Death at the Dance: An addictive historical cozy mystery (A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery Book 2)

by Verity Bright

  Death at the Dance

  An addictive historical cozy mystery

  Verity Bright

  Books by Verity Bright

  The Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery Series

  1. A Very English Murder

  2. Death at the Dance

  Available in Audio

  1. A Very English Murder (available in the UK and the US)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  A Very English Murder

  Hear More from Verity Bright

  Books by Verity Bright

  A Letter From Verity Bright

  A Little More about the Lady Swift Books

  Acknowledgements

  *

  ‘Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.’

  Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance

  One

  Eleanor cowered at the end of the bedstead as shattered glass rained down on her head. ‘Oh, botheration!’ She shook the larger shards from her flame-red curls, her sharp, green eyes peering up at the ceiling now devoid of its ornate chandelier, the plaster rose sprouting only a wire.

  ‘Double botheration!’ She hurled the long bamboo cane responsible for the damage onto her bed, pulled on her slippers, and crunched across the glass. In her grey, silk pyjamas and with her slender figure she looked every inch the martial-arts student. She opened the door and jumped back. ‘Clifford! Please don’t lurk outside like that! You frightened the sense out of me.’

  Her butler dropped his white-gloved hand, which had been raised ready to knock. ‘Apologies, my lady, but I rather fear that happened a long while ago.’

  ‘What? Now look here.’ She glanced up at him and caught that twinkle in his eye. She found herself grinning back. He had not only been her late uncle’s butler but also, despite the class difference, his friend. And so it was proving with her.

  ‘In fact, don’t come in. Well, actually, you’ll have to, I suppose.’ She opened the door for him to see. ‘You may have heard a teensy noise.’

  ‘Indeed, my lady. Mr Penry called from his butcher’s shop in the village to ask if we would be good enough to keep the noise down.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  Clifford pulled the bell sash at the head of Eleanor’s bed twice. ‘Not to worry, the ladies will do a swift job, given the circumstances.’

  ‘Circumstances?’

  ‘That you have precisely thirty-seven minutes before we need to leave.’

  ‘Oh golly, that’s not long. But wait, need to leave for where?’

  Clifford adjusted his perfectly aligned shirt cuffs. ‘If you remember, my lady, the Fenwick-Langhams are holding a masked ball and I will be driving you there in the Rolls.’

  Eleanor picked up her uncle’s fob watch from the bedside. She’d found it when she’d inherited Henley Hall after his unexpected death, and kept it as a memento of the rare times she’d spent with him. ‘Thirty-seven minutes is’ – she looked down at her pyjamas – ‘ample. And I’m sure the ladies will… ah! Here they are.’

  ‘Oh, my stars!’ Mrs Butters, the housekeeper, flustered in and stood peering at the mound of glass and silver fittings. ‘Thank goodness Master Gladstone wasn’t in here, his paws would be full of cut chandelier crystal.’

  Gladstone was the elderly bulldog Eleanor had inherited along with Henley Hall, and much else besides, from her late uncle.

  Mrs Butters looked up from the mess on the floor. ‘More importantly, are you alright, my lady?’

  ‘Yes, I’m quite fine. Do come in, Polly.’ Eleanor didn’t need to peer round the door to know her young maid would be waiting on the other side.

  Polly loped in on her willowy legs and looked around the room. ‘Oh lummy!’

  ‘Yes, Polly, oh lummy indeed,’ Clifford said. ‘But not to worry, her ladyship has finished her martial-arts training for the moment, so kindly clear up the aftermath.’

  Eleanor cocked a questioning eyebrow at him. How could he possibly have known? ‘Look here, Clifford, I just thought it would be a good idea to be better prepared, given the events of the last few weeks. Hence a dash of self-defence training.’

  ‘Indeed, my lady, assuming, of course, your assailant was planning to pounce on you from the chandelier.’

  ‘Very droll. Actually, I think it’s a shame Baritsu died out so quickly, I rather like it. Sherlock Holmes practised it, you know.’

  Clifford cleared his throat. ‘Sherlock Holmes did indeed practice a form of martial arts, my lady. I believe, however, the correct name is actually Bartitsu, with a middle “T”, being a blended word of the surname of the gentleman who invented it, Mr Barton-Wright and jiu-jitsu. Unfortunately, the Bartitsu Club closed seventeen years ago in 1903, my lady, even though Mr William Barton-Wright is still teaching it I believe.’

  Eleanor never stopped marvelling at just how much her butler seemed to know on any subject under the sun. With the mess cleared away, Mrs Butters bobbed a half curtsey. ‘Will there be anything else, my lady? Shall Polly help you dress?’

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ Eleanor replied a little too quickly. ‘I mean, no thank you. I have yet to work out which of these silk brocaded apparatuses of torture I will choose as my penance for this evening.’

  The housekeeper chuckled and winked over her shoulder as she ushered Polly from the room. Clifford gave a polite cough. ‘Perhaps getting one’s skates on, as I believe the expression is, would be advisable?’

  ‘Tsh, tsh, skates are hardly the appropriate footwear, silly.’

  ‘I am given to understand that there will be several people there you have met previously at the rose garden luncheon Lady Fenwick-Langham put on two months ago.’

  She groaned and flopped backwards onto the bed. ‘Great! A stern old dowager and her soppy niece and a henpecked husband and his American wife who delights in ribbing my lack of fashion sense.’

  ‘And, of course, a certain gentleman…’

  Eleanor sat up. ‘What! Oh no, not Colonel Bardifoot-Puttleton. Whatever I do, he seems to disapprove of.’

  ‘It’s Colonel Puddifoot-Barton, my lady. He is a highly decorated soldier. Admittedly, he can be a trifle… caustic on the surface, but if you dig—’

  ‘One has to dig very deep to find any redeeming traits in the man. And, frankly, I am not in the mood for digging. I’ve tried to get on with him, but he has an unmatched skill for turning even a simple “Hello, Colonel, how are you?” into a declaration of open war!’

  Clifford picked up the two dresses hanging on the door of her wardrobe and laid them carefully on the bed next to her.

  ‘True, my lady, but I wasn’t actually speaking abou
t the colonel, rather a younger gentleman.’

  She coloured at his last remark and tried to sound disinterested. ‘Oh yes, Lancelot.’ She peered at the dresses. ‘Which do you think he would like?’ She slapped her forehead. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean for that to come out aloud.’

  Clifford smiled. ‘I should think, my lady, that the gentleman will be delighted to see you in either. However, since you’ve asked, I would suspect the blue dress will catch his eye most assuredly.’

  ‘Right, then I’ll wear the red! I’m not having him goggling at me all night. I’m supposed to be a lady.’

  ‘Well, we live in hope,’ Clifford muttered as he left the room.

  Alone, Eleanor yanked off her house pyjamas, throwing them in a heap on the bed. She couldn’t help smiling on opening her wardrobe. Mrs Butters had surprised her the day before by making an exquisitely detailed set of hanging storage pockets. Made in duck-egg blue silk voile, they were perfect for her stockings.

  Choosing a middle denier pair in glossy black, she yanked them on and grabbed the red dress from the bed. With one leg in, she paused, frowning. Clifford was bound to have guessed that she would pick the one he hadn’t suggested. Oh what a fool, she’d nearly fallen for it. He obviously thought she should wear the red one. She reached for the blue gown. But wait, supposing it was a double bluff?

  Thirty-five minutes later she pulled her bedroom door closed and tried to step elegantly down the stairs, the train of her gown tripping her feet and nearly defeating her efforts. She had finally chosen an emerald-green-and-gold gown. It had been her mother’s, but it fitted her perfectly. After her parents’ disappearance, her uncle had kept her mother’s clothes at the Hall, much to Eleanor’s delight when she unexpectedly came across them after inheriting the estate.

  Mrs Butters, Polly and Mrs Trotman, the cook, stood in line in the hallway.

  ‘Will I do, ladies, do you think?’

  ‘Oh, m’lady, you look a princess.’ Mrs Butters took Eleanor’s hands in hers and pulling her arms to the side, clucked as proudly as a mother hen.

  ‘The perfect choice, m’lady. You’ll be the star of the ball and no mistake.’ Mrs Trotman smiled.

  Polly wiped tears from her cheeks as Mrs Butters reached round and pushed the maid’s gaping jaw up.

  ‘Thank you, ladies. I sincerely hope, however, that I won’t be the star at all. I intend to sneak in at the back and loiter in the shadows, hoping not to catch anyone’s eye and thus avoiding all the tedium of social niceties.’

  ‘Well, perhaps just one set of eyes would be fine,’ Mrs Trotman muttered.

  ‘Trotters!’ Mrs Butters said. ‘Decorum, please. Sorry, my lady, I’ll go boil her tongue so as it doesn’t happen again.’

  They all chuckled, Polly jiggling excitedly on her long legs.

  ‘Right, wish me luck,’ Eleanor said. ‘Let’s hope this gown fools them and they don’t realise I’m as unladylike underneath as a frog in wellington boots.’

  She stepped to the front door.

  ‘Enjoy yourself, my lady.’ Mrs Butters patted her arm as she held the door open. ‘You look absolutely exquisite, definitely the most beautiful frog I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Eleanor’s eyes twinkled with warmth for the kind-hearted housekeeper she wished had been there when she was a child.

  Clifford had brought the Rolls Royce around and was waiting patiently. It was an early June evening, with a warm, damp breeze threatening rain. As she reached the gravel, Mrs Butters called out, ‘Gracious, your train, my lady!’

  With a grateful nod, Eleanor swished up the tail of her gown and stepped to the driver’s door.

  Clifford raised an eyebrow. ‘My lady?’

  ‘Now, none of that. I’ll drive, thank you, Clifford. I’m in need of some more practice.’

  He looked her up and down. ‘In that gown? Are you sure that is wise?’

  ‘Of course, why ever not?’

  ‘I fear, my lady, you are sure to snap your heels off as you stamp on the brakes, and rip the train of your dress as you wrench the gear stick back and forth.’

  She stared at him. ‘You are a terrible man, you do know that.’

  ‘Kind words, my lady. Shall we?’ He gestured round to the passenger side and led the way without waiting for her response. Sliding into the driving seat, he pointed to the glovebox. Inside was a mask that matched her dress perfectly.

  Two

  Clifford pulled round the grand horseshoe entrance of Langham Manor and stopped at the base of the sweeping stone staircase that led up to the colonnaded stately entrance. Lights shone from every window and lanterns burned brightly on each step, illuminating the lush garlands of roses twirled along every inch of the balustrades on either side up to the front door. Eleanor sighed at the fairy-tale atmosphere.

  ‘Here we are, my lady. The invitation said seven to half past, so quarter to eight is close enough.’

  ‘Wish me luck, Clifford,’ Eleanor said.

  Clifford smiled. ‘You’ll be fine. Perhaps just steer clear of politics, religion and colonels.’ He nodded at a footman and her car door opened like magic.

  Sandford, butler at the Manor, was waiting for her at the top of the steps.

  ‘Good evening, Sandford. How are you?’ Eleanor called as she tried to make sense of the yards of fabric that made up the train of her gown.

  Clifford coughed from the driver’s seat. ‘And perhaps try to avoid fraternising with the staff. Think “lady”.’

  Eleanor frowned as she finally managed to get out of the car. ‘You know, Sandford, I’m planning to send Clifford back to butler school to learn how one should address the lady of the house.’

  Sandford’s eyes twinkled as he suppressed a laugh.

  ‘Please watch out for Lady Swift this evening, Mr Sandford,’ Clifford called to his friend. ‘If things get ugly you know where to find me. However, if she needs bail money, well, then I’ve moved and left no forwarding address.’

  Sandford’s shoulders shook, but he quickly regained his composure. ‘Very good, Mr Clifford. Lady Swift will be in the best hands.’

  Eleanor rolled her eyes as she started up the stairs. ‘Sandford, Clifford really is a monster. You don’t speak to Lady Langham in that way I’m sure?’ At his horror-struck expression, she nodded. ‘Just as I thought. Now, let’s get this thing underway. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish, that’s my motto.’

  ‘With respect, my lady, the ball is well underway. All the other guests arrived some time ago.’

  ‘Yes, well, you can blame Clifford for that too. He made such a fuss about which dress I should wear and then there was a row about me driving.’ About halfway up the staircase, Eleanor peered over her shoulder and groaned. ‘You couldn’t grab the back of this infernal frock, could you? It’s in such a tangle I can barely move my legs.’

  Sandford disentangled the mass of fabric, spreading it out down the staircase. ‘Should be fine now, my lady.’

  He escorted her into the hallway, which was adorned with huge bowls of white lilies and gardenias. As they walked past the sweeping double staircases, the sounds of a chamber orchestra wafted along the scented air.

  Arriving at the ballroom, Eleanor gasped. The oval room rose to the height of two floors, the walls a rich cream. Gold plaster reliefs decorated each of the arched doorways before scrolling up to the ceiling. Between each of the doors a sculpture was displayed in a deep alcove outlined by more gold carving of swirling branches and leaves. Crystal chandeliers dotted the domed ceiling. On the floor, veiled ladies in a rainbow of colours chatted with masked gentlemen in black to the sounds of the orchestra. She went to step forward.

  ‘My lady, perhaps you will be good enough to permit me to announce you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’ Eleanor had been brought up abroad by bohemian parents and despite attending a strict girls’ boarding school after their disappearance, she had never mastered social etiquette.

  Sandford gestured to the leader o
f the small orchestra who indicated to the musicians to play sotto voce. The room quietened as all heads turned her way.

  ‘Lady Eleanor Swift of Henley Hall.’ Sandford nodded to the leader and the music resumed full volume.

  A tall lady in her fifties with tight, greying curls and deep-blue eyes glided across the marbled floor with arms outstretched. ‘My dear Eleanor, there you are, you poor lamb! Whatever happened?’

  ‘Good evening, Lady Fenwick-Langham,’ Eleanor said. ‘Um, nothing terrible happened that I’m aware of.’

  ‘But you’re the last to arrive by quarter of an hour. We’ve held over starting the dancing so you could be announced. And do call me Augusta, dear.’

  ‘Ah! Yes, do forgive me on both accounts.’ Eleanor looked around for a change of subject. ‘What… what an exquisite setting.’

  Her host’s frown dissolved instantly. ‘Oh, do you like it? It is wonderful to see it filled with swirling gowns and black ties. I keep saying to Harold that we should do this more often.’

  At the sound of his name Lord Fenwick-Langham bowled over. ‘Eleanor, my dear, how are you?’

  ‘Very well, thank you, er, Harold.’ Although she loved them both, Eleanor felt more comfortable around this old coot, with his informal ways, than his high-society wife with her airs and graces.

  ‘Still in one piece and not too many scorch marks on your pretty frock.’ He turned and patted his wife’s arm. ‘Well done, my love.’