The Butler Did It (27 page)

She touched the keys at her waist, and Edgar tried not to wince as he took in her badly bitten nails, which kept him from realizing the significance of all those keys.

“Been up here doing my rounds, sir, to check on Claramae, you understand. Misses the corners, she does, except when she's hiding in them, playing slap and tickle with that rascally Riley.”

“Indeed. However, I fear I don't understand what that has to do with—” Edgar's gaze dropped to the keys once more, then shot to Mrs. Timon's face. “You were in my chamber? My dressing room?”

Hazel shook her head. “Don't go into places guests
lock up. Not their personal sort of locked-up things. I'm not so nosy.”

“Really,” Edgar said, backing up a step as the housekeeper edged closer. “Where…where do you go? I mean, I am quite sure I locked the door to my chamber, and you went in there.”

“I had to check on Claramae. I told you that,” Hazel said, her explanation reasonable, he supposed. She jangled the keys at her waist. “And then I had to put away your clean laundry, because that's Claramae's work, and I'm always doing Claramae's work.”

“Go on,” he said, experiencing that sort of sinking feeling he got in his stomach when someone he passed on the street stopped, pointed and called out, “Hey! You! Aren't you the one what sold me fifty shares in that diamond mine in Bristol two years ago?”

“Well, sir, I was hoping sort of that you'd do that. Go on, that is. Explain to me those three big bars of gold sitting right here, in the bottom of your dressing closet.”

“You…you saw…three bars, you said?”

Mrs. Timon nodded furiously. “That I did, sir. Big bars of gold. Three of them, just sitting there for anybody to see. Shame on you, sir.”

“Yes, well, I, that is, um—” Fanny must have gone to his chamber, to gilt a few more bricks, then left them out to dry. This was it, the only explanation.

The jig was up, and he'd been found out by a simple
housekeeper. Women! They were fast becoming the bane of his existence. She'd tell his lordship, his lordship would call in the Watch, and he'd be spending his declining years lowering a string and basket through the bars at Newgate, begging passersby for farthings. A fine end, that, to all his ambitions.

“It's real, isn't it?” Mrs. Timon asked, pulling him further into the alcove. “I was waiting for you, meaning to tell you that you'd best be more careful with that rascally Riley in the house, not that I'd say anything about what I seen, no, not me, not Hazel Timon. No one will hear a word from me. Why, I just took a quick peek, and lickety-split locked the door again. Not my gold, you understand. And it looked so shiny and new. Didn't so much as touch anything, because I'm an honest woman, I am.”

“As the day is long, Mrs. Timon, I'm sure,” Edgar said, wondering just where this conversation was going, because it no longer appeared headed for Newgate.

He smiled at her. She smiled at him. They smiled at each other.

“So,” she said at last, “where'd you get it? All that new-looking gold? You know, I'd like to get me some of that. Not that I'm asking for any favors, you understand, but I did want to warn you. About Riley, that is.”

Edgar relaxed completely. He nearly slid to the floor, he was so relaxed. He'd always known Mrs. Timon was thin, but now she appeared to be almost transparent. He
could see right through her friendly warning to hide his gold from Riley. She'd had entirely another reason to stake herself here, in this alcove, to wait for him. He smiled, just as Good Luck smiled on him. This woman was not going to get the upper hand on him, or his name wasn't Edgar Marmon…er, Sir Edgar Marmington. “Are you interested in gold, Mrs. Timon? Of obtaining unlimited supplies of gold?”

She nodded furiously. “Won't be no more coming from such as you, and his lordship says no pay for a year, for what we done, you understand. All I got is my savings what I put by. I was just about to take myself off to the seaside, rent me a small cottage, and now I can't. I surely would like me some gold like that, yes, sir.”

“Have some money set aside, do you?” Edgar asked, smiling up at the woman, who towered over him by a good half foot. He reached a hand into his pocket, closing his fingers around the velvet pouch. He could do this, he would do this, and without a word to Fanny, so that every penny gained would be his own. “Odd you should mention that…”

 

W
YCLIFF HELD OUT
the velvet case. “The gold or the silver, my lord?”

Morgan, who had been staring at his reflection without really seeing it, slid his eyes left, examined the diamond stickpins arrayed in the small box, and said, “The gold, I suppose,” saw his valet's wince and amended, “The silver.”

“Oh dear,” Wycliff said, snapping the lid shut.

“Oh dear, what?” Morgan asked, dragging his thoughts away from the evening ahead of him, an evening begun at the theater, with the remainder of it passed at Lady Oxford's ball, a dreary expanse of time doubtless to be spent dancing the first dance with Emma, then watching her being drooled over the remainder of the night by every Johnny Raw, fortune hunter and, God help him, eligible bachelor in the
ton.

“Nothing, my lord,” Wycliff said in an aggrieved tone, one he had elevated to nearly an art form. “It's just that…well, I admit that showing you only this selection was in the way of a small test, my lord.”

All right, so now the valet had his full attention. “To what end, Wycliff?”

“Well, sir, you're wearing stark black, sir.”

“Yes, although admitting to be rather occupied with other thoughts, I had noticed,” Morgan said, looking down at his, to him, quite unexceptional rig-out, one that had been perfected by Brummell not that many years past, and was still considered quite correct evening attire for a gentleman. “What should I have chosen?”

“Red, my lord. Rubies. Or sapphires. Emeralds, my lord?” he said, proffering a second velvet box. “Color, sir. As is my duty, I have been alert to all changes in fashion, and a small splash of color is just what is sorely needed here. As am I, obviously, my lord, else you would go into Society ill-prepared.”

“Was I about to terminate your services, Wycliff?” Morgan asked.

Wycliff giggled, another example of the man's unerring ability to laugh at precisely the wrong time. “In truth, sir, you have on occasion voiced a certain…unhappiness with my services.”

“Really. And when was that, Wycliff?” Morgan asked as the valet selected an emerald pin and carefully inserted it just above a fold in his lordship's cravat.

“When you ordered me out of your chamber during the course of your bath this evening, my lord, when I went to wash you.”

Morgan looked at the man levelly. “Wycliff, I allowed you to scrub my back, yes?”

“You did, sir,” the valet said, now employing a sadly injured tone. “But then—”

“But then you forgot that
I
wash anything below the level of the water, Wycliff.”

“I was merely…that is…did you have to throw the soap at my back, my lord?” he ended on a near sob.

Morgan smiled. This was why he had hired Wycliff, to test him on his temper. Clearly he had failed that test earlier. Or perhaps not, because the irritating moron still could stand upright. Either that, or he had mellowed, at last conquered his anger? Possibly. More possibly, he had found an emotion he enjoyed more.

“A thousand apologies, Wycliff,” he said, giving the man a reassuring pat on his nearly nonexistent shoulder.
“And just to show you how deep is my sorrow at having upset you, you may have the remainder of the evening for yourself.”

“But who, sir, shall undress you?”

“Don't push me too far, Wycliff. I'm being magnanimous, enjoy it,” Morgan said, heading for the door leading back into his bedchamber. “Now go find a pub littered with likewise abused valets and sob in your ale as you tell them all how sorely you are used by your employer. It will do you a world of good, I'm sure. Empty your budget of whining, so that you have none left to spend on me.”

“I'm quite sure I don't
whine,
my lord,” Wycliff said. And, in this instance, he was correct. That last statement had come out as more of a whimper.

One Morgan manfully ignored. “Oh, and here, enjoy yourself,” he said, fishing a coin from the small purse in his waistcoat pocket and tossing it to the man (who missed it, because Wycliff could barely catch the sniffles, let alone a coin, and it bounced off his bony chest). “Nincompoop,” Morgan muttered under his breath, but only because it seemed the thing to say, and escaped the bedchamber, only to come face-to-face with Cliff Clifford.

“Mr. Clifford,” he said, with a nearly imperceptible inclination of his head. “Have you lost your way? I believe you have been moved upstairs.”

“Yes, my lord, I have,” Cliff said quickly, and just as
quickly hid his hands and the small burlap sack in them behind his back. “I was just…that is, I cannot locate a book I had been reading, and thought I'd search for it in my former chamber?” His words were more in the form of a question, as if he were asking himself if his reason seemed…reasonable.

“You read? Astounding. What are you reading?”

“Um…well, I…something Byron, my lord?”

Morgan would have pursued the subject, for clearly the young idiot was lying in his teeth, but he did not have the time or, frankly, the inclination. He was much too eager to get himself downstairs, to see Emma. “Very good. Byron. We English have done the man a great injustice. Very well, carry on.”

“Yes, my lord,” Cliff said brightly, and took himself off down the hallway, nearly at a run, his hands now hidden in front of him.

Morgan watched after the youth for a moment, then turned his steps for the staircase, so that he would be lounging in the drawing room before Emma arrived.

It was only when he reached the drawing room, poured himself a glass of wine and, taking up his seat on one of the couches, one foot balanced on his opposite knee, that he noticed something stuck to the sole of his dancing shoe.

“Grain?” he asked of the empty room as he rolled one of the small golden kernels between his fingertips. And then he tossed it to the floor and got to his feet as he heard Emma's voice in the hallway, inordinately pleased by
that voice, and not caring that he seemed, even to himself, the besotted fool.

When he also heard Jarrett Rolin's affected baritone, he nearly broke into a run.

 

J
ARRETT
R
OLIN DID NOT
bother to suppress his smile of delight as he saw Morgan burst from the drawing room, but merely inclined his head and said, “How delightful to be here once more, in this most grand establishment. Thornley, bless him, remembered how I was once used to running tame in these beautiful surroundings, and did no more than bow as I told him I'd show myself up, and just in time to see this vision of loveliness descending toward me. I know, I know, there was no invitation to call, but I simply couldn't stay away, Miss Clifford. You will have pity on a desperate man, won't you?”

Thornley, who had only just reached the head of the staircase, looked to his master and frowned. He'd done the wrong thing? Mr. Rolin had all but lived here five years ago, so how had he done the wrong thing? But clearly he had. He had been more than willing for Mr. Rolin to announce himself, for then he could go back to concentrating on the third line of the ode he was composing to the glory of his dearest Daphne's dimples.

Remembering that he still had the paper in his hand, Thornley quickly retreated back down the stairs, away from his employer's angry expression, and already re
newing his search for a word that rhymed with dimples. Crimples? Simples? Pimples? No. None of those…

“Thornley!”

The butler halted in mid-thought and mid-step and hastened back up the stairs at the sound of Morgan's bellow. “My lord?”

“Mr. Rolin was just leaving,” Morgan said even as he advanced three paces, to place his left arm protectively about Emma's waist and draw her close. The way the bastard had been looking at her! The way he was still looking at her! Morgan was about to lose his temper in a way that made any angry outburst that had come before it resemble no more than a stroll through Hyde Park with the Archbishop of Canterbury by his side. He spoke through clenched teeth. “Weren't you, Mr. Rolin?”

“Of course,” Rolin said, bowing deeply. “Thornley, you may show me out, as I appear to be
persona non grata
this evening for some reason.”

“My lord?” Thornley, his mind still partially engaged in finding the correct word, which he was certain was just at the edge of his mind, looked to Morgan in question.

“You're right, Thornley,” Morgan said, stepping away from Emma, who had been standing stock-still, riveted in place by the scene unfolding in front of her—why, she could nearly see the sparks flying between the two gentlemen. “I'll escort him out myself. Rolin? Feetfirst or headfirst, it makes no never-mind to me.”

“Mr. Rolin, sir, if I might escort you?” Thornley said
quickly, even as Jarrett Rolin took a single step toward Morgan. “Please, sir.”

Rolin smiled. “So, it sits like that, does it, Westham? Still the crude, unmannered puppy who once trailed at my heels, eager for either a pat or a kick.”

“No, my lord,” Emma said, grabbing onto Morgan's sleeve as, growling low in his throat, he lunged toward Rolin. “I'll not have you two fighting over me.”

“Over you, Miss Clifford?” Rolin, who had prudently retreated to the head of the stairs, shook his head. “Why, I do believe you're correct. My, how delightful. Almost wonderful.” Then he bowed once more and allowed Thornley to show him down the stairs, and out.

Which left Emma with Morgan, and suddenly realizing that she was still holding his arm in both of her hands. “You weren't really going to push him down the stairs, were you?”