Deadly Engagement: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (6 page)

Alec finally met Selina’s gaze. “And if I discover that in truth Jack was in love with Emily St. Neots?”

“We wouldn’t have come here today if we thought there was a grain of truth in what the newssheets say!” Lady Margaret said with contempt. She let down her veil and Alec opened the door for both ladies to go out of the room before him. “Mr. Halsey, my son was murdered; Selina and I know this as truth. I want you to find out why. I want to be able to sleep at night knowing my son did not lose his life over the bastard offspring of a fallen duchess and a-a stable hand! Jack was a
nobleman
, Mr. Halsey, not an adventurer.”

Alec was left alone with his thoughts, Wantage showing the ladies to the front door. But it was not many moments before the butler returned to the salon with Selina Jamison-Lewis in tow. He waited to be noticed by his master, who continued to scowl at the carpet, arms folded across his chest and sitting on the edge of a sofa back. But as he appeared deep in thought Wantage cleared his throat loudly and said, “Excuse me, sir, but Mrs. Jamison-Lewis has misplaced her reticule,” and stepped aside to allow the lady access to the room.

Alec looked about sharply and immediately felt his face grow hot. He had been thinking over Lady Margaret’s startling accusation of murder against his brother when uninvited thoughts of Selina had intruded into these musings: The blackness of mourning suited her. She appeared almost ethereal with her skin so blinding white against the depths of black crepe. But had her eyes always been so dark or perhaps mourning black made them appear so? She attributed her unusually dark eyes to a Spanish ancestor, one Mauricio Del Medico, physician to Philippe of Spain who had settled in England when his master married Queen Mary. Dark eyes that regarded him as if he had something to answer for when it was she who had accepted an arranged marriage with Jamison-Lewis rather than defy her parents’ wishes and run away with him to be married in Scotland. God, he wished he’d never bumped into her on the stair at St. Neots House! In fact, he wished he’d not gone there at all. He’d made a damned fool of himself. As for his drunken behavior afterwards, he wished he could remember the half of it…

“I would like a word in private, Mr. Halsey,” Selina stated in her clear strong voice, regaining possession of her reticule that she had conveniently stuffed behind a sofa cushion. She watched Alec nod to the butler, who reluctantly took himself off, and waited for the door to be closed on the lingering servant’s back. She took a breath, slightly disconcerted by Alec’s blank look. “I want to reassure you that my aunt’s grief has not clouded her judgment. She has every right to think Jack was murdered, and that the duel had little to do with Emily St. Neots.”

“Why do you think they fought a duel, Madam?”

“I?” asked Selina, slightly taken aback by his bluntness. She chose her words carefully. “It was not in Jack’s nature to fight a friend, particularly not over a woman. If Emily was the cause of the duel, it was at Delvin’s instigation. Although, it is my belief Emily is being used as the excuse to cover a more sinister intent. As to that, I have not the slightest idea.”

“I’m sorry about Jack. He was a good fellow.”

Selina nodded, a curious lump in her throat. She wanted to cry, instead she kept tight reign on her emotions and said dully, “Yes. He is greatly missed.”

“A double blow for you?”

Selina mentally winced. “Jack’s death has given purpose to my mourning, Mr. Halsey,” she stated flatly. “Please excuse me. My aunt must not be kept waiting.”

“You think my brother capable of murder, Mrs. Jamison-Lewis?”

This time Selina visibly cringed. She hated the way he emphasized her married name with a sneer. It made her give an unguarded response. “Yes. Delvin is a thief, a liar and a cheat, so why not a murderer?”

“Such harsh words, Madam. And for a gentleman who was great friends with your late husband.”

“Then you must allow me to be the better judge of his character,” she answered frankly and started for the door.

Alec put himself between her and the door. “Yet, you have lent your support to this marriage between Delvin and Miss St. Neots?”

Anger fired Selina’s dark eyes. “You presume too much, Mr. Halsey. I did not visit St. Neots House that day to offer up my congratulations!”

“Then you will speak to her about Delvin?” he asked eagerly. “Try and dissuade her from the match?”

Selina shook her head, anger giving way to sadness. Here was proof that he did indeed love Emily St. Neots. At the mention of Emily his handsome angular face lost its harsh lines, his mouth softened, and a light came into his deep blue eyes, eyes that had once looked on her lovingly and now regarded her with little more than contempt. She had trained herself not to think of the past. Six years had come and gone; too long to sustain hope and long enough for him to fall in love with someone else. She should not have been at all surprised. Yet, the unexpected death of Jamison-Lewis had sparked a glimmer of hope, and her encounter with Alec on the stairs of St. Neots House had renewed a physical ache she had long suppressed. And now, looking up at him, his eyes full of expectation, even this small sliver of hope was silently extinguished. She felt foolish and utterly wretched.

“Please open the door, Mr. Halsey,” she stated, eyes leveled at the engraved buttons of his flowered waistcoat.

“You must speak to her!”

“No. That is impossible,” she answered, a gloved hand outstretched for the brass doorknob.

He caught at her hand and brought her closer to him, the crush of her many layered petticoats the only barrier between them. “Why? Why is it not possible?” he demanded. “Miss St. Neots will listen to you.”

“No. She will not listen to anyone,” Selina answered flatly, although the nearness of him was fast suffocating her senses. “Please. Let me go.”

“You want to see her married to a man you call a cheat and a liar, whom you and your aunt have accused of murder?” he demanded angrily, head bent over her, a curl of coal-black hair falling into his eyes, his mouth almost brushing her forehead. “You want her to wake up one morning to find herself married to such a man all because you chose unwisely—”

“How dare you! How
dare
you feel sorry for yourself at
my
expense!” Selina enunciated through gritted teeth, and with a mighty shove threw him off so that he staggered backwards and she fell, back up against the door, breathless and seething with anger. “Do you have concern for no one but yourself? If you tried that rough treatment on Emily to get her to change her mind I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she never wishes to set eyes on you again! Lord! You step back into her life after an absence of eight months and expect her to fall into your arms because you wish it?”

“So you’re in favor of her marriage to Delvin?”

Selina sighed in exasperation. “What does my endorsement matter?” But when Alec held her gaze, mouth shut hard, she knew he would persist until he had an answer. “No, of course I’m not,” she replied calmly. “He is everything I declared him to be and more. And… He is not in love with her; it could never be a happy union.”

“Then she must be told. She must be made to see what sort of man she is about to marry!”

“No.”

Alec was all haughty incredulity. “No, Madam?”

“Don’t you understand? Emily does not see the true Delvin because he has not allowed her to see anything but a polished, mannered nobleman of wealth and family. That is the being Emily fell in love with.” When Alec’s brow creased, she smiled wanly. “Emily has fallen in love with your brother. That is why I cannot say a word against him.”

Alec was incredulous. “She is in love with him?
In love
with Delvin?” He wiped his mouth as if he had eaten something distasteful.

“To show your opposition to the match, for me to voice doubts about Delvin, will only strengthen her resolve to marry your brother.”

Alec looked away to the draped window seat with its view of the inner courtyard of St. James’s Place, but not before Selina saw the abject hurt in his face. It made her feel hollow inside. After a moment he opened the door and spoke as if addressing a stranger, “Thank you for your advice, Madam. I appreciate that you offer it in the spirit of wanting what is best for Emily.”

“Indeed, Mr. Halsey,” Selina replied flatly, yet her dark eyes were wet and bright. “There is nothing more soul destroying than having one’s hopes and dreams shattered by the one you love.”

When the porter called Wantage from his pantry the butler was about to give the man a piece of his early-morning mind until he saw whom it was standing in the hallway. The Duchess of Romney-St. Neots dumped her cloak, bonnet and muff on a sleepy footman, straightened her upswept, powdered hair in front of a gilded looking glass and demanded to see the master of the house.

Wantage was extremely apologetic. He was unable to oblige. Mr. Halsey had left the house two hours earlier. He did not say when he would return. Perhaps her Grace would care to leave her card and come back in the afternoon?

She did not care to do such a thing! She would wait. And if there was any hot chocolate in the house Wantage could bring it to her in the drawing room overlooking the park. And he could send Mr. Halsey’s valet to her.

The butler did not hesitate to do as he was told.

Alec spent the early morning at M’sieur Poisson’s fencing academy; the renowned fencing master had rooms in Curzon Street. M’sieur was interested to discover what his pupil had learned at the celebrated
Salle d’escrime
in Paris. Alec had gone there several times in the company of the Duc de le Tournelle’s youngest son, who had gained him entry for the favor of a word in the English Ambassador’s ear.

The hour passed too quickly for both. Regretfully M’sieur could not allot Alec any more time that day. Soon the rooms would fill with young gentlemen who made a habit of frequenting Poisson’s academy because it was the fashionable thing to do before going off to the club or the coffeehouse.

These sprigs of fashion had no intention of working up a sweat. They came fully coiffured and in their best silks; to learn a few fancy steps, to perfect their deportment, and to impress one another with the latest technique of parry and thrust. Half-hearted fencers themselves, they were avid spectators of the serious fencer who went through his paces with M’sieur.

Poisson confided to Alec that it was truly a waste of a good fencing master’s time to bother with these silly younger sons of English noblemen, but as he over-charged them and they were prepared to pay such an exorbitant fee he, Poisson, could not very well turn them away. No. He would fawn over them, lavish compliments upon them, and spend his time conducting lessons in placement, even though it gave him excruciating ennui.

Poisson helped shrug Alec into his frockcoat, saying with a grin, “In Paris, you visited Mme Sophie, yes? Did I not say that in all of Paris she keeps the best cathouse? Me, I cannot speak of it personally, but the Chevalier d’Fragnoré, he did not brag, no?”

“He did not brag.”

M’sieur clapped his hands, well satisfied. “Good! Fencing and women, they are the same, are they not? Both require technique and a certain—how you say?—finesse. Yes!” He kissed the tips of his fingers and bowed with an exaggerated flourish. “Good-day, M’sieur Halsey.”

Alec returned the salutation, turned to leave, and was confronted with a group of chattering young men crowding in through the door that opened on to the stairwell. He stepped aside to let them pass. There were at least a dozen of them. All young men of good family with too much time and money on their hands than was good for them, and with pretensions to being a la mode. They were twittering away, laughing to one another over silly nothings; powdered, patched, and enveloped in a heady cloud of perfume.

In the commotion of arrival, Alec slipped behind them and out on to the landing only to come face to face with two of their number stopped on the top step. The narrowness of the stairwell prevented him from passing without interrupting what seemed a barely controlled argument. He coughed into his closed fist to warn them of his presence, but they did not notice him.

“Now what are you going to do?” demanded the one facing Alec, his padded shoulder up against the wall. His powdered toupee rose a ridiculous eight inches above his forehead and complimented the affected nasal voice.

“I’ve got to have time to think it out. God, James, I still can’t believe Belsay’s
dead
. What am I going to do?”

Alec knew at once to whom this second voice belonged and was surprised. It was Simon Tremarton, a colleague in the Foreign Department. He had recently shared a posting in Paris with Simon and before that they had been at The Hague together. Simon was to have had dinner with him before leaving Paris but had pulled out at the last moment saying he needed to return to London early on account of his mother’s ill health. Alec wondered what a man who needed to work for a living and who could ill afford to waste time or his hard-earned guineas was doing in company with these sprigs of fashion who had nothing better to do with their lives than waste time in frivolous pursuits.