Chapter 14
“Lovely, Mrs. Aldine. Breathtakingly lovely.”
Helena’s fingers froze on the keys of the pianoforte. Mr. Whitmore, Gerald’s tutor, had slipped quietly into the drawing room. Who knew how long he had been listening, unobserved, as she shaped her melodies and chords to rise and fall with the emotion of the piece?
“I hope I am not intruding.”
“Oh!” Helena rose from the bench. “I daresay you need the pianoforte for Gerald. I must beg your pardon for intruding. I am not familiar yet with the rhythms and routines of the Hall.”
“Not at all,” he said, giving the first smile she had ever seen on his face. It lightened the severity of his dark features although he still could not be called handsome. Not like the Aldine brothers. Not like Ralph.
“It is my half day, and I am relieved of Gerald’s presence for a few short hours. I heard music, and I was drawn to it like a flower to the sun. I have rarely heard such artistry. It is a gift after hearing my pupil’s fingers torturing the keys. Please, Mrs. Aldine. Won’t you play again for me?”
Helena colored. The tutor’s manner was not at all the same as when he had Gerald there to lecture or Lady Compton there to impress.
She had no desire to continue playing the pianoforte in front of an audience.
But what else could she do without being rude?
With inner discomfort, she resumed her seat and put her fingers on the keys.
The next half hour continued under the scrutiny of the increasingly attentive tutor.
He found new sheet music for her to play from a shelf near the instrument and even stood beside her to turn the pages.
Helena had often had her playing praised, but she did not like how complimentary Mr. Whitmore was.
It felt…wrong, somehow. But as she did not know how to depress his presumption, she simply smiled faintly and said nothing.
That evening, Sir Anthony asked her to play something after dinner.
When she sat down on the bench, she found Mr. Whitmore at her elbow again, eager to arrange her music and turn the pages.
Every time he came too close, she blushed and looked down, a pose he must have found inviting, for he continued to invade her space the whole of the evening.
The next morning, Lady Compton brought her down to the still room to make another tonic.
The energetic woman observed Helena’s work with the mortar and pestle in silence for a moment and then pursed her lips to make an observation.
“Mr. Whitmore seemed overly attentive to you last night. I wonder, my dear, why you so obviously encouraged him.”
Helena paled. “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” Lady Compton gave a laugh. “I mean that clearly the young idiot is smitten with you. And who would not be? You play like an angel and look like one too. But your manner was more inviting than a married woman’s ought to be.”
Helena faltered and the marble pestle fell against the stone bowl with a clink. “I never meant—oh, Lady Compton, I am so ashamed—”
“Chin up, my dear. What are you trying to say?”
“I did not realize that I was acting in an inviting manner. I was simply trying to be polite. He imposed his presence on me earlier in the music room, and I did not know what to say then either.”
“Ah, so that’s the way of it, then?” Lady Compton took the marble bowl and the pestle from Helena’s shaking hands.
“Well, never fret. It’s simply a skill you must learn.
How to quash unwelcome pretension with a glance.
” She scraped the pestle against the bowl with one deft turn of the wrist. “How to say no and still be gracious.”
“Another lesson I would be happy to learn from you.” Helena sighed. “If only I could drink a tonic and become, all at once, courageous and decisive.” She watched Lady Compton add a spoonful of wine and a cup of water to the crushed herbs. “What does this tonic do?”
Lady Compton laughed. “It is a parsley tonic for earaches, but if you would like to pretend it will give you courage, I have no objection to you tasting it. But then it must sit and steep for four weeks before we strain it.”
Helena smiled. “Perhaps a berry tonic would be better. There’s nothing braver than a strawberry, don’t you think?”
“Precisely,” said Lady Compton. “Why do you think I wear such bright colors? It gives one confidence. And that is the real key to depressing an encroaching mushroom. If you have confidence, my dear, in yourself, then no one can make you do anything or put up with anything you dislike.”
Helena nodded. “I shall try to remember that.”
For if she’d had the confidence to speak her mind in the past, not only the awkwardness at the pianoforte last night would have been avoided but also the dire dishonor in the London cloakroom.
Jacob Pevensey leaned back in his chair and flexed his tortured hand.
Writing was such unpleasant work. It was a pity that words could not spring into existence on the page from mere speaking.
But Sir Richard and the other magistrates at Bow Street were right—i’s must be dotted, t’s must be crossed, and ink must be blotted, if the rule of law was to endure.
He had no pressing cases to investigate in the streets, so reports on previous cases were the order of the day.
Later, tonight, when he returned to his small flat, he would have another piece of writing to complete, but that one was an agony of a different sort.
He had received a letter from Miss Cecil yesterday, and he had been considering all day how to answer it.
She wrote so blithely and beautifully and brought the most mundane aspects of her world to life. He had no such ease of manner.
What would he tell her that would hold her interest?
Would she want to know about the petty theft on Bond Street that caused a man to be transported last week?
Would she want to hear about a riot among the dockworkers that the Horse Patrol had cowed by force?
Or would she rather hear about the violent criminal who escaped from Newgate and was shot by the watch when he resisted a second arrest?
Pevensey shook his head, leaned forward at the desk, and picked up his quill again.
Carefully, he dipped it in the inkwell, as fastidious as ever to keep his hands and garments clean.
He would tell Edwina Cecil about none of those things.
Even though she had proved invaluable to him over the chance course of two murder investigations, she was far too valuable to him to be sullied with such sordid news.
No, he must think of something lighter to write about this evening, even though his life as a Bow Street Runner was not full of light occurrences.
Perhaps he could draw her a picture of the humorous scene he had seen the other day when a cart full of potatoes overturned at a busy intersection—
“Pevensey,” barked one of his fellows, causing him to look up sharply.
It was Jedediah Tibbs, only a year or two younger than Pevensey, but with a streak of silver in his lanky brown hair.
Over the last few weeks, Tibbs had taken to repeatedly interrupting him at his desk.
Apparently, the fellow was concerned that Pevensey might be lazing about rather than writing needful information.
And just last week, Sir Richard Ford had ordered him to take Tibbs about with him whenever he left the building.
It was a ball and chain of the worst sort.
Pevensey said a silent prayer of thanks that his hand had not wavered at the disturbance and there was no need to copy out this crabbed report a second time. “There’s a fellow here asking about you,” said Tibbs. “Says you helped him at Christmas time with a case.”
Pevensey’s red eyebrows lifted. At Christmas time? That would be the case involving the Duke of Tilbury, the chief suspect in a murder investigation until it was determined that another tall, blond fellow had orchestrated the drowning in the Thames. Was the duke here to see him?
He rose from his desk and went down the corridor till he came to the entrance hall for the Bow Street court and offices.
There, sitting on a bench, was the solicitor he had interviewed three months ago—illegitimate half-brother to the drowned man.
Ralph Aldine was the man’s name. They were much of a height, although Pevensey was slimmer in build, and as men on the fringes of the polite society, they both wore dark, serviceable clothing.
“Mr. Aldine,” said Pevensey, offering his hand. “What can I do for you?”
“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”
Pevensey nodded and invited the solicitor to come back to his small office. There was barely room for two seats in there, but somehow, he managed to fit Mr. Aldine into a wooden chair, close the door, and slide back behind the letter-writing desk into his own usual seat.
“Thank you for seeing me,” said Mr. Aldine. “I have a delicate matter in which I need your expertise.”
“For a client?”
“For myself. Er, for myself and for my family.”
“I see. Has a crime been committed?”
“I don’t think so, although I suppose extortion and fraud could come into it. It involves the paternity of a child.”
Pevensey kept his face like a mask and said nothing. It never did any good to jump to conclusions in these kinds of matters.
“Before my brother Will died, he was involved with an actress named Miss Libby Clifford.”
“I interviewed her regarding the death,” Pevensey reminded him.
“Indeed.” Mr. Aldine cleared his throat and steepled his hands, tapping the top of his fingertips together.
“She claims to be with child by my brother.”
From what Pevensey knew about Ralph Aldine’s brother, such a claim was entirely plausible.
“And she is demanding money to keep the secret to herself.”
“I believe such things happen frequently when gentlemen of the higher classes take a mistress.” Pevensey kept his tone carefully neutral.