by Joan Smith
After a pause, he said, “If you’re not seen going out with Byron, Luten will think you can’t bring him up to scratch. He’s much more likely to cave in if he thinks you and Byron are an item. And what a social coup for you, Corrie, to nab the town’s ultimate prize, then cavalierly cast him aside!”
“It seems dreadfully vulgar to be scheming like this behind Luten’s back,” she said, so primly he wanted to shake her.
“This is not the time to be high minded, my pet. You can play that role after you’re a duchess. What did you think of that remark of Byron’s, by the by?”
“Mere gossip. About Byron ...” Corinne tried very hard to look nonchalant, and failed. “He knows where I live. If he happens to hear Luten and I are no longer engaged and wishes to call on me, I’d be happy to see him.”
“Right, I’ll tell him.” Corinne frowned her disapproval to hear it put so bluntly. “Where do you want him to take you?”
Her eyes began to water again. Prance handed her his handkerchief as he disliked to see a lady wipe her tears with her fingers, like a common servant. “I don’t care where we go, Reg. That’s not the point,” she sniffled. “I just want Luten to see him call on me.”
“Then make yourself gorgeous, for Byron will no doubt come galloping, ventre à terre, as soon as I have a word with him.” There was a sound at the door. “Could that be him now?”
It was Coffen who was shown in by the butler, who scowled his displeasure at Prance. Of course Black had overheard every word. Coffen shot one fiery glance at the scene and said, “So he’s found out. What’s the upshot?”
“She gave him back the ring,” Prance replied.
“I smell your hand in this, Prance,” Coffen charged.
“An unpleasant metaphor. My hand resents it. I did inadvertently mention something to Luten.”
“You did it on purpose, and don’t bother trying to whitewash yourself with those break-teeth words. You’re a born troublemaker.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“You have no idea how I feel, or you wouldn’t be calmly sitting there when I’m not two steps away from the poker.” He turned to Corinne. “Not that we can give Prance credit for all the blame. I told you you ought to tell Luten yourself. If you’d listened to me–”
“I was going to tell him that very minute when Evans brought the coffee. Then Prance came in.”
Coffen hadn’t the heart to badger her when she looked so miserable. “Never mind,” he said gruffly. “It’ll come right in the end. Bound to–as long as you keep Lord Byron out of the way. Anyhow, I have news. I stopped at the Morgate Home to see Fanny while I was in the neighborhood, spying on the brothel. Bruton told me she couldn’t see me. She was sick. Looks to me like they’re keeping her incommunicado. I wager they’ve got her locked up. I mean to sneak into her room tonight and have a talk with her.”
“So long as that’s all you mean to do,” Corinne said, with a piercing look.
“It is. I want to be on the qui vive outside to see if they take the girls back to that brothel place. It is a brothel upstairs, by the way, with a gambling hell downstairs.”
“I assume you peeked in the windows belowstairs,” Prance said, “but how did you see the bedrooms?”
“I didn’t. Willie did.”
“That would be the urchin I saw pelting out of your house this morning?”
“That’s him. The lad’s sharp as a pin. He’s on to every rig and rattle. He’s spying for me. He scampered up a tree and a vine and I don’t know what all. Agile as a squirrel. Anyhow he said there’s dandy bedrooms with dirty pictures on the walls. I might drop in there as a customer tonight, if I don’t find Fanny in her room.”
“You do have a busy night planned,” Prance murmured.
“I could use some help, Prance.”
“I pray thee, hold me excused. Brothels are not exactly my cup of tea.”
“Somebody to help with the ladder is what I mean, and be on the lookout while I scramble into Fanny’s room. And p’raps to use his fists if I run into trouble. Pity Luten’s laid up.”
“I can use my fists!” Prance said at once. He disliked to do so, but he disliked even more the hint that he was a coward. If called upon to defend himself, he could use his dabs. He would take a pistol as well. Not to shoot, but to use for intimidation.
He turned to Corinne. “Shall I arrange some outing for you this evening with–our mutual friend?”
“Oh dear, I don’t know, Prance. I’m a little frightened.”
“If you mean Byron, the answer is no,” Coffen said. “You’ve done enough harm, Prance. Leave it alone. You’ve been treading on thin water all along with your stunt of foisting Byron on us. What’s so special about him, just because he sets poetry to words? You’ve been aping him with that foolish lock over your forehead, making a cake of yourself. It’s getting so I’m ashamed to be seen with you.”
Prance deemed this not an auspicious moment to correct any of his friend’s linguistic errors. “I don’t like to think of Corinne here alone all evening, pining.”
“She ain’t alone. Mrs. Ballard is here.”
“Hardly an improvement.”
“We can take her out after we get back. No harm in that. Luten trusts us.” He turned a dark eye on Prance. “Or me, anyhow. Decide where you’d like to go, Corrie, and we’ll take you after we get back.”
“I’d like to go with you to visit Fanny.”
Coffen, fearing Prance would arrange a date with Byron if she were left behind, agreed to take her.
“Do you figure it’s safe to call on Luten yet, or should I give him some time to calm down?” he asked Corinne. She shrugged. “I’ll go after I have a bite.” He looked hopefully for a luncheon invitation.
Prance, who was always eager to atone after he had sinned, took him home and fed him.
* * *
Chapter 18
Word of Corinne’s difficulties spread through her household in minutes, thanks to Black’s eavesdropping. He halted Mrs. Ballard on her way to the drawing room to sit with her mistress and whispered that, “Her ladyship might prefer privacy at this moment, due to trouble with him next door.”
“Big trouble?” Mrs. Ballard asked fearfully.
“She’s given back the ring—again. Keep the maids out of her hair. I’ll pass the word along to the footman.”
To escape the tender solicitations of her butler, who insisted on wrapping her in blankets, supplying a stream of possets and uttering incoherent threats against his lordship, Corinne went to her bedroom, there to be comforted in Job-like fashion by Mrs. Ballard, who said in unctuous tones that no doubt it was all for the best, and the lord would show her the way to peace and happiness.
When she received a note from Prance urging her to join him and Coffen for dinner, she was happy to escape her loving tormenters. Prance had sent André out to scour London for pale pink roses and made the table arrangement himself. Gaudy red roses, tokens of love, would have been insensitive, whereas white, his own favorite, would have suggested mourning. It would be too cruel to use yellow, those tokens of farewell. Pale pink, he thought, was the discreet choice. André was requested (André was never ordered) to prepare light, tempting fare to suit a jilted lady.
“The cassoulet we had planned as the main dish will have to be put aside, André,” he explained. “You will agree with me that one cannot offer a lovelorn lady any dish with a bean in it. It would be too farouche. Place it within reach of Pattle. He’ll do it justice.”
Prance was happy to see that she admired the roses, and ate three bites of the herbed chicken in pan gravy, which is one more than he ate himself. He took a nibble to make sure the spices had been used in the proper proportions. She did better with the orange soufflé and drank two glasses of wine. After Coffen had done justice to the dinner, they left at once for the Morgate Home.
Luten watched from his drawing room window, his shoulders drooping to see his brigade set off on the investigation w
ithout him. Coffen had nipped in before dinner to offer his support and inform him that Corinne was blue as megrims. “You know it was always you she liked. I mean before– Still! Dash it, you know what I mean.”
“I appreciate the intention, but don’t cheer me up any more, Coffen.”
Coffen had also told him where they planned to go that evening, so Luten knew she was not seeing Byron. What Luten really wanted was to be with them, sneaking into the Morgate Home, talking to Fanny, scheming to catch Lord Clare.
He had had enough of politics, yet duty impelled him to work harder than ever at this time, when the scepter of power was dangling within the Whigs’ reach. He should this minute be reading that report on the rotten boroughs that Grey had left him, instead of mooning like a lovesick calf, pining for a glance of his lady. What did his own happiness matter, when compared to the good he could do if he succeeded in ousting Mouldy and Company?
To accomplish that miracle, however, they had first to solve Fogg’s murder. It made more than an excuse to keep an eye on the window, for he would join the group at Pattle’s place when they returned. His suggestion that Coffen and the others come to him was overborne by the ever commonsensical Coffen.
“Corrie won’t come here,” he had said bluntly. “Too proud. Thing to do, we’ll go back to my place. You come there, let on you don’t know she’s there.”
“ I certainly have to know what you discover. Surely she realizes that, and won’t think I’m running after her.”
Coffen just shook his head. “I don’t know which of the pair of you is more immature. You’re acting like a deb and a schoolboy. I can understand it in a woman, but ‘pon my word, Luten, I’m shocked at you acting so foolish.” Luten, who rarely blushed, looked conscious and immediately changed the subject. But he felt the fevered pangs of heartache, like a jilted schoolboy losing his first love.
* * * *
“We’ll park the rig here and go on foot,” Coffen said, as Prance’s carriage approached the environs of the Morgate Home. The three went quietly slipping down the shadowed street, turned in at the two tall trees, their branches creaking in the wind. They turned the corner to the cobbled walk leading to the rear. By nine o’clock, it was pitch black, save for a thinly veiled moon, adrift on a pewter sea of trailing clouds. Only one light eased the dark hulk of the front of the building. When they reached the rear, several of the windows of the annex showed a lamp within.
“Looks like the girls are preening for another night out,” Coffen said.
“Which window is Fanny’s?” Corinne asked, craning her neck upwards.
“That one without a light,” he said, pointing to the third window from the right on the second floor of the annex. “It seems she ain’t going. I wonder if that’s by choice or Clare’s doings. One way to find out.”
With Prance’s assistance, he got the ladder up to Fanny’s window without bringing a servant to the back door. Prance and Corinne steadied the ladder while Coffen crept up. The window was closed and the curtains drawn. He tapped, there was no reply. He tapped again, and again, more loudly. When he still got no reply, he slid his fingers between the frame and the bottom of the window and heaved, grunting softly with the effort. It was hard to keep his balance, teetering on the ladder. Once he got the window open an inch he had no trouble. He wrapped his fingers around the frame and heaved it up.
He pulled the curtains apart, stuck his head in and called quietly, “Fanny! Don’t be afraid. It’s me. Pattle.” He was met with a dead silence.
His shoulders followed his head in, and soon he landed in a heap on the floor. He drew the curtains wide to gain a little light from the moon. As his eyes adjusted, he could see the bed was not only empty but had been stripped. It looked as if the whole room had been stripped. No feminine clutter of comb and brush and bottles decorated the dresser top. No linen in the drawers, no clothes in the clothespress. The only movable item in the room was the Bible, that sat on the bedside table.
Beyond the room, hurried footsteps and excited chatter sounded in the corridor as the girls prepared for going out. Their chatter was of the happy sort, interrupted with giggles, which didn’t sound as if they were being forced to do something they didn’t want to do. At least they were willing pawns in Clare’s sordid game. He rather thought Fanny would have been willing too, to judge by last night. So why had they moved her out of the annex?
He had a bad feeling about that. A little shiver ran up his spine, bristling the hair on the back of his neck. As there was nothing to discover here, he climbed out the window and back down the ladder.
“What did Fanny say?” Corinne asked.
“Tell you later. Let us be off, before we’re discovered,” he whispered.
They took down the ladder and walked back to the waiting carriage, huddling together against the brisk breeze. As they walked along, the carriage carrying the ladybirds to the house in Lambeth rumbled past. Echoes of merrymaking sounded from within. “There they go now,” Coffen said, “merry as grigs, poor things. Fanny’s gone.”
“Gone with the others in the carriage, you mean?” Prance asked.
“No, gone away. Her room’s empty. Your clothes are gone along with the rest, Corrie. No clues at all.”
“What, you mean they’ve moved her out of the annex?” Corinne exclaimed in rising alarm. “Where could she be?”
“I don’t know where they’ve moved her to, I only know she’s gone, bag and baggage. I wonder if she mentioned to anyone that I was quizzing her. I mean to say, maybe she got asking questions about Henry and Clare heard about it–”
Corinne gasped. “You mean– he– Surely he wouldn’t kill her!”
“Do you have one of your feelings?” Coffen asked in alarm. Corinne had had some luck in the past with seeing glimpses of the future. Her being Irish was held accountable for this feat. He placed some faith in her sensing of trouble.
“I didn’t, until you asked me.”
“Aren’t we overlooking more reasonable possibilities?” Prance said. “Isn’t it possible that Fanny decided to run off on her own? She’s an enterprising sort of girl, from what we know of her.”
“Where would a pregnant girl run to?” Coffen asked.
“Home, perhaps. She might have received forgiveness in a letter from home.”
“I don’t see her going home to face the scorn of her provincial neighbors,” Corinne said.
“Run off with some other man, then. Or perhaps Clare just removed her from the annex to the other part of the building. Surely that’s the more likely explanation.”
“I doubt they’d move her when she’s sick,” Coffen said. “Bruton said she was sick. Knew she was lying her head off.”
“We’ve got to find out where she is,” Corinne said firmly. Once Coffen put the notion of trouble in her head, it grew until she was trembling with apprehension.
“I’ll ask around at the whore house,” Coffen said. Prance cleared his throat to hint that this was broad talk to let loose on a lady. “In fact, I’m going there right now. You can leave me and take Corrie home, Prance. I’ll get a lift with some other fellow, or hire a hackney. I’m feeling nervous about this. Don’t want to waste any time.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Corinne asked. “If Clare is there, he might– I don’t know. He might decide to kill you as well.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Prance scolded. “You’re making each other nervous with this unfounded talk of killing.”
“You’re forgetting somebody did kill Fogg,” Corinne reminded him.
“Now you’re making my flesh crawl!” Prance complained. “We’ll drop you off at the house and wait for you in the carriage down the street a bit, Coffen.”
Coffen gave directions to the coachman, they climbed in and the carriage lurched forward. As it was Prance’s rig, it headed in the proper direction. “How long do you figure you’ll need, Coffen?”
“Depends on what I find out. I’ll be as fast as I can. I don’t mean to actual
ly– I’ll pretend I don’t find any of the girls to my liking. Just walk in, have a glass of something wet, chat up a few of them and nip out again.”
“It might help if you act drunk,” Prance suggested.
“If Clare’s there, I will. A good idea, Prance. I’m surprised you came up with it.”
Prance prided himself on his ingenuity. “Surprised?”
“No slight intended. It’s just that your notions are usually more farfetched.”
“Perhaps I am rather imaginative. I remember once at Lady Silverton’s masquerade ball–”
Coffen gave the draw string a jerk. “I’ll be toddling along. I’ve heard your story about having Lady Silverton’s husband dress up like her lover at that masquerade ball. A nasty trick it was, too.”
“So you say, but nine months later she gave her mari a beautiful baby boy,”
“Yes, but who was its papa?”
“There’s no saying. She’s so clever all her lovers have the same size and coloring as her husband, which, of course, worked to advantage at the masquerade ball.”
The carriage pulled to the side of the road and ground to a stop. Coffen lumbered out and disappeared into the night.
* * *
Chapter 19
Coffen’s first concern was to make sure Lord Clare wasn’t on the premises. He was met at the door by a man he had never seen before. The fellow was dressed like a gentleman in a decent dark jacket, but his speech and his greased hair and sycophantic face betrayed his true nature.
“Evening, sir,” the man said, running a practised eye over Pattle’s toilette, and discerning a gentleman beneath the rumpled exterior. “I’m Horner, the manager. Welcome to Paree.”
Coffen blinked and said, “Eh?”
“It’s French night. Didn’t you know?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“We have a special night from time to time. Arabian night is popular. Might I ask who sent you, Mr. Smith?”
Again Coffen said “Eh?” Then he realized that all the callers were given the courtesy name of Mr. Smith, or perhaps Mr. Jones.