Dinner Most Deadly

by Sheri Cobb South

  “My dear Mr. Pickett, I am neither pleased nor displeased, having never really considered any other outcome,” Lord Rupert assured him in bored accents. “But if I am not to be arrested, then to what, pray, do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

  “Since you have no motive that I can see for wanting to kill Sir Reginald, I thought I could trust you to give me an honest opinion, if you would be so obliging.”

  Lord Rupert’s face assumed an expression of exaggerated surprise. “Can it be that the child prodigy of Bow Street has come to me for help? Tell me, Mr. Pickett, why the devil should I wish to help you?”

  Fortunately, Pickett had anticipated this response, and had prepared for it accordingly. “Consider, your lordship, that once the matter of Sir Reginald’s death is resolved, I should have no reason for further dealings with her ladyship, at least not until our annulment comes up before the ecclesiastical court.”

  “There is that, of course,” acknowledged Lord Rupert. “Still, that would presuppose that I consider you a threat to my own interests where her ladyship is concerned. Nothing could be further from the truth, I assure you.”

  “If I pose no threat to you, then surely it can do you no harm to favor me with your opinion,” Pickett pointed out.

  “Very true. I concede the point. And I might even indulge the hope that, once I have given you the benefit of my wisdom, you might go away and leave me alone. Yes, shockingly rude of me, I know, but I was at White’s until very late, and have a throbbing head.” As if in proof of this last statement, he reached for the coffee pot, refilled his cup, and drank it down black. “Very well, Mr. Pickett. What do you want to know?”

  “I should like to know just how important a membership at White’s is to your set.”

  Lord Rupert’s eyebrows rose. “Are you thinking to persuade someone to put your name forward? I fear you are wasting your time. You are no better suited to be a member of White’s than you are to be a husband to Lady Fieldhurst.”

  “I am thinking of Mr. Martin Kenney,” Pickett said impatiently. “I believe he was once a member there?”

  “You are well informed. He was indeed a member until quite recently.”

  “I understand he has Sir Reginald to thank for his expulsion from the club.”

  Lord Rupert nodded. “Correct again.”

  “Do you know what happened to cause Mr. Kenney to be blackballed?”

  “Do I know? My good fellow, I was there at the time.”

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  Lord Rupert leaned back in his chair, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling as he cast his mind back to the night in question. “As I recall, Mr. Kenney was enjoying a prodigious run of luck, much of it at Sir Reginald’s expense. Eventually Sir Reginald observed that Mr. Kenney seemed to be as familiar with the backs of the cards as with their fronts—the implication being, of course, that Mr. Kenney was cheating by using a marked deck.”

  “And was he?” Pickett asked.

  Lord Rupert shrugged. “I saw no evidence of it. His luck was certainly in, but no more so than I had seen any other of a dozen men enjoy on any given night.”

  “Yet you said nothing in his defense,” observed Pickett.

  “My dear Mr. Pickett, why should I? Who would have listened to me? I daresay none of the men who voted to revoke Mr. Kenney’s membership believed it either, but Sir Reginald is—was—a dangerous man to cross, and who was Mr. Kenney but an impoverished Irishman whose membership was no great credit to the club in the first place? No, I fear the poor blighter never stood a chance.”

  “And in your opinion, would being tossed out of White’s constitute a motive for murder?”

  “Only in a very highly strung individual, and I confess, I never received the impression that Mr. Kenney was so sensitive. However, since you have asked for my honest opinion, I must inform you that there was rather more to it than that.”

  “The young lady Mr. Kenney had hoped to marry,” Pickett guessed.

  “Oh, you know about that, do you?”

  Pickett nodded. “Mr. Kenney told me himself.”

  “Mr. Kenney was certainly no prize before, although his birth was respectable enough. Still, the lady’s father was inclined to look with favor on his suit simply because he doted upon his daughter, and she was smitten with the fellow. But the fond papa was in attendance that night, and, well, one can’t have a scandal like that in the family, you know. Mr. Kenney might have won four hundred pounds at piquet, but the aptly named Miss Price and her forty thousand were forever lost to him.”

  “Hmm.” Pickett frowned, deep in thought. Lord Rupert’s account matched up on all major points with Mr. Kenney’s, and yet, as disastrous as it was for the Irishman from a financial perspective, Pickett could not quite see it as sufficient motive for murder. He was aware, of course, that aristocratic males had a penchant for defending slights to their honor, whether real or imagined, by challenging one another to duels on Hampstead Heath or some other remote location; still, he failed to see how it might avenge one’s honor to shoot an unarmed man in the chest at point-blank range. “Tell me, Lord Rupert, what sort of man is Mr. Kenney? What sort of husband would he make?”

  Lord Rupert, in the process of taking another swig of coffee, paused with the cup poised halfway to his lips. “Are you thinking of cutting me out by choosing your own successor? I hate to disappoint you, Mr. Pickett, but at dinner your lady wife showed not the slightest interest in Mr. Kenney.”

  “Actually, I had another potential bride in mind,” confessed Mr. Pickett, refusing to be baited. “One who stands in urgent need of a husband, thanks to Sir Reginald Montague.”

  “I hope this time you have found a female of your own class. Oh, I see! You meant another prospective bride for Mr. Kenney. You must be thinking of Lord Edwin’s daughter, Miss Braunton.”

  Pickett stared at him, taken aback by this revelation. “You know about Miss Braunton’s, er, condition?”

  “My good man, when one considers Miss Braunton’s abrupt departure from London in the middle of a Season in which she was touted as a diamond of the first water, followed almost immediately by her father’s offering of a rather lavish financial inducement to matrimony to nearly every unattached gentleman in Town, one need not be a Bow Street Runner—forgive me!—for putting two and two together and arriving at the correct sum.”

  “Your opinion of Mr. Kenney, then?”

  Lord Rupert leaned back in his chair as he considered the question. “I believe Mr. Kenney to be a good enough sort. No money, of course, but you knew that.”

  “And the gambling?”

  “Most of the aristocracy does it, at least to some extent,” said Lord Rupert with a shrug. “Still, I have never heard of Mr. Kenney dipping deeper than he ought; the cardinal rule of gambling, you know, is never to wager more than one can afford to lose. But if rumor is to be believed, Mr. Kenney’s father left the estate heavily encumbered when he died, and I daresay living by his wits, as the saying goes, is the only way to make ends meet, at least until he can persuade some heiress to marry him. Yes, I believe such a marriage might serve very well, for both parties concerned. I confess, Mr. Pickett, before making your acquaintance I had no idea an instrument of the law would possess such a romantic streak.”

  Pickett, suspecting this observation concealed yet another dig at his own interest in Lady Fieldhurst, did not dignify it with a reply, but rose to his feet. “I thank you for your candor, your lordship. I will leave you now to enjoy your breakfast in peace.”

  Lord Rupert rose and followed him into the flat’s small foyer, where his lordship’s man was waiting with Pickett’s hat and gloves. Pickett had taken these and was about to put them on when Lord Rupert spoke again.

  “By the bye, about this annulment . . .”

  “Yes?” prompted Pickett, fairly certain he would not enjoy the exchange that was about to follow.

  “On what grounds is it to be sought?”

  “I—I beg you
r pardon?” Pickett stammered, seeing his worst fears were about to be realized.

  “Come, man, I am well aware that one cannot stroll into the ecclesiastical court and emerge half an hour later with a grant of annulment in one’s pocket! It may surprise you to know that I was not always the ornament of Society who stands before you today. Once in my mad youth, I had some idea of being independent of my elder brother, and to that end began reading for the law. It would never have worked of course; besides the fact that it would have taken up far too much of my valuable time, I should have looked utterly ridiculous in a barrister’s wig. Still, while I was by no means brilliant, I did retain enough to recall that there are only certain conditions under which an annulment may be granted. You are not underage, I believe, nor are you mentally incompetent—”

  “Coming from you, my lord, I will take that as a compliment,” put in Pickett.

  Lord Rupert’s eyebrows rose. “Will you? It was not intended as such, I assure you, merely a statement of indisputable fact. There is another option, however, much as one hesitates to mention it—”

  Of its own volition, Mr. Pickett’s right arm moved ever so slightly so that the crown of his hat covered the fall of his breeches.

  Lord Rupert, observing this unconscious gesture, murmured, “Quite so.” He continued in a somewhat louder voice, “Before my father passed, there was a certain quotation by Henri Estienne of which he was particularly fond. I can still hear him say with a sigh, ‘If youth but knew; if age but could.’ Were my father alive today, Mr. Pickett, I would assure him that the French philosopher had been overly optimistic, at least where youth’s, er, capabilities were concerned.”

  Pickett, flushing crimson, held his tongue with an effort. It would do Lady Fieldhurst no good at all if he were to blurt out the truth every time he was challenged on the matter. “If you have nothing further to contribute on the matter of Sir Reginald, your lordship, I will bid you good day,” he said, putting on his hat and turning on his heel.

  “Oh, I’m sure I shall have a very good day, indeed,” retorted his lordship, chuckling.

  After his exchange with Lord Rupert, it was a relief to Pickett to seek out Lord Edwin Braunton, with whom he felt himself to be on rather surer footing. Upon being shown into Lord Edwin’s study, he lost no time in coming to the point.

  “It appears you have been holding out on me, your lordship,” he began.

  “Eh? What’s that?”

  “A week ago I sat in this room and listened while you enumerated reasons why several men might want to murder Sir Reginald Montague.”

  “Yes, what of it?”

  “You failed to mention that you have your own reason for wishing to do him harm. I have recently returned from Leicestershire,” Pickett explained, “where I had the privilege of meeting your lovely daughter.”

  Lord Edwin’s face turned first pale, then crimson. “Now, look here, you’ll leave my daughter out of this!”

  “I mean Miss Braunton no harm, your lordship,” Pickett assured him. “In fact, I am sympathetic to her plight, and hope I may be of some assistance. But first I would like you to give me the accounting that you did not give last time we spoke.”

  Lord Edwin slumped in his seat, looking suddenly older than his forty-odd years. “I hold myself partly to blame, Mr. Pickett. If she’d had a woman’s guidance, if her mother had been alive to warn her, perhaps things would have gone differently.”

  Pickett shook his head. “From what I have heard, Sir Reginald could be very beguiling when he chose to exert himself. I believe ladies older and more experienced than Miss Braunton have been known to succumb to his charm,” he added, thinking of Lady Dunnington.

  “When I found out—when Catherine told me she was—was in a delicate condition, I didn’t know what to do.” Lord Edwin dug his handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his glistening forehead. “I daresay you will say I should have cast her off, but how can a man do such a thing to a child he loves?”

  “I should think not!” exclaimed Pickett, appalled. “Your lordship, I have seen what happens to those females who are cast off by their parents just when they need them the most. It is not a pretty sight. Those who survive childbirth are more often than not obliged to earn their living on their backs. They usually don’t last long before dying of pox or the clap. I can assure you, your daughter has done nothing to deserve such a fate.”

  Lord Edwin nodded distractedly. “Would that there were more people who felt that way.”

  “So,” Pickett asked diffidently, “what did you do?”

  “I didn’t kill Sir Reginald, if that’s what you’re thinking! My first thought was to try and find my Catherine a husband as quickly as possible. Her dowry is respectable, but not so much as to tempt a man to raise another’s bastard as his own child. I went at once to my elder brother—the Duke of Wexham, you know—and told him in the strictest confidence how things stood. He’s always had a fondness for my Catherine—he has no girls of his own, only the two boys—and he added a substantial sum to the dowry in the hopes of making it—and her—more attractive to a potential bridegroom. In the meantime, I’ve done my damnedest to force Sir Reginald into taking some responsibility for his actions. Obviously he couldn’t marry her—and to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather see her ruined than married to such a man as he!—but he should have paid something for the child’s upkeep, at the least reckoning.”

  “And to come to such an agreement, you obviously needed him alive,” Pickett concluded. It made perfect sense, and for all Lord Edwin’s bluster, Pickett could not picture him acting so rashly. No, Lord Edwin might well have been capable of killing Sir Reginald, and he certainly had reason enough for wanting to do so, but he would not have done the deed until he was sure his daughter’s future was settled.

  “But you said you might be able to be of some assistance? In what way?”

  “Tell me, Lord Edwin, how well do you know Mr. Martin Kenney?”

  “Not well. Oh, I know what everyone else knows—an encumbered estate in Ireland with no money to pay the mortgages, and of course that business at White’s, but other than that—” Lord Edwin shook his head.

  “According to your daughter, she met Mr. Kenney earlier in the Season and danced once or twice with him. They seemed to be quite taken with one another.”

  “I see,” said Lord Edwin slowly. “You think he might be willing to marry my Catherine?”

  “I not only think he might be willing to marry her, I think they might eventually be very happy together.”

  Lord Edwin heaved a sigh. “He’s not what I would have wanted for her, Mr. Pickett, I’ll not deny it.”

  “Very likely not, but neither of them is in a position to be overly nice in their requirements. As you know, sir, time is of the essence, particularly in your daughter’s case. The fact that they were both wronged by the same man might incline them to look on each other with understanding and sympathy. Marriages have been built on less.” Sometimes much less, Pickett thought. He could think of one that had been formed from nothing more than the casual enacting of a ruse in a country that happened to have laws about such things.

  “Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Pickett,” said Lord Edwin with a more hopeful expression on his countenance than he’d worn since Pickett had confronted him with his daughter’s dilemma. “I shall bear it in mind.”

  Having finished with Lord Edwin, Pickett decided he had just enough time to call on Mr. Kenney before presenting himself in Harley Street. He did not expect this call to result in much progress in the matter of Sir Reginald; in fact, it was not so much to gather information as to divulge it that he sought out the Irishman. Still, to Pickett’s mind it was a call worth the making.

  No one opened the door to his knock, but a pronounced Irish brogue from inside bade him enter. He did so, and found Mr. Kenney washing out his linens in a basin and hanging them before the fire to dry. Pickett was more than a little taken aback; even at his poorest
, his landlady had always been willing to undertake this task for him, although there had been a few times, mostly in his early days with the foot patrol, when he’d been unable to pay her for this service as promptly as he would have liked.

  “Come in, Mr. Pickett,” urged Mr. Kenney, his voice surprisingly cheerful given the bleakness of his circumstances. “ ’Tis laundry day, as you can see. It’s gratifying to know that if my luck at cards should ever fail me, I can always support myself by taking in washing.”

  “You could,” Pickett agreed, “or you could render a service for a young lady in desperate need, and live quite comfortably for the rest of your life.”

  The wet cravat in his hand slipped through Mr. Kenney’s fingers and landed in the basin with a splat. “What young lady? What are you talking about?”

  “Are you acquainted with Miss Catherine Braunton? I believe you may have danced with her a couple of times earlier in the Season.”

  “Miss Braunton? Of course I remember her! A charming girl and a diamond of the first water but, alas, far above my touch. She is the granddaughter of the previous Duke of Wexham, and the niece of the present duke. And I—” He made an expansive gesture with dripping hands. “I am nothing but a fortune hunter, as every young lady with a sizable dowry is warned as soon as I show her the slightest interest.”

  “Mr. Kenney, what would you say if I were to tell you that Miss Braunton has been no less wronged by Sir Reginald Montague than you have yourself?”

  “Wronged?” Mr. Kenney gave the sodden cravat a firm twist, sending a stream of water into the basin. “In what way?”

  “In the worst way in which it is possible for a man to wrong a woman.”

  “I—see,” Mr. Kenney said slowly. “And now?”

  “Now Miss Braunton finds herself in desperate need of a husband, and her uncle the duke has increased her dowry substantially to aid her in the cause.”

  “You are asking me to marry Miss Braunton and raise Sir Reginald Montague’s bastard as my own child.”