Banquet of Lies

by Michelle Diener

  He cocked his head. “I’m sure your mother will hear about it, too, eventually. Although perhaps she knows already? Or suspects? If so, more shame on her.”

  He was hoping Ingleton would be rash enough to strike out, and he wasn’t disappointed. But it was a poor attempt, sloppy and ridiculously off.

  He stepped to the side to avoid it, and realized with disappointment that he couldn’t justify hitting back.

  It would be too uneven a match.

  Something in his face must have registered, because Ingleton dropped his arm, breathing heavily.

  “I would love to thrash you.” Jonathan could hear the leashed wolf in his voice; it was almost a croon. “Give me one more excuse and I will.”

  Ingleton staggered back.

  “I have a number of sources regarding your behavior, and I will hear if you so much as look incorrectly at your maids again.”

  He didn’t bother keeping his voice low, and Ingleton’s eyes went wildly to his friends and back.

  “I understand you’re responsible for one maid being fired because she was carrying your child, and I want to hear from my sources that you’ve provided for her. I give you until tomorrow afternoon to see to it. And it had better be a generous provision.”

  Ingleton stared at him.

  “You can go.” He crossed his arms over his chest and watched Ingleton stagger back to his group.

  Bringing down Ingleton didn’t quite make up for being outdone by his maid in dealing with Frobisher, but it helped a little.

  “Do I want to know what that was about?” Durnham murmured from behind him, and Jonathan looked over his shoulder with a slow grin.

  “Probably not.”

  He waited for Durnham to reach him on the pavement, and they both watched Ingleton as he walked away.

  “What’s the news on Frobisher?” Jonathan asked.

  Durnham sighed. “He’ll hang. There is no doubt about it. But he won’t say who his paymasters are. Maybe we’ll get an execution-day confession.”

  “Why won’t he talk?”

  “Spite, I think. Because we won’t lessen the sentence.” Durnham hunched his shoulders against the evening air and held out a letter. “This came from Dervish with the evening post. He and Greenway were tying up some loose ends for Barrington in Stockholm and arranging for his body to be transported home. They’ll take the next available boat back to England.”

  “Does Miss Barrington know?”

  Durnham lifted his brows. “I’m not sure. Greenway may have written to her.” He paused. “How does the land lie between you? When you thought she was your cook . . .”

  Jonathan said nothing, and after a moment, Durnham gave a sigh and patted him on the shoulder.

  “Come to dinner tomorrow night. My wife has invited your former cook as well. If she doesn’t already know it, you can tell her the news yourself.”

  36

  She had accepted the invitation to dinner at Lord and Lady Durnham’s with some reluctance.

  She still felt like a mouse, one that wanted to hide in its little house a bit longer and gather its courage. And then she laughed at herself for even thinking of massive Goldfern as a mouse hole.

  And here she was at this dinner, anyway.

  She was le chat botté, Puss in Boots, although boots were not fashionable at dinner parties, so she was wearing very pretty satin slippers instead.

  It was a small affair. The Durnhams and their close family, as well as Lord Aldridge and the Duke of Wittaker.

  They were all strangers to her, really. Even the Durnhams, who had been so kind to her over the last few days since Frobisher had been brought down.

  Mrs. Jones had carefully dressed her knife wound and then draped a choker of pearls over it, so that it was almost invisible, but she kept lifting a hand to it and then forcing it back down to her side.

  Lord Aldridge moved easily through the small group, greeting everyone with his quick smile and innate charm. She liked watching him; it created the same tension and excitement in her that she always had at the start of a new trip with her father.

  He was an adventure come to life.

  Even though the facade of a society gentleman was troweled on thick tonight, there was still a hint of the savage beneath, the man who could burst into deadly, immediate action, who could fly down stairs as if he had wings.

  Lady Howe, Lady Durnham’s former guardian, placed a hand on his arm and engaged him in conversation, and Gigi moved her gaze to Wittaker. He was playing the sober nobleman tonight, in tune with the mood of the gathering—the drunk, sardonic duke was nowhere to be seen.

  She didn’t think this more conservative behavior was his true self, either.

  He noticed her watching him, and turned her way. She had the sense he’d known she was looking since the moment she’d focused on him. He moved across the room to her, and they stood where Gigi had positioned herself, slightly apart from everyone else.

  He glanced down at her throat. “Neck all right?”

  “It is.” She resisted the urge to raise her hand to it again.

  “I would like to speak frankly with you, Miss Barrington.” Wittaker gave her a sidelong look. “I have to admit I know the nature of the letter you carried, due to various committees I sit on, and I’m curious: why didn’t you ask Georges to give it to me?”

  “I did.” She paused and saw she had his full attention now. “Georges said you were fighting the Crown over some taxes, and he thought you might throw it in the fire, just for spite.”

  He turned fully to face her, looking genuinely shocked. “Did he?”

  “You were playing the drunk and dissolute rake a little too well, as it turns out. You even had Georges convinced you were nothing but a wastrel, and it takes a fine skill to get past Georges.” She gave him a smile as his mouth gaped. “It would have saved a great deal of trouble, pain and suffering if you hadn’t been so good at your act, but c’est la vie.” She gave a very French shrug.

  Her eyes strayed inevitably to Lord Aldridge and as she watched, he gave Lady Howe a bow and walked over to join them.

  “Miss Barrington.” Lord Aldridge bowed. “You look a little at sea, Wittaker.”

  Gigi tried not to smile but a small one leaked out, until she realized the two men were staring at each other, sharing a long, cool look that she could not decipher.

  Then at last Wittaker swung his gaze to her, looking at her from under lashes almost as long as hers. There was that wry amusement again. “I’m thoroughly put in my place. I didn’t know your father, but in knowing you, I begin to see why he was so respected.”

  It was her turn to be surprised, but before she could answer, he gave a smart bow and moved off.

  She kept her gaze on him to avoid looking at Lord Aldridge for a moment longer. She liked watching him from afar, but close up, it gave her the sense of journeying in an out-of-control carriage over rough road. Thrilling, but inherently dangerous.

  “He’s right, you know. You’ve done your father proud. We didn’t think you were even alive—but you not only were alive, you made it to England, with the letter safe, and were able to hide yourself and smoke out a traitor.” He reached out a hand as if to touch her and then dropped it. “You are a most unusual woman, Miss Barrington.”

  Her breath caught and at last she turned to face him. She had been told too often in the last few days that she was different, but this time, she didn’t mind. “Thank you. It will be hard to settle into this life at first, I think. I’m used to traveling to wild places and meeting all manner of interesting people.”

  “It sounds like being in the army.” Aldridge’s lips twisted up in a smile. “It is hard at first, getting used to a more conventional life. But there are ways to make up for it. Other excitements to be had.”

  “Like acting as an agent for the Crown?” She was teasing him, but the jerk of his shoulders told her she’d hit a mark.

  She quirked a brow. “Don’t worry, I won’t be applying. I’ll
leave the skulduggery to you. I have another project to tackle, and the three opinions I’ve had on the matter so far tell me I’ll have my work cut out for me.”

  “We’ve had a letter from Lord Dervish that you may be interested in.” He changed the topic abruptly, keeping his voice low.

  “Yes?”

  “Durnham’s message that you are here in London, safe, and the letter is in the right hands, reached him. He and Greenway had just returned from Lapland, and they were dealing with your father’s affairs in Stockholm. Arranging for his body to be brought back, and they’re bringing someone with them. Pierre Durand.”

  Her breath caught. “Pierre? That is wonderful.”

  “Who is he?”

  “My chef.” She gave him a smile. “Much better than I in the kitchen. Georges used to be his sous-chef. I am, too, when he lets me in the kitchen.”

  Aldridge gave a short laugh. “Doesn’t seem fair Goldfern will have two master chefs, when I haven’t had a decent meal in five days.” There was something in his face, a yearning that she hadn’t seen before. She didn’t think it was to do with the food.

  “You’ve been very quiet, sequestered in your house.”

  “I told you once before, my lord. I am the little mouse.” She laid on the French accent again to make him smile. “I curl up in my house for a bit, to get my courage up.”

  “Courage for what? Frobisher is caught.” He frowned, but the lost look was gone, and she liked it better that way.

  “To face the world without my father, without my old life. The loss of all the traveling, the adventures . . .” She blushed, her mind flashing up the image of them in his study, kissing.

  He leaned back against the wall. “You told me you wouldn’t hold me accountable for my behavior toward you in my house.” It was so close to what she was thinking, she had to look away in case he could somehow read her thoughts.

  “Yes, I did.”

  The bell rang for dinner, a soft, deep chime that had everyone heading for the dining room.

  “I wanted to ask you if you would. Please. Hold me accountable.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. Excitement pricked at the back of her neck and along her arms, and she smiled as he held out his arm to escort her in to dinner.

  “You never know, Lord Aldridge. Maybe I will.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  In April 1812, Russia, England and Sweden signed secret agreements against France. Russia was in an alliance with France at that time, but relations between the two countries had deteriorated since 1810. Sir Edward Thornton was the British diplomat in Sweden who brokered the agreements between the three countries. However, while the secret deal making is quite true, everything that happens in this book regarding how those deals came to be is purely my imagination at work.

  A GALLERY READERS GROUP GUIDE

  BANQUET OF LIES

  MICHELLE DIENER

  Giselle Barrington is a young woman whose experience of life is far outside that of most of her peers. Well-traveled and well-educated, and unstifled by the rules and unspoken taboos of the British aristocracy, she has lived an adventurous and fulfilling life with her father, an independently wealthy and knighted folklorist.

  Because of Giselle’s father’s unusual occupation, which takes him to corners of the world that no Englishman would normally travel, he has accepted the role of secret courier for the British government at the behest of personal friends of his who work at high levels for the Crown.

  When he is forced out into the open by a traitor in Stockholm, and dies rather than reveal Giselle to his killers, Giselle is determined not only to complete the mission her father committed them to—to deliver an important diplomatic document in London—but also to bring his killer to justice. She has never seen the man’s face, but she knows he is an Englishman, and that no one in the British Foreign Office can be trusted.

  Using her intelligence and experience, she flees to London and gets in touch with the only person she can trust in the city: the man who used to work as a sous-chef in her family’s kitchens in London, the now celebrated master chef Georges Bisset. With his help, she finds herself only a few doors down from her own family home—a place where she is sure her father’s killer will come looking for her—pretending to be a French cook for Lord Aldridge. She vaguely remembers Aldridge from her childhood and she knows her parents liked him and his family. That’s enough to make her feel safe, for the moment.

  But, of course, she isn’t just pretending to be a cook, she actually has to be one, and she slowly learns the position is not simply about making excellent food. It comes with responsibilities and political strings in the belowstairs world of the servant pecking order. In this environment, Giselle makes more than a few mistakes, unwittingly creating an enemy who will almost be her undoing, with all her energy and focus on the man who killed her father and who is searching the streets of London for her.

  But although Giselle does not navigate the belowstairs waters as nimbly as she cooks or puts clues together, her honesty and genuinely good heart win her allies too. She also begins to realize that the consequences of her subterfuge will have far-reaching effects. She interacts more and more with her new employer, Jonathan Aldridge, and as his fascination with her grows, she becomes uncomfortably aware that anything that happens between them as servant and master will be seen very differently when Aldridge discovers that they are actually social equals.

  When both the enemy outside the walls of her safe house and the one inside gain the upper hand, and Giselle is at the mercy of a system skewed very much against women with no wealth or station behind them, she begins to fully realize how gilded and lucky her life as a member of the upper class is.

  Topics and Questions for Discussion

  1. The book opens in Stockholm, with the tense and devastating murder of Giselle’s father. What do we learn about Giselle’s relationship with her father from the subtle messages Eric Barrington sends to her as he plays mind games with his soon-to-be killer?

  2. What do we learn about Giselle herself when she meets with Georges Bisset for the first time? She is the daughter of Georges’s former boss, but does this come across? Is this the meeting of friends? Mentor and student? Or something else altogether?

  3. Recall your first impression of Edgars. What is the first thing he tries to do when he meets Giselle, and is this consistent with his character throughout the book? Do you sense a duality in him, that he is fighting two sides of his nature?

  4. What side of Giselle is revealed by her first meeting with Edgars? Until this point in the story, she has been under threat and devastated by grief. Does the way she handles him show the reader a new aspect of her personality? In a good or a bad way?

  5. What kind of work environment does Giselle step into when she starts working for Aldridge, and how do the decisions she, Edgars and Iris make throughout the book change this?

  6. What is your first impression of Aldridge? How do you think he is changed by the events in the book and do you think—his relationship with Gigi aside—he is more comfortable in his own skin by the end of the book?

  7. There are numerous examples of female friendship in the novel. Gigi’s friendship with Iris, Iris’s relationships with Mavis and Babs and the short but intense friendship Gigi forms with the prostitutes in her cell at Queen Square Public Office—even the relationship between Mrs. Thakery and Mrs. Lambert, the cooks from down the road, and the short interaction they have with Gigi. How do these relationships move the novel forward, and enrich the characters’ lives?

  8. The discussions Gigi has with the prostitutes in the cell at Queen Square reconfirm what she has just learned, that she is almost invisible in the eyes of society in the role she has taken on. What impact does this have on her, and how do these scenes enrich the novel?

  9. What are your thoughts on Aldridge’s fascination with Gigi? Did your opinion about his motives toward her change through the novel?

  10. How justified is Gigi in fear
ing the consequences of her actions with Aldridge when he later discovers the truth about her? Did you think Aldridge would react the way he did when he learned who she really was, and why do you think his reaction was so strong?

  11. Consider the two villains in Banquet of Lies. Would you give them equal status, or do you think Edgars is the more understandable and sympathetic of the two? Or the worst?

  12. Discuss the fairy-tale analogies that run through the book. Did this enrich the novel for you? Did you find the analogies appropriate?

  13. Discuss the food in the book and the role it plays, both as a means to divide some of the characters and set them against each other (Edgars and Gigi), or bring them together (Aldridge and Gigi), or even open them to new friendships and experiences (Babs, Iris, Mavis, Rob and Harry).

  14. Although the reader never discovers the details of Dervish’s relationship with Gigi’s parents, the food he eats obviously evokes strong memories of them for him, and a difficult time in his own life. Do you sometimes experience food in the same way, as a means to travel either geographically or to a certain moment in time, much like music?

  15. Throughout Banquet of Lies a number of people refer to the Duke of Wittaker, and the reader slowly builds up an image of him and what he is like. How is this subverted at the end of the book?

  Enhance Your Book Club

  1. If you want to make some of the dishes Gigi serves up in Banquet of Lies at your book club, go to the author’s website and you’ll find them here: http://www.michellediener.com/books/banquet-of-lies/recipes-from-banquet-of-lies/.