Let's Talk of Murder (15 page)

When Prance returned to his drawing room, followed by the butler with a tray bearing his best tea cups, he was astonished and secretly delighted to see the greatest romantic rogue in England holding Lady deCoventry’s hand, while she smiled like a moonling and blushed like a peonie.

Byron looked up at his entrance and said, with an enviable air of nonchalance, “Don’t run for your pistol, Prance. I’m not trying to seduce Lady deCoventry. I’ve found a perfectly legitimate excuse to hold her hand. I was admiring her lovely engagement ring.”

“The consensus is that it’s too large for her dainty hand,” Prance said. “When a piece of jewelry is commented on twice in one morning, then it’s obviously too showy.” He perched on the edge of a chair nearest the sofa where they sat together. “It was bought during one of their many tiffs, to impress her.”

“I’m not impressed by large diamonds!” she objected. “It’s because of the inconvenient size that I so seldom wear it.”

“Oh, is that the reason?” Prance asked mischievously. He noticed that Byron had looked lively at that mention of frequent tiffs.

“Yes, the only reason,” she said. “What other reason could there be?”

“Would it be naughty of me to say, ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much’?” She glared. “In any case, as it was chosen by Luten, we don’t use the word ostentatious. His taste does not run to the gaudy, therefore the ring must be suitable.”

“Spoken like a true sophist,” Byron joked. “The ring is obviously Luten’s effort to weight down his charming prize so she can’t bolt on him. Take care, milady! If he burdens you with this weight before the wedding, you may be sure you’ll find yourself tethered with a ball and chain after the treacle moon.” With his dark eyes dazzling into hers, he added softly, “And who shall blame him?”

“The diamond is hardly that big!” she objected. She heard the breathless pleasure in her voice, and felt the pounding of her heart. Really, the man was a magician. She did not want to be infatuated with him. She would not be!

He took her left hand in his and made a pantomime of trying to lift it. Corinne had not expected this playful streak in him. His reputation was for brooding on his ill-spent, checkered past, as hinted at in his poetry. As she tried to withdraw her fingers, he squeezed them a moment, again gazing into her eyes, until she felt mesmerized. The hint of danger, when couched in such a gentle, whimsical manner, was disarming. There was some awful, incomprehensible allure in the man.

Then he lifted her hand, still clasped in his, nearly to his lips and said, “It only looks too big in contrast to these dainty white fingers. Still, one of the less trying duties of a duchess is displaying the family jewels.”

“Luten is not a duke,” she pointed out.

“Not yet. The on dit running around Melbourne House is that he will be, after he solves this mystery of young Fogg.” He turned to Prance, “–which, by the by, was my pretext for calling on you, Prance.” A fleeting, flirtatious smile in Corinne’s direction told her she was the reason.

She busied herself with pouring the tea and passing it around. Prance, suffering from hearing that Luten might receive a dukedom as well as the Prime Ministership, was beset by a fit of pique. “Now you’re hurting my feelings, Byron,” he said, trying to match the poet’s playful air. “I am sunk to a mere pretext!”

“I apologize, Prance. You know how it is with friends. We use them as badly as we use our families, and save our civil manners for mere acquaintances. And especially our enemies we treat with every show of respect—until we can find an excuse to cut ‘em. So how is the mystery coming along?”

Prance was mollified by this diplomatic reply. Happy to have the poet’s attention to himself, he was not slow to mount the platform. “The affair of Fogg is still befogged,” he said waggishly. “It has become a Hydra-headed monster, Byron. The more the pot is stirred, the worse it smells. There’s a wretched mangling of metaphors for you. But alas, though our investigation has broadened to encompass Highgrove and Lambeth, all we have come up with is the aroma of evil.”

Over the tea cups, he went on to reveal more details of the case than Corinne liked, finishing up with, “We’re not much farther ahead than when we began. We have missing rings and locks of hair, but alas!, no lady to go with these love tokens. We have a lady who is enceinte, but we have no name for the papa. We have discovered that Fogg was having arguments with some male visitor, but we have found no visitor. I plan to go to the Albany this morning in an effort to discover who his mysterious caller was.”

“Let me go with you,” Byron said at once. “I’d like to see the place. I need more space than I have in my present flat. I like to gather all my little creature comforts ‘round me.”

“Don’t let me detain you,” Corinne said, for once Byron’s awful, magical eyes were off her, she began to feel guilty.

He made no effort to hide his disappointment. “Oh, will you not be coming with us?” he asked, with a wistful look. Almost a look that suggested his real interest in the Albany was to continue in her presence. She was insensibly flattered.

“Corinne has to see Pattle,” Prance answered for her, lest she decided to join them. While he wanted to sponsor a little flirtation between the two to annoy Luten, he was not so mean that he actually wanted to break off Luten’s engagement. Besides, he wanted to have Byron to himself.

“Let me accompany you home at least,” Byron said, setting his cup aside and rising.

“That’s not at all necessary,” Corinne said.

“Very few of the courtesies we extend to ladies are necessary, else they would not be courtesies. They would be duties, and therefore a chore instead of a delight. I daresay you can open a door for yourself as well as I can. We perform our courtesies to show our respect–and admiration of the lady. I insist. You’re somewhat accustomed to the laggard gait of a cripple since Luten’s accident, so you won’t mind this.” He cast an impatient glance at his club foot. She could not find any way to refuse his company after that. To refuse would be positively boorish.

“I shall be back presently,” Byron said to Prance as they left. “Unfortunately,” he added, in an aside that was just audible to Corinne, though she pretended not to hear it.

“I live just there,” she said, pointing across the street to her house.

“How conveniently you friends are situated!” He saw the carriage in front of Luten’s house. “That man makes me feel like a slacker,” he said. “When Mahomet can’t go to the mountain, the mountain goes to Mahomet. That is Brougham’s rig, I think?”

“Yes, I believe it is.”

“I hope Luten isn’t neglecting you, with all his attention to duty?”

“No, certainly not,” she said at once.

“If he does, you know who would be interested to fill in any lapses. Do feel free to call on me if you require an escort to a play or concert, or even a ball. Of course I can’t dance, but I would be happy to keep the marauding horde of your admirers at bay.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

They had reached her house. “Kindness, my lady, has nothing to do with it, but I do promise to behave myself, if the possibility of my doing otherwise in any way deters you from accepting my offer. Good day, Lady deCoventry. Until we meet again.”

He bowed and limped back across the street while she looked after him, trying to feel annoyed at his offer, which was difficult as she was flattered to death. Every lady in London was running mad for Byron, and he had as well as said he– Well, he had shown a marked interest in her at least. As to that promise not to misbehave, she feared they had very different notions of proper behaviour.

Black, her butler, who lived with his eye at the window, opened the door as she mounted the stairs. “Would that be the poet fellow that saw you home?” he asked, as familiarly as if he were family.

“Yes, that’s the famous Lord Byron.”

“Short fellow, ain’t he? I thought he’d be bigger.”

“He seems bigger when you’re with him,” she said, and handed Black her shawl and bonnet. “Will you send Jackie and ask him to invite Coffen over, Black?” Jackie was her backhouse boy whose lowly duties included fetching coal, removing ashes and running errands that did not require the dignity of a footman’s livery. Black nodded and Corinne went into the drawing room to find Mrs. Ballard standing at the window, looking out at the poet.

“Is that him?” she asked, all a twitter. “My, isn’t he handsome? But not a very nice man, from what I hear,” she added dutifully. “Did he try anything?”

“Mrs. Ballard! of course not!

“Oh,” she said, with a definite air of disappointment. “Who is that coming out of Pattle’s place?”

Corinne looked over her shoulder. A ragged urchin was bucketing down the stairs. He stopped to gaze in wonder at Byron’s rig, which Byron and Prance were just entering. The urchin reached out and touched the carriage, as if it were a sacred relic. Prance spoke to him sharply. Byron laughed, tousled the boy’s bare head and flipped him a coin. That put a smile on Corinne’s face, and on the boy’s, too, as he took to his heels and fled.

Byron’s carriage had not quite reached the corner when Coffen came out of his house, hurrying toward Corinne’s. Mrs. Ballard, sensing that she might be in the way, claimed to have forgotten her handkerchief and went upstairs. Black had the door open before Coffen reached it.

He came puffing into the saloon, his chest swollen like a pouter pigeon with importance. “I was right,” he said, and flopped on to a chair.

“What do you mean? Right about what?”

“About Lord Clare running a brothel.”

“No, Coffen, you were wrong. He took the girls to his own house for dinner and some music last evening. That’s all. They did wear their own gowns, but they weren’t entertaining gentlemen. Clare was the only man there.”

“Is that what he told you? All a pack of lies. He took them to a house on the Lambeth Road, and there were plenty of gents there. They stayed till three o’clock in the morning.”

“I don’t believe it. I spoke to Clare this very morning. He said–”

“Dash it, do you expect him to tell you the truth about a thing like that? He was lying his head off. Willie followed the rig that left the Morgate Home. He hung around till the last dog was hung.”

“Willie who?”

“That little feller that just left my place, Willie Sykes. I set him to spy for me.”

“And you believe the word of a street urchin? He made up that tale to get money out of you.”

“Nothing of the sort. He didn’t know what I wanted to hear.”

Corinne thought a moment, then said, “Perhaps Clare had his little party in the house on Lambeth Road. I thought he said—No, he definitely said he entertained them at his own house in Grosvenor Square. And the party was over by eleven.”

“He owns the house he took ‘em to. I spoke to an estate agent, let on I wanted to buy it and put up a warehouse. Didn’t use my own name, of course. He said it was owned by Lord Clare. He hadn’t heard his lordship was Interested in selling it, but if I offered a high enough price, he might. I didn’t make an offer.”

“How does it come you brought Willie home with you?”

“I drove over toward the Morgate Home early this morning just to see what was going on. I met Willie there. He wanted a ride in the carriage. He’d never been in one, except once he was kicked by a horse and the rider sent him home in a hackney. I brought him home and fed him. He’s promised to keep an eye on the Morgate Home for me.”

“What should we do? We must speak to Luten before doing anything.”

“We’ll tell Luten all right, but whatever he says, I plan to get into that house on Lambeth Road and see for myself how it’s set up. I’ll know if it’s being used as a bawdy house. Don’t squint like that. All I mean is, if it’s a bunch of bedrooms, then it’s
a
brothel.”

“I can’t believe Lord Clare would be so depraved. He seems so nice.”

“All an act. He’s as bad as Byron. Worse!”

“A good deal worse!”

He speared her with a gimlet shot from his blue eyes. “Speaking of Byron, was that him I saw strutting you home from Prance’s place a minute ago?”

“Yes, he called while I was there to see how the case is progressing.”

Coffen considered this carefully, “I suppose there’s no harm in that. Daresay I’d do the same thing myself. Prance will be chirping merry that he called.”

“They’ve gone to see what they can discover at the Albany.”

“Is Byron trying to nose his way into our club?” Coffen asked suspiciously.

“We’re not a club. He went along as he wants to hire rooms there. I wonder if Brougham has left Luten’s place yet.”

From the doorway, Black answered. “He’s still there, milady.”

After a frowning pause, Coffen said, “Who could tell us what is going on is Fanny.”

“You just want an excuse to see her again. Any of the girls could tell us. Any of the girls who were at that party last night.”

“Aye, but would they tell us? They’re dependent on Clare. And really, you know, when all’s said and done, they have it better than if they was on the street.”

“That’s not their only alternative!”

“No, but it’s the likeliest one when you come down to it.”

“We’ll find them some honest work in a respectable home. Oh I do wish Brougham would leave. What can be taking him such an age?”

“Politics,” Coffen said unhelpfully. “I wonder if Bruton will let me see Fanny. I don’t believe she’s in on it. Bruton, I mean. “

“I don’t believe she is. Clare told us not to mention his party to her.”

“That didn’t set you to wondering?”

“No, it didn’t. Nor Prance either.”

“You’re all too innocent, that’s your trouble. Looks like it’s up to me. I think I might bribe the truth out of Fanny. She’s miffed with Clare at the moment.”

The sound of wheels from the street sent him darting to the window. “Brougham’s leaving. Let’s go,” Coffen said.

Black handed Lady deCoventry her shawl as they hastened into the hallway, but was robbed of the pleasure of placing it about her shoulders. Coffen was already dragging her out the door and across the street, with her shawl trailing behind her.