Most Eagerly Yours (10 page)

“Don’t tell me you find the task distasteful?” he asked. He fervently hoped not, for here had arisen an unexpected opportunity to discover more about the mysterious widow. Playing the domestic spy with his mother’s dearest friend probably didn’t constitute the most honorable of tactics, but in the interest of national security, or so he told himself, he must seize whatever advantages came his way.

“Indeed not,” she quickly replied. “Laurel Sanderson is a lovely woman. It is just that Beatrice introduced her to Lord Munster and . . . oh, I hope you will not be vexed with me, but . . .”

“Yes?”

She pursed her lips. “I know he is your friend, Aidan, but even you must admit that George Fitzclarence’s attentions are not entirely suitable for respectable young ladies.”

“It is only a dance, Melinda. I am sure no harm will come of it.”

But as they trailed Fitz and Mrs. Sanderson onto the dance floor, a trace of the young widow’s perfume left him with a sense, stronger than ever, that the situation was not as it should be.

 

Laurel carefully schooled her gaze to avoid Lord Barensforth as she hurried past him on the Earl of Munster’s arm.

Oh, but she couldn’t help comparing the two men. Where Aidan Phillips was tall, elegant, and well-defined, George Fitzclarence sagged and bulged and slouched. Why, his stomach threatened at any moment to pop his waistcoat buttons.

Even his large Hanover eyes and rounded chin, which Laurel had always found charming in Victoria, failed to provide any benefit at all to his masculine visage and in fact lent him the aspect of a very large housefly.

And while Lord Barensforth’s wit sprang razor sharp from his tongue, Lord Munster’s speech was labored and halting. Not that that mightn’t lend him a certain tender charm, if only his discourse exhibited more brains than bosh.

It wasn’t kind of her, singling out his faults, and she never would have done so if not for the presumptuous way he had planted himself at her side once his sister made the introductions, or how unceremoniously he had placed her hand in the crook of his arm even before she had finished voicing her consent to dance with him.

Odd, but while Lord Barensforth’s actions on the terrace had left her unsettled and out of sorts, his forwardness hadn’t irked her nearly so much as this man’s. And, oh, the whiskey on his breath!

“Another w-waltz, madam. How fortuitous.” A smugness in Lord Munster’s tone suggested he might have influenced the orchestra’s selection, and Laurel suddenly understood the significance of his having quietly addressed an attendant in the octagon room. “Just the opportunity to become b-better acquainted, my d-dear Mrs. Sanderson.”

His heel caught the edge of her satin slipper, pinning her smallest toe, yet, apparently oblivious, his lordship continued reeling her about in an awkward, halting pattern that produced a concerning queasiness in the pit of her belly. This time, however, she credited not her tendency to lead but Lord Munster’s tipsiness as the root of the problem. He, however, continued unperturbed, or perhaps he believed the occasional lump beneath his foot to be the product of an uneven floor.

Her discomfiture only increased when Lord Barensforth entered the dance floor holding not a young debutante in his arms, but the Countess of Fairmont. She remembered him mentioning that he knew the countess, but Laurel would not have guessed he knew her well enough to be grinning down at her with such fondness, as he was presently doing.

Judging by the reciprocal delight in Lady Fairmont’s eyes, the two of them shared something rather more
en privé
than a casual acquaintance.

Laurel ignored yet another assault on her foot as she pondered the nature of their connection. Together they negotiated the crowded dance floor without ever missing a step. They seemed . . . how had he termed it on the terrace?

Well synchronized.

A scandalous notion lashed Laurel’s nerve endings. Could Lord Barensforth and Lady Fairmont be lovers?

Like the blast of a summer wind, envy roared through her, leaving her feeling scorched and not a little bewildered. She was here to do a job, and it should not have mattered one bit what Lord Barensforth or Lady Fairmont did, or with whom they did it.

Shame followed swiftly on the heels of her speculation. The countess had shown Laurel nothing but kindness in taking her under her wing. She did not deserve to be so cruelly judged. Mercifully, the music ended and Laurel wasted no time in curtsying to George Fitzclarence.

“Thank you, Lord Munster. I believe I shall return to your sister now.”

“Surely not, Mrs. Sanderson. A charming m-minuet is next. You cannot mean to m-miss it.”

“I am afraid I mean to very much. I confess I find myself growing exceedingly weary.” An understatement, for her toes ached, her head throbbed . . . and . . . as she watched the Earl of Barensforth prepare to dance again with Lady Fairmont, another, more reprehensible thought occurred to her.

Could Lord Barensforth be after the countess for her fortune?

“Ah, but my dear Mrs. Sanderson, may I p- point out that my sister herself is presently engaged on this very dance floor. J-just there.”

He pointed across the way to where a laughing Lady Devonlea waited for the recommencement of the music. At her side stood a robust- looking young gentleman who could not have been more than twenty-five years old.

Humph.
Perhaps the pairing of older women with younger men on the dance floor was an accepted break from tradition here in Bath. She should not have found that so refreshingly, vigorously reassuring. But she did.

The musicians played the first notes of the minuet, setting those on the dance floor into graceful motion. A kind of sigh went through the room, a stirring of romantic nostalgia evoked by the archaic dance.

The Earl of Munster stood before her, his hands outstretched. “Dance again, Mrs. Sanderson, d-do. I should s-so enjoy it.”

Laurel’s reluctance died on her lips. Behind the man’s bloodshot eyes, a ghost of desperation pleaded for her acquiescence. A tentative twitch of his lips promised the first genuine smile she had yet seen from him. Suddenly the egotistical rogue Victoria had described seemed . . .

Vulnerable. Uncertain. Heaven help her . . . sweet?

Despite the music and the surrounding voices, a deafening silence echoed through Laurel as she contemplated the man before her. Could such ingenuousness exist in an unruly, unprincipled king’s son bent on damaging his cousin’s position as monarch? Laurel had arrived in Bath with convictions set in black and white, only to find herself awash in myriad shades of gray when it came to the earls of both Munster and Barensforth.

Compelled by the former’s quiet appeal, she returned her hand to his and was startled by the triumphant gratitude that lit up his face.

Which left her not only puzzled but also uneasy about this task Victoria had set her. While the prospect of deceiving a villain did not particularly compromise her scruples, how to proceed if her quarry was less to be reviled and more to be pitied?

Early the next morning, Aidan made his way slowly across the gentlemen’s dressing rooms at the Cross Bath, examining each private cubby and scrutinizing every inch of the tiled floor, cupboards, and benches.

He had been standing outside the Bath Street entrance before sunup, waiting for the first attendant to arrive. Initially the man had balked at letting him in, protesting that the facility did not open to the public for another hour and that there were towels to be folded, floors to be swept, refreshments to prepare, etc. Aidan didn’t know if it was the silver he’d pressed into the man’s hand or his disgruntled explanations that had silenced his objections.

“My physician insisted I come here,” Aidan had griped to the man. “Claimed it would cure this bloody stabbing pain in my lower leg.”

“That it should, sir, if you’ll only be good enough to return at six o’clock.”

“No, I must see the place now, before anyone else arrives. I tell you, I am an unqualified stickler for cleanliness and order. I must know the place is properly run and maintained before I dare trust my health to the vagaries of indeterminate conditions. . . .”

Aidan had tossed his hands and ranted about scampering vermin and hidden filth. The attendant, grown red-faced with alarm, had thrown desperate glances up and down the deserted street and hastened to reassure him.

“Please, sir, do come in and look about all you like.”

Inside, Aidan searched for signs of a struggle: scuff marks across the floor, scratches on the cupboard doors, threads or bits of torn clothing on the corners of the benches. He followed the narrow corridor from the dressing rooms out to the high-walled courtyard that housed the thermal pool where Roger Babcock’s body had been found floating.

Steam curled from the surface of the water. The braziers not yet having been lit, the air held a brisk March snap mixed with a humidity that pressed like a weight on his lungs. In the weak light of a struggling sun, he made a slow circuit of the pool’s edge, crouching at intervals to judge the condition of the railings and steps. He examined the coping for loose tiles. Once, he heard a noise and peered over his shoulder to discover the attendant hovering in the arched doorway.

“By God, is this mold I see growing here?” Aidan exclaimed, as if he hadn’t noticed the man and were merely expressing his indignation out loud.

He continued his investigation to the accompaniment of rapidly retreating footsteps. Nowhere did he detect any signs of Roger Babcock having been murdered. Yes, the MP had been found floating, but there appeared to be no evidence to support the Home Office’s theory of his having been attacked and forced into the water.

So how might he have died? Wescott claimed Babcock hadn’t been ill, didn’t owe substantial sums of money, and was not the object of anyone’s animosity. Yet as Aidan had clearly witnessed last night, that third assertion didn’t wash. Not that he could envision the aging, infirm Marquess of Harcourt doing anyone in, but his lordship’s show of enmity at the Assembly Rooms did suggest that Babcock had enemies, and perhaps a few skeletons rattling around in his closet.

On his way out, Aidan cornered the attendant in the office. “I understand a man passed away here only a few days ago.”

“I swear, sir, the bath was drained and scrubbed. We—”

Aidan cut him off. “Any idea on how he died?”

The man’s sandy brows went up in a show of innocence. “The magistrate called it an accident, sir.”

“But what would
you
call it?”

Backing up against the desk, the attendant stammered, “I . . . we . . . ah . . .
call
it, sir? I’d call it most unfortunate. Will you be bathing, then, sir?”

“I shall have to think about it,” Aidan replied. Ignoring the attendant’s fallen expression, he headed outside and went briskly on his way. He was to meet Fitz at the Pump Room later, where he would have his first glimpse—and perhaps taste—of the so-called magical elixir.