A noted wanderer, the Baron was not currently in residence, a circumstance that caused many of his neighbors, especially the mamas of nubile daughters, to heave sighs of relief. Baron Bligh had a feudal outlook, and a legendarily roaming eye.
His Baroness contemplated a Minoan snake goddess that was rubbing shoulders with a glazed Ming dragon in front of a Jacobean tapestry. Then she regarded Livvy, a speculative expression in those fathomless dark eyes. “I have decided how you may best assist me. Yes, I know that you have not said you
will
assist me, which is a piece of excessive foolishness because I am fully prepared to badger you until you agree. We must contrive to keep you occupied while that rascal Dickon is out murdering animals.”
Livvy winced at mention of murder, which recalled to her events she would have preferred to forget — in short, the trying time when her beloved Dickon had been accused of slaughtering two-legged prey. Dulcie added, smiling, “You might as well give in gracefully, you know.”
“Oh, have it your way!” conceded Livvy, without the slightest grace. “I will go to the Hall, and persuade that poor woman to confide in me, and discover if anything unusual has recently occurred — aside, that is, from her husband’s sudden demise. I will particularly inquire as to strangers lurking about, and similar odd events, though if Lady Halliday is as scatterbrained as you say, I don’t imagine that I’ll learn anything of importance. If something out of the ordinary had taken place, she would surely have told someone by now.”
“Not if she didn’t realize it
was
out of the ordinary.” Dulcie tapped her slender fingers on her knee.
Casanova leapt down from Livvy’s lap, to her relief, and stalked toward his mistress. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” said Dulcie, as she picked up the large cat. “I do not precisely understand myself. Moreover I suspect— But that’s neither here nor there. My dearest Lavender, I would not ask you to do this little chore for me if it were an errand I could execute for myself.”
Livvy doubted there was anything the Baroness couldn’t execute herself, or for that matter anyone, providing she wished to do so, which in this case she clearly did not.
And why was that? Impossible to guess what Dulcie was thinking; which, for the peace of mind of those who loved her, was probably a good thing. Lady Bligh was as stubborn as a donkey, as troublesome as a barrel filled with monkeys, and as close-mouthed as a clam.
She also had an appalling tendency toward hunches. “Please don’t tell me that you—”
“I had intended for us to have a quiet country Christmas,” Dulcie interrupted. “Now I begin to fear this house party was spectacularly ill-advised.”
The Solar, situated on the Castle’s uppermost story, was smaller and more comfortable than the Great Hall. Here, the family took their ease amid some of the Baron’s less objectionable acquisitions. Scattered among the more comfortable furnishings were some Gothic pieces, including a fifteenth century cupboard carved with St Peter in the left panel, holding the key to heaven; St. Paul in the right, holding the sword that symbolized his martyrdom; and St. George in the center, slaying the dragon with every evidence of glee. The Baroness professed a fondness for the latter, claiming that the dragon — which had required the daily sacrifice of a maiden until all the young girls in the kingdom had been devoured — reminded her of her spouse.
A huge rococo mirror hung over the ornate fireplace. Beautiful moldings framed the windows set high in one wall. Casanova was curled up on the hearth, one wary eye fixed on Bluebeard, who had settled on the back of an oak church pew with Gothic-style ecclesiastical designs on each end. Lady Bligh lounged on a backless sofa covered with apple green damask, ignoring the conversation of the two sporting-minded gentlemen with whom she shared the room, which consisted largely of such terms as ‘firing into the brown’, ‘pairing-time’, ‘sewelling’ and ‘jackoop’.
The younger of the gentlemen, Benedict Trench, Earl of Dorset, left off extoling the pleasures of shooting a pheasant from the saddle at full gallop, to warily regard his aunt. A handsome man of eight-and-thirty, with sun-streaked brown hair and jaded sapphire eyes, Dickon surmised from her silence, as perhaps Sir John Neville did not, that the Baroness had some scheme secreted up her elegant silk sleeve.
Lord Dorset misjudged his companion. Sir John had not dispensed justice from his office in Bow Street these past many years without gaining a tolerable understanding of the ways of humankind. He, too, feared his hostess was plotting, and harbored an unpleasant premonition that her machinations would once again interfere with his peace of mind.
Many years ago, he’d wanted to make her his bride. She had refused, and he was grateful to her for it because clearly they didn’t suit. Dulcie had spent much of the intervening time engaged in the frivolous pursuits so enjoyed by the Upper Ten Thousand, while Sir John sat in his Bow Street office and struggled to see justice upheld in spite of corrupt government officials who were largely indifferent to truth, conviction, and even guilt. Though born into its illustrious ranks, he had little but contempt for the
haut ton.
But, Lord help him, he could not help notice that Dulcie still possessed a figure of such superb dimensions that it must be admired by gentlemen of every age between the cradle and the grave.
She raised one hand to rub the nape of her neck. The Chief Magistrate of Bow Street experienced a sharp and most un-magistrate-like impulse. “I wish,” he said, before Dickon could comment, which Dickon looked as if he meant to do, “that you would tell me, Dulcie, what you are pondering so seriously.”
She raised her eyes to his. “I’ve been wondering if I should, dear John, and think that I must not. This was to be your holiday. Try and enjoy it while you can.”
These words brought both gentlemen to attention. “Dulcie!” warned Lord Dorset. “I refuse to permit you to involve Livvy in your machinations. You must remember that she is—”
“In a delicate condition!” concluded the Baroness, with an exasperated glance at her favorite nephew. “I wish you would stop acting as if Lavender is the first female ever to whelp.” Before Lord Dorset could retort, she returned her attention to the Chief Magistrate. “Frankly, John, I mistrust the manner of Sir Wesley Halliday’s death. Nor am I entertained by this sudden talk of ghosts.”
Sir John adored her to distraction, no less now than in the days of their shared youth. Adoration, however, did not blind him to her faults. “When do you
not
scent a mystery?” he inquired. “The business seems straightforward enough to me.”
“That’s put your foot in it,” said Dickon, an expression of amusement on his haughty, dissipated face.
His foot, and a great deal of his ankle. “Little in this world is straightforward,” the Baroness announced, “and most especially not when it appears to be.” Moreover, she reminded Sir John, since he apparently chose not to recall it, she had already been of the utmost value to Bow Street in the solving of several complicated affairs. Furthermore, though a certain Chief Magistrate must be in his dotage, else he would not malign the validity of her hunches, she had not yet succumbed to senility. It was at this point, as Sir John was attempting reconciliatory overtures, and Dickon was endeavoring to restrain an untimely fit of mirth, that a third gentleman sauntered into the room.
“Humbug!” the Chief Magistrate snapped.
“Pray moderate your manner,” begged Dickon, who was enjoying himself immensely. Among Lord Dorset’s vices (or virtues, depending on one’s point of view) was a habit of deriving amusement from the follies of his fellow men. “Admittedly my aunt may be a trifle hot at hand—”
“I fancy,” drawled the newcomer, “that Sir John referred not to my aunt’s little ways but to myself. I take it Uncle Max is not in residence? While the cat is absent— Not, dear Sir John, that I mean to compare you to a rodent! It is merely that Greenwood calls to mind country squires seducing parlor maids.”
Lady Bligh gazed without appreciation upon her least favorite nephew. The Honorable Hubert Humboldt was a slender foppish gentleman with dark eyes, brown hair, lush side-whiskers and a bold moustache. “I take it you slipped past all the servants. Since you’re here, you might as well come in. You look like a coachman in that absurd coat.”
“How ungracious of you, aunt! I, who am vastly more tolerant, shall refrain from commenting on the shocking effect of a red gown, green chair, and pink hair.” Hubert removed the offending many-caped great-coat, revealing a high tight cravat, exquisitely cut coat worn open to display a peach-colored waistcoat and snowy embroidered cambric shirt, skin-tight inexpressibles gathered into a wasp waist, and gleaming boots. “Nor will I berate you for not inviting me to this family gathering. Of course it was an oversight.” He minced across the room, settled carefully upon a sofa, and surveyed his surroundings, specifically a collection of navigational instruments that included mariner’s quadrant and octant, cross staff and standing weight, an Italian compass and a Persian astrolabe and a gigantic astronomical sextant dating back to the sixteenth century. “Fascinating! One cannot fail to be struck by Uncle Max’s taste.”
Lady Bligh propped her dainty slippers on a velvet-covered stool. “Maximilian is in France. His assistance was required. I felt from the beginning that Wellington’s appointment was a blunder. It will be difficult to remove the Duke from his ambassadorial position without making him look the fool.”
“A problem,” Hubert murmured, “which Uncle Max is extremely qualified to solve, having removed himself from more potentially embarrassing situations than one has power to count. And in the interim he may ogle the ladies, and hunt with Louis the Gouty, and engage in the universal gambling that shocks the English visitors even more than the pornographic prints frequently featured on hotel walls.”
“I don’t think,” Lord Dorset objected, “that our uncle can be said to ‘ogle’. At last report he had lured both La Grassini and Mademoiselle Georges away from Wellington. The Duke is likely to leave Paris simply because Uncle Max is there.”
“Better there than here,” said Hubert. “It occurs to me — belatedly, I grant you, but I have had a great deal on my mind — that a certain other member of the family is not here. Surely, cousin, you have not already tired of your wife?”
“Lavender,” explained Lady Bligh, “has gone on an errand. So far is Dickon from growing bored that he has got her with child.”
“Lud!” sighed Hubert. “Allow me to congratulate you, cousin, on providing us with another addition to this already grossly complicated family. Apropos of which—”
“Apropos of which,” demanded Dickon, “where is Jael?”
This simple inquiry wiped all traces of malice from Hubert’s features. It also caused Sir John’s spirits to sink. The Chief Magistrate had not been best-pleased to see Hubert Humboldt, whose satiric presence had once graced a Bow Street jail cell, following an incident of highway robbery; but mention of Hubert’s mistress, a hot-tempered icy-eyed female who wielded no small influence in London’s vicious underworld, caused him to fervently wish himself elsewhere.
“Did you hope she wasn’t with me?” inquired Hubert. “Sorry to disappoint you, coz. I pointed out that an invitation to Greenwood Castle was a singular mark of favor achieved by few members of the family, of which I am not one, but she refused to be convinced. And why she decided at the last minute that we must come here, when she dislikes the country above all things, I cannot begin to guess.”
“Never say so, Humbug,” said the Earl. “Or I will think you have encountered domestic difficulties yourself.”
“I wouldn’t gloat, if I were you!” retorted Hubert, with a glance of keen dislike. “You’ll soon enough have difficulties of your own.”
“You mean to sow discord, I gather.” Lord Dorset scowled like a thundercloud. “Well, you shan’t. I won’t permit it. Livvy—”
“—is in a delicate condition,” Dulcie interrupted. “We are aware, Dickon. Hubert, you may proceed.”
That gentleman continued glowering at his cousin. “You needn’t bother saying I dwell under the hen’s foot, because in general Jael and I rub on agreeably enough.”
“I wasn’t going to say any such thing,” replied Dickon, untruthfully. “So you don’t know why Jael insisted on joining us here?”
Hubert plucked a thread from his waistcoat. “I didn’t deem it politic to ask.”
One could hardly blame him. Sir John had a vivid memory of the woman, seated on the edge of his desk and cleaning her nails with a sharp-edged knife.
“You could have refused to escort her,” Dulcie pointed out.
“I realize you hold me in no great regard,” Hubert said with indignation, “but I
don’t know why you’d think that I would sit idly twiddling my thumbs at home while Jael goes jaunting about the countryside.”
Bluebeard stretched out one bright blue wing. “Twiddle-diddles,” he observed.
“Twiddlepoop,” came a voice from the doorway. “I told you to stay in town.”
“And I’ll repeat what I told you then,” responded Hubert. “Whither you go, so do I.”
Jael’s arrival put a brief end to conversation. Bluebeard ruffled his feathers and clacked his beak. Casanova twitched his tail.
She walked across the carpet, a dark-skinned tangle-haired beauty with cold grey eyes, an aquiline nose, and a thin white scar running from her left cheekbone to her chin. Golden rings pierced her earlobes. Disposed about her voluptuous person were scarfs and shawls and garments of bright colors, countless baubles and chains.
Jael dropped Dulcie a mocking curtsey. “Whatever the lady pleases, and thank you my kind mistress, and the blessings of the poor gypsy woman on you. I suppose you’ll be wanting your fortune told.”
“Better you should tell your own.” The Baroness rose and crossed the room.
“Afraid, lady?” Jael’s humorless smile flashed. “Dare you cross my palm with gold? So the raggle-taggle trollop may tell you what has been, and what will be?”
“You’re no more raggle-taggle than I am,” Dulcie remarked dispassionately. “Don’t sham it so.”