To Mourn a Murder (19 page)

Prance could almost feel the energy surge through his veins at this tale. French or not, Mam'selle Grolier sounded like his kind of woman. "What age would she be?"

"Not over thirty, I would say, and pretty along with it. Mind you it's hard to peg her age. She paints her face," Mrs. Partridge confided with a condemning frown, emphasized by a sharp nod and wrinkled forehead.

Mam'selle's stock rose at every utterance. Prance had his scarf twirled around his neck and was rushing out to his carriage before you could say
fille de joie.
To ensure being offered tea he left his elegant carriage standing in front of the shop, where Mam'selle Grolier would be sure to see it.

He surveyed the shop front from his carriage window. Mam'selle had done a good job on the facade. The old-fashioned hanging sign had been replaced by a sign over the door. The gold gilt name stood out, even in the darkening shadows of late afternoon. On a swirling sea of black velvet in the window sat one dummy head painted in gilt. On the head sat a shocking red bonnet with a black feather, more appropriate to a man's mistress than to a wife or daughter, though Prinney's farouche, estranged wife, Princess Caroline might like it. There was a rumour—could it possibly be true?—that she had appeared at a public party wearing a pumpkin on her head.

Prance's coachman held the door, let down the step and Prance, with a debonair toss of the scarf over his shoulder, descended. His lips twitched when he saw a head peering out the window. Despite her having spotted him in the street, Mam'selle Grolier was busily arranging her shelves when he entered. She looked up as if surprised and gave him a bold smile and an abbreviated curtsey, while her eyes darted assessingly over him.

"I don't believe I've seen you here before, M'sieur." The "M'sieur" was the only attempt at feigning Frenchness. Mam'selle was as English as Yorkshire pudding, but much more delectable. A puff of blond curls, airy as a cloud, surrounded a pretty little heart-shaped face, which was indeed painted, but discreetly. "I'm familiar with most of the gentlemen who come here with their–friends," she said, with a lift of one eyebrow that told him the friends were mistresses. That would explain the red bonnet in the window. She catered to the muslin company.

Mam'selle had green cat eyes that reminded Prance of Petruchio. She also had a trim little figure that did marvelous things to a modest black gown cut right up to her collarbone. That one touch of the prude added piquancy to her general air of availability.

"Just visiting in town," he said and dropped a name that he felt would add to his luster. "I'm putting up at a friend’s house. Lord Luten."

The green eyes sparkled. "I've never had the pleasure of his business. But you're not driving his carriage." Mam'selle's green eyes were sharp. She had observed the lack of a crest on the door panel.

"I always prefer to drive my own. As it happened, Luten is not with me today."

"And you want a bonnet for your–wife?" she asked. In lieu of lifting an eyebrow she gave him a rather naughty half smile that suggested they both knew this was a game.

To tease her, he slipped into French, which seemed so appropriate for flirtation. "En effet, Mam'selle je ne veux pas un chapeau. Je suis venu pour une autre raison. "

Her tongue came out and touched her lips nervously. "Oh you can speak English, M'sieur. Truth to tell, my French is becoming rusty."

"I haven't actually come for a bonnet at all," he said.

The smile was back and her eyelids fluttered in a sultry invitation. "May I ask who recommended me?" she said. The woman was for hire, as he suspected! There was no other explanation for that question, and the manner of its utterance. She took customers on a referral basis. This, while an exciting notion, promised to be a great time waster. She would have to have been twice as pretty and naughty to keep him from tomorrow evening's party with Byron. Circe herself would have had uphill work of it.

With the party uppermost in his mind, he replied, "My friend, Byron, mentioned you," and watched while Mam'selle's green eyes grew in astonishment. "He had heard of you from some friends."

Her hands clapped together in astonishment. "You're a friend of Lord Byron! How I adore his poems." She opened her lovely lips again, but could find no words to express her feelings. When she recovered, she said, "Do sit down and let me serve you a glass of wine." She pointed to a chaise longue in the corner, with a palm tree behind it and the tiger skin rug, somewhat the worse for wear, on the floor in front.

Mrs. Partridge hadn't mentioned wine. "What a civilized idea. It will allow you and I to become acquainted."

"Let me take your— " She looked in perplexity at his scarf.

"My
écharpe? "
he said, as the French name sounded more stylish. It occurred to him on the instant that henceforth his traveling scarf would be known as an
écharpe.
"My valet, Villier, contrived it," he said, unwinding it and handing it and his coat to her for disposal.

"French! I knew it," she said, laughing and showing her white teeth. Again he was struck with her resemblance to Petruchio. Her teeth, the eye teeth especially, were noticeably sharp. "Perhaps you'd care for brandy instead of wine? A friend has just brought me some excellent cognac from France."

"You'll make me tipsy, Mam'selle," he said, leering at her, and allowing his eyes to tour her body from blond curls to dainty kid slippers.

She leaned forward, took his chin in her white fingers and squeezed it playfully. "Good," she whispered. "It will make you less—shy. I'll be back in a tick."

Prance watched appreciatively as she walked away, swaying in a manner that Coffen would call "swinging her rump." Mam'selle was charming, but Prance was hard put to see how he was to lead the conversation around to Goodman's, and what had become of the papers he had, presumably, left behind.

Several minutes passed before Mam'selle returned with the brandy and two glasses on a silver tray. She set the tray down and said, "No customers will be coming for bonnets this late. I'll draw the blind and put a closed sign on the door. It will be cosier."

Prance smiled his approval, knowing that "cosier" meant more private. Under normal circumstances, Prance had the eyes of Argus for all the trivial details of a lady's toilette. On this occasion his mind was so busy with other things that he didn't notice Mam'selle had changed her gown until she was coming back from locking the door and drawing the blind. The fact that the shop was dimly lit and she had replaced one black garment with another made it less obvious. But when she joined him on the sofa, there was no doubt at all, for the outfit she was now wearing had no buttons, but only a tie around the waist. In fact it was not a gown at all but a superior sort of peignoir.

As she reached to hand him his cognac she let it fall open, freeing the creamy lobes of her breasts. She leaned so close he almost felt it was her breasts she was offering. Mighty fine breasts they were too. The musky aroma of French perfume wafting from them in such heady strength suggested it had been freshly applied for the occasion. He accepted the glass with an unsteady hand.

She sat close beside him and just looked at him silently for a long moment. Prance had some hope of a clever speech, something he might use on another occasion himself, or if it was too outré, he could at least amuse Byron with it tomorrow night. At the party. In his honour. But when she spoke, her banal utterance was, "What's your name, then?"

"Prance. Sir Reginald Prance. And yours, Mam'selle?"

"As you already know, my name's Grolier," she said, the name rolling off her tongue with a Frenchified accent—Groleeay. "I must assume you're asking my first name." She leaned towards him until he could feel her breath on his cheek and said in a husky voice, "We've hardly known each other long enough to be on a first name basis, Sir Reginald." Then she reached out her dainty hand and patted his cheek, laughing, and added, "But you can call me Betsy."

She moved her hand, with a rather fine sapphire on her middle finger, to the back of his head and began to play with his hair. As a rule, Prance disliked being mauled by strangers but made an exception for a pretty woman in such a charming state of semi-dress. "How does one become a Sir Reginald?" she asked playfully.

This, he assumed, was a discreet way of asking whether he was a baronet or a knight. He was happy to inform her, "One is clever enough to have a baronet for a papa, and no older brother."

"And where do the clever Prance baronets live?"

"In a clever castle in East Sussex. Granmaison, it is called. A French name,
en effet.
The family records show that my Norman ancestors originally called it Grande Maison." Mam'selle displayed not a jot of interest in his French ancestry. "It means big house," he explained.

"Coo," she coo'd. "Nice to be some people. Are you staying in Brighton long, Reggie?

He gazed into her eyes and murmured, "I hadn't intended to, but now that I've met you ..."

"You must have a hundred girls in Lunnon, a swell gent like you."

"Ah but none of such rare beauty as your sweet self."

She twitched her shoulders in appreciation, setting her creamy breasts a-jiggle and her vulgarity sank a buttonhole lower.   "Do you want to come up to my bedchamber or do it here? We're safe as houses. You can't see a thing from the street."

Prance felt his interest shrink as her speech degenerated to utter commonness. Unlike Coffen, he preferred some semblance at least of gentility in his women. As he had to keep her in curl until he learned what he wanted to know, however, he had to continue playing his role. He would just have to call on his ingenuity to rescue him before he disgraced himself in the boudoir. Really he didn't feel he could perform satisfactorily for a female who said, "Lunnon" and "swell gent" and spoke of "doing it here," as if they were a pair of alley cats.

He knew this was a poor prejudice in himself. It wasn't Betsy's fault that she had been born common. But then was it his fault that he instinctively recoiled from her? Everyone had his fault. He acknowledged and accepted his own without thinking less of himself. He drew her hand away from his head and massaged her fingers, to get them out of his hair. "Let me get to know you first, Betsy. How long have you had your shop?"

"Coming up seven years now." Seven years! Interesting!

"You must have been a mere child at the time," he said to flatter her.

"A little older than that," she allowed. "A gent I was with at the time set me up."

"Now you're making me jealous," he chided. "He bought you the shop?"

"He bought out a jewelry shop that was closing. Bought the building, I mean, and gave me a ten year lease free as a gift."

He tried to ignore the tautology. "Generous! Who was he?"

She gave a coy smirk. "That'd be telling."

"Aha! A married gentleman." He shook his finger under her nose. "You don't fool me, Mam'selle. You were poaching."

"It wasn't what you'd call a real marriage. One of them marriages of convenience. I only saw him for that one summer, but he's never dunned me for the rent ever since. Handsome, I call it."

"Who was he? You can tell me. I shan't breathe a word."

The green eyes narrowed. "What do you want to know that for?"

He shrugged. "Just curious. Like a cat. You're rather like a kitten yourself, you know," he said hastily to divert her mind from her question. He lifted his hand and rubbed the back of his knuckles against her cheek.

"Those big green eyes, the graceful, sinuous way you move." She stretched lazily, impressed by this tired old simile. "Come on, tell me," he urged.

"I'm sure I don't know what you want to know for, but if you insist, it was Lord Jergen."

"Lord Jergen!" The name was howled out before Prance could get a rein on his astonishment.

"You know him then?"

"Oh rather. Jergen! Certainly. Everyone knows
Jergen,"
he said, as if Jergen was the man of the hour, the name on every tongue.

"Mind you don't say nothing." She smiled and squirmed, cat-like, pleased that she had impressed him with her conquest. "I was an actress at the time, but the leading lady was jealous as a green cow and my career wasn't going nowhere. Jergen was jealous of all the gents hanging around after me at the Green Room. He figured I'd only see women in a millinery shop. The more fool he!"

"As if the gents wouldn't find you wherever he hid you," Prance said, allowing his eyes to linger on hers while he mentally reviewed what he knew of the case. She seemed to be telling the truth, except that Lady Jergen had mentioned her husband was seeing an actress called Rose Sommers seven years ago.

"I'm surprised he didn't make you change your name to fool them," he said.

She sat up, laughing. "He did! I was called Rose Sommers when I was in the theatre. Betsy Grolier's my real name." The French pronunciation shifted, not Groleeay now, but Grolyur. It seemed she was telling the truth.

"It must have been a deal of work, cleaning up all the rubbish of another shop."

"Jergen had all that done for me. He hired some fellows."

"He should have kept an eye on them. I seem to recall you mentioned there used to be a jewelry store here. There might have been diamonds hidden among the papers."

"Jergen was awake on all suits, don't you worry. He had his sec'etary keep an eye on them to see it was all done right."

"Young Mercer, that would be?" Prance said, choosing a name at random and hoping Mam'selle would correct him.

"I don't recall the name. I never saw the fellow, but Jergen told me all about it at the time. Said his sec'etary was sharp as a tack, and needed the work."

Luten could look into that. The possibilities were endless. This nameless secretary could be anyone from a stranger to Brunei to Ed Harrelson, though presumably not Mrs. Webber's doctor-lover. Was it possible Jergen himself was the Bee? Was he in dun territory, sunk to crime to pay the grocer? Surely one would have heard if he were bankrupt. It seemed, in any case, that Jergen could have had access to Miss Winchley's letter. But was he unprincipled enough to rob his own wife? Lady Jergen had been one of the Bee's first victims. Perhaps he had done it in revenge for her infidelity. Or was
Lady
Jergen the more likely suspect? It was one of the few outstanding clues that all the victimized ladies had some connection to the Jergen household.