Deadly Engagement: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (33 page)

“And if he doesn’t?”

Selina kissed her forehead and hugged her. “Oh, I am sure he loves you in his way, dearest Emily. But ask yourself this,” she whispered in her ear, for Peeble had come to stand beside Evans in the doorway, “are you prepared to share him?”

“Poor lost lamb,” Evans said with a heavy sigh when the door had shut on Peeble’s back, yet subconsciously she was humming a tune and walked as if on air. “Forced to marry that philanderer I shouldn’t wonder.”

“No, you shouldn’t wonder,” said Selina, giving her a suspicious sidelong glance as she went through to the bedchamber. “It’s behind the smaller of the three cushions,” she called out. “And it needs refilling!” She heard the maid grumble under her breath and smiled to herself as she began to undress behind the ornately carved dressing screen in the corner of the room. Evans soon joined her and by the look on her face she was going to be difficult about the flask so Selina held her tongue until she was made ready for bed. “I didn’t dance, if you were wondering about that,” she said, another glance at Evans who was folding Selina’s stockings with a light touch and small smile on her usually prim mouth. “But I didn’t behave myself either.” Which had the maid fast on her heels, face full of expectation as Selina crossed to the small table under the window. “I know you are only thinking of my mental health but it is no use hiding the account books from me. I need to check an entry. It’s been bothering me all evening. Evans?”

“I know, my lady,” Evans confessed almost with a squeak of excitement. “We saw you together, through the window.”

Selina brought her head up out of one of the drawers of the tallboy and frowned. “Saw us? Through the window? We? Dear me!” She turned away with a telltale blush. “Have—have you put the account books in one of the trunks?”

Evans regarded her with a silly sentimental smile. “Miss Peeble and I stole a look in at the ballroom from the gallery just as the final dance was coming to a close. We were on our way to the roof with the other upper servants to view the skyrockets. Such a spectacle! I’ve never seen the like before.”

Selina closed the lid of the traveling trunk. “Was it a spectacle? I—I missed it I’m afraid. Do tell me where you’ve stashed the ledgers, Mary.”

Evans looked across at Selina standing in her white chemise and bare feet with her hair down her back and thought her so absurdly youthful that it brought a lump to her throat. She could barely keep herself from throwing her arms around the girl with joy; instead she sniffed and said stridently, “If you know what’s good for you, my lady, you won’t let him go a second time!”

Selina suppressed a smile. “Your advice is noted, Evans. Now where did you put the ledgers?”

“Ledgers? They were on the table there when I left to view the skyrockets,” said Evans, who went over to the table and put a hand on the spot where she had last seen the three account books, as if physical contact with the wooden surface would satisfy her that the books had indeed vanished. “I remember it precisely because I thought about putting them out of the way but then Miss Peeble arrived.”

Selina sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. “But how did he find the time to steal the ledgers if he was on the terrace with Emily and the hordes watching the fireworks…?” she wondered to herself and looked across at Evans. “You didn’t embark on a cleaning crusade today and annoy the chambermaids to remake the bed, did you?”

Evans was affronted. “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

Selina smiled and hopped off the bed so she could push aside the pillows that rested against the carved headboard. “Then may I beg your pardon, Evans.” She tossed her long curls back over a shoulder and reached a hand down into the tight space between the mattress and the headboard, and with an effort extracted a thick parcel wrapped in a pillowcase. This she placed on the coverlet. From within the pillowcase she removed one of the three ledgers that had been left on the table. “He thinks he’s been very clever but thankfully I’ve outsmarted him,” she said with a deep sigh of satisfaction. “Tomorrow I mean to prove it.” She placed the ledger under the covers and climbed into the bed. “Evans, you may think what you like but
M’sieur Livre de Comptes
and I are spending the night together. And in the morning we will need an hour undisturbed. Good night.”

Evans said nothing. Privately she was of the opinion that the sooner her dear girl remarried the sooner her head could be cleared of this obsession for mathematical nonsense. She extinguished the candle and went out, making a mental note to refill the silver flask with lemon water.

“Mayhap I will take up your offer of a few weeks in the wilds of the Mendips,” Sir Cosmo said gloomily upon entering Selina’s small sitting room off the bedchamber. He saw the tray of breakfast things and was about to make his way to the chaise longue by the fire but Selina had disappeared into the bedchamber and called him to come through. He did so gingerly, aware that the ever present Evans must be lurking about in a cupboard and it wouldn’t do to be discovered in her mistress’s bedchamber. Attending an open toilette with hovering maids and visitors while madam sat at her dressing table being coiffured was one thing but to be alone in a lady’s bedchamber with her clad only in chemise and dressing gown, and, he stifled a gasp, bare feet, was being a mite too familiar. Still, he obeyed and came to stand by Selina at the small table by the window. “Gorges and waterfalls and limestone,” he added and shuddered, still feeling seedy after the night before. “But thankfully there won’t be any dead bodies to stumble upon…”

Selina had collected the ledger from the bed where she had left it under a pillow and opened it out on the small table by the window. “He didn’t manage to say anything to you, did he?” she asked casually, flicking through pages filled with rows and rows of figures entered in neat heavy handwriting.

Sir Cosmo shook his head, peering over her shoulder. “Nothing. In shock I’d say. Hole in his side and bleeding all over the place.”

She frowned thoughtfully. “Shame. Simon Tremarton was an opportunistic weasel but he didn’t deserve a violent end.” She pulled Sir Cosmo by his silk sleeve so that he stood beside her and pointed to a series of scrawled notations made in the left hand margin. “See these. They’ve been bothering me. For most of the payments the amounts vary, which you’d expect for items such as food, wax, coal and what-not, but two payments are constant in timing and amount. And what is even more puzzling is that all in-coming monies are notated with the letters GC and correspond to an identical amount taken from the estate ledger but not noted. I’m surprised Andrews never inquired; but perhaps he did and J-L fobbed him off…?

“The regular monthly outgoings are also notated, but one is more puzzling than the other. The first is marked LJG; the second is simply marked with the letter D. The first I have no idea to whom or what but I can make a very good guess as to the second.”

Sir Cosmo, who had no head for figures, had no idea what she was talking about. “Spoken to J-L’s man of business about it?”

“Andrews?” Selina was scornful. “He had no idea this ledger existed. Seems J-L was withdrawing substantial sums of money from the estate and placing the lot into this account. Well, he was so wealthy he could afford to siphon off bags of money without it really impacting on our day-to-day lives, couldn’t he? I guess that’s why Andrews never made a fuss.” Selina flicked through a few pages and stopped at a month at random. “See. The same occurs for March and for April and May. The money J-L was depositing into this account is clearly written, as are the usual expenses for food, coal and so on, but I have no idea why he felt he needed to channel it into this secret account. And who or what was getting the monthly wad of bills?”

“How did you come by this ledger if Andrews knew nothing about it?”

Selina closed the account book. “It was lying open on J-L’s desk the morning he was found in the wood.”

Sir Cosmo’s mouth dropped into a frown. “Odd.”

“Odd?”

“Odd that he should leave open on his desk a ledger he obviously kept secret from his man of business and then go out to shoot. You think he would’ve secured it before heading off.”

“He may have intended coming back to it. It wasn’t Andrews’ day. No one else was likely to enter the study. Maybe he went to the wood to clear his mind before returning to finish up the figure work?”

Sir Cosmo rubbed his clean-shaven chin. He wasn’t convinced. “Clear his mind? He blew his head off, my dear girl. Why have the ledger open at all? More important to leave a note behind than try to balance the books before you’re about to shoot yourself in the temple!”

“I wonder what the letters GC stand for?” Selina muttered, ignoring her friend’s incredulity. “This ledger had nothing to do with his racing interests or his gambling or payment of IOUs made at his club. Andrews saw to those and I checked the accounts. They are all correctly accounted for. But studying this ledger one would almost presume J-L to be running a quite separate and secret establishment, as if he kept a mistress. But we know that not to be the case so—”

“There is the Ganymede Club,” Sir Cosmo suggested lightly. “The initials fit.” When Selina stared at him uncomprehendingly he gulped. “Ah. Don’t know about that then?” He drew a deep breath. Why was it left to him to dredge up the muck? First Alec about J-L and now Selina about her husband’s sordid other life. He cursed his ability to get himself into such tight corners. He tucked his chin in the high collar of his striped silk banyan and said in a clipped voice, “Male brothel above an apothecary’s shop in Fleet Street. Tremarton was an habitué; so it seems was Jack. Can’t think why any self-respecting gentleman would be interested in young boys—”

“Young
boys
?” The word was wrenched from her.

Sir Cosmo put up his hands. “No! No! Not boys. No. Youths.
Young men
.”

“Boys? Youths? Young men? That makes a difference?” Selina answered in an anguished whisper. She leaned against the table and looked so white Sir Cosmo wondered if she was about to faint. Yet, her voice did not waver as she held tight to the table top, gaze fixed on her friend’s face. “You knew about this male brothel, this Ganymede Club?”

“I’ve only just found out about the place, m’self,” explained Sir Cosmo, following her into the sitting room. “Believe me, Selina. Had I known—”

“Had you known, what then, Cosmo?” Selina asked angrily and tossed the ledger on the chaise and sat down heavily beside it. “You’d have ignored its very existence as everyone ignored Jack’s homosexuality and J-L’s wife beating? As long as the Honorable George Jamison-Lewis played at being Duke’s grandson in public, frequented White’s and Newmarket as good fellow well-met, presented his wife in drawing rooms and at balls with her bruising carefully concealed, what he did in private was best not thought about?” She ran cold hands over her face, her throat so dry it hurt to swallow. “Did no one confront him about this Ganymede Club?”

Sir Cosmo hunched his padded shoulders and could not look at her. “One must presume not. I had no idea of the club’s existence until yesterday. And obviously those who did were clients. We are all guilty of hypocrisy, Selina. Some of us probably wouldn’t have believed it of George had he proclaimed it to the world. Not the sort of thing one wants to believe of a man who belongs to your club.” He sighed and shifted the ledger onto the table with the breakfast things so he could sit beside her. “Forgive me, my dear, for not rescuing you… For not being man enough to stand up to George… For—”

“For God’s sake, Cosmo!” she demanded impatiently to hide her embarrassment at his look of total contrition. “There was nothing you could’ve done! You know as well as I that wife beating is a tolerated prerogative of a husband. Besides, George would’ve killed you. He was without conscience and for you to step in and do the manly thing would’ve served no purpose. I’d have lost one of my dearest friends, that’s all! As it is we have lost Jack and that’s almost too much for both of us to bear. Here,” she said thrusting the chocolate pot at him, “be useful and pour us both a mug while I take another look at these ledger entries.” She balanced the book on her knees. “If we assume you are right about the GC denoting the Ganymede Club then it looks to me as if J-L was running the place as his own private male brothel. And quite an expensive establishment to run by the amounts deposited into this account. But what I don’t understand is the notated outgoings…?”

“Must have cost a bit to run such an establishment,” Sir Cosmo suggested meekly as he handed her a full mug. And then he had a flash of brilliance and hurriedly gulped down a mouthful of warm chocolate. “And when you think about it, brothels can only keep their doors open through the unspoken cooperation of the local authorities: paying off shopkeepers, the beadles and the parish magistrate. They’d all put their hands out for a share of the profits to keep their eyes and ears shut to the carryings-on of the nobility.”

Selina was not at all surprised. Her eyes narrowed. “Then it is very likely that the letter D does stand for Delvin—”

“Delvin?
What
?” Sir Cosmo’s mind boggled at the thought. “Egad, Selina! Delvin wouldn’t go within ten feet of a male brothel!”