Sheri Cobb South (5 page)

“It’ll have to be postponed until things dry out a bit. In the meantime, Sir Gerald, if some of your men can construct a coffin, I suggest we let the poor old fellow rest in the church.”

“The vestry,” put in Mr. Meriwether. “It will be cooler there.”

Mr. Kendall muttered something under his breath, the only intelligible words of which were “taking charge already.”

Lady Fieldhurst’s shocked gaze traveled from the sullen dandy to the curate, whose tightened jaw betrayed his awareness of the insult even though he forbore to make any more direct acknowledgement.

* * * *

It was not until late the following day, after a temporary bridge had been erected over the swollen stream, that the party finally took its leave of Sir Gerald and Lady Anne. Lady Fieldhurst, having by this time lost all inclination for socializing, sought refuge in her bedchamber, where she pondered the events of the last forty-eight hours. She was not quite certain why she should be so overset by the death of a comparative stranger, but she suspected it was as much the air of suspicion and accusation that hung over the house’s inhabitants as the tragedy itself. Without a doubt, Robert Kendall’s sly insinuations had worked their mischief: Lady Anne’s demeanor toward the curate was even chillier than before, and when Mr. Meriwether bade his sweetheart goodbye, so distant was Miss Hollingshead’s demeanor that they might have been no more than chance-met strangers. Lord Kendall regarded first his son and then Mr. Meriwether with measuring, speculative looks, while even Miss Susannah eyed her elders with wide, haunted eyes. Did the denizens of Hollingshead Place set so much store by the jealous pique of a rejected suitor that they would suspect foul play in what was surely no more than a tragic accident? And yet she could not quite forget the romantic scene enacted in the garden below her window, and the curate’s ambiguous assurances.
I
have a plan which I hope will allow us to be together very soon ... I dare not say more ...
She wished there were someone to whom she might voice her concerns, but she was not sufficiently well acquainted with her hostess to broach so delicate a subject.

Certainly she was no stranger to untimely death; it had been only two months since her husband’s murder had plunged her and her nearest (if not dearest) kin into a similar web of doubt and suspicion. Yet there had been one person upon whom she had come to depend more and more throughout those dark days. It was perhaps inevitable, then, that her thoughts should now turn to a lanky young man with a slightly crooked nose and curling brown hair tied back in an unfashionable queue. Obeying a sudden impulse, she drew a sheet of writing paper and a quill pen from the mahogany writing table and wrote a short message. She reread it, frowning, then added a rather lengthy postscript, folded the letter, and sealed it with a wafer. She dipped her quill once more into the inkwell, and directed the missive to the attention of Mr. John Pickett, Bow Street Public Office, Number 4 Bow Street, London.

Chapter 3

In Which John Pickett Assumes an Incognito

John Pickett, at four-and-twenty the youngest Runner on the Bow Street force, stared at the letter in his increasingly shaky hands and read it through four times before fully comprehending its meaning. He had not seen Lady Fieldhurst in two long months, although not a day had gone by when he had not thought of her. He had even called on her in Berkeley Square just the week before, on the pretext of returning a handkerchief that belonged to her. He had paced the perimeter of the square three times before summoning the courage to knock on the door. When the butler had informed him that she was no longer in Town, and offered to see the handkerchief returned to its rightful owner, so bitter had been his disappointment that he meekly surrendered his prize without argument, giving up in the process his only excuse for seeing her again.

And now, miraculously, she had sent for him. It remained only for him to persuade Mr. Colquhoun, the magistrate, to allow him to travel to Yorkshire to investigate a death that might have been no more than a tragic accident. And then there was the matter of her ladyship’s postscript:

As I am the houseguest of Sir Gerald and Lady Anne Hollingshead, the presence of a Bow Street Runner in the vicinity at my request would render my position extremely awkward. Would it be possible for you to investigate in some unofficial capacity, without revealing your profession? I realize this is asking a great deal of you, and confess I have no idea how such a thing might be accomplished except to say that I have every confidence in your intelligence and resourcefulness, having been the beneficiary of both.

For such a commendation, he would have assured her ladyship of his ability to fly to the moon, if she so desired.

Great tact would be needed, however, in gaining Mr. Colquhoun’s permission. The magistrate was well aware that his most junior Runner’s interest in the viscountess went beyond the purely professional, and he was not shy about letting his disapproval be known. Pickett waited until the magistrate had heard his last case for the day, then approached the bench with a careful air of nonchalance. “Mr. Colquhoun?”

“Yes, Pickett?” the magistrate asked, without looking up from the papers he was studying. “What is it?”

Pickett took a deep breath and plunged into speech. “When I was first promoted from the foot patrol, you told me that, as a Bow Street Runner, I might have the opportunity to supplement my wages by accepting private commissions.”

“Yes, what of it?”

“I—As it happens, sir, such an occasion has arisen. I received a letter from Yorkshire in today’s post.”

Mr. Colquhoun removed his spectacles and regarded Pickett from beneath bushy white brows. Pickett’s words, chosen with such care, were innocent enough, but the gleam in his brown eyes and the faint flush on his cheeks betrayed him. “Indeed?” queried the magistrate. “May I see the letter?”

“No—no need to trouble yourself, sir,” stammered Pickett, stuffing the letter into the inside pocket of his brown serge coat. “It concerns a fire near the village of Kendall—”

Mr. Colquhoun leaned forward across the bench and held out his hand. “The letter, if you please.”

Pickett, seeing resistance was futile, surrendered her ladyship’s missive, and fidgeted silently while the magistrate examined its contents.

“Lady Fieldhurst,” he said, when he had reached the end. “Tell me, Pickett, would this be the same Lady Fieldhurst whose husband was murdered a couple of months ago?”

“In-indeed, it would,” Pickett confessed, then belatedly added, “sir.”

Mr. Colquhoun’s eyebrows drew together across the bridge of his nose in a formidable frown. “I am extremely reluctant to encourage you in this obsession.”

Pickett bristled at the word. “One can admire a lady without being obsessed!”

“I beg your pardon. Doubtless you have taken to strolling about Berkeley Square for the sake of your health.”

Pickett went crimson with mortification. “You had me followed!”

“You overestimate your own importance, sirrah! In fact, I was invited to dinner at the home of Sir Bartholomew Digby. As luck would have it, he lives in Berkeley Square, almost directly opposite the Fieldhurst town house. I saw you.”

“It was a one-time occurrence,” confessed Pickett, deflated. “On the night of his lordship’s murder, I inadvertently put the lady’s handkerchief into my coat pocket while examining the body. I went to Berkeley Square that evening with the intention of returning it to her.”

“Very gallant of you, I’m sure. I trust her ladyship was suitably grateful?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir. I was obliged to leave it with her butler. Her ladyship had gone to Yorkshire.” Seeing that the magistrate was not convinced, Pickett returned to the more pressing matter at hand. “Whatever my feelings for the lady, and however much you may disapprove of them, you cannot deny that she deserves no less from Bow Street than any other British citizen might expect.”

“No, you have me there,” acknowledged the magistrate. “Lady Fieldhurst has requested a Runner, and so a Runner she shall have. I’ll send Foote in your stead.”

“You can’t do that!”

As soon as the words were out, Pickett realized he had overstepped the mark rather badly. Mr. Colquhoun’s bushy white brows arched toward his hairline.

“I was not aware that I took my orders from you, Mr. Pickett.”

“No, sir. I beg your pardon. But—”

“Well?” prompted the magistrate, when Pickett hesitated. “But what?”

“She sent for
me.”

“Selected specially, no doubt, from her ladyship’s vast acquaintance of Bow Street Runners,” said Mr. Colquhoun, his voice heavy with irony.

“She—” He stood a little taller, struggling to suppress the singularly foolish smile that threatened to break free at the memory of her ladyship’s words. “She has ‘every confidence in my intelligence and resourcefulness,’ sir.”

“Hmmm, yes, she did empty the butter boat over your head, didn’t she?” grunted the magistrate, scowling down at the letter in his hands. “And how, pray, do you expect to conduct an investigation without letting anyone know what you are about?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, and I have an idea.”

“Somehow I rather suspected you would,” Mr. Colquhoun observed dryly. “No, Pickett, if you take this sort of fulsome praise at face value, I am all the more justified in dampening your pretensions. I would do no less for one of my own sons, should he form an unsuitable attachment.”

“I am flattered by your concern, sir, but I have no need of it. I am four-and-twenty, and have been on my own for these past ten years.”

“Believe me, John, I am well aware of that.”

The magistrate’s voice held a hint of bitterness, and Pickett found himself in the unaccustomed position of wishing to reassure his mentor. “I don’t blame you for what you did, sir. A less merciful judge might have sentenced him to the gallows.”

“Yes, yes, all this is neither here nor there,” Mr. Colquhoun growled, impatient to abandon a subject which had become uncomfortably personal. “Go about your business, boy, and send Foote to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pickett made no further protest, but the light in his eyes was extinguished, and his disappointment was etched in every line of his drooping shoulders and bowed head. Mr. Colquhoun’s gaze followed him as he crossed the room to the opposite corner, where a Runner a dozen years his senior sat puffing on a pipe and conversing with a red-waistcoated member of the foot patrol. As the junior Runner approached his more senior fellow, however, Mr. Colquhoun’s eyes grew glazed. The tall young man vanished, and in his place stood the gawky, skinny youth whose father would soon be transported to Botany Bay.

“Oh, all right,” barked the magistrate, as if the words had been torn from his unwilling throat. “If the only alternative is to see you moping about like a sick calf, then I’d best send you packing, and good riddance!”

Pickett froze in mid-step, his eyes widening as comprehension dawned. “You mean it, sir?”

“I do—God help me.”

Pickett returned to the bench with a much sprightlier step and, seizing the magistrate’s hand, began to pump it vigorously. “Thank you, sir! Thank you! You won’t regret it, I promise!” he added before hurrying away to prepare for his journey.

“Now,
that
I beg leave to doubt,” muttered Mr. Colquhoun, and turned back to his papers.

In spite of his impatience to depart for Yorkshire, Pickett did not head straight for his lodgings in Drury Lane, but instead set out on foot for Berkeley Square. In contrast to his last visit to that exclusive Mayfair locale, he did not on this occasion pace the square in nervous anticipation. Indeed, he did not approach the front door at all, but descended the curving stairs to the service entrance below street level. He knocked on the door, and a moment later it was opened by a rosy-cheeked chambermaid in a starched apron and mobcap,

“Lord, it’s Mr. Pickett, from Bow Street!” she exclaimed, batting her eyes at the unexpected caller. “What might you be wanting, sir?”

“I should like to have a word with the footman Thomas, if you please.”

The maid looked less than delighted with this information but bade Pickett step inside while she fetched Thomas.

“Why, Mr. Pickett, fancy seeing you again,” said the footman, joining him a short time later. “What brings you here?”

Pickett took a deep breath. “I should like to ask you a small favor, Thomas. I want you to teach me how to be a footman.”

* * * *

An hour later, he set out for his hired lodgings in Drury Lane with Thomas’s instructions ringing in his ears and Thomas’s second-best livery wrapped neatly in brown paper. Before he reached his destination, however, he was accosted by a pert female in a garish purple bonnet and a faded bodice cut far too low over her plump bosom.

“Heigh-ho, John Pickett, have you grown too high-and-mighty to speak to an old friend?” Her brown eyes fastened with childlike avarice onto the brown paper package under his arm. “What’s that?”

“A suit of livery.” He fought to suppress a mischievous grin. “I’m going into domestic service, Lucy.”

“Never say you’re leaving Bow Street!”

Conflicting emotions chased one another across Lucy’s expressive countenance as she weighed the ramifications of this statement. One of the many prostitutes who walked the streets surrounding Covent Garden, Lucy had considered Pickett her exclusive property ever since he had first arrested her for the lucrative practice of picking her client’s pocket while he slept. Pickett’s persistent refusal to consummate the relationship (for a fee, of course) was a constant source of frustration to her.

“No, I’m not leaving Bow Street.” He took her arm as they crossed St. Martin’s Lane, but released it as soon as they reached the pavement on the other side; it would not do to give her any encouragement. “At least not permanently. I’ll be working incognito for a time.”

Lucy pouted a little at the loss of his escort. “Well, I don’t doubt you’ll look fine as fivepence, all dressed up and with your hair powdered white—or will you wear a periwig?”