Murder While I Smile (6 page)

Inwood was shorter, darker, more handsome, less sure of himself, and more likable. The young men drew to a stop in front of Hatchard’s and were presented to Lady deCoventry.

“Prance, are you sunk to handing out copies of your
Rondeaux
on street corners?” Marchant asked with a smirk.

“You’ll have to buy a copy if you want one, Marchant,” Luten replied, even as Prance’s hand moved forward. “These copies are spoken for. If you hurry, you might get one before they’re all taken.”

“Both copies?” Marchant replied waggishly.

“Where could I get one?” Inwood asked, with apparent sincerity. “I’ve always been interested in King Arthur.”

The solecism of mistaking the
dux bellorum
for King Arthur was noted, but forgiven. “You can have this one,” Prance said, handing it over. “I have a spare copy in the carriage.”

“I daresay you can spare me a copy as well,” Marchant said, glancing at the copies each of them carried, and biting back a grin.

“Afraid not,” Luten said.

Inwood opened the book and began leafing through it. It was enough encouragement for Prance, who immediately began to speak of
dux bellorum.

Marchant turned aside in disdain and said to Luten, “Where are you folks off to on this fine day?”

“To call on the Countess de Lieven, who is eager to receive this copy of Prance’s book,” he lied. “And you?”

“Inwood and I have a very important meeting this afternoon. We have been assigned to a special project of the Ordnance Committee, under the secretary for war.”

“Meeting before the House sits to prevent us Whigs keeping an eye on you, eh?” Luten said, only half joking.

“The world doesn’t stop wagging because some of the members want a long summer vacation, milord,” Marchant replied

“Any news from the Peninsula? I’ve been out of town for a spell.”

“Not what Grey and Grenville and you Whigs would like to hear. We’re not pulling out of Spain and Portugal to let Bonaparte bestride the world like a colossus. We thank Lady Hertford for Prinney’s support,” he added with a lecherous laugh. “She is a staunch Tory, of course. The prince’s carriage is at her door in Manchester Square every afternoon. He will hear what he ought to hear there, no fear.”

“I asked if there were any
new
developments,” Luten said dampingly. It was hardly news to him that Prinney was courting Lady Hertford.

“After our stunning triumphs, we feel confident of total victory. We’ve sent Wellington the reinforcements he needs to take care of it. He’ll soon have the Frenchies rooted out.”

“Thank God for Wellington. A fine tactician.”

“The opinion at the Horse Guards is that he depends too much on his thin red line, actually.”

“Have the Horse Guards yet discovered that it works?”

“He overlooks more modern methods, was my meaning.” Marchant so enjoyed being seen in public chatting to such an out and outer as Lord Luten that he soon slipped into indiscretion. “The rocket devised by Congreve, for instance.” He lowered his voice and drew Luten a little aside. “This is not for the common ear, but we have sent rockets to Canada to fight the Yankees.”

“They were not very accurate when Haidalr Ali used them against us in India in the last century,” Luten said doubtfully.

“True, we suffered heavy losses at Mysore, but the development of the rocket has come along nicely since then. They’re lighter now, cheaper. They’ve increased the range to over a mile and a half, nearly two miles. They’ll revolutionize war, only Wellington is too blind to see it. He’ll use the rockets if the Duke of York tells him to use them, however. York is the commander of the army. War is too important to leave to
—
”

“To soldiers?” Luten asked with a derisive smile.

“To an Irish upstart. If it weren’t for Wellington’s friendship with Castlereagh—but enough of that.”

“Quite. Am I to understand we are sending rockets to the Peninsula?”

Marchant looked about for listening spies. “That is the idea,” he allowed.

“I see. We shan’t detain you. Lord Bathurst will not want to be kept waiting.”

“Oh, as to that, the meeting ain’t for an hour yet.”

After being away for the summer, Luten was eager to discover what new tricks Mouldy and Company, as the Whigs termed the Tories, were up to.

“About these rockets,” he said. “Congreve will be the supplier?”

“He is one of the suppliers who sent in a bid.”

“Who are the others?”

Marchant hesitated a moment before replying. “Only one other. Gresham, from the Gresham Armaments Works in Colchester.”

“Which one
—”

Marchant stiffened up. “I’m not at liberty to say, milord. Actually it hasn’t been decided yet. That’s why we’re meeting this afternoon, to discuss it. Come along, Inwood. We must get busy on those notes for Lord Bathurst.” He glanced around to see if passersby were harkening to this important name.

“Thank you very much, Prance,” Inwood said. “I look forward to this.” He lifted the book, then bowed to them all and left with Marchant.

Luten was preoccupied as they continued their walk. Not, as Corinne suspected, with thoughts of the comtesse, but with the question of who would get the rocket contract. Logic decreed that it should go to Congreve, who had developed the device and was more familiar with it. But as the Tories were hastening the business along before the House resumed after the summer recess, there was a possibility of chicanery. The shares of Gresham could be bought for an old song today. If they got the lucrative contract, they would soar. He would pay a call on Grey or Grenville, the leading lights of the Whig party.

When he drew out his watch, Corinne knew he was eager to leave. And as she was eager to be alone with him, she made no objection when he suggested they go home.

Chapter Six

When Coffen received his gilt-edged card to Carlton House, he was thrown into a pelter. He had never been there before. What did a fellow wear to say good day to the Prince Regent? How, precisely, did he word his greeting? What did he say if His Majesty wished to discuss art? Of course, the whole world and his brother knew Prinney was a lecher and a clown, so he would not be allowed to show the glee he was feeling when he casually mentioned the evening to his friends, but still there was some éclat in being invited to the prince’s own house to meet him.

When in doubt, Coffen appealed to the omniscience of Corinne, who had been to Carlton House any number of times with deCoventry when he was alive. Coffen was jabbering incoherently when he called on her a moment later. She was in no good humor herself, after being summarily dumped on the doorstep by Luten with the excuse that he was going to Westminster. Black, her inestimable butler, had reported that Luten left his premises again within ten minutes. The suspicion in her mind was that he was even now ensconced in the Comtesse Chamaude’s cozy saloon, renewing past intimacies.

She poured Coffen and herself a large glass of sherry and tried to calm him down.

“It is not a coronation after all, Coffen, but an informal evening to look at some pictures. As to what you say, you admire them.”

“What if I don’t like ‘em?”

“You admire them, whether you like them or not. To do otherwise would cast aspersions on the prince’s taste. You accept one glass of wine—or maraschino, if that is the abomination he is serving—and sip it slowly. Carlton House is not the place to get foxed, or you’ll end up at the card table, where you will be fleeced by experts.”

“I expect the monkey suit must come out of the cedar press? Mean to say, Almack’s insists on it.”

“Very likely, though Yarrow called it an informal do. Brummell has allowed Prinney to switch to pantaloons, so perhaps
—”

Coffen’s eyes grew big as saucers. “You never mean Beau Brummell will be there?” This was nearly as frightening as meeting the prince.

“He may not. There are rumors of a coolness developing between them.”

“If Brummell is there, I’m done for,” Coffen said, gulping down the sherry. “Mean to say—I can praise a dashed picture as well as the next commoner, but if I have to look stylish, the jig is up.”

“I’ll handle Beau, if he is there.”

Brummell was susceptible to flattery. A mention that Coffen was eager for his opinion of the Poussin would go down well. Praise whatever cravat the Beau was sporting that evening, and the thing was done.

“What is Prance wearing?” she asked. This arbiter elegantiarum would surely know the correct dress.

“I’ll ask him. Let us go in your rig with a lozenge on the door tonight. Mean to say, Carlton House.” He took one last, loving look at the gilt-edge card that was already dog-eared from handling and trundled out the door.

Corinne sat on alone, looking through the window across the street for the return of Luten’s carriage. She had not invited him for dinner, not thinking it necessary. After his absence, she assumed they would share an intimate dinner on his first evening home. This meant dining at his house, as Mrs. Ballard would sit with them at hers. At six-thirty she went abovestairs, where Mrs. Ballard, her companion-cum-dresser, assisted her into an elegant Italian crepe gown of Olympian blue and dressed her hair
en corbeille.

When she returned below, Black, her dark-visaged butler, said in his insinuating way, “His lordship’s carriage arrived home ten minutes ago, milady. I take the privilege of mentioning it since you’ve been keeping an eye out.”

“Thank you, Black,” she said, and bit back the eager question. “Did he send a message?”

Corinne always felt she ought to depress Black’s pretentions, but as he had been with her for as long as she had been in London and had helped her out of more than one scrape, she hardly knew how to go about it.

“His lordship wasn’t in the carriage,” he added, peering to see the effect of this marvelous news.

“Indeed?”

“What it was about, I believe, is that picture Mr. Pattle bought. The coachman darted it across to Mr. Pattle’s place. I’ll keep an eye out and let you know as soon as his lordship returns—and in what rig,” he added with a piercing eye.

As this was precisely what Corinne wanted to know, she said only, “Thank you, Black,” in a falling voice, and went to join Mrs. Ballard for a glass of wine before dinner.

Black, of course, knew all about Pattle’s purchase of the Poussin. It was not a case of a servant being invisible, and thus privy to all the family’s secrets. Black’s avocation was eavesdropping. He had the ears of a dog. Hearing conversation through an open doorway was obviously no challenge to a man who could hear a carriage a block away and could usually tell whose rig it was by the sound of the wheels and the trot of the team.

How could he respond to his beloved’s unspoken needs if he didn’t know all her doings and the doings of her friends? He had seen her strained face when Lord Luten dropped her at the door that afternoon. It was not the way Lord Blackwell would have treated her after a longish absence! Lord Blackwell, the butler’s fantasy alter ego, would have swept her into his arms and not let go for a week.

* * * *

In Prance’s dressing room, knee breeches and silk stockings, commonly known as a monkey suit, had been agreed upon, but an argument ensued over the all-important arrangement of the cravat. Coffen felt such an evening called for the extravagance of the Oriental and was summarily overruled. When he was as fashionable as Prance’s valet could make him, they sat down to one of Andr
é
’s gourmet dinners and a selection of vintage wines. Prance ate even less than usual. While he tenderly dissected a carrot, he ranted on about the comtesse and inevitably about
dux bellorum.

“
‘Incipit Vita Nova,’
Pattle,” he said, gazing at the floral centerpiece as he lifted his wineglass. The small conservatory behind his house had been an inspiration. Fresh flowers without the tedium of buying them or having them sent from his estate. That little bouquet of Provence roses, still blooming in September, reminded him of Yvonne. French, and the petals with that same delicate texture and hue as her cheeks.

“Eh? You know I don’t parlay the bongjaw.”

“Latin, actually. An old Italian rubric. I feel a new life beginning. Ah, how clearly I see the folly of the old. I refer, of course, to the
Rondeaux.
How could I have been so supremely blind? You are all too kind to say the obvious: the
Rondeaux
are not poetry at all. They reek of lamp oil, dull evenings poring over dusty tomes.”

“They ain’t that bad.”

“Out of the mouths of babes! Are you sure you have read them?”

“Of course I am. I read part of them all the way through. Page thirty-nine, if you want the exact page.”

“Pas
nécessaire
.
Dante should have been my inspiration—as I had not yet met
her
.
”

Coffen lifted a piece of mutton from the ragout and peered at it warily. “I always thought Dante was a him.”

“The comtesse, I mean.” He lifted a carrot to his lips and set it down again, untasted. “Dante and Goethe. The latter to teach me that woman is the energy of poetry; Dante to guide my quill in the choice of phrases. I hear an echo of eternity in every line of Dante’s
Vision.”

“Is there any mustard?”

“One does not put mustard on Andr
é
’s ragout! It is seasoned with wine and herbs.”

“Is that what ails it?” The footman handed him the mustard pot. “Thankee kindly.”

Prance stared at the flowers and murmured, “ ‘Love with delight discourses in my mind.’ There is a phrase for you. ‘A light between truth and intellect.’ “

“More like darkness between lies and flirting,
if
you’re talking about the comtesse. The woman’s a flirt, Prance. Shocking the way she was trying to steal Luten from Corinne. And she’s older than thirty, too. That’s why she keeps her saloon so dim.”

“She’s thirty-three or four, perhaps.”

“Eh? Nudging forty is what I meant.”

“What has age to do with anything?”