by Joan Smith
Luten hesitated only a moment, before deciding he should go along with her plan. “Have the trunk brought down and put on the carriage. We’ll leave right away.”
She pulled the cord and told her butler to have the trunk brought down.
Chapter Twenty
They left at once. Luten noticed Yvonne glancing at the house across the street, but he didn’t see anyone watching them. He felt she was trying to whitewash herself into a victim and went along with it in an effort to get the notes and letters.
They both kept a sharp lookout for any carriage following them as they wended their slow way out of London traffic into the countryside. No one followed them, not on the fifty-mile journey north through the autumn countryside of Essex either, where thinner traffic would reveal a following carriage, but she was either really anxious or an extremely good actress. A hundred times she lowered the window and pointed out anyone on the road. The rig always turned off or stopped before he took alarm. They stopped often to change horses, to allow a good pace.
At one stop Luten said, “I was surprised to find you alone this afternoon, Yvonne. I understood Prance was to call on you.”
“He was. Half an hour before he was due, I had a note from... a friend, telling me of Boisvert’s death.”
“Lachange?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it was Françoise. He stopped at the atelier to visit Boisvert. He took time to send me a note before going to tell Boisvert’s sister the horrible news. The Boisverts and Lachanges are good friends. I was in no state for company after hearing of the death. By the time you arrived, I had determined to get away at the first opportunity. You came most opportunely, Luten. It is possible you have saved my life.”
He weighed her story and could find no inconsistency in it. It might have happened as she said—or it might be a carefully contrived tissue of lies.
At evenfall they were halfway to Colchester. They stopped at an inn at Chelmsford for a hasty dinner and a change of team. The comtesse nibbled a piece of bread and gulped three glasses of wine, which did not have the effect of loosening her tongue or her grip on the papers Luten wanted but only made her sulky.
It was after ten o’clock when they passed through the ancient city walls of Colchester. This busy garrison town was noted as an agricultural center as well, but at that hour, there were few carriages or pedestrians about. They drove to an ancient half-timbered inn on High Street and dismounted. Their conversation took place at the front door, with the carriage standing by.
“You can hardly go to Mrs. Yonge at this hour and have Sylvie taken out of bed,” Luten said.
The comtesse looked surprised. “I doubt she would be in bed yet.” A blush colored her pale cheeks. “She is no longer a child, Luten.”
“How old is she?”
The arch smile she directed at him was a travesty. Yvonne suddenly looked old.
“That would be telling,” she said. A bit of arithmetic told him the “child” must be in her late teens. “I shall call, but I must go alone. It would look odd to Mrs. Yonge if I went with a gentleman. She would be bound to send word off to Yarrow. I know she spies on me. I stay at the Red Lion here in town when I come to visit. Sylvie has spent the night with me before. I shall go now and fetch her. Perhaps your driver could see if the inn has a carriage for hire?”
A frown grew between her brows. “She won’t be able to bring any of her lovely gowns with her. No matter, I shall buy her new ones when we are safely settled—somewhere.”
“I’ll wait for you here.” He called to John Groom, who darted into the inn and came back to tell them a whiskey would be around presently.
“No, dear Luten,” she said, putting her two hands in his. “Your job is done. Here are the letters.” She handed them to him. He studied them eagerly a moment. “They are genuine,” she said. “I hope you make good use of them and put that wretch behind bars for life. Unlike France, there is no hope of England executing a peer of the realm.”
“Where will you go? Where can I be in touch with you?”
“If I read in the journals that you have Yarrow under lock and key, I shall go to London to testify against him.” Her face clenched and her eyes glittered with determination. “I’ll say anything you like, to see him get what he deserves.”
This statement did much to give Luten a disgust of her and confirmed that she was perfectly willing to perjure herself. Was she lying to him now? Were the notes and letter from Inwood some sort of hoax? Would they be revealed as forgeries if taken into court? Mouldy and Company would have a field day!
“Very well,” he said, but he knew he would have to remain in town and discover where she was going. When she left in the whiskey, he set his coachman to follow her at a discreet distance.
To pass the time until he returned, Luten enjoyed a plate of the famous oysters from the River Colne and a glass of ale.
Over an hour later, John Groom returned. “She went to that boardinghouse on Wrye Street right enough, but she never come out, your lordship. I waited an hour.”
“What did she do with the whiskey?”
“It dropped her at the door and left.”
“You’re sure she didn’t slip out the back door?”
“I couldn’t watch two doors, could I? Did the whiskey come back to the inn?”
“No. And no, dammit, you couldn’t watch two places at once. I should have gone with you instead of indulging myself in ale and oysters.”
He rose at once from the table. “Take me to the house,” he said.
His team had not been unhitched. It was waiting at the inn doorway. Luten got into the carriage, and his coachman turned off the High Street to continue for two blocks along a residential street. He drew up in front of a respectable-looking stone house. There were lights burning downstairs. The upper story was in darkness. Luten left the carriage and went to the door. On the second knock, a weary female servant in a cap and apron answered.
He adopted a friendly smile and said, “I would like a word with Miss Sylvie. I know it’s dreadfully late, but it is a matter of some importance.” He didn’t know what surname the daughter used, but the servant didn’t seem to find it odd that he used only her first name.
“Miss Beaudine has left,” she said.
“Out for the evening, is she?”
“Oh no, sir. She’s left for good this very day. She’s not coming back at all.”
“I see. How long ago—”
“She got a letter from London this morning. Her mama sent a carriage for her in the early afternoon.”
“Any idea where she’s gone?”
“Why, to London, sir, to visit her mama.”
“I see. Thank you.”
He tipped his hat and returned to the carriage. Chamaude, the wily witch, had outsmarted him. Sylvie had been spirited away from Colchester hours ago. Why had Yvonne led him this merry dance? Was it just to get him out of London for the day? What was afoot there? A memory of Boisvert’s lifeless body rose up in his mind. And young Inwood, murdered as well. Was she busy arranging another death? Whose? He doubted very much he would find her or her daughter in London. Yvonne had made an arrangement to meet the girl at some other place. She had probably ducked straight out the back door of Mrs. Yonge’s house, darted to the nearest coaching stop, and gone to meet Sylvie. He now felt fairly sure the letters he carried were useless. They might land his party with a libel suit if they used them in the House.
“Back to London,” he said to his driver, and crawled into the rig, fatigued from the long drive already endured and the prospect of another long haul before he could lay his head on a pillow.
His thoughts were black as the team ate up the miles. Bad enough to be outwitted but to be bested by a woman! God, he’d look a fool when he took this story to Brougham. And where the hell was Chamaude? If anyone could finger Yarrow as a villain, she was the one. That, of course, was why she had run off, no doubt on Yarrow’s instructions. And she had used himself to engineer her escape. The air was blue w
ith his curses.
He was fifty miles from London. Fifty miles of dark, nearly deserted roads. Yvonne—or Yarrow—might have hired assassins anywhere along the route. Perhaps that was the very reason she had lured him to Colchester, to have his murder occur well away from London. His watch and money purse would be taken to make it look like the work of a highwayman. No one knew he had left town with Yvonne except her butler, who was part of the plan, of course. Even Brougham didn’t know he had gone, though he would suspect foul play.
He pulled the drawstring and directed his coachman to take a circuitous route back to town. It would make the trip a few hours longer, but at least he wouldn’t have to fear for his life every minute of the way.
During that long, tedious journey, he remembered he was supposed to have taken Corinne to the theater that night. She’d be furious with him. If she ever discovered he had been with Yvonne, he could forget his engagement. What convincing story could he tell her? A sudden death in the family? She didn’t know all his relatives—but she could smell a lie a mile away. He’d take her flowers first thing in the morning, along with his humble apologies. Better make that diamonds. Flowers weren’t going to get him out of this mess.
Chapter Twenty-one
Luten reached London at six the next morning, dog-tired, bewhiskered, rumpled, hungry, and extremely out of sorts. He planned to be up and about at an early hour, but as neither Brougham nor a jewelry shop would be available before nine or ten, he had a few hours to rest. He pulled off his jacket, his Hessians, and his trousers and fell into bed.
It was there that his valet, Simon, found him at his usual rising hour, eight o’clock. Seeing his master’s disarray (and the mess he had made of his bedchamber), Simon refrained from drawing the curtains. He tiptoed from the room and sent an order below that the upstairs maids were not to begin their duties until notified. Simon was extremely out of curl when he was greeted with curses at ten o’clock.
“Why the devil did you let me sleep so late?” Luten demanded.
“Why, you looked so fatigued, your lordship. Surely two hours can make no difference. The House has not yet convened.”
“I have more in my dish than Parliament. Prepare my shave at once. Bring me some coffee—and call my carriage.”
Simon’s eyes wandered about the room, where trousers lay on the floor, jacket had been thrown over the desk, and a cravat hung from the post of the canopied bed. “Would that be your regular carriage, sir, or—”
“Of course my regular carriage.”
The tardiness of his rising meant he had to visit Brougham before calling on Corinne. He sensed that his visit with her might require some considerable time. He thought of sending her a note, then decided against it. He would go to Love and Wirgams to select a large diamond ring for her engagement and deliver it in person. Simon made him presentable and brought him a cup of coffee. Luten drank it and left, still frowning and muttering under his breath. Simon was out of sorts all day after this unaccustomed harshness from his master.
“These look genuine,” Brougham said, studying the notes and letters Luten handed him after he had discussed his trip to Colchester. “I’ll send them around to that handwriting specialist on Bridge Street. We’ll need something written by Yarrow for comparison.”
“And Inwood. That letter is a telling document. The comtesse mentioned Inwood had discovered some flaw in the rocket design. If we could find his research and have it checked, we might get the contract recalled, even if these notes are forged.”
“Now we know why the Tories were in such an almighty rush to clear out Inwood’s office. His notes have been burned long ago. I’ve a drawerful of notes from Yarrow. We can check on his handwriting. Nothing from Inwood. I wonder who would have.”
“Marchant, but I don’t like to tip him off. He’s in Yarrow’s pocket. I’ll drop around to the rooms where Inwood lives—lived.” A frown creased his brow to think of that young life cut off before its time. And of course, it would have to be the better young man who was dead. He would have been a fine addition to the Whig ranks. “Marchant mentioned the address. Craven Street, just around the corner from Whitehall Street. Inwood’s family will not have cleared his things away yet.”
“Better get on to it right away. If by any chance the note is genuine, you may be sure Yarrow won’t waste any time rounding up every word the fellow ever penned and burning it. Oh, by the by, the Melbournes are having a do this evening. Are you invited?”
“I am, but I hadn’t planned to attend.” He had hoped for a quiet evening with Corinne.
“Yarrow will be there. Melbourne is halfway to being a Tory, you know. He always admired Canning. They hope to reel Melbourne in. No matter, I can attend myself.”
“Then I pray you hold me excused. I do have a life beyond Whitehall, you know.”
Brougham gave him a glinting smile. “So I hear. When is the big day?”
“Never, if I don’t find a moment for my fiancée soon.”
“Best look sharp, then. I hear she was out with young Lord Harry last night. I shan’t bother you again today—unless an emergency arises, of course,” he added with a twinkle.
Luten felt a spasm of alarm at hearing the name Lord Harry. The handsome rascal had been a special friend of Corinne’s for years. He consoled himself that she had only gone out with Harry to make himself jealous. He went straightaway to Inwood’s little flat on Craven Street. When he told the landlady he was there to recover government documents from Mr. Inwood’s rooms, she did no more than cast a glance on his crested carriage before letting him in.
“He was a great one for working at home,” she said, smiling in fond remembrance as she led him upstairs. “Such a nice young fellow. Here we are, then.” She unlocked the door but didn’t follow him inside. She knew a gentleman when she saw one. No fear of this lad pinching any of her goods. His house would be inlaid with gold and silver, to judge by the looks of him.
The flat was only three rooms—a parlor, bedchamber, and study—all of them modest. Inwood was obviously not from a well-to-do family. MPs were not paid, and he was too honest to have provided himself with any lucrative sinecures. His landlady cooked and cleaned and did his laundry. Inwood didn’t even have a personal servant. From the quantity of books in his study, all tumbled over tables and chairs, Luten deduced that he had been a bookish fellow and with a bent for science. His papers appeared to be intact. He had made copious notes on rockets, but they appeared to be preliminary notes. If he had discovered some serious flaw, Luten could find no sign of it. As Luten knew little of the science of rocketry, he gathered up the notes to take along for Brougham to look into. He also scooped up other samples of Inwood’s penmanship. The writing certainly looked like the writing in the note to Yarrow. A good forgery would have similar writing but even the paper was identical.
When he took the papers back to Brougham, he decided to tend to a few other matters while he was there, to obviate having to return later. It was past noon when he finally got around to visiting a jeweler, where his vague feelings of guilt goaded him into purchasing a gaudy emerald-cut diamond of ten carats, which would look like a platter on Corinne’s dainty finger. He put it in his pocket, stopped to buy a large bouquet of flowers from a vendor on Piccadilly, and drove off to Berkeley Square.
Prance and Pattle had arrived at Corinne’s house at eleven, as arranged the evening before.
After exchanging greetings, Prance said, “I have had a reply from my letter to Sir Vance Dean, my old tutor at Cambridge. He tells me he has not put my Rondeaux on the reading list for his class on medieval literature, but if I would like to send half a dozen copies, he would be happy to include them in the reference library.”
“That’ll get rid of six more of them copies you bought,” Coffen said.
“And another six to Oxford. But I still do not know who the rabid fan who purchased one hundred copies can be. An intriguing mystery, is it not? Prinney, I wonder, planning to give them to visiting dignitari
es?”
“Very likely,” Corinne said, as she wished to avoid talking about the Rondeaux and discuss other things.
“He’ll invite me to Carlton House to autograph them. A signal honor.”
Coffen just nodded and turned to Corinne. “Have you seen Luten yet?” he asked. Her strained face suggested she either had not, or had seen him and fallen into an argument.
“No. He hasn’t called—though Black tells me he returned at six o’clock this morning.”
“Six o’clock this morning!” Prance exclaimed, signal honor forgotten at this hint of scandal. “Where was he all night?”
Her delicately carved nostrils flared. “Where do you think?” she asked, in a rhetorical spirit.
He lifted his fingers to his lips. “Oh dear. Sorry I asked.” He extracted a billet-doux from his pocket and waved it before her eyes. She recognized the violet ink from the inscription on the Rondeaux. The handwriting was spidery. “Dear heart,” he added, patting her fingers, “I have excellent news for you. He has not spirited Yvonne off to a love nest. En effet, she has invited me to call this afternoon at Half Moon Street. Says she had the megrims yesterday. I shall chide her for that plumper— and try to discover where Luten took her.”
“Double dealer.” Coffen scowled.
Prance tossed his curls. “I saw her first!”
“I don’t mean you, Prance. Her. Cheating on Luten behind his back.” When Corinne’s nostrils pinched to slits, he realized he had been indiscreet and tried to cover his gaffe. “Not to say she’s running around with Luten. No such a thing.”
“I don’t know about that,” Corinne said. “Luten went dashing out of his house at ten-thirty this morning as if the place were on fire. He didn’t come here.”
“Was he driving his hunting carriage?” Prance asked eagerly.
“No, his crested carriage.”
“Then you needn’t worry he’s with her,” Coffen said.
“I am not in the least worried. The only reason I want to see Luten is to tell him our engagement is off.”
