Past Crimes: A Compendium of Historical Mysteries

by Jennifer Ashley

  “Sir Gideon has been telling me that Lord Clifford is a bit of a reformer who worries the magistrates.”

  “Gracious, there is more to the story than that. According to those below stairs, Lord Clifford was persuaded to intervene on the behalf of young Waters by Annabelle Dale. Begged him tearfully, said an upstairs maid, who overheard the conversation. Apparently, Mrs. Dale asked Lord Clifford to help for ‘poor, dear Marguerite’s sake. We must all do what we can to spare Marguerite.’ Extremely interesting, do you not think?”

  Exceedingly. Spare Marguerite. Spare her from what?

  “Life in the Clifford household must certainly be interesting,” I said with feeling.

  “I agree.” Lady Breckenridge glanced across the room at Lady Clifford, and her mouth tightened with impatience. “I believe I will be more careful of the favors I do you in future.”

  “Investigating crime is not always a pleasant thing.”

  “I never thought it was. Certainly nothing for a gentleman or a lady who knows better. But that is why you interest me, Lacey. You never do what you ought.”

  “Nor do you.”

  The look she gave me was measuring. “But I am an aristocrat and have the excuse of being removed from my fellow beings. You must strive to be utterly respectable, and yet, you do not always bother. I believe that is why I like you.”

  “I am obliged to you for that liking.”

  She regarded me for one more moment, her expression unreadable. “I can never decide, Lacey, whether you are complimenting me or mocking me, but it is no matter. I see that Lady Clifford has cornered an admiral. I am afraid I must rescue him. Good night, Captain.”

  I bowed. “My lady.”

  She sashayed away, throwing that sincere smile over her shoulder, and I stood for a moment, enjoying watching her go.

  As I left the Breckenridge house, settling my hat against the rain, I wondered. Had Mrs. Dale actually taken the bloody necklace as Lady Clifford had first suspected? Just as she’d hidden Lady Clifford’s knitting basket and caused a scene? Perhaps guilt had made her beg Lord Clifford to bring home the maid. Or perhaps Mrs. Dale had shown benevolence toward the maid to land herself in Lady Clifford’s good graces again.

  Whatever the answer was, I was growing thoroughly tired of this problem. It was late, the cold rain made my injured leg throb, and after the beauty of the soprano’s voice and Lady Breckenridge’s smiles, all else seemed drab, dull, and not worth bothering about.

  I would lie in bed all the next day, have Bartholomew fetch me coffee, read the newspapers, and tell my blasted curiosity to go away. I was cold and sore, and I deserved a rest. Earl Clifford and his odd household could worry someone else.

  I became so enamored of this idea that I thought of little else as the hackney bumped me back to Covent Garden. Therefore, my dismay was great when I walked into my bedchamber and found a woman lying fast asleep between my sheets.

  Chapter 8

  I woke the woman without hesitation. “Marianne, what the devil are you doing?”

  Marianne Simmons, actress from a Drury Lane company, once my upstairs neighbor, and now, in theory at least, Grenville’s mistress, sat up and blinked china-blue eyes at me.

  “Blast you, Lacey. Your voice is loud, and my head aches something awful. You weren’t using your bed, so I saw no harm in borrowing it.”

  “I remember locking my door before I went out,” I said.

  “I stole your key months ago and had my own cut.”

  She could easily have done. I’d grown used to having Bartholomew here to let me in, plus I’d spent most of the last month out of London. Marianne could have stolen the key from my drawer at any time, me none the wiser.

  “I am too tired to argue with you,” I said. “Make use of the bed if you must, and I’ll adjourn to Bartholomew’s attic. Tomorrow you can tell me why you aren’t sleeping in the house Grenville keeps so nicely for you.”

  “That is none of your affair. And good heavens, the attics must be freezing. This is a large bed, and there’s a good fire. Plenty of room for both of us.”

  I was exhausted and aching, that was true. “I imagine myself explaining to Grenville why I was in a bed with you. He’ll call me out for it, and then I’ll have to let him shoot me, because I have no desire to kill him. My death will be on your head.”

  “Do not be ridiculous, Lacey. First, he is far more interested in supping with his art friends tonight than in calling on me. Second, you look all in. I’m certain a climb to the top of the house to a freezing room will kill you. When I was in a traveling company, we slept seven or eight to a bed such as this, too tired to do anything but snore.” She scooted to the far right of the bed and patted the mattress beside her. “I promise not to touch you.”

  I believed her. Marianne, as far as I could tell, had very little interest in men apart from how much money they could give her. The exception was Grenville. She’d professed genuine confusion and not a little dismay that he’d not yet asked of her what most gentlemen asked of her.

  I knew Marianne had no amorous designs on me—she regarded me as a person from whom she could borrow candles, coal, food, drink, snuff, and now, my bed. I use the word “borrow,” but in truth Marianne never repaid what she took, whether in cash or in kind. I’d not stopped her, knowing that without what she took from me, she’d have gone hungry and cold many a night.

  She was right that it was a long way to the top of the house, and Bartholomew relied only on the heat from the chimney. Fine for a robust youth, bad for a man twice his age whose stiff limb was hurting him very much tonight.

  I smothered a sigh, went out to the front room, and stripped down to my shirt and drawers, and returned. I did not don the nightshirt that Bartholomew had left on the bed to warm, because Marianne had helped herself to that too.

  The bedchamber was dark enough for modesty, and I slipped under the covers without having to blush. I admitted that the bed was nice and warm from Marianne’s body, and true to her word, she kept herself on the far edge.

  I lay back, tiredness and hurt overriding my common sense. “Be gone before Bartholomew returns in the morning,” I said. “I might not be able to awaken you in time.”

  “Not to worry, Lacey. I am adept at covertly leaving a gentleman’s bed.”

  “And never say such a thing to Grenville.”

  “Thank you, but I know how to manage him.”

  “Is being here part of your efforts to manage him?” I asked, closing my eyes.

  “No, this is my effort at seeking a bit of quiet. You are the only person on this earth who does not plague me to tears.”

  “I am pleased to hear it.”

  I searched for the oblivion of slumber, but though I had nearly nodded off in the hackney, my mind, treacherously, was now wide awake. My body wanted to sink into the dubious comfort of my mattress, but my thoughts could not rest, and I fidgeted.

  The bed shifted, and I guessed without looking that Marianne had propped herself on one elbow. “Perhaps you should talk about it,” she said. “Let loose what is in your head so that you can sleep.”

  So she might say to one of her paramours. I knew gentlemen who professed that what they most enjoyed about their mistresses was that the ladies actually listened to their troubles.

  At this moment, talking was exactly what I needed. I found myself telling her everything, from the moment I’d met Lady Clifford in Grenville’s private sitting room to my evening at Lady Breckenridge’s musicale. I did not know how much of this Marianne already knew, but she listened with interest to my tale.

  When I finished, I did indeed feel better. Quieter in mind, ready to let it all go for now and seek sleep.

  “Lady Clifford and Mrs. Dale,” Marianne said thoughtfully. “At each other’s throats one minute, oozing affection for each other the next, then back to baleful glares? Do I have the right of it?”

  “So Lady Breckenridge tells me. And now Lady Clifford has entirely changed her mind about accus
ing her rival and wanting me to investigate the matter. Damn the woman.”

  “Her rival,” Marianne repeated. She went silent as she settled down and arranged the covers over her. “I’ve been an actress for a while, you know. I’ve worked in several companies, both meager and great. When you are thrown side by side with men and women for long stretches at a time, where modesty and politeness go hang, you learn much about people.”

  “Seven or eight in a bed helps with that, presumably.”

  “Exactly. Men and women stuffed together. No privacy at all—for anything. Privacy is for the wealthy. What you describe of Lady Clifford and Mrs. Dale I’ve observed before, several times. Lowly actresses or highborn ladies, there really is not much difference, despite what people say.”

  “A love triangle is a triangle, no matter where it is placed, you mean?” I agreed with her. In the army, I had been thrown into close contact with men and women of all walks of life. Though rigorous care might be taken to separate the ranks, we all bathed, ate, loved, and died together.

  “I mean that you are viewing the love triangle, if there is one, the wrong way around,” Marianne said. “Not Lord and Lady Clifford broken apart by Mrs. Dale. I mean Lady Clifford and Mrs. Dale, broken apart by the maid, Waters.”

  My eyes opened. “Lady Clifford and Mrs. Dale?”

  Marianne laughed. “Gentlemen are so shocked when they learn that women do not prefer them. It grates on their pride, I believe. But it happens more often than you like to think, and can you blame them? Men like Lord Clifford can be quite awful.”

  I lay still, thinking of the tangle in light of Marianne’s speculations. “Lady Breckenridge never put forth this idea.”

  “Because Lady Breckenridge has no use for other women, and so she does not watch them particularly closely. As horrible as her own husband was, she would never turn to ladies for consolation. And so, she might not recognize the need in others.”

  I turned my head to look at Marianne, unashamedly stretched out beside me, her head on my pillow. “And you?”

  She shrugged. “I too, have little use for women, but I’ve been thrown among them far more than has your Lady Breckenridge. Lady Clifford and Mrs. Dale sound like lovers who had a falling out over something. Or someone. This Waters, is she pretty? And I imagine that Mrs. Dale has no choice but to comply when Lord Clifford makes advances to her. He could turn her out of his house, after all, if she resists.”

  And Mrs. Dale had professed to have nowhere else to go.

  I let out a breath. “Good God.”

  “Think of it that way, and I’m certain it will help. Good night.”

  So saying, Marianne turned over, dragged the quilts over her, and fell fast asleep. Or at least, she pretended to.

  Marianne had given me much to think about. Most people would believe, as I had, that Mrs. Dale and Lady Clifford were enraged at each other because of Lord Clifford’s amorousness. Two women fighting to possess the same man.

  But thinking on what Lady Breckenridge had told me, both women thoroughly disliked the bullying Lord Clifford. A romance between the ladies, on the other hand, especially if they’d quarreled over Lady Clifford’s affection for her maid Waters, might explain Lady Clifford’s spiteful accusation that Mrs. Dale had taken the necklace. It would explain her about-face on the matter as well.

  Perhaps it hadn’t been brought home to Lady Clifford what could happen to Mrs. Dale—Newgate, ignominy, hanging—until the maid, Waters, had returned to describe her harrowing ordeal.

  It also threw into new light Lady Breckenridge’s observation of the two women crying and hugging over the missing knitting basket. They’d been comforting each other after Lord Clifford’s harangue—lovers who cared more about each other than for the brutal man who bullied them both.

  Mrs. Dale had begged Lord Clifford to help bring Waters home. Because she felt sorry for her “dear Marguerite” and wanted to spare her more pain? Or to try to restore peace between herself and Lady Clifford? Both, possibly.

  “Hell, Marianne,” I said.

  Marianne only snored.

  True to her word, Marianne was gone before I woke. The window showed sunshine, the rain finished for now, the bed beside me empty. I heard Bartholomew in my front room, and a moment later, he strode into my bedchamber with his usual energy, coffee balanced on a tray.

  “Did you not see your nightshirt?” he asked when he saw me in my underclothes. The garment lay across the bed again as though it had never been worn.

  “I didn’t bother to make a light,” I said, extemporizing. “I was exhausted.”

  I felt a bit better this morning, although by the light outside the window, the day was already moving on to afternoon. Talking things over with Marianne, followed by a good night’s sleep, had restored my vigor.

  Bartholomew left the coffee and lifted the nightshirt. As I sat up and reached for the coffee, Bartholomew frowned at the nightshirt, then he delicately sniffed its collar. He raised his brows at me.

  I took a nonchalant sip of coffee, telling myself he would not recognize Marianne’s perfume. Bartholomew had started working for me before Grenville had taken up with Marianne, and the lad did not accompany Grenville on his visits to her in Clarges Street. Grenville had a different staff for that house, in any case.

  “Not a word,” I said.

  Bartholomew drew himself up. “A gentleman’s gentleman is discreet, sir.”

  “I know you are, Bartholomew. A bath, I think.”

  “Sir.” Bartholomew went away, carrying the nightshirt over his arm.

  As I bathed and let Bartholomew shave me, I again considered Marianne’s revelation about Lady Clifford and Mrs. Dale.

  I’d met two hermaphrodites, as people had called them, in the village where I’d grown up. They’d been elderly ladies, styling themselves as a lady and her companion. Everyone knew, but of course did not mention in public, that they were lovers, or at least had been.

  I didn’t remember much about them except that one was kind to me, and I couldn’t remember to this day which had been the lady and which had been the companion. They’d passed away within months of each other when I’d been about nine years old. No one had bothered them, but then, they’d been two spinster ladies who’d lived quietly, well past the age of anyone’s interest.

  Lady Clifford, on the other hand, was a married lady prominent in society. And Mrs. Dale was a poor widow, dependent on others for her bed and board. Dangerous for any gossip about her to circulate. They would have to be secretive.

  Last night I had thought about letting the investigation go, leaving the Clifford family to sort out their own troubles. But then, there was de la Fontaine. His tale had tugged at me. I knew that I sympathized with him because I felt he was like me—a long way from his old life, unsure of his place in the world, dependent on others when he did not want to be.

  The necklace belonged to de la Fontaine. He should have it back.

  To find it, I needed to speak to Lady Clifford again. After breakfasting, I penned a letter to Lady Breckenridge asking her to fix an appointment for me with Lady Clifford. I could imagine Lady Breckenridge’s exasperation when she received the note, and I would be in her debt again, but I also knew that she’d arrange the meeting.

  I decided to leave it at that and make my way to Hyde Park and the stables for a little exercise. At one time, I’d given riding lessons to a lad I’d met while investigating the Hanover Square problem. The lad’s father stabled his beasts in Hyde Park and generously allowed me to ride one of his geldings whenever I liked, even now that the boy had returned to school. His father had told me he recognized a man who could handle horses right enough.

  It was nearly two when I rode out, I having slept longer than usual. The fashionable hour wouldn’t begin until five, but plenty of riders and drivers already moved about the park, enjoying the respite from the rain.

  I walked and trotted the well-trained gelding, letting him canter a bit down an empty stretch of
the Row. I turned down a lesser path to keep riding and spied Grenville astride his bay ahead of me, his tall hat shining in the sunshine.

  I nudged my horse into a faster trot to catch up, but as I neared Grenville, another man on horseback swung out of an intersecting path. I recognized Lord Clifford, who began bellowing as he rode at Grenville.

  “What do you mean by it, Grenville? Hounding a man’s womenfolk until they’re ill with it? My wife’s life hung by a hair’s breadth, all because of you and your interfering captain.”

  As I spurred my horse forward, Lord Clifford leaned down and tried to drag Grenville from the saddle.

  Chapter 9

  My horse leapt forward in a burst of speed. Grenville’s mount was already dancing sideways, Lord Clifford’s doing the same. My long cavalry experience let me steer my gelding between them and wedge the two horses apart.

  “What the devil?” Grenville said, out of temper. “Have a care, Clifford.”

  Lord Clifford was red-faced, spittle flecking his mouth. “What will you do, Grenville, have me thrown out of the Jockey Club? Doesn’t matter. I refuse to be a member when fellows like you hold sway. You nearly killed my wife.”

  Clifford tried to ride around me and at Grenville again, but I remained firmly between Grenville’s horse and Clifford’s. I rode better than either of them, and Clifford would not get through me.

  “Explain yourself,” I said to him. “What happened?”

  “My wife swallowed a large dose of laudanum last night, that is what happened. Only the care of her ladies brought her back to life. She cited some nonsense about guilt and misery, and how she never ought to have spoken to either of you. You gentlemen have turned my house into Bedlam, and I will not have it.”

  “Is Lady Clifford well?” I asked quickly.

  “She will recover. Likely she only took it for the attention, but this was your doing, Grenville. Stay the hell out of my private affairs.”