Little Coquette (3 page)

He often stayed in London when he had these attacks of gout. Why had he come home this time? In the first heat of anger, she could believe anything of him. Had he had a falling out with his lover? Had she jilted him, and in an excess of jealousy, had Papa killed her? But he would hardly do it here, on his own doorstep.

The answer came in a blinding flash. Papa had jilted her, and she had come threatening to tell Mama. She was holding him to ransom for some huge sum. That was why money was tight. If Papa had not done the deed himself, he might have hired someone else to do it. Lydia was in a chastened, uncertain state when Beaumont returned, dangling a key from his finger.

“The Daffodil Room, second floor,” he said. “It cost me a quid. We’re not to take anything. Oh, and he’s expecting the constable any moment, so we had best hurry.” They walked swiftly to the staircase and began climbing.

“What was her name?” she asked.

“She registered yesterday afternoon as Mrs. St. John, from London. She took the room for only the one night.”

Lydia wondered if it was a coincidence, her using a variation on Sir John’s name. “Did he not wonder when she didn’t return to the inn last night?”

“He suspected her vocation. It is not unusual for a member of the muslin company to stay out all night.”

“She would not have told him where she was going, I suppose?”

Beaumont hesitated a moment before replying, “She didn’t say.” Lydia looked on the verge of fainting. No need to let her know the worst.

The bedroom doors bore painted flowers to match the name of the room or suite. When they espied the daffodil, Beaumont inserted the key and they entered a spacious chamber done in daffodil yellow, with a view of the High Street through a pair of windows, one on either side of the canopied bed. The room smelled of musky perfume, powder, and stale air. A bottle of wine, half empty, and a single glass rested on the bedside table, along with a ladies’ magazine. Although the bed had not been slept in, the coverlet had been pulled down and the pillows tossed aside. The room bore other traces of occupancy as well. Lydia’s nostrils pinched in distaste to see such slovenly disarray.

Mrs. St. John had made a great deal of mess for someone who traveled so light. It was hard to believe that so many objects had come out of the one bandbox. The round cardboard box, covered in elegant maroon kidskin and lined in silk, had been tossed on the bed, with its lid beside it. A foam of lingerie tumbled onto the coverlet. One pink satin mule with a high heel and a puff of pink eiderdown decorating the toe was latched playfully over the rim of the bandbox. The other was on the floor halfway across the room, as if she had not just kicked it off but thrown it in a fit of temper.

On the toilet table sat an array of cosmetic bottles and boxes, along with a brush, comb, and hand mirror in chased silver. Lydia went to examine the articles, which held a strange fascination for one accustomed to seeing only a brush, comb, and talcum powder on her own and her mama’s toilet tables. Face powder, rouge, perfume, nail file, manicure scissors, and assorted small articles, perhaps for arranging the coiffure, sat in a jumble on the mahogany surface. All this for one day’s visit. A dusting of face powder was sprinkled over it all.

“Do you see a reticule?” Beaumont asked, lifting a drift of white, lacy peignoir and peering into the bandbox.

“No, she would have taken that with her.”

“We didn’t find it in the river. Perhaps whoever searched her room got it.”

Lydia jerked to attention. “What do you mean, searched her room?”

“Look around you,” he said, pointing at the slipper and the disarranged pillows. “Someone’s been here before us. He didn’t use a key. I asked the clerk if anyone had been asking for Mrs. St. John. With luck, the purse is at the bottom of the river. I’ll go swimming later and dive for it.” As he spoke, he continued rooting in the box. He dumped a pair of blue silk stockings onto the bed and held the box up. The silk lining had been ripped out.

Lydia just stared in silence. So Beaumont was right. The room had been searched. And she was glad, because her papa had certainly not risked exposure by coming to a public inn to meet his mistress. Someone else was involved in her murder. She suppressed the thought that it might have been an assassin hired by Sir John.

“What’s the matter, Miss Trevelyn?” Beaumont asked. “You look as if you’d seen a ghost.”

“Papa didn’t do this,” she said in a small, frightened voice.

“Good lord, I didn’t think for a minute he had. Er—do you think he might have been involved with Mrs. St. John?”

“I suppose it’s possible,” she allowed. “He is only human after all, and being away from home so much. ..”

Beaumont just shrugged his shoulders, relieved that she had accepted the inevitable. “Where there is marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.”

“But he does love us!”

“I am sure he loves you, Miss Trevelyn. You must not take this personally. Indeed, I am sure he is fond of your mama, or he would not have been at such pains to conceal from her all these years that he has a mistress. Such women are called a ‘convenience’ for a reason. That is all Mrs. St. John was, a convenience.”

Lydia latched on to that telling “all these years.” All these years her papa had been deceiving them, and Beaumont had known all about it. Very likely all the gentlemen knew and were in league to hide it from the ladies. She was as close to hating her father as she had ever been to hating anyone. She felt betrayed.

“Well, she is not so convenient now, is she?” she said angrily. “We must protect Mama at all costs, Beaumont.”

“I am relieved to see you acting so sensibly,” he said in accents of approval. Say that for Lydia, at least she wasn’t a demmed watering pot. Nor had her prudishness given her such a disgust of her father that she would go running to her mother with the tale. The news had shattered her, but she was taking it like a regular little guy.

“Of course, we are not sure Mrs. St. John was Papa’s mistress,” she said, darting a hopeful look at him.

“Actually, we are pretty sure,” he said, wishing it were not so. “She asked for directions to Trevelyn Hall before going out yesterday afternoon. I didn’t want to tell you....”

He watched as her face began to crumple. Her shoulders sagged in defeat, her head drooped, and her lower lip began to tremble in a way that made Beaumont want to comfort her. He made an instinctive move toward her, but before he touched her, her head came up and he saw her face stiffen.

“Thank you for telling me, Beaumont. It is not necessary to try to protect me, you know. So, what are we to do?”

“Find out what the deuce she was doing here, and who killed her.”

Her chin firmed and a martial light lit her gray eyes. “Yes, that is what I must . Thank you for your help, Beaumont. I shall look after things from here. This is my family’s problem.”

His lips twitched in amusement, but his brow was furrowed. Lydia trying to straighten out this mess would be like a kitten trying to solve a problem in algebra. He was looking forward to the solving of the puzzle himself and felt no qualms whatever about his ability to do so. It would pass the time agreeably until he left for his summer house in Brighton.

“And how will you do that, Miss Trevelyn?” he asked.

“When I discover where she is from, I shall go to London and—and look into it,” she said vaguely, “Speak to her friends, you know.” Even as she spoke, she realized the impossibility of the thing. What excuse could she make for going to London when her father wasn’t even there? How could she get away without Mama? Once there, how could she go unescorted to such places as lightskirts inhabited? She was bound in on every side by the mere fact of being a lady.

“An excellent plan,” Beaumont said. “If I cannot find her reticule and her address, we shall just have to ask Sir John where she lives.”

Lydia puckered her lips to say “We?” but thought again before offending Beaumont. He would be an excellent ally in her scheme. Her mama doted on him. He might even make an excuse to go to London. Some remnant of feminine guile remained with her. She smiled demurely and said, “That would be awfully kind of you, Beaumont.”

Beaumont felt only an instant’s gratification at her maidenly response. His chest had just begun to swell when he noticed the sly smile she was trying to conceal.

“My pleasure,” he said, in a voice that hinted at anything but.

As the afternoon was far advanced when Lord Beaumont brought Miss Trevelyn home, the trip to London had to wait until the next morning. Anxious as Lady Trevelyn was to oblige Beaumont, she still felt constrained to utter a few objections to the scheme.

“With neither your papa nor I at the London house, my dear, who will chaperon you?” she asked her daughter.

“Why, Aunt Nessie to be sure,” Lydia replied. This was Sir John’s sister who kept house for him in London.

“I shall see she comes to no grief when she leaves the house, ma’am,” Beaumont said with his most charming smile that invariably made the mamas wish they were twenty years younger and single.

Lady Trevelyn simpered. “Well, it is odd she would not go to London when I wanted her to and insists on going now, but that is the way with girls.” She peered from her daughter to Beaumont, with curiosity gleaming from her eyes.

Lydia’s blush was as good as an announcement that romance was afoot.

“Headstrong,” Beaumont said, shaking his head.

“You know I have been wanting to attend Mr. Coleridge’s lecture, Mama,” the deceitful girl said.

Lady Trevelyn would have preferred a more romantic outing but poets were in vogue this season, so perhaps a lecture would not be such a dull scald as she imagined. “And Lord Beaumont has agreed to accompany you. So kind. I don’t believe Sir John will object to that, when Nessie is there to see no harm comes to you. When will you be returning?”

“The day after tomorrow,” Beaumont replied.

“If I stay another day, I shall write you a note, Mama,” Lydia added, in case her papa’s business took her a little longer.

“That might be best, dear. You will want a day to recover from the lecture.” Beaumont’s lips twitched at this telling speech. Lydia noticed and scowled at him. It was all right for her to find her mother a little ridiculous, but it annoyed her that someone outside the family should do so.

After he left, Lady Trevelyn had a deal more to say to her daughter, all of an admonishing nature. With all the restrictions as to propriety and remembering she was a lady, Lydia was still to let Beaumont know she was eager to become his bride.

Lydia interrupted the flow of exhortations in midstream. “It is only Beaumont, Mama, not the Prince of Wales.”

“I should hope not! As if I would let you associate with that— One hears such tales of his wickedness. We shall go up and tell your papa of the visit,” she said, and struggled out of her padded chair.

Lydia felt a pronounced revulsion to entering her papa’s room, but she could hardly leave without seeing him, and it seemed best to do it with her mama so that she would not have to say much.

Sir John, wearing a white linen nightshirt with a ruffled neckband, was propped up in a carved bed of imperial size, curtained in red damask. The elegant chamber had been turned into an ad hoc office, with papers and documents scattered over various tables and the desk. He had a folio of government papers in front of him and a pair of spectacles perched on the end of his aquiline nose.

Lydia observed him as if he were a stranger, for so he seemed to her now. He was an elegant figure, even in his nightshirt. Age had been kind to him. The silver wings that adorned his temples lent an added air of distinction to his lean, swarthy face. As he had heard no rumor of the lightskirt’s murder, it never occurred to him that there was any ulterior motive for Lydia’s visit to London. He felt a match with Beaumont an excellent thing and directed a kindly smile at her as he removed his reading spectacles.

“Enjoy yourself, Lydia. I have every confidence in your good sense. I don’t have to tell you not to run into trouble. Bring me my strongbox. You’ll want a little pocket money.”

Lydia brought the strongbox from his desk. He unlocked it and handed her a few bills of large denomination.

“Thank you, Papa,” she said in a failing voice. His smile was as gentle and loving as ever and seemed genuine. How was it possible, when he had been leading a double life all this time?

Lady Trevelyn enquired dutifully how he was feeling and if there was anything the servants could do for him. He said he was feeling somewhat stouter; then the ladies rose to leave.

“Aren’t you going to kiss me good night, Lydia?” he asked.

A jolt of anger smote her heart at the casual words. She had to quell the angry tirade that rose to her throat. She blew him a kiss from the door, fearing that if she touched him, she would burst into tears of frustration,

“I shan’t disturb you again tonight, John,” his wife said. “Good night, dear. I hope you sleep well.” Lydia noticed her parents had not exchanged a kiss, nor had her papa asked his wife if she was not going to kiss him.

“Good night, dear,” he replied, already putting his spectacles back on and drawing his papers forward.

After Lydia went to her room to change for dinner, it struck her as odd that her parents should say good night so early. They hadn’t dined yet. It wasn’t even dark out. Her mama was not going out, nor was there company coming. Did her mother know about the lightskirt? Was that why she treated her husband so coolly, hardly like a husband at all, but like a troublesome guest?

All this was so worrying that Lydia wanted to be alone to think about it. She used the excuse of packing to go up to her room immediately after dinner. It took Marie, the upstairs maid, only half an hour to pack up what was required for the short visit. When the trunk was ready, Lydia lay on her bed, looking at the window as the purple shadows of twilight dimmed to darkness. She tried to remember if she had ever seen any tokens of affection between her parents.

Her mama talked about Sir John a great deal. In theory, her life revolved around him, but when he came home from London, she just gave him a peck on the cheek and asked how everything was going at Whitehall. It was Lydia herself who flew into his arms and welcomed him more warmly. She was the one who asked the more detailed questions about what he had been doing. Her mama just sat, poking her needle into whatever piece of embroidery she was working on, listening with perfect contentment. When she spoke, it was about little neighborhood doings.