The Butler Did It (32 page)

But it didn't matter. Thornley was much too harried and preoccupied to notice. “I'm afraid I can't find Claramae anywhere, and these trays must be passed among the guests. “Would you mind?”

Go into the ballroom? Sir Edgar was in the ballroom.

“No, sir, not at all. I'll just go put on a fresh apron?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Timon,” Thornley said, then headed back toward the ballroom, because his Daphne was there, looking so very beautiful in her garnets and feathers, and he couldn't bear her out of his sight.

In her sitting room, Mrs. Timon used the tip of her uncomfortable shoes to push the small chest—her proof of Sir Edgar's perfidy—under a couch, then nipped into the kitchens to take up her favorite rolling pin. With a tray of delicacies in one hand, and her other hidden under her apron, clutching the rolling pin, she headed toward the ballroom.

 

“Y
OU ARE BEGINNING
to feel like my shadow, Morgan,” Emma said, pulling her elbow free of his grip. “Honestly,
what could happen to me here? Or did you invite Mr. Rolin?”

“I'm sorry, Emma. I just want our engagement announced. Rolin is no gentleman, but he does know when to cut his losses and move on to greener pastures.”

“I'm withering here? Turning dry and brown?” Emma asked, glancing around the ballroom, smiling at their guests. “Oh, thank you so much.”

“Maybe I should fetch you some lemonade,” Morgan said, knowing he'd been acting the possessive fool.

“Perhaps you should,” Emma agreed. She counted to ten once he'd gone, then took herself off to hide at the opposite end of the ballroom. She loved the man, loved him dearly, but she was safe as houses in this multitude of people, didn't he know that? Besides, it was nearly eleven, and she still hadn't seen her brother.

 

E
LEVEN O'CLOCK
.

Olive Norbert wended her way through the crowds at the sides of the ballroom, crowds that seemed to part with her approach—she'd think about that later—and made her way to the head of the stairs.

Busy, busy, busy. She'd already unlatched the French doors in the morning room for Mr. Rolin, and now it was time to meet with the next person in her plans.

“Evenin' to you, Mr. Hatcher, sir,” she said, tugging at the bodice of her bright red gown that she had let out as far as possible, but which still pinched her dreadfully.

“Mrs. Norbert?” John Hatcher said, squinting at her. “No, still don't recall you. But that's no never-mind. Is everything ready?”

“Just as I said in my last note to you, yes, sir,” Olive said, holding out her hand for Hatcher to bow over, kiss. When he just looked at her quizzically, she sighed, lifted her skirts and tramped down the small flight to the first floor of the mansion. “Just you come with me, all right?”

“You said you'd arrange transport,” Hatcher said, following her up the servant stairs. “Can't trust my own coachman. Can't trust anyone, not with my man Anderson taking off the way he did, without giving notice. Took my silver inkwell with him, if you can believe that, after penning me a note that said he had to visit his sick mother. Didn't even know he had a mother. Well, I won't be seeing him again, that's for certain, not now that he nipped off with that inkwell. Servants! Feckless, the lot of them.”

“Don't worry your head none, Mr. Hatcher, I've got everything arranged all right and tight,” Olive told him, using her own room key to open Sir Edgar's door, then employing a pilfered key to unlock the dressing closet. “Betts, what I worked with, sent her boy Young Tommy around to hitch up the horses and have Sir Edgar's coach ready in the mews.”

It wasn't Sir Edgar's coach, it was the Cliffords' rickety, borrowed traveling coach, but she saw no need to complicate things with too many facts. It was enough that Betts's boy could be trusted to deliver Mr. Hatcher
to the stable Olive had rented, and then lock both the man and the gold inside until she could get there. After that? Well, after that, Mr. Hatcher might just have to have himself a small but very final accident.

“Here we go, Mr. Hatcher, sir,” she said, opening the second door and pulling out yet another key. “He doesn't even know it's gone missing, so arsy varsy he is over that ancient Clifford woman,” she ended, dropping to her knees and opening one chest after another.

And there it was. Gold, gold, lovely gold. Stacks of it. Four trunks chock-full of beautiful gold.

“There you are, sir, just like I wrote you. And Sir Edgar was going to keep it all for himself and some doxy.”

Hatcher nearly knocked Olive over as he hurriedly reached down to heft one of the bricks…er,
bars.
“Heavy,” he said, hefting it. “I can't carry this all at one go.”

“No, sir,” Olive said, getting to her feet. “I'd've done it m'self, but nobody here much likes me. You're a guest of the ball, sir, and no one will question you if they was to see you, not even if you was to tote off his lordship's favorite chair. Now, I must get back to the ballroom. There's still something that needs doing there, soon as I find her, and then I'll be meeting up with you later to divvy up the booty.”

 

“A
H, WELL MET
, Brentwood! Look at you, standing there, not dancing. Still being the dedicated waste you've always been? Of course you are.”

Perry bowed deeply from the waist, kissing the air just above her ladyship's outstretched hand. “If I am predictable, dear lady, it is only to please you.”

“Brentwood,” Lady Jersey said, “you delight me, as always.”

“And you terrify me, my lady, as always. I am constantly awaiting the moment when you pop a spotty debutante from behind your skirts and sic her on my hapless self, in the way of a bulldog clamping its jaws about my ankle.”

Sally Jersey smacked him on the arm with her fan and toddled off to find someone else to harass, knowing she'd never get the earl to take to the dance floor on her command, and Perry went back to watching the world as it passed by him.

“Lose something, Morgan, old friend?” Perry asked a few minutes later, pushing himself away from the pillar he'd been dedicatedly holding up this past hour or more. Raising his quizzing glass to his eye, he made a great business out of inspecting the interior of the ballroom. “Or, to be more precise,
someone?
”

Morgan took in Perry's tone and sighed. “Not now, Perry. Have you seen her?”

“Her? Oh, yes.
Her.
I might have, earlier, but I don't think she wishes to be seen. Now why is that?”

Morgan looked at the now-warm glass of lemonade still in his hand and stuck it in a nearby potted plant. “Because I've been dogging her footsteps this past week or
more, allowing her no privacy, no fun, no—why would she pick tonight to decide she's had enough?”

Perry shook his head. “I probably should be understanding this, shouldn't I? But I'm not.”

“All right,” Morgan said, knowing his friend would give him no peace until he knew everything. “It's Rolin. I have good reason to believe he thinks Emma is important to me.”

“Old chap, a blind man would have reason to see that you're considerably more than fond of the girl. I myself had begun to believe you two have been joined at the hip these past days. Oh, wait. Rolin is the reason behind your behavior?”

“He knows I'm in love with her, Perry.”

“Old chap, a blind—no, never mind. I can see you haven't the time to be amused, or even indignant with my silliness. What do you think Rolin might do?”

“Abduct her, ruin her, then tell the world she'd made a dead set at him. Just for the spite of it, Perry. He tried romancing her, but Emma saw straight through him. So now he'll content himself with ruining her, to punish her, but mostly to destroy me.”

“Yes, that does sound like our old friend. Quite nearly Machiavellian, our dear Rolin. And, like Machiavelli, he only knows how to obtain power, but has never quite known how to use what he's gained. So he keeps reaching, reaching for more. But surely he isn't here.”

“No,” Morgan said, looking around the ballroom once
more. “And once he hears that I announced our engagement tonight he'll go away, probably to pull the wings off butterflies until he discovers someone else to amuse him.”

“True. And I would have to say you're correct on all counts. If the fresh-from-the-country Miss Clifford fell to him, it would be a giggle to most everyone. But if he were to accost the future Countess Westham? He'd be more ruined than your dear Emma. He'd have to leave Society, where he is not in such good odor at any rate. You know, I hear he's up to his eyes in tradesmen's and gambling debts. Remember how you and I always seemed to be the ones dipping into our pockets when we went about with him?”

“Another time, Perry,” Morgan said, barely listening. “Excuse me. I've got to find her before midnight. Damned silly I'd look making my announcement while she's flirting in the supper room or something.”

“When you locate her, you might want to put a bell around her neck,” Perry suggested, then smiled as he leaned against the pillar once more, to watch the throng. It was either that or join Uncle Willie, who kept insisting that he had yet another “great favor” to ask of his only heir.

And, as the man had hinted on the way to the ball that once more the favor had to do with a woman, Perry would continue to avoid his uncle for some weeks yet, just as that natty-looking little gentleman seemed to be rather nervously avoiding the female servant who ap
peared to be actually
chasing
after him with a tray of delicacies.

No. Never dull with Morgan in town. Perry sighed, then abandoned his pillar to stroll the ballroom, on the lookout for someone who should not be there….

 

H
ATCHER STOPPED
on the landing, huffing and puffing, put down the heavy cloth sack and wondered if he should be seeing those little dancing fairy lights in front of his eyes.

He'd been carrying down the single sack the Norbert woman had provided, unloading the gold into the coach, climbing the several steep flights once more, lugging down the empty chests he'd cleared out in the closet, arranging the gold back into each chest, climbing the stairs, loading the sack and lugging it down again, then back up, then back down….

“Excuse me, sir,” Wycliff said, standing on the top step but unable to move past Hatcher on the narrow landing to turn and climb to the next floor. His lordship's dressing gown and slippers laid out, he was now free to climb to the attics one last time, gather up his portmanteau and quit this horrible place. “Sir? Are you all right?”

Hatcher blinked, and some of the fairy lights winked out. He peered at the man in front of him: tall, rail thin, looking very proper yet unintelligent, and homely as his sister Myrtle into the bargain. But, Hatcher realized, not in the least surprised to see him standing there. Not about
to send up an alarm, nothing. It was true. An invited guest can go anywhere, as long as he's well-dressed and…well, affable. He could be affable.

“I say,” Hatcher said, smiling at Wycliff. “Valet, aren't you? Dressed like a valet. His lordship's man?”

Wycliff drew himself up to his full height. “I was, sir, but I am in the process of leaving the marquis's employ. He…he does not appreciate me, sir.”

“Well, damme, if that ain't rude of the man. Yes, yes, even shabby. Tell you what, help me down with this bag his lordship gave me, and a few others, and I'd appreciate you all hollow. Be my assistant. You'd like that? I'm John Hatcher, by the way, and I'll double anything the marquis was paying you.”

Wycliff and his rather sad lack of imagination considered this. He did not exactly have a position waiting for him in the Midlands, just his brother's words. As a matter of fact, he was already feeling a little uneasy about his decision to leave Grosvenor Square. Such a fine address. “Double, you said, sir?”

Hatcher reached down and hefted up the sack with both hands. “That I did. Here you go. Now hop to. I'm…I'm in sort of a rush.”

 

T
HE MUSICIANS PLAYED
. The throng in the ballroom talked and danced. Combined, the two carried the noise level in the large, high-ceilinged room to near earsplitting levels.

Nobody heard Sir Willard call out, “I say ten on the one with the split tail feathers. He looks a bruiser.”

Nobody outside the card room heard him, that is, except for Cliff, who quickly closed the door to the ballroom behind him and goggled at the sight in front of him.

There were the card tables, turned on their sides, and with their tops used to form a circle in the center of the room. There were a good thirty of his lordship's male guests, viscounts and earls and various other lordships, even a duke, all gathered around the outside of those tables. There were the gamecocks, unhooded in their stacked cages, scratching and puffing up their tails, eager for a good fight.

And there was Riley, standing in the middle of the circle, resplendent in his fancy, formal silver Westham livery, his powdered wig on his head, and holding up Harry, Cliff's own dear Harry.

“Cliffie boy!” Riley called out, spying his business partner standing slack jawed at the door. “Be a good lad and hold the stakes, will you?”

Cliff approached the crowd around the makeshift ring. He looked into it and saw sand spread on the floor. “How…where…?”

“Hush, Cliffie,” Riley said, stuffing a multitude of pound notes into his hands. “It was fair bored to flinders they was all looking, and too quiet in here by half for what I've got planned. So I said to myself, I said, why not give the gentlemen something to do?”

Cliff looked back toward the door. “God, man, if my sister…if his lordship were to find out!”

Riley winked. “And are you going to be running off to tell him? He's so arsy varsy over your sister he's deaf and dumb to anything else, and that's a fact. Ah, and here comes my other business now. Take over, Cliffie boy, and we'll both be rich before this night is over.”