Dinner Most Deadly

by Sheri Cobb South

  “I don’t know about wishing him dead, but Mr. Martin Kenney had no reason to love him. Sir Reginald practically accused him of cheating at cards one night at White’s, and although nothing was ever proven there, Mr. Kenney’s membership was revoked.”

  Mr. Pickett could hardly see the loss of one’s club membership as a justification for murder, but he knew the aristocracy tended to view things differently.

  “And what about yourself, Lord Edwin?”

  “Me?” Lord Edwin bristled. “I’ll admit I didn’t like the man—orange blossoms and white satin, indeed!—but I’d no reason to kill him!”

  “Orange blossoms and white satin?” echoed Pickett, bewildered.

  Lord Edwin sighed. “Sir Reginald’s oldest girl is—was—getting married in a few weeks. He said he came to Lady Dunnington’s dinner to escape his womenfolk’s wedding chatter.”

  “Lord Edwin, I’m afraid I must ask you for an accounting of your movements after you left Lady Dunnington’s house last night.”

  “Very well, sir, I looked in at Boodle’s, my club, for an hour or two—which the porter will attest to, by the way—and then I came home, went to bed, and slept soundly until morning.”

  Pickett made a note of it, thanked Lord Edwin for the information, and took his leave. It was now almost half-past noon, and he decided he had time for one more interview before the anticipated yet dreaded tête-à-tête with Lady Fieldhurst. He called next on Lord Dernham, and was shown into an elegantly appointed yet somehow sterile drawing room. Here he was joined shortly by a melancholic man in his late thirties, with pale blue eyes and light hair in rapid retreat from a high forehead.

  “Bow Street, you say?” asked this gentleman, gesturing to Pickett to take a seat before the fire. “How may I help you?”

  Pickett resorted once more to the opening gambit he had employed with Lord Edwin.

  “I am here at the behest of Lady Dunnington,” he began. “I believe you dined with her in Audley Street last night?”

  “I was one of several in attendance, yes.”

  “One of her guests left a personal item there last night. I wonder if you have noticed anything missing.”

  Lord Dernham’s brow puckered. “Not that I am aware of. I daresay it must be an item of considerable worth, if she saw fit to call in Bow Street.”

  “You might say it was worth a man’s life.” Pickett withdrew the pistol. “Have you ever seen this before, Lord Dernham?”

  Unlike Lord Edwin, Dernham made no attempt to take the weapon. “Not that I am aware of,” he said again, eyeing it with some misgivings. “And you say someone left it at Lady Dunnington’s house last night? Why would anyone bring a pistol to a dinner party?”

  “Apparently for the purpose of shooting Sir Reginald Montague,” Pickett answered.

  Lord Dernham flinched at such plain speaking. “Montague was shot, then? Is he—?” He choked off, unable to speak the word.

  “Is he dead? As a matter of fact, he is.”

  “Well, well!” Lord Dernham’s expression changed, but instead of registering horror as one might expect, his taut facial muscles relaxed, and suddenly he looked like a convicted man given an unexpected reprieve. “Well, well!” he said again.

  “You appear to be pleased at the news,” Pickett observed.

  “I’ll not deny it. No, Mr. Pickett, I did not kill him, but I will not pretend to regret his death. If you are looking to me for assistance in finding the killer, I fear you have come to the wrong place. You will get no help from me.”

  “Sir Reginald may have been a bounder and a cad, my lord, but even bounders and cads are entitled to certain rights under British law. I understand you have every reason to wish him ill, but justice demands—”

  “Justice?” interrupted Lord Dernham. “Don’t speak to me of justice, sir! Where was justice for my wife and her family? In my opinion, whoever shot Sir Reginald meted out that justice which the Crown either could not or would not dispense. I only hope you will inform me of the killer’s identity before he is executed, so that I may shake his hand.”

  “And yet I suspect your gratitude to the avenger of your wife’s death would not extend to taking his place on the gallows, my lord. If you wish to avoid such a fate, you would do well to cooperate.”

  Lord Dernham heaved a sigh, the fires of his righteous indignation extinguished by this unpleasant prospect. “Very well, Mr. Pickett. What do you wish to know?”

  “I fear I must ask for an accounting of your movements after you left Lady Dunnington’s house last night.”

  Lord Dernham lifted one hand in a helpless gesture. “There is very little to tell. I came immediately home and went straight to bed. I let myself in, as it was my butler’s day off. The hour was not yet nine o’clock—early by ton standards—and I had told him he need not return until ten. As for the only other servant who might have seen me, I had told my valet he need not wait up for me—in fact, Mr. Pickett, I had expected to be much later in returning home.”

  Pickett, making a note of it, wondered if Lord Dernham had hoped to end the evening in Lady Fieldhurst’s bed. He thanked his lordship for the information and rose to take his leave, noting as he did so that the clock over the mantel showed that the time lacked only ten minutes to two.

  The hour of reckoning, it seemed, was at hand.

  CHAPTER 9

  In Which a Marriage Is Announced

  After leaving Lord Dernham’s house, Pickett set out on foot for the Fieldhurst town house in Berkeley Square, and reached that dreaded destination entirely too soon for his liking. He lifted the knocker and let it fall, and was taken aback when the door was opened by a butler whom he had never seen before.

  “Yes?” said this worthy, clearly unimpressed with Pickett’s somewhat shabby brown serge coat and unfashionably shallow-crowned hat.

  “John Pickett, to see Lady Fieldhurst,” he said, standing a bit taller, the better to look down upon this unwelcoming gatekeeper. “Her ladyship is expecting me.”

  The butler gave a sniff as if he rather doubted this, but stepped aside to allow Pickett to enter. He relieved Pickett of his hat and gloves (Pickett suspected the hole in the left thumb was yet another black mark against him) and gestured for him to follow. “If you will wait here, sir, I will notify her ladyship of your arrival.”

  Pickett seated himself on the straw-colored sofa in the drawing room. He had sat here beside Lady Fieldhurst many times before during his investigation into the murder of her husband, but the room seemed to have lost its welcoming atmosphere in spite of the warmth of the fire. He supposed the butler had something to do with it, and wondered why she had replaced Rogers.

  He got his answer only a few minutes later, when a plump, middle-aged woman entered the room, followed by a glowering George Bertram, seventh Viscount Fieldhurst.

  “Good day to you, Mr. Pickett,” said the new Lady Fieldhurst, offering her hand to him as he rose at her entrance. “What brings you here?”

  Her husband George was rather less courteous. “I’d like to know what the devil you’re about, calling on my wife!”

  Too late, Pickett realized that the Fieldhurst town house was now the property of the new viscount and his wife. Julia, his Lady Fieldhurst, would have removed to—where? She would be expecting him to arrive at any minute, and he had no idea where to find her.

  “I—I beg your pardon,” Pickett stammered. “I had forgotten—I wasn’t thinking—I’m looking for your cousin’s widow. Can you tell me where she is living now?”

  “And why the devil should I?” demanded George, Lord Fieldhurst. “What can it possibly have to do with you?”

  “There is something I must discuss with her ladyship,” Pickett said. “If you will tell me where I might find her, I will trespass no longer on your hospitality.”

  “You can have nothing to say to Julia that cannot be said to me, as head of the family.”

  “It—it is rather personal in nature,” said Pickett. “It concerns s
omething that took place in Scotland.”

  “Hmm, I always suspected there was more to that Scotland business than Julia was telling,” George grumbled. “Whatever you have to say, you may be sure I will pass it along to her—if I deem it necessary.”

  “What I have to say to her, sir, is none of your business!”

  George bristled, and would no doubt have summoned the butler to throw Pickett out on his ear had his wife not intervened.

  “George, your Cousin Julia is a grown woman,” the current viscountess pointed out. “Surely she can decide for herself whether or not to see Mr. Pickett and hear what he has to say.”

  “You do have a point, my dear, but I would be remiss in my duty to the family if I did not demand to know what personal matter this fellow could possibly have with my cousin’s widow!”

  Pickett would have preferred to cut out his tongue rather than betray Lady Fieldhurst by bearing tales to her husband’s meddlesome family. Still, he knew enough of George from previous experience to recognize that he would get no information from that source any other way.

  “Very well,” he said with a sigh, recognizing his last forlorn hope that the irregular marriage might stand would die with the telling. “You know that while in Scotland Lady Fieldhurst and your sons took matters into their own hands, going to the seaside rather than the Fieldhurst estate.”

  “Yes, yes, I know that. What of it?”

  “You may not realize that they attempted to preserve their anonymity by adopting an assumed name. And the name her ladyship chose—well, it was mine.”

  “The devil you say! Are you telling me my cousin’s widow was capering about Scotland calling herself Mrs. John Pickett?”

  “In all truthfulness, I do not believe my Christian name ever entered into the discussion, but as to her calling herself Mrs. Pickett, yes sir, she did.”

  George heaved a sigh. “Well, I can’t pretend I like it, but I suppose it’s all water under the bridge now. Least said, soonest mended, I daresay.”

  “Not exactly. I have it on good authority that under Scottish law such a declaration before witnesses constitutes a valid marriage.”

  George’s face grew quite purple with rage. “Are you telling me that you of all people are now married to my cousin’s viscountess? No, Mr. Pickett, I’ll not have it!”

  “I’m afraid what you will or will not have has very little to say to the matter,” Pickett said.

  “If you’ve so much as laid a hand on her, by God, I’ll have you horsewhipped!”

  In fact, Pickett had laid more than a hand on Lady Fieldhurst. He had kissed her at least twice, and with the lady’s full cooperation. Still, he knew himself to be innocent of the charges George was implying. “No horsewhipping will be necessary, your lordship. I had an appointment with her ladyship to inform her of the accidental union so that she might take whatever steps are necessary to secure an annulment.” Some demon of mischief (or perhaps it was mere wishful thinking) compelled him to add, “But if you will not allow me to speak to her, I suppose we will be forced to let the marriage stand.”

  “I will inform Julia of the matter, and I will notify my solicitor at once! You, sirrah, need not come into it at all!”

  Pickett had almost forgotten George’s wife’s presence, until she spoke up softly. “Nonsense, George. Of course Mr. Pickett must tell her himself.” To Pickett, she added, “You may find her in Curzon Street. Number twenty-two, if memory serves.”

  “Thank you, your ladyship. You are very kind.”

  He turned on his heel and departed, leaving a sputtering George Bertram to stare after him.

  “You are late, Mr. Pickett,” Julia chided him when Rogers announced his arrival some twenty minutes later. She had awakened early and spent the long hours of the morning in mingled anticipation and dread of his call. Had he had second thoughts, and decided to take her up on her offer after all? If so, should she give him a second chance? Her pride said no, but seeing him again at Lady Dunnington’s house the previous night had been enough to inform her that her pride was sadly lacking where he was concerned; she very much feared that if he asked to be her lover, she would fall into his arms.

  “I beg your pardon, my lady,” he said, bowing over her hand. “I called first in Berkeley Square. I didn’t realize—I forgot you would no longer be living there.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Which will probably bring George down on my head!”

  “I beg your pardon,” he said again. “I had not meant—”

  “Never mind, Mr. Pickett, he probably would have found out in any case. But will you not sit down?”

  He sat, and so did she. For a long moment they faced one another in uncomfortable silence, until she said, “I trust you had a pleasant journey home from Scotland?”

  He nodded. “The trip was uneventful, which to my mind is the best one can look forward to, travelling on the Mail.” Another long silence. “And the boys? I hope they are well?”

  “Quite well, thank you. Harold has joined the Royal Navy, and will soon be taking a berth as a midshipman aboard His Majesty’s frigate Dauntless.”

  “Better him than me,” Pickett said, grinning sheepishly at the memory of his own seasickness aboard a small fishing boat while Harold Bertram reveled in the experience. “When you next see him, please give him my best regards.”

  “I will,” she promised. “I’m sure he will be gratified to receive them.”

  Having exhausted their supply of platitudes, they lapsed into silence once more, until Pickett was forced to conclude there was no excuse for delaying the inevitable. “My lady,” he began, “if you recall, during that time you were registered at the inn under my name—”

  “Which made things most uncomfortable for you, I fear,” she acknowledged contritely.

  “Not half so uncomfortable as they’re about to be for you,” he predicted grimly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “My lady, it has come to my attention that—Mr. Colquhoun, my magistrate, is a native Scot, and he says—that is, it seems that under Scottish civil law—”

  Julia listened to his stammering with growing unease, until she finally interrupted, putting an end to his ramblings. “Mr. Pickett, what is wrong?”

  He took a deep breath and looked her squarely in the eye. “My lady, it appears there is a very good chance that we are legally wed.”

  Every drop of color drained from her face. “What?”

  “Apparently there is such a thing in Scotland as marriage by declaration, which means that all it takes to make a valid marriage is for both parties to declare before witnesses that they are man and wife.”

  “Oh, dear,” Julia murmured under her breath. “Oh, dear! I am so very sorry, Mr. Pickett. I should have known!”

  He regarded her with a puzzled frown. “Nonsense! How could you?”

  “My dear sir, every gently bred female over the age of fourteen is cautioned against the sort of roués and fortune-hunters who might attempt to persuade her to elope over the Border to Gretna Green, where a hasty marriage might be made with no questions asked!”

  “Well, there’s one bright side,” Pickett said ruefully. “No one can accuse you of having designs on my fortune when you claimed to be Mrs. Pickett.”

  She smiled somewhat mechanically. It was true that she’d had no designs on his fortune (one could, after all, hardly covet what did not exist) but Mr. Pickett possessed other—assets—in which she had certainly expressed more than a passing interest. “Mr. Pickett, is that why you turned down—why you declined to—to—”

  He hesitated for a moment before answering. He knew she had been wounded by his apparent rejection of her, and here was his opportunity to save face by claiming to have done so in a noble cause. And yet he could not be less than truthful with her, even at a considerable cost to himself. “No, my lady, it wasn’t. In fact, I wasn’t aware of the marriage myself at the time. There were—other reasons.”

  She gave a little laugh utterly devo
id of humor, then rose from her chair and crossed the room to gaze unseeing out the window. “So you reject me as a lover only to find yourself tied to me as a wife. Poor Mr. Pickett! It appears you have gone from the frying pan into the fire.”

  Pickett grimaced. “I wish you would not dwell so much upon my supposed rejection of you, my lady. Truly, it was not what you think.”

  “Oh, but I must dwell on it! Lady Dunnington has pointed out to me—quite rightly!—that had you made such an offer to me, it would have been considered an indecent proposal. I am most sincerely sorry, Mr. Pickett. I had no thought of giving offense.”

  He had to smile at that. “My lady, the man who could be offended to know that you were interested in him in such a capacity must be above being pleased by anything.”

  Her answering smile was singularly bleak. “And yet I failed to tempt you, Mr. Pickett. I assure you, I would have said nothing had I not believed that you felt—that is, I imagined that you—”

  He let out a long sigh, then rose and joined her at the window, where she stood looking down out onto the street. “You have been frank with me, and you deserve no less from me. In all honesty, my lady, your assumptions were quite correct: I yearn for you body and soul. But I will not be your lap dog, to be summoned for your amusement and then dismissed when you grow weary of the game.”

  “It wouldn’t have been like that!” she cried, whirling away from the window to face him.

  He gave a humorless laugh. “It would have been exactly like that.” He kept to himself the lowering conviction that, due to his own lack of experience, the end would very likely have come sooner rather than later. “You should be glad I didn’t take you up on the offer—you might have found yourself bound to me for life! As things stand now, we should at least be able to obtain an annulment—unless you want to be a thief-taker’s wife and live on twenty-five shillings a week,” he added grimly.