Chapter Twenty-Two
Lady Mary
The rest of the day passed quickly. I readjusted my orders in deference to the expected loss of patrons I was to have for the next few weeks at the least. Wrote a few letters asking the recipients to inquire with their contacts as to who the author of that anonymous piece had been.
Even started a timeline of everything we knew about the murder and its suspects.
That outline spanned several pages of paper, and only a lack of pins kept me from attaching it to my wall.
Tea time had come and gone without me partaking, and when my stomach rumbled for the third time, I decided it was time for supper.
Instead of ringing a bell for a servant, I stretched my back as I straightened from behind the bar in the Country Pub room where I’d been taking inventory, and headed for the kitchens next to the Tea Room.
I passed by a sitting room where two women sat on the circular settee, faces close together, red staining their cheeks as I passed.
I lifted my chin and kept marching. My steps paused at the doorway to the Tea Room. My partner in crime-solving sat on one sturdy wooden stool at the bar along the east wall, tracing a pattern on the mahogany bar top with the tip of her finger, a half full sherry glass in her other hand.
Changing course, I made my way over to her. “Miss Lynton, are you all right?” We were the only ones in the room, except for Bobby, who stood slouched behind the bar, looking bored.
“Just lovely.” She blew out a breath, a lock of hair lifting from her cheek before slowly drifting back down.
“You don’t look lovely.” She looked half-sprung, not the appropriate condition for a gently-bred young miss.
Mr. Ryder’s voice whispered through my mind, murmuring the barest of ‘I told you so’s’, but I shoved it aside. My club did not encourage licentiousness.
Miss Lynton threw back the rest of her drink, her face twisting into a grimace. “Another please,” she asked Bobby.
“Are you certain?” I asked. “You don’t look as though you enjoyed that one.”
“I detest the taste of sherry, but it is the drink for ladies.”
I considered sending her home. Or ordering her coffee instead. I slapped the bar. It had been a trying day for more than just me, apparently, and a stiff drink or three sounded like a good idea. “Try a brandy instead. It’s my drink of choice. Make it two,” I told Bobby.
He slid the glasses in front of us, taking the sherry glass to clean.
I took Miss Lynton’s elbow and guided her off the stool before she could drink.
“Let’s take these to more comfortable seats.
” Hard wood stools were a trial for my back.
I nodded to Bobby. “Our patronage is slim tonight. Why don’t you start closing up the other rooms. Anyone who wants a drink can join us in here. ”
“I don’t want to be surrounded by people,” Miss Lynton complained.
I sighed. “Don’t worry, you won’t be.”
I led her to the sofa along the wall covered in a lovely lavender brocade. When it was daylight, the large windows across the room let the sun warm this seat. This evening, the airy room was reflected in watery lines on the panes of glass against an ebony backdrop.
Miss Lynton took a large swallow of the brandy. Her face contorted, her tongue pushing against her lips as though trying to push the taste of the liquor out. “This is worse than sherry.”
“Sip it, don’t quaff it like ale.” I took my own sip.
My brandy was from the Cognac region of France, aged four years in an oak barrel.
It was delicious, and obviously wasted on the youth.
“Now, what brings you here tonight seeking answers in the bottom of a drink, Miss Lynton? And you should know, liquor answers no questions.” Though it could soften the jagged edges of a day quite nicely.
“You may as well call me Eleanor. We are trying to solve a murder together.” She sat back and rested her glass on her abdomen. “I didn’t want to be in my house any longer.”
“Ah.” Some women wanted to escape their husbands when they came here. For Eleanor, it could only be her mother she wished to avoid. “Is Mrs. Lynton fretting about Lady Richford’s murder? Does she worry about being a suspect?”
“I don’t think she’s aware she is a suspect.
” She took a tiny sip, grimaced. “It wasn’t losing our fortune that hurt my mother the most. It was losing her place in society.
From being a respected woman of the ton, having her opinions and well-wishes sought after, to being cast out and into the ranks of a Cit.
Even now, it still weighs on her. She never truly recovered. ”
“And her company is unpleasant as a result?”
Eleanor averted her gaze, staring at a round table across the room where three ladies had taken up occupancy. “Not unpleasant. Only…difficult.”
I was hard-pressed to see the difference.
I thought of the woman in question. When she’d petitioned to join the club, her smile had seemed just a little too bright, a little too brittle, but I’d accounted that to her struggle to regain her place in society.
She had trod a difficult road, and I respected her resiliency.
Perhaps Mrs. Lynton hadn’t been as resilient as I’d thought. “You are always welcome here, but whatever problems you’re having with your mother, hiding won’t help them.”
“Oh, let’s speak of something else.” Eleanor huffed. “I’m tired of worrying about it.” She held up her glass. “I saw that you made the paper again today. Did you really set a boat on fire?”
I grimaced. “I was merely giving my beloved spitzhund a Viking funeral. He was from Finland, you understand.” The fact that people still remembered that one rankled. It had happened nearly twenty years ago. But Henrik had deserved the grand send off. That dog had the noblest spirit I’d ever known.
“And were you pretending to ride the bronze stag in Hyde Park?” The edges of Eleanor’s eyes crinkled. “You do know it can’t take you anywhere.”
“I was merely seated upon it so I didn’t get an ache in my neck when speaking to Miss Abbott.
She sat upon a large bay.” One would think I’d been shouting tally-ho and waving my chemise about my head for all the fuss it made.
At the time I’d been rather impressed with myself, solving a problem creatively, creating a seat where none had existed.
Creativity tended to be frowned upon in my circles, however.
“Were you astride or side-saddle?” she asked, her lips twitching. “I want a clear picture of it in my head.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Drink your brandy.”
We sat in companionable silence, me enjoying my drink, Eleanor merely tolerating hers.
But the muscles in her shoulders seemed to loosen, the tension in her face released.
I considered asking about her mother again, but frankly, I had enough problems of my own.
I wasn’t in the mindset to take on some of her burdens.
“The mood is most somber in here this evening.” Mr. Rollins strolled into the room and stopped before us, looking sharp in a navy blue jacket.
Eleanor popped up straight. Apparently, I wasn’t the only woman to think so.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice peevish.
The Runner arched an auburn brow. “And a good evening to you, as well.”
Eleanor stared down into her now empty glass. “I apologize. You surprised me. I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”
“Not all surprises should be unwelcome.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
I thought about scooting over, making room for him between Eleanor and me, but I didn’t want to make it too easy for him. A man should put in some effort when he wooed a woman. I had no doubt Mr. Rollins wanted to woo Miss Lynton, though I didn’t know if he would allow himself that pleasure.
Or whether Miss Lynton would welcome it.
The group of women across the room stood and drifted to the scattering of wingbacks nearer to us. They kept their gazes averted, but Mr. Rollins’s appearance could be the only reason for their change of setting. The Runner was still a curiosity, and a handsome one at that. They wanted to eavesdrop.
As I had nothing of importance to discuss, I would allow it. “Find a seat instead of looming over us,” I told him. “And we’re not somber. Merely contemplative.”
“May I contemplate as well over a drink with you?” He looked toward the bar. Bobby had yet to reappear, and it was currently unmanned.
“Help yourself.” If The Minerva Club shuttered its doors, at least I would have an impressive inventory of liquor in which to drown my woes. “The glasses are behind the bar.”
Eleanor held up hers. “Can you bring me another brandy?”
Rollins cocked his head, examining the rosiness of her cheeks, the slight glaze to her eyes. “No.” He turned on his heel and strode toward the bar.
“Did he just say no?” Eleanor blinked, her expression pinching. “The impudence.” She rose to her feet with only the slightest of sways. “The nerve.”
One of our listeners tittered behind her hand.
“The waste of time.” I jutted my jaw toward where Rollins stood behind the bar. “Instead of complaining, go get one yourself.”
“I will.” Chin lifted, Eleanor marched across the room. She had just reached the bar when one of the large windows facing the street exploded into a tiny million shards.
Eleanor screamed, turning her back on the flying glass. She dropped to her knees on the floor.
Two streaks of light cascaded in a graceful arc through the broken window and smashed onto the floor. Two separate fires blazed up, stretching toward the ceiling, before reaching for each other, becoming one large conflagration.
My brain tried to catch up with what my eyes were seeing. “Go!” I told the women who had flown to the doorway to huddle in it, eyes wide with horror. “Get out of the club. Get Bernard.”
I didn’t wait to see if they obeyed. Because as I watched, a lick of flame stretched its fingers toward Eleanor, toying with the hem of her gown. I started to move forward, pulling out my handkerchief but knowing it wouldn’t be sufficient to smother out a fire.
Rollins gripped the edge of the bar and leapt over it.
Whipping off his jacket, he smacked at the flames as he dragged Eleanor away.
With her gown merely charred, he lifted her in his arms and hurried over to me, placing her back on her feet.
“Get out of here, both of you.” Without sparing us another glance, he went back to the fire, battering it with his jacket, kicking furniture out of its path.
Bobby emerged from the kitchen, his eyes flaring wide before he, too, leapt into action. He hollered for Timothy, and the two of them set to trying to douse the fire with buckets of water they filled from the kitchen.
I pushed Eleanor in front of me, prodding her out the door.
“We can’t leave him.” She coughed, a tear trickling down her cheek.
“He’s not alone. Bobby and Timothy are with him.” And the three of them had better know when it was time to get out. I loved my club, but it wasn’t worth their lives. “If you want to help, find Bernard. Have him send for a night watchman. And then wait on the street.”
“But—”
“Go!” I pushed her lower back, and finally, she went.
Lifting my skirts, I trotted to the Great Room at the back of the club.
From there I made my way forward, checking every room, calling loudly.
I found a couple of women in the Greek Room, a few more playing darts.
Once I was assured that all my members were out, I joined Eleanor on the street and watched as the flames flickered through the windows, praying for a miracle.
I looked at the sky, but it remained cloudless above. There would be no saving rain.
A crowd gathered. The flames continued to crackle.
Eleanor took my hand, gripping it tightly as all the hopes I’d put into my club burned before me.