The Devil in Beauty: A Lord Trevelin Mystery (The Lord Trevelin Mysteries Book 1)

by Ashworth, Heidi

  He gave a short nod in acknowledgement, whereupon I quit the room. As I departed, I picked up a black armband from a supply on the hall table and drew it over my arm. Then I made my way across the square to the abode of Lady Vawdrey. The armband spoke of despair, just as my brisk stride proclaimed hope for Willy’s release and the reformation of my reputation.

  Chapter Five

  I was admitted to Hampton House by the stony-faced butler, and led directly upstairs to the salon with nary a request for a card to identify myself; it seemed that my arrival was anticipated. Once I stepped into her presence, I quickly ascertained that Lady Vawdrey was distraught despite her valiant effort to hide it from the other occupants of the room, which included Rey. To my distaste, Throckmorton stood in his usual place behind his mistress’ chair, his hand on her shoulder. It was a gesture most possessive, and I wondered what it was he feared.

  “I am delighted,” I said to the room at large, trusting Rey to interpret my words as for him alone.

  “And to think I expected to find you more surprised than otherwise,” Lady Vawdrey said with a smile broader than I had been accustomed to receiving of late.

  “Shall we say that I am equal parts surprised and delighted,” I said with a wary glance at Rey.

  “Such pretense, my lord! I assure you that you needn’t uphold it for my sake,” Lady Vawdrey insisted. “The good señyor has kept me apprised of all of your doings.”

  “All of them?” I could not at that moment identify the emotion that filled me at her words, though I daresay betrayal was at the heart of it. “I should think a lady of your discernment should find such a recital more than a little tedious.”

  “Well,” she said with a lofty air, “he only shared the pertinent events. I should enjoy hearing your impression of them. When we are satisfied that all is being done on that score I shall inform you as to why it is, precisely, that I have requested your presence.”

  I looked again to Rey. His expression resembled nothing so much as a dog who had watered the carpet for no better reason than that he could not be bothered to do otherwise. I, however, was perversely pleased that he perceived the wrong he had done in apprising Lady Vawdrey of our activities. “I see. Shall we begin with what our good friend here has learned this morning? Or, dear señyor, did you find that your quarry had departed before you arrived?” I hoped I did not sound as bitter as I felt.

  “Si and no, my lord. Yes, I did find my quarry and no, he had not left before I arrived. I laid in wait as you requested and followed him a great distance. I have only just returned.”

  “How is that? I am persuaded that I saw you lurking in the shadows when I arrived at Gilbert House less than a half hour past.”

  “My lord, if I may speak,” Throckmorton intoned. “I believe it must have been me whom you saw.” He spoke very precisely, but with what seemed an unaccountable effort. “I was on my way to Canning House with my lady’s message for you, but when I saw you on the pavement I knew not what to do.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Throckmorton,” I said with as much approval as I could muster. “You did very well. Now, would you be so good as to leave us?”

  Throckmorton turned his disarming violet gaze on his mistress. “Is that your wish as well, my lady?”

  “Yes, dear.” She threw a claw-like hand over his where it rested on her shoulder. “You may be assured that I shall inform you of whatever I feel is needful.”

  “Very good, my lady,” he murmured, in tones quite at odds with the malevolent glare he cast at me, and quit the room.

  “Please do have a seat, Trevelin,” Lady Vawdrey insisted, “and let us put aside our differences for the sake of your friend.”

  “Ours?” I echoed in some disbelief. “The only differences I have with you are the abundance of picked bones you have made of my person in recent months. But, as you say, I am able to let bygones be bygones as well as any.”

  “And what of me?” Rey ventured. “Are my bones to be picked for my indiscreció?”

  “Not at all, my friend,” I murmured as I took up a chair across from them both. “I find it odious.”

  “Very well, then,” Lady Vawdrey said with a lift of her chin, “I shall take no notice of your insolence. Shall we discover what Señyor Rey has learned from his spying this morning?”

  I raised my brow at him. “You have told her much already, I think.”

  “She rises early, my lord, and it is most difficult to resist her questions, especially when one’s stomach is devoid of contents,” he explained, his face wan.

  “My dear Señyor Rey!” Lady Vawdrey crooned as she very nearly jumped to her feet in her haste to pull the bell. I shall have sustenance brought immediatamente!”

  “No, no, no!” he said in a voice less kind than I had ever before heard him utter. “That is the Spanish. If you wish to speak Catalan, you must forget that you ever had ears for the Spanish! Immediatament, immediatament, immediatament!”

  “What is this?” I looked at Rey in astonishment. “You cannot be teaching Lady Vawdrey to speak your native tongue!”

  “Why can he not?” she asked as she drew herself fully upright, causing her already-lofty form to take on new heights. “Do you expect me too dull to learn?”

  “Not at all,” I insisted. I dared not voice aloud the reason for my disapproval. A man such as I suspected Rey to be did not stoop to teaching language lessons. “I merely supposed him to be unencumbered during the course of his visit to England.”

  “His visit to England, my lord,” she said crisply, “has all to do with my lessons in Catalan. He is a language tutor. I am surprised he did not inform you of this at the outset.”

  Since I suspected Rey was in England to win the heart of a certain petite, large-dowered young lady, I felt her statement to be, at most, partially true. “Perhaps he felt it was not his place to tell such a tale,” I suggested. Certainly, he would have no wish for Miss Woodmansey to get wind of how financially distressed a Spanish gentleman must find himself to embark on such a career.

  “He is most correct, my lady,” Rey agreed. I did not know whether you wished to have such talk bandied about.”

  “Very correct, señyor. I applaud your good sense. Now! Do tell us what you have learned this morning. Ah! But see; here is Hoagland now.” She turned to the newly-arrived butler and ordered a tray of food for her guest. She took no care to ask if I required anything. I thought I did not, but soon regretted having not requested anything.

  “Very well, then! We are finally alone and ready to hear your tale.”

  Rey looked to be relieved, a circumstance for which I could hardly blame him. If I were he, I should have no wish to share my thoughts on how my profession might fail to impress Miss Woodmansey. I felt grateful I was not in such a position, then recalled the scar that symbolized the earning of my reputation and felt myself humbled.

  “As you may have guessed,” Rey began, “I went without my breakfast so as to be across the square very early. I wished to be hidden in a spot most secure when the tutor departed. I was surprised to see him emerge from the house with his bag and no carriage to be seen. It was only then that I wondered how I should have followed him had he boarded one.”

  I was taken aback at my own lack of foresight on the matter, and said as much.

  “There is no need to assign blame, my lord. As he did not board a carriage I surmised that he had not far to go, and in that I was most correct.”

  “And yet you have only just arrived,” I pointed out. “What has kept you?”

  Rey lifted a finger. “Ah! I have not yet come to that. I waited until he had taken himself a ways ahead, and then I proceeded to follow him. He walked to the end of the street, turned right at the corner, and entered the house a few doors down on that side of the square.”

  “Could that have been Manwaring House?” Lady Vawdrey mused aloud. “Do you remember anything about the house that was unusual?” she asked.

  “How can I say? These houses, they all lo
ok very much the same. Tall, narrow, faced with white brick.” He shrugged his dissatisfaction.

  “Not at all, my good señyor!” Lady Vawdrey exclaimed. “Was there a portico? Railings? A bow front window, perhaps? Of what hue was the door?”

  “I believe there were two doors, both black.”

  “But, of course.” Lady Vawdrey made a moue. “I should think it terribly odd if they had not both been painted the same color.”

  “You are correct, señyora,” Rey conceded. “They had brass door knockers. I seem to recall a pair of columns and the top step was set out in black and white check all the way to the threshold.”

  Lady Vawdrey clapped her hands. “Yes! That is Manwaring House! I wonder what use they have for a tutor. They have no offspring, though he does have children from his first marriage, all of whom are at university. Well! This is a tidy piece of news, indeed!”

  “I fail to see what is tidy in it, Lady Vawdrey,” I admonished. “For instance, as you so aptly stated we haven’t any idea as to why the tutor should have gone there. That is what we would do best to learn. Señyor Rey, did you see him emerge from the house?”

  “No. I laid in wait for hours, but did not see his face again.”

  “And I have paid you for your thoroughness with an empty belly,” I confessed just as the butler entered with a tray. “You have proven yourself worthy of such a repast as Lady Vawdrey has provided.” In truth, the tray bore a toothsome assortment of foodstuffs, and my stomach growled in appreciation.

  “What shall we do next?” he asked with a marked lack of concern for my longing.

  I wished to state the obvious: that I was too distracted by the delicious odors that wafted past my nose to think. However, this would be to remark on the mundane. “I do believe we shall find it needful to inquire as to the happenings at Manwaring House. If only there were a rout or ball we might attend in order to garner gossip.”

  “Which brings us to my own little drama, my lord,” Lady Vawdrey said. “There is to be a ball tonight, one in Bloomsbury Square, on the same side of the street on which that clever Isaac D’Israeli lives.”

  “I perceive the trouble already,” I said dryly.

  “How could you?” Lady Vawdrey demanded. “I have not yet told you of it.”

  “That being my point,” I said, with a smile designed to soften the insult.

  She gave me an arch look, but she was apparently determined to conduct a harmonious discourse. “The trouble is that I had counted on wearing my diamond necklace, the famous one modeled after that belonging to Marie Antoinette.”

  Aside from the Gilbert tragedy, it was the first thing the lady had said in months in which I felt the least interest. “You are correct: that does sound rather ominous. Doubtless, La Antoinette thought it such.”

  Lady Vawdrey smiled her scorn. “As I have said, it is merely modeled after hers and, truth be told, the diamonds, all forty-three of them, are not nearly as large as those of the original. My husband had it made for me shortly before he died, and I treasure it most for its sentimental value.”

  “I had not thought you old enough to be acquainted with Marie Antoinette, let alone her necklace,” I twitted her, “but if you say it is so…” Lady Vawdrey gave me a look as cold as Rey’s was alarmed. “The point imperative is that it is gone. Stolen.”

  “I am indeed sorry that a piece of such beauty and value has been lost,” I claimed, for it was the truth, “but for what am I needed?”

  “I thought you would be interested to know, so that you might help me to find it.”

  “But my lord is very occupied, my lady,” Rey sputtered around a quantity of jam tart, “in his search for the killer of Johnny Gilbert. You would have it so, would you not?”

  “Yes, but as long as he is poking and prodding and asking a good deal many questions, as I imagine he must since he seems to vastly enjoy the sound of own voice, he might as well be asking about my necklace whilst he is at it.” The smug smile that put a period to this lengthy discourse was a sight to behold.

  I was inclined to tell her she was wrong, a truth I had never bothered with when she harangued me as to my character or, more precisely, the lack of it. However, there was something in what she said. “I suppose it would not hurt. Indeed, one might wonder if perhaps the two crimes are possibly related. It is not often we have such a murder amongst us, and the theft of such a valuable piece is not a common occurrence, either. For it to be a coincidence might be a matter of too much naiveté.”

  “I heartily agree, my lord,” she said, with a deep respect her comments to me generally lacked.

  “However,” I stated, in a voice that brooked no argument, “you must first tell me everything you know about your man, Throckmorton.”

  Lady Vawdrey was visibly taken aback. “Throckmorton? Why ever should I? You cannot suspect him of any wrongdoing; I have known him since he was a boy and trust him, body and soul.”

  “What duties are these which you trust him to perform? He is clearly not the butler.”

  “Naturally he is not the butler! He is my house-keeper. I know ‘tis odd, but it is because I trust him so. He keeps the servants in line, keeps a keen eye on the household funds, that sort of thing,” she said with an airy wave of her hand.

  I tried to imagine Throckmorton in the linen closet counting, the sheets like Mrs. Lynne, and could not. “And the necklace?”

  “Yes, indeed, he is the one who makes certain it is well secured, along with all of my jewels.”

  “But only the necklace à la Antoinette is missing?”

  “Yes, though I fail to see what that has to say to it.”

  “I seem to recall seeing you at various parties in several lovely pieces. To have taken only the one seems like a missed opportunity for anyone who might be breaking in to steal whatever upon which his eye might fall. As such, it would seem that the thief knew what to look for. And where.”

  “Well! That is not so mysterious,” Lady Vawdrey insisted. “It is quite famous. Everyone knows of it. As I’ve said, it consists of many diamonds, the one in the center being the largest. It is really quite stunning and well worth the bother for just that jewel alone!”

  “It sounds absolutely meravellós, Lady Vawdrey,” Rey breathed. “A man might live his entire life without laying the eyes upon such a wonder.”

  I was ashamed of myself for the thought, but I made a mental note to inquire of Lady Vawdrey everything she knew about Rey; his reaction to the description of the necklace struck me as suspect, though I could not say exactly why. “Yes, I see that it would be a worthy piece to own, and better yet, the perfect necklace to break up and sell, here and there, so no one would be the wiser as to its origins.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” she said, in a voice drenched with doom. “I suppose I shall never see it again. It might have been broken up already and there shall be no recovering it.”

  “We shall see,” I soothed, “but we must not forget about Throckmorton. As the keeper of the keys, as you say, he is far from above suspicion.”

  “I cannot believe it of him for an instant!” she cried. “He owes me his life. He would do nothing to jeopardize his position here.”

  “In that case, I believe you should tell me about it, Lady Vawdrey. Why does he owe you so much?”

  “Well,” she began, a tremor in her voice, “as I said, I have known him since he was a young boy. I am a patroness of the foundling hospital in Bloomsbury. I first began to visit often when I finally concluded that my husband and I should never have children. And yet, we had so much to share: this house in town, his enormous pile in the Devonshire countryside, horses, carriages, endless fields to run and ride in, and enough money to clothe and feed an army. I hardly knew what to do with it all. So, when we were in town, I made a habit of visiting the foundling hospital. It was a place where I could do some good. I brought food and clothing, and soon I found that I hungered to see the faces of the children who went to and fro’ past the gates.”

&
nbsp; I began to see Lady Vawdrey in a new light. Perhaps the loss she felt due to her childlessness was the catalyst behind her stray-collecting and match-making. “Do go on.”

  “Well, Throckmorton, as anyone might perceive, could not be ignored, even at the beginning. He was a vision of beauty from the start; his hair was all thick black curls just as it is now, skin as clear and fair as a sheet of vellum, and those eyes! I have never seen the like, before or since.”

  “But who were his parents?” Rey asked. “Violet eyes are, as you say, not so commonplace. He must have earned them from either the father or the mother. Is anything known of them aside from the surname?”

  “There would have been a committee of inquiry to determine the mother’s need. She would have been unmarried but of previous good character, and left with no other option. The father would have refused to marry, and abandoned them. Any records that might have been retained as to his parentage would be sealed and not accessible or even spoken of willingly. His name was given to him by whoever received him, so, as you can see, we cannot know to whom he was born.”

  “Then tell us what you do know,” I prodded.

  “I believe,” she said with emphasis on the latter word, “that he arrived at a very tender age, days old, perhaps only hours. He was taken to a wet nurse in the country until he was four or five, as is the custom. He returned to the foundling hospital nearly the same month that I first began to visit. I noticed him at once; he was always, as I have said, a beautiful child. I watched him grow, even attended his music lessons. He sings most beautifully! I became attached, and even went so far as to supervise his lessons. By the time he was thirteen, I could not bear to see him go.”

  “Go where?” I asked, drawn into the story despite my dislike for its protagonist.

  “The children are most usually apprenticed out, girls at sixteen, boys at fourteen. They are often treated cruelly by their new masters but, worse than that, I would never see Edmund—that is his Christian name—again,” she explained as she put a handkerchief to the corner of her eye.