Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Bruton Street
Jacob woke late the next morning with a single thought in his brain.
They hadn’t spoken to the son, Julien, now Comte D’Antraigues.
True, they had only just begun their investigation, and that had turned out to be a very full and dangerous day, but how could they have neglected this obvious line of enquiry? Could the new Comte D’Antraigues be in danger? That oversight needed rectifying immediately.
There was a soft knock on the door before he could throw back the covers and Kir appeared in the doorway carrying a tray that looked almost as big as himself, Yarton at his back to remove obstacles from his path.
‘Dr Sandys, your breakfast,’ said the boy, placing the tray on his lap with the minimum of rattles and only a slight spillage from the coffee pot.
‘Very good, Kir,’ said Yarton. ‘Now ask if that will be all.’
‘Will that be all, sir?’ asked Kir, his dark eyes bright with excitement at his first attempt to deliver breakfast to a gentleman. So far it was going swimmingly – Jacob’s saucer was certainly swimming in coffee.
‘Yes, unless there is any news?’ Jacob addressed this comment to Yarton, who was discreetly mopping up the spill.
‘There were some disruptions, sir, but everyone is well. Miss Fitz-Pennington said she would tell you about it as soon as you were in a fit state to receive visitors.’ Yarton turned to leave.
‘Please tell her to come over. We need to go out at once, so I require some clean clothes.’ His coat and breeches had not come out well after his altercation with the carriage horse.
‘I took the liberty of sending to your rooms, sir. They are waiting for you in the dressing room. Come along, Kir.’
‘He can stay,’ said Jacob, guiltily aware that he and Dora had been too absent recently from the boy’s life. ‘I dare say he will nobly volunteer to help me finish my muffins.’
Once Yarton departed, Jacob took a sip of the coffee.
It was tempting to call Yarton back and ask him to add a few drops of laudanum to the cup to dull his pain, but he knew where that would lead.
Having Kir here was another way of distracting himself from his bruises.
Part of breaking a habit was not to dwell on the appetite when it arose.
‘What’s been going on, Kir? Yarton sounded very mysterious.’ He forked up some scrambled eggs, deciding they looked the easiest thing to eat.
Kir flopped back on the end of the bed and kicked his heels, making the springs bounce.
‘Careful, I’m eating here.’
‘Oops, sorry.’ Kir rolled onto his tummy and propped his chin on his hands.
‘It’s been very exciting, sir. Miss Dora said that the bad men broke into Miss Austen’s bedroom, but as she had her notebook on her, they got nothing.
Miss Dora told me that was a lesson in keeping private things private – locked away or somewhere no one would think to look. ’
‘They went after Miss Austen?’ Jacob hadn’t expected that. Henry’s office and business – yes; but his sister? These were desperate people they were dealing with, grasping at straws.
‘Miss Dora said something about Miss Austen being more interesting than she seemed – a pearl in an oyster or something. Can’t say I understood half of that, but I think Miss Dora now likes her.’
That was a change of heart from his Dora. What had gone on while he was in bed?
‘What else?’
Kir resumed bouncing so had to be ordered off the covers. ‘Oh, sir, it was so clever of Mr Smith and Miss Dora!’ he said from his new post on the rug.
‘What was clever?’
‘Getting away from the bad men. The rotters made their cab horse – she was a grey mare called Sally – they scared her so she ran wild down Piccadilly – there was almost a fearful smash but Miss Dora stopped it with Mr Smith’s help.
’ The boy jumped up to mime some daring moves of whip and reins.
‘Like that! Sally was all right. But the bad men were after them so they ran off and hid in one of them flash bagnios that I’m not supposed to go near if I’m running messages.
’ That sounded like something Yarton would say.
‘They waited till their hunters gave up and sneaked back in late last night when the coast was clear. Miss Dora said they’d had a bit of a scare, but they were unhurt.
All of us have to take extra care when we go out and nowhere is to be left unguarded. ’
‘That sounds’—alarming—‘exciting.’
‘Oh, it is. Mr Yarton put footmen on all the entrances, including to the mews. I could hardly sleep a wink watching them patrol up and down like soldiers.’
‘It sounds like I need to get up.’
With Kir’s help, Jacob struggled into his clothes.
It was very hard to bend so Kir made himself useful rolling stockings over Jacob’s bare toes, holding out his breeches for him to step into, and passing braces over his shoulders so he could fasten them to their buttons.
A pint-sized valet. Jacob was contemplating the pain of slipping into his jacket when Dora knocked and entered without waiting for a reply.
‘Really, Jacob, you should still be in bed!’ she exclaimed, seeing him upright. She was neatly dressed in a cream muslin gown and her hair tidied up under her hat, no sign of any damage taken from her adventures.
‘Good morning to you too, darling.’ He opened his arms. Kir made way so that he could hug Dora. ‘Kir’s been telling me of your heroics.’
‘Hardly heroics. But at least we now know that the attacks are connected with our case and not that other matter.’ She flicked a glance at Kir.
Yes, it was best not to speak about marriage in front of one of the household’s best gossips.
Kir was so artless that he would repeat everything to Yarton or a kitchen maid and everyone would know their business.
‘And what’s all this about you and Miss Austen?’
‘She is downstairs.’
‘You haven’t shaken her off yet?’
‘No, though I wish Jane would stay where it is safe. She revealed last night that she wrote Sense and Sensibility – in truth and not just as a lie to explain her accompanying me about town.’
‘Did she indeed?’ said Jacob, noticing the ladies were now on first name terms, a sign of the new intimacy between them. ‘We will have to be careful with Miss Austen or find ourselves skewered in her next novel as an insufferable bore or outrageous flirt.’
‘I should’ve guessed what she was up to. She was too clever, too quick to be an ordinary banker’s sister.’
He laughed at that. ‘I, by contrast, am not surprised. The women in my life are continual surprises to me. And I know Frank. There is a strain of the extraordinary in the Austen family.’ He reached for his jacket.
Dora held it out for him. ‘If I can’t persuade you to spend the day in bed, then where are we going?’
‘To find Julien, the new Comte D’Antraigues.’
‘Of course. I should’ve thought of that. Any idea where to start?’
‘If he has given up the house in Barnes, then Queen Anne Street is our best bet.’ He waggled his eyebrows at her. ‘Fortunately, we know someone who has already been introduced there and can pave the way for our introduction.’
Dora groaned. ‘She won’t let me forget this. Jane told me she would be useful to the investigation, and she is right.’
Music was playing as they knocked on the door of the D’Antraigues house in Queen Anne Street. It was a jarringly perky military march performed on a piano in what should be a house of mourning. A sullen footman opened the door.
‘Comte D’Antraigues is not receiving,’ he intoned.
A gust of convivial laughter came from a nearby room.
‘Play it again!’ boomed a man’s voice, vowels rich with a Russian or Polish accent.
The march began again.
‘Clearly,’ said Jacob in a clipped tone. ‘However, this is not a social but a business call. One of our party he already knows.’ He gestured to Miss Austen. ‘Please give him my card and say the matter is urgent.’
With a sceptical look at the two women behind Jacob, the footman allowed them to wait in the hall while he went in search of his master.
Jacob studied with interest the collection of paintings on the wall.
If he was any judge, there was a Watteau and a Zoffany hanging here.
Both painters had a theatrical style that suited the house of a former opera star.
Dora and Miss Austen were heads together over a collection of prints displayed on a marble table, including one of Vesuvius and another of the Fountains of Versailles.
Compared to the paintings, they were rather dull pieces.
The piano music broke off and there was a murmur of voices. The footman returned.
‘He will see you now. Come this way.’ The footman wasn’t very good at his job. He hadn’t even asked for the names of Jacob’s companions. Standing at the door, he announced: ‘Mr Fitz-Pennington and guests.’
Jacob strode into the room, making for the young man sitting at the piano. ‘Actually, my name is Dr Sandys. The lady there is Miss Fitz-Pennington, my business partner, and I believe you’ve met Miss Austen?’
Seeing the females in the party, Julien, the new Comte D’Antraigues, sprang up and straightened his coat tails. He shook Jacob’s hand and bowed to the ladies.
‘Forgive my man. He is still in training. Carl, please ask the cook to send up refreshments for my guests.’ He retained only a hint of his French upbringing in his accent. No doubt he had spent almost all his life outside France thanks to the revolution booting his parents out in 1789.