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

by Lucinda Brant

  “What are you doing here?” Selina demanded, astonished, though she felt a huge relief and strangely uplifted all at the same time.

  “I took pity on you,” Alec commented, a firm gloved hand about a terrified Annie’s upper arm, though there was amusement in his blue eyes at Selina’s wide-eyed shock. “I’d no idea Talgarth also suffered the family trait of poor traveler.” He glanced at Sophie cuddled into the crook of Selina’s neck. “Best get the child indoors. I’ll return shortly.”

  Selina blinked. “Where are you taking her?”

  The amusement went out of his eyes. He was grim-faced. “To identify a body.”

  By the time Alec returned, Evans had the little girl scrubbed, fed and tucked up asleep in Selina’s bed, a hot brick wrapped in cloth between the sheets to keep her warm. Selina had tidied her hair but her dinner remained uneaten on the sitting room table, a glass of wine half consumed. Each time there was footfall on the landing she was at the window thinking it was Alec, only to return to pace in front of the warmth of the fireplace. Evans had retreated to the bedchamber, to sit by the bed to watch over the little girl lest she stirred, though she purposely left the door to the sitting room ajar in anticipation of Lord Halsey’s arrival.

  Two short raps and Selina wrenched open the door, saying without preamble, “Where’s Annie Rumble?”

  “May I come in, Mrs. Jamison-Lewis?” Alec asked, though his smile was at odds with the formality in his deep voice. He stepped off the landing into the cozy sitting room and dumped a small calfskin portmanteau just inside the door. “I hope you didn’t wait your dinner for me?”

  “Did she run off? Where’s her brother Billy?”

  “Ah, I see you couldn’t stomach the inn’s fare,” he continued, spying the untouched plate of cold roast lamb and a indefinable mass covered in white sauce which he presumed to be an assortment of vegetables. Through the connecting doorway he saw Selina’s long-suffering lady’s maid sitting by the bed. “Mrs. Jamison-Lewis, you really should have eaten something while it was hot.”

  “There’s only an audience of one, y’know,” she enunciated in a loud whisper, following him to the hearth. “You didn’t explain about the body. Whose body? Why did you need Annie Rumble?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Jamison-Lewis, I am rather cold and tired. Hungry too,” Alec continued loudly, stripping off his gloves. He spread his long fingers to the warmth radiating from the small fireplace. “But coffee would suffice if it isn’t too much of an inconvenience…?”

  “Stop it, Alec,” Selina hissed at his back as she helped him shrug out of his greatcoat. She dumped this and his gloves over the arm of the sofa. “And stop repeating my horrid name! There’s only Evans here; the audience of one.”

  Alec looked over his shoulder, an eyebrow raised in question. “But the walls, my dear, are thin, so we must observe the formalities. There is your reputation to think about. Oh, and speaking of formalities, it’s my lord when in company.”

  Selina pouted and looked mutinous. “You’re being difficult to prove a point!”

  “Yes.”

  She put up her chin. “I won’t call you my lord.”

  “Won’t you?” he threatened, turning back to the fire, but not before Selina caught his smirk. “Indeed, a bedchamber is the perfect place for a mistress to call her lover my lord.”

  “Ballocks!” Selina said rudely and threw her arms about his neck to be gathered up in his embrace. She smiled up into his handsome face. “Between the sheets, mayhap I will condescend to call you my lord. But… only if you please me. Now kiss me so I know you are not angry. Evans has been most upset since you stormed out of my dressing room.”

  “Evans and I both,” he murmured and stooped to kiss her passionately. When he came up for air he said seriously, “This doesn’t mean I’m at all happy with the arrangement you’ve imposed upon me. But because I want us to be together I’m willing to put up with it—for now.” He pinched her chin. “It isn’t final. Understand me?”

  “Yes,” she answered with a trembling smile, staring up into his searching blue eyes from the circle of his embrace. “But in time, you’ll come to understand why this is our only recourse.”

  Alec wondered how much time she needed before she confided in him why they could not now marry and why she felt able to tell the Duke of Cleveley, yet could not share the reason for her change of mind with him. He just hoped he had the patience to bide his time until she was ready. He smiled reassuringly, though he felt anything but pleased, and gently kissed her forehead.

  “Now send for food and coffee. I haven’t eaten since breakfast and that was at Marlborough.”

  “But your arrival in Bath with your uncle was uneventful?” she asked anxiously, disengaging herself from his arms to fuss unnecessarily with the pining of a stray curl, aware that Evans had risen from her chair by the bed. With a look Selina sent her in search of food.

  “I left him in Tam’s capable hands finding fault with Barr’s excellent bill of fare.”

  “You should’ve stayed to nuncheon,” Selina admonished him, seeing the tiredness in his eyes. “You needn’t have ridden all the way back here. I was managing.”

  Alec gave a bark of laughter. “Yes, so I saw at the Marlborough Arms. My poor darling, it’s been a frightful journey from London, hasn’t it?”

  “Surprisingly, the time went by faster than usual,” she confessed reluctantly. “What with Talgarth’s bouts of ill-health and my preoccupation with a certain lordship’s displeasure…” She touched his stubbled cheek. “I’m pleased you came. I’ve been wretched since we parted in Hanover Square.”

  “Likewise,” he answered softly and kissed her wrist.

  She led him to the sofa and they sat down, her hand in his. “Shall you tell me about Annie and Billy?” she asked as casually as she could manage, “Or shall you dine first?”

  He grinned, knowing her curiosity would be at bursting point if he made her wait, but the thought of what had confronted him in the stables removed his smile. “The news isn’t pleasant,” he said soberly. “A boy was found dead in the stables…”

  Selina sat up very straight. “Billy?”

  “Yes. A sword thrust to the heart.”

  “My God… That poor boy…” Selina put a hand to her mouth, swallowed and then took a deep breath before saying quietly, “Why?”

  “That has yet to be determined.”

  “Who then? Who would want to kill Billy Rumble? The boy is harmless and a cripple. I saw him only a few hours ago leaving the inn. Did he get in some sort of fight? But with a sword… I don’t understand.”

  “No. I don’t think it was a fight. He has a slash to the upper arm and another across the knuckles of his left hand, but there was no real sign of struggle. A local physician should bear this out, but such minor injuries and the single thrust to his heart suggests the boy knew his assailant.

  Selina was still nonplussed. “Knew his assailant? Billy know someone who carried a sword; who could do that to a boy? It doesn’t seem possible!”

  “It doesn’t, but his sister confirmed that Billy was here to meet a gentleman from London.

  “Gentleman from London?”

  “Annie said she has no notion of the identity of this gentleman,” Alec continued patiently, “as she never met the man in the flesh and Billy always met the London gentleman, as Billy called him, alone. That was clever. All Annie knows—”

  “You believe her?”

  “Yes. The poor wretch had to identify her brother’s body. The shock was enough to purge her of any tendency to lie. Mind you, she didn’t know much at all.”

  “What have you done with her?”

  “I left her in the care of the landlord’s wife… for a price. She’ll be given a hot meal and a bed for the night. In the morning I will make arrangements for her to accompany her brother’s body back to Ellick where, no doubt, she’ll have plenty of explaining to do before her—Aunt Rumble, isn’t it?”

  Selina nodded. “My
cook and housekeeper at Ellick Farm. The only family the three Rumble children have. Both parents perished from the sweating sickness some years ago.” She touched his hand that lay across the worn back of the sofa. “Thank you for taking care of her… and Billy. Though Annie hardly deserves her hot meal for the mischief she and Billy were about. Poor Mrs. Rumble. Billy’s death will be a great shock to her. What were they about being here and with little Sophie in tow? Did Annie tell you?”

  “Yes. From what I gathered from Annie’s blubbering confession, Billy brought her along because he couldn’t manage the child alone. He offered Annie two crowns. God knows what this London gentleman had promised Billy to snatch little Sophie from her home, but my guess it was in guineas.”

  “But how did they contrive to lure Sophie from her home?”

  “With the promise of being reunited with her mother who, incidentally, is at Bath.”

  Selina was surprised. “Why would Miranda travel to Bath and leave Sophie behind in the care of servants? That is most unlike her. The few times she’s travelled to Bath, she’s taken Sophie with her.”

  “Whatever her reasons for leaving her daughter at Ellick Farm, there is a Miranda Bourdon registered at Barr’s of Trim Street. As luck would have it, I spied her name in the register as I was signing my moniker. I very much doubt there are two Miranda Bourdons. She arrived in Bath two days ago.”

  “You saw her?”

  Alec shook his head. “I barely had time to shuffle my uncle upstairs to his rooms before I turned tail to ride back here in daylight.” He smiled. “I’ve given Uncle the honor of making her acquaintance at the earliest opportunity. He can’t wait.”

  Selina smiled. “He’ll be smitten. Not only is she the prettiest creature I’ve ever set eyes on, but she’s all that’s good in the world. She could be a slave-trader and I challenge your uncle not to fall under her spell!”

  “Hence your brother’s infatuation.”

  “Precisely! But why did Billy and Annie kidnap Sophie for a handful of guineas?”

  “It might be pin money to you, darling, but to the likes of a poor farmhand and a scullery maid, a handful of guineas is a small fortune.”

  Selina smiled crookedly at his misinterpretation of her question and squeezed his hand a little too tightly. “Not all wealthy widows are immune to the plight of the less fortunate, my lord, whatever your uncle’s prejudices to the contrary. I do know the worth of a guinea. I may have spent on shoes alone a sum that could feed Bristol’s poor for a week, but my man of business can’t praise enough my meticulous account keeping. In fact,” she said with thoughtful frown, “I do believe every time I put my books before Browne he feels his employment is under threat…” She roused herself. “No, not Billy, silly. What did Billy’s murderer want with Sophie?”

  “I really have no idea,” Alec answered on a sigh. He was so tired that if Evans did not return with a bowl of broth, at the very least, food would soon be of no interest. “Any number of possibilities come to mind but given that your brother’s painting of Miranda and her daughter was vandalized, my guess is the child was to be used to get at her mother. The vandalized painting was a warning to your brother. Likewise taking Sophie from Miranda. If indeed it is the same man, though I have no reason to think otherwise. It would be too much of a coincidence if Talgarth’s vandalized picture and Sophie’s attempted abduction were not connected in some way.”

  “You think Lord George vandalized Talgarth’s painting and is also somehow involved in Billy’s murder?”

  “I have no evidence connecting him to either circumstance, and only Charles Weir’s word that Lord George was being blackmailed.”

  Selina was skeptical. “You think Lord George capable of cold-blooded murder? Vandalizing a painting, yes I can see a drunken George Stanton performing that cowardly act, but a sword thrust to the heart requires rather more backbone.”

  “I agree with you, but I suspect Billy was killed out of spite, for not giving our murderer what he wanted, and if so then piercing the poor boy’s heart was done in an impotent rage.”

  “When you put it like that,” Selina conceded, “it’s just the sort of act I could believe of Lord George. He may be cowardly, but he has no conscience.”

  “I’m not convinced Lord George had a personal hand in any of these crimes. Pay someone else to do it, yes. But get his own fine hands dirty?” Alec shrugged. “He isn’t the only one under suspicion.”

  Selina put her hands to her white cheeks in thought and gazed into the darkened bedchamber. “The notion of that buffoon getting his hands on Sophie…” She shuddered, appalled. “The dear little thing was terrified, exhausted, hungry and on the verge of frost bite. If a harmless farm boy with a limp can be murdered in cold-blood, then his killer wouldn’t have a second thought for Sophie’s welfare, now would he?”

  Alec followed Selina’s gaze to the bedchamber where a small hump in the bedclothes indicated the sleeping child. “Don’t let her out of your sight. Who’s to say Billy’s killer isn’t still at the inn awaiting an opportunity to pounce.” He looked intently at Selina. “She wasn’t harmed in any way, was she?”

  “No, not physically. Sophie’s a very healthy little girl. But the sooner I can return her to Miranda the better for the child’s peace of mind.” Selina smiled wistfully. “Sophie doesn’t remember who I am. It’s a twelvemonth since I saw her last. But she trusts me because I speak to her in French. Miranda has always conversed with her daughter in that tongue.”

  “If Miranda Bourdon speaks fluent French then she certainly received the upbringing of a young lady… But why choose to speak it in a cultural backwater such as Ellick Farm?”

  Selina regarded Alec as if the answer was self-evident but when he continued to look puzzled she explained with a laugh, “The locals. They can’t read or write so it is perfectly acceptable to write one’s letters in English. But they aren’t deaf. It’s all very well for us to regard servants as if they’re part of the furniture, but when one is in the depths of the country the same approach just doesn’t work if one wants to hire good help from the village. Hence, conversing in French is preferable to having the locals eavesdropping on conversations and spreading it about the village by sundown.” Selina screwed up her nose on a sudden thought. “Although… by doing so we are denying them their only form of entertainment, aren’t we? It’s not as if they can attend the theater or the opera, is it?”

  “The minds of females,” Alec murmured with a roll of his eyes. He took from his frockcoat pocket a bundle of letters. “These were found strewn near Billy’s body. They’re letters you wrote to Miranda Bourdon. And this,” he added after perching his gold-rimmed spectacles on his nose and dropping in Selina’s palm a small silver button with the raised engraving of a bumblebee, “was found near Billy’s body. Have you seen a similar button before?”

  Selina shook her head and handed the button back. “Should I know it? It looks a perfectly ordinary button. Or is it a button of significance? It must be because you’re laughing at me!” she accused him when he regarded her over the rims of his spectacles as a tutor might his pupil. It didn’t stop her snuggling into his embroidered waistcoat with a practiced pout. “First you accuse me of being a feckless creature and now you expect me to know the origins of one tiny silver button! You tell me. You’re the Bow Street Runner masquerading as a nobleman.”

  “I didn’t expect you to know,” he confessed, holding the button between thumb and forefinger. “I admit I had no idea until Tam enlightened me. But I would wager that if you asked any upper servant in Westminster to identify this button they could do so in an instant. Livery and unusually engraved buttons and such are very important social minutiae in servant circles.”

  “I had no idea,” Selina said with mock awe. “I must show your button to Evans to see if she can pass inspection. Although, being a Methodist, she will decry such fribbles as useless vanity. Why she remains with this immoral creature I know not.”

  Alec tweake
d one of her loose curls. “Perhaps she desires to see you made an honest woman? Or have you told her of your new vocation? Either way, you will provide her with a surfeit of material to add to her nightly prayer.”

  “This button. To whom does it belong?” Selina asked, taking the button back and examining it closely to hide the heat in her cheeks.

  “The Cleveley livery,” Alec responded casually, though he was watching Selina intently over the rims of his spectacles. “That there is no thread attached suggests it wasn’t ripped from the killer’s frockcoat, as would happen in a struggle. Just as there was no thread attached to the button discovered in my uncle’s fist. My first thought was that Uncle had pulled off the button in a struggle. That this button was also found near Billy makes me wonder if it was placed there deliberately.”

  “There you are then!” Selina said with certainty, handing back the button. “They were placed there to incriminate Cleveley.”

  “Or as a warning from the Duke to stay out of his way, perhaps?”

  Selina scowled, yet had to concede Alec had a point. “I don’t know why you’re so ready to condemn Cleveley over one—two—buttons,” she argued, the heat intensifying in her throat and cheeks because he was regarding her as if she had something to answer for. “Lord George or Weir could just as easily have had a hired a ruffian or ruffians to place the buttons there to cast suspicion Cleveley’s way.”

  “True,” Alec agreed, pocketing his spectacles. “Charles is the methodical type, but George Stanton…?”

  “George is a buffoon and Weir a toad but Cleveley is neither.”

  “Your Aunt Olivia defends him too. She has her own reasons for doing so… What are yours?”

  “I told you in London…” she faltered, tightly entwining her fingers in the lap of her voluminous petticoats. “He was kind to me during my marriage. He was no friend of J-L’s. And when I needed someone… When I needed a shoulder to cry on—he-he was there.”

  “You were lovers.”

  It was not a question. He wished it were.