Chapter 8 #2
The young man nodded eagerly and Warren guided him to a table inside before he waved down a bar wench.
“Shall we drink to the end of a long journey?” he asked as they knocked their pints of ale together in a toast.
The footman grinned, eager to enjoy his free ale. “To the end of long journeys.”
Warren sat back in his chair, sipping his ale, waiting for the right moment to ask the man a few questions. He would get his chance soon enough.
* * *
Mrs. Petersham was perfect. Darius couldn’t be more pleased with her as a chaperone.
Rather than some fire-breathing dowager dragon, she was an amusing breath of companionable fresh air.
Most importantly, she seemed to put Meredith at ease.
At dinner, Mrs. Petersham had drawn out Meredith’s smiles and conversation, making the young woman sparkle in front of his friends.
The only problem was that his friends, who had joined them for dinner, were all now quite drawn to Meredith, providing Mrs. Petersham with her first true challenge.
Felix sat beside Meredith and seemed to be captivated by every little thing she said.
Darius sat at the head of the table and could not miss the attention his friends were paying to his ward.
He wasn’t happy with that, even though he should be…
Was it because Meredith wasn’t his to claim in front of his friends?
And that meant any of them had a chance to win her away? The thought made his stomach clench.
“Darius,” Suzannah murmured next to him. He managed to tear his gaze away from Meredith.
“Yes?”
“Do you think Felix may be taken with Meredith?” They leaned closer to talk, staring at the pair in conversation. Darius didn’t answer but merely grunted.
“I think she could be a rather lovely wife for a marquess,” Suzannah said thoughtfully, as if his grunt had been a sufficient answer to continue the conversation.
“I did not have you set as a matchmaker, my little artist,” Kit teased his wife, having eavesdropped on their whispered conversation.
Darius took a long draw from his wineglass.
He did not want to imagine Meredith and Felix together, not like that.
Felix was always ready to run off on any adventure.
He was not the sort of man to settle down and enjoy quiet breakfasts on the back terrace or sip brandy in the evenings by the fire and read in companionable silence.
No, Felix and Meredith simply wouldn’t suit each other.
“Felix is too wild for her,” Darius said to Suzannah. “And Kit is right, you do not strike me as a matchmaker.”
“No,” Suzannah agreed with a solemn look. “But Meredith needs a good match, and as her new friend, I want to see this accomplished.”
Darius did adore Suzannah’s fierce loyalty, but the thought of Meredith marrying and leaving soon left him restless. She didn’t have to marry so quickly, did she? Surely she could take a year before she had to decide.
It was a myth that women needed to marry so young, after all.
Many ladies of his acquaintance waited until they were twenty-three or twenty-four before choosing a husband.
Silly fears of becoming spinsters aside, most women smartly gave themselves a few years to experience life before tying themselves to a husband.
Meredith deserved the same. He certainly wouldn’t force her to choose quickly… or at all if fate would allow it.
It’s not as though I have a claim to her…he admitted to himself silently.
A few stolen kisses, a few moments of joy … That was all he could have, and he shouldn’t even have had that.
“Promise you will not rush her in making a decision,” Darius said to Suzannah. “She’s bound to match poorly if she chooses in haste.”
“I won’t. Of course I won’t,” Suzannah assured him. Tactfully changing the subject, she said, “Mrs. Petersham seems quite lovely. I think we did rather well.”
“I agree. Meredith seems to blossom around her.”
Kit chuckled as he cut into his roast duck. “Blossom?”
Heat suffused Darius’s face. “You know what I mean. The woman seems to put Meredith at ease, and she’s come out of her shyness a bit as a result.”
From further down the table, Lionel asked, “I say, Darius, where’s Warren?”
“He is seeing to a personal matter for me.”
Lionel arched a brow. “What sort of personal matter?” Clearly, the word private did not apply to his friends. But he trusted them with most everything.
“Well, he—”
He was interrupted as Mr. Chelsea stepped into the dining room. “Mr. Burville has arrived, Your Grace.”
Vincent chuckled. “Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.”
“Does he wish to join us for dinner?” Darius asked.
“I believe so.” Chelsea replied.
“Show him in when he’s ready,” Darius replied.
“Well, this is all very mysterious,” Vincent mused as he and the others waited for Warren to join them.
A minute or so later, Warren entered the dining room. He made a hasty apology for his attire. It was clear that he had been riding and hadn’t had time to change. Warren glanced around at everyone before he took a seat at the table.
“Well? What did you find out?” Darius prompted.
Warren took a long drink of wine before he spoke, and Darius stared at him growing a little impatient.
Finally, Warren spoke. “Crell traveled alone to a coaching inn about an hour outside of London. He met a woman there, I thought was Mrs. Crell. I thought you said the woman was an invalid?”
“She is. She can walk, but prefers to use an invalid chair,” said Darius.
A dinner plate was placed in front of Warren.
“Well, this woman did not look the least bit unwell and used no chair, nor did she seem to travel with one. She climbed the stairs without difficulty. I discreetly questioned a footman who traveled with this woman. She also came from London, but obviously not with Mr. Crell. They did plan to travel on together to a little house in the country about two hours away tomorrow.”
“Who is this Crell fellow?” Vincent asked. “Name sounds familiar.”
Darius could feel Meredith’s gaze on him. “He is the neighbor directly behind me.”
“And why are we having Warren follow your neighbor?” Lionel asked.
It amused Darius to hear Lionel say we as though what one man in their circle of friends was doing they were all involved in. And that was certainly true. They were often tangled up in one another’s lives.
“There is a concern that something is amiss in my neighbor’s household,” Darius said diplomatically. “There is some concern for the welfare of his wife, Mrs. Crell.”
“Wouldn’t you want to address this matter with the Bow Street Runners?” Vincent asked. “Aren’t they supposed to look into such matters?”
Darius nodded. “And I have every intention of contacting Mr. Doyle of the Runners, once I have more information and possibly some proof that something has in fact happened in that house.”
“Ahh, because once you set Doyle on it, Crell will likely be questioned, and he’ll know someone that lives close to him suspects him of something.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly,” Darius said. “We are the only house that has a good view into his back gardens and a few rooms of his house.”
“I believe you’d better tell us the whole story then,” said Lionel.
Seeing as how they were all people he trusted, and with a barely perceptible nod from Meredith, he recounted what Meredith had seen and heard in the mews, how they both witnessed the empty bedchamber, and heard Crell’s orders to close the house, and bury some jewelry.
“It sounds as though the man truly has done something to his wife,” Mrs. Petersham replied. “No woman would part with her jewelry, ill or not.” Her bluntness quieted the table.
“Yes,” said Meredith. “That is what I fear as well.”
“The problem is, so far everything seems to have a possibly reasonable explanation. I don’t want to bother the authorities with this until I have proof something terrible has in fact happened in that house.
” He also didn’t want to prove his uncle right and do something foolish.
He had more to lose now that Meredith was his ward.
If he died, Harry would move into this house and Meredith would be utterly at his cousin’s mercy again.
He could not allow such a thing to happen.
“I see,” said Felix. “Is there anything we can do to assist you?”
“Not at this moment,” Darius said. “But if that changes, I shall tell you, of course.”
Meredith spoke up. “Warren, might I ask what the woman that Mr. Crell met with looked like?” Her shyness had vanished now that she was fixated on the mystery.
Warren played with the stem of his wineglass. “I’m afraid she wore one of those ridiculous poke bonnets. Couldn’t get a decent look at her face, but I glimpsed dark hair when she passed by me.”
“Dark hair? You’re sure?” Meredith pressed.
“Yes. I saw her face only briefly, but I do know that her hair was quite dark.”
“And her figure? Was she slender or fuller?”
“Slender? No, she was quite gifted with curves. Why do you ask?”
“Because Mr. Crell’s wife possessed pale blonde hair, and her figure was very slender.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Petersham said.
A chill trespassed along Darius’s spine. He deeply hoped that Warren’s research into the matter would be the end of this. But it seemed to only raise more questions.
“So it seems at the very least, Crell is involved with a mistress,” Warren concluded.
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s done away with his wife.
Dash it, I wish I’d stayed at the fellow’s house longer to see if I saw a second woman, but I thought that the woman I’d seen was the one you were looking for. ”
“I see why you want to get to the bottom of this,” said Lionel. He drummed his fingertips lightly on the table as if thinking everything through.
“Never a dull moment at Darius’s house,” Vincent chuckled.
Warren, unbothered by the fact that he had just trailed a possible murderer for most of the evening, tucked into his dinner.
Darius met Meredith’s concerned gaze. Was she right?
Had her fears for Mrs. Crell’s safety been justified?
It seemed Darius was going to have to find proof of something to take his friend Doyle at the Bow Street Runners.