Performing the steps of the dance, I managed a slight bow. “True. But I would not have a beautiful lady plagued by problems.”
She lowered her voice. “The whole of London will have heard of Fairingdale’s effrontery by morning. I hope you know with a certainty that Miss Ashton didn’t add that poison to Lady Wrayburn’s glass of milk, because, depend upon it, your very reputation is at stake after this evening’s altercation.”
“Yes, it is,” I said simply. “But an innocent young woman’s character was called into question. What else could I do?”
Lady Salisbury gave a little shake of her head. “I suppose I should be glad you did not challenge that fop Fairingdale to a duel.”
“Oh, that would not be sportsmanlike. I believe I would have the advantage of a clear shot, while Mr. Fairingdale would be forced to look down the barrel of his gun through the added length of his nose.”
“Be careful nonetheless,” the marchioness cautioned. “By the way, I need an escort to the opera Wednesday night. James can’t abide all the ‘screeching’ as he calls it. I know he’d take me if I pressed him, but I’d rather not. Besides, it’ll do me good to be seen on the arm of a handsome Beau like you.”
“I beg to disagree, my lady. It can only bolster
my
reputation to be seen on
your
arm.”
“Just so,” the clever marchioness concurred.
The dance ended and we parted on the best of terms. The strains of the contradanse began, and I located Lady Penelope. The shy miss gave me her hand and amidst much whispering behind fans, I escorted her to the dance floor. It seemed I could do nothing without becoming the subject of conjecture.
Lady Penelope danced gracefully, I thought, and though rather plain in countenance, she had expressive eyes. I was soon distracted from them, however, by her recurrent sniffing.
After a few moments of pleasantries, punctuated by her sniffing, I came to a decision. “Lady Penelope, allow me to offer you my handkerchief.”
She blushed at that, but accepted the initialed square of linen. I gazed at her kindly, and in the manner of one waiting an explanation.
“I—I, well, you see, in the spring and autumn I find there is something in the air which causes me to ... oh, I am so embarrassed,” she confessed, her head down.
“You must look up, Lady Penelope, or you will miss your steps,” I warned. “And as to your difficulty, it is a common enough complaint. May I suggest you have your Mama ask
Dr. Profitt to visit you? I am speaking to you now as a brother might, so you must not take offense.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Brummell! I shan’t be offended,” she said, meeting my gaze. “I have spoken to Mama about the problem, but she says it is of no consequence. I disagree, but have not been able to talk to anyone else about it. You have made it easy for me to speak.”
“Good! For your nose is delightfully formed and does not show to advantage when pink. Why, come to think of it, I cannot imagine anyone’s who does,” I teased.
Lady Penelope’s eyes shone. “You are the best of men, sir. I shall insist Mama send for Dr. Profitt. If she refuses, I shall tell her
you
said I was to do so. She can hardly argue with that.”
We danced in silence for a moment or two, then Lady Penelope boldly said, “And if I were you, Mr. Brummell, I would not let Mr. Fairingdale’s words bother me one whit.”
I raised an inquiring brow.
“He is an odious man,” Lady Penelope whispered with passion. “I should not be the least surprised to learn that he is the one who poisoned Lady Wrayburn. Mama says he and the countess quarreled frequently.”
“One wonders about what.” I let the words drop expectantly and was not disappointed.
“I suspect money,” Lady Penelope said in a confiding manner. “Lady Wrayburn did not approve of the money
Mr. Fairingdale spends on his clothing. Mama said the countess often remarked that her nephew was no better than a tailor’s dummy. I think she wanted him to leave Wrayburn House.”
“Hmmm,” I murmured noncommittally, remembering the letter on Lady Wrayburn’s desk. I wanted to know more, but Lady Penelope showed alarming signs of a growing hero-worship toward me, and I did not wish to encourage her.
I was in a thoughtful mood when I returned her to her smiling mama. Because I had danced with her, Lady Penelope was shortly surrounded by beaux eager to take a turn around the room with her. Pleased, I finally took my leave of the party.
Fog covered the London streets in a thick, yellowish haze. The polemen carried my sedan-chair through it to Bruton Street at a slower pace than usual.
Once I arrived home, I stripped off my gloves in the candlelit hallway. The polemen stored my chair in a large storage closet beneath the stairs and then left. Where was Robinson? He normally greeted me upon my return home in the evenings.
I heard a noise from his room at the back of the hall, and shortly thereafter the man himself walked toward me. Was his gait a trifle unsteady?
“Did you have a good evening, thur?”
Thur? “Have you been drinking, Robinson?”
“Only enough to rid my throat of all the barnyard dust,” he declared loftily.
“Barnyard? Dust? Have you run mad?”
“No, thur. Have you not noticed that our elegant home hath turned into a common barnyard overrun with animals and country bumpkins?”
He swayed a bit. I fixed him with an impatient look. “I hardly think one cat and two farm boys qualify as ‘overrun.’ Did Ned and Ted get settled?”
Robinson curled his lip. “They are upstairs in the attic, exhausted after their baths. I had to th-thtop them from bathing out back in the mews for all to see. The one who rambles on like a Bedlamite—Ned, I think—told me a story about the last time they bathed. Apparently it was the first warm day last summer and they just splashed themselves clean at the pump out in the back of their house.”
“Good God!”
“‘Zactly! I made them wait until Andre had left for the evening before allowing them to bathe in the kitchen. The chef would have given notice, without a doubt, if he knew his spotless kitchen was being used to wash pig manure off two yokels fresh from the farm cart.” Robinson ended this speech with a loud hiccup.
“Is that when you started drinking?”
“No, thur. I had a few glasses of your brandy after I finished ridding the chair in your bedchamber of cat hairs. Fourteen of them. Shall we go upstairs so I can help you prepare for bed?” he inquired with the sort of dignity common to those who have imbibed heavily.
Taking note of how the valet teetered, I said, “That is not necessary. I shall put myself to bed tonight.”
“Very good, thur,” Robinson said. “Oh, and His Royal Highness, The Prince of Fur was reclining on your bed the last time I looked. Have a care not to disturb him,” he advised mockingly.
I watched Robinson weave his way down the hall, and waited until his door closed before blowing out the flames of the branch of candles on the hall table and picking up a single taper to light my way to my room.
I climbed the stairs and entered my bedchamber. The room was dark and I lit the candle by my bedside, the one on my washstand, and another on the crescent-shaped side table near the window. That is when I noticed a black lacquered screen had been set up in a corner.
“Reow,” Chakkri said conversationally from where he lay sprawled across my bed. He stood up and stretched, his right front paw reaching out toward me.
“Hello, Chakkri. What is this screen doing here, I wonder?” I walked behind it and found the answer. A porcelain serving tray about two feet long, one and half feet wide and three inches deep was filled with sand for Chakkri’s use and set discreetly on the floor.
As I stood there, the cat came over and demonstrated how the object worked. When his dainty paws scratched the sand to cover a damp spot, my eyes widened.
At first I had not recognized the porcelain tray, but now I remembered. It had been given to me during the last Season by a member of the merchant class. He hoped to gain my approval of his daughter and heighten the chances of her making an aristocratic match.
He had had the tray specially made. It was a cream color, with gold trim around the sides. Not so very unusual. But, in the exact center, where Chakkri had done his scratching, the artist had painted a detailed likeness of yours truly complete with tall beaver hat, perfectly tied cravat, and raised quizzing glass.
I chuckled mirthlessly at Robinson’s sense of humor. Or was it his sense of retaliation?
Chakkri finished his task, and we walked around the screen.
“A fine night’s work this has been, old boy,” I said, pulling my nightclothes from the wardrobe and laying them across the high-back upholstered chair by the hearth. The linen garments were scented with Floris’s bergamot soap, a small luxury Robinson sees to. I inspected them for flaws.
Chakkri jumped up onto the chair, twitching his long brown tail and watching me with his blue eyes. I pulled off my coat by the warmth of the fire. “I have managed to entangle myself in a bumblebroth, my feline friend. After tonight’s doings, everyone knows I believe Miss Ashton innocent of Lady Wrayburn’s murder. I should have done better for my investigation to remain silent. Devil take it, I still have not ruled Miss Ashton out completely. I refuse to rule
anyone
out as a suspect. Yet, I stood up like a booberkin and defended her publicly, putting my reputation at stake.”
“Reow,” Chakkri murmured.
Once clad in my nightclothes, I was chilly. I wrapped my old dressing gown around me, poured myself a brandy, and went to sit in the chair by the fire.
It was already occupied.
“Look here, old boy, this is one of my favorite chairs. You will have to get down. Curl up in front of the fire.”
Chakkri eased down from the chair. I settled myself, the brandy in easy reach on a small table next to me.
Without warning, the cat jumped in my lap, laid down, and started to purr.
What could I do, I ask you? I reached out tentatively and stroked his incredibly soft fur.
“My reputation is what enables me to live, Chakkri. Yes, my father left me a goodly sum, but not enough for my tastes or position in Society. He was secretary to Lord North, you know, the gentleman whose portrait hangs downstairs in the bookroom.”
Chakkri purred harder.
“Growing up, I met influential people, ultimately the Prince of Wales, and developed a love of fine things. My father had lofty ambitions for me. Despite everything, I never quite believed I lived up to his expectations. Sometimes I feel that he speaks by way of a little voice inside my head telling me I can do better, strive harder, achieve more.”
A moment of silence passed.
“Do not forget, that should I fall from favor, my credit with the merchants will be cut off without delay. No more Sèvres porcelain, no more coats from Weston, no more matelote shrimp,” I ended, eyeing the cat sternly.
Chakkri placed a sympathetic paw on my hand and gazed up at me in concern.
“The only thing for it is to prove Miss Ashton did not commit the crime. Heaven knows, we have plenty of other candidates for the title of Murderess ... or Murderer. Even that fop, Fairingdale, had plenty of motives. I must find out more about him. Has he been totally dependent on Lady Wrayburn for his financial needs? Was he home the night of the murder and therefore able to nip downstairs and poison the milk while Miss Ashton was in her room? If he has been an inmate of Wrayburn House for any length of time at all, he must have known the nightly routine. Although the same could be said for anyone in that house, and it seems to me they all had reason to see the old lady dead. Dash it all! Who did it?”
“Reow!” Chakkri said. He abruptly leaped from my lap and crossed to the crescent-shaped side table by the window. He rose to the surface where the candle burned and where my prized Sèvres tortoise-shell plate rested. I tensed.
The cat walked carefully around the candle and sat in a compact bundle in front of the plate. His dark brown nose sniffed hungrily at the parrot painted in the center. Then he centered his attention on the wide bands of tortoise-shell ringing the plate. A slender paw tapped on the tortoise-shell surface and the cat turned to stare at me.
“What are you doing? What is it that interests you about that plate? Get down from there before your tail knocks the candle down and we all burn to death!”
Chakkri glared at me but obeyed the command.
I finished my brandy, blew out the candles, and opened the door to the bedchamber. “Come along. It is time for me to go to bed. Go downstairs to the kitchen and sleep.”
The cat did not move. Grumbling, I picked him up, deposited him in the hall and closed the door.
Then it hit me. Good God, had I really been sitting there conversing with a cat? What would the
Beau Monde
think if they knew that?
I walked over to the bed and pulled back the coverlet. A furious banging came from the door. Ignoring it, I removed my dressing gown, climbed between lavender-scented sheets, and laid my head upon a down-filled pillow.
“Reeeooowww!!!” Chakkri shrieked.
I sat up in bed, my heart pounding in my chest.
Muttering curses, and hoping the cat had not roused Robinson or the twins, I threw back the bedclothes and shuffled to the door. “What do you want?” I demanded.
Repeating his earlier performance of hopping over the threshold of the doorway rather than merely walking across it, Chakkri moved sinuously past me and leaped onto the bed. He curled into a perfect circle and fell into a guiltless sleep.
I heaved a weary sigh and slid in next to him. And to think, prior to a few days ago, my only problem was staving off boredom.
Chapter Twelve
Through no fault of my own, I awoke much earlier than is my custom the next morning. In fact, it was all Chakkri’s idea.
A tickling of whiskers on my face was the opening volley. This was followed by the weight of a cat walking across my back. Finally, a loud “Reow!” brought me reluctantly to consciousness.
Chakkri was hungry.
“Go back to sleep, old boy,” I mumbled.