Too Hot to Handel

by Sheri Cobb South

  “Thomas!” She was out the door and halfway down the stairs before she remembered she was still wearing only Pickett’s coat and her own undergarments. Fortunately, her footman had heard, sparing her the necessity of pursuing him further. “Thomas, wait. I must return with you, but I dare not leave Mr. Pickett alone. Can you find the young woman who was just here, and fetch her back?”

  “Yes, ma’am!” agreed Thomas with enthusiasm, pleased and gratified at the rare intersection of duty with inclination. “Right away, my lady!”

  Having dispatched Thomas on this errand, Julia carried the paper parcel into the small bedroom and shut the door. She divested herself of Pickett’s coat and hung it back on its hook, then stripped off her undergarments and put on fresh ones, topping them off with one of the despised mourning gowns. She sat on the edge of the bed to put on the sturdy kid half-boots (the only item in the parcel of which she could wholeheartedly approve), then bent over Pickett’s still form.

  “I have business to attend to at home, my love, but I’ll be back soon, I promise. I’ve sent for Lucy to sit with you in the meantime.” She leaned nearer, and lowered her voice. “You know I want you to wake up, but if you prefer to wait until I return, you will hear no objection from me,” she whispered, and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

  When she returned to the outer room, she found Lucy had returned and now stood regarding her warily.

  “What do you want with me?” the girl demanded.

  “I must make a short visit to my own residence, and I do not wish to leave Mr. Pickett alone. I wonder if you would be willing to sit with him until I return? I will be happy to recompense you for your time,” she added hastily, having a vague notion that she might be taking Lucy away from potential customers.

  Lucy’s suspicious gaze softened as she glanced toward the bedroom door. “You don’t have to pay me to stay with him, your ladyship.”

  “Thank you. I am obliged to you.” Julia bundled up the parcel of black gowns and headed for the door. She paused on the threshold, however, and turned back. “Oh, and Lucy—”

  “Your ladyship?”

  “If it makes you feel any better, he’s too good for the likes of me, too,” she said, and left the flat, closing the door softly behind her.

  When she was set down before her own house some time later, Julia burst through the front door with the light of battle in her eyes.

  “My lady!” exclaimed Rogers, startled by his mistress’s unexpected arrival. “May I say how pleased I am—”

  She lifted a hand to cut short his greetings. “Rogers, I must see Smithers at once. I am going up to my room. Please have her attend me there.”

  “About Smithers, my lady—” Her foot was already on the first step, but Rogers’s voice held her back. “She is in the drawing room at present.”

  “The drawing room? What should a lady’s maid be doing in the drawing room?”

  Rogers gave a discreet cough. “I believe she is closeted with Lord Fieldhurst. The current viscount, that is, not his late lordship, obviously.”

  “George?” She did not wait to hear more. She crossed the hall and flung open the door to the drawing room. “George! I wasn’t expecting you. How very accommodating of Smithers to offer you hospitality in my absence! Shall I ring for tea, or has she already done so?”

  “Begging your pardon, your ladyship—” began the abigail, her spine ramrod straight.

  “Now, Cousin Julia,” interrupted the viscount, wagging his finger at her. “If half of what Smithers has been telling me is true, it seems you have been making quite a spectacle of yourself!”

  “As far as the truth of Smithers’s assertions, I cannot say one way or the other, for I fear she does not confide in me; that privilege is apparently reserved for you.”

  The viscount ticked off her sins on his fingers. “Giving up mourning before the year is out, being seen publicly with that Bow Street fellow—really, Cousin Julia, I cannot allow you to blacken the Fieldhursts’ good name!”

  “I see.” Her accusing gaze slewed from George to Smithers, and back again. “When you suggested that I hire your butler’s sister as my lady’s maid, George, I believed myself to be doing a kindness for a widow in need of a position. I didn’t realize I was unwittingly installing a spy beneath my own roof.”

  “Begging your pardon, your ladyship, but I was persuaded your lack of a steadying male influence was leading you into indiscretion. I felt Lord Fieldhurst, as the head of the family, had a right to know.”

  “Really, Cousin Julia, going out in colors with two months of mourning yet to run—your appearance must have been quite shocking!”

  “If you think my blue gown shocking, George, you should have seen my costume an hour ago,” Julia put in sweetly.

  “And now—now— I hear you are actually staying under that fellow’s roof—”

  Julia took a deep breath, controlling her temper with an effort. George might say anything he pleased about her—in fact, she was quite accustomed to it by now—but he would not say one word against a man who was even now lying insensible due in large part to his valiant efforts in her own behalf.

  “That is quite enough, George. It may have escaped even Smithers’s notice that Mr. Pickett was injured last night while escaping the fire. He is lying unconscious as we speak, so I believe my virtue is quite safe.”

  “Then what are you doing there?” demanded George.

  “I am nursing him, and I intend to do so as long as he has need of me.”

  “Admirable of you, I’m sure, Cousin, but I hardly think it is your place—”

  Julia fairly quivered with impotent rage. “Not my place? I suppose I am too fine a lady,” she sputtered, unconsciously echoing Lucy’s words, “to sully my hands with caring for a man who was injured in trying to rescue me from a burning theatre. What’s that, George? I daresay your sources neglected to mention that Mr. Pickett fashioned a rope from the curtains and carried me bodily all the way down from a third-tier box on his back. I cannot think of a single gentleman of my acquaintance, including my present company, with the intelligence and resourcefulness to concoct such a scheme, much less the physical courage to carry it out. If you know of one, George, by all means introduce me, and I will be more than happy to throw Mr. Pickett over for him!”

  Lord Fieldhurst, she was pleased to see, had the grace to look ashamed. “I can see why you feel you owe the man something, Cousin Julia, and I will resist the temptation to point out that had you not offended propriety by accompanying him to the theatre, you would not find yourself thus indebted. But of course a Fieldhurst, even one by marriage, must fulfill her obligations. Still, there is no need for you to tend the fellow yourself. I will be happy to hire a competent nurse to stay with Mr. Pickett as long as is necessary.”

  Julia regarded her late husband’s heir speculatively. “Thank you, George, but no. Setting aside the fact that I am Mr. Pickett’s wife, at least in the eyes of the law, I fear I can have no very great confidence in any nurse acting under your direction. I will do you the justice to say I don’t think you would instruct someone to cause deliberate harm to Mr. Pickett, but I suspect you would not shed any tears were he to succumb to his injuries.”

  From this stance Julia refused to be moved, and at last Lord Fieldhurst, still sputtering objections, had no choice but to concede defeat.

  “And now, George,” she concluded, with a nod toward the paper-wrapped parcel she still held, “if you will excuse me, I must provision myself for a stay that may prove to be quite lengthy.”

  “But your ladyship,” bleated Smithers, “I prepared that parcel myself. Did I fail to include something you requested?”

  “How could I forget? Thank you for reminding me, Smithers. I see you have taken it upon yourself to pitch me back into mourning whether I wish it or not. You seem to be laboring under some confusion as to which of us is the mistress and which is the maid.”

  “I’m sure I never meant to—”

  �
�Oh, I think you did exactly what you meant to do. Having had time to consider the matter, I am persuaded you will be much happier in the employ of a lady whose notions of propriety are more closely aligned with your own.”

  “What—what are you saying, my lady?”

  “I am giving you notice, Smithers. You shall have two weeks’ wages, but as for a reference, I fear I cannot oblige you. Perhaps George would be willing to do so. Now, if you will both excuse me, I have a great deal to attend to before I return to Drury Lane.”

  Rogers, an unintentional witness to this scene, lost no time in bestowing Lord Fieldhurst’s hat and gloves upon him and flinging open the door for him to escape with whatever dignity he might still possess. Julia likewise dispatched Smithers to the servants’ hall to pack her bags. Alone with the butler who had served her since her marriage, she regarded him ruefully. Of Rogers’s loyalty, at least, she had no doubts. He had been very patient and understanding with her when she had been a young bride thrust all unprepared into command of a noble household, and she believed she had repaid his kindness when, fearing himself under suspicion of murder, he had disappeared after the death of her husband.

  “Well, Rogers, I’m afraid you were an unwilling audience to quite a scene,” she observed with an apologetic smile.

  He executed a little bow, but his eyes twinkled in a most unbutler-like manner. “And very well played, my lady, if I may say so.”

  “Thank you, Rogers, you may,” she said, laughing aloud in elation at having held her ground against the Fieldhursts—and won!—for the first time in her life. On a more serious note, she added, “You may also inform the laundry maid that I will be sending Mr. Pickett’s soiled garments along with my own for laundering. Mrs. Hughes will no doubt notice a difference in the quality of Mr. Pickett’s linens compared to those of his late lordship, but I shall expect them to be treated with equal care, and so you may tell her.”

  “Yes, my lady.” Rogers gave a discreet little cough. “Begging your pardon, but if your ladyship wishes to bring her young man home, I can assure you that the staff will treat him with all the respect due her ladyship’s husband, or they will answer to me.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Surely you cannot think Mr. Pickett and I are truly married! Good heavens, George would go off in an apoplexy! In fact, it was nothing but a dreadful misunderstanding, and the annulment proceedings have already begun. How could you possibly think otherwise?”

  Rogers lowered his eyes deferentially. “I’m sorry if I have misspoken, my lady, but it was an honest mistake, under the circumstances.”

  “Was it?” asked Julia, taken aback. “And what ‘circumstances’ are those, pray?”

  “You will recall that I announced young Mr. Pickett last night,” he reminded her apologetically.

  “Yes, what of it?”

  He gave her an understanding smile. “From my vantage point by the door, my lady, I could see your face when first he entered the room.”

  CHAPTER 9

  THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING DIAMONDS

  Alone with Pickett, Lucy planted her hands on her hips and heaved a sigh. “Well, John Pickett, I always knew I’d have you naked in bed someday, but this is not what I had in mind.”

  She received no response from him—nothing new there, she reflected—so she wandered listlessly about the flat, searching for something to do to pass the time until Lady Fieldhurst returned. Spying her ladyship’s untouched teacup on the small table beside the bed, she picked it up and took an experimental sip. It was cold, which was unsurprising, but of a better quality than Lucy was accustomed to, as the tea leaves typically found at the house where she lived with several other females of the same profession had generally seen more than one use before they came into the women’s possession. As a result, Lady Fieldhurst’s tea was rather stronger than that to which Lucy was accustomed, and the more pungent brew made her sneeze.

  Having no handkerchief, she opened the top drawer of Pickett’s bureau and searched for one amongst the stockings and cravats. She found one, but she also found something else—something that drove such petty concerns as handkerchiefs from her mind.

  “Gorblimey!” she breathed, withdrawing a necklace of white stones the size of wrens’ eggs.

  Granted, Lucy was no expert on gemstones (her clientele not being made up of the class of men who might shower such riches on their paramours), but it was obvious even to her untrained eye that these stones could not possibly be real. In fact, she was not sure that diamonds of such a size existed at all; but even if they did, she was quite certain that John Pickett could not afford them. The gems, therefore, must be imitations. And since Lady Fieldhurst was not the sort of woman upon whom a man might bestow fake jewels, they were obviously never meant to adorn her ladyship’s person.

  If not her ladyship, then, for whom was the necklace intended? There could be only one answer, concluded Lucy, grinning in delight. He must have planned on giving it to her. After all, he did occasionally request her assistance in his investigations (although in recent months, these requests had not come as frequently as they once did), and he never failed to reward her for her efforts on his behalf, even if these rewards did not take the form she might have preferred. While it was true that she had not done anything for him lately which might merit such lavish compensation, her withers were unwrung. Clearly, he had intended to ask for her help, and had been injured before he could make the request. She had a sudden and horrible vision of him dying before he could present the gems to her, and the necklace being claimed by one of those vultures who always seemed to come from out of nowhere following the death of anyone who lacked obvious heirs.

  “You’ve got my help whenever you need it,” she promised Pickett’s recumbent form, “but I’m not about to leave this thing here for no one else to find.”

  She opened the clasp and draped the necklace about her own neck, then admired the effect in the spotted mirror over the washstand. Her smile faded as she considered a new and terrible possibility. She had nowhere to wear such a showy piece, barring the occasional visit to the theatre with Pickett, and so it would of necessity spend a great deal of time lying at the bottom of her own bureau drawer. She had no very great faith in the honesty of any of the women with whom she shared lodgings; money was hard to come by in their shared profession, and money that did not entail spending time on one’s back was especially rare. It was highly likely, then, that the necklace would be stolen from her and taken to the nearest pawnshop. Why, it might fetch as much as a guinea or more! No, Lucy decided, if anyone was going to profit from the sale of the jewels, it was going to be herself.

  “I’m sure you won’t mind, ducks,” she told Pickett. “But I’ve no place to wear it, not really. Mayhap I’ll take the money and buy a new gown—something that’ll be less of a temptation to those harpies I live with—and I’ll wear it next time you take me to the theatre. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Taking Pickett’s silence for assent, she removed the necklace and stuffed it into her bodice.

  Mr. Colquhoun, arriving at Bow Street shortly after leaving Pickett’s lodgings, was met with the unsurprising information that no word had yet been heard from Mr. Pickett.

  “No, I don’t suppose it would have,” he informed Mr. Dixon, the bearer of this bad news. “In fact, I’ve just come from Mr. Pickett’s flat.”

  “He’s alive, then?” asked another Runner, overhearing the discussion.

  “Barely, but yes. He’s unconscious—it appears he was struck in the head as he was escaping the theatre—but he is alive, at least for the nonce.”

  William Foote nodded. “That’s good to know, sir.”

  Unfortunately, it was the only bright spot in Mr. Colquhoun’s day. Within an hour of his return to Bow Street, he had a most unwelcome visitor in the form of a member of the Russian contingent, a tall, stout man with a thick black beard and a thicker accent.

  “You tell me this will not happen, nyet?” this worthy accuse
d him in menacing tones. “You say Princess Olga’s jewels be safe, da?”

  “Your Excellency, no one regrets the theft of Princess Olga’s diamonds more than I do,” Mr. Colquhoun said in what he hoped translated as a soothing voice. “But I’m sure I need not remind you that the theatre caught fire last night and, well, you know what the poet said about the best-laid plans of mice and men.”

  “Ba! I spit me on your English poets!”

  Under different circumstances, Mr. Colquhoun might have pointed out that Robert Burns, like himself, was Scots, not English. But he reminded himself of his own words to John Pickett regarding the provocation of an international incident, and kept a firm grip on his rapidly fraying temper. “Be that as it may, Your Excellency, I’m sure you will be pleased to know that in every case, the stolen gems have eventually been recovered.”

  “ ‘Eventually’? I care nothing—nichego, do you hear?—for your ‘eventually’! I spit me on ‘eventually’!” In proof of this statement, he spat on the floor. “It is clear to me, ser, that you have, how do you say, a department of imbeciles!”

  Mr. Colquhoun was willing to do a certain amount of bootlicking for the sake of diplomacy, but this blatantly unfair criticism of his men he would not permit. “Now see here, Your Excellency,” he said, his face darkening ominously, “there’s no cause to be insulting! If you’ll look about you, you’ll see that my men have already made a considerable sacrifice for Her Royal Highness’s sake. Several of them sustained injuries in last night’s fire and one, a young man not yet twenty-five years old, is even now lying at death’s door. The fact that the jewels were stolen in spite of them in no way negates their efforts. But in all honesty I must tell you that if I had to make a choice between Her Royal Highness’s diamonds and the lives of my men, the diamonds would lose every time.”