Sheri Cobb South (19 page)

“There, there! Sit down and tell us all about it, and you will feel much better directly,” she said soothingly, as if she were speaking to a child.

“I didn’t kill him!” he protested, instinctively directing his denial at Pickett. “I swear I didn’t!”

“Of course you did not,” said her ladyship. “You have always been unfailingly loyal to the Fieldhursts, just like your father before you. Indeed, Frederick left you a bequest of twenty pounds in his will.”

“I don’t deserve that he should leave me anything,” sobbed Rogers, abandoning, in the throes of strong emotion, the refined accents he affected in his rôle of butler. “Nor would he, if only he’d lived long enough to change his will.”

“Surely it could not have been as bad as all that! To be sure, Frederick had a cutting tongue at times, but he would not have been so cruel—to you,” she added after the slightest of hesitations.

“Aye, that he would have, my lady,” insisted Rogers, his sobs subsiding at last to a sniffle. “Turned me off without a character, he did, just a few hours before he—well, when I saw him lying there, I said to myself, ‘they’ll think I done him in, they will, and no mistake.’ So I cleared out. I know it was wrong, and I’m sorry, but it was all I could think of.”

“But why should he do such a thing? Why, your family has served the Fieldhursts for generations!”

Rogers fumbled in his inside coat pocket and withdrew a folded and creased sheet of paper. It bore the signs of repeated readings, and the ink was smudged in several places. “I’ll never forget that day as long as I live, my lady, and that’s a fact. This letter came for me in the evening post.”

Lady Fieldhurst took the paper and scanned it. “It is from the War Office,” she told Pickett quite unnecessarily, as he was reading over her shoulder. “ ‘We regret to inform—your son, William Rogers—killed in action—siege of Scilla—oh, poor Rogers! If you were perhaps derelict in your duties that evening, surely no one could blame you after having received such dreadful news!”

“His lordship never knew, my lady. A new shipment of brandy had arrived that afternoon from Berry Brothers, and so I—well, I reckon you could say as how I was drowning my sorrows. When his lordship rang for me to show his visitor out, and saw the state I was in, he dismissed me on the spot. I went to my room and packed my bags, then went to find his lordship and beg him to give me another chance. When I saw he was dead, I was that scared, I just ran.”

Lady Fieldhurst glanced at Pickett and found him scribbling furiously in his notebook. She wondered what he thought of the butler’s story. Surely he must believe it, for who could feign such raw heartbreak?

“You have had a very difficult time, Rogers, but now you must come back home,” she said, patting the butler’s trembling hand. “We have all missed you very much, and we want to help you.”

Rogers blinked back fresh tears. “But—but I’ve been dismissed,” he reminded her.

“Fieldhurst dismissed you,” she pointed out. “But Fieldhurst is dead, and I find myself in need of a butler. So, what is it to be, Rogers? Will you come back?”

“Aye, my lady,” he said, bowing his head as if in benediction. “Aye, that I will.”

“One moment,” said Pickett, speaking up for the first time since Rogers’s arrival. “This visitor you were to show out—who was he?”

Rogers cast a questioning glance at the viscountess, as if awaiting instructions. She gave him an encouraging nod. “You need not be afraid to answer.”

“Very well, my lady, since you wish it. His lordship’s guest was his colleague at the Foreign Office, Sir Archibald Stanton.”

Chapter 14

In Which John Pickett Storms the Citadel

“Sir Archibald Stanton?” echoed Pickett, looking sharply from the butler to the viscountess. “Was Sir Archibald a frequent visitor?”

“I should not call his visits frequent, but they were not unusual,” said her ladyship. “I know little of my husband’s duties for the Foreign Office—his was not a confiding nature, even in the early days of our marriage—but I cannot think it strange that he and Sir Archibald should confer from time to time.”

Nor could Pickett. Indeed, he could find nothing remarkable at all about Sir Archibald’s presence that night—except for that brief glimpse of Sir Archibald’s hand in his pocket, and a letter that was no longer where it should have been.

“What time would you say it was when you were summoned to show Sir Archibald out?” Even as Pickett asked the question, he had to wonder how reliable an answer he could expect from a man who had been, by his own admission, drunk at the time of the summons.

Here, however, he did Rogers less than justice. “It was twenty minutes past twelve,” the butler stated decisively.

Pickett, jotting down notes in his notebook, looked up.

“You seem quite sure of that, given your, er, condition at the time.”

Rogers gave a discreet cough. “Begging your pardon, sir, but it was because of my condition that I noticed. When the bell rang I imagined, in my confusion, that it was the clock. I was momentarily puzzled that it should be chiming at such a peculiar time.”

Pickett duly noted the butler’s testimony, but his mind was already racing ahead on quite another track. Twenty minutes to twelve ...and his lordship dead by two... The times fit. Sir Archibald could have called in the hopes of retrieving the letter and, failing in his object, returned later to take the letter by force. But if so, why would he kill the viscount in Lady Fieldhurst’s bedchamber and leave the letter to lie on his lordship’s desk until morning?

One thing, at least, was clear. It behooved him to call again upon Sir Archibald Stanton, and this time he would not be so easily brushed aside.

* * * *

Lady Fieldhurst’s coachman returned for her promptly at four, by which time she had given her once and future butler a few shillings and sent him on his way with instructions to set his affairs in order before returning to Berkeley Square.

“I congratulate you, my lady,” said Mr. Pickett as the viscountess locked up the house behind them, leaving it once more in the sole possession of the naked brunette. “You said you would root him out, and you did.”

“And, unlike some people I could name, I shall not suffer a sore head in the morning,” she returned with a mischievous smile. She bent to drop the key into her reticule, and when she looked up again, her expression had grown serious. “I must thank you, Mr. Pickett, for not being too hard on Rogers. It was most considerate of you.”

Pickett, though gratified, was somewhat embarrassed to be the object of such praise. “The man just lost his son, my lady. Only a brute would terrorize the poor fellow, under the circumstances.”

“Perhaps. But after all your fruitless efforts to locate him, the temptation to bully him must have been great.”

“Not at all. Why should I stoop to bullying, when you were doing a far better job at getting information out of him than I ever could?”

Lady Fieldhurst turned quite pink with pleasure. “Was I, indeed?”

“You were—and I thank you.”

They had by this time reached the viscountess’s carriage, where Drayton stood, waiting to hand her in. Lady Fieldhurst placed her hand on Drayton’s outstretched arm and mounted the single step before turning back. “May I offer you a ride back to Bow Street, Mr. Pickett?”

He shook his head. “You are most kind, my lady, but no, thank you.”

“Surely there is no need for you to walk so far,” she persisted, still perched precariously on the step.

“I can always hire a hackney,” he pointed out.

“Come, Mr. Pickett, this is false pride! Why should you spend your hard-earned wages on hackneys when you have been offered a ride gratis?”

Mr. Pickett, too painfully aware of the fact that he earned his bread by turning over his fellow man to the unloving arms of the Law, might have bristled at this unflattering observation had it not been swiftly followed by her ladyship’s most enchanting smile.

“Unless,” she added, “you decline my offer because you have already endured more than enough of my company for one day.”

Who could resist such an entreaty? Mr. Pickett, at least, was not proof against it. “No, no!” he stammered hastily. “If that is truly what you think, then I have no choice but to accept your offer.”

Lady Fieldhurst, having won her point, seated herself inside the carriage and swept her skirts aside so that Mr. Pickett, entering the equipage in her wake, might occupy the facing seat.

“Drayton,” she called to the coachman, “you may set Mr. Pickett down in Bow Street.”

Although elegantly upholstered and emblazoned with the Fieldhurst crest, her ladyship’s personal carriage was not large. Pickett discovered this fact very quickly after settling himself on the rear facing seat, where he was soon lost in bemused contemplation of the fact that he sat in such close proximity to the viscountess that their knees were all but touching. Upon hearing her ladyship’s instructions to her coachman, however, his mind was jolted back to more pressing matters—specifically, his unfinished business with Sir Archibald Stanton.

“Not Bow Street, my lady,” he protested. “Curzon Street, if you would be so kind.”

Lady Fieldhurst gave Drayton a nod of confirmation as he closed the carriage door. Alone with Pickett, she regarded the Runner with a quizzical expression. “Curzon Street? That can only mean you intend to pay a call on Sir Archibald.”

“Can you wonder at it, after what Rogers told us?”

“No. But I cannot help feeling a bit sorry for Sir Archibald.”

“Sorry for him? Why?”

“If you could but see your own face, Mr. Pickett, you would not have to ask! Yes, I definitely feel sorry for poor Sir Archibald, blissfully unsuspecting that you are about to descend upon him with the light of battle shining in your eyes.”

Pickett gave a somewhat sheepish laugh. “Let’s just say I don’t enjoy being played for a fool.”

“Hmmm,” said Lady Fieldhurst, regarding him appraisingly. “I wonder if anyone could.”

“They not only could; they are,” he said bitterly. “Every last one of them—Sir Archibald Stanton, Lord Rupert Latham, even—”

He broke off abruptly.

“Even?” she prompted.

Even you, he had almost said. But that would never do. “Even the tapster at the Grey Goose,” he finished lamely.

“I think you underestimate yourself, Mr. Pickett. I suspect the problem lies not in your ability, but in your years—or, more specifically, your lack thereof.”

“I’m no green youth,” protested Pickett. “I am four-and-twenty.”

“Practically in your dotage,” retorted Lady Fieldhurst. “Depend upon it, Mr. Pickett, people underestimate you because of your youth. I confess, when Thomas sent for Bow Street on the night Frederick was murdered, I fully expected him to bring back a considerably older man. But I assure you, whatever doubts I may have entertained as to your competence have long since been laid to rest.”

“I’m pleased to hear that, at any rate,” said Pickett, somewhat mollified. “When did that happen?”

She pondered the question for a moment before answering. “I think it must have been the last time I saw Lord Rupert. He was furious with me for revealing the incident of the spilled champagne. Not until then did I realize that you had tricked me very neatly into exploding not only my own alibi, but his as well.”

However flattering, Pickett could not agree with this assessment of his talents. “I never resorted to trickery, my lady!”

“Oh, I don’t hold it against you. In fact, I think it was quite clever of you.”

“If you think I was trying to trick you into incriminating yourself—”

“Now, that I do not, for I am well aware that I was—and still am, for that matter—quite incriminated already. No, I think you must believe in my innocence, for I suspect you would have me in irons quickly enough, if you truly believed that I murdered Frederick. Or,” her gaze grew speculative as a new thought occurred to her. “Perhaps you do intend to arrest me, and it is you who are playing me for a fool. Giving me more rope to hang myself with, as it were.”

Pickett, lapsing into incoherent denials, could only be grateful when the carriage turned into Curzon Street. Sir Archibald, with his undisguised hostility, was easier to cope with than the enchanting Lady Fieldhurst, who muddled his mind and bewitched his senses until he no longer knew whether he was coming or going. As the coach rolled to a stop before Sir Archibald’s domicile, Pickett thanked the viscountess for her hospitality and took his leave of her, then exited the vehicle. As the carriage bowled up the street and out of sight, Pickett strode up the broad, shallow stairs of Sir Archibald’s residence, and rapped sharply on the door. It was opened by the same dour-faced butler who had admitted him before, and who now gestured toward the cold little sitting room with its uncomfortable chairs. “If you will wait here, sir, I will inform Sir Archibald—”

“Not this time,” interrupted Pickett, pushing past him into the house.

“Stop! You must not—”

Sir Archibald, hearing the commotion at his front door, emerged from a room on the left. “Here, now! What’s all this—not you again!”

“I want answers, Sir Archibald, and I mean to have them,” Pickett informed him without preamble. “Were you at Lord Fieldhurst’s house on the night he was murdered?”

Sir Archibald’s face grew dark with fury. “Who says so?”

“The butler who admitted you.”

“Oh, so he’s turned up at last, has he? And you would take the word of a drunken sot over that of a British diplomat?”

“How would you know the butler was drunk, unless you had seen him that night?”

“Very well, I was there. It proves nothing!”

“No, but it does cast a certain letter in a different light. We are at war with France, and you are in a position of trust. A letter written in French left lying about could prove a bit awkward, could it not?”

Sir Archibald crossed the room to the bell pull and tugged at it violently. The butler’s swift appearance led Pickett to believe he must have been listening at the keyhole. “Mr. Pickett is leaving,” Sir Archibald informed his servant. “Have the goodness to show him out.”