The Lady Julia Grey Bundle (18 page)

“It was my childhood nickname,” she told me. “But I always thought it was pretty.”

I agreed that it was. “Fleur,” I said, gargling the vowels a little like she did.

She clapped, her eyes bright. “That was very good! Ah, it has been so long since I have enjoyed the company of another woman. I have Therese, of course,” she confided, “but she is an old woman, so set in her ways. You are young. I like to be around young people. It reminds me.”

I cut my eyes at her, thinking she was looking for a compliment. I was not that much younger than she was—perhaps a dozen years. Well, I would not give her the satisfaction of balming her vanity. I sipped at my wine and found myself suddenly emboldened to ask a question that had been niggling at me.

“How long have you known Brisbane?”

She tilted her head, counting on her fingers. “Oh, goodness, it must be nearly twenty years. Something like that.”

I choked a little as my wine struggled to go down. Twenty years. No great wonder they were so familiar or that he had come to her when he was ill. No great wonder he trusted her.

“It was in Buda-Pesth,” she said, drawing her shawl about her more closely. The stars were beginning to peep out and she tossed her head back to look at them.

“Buda-Pesth? Hungary?”

“Yes. I was with an Hungarian count at the time—very fiery those Hungarians. Deliciously so, but it becomes tiresome after a while, I assure you.”

I took her word for it, but I was still trying to make sense of what she had told me. She and Brisbane had met in Hungary, when he was little more than a boy.

She smiled at me, understanding my confusion. “Yes, he was very young. I was his first real love,” she said, yawning discreetly. “It did not last, of course. My Hungarian would not permit a rival, even a boy, but Nicholas was delightful. Very ardent.”

I was not certain that I wanted to know about Brisbane’s ardor. I was just trying to decide how I could tactfully change the subject when I grasped what she had said.

“Did not last? Do you mean that now…that is to say…”

“Am I his mistress now?” she supplied frankly. My face was burning, and I was glad the terrace had grown so dim. But she was not offended. In fact, she laughed.

“Oh, my dear child, I have not shared his bed since that summer in Buda-Pesth. I am his Pompadour, if you understand the reference.”

I did. I adored history, not the dry dates and boring battles, but the stories and the people who populated them. I knew that Madame du Pompadour had been mistress to Louis XV for only a short while, but had reigned as his dearest friend for many years after their physical liaison ended. The fact that Louis XV was my cousin, though only of the most distant variety, had only spiced the story for me.

“I understand. Forgive me, I assumed…”

She patted my hand. “Forgive? Child, I appreciate the compliment. I am far too old for such frolics now.”

I took her in, from her dark hair, only lightly laced with silver, to her limber figure and exquisite carriage.

“Too old at forty?” I teased.

She laughed again, this time without a trace of silver bells. It was a hearty belly laugh, and she reached for her handkerchief, wiping at her eyes.

“Oh,
chérie,
thank you for that. Forty indeed! My dear girl, I will be sixty on my next birthday.”

I stared at her, at the unlined complexion and firm, high bosom. “Witchcraft,” I said distinctly.

She hooted again. “Nothing like that. Cosmetics of the most precise kind,” she said. “I mix them myself, with Therese.” She put the tip of a pointed finger under my chin and raised it, looking closely at my skin. “Very nice, very lovely. Only the English have such complexions. But too pale sometimes. You must let me give you a jar of my rose-petal salve. It will bring the fresh pink roses to your cheeks, you will see.”

“Do you—” I indicated her own delicately tinted complexion.

“Of course. Rub a little into the lips, as well. It heightens the colour and will taste of roses when someone kisses you.”

I bit my lip against telling her how unlikely that would be. We sat a while longer, gossiping like old friends, and I realized that, except for a few suppers with Portia, I had not done this in a very long time. Not since before I married, when I still lived at March House with my sisters. It felt so natural, so effortless to be in Fleur’s company. I realized, too, that if I had followed the conventions dictated by society, this evening would have been forbidden; Fleur would have been forbidden. I watched her as we talked, aging so gracefully, so happily. She was a bit lonely, I could see, but apart from that, she seemed quite pleased with her lot in life. She did not have regrets, which was the most one could expect of life at her age.

I thanked her when I left. She pressed a jar of the rosy salve into my hands, advising me on its use.

“If you like it, I will give you more,” she promised.

Impulsively, I embraced her. She held stiff a moment, and I remembered that the French did not care for physical affection.

But before I could withdraw and apologize, she threw her arms around me and squeezed tightly.

“You must come again, anytime,” she said, her blue eyes sparkling almost violet in the lamplight.

“I will. And I hope you will come to Grey House. In a few days,” I temporized, remembering the distasteful task Brisbane had set me about.

She nodded and I left her then, profoundly grateful to have spent such a lovely evening in such delightful company. But before I was halfway home my thoughts had turned to Brisbane. And for that I was not grateful at all.

There’s small choice in rotten apples.

—William Shakespeare
The Taming of the Shrew

 

I
t occurred to me as I began my search of Grey House that size is entirely relative. I had always thought it a modest sort of town house. But when I began to pace it thoroughly, methodically, and above all surreptitiously, it seemed enormous.

The most difficult part was inventing plausible excuses to be in rooms I had scarcely even seen before. I murmured that I was thinking of changing the wallpaper when Aquinas found me in the butler’s pantry, and I very nearly insulted Cook by delivering the day’s menus to the kitchens in person. Cook did not like even Aquinas setting foot in her domain. I was strictly persona non grata belowstairs.

For a while I walked around with paper and pencil, ostensibly making an inventory of furnishings to be sold when I left Grey House. That ruse got me through Edward’s rooms, but by the time I finished, my hand was cramping and the inventory had grown to an unwieldy length. The search saddened me, more than I had anticipated. I had not ventured into Edward’s rooms since his death. The sight of his things, freshly dusted but undisturbed, brought quick, hot tears to my eyes. The rooms looked cold, unused, unfriendly even, like a set
piece in a rather forbidding museum. I wandered about for the longest time, touching things, picking up little treasures and peering into photographs. I touched the beautiful candlesticks on the mantelpiece, Sèvres, with a design of roses and lilies, copied after a pair made for Madame du Barry. They had been his mother’s, the only really decent pieces she had ever bought. There were a few other bits with them, not quite so beautiful, but still pretty enough: a little clock with a shepherdess and a porcelain box decorated with a picture of Pandora opening the legendary box. There were only a few books, the histories he liked to read when he could not settle to sleep, a few volumes of poetry, that sort of thing. On the walls were a pair of rather good paintings with mythological subjects—one of Narcissus gazing into a brook and the other of Achilles mourning the death of Patroclus. I had never much cared for them, but they were very much to Edward’s taste—refined, fashionable, serenely coloured with his favorite blues and greys. I moved from item to item, opening boxes and drawers and peering into vases. I found nothing except a little dust and a few ghosts. It was a disturbing experience, and I realized then that I had no wish to search Grey House by myself. In the end, I convinced myself I had no choice. I told Aquinas.

“You wish to search Grey House, my lady,” he said, his voice carefully neutral. Like all good butlers, Aquinas would never dream of offering an overt criticism.

“That is correct.”

“For the purpose of discovering evidence of some wrongdoing.”

“Exactly.”

“Perhaps I might offer a suggestion or two that would be of assistance.”

“I rather hoped you might.”

“If your ladyship could possibly postpone the proposed
search until tomorrow, I think it would be immeasurably easier to arrange.”

I blinked at him. “Why?”

“Tomorrow is the Sabbath, my lady,” he said, without a trace of impatience.

“Oh, very good. How many of them go to church?”

“All, my lady. And afterward they have the afternoon free to avail themselves of the pleasures of town, such as they are.” Aquinas had been in service in Paris and was always bitter about the solemnity of a British Sunday, even in London.

I stared at him. “Really, how very extraordinary. I never noticed. But I always have luncheon on Sunday, the fires are always tended to.”

“I do not attend services myself, my lady. It is my privilege to stay behind and make certain that you are taken care of.”

I did not know what to say. Aquinas had always shown such deft, quiet concern for me that I was not surprised that he should have given up his own Sunday so that I should not be inconvenienced. What surprised, and saddened me, was my own blindness to his devotion.

“Thank you, Aquinas. You are most diligent.”

He bowed from the neck. He never sat in my presence, with the result that our conversations were always slightly awkward, and I usually finished them with a crick in my neck. But I respected his insistence on decorum.

“Now, I have undertaken to solve a problem with the assistance of Mr. Nicholas Brisbane. Perhaps you will remember that he has called here?”

“I remember all callers, my lady.” A lesser servant would have noted my callers in a book. Aquinas, I was certain, simply filed them in his head.

“Yes, well, Mr. Brisbane has suggested that I search the premises for our culprit. I may tell you the wrongdoing in question was a peccadillo itself—one of the books in my study
was vandalized and the snipped passages were fashioned into anonymous notes. Mr. Brisbane’s intention is to prove that one of the staff here at Grey House was responsible, but I intend to prove him wrong. Unfortunately, the only method for doing so is to search the house for any clue, however trivial, that might point to the guilty party.”

Aquinas nodded thoughtfully. “Might I suggest that your ladyship pay particularly close attention to the public rooms? I do not think one of the staff, if he is a clever villain, would leave evidence of his guilt in his own rooms.”

“Good Lord, Aquinas! You, too? Mr. Brisbane said much the same thing. I thought it indicated he had a criminal mind.”

Aquinas said nothing, but his colour deepened, staining his neck a ferocious scarlet.

“Oh, really, not you as well!”

“I beg your pardon, my lady?” he asked innocently.

“Nothing, Aquinas. I do not wish to know,” I said firmly, and I meant it. In spite of Brisbane’s allusions, I trusted Aquinas more than anyone else in Grey House. I did not care what youthful escapades might have brought him to the wrong side of the law. All that mattered to me was that he was on the proper side of it now.

“Naturally your ladyship will wish to search my room as well,” he said smoothly. “It will be at your disposal whenever you wish.”

“Oh, no, really, I could not—”

For the first time I could remember, Aquinas interrupted me. “You must. I would not like there to be a shadow of suspicion clouding my name, my lady. I value your good opinion too highly.”

I said nothing, but I could hear Brisbane’s voice, insidious as a snake.
Well, of course he would say that, wouldn’t he? Especially if he has already hidden the evidence.

Resolutely, I put Brisbane’s nasty voice from my mind, but
it came creeping back when I opened the door to Aquinas’ room the next morning. The bells had already summoned the faithful to church and I was surprised at how quickly the house fell silent. Renard, usually kept on duty to look after Simon on Sundays, was given one day free per month. Usually, he took it in the middle of the month, but Aquinas had made some excuse for requesting that he take it this first Sunday, and Renard had been too eager to question it. The Ghoul had left on her customary Sunday tour of the churchyards. She left quite early each Sunday morning, swathed in mourning veils and crepe, and did not return until late in the evening, quite as rested and relaxed as if she had just taken a holiday.

Even Magda had gone, although I knew better than to expect her to have gone to worship. She would pay a visit to her own people, no doubt, catching up with the aunts and sisters who had opposed her leaving, and who continually pressed their menfolk for her return. The others would likely go to the parks, meeting up with friends and would-be lovers. From my post in the study, I had listened to them, chattering happily as they crowded down the backstairs, liberated for the better part of the day. It seemed a little insulting really, that they should be so glad to be quit of Grey House, and of me. But I tried to imagine myself in their places and I knew I would have been the first one down the stairs. Even poor Desmond, recovering from a cold, had managed to rub enough camphor on his chest to make an outing worth his while. I could still smell him, along with the cheap perfume the maids had splashed on when I crept out into the hall, feeling for all the world like an intruder in my own house.

I began with Aquinas’ room, for no other reason than guilt. I was ashamed at having to do it while he was in the house, but he had tactfully taken himself upstairs to tend to Simon. I made a quick but thorough search of his effects. I learned that he was a lapsed Roman Catholic, which I had always sus
pected, and that he was a widower, which I had not. I found a bit of newspaper in an envelope in his washstand drawer, its edges soft with age, detailing the acrobatic exploits of the Amazing Aquinas and his beautiful wife, Gabriella, of the Gioberti troupe of Milan. There was a sketch below it, crude but recognizable, of Aquinas balanced atop a wire with Gabriella perched on his shoulder. There was a second clipping as well, this one almost too painful to read—a gust of wind, a bit of ribbon snagged onto the wire.

I thrust it back into the envelope, sorry I had seen it. I had known that he had trained as a circus acrobat, but I had always thought it amusing. I had believed it a youthful escapade, given up for a secure job in service that would see him taken care of in his dotage. I had never imagined the circumstances that drove him to leave the vagabond life. I thought of the countless times I had plagued him to tell me stories of the circus, and how he had always put me off, saying they were dull. I should have known better.

But those were the only surprises in his room. He was neat and tidy to the point of obsession, his effects few and beautifully kept. Of course, Aquinas was far too clever to keep any scraps of his crimes hanging about if he were the villain, but I preferred to think him innocent instead.

I moved to the top of the house, and collected Aquinas to help me search the maids’ dormitory and the footmen’s room. I had told him of the notes, but not of the poison. He would help me search for anything suspicious, but I kept my own lookout for small boxes or vials that might yet hold the means of Edward’s murder. He showed me the way to the staff quarters as I had never ventured there before. The maids shared a largish room that overlooked the garden; the footmen were in a slightly smaller room that faced the street. Both were nastier than I had imagined. Between Betty’s sodden heap of used and crumpled handkerchiefs and Desmond’s col
lection of drippy patent medicines, I felt rather queasy. The maids’ dormitory revealed nothing of interest, though, besides a rather childish attachment to cheap mementos and fairings. They each had bags of ginger nuts and little fair dolls dressed in gaily coloured scraps. They were old enough to earn a living in service, but none of them was more than nineteen, children really, in so many ways. There was a single pot of rouge, cracked and almost empty, that I fancied they shared between them on their days out, and a large bottle of very cheap perfume that was nearly empty. The entire room smelled of it, heavy and sweet, and I was glad to move on to the austere quarters shared by Desmond and Henry. The air was little better than in the maid’s room. Here it smelled of camphor and liquorice and a few other medicinal things I could not identify.

Aquinas raised a brow at the collection of bottles arrayed on the windowsill next to Desmond’s bed.

“He is homesick, my lady. He pines for the country.”

“Then what is he doing in London?” I asked, exasperated, although I knew well the answer. “There are no jobs in the country, I know, Aquinas. You needn’t look so repressive. But really, one would think something could be done for him. I know—I shall ask Father to send him down to the Abbey. A spell in Sussex should put him right, what do you think?”

“I should think the country would be exactly what he requires, my lady. He is a capable young man, diligent and amiable in discharging his duties. I think he would prove most satisfactory to his lordship. You might suggest something with dogs, my lady.”

“Dogs?” I was moving on to the chest at the foot of Henry’s bed.

“Yes, my lady. He is very fond of them.”

I heaved back the lid and began to poke the untidy contents with my finger.

“Well, Father is always looking for someone he can trust
with his mastiffs. Especially now that poor old Crab is finally about to throw a litter. Good God!”

I had found an album, bound in cheap leather and tied with a black cord. I opened it, expecting the usual postcards from seaside resorts. What I found was something entirely different.

Aquinas looked discreetly over my shoulder and coughed.

“French, I should think, my lady.”

“How can you tell?” I asked, wide-eyed.

“The caption around the edge.”

“Well done, Aquinas. I had not even noticed there was a caption.” This was because I had been too occupied with the photograph of the young woman in a provocative state of undress. She was staring at the camera with a saucy expression, apparently oblivious to the young man touching her.

I flipped through the album hurriedly. There were more of the postcards, dozens of them, all featuring subjects of a prurient nature. But toward the back, there was something different. The first postcards had been cheeky, almost funny. Most of the young women were draped, exposing only their bosoms. The young men in the pictures were entirely clothed. One could imagine small boys tittering over them in groups behind the privy.

But the others—I stared at them, feeling faintly sick to my stomach. These were not photographs. They were drawings printed on heavy paper, the edges raw as though they had been bound once and torn free. They were thoroughly obscene, not because they were sexual, but because they were violent. They depicted things I had never imagined, never wanted to imagine could happen. I stared at them until Aquinas lifted the album gently from my hands.

“Some things are best left unseen,” he remarked, his voice cold with anger.

“I do not understand,” I said stupidly.

“You would not, my lady, because you have been raised with dignity and with grace.” He ranted softly for a moment in Italian.

“But why would Henry have these?”

Aquinas averted his eyes and I flushed painfully.

“I mean, I can imagine
why,
but where did he get them?”