“No one is going to take your plate away, so you might as well slow down,” she remarked, returning to her seat with a flounce. “A tiresome misunderstanding, nothing more. Now we may all be easy again!”
Unfortunately, no one had been easy before, and they were even less so now. After fifteen minutes that seemed more like two hours, Emily laid aside her linen serviette and rose from the table. “Shall we leave the gentlemen to their port, Julia? Sir Reginald, I shall leave you to pour.”
The gentlemen stood respectfully as Julia would have followed Emily, but Lord Dernham raised a hand as if to hold the ladies back. “Thank you, my lady, but no port for me. I must be getting back home.”
“Likewise,” said Mr. Kenney.
Lord Edwin nodded. “My physician has advised me to cut back—nothing stronger than sherry after nine o’clock, meddle-some old busybody,” he said, although his tone suggested gratitude rather than censure.
“I too must take my leave, as my regiment will be on review in the morning,” Captain Sir Charles put in.
“I must be on my way as well,” said Lord Rupert. “Your servant, Lady Dunnington. And yours, my dear,” he added, taking Julia’s hand with a proprietary air and raising it to his lips.
“Poor Sir Reginald!” exclaimed Lady Dunnington. “Are they all abandoning you?”
All five gentlemen hastily demurred with varying degrees of insincerity. Lady Dunnington rang for Dulcie, and there followed several minutes of civilized confusion as carriages were sent for and coats, hats, and gloves fetched. At last only the ladies and Sir Reginald remained.
“I should hate to think of your drinking alone,” Lady Dunnington told him. “Will you not take your port in the drawing room with us?”
“I thank you, my lady, but I must be pushing off as well,” said Sir Reginald, bowing over her hand. “I appreciate your kind invitation, and hope to see you again under less crowded circumstances.” He glanced over Emily’s shoulder at Lady Fieldhurst, his cold eyes clearly wishing her at the devil.
“Very well, Sir Reginald,” agreed Emily, reclaiming her hand with obvious reluctance. “I shall look forward to it.”
She reached for the bell pull to summon Dulcie, but Sir Reginald laid a restraining hand on her arm. “No, no, never mind fetching your maid. I’ll show myself out.” He leaned nearer and added, “I daresay I shall soon know the house very well indeed. I might as well start learning it now.”
Lady Dunnington said nothing to correct this assumption, but smiled coyly as he took his leave of Lady Fieldhurst and departed.
“Well!” Emily exclaimed brightly, turning to face Lady Fieldhurst. “I thought that went rather splendidly, didn’t you?”
Lady Fieldhurst stared at her friend in shocked disbelief. There were many words she herself might have chosen to describe the evening, but “splendid” was not one of them. “Emily, are you quite certain as to Sir Reginald’s character? It seemed to me that most of the gentlemen disliked him excessively. Do you not think perhaps you ought to find out why, before you enter into a more intimate association with him?”
Lady Dunnington dismissed her concerns with a wave of one be-ringed hand. “The other men are merely jealous, my dear, nothing more. Sir Reginald possesses that air of danger that all women find irresistible.”
Julia chose to disagree. “I find him easy enough to resist.”
“Yes, but you have grown so nice in your requirements of late, I doubt the man exists who could please you.”
“Oh, he exists,” Lady Fieldhurst said softly, but if the countess heard, she took no notice.
“Now, I was thinking—”
But Lady Dunnington’s thoughts were to remain unvoiced, for at that moment the quiet of the house was disrupted by a loud report coming from the direction of the front hall. Both ladies stared at each other in mutual consternation, then ran as one to the hall. The front door stood half open to the cold November night, but the room’s sole occupant was undisturbed by the chilly weather.
For Sir Reginald Montague lay sprawled face down on the marble tiled floor in a pool of blood.
CHAPTER 3
Which Reveals a Rather Awkward State of Affairs
“Sir Reginald!” cried Lady Dunnington, kneeling beside him and shaking him by the shoulder in a futile attempt to rouse him.
Gingerly stepping around the body, Lady Fieldhurst crossed the hall to the front door and walked out onto the portico. She looked both right and left, but saw no sign of anyone; whoever had shot Sir Reginald had disappeared into the night.
“Emily?”
She stepped back inside and noted that the noise had roused the entire household. The service door to the servants’ domain below stairs was open and Dulcie stood framed in the aperture, eyes wide and hands shaking as she clutched the door frame for support. Behind her, the stout cook dried her hands briskly on her apron, her breathing ragged from the exertion of climbing the stairs so quickly. On the formal staircase leading to the upper floor, Lady Dunnington’s abigail leaned over the banister, while a bleary-eyed footman clad in a nightshirt and breeches blew his nose vociferously into a large handkerchief.
“Emily,” Lady Fieldhurst said again, “is he—?”
Lady Dunnington had by this time ceased shaking Sir Reginald by the shoulder and progressed to striking him smartly on the cheek with the palm of her hand, but with as little effect.
“Yes,” she said unsteadily. “Yes, I think he is.”
Dulcie sobbed loudly at this pronouncement, and Emily looked up, seeing for the first time the servants gathered around. “Be quiet, silly girl! What was Sir Reginald to you, anyway? All of you, go on about your business. Not you, Jack,” she said to the footman, who was turning to go back up the stairs to his attic bedroom. “Go and get dressed. I am sorry to send you out in this weather when you are ill, but I fear I shall need you to deliver a message.”
Once the crowd was dispersed, Lady Fieldhurst looked down at the countess, still on her knees beside the body of the man who would never be her lover. “What—what sort of message do you have in mind, Emily?” she asked, very much afraid she already knew the answer.
“We must send to Bow Street,” Lady Dunnington said resolutely as she rose awkwardly to her feet. “What was the name of that Runner who investigated Frederick’s murder? Something that started with a ‘P,’ was it not?”
“No!” cried Lady Fieldhurst, turning quite pale. “Not him!”
The countess blinked at her friend’s vehemence. “Why not?”
“We need someone with more experience,” Julia said desperately. “Mr. Pickett is much too young to be trusted with a case like this.”
“Pickett!” exclaimed Emily. “That’s the name! I knew it was something with a ‘P.’ ”
“But Emily, you yourself called him the man-child of Bow Street!”
“Why, so I did, but he must know what he is about, in spite of his lack of years. After all, he contrived to clear you of any involvement in Frederick’s death.”
“He was able to clear me of any involvement in Frederick’s death because I was innocent,” Lady Fieldhurst pointed out in some indignation.
“Very true, my dear, but would a jury have seen it that way, had you been obliged to stand trial? I think not! No, I shall send Jack to Bow Street to ask for your Mr. Pickett.”
“He isn’t mine,” Julia murmured, then, as the countess reached for the bell pull, “Emily, no! Wait!”
“It may have escaped your notice, Julia,” said Lady Dunning-ton with some asperity, “but there is a dead man in my house. I should like to fetch a Runner here without further ado.”
Lady Fieldhurst sighed. “I see I shall be forced to tell you. You asked me what had happened in Scotland. I fear I made rather a fool of myself there.”
“I feel for you, Julia, truly I do, and while I am pleased you have finally decided to confide in me, this is surely not the time—”
“No, no, hear me out, I beg you! I told you George
’s sons were there. What I did not tell you was that they found a woman lying unconscious on the beach. We sent to a nearby manor for assistance, and it turned out that the woman bore a striking resemblance to the long-lost daughter of the house. As the woman herself could tell them nothing, the family decided to send to London for a Bow Street Runner to investigate.”
Lady Dunnington raised a hand to forestall her. “Do not tell me, let me guess. The Runner turned out to be your Mr. Pickett.”
“He isn’t mine,” Julia said again. “But since I was there when the woman was found, I was obliged to work rather closely with him, and—well—”
“Yes?” prompted the countess, glancing at Sir Reginald’s body as if she feared it might decompose before Lady Fieldhurst reached the end of her tale. “ ‘Well’ what?”
She darted a quick glance around the hall to ensure that none of the servants remained within earshot. She saw no one, but lowered her voice nonetheless. “I recalled that you had been urging me to take a lover, so on the day Mr. Pickett was to return to England, I—I asked him.”
By this time Lady Dunnington’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “And?”
“He turned me down,” she concluded miserably.
“And no wonder! You asked him? Julia, you shouldn’t have asked; you should have seduced the boy!”
“Hardly a boy, Emily,” Lady Fieldhurst protested. “He is four-and-twenty.”
“I see now why you considered poor Lord Edwin and his forty-five years too old,” the countess remarked. “But Sir Reginald has been shot, and in my house at that, so I must do all I can to see that his killer is found. Therefore, I am sending to Bow Street for your enfant prodige. I am sorry if you are made to feel uncomfortable, but perhaps it is no more than you deserve for bungling the thing so badly. You realize, do you not, that were the situation reversed and he made you such an offer, it would be considered an indecent proposition?” With that Parthian shot, she gave the bell pull a tug.
With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Julia realized her friend was right. Of course, the situation would never have been reversed, for Mr. Pickett was too—too—yes, too gentlemanly, in spite of his humble status, to have made such an offer, even if it had occurred to him to do so.
So what did that make her?
She had meant no disrespect. She only knew she wanted more: more than a stolen kiss or two, and not only when there was a dead body somewhere in the vicinity to throw them together. So she had asked. And in the process, she had destroyed a budding friendship that had come to be precious to her for reasons she could not quite comprehend, much less explain.
“Thank God that’s done,” grumbled Mr. Patrick Colquhoun, magistrate of the Bow Street Public Office, as he signed his name with a flourish and laid aside his quill. “I’ve never seen such a docket in all my years as a magistrate. Dinner will be cold by now, and my poor Janet ready to send out a search party.”
“Things did rather pile up while we were in Scotland, sir,” agreed John Pickett, a very tall young man with curling brown hair worn unfashionably long and tied at the nape of his neck in a queue.
“Ah well, the price of a holiday, I suppose.” The magistrate bent a keen eye on his young protégé. “Speaking of which, I never did hear how that little business of yours came out. What did her ladyship have to say?”
Pickett’s gaze slid away to fasten on the wooden railing that separated the magistrate’s raised bench from the rest of the room. “I—I haven’t told her yet, sir.”
Mr. Colquhoun’s bushy white brows rose. Pickett knew his magistrate and mentor expected an explanation, but he had none to give. How did one tell a lady that, through some quirk of Scottish law, she was accidentally married to him? It’s a funny thing, my lady, but while I quite sympathize with your desire to escape to Scotland under an assumed name, and I am honored to have lent my name to the cause, it is my duty to inform you that you are now wed to a thief-taker with no more than twenty-five shillings a week on which to support you. It was impossible.
And yet that was not the worst of it. For the past three weeks he had held close to his heart the knowledge that he was secretly married to the Viscountess Fieldhurst—so secretly, in fact, that his “wife” did not even know of it. But once her ladyship was informed of her newly wedded state, the process of obtaining an annulment would begin. The illusion that he might be married to Lady Fieldhurst, whom he had loved from the moment of their first meeting over her husband’s dead body, was only that—an illusion—which must dissolve in the face of reality.
“There’s no time like the present, my lad,” the magistrate pointed out, not ungently. “It’s not likely to grow easier with delay.”
Pickett glanced at the clock mounted on the wall above the magistrate’s bench. “It’s very late, sir, past nine o’clock. I should hate to interrupt her ladyship at this hour.”
“They keep late hours amongst the fashionable set. Recall, if you will, that they don’t have to get up early to go to work like the rest of us.”
While Pickett struggled for an excuse to further postpone the inevitable, the door opened, admitting a gust of wind that ruffled the papers on Mr. Colquhoun’s desk. Carried in on this wind was a footman whose scarlet livery was scarcely redder than his nose, which he dabbed at frequently with a large handkerchief. Mr. William Foote, at thirty-five years of age the unofficial head of the night patrol, came forward to meet him.
“Nasty weather to be out and about in,” the senior Runner observed. “What can we do for you?”
“There’s a man been shot at Lady Dunnington’s house in Audley Street,” said the footman, gasping for breath. “Sir Reginald Montague. He’s dead, sir. I was told to—”
“Lady Dunnington, you say?” said Pickett, recalling the dark-haired, tart-tongued countess who had made more than one unflattering observation regarding his age, or lack thereof. “I know her.”
“Yes, Mr. Pickett, we’re well aware that you’re thick as inkle-weavers with half the aristocracy,” the senior Runner said impatiently, then turned his attention back to the footman. “Audley Street, you say? I’ll be right there.”
The footman glanced uncertainly from one Runner to the other. “I was told to ask for Mr. Pickett.”
Mr. Foote made a derisive noise in the back of his throat. “It’s true that Mr. Pickett has succeeded in achieving a certain notoriety in a very short time, but—”
“A moment please, Mr. Foote.” Mr. Colquhoun never raised his voice, but he had the full attention of one footman and two Bow Street Runners nevertheless. “I believe Mr. Pickett was going to pay a call in Mayfair in any case, were you not?” Seeing Pickett agree—for what choice did he have?—the magistrate turned back to Foote. “Since he is already going in that direction, and is acquainted with one of the principals involved, let him handle this one. You may report to me in the morning, Mr. Pickett.”
“Yes, sir,” said Pickett, and followed the footman out into the cold November night. He sighed. With any luck, the case would prove so complex that by the time he left Audley Street, Mr. Colquhoun would agree it was too late to call on Lady Fieldhurst even by Society’s standards.
CHAPTER 4
In Which a Most Uncomfortable Reunion Takes Place
The loud blowing of his nose announced the footman’s return to Audley Street. Lady Dunnington clutched Lady Fieldhurst’s arm, her fingers gripping like talons even through the fine kid of her long white glove.
“Julia! Not one word about Dunnington being here tonight, on your honor!”
Before Lady Fieldhurst could agree to this demand, let alone question it, the footman appeared in the doorway of the drawing room, where the two ladies had retreated to fortify themselves with sherry while they awaited Bow Street’s arrival.
“Mr. Pickett from Bow Street, my lady,” the footman said, and stepped aside to allow Pickett to enter.
Lady Fieldhurst stood abruptly, like a marionette jerked upright on strings, and moved to th
e far side of the room. She had wondered if she would ever see him again; she had certainly not expected to come face to face with him only weeks after his rejection of her, and her subsequent removal from Scotland. Now, filled with shame at the memory, she could not look him in the face, but stood with her back to him, hugging her arms to herself and drinking in the sight of him afforded by his reflection in the window.
“Mr. Pickett!” Lady Dunnington drained her glass in a single gulp, then set it aside and came forward to meet him. “I daresay you’ve seen poor Sir Reginald in the hall—you could hardly miss him, for you practically had to step over him to reach the drawing room. Jack, go down to the kitchen and tell Cook to give you a drop of brandy with lemon to chase away the chill, and then take yourself off to bed. Really, Mr. Pickett, I can’t imagine how it happened. One minute we were enjoying a perfectly lovely dinner, Lady Fieldhurst and I and half a dozen gentlemen of our acquaintance—she was going to choose one of them to be her lover, you know—”
Pickett glanced at Lady Fieldhurst. What little he could see of her face was beetroot red.
“—And the next thing I knew, there was a gunshot, and Sir Reginald was lying dead on the floor.”
“Thank you, your ladyship,” said Pickett. “I shall have some questions for you and Lady Fieldhurst shortly, but first I should like to examine the body.”
Lady Dunnington nodded. “Of course. Must I show it to you, or can you find your own way?”
“I’m afraid I must ask you to come with me, your ladyship. You might have information that could prove useful.”
“But I don’t know anything,” protested the countess. “Whoever shot poor Sir Reginald was long gone in the time it took Julia and me to reach the hall.”
Nevertheless, she led the way back to the hall, where Sir Reginald still lay sprawled upon the floor. Pickett knelt beside the body.
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