Chapter 4
4
CHAPTER 4
D erek swallowed hard against the rise of his gorge and glanced at his companions for any sign they were equally put off at the sight of Elias Shell dead and autopsied on a battered wooden table in the back of Carrington-Bowles’s Seven Dials dispensary. If the various shades of green on their faces were any indication, he did not stand alone in the struggle to avoid casting up his accounts like some green boy. Green . He shuddered and swallowed again.
“Is the stench because he’s dead or from the poison?” Barker-Finch asked from his spot beneath the small open high-set window a good distance from the body.
“Both, I’m afraid,” Carrington-Bowles said as he washed his hands in a bowl filled with hot water and witch hazel. “Although the better part is from the intestinal destruction caused by the oleander seeds in the pastie he ate. Frankly, I think the only reason none of the men at Bow Street touched him was he’d shat himself so badly they had no desire to risk staining their clothes. Had they moved him without the oilskin shroud I sent they might have poisoned themselves.”
Norcross gagged and covered his mouth. Obadiah met Derek’s gaze and rolled his eyes. Having sailed with Captain El, the fierce West Indian had likely seen worse than this. Hamish Douglas, of course, had peppered Carrington-Bowles with questions whilst the two of them had stood over Shell’s body as if those remains were some work of art they were studying.
“How did you manage to discover the cause of the man’s death without poisoning yourself, CB?” Derek asked.
“Damned good question,” the big Scot said. “Yer a braver man than I am, Carrington-Bowles. Opening a man whose been poisoned is a tricky business no matter what poison he’s been dosed with, and no mistaking it.” He went back to reading CB’s notes.
“One of the Runners remembered the sister bringing the pasties. He saved them and mentioned Shell became ill a few hours after eating them. I sent to Club Ambrosios for Nathaniel’s old pastry chef, Henri. The man can scent bad food better than the Duke of Devonshire’s best fox hound can sound a fox. I sent one of the pasties to Lady Jane and she recognized the seeds at once. Sythe stopped by here with her report on his way to Forbidden Pleasures.” He drew a heavy muslin sheet over the body. “Which is where the Duchess of Chelmsford, Col and Sythe expect you in two hours’ time.” He gave Derek a quick perusal. “I suggest you take Framlingwood home for a bath and fresh clothes.”
“You’re not going to ask why he is in such a state of dishabille?” Norcross asked as he exchanged a grin with Derek’s other kidnappers. They had, after all, abducted him from the gardens of Number Five and dragged him to the worst part of London to view the dead body of the man who had tried so hard to kill the ladies Derek cared for so deeply.
“I am not,” CB replied. “Framlingwood has enough trouble without my adding to them.” He dried his hands on a clean piece of toweling and faced them all with a frighteningly serious expression. “The food for all of your houses will be provided through Nathaniel’s suppliers until this madness is over. He has already made the arrangements with your cook, Framlingwood, and with the cook at the Grosvenor Street houses, as well as with those at Sythe’s, Col’s, Atherton’s, and of course Aunt Camilla’s.”
“What about Captain El and the duke?” Obadiah asked.
CB snorted. “Do you know anyone foolish enough to cross Chelmsford’s duchess?” They all laughed. The others said their goodbyes and made their way through the dispensary to where the carriage awaited them just outside the door.
“Thank you, CB,” Derek said, suddenly more weary than he could ever remember. “You and the others have taken on a great deal on my behalf. You might have been killed discovering how Shell was killed.”
“But I wasn’t. You will drive yourself mad dwelling on what might happen, Framlingwood. What is happening is quite enough for you to worry about for now. We will run this person to ground. You know Col. He cannot bear a mystery any more than he can bear injustice.”
“Will we run her to ground before anyone else is hurt or killed?” Derek ran a hand through his hair. His every sinew had stretched to the point he lived every day now as if on Fate’s rack, tortured for his sins. Only with Cassandra, in her arms, did the sensation abate for a while.
CB considered his question, his brow furrowed. “I don’t know. All we can do is try. When it comes to keeping those we love safe, all we can do is try. That is enough. Yes?”
Derek shook his head. “I—”
“I will tell you this much. You will keep no one safe if you kill yourself with neglect and regret. You look like shite. As your physician I suggest you allow yourself some sleep, some decent meals, a hot bath or three, and a good fuck with a woman who is more worthy of you than you are of her.” He slapped him on the shoulder and shoved him toward the door. “Go, before they leave you to walk back to Mayfair.”
“We came in my carriage,” Derek grumbled.
“I doubt that would stop them. I’ll send word should I discover anything else useful.”
“You have my thanks, CB. Have a care. I count too few men my friends to afford losing one.”
Derek climbed into the carriage and signaled his coachman to drive on at once. The others were discussing what CB had discovered and what might occur at the meeting with Col, Sythe, and the duchess. He allowed their conversation to wash over him.
A woman who is more worthy of you than you are of her.
He’d been oblivious to how marked his attention to Cassandra had been. Or perhaps his friends, including his former mistresses, were more perceptive than he’d credited them to be. He’d wanted to protect her from scandal and gossip. Then again, the people who knew or at least thought they knew were not the sort to discuss his or her personal lives with anyone outside their circle. Her reputation was safe at least for the moment.
“What say you, my lord?” Norcross’s voice cut through Derek’s brown study. “Will you stop on Grosvenor Street and have a bit of luncheon before we face Captain El?”
Derek blinked a few times and fought the heavy pull of sleep and bone-chilling ache that suffused his body. “Actually, I believe I shall have my coachman set me down at home for a bath and a hot meal. CB has given me his professional medical opinion that I look like shite and I would hate to face Her Grace in that condition.” He gave them a grin.
They laughed raucously. Barker-Finch clapped his shoulder. “Especially as she is likely to tear a strip off each of us no matter how we look.”
“How the devil does a man like Chelmsford deal with her?” Doctor Douglas asked. They all turned their gaze on Obadiah.
“By doing as she commands in all things,” he said solemnly. Then he winked.
The conversation the rest of the way to Grosvenor Square was decidedly bawdy and rife with laughter. Derek did his best to soak in that camaraderie, but all the while the sight of Elias Shell’s dead body and the constant hum of what might happen next never strayed far from his mind.
Derek had to admit that a hearty meal of roast beef, potatoes, carrots, and thick gravy—finished with a large slice of Cook’s gooseberry pie did much to improve a man’s outlook on life. Especially when accompanied by said Cook’s beaming smile of approval. As difficult as living with servants who had served him most of his life could be, their happiness and approval always lifted his spirits. His poor valet had nearly wept when Derek requested a hot bath, a shave, and that the man dress him for an appointment with a duchess. Captain El would not care had he shown up in rags. But Rowland, his valet, would dine out for months with his fellow valets when he let it be known he had dressed the Earl of Framlingwood for a meeting with the Duchess of Chelmsford.
Would that his own life held pleasure in such simple things. Then again, he’d complicated his life himself acquiring five mistresses and refusing to let any of them go. That is until worthy husbands showed up for each of them. One of the few glimmers of hope he’d clung to as he soaked in his bath not an hour past was that he was meeting with men who were as determined as he was to keep the ladies safe whilst discovering the identity of the woman so determined to end one of their lives.
The only regret he currently entertained, which was utterly ridiculous, was that in taking a bath he’d washed the scent of Cassandra from his body. He followed the pugilistic footman up the stairs to Captain El’s office at the back of Goodrum’s Pleasure Club and shook his head. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand rather than dwell on the happiness and peace he’d found in the enigmatic housekeeper’s arms. Her proximity to him and the dangerous quagmire his life had become had her ever present in his mind. That had to be the reason for his constant thoughts of her, the danger. Not the way her very presence made everything seem possible. He was too old and too jaded for anything else.
“Wait in here,” the grizzled footman ordered and flung a door open. “Cap’n’ll be wit ya in a bit.”
Derek stepped inside the Pirate Queen’s sumptuous office, decorated in an overdone puce velvet style to set a man on edge and ready to do anything she asked.
“Does anyone else feel as if he’s betraying his wife merely sitting here?” Norcross asked, perched on the edge of a plush velvet chaise longue.
“One becomes accustomed to it eventually,” Archer Colwyn said as he shook Derek’s hand.
“Really?” Norcross inquired as he glanced about trying to take everything in and failing miserably from his expression.
“No,” the rest of the men in the room said together.
“Framlingwood, your appearance is much improved this afternoon,” Obadiah observed once the laughter had died down. “I see you took Mister Carrington-Bowles’s advice to heart.”
“What did he look like before?” Forsythe asked. Derek shrugged out of his greatcoat, draped it over a chair, and sat on the low set purple sofa next to him.
“I would like to warn you all,” Derek said amiably. “Your townhouses and your wives’ dowries are all settled in their names for a reason.”
“Point taken,” Barker-Finch said and raised his hands in surrender. “Not to mention our wives’ displeasure should we speak disrespectfully of someone of whom they are so fond.”
“Thank you,” Derek said.
“It was not to you I was referring.”
Colwyn and Forsythe glanced from Lily’s barrister husband to Derek and back.
“We do not have time for these schoolboy squabbles,” Eleanor Whitcombe, Duchess of Chelmsford announced as she swept into the room and subsided into the throne-like chair behind her desk. Dickie Jones, the little scoundrel, followed on her heels and sat in the window seat next to where Derek and Forsythe sat. He gave Derek a cheeky grin. “I’ve had a full report from Carrington-Bowles,” the duchess continued. What have you gentlemen to say?”
Norcross, Barker-Finch, and even the big Scots physician sat up straight like obedient schoolboys but didn’t open their mouths to speak. Obadiah had respect for his employer, but no fear. As for Colwyn and Forsythe? They’d grown close to Her Grace over the past year or so, he could tell that much. And as for himself? He had more than a grudging respect for this woman and having depended on her judgment and discretion, he trusted her in nearly all things. She kept secrets from him, secrets he’d much rather know. Especially these days.
Colwyn flipped his ever-present notebook open. “I have several men out in search of this so-called sister who managed to persuade that fool of a gaoler at Bow Street to pass her poison pasties on to Shell. Whoever this woman is, she has access to a skilled poisoner and some rather exotic plants.”
“In going over Shell’s notes I discovered an early reference to a man who spotted the murderess entering one of houses on Grosvenor Street.”
“What?” Derek turned on Forsythe and then stared at Colwyn in disbelief. “Who was this man? Which house did this supposed murderess enter? What the devil—?”
“Cease!” the duchess cut him off with a wave of her hand. “That is not helping, Framlingwood.”
“The man ,” Colwyn said pointedly. “Is not mentioned by name in Shell’s notes. Nor is the house or the name or description of the woman. Apparently, this man knew with whom he was dealing. He only offered a bit of information at the time, and he was quick to realize Shell would likely murder him should he make the mistake of telling him all.”
“The only thing we know about him is that he was newly arrived from the West Indies when he first met with Shell,” Forsythe continued. “He sailed in on an East Indiaman two weeks before you received your first blackmail missive, Framlingwood. Crew or passenger? We don’t know. Neither did Shell, but he was desperate to find the man. The longer he took to find this murderess, the more…demanding his employer became.”
“Demanding?” Barker-Finch finally spoke.
“Violently unhinged.” The duchess held out a handful of unsealed notes. Derek leapt to his feet to grab them first. He read the first and handed it over to Barker-Finch. After the third he simply held them all out blindly and allowed Doctor Douglas to take them and pass them on to the others.
“She’s mad,” he muttered. “Raving, fucking, bedlamite mad. We’re dealing with a madwoman.”
“Language,” Norcross said absently as he read each note and handed it off to Obadiah.
“Please, Mister Norcross. I am many things,” the duchess said. “Squeamish about language is not one of them.”
“Truer words were never spoken.” Obadiah tried to appear innocent when she scowled at him, but spoiled the attempt by grinning.
“How do we fight against a madwoman?” Derek clasped his hands tightly between his knees.
“By using what we know and what we have,” Colwyn said in his no-nonsense Bow Street Runner voice. “You, for instance, Framlingwood. Use your connections in the East India Company to find out more about this mystery man. I will give you the details we have. If he was willing to sell the information to Shell, knowing Shell is dead may make him desperate enough to go to the woman herself.”
“I’ll do so at once.” Derek took the page Colwyn tore from his notebook.
“Perhaps if we find the man first, he will tell us which of the ladies is our murderess. If we question her directly, she will have to tell us who this madwoman is.” Forsythe met the gazes of the ladies’ husbands without flinching.
“If she even knows,” Doctor Douglas said. “Have any of you stopped to think this may all be some mistake or misunderstanding? I know my wife is not capable of murder. I suspect the rest of you feel the same way.”
“Are you one of these poor, benighted men who believe women incapable of committing murder, Doctor Douglas?” The duchess’s voice indicated amusement more than derision.
“Perhaps Hamish is simply hoping his wife is incapable of murder,” Obadiah suggested. “Helps him to sleep more soundly in her bed.”
The Scot smiled and offered Adrienne’s husband a bow. “I will not deny you have a point, Lassen, and a good one at that.”
“Have any of you thought to ask ? Have you asked them Framlingwood? Perhaps now is the time to—”
“No, Forsythe. And I won’t. Not ever.” Derek saw the questions in their eyes, the curiosity. Even if he chose to explain, he could not make them understand. He’d made a vow as he stood over Celeste’s dead body. He’d not break that vow no matter the price.
“That may well be a moot point, gentlemen.” The duchess stood and came around to lean against the front of her desk, arms crossed, her face a hard mask that only emphasized the frightening scar she carried like a badge of honor. “I have had a visit from one of the Grosvenor Street ladies not an hour past. If you do not discover who this madwoman is and quickly, my visitor is threatening to go to Bow Street and turn herself in as the murderess.”
Derek’s heart thundered in his chest. The clock on the mantel ticked loudly into the silence. He tried to breathe. The room exploded into shouts, demands, and questions. When Doctor Douglas made the mistake of leaving his seat and taking a step toward the duchess silence fell the moment Obadiah stepped in and grabbed the physician by the neckcloth.
“Enough!” Derek shouted. He went to Obadiah and pried his hand from Hamish’s throat. “Sit. Down.” He shoved the Scot toward a chair. Norcross and Barker-Finch each gripped an arm and steered the man back into his seat. Derek ran a hand through his hair and turned to Captain El who had not moved an inch.
“Do you coves ever come together without a bloody mill breaking out?” Dickie asked from his perch in the window seat.
“I don’t suppose you would tell us which of the ladies confessed?” Colwyn asked the duchess. Derek pulled Obadiah over to the sofa and pushed him down next to Forsythe.
Captain El rolled her eyes at the Runner. “Any woman who comes into my care trusts me to keep her secrets. I’ve given my word. Do you gentlemen think the word of a woman is any less sacred than that of a man?”
“Don’t answer that, gents.” Dickie stared out the window and never turned his head, but they heard him.
“Wasn’t about to,” Colwyn said. “And as we have decided not to press on in learning the identity of the murderess, I suggest we devote ourselves to following the clues to the identity of the woman who hired the late unlamented Elias Shell before the trail goes cold.” He glanced up at the duchess who bestowed him with one of her rare smiles and a nod.
“I will see what I can discover through my East India Company associates.” Derek searched the faces of the rest of the men in the room. “I suggest the rest of you return to Grosvenor Street and see to the safety of your wives. I think Colwyn, Forsythe, and I can—”
“Might want to reconsider those orders, your nibs,” Dickie said with a smug grin. “Three of your ladies are gathered in Number Five coming up with a list of shops to visit in search of that expensive writing paper. And your wife, Doctor Douglas, is off to the docks in search of some flowers.”
“Bloody hell.” The Scot lurched to his feet. Forsythe laughed and shook his head.
“Wouldn’t laugh too hard, Old Bailey,” Dickie said to Forsythe. “Your missus is with her, along with a few of the Rutherford lads.”
“Christ!” Forsythe shot up from the sofa. “Come on,” he growled at Douglas.
“Now wait a minute.” Colwyn raised his voice to be heard over the din of the others heading for the door. “We need to stop going off half-cocked. All it has done so far is land us one step behind the person we’re after.”
“All I know is you best find the bitch wots doing this before one of your ladies puts her head in a noose.” Dickie exchanged a furtive glance with Captain El.
“You know who she is, don’t you?” Derek asked. “You know which of the ladies is the one.”
“You know better than anyone how good I am at keeping a secret, your lordship. You don’t expect me to start talking now, do you?” Well, that created a loaded silence Derek wanted nothing to do with, especially when he saw the way the men in the room studied him and then Dickie in turn.
“Go,” Derek said, his eyes never leaving the boy’s face. “Send any information you discover to Colwyn by one of the Rutherfords, no one else. Col, send word for us to meet again when you have something we need to know. And gentlemen?”
They all turned at the already open door out of the duchess’s office. “No more keeping information from me no matter what your wives or Missus Collins says. Agreed?” They nodded and filed out of the room. Derek rested his hip against the back of one of the plush armchairs before the fire.
“Your Grace, I—”
“You have your own lady to see to, Framlingwood.” She straightened and walked toward the inset door in the wall. “Tell him, Dickie. And you,” she pointed at Derek. “Try not to fuck it up.” She quit the room without looking back.
“Where?” he demanded of Dickie.
“The Lamb and Flag.” Dickie jumped from the window seat and grabbed Derek’s greatcoat from the chair. He tossed him the coat and strode from the room leaving Derek to follow.
“You know I don’t want you involved in all of this,” Derek said, on the way out the back of Goodrum’s where they climbed into his carriage.
“Yer not the only one who cares for Missus Collins.” The boy crossed his arms and stared out the carriage window. “I owe her. My guess is you do too.”
Derek made him no answer. No answer was necessary.