The Butler Did It (26 page)

He felt an angel on his right shoulder, whispering into his ear that if he was not a gentlemen, precisely, he was a man of impeccable morals, entrusted with the care of this woman, and he should even now be getting his so-proper backside up off this couch cushion and racing to the pantry to slap some cold water on his face.

“I…I should go now,” he heard himself say, as the devil he'd belatedly noticed perched on his left shoulder quite indelicately blew raspberries into his ear. “Un-unless you still wish for me to look at the colors?”

“Yes, oh yes, would you?” Daphne asked, grabbing at the threads with both hands and tangling a few more of them. “Oh, drat, what a mess. Look what I've done.”

“Here,” Thornley said, placing his hands on hers. “Allow me to assist you.”

Their hands now touching, Daphne raised her head and looked into Thornley's eyes.

He looked into her eyes.

The world got so much smaller.

And while the angel on Thornley's right shoulder prudently hid its face behind its hands, the devil on Thornley's left shoulder sat back, crossed its legs and lit its pipe, content to watch.

 

M
ORGAN PULLED OUT
a chair before the servant could help him and straddled it, the better to watch his friend Perry attack either his very late breakfast or his very early dinner.

“You want some?” Perry asked, pointing a forkful of eggs at his friend. “Fairweather? Fetch his lordship a plate, if you please.”

“Never mind, Fairweather, thank you,” Morgan said, waving the butler away.

Perry arched one brow as he looked at his friend and said, “And take yourself off, Fairweather, there's a good man.” Once the two of them were alone in the morning room of the Portland Square mansion, he said, “I've seen you looking better, old fellow. Am I about to hear something interesting? Perhaps even scandalous?”

Morgan frowned. “You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

Patting his lips with his serviette, Perry said, “Oh, good. Scandalous. Quickly, quickly, I'm all agog.”

“Oh, cut line, Perry, it's just the two of us. Nobody here to impress with your insistence on being thought of as a total fool.”

Perry shrugged. “Ah, but life is so much easier for fools, you understand. Nobody asks us to speak in Parliament or have opinions on the Irish Question, or even comment on the weather—which I always declare to be beastly or splendid, in case you might be wondering. Why, all I have to do with my life, save enjoy it, is to evade parson's mousetrap, and since I do nothing else, I've learned to do both of those very well. Yes, I do enjoy my life. Do you enjoy your life, old friend? I don't suppose so.”

“Finished now?” Morgan asked, reaching out a hand to snatch an already buttered scone from a small plate. “Because I've come to ask you a question.”

“Oh dear. A question? And you'll probably be tiresome enough to demand an answer as well,” Perry said, pushing away from the table and signaling for Morgan to follow him down the hallway, to the smaller drawing room. “Wine?” he asked, walking to the drinks table.

“All right,” Morgan said, subsiding into a chair. “I've been briefly considering becoming a dedicated drunk, as a matter of fact.”

His back turned to his friend, Perry smiled. It was just as he had hoped when he'd heard Morgan had come back to town; he was about to be entertained.

“Here you are, drink up,” Perry said, handing Mor
gan a glass and then carefully splitting his coattails before he, too, took up his seat. “Now, give me a few moments to guess, if you will. I have often fancied myself as having special powers of deduction, you understand. Almost magical.”

Morgan took a sip of wine. “Very well, go on, amuse yourself at my expense.”

“How well you know me. I have every intention of doing just that. Let's see, where to begin my deducing? Ah! Shall we begin with your houseguests? Yes, of course. Tell me, have you renamed your mansion, perhaps? I do believe Drummond Arms suggests a certain panache.”

Morgan, who was already feeling better thanks to Perry's foolishness, glared at his friend, because that was what he was expected to do, and he did not wish to disappoint that friend. “Does it upset you at all that I would dearly love to punch something and you're looking remarkably like a target at the moment?”

Perry pretended a wince. “Very well, I'll do this quickly. Just nod, all right?”

Morgan nodded.

“Your foul mood has to do with the so-ambitious Thornley's paying customers?”

Morgan nodded.

“Again, the need for deduction. Shall we begin with the current bane of mine uncle's existence, Mrs. Fanny Clifford?”

Morgan considered this for a moment, then nodded.

“Mine uncle, by the by, is quite pleased with me for having rained attendance on the Clifford chit, as per his express orders. I now bask in the soft glow of his gratitude. Why, he only declared me a worthless, posturing idiot the once, last I saw him.”

Morgan chuckled and shook his head. “So your uncle Willard is satisfied?”

“Well enough, yes,” Perry said, looking into the bottom of his wineglass. “And you know, that baffles me. I mean, he was all hot to have me chasing Miss Clifford's skirts and now he's given me permission to withdraw from the lists of her doting admirers. He sent round a note to that effect just this morning. Is there something I should know?”

Morgan hesitated, then said, “I should have an answer to that question, shouldn't I? But I've been rather involved in my own affairs…”

Perry clapped his hands, then waved them, as if erasing his response. “No, no, let's not go there, not quite yet, as I always believe in saving the tastiest morsel for last. Now, why do you suppose Uncle Willard feels it no longer necessary that I be one of Miss Clifford's suitors?”

“Why ask me?” Morgan said, draining his wineglass. “You're the one spouting off on how splendid you are at deducing. Deduce.”

“Very well, I shall,” Perry said, taking Morgan's glass
from him and sauntering over to the drinks table. “One—” He turned to Morgan. “I so love order, you know. Very well, I'll begin again. One. Uncle Willard needed an eligible male to fire at Miss Clifford in order to keep the Widow Clifford from penning horrid tales of him in her memoirs. Two. He no longer requires my services. Three. He's still as nervous as a long-tailed cat around a rocking chair, to quote one of the tortured nannies of my checkered youth, but even more excited than nervous. I questioned him on it, but he'd say nothing more than that a recent investment was to soon bear fruit. As a matter of fact, his banker was announced just then, and he whisked me out of his house to meet with him. Anyone would think Uncle Willard was about to come into a fortune. Now, don't you find that odd?”

“I suppose so, but it has nothing to do with the Widow Clifford. She calls him Willie, you know,” Morgan said, taking the newly filled glass.

Perry sat down with a theatrical thump. “Willie? Uncle Willie? E-gad, man, I'd never dare. It might be worth my while to visit Widow Clifford and ask her about mine uncle's lurid past. Uncle Willie. The mind boggles.”

“And it isn't just your uncle she went after, Perry. I told you about the others at Almack's, but there have been two more come to call since then. They walk in, all angry and strutting, and crawl out, broken men. And she's doing all of this while living under my roof. I can
scarcely look anyone in the eye when I'm walking down the street, I swear it.”

“No, Morgan. No, no, no. Don't avoid them, single them out. Smile at them. Wink, if you dare.”

“But I don't know anything. I don't
want
to know anything. Isn't it bad enough that I'm also being blackmailed, because of Mad Harry?”

“Which brings us to number three,” Perry said smugly. “Three. You allowed this, Morgan, old friend. You could have thrown the bunch of them out on their heads, had them all locked up, and Thornley with them. But you didn't. Because of Mad Harry?”

“Because my mother is still above ground, and I would not wish for her husband's old scandals to be dug up for another airing.”

“What a good and devoted son.” Perry shook his head. “Before meeting Miss Emma Clifford, I might even have accepted that rather self-serving excuse. She certainly is a fetching piece, and intelligent with it all, which you will admit is a rarity among our fair debutantes. The family must be a drawback, but then, families almost always are, and you cannot allow that to weigh with you. So, if you've come to tell me you're about to declare yourself, allow me to offer you my felicitations, and my condolences.”

“I'd have to be out of my mind to ask Miss Clifford to marry me,” Morgan said, trying very hard to mean what he said. “But…but I have to admit to a few…complications that might make it necessary to do just that.”

“Complications? What? She has developed a tendre for someone else? Or does she merely loathe you on general principles? No, wait. Silly me. That's not at all the sort of complications you're talking about, is it? My God, man, what have you done? You have done something, haven't you? Will I find myself moved to clap you on the back and be proud of you? And speak slowly, I don't wish to miss a word.”

“Damn you, Perry, you're hopeless. You've been acting the fool so long, you've begun to believe yourself in the role.”

“Insulting me now? Oh, dear man, say no more. You must be in love.”

 

S
IR
E
DGAR DIDN'T LIMP
as he pulled himself up the stairs to his bedchamber, for the pain in his head so outstripped the discomfort of the pebble in his shoe that he quite forgot.

His ears still rung with Mrs. Norbert's exclamation to Mrs. Daphne Clifford as she raced to join that lady in the drawing room, words to the effect that Olive and her “dearest Ed-gie” had spent a splendid few hours getting to know each other.

If she asked Thornley to call in a minister to arrange announcing the banns, he wouldn't be shocked at all.

For there was, he knew now, such a thing as too much success. He'd hoped to impress Mrs. Norbert with his attentions, flatter her all hollow, and then tell her about his
grand discovery of the alchemist's secret, take the money she handed over to him, report half that amount to Fanny, and be done with it.

What he'd forgot, what Fanny had forgot, was that Olive Norbert was no lady. She didn't know how to simper, or behave coyly; nor did she harbor a shred of modesty in that corpulent form of hers.

Instead of being flattered, and blushing, and careful not to show more than a genteel interest at this early stage of the pursuit, Olive had all but jumped on him upon their return to the coach after their stop at her former place of employment, where she had introduced him as “Sir Edgar Marmington, my very own Ed-gie.”

In fact, when she'd grabbed his head and pushed his face into her bosom, he'd feared for his life, sure he would be smothered.

Worse, when he became desperate to change the subject from how well the two of them suited— “Always knowed you had an itch for me, Ed-gie, and now we can scratch it” —and had dared to bring up the subject of his great discovery, she had laughed in his face, even as a sharp jab in his ribs had sent him flying up against the far end of the coach.

“Har! That's a good un, Ed-gie,” she'd told him. “And I regular spin gold from straw, m'self.” Why, she'd even pulled up her skirt and extended one tree trunk of an ankle, saying, “Here, tug on this one, it's got bells on. I'm not such a flat, to believe such a farradiddle, Ed-gie.”

He couldn't believe it. He'd fooled Hatcher. He'd fooled peers of the realm. He'd even gulled the former Minister of the Admiralty. But this…this
woman,
was telling him she didn't believe him? A
woman?
Not even one woman, but two, remembering Fanny Clifford.

Oh no, he wasn't going to stand for that!

“Here, look,” he'd said, pulling the pouch from his pocket and dumping the nugget into Olive's fat hand (once he'd removed that hand from his…well, he'd have nightmares about that for weeks, he would).

Edgar winced as he remembered how Olive had reacted to the nugget. First, she'd hefted it, then she'd sniffed it, and then she'd tried to take a bite out of it.

“Real, ain't it?” she'd asked, narrowing those already beady little eyes, momentarily distracted from mauling him, thank a most benevolent God. “All right, maybe you do have something here, Ed-gie. Tell your Olive all about it.”

So he had, and she'd believed him. Or she hadn't believed him, but thought herself in love with him, and pretended to believe him. That was the real beauty of women, in Edgar's estimation. When they thought love had walked in the front door, sweet reason already had its hat on and was running out the back.

No matter what the reason, she'd promised him two thousand pounds after he'd told her about the four trunks of gold bars in his dressing room. As the daft besom carried all her money with her, fearful the Westham servants
might steal it, he already had the two thousand pounds tucked into his pocket.

That had been the good part. The bad part had been when, after handing over the money, Olive had dropped the nugget down the neckline of her gown, then winked and told him to go fetch it.

Edgar had never spent a more miserable afternoon.

He'd just climbed the last step and turned to go down the hallway, find Fanny, and thank her very much for ruining what had once been his rather pleasant life, when his lordship's housekeeper stepped out from a small alcove holding a potted plant, saying, “Psst! Sir Edgar, sir? Over here, if you please.”

“Mrs. Timon?” he asked, following the tall, thin woman as she beckoned him to step into the alcove with her. “Is there a problem?”