Rosemary Stevens (20 page)

I did not know who I wanted to throttle first. Fairingdale for being his usual ugly self, or Tallarico for being his usual charming self when it came to Freddie.

I addressed the Prince. “Sir, we cannot stand by and let Nevill be hanged for a crime he did not commit.”

“How are you so sure he didn’t do it?” the Count asked.

“Because I know the man’s character.”

“But you didn’t think he’d wager again when you let him off the hook regarding his debt at Watier’s and yet he did. Else he wouldn’t be in this mess,” Fairingdale said.

“He had a purpose in gaming: to gain funds to marry the girl he loves.”

“And he just as well had a purpose in ending poor Mr. Jacombe’s life: to avoid the duel,” Fairingdale said.

“I have looked into the matter. Mr. Jacombe was not the model of propriety he appeared to be,” I said.

“Oh, do tell us all the details,” the Count encouraged, jumping up and down on the fine table. No wonder Prinny treated him like a child. He acted like one.

“There is no time. Sir, is there nothing you can do to help? Ask Bow Street to set back the date of the trial at the very least.”

Prinny looked skeptical. “I don’t have any governing powers. I can’t interfere with Bow Street.”

“But your friend, Jack Townsend, at Bow Street—”

“This isn’t in his control. It’s one of the biggest scandals London has seen in ages. Only the Lord Chief Justice at King’s Bench Prison has power over this. I must leave matters to him, else it looks like he does not have royal favour and England has no independent judiciary.”

I could not argue with that. Well, I could, but it would be a waste of breath.

Frustrated, I stayed for a little while, but then made an excuse and took my leave.

Back home in Bruton Street, Robinson waited for me with complaints about Mrs. Ed.

“Sir, how much longer will she stay? Andre is upset as well as me. She has overturned his kitchen,” Robinson said, handing me my nightclothes.

“She has only been here a week.”

“One week and one day,” Robinson corrected.

“What would you have me do, throw her out?”

Robinson looked hopeful.

“Leave me now, and wake me at ten if I am not already up.”

“Very good, sir. Sleep well. I hope the sounds of pig squeals do not awaken you during the night.” Robinson swept from the room with the clothes I had worn that day, leaving me alone with Chakkri.

The cat studied me with interest.

I poured myself a small snifter of brandy and crawled into bed.

Immediately Chakkri presented himself for a petting session.

I indulged him. What else could I do, I ask you?

“We are in deep trouble, Chakkri,” I said stroking his fawn-coloured body from head to tail.

He purred.

“You are not listening. We have only tomorrow before the trial. If Miss Lavender is correct, and I am sure she is, the Lord Chief Justice will make quick work about hearing the evidence, then sentence the lieutenant to be hanged on Saturday. Unless a miracle occurs.”

The cat turned his rear to me and walked away.

“Did you not hear me? That young soldier is going to die on Saturday. Bow Street has done nothing, believing they have the killer in hand. It is all up to me.”

The cat found the centre of the bed, turned around twice, laid down with his chin on the bed, and put both his paws over his eyes.

I swallowed some brandy and eyed him. “Just what is the meaning of this performance? You grow more peculiar by the day. Is there some reason why you do not wish to look at me? Have your meals not been served promptly? Has your sand tray not been kept meticulously clean? Have you not enough birds to look at from the windows? Why are you covering your eyes with your paws?”

But Chakkri spoke not a word. Devil.

I gave up trying to understand him.

Instead, I drank the rest of my brandy while contemplating how I might force a confession from one of the suspects prior to the trial on Friday.

Because once the trial was over, the lieutenant’s fate was sealed.

Arabella’s house was a paltry affair situated next to a gin shop. I met Miss Lavender outside at one of the clock on Thursday, feeling as if each minute that ticked by brought the lieutenant closer to his conviction and execution.

“We are in luck,” she said in a low voice. “There are windows open on the ground floor.”

“Yes, I will have to arrange it so she receives me in that particular room,” I said, admiring the light blue gauzy gown Miss Lavender wore and the woman in it.

Then I frowned at the idea of her travelling about without any maid. But she was the most independent female I had ever known. No one would ever be able to persuade her to go about escorted. Perhaps I could convince her to carry a pistol. I would have to speak to her about the matter.

“I’ll wait here beside this window,” she said.

I looked up and down the street. At least it was a quiet neighbourhood. Still, I did not like the idea of Miss Lavender loitering about.

Just then, we heard two female voices from inside the house.

“And clean up that mess in the bedchamber. Mr. Parker was in a temper last night. He made me throw that blue and white pitcher at him.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Miss Lavender looked at me. She spoke in an urgent voice. “I heard every word clearly. We could not hope for better. Let’s get on with it.”

“Very well. Mind yourself out here, and call out if you need me.”

She placed one hand on her hip. “Mr. Brummell, I’ve been taking care of myself now for many years. I don’t need a keeper.”

I turned without a word and applied the brass door knocker with perhaps a trifle more force than I would normally use.

A harried maid in a dirty apron opened the door. Her grey hair was coming out of its knot and her face was covered in smallpox scars.

“George Brummell to see Mrs. Nunn,” I said, handing her one of my cards.

She looked me up and down and then admitted me to a tiny hall. On a scratched table, a vase of wilted flowers seemed to echo the shabbiness of the house.

The maid went directly into the room at the right, the one where the windows were open. I barely kept myself from cheering at this piece of luck.

Not more than a few seconds passed before the maid reappeared and motioned for me to go inside.

I crossed the threshold and took in my surroundings slowly, making sure that I observed the windows last. It was a small sitting-room with a chintz sofa in greens and pinks and two green chairs. Faded paper in a moss-green colour covered the walls.

Arabella lounged on the sofa in a very low cut ivory-coloured gown. The sofa was positioned a few feet from the windows.

“Come in, Mr. Brummell. How perfectly lovely to see you,” she cooed.

Drunk, I thought immediately. Her speech was slurred. How fortunate for me. Finally things might go my way.

She held a glass in one hand, but put it down very carefully, the way one does when one is inebriated, on a low table before rising unsteadily and extending one plump hand for me to kiss.

“You are very kind to receive me, Mrs. Nunn,” I said, brushing the back of her hand with my lips.

Gin. She smelled of gin. She was probably the shop next door’s best customer.

She turned her hand in mine and held it, leading me to the sofa.

“Sit here with me where we can have a comfortable coze. Did Cammie tell you how much I admired you the day we met?”

My gaze fell to the expanse of wrinkled flesh above the bodice of her gown. “Yes,” I lied. “I wanted to get to know you better. In fact, I think I know one of your secrets.”

She smiled in a suggestive way and pulled me closer to her on the sofa. I resisted the urge to jump up and move to one of the chairs. If this was to go the way I wanted, I must appear to be interested in the woman. And I was. Just not in the way she thought.

“Ooooh, I’ve got lots of secrets. A woman without secrets would hardly be worth knowing. And you’ve come at just the right time, Mr. Brummell, or may I call you Beau?”

I couldn’t be bothered with correcting her. “Please do.”

“You can call me Angelica. My protector, Mr. Parker, and I had a disagreement last night. I don’t know that I want to see him again. He’s short for one thing, and thinks too much of himself for another,” she said and frowned. She reached for her glass and took a long swallow. “I need a gentleman. Someone like yourself. Would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Not a drinking man, are you? That’s good. Mr. Parker could get quite demanding when he drank. Of course, he is always demanding, and he smells bad too. You look like the sort who would treat a lady well.”

“About that secret—”

She giggled, then whispered, “Yes, let’s talk about secrets the way lovers do.” She leaned close to me. The smell of gin was almost overwhelming.

“You have a son, do you not?”

She drew back. Her face changed. She looked unsure, wary, but the gin had worked in her brain, and she was confused. “What makes you think so?”

“I knew Mr. Elsworth Nevill slightly. He had a family portrait displayed over the mantel.” I watched the words sink in. It would not do to antagonize her. “You have not changed at all,” I said, adding another lie to the pile.

Then she shrugged a shoulder. “He was a nasty old man, Elsworth Nevill was. Didn’t really like women. He despised his own wife. I think that’s what sent her to an early grave.”

“I expect you did not want a similar fate,” I said in a conversational tone. She would not be speaking to me this way sober, I thought. This was a shrewd woman, I reminded myself.

“No, I did not.” Another swallow of gin. “He came between me and Harry, my husband, you know.”

“How so?”

A flare of anger shone in her dull eyes. “Always telling Harry whenever I had a little on the side. I ask you, is it not common for a woman to take lovers once she’s given her husband an heir?”

“I believe that to be rather common,” I said, sure she would not catch what I really meant by that statement.

She did not. “You are a reasonable man. Yet old Nevill never could shut his mouth about me. Turned my Harry against me. Told him I cost too much, that I was running through all the family money. What’s money for, if not to be spent?”

“I am sure I do not know.”

“He paid, though. I made him pay.”

I thought of the document where Mr. Nevill had given Arabella the sum of ten thousand pounds to leave England. “But now here you are in London. Have you seen your son?”

“Nicholas? No, that’s all in the past.”

“His name has been in the newspapers, you know. He is accused of killing someone.”

Her brows came together. “I heard something about that.”

I studied her carefully, then reached in my pocket and withdrew the sketch of Lieutenant Nevill that Molly had done. “I thought you might want to see this.”

I unfolded the likeness of her son. Arabella Nevill looked at it briefly, then took another drink. “I never knew the child very well. He was always away at school or in the care of a governess. Did he kill that man like they say he did?”

“I do not believe he killed Mr. Jacombe, no. There was to be a duel between them the following day. Your son is no coward, Arabella. He would not have murdered the man he was set to fight.”

“Maybe that old horror, Elsworth Nevill, did it. It would be the only decent thing he ever did in his life.”

“He would not even bail his grandson out of gaol when he had the opportunity.”

Her face turned an ugly red then. “That’s old Nevill for you, the squeeze-purse. But I made him give me money to go away, and then when I came back, I made him give me more.”

I refrained from gasping. Arabella Nevill had been blackmailing Mr. Nevill! Of course. She returned to England in need of funds and went right to him, most likely threatening to go to Lieutenant Nevill and tell him everything about that document. How his own grandfather had paid to keep his mother away. Not to mention the disgrace of having a courtesan as a daughter-in-law.

She was becoming more and more surly and angry, the way a drunk can, as she thought about Elsworth Nevill. I wanted to use it to my advantage to learn everything I could.

“So Mr. Nevill knew you were back in London and paid you to stay away from your own son.”

“Yes,” she said. “He didn’t think me suitable to be the boy’s mother. That was all at first.”

She had drunk so much gin, I was afraid she was no longer making sense. “You mean when you went away the first time?”

“No, I mean when I came back. At first Elsworth gave me money to keep away from Nicholas. Then he stopped.”

“Why would he do that?” I said in the voice of a confidant.

She laughed bitterly. “That’s what I demanded of him the night I went to his rooms.”

A chill ran through me. For a moment I could not speak. I remembered Miss Lavender was outside and prayed that she could hear every word of this.

In the most casual of voices I said, “What good reason did he give you for ceasing payments?”

“No good reason at all! He was furious that I came to him. He said that it would do Nicholas good to see the kind of woman I was. That then maybe he wouldn’t marry whoever it is he is supposed to marry.”

“What did you say to that?”

“I argued with him. I threatened to go to Nicholas and tell him everything. All about how Elsworth had paid to send me away. I asked him how he thought his grandson would feel, knowing that his grandfather had
paid
his mother to leave England.”

She took another drink and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. I remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

“He grew furious then, told me he’d send me to hell this time instead of just the Continent. He picked up a pistol and started waving it about.”

I dared not say anything. She was caught up in remembering. I did not want to break her flow of thoughts.

“I told him he didn’t have the gumption to kill me, that if he did, he would have done it years ago. I demanded he write me a draft on his bank.”