Miss Treadwell's Talent

by Barbara Metzger

  He opened a few closed doors down a less crowded corridor, to find embracing couples, a green youth casting up his accounts, and two old gents asleep with newspapers over their faces. “Pardon. Pardon. Try the window instead of the ferns. Pardon.”

  Then he opened the door to what he knew was Lord Belvedere’s private office. There was Miss Treadwell, looking as guilty as sin, opening drawers in his lordship’s desk. “Bloody hell.” He turned and shut the door behind him.

  Maylene looked up, not really surprised to see Lord Hyatt glaring at her. “It’s not what you think.”

  “What I think is that you are searching your host’s private belongings. Tell me I am wrong, Miss Treadwell, if you can.” He was furious, at her for endangering her reputation and her very life—robbery was a hanging offense—and at himself for foisting a sneak thief off on the polite world, despite all of his earlier misgivings. She was not even embarrassed enough at being discovered to cease her scrabbling about in Belvedere’s drawers.

  “Lady Belvedere asked me to retrieve a piece of jewelry for her, that’s all.” Maylene hadn’t wished to do this, but the pretty young countess had looked at her so pleadingly as she pressed the key into her hand that Maylene could not refuse to try.

  Socrates did not believe her. “Belvedere gives the baggage everything she wants, not that it ever seems to satisfy the jade. He wouldn’t be hiding her jewelry away.”

  “But I doubt that this piece was a gift from his lordship.” She kept looking as she spoke. “Drat, this drawer seems to be locked. That must be where he put the locket.”

  “Or where he keeps his cash. You wouldn’t be thinking of seeking your reward money, would you?” Susannah Belvedere was always accepting gifts from her cicisbeos; perhaps Belvedere was finally tiring of his young wife’s indiscretions. Maylene’s story might have a kernel of truth.

  “Don’t be absurd.” She picked up a penknife from the desk to try to pry the drawer open.

  “Stop that—you’ll scratch the wood.”

  “You’re right.” She opened her reticule to look for a hairpin to try. With her hair so short, though, she rarely had use for the pesky things. She found her small sewing case instead. “Perhaps the needle will be long enough.”

  “Dash it, there’s likely a secret catch to trigger the lock.” Hyatt strode closer, looking over her shoulder. “Try the back of the top drawer.” When that didn’t work, he pushed her aside and knelt under the desk, cursing the while that once again he was involved in her larcenous dealings.

  Oddly out of breath as his shoulder brushed against her thigh, Maylene said, “You can leave any time, you know.”

  His voice came back muffled, from near her feet. “You forget that I am the one who secured your invitations for you, for which I am sure to go to purgatory. The least I can do to protect my own name is keep you out of prison. Yes, here is the lever.”

  The drawer opened easily now, and Maylene forgot to resent his high-handedness. “You seem to have a few useful talents yourself, my lord.”

  Maylene moved some papers, a leather wallet, a pouch of coins, a dueling pistol, and a lace glove. “It appears that his lordship is not above a bit of dalliance himself. Ah, here is the locket.” She made to reopen her reticule to place the gold piece inside.

  “He’ll suspect she took it, you know. That will be just as incriminating as whatever Belvedere might find inside. What is it, a miniature of her current lover? A painting of his eye? I suppose Susannah hopes to avoid a duel if her husband cannot identify the chap.” He eyed the dueling pistol with an expert’s assessment.

  Maylene removed her gloves to pry open the locket. “It’s a lock of hair, light brown.”

  Socrates reviewed the current scandalbroth. “Brenton Gilchrist. The man’s a milksop. Couldn’t hit his target if his life depended on it. Which it just might. Belvedere is a crack shot.”

  “With once-black hair—like yours, my lord.” Maylene removed the brown curl, carefully placing it in her reticule, then she removed her folding scissors from the sewing kit.

  The earl backed up. “Oh, no, you don’t, May. I will lie and rob for you, even sit through your mother’s mystic meanderings, but this is asking too much! My valet will have my whole head if I let you go snipping off a lock or two.”

  “Nonsense, he’ll never notice. And charity begins at home, you know. The Belvederes’ home. You wouldn’t want poor Gilchrist to be shot, or Lord Belvedere to have to flee the country, would you?”

  “It might teach that trollop a lesson,” he muttered, but lowered his head so she could destroy his perfectly groomed hair.

  Maylene tried to be unemotional about the task, but she could not help noticing how silky his hair was, how the citrusy scent of him seemed to fill her head, how his breathing was so close she could share the very air with him. The scissors wavered.

  Socrates tried to be unemotional about the task, but he could not help inhaling her sweet lilac perfume or noticing how smooth her skin was at the top of her breasts, above the neckline of her gown, just inches away from his bent head, his eyes, his mouth. His head jerked.

  “Oh, my.”

  “Oh, my” was not what a man wished to bear from a female with scissors in her hand. He clapped a hand to his ears to make sure they were both still intact. Red-faced, Maylene turned her back, pretending to fuss with twining the cut hair into a loop to fit into the locket, while she scattered the rest of his hair on the floor, then trampled it into the carpet with her slippered foot.

  She had just replaced the locket in the drawer when they heard voices in the hall.

  “I’ll have his liver and lights, this time, my girl. You’ve pushed me too far, by Jove. We leave for Yorkshire as soon as I’ve sent Gilchrist to his Maker.”

  Slamming the drawer shut with his knee, Hyatt grabbed Maylene into his arms, swinging her around so that his broad back shielded her from view. He kissed her, filling her open mouth with his tongue when she would have protested. Any argument she might have made died instantly as Maylene surrendered to feelings she had only imagined before. Like the champagne she could taste on his lips, the sensations went straight to her head—and her toes, and her stomach. Every inch of her tingled, so she pressed herself closer to his broad chest. Socrates groaned.

  “Eh? What’s that? I thought this door was locked, by George. Talk to the servants in the morning, Sukey. Can’t have every room in the house taken up with cuddling couples, dash it. And as for you, wife, we’ll talk tomorrow. You two, carry on, I suppose.”

  As the voices receded, sanity returned. Hyatt’s arms fell, and Maylene nearly did, too, her legs were so weak. She caught herself on the edge of the desk, then she caught her breath. “Th-thank you, Socrates. You have saved my reputation and Lady Belvedere’s marriage, for the time being. Th-that was quick thinking.” It was also the most shattering experience of her lifetime. Yes, the earl was decidedly talented in his own fields of expertise. He, of course, was unaffected, so she tried to be as nonchalant as possible. “Shall we return to the ballroom?”

  “You go ahead. We should not be seen leaving here together, alone.” Hyatt was so unaffected that he should not be seen in polite company, not till the uncomfortable signs of his alleged disinterest disappeared.

  Lady Belvedere was waiting outside the ballroom. She pounced on Maylene and dragged her up the stairs to the ladies’ retiring room.

  “And I suggest you hold your fan over your lips until then, Miss Treadwell.”

  Maylene could still feel the burning, so assumed she looked thoroughly kissed. Oh, dear. At least Lady Belvedere was in no position to censure her behavior.

  The countess almost wept when Maylene pulled the knotted curl out of her reticule. She tucked it into the immodest bosom of her gown, which Maylene could not think was a good hiding place, being such a scant expanse of material. Maylene explained about replacing the brown hair with black, which Lady Belvedere thought was a stroke of genius.

  “And you can
be sure I’ll be making a handsome contribution to your mother’s fund. Meantime, is there anything I can do for you tonight, Miss Treadwell? Is there some particular gentleman you would like to meet? I could arrange any number of dance partners for you. Of course, after you’ve been kissed by the Ideal, I don’t suppose any other man will do, but perhaps you have some less elusive bachelor in your sights. An introduction is the least I can do, seeing that you have saved me from my husband’s wrath.”

  Ignoring the mention of Hyatt’s sobriquet while she dampened a cloth to apply to her swollen lips, Maylene allowed as how she would, in fact, appreciate being made known to Lady Belvedere’s sister and her circle of debutantes.

  “Goodness, why would you wish to waste the evening with the infantry?”

  “I was, ah, hoping to discover a bit about Lady Belinda, His Grace of Mondale’s daughter. I did not wish to ask the duke, or the earl, naturally.”

  “Ah. So the wind truly does blow in that direction. I’ve heard the rumors, of course, of an understanding between the families as well as of the chit’s disappearance. And you, being of an inquiring mind, wish to know the truth, of course.”

  “If the lady is not returning to London any time soon…” Maylene let her voice trail off, letting the countess make the precise assumption Maylene expected her to.

  “Then you will feel free to pursue Hyatt in earnest. Although I do not understand your sudden scruples after what I saw in the study. You did not seem to mind that he was partway promised then.” Lady Belvedere shrugged her elegant shoulders. If a wedding ring did not keep Susannah from her pursuit of pleasure, an unannounced understanding certainly would not. Miss Treadwell, however, was known to be an original. Perhaps that was why she was still a spinster. “Very well, have it your way. I’ll see you meet the gels, but not tonight. You cannot know much about young females if you think they are willing to waste a minute of their evening chatting with another woman. Why don’t you come to tea tomorrow? I’ll make sure my sister and some of her friends are there.”

  Maylene nodded, and Lady Belvedere started to leave, to return to her guests and her own flirtations. “But a word of advice first, Miss Treadwell, in exchange for the service you have done for me.”

  Maylene was staring in the mirror. “Yes, I know, hold my fan a bit higher.”

  “No, my dear. Set your sights a bit lower. Do you know why they call Hyatt the Ideal? Not just because he is a perfect specimen of manhood, but because he is the goal every woman strives for—the unattainable goal.”

  Maylene waited in the ladies’ parlor for a while, hoping to regain her composure. Lady Belvedere had told her nothing she did not already know. Hyatt was not for the likes of Maylene Treadwell, no matter how many excuses he found for kissing her.

  By the time Maylene returned to her mother’s side, her lips were their normal size and color, her pearl diadem was straightened on her head, and her heart was firmly where it belonged, not on her sleeve. She need not have bothered. No one noticed her, not after they saw the condition of Miss Tolliver-Jones when she and Cousin Grover stepped back into the ballroom from the door leading to the terraced gardens. Miss Tolliver-Jones might be green as grass, but so was the back of her gown. The Treadwell House party left immediately afterward, to help Lady Crowley plan a hurried wedding instead of a come-out.

  And no one noticed that the paragon of London gentlemen had been barbered by a baboon until much later, when his man helped the earl undress. The valet tendered his resignation.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  She had fallen into a pond of ducklings, Maylene decided. That’s what the young girls in Lady Belvedere’s parlor reminded her of, anyway. They were appealing and adorable from a distance. Up close, they never ceased their quacking and flapping and hissing, pecking at each other, vying for the choicest square of stagnant water. They did not acknowledge the scrawny old hen on the shore.

  Maylene tried to ignore the rudeness, the cuts, the curious stares, some of them hostile. She could not ignore the fact, though, that she would never learn anything about Lady Belinda if no one spoke to her. She moved over to where Lady Belvedere was pouring the tea for some of the girls’ mothers.

  “They won’t speak to me,” Maylene said worriedly.

  “Of course not. You were the only one other than Lady Ashford whom Hyatt danced with last night.”

  “Oh, so they resent me for Lady Belinda’s sake?”

  “Goodness, no. They’d steal him away from her in a minute if they thought they could. They were jealous of you, is all. Why, I’ve a good mind to snub you myself. I’ve been setting out lures for the Ideal for an age. Not that he dallies with married women, more’s the pity.” The countess gestured with her teacup around the room. “No more than he’d look at these unfledged chicks.”

  “But he’s looking at Lady Belinda,” Maylene reminded the older woman. “More than looking, I understand.”

  “Oh, that’s different. That’s business, don’t you know, the weighty business of selecting the proper wife to match one’s lineage, wealth, and social standing. These silly geese are hoping the earl will lose his heart, therefore, his head, and thence his hand, to one of them. I misdoubt the man has a heart to lose. What do you think?”

  Maylene thought that she had to stop acting goosish herself. She was going to find the earl’s fiancée, that was all. Lady Belvedere recommended she try Miss Georgina Westmacott, a pale-faced girl sitting by herself at the pianoforte. She was one of Belinda’s closest friends, Lady Belvedere recalled.

  Miss Westmacott knew all about the rumors of Belinda’s disappearance—and of Maylene’s interest in the earl. She plunked the instrument’s keys angrily. “I intend to write to Belinda today, to tell her about your making sheep’s eyes at her earl,” Georgina said. “She’ll be back in Town before the cat can lick its ear.”

  “Ah, then you’ll write to her aunt in Wales?”

  The girl went even paler, a scattering of freckles showing on her cheeks. She was obviously torn between worry over her friend and resentment of Maylene. “I already tried there.”

  “I would like to write to Lady Belinda myself,” Maylene said, “to explain that she really has nothing to worry about, no matter what gossip she hears. Have you any idea of where else I might send a letter?”

  The girl shook her head, careful not to disturb her coiffure. She’d had to spend all morning with her hair wrapped in papers, while Miss Treadwell looked as if she woke up with a perfect head of curls. Georgina thumped out a dirge on the pianoforte.

  “Surely she mentioned somewhere else? Someone she might visit when her aunt recovered?”

  “Well, she did ask me about the bathing machines at Brighton. I went with my family last summer, you see.”

  Brighton? That was certainly near the water! “Did she have friends there, then? Someone else from school, perhaps?”

  “No, everyone from our group at Miss Meadow’s Academy is here in London having their Seasons, except for Marjorie, who married the Italian count, and Rebecca, who is in mourning in Lancaster.”

  “Did Belinda have any particular male friends, then? Someone she might have been interested in if Lord Hyatt hadn’t offered? Someone her father might not have found so acceptable, perhaps?”

  “No, Bel spoke only of the earl and what a fine match it was.”

  “I see. And did you know her well enough to be sure of her feelings, Miss Westmacott? I’d like to be certain, you see.”

  “I’ll wager you would,” the younger girl sniped, ending her piece with a discordant crescendo. “We’ve been friends since our second year at Miss Meadow’s, more than five years ago.”

  “Then you must be good friends indeed. Ah, where did you say Miss Meadow’s Academy was located?”

  “In Bath, of course.”

  Which was also wet. And which, oddly enough, figured in another investigation. Maylene had one more question: “Miss Westmacott, you play charmingly. Is Lady Belinda also musically inclined?�
��

  The girl laughed. “I should say not. Why, she could barely read music, no matter how many private lessons her father paid extra for.”

  *

  “Mama, we have to contact Max. I have an important question to ask him concerning the duke’s daughter.” Maylene doubted the duke knew the name of his daughter’s private teachers, and she did not want to create a bumblebroth if her guess was wrong. The name would be easy enough to find out from the school, and still would not tell her Lady Belinda’s current location. Either way, a missing heiress and a missing musician, both once from Bath, was too much of a coincidence to be ignored.

  Lady Tremont, however, was not eager to conduct a session of spectral communication that night. Shredding her handkerchief, the baroness claimed that she was too fatigued from the ball. Besides, Lady Crowley was blaming her for Grover’s scandal, Aunt Regina was suffering from a surfeit of lobster patties at the ball, and Max had proved unhelpful the last time. They would learn nothing new. Therefore, Maylene’s mother stated, the poor duke should not have to suffer further.

  “Yes, but His Grace might reveal something he hadn’t thought important if we invite him back tonight; perhaps he knows someone in Brighton with whom Belinda might be staying. It is worth a try.”

  “But, dear, you can ask the duke your questions without asking Max about it. Simply send him a note.”

  Of course she could write to Mondale, or call on him, for that matter, but her mother had always insisted on including her bygone beloved in all the previous investigations. Maylene did not understand this deviation from their general practice, and her mother’s obvious agitation was confusing her more. “Don’t you want to speak to Max tonight? You are usually so eager for his company.”

  “No, no. Not tonight, dear. I swear, I am exhausted.”