When the Devil Drives (5 page)

That was just over an hour away. Clearly, the decision to invite Miss Liberty Lane had been taken at the very last minute. As it happened, I knew about the recital. A French pianist whom I'd been longing to hear was to perform two Beethoven sonatas. It was a subscription concert, at a price that made clear it was a society event, attended probably by people who had as much ear for music as Mrs Martley's pastry.

What interested me – besides a wish to hear the music – was that this kind of invitation was often the way my friend, that ambitious young MP Mr Benjamin Disraeli, chose when he wanted to talk to me. I could never decide whether it was concern for my reputation or his that made him contrive our business meetings in public places. His, probably, since he had a dashing disregard for other people's needs. But that couldn't be the case this time, because Mr Disraeli had married his rich widow at the end of August and departed on a honeymoon tour of Europe. They were not expected back in London until November. So if Mr Disraeli himself had not sent the invitation, it must be from somebody close enough to him to adopt the same etiquette. That meant another client, quite possibly a wealthy one. I told Mrs Martley I'd be back soon after eight.

‘You be careful and take a cab back,' she said. ‘It's not safe in the streets on your own these days.'

My mind was already on my wardrobe, wondering whether my blue velvet with the stand-up collar and silk facings would be grand enough, but there was an edge to her voice that made me turn and look at her.

‘Why,
these days
?'

‘Mrs Grindley's been talking to the cook at the Featherstone's and she says one of the kitchen maids there was nearly carried off on Monday night in a chariot with two devils on the back. She's been in hysterics ever since.'

Odd, that this particular ghost story had already run all the way from the City to Mayfair. I promised Mrs Martley I'd be careful, ran upstairs and through the little door into my own room and changed into the blue velvet. It wasn't fear of devils in the dusk that made me spend money on a cab to Belgrave Square, only tenderness for my best shoes, which were black velvet and so didn't match the dress, but would have to do. The traffic was heavy and I arrived more than fashionably late, with just time to slide into a vacant seat in the back row before the music began.

THREE

T
he pianist was every bit as good as I'd been told. I only wished that some of my musical friends had been there to appreciate him, because it was clear that many of the present company did not. As soon as the first sonata finished, people left their seats and a babble of chatter broke out with a dammed-up rush that showed it was the main purpose of the event for some people. I was definitely underdressed. The recital was timed so that most people could go on to dinner afterwards. Women gleamed in silks and satins. Diamond pendants and earrings flashed light back to the chandeliers. Our hostess was a titled lady whose husband lived in the country, leaving her with the town house. Perhaps I should have gone over and thanked her for her hospitality, only I knew too much about her because she'd been on the fringes of an unhappy case of mine and she knew I knew. Assuredly, the invitation had not come from her. I accepted a cup of tea from a footman, perched myself on the end of a row of chairs and waited.

Almost at once a gentleman came and stood beside me. He was dressed in well-tailored but unshowy evening clothes, slim and tall. Not young, in his early forties perhaps. The dark hair over his forehead was touched with small flecks of grey like seafoam on waves. His eyes were brown and looked full of vitality. Something made me think he might be in the diplomatic service. He looked like a gentlemen who knew the world and was at home in it. Even before he spoke, I guessed that he wasn't English. Elegant Englishmen tend to be too pleased with themselves.

‘Are you enjoying the music, Miss Lane?'

His English was perfect, but it wasn't his native language. I could tell that, without being able to guess his origins, which annoyed me because I pride myself on a quick ear.

‘Very much.'

‘You didn't think he took the second movement a little too slowly?'

‘I think it might have been how Beethoven intended it, don't you?'

An inclination of his head, deferring to my opinion.

‘You'll excuse my speaking to you without an introduction, Miss Lane. I believe we have a mutual acquaintance.'

He was cautious in naming names, even his own it seemed.

‘Then you have the advantage of me,' I said.

He gave a fractional bow, nicely poised between politeness and irony. ‘Sebastian Clyde, at your service.'

As he straightened up, he looked me in the eye and smiled, defying me to comment. Sebastian might be true, but I did not for an instant believe in the oh-so-British Clyde.

‘Are you sure it isn't the river Avon?' I said. ‘Or perhaps the Mersey or Ouse?'

The lifting of one eyebrow implied that well-bred people did not comment on little matters like false names.

‘I met our mutual friend a few weeks ago in Stuttgart,' he said. ‘He said that you had behaved with great discretion in the matter of . . .'

And he mentioned a case of mine, known to only a very few people. Disraeli was one of the few, and his itinerary had included Stuttgart. Mr Clyde glanced towards the piano.

‘I see our maestro has not returned yet. There's somebody I should like to introduce to you, if you'd permit me.'

A group of men were standing near the piano, listening to somebody. There were seven or eight of them, ranging in age from twenty to eighty and every one of them was leaning his head with that unmistakeable indulgent air of a man listening to a pretty woman. As we came closer, the sound of their soft male chuckles filled the air, like a loft of pigeons on a summer afternoon. Mr Clyde managed to clear a path through them to the centre of attraction.

‘Contessa, may I present Miss Lane. Miss Lane, the Contessa D'Abbravilla.'

The eyes that met mine were some of the most beautiful I had ever seen, large, slanting slightly upwards at the corners and deep violet in colour. Once, travelling the Mediterranean with my father and brother, we'd looked down from the yacht into the sea-filled crater of an old volcano, hundreds of feet below us. The sea at its deepest point was exactly the colour of her eyes. That memory came to my mind while it was still registering annoyance at Mr Clyde. Being introduced is one thing, being presented as to royalty quite another.

‘I am so pleased to meet you, Miss Lane.'

My annoyance vanished at her open smile and the butterfly light touch of her white-gloved hand on my wrist. A polite nod would have met the case, particularly since we'd interrupted her, but she seemed as glad to see me as if I were an old friend. She spoke to me directly, apparently ignoring the men around her.

‘I was telling them how much better it would have been if Beethoven had put some singing into it. Don't you think all music should have singing in it, Miss Lane?' Instantly, without pausing for breath, she trilled off a few bars of Rosina's aria from
The Barber
, in a small but tuneful voice. The male cooing broke out again.

‘I'm sure Beethoven would have, if he'd heard you singing, Contessa,' the eighty-year-old said gallantly and was rewarded with a smile that rocked him on his feet.

She could afford to smile. Her little teeth were white and regular as a healthy child's. She was small in build, hardly coming up to Mr Clyde's shoulder, with tiny hands and feet. At first glance I'd taken her to be about my age, in her early twenties, but she was older by five years or so. Her dress was green silk, low in the bodice, embroidered with silver lilies of the valley. Another lily of the valley made of small diamonds set
tremblante
quivered in her dark curls when she moved her head. Before I was called on to take sides about putting arias in sonatas, a series of angry arpeggios sounded from the piano. Our hostess was standing at the keyboard, looking daggers at the contessa and our little group. Everybody else had resumed their seats.

‘If everybody is
quite
ready . . .'

Mr Clyde escorted me back to my seat. ‘I'd be grateful if I might have a word with you afterwards, Miss Lane.'

‘Certainly.'

The second sonata was as beautifully played as the first, but this time I didn't give it the concentration it deserved. I could take a guess at the case I was about to be offered. Even a few minutes in the company of the contessa were enough to see that she was a breaker of hearts. There might be no intent or malice about it, no more than a cat leaping after a bird. A cat can't help it – but the bird's destroyed for all that. Some man was making a fool of himself over the little contessa so his friends were trying to rescue him. If I'd guessed rightly about the diplomatic background of Mr Clyde, that man was highly placed. So what would they ask me to do? Discredit her, quite possibly. Find something in her past or present that would disgust the besotted young man. Perhaps he'd written compromising letters which I was supposed to buy or even steal back. Well, I could always say no. I'd promised myself that I'd never take on a case my conscience didn't approve, not for any money. I was disappointed in Mr Clyde, though. When he'd first come to stand beside me I'd felt that lifting of the spirits and quickening of the heart that comes at the start of an adventure. It's as strange as love and as difficult to describe, and yet it's the thing above all that keeps me in my strange career. This time, it looked as if my instinct had been wrong. At least I'd had the pleasure of a couple of sonatas for my trouble, so I might as well enjoy this one.

Only my mind drifted away again. Why was I more than half decided on indignant refusal? Had I liked the contessa on sight so much? Not entirely. Her musical views were preposterous. She'd been charming to me, but that might be another way of appealing to her male audience. A clever flirt never does anything without being conscious of its effect, even when she seems impulsive. Especially when she seems impulsive. I wouldn't trust her an inch but – yes, I had liked her. The last chord was dying away. People were applauding and chairs scraping back as the audience realized it was already past the time for carriages. Our hostess was at the door to say goodbye to her guests, towering over the small maestro as if she'd taken possession of him and the late Mr Beethoven as well. Mr Clyde stood at my side.

‘May I?

I nodded and he took the chair beside me, flipping back his coat tails.

‘So, what did you think of her, Miss Lane?'

‘A charming lady.'

‘Indeed. Is she a lady you might think of making your friend?'

‘I choose my friends according to my liking, not to order.'

‘A friend for as long as is necessary, perhaps.'

‘And I may have my own ideas on what is necessary.'

I was being annoying quite deliberately, to see how he reacted. His brown eyes registered interest, but no annoyance.

‘Necessary for her safety,' he said.

‘Is somebody threatening her, then?'

‘Not precisely, no. But she is set on a course of action that may have the most serious consequences for her and for many other people.'

I waited.

‘I must ask for an assurance that what I tell you will be treated in the utmost confidence,' he said.

‘I regard my clients' affairs as in confidence.'

‘I need more than that. Nothing that I'm to say to you from here on must be told to another person, under any circumstances.'

‘Very well. But I still have the right to refuse the case.'

‘Yes, though I sincerely hope you will not. Tell me, had you heard anything about the contessa before this evening?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Her father was a Prussian aristocrat, her mother from an ancient but impoverished Italian family. She married an Italian nobleman considerably older than she was. He died three years ago. There are no children.'

‘Was she terribly young when she married?'

‘Fifteen.'

‘Poor girl.'

‘She gained the title and a quite large amount of money.'

‘A reasonable bargain, then.'

He pretended not to notice my sarcasm.

‘After her husband's death, she took to travelling. Her parentage gave her access to many of the noble and even royal families of Europe. She's an accomplished lady and speaks several languages fluently, so she was usually sure of a welcome.'

A widow, even a young one, enjoys more freedom than an unmarried girl. It sounded as if the contessa had been making the most of it. I waited for him to tell me at what point of her progress the contessa had captivated the man who was the point of all this.

‘For some time, she lived in Dresden,' he said. ‘While she was there, she met and formed a close relationship with a gentleman attached to the household of Prince Ernest of Saxe Coburg.'

He looked at me, as if asking whether he needed to explain. I knew at least that Prince Ernest was heir to the German dukedom of Saxe Coburg. The entire country is about the size of an English county. One of my disrespectful republican friends had described it as a place so aristocratic that even the palace pigeons flew backwards to show respect. The Saxe Coburgs have managed to marry into all the royal families of Europe.

‘What was he doing in Dresden?' I said.

‘At his father's wish, Prince Ernest has been gaining military experience as a cavalry captain in the Saxon army. He has his own house in Dresden. Several of his friends from Saxe Coburg joined him there and two or three of them have accompanied him on his visit to England.'