The Dark Enquiry. Deanna Raybourn

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СКАЧАТЬ at all,” I said, holding up my cup for more tea and baring my teeth in a smile. “I have absolutely no intention of going to the country.”

       The SECOND CHAPTER

      If it be a man’s work, I’ll do it.

      —King Lear

      That afternoon, my errands accomplished, I took refuge in my sister Portia’s town house. She gave me tea and brought out her newly adopted daughter for me to see. The infant, Jane, was carried by her very competent Indian nurse who had come from Darjeeling with us, and I greeted Nanny Stone warmly. Of course, her real name was nothing like Stone, but she had been delighted with all things English, and had put off her beautiful silken saris and her lovely Hindi name in favour of a black bombazine gown with a starched pinafore and the appellation of Nanny Stone. She had mastered the fundamentals of English before leaving her native land, but she had applied herself diligently to perfecting it by engaging anyone who would speak to her in lengthy conversations. The result was a curious mixture of interesting grammar and street slang, spoken in her lovely lilting accent.

      She had dressed the baby in emerald-green, an inspired choice against the child’s fluffy halo of ginger hair. The baby clutched a coral teething ring in one plump fist and drooled excessively as the nurse held her out.

      I returned the smile, albeit with an effort. “I don’t think I will take her just now, Nanny. She seems a bit moist.”

      Nanny Stone plucked a handkerchief from her pocket and began to wipe at the child, crooning some soft cradlesong.

      “Nanny, I think her gums are paining her again. Perhaps a bit more of the oil of clove?” Portia suggested.

      What followed was a painfully dull debate on the merits of oil of clove for a toothache as compared to Nanny’s native remedies, and in the end Nanny prevailed, bearing her charge off to the nursery to apply some mixture of her own devising.

      When they had gone, Portia fixed me with a reproachful glance. “She is your goddaughter, Julia. You will have to hold her sometime.”

      I clucked my tongue. “I am very well aware she is my goddaughter. If you will recall, I gave her a lovely set of Apostle spoons to mark the occasion. Now, she is a love, Portia, and I am very fond of her, but you must admit, she is a very damp child. There is always something moist about her mouth or her nose or other places,” I added primly. She glowered, and I hurried on. “I am just not terribly comfortable with babies. Perhaps when she is a bit older and I can take her to the shops or the theatre,” I said brightly.

      Portia gave me a little push and we settled in to her morning room to discuss my husband’s duplicity.

      “You really think he means to get rid of you?” she asked, eyes wide. Portia loved few things in life so much as a good bit of gossip. She curled onto the sofa with her ancient pug, Mr. Pugglesworth, a flatulent old lapdog who ought to have been dead at least five years past.

      “For a few days, at least. Plum is entirely capable of managing the Mortlake case on his own,” I added with a meaningful look. Plum was a handsome fellow, and when he exerted himself, the most charming of our brothers. Wooing a young lady, even one as ill-disposed towards him as Lady Felicity Mortlake, would be child’s play to him. “No, Brisbane had some other purpose in putting me out of London. And not just out of London,” I told her, drawing down my brows significantly. “He is trying to keep me away from Chapel Street altogether.”

      Portia looked at me reprovingly. “One cannot entirely blame him, dearest. You have attempted to burn down the place on at least three separate occasions.”

      “Four,” I corrected, thinking of the previous day. “And I know I could master the self-igniting black powder if I had enough time.”

      “But you think Brisbane had another reason for wanting to be rid of you,” she said, leading me gently back to the subject at hand.

      “Hmm? Yes. He was quite artful about it, but he most definitely indicated that I should not visit the consulting rooms before I left town.”

      “Because there was something there he did not want you to see?” she hazarded.

      “Someone,” I corrected. Quickly, I related to her my activities that afternoon. I had stationed myself in a nondescript hackney cab on Park Street with a careful view to anyone who approached the consulting rooms from Park Lane. Some two hours into my watch, I had seen something—someone—most unexpected.

      “Bellmont!” Portia cried. Her colour was high and her eyes bright, and I was glad of it. She had suffered the tragic loss of her dearest companion earlier in the year, and the child, Jane, had come to her as a result of this death. Unexpected motherhood and the loss of her beloved had been difficult burdens, and I was happy to see her so peaceful within herself that she could be engaged in my little problems.

      “Yes, dearest. And I put it to you, what business could our eldest brother possibly have with my husband?” Bellmont had made his disapproval in the match clear. Brisbane’s livelihood touched too near the bone of being in trade, and Bellmont, while perfectly cordial, had never behaved with anything like true warmth towards my husband. But then, Bellmont was not known to show warmth towards anyone in particular. He adored his wife, Adelaide, but we often snickered in the family that the extent of their physical warmth was a yearly handshake. How they managed to beget a family of six was a question to twist the sharpest wits. He was a creature of politics and propriety, devoted to his own ideals and wildly at odds with the eccentricity for which our family was famed. It was often said that the expression “mad as a March hare” was coined at the antics of our forebears, whose heraldic badge was a hare. Bellmont did everything in his power to distance himself from that reputation.

      “Perhaps blood will out,” Portia suggested wickedly. “What if he has got himself a dancing girl and wants Brisbane to destroy the evidence before Adelaide gets word of it!”

      I snickered. “Lord Salisbury, more like. Bellmont is far more concerned with the Prime Minister’s opinion than his wife’s.” Since Lord Salisbury’s last rise to power, Bellmont had assumed a significant role in the government, often introducing legislation in the Commons crafted to further his mentor’s policies.

      “Oh!” Portia sat up quickly, disturbing the dog. “Hush, Puggy,” she soothed as he gave an irritable growl. “Mummy didn’t mean it.” She turned to me. “Perhaps Virgilia is being pursued by a questionable sort.”

      I blinked at the mention of Bellmont’s eldest daughter. “Virgilia came out two years ago. Is she still on the loose? I rather thought Bellmont would have arranged something for her by now.”

      “You know Bellmont has a blind spot where she is concerned.” Puggy emitted a foul noise, followed hard by an even fouler odour, but Portia ignored him. “He has grown quite sentimental of late about Gilly. He has been very worried about an attachment she has formed with Lord Fairbrother’s heir. He promised if she made no formal arrangements with the lad, he would consider the match.”

      I lifted a brow. “The season ended three months ago. Has he really prevented her from entering into an engagement? I must credit him with greater powers of persuasion than I thought.”

      Portia shrugged. “Gilly has always been his favourite, I suspect because she resembles Mother.” I said nothing. Our mother had died in childbed with our youngest brother when I was very small. I did not remember her at all; I carried only the vaguest СКАЧАТЬ