Deadly Engagement: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance)

by Lucinda Brant

  “Marziran,” Alec corrected with a sigh. He heard water being poured into his hip bath. “John was the best valet I ever employed.”

  “But he didn’t care for Cromwell and Marz—Marziran, did he, sir?” Tam asked eagerly, following Alec through to the dressing room. “Did he, sir?”

  “No, he did not,” said Alec, smiling at the imploring note in the boy’s voice. “You will excuse me if I don’t ask you to share my bath.”

  He was left to soap and soak in peace. The water was deliciously hot and mildly scented. An extra pail was at the side of the tub with several folded towels and a fresh banyan. He listened to Tam in the next room, pulling out drawers, scraping them closed, banging doors on the Tallboy, and quietly cursing when an object crashed to the polished wooden floor. It was a far cry from the soft-footed John, who crept about at his tasks, never spoke out of turn and was precise to a hair in his appearance. And a complete bore, thought Alec. Having Tam about would never be boring, possibly disconcerting at times, and definitely not tranquil, but never boring. Yet, he knew nothing about him, except he was a footman at St. Neots House who said he had a letter of introduction. For him? From whom, he wondered. He also wondered what his godmother would have to say about a runaway footman becoming his valet. But he did not want to think about his godmother, or St. Neots House, or Emily or…

  He toweled himself dry and slipped on the banyan. He was drying his hair when Tam gingerly came into the room. Alec took a good look at him. He was dirty and crumpled from head to foot, and there were dark rings under his eyes. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. Something would have to be done about his clothes.

  “I’ve laid out just a shirt and breeches and stockings on account of I don’t know what your preference is in a waistcoat and frock,” said Tam cheerfully. “And I’ve had a fire made in both rooms. And Mr. Wantage came to see about breakfast, sir. And your—”

  “Thank you, Tam. Before I dress I think I ought to shave, don’t you? Then when I am presentable, you and I are going to have a talk.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tam replied in a much subdued voice, and remained silent while his master shaved and was dressed.

  His hair plaited and tied with a black silk ribbon, Alec had Tam sit in the window seat and turned his dressing table stool to face him. “Firstly, I must apologize for being such a handful. Believe me, you saw the worst side of m—”

  “Sir, I—”

  “Please. Let me finish. I have no idea how you came to my front door, but I am deeply grateful you did.”

  Tam looked to the floor. “If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, it seemed to me you were a fair way to drinking yourself into oblivion.”

  “Yes. What was in that foul brew you forced down my throat?”

  “A mixture of things,” Tam answered evasively. “Just enough of this and that to make certain you threw up everything you’d drunk. And then I gave you a dose of laudanum to help you sleep. That’s all.”

  “I see. When you put it like that, it wasn’t much at all, was it?”

  Tam couldn’t help a smile.

  “Where did you learn to mix ‘this and er that’?”

  Tam frowned. “I was an apothecary’s apprentice before I became a footman at St. Neots House.”

  “For how long?”

  “Going on for six years, sir.” He looked pleadingly at Alec. “There was some trouble. Not with me. Mr. Dobbs, my master, he got into trouble with the law and we had to close up shop. I tell you, sir, Mr. Dobbs was a good master. He didn’t do half the things they said he did!”

  “You couldn’t find employment with another apothecary?”

  Tam shook his head. “No one would have me after Mr. Dobbs’s name was blackened. That is, no honest man would. And I didn’t want to work for the other kind.”

  “How did you come to be a footman at St. Neots House?”

  “The letter of introduction, sir,” Tam answered simply. “It’s old and worn and written before my time with Mr. Dobbs, but Mrs. Hendy said if ever I got into any bother I was to use it. It’s addressed to you, sir.”

  Alec blinked. “Why?”

  Tam colored painfully. “Mrs. Hendy said if there ever was a person who’d help me out of a scrape it was you, sir. So after what happened to Mr. Dobbs I went to the direction written on the envelope, but that was your old lodgings. The landlord couldn’t or wouldn’t help me. Can’t say I blame him, sir. I was in a right state. But one of the lodgers, who said he was a friend of yours, took pity on me and sent me to St. Neots House. The letter of introduction got me in the door. Shall I get the letter for you, sir?” he asked eagerly.

  “In a moment. This—Mrs. Hendy… Should I know her?”

  “She was sister to Mr. Dobbs’s wife who died, sir. And she was housekeeper at Delvin when your father was Earl. I was born on the estate—”

  “At Delvin?” Alec interrupted, more confused than ever. He had spent so little time at the ancestral pile in Kent that he was surprised anyone there would know him least of all care to write him a letter of introduction. “Mrs. Hendy should’ve directed the letter to my brother. He is the present Earl.” But as soon as he voiced this private thought he realized his mistake for the boy’s lip began to tremble and the light of expectation in the green eyes was instantly extinguished. Alec smiled reassuringly. “I only meant, as head of the family, Lord Delvin is the one usually applied to by family retainers.”

  Tam was not greatly appeased. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” he said sulkily, “but Mrs. Hendy don’t put much faith in his lordship doing right by those under his care.”

  Alec raised his eyebrows at this but refrained from comment, saying as he turned back to face the orderly dressing table, “After breakfast you’d best show me Mrs. Hendy’s letter and we’ll talk some more.”

  Tam beamed. “Thank you, sir. Shall I finish tidying then, sir?”

  Alec frowned at his reflection and then looked beyond at Tam scrambling to gather up clothes from the floor. “Tam… I have a vague memory of being escorted home by the watch.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tam answered cheerfully. “Two of ’em brought you home in a wagon.”

  “Was anyone with me?”

  “Yes, sir. Those three—um—men from the Rose. But Mr. Halsey got rid of ’em quick.”

  “My uncle was here?”

  Tam nodded as he straightened, arms full of washing, and was about to add that the old man was still in residence when there was a sharp tap on the door and the said gentleman strode in without invitation. The old man had eyes only for his nephew.

  “You’re up then,” Plantagenet Halsey stated gruffly, though a weight seemed to lift from his thin shoulders. “’bout time. Wantage has breakfast on the table. You need to put somethin’ back into that stomach of yours.” He turned his attention to Tam and stared him up and down. “You’re filthy. You want a bath. Good for the soul; good for the spirit.”

  “Uncle, this is Ta—”

  “I know who he is. Found him curled up on your doorstep. Thomas and I have had a good long talk. Tells me he’s from Delvin. Strange how life takes quirky turns. Knew some Fishers there when I was a lad growin’ up on the estate. Blacksmiths. All red-haired like this lad. He also tells me he was apprenticed to an apothecary. Wouldn’t have believed it except I saw him muckin’ about with all sorts of potions and such. He’s a good lad, but he’s filthy.”

  Tam shuffled his feet and hid a smile at such praise behind the bundle of washing. The smile spread into a look of amazement at Alec’s next words. The butler had slid into the room and announced his presence with a slight clearing of the throat. He wasn’t given the opportunity to speak.

  “Wantage? Good. Have someone fetch my tailor and my bootmaker. Yes, now. I want half a dozen shirts and the same of breeches for my valet. He can measure for two frocks.” Alec looked at Tam thoughtfully. “I think one pair of jockeyboots and two pair of shoes will suffice for now. Until then, Tam, you’d best dig out something from my wardrob
e to make do. That’s after you’ve bathed. See to it, Wantage, will you?”

  Alone together in the breakfast room uncle and nephew were at pains to avoid the topic uppermost in their thoughts. Thus conversation was somewhat halting and strained, serving only to underline the uncle’s deep concern and the nephew’s great reluctance to talk about the events of the previous day. Plantagenet Halsey pretended to concentrate on his food while Alec flipped through a stack of correspondence Wantage had placed before him on a silver tray. He tossed aside a number of invitations and packets and paused over one or two accounts, giving them more attention than they deserved. His uncle watched him closely, knew the moment when he had come across one invitation in particular, and wasn’t surprised when Alec took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and pushed aside his plate, though he had eaten only a roll and a mouthful of egg.

  “You’ve not told me about Paris,” said Plantagenet Halsey.

  “Paris?” Alec shrugged. “There isn’t much to add to the last letter I sent. Bedford did all he could to secure adequate terms for the peace. It’s just a pity he wasn’t permitted to get on with it unencumbered.”

  “You mean without the interference of Bute?”

  “Precisely. If he hadn’t been so keen to secure the Peace at any cost just to serve his political ends, we may have ended up with considerably more than we did. Then again, we did gain our objectives in America and India so I’m not repining.”

  Plantagenet Halsey merely nodded and absently stirred his coffee.

  “What?” Alec smiled and cocked an eyebrow. “At the very least I expected a lecture on the belligerent attitude of Mr. Pitt, if not, for you to fully endorse Bute’s eagerness to reach an agreement with the French. Simon told me you gave them a hell of a time in the House over the introduction of a cider tax.”

  “Aye, I did. Deserved it too. No Englishman is going to stand for it! They don’t seem to realize that. Then again, they don’t care to. Cider tax to pay for a war that gained us next to nothing. Pah! Pack of self-servers. Alec! We need to talk—”

  “More coffee, Uncle?” Alec interrupted. “I thought we might go to the club after dinner. I’d go earlier but I have this mountain of correspondence to work through. And I suppose I should begin writing up my final report for the department. Not that that will take up too much of my time. Tauton never reads them. He gives all his reports to a junior clerk to pour over and file as he sees fit. The man is a waste of space. A prime example of why the present system of sinecures and patronage just doesn’t work.”

  If he hoped to draw his uncle into a discussion on one of his pet hates Alec failed to do so because Plantagenet Halsey wasn’t to be diverted. He was only half-listening, his pale eyes surveying his nephew with a look something akin to sadness. It was enough to make Alec turn away and look out the window.

  “The Duchess of Romney-St. Neots was at Ranelagh Gardens the other night,” said the old man in an uncharacteristically quiet voice. “Went there in the company of that prim and proper daughter of hers—forget her name—and that bore of a son-in-law. Poor woman must’ve had a dreadful time of it. They saw you there…”

  “Made it to Ranelagh, did I? I’ve no recollection.”

  “Seems you were with a party of—er—highly spirited individuals.”

  “Whores and pickpockets,” Alec said flatly. “There’s no need to be coy.”

  “You made a bit of an exhibition of yourself givin’ one of those whores a diamond bracelet.”

  “I hope she was pretty enough to deserve it. If she has any sense she’ll sell the damned thing and retire on the proceeds!”

  “Alec—”

  “What does it matter? What does any of it matter now? So Olivia saw me making a fool of myself? Saw me in company with a pack of low-life. Rather an anti-climax I should think after the exhibition I made of myself at St. Neots House. She must be thanking the Gods her granddaughter chose the other brother. A bonus he comes with an earldom.”

  “Alec—”

  “She’d have avoided any outrage to her sensibilities by simply penning me a civil letter informing me of her granddaughter’s forthcoming nuptials. In fact, there was no need to go to that much trouble. An invitation to the engagement celebrations posted to my Paris lodgings would’ve more than sufficed. If one is to drink oneself into oblivion, Paris is a preferable watering hole.”

  “I wish you’d stop feelin’ so damned sorry for yourself!” the old man exploded. “I thought you had more spirit than that. Of all the stupid, inconsiderate, wasteful things to try and do! You not only scared a few more gray hairs out of that poor woman’s head but you had me sick with worry. And you almost did it too. By God, Alec, I didn’t raise you to see you throw it all away on a girl who has no more sense than to fall for the likes of Delvin!”

  “Obviously Emily is still too young to know her own mind,” Alec stated quietly. “Delvin made it up for her and Olivia stupidly permitted it because she thinks her granddaughter will be happy as Countess of Delvin. She won’t be, will she?” He pretended an interest in his porcelain coffee mug. “Your letters made no mention of Jamison-Lewis’s death…?”

  The old man’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “That’s ’cause he’s barely cold. Happened less than a month back. Accidentally shot himself in the head. Bloody fool.”

  Alec felt his uncle’s questioning gaze upon him. “Forgive me. I’ve been an inconsiderate ass. I didn’t think… I presumed… To come home and find Emily engaged to Delvin… It was a shock.”

  “Believe me, my boy, if I’d known I’d have told you long ago. And you do Olivia St. Neots an injustice. She had no idea Delvin was seriously courting her granddaughter until he asked for her hand in marriage.”

  Alec smiled crookedly. “Then I wonder when and how he discovered I was courting her?”

  The old man’s eyebrows drew together over his long nose.

  “You don’t think it a possibility?” asked Alec with surprise.

  “Possibility? A’course I do! He hasn’t been particularly subtle in his methods in wantin’ to cause you grief. He interfered in your courtship with Selina and tried to have you run out of the Foreign Department on a trumped-up charge, though we can’t prove it, so he’s more than capable of marrying Emily St.-Neots out of spite. Makes it all the more palatable that she is a granddaughter of the Duchess of Romney-St. Neots, and worth thirty thousand pounds.”

  “Is she? With that figure on her head it amazes me Olivia hasn’t had a house full of fortune-hunting suitors to contend with.”

  “Well—er—she told me in confidence.”

  Alec grinned. “Sharing confidences with a Duchess won’t help your republican cause, should it become public knowledge, Uncle. Olivia is about as steeped in aristocratic vanity and privilege as one can get.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” the old man said gruffly. “I’ve been civil to the woman, that’s all. She called on you yesterday, so naturally I invited her to have afternoon tea.”

  “Naturally.”

  Plantagenet Halsey met his nephew’s playful smirk with a characteristic stern expression. “Listen, my boy. The woman has been put through enough over the past week without the need to worry herself sick over the likes of you! Her granddaughter up and gets engaged to Delvin and in the next breath Delvin fights a duel—”

  “Delvin?” Alec interrupted, greatly surprised, “in a duel?”

  “Aye, and he managed to skewer his opponent.”

  Alec blinked at his uncle. “Good Lord! I can’t imagine Delvin risking his own fine neck, least of all in a fight of honor. How utterly unlike him.”

  “Well, Delvin says the fight was forced on him,” Plantagenet Halsey said without conviction. “He says his opponent called him out on account of also being in love with Emily St. Neots. Jealousy. Pah! Delvin can say what he likes, can’t he, when there were no seconds, no witnesses, no attendin’ physician and his opponent’s dead. The newssheets have been full of nothin’ else for a week and with Emily St
. Neots squarely at the center of a duel between two peers of the realm, you can imagine how the Duchess is feelin’ at present.”

  Alec’s brow furrowed. “If the encounter is as you say, then it was hardly an affair of honor, was it?”

  The old man put up his brows. “Just as you say, m’boy.”

  “Delvin’s opponent?”

  “Lord Belsay.”

  Alec half rose out of his chair. “Belsay? Jack Belsay?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Jack’s dead?”

  The old man nodded and watched his nephew go to the window. “Her Grace said you knew Belsay.”

  Alec leaned a shoulder against the wall and stared out at the lush sweep of the Green Park. “Quite well. Not of late. We were at Harrow together. When I went into the Foreign Department we lost contact. He did write occasionally, but he was a shockingly lax correspondent. He and Sel—Mrs. Jamison-Lewis are first cousins. Lord! I can’t believe the poor fellow is dead.”

  The old man joined his nephew at the window. “Alec. Somethin’ don’t smell right about the whole business.”

  “I agree. The Jack I remember was never one to cast caution to the winds. He certainly wouldn’t do anything so outrageous as fight a duel. Certainly not without the proper formalities. He was a stickler for that sort of thing. Besides, he was a very mellow soul. He carried a sword for protection but I can’t imagine him using it. As for forcing a fight on Delvin over Emily…? Yes, Wantage?” Alec asked as the butler trod quietly into the room.

  “Excuse me, sir. There is a lady to see you. She wouldn’t give her name.”

  Alec’s jaw set hard. “You must be mistaken.”

  “No, sir.”

  Uncle and nephew looked at one another. The butler saw it as a sign to continue.

  “I showed her the salon, sir. She said it is most urgent.”

  Plantagenet Halsey patted his nephew’s arm. “I’ve got some business of my own in the city; I’ll meet you at the club after y’dinner. And mind you eat it!”