The questioning Miss Quinton

by Kasey Michaels

  “Have another piece of cake, Sir Perkin,” Wilhelmina put in, placing a plate holding an immense slice of the dessert in front of the man, hoping he’d then release Victoria’s hands. “After all,” she said to Patrick as she stepped back to stand beside him, “Missy shouldn’t be holdin’ hands with a murderer, even if he is the sorriest-lookin’ fella I’ve ever seen.”

  Wilhelmina’s ploy worked, as food had always been a panacea to Sir Perkin, and he quickly shoveled two large bites into his mouth before talking around the resultant bulges in his cheeks. “The Professor called me to this house to talk about my family history—or so he said. I was flattered to have the Seldons included in his book, of course, and he did serve me the loveliest snack. Duck, I think it was; yes, it was duck. It was only after we had been talking for some time that I realized exactly what he was saying.” Wiping some cake crumbs from his lips with his serviette, he looked up at Sherbourne and declared earnestly, “I couldn’t believe it of him, I tell you. I just couldn’t believe any of it!”

  “Ah, the treachery of one’s friends,” Patrick commiserated, tongue-in-cheek.”

  Sir Perkin held one finger up in the air, signaling that he had something more to say just as soon as he had disposed of the forkful of cake he was at the moment aiming toward his mouth. “He wasn’t my friend,” he then corrected punctiliously.

  “Very well, if you wish to split hairs at a time like this,” Patrick said amiably. “Ah, the treachery of one’s acquaintances! Is that better? But to continue: The Professor told you about the circumstances of your birth, didn’t he?” Patrick was in a bit of a hurry to get this part of the questioning over, as he could see the tension was beginning to affect Victoria’s nerves.

  The man nodded his balding head up and down emphatically, licking a bit of meringue from his lips with the tip of his tongue. “It’s not that I minded all that much being a bastard,” he said in explanation, looking at Victoria for understanding. “It’s just that—well—you see, Mama never told me!”

  “How remiss of her,” Pierre remarked silkily from his seat farther down the table. “Perhaps it slipped her mind.”

  “Yes!” Sir Perkin exclaimed, jumping on that excuse. “How good of you to see it that way, Mr. Standish. That’s precisely what I thought myself, you know, but the Professor had all sorts of papers—church records and the like—that proved I was born before my parents were wed. I was shocked, I tell you,” he then told Victoria earnestly, “truly shocked. I mean, everyone says I’m the living spit of my father.” His emotional outburst over for the moment, he shoved another forkful of cake between his lips.

  “But your father is your father,” Victoria began hastily, then stopped, looking to Patrick in confusion, for she knew she shouldn’t be speaking so freely about such things.

  “What Miss Quinton is trying so delicately to say, Sir Perky,” Patrick then explained, “is that you are your father’s son. They were just a trifle tardy with the wedding ceremony, that’s all, as christenings don’t usually precede the marriage vows. But it was all in the papers the Professor had. Didn’t you read them?”

  “I—I didn’t know.” Sir Perkin looked at each of them in turn, swallowed hard, and then asked Wilhelmina if she could please pour him a bit of wine, as his throat was suddenly dry.

  “Here you go, Sir Perkin,” the housekeeper said bracingly, stepping forward smartly to refill his glass to the rim. “Now don’t you go gettin’ all upset. Nobody’s blamin’ you. It was an accident, wasn’t it?” she urged, motherlike.

  For a moment Victoria feared that Sir Perkin, now looking at the housekeeper like a lost puppy who had just been offered a meaty soup bone, was going to fling himself against Wilhelmina’s starched apron and burst into tears, but then he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, ready to own up to what he had done.

  ‘It was me,” he said dully at last, shrugging his shoulders. “I did it. I killed him.”

  “That’s rich, upon my soul it is. Don’t plague one with a bag of humbug, does he?” Quentin remarked happily. “No tippytoeing around the thing, that’s for sure. Comes right to the point—bang—‘It was me, I killed him.’ You have to admire that in a man.”

  “Uncle Quentin, please,” Victoria hissed as Patrick covered his laugh with a discreet cough.

  “I never really saw the papers,” Sir Perkin then informed them, seeming suddenly eager to make a clean breast of everything. “The Professor was just sort of waving them in front of my face, telling me that I was to pay him some ridiculous sum out of my quarterly allowance or else he’d publish the fact that I was a bas—, well, you know that part already. I tried to tell him that I didn’t have a feather to fly with—everyone knows that—but he just kept waving those papers back and forth…back and forth…until I swear I couldn’t see anything but those papers.”

  “Poor little fella,” Wilhelmina intoned sadly, wiping at her watery eyes with one corner of her apron.

  “I guess I must have gone slightly out of my head,” Sir Perkin then continued in a dull monotone, “for suddenly there was this rather red haze in front of my eyes. I lunged for the papers—he held them up and away from me. I grabbed at his arm. We tussled back and forth a bit…with him just laughing and telling me I had to pay…then I somehow lost my grip on him. The Professor fell…hitting his head on the windowsill. It made an awful sound. Then he just sort of slid to the floor…and the papers scattered everywhere. He just lay there, propped against the window, his eyes looking at me but not really seeing anything, if you know what I mean.

  “I didn’t know what to do!” he explained passionately, shaking his head. “I hadn’t meant to hurt him! He didn’t look dead—what with his eyes open and all—and all I could think of was getting myself out of there before he started up and called for help. I closed the drapes over him, I think, and then gathered up my hat and gloves and got out of there as fast as I could.”

  “Yes,” Victoria concurred, reaching into her pocket and extracting the snuffbox to show to him, “but you neglected to gather up more than the papers that concerned you before you left. You also forgot to take this with you. It has your initials on it; that’s how we found you. Here,” she said kindly, giving him back his property.

  “Funny that he missed the snuffbox,” Wilhelmina said to no one in particular, “seein’ as how he remembered to take up the duck. Weren’t any bones in the library when I cleaned it, as I recollect.”

  “You’re going to call for the robin redbreasts now?” Sir Perkin asked Victoria, his chubby face chalky white. “It was an accident, but I still killed him.”

  “Now here’s a dilemma,” Pierre mocked, lightly stroking his scarred cheekbone. “I wonder, my dear Miss Quinton, is it a rule of English law that we hang the victim?”

  “Don’t be facetious, Mr. Standish!” Victoria said hotly, taking one of Sir Perkin’s trembling hands in her own. “Although, to be perfectly truthful, I am embarrassed to admit that at first flush I was occupied only with the thrill of the search, and didn’t really concern myself as to what I would do with the guilty party once I had found him. Indeed, you, Patrick, saw through my motives almost at once,” she admitted honestly as her fiancé put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “But I’m sure I never intended to turn the murderer over to Bow Street—at least not since I discovered what an out and out bounder the Professor really was, which didn’t take very long once I was free to search the library at my leisure. Later, once I had uncovered the whole of the Professor’s treachery—thanks to help from my Uncle Quentin and Patrick—I knew that it was imperative I continue my search. Oh, not because I was afraid the man might decide he needed to kill me as well to keep his secret safe—as you thought, Patrick, although I allowed you to think that I agreed with your theory.”

  “Then why, my dearest?” Patrick asked, confused.

  Victoria looked up at her beloved, then across the table at the sorry-looking soul who sat quietly awaiting his fate. Squeezin
g Sir Perkin’s fingers reassuringly, she explained, “Why, so that I could apologize to him and assure him that his secret was safe with me, of course.”

  “What!” Patrick exploded, his comforting hand suddenly digging into the tender flesh of her shoulder. “Do you actually mean to sit there and glibly tell me that the only reason you helped us arrange this whole scheme was so that we could unmask Sir Perkin—in order that you might be able to apologize to him? That it has nearly always been your intention to apologize to the Professor’s murderer—even before you allowed Quentin and me to help you? I don’t believe it! You romantic idiot! Didn’t you realize somewhere in your silly, romantic head that the murderer could have killed you as well when you gifted him with your polite apology—just in case you might someday have had second thoughts in the matter?”

  “Mr. Standish could have killed me,” Victoria corrected, quite calmly explaining her logic, “not that I would have considered going on with my plan if I discovered that he was the murderer. I’m not that much of a zany. Sir Perkin is much more understanding.”

  “I don’t believe any of this,” Patrick grumbled, subsiding heavily into a chair beside his softly chuckling friend.

  “I make no doubt, darling Patrick, that you’ll be graying within the year,” Pierre drawled, reaching for his wineglass. “Marriage has that effect on your gender, I’m told.”

  Victoria refused to apologize for doing what she felt in her heart to be right. “I don’t understand what all the fuss is about,” she argued indignantly. “Even though investigating the murder seemed to be a golden opportunity for me to enjoy myself a little bit before hiring myself out as a governess or some such thing, from the very beginning I had a feeling that something was very, very wrong. As he lay dying, the Professor had kept impressing upon me the fact that I had to make his murderer ‘pay.’ At first I thought he meant the murderer should pay for his crime, but it soon became apparent to me that he had another sort of payment in mind entirely. Contrary to what I allowed you to believe, Patrick, I had discovered the Professor’s private ledger and examined it long before you urged Uncle Quentin to show it to me. I had already known about the Professor’s blackmailing activities for some time.”

  Patrick tried to say something, only to be cut off by the love of his life as she continued matter-of-factly, “It was then that I stopped searching for the murderer out of some ridiculous loyalty to the Professor and pushed on for quite another reason entirely—to ease the poor murderer’s conscience for having acted, under great distress I was sure, to remove a threat to his security. After all, I too had been living on the money the Professor was extorting from all those poor souls, although I didn’t know it.”

  Sherbourne, his voice sounding strangely strained, muttered something that could have been “windmills,” before slapping his forehead with his palm and exploding vehemently, “Of all the imbecilic, asinine, quixotic—”

  Standish, who had risen languidly to his feet shut off the tirade with a warning shake of his head. “Let it go, dear boy,” Pierre advised sagely. “Understanding the workings of a woman’s mind is a lifelong study. You shan’t be able to fathom such intricacies in one short evening. Now, if I might suggest you return your attentions to poor Sir Perky here, who is still looking a bit stunned by your fiancée’s gracious forgiveness? Perhaps another slice of that delicious cake?”

  Sir Perkin, who was feeling quite mellow, actually, now that he knew he wasn’t about to be carted off to the guardhouse, rubbed his rounded stomach reflectively, saying, “Oh no, no, no! I couldn’t eat another bite.”

  “I’ve got some cherry tarts in the kitchen left from luncheon,” Wilhelmina suggested, having developed a real fondness for the chubby little man.

  “You do?” Sir Perkin exclaimed, already rising to his feet. “You know, when I was just a lad in Wiltshire our cook would let me sit in her kitchen and watch her while she baked cherry tarts. I was always happy in the kitchens, what with all those wonderful smells and those lovely bowls to lick. I say, do you suppose…?”

  Wilhelmina slipped an arm around Sir Perkin’s shoulders and gave him a slight push toward the baize-covered door that led to the servants’ portion of the house. “Done and done! You come with me and Quentin, Sir Perky,” she said bracingly, “and you can watch me whilst I roll out a whole fresh batch. Right, Quentin?”

  “Right you are, love,” Quentin agreed, going ahead of them to open the door that led down a narrow hallway to the kitchen. “I could do with one of your cherry tarts m’self.”

  “And as the stage grows dim, the players drift away into the shadows, their stories told, their happiness assured.” So saying, Pierre Standish made to move toward the hallway, adding, “I bid you good evening, my friends. It has been utterly delightful, I assure you—better than anything I have seen at Covent Garden in many a season—but a wise man knows when he has become dreadfully in the way. Isn’t that correct, my dearest Patrick?”

  Sherbourne, now standing before Victoria, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders as he gazed adoringly into her eyes, didn’t bother to reply, knowing that Pierre had already slipped silently out of the room.

  “I like him, you know,” Victoria said of Standish as she reached her arms up and around Patrick’s neck. “I know he’s dangerous and secretive and all those other things, but I really do like him.”

  “I should box your ears,” Patrick replied quietly, trying to look stern and failing badly in the effort. “You do know that, don’t you? Why didn’t you tell me what you planned to do when Sir Perkin confessed?”

  “Do you know something, my dearest, most darling Patrick? You ask too many questions,” Victoria replied sweetly, moving her lips to within a heartbeat of his—and effectively putting an end to their conversation.

  EPILOGUE

  “PERHAPS WE CAN TELL HIM we’re keeping it for our oldest son to present to his wife,” Victoria, trying to be helpful, suggested, holding the ornate diamond-encrusted brooch in front of her and looking at it assessingly.

  “A brooch in the shape of a Q as a betrothal gift?” her husband quipped in amused disbelief. “At least it would be a true test of her devotion. After all, if the poor girl didn’t really love our offspring, she’d run screaming posthaste for her papa to send a retraction to the newspapers, wouldn’t she?”

  Victoria giggled happily at the joke and then leaned back against Patrick’s broad chest. “It is atrocious, isn’t it? Dear Uncle Quentin, he means well.”

  “Wilhelmina was ecstatic about the necklace he gave her as a wedding token,” the Earl said, his voice deliberately bland. “But then, of course, Willie does have a magnificent bosom, just the sort for showing such a heavy piece off to good advantage.”

  “Wretch!” Victoria shot back, poking him in the ribs with her elbow. Then, sobering slightly, she went on, “They’re only gone a week and I miss them already. While neither may be related to me by blood, they’re the only family—besides you, dearest, and the children we shall share—that I could ever want. Do you miss them too?”

  Patrick leaned down to plant a soft kiss on the top of her head. “Yes, love, I do—and we are not the only ones. I hear Sir Perky has all but gone into mourning, now that his supply of tarts has been cut off. But they’ll be happier in Surrey, love. Wilhelmina had no craving for London, even if Quentin’s money could buy them a limited place in Society. And we’ll visit them often, I promise. Just be glad Emma and Philip have at last set the date. I was beginning to think we had taken on a full-time boarder.”

  “Emma or Philip?” Victoria teased, looking out over the softly rolling hills of Sherbourne’s country estate. “He certainly did make a pest of himself, didn’t he, nearly drowning poor Emma with that constant shower of gifts he brought round to our town house almost daily. Honestly, to think he could actually believe dear, sweet Emma would consider him beneath her touch after finding out about his great-grandmother. I thought she’d have to compromise the silly man in order for hi
m to believe she really did wish to become Mrs. Spalding.”

  Shifting his weight slightly on the blanket they had spread out beneath one of the apple trees on the fringe of the orchard, Patrick reached his arms more fully around his wife and gave her slim waist a gentle squeeze. “Truth to tell, pet, I do think she was slightly taken aback for a while, before she considered all of her options. She made her point rather well at the end, I think, asking Spalding if he truly believed she wished to spend the rest of her life carrying around the name Emma Hamilton. All in all, I’d say the two of them were made for each other.”

  “You would?” Victoria asked, twisting her head around to look up at him.

  “Not really,” he answered in all honesty, “but it was either that or having the two of them underfoot indefinitely.”

  “Oh you—” she exclaimed in feigned exasperation, rolling over to pin him against the blanket. “Sometimes you are as maddeningly sarcastic as your friend Pierre Standish!”

  “I kiss better than Pierre Standish, darling,” Patrick declared, grinning up at her.

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do. Come here, minx, and I’ll prove it.”

  “But however shall I know if you are telling the truth, having never kissed Pierre Standish?” Victoria asked, lifting a hand to remove her spectacles and lay them beside her on the blanket. “Perhaps you should write to Mr. Standish in London and apply to him for assistance in proving your point?”

  “Pierre’s not in London, pet,” her husband informed her, slipping a hand behind her neck and slowly pulling her down to him. “He’s been called to his father’s estate in the country. It’s strange, but I don’t think he’s been to visit his father since we first returned from the Peninsula to find his mother had died during his absence.”

  “I didn’t know his father was still living. As a matter of fact, it never occurred to me that one such as Pierre ever had a father—yet alone a mother.”