by Anya Wylde
"Just like Miss Trotter," Elizabeth finished.
Lady Sedley made a noise that sounded like agreement and continued. “It is a good thing her parents are dead or—"
Lucy saw red.
"Oh, you bloody rotten things," she screeched charging into the room. Her entire body was shaking in rage. "How dare you accuse me of stealing? Rotten, am I? Let me tell you who is rotten, and as for being a lady, I saw you squeezing the valet—"
"Silence," Lady Sedley roared. "How dare you accuse me of such things? I have never squeezed anyone in my entire life. Pack your bags and depart this very moment."
"Oh, I will depart this very instant. Give me my salary and I shall be out of this horrid place. I would rather go back to the orphanage than stay a moment longer in this pretentious house. "
"You will not get a penny," Lady Sedley screamed.
"Oh, yes, I will," Lucy yelled charging towards Lady Sedley. "I am going to take every penny that you owe me, you rotten woman."
An iron hand clamped around her waist.
"Blasted, blithering fools, crusty scabs, toad-eaters," Lucy howled. Her hands clawed the air and her body squirmed to get away. "Let me at her, let me at the frosty-faced witch."
"You dare call me a frosty-faced witch." Lady Sedley howled back. "Blooming idiot—"
"I bloom all right," Lucy broke in, "but I am not an idiot. You are."
"Why you miserable hag," Elizabeth moved forward a step.
Lucy struggled to free the hands gripping her waist. "Why look, Lady Sedley," she said sarcastically, "your own daughter agrees with me. I called you a witch and she called you a hag—"
"You are the hag," Elizabeth said jabbing a finger in Lucy's direction.
"Well, Miss Sedley, I know you are talking to your mother, but it seems you are now cockeyed. Your finger is pointing towards me instead of Lady Sedley—"
"I am going to break all her bones," Elizabeth screeched.
"Come and try." Lucy narrowed her eyes.
The hand at her waist tightened. "Stay still, Miss Trotter. Behave … Lady Sedley, sit down and, Elizabeth, put the poker back in the fireplace. Now, let us discuss this in a civilized manner."
Lucy took a deep breath, her hands were still trembling in anger, but something in the tone of the man holding her made her close her mouth.
"I am letting you go now, Miss Trotter. I trust you will behave?"
"I will," Lucy bit out.
"Lady Sedley, Miss Sedley, please sit down."
They went and rigidly sat on the pink sofa.
The hands slowly fell away from Lucy's waist, and the stranger finally stepped forward and into her view.
A familiar emerald green velvet robe edged with gold brocade gleamed in the firelight. The rubies in the slippers sparkled, while dark eyes peered at her from beneath long full lashes.
Chapter 5
"Lord Adair!" Lucy gasped in shock.
"You know me?" he asked in surprise.
"I saw you arrive in the balloon."
He winced.
"You did not like the balloon ride?"
"On the contrary, it was delightful."
"You looked very cold when you alighted."
"Currently it is you, Miss Trotter, who is shivering." He offered her an arm. "Come, sit down near the fire."
Lucy's lashes flickered. Lord Adair was treating her as if she were a lady. It was a novel experience after being seen as little better than a scullery maid by the Sedley family.
She eyed him suspiciously, but his bland expression left her feeling muddled.
She uncomfortably pulled the dress higher up her shoulder suddenly aware of her dishevelled appearance and the screaming spectacle she had made of herself a moment before.
He ignored her discomfort and grasping her arm nudged her towards a seat. He gently pushed her backwards until she collapsed back onto the overstuffed chair.
Her legs flew up, her wet petticoats slapped her ankles, and her back sank low into the large seat of the chair where her behind should have been.
She hurriedly straightened herself, and the raging anger in her bosom was replaced by embarrassment. She turned her face away from him pretending to warm her frozen face in the heat from the fire.
"Lady Sedley, perhaps you can ask for some coffee for Miss Trotter?" Lord Adair requested.
Elizabeth discreetly pinched her mother's arm.
Lady Sedley reluctantly rang the bell.
While they waited for the coffee to arrive, Lord Adair began a gentle flow of polite conversation dealing with the weather, the state of the king's mental health and the latest cuts and styles of fashion that were sweeping across France.
Encouraged by the ebb and flow of his calm, refined voice, propriety dared to tiptoe back into the room.
The talk of lace, patterns and colours soothed heaving feminine bosoms. Further mention of shoes and reticules acted as a balm upon sore wounds.
Soon skirts were smoothed, snuff wiped away from upper lips and adventurous locks tucked back into buns.
Lucy clasped her hands together. A large knot of unease had started forming in her stomach. She often flew into a rage and did things only to regret them a moment later.
She was regretting her outburst now.
If Lady Sedley truly threw her out of the house, she had nowhere to go. The orphanage had done all they could for her … To now go back as a failure … Her heart turned leaden.
The coffee arrived and Lucy grasped the warm cup gratefully. A few sips of the bitter brew later, the tension in her shoulders reduced a tad bit.
"She stole them," Lady Sedley spoke suddenly. "Where are the jewels, girl?"
"It has to be her, Lord Adair. She is the only one who left the house and had the time to dispose of them," Elizabeth added.
"Ian was in the village, too," Lord Adair remarked.
Lady Sedley paled. Her eyes flew to Elizabeth.
"It wasn't Ian," Elizabeth said confidently. "He would not be so foolish as to steal the jewels and then ask you of all people to find the thief. Besides," she added belatedly, "why should he steal from his own family? He could have asked for them."
Lucy snorted in disbelief, her quick temper once again getting the better of her, "He did ask for them just like all of you did. Lord Sedley refused to part with them. His family heirlooms, he calls them."
"I told you she prowls and listens at doors," Lady Sedley snapped angrily.
"Peter, what do you think?" Lord Adair asked calmly.
The snuff box fell out of Peter's hand, and he stared at Lord Adair in surprise. His pet, a fat baboon lounging on the back of his chair, scratched his head comically reflecting Peter's confusion.
"I don't know .… Well, it could have been anyone."
Elizabeth snapped impatiently, "Oh, you won’t get an answer out of him. He can't see beyond his frogs and rats. It has to be Lucy. She is the only one who went to the village after the theft. None of the servants have left the house since."
"How do you know what time the theft occurred?" Lord Adair asked patting his pockets.
"We checked at six thirty this evening. The jewels were missing and so was Lucy," Lady Sedley said. A moment later, she asked impatiently, "My lord, did you hear me?"
"Hmm," he replied distractedly.
"Are you looking for something?" Elizabeth asked.
"It has to be here," Lord Adair muttered to himself.
Lucy recalled the words of the blacksmith in the village. 'Mark my words, he is a loon.'
Peter offered Lord Adair some snuff.
He shook his head, his hands continuing to dip into numerous hidden pockets in his thick velvet robe. He asked half-heartedly, "And before that, when was the last time you laid eyes on the jewels?"
Lady Sedley frowned. "The box was kept in a safe in the library, and I saw it yesterday at eight."
Lord Adair's hand paused in an act of upturning a lavender silk sock. He slowly raised his head and fixed a penetrating eye
on Lady Sedley. "Therefore, anyone could have stolen it since eight last night. And I am sure a lot more people have left the house in the last twenty-four hours."
"But it has to be her … Who else—?"
Lord Adair politely but firmly cut her short. "What I am failing to understand is how all of you can be so concerned about the jewels."
"They were worth a fortune," Lady Sedley protested.
Lord Adair leaned back in his seat. He had finally found what he had been searching for, and he triumphantly pulled it out from his front pocket.
It was a glittering silver quizzing glass dangling from a long silver chain.
He placed it on his left eye and peered at every face in the room. "Yes, but surely Lord Sedley's death is more important? He was murdered today at five in the evening, was he not, Lady Sedley?"
Chapter 6
Silence reigned in the room after Lord Adair's announcement.
Elizabeth sat with her lips pursed as if sucking on a lemon, Lady Sedley appeared to be doing figures in her head while Peter sat like a calm cup of lukewarm tea.
Lord Adair rotated the quizzing glass in his hand over and over again, his face devoid of expression, while his eyes caught every nervous twitch, wriggle and squirm. His all-seeing gaze and the powerful magnetism oozing out of his every pore further added to the tension in the air.
Lucy's eyes slid away from Lord Adair's face and landed on the glinting quizzing glass orbiting around his long finger.
Countless women had posed on rooftops threatening to leap off and plunge to their deaths all for the sake of a kiss from Lord Adair.
A hundred-man army had once walked away simply because Lord Adair happened to stroll onto the scene.
Lucy did not think her common eyes deserved to look upon such perfection. Hence, she kept her gaze pinned on the spinning quizzing glass.
She wanted to forget her surroundings.
She wanted to pretend this was all a dream and that in a moment from now she would wake up in her bed in the orphanage surrounded by a dozen babbling young girls.
It takes a man several years of meditating on a snow-capped mountain whilst unclothed to achieve the kind of single-minded focus that Lucy was trying to achieve in a mere five minutes.
Needless to say, it wasn't long before she failed hopelessly.
She failed to ignore the light of suspicion that was continuing to beam down on her. She failed to ignore Lord Adair dripping charm and sitting a mere foot away from her.
And most importantly, she failed to ignore the animals.
Animals that were Peter's pets, that should have ideally stuck to Peter, sniffed Peter and, finally, only cuddled Peter.
But this world is not ideal. This world likes to throw things at you that are the very opposite of ideal. And because that is the unfortunate truth, the animals did not do what they should but meandered over to poor, frightened Lucy.
Now, Lucy liked animals. She enjoyed looking at gulls soaring in the sky, lady birds climbing up trellises or spotting a quivering little rabbit nose in a bush. But things became uncertain when animals that rightly belonged in the wild or with Peter decided to come and treat her as a part of the furnishings.
For instance, when everyone was wondering how Lord Adair knew that Lord Sedley had been stabbed six times in the chest at around five that evening, Lucy was frozen in place thinking about Peter's pet raven, Spinoza, who was currently perched atop her bonnet.
Over the last month or so, Spinoza had increasingly chosen her bonnet as his favourite daytime snoozing spot. She put it down to the fact that her brown bonnet, which had been pretty at some point in the past, was now akin to a nest with dried twigs, flowers and leaves.
But it wasn't just Spinoza's sharp beak a few inches above her nose that was bothering her. She was also concerned about Palmer.
Palmer happened to be Peter's favourite pet. Palmer also happened to be a baboon the size of a healthy child, with a long dark brown face, funny little tail and his crowning glory, the red, almost-mauve bottom whose sight always made her flush bright pink.
Palmer, the red-bottomed baboon, was known to approach people he disliked and slap them in the face. He did that to the butler once. Lucy had witnessed the whole thing. Hence, her wariness towards the animal that had currently abandoned Peter's neck to come and nuzzle hers.
But not all the animals that had popped over to her side were frightening. The two tiny pugs asleep on her lap were sweet, as was the gentle old dog of mixed breed that was helping thaw her frozen toes by stretching out his warm body over her pleased feet.
She stuck her hands under the pug’s bellies, and, now nicely warmed from top to toe, she turned her attention towards the plate of dry sandwiches lying on the table.
"How did you know about Father?" Elizabeth finally spoke.
Lucy caught the tears in Elizabeth's voice. She wondered if it was genuine. Lord Sedley was not loved by anyone in the family, and as far as she knew, his death would benefit the family more than his living had.
Still, Lord Sedley had been Elizabeth's father, and however much Elizabeth resembled a frozen icicle in figure and personality, a tiny warm droplet must exist somewhere in the vicinity of her frozen heart.
"How did you know about the murder," Lady Sedley repeated her daughter's question with a hint of awe in her voice.
"Ian told you," Peter said shortly.
Lord Adair tapped the cigar. The grey ash fell on the fawn carpet. "He mentioned the theft that everyone is so concerned about but not the murder."
"You even knew the approximate time he was killed," Lady Sedley murmured in a hushed voice.
"How?” Elizabeth wondered aloud. "I met you at the door along with the butler. You have not had a chance to speak to anyone else but the three of us, and not once did we mention the fact." She fell silent. A hint of fear moved across her face.
Lady Sedley gripped the arm of her chair, "It has not even been three hours since the event." She took a long sniff of her vinaigrette. "Your abilities are magical. No wonder England sings your praises. I knew the moment you walked in, my lord, that there was something supernatural about you. All those stories of your exploits where you slayed a hundred pirates and all those corsets you unlaced with a single piercing look. I confess, I doubted them, but now … I think I am going to swoon. It is too much … too much …."
"Nothing of the sort. I met the doctor in the village. He told me," Lord Adair said, poking the fire with a piece of wood.
A nervous giggle escaped Lady Sedley.
"The doctor told you?" Elizabeth asked, a disbelieving note in her voice.
"He had invited me home. I happened to notice the Sedley family crest on the bottom of a handsome silver teapot from which his wife poured me a cup of tea. I remarked upon it and he blurted out the truth. It seemed he, too, believes in my apparent magical abilities. Thus, I learned of the murder and the silver tea set he had been presented with to keep the whole thing quiet."
An uncomfortable silence fell after this. Lady Sedley busied herself with the knitting, while Elizabeth chose to stare into the crackling fire.
Lucy carefully sipped the coffee, trying not to disturb Spinoza, who had nodded off on top of her bonnet. She had been shocked at the news that Lord Sedley had died such a violent and sudden death, but she had seen so many of her friends die of want and disease while growing up in the orphanage that in some way her heart was well guarded and prepared for such things in life.
She peeked at Lady Sedley. What bothered her more was the calmness with which the family was treating the situation. To lose a husband or a father … She bit her lip and took a long gulp from the cup.
She almost choked on the coffee when Elizabeth suddenly leaped to her feet and pointed at Lucy. "She killed him. She killed him for the jewels. Father kept the key to the safe on a chain around his neck, and the only way anyone could have got it off him was by killing him. She killed him, took the jewels and gave it to her accomplice in the village
."
"I did no such thing," Lucy roared, startling Spinoza, who squawked and flew away.
"Why did it take you hours to return to the house when the village is a mere ten minute walk from here?" Lady Sedley snapped.
Lucy titled her chin up. "I went to the inn and after that watched the balloon descend. By the time I was ready to leave, it was too dark to walk back without a lamp, and it took me some time to cajole the innkeeper to bring me here in his hay cart."
Elizabeth snorted.
"I am telling you the truth," Lucy said. "And besides, if I had murdered Lord Sedley and stolen the jewels, then why, pray tell, would I be sitting here like a blithering fool? I should be making my way across the country as we speak."
"What I would like to know," Lord Adair interrupted, "is why I wasn't told about the murder?"
Elizabeth quickly answered. "It is a family matter. We didn’t want the whole village learning about the murder and then trying to steal souvenirs from the house. You know how it has become a fashion for people to steal and sell bits and pieces belonging to the victim. When Lady Herrington was murdered a few miles north, people were selling her toe nails in our village. Lord Herrington had thieves sneaking into his home up until the funeral. Everything of hers was stolen from her soup bowl to her nose hair. She was finally buried wearing Lord Herrington's best coat and her sister's petticoat."
"We wanted to conduct the funeral in peace and then announce it to the world," Lady Sedley added.
"I am hardly likely to steal Lord Sedley's eyelashes," Lord Adair remarked.
Elizabeth's cup clattered loudly on the saucer, and Lady Sedley twisted the tassels of the cushion.
After a moment, Lady Sedley said, "We are grieving. It has all occurred so soon …."
Lord Adair became silent, his eyes searching the faces in front him.
"The tears are on their way, are they?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Boarded the carriage, luggage and all."
"Eh?" Lady Sedley asked blankly.
"You don't appear to be grieving," he clarified.
Lady Sedley stroked her green dress uncomfortably, "I am going to wear black … The maid is ironing the dress for me as we speak." She quickly turned to Lucy. "You, girl, pack your bags and leave my home right this minute."