An Earl Out of Time: Time After Time Book One (Time Out of Time 1)

by Louise Allen

  He lifted it and set it in place. ‘Arabella would not have been able to move that, it is far too heavy.’

  I stripped off my delicate kid gloves, pushed back my cuffs and lifted the bar out of the sockets. When Lucian eyed me suspiciously I said, ‘I go to the gym and exercise.’

  ‘Gym?’

  ‘Gymnasium – for exercise to keep fit. Like you have fencing and boxing – salons, is it?’

  He nodded, his face so carefully expressionless that I could guess what his imagination was doing with the idea of ladies exercising in gymnasia. ‘But Miss Trenton could not have managed that by herself. She is smaller and slighter than you and I doubt she does anything more strenuous than take strolling walks and dance.’ He took the bar from me, propped it back against the wall and opened the gate. ‘There is only a service alleyway behind.’

  We walked up and down it but it was depressingly clean. No piles of mud or manure to take an incriminating foot or wheel print, no handkerchief marked with an abductor’s initials, no sharp-eyed urchin to screech, ‘She went that way, guv, with a bloke with a wooden leg and red hair!’

  We went back to the bench. This time Lucian did drape his arm along the back of the seat. I did my best not to lean back against it. ‘Either Miss Trenton went willingly or she was abducted,’ he began.

  ‘And even if she went willingly we do not know that whoever she left with had not deceived her,’ I added.

  ‘So either she is happily eloping with her lover or she is a prisoner somewhere. Or dead.’

  ‘Or she never left the house.’ It had just occurred to me and I rather wished it hadn’t.

  ‘She might be hiding, you mean?’

  ‘No. Hidden. Either alive or dead.’

  ‘Hell.’ This time he made no attempt to control his language. ‘But who would do such a thing?’

  ‘One of the male staff who made advances, then killed her when she struggled,’ I suggested. ‘Or her brother.’ Lucian opened his mouth to protest. ‘The family are the prime suspects. Always. We should check for signs of digging in the garden and, if there are none, then we need to get back in the house and search it from top to bottom – attics and cellar in particular.’

  The expression on Lucian’s face hardened from grim to bleak. ‘What have you seen that gives you this knowledge? What hell can life be like when you come from if a young lady knows of these things? No.’ He gestured abruptly. ‘No, do not tell me. We will look for freshly-turned earth and for the marks of a ladder now, then I will think how to go about how I can search.’

  How we will search, I corrected mentally, but did not say so. Lucian had enough to adjust to as it was. I let myself lean back against the warm firmness of his arm and, for a second, his hand curled around the point of my shoulder. Then he stood up and walked briskly to the furthest flowerbed.

  The garden showed signs of careful tending, but there was no fresh digging and all the slabs that made up a miniature terrace had moss between them. We could see no signs on the York stone of a ladder being used either.

  ‘Now I want to go and talk to the other staff,’ I said as we stood at the top of the area steps. ‘Coming?’

  ‘Of course.’

  A child of about twelve answered my knock on the door. She looked far too young to be working, let alone at any kind of manual labour, but from her bedraggled apron and her red hands I guessed this was the lowest servant lifeform, a scullery maid, poor mite.

  She gawped but stood back holding the door and we went through to the kitchen, Lucian keeping well behind me. I tapped on the door frame. ‘Might I come in?’

  Chapter Seven

  Cook turned from the hearth, ladle in hand. ‘Who’s that, Peggy? Oh! Ma’am?’

  ‘Good morning. My name is Lawrence and Lord Cottingham has asked me to help look into the worrying disappearance of Miss Trenton.’ To my own ears it sounded like the title of some Golden Age detective novel, but the cook nodded and pulled forward a big Windsor chair that I guessed was hers.

  ‘It will be a mercy if someone can find her, poor sweet lamb. If you would care to sit down, Miss, I’ll make a cup of tea and I’ve fresh scones –’ She broke off at the sight of Lucian in the doorway, but recovered herself with more aplomb than I would have shown if he had appeared in my kitchen unexpectedly. ‘Sir?’

  He didn’t correct her. ‘I am with Miss Lawrence.’ He sat down on a hard chair in a corner. The shadows disguised the quality of his tailoring, so perhaps she thought he was my footman. I decided not to share that thought with him afterwards.

  ‘I wondered if any of the staff had any ideas about what might have happened to her,’ I asked as Cook put a plate of scones on the stool by my side. ‘Those do look delicious, Mrs – ?’ Cooks, I knew, were always Mrs, married or not.

  ‘Mrs Wicksted, Miss. Have some jam with them, do. Miss Trenton now,’ she shook her head. ‘We all thought she’d eloped with Sir Clement. A very pleasant gentlemen, and that was the opinion of us all. Sent down compliments on my cakes, he did, the time Miss had him in for tea.’

  ‘Did many gentlemen come to visit her?’ I asked.

  ‘Not so many as other young ladies have, not to the house. His lordship doesn’t encourage it.’ She looked disappointed, presumably missing the opportunity to produce fancy meals for visitors.

  ‘There’s that Lord Welney,’ a male voice chipped in. A pair of footmen had come to lounge in the doorway. ‘He’s got a thick skin and isn’t put off by his lordship huffing and puffing.’

  ‘What is he like? Did Miss Trenton favour him?’ I asked. Lucian had managed to efface himself thoroughly in his shadowy corner and the two footmen couldn’t have been aware he was there, because I suspected they wouldn’t be very forthcoming with an earl in the room.

  ‘If I was his lordship I wouldn’t have trusted him as far as I could chuck him, not with a pretty young lady I wouldn’t,’ one of them said. He was a foxy-looking youth, all red hair and sharp features. ‘He tipped too well.’ The other man, older and darker, grunted in agreement.

  ‘But wouldn’t you be pleased about that?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘What is wrong with him being generous?’

  Addressed directly, the dark footman came right into the room. ‘It’s like this, Miss. If Sir Clement comes and brings a bouquet and wants me to make sure Miss Trenton has it before anyone else’s that day, then he might slip me a borde, even a bull if she’d been to a ball and there were lots of flowers expected. Sixpence or half a crown,’ he translated when I opened my mouth to ask.

  ‘Or if she was going for a walk that afternoon he might do the same for me to tell him which park she was going to and what time. None of that’s any harm, she’d have a married lady with her, or her friends or one of us. But that Lord Welney, when he started coming here he gave us both a sovereign and not for doing anything neither. Just buying us, I call it. Then if he wanted anything it was always a couple of bulls, or a half sov even.’ He shifted uncomfortably. ‘His lordship’s not the easiest gentleman to work for, but he’s fair and I ’spose I can’t blame him for being strict about Miss Trenton, and I don’t like coves what try and buy me.’

  ‘But you took his money?’

  He grinned, unrepentant. ‘I reckon he’s got plenty if he throws it about like that.’

  ‘And Miss Trenton was happy?’ I asked. There were a crowd of them now. Cook and the little kitchen skivvy, the two footmen, a lad I assumed was Boots and a pair of maids in crisp, lace-trimmed aprons. Not, fortunately, the butler, who would doubtless have stopped the gossip in its tracks.

  ‘She was crying the other day,’ one of the maids volunteered. ‘I was dusting and I went in the little sitting room she uses in the mornings and she was on the sofa having a good sob. It wasn’t my place, but I gave her a clean handkerchief and said, There, there, Miss, and asked if I should fetch her maid to her, but she blew her nose and thanked me in that pretty way she has and said I wasn’t to say anything. But when I went out she said, I am all right, Kit
ty. And then in a whisper, all to herself, like, My heart is breaking, that is all.’

  ‘That’s the day his lordship said she wasn’t to see Sir Clement any more,’ the other maid chipped in.

  So, Arabella was in love with Sir Clement, or at least fond enough of him to weep when he was forbidden to call on her. ‘Was there anyone else?’

  ‘Well, she was very much admired, of course, being so pretty, so there were lots of callers, even if his lordship wouldn’t have them in,’ Kitty said. ‘Mainly the young gentlemen. I don’t know all the names though and they usually came in a gaggle, like.’ She grinned. ‘The young ones are a bit bashful. But I don’t think any of them were that serious, not yet, anyway. They do the pretty with all the young ladies because it’s the done thing. You know?’

  ‘There’s Lord de Forrest. That’s with two rs,’ said the foxy footman and they both sniggered. ‘His lordship never objects to him calling and he’s an old family friend, though Lord de Forrest is a bit older than our gentleman. But he can’t have wanted him for Miss Trenton, not if he’d heard the rumours.’

  ‘What’s so amusing about him?’ I asked to a background of more sniggering.

  ‘Well, he’s forty if he’s a day and he’s, um…’ Foxy shot Cook a doubtful glance.

  ‘Not interested in women?’ I suggested.

  They all looked scandalised. ‘Er, no, Miss.’ The dark footman was obviously groping for some polite way to put it. ‘If he was a horse, Miss, he wouldn’t be much use for stud work, if you see what I mean. Er, so the rumours say.’

  ‘How on earth would you know that?’ I demanded and everyone studied their feet, or remote corners of the kitchen. ‘Especially if Lord Cottingham doesn’t.’ Or perhaps he did and was relaxed about him visiting because he didn’t think he was a threat to his little sister.

  ‘Clubs, Miss. We all belong to them, the male staff, that is,’ Foxy explained. The maids rolled their eyes. ‘And valets talk to each other and butlers and footmen do too – we all exchange information about employers because then it helps people looking for new positions, or stops someone applying to a place that’s not good to work in. It only takes one gentleman coming home a bit bosky and saying to his valet he was in a bro… a place of ill-repute, that is, and that the girls were talking about another gentleman and describing his, well, problems, and it gets around.’ There was a muffled snort from Lucian’s corner, but luckily none of them seemed to notice it.

  The dark footman sauntered across to the dresser and poured something into a glass. ‘You put that milk back, John Peters,’ Cook snapped. ‘You get three good meals a day like everyone else and I’m not having you snacking on vittles between times. The housekeeping only goes so far, you idle scamp!’

  He coloured-up and shot her a look, but poured back the milk. ‘I’m thirsty.’

  ‘Then drink pump water like the rest of us. That’s free.’

  And how close is your cess pit to the pump, I wonder? I made a mental note to only drink boiled water wherever I was in this time. I had forgotten cholera, let alone all the other things floating about in the water supply.

  I dragged my mind back to the matter in hand. ‘So, there is Sir Clement who is definitely interested, and Lord de Forrest who might be, but is highly unlikely to attract a young lady, and Lord Welney, who is of dubious intentions and a flock of young men who haven’t made up their minds,’ I summarised. ‘And Miss Trenton thought herself in love with Sir Clement.’

  ‘That’s the sum of it, Miss.’ Cook gestured at the kitchen maid. ‘The kettle’s boiling, girl. Hurry up and wet the tea.’

  ‘Thank you, but I must be going,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘You’ve all been very helpful. There’s just one thing – what is the longest ladder you’ve got on the premises?’

  ‘Eight foot, Miss. Nothing long enough to get up to that bedchamber window,’ Foxy said, picking up my point instantly. ‘When we do the windows on that floor we have to sit on the cill with our bodies outside. Not much fun, that.’

  ‘No, it can’t be.’ I stood up and went to the door, Lucian rising just in time to meet me there. I waved my reticule at him and made a gesture that, it seemed, was unnecessary because he was already turning to the foxy footman.

  ‘Thank you for your time.’ Coins clinked. ‘That is for everyone. We will let ourselves out.’

  I waited until we were walking down the street before I spoke. ‘Did that get us anywhere? Sir Clement is out on your say-so and I cannot believe that she would have gone willingly with a forty year old, whether or not she knew he was impotent. What do we know about the sinister Lord Welney?’

  ‘That I would not allow any female relation of mine within a hundred yards of the man and on the only occasion I have been a guest at one of his evening entertainments I left early. He likes beautiful women and he has a reputation for the most dissolute behaviour.’

  ‘So Miss Trenton might be very tempting to a man like that?’

  Lucian made a sort of agreeing grunt. ‘And you are right, we need to search the house.’

  ‘The male staff seems to be the butler, those two footmen and the boot boy.’

  ‘And Cottingham’s valet but, as I recall, he’s an exceedingly weedy specimen,’ Lucian said thoughtfully. ‘I cannot imagine him turning on Miss Trenton, let alone being able to overpower her.’

  ‘And the butler looks as though he suffers from rheumatics, so I can’t see him becoming inappropriately frisky around the young mistress, managing to kill her and hide the body,’ I said. Lucian snorted with amusement. ‘And the boot boy is far too young. What about the footmen? The foxy one doesn’t strike me as being likely for some reason, but the dark one has a roving eye and they are both big enough to cope with a delicate young lady if she has no idea how to defend herself.’

  Lucian stopped dead. ‘How do you know he has a roving eye? Was he looking at you in an impertinent manner? I will not stand for that.’ He looked inclined to march straight back.

  ‘Of course not, he just automatically checks out the opposite sex and he is a bit obvious about it, that’s all,’ I said and tugged at his arm to get him going again. ‘But we need to get in and search, because we can’t eliminate the possibility something has gone wrong at her home.’

  ‘I agree we need to do it, in case the footmen have done something. But Cottingham himself is a pillar of society,’ Lucian said. ‘Belongs to all the best clubs. I am not a close friend of his, but I have never heard a bad word about him, other than that he is somewhat intense.’

  I managed not to point out that the best clubs doubtless included amongst their members wife-beaters, rapists, embezzlers, libertines, paedophiles and not a few murderers and that their fellow members thought them all jolly good fellows.

  ‘They could have been having a row about Sir Clement, he shook her, she slipped, hit her head on something sharp – next thing he knows, he’s got a dead body on his hands,’ I suggested. ‘An accident, he panics…’

  ‘True.’

  ‘So, we have to work out how to get in there at night.’

  ‘Getting in is not the problem. I have a key.’ He held up his hand to show me a large iron key pressed against his palm. ‘I pocketed it when I was in the passageway just now. They have a whole collection neatly labelled on hooks, and there were four back door keys, presumably for when the staff have evenings off. Tidy organisation, appalling security.’

  You see? The best clubs have members who are skilled sneak thieves as well. I kept the thought to myself. ‘Excellent. So, when do we go in?’

  ‘We? We are not breaking in anywhere.’

  ‘Entering, not breaking,’ I pointed out. The fact that I was an officer of the law, albeit part-time and unpaid, did not escape me, but this was to save someone, I told myself firmly. I could hardly apply for a search warrant first. ‘You can’t do it alone and it would be dishonourable to expect your valet to break the law.’ That should ring all the right bells.

  ‘It would be e
ven more dishonourable to put a lady into such a position,’ Lucian pointed out.

  Damn. ‘Yes, but I am a liberated twenty-first century woman trained in unarmed combat.’ Sort of.

  I could almost feel the weight of Lucian’s sideways glance. ‘True,’ he said.

  I almost tripped over a paving slab in surprise. Not an impressive display of fined-honed co-ordination by a twenty first century superwoman.

  ‘I must think about it,’ he said as he steadied me with a hand under my elbow. ‘I need to find out what Cottingham is doing tonight before we plan anything. Garrick will know.’

  ‘How would he?’

  ‘You heard the footmen just now. The valets know who is going to be where because they are intensely competitive and want to outdo each other in turning out their employers.’

  We were back at Albany in a few minutes. There was a lot to be said for the small size of Georgian London.

  ‘I will go and find Garrick,’ Lucian said as he opened the front door.

  I escaped gratefully to find the privy. It was a man’s world out there – they had their clubs and their coffee houses or, at a pinch, an alleyway. Ladies had to keep their legs crossed until they were in a private house.

  I went into the drawing room when I had finally wrestled the layers of petticoat into submission and stopped dead on the threshold. A youngish, blond man was sprawled on the carpet playing with model soldiers.

  He got to his feet when he saw me. ‘Please do not tread on the Allied front line.’ His smile was infectious. And beautiful. So was the rest of him. I slapped on a polite smile of my own, got my hormones under control and registered two things. He was obviously related to Lucian – the nose was a dead giveaway for a start – and he was gay. Probably. OK, I am not the world’s sexiest woman, but I had scrubbed up pretty well that morning and I went in and out in the right places and although he was studying me with interest there was not the slightest hint of masculine appraisal in that look.