Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
“What’s the matter?” Christopher asked when he got a look at me. “You’re pale.”
“It’s winter in England,” I said. “Of course I’m pale.”
We were all pale, although I was, admittedly, a bit less pale than the two of them.
They have that pink porcelain, roses and cream complexion.
Mine’s a bit darker, the legacy of my south German father.
I will admit, however, that I might have been paler than usual.
I’m not certain what it was about the (very brief) encounter with the young man that had bothered me, but I felt rattled and out of sorts.
Crispin scoffed. “I know you well enough to be able to tell when something’s wrong, Darling. Spill.”
And then his face changed and he added, “You didn’t find Laetitia, did you?”
“Of course not. I would hardly prevaricate about that, would I?”
I didn’t wait for an answer, just added, “No, I haven’t seen Laetitia. Nor her motorcar. Nor the Daimler. There’s a bullnose Morris Oxford around the corner on Grosvenor. It’s red—”
Crispin shook his head. “Geoffrey wouldn’t be caught dead in a red motorcar. His is a tasteful dark blue.”
“I planned to duck through Bourdon Street down to Grosvenor Place and the mews, but then this bloke turned up, and he was breathing down my neck, quite literally—”
By now, I had lost both of their attentions, as they were peering up and down the street for the obnoxious bloke. As if they’d recognize him if they saw him.
Then again, perhaps they would. Not from his rubbing up against me, of course—they would have had to have been there to see that—but from wherever I might have seen him before.
“It’s just a narrow little passage,” I continued, “and positively churning with fog, and I didn’t want to be caught in it with someone I didn’t know…”
Neither of them responded to that, although at least Crispin gave me a look. I added, “We can go now, together, if you’d like.”
He shook his head. “There’s no need. Laetitia hasn’t been here.”
“And if Laetitia hasn’t been,” Christopher added, finally taking his eyes off the passing throng, “there’s no reason why her motorcar would be, either.”
I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that, and said so. “She might have parked in the mews, preparatory to going to Smythson, and been snatched when she left the motorcar. And now it’s sitting there empty, waiting for her to come back.”
Neither of them said anything, and I added, “Just because she didn’t make it into Smythson, doesn’t mean she didn’t make it to Grosvenor Hill. We could at least walk the block and look.”
They could come up with no reason not to, so we retraced my steps around the corner of New Bond and Grosvenor.
There was no sign of the chap from earlier, and yes, I looked.
This time, we headed down the narrow passage toward Broomfield Place.
Christopher took the lead and Crispin the rear, and they kept me between them until we came out in the crescent of Bourdon, Bloomfield, and Grosvenor Hill.
From there, we headed right on Grosvenor and left again on Bourdon, to arrive back at Bloomfield five minutes later.
The streets were all exceedingly narrow, and there were only a handful of places where a motorcar could be parked.
Those places were all occupied—six or perhaps seven motorcars—none of which was a yellow Citroen, a green Daimler, or a dark blue bullnose Morris Oxford.
We emerged back into New Bond Street with nothing to show for our search, but with the satisfaction of knowing that we had, at least, turned over every stone and walked every passage.
Or at least I was satisfied; Crispin was still grumbling about what a waste of time it had been.
“So the staff at Smythson hadn’t seen her,” I said, as we made our way back into the H6 for the next leg of the journey.
Christopher shook his head. “Not today, and not yesterday. Or the day before.”
“They did confirm that our appointment was for today,” Crispin added, as he fitted himself behind the wheel and pulled the door shut, “so at least I don’t have to worry about my mind going.”
“Was that a concern?”
He flicked me a glance in the mirror as he started the motor. “I won’t deny that I’ve had rather a lot on my mind over the past few weeks. Small wonder if something fell through the cracks.”
“I’m not sure how comfortable I am with you referencing cracks and your mind in the same breath,” Christopher commented, and Crispin sniggered.
“I was right about the appointment, so no need for concern.”
“But Laetitia hasn’t been here?”
Crispin shook his head. “It doesn’t seem so. I didn’t think that was the reason anyway—she isn’t flighty; getting her days confused isn’t something she’s likely to do, especially not on something so important—”
I made a face—important?—and he eyed me in the mirror. “Yes, Darling. It was important. Our initials together in a shared monogram for the first time…”
“The culmination of all her scheming brought to life before her eyes. I concede.”
“Thank you, Darling,” Crispin said. And added, “The fact that she didn’t turn up at Smythson today is also proof that something’s wrong. It isn’t something she would miss if she could help it.”
In my mind, the ransom note had been proof enough of that, but I supposed it didn’t hurt to have the additional indication that Laetitia wasn’t staying away of her own accord.
I would expect that from Crispin’s perspective, that thought was equal parts reassuring and terrible.
No, his future wife hadn’t blatantly disregarded their stationery appointment, but she was being kept from it by forces unknown, which wasn’t exactly a good thing.
“We’re back where we started, then,” I said.
“Laetitia left Dorset a day early for reasons of her own. It wasn’t because she was confused about her appointments, or because she wanted to surprise you, or because she planned to spend time with friends—or at least not with friends we’ve spoken to.
Does she have friends you don’t know about?
You travel in the same circles, don’t you? ”
“If she did,” Crispin said dryly, “I wouldn’t know, would I?”
After a second he answered, “I can’t think of anyone else she might have gone to. Yes, we travel in the same circles. The closest people to us both were invited to the engagement party. I can’t think of anyone else.”
“Does she have a secret life you know nothing about, then?”
“I don’t know when she’d have had time, Darling. She spends… she’s spent every moment she’s been able to with me since the engagement.”
“Afraid if she doesn’t keep a tight hold, you’ll escape, no doubt.”
He didn’t answer, although Christopher’s lips tightened in a smile he tried, not entirely successfully, to suppress. I assume Crispin rolled his eyes, but he was no longer watching me in the mirror, so I couldn’t be certain.
“When was the last time you saw her?” I added. “She was still at Sutherland Hall when we left, and she made it pretty clear—to us, at least—that she wasn’t about to be shaken loose just because her future father-in-law had died.”
“She stayed until after the funeral,” Crispin said. “You saw her there.”
Yes, indeed. Crispin’s fiancée wore nothing but black anyway, even to her own engagement party, so she hadn’t even needed to leave to fetch the appropriate attire for the funeral.
Christopher and I, meanwhile, don’t tend to walk around in mourning when no one’s dead, so we had decamped to Beckwith Place for a few days, with Francis and Constance, Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert, and then had gone back to Little Sutherland for the funeral, suitably attired.
And yes, Laetitia had been there, both when we left and when we’d come back.
She had been clinging to Crispin’s arm with one hand and clutching a single white carnation with the other, which she had tossed into the grave on top of the coffin with a dry sort of sob that fooled no one.
Nobody at that funeral had been happier than Laetitia, and that included Crispin, whose relationship with his father had been fraught, to say the least. It also included me, who had despised Uncle Harold heartily for the way he had treated his only son.
I had suggested a plain pine box for the occasion, something befitting a murderer and all-around bastard, but of course that was impossible.
Uncle Harold had gone in the ground in an ornate white casket with carvings and gold handles.
Christopher, Francis, and Uncle Herbert had helped Crispin lower it, and the whole thing had been a lot nicer and more respectful than he deserved.
Laetitia, on the other hand, had been neither.
She had made it clear that she had the situation well in hand and that the rest of us were unnecessary and in the way, so Christopher and I had withdrawn to Beckwith Place with the others, and from there, Francis had motored us to the train station in Salisbury so we could go back to London.
And here’s where we’d been ever since. That had been the last time I had seen Laetitia, standing in the foyer of Sutherland Hall, quite as if she were already its mistress.
“She left two days after the funeral,” Crispin said. “She was a bit out of sorts with me—”
“With you? Why?”
Why would his fiancée be out of sorts with Crispin two days after his father went in the ground? If ever he had the right to be difficult, it seemed as if it would be then.
He flicked a quick glance at me in the mirror before he turned his attention back to the street. We were navigating the exchange from Grosvenor Street to Park Lane at the moment, traveling alongside Hyde Park.
“It’s a lot of work, taking over the running of a ducal estate. And I’m only twenty-three; it’s not as if I’ve had years and years in which to learn.”
No, of course not.
“It’s only been eight months since Grandfather died. Father was fifty-six when he got the responsibility.”