"Horse feathers!" he snorted, jerking out of his chair and crossing to pour himself another glass of wine from the sideboard decanter. "Now I'm building fantasies out of trifles!"
But going back to the fireside, he had to admit that if Zoe was right about her letter having been tampered with, then either Lady Clara Buttershaw was without a sense of honour, or something decidedly havey-cavey was afoot. Given pause by another and even more startling thought, he frowned. It was stupid, of course. Ridiculous. But… could there be any connection between Lady Buttershaw's snooping and the theft of his own letters? Were little Zoe's affairs in some unknown fashion linked with—
He glanced up as the door opened.
Owen Furlong said blithely, "Hello, Perry! Why do you sit alone in a darkened room? Contemplating your misdeeds, old fellow?"
"Contemplating my dinner," said Cranford. "What is the hour?"
Furlong went about lighting candles. "Seven, pretty near. And my apologies if you were waiting for me. I've an engagement."
"So I guessed. If ever I saw such a transformation! You look not only a well man, but a man with not a care in the world. Now what, I wonder, could have brought about this small miracle?"
Furlong laughed, and straddled the end of the sofa. "I'll not dissemble, Perry. I was handed a leveller this afternoon. I know now what it means—to be struck by lightning." He flushed slightly, and said in a more serious voice, "Be honest now. Did ever you rest your eyes on a lovelier, a more vivacious creature? Small wonder she's the rage of London! I'd thought myself a pretty sober and settled old bachelor, but—Jove! One look into those magnificent eyes and I was—lost! Bowled out completely, and forever. Please—don't laugh."
Cranford said quietly, "I won't. I take it Miss Benevento is the lady who has conquered your impregnable heart at last. Do you think—I mean, does she…?"
"Was it mutual? I have known the lady for such a short time. How presumptuous 'twould be for me to dare think her reaction matched my own. I can only pray it did. I know I shall never, ever, feel the same. Every fellow at the musicale was fascinated by her, Perry. They all crowded around, begging to be allowed to call on her, to take her riding, or driving, to carry her muff or her gloves, or to escort her to this or that function. But—she chose me! Me! I drove her through Hyde Park, and then we walked until we found a bench. And we talked and talked for hours and hours. She has the merriest sense of humour; the most informed mind. She has been about the world a good deal, and we discovered we share a liking for so many of the same places. I am allowed to take her to dinner this evening! Gad! Can I believe my good fortune?"
Cranford watched him in silence, marvelling that this gallant gentleman who had survived murderous battles, wounds, and deadly fevers should have succumbed so suddenly, so completely, to the charms of a beautiful woman. That, having seen thirty and more summers, he should stand here, his fine eyes aglow, blushing like any lovesick schoolboy.
As if reading his thoughts, Furlong stood, and added with a rather shy smile, "Pray forgive me. I'm new to this, you see. I promise I won't moon on forever and bore you with my ecstasies.
"Good," said Cranford. "For I want very much to talk with you about something, if you can spare—"
"I can't, old fellow. Not now. I must leave at once. My coach is waiting outside. I only came to thank you for all your kindnesses. I must rush to my club and change clothes." He clapped Cranford on the shoulder and strode to the door.
Cranford rose also. "Owen, wait! I really must—"
Furlong turned back. "I shall call tomorrow morning, I promise. Thank you again, Perry. And—my apologies if I sound a blithering idiot. ''Tis just… I think I have never been so happy… do you see?"
Florian came in as Sir Owen left, and bemoaned the fact that not a single ostler had been present at the stables and he'd been obliged to care for the team himself. "Nor I didn't feel I should leave, sir. Not till the night man came."
"Certainly not! You did just right. I'll put a flea in old Gibson's ear tomorrow, 'pon my soul, but I shall! Never worry about dinner, I'll walk over to the Bedford."
Carrying out this plan, Cranford was pleased to encounter a group of friends at the popular coffee house and to enjoy both the cheery company and a hearty meal. He declined an offer to go on to White's, pleading an early morning appointment, and took a chair back to his rooms.
August Falcon's valet was talking with Florian in the kitchen.
"Hello, Tummet," said Cranford. "You're late abroad. Is Mr. Falcon back in Town?"
"Wisht 'e was, sir," said Tummet, who was not the model of a gentleman's gentleman, but possessed his own unique and much-valued qualities. "I 'opes as you don't 'ave no objections to me bangin'-the-spout." His broad grin dawned. "Wanta word wiv Sir Furlong."
"Banging-the-spout," repeated Cranford thoughtfully. "Ah! Hanging about! Right?"
"Right y'are, mate! Can't diddle you wiv me rhyming cant! Orl right if I waits, sir?"
"I fear you'd be wasting your time," said Cranford, yawning. "Sir Owen has moved back to his club. I doubt he'll be there till the wee hours, though. You'd best catch him in the morning." The frown on Tummet's rugged countenance caused him to add curiously, "Nothing amiss, I trust?"
"Lord love yer, no sir. I'll find 'im. But if you should meet 'im afore I does, I'd take it kindly if you'd slip 'im the word as I needs to see 'im." Tummet grinned, nodded a farewell to Florian, and crossed to open the door. Going out, he stuck his bullet head back in again, and said, "Urgent-like! 'Night, sir."
"Now, I wonder what that was all about," murmured Cranford, as the door closed.
His dark eyes veiled, Florian said blandly, "I wonder."
Fog had rolled in during the night, and when Cranford left his rooms early the following day his coach travelled through a sepulchral world of damp and drifting vapours. The dismal morning did not restrict commerce, however, and the Jerusalem Coffee House was as crowded and noisy as ever, the warm air heavy with smoke and the smells of coffee and breakfast. Cranford wandered among the tables, searching faces, nodding now and then to an acquaintance, or stopping to exchange a few words with some likely source of information, but failing to either find, or have word of, the man he sought. It was a time-consuming process and the morning was far spent when he left and hailed a chair to carry him down to Lombard Street. The press of coaches, horsemen, sedan chairs, and pedestrians around Lloyd's Coffee House caused him to pay off his chairmen and proceed on foot.
Edging past an argumentative group, he came face-to-face with Sir Gilbert Fowles. The dandy, who preferred to hurl insults from a safe distance, changed colour and moved aside. Cranford moved also, and fronting him said clearly, "Well met, Sir Gilbert. Here is your chance to tell me to my face what you shout from carriage windows or whisper behind my back."
"'Faith, Cranford," said Fowles, his eyes darting about nervously as heads turned. "What a quarrelsome fellow you are to be sure! I've nothing to say to you. Pray make way."
Once more, as he tried to pass, Cranford stepped in front of him. "I understand you find it highly diverting that I wear a peg-leg. Never be afraid to speak up, dear old dandy. I promise to listen to your sneers respectfully. Before I knock 'em down your throat."
A laugh went up. Livid, Fowles raised his cane. For an instant Cranford thought he was about to be called out, but a burly special constable stepped between them, and suggested genially that the gents "move along. Don't want no trouble here, now do we, melords?"
"Burn it, but we do!" snapped Cranford. "Get out of the way, confound you!"
Others were trying to push past on the narrow flagway, and by the time he had succeeded in eluding the constable and several impatient pedestrians, Fowles had escaped.
"Scaly make-bait!" he muttered.
A vendor roasting chestnuts shouted with a broad grin, "You want me to run and fetch him, guv'nor?"
Cranford laughed. "I doubt you could run fast enough!"
"You faced him down proper, sir,"
said a chairman who had watched the encounter with interest. "If I was you, though, I'd watch me back with that one!"
It was not the worst advice he'd ever received, thought Cranford, and with a smile to his two admirers, he continued on to Lloyd's.
Inside, he was almost knocked down by a rush of merchants as the bell rang and the announcement of the arrival of a vessel caused near pandemonium.
"Steady on!" he shouted indignantly, flattening himself against a table littered with mugs, tankards, and plates.
"I say, Cranford!" exclaimed an irate voice. "Be so good as to remove your arse from my ale!"
Clapping a hand to his nether regions, Cranford whirled. He encountered a resentful frown that marred features of such classic perfection that their owner would have been London's beau ideal, save for the fact that the splendid midnight blue eyes had a faintly Oriental shape.
"Falcon!" exclaimed Cranford. "What the deuce are you doing here?"
"Whatever my motivation, you may be very glad I'd drunk half my ale," said August Falcon moving his tankard from harm's way.
"I'll not deny that." Cranford slid onto the opposite settle, waved to a passing waiter and ordered coffee and a pork pie.
"Pray join me," said Falcon ironically.
"Deuced good of you to ask," grinned Cranford. "Oh, damme, I forgot. How is your sire? I heard he was thrown."
Falcon, who was extremely fond of his parent, affected nonchalance. "He survives, through no fault of his own. I left him down at Ashleigh, bemoaning his enforced sojourn in the wilderness, and with my sister pampering him disgracefully."
"Well, I'm glad of that. Y'know, August, an he was my sire—"
"Count your blessings he is not! He's incorrigible!"
"—I'd buy a camel and sling the saddle between its humps. Mayhap he could hang on then."
"Farther to fall," said Falcon. "Speaking of which, I caught a glimpse of Furlong in Hyde Park late yesterday. He looked pathetically besotted. Has he fallen victim to the naked cherub at last?"
Cranford hesitated. "You'd best ask him."
"Heaven protect me from the nobly discreet! Will your silly adherence to the Code permit you to tell me if the luscious Benevento is the object of his affections?"
The waiter reappearing at this instant to slam a thick plate and a steaming mug onto the table, Cranford took a swallow of coffee and bit into his pie before replying. "Have you an interest there? Do you mean to call poor Furlong out and put a period to him?"
"If I do," said Falcon grimly, "I'll not ask you to be my second! I've not forgot your last disastrous service to me!"
Cranford's peg-leg had become stuck in the mud when Falcon had fought Gideon Rossiter some months previously, and he said with a chuckle, "Lucky for you that fight went unfinished, else you might have slain a man you now cry friends with."
"I cry friends with no man. Beasts are more civilized and infinitely preferable. Is Rossiter come back to Town yet?"
"Not that I'm aware."
"What about Tio?"
"I think my lord Glendenning has gone up to Bristol or some such place."
Falcon swore softly. "I hear that Furlong had another brush with that fever he brought home from India, and that Bow Street is cross with you for having slaughtered somebody. True?"
"Well, in part, but—Dash it all, August! Here's you shooting questions at me like cannonballs, but when I make a simple enquiry, you're all evasions! What's good for the goose—"
"Do not dare fling maxims at me! What I've suffered from that block, Morris! Besides, I don't recall your asking anything sensible."
"I asked why you were here."
"Just so. Nonsensical. Your brain should supply the answer. This is the hub of shipping news. Ergo, I am here to obtain news of a ship. Now—"
"You are? Which one?"
"Derek Furlong's East Indiaman. She's considerably overdue and I suspect Owen's worried. I chanced to be in the neighbourhood, so thought I'd look in. Now why the deuce should that throw you into a trance?"
"Shock. To hear you admit a kindly impulse! My heart won't stand it."
Falcon's rare smile glinted. "Touché! You have benefited from my example, Perry. Continue to study my wit and you may become as well loved as I."
"Heaven forfend! Lacking your skill with sword or pistol, I'd not survive a week! I've often—" Cranford interrupted himself to pound a clenched fist on the table. "Derek Furlong! What a dolt I am! I'd forgot all about the old sea dog! He's the very man to find out for me." He glanced up as Falcon stood. "Leaving, are you?"
"So 'twould appear. I find monologues boring. But by all means continue to entertain yourself. I shall seek out my imitation valet. His conversation, though crude, is at least comprehensible. Oh egad!" Falcon shuddered. "One of my more ardent admirers approaches. I wish you joy of him."
With a graceful wave he blended into the crowd, passing and ignoring the extremely fat individual who came puffing up to occupy the settle he had vacated.
"Give you good day, Perry," wheezed the newcomer. "Poor fellow, how you bear the Mandarin is beyond me."
"Dicky!" Shaking hands, Cranford said, "Be dashed if you've changed a whit since we were both brought down at Prestonpans!"
A waiter hurried over with a tray of eggs, toasted buns, and sliced cold pork.
Richard Tyree thanked him and told him not to forget the ale, then took up knife and fork and attacked the food like a starving man. "They know my habits here," he said indistinctly. "And you're a liar, Perry. I'm three stone heavier, and you know it. Fat and happy, dear boy." A pair of merry hazel eyes scanned Cranford over a forkful of pork. "More than I could say for you. How do you stay so trim?"
"The single life, Dicky. No worries."
"Humph! From what I recall of my bachelor days, the single life was one long worry. But never mind that. What brings you to this den of iniquity?"
"You. I need some information on an alleged passenger aboard an East Indiaman."
"Best go to the Jerusalem—"
"I just came from there. They claim the fellow never sailed, but I have it on excellent authority he boarded at Calcutta and—"
"Not another one!" Tyree put down his knife and exclaimed incredulously, ""Rot me! 'Tis a flood!"
"Another—what? Has someone else been enquiring?"
"Blasted covey of 'someones.' There was a naval lieutenant asking the very same questions. About a friend, he said. And a large and unlovely fellow concerned for his master. And not ten minutes ago—" His words were drowned by the clamour of the bell, and a renewed outburst of shouting, and he stood, then climbed onto the seat trying to see the board on which information was being chalked at great speed.
When he sat down again, grunting from his efforts, Cranford leaned closer, and howled, "Why all the frenzy? Is is bad news for you, Dicky?"
"No, praise be. I was hoping 'twas word that the Lady Aranmore has made port. She's far overdue, and everyone's out of curl, thinking she's gone down, or been pirated."
Dismayed, Cranford said, "Oh, Jupiter! Isn't she commanded by Derek Furlong?"
"Aye. And if anyone can bring her safe home, that young fella can! Now, I've an appointment in Leadenhall Street when I finish m'breakfast. My coach will be here in a quarter hour. An you'd care to come along, you can tell me of your mislaid friend on the way."
By eleven o'clock the fog had dispersed somewhat, but the morning was chilly, and only a few people strolled about St. James's Park. Lifting Boadicea from the coach, Zoe entertained few hopes of meeting Miss Benevento today. She allowed Gorton and her beau as long a chat as she dared, then sent Coachman Cecil off, telling him to come back for them in an hour.
Gorton smiled dreamily after the coach, and said, "If you but knew, Miss, how much it means to us to be able to talk sometimes. You are so very kind."
"I wish I could do more." Zoe did not add that when she found the proper moment she fully intended to broach the subject with Lady Julia.
Eager to ru
n, Boadicea was tugging at the lead, and they began to follow one of the footpaths, the dog's little legs flying, and her nose busy. Within five minutes Miss Benevento hurried to join them, her footman following, discreet as ever.
The ladies embraced; Boadicea and the dainty little Petite were entrusted to Gorton and Luigi, and Zoe and her new friend walked on ahead.
Inevitably, their conversation turned to the musicale, and Zoe repeated her compliments on Miss Benevento's poetry reading. "I had such a lovely time," she said. And with a sidelong glance at the beautiful face framed by the fur-lined hood of a long dull-red cloak, she added, "Did… you? After Lieutenant Cranford and I had—er, left, I mean?"
A low gurgle of laughter, and the beauty tucked one hand in Zoe's arm and said softly, "What you mean, my dear Zoe—we shall be first-name friends, if you please. What you mean is, how did I like your dashing friend, Captain Sir Owen Furlong? And the answer is, I like him very well. We spent the rest of the day and much of the evening learning about each other. Which was not at all convenable, since we had just met. But 'twas most—enjoyable. There! I have confessed. Are you shocked?"
Never Doubt I Love Page 20
