by Joan Smith
With an injured air, he went abovestairs to accost Lady Lenore. Such an errand would normally put him in humor, but there was a scowl on his brow as he bolted up the stairs, two at a time.
Chapter 5
Deirdre ran Bidwell to ground in the hallway in front of the ballroom door. He was called handsome by society, though there was an effeminate air in him that made the word hard for her to accept. Pretty came closer to describing him. He had brown hair, waved and worn rather long in the poetic style. His eyes were blue, with long lashes. He was dandified in appearance, wearing a jacket that carried more wadding than really suited his narrow waist and thin legs. His build was not much like Belami’s, but she supposed that with a sheet over the jacket, he would look larger than he was.
“Good morning, Bidwell. Investigating the scene of the crime, are you?” she asked, approaching him with a friendly smile.
“Just so, Miss Gower, just so,” he answered with his sweet smile. He had lips like a girl, she noticed. Or was it that the more masculine lips of Belami were still in her mind? “I missed all the excitement last night.”
“That’s too bad. You retired early, did you?”
“I went abovestairs for a rest before midnight, but came back down in time to join the search. How is Her Grace holding up under the strain?”
“Nobly, as we all expected she would,” she told him.
“A pity about her insurance lapsing. I little thought when Carswell mentioned it to me a fortnight ago how dire the consequences would be.”
“Ah, yes, your uncle was her agent. Well, my aunt’s loss may prove your gain.”
“There is no saying. We don’t jog along so well as we ought. We never did hit it off.”
“Why was that, I wonder?” she asked. They walked along the hall as they spoke.
“He’s no blood kin to me. I was living with my aunt, old Miriam Bidwell, at the time of the marriage. I was only a lad. I’d been raised by Aunt Miriam. I felt resentful at his usurping my place with the old girl. She was like a mother to me.”
“Carswell failed to fill the role of father?” she inquired, displaying a casual commiseration.
“Hardly! I was packed straight off to school. I went to them for holidays regularly till Aunt Miriam died. I haven’t been back since. That was two years ago.”
“But you and Carswell meet from time to time?”
“Not by arrangement, but only by chance.”
She wondered what he lived on. He didn’t work. His own father had presumably left him something. “Perhaps you and Carswell would go on more smoothly if you had joined him in his business,” she suggested.
“He would have been richer in any case. A shocking bad manager.
“The insurance business is risky.”
“So it is. But enough gloomy talk. I see Belami has arrived.”
“Yes, he’s at breakfast.”
“What time did he arrive?”
“Late last night,” she said vaguely.
“I daresay he is taking the affair in hand. Our thief is intrepid, to pull off his stunt under Belami’s roof. He’ll get caught certainly. Don’t you think?”
“I hope so.”
“Has Belami made any startling discoveries?” he asked. The question struck her as significant, as dangling for information, yet it was also a perfectly natural question under the circumstances.
“I don’t believe so. Not yet.”
“I will be perfectly happy to help him in any way possible. I shall tell him so as soon as I see him.”
“He’ll appreciate that.”
“Oh, I am eager to find your aunt’s diamond, even if my uncle doesn’t have to stand buff.”
They finished their tour in front of the doorway to the room where the sheet and stocking had been discovered.
“I must go and see my aunt. She’ll be eager to learn if there is any news.”
He bowed and stood waiting while she left. After a minute, her head peeped around the corner of the stairway to see where he went. He was gone. She didn’t think he had time to go anywhere but into the small study where the thief’s things had been hidden, but this didn’t tell her much. If he had been seen coming out with them in his hands, that would have been meaningful, but Belami, the genius, had made that impossible.
With nothing more interesting to do, Deirdre decided to go to the library till lunchtime. She scampered quickly around the corner in case Bidwell should come out and catch her in a lie. Much of her time was spent in libraries of one sort or another. They were better company than her aunt and her friends. She pulled a book from the shelves and sat at an armchair by a window, with the book open on her knee in case Belami or anyone should glance in, but she was not reading. She couldn’t have told you what book she held. No, she was cogitating on life.
The aspect of her own private life that most preoccupied her was Lord Belami, though she would sooner have lost the last tooth in her head than admit it. She told herself firmly that she despised him. He had insulted her, publicly insulted her by his lack of attention both here and in London. She had been humiliated in front of her friends, and he had done it on purpose so that she would break off their engagement. Furthermore, he had told her so.
There was clearly no hope of going through with it after this. It would be back to her aunt’s library and the dull round of nothings on Belvedere Square till another Twombley came along to rescue her. It was madness to have thought she could live with Belami. She should never have accepted him. She knew that when he asked he was under some duress. There had been no warmth, no enthusiasm in his words.
Well, she had been under duress too. If the threat of Twombley wasn’t duress, what was? Belami may have been unreliable, unstable—in short, a womanizer. But at least he wasn’t personally repulsive. The necessary intimate side of marriage with him would have been possible. Indeed, she had looked forward to it with lively curiosity. She would learn at last those secrets known to the Widow Barneses and Lady Lenores of the world.
Soon her mind had wandered off to the bedroom upstairs, where Belami was this instant with Lenore Belfoi. Deirdre had spoken disparagingly of that dasher, but in fact she admired her with all her heart. Such charm, such easy manners and grace, such beauty, and such skills in making the most of it with batting eyes, insinuating voice, and fluttering fan. She would forget that Belami was this minute in her bedroom, holding Lenore in his arms, kissing her. She felt a tingling sensation on her own lips, such a tingling as she had never felt before Dick kissed her, that evening in her aunt’s conservatory. Her head was still reeling a quarter of an hour later, when he had proposed with those stilted phrases, so different from the impassioned words used earlier. And she, a confirmed ninnyhammer, had accepted.
People thought she was a cold girl, but she knew that beneath the ice there was a fire. If she let the ice be chipped away, it would roar out of control and consume her, so she continued to be the prim and proper Deirdre Gower. “Hidden passions,” Dick had said that night in the conservatory. But he had ferreted out her secret, had opened a chink in the icy door, and she had taken many a peek inside the door since.
While she sat with her book and her thoughts, Dick prepared his most ingratiating smile, and went tapping at the door of Lady Lenore Belfoi, who was aux anges to receive a bedroom call from her handsome host. She had arranged a carefully tousled coiffure and put on her prettiest lace bedjacket in preparation for Chamfreys’ visit, but was not tardy in ordering a servant off to delay him once she laid her lovely eyes on Belami.
“Good morning, Lennie,” he said, lounging in with no discomfort at being in a lady’s boudoir. He looked for a chair, but she patted the side of the bed invitingly, and he was not slow to proceed to it.
“I didn’t steal it, darling, if that’s what brings you calling at this farouche hour,” she said, by way of greeting, in her husky voice. Lady Lenore had a voice like a foghorn—low and misty. He adored it.
“Farouche? No, it is nearly nine-thirty
. Nine is farouche; nine-thirty is only inconsiderate. Anything before nine we shan’t even discuss. It is too barbaric.”
“Are you here to play Bow Street, Belami, or . . . something else?” she asked with a sultry peek at him from beneath her lowered lashes.
He reached forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “Bow Street,” she decided aloud at this tame token of affection. “If that’s all you came for, you won’t mind if I have my coffee while it’s still tepid?”
He handed her the cup that rested on the table beside her bed. Then he sat and watched while she sipped daintily. He was intrigued why a husband should display so little interest in a wife of Lenore’s obvious charms. Black hair and green eyes were a stunning combination. She had a heart-shaped face, a perfect nose, perfect teeth, which sparkled behind a set of perfect rosebud lips. Her body was similarly flawless. And with all this, she was neither ill-natured nor stupid. She was one of the few women in the country a man ought to be able to find happiness with, yet to the best of his knowledge, Lennie and Belfoi never spent so much as a week together from head to toe of the year.
“Don’t frown, luv,” she said, setting the cup aside. “It makes me think I have grown a wrinkle, or got a dirty face.”
“I was pondering the riddle of the age. How does it come Belfoi ever lets you out of his sight? If I had the good fortune to be your husband, I’d have you manacled to me.”
“Extraordinarily uncomfortable, I should think. But perhaps if you were my husband, I shouldn’t mind. Belfoi and I go on very well together. We don’t meet often, but when we do, it is always on the best of terms. We were at Badminton together only last autumn. I thought we might meet at Christmas, but we got our plans mixed up somehow. We both hold the belief that variety is the spice of life. We have that in common with you, I believe.”
“I too am Latin in my taste. I like life highly spiced.”
“How do you find the dash of bitters this house party has added to the dish?” she asked archly.
“I never flinch to try a new flavor. It must have been quite a show, the rape of the duchess’s diamond. I wish I had been there.”
“Weren’t you?” she asked blandly.
“No, I wasn’t, Lennie. There’s no truth to the rumor I did the deed. I didn’t happen to think of it,” he added lightly. “They say the fellow was my size, more or less. You are a good judge of a man’s physique. What’s your opinion?”
“Don’t play games with me, luv. We’re not children. I’m sure the cats have been telling you I wasn’t there. I was judging a different man’s physique at the time, right here in bed.”
“Chamfreys or Bidwell?”
“Bidwell agreed to play guard for us. I was afraid Belfoi, dear Harvey, might take into his head to join the party after all, since I missed him at Christmas. I sent him word I would be here, and if memory serves, he’s not far away. At Boltons’, just ten miles west of here.”
It popped into Belami’s head that Belfoi was more or less the same size as himself and the thief. “It’s hard to believe he wouldn’t travel on ten miles to meet you.”
“If I’d had any idea he was so close, I wouldn’t have told him. I only got his note telling me he would be at Boltons’ after I wrote him of my plans. Well, I shouldn’t think he’s quite alone at Boltons’. There’s that pretty Bolton niece who has been known to throw her cap at semi-available gentlemen like Harvey.”
“You chose an unlikely hour for your romp—midnight. Couldn’t you have waited half an hour, for convention’s sake?”
“Dinner, darling! Your sweet Bertie serves such wonderful dinners, we wanted to be done in time to partake. It was marvelous, too. We had some good intention of being downstairs at the stroke of twelve, but we got . . . carried away. Bidwell was supposed to let us know by a discreet tap on the door when it was five to twelve. But he got carried away too, with the champagne he had for company. The first we realized the new year was upon us was the crash of Bidwell’s glass against the hearth. He had welcomed it in with a drink, and decided to break the glass, as people will often do when it is not their own glass they hold. By the time we all got downstairs, the fun was over. I’d have given a monkey to see the duchess’s face when it happened.”
“Why did you choose Bidwell as sentry? He’s no particular friend of yours or Chamfreys’, is he?”
“Not at all. He’d been drinking a bit and mentioned he was going to have a lie down before the midnight jollity. I’d been dancing with him just before I left. I told him to go upstairs with Chamfreys to dilute suspicion in case anyone was watching us. People do gossip at these country do’s. I wouldn’t want anyone telling Harvey I had just gone upstairs with Chamfreys, if he happened to pop in unexpectedly. So Chamfreys and Bidwell had a drink, then followed me up.
“It was a last-minute thing?”
She nodded.
“But Harvey wouldn’t be likely to make a scene, would he? Or do I misunderstand the nature of your marriage?”
“We allow each other freedom. There is no denying, however, that he resents to have to see it. Rather flattering, really,” she added with a self-indulgent smile. “He speaks of making a fortune and keeping me all to himself. Thus far he has been careful not to notice when I appear in a new fur or diamond that my allowance would obviously not cover.”
“How does he propose to make this fortune?”
“The same way he lost it, darling. Upon ‘Change. He was well to grass when we married. We had a conventional marriage for nearly a year, he playing Darby to my Joan, then his investments went sour, and we had to scrimp and save, and in the end, we became utterly bored. That’s when we began going our separate ways. I can impose on gentlemen, and he on ladies, without having to repay hospitality tit for tat. Much cheaper. If I had married a really wealthy man, I might have made him a good wife. In any case, Harvey does get a bit jealous if he actually sees me in another man’s arms, and that is why it seemed a good idea to have Bidwell stand guard for us.”
“But Belfoi didn’t come after all?”
“No, he didn’t. The storm.”
The storm had not kept Belami away, however. There was the sound of a man’s voice in the drawing room. “Does Chamfreys get jealous too?” Belami asked with a quizzing smile.
“I told that idiot servant to stall him. Shall we find out if he gets jealous?” she asked, putting her arms around his neck and pulling him down on top of her. A miasma of musky, heady scent emanated from her white arms and the bedsheets, almost overpowering in its strength.
That was the trouble with Lennie. She was too much of a good thing. Halfway through a leisurely embrace, he felt a surprising wish to withdraw. It would be too rude to push her away, but really he felt suffocated by her clinging arms. It was purely emotional. Sense told him this embrace meant no more to her than to him. If there was a woman who was not a clinger, it was Lennie Belfoi, but still he wasn’t enjoying this little flirtation. He felt—damme, he felt guilty! It was the image of Deirdre Gower, pokering up and saying a good woman couldn’t stand him, that was causing this unlikely aversion to the most gorgeous woman in the county.
After a few minutes, she withdrew and smiled at him. That little mole at the corner of her lips—adorable, but all he wanted to do was get out of the room. “Where do you go from here, Belami?” she asked, her eyes suggesting she would not be loath to accompany him anywhere.
He willed down the urge to read her a lecture, to warn her against being a cat that anyone might pick up and stroke. Coming from him, it would be ridiculous. And besides, he would have further questions for her. “I haven’t been to Paris in an age,” he said leadingly.
“Oh, goodie! Neither have I!”
“We’ll speak about it later,” he said, kissing her ear, then he left by the nearest door, to avoid meeting Chamfreys in the drawing room.
He went back to his own room and took from his jewelry box a small watch fob found in Lennie’s bed the night of his quick search of the rooms. Her be
d had been still unmade when he searched it. Her scent was on the sheets, and the small golden acorn fallen off amidst the tangled welter of bedclothes. There was no reason to think Lennie had been doing anything but what she intimated. It was in character for her, and therefore unsuspect, but whether Chamfreys had been her partner was still to be determined.
At the luncheon table some hours later, Belami produced the golden trifle. “One of the servants found this in the ballroom,” he said, showing it to the group assembled at the table. “Did any of you drop it?”
The innocent location of its discovery caused Chamfreys to claim it with no hesitation. “By gadrey, I’m glad to get it back. It’s a bit of good-luck piece,” he said as the acorn was passed along to him. This confirmed that Chamfreys had been in her bed, though the exact minutes could not be known. Had he worn his waistcoat and watch? Or had the fob come loose as he undressed? Belami envisaged a hasty ripping off of garments, which would have been necessary if they planned to be back in the ballroom by midnight. All this envisaged evidence supported their tale.
Of more interest to him was the state of the room where Bidwell had stood guard against Belfoi. He had not been surprised to see a hand of solitaire laid out on the table. The broken glass had been found on the hearth too, to bolster the story of smashing it at midnight.
When lunch was over, Belami gave a meaningful look to Pronto, which Deirdre observed. When the two men strolled nonchalantly towards Snippe’s room, she was not far behind them. Snippe had something to say about being kicked out of his room, but Belami was ready for him.