by Louise Allen
I took a mouthful of port, something I had never liked and was now developing a taste for. Luc cracked nuts and James sat carving something out of Cheddar cheese. Garrick stared at the boards in silence.
‘I’m beginning to think that perhaps the Count isn’t so bad after all,’ I said eventually.
‘Why?’ Luc asked.
‘My enemy’s enemy, I suppose. And he makes a good showing against Reece, which is no reason to acquit him of anything except cowardice, of course. Oh, and he has a sense of humour.’
‘Do you want to add that to the board?’ Luc asked. ‘Possible murderous French agent but has good sense of humour.’
‘Ha ha.’
‘Was it worth copying all the names from Talbot’s ledgers?’ Garrick asked.
I shook my head. ‘I can’t see anything. No pattern, nothing to suggest that he had any sort of problem with a particular patient or her menfolk. No odd little codes that might have meant trouble.’ And yet… Something was niggling at me, some sense that I had missed something to do with those lists. I’d have another look at them, and at the coded ledgers as well. I almost mentioned it, then decided it was too nebulous.
‘Are we chasing a phantom connection here?’ Luc asked, topping up his glass. He lifted it, swirled it against the light and studied the blood-red contents. I remembered Talbot’s head, his own wound, and suppressed a shudder. ‘Coates commits suicide for some reason we still haven’t established, but which very likely has to do with the Home Office and possibly involved Elliott Reece. In a completely unconnected incident Talbot is murdered by someone we can’t even guess at for a motive we are absolutely in the dark about. What if it is coincidence? The only link between them is the fact that they were lovers.’
‘And friends of James,’ I added, thinking aloud, chasing some thread of an idea that whisked ahead of me, constantly out of reach. Coincidence… tangled threads.
‘What have I got to do with it?’ James demanded, sitting up so fast he cut the top off his cheese sculpture. A tiny head rolled across the carpet to my feet.
‘Nothing, you just have the same social circle, but I suppose Society is a pretty small pool in this time. What on earth’s this?’ I held up the little head.
‘Prinny in the nude.’ James held up the body and even Garrick collapsed with laughter when I handed back the head and he stuck the pieces together. ‘There are social circles within circles. You only have to look at the number of clubs – political factions, sporting interests, travellers, antiquarians, scientists, gamblers. And then there is social class and rank – more intersecting lines.’
‘And then the more secretive circles of those who have something to hide. Men who are attracted to men, those who enjoy slumming and are accepted into the edge of the criminal underworld,’ Garrick said.
‘That’s the men,’ I said and they all looked blank. ‘Or do you see the women merely as appendages of their husbands or fathers?’
Yes, was probably the answer to that, judging by their sheepish expressions. ‘You are wrong if you do.’ I was thinking of Chloe, but I would have bet a week’s earnings that the majority of the ladies I’d encountered had their own circles of friends and allies. Often they’d be in parallel with their menfolk’s interests but not always, I guessed. They would have their own intellectual circles, exchanging books their husbands would be shocked to know they read, attending lectures, veiled and at the back, but listening and learning all the same.
And they would plot and plan their way out of the difficulties the men landed them in as well – the lovers who refused to acknowledge a baby, the husbands who infected them with diseases or blamed them when they didn’t conceive. They would know who to ask the oblique question of, the friends or acquaintances who would mention, so casually in passing, that Doctor Talbot was so understanding and helpful. So discreet.
‘Timing and money. Talbot was killed after Coates died,’ I said slowly. ‘Could that be because once he was dead it was safe to attack Talbot? Or did his death trigger something that made it imperative that Talbot died? And where is the money in all this?’
‘What money?’ James asked. He had given the naked cheese Prince of Wales a half-walnut as a hat.
‘The money that enabled Coates to move downstairs to the better room. We’ve lost sight of that. He hadn’t had a promotion so where did it come from? Gaming? Betting?’
James shook his head. ‘He played, but only socially and he certainly didn’t gamble more than a small amount. When we all went to the races he’d lay on a guinea or two, but again, I’ve never seen him behave as though it was more than a pleasant form of entertainment.’
‘One question we have not asked,’ Garrick said, looking directly at Luc. ‘Was the person who killed Talbot the same as the one who attacked you?’
‘Good point.’ Luc scooped up a handful of broken walnut shell. ‘On the one hand they were both blows to the back of the head.’ He put a piece of shell to one side. ‘But the weapons were different.’ A piece began a second pile. ‘The attack on Talbot seems to been in anger, with a poker that came fortuitously to hand, but the attack on me was planned and used a professional’s weapon.’ Another piece of shell on the second pile.
‘The attackers do not seem to have been very different in height,’ Garrick contributed and Luc tossed another piece of shell onto the first pile.
‘A healthy woman could have delivered either blow,’ I said.
‘But the porters report no woman entering Albany,’ Garrick said.
‘Disguise is possible. And what about domestic staff? The porters simply wouldn’t notice them, would they?’
Lucian started a third pile. ‘Two for possibly the same, two for possibly not the same and one for no idea.’ He swept the shells aside with an impatient backhanded swipe. The clock struck eleven. ‘Are you stopping the night, James?’
James got to his feet and stretched. ‘No, thank you. And I do not need an escort home. I have a knife in one pocket and a pistol in the other and I’ll find a link-boy to light me.’
I kissed him goodnight and he went out as Garrick began to clear up. I looked across at Luc. ‘How’s your head?’
‘Perfectly all right, thank you.’
‘It will be even better after a good night’s sleep,’ I said, sounding remarkably like my mother.
He sent me one of his hooded-eye looks, the kind that said bed but had apparently no concept of the idea of sleep.
The door closed behind Garrick. The wretch had abandoned me to fight temptation alone. ‘Luc, do you think that’s a good idea?’
‘I think that’s an excellent idea.’ When his voice went all deep and growly like that my toes curled, my insides clenched and all sorts of bits got hot and bothered. ‘Don’t you?’
‘With concussion?’ I ventured. Really, who was I kidding?
‘You had better come and help me undress and then check that I am showing no symptoms.’
‘Garrick – ’
‘Garrick doesn’t rub it better like you do.’ Luc got to his feet, all six foot and something of long-legged, narrow-hipped gorgeousness.
‘I should hope not,’ I said, giving up the struggle. ‘But you do need to be careful of the back of your head.’
‘I hadn’t intended lying on my back,’ he said, taking my hand. ‘In fact I wasn’t intending lying down for quite a while.’ He closed my bedchamber door and set to undressing me which, considering I wasn’t wearing stays, stockings or three layers of petticoats, was easy. He got down as far as my twenty-first century underwear which I’d chosen for comfort and practicality, not for seduction, but which he seemed to find worthy of lengthy examination.
I wriggled free. ‘My turn.’ It took me considerably longer to get him out of neckcloth, coat, waistcoat – at which point I slowed right down and began to tease.
There were the buttons at his cuffs to undo. Very fiddly things, cuff buttons. Then I had to untuck the shirt from his breeches. Of course, I didn’t want
to risk tearing it. Shirts then, I had discovered, had a slit at the neck but no buttons all the way down the front so they had to pull off over the head and a girl could have a lot of fun with that.
I pulled and Luc bent to help which meant I could stop halfway with him trapped in the voluminous fabric of the shirt and caress every bump and hollow of his spine with fingertips and nails. His skin was smooth and silky and hot and I could feel the tiny tremors under the surface as nerves reacted to what I was doing.
I should have remembered how fast Luc could move. He was out of the shirt, sending it flying, before I could make a grab for it. Then he lifted me, turned me and I found myself with my back against the bedpost having my sensible panties stripped off. There was a growl of frustration when he realised he couldn’t get rid of them when he had my legs around his hips, so he did the sort of flip onto his hip you see ice dancers performing at Olympic level. Then the undies went after his shirt, I was wrapped around him again and the flap of his breeches was open – how many hands did the man have? I wasn’t complaining, but –
‘Damn. Condom.’ He boosted me up so my legs were round his waist, staggered to the bedside stand and yanked out the drawer. We juggled the little beast out of its foil and on to him in a desperate rush that had us both panting and snarling with frustration and then –
Then we proved that it was perfectly possible to make hot, frantic, messy, out of control sex without aggravating a head injury, breaking the bedpost or stopping for breath for ten minutes.
‘That was incredible,’ I mumbled. I was face-down, nose buried in the pillow with Luc draped over my back. ‘How did we get here?’
‘No idea,’ he said from somewhere in the region of my right armpit. There was a bit of an upheaval then I felt his hand stroking down my back. ‘Did I hurt you? The bedposts in here aren’t carved, but I should have thought how hard it was.’
‘You didn’t,’ I assured him, although, frankly, he could have had me crushed up against a holly bush for all I’d have noticed at the time. I wriggled and turned face-up. He came with me and we ended up in the time-honoured missionary position. I wriggled some more and then didn’t have to worry about anything else for quite a while. Luc is exciting when he’s urgent and fast but he is stupendous when he takes his time…
Neither of us was up with the lark next morning. I stumbled out of bed and hauled in a couple of hot water cans without Luc so much as twitching in his sleep, so I stood in the basin and had a leisurely all-over wash while admiring the way he looked sprawled naked across the bed. Mine, all mine for this moment and I wasn’t going to look any further ahead than that.
I put on my robe and chatted to Peggy, the maid of all work, who was tackling the washing up from the night before and cooking Garrick’s breakfast at the same time. I stole some of his toast and a cup of coffee then wandered into the drawing room.
Garrick had hung sheets over the incident boards while the maid was in. The clock said half past eight so I curled up on the sofa with my purloined breakfast and read the Morning Post. I’d just finished the toast, half the coffee and was studying the Court and social news column when the door knocker was applied with some force. It would be James, I thought, and even if it wasn’t, Garrick wouldn’t let anyone else in while I was wandering about in bare feet and robe.
It was a woman’s voice. A clear, determined, decidedly upper class voice. Uneasy, I folded the newspaper, stood up and edged towards the door.
‘His lordship is still asleep, my lady. I will wake him and I am sure he will attend you at the Town house just as soon as he is dressed.’
‘He can sleep, I am quite willing to drink coffee and read the paper here until he wakes. I have had a long, tiring drive, Garrick and I do not appreciate being kept standing on the doorstep.’
‘But, my lady, the apartment is at sixes and sevens – ’
‘Late night card parties?’ The voice was suddenly clearer. She must be in the hallway.
‘No, Lady Radcliffe, but Mr James – ’
I didn’t hear any more. This was Luc’s mother and there was only one place Garrick could put her. I shoved plate and cup under the largest armchair and, as the door began to open, vaulted over the back of the sofa and slid down between it and the wall.
Chapter Sixteen
‘Breakfast, my lady?’ Garrick sounded perfectly calm. I rubbed the elbow I’d knocked on the way down, squinted out from my hiding place under the sofa and saw his feet shifting round as he scanned the room. The pair of very elegant half-boots I could see beneath the hem of a plum-coloured skirt showed that their wearer was facing away from him towards the shrouded incident boards.
‘Thank you, Garrick. Toast would be welcome. And tea. I will take it in here.’ There was a faint (ladylike) sniff. ‘I can smell coffee.’
‘Yes, my lady. I came in here carrying my breakfast cup with me to check on the room before the girl started work. Would you like the fire lit?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
Good thing I didn’t climb up the chimney then…
I saw Garrick’s legs as he knelt in front of the hearth, the scrape of flint on tinder box. He worked over it for a minute, getting a blaze going, then began to stand, stumbled and dropped a small log that rolled towards the sofa. ‘Excuse me, my lady.’ He knelt in front of my hiding place and reached under as though searching for the little log. I pushed it into his hand and touched the back of his fingers with mine.
Given the high standard of housekeeping I wasn’t afraid of dust making me sneeze and I’d only had one cup of coffee since I’d visited the loo, so I told myself firmly that there was no reason I couldn’t lie there undetected for however long it took Luc to dislodge his mother. Garrick would be waking him up now, I was sure – he wouldn’t want me lurking under the sofa any more than I wanted to be there.
So I lay still, tried to relax and focussed on those half-boots while I willed her ladyship not to give in to vulgar curiosity and go and twitch the covers off the boards. Stay there, stay there… Damn.
Up she got in an expensive rustle of skirts and walked across. ‘What on earth?’ Silence.
‘Your tea and toast, my lady. Shall I put the tray on this table?’
‘Garrick.’
‘Yes, my lady?’ It was remarkable how innocent he managed to sound.
‘What is this?’
‘That, Mama, is the latest method of approaching the solving of a crime.’ Luc, thank goodness. Leather slippers and the hem of his gorgeous silk bed robe brushed past my hiding place and there was the sound of cheeks being kissed. ‘Delightful as it is to see you, why are you here when James wrote explicitly to warn you that it was not safe?’
Lady Radcliffe rustled back to her seat and I heard the distinctive ting of a spoon against bone china. She was not going to be pressured into explaining herself. ‘You surely cannot think that I am going to sit in Suffolk while my sons are in danger? Let me see your head.’
Luc did not answer the question, probably wisely. I was beginning to think that his mother would cope with a razor-wielding valet better than I could. I heard a tsk which was probably at the sight of his scalp.
‘What about the twins?’ he asked.
‘I brought them with me – and before you protest that I am bringing them into danger, all three under-keepers are also with me – armed, of course. One is at the door here as my escort and the other two are guarding the boys. Nanny has strict instructions not to leave the house with them – the garden at the rear is quite large enough for them to run about in.’
‘Mama, there is nothing you can do to help. I appreciate the thought, but you are putting yourself in danger, bodyguards or not and – ’
‘And what about this young woman you have acquired from somewhere? I’ve had letters from at least six acquaintances mentioning her. America is it? And supposed to be a distant cousin? Really, Lucian, I know the Franklin family tree as well as you and probably better.’
‘The legitimate side
, certainly,’ he agreed. ‘This connection is distant and tenuous, I agree.’
‘Radcliffe.’ The sound of a cup being put down rather too hard only reinforced the switch from first name to title. Mama was not pleased. ‘Most men manage to keep a mistress without all this subterfuge.’
‘Cassandra is not my mistress,’ Luc said evenly. ‘I am certainly giving her a measure of financial support, but no more than I would any female connection under the circumstances.’
Don’t ask what circumstances, I pleaded silently. Luc was skirting a lie – I was his lover but not his mistress – but how would he answer if she probed any further?
‘How have you become involved in a crime?’ Lady Radcliffe demanded.
‘Two friends of James’s have died – a suicide with no apparent reason and a murder. We were called to the suicide and found the second, murdered, body.’
‘Does this put James in danger? And I do not mean is he at risk of being hit over the head as you have been.’
So, she knew about James. She might not be spelling it out but, thank heavens, she was not condemning him, either. It was a relief to know that he had more than Luc’s support within the family.
‘Yes, I do think it has the potential to do him harm. Both men were friends of his. He had no closer involvement with them than belonging to the same clubs, going to the same meeting places and social events. But mud sticks.’
‘Therefore the sooner this is solved, the better, you are saying? And how is your American… friend involved?’
‘She is intelligent, has a very fresh view of the social scene here and has some experience of how crimes can best be solved.’
‘Not a lady then?’
‘Most certainly a lady, but not a conventional one.’
I smiled to myself at the warmth in his voice as he defended me.
‘I see.’ It was clear that Lady Radcliffe did not and that she was not a woman who enjoyed a mystery unless she was creating it herself. ‘And what am I supposed to say when people mention her to me?’
