by Lynn Messina
Next she searched the dressing room and found herself in awe of the extent and depth of his wardrobe. It hardly seemed possible that one person could have so many waistcoats in so many colors and patterns or so many pairs of pumps and boots, all seemingly similar, though no doubt quite different in small but significant ways.
Other than the sheer magnitude and variety of his collection, there was nothing interesting in the dressing room and she moved on to the sitting room. As soon as she observed the writing desk, she felt a fissure of excitement, for this felt like the room where a gentleman might store his contract to publish a book.
She looked briefly through the cubbies and the smaller drawers on top, once again determined not to miss anything in her haste. No, nothing of note, she thought. Just nibs and fasteners and sealing wax and scraps of paper. She opened one of the larger drawers and shuffled through several sheets of paper, which, upon further scrutiny, turned out to be letters. She read the first one and immediately dropped it back into the drawer when she realized it was from a lover. All the letters were, although their authorship varied. Judging by the dates on the missives, Lord Fazeley had been carrying on four affairs at the same time. She did not know enough about the mating habits of the typical male to judge, but four seemed to be on the high side. Certainly, it required a lot of effort to juggle the expectations and requirements of four women. How did he keep them all straight in his mind?
Perhaps he did not and that was what led to his death.
Based on what Lord Duncan had told them, she’d assumed the pending publication of the revealing memoir served as the cause of the dandy’s murder. But she knew from her investigation into Mr. Otley’s death that a romantic betrayal, even one many years in the past, could fester and seethe and erupt in a violent attack.
Bea recorded the names of the women in her notebook—Autumn, Lila, Susan, Carla—then returned the letters to the drawer and slid it closed.
The next compartment contained a diary describing the earl’s daily activities in quite extensive detail. The entry from the day before his death recorded not only his waking time but also the hour he had breakfast, what he consumed during the meal, how long the event lasted and what he said to the footman as he was clearing the dishes from the table (“Careful, Rogers, you missed a crumb”). It described his grooming habits, including precise measurements for tooth powder (used to clean his teeth as well as his fingernails) and something called Dr. Hamley’s Improving Tonic. He chronicled the conversations he had with various members of his staff: with his valet, selecting his clothes for the day; with his housekeeper, picking the menu for dinner; with the groom, choosing a bridle for his morning ride. His movements outside the house were just as closely followed: where he went, what he did, whom he talked to. A disagreement with Lord Crestor over the proper fit of one’s waistcoat warranted two lines. Mr. Manley’s confidence that ceremonial daggers would soon be the rage with Lord Fazeley’s support earned four. His romantic dealings received the same treatment: dinner with Lucy, who admired his cravat, which he described as a modified version of his famous invention, the Fazeley Flow; and a later supper with a dancer named Susan, during which he had three glasses of wine and a flute of champagne.
As a narrative it made tedious reading, but as a chronicle of the way a certain type of gentleman lived his life it was a fascinating study, and Bea sat down at the escritoire to read more. She turned to the previous day, which bore a close resemblance to the one after: He woke at the same hour, breakfasted on the same meal, groomed with the same care, conversed with the same men, dallied with the same women. Only his wine consumption seemed to change, dropping to two glasses with Susan and rising to one with Lucy.
Bea flipped to two days before his death and read. She flipped to three days and read. She flipped to four. Over and over again he reported the same general facts of his general existence. There were variations, of course. On the day he perfected the simplified Fazeley Flow, a project that had taken three days from conception to completion, he recorded a two-hour practice session with his valet. On the day he ended his liaison with Autumn, he included a trip to the jeweler to buy what he called his usual trinket to lessen the pain of parting: a gold necklace with a pear-shaped ruby pendant. On the day he went to Lady Abercrombie’s to exhort money on behalf of his godson, he described the underwhelming quality of the teacakes she served, criticized the oolong as weak and aired his resentment at having to compete with the interior of a drawing room for sartorial dominance.
It was an astounding document, at once riveting and tedious, and Bea wondered at the voyeuristic impulse in her that kept her glued to the chair as she continued to read. It was, she supposed, the novelty of being exposed so deeply to the way a mind worked, even if it was a dull mind.
Try as she might, she could not pull herself away.
And so the duke found her an hour later, bent over the desk and wholly engrossed.
The first she heard of him was when he spoke: “I must congratulate you, Miss Hyde-Clare, on making the most rational decision available to you.”
She startled at the sound of his voice but quickly smoothed her movements, for she’d known this moment was coming and had prepared for it. And yet she hadn’t prepared for the reasonable sound of his tone or the calm way he regarded her. She’d anticipated cajoling an angry duke out of his fit of temper and worried now that his placidity indicated a devious scheme of his own.
Carefully, she closed the diary and stood up. “Thank you, your grace. I trust you understand why I could not leave things the way they were.”
“Naturally,” he said mildly.
“And I did not lie about my intentions,” she pointed out. “I merely ceased discussing the matter when you made it plain such a course was futile. There is a difference, you’ll own, between a lie and resisting a futility. And you never expressly sought my agreement, as you did not consider it necessary. Presumably, the Duke of Kesgrave is accustomed to his dictates being followed without their actually being issued.”
At this charge, he smiled faintly and said with pronounced sobriety that he was relieved to hear that it was, of course, ultimately his fault. “When you didn’t immediately lay the blame for your presence here at my self-regard and duchy, I feared our interactions might have humanized me in some alarming way. It’s comforting to know I’m as imperious as ever.”
She knew he was teasing, for he did not truly consider himself imperious, a fact that made him all the more commanding. “I did not immediately begin with your culpability as a sign of respect, which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is your due.”
“It’s a comfort to me, Miss Hyde-Clare, to know you are worrying about my consequence even when I’m not,” he said.
“’Tis something I cannot forget,” she said, matching his light tone. It was an effort, however, because she was no longer joking. That he was a duke with every option available to him was never far from her mind, and yet even as she recalled that she pictured the future he most likely imagined for himself: Incomparable wife, cherubic children, beautiful home, serene existence. In many ways, his narrow expectations for himself were as limiting as her own prospects. The different was, he didn’t know it.
Kesgrave stepped further into the sitting room, looked at the book in her grasp and held out his hand. “May I?”
She felt a juvenile impulse to hide the diary behind her back and blink innocently at him as if she had nothing to surrender. But she restrained such childishness and passed it along.
As he opened to the first page, he said, “I trust you also won’t forget to apologize to Stephens.”
“Stephens?” she echoed, wondering if that was the name of the butler who had answered the door.
“Stephens is my actual steward,” he explained. “He is the man whose nose you put out of joint by pretending to be him. He got very stiff with Jones when Jones told him he was already there and then positively churlish with me when I, perceiving what you had done, rushed to assure
Jones that I did in fact possess two stewards and that one had indeed been dispatched before us as an advance party to inspect the property. Unaware of your deception, Stephens believed that I had hired a second steward without telling him and that my trust in this new, untried fellow was so high, I sent him here to inspect the property on his own. He’s now in the kitchens nursing his displeasure, which I have no doubt he will make me feel keenly after we leave here. So do, please, if you remember, take a moment to reassure him that his place in my heart has not been usurped by another—for his sake, of course, not my own, as I know my discomfort means little to you.”
Bea found it impossible not to laugh over the scene he described, and although he made a great show of being offended, she could tell from his sanguine expression that he thought it was amusing too. Feeling in charity with him, for she had gotten her way and was genuinely appreciative of his not revealing the truth to the terrifying butler, she said, “That is Lord Fazeley’s diary, which contains the minutiae of his daily existence. I can only assume he used it as a reference to recall the details of particular interactions for his memoir and perhaps to help him keep abreast of his own romantic liaisons. As you will see, he was quite generous with his favors. We cannot know if any of the women to whom he devoted his attention objected to the others, but I feel fairly certain we should add jealousy to the list of possible motives.”
“Hell has no fury…” Kesgrave murmured.
Nodding, Bea rose and indicated to the chair, but he refused to sit while she remained standing.
Next to the escritoire was an ornate mahogany bookcase with brass accents and a cabinet below for storing items. Bea opened the compartment on the bottom, which was filled with ledgers, more diaries, and bills of sale for clothing, including—
No, she thought, bending her head closer to get a better look at the number. That couldn’t be right.
How could the earl spend three hundred pounds on a greatcoat? That was more than the price of her court gown. It was little wonder he’d decided to sell his memoirs to a publisher. Even if his estates were equal to the challenge now, his extravagant tastes would eventually require subsidizing by one method or another.
Despite Lord Duncan’s vehement claims to an inviolate ethical code, blackmail struck her as more and more likely. If the earl’s morals were as hypocritical as his godson’s, perhaps he’d limited himself to exhorting money only from the women of his acquaintance. Perhaps one of the women whose letters were in the drawer had a husband she hoped to shield from the truth of her lapsed fidelity.
As she closed the cabinet door and turned her attention to the drawer in the bookcase, Kesgrave said, “If I had not met Fazeley and talked to him on many different occasions, I would think him quite mad from reading this account. He is like Narcissus falling in love with his own reflection in water and slowly dying because he’s unable to look away. It’s vaguely monstrous.”
Well familiar with the myth, Bea agreed with his assessment while she sifted through the many papers in the drawer. There was the lease for the Chesterfield Street residence and a copy of a speech for the House of Lords, which struck her as odd until she saw the subject was a tax on silk.
Obviously, he could not let that atrocity proceed unabated.
“Ah, this is interesting,” Kesgrave said a few minutes later. “On January third he mentions delivering the manuscript to his publisher.”
She halted in her search as she turned to look at him. “That was four weeks ago. Does he mention the name of the firm or the name of its owner?”
“No, the description is terse. No names, no directions, no indication of how he got there. He simply mentions that he brought it to the offices. Do note, however, that the pains he took in dressing for the errands are described in detail as is the repast he had afterward to celebrate the accomplishment. Glasses of sherry are also recorded.”
“How many?” she asked, curious despite herself.
“Three.”
“Well, at least we know he submitted the manuscript, which supports our theory that he was killed because of something he revealed in it,” she said. “Whoever was worried about its publication must have felt compelled to act because he knew the day his secret became public was drawing ever closer. If only we had the manuscript, we’d be able to figure out who that person is.”
“I will keep reading,” Kesgrave says. “Perhaps he mentions the publisher in an earlier entry.”
She nodded and returned her attention to the drawer. A moment later, under a clipping from a newspaper dated six months before—reporting, of course, on the rhetorical brilliance of his silk-tax speech—she found the contract.
“I have it,” she said, her eyes focused on the document as she tried to quickly identify the name of the publishing firm. “His contract is with…hmm…Sylvan Press. Do you know it?”
Kesgrave left the diary on the desk and peered over her shoulder to look at the contract. “I have heard of it. I believe they specialize in Gothics in the style of Mrs. Radcliffe and Mr. Lewis. A memoir would be a departure for them, but Stephens nevertheless paid a call to their offices to inquire if they held the deal with Fazeley. They claimed to have no knowledge of it, of course, but that was only to be expected.”
“We need to see that manuscript,” Bea murmured, her mind already working on the problem as she pondered what would be the best approach: honest dealing or subterfuge. As a publisher seeking the largest numbers of readers, Mr.—she looked at the bottom of the contract for a name—Cornyn would no doubt welcome the notoriety that would come from the truth being revealed. Here, he could announce in all his advertisements, is a book to die for. But your copy will cost you only ten shillings.
No story she could make up would be as persuasive as the truth.
But how to put her argument to Mr. Cornyn? She could show up at his office as Miss Hyde-Clare or Mr. Wright. To which persona would he respond more positively?
She scoffed at herself for even posing the question, for Mr. Cornyn was a man and men always responded more positively to other men. If he was inclined to allow either interloper to peruse the earl’s manuscript, it would be Mr. Wright.
Kesgrave, who’d never in his life worried about his favorable reception, assured her that they would see the manuscript presently. “I’m sure Mr. Cornyn will be delighted to supply me with the copy so that I may examine it myself.”
Although Bea felt the usual compulsion to pillory his arrogance, she let the moment pass because this time it would help her achieve a goal she strongly desired. “But they resisted your efforts before,” she said.
In noting his previous failure, she was merely pointing to a simple truth, but somehow she’d still managed to prick his ego. “That was because I sent Stephens in my stead,” he explained crisply, “and although he is imbued with all the powers of my personage, he’s lacking the force of my person. It will be a different matter when I present myself personally to Mr. Cornyn or his associates. I assure you, no one will resist my efforts.”
If he spoke to the publisher with the same crushing confidence, she was inclined to agree with his assumption. Bea folded the contract in half and slipped it into her leather satchel. “Let us go, then.”
The duke looked at her, seeming to notice for the first time the details of her outfit: the ill-fitting breeches, the awkward perch of her hat, the drooping collar. “My dear Mr. Wright, you must fire your tailor at once, for he clearly has no respect for you or any regard for human decency. Simply looking at you, I feel pummeled by his scorn.”
Bea dismissed his criticism as being stingy. “Certainly, I could never rise to your level in either taste or execution, but you must admit I make a very fine man. Can’t you just see me with a blade in my hand, thrusting and parrying on a turret staircase? I’ve found Aunt Vera to be right about very few things, but on this I think she’s on the mark.”
Kesgrave smiled faintly as he said, “Remarkably, that ridiculous image evades me entirely.”
> “You’ll see,” she said, “after I take lessons at Angelo’s and perfect my technique.”
The duke shook his head as he picked up Lord Fazeley’s diary. “Truly, I don’t know if the prospect amuses or frightens me more.”
Before Bea had a chance to assure him he should be terrified, a red-haired man in black trousers and coat walked forcefully into the room, and spotting Kesgrave by the writing desk, approached him with stiffened shoulders. “Your grace, based on my inspection of the kitchens alone, I cannot give my imprimatur to this house. They are filthy, poorly ventilated, sparsely equipped and too small to accommodate the sort of large dinner someone of your august status is accustomed to hosting.”
“All right, Stephens,” Kesgrave said amiably. “We shall take our leave.”
“Furthermore,” he continued, in too high dudgeon to hear the duke’s swift acquiescence, “there’s no wine cellar at all, just a space next to the larder for storing bottles, and the buttery is half the size of the one in Berkeley Square. I don’t know what freak start brought us—”
He halted his speech abruptly.
Ah, Bea thought, now he heard it.
The color rose in Stephens’s cheeks as he realized he had been about to criticize his employer. Horrified, he apologized at once. “I cannot explain what has come over me except that seeing a kitchen so disrespectful of your position or requirements offended me with such intensity I forgot myself. It will not happen again.”
“Stephens, it is knowing that you will be affronted on my behalf that allows me to keep a cool head when abused by a kitchen,” Kesgrave said gravely. “You are right to be appalled, and I trust it goes without saying that your opinion is all I need to make a decision.”
The red-haired steward, who was only a little taller than Bea, seemed to rise a whole foot at this praise. “It does indeed, your grace. And I trust it goes without saying that I will work my hardest to continue to be worthy of your faith.”