on cotton production I think he’ll find interesting.”

  Pickett nodded. “I would be glad to, sir.”

  “One moment, then, while I fetch it from my study.”

  “That’s what you have servants for, Papa,” Sophy scolded him.

  “Nonsense! I can get it myself in less time than it would take to summon a footman and tell him where to look.”

  Suiting the word to the deed, he took himself off, leaving Pickett alone with his first love for the first time in six years.

  “Allow me to offer my belated felicitations on your marriage,” he said, breaking the strained silence. “You said you would marry a lord, and you did.”

  “Yes, but—oh John, I’ve been so unhappy!” she cried, casting herself onto his chest.

  “Unhappy?” Under the pretext of looking her in the eye, he seized her by her upper arms and pried her loose from his chest—no easy task, since she clutched the lapels of his coat with both hands. “Whatever happened to ‘dear Gerry’?”

  “I had to say so for Papa’s sake,” she insisted. “He paid out so much to allow me to marry a lord, you know. But Gerry is simply ancient—forty-five if he’s a day—and I need so desperately to be loved by a man my own age. Oh John, you know I have never truly loved anyone but you!”

  Pickett suspected Sophy had never truly loved anyone but Sophy, but as he had no desire to provoke further histrionics, he refrained from saying so. Besides, he could hardly fault her for hypocrisy when he had been no better; from a distance of six years, he could look back and realize that it was not Sophy he had loved, but what she had represented: prosperity and respect
ability wrapped in a lovely and vivacious package. It had been a rude awakening, but he’d eventually discovered that her vivacity hid a streak of cruelty, and her respectability was only the thinnest of veneers overlaying the soul of a courtesan.

  “Anything between us was over long ago,” he said gently but firmly, resisting the urge to point out that it had been her own ambition that ended it. “We’re not the same people we were then. You’re married now, and so am I.”

  “Yes!” She seized with desperation upon this change in their circumstances. “Gerry is a fourth son, so I am under no obligation to provide heirs of his blood. We’ve made our brilliant matches, you and I, and now we can please ourselves!”

  “I think you mistake the matter, Sophy. I might have made a brilliant match, but I married Julia because I love her. I would have married her even if she’d had nothing.”

  “Hmph!” Sophy snatched her arm free of his grasp, then withdrew an embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at suspiciously dry eyes. “That I can readily believe, for you always were a romantic fool.”

  “If marrying for love and being faithful to one’s spouse is being a romantic fool, then I suppose I must plead guilty.”

  Before Sophy could make some fresh attack, the door opened and her father entered the room bearing a folded broadsheet. Pickett didn’t see how his former master could fail to notice Sophy’s flushed cheeks or the angry glint in her eyes, but then, for all his business acumen, Mr. Granger had always been astoundingly obtuse where his daughter was concerned.

  “Here we are,” the merchant declared cheerfully, handing over the paper. “Give this to him with my compliments, and tell him to take all the time he needs with it.”

  “I will, sir,” Pickett promised. He took his leave of Mr. Granger, who wrung his hand in farewell, and Sophy, who shot daggers at him with her hard black eyes, and felt a stab of pity for both of them: for Mr. Granger, whose daughter would never live up to her father’s rosy imaginings, and for Sophy, who, though she might marry a dozen lords, would never, ever, be a lady.

  11

  In Which John Pickett Must Pay the Piper

  After leaving the Granger residence, Pickett returned to Bow Street. He had much to think about on the walk, and very little of it concerned the Washbourn case. Upon entering the Bow Street Public Office, he waited until Mr. Colquhoun was free, then approached the magistrate’s bench and handed the journal over the rail.

  “Mr. Granger sends his compliments, sir, along with this. It contains an article on cotton production he said he’d promised you.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember. So you’ve been to see Elias Granger, have you? Since you’re on duty, I’m assuming it wasn’t merely a social call.”

  “No, sir, I was learning what I could about the intricacies of marrying a daughter of industry into the aristocracy.”

  “And?” prompted the magistrate.

  Pickett shook his head. “Little of use, I’m afraid. I wondered why Lady Washbourn refuses to leave her husband, even though she may be putting her life in danger by staying with him. I can’t help feeling there’s something she’s not telling me. After talking to Mr. Granger, I suspect Lord Washbourn holds the purse-strings so tightly that she can’t escape, even on peril of her life.”

  “I daresay she isn’t the only woman in that unhappy position. Not that there are that many homicidal husbands—at least one must hope not—but there are certainly more than a few women who are forced to endure cruel treatment from the men they married, and with little legal recourse available to them.”

  Pickett, leaning against the wooden rail, offered no response beyond a distracted nod. Mr. Colquhoun peered closely at him.

  “Is something troubling you, John?”

  “Not ‘troubling,’ exactly. It’s only that, well, Sophy Granger was there visiting her father, and—” He broke off abruptly, and looked beseechingly up at his mentor. “Sir, tell me I didn’t make a fool of myself over that girl!”

  A hint of a twinkle lurked in the too-perceptive blue eyes. “You want me to lie to you?”

  Pickett groaned. “I did, didn’t I?” It was an acknowledgement, not a question.

  “We all do at one time or another. Why should you be any different from every other man?”

  Pickett regarded the magistrate with mingled admiration and resentment. “I can’t imagine you being so taken in.”

  “Only because my temporary insanity took place long ago, and an ocean away in Virginia, so the few remaining witnesses can’t bear tales.” His expression grew distant, and his eyes took on a reminiscent gleam. “Good Lord, she must be sixty years old by now.”

  “Sophy Granger is very much present in London,” Pickett said. “Only she’s called ‘Sophia’ now—that is, when she isn’t being called ‘Lady Gerald Broadbridge.’ ”

  “Bah!” Mr. Colquhoun gave a snort of derision. “His grace of Aldrington has five sons, and every one of them is a bigger fool than the one before. If that was what Miss Granger wanted, I’d say she got no more than she deserved.”

  “I should say rather that Lord Gerald has earned every farthing he got from the marriage settlement,” said Pickett, with feeling.

  “As for your falling under Miss Granger’s spell, John, don’t take it so much to heart,” Mr. Colquhoun advised. “It was five years ago—”

  “Six,” put in Pickett, determined to distance himself from his youthful folly as much as possible.

  “Six, then. And under the circumstances, I should say it was almost inevitable. Miss Granger could be quite fetching when she made up her mind to it—how else did she manage to keep her father wrapped around her finger all those years?—while you were of an age ripe for falling in love, and no more likely candidate in sight. At least you stopped short of actually marrying her.”

  “Not for lack of trying.” He shuddered at the thought.

  “Ah, well, she wouldn’t have you then, and she can’t have you now, so there’s no harm done. What do you intend to do next?”

  “Kiss the hem of my wife’s garment,” replied Pickett without hesitation.

  Mr. Colquhoun gave a bark of laughter, which made two Runners on the other side of the room look up from their own conversation. “I meant what do you intend to do on the case, young Lochinvar! Mind you, whatever you may choose to kiss on your own time is your own affair.”

  “Oh,” Pickett said, blushing.

  “You are on a case, you know,” the magistrate reminded him with mock severity.

  “Yes, sir.” Pickett looked up at him suddenly, and grinned. “Maybe I should introduce Lord Washbourn to Lady Gerald Broadbridge. He’ll learn to appreciate his countess, once he sees what he might have got instead.”

  * * *

  While he stopped short of actually kissing the hem of her garment, Pickett did greet Julia that evening with even more warmth than usual, continuing to hold her close long after he would normally have released her in order to dress for dinner.

  “What’s all this?” she asked, making no very visible effort to free herself from his embrace.

  “Nothing, only—I love you, Julia. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I’d had my suspicions,” she said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. Her smile invited him to share in the joke, but he spoke again in the same serious tone.

  “I would have married you even if you were as poor as I am,” he insisted.

  “I have never doubted your love for me, John, not even for a moment,” she assured him with mingled affection and exasperation. “You proved it a hundred times over, before you ever spoke the words. Darling, what is the matter?”

  He shook his head in an attempt to banish Sophy from his thoughts. “Don’t mind me. I’m not making much progress on this case, that’s all.”

  “I’m glad of that,” she said flippantly.

  “You’re glad?”

  “For a moment there, I thought you’d found another woman.” Seeing guilt writ large upon h
is expressive countenance, she exclaimed, “John! Who is she? Not Lady Washbourn, I presume?”

  “No, she isn’t Lady Washbourn—that is, I haven’t found another woman—at least, not exactly.” Realizing he was digging himself deeper with every word, he broke off and started over. “I wanted to pursue a line of inquiry that took me to the home of an old acquaintance. Before Mr. Colquhoun brought me to Bow Street, he arranged for me to be apprenticed to a coal merchant—”

  “Yes, I know all about that,” she said, nodding.

  “You do?”

  “Mr. Colquhoun told me while we were in Scotland.”

  Pickett frowned. “It wasn’t his story to tell.”

  “On the contrary, he had your best interests at heart. He thought I was trifling with your affections, and warned me to keep my distance.”

  “Oh,” Pickett said, rather taken aback by this revelation. “I’m glad you didn’t listen, anyway.”

  “But what were you saying? About the coal merchant, I mean.”

  “What? Oh yes—Sophy. As I was saying, I was apprenticed to a coal merchant. He had a daughter my age—still has, for that matter—and when I was young”—she smiled at the implication that his youth lay in the dim and distant past—“well, I guess you could say I lost my head over her.”

  “Did you?” she asked, wide-eyed at this unknown and entirely unexpected chapter of his history. “What happened?”

  “She told me in no uncertain terms that she had set her sights on bigger things.”

  “Oh, poor John!”

  “Believe me, it was the best thing she could have done,” he added hastily, “but it didn’t feel that way when I was nineteen.”

  “Of course it didn’t!” Her voice was warmly sympathetic as she took his arm and led him toward the stairs. “But will you think me very selfish if I say I’m grateful to her for leaving you for me? I feel I should send her flowers, or something. Will you have to call on her again?”