A Pretty Deceit

by Anna Lee Huber

  Sidney and I shared a speaking look, both of us thinking of the nightmare I’d shared, the shelling outside of Bailleul. Why would Scott hold a vendetta against me for that? I could understand his wanting to silence me before I revealed whatever damaging information he thought I held on him, but not a vendetta.

  Scott’s presence in General Bishop’s temporary HQ and his attack on me had already been documented and reported to C. Bishop had called him by name, and I was sure he’d been tracked down. If that had been enough to prove he was the traitor within Bishop’s staff, he would have been arrested by now.

  Or did Scott fear I would remember something new, something I’d forgotten in the chaos of the shelling? Was that why I continued to relive it every night? Was I trying to remember something? Something that happened before the shell struck, or perhaps after, for surely it wasn’t the explosion itself. That had been the fault of a German shell, and heaven knew, neither sides’ artillery was that skilled with their aim. One had to merely look at the pockmarked craters of No Man’s Land and the incidence of death by friendly fire from one’s own artillery to realize that.

  Pushing aside those ruminations, I focused on Ardmore. “If he’s no longer acting under your orders, why don’t you simply recall him?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not as easy as that.” He turned to stare off into the distance, his hands quiescent in his lap. “You see, he already knows the targets where you are most likely to appear.”

  That he turned to look at me then, when I was struggling to mask my shock, was a move of pure calculation. Just as the comment that had elicited such a reaction had been. The very corners of his lips had curled upward in almost a feline smile. If he was claiming he already knew which places we were most likely to turn up, then either he had deduced the late earl’s pattern before we had or he was lying. But based on the fact that we’d already been puzzled by his men’s swift appearance in Norfolk when we’d felt certain we weren’t followed, I had a sinking suspicion it was the former.

  There was a third option, of course. That Ardmore had been manipulating this quest from the very beginning, sending us on a fool’s errand. But he’d spoken of multiple targets, not a single path. Of course, that might just as easily be another bit of maneuvering to convince us to continue to play his game.

  “Do you honestly expect me to believe any of this?” I retorted scornfully once a couple strolling past us had passed out of hearing. “From the beginning, men in your employ have been trying to steal the information we’ve uncovered. And I seriously doubt you limited the latitude of their methods.”

  He pressed a hand to his chest in mock insult. “Mrs. Kent, you wound me. Why, what joy would I derive from hearing of your being strangled?” His gaze dipped to my neck again. “Especially when our game has only just begun, and you’ve already proven to be so diverting.”

  I bristled at this patronizing comment even as my breath tightened at the memory of Scott’s arm pressed against my neck.

  “Careful, Ardmore,” Sidney growled in warning. “Your men might stop me from killing you, but I doubt they could move fast enough to prevent me from drawing your cork.”

  Ardmore cast him a withering glare. “Such violence, Mr. Kent. Really.”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot. You hire others to do your dirty work for you.”

  “Or blackmail them into it,” I sneered, thinking of Ada and Flossie from our previous inquiry, and now Sadie.

  Ardmore chose not to respond to these accusations, instead returning to the topic he wished to pursue. “As for stealing your information, I don’t need it.”

  My mouth twisted in mocking disbelief, but he was not to be drawn.

  “Ryde, the silly fool”—he chuckled—“didn’t know a thing of importance. And what he did will never connect to me.” He pushed to his feet, tucking his newspaper under his arm. “Now, I’ve done what I can to warn you. It’s your choice whether to heed it.” He paused, casting me one last glittering look over his shoulder. “But I do hope you won’t turn into a muttonhead like so many others and prove me wrong.” With this last elusive comment, he strode away with nary a trace of wariness, even though he was turning his back on my enraged husband.

  Sidney withheld the urge to do some sort of violence to him, even though the world would undoubtedly prove to be a safer place were his candle snuffed. Instead, he plopped down on the bench beside me, his muscles flexing in frustration. A few minutes passed in which we both said nothing, merely stared off into the falling twilight, both considering the ramifications of his words.

  “Do you believe him?” he murmured, breaking the silence.

  “I don’t want to,” I bit out, and then sighed. “But there is a great deal of merit in much of what he said.”

  Sidney turned his head sideways to look at me. “And that’s the danger, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  For that was where Ardmore excelled—in artifice and deception. He was a cunning manipulator, making people question even those things they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt to be true, and exploiting people’s best and worst natures to convince them to do things they would never have dreamed themselves capable of.

  “Then, we’re nowhere, except more twisted than before,” he replied, letting his head fall back to stare morosely up at the rustling leaves above.

  I agreed, though I couldn’t halt the feeling that Ardmore had been more honest than I wished.

  * * *

  It being a Monday, I groaned in remembrance that it was Etta Lorraine’s night off. As such, neither she nor her beau, Goldy—who was the person I was really after—would set foot in Grafton Galleries. Which meant Sidney and I had to wait until midnight—when Rector’s would be in full swing—for our friends to make an appearance.

  Located in a cellar in Tottenham Court Road, Rector’s was one of the more popular after-hours nightclubs, and its atmosphere was even less restrained. The band sported firemen’s helmets, and I’d heard there were whiskey decanters in the gentlemen’s cloakroom. The owner of Rector’s was forever trying to lure Etta away from Grafton’s, and tonight she actually seemed to be encouraging his efforts. She sat back in her gold fringe gown, twirling the end of her long pearl necklace, with a coy smile playing across her mouth as she listened to his patter. If not for the fact that her eyes kept cutting across the room toward Goldy, where he danced with a pert blond, I might have thought she was serious.

  Her cinnamon-brown eyes lifted to meet mine, and she all but shooed the man away. “You make a tempting offer, but I shall need some time to think it over. But you can scrounge up a drink for my friend Verity, here, can’t you?”

  He turned to look at me, smiling wide in recognition. “But, of course. Whatever you like, Mrs. Kent.”

  I thanked him and requested a gin rickey, before sliding into the chair he’d vacated.

  “I shall have a waiter bring it to you tout de suite,” he murmured with a significant look at Etta, who nodded her head in appreciation. He’d obviously thrown in the French at the end to impress her, since she frequently peppered her speech with phrases and endearments in that language, a habit developed courtesy of her mother, who had been born in Martinique.

  When he had gone, she slid her cocktail across to me. “I know you won’t mind me saying this, but you look done in, ma petite. Best drink this now.”

  I demurred. “I’m all right.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “I would ask if you’ve been dipping too deep in the hard stuff, but I know you can’t abide it. And if that stud of a husband of yours was the reason for your lack of sleep, I know you’d be looking a lot happier. So it must be something far less pleasant.”

  I smiled tightly. “A new investigation.”

  “And does this one have anything to do with Ardmore?” she lowered her voice to ask.

  “Partially.”

  She shook her head regretfully. “I’m afraid I haven’t caught wind of anything in that quarter. Nothing beyond the politics you can r
ead in the papers.”

  “Actually, I came here to talk to Goldy. I’ve an aeronautics question for him.”

  Her shoulders stiffened and a scowl momentarily wrinkled her nose.

  I leaned forward, reaching across the table to touch her hand. “Etta, what is it? Did you two have a spat?”

  She shook her head, sending her pearl grapevine earrings swinging. “It’s nothing, sugar.”

  “It’s not nothing,” I protested. “I saw the way you kept darting glances at him.”

  Though she strove to hide it, I could tell she was suppressing some strong emotion.

  “I forgot how dashed observant you are,” she retorted, not meeting my eyes. She huffed. “Yes, we had a spat, as you called it. Not that we haven’t had the same spat before.”

  “What was it about?’

  She lifted her hand to fiddle with her pearls again. “Oh, just that his mother has been pressuring him to settle down.”

  My chest tightened in realization.

  “He’s supposed to find himself a nice, suitable girl, and I”—she flourished her hand over the mocha skin of her arm—“am not.”

  I hated seeing the pain in my friend’s eyes, hated knowing this was the way much of the world saw her. Truthfully, before we’d met during the war, I’m not sure I would have given it another thought either. But Etta and a few other of my acquaintances had shown me how wrong it was to judge and dismiss someone because of the color of their skin. I’d believed Goldy was different, too, but maybe I was wrong.

  “What does Goldy say?” I asked softly.

  Her voice was brittle. “He doesn’t wish to dwell on such unpleasantness. He doesn’t know why we can’t simply go on as we are.”

  The waiter chose that moment to approach our table, handing me my drink before slipping off to deliver the other cocktails on his tray. I took a sip, hoping to wash away some of the bitter taste of disappointment. “Then he’s a coward,” I stated firmly.

  Her gaze lifted to meet mine. “Oh, no, honey. He just doesn’t want to face reality.”

  I frowned, surprised by her willingness to defend him.

  “Sugar, you know it can’t be. It’s simply not how the world works.” She picked up her own drink, staring down into its contents. “We can wish it was different all we like, but that doesn’t change it.”

  I understood what she was saying, but it angered me all the same. “Just because the world works that way, doesn’t mean it’s right,” I argued.

  She scrutinized me and whatever she saw flashing in my eyes made her jaw tighten. “Don’t go off on a crusade for me, Verity. And for Pete’s sake, don’t say anything to Goldy. I can fight my own battles, make my own decisions. I don’t need you fighting them for me.”

  I swallowed the urge to snap back at her, to tell her she was wrong, because she wasn’t. This was her battle, and her decision. If she didn’t want my interference, then I had to respect that, no matter how it rankled. After all, for all my empathy, I could never truly know, could never truly understand her position.

  “Then what do you need from me?” I calmed myself enough to ask.

  She reached across to clasp my hand. “Just this, bébé. Just this.” Her nose wrinkled as she took a drink. “And a sip of your gin.” She shuddered. “This one has grown watery.”

  I summoned a smile and passed her my glass.

  A few moments later, Sidney wandered over, smoking one of his Turkish cigarettes. I listened with amusement as Etta flirted with my husband in that outrageous way of hers until Goldy finally joined us.

  “Verity, darling,” he proclaimed as he pressed a kiss to my cheek. “You’ve taken to these new fashions, as well.” His gaze dipped to the stunning amount of calves and ankles the gold-beaded hem of my gown revealed. My silk stockings being sheer, they shimmered in the light cast by the chandeliers above. “Though, I must say, you certainly have the gams for it.”

  I shook my head at this comment, knowing full well he’d been observing Sidney and Etta’s banter, and this bit of inappropriate flattery had been prompted by jealousy.

  My husband seemed to recognize this as well, though that didn’t stop him from gibing, “Goldy.” He tapped him under the chin. “Let’s keep our eyes up here.”

  “Darling, Verity has a question about aeronautics,” Etta told him with only the barest trace of rancor in her voice.

  “Of course,” he sank into the chair next to mine, his eyes shining earnestly. “What do you want to know?”

  “If Goldy’s about to launch into a discussion of aeroplanes, I think we’d be better off dancing,” Sidney teased, knowing full well I’d just introduced his friend’s favorite topic.

  Etta laughed, taking his hand. “Gladly.”

  “Forget these philistines,” Goldy replied with a broad grin. “What is it you need?”

  “It’s not so much about aeronautics as a particular airman.”

  “Oh?”

  “A Captain Lucas Willoughby.”

  This might have seemed a shot in the dark that Goldy would know of the fellow, but the number of casualties among our flyboys had been so horrific that more often than not there was some familiarity among their ranks. And when one’s officers largely came from the same class of public school upbringing, they were even more likely to be acquainted.

  “Willoughby.” His brow furrowed in thought. “Willoughby, you say?” He turned to watch the dancers foxtrotting across the floor. “Young fellow?”

  “More of an age with you and Sidney.”

  “Oh! I think I know the chap,” he exclaimed. “Blond-haired fellow. Bit puffed up.”

  “That sounds like him.”

  He sat back, scratching his chin with his unscarred hand. “I didn’t remember him at first because he was with the Royal Naval Air Service before they were merged into the Royal Air Force. Had an impressive number of aces.”

  I opened my mouth to argue that the Captain Willoughby I was referring to must have been part of the Royal Flying Corps before they and the RNAS were joined to form the RAF, for Willoughby’s uniform had been that of an officer in the RFC, but then I hesitated. Not all of the RAF personnel had been fitted with new uniforms after the amalgamation. For one, there was a war on, and no time for such niceties when their original uniforms were perfectly adequate. For another, the new pale blue uniform was exceedingly unpopular, and since then had already been redesigned. But should a former RNAS officer choose to switch uniforms, it would have been to the current RAF form of dress, not an old RFC uniform. And yet, Captain Willoughby—if he was the same man—had purposely switched to an RFC officer’s uniform.

  It was tempting to think Goldy and I were speaking of two different men, but I suddenly felt very certain we were not. Not if Willoughby had a connection to the person I suspected he did. Then it would make perfect sense that he would switch to an RFC uniform in order to mislead any outsiders, including us.

  Goldy had been watching my face as I worked through these ramifications. “Does that help?”

  “Yes. Yes, it does,” I shifted in my seat to face him more fully. “Now, tell me everything you know about him?”

  CHAPTER 22

  “So you’ve finally decided to grace us with your presence,” my aunt declared in greeting as Miles admitted us to Littlemote House. Her hands clasped before her and her nose arched in the air, she appeared every inch the offended lady. Whether that offense was at our not hopping into Sidney’s Pierce-Arrow and motoring down here the moment she telephoned or at my not asking to speak to her on the telephone yesterday, I couldn’t say. Likely both.

  I leaned in to buss her cheek, still feeling a bit bleary from falling asleep during our drive. “We came as quickly as we could, Aunt Ernestine.”

  She harrumphed in disbelief, but her expression softened as she examined my countenance. Her gaze slid over my figure in speculation. I knew I didn’t look my best, the short nights of interrupted sleep from nightmares having taken their toll, but my high-necked
blouse and rosewood travel coat covered my bruises. Whatever thought had entered her head, for once she didn’t voice it. “I’m sure you wish to step into the cloakroom and set yourself to rights. But I must tell you first that Scotland Yard is here.” She leaned forward, whispering the last as if someone might overhear us. “They insisted on questioning Miss Musselwhite, though I cannot imagine why.”

  “Because she’s Mrs. Green’s sister,” I replied evenly, removing my gloves.

  My aunt fairly quivered with indignation. “Yes, well, I’m unhappy with this Chief Inspector Thoreau all the same.”

  I shared a speaking look with Sidney. “Thoreau, you say?” We had encountered the Scotland Yard man just weeks earlier during the investigation into Lord Rockham’s murder, and I suddenly felt a sense of deep relief to know the sharp, efficient inspector was taking over the inquiries into both murders here.

  “Yes, civil enough man. Seems respectable,” she admitted begrudgingly. “But I don’t appreciate having my home and servants invaded, all the same.”

  “He’s merely doing his job,” I told her. “And the easier you make it for him, the sooner he’ll be on his way.”

  She sniffed. “I suppose one must set an example.”

  “Precisely. Now, allow me to repair myself, and then show us where you’ve allowed Chief Inspector Thoreau to conduct his interviews.”

  I was not surprised to discover the room he’d been given was not the most hospitable. The room smelled of must and mold, no doubt courtesy of the water stains marring one wall, and the furniture within was worn and in desperate need of new upholstery. However, given the more squalid conditions under which a Scotland Yard inspector must sometimes conduct his investigations, I suspected Thoreau was not one to quibble over such minor discomforts.

  We reached the chamber just as Miss Musselwhite bustled out, her head down and her arms tight by her sides. She gasped as she nearly collided with Sidney.