by Joan Smith
"As we all are," Prance said, and with a parting bow, he and Coffen were off.
"The reason I let on I was hiring a rig," Coffen said, "he'd believe from the looks of me I couldn't afford to buy one." This was said with no air of humility, but simply stated as a self-evident fact. Coffen was actually well off but, unlike Prance, he didn't wear his fortune on his back. "Did you notice he couldn't come up with a name for who was fixing his rig? That's pretty odd. He was afraid I'd check up on him and find out his rig wasn't there."
"It's not unusual to leave those matters to one's groom. Providing one has a competent groom," he added with a meaningful look at his friend.
"I mean to replace Fitz one of these days. You must own it's suspicious, Danby being at Newmans. Do you figure he followed you?"
"No one was following us," Prance said. "Mr. Danby doesn't have to steal money. He's extremely well inlaid. A nabob, in fact, back from India with his pockets jingling."
Coffen shook his head at such naiveté. "Who says so?"
"Tout le monde."
"Then how come he ain't better known? He may have no more money than a dog has fleas."
"That's quite a lot."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know. It would make conversation easier if you said what you mean."
"The trouble with you, Reg, you think you're smart but you're gullible as a gudgeon. You believe anything a stylish looking fellow tells you. If he's the Bee, he could be worrying you're looking into the hackney cab business, and asking if anyone's been asking about Horner's rig. Which we have. He could be the man who bought it. He's the right age with a forgettable face."
"But unmistakably a gentleman," Prance pointed out.
"That's just clothes and talk. Easy to change. He'll have got a jolt at seeing us there if he's guilty. I wonder what he'll do."
"Why don't you follow him and find out?"
"Why don't you? I'm going to take a run out to Hummer's place, sniff around for clues."
Prance considered this a moment, then said, "I'll do better than that, I'll offer him a lift home, since he doesn't have his carriage here."
"Dandy. I'll take a hackney home and jog on out to St. John's Wood. How would I get there?"
"It's really very simple. You drive north on Edgeware Road. At St. John's Wood Road, Edgeware Road becomes Maida Vale Road."
Coffen looked completely bewildered. "No wonder I get lost, roads changing their names for no reason." Prance repeated the directions two or three times, finally wrote them down and Coffen wandered off in search of a hackney.
Mr. Danby outwitted Prance. He refused a lift home, but was suitably grateful to be dropped off on New Bond Street. Prance watched him for fifteen minutes, but when it seemed Mr. Danby planned to shop the day away, he went home.
* * *
Chapter 6
Lady deCoventry was becoming bored with her own company. Luten was busy at Whitehall finishing up some business so that he could accompany her to Ireland for their wedding with a free conscience. Although it would be her second marriage, it was his first and they wanted some ritual to the affair.
As far as Corinne was concerned, she felt it was her first real marriage. She had not been in love with Lord deCoventry when her papa sold her to him seven years before for five thousand pounds. She had been barely seventeen years at the time, Lord deCoventry exactly three times her age. He had wanted a son to inherit his title and estate. He took the blame for not achieving his goal on his own shoulders, like the gentleman he was, and had been happy with his bride despite the failure. For four years they had lived in peace and harmony, during which time the Irish hoyden's rough edges were honed to a stylish town bronze.
Her elderly husband demanded little of her time. Lord deCoventry's cousin, Lord Luten, often accompanied her about town. Her own cousin, Coffen Pattle, was a part of the group and Sir Reginald a friend and neighbour of both gentlemen. Within a year of deCoventry's death Luten offered for her. The offer caught her completely off her guard and in her astonishment she had uttered a nervous laugh and refused him. The extremely eligible Marquess of Luten was not accustomed to being laughed at, especially when he was making an offer of marriage.
Her refusal left him so stunned and angry he spent the next three years snipping and sniping at the lady. When he finally came down off his high horse and repeated the offer, she accepted. One of these days they would get around to the marriage ceremony, if murder didn't get in their way.
It was during a case at Prance's estate, Granmaison, that Luten had busted his ankle, which delayed the trip down the aisle. His ankle was healing now and Sir Reginald was supposed to be working on the wedding arrangements. He always put himself in charge of anything in the way of a party or celebration.
When she saw Coffen coming out of his house, she assumed he was coming to visit her and was disappointed when he crossed the street and headed to Prance's house. She decided to join him and see how the wedding plans were coming along.
Entering Sir Reginald's bijou house was like stepping into a jewelry box. Though small, everything was of the finest without being garish. He spurned red window coverings and gilt furnishings, choosing instead a subdued gold brocade silk for the window hangings and a Persian carpet with traces of dusty blue and rose, which he gave them to know was priceless. The tables gleamed from frequent applications of beeswax and turpentine, but it was in the minor decorative touches that he really shone.
Each bibelot that graced the tabletops had been chosen with care: delicate Sèvres boxes, Murano crystal vases in front of the window to form a rainbow on the far wall when the sun shone through them, and two exquisitely arranged vases of flowers. On the walls hung airy French paintings by Watteau and Fragonard. On a cushion beside Prance with one paw placed possessively on his master's knee sat the new addition to the decor.
"Oh, you've got a new kitten, Reg," she said. "How pretty she is. What do you call her?"
"Actually this is a fully grown miniature cat," Prance explained. "One of those lovely freaks of nature that some benign deity occasionally throws up to delight us, like the mute albino peacock I was fortunate enough to find for Granmaison."
"It ain't a her, it's a him," Coffen added. "Prance called him after Shakespeare."
"So his name is William, or do you call him Willie?" she asked Prance. He was on such familiar terms with all the literary giants that he usually called them by their first names.
"Petruchio is his name. I call him Pet for short. It's a boring story. Come and sit thee down, my dear. You will pardon me if I don't rise as I ought. Petruchio doesn't like it." He darted a warning glance at Coffen, to prevent him from discussing what he had actually come to discuss. "Let us begin to make plans for our wedding. What will the weather be like in Ireland in December?"
"Wretched," she said. "It must be an indoors affair entirely. Luten can't be standing about in the damp chill with his sore ankle."
"Pity. I could have done something handsome with those hundred shades of green one hears so much about. But there, I daresay I shall contrive to bring enough of the outdoors in to satisfy you."
"You don't have to go bringing trees and bushes and things inside, Reg," she said hastily, knowing his lavish way. "Ardmore Hall is not a huge place, you know."
He gave her a smile of great condescension. "Fear not, my dear. I do not plan to bring Great Birnam Wood into Ardmore Hall, but I must insist on some significant token of green in an Irish wedding."
"Marry in green, ashamed to be seen," Coffen recited.
Prance said mischievously, "We can hardly expect the bride to wear white. I mean to say, white has a symbolic meaning which does not apply to a widow."
She gave him a sharp look. "I hope you don't expect me to wear black."
"Marry in black, you'll ride in a hack," Coffen said.
Prance glared. "What colour do the ignorant and superstitious approve of?” he asked.
"Marry in white, you've chosen white."<
br />
"Obviously. I expect you mean chosen right."
"Well I can't wear white," Corinne said. Then to Prance, "What about a pale yellow?"
Coffen shook his head. "Marry in yellow, ashamed of the fellow. Marry in red, you're better off dead. I say go with the white and to hell with it."
"Blue?" she asked, but with very little hope and waning interest.
Coffen furrowed his brow a moment then said, "It's safe. Marry in blue, your lover is true."
"Blue, with the green background I envisage to highlight Corinne's famous emerald eyes? Oh dear, now who is that?" Prance said with a tsk of annoyance when the door knocker sounded.
"Cheer up, it might be Byron," Coffen said. "That sounds like a limp dragging along the hall."
"Really, Coffen!" Prance scolded.
His scowl disappeared when it was indeed the famous poet who came into the room. He had met the others and made a series of bows, coming forward to take Corinne’s hand. He was half convinced he was in love with the Irish beauty. But then who would not love a perfect oval cameo of a face, surrounded by a halo of raven curls? And the eyes! As green as his envy of Luten. The figure, too, was good. He hated a dumpy woman.
When Prance gave a warning cough, Byron realized he had been gazing at Lady deCoventry too long and shook himself to attention–but not before noticing the pretty flush of pink that suffused the lady's cheeks. "Have I come at a bad time?" he asked, when the greetings were over.
"Not at all, we were just discussing Lady deCoventry's wedding."
Byron gave her his famous underlook, achieved by lowering his head and peering soulfully up through his inch long lashes. "Then the dreadful rumour is true, milady? We are about to lose you. On behalf of London's bachelors, I object—and offer my compliments." He lifted her fingers and touched them to his lips. Prance watched, noticing that, as usual, Byron dared to go that inch too far, and get away with it. Etiquette decreed that the lady's hand should stop in inch from the gentleman's lips. Prance was eager to try this new contact kiss on some dashing lady who wouldn't slap his face. Lady Callwood came to mind.
"I trust you will be wearing black, to denote the death of our dreams," Byron said, smiling.
"Marry in black, you'll ride in a hack," was Coffen's contribution.
That brought conversation to a halt. After a stunned pause, Byron turned to Prance. "I'm here about that business you were kind enough to help me with, Prance. The Bee has stung again. Can I steal you away for a minute, or ..." His raised eyebrows tacitly asked if the Berkeley Brigade knew of the affair.
"If there's been a third, we should all hear about it. Coffen already knows," Prance said with a nervous glance at Corinne. Her head turned to him, her body stiff with attention. He didn't have to look at her face to know it would be alive with accusation.
Byron nodded. "I agree."
Prance briefly outlined the situation, causing Corinne's nostrils to pinch in mute fury at her and Luten's having been left out.
"You ought to have told us in the first place," Coffen said. "I could have been looking for clues sooner. That carriage of Lord Horner's, for instance."
"I asked Lady Jergen about that," Byron said. "She thinks she felt a hole in the upholstery, which she says could have been blue. Hardly corroboration, but–"
"It was the same rig," Coffen said. "I just dropped in to tell Prance what I learned at Maida Vale, which by the way, ain't where you said it is, Reg."
"Don't be absurd. Of course it is."
"It ain't the way I got there, but never mind. That bridge is under the water now. Daresay Fitz took a wrong turn."
“He shouldn't have turned at all."
"Then how was he to get from Berkeley Square to Edgeware Road? Coffen demanded, his voice rising in anger.
"That soon he went astray!"
"Get on with it, Coffen," Corinne said sharply, and earned a smile from Byron.
"That Mr. Hummer that was supposed to have bought the rig, all a hum. There's no such person. Who lives at the Oaks on Maida Vale Road is a Mr. Winkler, and he's neither young nor wears a face you'd easily forget, which is how the man who bought Horner's rig was described. Winkler has such a squint I thought for the first few minutes he was talking to one of his hives. He runs an apiary, which ain't an ape hatchery as you'd think. There's no apes there. It's a place where they sell honey. I've got a few combs in my rig."
"A home for bees, en effet,” Prance said.
"That as well," Coffen nodded. "You can't get honey without bees. Don't bother telling me it's a metaphor or some dashed thing, for I can see well enough the fellow is pulling our legs. Hummer, bees. All a hum. Winkler didn't know what I was talking about when I accused him of buying Horner's carriage. He was mad enough that his bees' names had been taken in vain that he let me look all through his stable. He has a rickety old black rig and a dog cart and a wagon for delivering his honey into town, but he don't have Horner's carriage. He does have a team of bays, but who don't, unless you're a Corinthian who thinks it's smart to drive greys. Mind you, I've nothing against greys when they don't act ups. Too frisky by half."
After this tirade, he helped himself to a glass of wine. Prance, recalled to his duties as host, relinquished Petruchio to Byron and served his guests. He couldn't decide whether he was flattered or offended that Petruchio cuddled up so cosily in Byron's arms.
"This is all interesting," Corinne said, "but I believe Lord Byron mentioned a third victim?" They all turned to hear the details.
"The lady is a Mrs. Webber," Byron began.
Coffen asked, "How'd you find out, Byron?"
"Adele—Lady Jergen—told me. She's an old friend of Mrs. Webber. Lady Jergen had arranged to call on her this morning and was told she was indisposed. She went to her bedroom and found her in tears. The story soon came out that Mrs. Webber was being held to ransom."
"What for?" Coffen asked.
"The usual, an amorous indiscretion. Billets doux."
Corinne blinked twice and said, "Are you quite sure, milord? I can't imagine Mrs. Webber— "
"I too was astonished, for the lady seems so heavily encumbered with virtue the convent seems the only place for her."
"But surely she is a widow," Prance said. "Whom does the Bee plan to tell about this indiscretion? It's not as if she were a deb. Society will hardly slam its doors in a widow's face for having a cher ami."
"It seems it's the mama-in-law she's worried about," Byron explained. "For financial reasons she makes her home with her late husband's mama, a regular Tartar. Very high on morals. She's of that ilk that considers sin a synonym for adultery, or to be more accurate, fornication of any sort."
Coffen, who had less objection to fornication than to discussing it in front of a lady, cleared his throat loudly and lowered his brows at the poet.
"Is her lover married?" Prance enquired. "Or why does he not marry her and rescue her from her den of morality?"
"The indiscretion is by no means contemporary. It occurred only days before her marriage, some seven years ago," Byron explained, lifting a quizzical eyebrow at the familiar time reference. "There is a fortune at stake. Mrs. Webber has a son, born approximately nine months after the wedding. The mama-in-law has the blunt and won't leave it to her grandson if she suspects the boy, his name is Harold after the soi-disant papa, is adulterine. One assumes the match with Webber was another marriage of inconvenience, which we foolishly call convenience. And we know what the wily old Duc de Rochefoucaud had to say about that."
"What did he say?" Coffen asked. "I don't believe I know the fellow."
Prance undertook to enlighten him. "That where there is marriage without love, there will be love without marriage."
Coffen daubed at a smear of honey on his trouser leg. "Hmph, but not usually so close together. How'd the Bee find out about it, I wonder. And what real evidence does he have to back it up?"
"Letters," Byron said. "Mrs. Webber has been married twice. After her first husband died, she
met Harold Webber at Brighton and became engaged to him. She didn't love him but she needed a home. She was in love with another fellow, whose name I haven't heard yet, but he was even poorer than she was, so they couldn't get married. They exchanged love letters, which she foolishly kept. Lady Jergen wants me to call on her, on Mrs. Webber I mean. I hoped you might accompany me, Prance.
"Delighted," Prance said at once. He took Petruchio from Byron and sat him on his blue cushion, which he promptly began shredding with his sharp claws.
Corinne felt a strong urge to go with them but knew Luten would dislike her running around in Byron's company.
"We'll all go," Coffen said, rising.
"We can hardly all go storming in," Corinne pointed out.
"You can stay home if you want to," was Coffen's reply.
"We'll tell you all about it later," Prance said to her and before she could make up her mind, they were off, leaving her little choice but to go home.
She was extremely vexed as she sat, frowning into the grate, wishing she were off with them on this new chase. Why should she have to be left out, just because Byron was along? Byron had no objection to her company. He had looked disappointed that she wasn't going with them. Good gracious, they—especially Luten—were as bad as the elder Mrs. Webber, suspecting sexual intrigue every time she was in the same room as Byron. Next time she would go with them, and let Mrs. Grundy howl.
* * *
Chapter 7
"We're to meet Mrs. Webber at Adele's house," Byron explained as the carriage rattled over the cobblestones, north past the polite mansions of Davies Street to the familiar house on Grosvenor Square, where they were as welcome as spring after a long winter.
"Dear Byron! I knew we might depend on you," Lady Jergen cried and presented the group to Mrs. Webber.
"So kind of you to come," Mrs. Webber said, rising with both arms outstretched to greet them, and a brave smile fighting to overcome grief.
Both Byron and Prance had met the lady before. It was Coffen who was seeing her for the first time who subjected her to a critical examination. "Showoff' was his first impression. It was the way she extended her arms, like an actor who wanted to take up more than his share of the stage, that caused the impression. Belle Bynton, an ingénue at Covent Garden, put him on to that stunt. He noticed Prance, another showoff, did it sometimes as well. Luten, on the other hand, who had something to show off about, seldom raised either his arms or his voice. He acted stiff as a rod, like a decent Englishman.