Little Coquette (9 page)

As soon as they were in Prissie’s flat, Beaumont turned a fulminating eye on Lydia and flung her around to face him. “May I know what you think you’re doing in that getup?” he demanded.

“I am endeavoring to discover who murdered Prissie Shepherd,” she said, wrenching her arm free and striding into the parlor. He had to scurry after her to continue his tirade.

“We agreed that I would come to Maddox Street to make those enquiries.”

“No, Beaumont, you agreed; you told me you would do it. I had nothing to say in the matter. I was to sit at home like a good little girl, twiddling my thumbs, until five o’clock in the afternoon, waiting for you to ride up on your white charger. You might as well realize right now that I intend to participate fully in this matter, with or without your so-called assistance.”

“Did I wait until five o’clock to come here? I felt it would take me that long to complete my enquiries.”

“Well, it did not take me that long. Of course, my enquiries did not involve any other activities,” she said with a sharp look.

“What the devil is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, they are lightskirts, and you were awfully eager to meet them, without me along.”

He shook his head in disgust. “You are your mother’s daughter, Lydia. All men are lechers who can think of nothing but attacking women. Just what you hoped to accomplish by sneaking off—”

“I have already discovered a good deal—and without coming to harm. As to ‘sneaking off,’ you are not my keeper.”

“Thank God for that! What do you think will happen if someone who knows Prissie’s sister meets you? Say Dooley, for instance.”

She tossed her chin in the air and began to stride the room, as she had often seen gentlemen do. “I’ll handle that when and if it happens. I don’t think he knows Nancy. He is some fellow Prissie met years ago when she first came to London.”

“You’ll handle it by posing as a lightskirt? Is that your idea of a sensible plan? You wouldn’t fool a schoolboy with that accent. You don’t look a bit like a lightskirt. Your gown is dowdy and your hair is all wrong.”

“The gown, for your information, belongs to a lightskirt, Prissie. As to the hair, it fooled Sally, and she, you must own, would be as familiar with the breed as you are.” She cast a furious glance at him. “Though of course from a somewhat different perspective.”

Outdone on that angle, he tried a new attack. “You’re wearing rouge! And have applied it very badly, I might add.”

“What of it?” she said, and resumed her angry striding. Neither of them had sat down. “I am not posing as an experienced lady of pleasure, but as a girl fresh from the country looking out for a patron.”

Beaumont tossed up his hands. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing. You’ve gone mad. You were bad enough as a prude!”

Her gray eyes were frosty. “Thank you very much, Lord Beaumont. You were and are utterly hateful, thinking you know everything. I’ll have you know I found out more in a quarter of an hour from Sally than you have accomplished since we got here.”

“I just arrived this minute!”

“I mean here, in London. You had all yesterday afternoon and evening. All you found out was that Prissie’s last name was Shepherd. I have found out all sorts of things. Horrible things,” she said on a hiccoughing sob.

“What? What have you learned? Good God! Sir John didn’t kill her!”

“Of course not! I don’t mean that! I am convinced it was Dooley. Prissie was frightened of him. He said she owed him something—money, presumably. That’s what he’s been looking for here and at the inn.”

“We already suspected that. What else did you learn?”

“Prissie has a son, a little boy. She calls him Richie. He’s probably Papa’s son, although his care is left entirely up to his mama. She let her maid go to save money for Richie’s education.”

“That ought to please you! You complained enough that your father was squandering money on her.”

“It wasn’t the money!” she said at once. “It was . . . oh, other things. He never came home for my birthday or Mama’s. He let on he was too busy. He liked her better than us,” she said, and drew a handkerchief from her reticule. She brushed away her tears and blew her nose.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and felt a pronounced desire to punch Sir John in the nose. He and his mama had attended a few of those birthday parties. He remembered Lydia rushing to the window with love beaming in her eyes every time a carriage arrived, in the vain hope that her father had come home after all. And he remembered the slump of her shoulders when it wasn’t Sir John, too. The lightskirt he could forgive, under the circumstances, but to ignore his own family was doing it too brown.

“She visits—visited Richie every Sunday,” Lydia said, “and now she’ll never visit him again. It’s horrid! That poor little boy. And furthermore, you young gentlemen beat the lightskirts!” she said with a darkening eye. “And as soon as you see a prettier face, you jilt your mistresses. It is a shame and a disgrace what these poor girls have to put up with from you.”

“I never beat a woman in my life.”

“I wager you have jilted plenty!”

“You don’t jilt a woman whose services you are buying. You give her her congé and a diamond bracelet, and often go to the trouble to find her a new patron as well.”

“Trade her in on a new model, you mean, as if she were a carriage or a horse.”

“She sells her wares to the highest bidder. It is not always the woman who is given her congé.”

“Putting French words on it doesn’t change anything. You use those women who have nothing to sell but their bodies! Oh, I am almost sorry I ever came here, except that I—” She came to a stop. Perhaps she would not tell Beaumont about going to the Pantheon.

He leapt on it. “What?” he asked at once.

“Nothing. Just that I’ve learned all those things from Sally.” She turned away and began fiddling with the ribbons on her gown, as she used to do when trying to con him a decade ago.

“You are a very bad liar, Lydia,” he said, examining her in exasperation. Yet that childish motion with the ribbons, and her real hurt, caused him a wince of pity.

“So now it is a gentleman’s prerogative to change his mind, is it? Yesterday you told me I was good at deceit.”

Yesterday she had acted like a woman. Today, she was suddenly a young girl again. Beaumont sat down wearily and put his face in his hands. He must have been mad to come here. What did any of this have to do with him? He had thought it might be amusing to follow up the case, and now he was lumbered with a foolish, headstrong greenhead who was going to pitch herself and him into some calamity before it was over. Having brought her, he couldn’t abandon her to a parcel of lightskirts and Dooley—whoever Dooley was. That was what she was hiding from him! She had a line on Dooley.

But she wouldn’t tell him when she was in this temper. He’d take her home, and try to calm her down along the way.

“Come, I’ll take you home now,” he said gently.

Her chin squared in determination. “I am remaining in London for the time being. I am in no hurry to return to my lecherous father’s house. The way I feel right now, I could not bear to look at him.”

“I meant home to Grosvenor Square. Your father is only human, Lydia, not the hero you imagined when you were a child. All men make mistakes— and all women, too. If you made him into a demigod in your mind, that is not his fault.”

“I won’t leave until I find out who killed Prissie. If he is mixed up in it, I want to see if I can at least keep him out of jail.”

“That reason I can accept, and admire, but I doubt your mama will permit you to stay longer than another day.”

“She’ll let me stay as long as it takes. She thinks you are interested in marrying me,” she said bluntly. “Don’t blanch and tremble, Beaumont. If word gets about the parish and folks start to gossip, I shall jilt you and take all the blame of being a here-and-thereian.”

His lips moved in silent amusement. “And who, pray, would believe it?”

She gave a derisive snort. “That I would jilt such an out-and-outer as Lord Beaumont? You have a good opinion of yourself.”

“I meant that the redoubtable Miss Trevelyn would jilt anyone. You haven’t a jilting bone in your body, my girl. A jilt moves more rhythmically. She sways, she undulates, she—”

“She sounds like a reed in the wind, moved by every zephyr.”

“Just so, a reed swaying enticingly, and not a stiffly proud poplar, looking skyward.”

“Is she also a thinking reed, as Monsieur Pascal mentions?”

“Ah no, thinking would be too much to ask of a mere woman,” he said provocatively. “Thinking is confined to the male of the species. ‘Man is a thinking reed,’ you recall, is the quotation.”

“If that was Pascal’s meaning, then he is as bad as the rest of you. A pity man was not also a feeling reed, with some compassion for the less fortunate.”

“He was French, you know,” Beaumont said lightly, and regretted it at once. It was not an auspicious moment for levity. He could see that Lydia was truly upset. “I’ll take you home now,” he said again. “To Grosvenor Square, I mean.”

“I can’t go there yet. I told Aunt Nessie I was visiting a friend, Irene Coltrane, for lunch.”

“Come to my place, then. We can discuss what other lines of enquiry we might make. Your papa might have left some notes or letters at his office at Whitehall.”

She looked up, her eyes bright with interest. “Yes, that’s possible. He wouldn’t bring anything incriminating home to the Hall, and I found nothing in the town house except that one note. Very well. We’ll do as you say.”

Beaumont was not fooled into thinking she had changed her opinion of him. She had merely found another use for him.

“You said you would see Sally before leaving,” he reminded her. “You had best do it before you change back to Miss Trevelyn.”

“I’ll go now,” she said, and hastened out the door.

Sally was still in her apartment, polishing her nails. She jumped up when Lydia entered. “What did Mr. Marchant want you to tell Prissie?” she asked eagerly.

“Only that Sir John has gout, and won’t be in town for a few more days.”

“He’s ever so handsome, Mr. Marchant. He looks well to grass. Why don’t you throw your bonnet at him, Nancy? Ask him to take you to the Pantheon tonight.”

“I’m going with you.”

“We’ll all go together. To meet my fellow there.”

It was a sensible suggestion, but Lydia doubted that Beaumont would agree to taking her to such a raffish place.

“I believe he’s busy tonight,” she said, “but he’s taking me out for a spin in his carriage now. What time shall we leave tonight?”

“Ten o’clock is plenty of time. It’s not really lively before eleven. I’ll call for you at ten.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

“Good luck with Marchant.”

Lydia returned to Prissie’s flat to change back into her own gown. “I won’t be a minute,” she said to Beaumont, and went into the bedroom.

As soon as she closed the door, Beaumont went to call on Sally. After he had paid her a few compliments, he said, “Sir John is a little concerned about Prissie. Because of Dooley, you know,” he said, as if he knew what he was talking about. “Has Dooley been troubling her?”

“He stops in from time to time, but with her out of town, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“After money, is he?”

“She never told me nothing, Mr. Marchant. You know how close she is about her own business.”

“Would you know where I could get in touch with Dooley?”

“The likes of him don’t advertise where they live, do they? Changes rooms every week to be safe from the law.”

“He must have friends.”

“His friends ain’t my friends, nor Prissie’s neither. But if you’re eager to see him, try the Pantheon tonight. After your other business, I mean. Nance mentioned you was busy. Me and Nancy are going.”

Beaumont’s triumph was heavily tinged with anger at Lydia’s stunt of excluding him. “I might do that—but don’t tell Nancy. I want to surprise her.”

“Mum’s the word.”

When Lydia came out of the bedroom again dressed as herself, Beaumont was sitting at his ease on the sofa, leafing through a fashion magazine.

“All set?” he asked, rising and offering her his arm.

She ignored the arm and began to put on her bonnet. Beaumont put his hand under her chin and tilted her face up. She immediately stepped back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, hostility in every bone of her body.

He drew out his handkerchief and wiped the rouge from her cheeks. “Trying to make you look presentable,” he said. “What did you think?”

She didn’t answer, or have to. His glinting smile told her he had read her mind. She had thought he was going to kiss her. He returned the handkerchief to his pocket and walked to the door without waiting for her. Lydia stood a moment, recovering from her embarrassment, then hurried after him.

Beaumont now had two burrs under his saddle. It was bad enough that Lydia had accused him of foot-dragging; now she was making her own plans behind his back—and after he was kind enough to bring her to London. To show his eagerness, he said, “I’ll take you to Manchester Square now and go on to Whitehall to see what I can discover there, before lunch.”

“Why waste time?” His jaws clenched at the words, but she went on to explain. “I’ll go to Whitehall with you and wait in the carriage, as I expect the Honorable Members would faint of shock to see a skirt in their hallowed halls.”

“Very well, if you don’t mind waiting. It shouldn’t take long. Your papa’s secretary knows we are neighbors, so I should have no difficulty getting into his office to retrieve a report on—something or other.”

“The Corn Laws,” she said. “He is always talking about them.”

They drove directly to the Houses of Parliament and Lydia waited outside, as agreed. A colleague of her father’s was just entering the House. Mr. Colville had been invited to Trevelyn Hall a few times in an effort to find a husband for Lydia. Despite his handsome face and fine physique, she had not succumbed to his charms, perhaps because his visits had occurred in February, when she was in the throes of discovering her new philosophy. He recognized her at once and stopped a moment to talk.