Murder While I Smile (11 page)

“I have an old school friend who inherited a big house in Somerset,” he said. “He mentioned his wife wants to buy some furnishings and pictures and so on to brighten it up. Deverel could well afford the Watteau, but unfortunately he is no connoisseur. It would seem a shame to send it off to the provinces to languish unappreciated.”

She lowered her eyes and played with the silk of her gown, so that he could not read her expression. “You have lost interest in it yourself, Luten?” she asked.

To dilute her suspicion, he said, “Not at all. I have just had word from my bailiff at Southgate Abbey that the roof needs replacement. It cuts into my disposable income. I don’t like to leave myself short. Might Yarrow know someone who would buy it, or buy it himself?” he suggested, to conceal his interest in the matter.

Her face tensed at the mention of her patron’s name. “I would prefer not to be further indebted to Lord Yarrow,” she said.

Luten had to force the hopeful smile that peered at her. “Indeed?” he said. “That is good news to the bachelors of London.”

She smiled at him from the corner of her dark, liquid eyes. There was seduction in that look, and something else that he found upsetting. It looked like sadness, and he felt an unwelcome stirring of pity. He reminded himself that she was a professional actress.

“I am long past the age where I excite the interest of young gentlemen,” she said, rather archly.

“It is ungentlemanly to disagree with a lady, but I fear I must be ungentlemanly in this matter.”

She reached out and patted his hand with her soft, warm fingers. “You were always so sweet, Luten,” she said, in a fond, nostalgic way.

“I could still be sweet, if you would allow.... Come, let us go out for a drive in the country. It will help you be rid of these blue devils.”

She sat up, excitement flashing. “Dare we?” she asked.

“You are thinking of Yarrow?”

“He would dislike it very much, I fear. He was extremely jealous to hear you had called the other day. I did not tell him,
naturellement.
I believe he heard of it at the prince’s little soiree.”

How cleverly she had pitched them in league against Yarrow, devising secrets to bind them together. “Then it is fortunate I sent for my unmarked carriage,
n’est-ce pas?
Your butler—is he to be trusted?”

“I chose my own servants. They are faithful to me. We shall drive in the country,
non?
I prefer not to be seen in town. I daresay you feel the same?” she asked, with a teasing laugh.

Luten managed to reply with an air of nonchalance he was far from feeling. If Corinne ever found out about this! “Oh, I am still single.”

This business of the rockets was too important to let his own interests stand in the way. Corinne would understand. If Chamaude was influencing Yarrow to supply inferior weapons, perhaps perfectly useless ones, it could cost the lives of countless English soldiers.

“Allow me a moment to make my toilette. I shall return
tout de suite,”
she said.

She rose and glided from the room in a silken rustle, leaving behind a miasma of musk. The few moments until she returned showed Luten what a perilous course he was running, but he must just count on Corinne’s common sense. And besides, he thought, she might never hear of it. He would tell her after it was all over. His hunting carriage drew up to the door just as Yvonne returned, wearing a hooded mantle that would cover her face in the carriage. She was obviously no tyro at this sort of thing. She had slipped out on Yarrow before.

* * * *

Before calling on the comtesse, Prance visited his little conservatory to select a bouquet. Provence roses, of course, would be the basis, but they must be set off with interesting greenery and presented in a vase. He had a surfeit of interesting vases; the only difficulty was to choose the most suitable. He settled on a tall, elegant vase of Murano crystal that sparkled like her eyes. With his clasp knife, he removed every thorn by hand from the rose stocks. When one of them pierced his finger, he squeezed a few droplets of blood and deposited them on a rose petal. It seemed symbolic, but of what, he was not quite sure. A promise that he would gladly spill his blood for her, perhaps? A few drops anyway.

He rearranged his poetic toilette, exchanging the saffron kerchief for one of a pale indigo, which was a more romantic shade. When all was ready, he carried the vase to his carriage and directed his coachman to drive carefully, to avoid damaging the roses and spilling the water.

The worst Prance expected was that Yarrow would be visiting Yvonne, in which case his own conversation would sparkle so brightly that she would realize she was wasting her time on that aging crock. It was also possible that the comtesse would not be at home, in which case he would wait until she arrived, or leave the posies and return if she was to be gone for hours. What never crossed his mind was that he would actually see Luten lead Yvonne from the doorway, she concealed under a dark hood, he peering up and down the street in a furtive manner before hustling her into his hunting carriage.

The enormity of it quite took his breath away. Luten betraying not only his fiancée but his best friend as well. Prance had thought Corinne ridiculously jealous, but he now realized that she knew Luten better than any of them. Her feminine instinct had caught the whiff of lust in the air between Luten and Yvonne. For lust was obviously all it was in Luten’s case, of course. He was taking pains to make sure Corinne didn’t discover his stunt, which meant he still wanted to marry her.

As much as Prance thrived on drama, this was more than he had bargained for. What was the gentlemanly thing to do in this circumstance? Corinne must be shielded from the awful truth, of course. That was paramount. But Luten must also be brought to his senses—and he must pay the price for this treachery.

He wondered just how far the affair had gone. Were they even now on their way to a romantic tryst in some country inn, away from London’s prying eyes? It was clearly his duty to follow them. He must do it at a discreet distance to avoid being seen and recognized. Hiring a hackney cab would help, but it would never keep up with Luten’s team. As the rig turned the corner, he noticed that the hunting carriage was not drawn by Luten’s blood nags but by a hired team. He was certainly taking no chances of being recognized!

Prance followed along behind as the carriage turned west on Curzon Street, then north on Park Lane. There was enough traffic that keeping his presence unknown was no problem, though the fast pace was hard on the roses. He expected the carriage would continue out of town via Edgeware Road and was surprised when it turned east again on Upper Grosvenor Street and continued on to Grosvenor Square, right into the heart of polite London, where everyone would recognize him. What consummate folly!

When the carriage drew to a stop, Prance remained at the corner. In a rare fit of good luck, an empty hackney cab passed by, and he hailed it. His coachman was ordered to take his own carriage to the mews. Prance withdrew into the shadows of the corner as the hackney drove past Luten’s carriage. He saw Luten assist Yvonne from the carriage. They were going into the house! No, they stopped and just stood, looking and pointing out various features.

Prance studied the house to make sure he could recognize it again. Smallish, brown brick, white columns and pediment, two windows on either side of the doorway. He glanced at the landscaping, and his eyes beheld the To Be Sold sign. His heart fluttered painfully, like a wounded doe’s. Luten was buying her a house! He was setting Yvonne up as his mistress on the very eve of his marriage to Corinne! Prance’s aspirations had never extended to buying Yvonne a house. Luten must be extremely serious about the woman. And of course, he had the cash on hand, or would have as soon as he sold that little property his cousin had left him. The unfairness of it! This was really doing it too brown. He would not get away with this!

The hackney circled the block, while Prance wrestled with his conscience over telling Corinne. She, he felt, was the only chance of bringing Luten to his senses. He might drop Yvonne if Corinne threatened to break their engagement. Or he, Prance, might tell Yvonne that Luten was engaged. She obviously didn’t know, or she would not have been throwing her hankie at Luten right in front of his fiancée during that visit. But would a mere engagement be enough to stop Yvonne? A battle between Aphrodite and... well, another Aphrodite. Or was the judgment of Paris a fitter metaphor?

When he passed the house again, Luten and Yvonne were returning to the carriage. Had he not bought the house, then? Were they just looking for a suitable love nest? The hackney cab was heading in the wrong direction to follow them. Prance had the driver circle back and continue after the hunting carriage. It now proceeded north on Edgeware Road, as he expected, and on out of town via the Maida Vale Road to St. John’s Wood, where it drew into a half-timbered inn.

Prance had seen enough. He asked the hackney driver to take him to Berkeley Square, where he ordered his butler to draw the curtains and tell any callers that he was not well. He required solitude and silence to work out this monumental moral dilemma, and perhaps a glass of brandy and a little browsing through Dante to dull the sharp edge of pain occasioned by this monstrous betrayal.

No more to gaze into those
Sturm und Drang
eyes for a glimpse of paradise. The view now would be tainted with a brimstone tinge of hell. The fire in his veins had turned to ice. Would he ever see the stars again? “Without hope, we live in desire,” he read, and realized again the genius of Dante Alighieri, for his desire was not only alive but enhanced by Yvonne’s carrying on. Say what you like, where women were concerned availability was the strongest aphrodisiac. If she accepted one lover while under Yarrow’s patronage, would she not accept another? Rather fun, actually, to have an affair with Luten’s mistress. The rogue in him enjoyed a cynical little smile. He would not have to feel guilty, when Luten was being such a wretch.

Between the brandy and the quantity and quality of the mischief all around him, he soon felt well enough to call on Coffen. He had to share all this with someone or he would burst, and of course, he could not whisper a word to poor Corinne. Though if Coffen or some kind friend did not let the whole thing out, he would be greatly surprised. No matter, that was not his responsibility.

Chapter Eleven

Luten had a busy afternoon. After spending an hour in flirtation with Yvonne, hinting that he was interested in a liaison, he had to smuggle her home, then dart off to visit Brougham, where he learned that the Ordnance Committee had given the rocket contract to Gresham. Due to Inwood’s death, Yarrow had cast the deciding vote. Brougham had demanded a meeting with Lord Liverpool, the prime minister, who assured him that every aspect of the contract had been looked into, by the Tories, of course, and Gresham’s rocket, while a little more expensive, was the superior weapon.

“Your first love was science, Brougham. Which do you think the superior weapon?” Luten asked.

“My instinct tells me Congreve’s, but that is only because the Tories have chosen Gresham’s.” A trace of a burr clung to Brougham’s speech. “I mean to delve into the matter as soon as I get a moment free. Pity I hadn’t done it sooner, but they kept the whole business quiet.”

“You’re an old hand at manipulating the press. If we leaked word that the contract was given to the wrong company, we might raise a public hue and cry.”

Brougham explained, “It would take time, and I’ve no proof as yet that Gresham’s design is inferior. I was with Liverpool for an hour. He said the Duke of York had personally come out in favor of Gresham. The royal nod pretty well settles it.”

“We are all aware of York’s character, or lack of it,” Luten replied. “The Parliamentary Enquiry found him guilty of allowing his mistress to sell army commissions and promotions, and sacked him a few years ago. It’s a scandal that Prinney reappointed him to his position. He’d sell his title for money. I wonder what Yarrow promised him in return for recommending Gresham.”

“Yarrow is close as inkle weavers with Prinney. That kind of talk will land you in the Tower, Luten, unless you can find something to substantiate it.”

“Then I’ll damned well find something.”

“It had best be ironclad.”

“This book proves Chamaude was entertaining Marchant,” Luten said, holding out the copy of the
Rondeaux
Coffen had given him. “And Marchant was on the Selection Committee. Inwood’s murder is highly suspicious, to say the least.”

“Yes, I do have an inkling that he favored Congreve. That is the way the rumors fly.”

“I’ll search his office. He may have left some notes that indicate
—”

Brougham shook his head. “Too late. It has already been cleared out. I went to have a look. Turner, the new MP from Yorkshire, was already installed. He was not forthcoming as to what happened to Inwood’s papers.”

“Turner was moving in the very day of Inwood’s death? That reeks of chicanery.”

“Perhaps not. Space is at a premium.”

“I feel in my bones Chamaude exerted her influence on Yarrow to vote for Gresham. She’s getting a cut from Gresham.”

“But if Yarrow is not getting anything—well, he’s not the first gentleman to have his head turned by a pretty lady. He’ll look a fool but not a traitor. What you ought to do, however, is unmask this comtesse. We can’t have her exerting a malign influence on a member of the Horse Guards. You said she might have been in France since her arrival?”

“And possibly arranging the odd murder as well, but it is only a suspicion that she was back in France. That painting in her study that I mentioned—I wish we could get a look at the signature on it I ought to have offered to buy it.”

“It wouldn’t prove anything. She has only to say she wasn’t the model. It didn’t look that much like her, you said.”

“True, and I didn’t want to alert her that I’m on to her. I have every intention of unmasking the comtesse. And I suggest that you get a team of engineers up to Colchester to go over Gresham’s rocket with a fine-tooth comb, to make sure it works.”