The Devious Duchess Read online

  “Flour starts with an F,” Belami mentioned, pulling the list back to examine it. “The pound more likely refers to money, I think. You see how it’s written, a crossed L.”

  After much deep cogitation and ear scratching, Pronto suggested, “Might have been calculating the cost of his meals. Mean to say, D for dinner, N for luncheon.”

  “And F for what? Let’s see what’s crossed out here. The D item hasn’t changed. D was originally 1/2 pound, N was also 1/2, and F was zero.” Belami continued staring at the meaningless numbers and letters.

  “Toss it in the dustbin, Dick. Not even you could deduce anything from that.”

  “It was in Lord Dudley’s pocket the night he died. He thought it worth keeping. It must mean something. The D and N could refer to the duchess and Nevil, but that F doesn’t match. If it said A for Adelaide, it would mean more.”

  “What would it mean?” Pronto asked.

  “It could mean half of his estate was to go to the duchess—or Deirdre for that matter—half was originally destined for Nevil, but he crossed it out and put zero.”

  “And gave the other half to F. Would it mean friend?” Pronto ventured.

  “So far as I know, he didn’t have a friend. No, Adelaide’s name should be on here if this refers to his estate. He had been planning to reshuffle it, according to what I’ve heard. The idea the duchess had, however, was that Nevil was to get a larger share, not lose his half of the money. This could open up a whole new avenue of speculation, Pronto.”

  “Told you all along, Dick, that paper ain’t worth the paper it’s written on. Don’t mean nothing. Just doodling.”

  “It’s only doodling till I decode it. Then it becomes a clue,” Belami informed him. Pronto sniffed at this lofty statement and lifted his tankard of ale.

  “Where are you going? Your glass is half full!” Pronto objected when Belami arose.

  “I’m going to call on a lady, Pronto. Care to come along?”

  “Not if it’s Deirdre you’re talking about. And, mind, you don’t have a carriage till my groom gets back. You ought to have gone with him. Wear my poor prads into the ground.”

  “I don’t need a carriage to visit this lady. I’m going upstairs. Wish me well.”

  “Watch out for your legs,” Pronto advised, and shook his head at such daring.

  “I won’t sit down. And Pronto, rescue me in half an hour. No longer, remember!”

  “I’ll send up a servant. I ain’t going into that lion’s den if I can help it.”

  Belami armed himself with a bottle of wine and went tapping on Adelaide’s door. “This is a pleasant surprise, Lord Belami. Come on in and set yourself down. I was just having a wee snack. Care for a cup of cocoa?” The remains of a sandwich were on the table.

  "I hoped you might crack open this wine instead.”

  She glanced at it and was unimpressed by the label. “It’ll beat sitting looking out that window, at any rate. Lud, I thought Bath was dull till I landed in this dump. Nevil tells me they’re reading the will tomorrow.”

  “Yes, so I hear. I hope you receive what’s coming to you. Were you and Lord Dudley on good terms?” Belami asked, strolling to the window to avoid having to sit down.

  “As good as could be expected, the way we lived. Apart, I mean.”

  “Yes, actually living with him would have been intolerable for a young lady like you who likes a lively social life,” Belami mentioned.

  Adelaide chose to read some amorous invitation into this innocent speech and joined him at the window, her ample hips brushing his. Belami slipped an arm around her waist but still kept away from the chairs. “Was it terribly boring for you at the Grange?” he asked. His dark eyes melted in her direction, and she placed her hand on his.

  “Not boring, exactly. If I ever told you what that old goat was up to, you wouldn’t believe it. Nevil tells me I ought to write a book, but nobody’d publish it. Me, I prefer more normal carrying-on, if you know what I mean.” Her eyes sparkled an invitation.

  “I’m not much for bizarre doings myself,” Belami admitted, and smiled uneasily.

  “I’ll slip out of this dress and get into bed,” she offered. Dick saw that he had allowed too long an interval before being rescued. He ought to have told Pronto five minutes. And he still hadn’t been able to broach the subject that had brought him. “All right, my sweet,” he answered, and kissed her ear.

  “That makes me crazy, Belami.”

  “Why don’t you call me Dick?”

  “That drives me crazy, Dick. Do it again,” she said, and clamped her arms around him.

  He did it again. “And what shall I call you?” he asked, his voice a teasing croon.

  “Anything you want,” she breathed in his ear.

  He didn’t want to jump the gun, but no more discreet question occurred to him than to say, “What did Dudley call you?”

  “You name it. Gypsy, because of my dark hair and eyes. Honey—he used to call me that. Addie and a lot of other words I won’t say.”

  “His little flower?” he asked, nibbling her earlobe. Her fingers were already busy at the buttons of his waistcoat. “No, not that,” she said.

  “Shall we have a glass of that wine now?” Dick suggested, and went to the table, still keeping an arm around her to allay her suspicions.

  He made a long business of opening the bottle, testing the wine, and finally sat down. He felt sore legs were preferable to the alternative, and Adelaide didn’t seem to mind the delay as long as he kept the wine flowing.

  “I’m getting dizzy from all this drink,” she said after the second glass.

  “Thoughtless of me! I must order some lunch.”

  “There isn’t time. I’ve got to be at the modiste’s shop in half an hour. I’m having a black shawl fringed to wear over my pelisse tomorrow for the reading of the will. There’s just time to . . ."

  “Plenty of time for that. I don’t want to rush you. I’ll return later after you’ve finished with the modiste.” His meaningful gaze called forth a knowing smile.

  “I’m beginning to think you’ll be as bad as the old gaffer. Or as good."

  “Better,” he promised, and lifted her hand for a prolonged kiss.

  “Don’t you go getting no headache now, Dick.”

  “I’m sure you could cure a man’s ache, wherever it should occur. I look forward to seeing you later.”

  “You can be sure I’ll be here, looking out that window.”

  “What a waste. You should be in Paris or London, where you’d be appreciated.”

  A calculating light came into her eyes. “I wouldn’t say no if the right gentleman asked me real nice."

  He winked. “I always ask real nice, Addie.”

  “I could tell the minute I laid eyes on you that you were a right one, Dick. Private parlors and all. No rushing a girl. A real gentleman.”

  He felt like the worst sort of commoner to be leading her on, but was eager to learn if the F on that list didn’t refer to Adelaide. Because if it did, then Dudley must have been planning to redivide his estate quite differently from the way the duchess thought. And it provided an excellent motive for Nevil to have murdered him before he actually had it done legally. Belami consoled himself that if this were true, the widow would indeed be getting her rights, and more.

  He escaped the room and limped back downstairs just as Pronto was about to have him sent for. “I see she got you on a chair,” Pronto said consolingly. “You’d better have a seat, Dick, before you fall down.”

  “A chair? I need a doctor!” Dick replied. “And I didn’t find out a thing either.”

  Chapter 12

  Deirdre didn’t know whether she was more embarrassed or relieved that Dick had so readily accepted the invitation to dinner. When she told Dick she wouldn’t marry him if her aunt wasn’t set free, she certainly hadn’t meant to place the burden of proving the duchess’s innocence on him. But the look he gave her at the funeral said very clearly that he did think
it. He thought she was imposing obligations, when her aim had been quite the opposite. It made her stiff and ill at ease when he entered with Pronto that evening.

  “How nice of you to come, Belami” was her greeting.

  Dick noticed that she refrained from using his Christian name, and it caused him to grow stiff, too. To see her sitting with Nevil Ryder didn’t do anything to unstiffen him either. Over dinner, it was only Sir Nevil who kept the conversation from flagging, and his remarks were addressed mostly to Deirdre.

  Sir Nevil wasn’t actually invited to Fernvale for dinner the day of the funeral, but he was at the Grange with the duchess and tagged along. The excess funeral meats were in her carriage, so she didn’t object, except that it made having a private word with Belami difficult. But her grace had been overcoming difficulties all her life and contrived to get Dick into her study after dinner while Deirdre entertained Nevil and Pronto. She sat in a high-back chair behind the massive oak desk and pointed an imperative finger at Belami. He was on nettles to hear what she might have to say, but he didn’t verbally prod her into speech.

  “I daresay you’re a little curious as to why I wanted a minute of your time, Lord Belami,” she began.

  “No, very curious, Duchess,” he replied. There was an air about her he mistrusted. He had a notion that before he escaped, she would have appropriated more than a moment of his time.

  “Hmph. I’m not about to fall on my knees and crop into a confession of murder, my lad, so you can put your saucy black eyes back into their sockets. The fact is, I did have arsenic in the house, as you apparently already knew. I did not employ it to kill my brother. Merely I asked Cook to use a little to exterminate some rodents. It was done in the kitchen, and it now seems entirely possible that some of it tumbled into Dudley’s stew while Cook wasn’t looking. If so, I hold myself responsible for the accident. The deuce of it is, I shall have a fine time convincing a judge or jury it wasn’t done on purpose. I refer, of course, to the changes Dudley was about to make to his will.”

  Belami listened politely, nodding his head. “I thought something of the sort must have happened, but about these hypothetical changes in the will—you’re implying they would not be in your favor?”

  “Certainly I am! Nevil had been there for a week. He is the most conning rogue who ever donned a jacket. I firmly believe he pulled some stunt to get Dudley to take my portion and give it to him. Deirdre’s wedding might have been used. She shan’t actually require the money, of course, but that is no reason to say it should be turned over to Nevil to squander.”

  “You’re entitled to your belief, Duchess. Would you care to hear mine?”

  “If you have something to the point to say, by all means, say it.” She waited expectantly, her eyes glowing like coals in her gaunt face.

  Belami pulled out the paper bearing those initials and figures previously discussed with Pronto at the inn. “Can you make anything of these hieroglyphics?” he asked. “I found them in Lord Dudley’s jacket pocket.”

  She lifted a magnifying glass from the desk and frowned over the paper a moment. “Dora, Nevil, and Frenchie, I expect he means,”. she said with no hesitation.

  “Dora and Frenchie?” Belami asked, blinking at these two unknown names.

  “Frenchie is Miss Pankhurst, and Dora is myself. Naturally my own brother didn’t call me duchess,” she pointed out, “though the D might have misled you.”

  “I never thought of that. Actually, I didn’t know your name was Dora.”

  “Well, it is, and the Frenchie is from the role Miss Pankhurst was playing when Dudley became smitten with her. It is not a role you would recognize. Some second-rate translation of a third-rate French bedroom farce. Miss Pankhurst had the wisdom not to tackle the classics. The fact is, Dudley called her Frenchie more often than he called her Adelaide. She disliked it, so he kept it up forever.”

  Dick listened, nodding his head. “And the rest of the writing? What does that suggest to you?”

  She wasn’t long in decoding that mystery either. “It’s notes for the changing of the will, I should think. Good God, Belami! It looks as though he meant to cut Nevil out entirely! And my portion is not changed at all! He wasn’t planning to diddle me, then,” she announced.

  “No one ever said he was,” Belami reminded her. “It was only you who said so. Nevil didn’t suggest it.”

  “Hah! You may be sure he suggested it to Dudley, and very likely that is exactly what caused my brother to cut Nevil out. He was never one to withhold a push when he was shoved. No denying there is a little streak of obstinacy in the Patmores,” she allowed blandly.

  Belami gave her a bold smile. “I’ve observed it from time to time,” he admitted.

  “I am very gratified you showed this to me, Belami, but the fact is, it don’t change matters much. It’s the poison in the mulligatawny that worries me. Now what I had in mind is that we must get hold of that analysis thing Marsh is sending down to Banting.”

  “That will only delay things, Duchess. Straus will send off for another report.”

  “It will give us time to plan something else,” she said. “And now that I’ve seen this,” she added, shaking the paper, “I can truthfully say I feel optimistic.”

  Dick gave her a puzzled look. “Why optimistic?”

  “Because you’ll think of something else after that ruse is run out, scoundrel, and I might get my hands on some of his money yet!” She laughed fiendishly and poured two glasses of wine.

  Belami accepted his and regarded her warily over the rim. “If the analysis shows the poison was in the stew, your best bet is to tell your lawyer exactly what you just told me,” he advised.

  She sighed deeply. “I know it very well. If worse comes to worst, I’ll have to do it, but I prefer not to spend my last days in a jail cell. Especially for a crime I did not commit. The question is, will you do it for me? I know it’s not a small favor to ask, but will you try if you can to steal that report before Straus gets hold of it?”

  Dick quaffed his wine and set the glass on the desk. A wicked smile peeped out. “Great minds think alike, Dora. It’s already in the process of being done.”

  She was so shocked by this brash use of her name that she forgot to be outraged. “If Satan ever smiles, Belami, I warrant he looks as you look this minute. Poor Deirdre. It’s just as well the betrothal is off. She’s no match for the likes of you,” she added, carefully reading his expression for signs of disagreement.

  “Don’t be too sure. There’s more of the Patmore blood in her than you think. We shall deal extremely well. And we shall get married as soon as I’ve successfully terminated this case. Agreed? No more off-putting tricks?”

  The duchess felt light with relief that the spark still glowed in Belami’s breast. She really feared she might have gone too far this time. “Clap hands on a bargain,” she said, suppressing all outward signs of joy. She struggled to her feet and shook his hand. At her age, she still had the grip of a strong man. “You’ll get no objections from me, but the girl is her own mistress nowadays. It’s her you must cozzen. And now we’ll see what those three are up to in the saloon,” she decreed.

  She was in such good humor with Belami that she allowed him to take her arm. Belami was not pleased to see Deirdre with her head next to Nevil’s while Pronto sat in the far corner, unraveling a knitted sofa throw. Dick knew by the startled, guilty look on her face that she’d been saying something he would dislike. In his wildest dreams he never would have thought that she was encouraging Nevil to hold up the post.

  “But you said something along that line could be done, Nevil!” she reminded him.

  “I know I did, Deirdre, but I’ve had second thoughts on the matter. It would only delay the inevitable. It wouldn’t prevent it. I have a much better plan.”

  “What?” she asked eagerly.

  He patted her hand. It was at this moment that Belami entered and saw them gazing into each other’s eyes. “I have come up with an idea
that will absolutely absolve our aunt of any blame whatsoever. It is a trifle dangerous, of course, but I can’t let dear Aunt Charney suffer anymore. It grieves me to see her looking so harried. Shh! Here she is now.”

  Their private talk was over, but naturally Deirdre couldn’t put such an unusual conversation out of her mind. All the duchess’s efforts to draw her attention to Belami failed. Charney couldn’t imagine what ailed the girl, to be practically ignoring Belami, and neither could Dick. It had been a long and particularly trying day. Everyone could see that the duchess was on her last legs, and before long, the party began to break up.

  “I ought to be getting back to the inn,” Nevil said, and arose.

  Dick waited a moment, planning to outsit him. “Yes, I’m sure you’re all tired,” Deirdre said carelessly. She didn’t even look at Dick, and he felt she was trying to communicate some verbal message to Nevil. When Deirdre arose to accompany them all to the door, he could sit no longer and followed Nevil and Pronto to the hall for his coat. He even held the front door open for Nevil, which forced Deirdre to speak up.

  “Could you wait just for a moment, Cousin?” she asked Nevil. She saw from the corner of her eye that Dick’s jaw was working in a way that told her he was angry, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had to find out what Nevil was up to. She closed the door behind Belami and Pronto.

  “You must tell me what you plan to do,” she implored.

  “There is only one thing I can do, my dear Deirdre, and I shan’t tell you, or you’d try to stop me,” Nevil replied archly.

  “Then please don’t do it if you know I won’t like it.”

  “This is a man’s work, my dear. Belami isn’t the only one who has a few tricks up his sleeve.”

  She questioned him a few moments longer, but to no avail. The only thing it accomplished was to raise Belami’s suspicions as he waited to see how long Nevil stayed with her.