A Fatal Assignation (The Rutherford Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  ‘He said he would be looking in at White’s, sir, but the remark was merely dropped, so to speak.’

  ‘He also told you that he’d be dining at Carlton House that evening?’

  ‘That is correct, sir. I laid out his dress clothes in the usual way, but he never returned to change.’

  ‘Did you not think this sufficiently unusual to draw Lady Jermyn’s attention to it?’

  Preston coughed. ‘Her ladyship was at a private ball that evening with Miss Jermyn. Besides, I wasn’t wishful of doing anything which —’ he hesitated.

  ‘Which would annoy or embarrass your master?’ put in Justin quickly.

  ‘Yes, sir, that was it.’

  ‘Had Sir Aubrey ever before failed to return home without warning?’

  ‘No, sir. And if he was staying anywhere away from home, he would always take me with him. That’s what I can’t understand, sir. Besides, he has taken no clothes with him, not even an overnight bag.’

  Justin nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘I believe you went down to his house in Sussex to make inquiries. Did you learn anything there to the purpose?’

  ‘Indeed not, sir. None of the servants had set eyes on him since the family’s last visit in March, when I accompanied them. There had been no communication except for the usual small, everyday matters of business between the estate agent, Mr Hawthorn, and Sir Aubrey. No mention of another visit, sir.’

  ‘But I think,’ Justin said, persuasively, ‘that you may possibly have some notion yourself about your master’s disappearance. You’ve been twenty years in his employ, I collect — long enough to gain some insight into his private concerns. There may be matters which you don’t care to mention to my lady personally, but I know she has impressed upon you the importance of concealing nothing from me. Come, now. Perhaps it will help you if I say at once that I know of Sir Aubrey’s reputation as a lady’s man.’

  Preston’s expression lightened. ‘Well, sir, if it’s to be plain dealing,’ he said, in a confidential tone, ‘I may be able to show you something, though I fear it won’t help much. As you say, sir, the master did have his fancies in the petticoat line, and I couldn’t help but know about most of them. Indeed, half the Town knew, too, for he was —’

  ‘One moment,’ interrupted Justin, sharply. ‘I notice you’re using the past tense when you speak of Sir Aubrey. Why?’

  The valet seemed nonplussed for a moment.

  ‘Well, Mr Rutherford, it’s just a manner of speaking, I suppose, thinking back on times past. I can’t rightly account for it, sir.’

  ‘No matter. You were saying —?’

  ‘What was I saying? Oh, yes, that Sir Aubrey has never troubled to conceal his affaires, until recently. Lately there’s been someone to whom any breath of scandal would be fatal, by my reckoning, for everything’s been conducted in a more havey-cavey style, if you take my meaning.’

  Justin nodded. ‘What was it you wished to show me?’

  Preston stepped over to a wardrobe, took from it a frogged red silk dressing robe, and removed a slip of paper from one of the pockets.

  ‘I’d forgotten about this until now, sir,’ he said, handing it to Justin.

  Justin unfolded it carefully. As he did so, a faint aroma of attar of roses wafted to his nostrils. The message it contained was brief, and in a hasty but indisputably feminine hand.

  I will be at the usual rendezvous on Monday between two and three o’clock. My dearest love — S.

  He studied it for several minutes.

  ‘I found it when I was hanging up the garment,’ explained the valet, a shade defensively. ‘I felt the crackle of paper and opened it, thinking it of no importance since it wasn’t sealed or enclosed in any way. Sir Aubrey was out at the time, so I replaced it, then forgot all about it.’

  ‘When did you find this?’

  ‘Last Saturday morning, sir, when I was tidying in here as usual.’

  ‘And have you any notion who the sender — the cryptic “S” — may be? Don’t be afraid to answer, for it may lead us to Sir Aubrey.’

  The valet shook his head. ‘I fear not, sir. I told you that this affaire has been conducted with the utmost discretion, so that even I have never gained the least hint as to the lady’s identity. All I can say with certainty is that it started about the time that the family returned in March from Wynsfield — Sir Aubrey’s residence in Sussex, you know, sir. There have been other messages, though naturally I’ve never before read them. I saw the master burn one, once, at the candle. And there’ve been other little signs, easy to follow when you’re serving a gentleman day and night. All I can say is, he’s never been so particular about secrecy before, but I can’t tell who the lady may be.’

  ‘Hm.’ Justin raised the note to his nostrils and sniffed delicately at it. ‘I shall keep this,’ he said decisively, taking out his pocket book and stowing the paper away inside it. ‘In the meantime, should anything else occur to you which may assist in discovering Sir Aubrey, be good enough to report to me. Here’s my card.’

  He handed a calling card to Preston, who accepted it with a bow before showing him the way back to the drawing room.

  CHAPTER 3

  The following morning, Justin made tactful inquiries at White’s and other clubs known to be patronised by Jermyn. He elicited the information that Sir Aubrey had not entered any of their premises on the previous Monday, and, furthermore, no one seemed to have set eyes on him at all that day.

  Already a vague rumour was beginning to circulate, started by the Honourable Nigel Ambrose’s account of the shabby way in which Jermyn had broken all his engagements without so much as a word of apology and dashed off to his place in Sussex.

  ‘And I tell you what,’ concluded Ambrose darkly to a few of his cronies, ‘Prinney is seriously annoyed.’

  They shook their heads gravely.

  ‘Devilish stupid way to behave,’ pronounced one. ‘Not likely he’ll ever win his way back into favour after what amounts to a monstrous slight. Remember how Brummell cooked his goose some time back — before he got into deep water and had to cut and run to Calais — by offering Prinney some damned sarcastic remarks? Can’t treat a Prince of the Realm in that fashion, favourite or no.’

  Fortunately, however, this topic was so far quite eclipsed by other, more juicy pieces of gossip. Foremost among these in both the clubs and the drawing rooms was the scandalous book Glenarvon, which had just been published. Its author was the now notorious Lady Caroline Lamb, and it revived all the old scandals concerning Lord Byron which had provided the caricaturists and print shops with such gratifying profits in recent months, until the furore had finally driven the poet out of England for good.

  ‘She’s gone her length now,’ declared Lady Holland. ‘Her characters are easily identified with members of the ton — The Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Jersey, Lady Granville — and of course, Byron himself. She’s even had the monstrous audacity to publish some of the actual love letters he wrote to her! Mark my words, she’ll live to regret writing such a piece of scurrilous nonsense! Though,’ she added, on a more pragmatic note, ‘they say the sales of the book are prodigious.’

  Having returned from his unprofitable excursion into St James’s Street, Justin decided to look in at his brother’s house in Berkeley Square. He was greeted with enthusiasm.

  ‘This is capital, old fellow! Where the deuce have you been this time? Must say, you look more foreign than an Englishman with that devilish tanned countenance — fetching to the females, though, I’ll wager!’

  ‘I’ve been taking a look at some of the prehistoric burial chambers scattered about this country,’ explained Justin, stretching out his long legs in a chair and accepting the offer of a glass of wine. ‘Fascinating places, y’know — might put together a book on ’em, sometime.’

  ‘Burial chambers! Good God, man, you’ll find plenty to fascinate you here in Town, I’ll be bound, and something that’s living and breathing, too! You’re a devilish
queer fish, Justin, damme if you ain’t. Don’t know where you get it from — no scholars in our family that I know of — certainly not myself! They only got me through Eton by tanning my hide regularly, give you my word.’

  Justin grinned. ‘Doing it too brown, Ned. You’re not quite the addlepate you’d like to be thought. Besides, you’re forgetting our maternal grandfather Anderson and his brother the Bishop. Cambridge men, it’s true,’ he added, with the natural bias of an Oxford graduate, ‘but reputable scholars, in spite of that, and friends of William Stukeley.’

  Edward frowned. ‘Stukeley? Now, who the devil —’

  ‘Antiquarian. Wrote several books on the subject, including a useful study of Avebury and Stonehenge, although the historian Gibbon repudiates much of his information as fanciful speculation.’

  Edward flung up his arms in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘Spare me, young ’un! How long a stay do you mean to make in Town this time, eh?’

  ‘No saying.’ Justin shrugged.

  Edward gave him an envious look. ‘Nice to be footloose, with no ties of family or estate.’

  ‘Sometimes — very well, most of the time. That’s what comes of being the youngest member of the family, old chap. Tell me, how do your family go on? Elizabeth’s well, I trust? And my irrepressible niece Anthea? Not to mention the boys.’

  ‘M’wife’s in her usual good health, I’m glad to say, and the boys ain’t been expelled from Eton yet, though there’s no saying what may happen, young devils! As for Anthea, suitors flock round her like bees round a honeypot, but can I get her off my hands? Devil a bit of it! Too choosy by half, give you my word!’

  Presently they joined Lady Rutherford and Anthea for an informal luncheon of cold meats and fruit.

  ‘I hear you’re conducting yourself in your usual style,’ Justin remarked to his niece in a low tone. ‘Breaking hearts right and left without mercy. Your papa tells me he quite despairs of ever seeing you off.’

  Her hazel eyes twinkled. ‘A fine one you are to talk such fustian to me! What of your own amorous exploits, I’d like to know? Surely someone must by now have pointed out to you the desirability of settling down with one of the many prodigiously lovely, talented and eligible young ladies at present doing the season in Town? And you so stricken in years, too — I wonder you don’t take warning that it may very soon be too late! But don’t despair — I’ll stand your friend, and put you in the way of meeting some of them. Only give me the word!’

  ‘You are very good.’ He sketched a mock bow. ‘And should I ever require a marriage broker, you of course would inevitably spring to mind. By the way,’ he added, with a change of tone, ‘I collect you are acquainted with Miss Charlotte Jermyn?’

  She chuckled. ‘ “Oho, sits the wind in that quarter?” — as they say in Covent Garden melodramas. Charlotte — yes, she is rather a dear, and might suit you very well, now I think of it. That’s to say, unless that wretched uncle of hers succeeds in forcing her into marriage with Lord Escott, of all odious men! But she declares she never, never will consent, and I fancy he’ll have hard work of it, for Charlotte is no meek Bath miss, but a sensible female with a mind of her own!’ She broke off. ‘But why do you mention her? Have you two chanced to meet? Do you like her?’

  ‘The answer to the first is in the affirmative, and to the second —’ he eyed her with a grin — ‘that I find her tolerable.’

  ‘Tolerable!’ she repeated, in disgust. ‘Now I know that there is positively no hope for you!’

  ‘No, do you think so? I dare say you are right. But don’t you wish to hear how I became acquainted with your paragon?’

  She turned a face alive with curiosity towards him, so that he could not help laughing aloud.

  ‘It was really my godmother’s doing,’ he began.

  She nodded wisely. ‘Ah, yes, Lady Quainton has always wished to see you established with a suitable wife,’ she said, mocking him.

  ‘Quite so. But on this occasion, she was desirous of engaging my interest on Lady Jermyn’s behalf, not that of her niece. It seems that Jermyn has vanished, leaving his wife in some anxiety as to his whereabouts. Godmama thought I might be able to assist in tracing him.’

  ‘Heard of that at White’s,’ put in Edward. ‘Went off to his place in Sussex in a hurry last Monday, so they say, breaking all his engagements, including one with Prinney, with never a word of apology. Deuced shabby thing to do — something smoky there, to my way of thinking. No man in his senses behaves like that.’

  Justin shook his head.

  ‘That’s the story Lady Jermyn put about, but it’s not accurate. It was the best she could think of at short notice when confronted by one of his friends in a pelter because Jermyn had broken an engagement with him. Bound to be discredited in time, too, should anyone go seeking him out in Sussex. The truth is simply, as I said, that the man’s vanished. No one’s set eyes on him since Monday morning, when he left home, ostensibly to go to White’s.’

  Anthea, who had been listening to all this in mounting excitement, shook her head vigorously. ‘Oh, but someone has — me!’ she declared, with a fine disregard for the lessons in grammar painstakingly delivered in the past by her governess. ‘I saw him — on Monday afternoon at Madame Yvonne’s! And, oh, Justin, I thought at the time that it would turn out to be tame, you know, as most seemingly exciting things do! But now it looks as though it may be part of a famous mystery, after all! I was never so delighted!’

  ‘You saw him?’ queried Justin, turning an alert glance upon her. ‘At Madame Yvonne’s, you say? Who is this good lady, and where does she reside?’

  Anthea chuckled. ‘Oh, she’s not a good lady — at least, not in that sense, though I’m quite sure she leads a blameless life. That’s part of the mystery, in fact, for one cannot at all credit that Madame is conducting a —’

  She broke off, seeing her mother’s warning eye upon her, and coughed delicately.

  ‘For pity’s sake, Anthea, give me a round tale!’ pleaded Justin, throwing up his hands in a gesture of disgust. ‘You’d better tell me the whole — start at the beginning.’

  Thus encouraged, she did so; and though her parents tut-tutted a little at the recital of her impulsive intrusion into the modiste’s privacy, their disapproval was fairly indulgent for once.

  ‘I’m bound to say,’ corroborated Lady Rutherford, when Anthea had rounded off the account with her speculations on the subject, ‘that it’s most improbable that Madame should be involved in any illicit liaison. She is a female who thinks first and foremost of her business concerns, and any breath of scandal would affect those adversely, as anyone must realise. Besides, she’s past the age for romantical fancies.’

  ‘Is any female past that age?’ demanded her husband, laughing.

  ‘You may choose to make game,’ said his wife, severely, ‘but I assure you that Madame Yvonne is as hard-headed a business woman as I know of, besides not being at all the kind of female to attract a man of Jermyn’s stamp.’

  ‘But if he were not there for that reason, then what else could it be?’ asked Edward, now as intrigued as his daughter.

  ‘Well, he certainly seemed to be waiting for somebody,’ replied Anthea, slowly.

  ‘He was,’ declared Justin. ‘And you’re quite right in thinking it was not for the proprietress of the shop — unless I’m much mistaken. Tell me, oh my observant niece, was there any other customer on the premises at the same time as yourself?’

  ‘Oh, yes, there was that tiresome Lady Deanesford — you know, Mama! She’s a vastly talkative female, Justin, and she quite took up all Yvonne’s attention, which is why I think I came to be shown into that little room by mistake, because Yvonne had to leave me to an assistant, instead of looking after me herself, as she usually does.’

  Lady Rutherford said that indeed she did know of Lady Deanesford’s shortcomings.

  ‘Does this Lady Deanesford chance to have a baptismal name beginning with the letter “S”?’ a
sked Justin.

  Anthea looked intrigued, but shook her head to indicate that she did not know. Her mother answered for her.

  ‘No, she is Lucretia Eleanor. She was a Henshawe, you know, and came out in the same year as I did, though we were never close friends.’

  ‘Then she’s not the lady concerned,’ said Justin, decisively.

  ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Anthea, now agog with curiosity. ‘Justin, you know something that I do not! It’s a great deal too bad of you to keep it a secret — pray tell me at once, or I have done with you forever!’

  ‘Anthea!’ exclaimed Lady Rutherford, in shocked tones. ‘Will you be pleased to try for a little more conduct? Even in the bosom of the family, it is scarce proper for you to be discussing such subjects, leave alone displaying a vulgar curiosity over something which your uncle —’ she stressed the words — ‘thinks fit to conceal from you. You are going beyond the line of what is pleasing, miss!’

  ‘Your mama is quite in the right of it,’ said her father, with commendable firmness. ‘All the same, Justin —’ turning to his brother in a confidential way — ‘no reason why you can’t tell me privately, is there?’

  Anthea looked crestfallen, but her parents were not deceived. They had long ago given up all hope of turning their mercurial daughter into the usual pattern of a well-bred young lady of Quality. Secretly, they were extremely fond of her just as she was.

  By the slightest flicker of his eyelid, Justin managed to convey to her that all was not lost. She rose from the table with her mama, looking so unnaturally demure that her father burst out laughing, and declared she was an incorrigible little puss.

  It was not until later that Anthea found an opportunity to confer with Justin alone. Lady Rutherford had gone up to her room to recoup her energies for the evening’s junketings, while Anthea’s father had been called away for a few moments from the bookroom, where he had been closeted with his younger brother. Seizing her opportunity, Anthea slipped quickly into the room, closing the door softly behind her.