by Issy Brooke
IN THE HOUSE OF SECRETS AND LIES
Lady C. Investigates: Book Three
Issy Brooke
Text copyright 2016 Issy Brooke
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Historical notes
Chapter One
Southern England, Spring 1846
“But Mrs Jepson is a narrow-minded, pinched-up, grey-hearted fossil and I don’t care one whit for anything she might say.” Cordelia, Lady Cornbrook slammed shut the lid of the hefty trunk and stood back, folding her arms defiantly.
Her maid, the buxom and somewhat boisterous Ruby, rolled her eyes as she turned away, and Cordelia caught the rude gesture. “My lady,” Ruby replied, almost politely, at least by Ruby’s standards. “If I might be so bold. She did have a point about the way you focused quite so much on yeast in that last article you wrote. Remember that your audience is a well-bred and refined one, who do not want to think in depth about … about how they are consuming fungus.”
“Well-bred,” Cordelia said, struck by a sudden notion. “Bred. Bread! Aha. I must make that pun in a future column.”
Ruby shrugged and sighed, and said blandly, “Indeed, my lady. I am sure that your readers will be howling in their drawing rooms.”
“You do mean howling with laughter, don’t you?”
“I must go to the kitchens and ensure the food is being packed for the journey.”
Ruby sashayed out of the dressing room, leaving Cordelia alone with her thoughts.
But they were not maudlin thoughts. How could they be? Here she was, an independent lady of means, in her own house, and truly mistress of her own destiny.
Furthermore, it was the very cusp of spring and the grounds of her house were filled with great swathes of daffodils and crocuses, in a display that one visitor had called “positively indecent”. Such an accolade had filled Cordelia with delight.
She still received visitors, and she was grateful for that. She was, at least in principle, a respectable widow. Her titled husband had died and after some wrangling she had won the right to live in their marital home, Clarfields.
But in many other respects, she was simply not quite right. She had not remarried, in spite of offers, but nor did she withdraw herself into a quiet seclusion. Instead she had thrust herself out into the world as a sole femme and in doing so, ruffled some well-to-do feathers.
Cordelia left the dressing room and went to her study. It was a pleasant room on the west side of the house, and she found she did her best thinking as the evening rays of the sun filled the place with warm light. Now, in the early morning, it was cool and dark. She wanted to pack her notebooks and letter-writing supplies, and of course, some copies of her recently-published column.
She couldn’t help smiling as she picked up the latest edition of the weekly household magazine that she was now writing for. This was her third column to appear in print, and she was pleased that it seemed to be well-received — well, if one ignored Mrs Jepson. And that harridan who had spoken so harshly at last week’s soiree. Oh, and the nasty anonymous letter that appeared in a local parish magazine.
And a few other dissenters, too, who could be also be disregarded.
Yes, apart from all those ignorant people, it was a well-received column indeed.
She folded the magazine and placed it in a board-backed portfolio case with the other copies. She realised that she kept pausing to think, and that her thoughts were skittering around, easily distracted by new and almost unrelated thoughts, like a squirrel let loose in a nut store.
But it was spring, and she was happy, and she was going to visit London. So, why not! She could allow herself a moment to relax and daydream. Her new life was beginning, at last.
***
“Mrs Unsworth threw a sausage at me,” Ruby said unhappily when they met again in Cordelia’s dressing room, later.
“Why? What did you say to her?”
“Absolutely nothing! So then she accused me of ignoring her. Must we take her to London with us, my lady?”
“We must. It is essential that we have a cook with us.”
“No one cooks in London. Not at home, at any rate. Why would they?”
“Well, we shall. I have taken rooms that have a small kitchen attached. I do not know how Gibbs managed it, but he is a miracle worker. It is imperative that I am able to continue my research into the regional foods of Britain. My column — my fans! — demand it. I am particularly interested in whelks.”
“No one is interested in whelks.”
“Then I shall stir up that interest. Oh, Ruby, I am so excited! I feel as if I am on the very edge of things, new things, amazing things. It is almost tangible.” She wanted to dance around the room, but her maid’s pained expression prevented her.
It wasn’t just the new career or the forthcoming trip. Indeed, Cordelia could feel a general optimism within society itself. Their beautiful young monarch, Queen Victoria, was expecting her fifth child and the vibrant, growing Royal household was the toast of the Empire. Even her dashing husband of six years, Albert, was growing in popularity as he took more of a role in charitable endeavours, and they had sparked quite a debate in many circles. The world was shiny and new and full of promise.
Ruby flipped open the trunk that Cordelia had previously slammed shut. “All these gowns are light and thin,” she remarked. “You need to dress for any weather. If I may suggest, my lady, perhaps—”
There was a faint tapping at the door. Ruby and Cordelia looked at one another in surprise. The knock was tentative and barely audible.
“Only Stanley would knock like that,” Ruby said. “But that boy would rather eat a shoe than come up here to your personal quarters.”
That same sentiment was true of most of her staff. Ruby, as lady’s maid, had privileges not extended to the rest of the household. There were maids in the lower rooms that Cordelia had never even seen.
There was a pause, then the knocking resumed, but a little louder this time.
“Go and see,” Cordelia ordered.
Ruby smoothed down her skirts — after all, it might be anyone out there in the corridor, and it didn’t do to be unprepared — and opened the door with a flourish.
She let her hand drop and her shoulders relax. �
�Oh,” she said. “It’s only Mr Fry, the butler. Get up, Mr Fry. Why are you crying?”
Chapter Two
It took them fifteen minutes to entice the gibbering, prostrate Neville Fry into a semi-public receiving room on the ground floor of Clarfields. He would not enter her dressing room, of course, and nor would she invite him there. But he refused to come into her study and barely made sense when she tried to talk to him in the corridor.
Now he was perched on the very edge of a chair in the large blue-themed receiving room, clutching a glass of brandy. He was not so much thin, as he was narrow, as if he had been a standard sort of man until he had been pressed firmly between two planks, making him become tall and straight-edged.
And “straight-edged” usually described the man’s normal nature, too. He took to the art of butlering with the precision of a military commander planning a large campaign. The staff beneath him did not always enjoy his rigid rule, but at least everyone knew exactly what was expected of them, even if they could barely ever hope to meet those expectations.
And they had also learned to keep a measuring tape handy. Neville Fry liked accuracy in all things.
That accuracy was not currently extended to his communication skills. He sipped at the fiery alcohol, and tried to make his words come in order.
“They’ve arrested my daughter, my lady!”
He then burbled a little about politics, for some reason, and Cordelia cut him short. “Hold on, Mr Fry. Let us return to the first thing. Your … daughter?”
Ruby was keeping a polite distance, standing at the window and looking out over the floral-edged lawns. She did not turn to face them, but Cordelia knew that she would be feeling the same shock that Cordelia did.
As far as everyone had been aware, Neville Fry was not married. It wasn’t really encouraged. If your butler had a wife, his loyalties would be divided.
He was red in the face, from brandy and passion and shame. “My daughter, Florence,” he mumbled to the thin carpet at his feet.
“And how old is Florence? And her mother?” Cordelia probed, kicking her way through the norms of polite conversation. This was too important to be tactful about.
“Florence is, um, around twenty-two, now, I believe, my lady. And, er, her mother … suffice it to say that we are no longer together. But we were married. No, we are still married, of course,” he added hastily.
“You’ve been in service at Clarfields for longer than I have been here,” she pointed out. “Unless you’ve been keeping your wife hidden in a cellar — and I do hope not, for she could have been working for me and being useful instead — then of course you are no longer together.” Well, well, she thought, a hint of admiration clouding her mind. Laced-up Neville Fry was once unlaced. “Have you any other offspring, living or dead?”
“No, my lady,” he said, and shuddered.
Once was clearly enough for him, she thought. “And so you have no contact with your family?”
“It was best, for all concerned, if I absented myself and left them to make their own way,” he said. “And they refused my money,” he added, his voice growing clearer for a moment before he remembered his current situation and stifled another sob. “But they need my help now!”
“And what of this politician you mentioned?” she said.
Neville threw back the remains of the brandy and placed the glass with a heavy click onto a side table before burying his face in his knobbly hands. “They say she has killed him!”
“Ooh!” Cordelia exclaimed with such glee that Ruby spun around and shot her mistress a warning stare. Cordelia managed to modify her exclamation into a drawn-out “ohhhh … how … awful.”
Bit by bit, the rest of the story emerged. She whetted him with a little more brandy until she had learned that Florence was being held in the cells of a police station in London, awaiting trial for the murder of a prominent politician called Bonneville. Neville could not explain why or how his daughter had been arrested for the crime. He could not even say at what trade the girl worked, or if she were married, or anything useful.
Cordelia’s mind leaped to the first and most unsavoury conclusion, but she did not want to express that to the distraught father. Instead, she turned to Ruby, and tried to sound solemn and respectful as she said, “We shall leave directly after luncheon. Will you see to the necessary arrangements with all haste, Ruby? We are nearly ready to depart, after all.”
“The carriage? Won’t Geoffrey need time to—”
“He can get the travelling chariot ready in an instant, I am sure. He knew we were to go to London within the next few days. Go and unearth Stanley, and Mr Fry, you need to be ready to leave also.”
“Why the haste?” Ruby muttered as she moved to the door, but did not go through it.
“We have a murder!” Cordelia trilled, almost clapping her hands. She fought down her glee and reminded herself that someone was dead. And here was a man for whom she was responsible, and he needed her help.
Neville got up, but stumbled and collapsed to his knees. Cordelia placed her hand on his shoulder, and he looked almost about to throw his arms around her skirts in a dramatic gesture. She shuffled back slightly, removing her hand.
“Thank you, my lady!” he said. “I am sure that one word from you in the ears of the police there, and they will realise it has all been a dreadful misunderstanding, and release her immediately!”
“Of course, of course,” she said. “Now, I feel that it is best for you that you are busy. Go and see to the table, and make it ready for lunch.” He would be better if he were occupied, she knew.
Neville struggled to his feet and took his leave. Ruby opened the door for him and watched him go.
“Go on,” Cordelia said. “To Geoffrey, and to Stanley.”
Ruby half-smiled. “So you are to put word in the ear of the police?” she said. “That is your aim, is it not?”
Cordelia gave her a broad grin in return.
“And there is a murder to solve!”
Chapter Three
They packed awkwardly into the travelling chariot that would take them to the railway station. Clarfields was not far from London but Cordelia would not use the large, heavy coach in the capital city’s narrow and crowded streets. Geoffrey, her solid and intimidating coachman, sat up top on the high front seat with the boy, Stanley. Within the plush purple interior, Mrs Unsworth ensconced her plump and unformed frame deep in a corner and half-closed her eyes, refusing to interact in any way. She was an excellent cook but a foul character and no one missed her lack of conversation. Cordelia imagined that the staff remained behind at Clarfields would currently be celebrating their freedom from the professed cook’s tyranny.
Ruby and Cordelia sat side by side, and Neville completed the quartet inside the coach. He was excruciatingly embarrassed at the close proximity to Cordelia, and desperately folded in on himself. He was the highest-ranking servant at Clarfields, and lorded it over the rest of the household, but when he was in Cordelia’s presence he could barely function unless by the set and recommended ways. If it wasn’t proscribed in a manual, he could not do it.
“Have you packed clothing such as might be appropriate to solving a murder, Ruby?” Cordelia asked.
“What, like a large and menacing cloak?”
“Just so,” Cordelia said, wondering if Ruby were jesting or not. “I don’t think I have one suitable. I must acquire one.”
“Solving a murder, my lady?” Neville spoke in a hushed tone as the chariot lurched and rocked, and then began its slow progress to the station. He would not have usually spoken out of turn, but his whole world had been shaken out of alignment.
“Oh, well, only as a natural by-product of getting your poor daughter freed,” she assured him hastily, raising her voice above the clatter and racket of the carriage wheels. “It simply occurs to me that effecting her release from custody might be more easily done if I am able to offer up the real culprit. After all, did you say it was a politician who h
as died? They must have a queue of people wishing to do them harm, I would imagine. I can no longer read the papers at breakfast, for fear of running amok with a knife when I learn of the latest idiocies being committed by so-called learned men in Parliament.”
Neville dug into his jacket pocket. Due to his worry and distraction, he had not changed for the journey, and was still dressed in his typical butler’s daytime attire of neat pepper-and-salt trousers, black dress coat and high-cut waistcoat. In contrast to Geoffrey the coachman, Neville was generally meticulous in his dress. He had the neatest fingernails that Cordelia had ever seen and she often wondered what his secret was. It was the mark of a very good butler; they said that only a lowly waiter would wear gloves when serving, because that showed he needed to hide his work-roughened hands. She watched them as he pulled out a folded letter and passed it to Cordelia. “From Florence,” he said.
The handwriting was very small, and some words were partly written in a shaky copperplate and others were partly in capital letters. It was from the hand of someone who had learned to write in their childhood, but who had had precious little practise or opportunity since then.
“My dearest father,” it began, and that raised Cordelia’s eyebrows. Really? “I am sorry to be writing to you in such terrible circumstances.” The original was spelled incorrectly, Cordelia noted, and she fought the urge to pull out a pen and mark it up. She certainly ensured that she read it with the correct spellings sounding out in her head. “I have been taken under arrest in the most foul of ways and they do hold me here in the police station house at Bow Street and indeed I do not know what they intend to do with me save for they are loud and brutish men here and the prisoners are nearly as bad.” Who are loud and brutish if not the prisoners? Oh, the policemen themselves, she realised. Peel’s new police. Or, as the papers would have it, New Police. For they were Very Important Men.
The letter continued in its rambling way. “They are saying most wrongly that I did kill Louis, that is Mr Bonneville, but I could never lay a hand unto such a man.”
