Deadly Engagement: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (25 page)

“Not here,” Alec answered curtly.

“It’s rather urgent,” stammered Simon, taken aback by the cold reception.

Alec showed him the way out of the room, taking his leave of the Duchess with a slight nod, and when he reached his sitting room flung wide the door. “So what is it you want of me, Simon?”

Cromwell and Marziran gave a lazy yawn and looked up from the Turkey rug in front of the fireplace as their master entered the sitting room. They were unsure of the visitor and would have gone to sniff at his shoes had Alec not called them to heel beside his wing chair. He offered Simon the chair opposite but the man could not sit still and after pacing the floor sat on the chair’s arm biting a fingernail. He wondered the best approach, his task made all the more difficult when Alec offered him nothing more than a blank face and cross-legged expectant silence.

“I’m not surprised you’re annoyed,” Simon said with a self-conscious laugh. “You’ve every right. I didn’t keep our dinner appointment in Paris, and I didn’t show for the departmental briefing. And then when you kindly invited me to your house I was impolite enough not to turn up. I can only say I’ve not been myself lately, what with Mother’s illness—”

“Your mother has been dead these past five years.”

“So you know that?” Simon was only mildly surprised. “I suppose Cindy told you. Did she tell you I went into Yorkshire?”

“No. I worked that out for myself.”

“Mother’s illness is better than the truth, isn’t it?”

“The truth, whatever that may be, is always preferable. If you were ashamed of your connection with Jack Belsay it’s a wonder you accepted his invitation.”

“Tell the department I was off to Belsay’s shooting box? Do you think they’d have given me the time?”

“You needn’t have lied about it to me. I’d not have said a word to the department. As for suspecting anything else, who in London, apart from his most intimate friends, knew Jack to be homosexual?” Alec’s eyebrows rose when Simon winced at the word. “You’re not very comfortable with the truth, are you, Simon?”

“You can sneer! You’re comfortable. You want for nothing. You could leave the service tomorrow and it wouldn’t hurt your pocket or your prospects! You needn’t be an ambassador’s lackey if you don’t choose. It’s a wonder you bother. I wouldn’t if I was in your position.”

“I choose to because I want to be of use, and I enjoy the work.”

“That’s just it, you can choose! It’s different for me. I must work or I starve,” Simon said sullenly. “I must do—do things I don’t enjoy to get ahead. It’s all part of the game. You can play or not. More often you don’t. And with your noble connections you needn’t lift a finger. You’re one of them. They’ll look out for you, give you an embassy of your own one day. Tomorrow, if you whispered in the right ear tonight!”

“I’ll grant that the system of sinecures and patronage reeks of corruption, Simon, but it can be overcome, used to advantage, if you are prepared to work hard and play the game, but not lose sight of your principles. Look at Sir Harold Hegarty. He was the son of an illiterate wainwright!”

Simon gave a snort of contempt. “The man’s five and fifty. I can’t wait that long. Others aren’t obliged to. I’ll do whatever it takes to get ahead, but working long hours and sweating over someone else’s portfolio because they’re off toad-eating with their good and titled friends isn’t for me! I can’t afford to be as noble as you.”

“And was Jack part of the game, Simon? Something you had to do but did not enjoy?”

Simon stared into the fire in the grate. “If I said no, you wouldn’t believe me. Yes and you’d despise me all the more.” He took out his silver snuffbox and tapped the lid before offering it to Alec who declined. “I forget,” he said with a twisted smile. “You don’t
dip
. Is there a vice that you do indulge?”

Alec’s mouth twitched but he gave no reply.

Simon took snuff and watched Alec tend the fire, prodding the flames to new life with a brass poker.

“I need a thousand pounds by Monday afternoon,” he stated bluntly. “I borrowed from a money-lender named Reubens. Delvin said for eight hundred pounds he could get me a sinecure in the department. It came to nothing. He got me noticed but that was all. Belsay was going to give me the money but he stupidly got himself killed, leaving me in this fix.”

Alec returned the poker to its elaborate stand. “You didn’t give two straws for Jack, did you, Simon? You were only interested in what you could get out of him.”

Awkward embarrassment made Simon grin. “Jack Belsay was a fool, romantics are, but he wasn’t fool enough to think I’d be his lover without pecuniary reward. That he fell in love with me was his problem, not mine. And if Delvin hadn’t run him through I’d be wealthy now. Jack would’ve done anything to keep me.”

“Then he was indeed a fool. A man in love can be forgiven much, whereas you—you—”

“Is that how you justified your behavior towards that redhead downstairs?” Simon jeered. Yet, the look on Alec’s face made him move away from the fireplace. “Jack told me you deflowered his cousin on her wedding day. Is that the particular vice of the department’s Greek statue, deflowering virgin brides—”

Within the blink of an eye Simon Tremarton found himself thrust against a wall, his neck cloth twisted so excruciatingly tight that nothing else mattered but to breath. His arms hung helpless at his sides and he had the distinct feeling his feet were off the ground. All he could do was gasp and splutter and stare pop-eyed into a face full of utter contempt and rage.

“You dare. You
dare
sneer at
me
? You disgusting little catamite!” Alec seethed. He dropped Simon with a contemptuous push. “No, Cromwell! Marziran! He isn’t fit to maul.” He turned away and leaned outstretched arms on the mantle, head bowed. “A word of advice, Tremarton, ’though, God knows why I offer it! Flee to the Continent. It’s your only hope of avoiding Newgate.” He glanced over his shoulder. The man was still recovering his breath. “With your predilections I’d go as far as Persia. Anywhere else and you’ll be strung up!”

Simon rearranged his neckcloth. “Your advice is noted. However, I prefer to try my luck with your brother. He’ll give me much more than a thousand when I’m through with him.”

“Don’t be an ass! Delvin won’t give you a tester. He ran Jack through so what’s to stop him murdering a contemptible worm such as yourself?”

“You think Jack was blackmailing Delvin and that’s what got him killed?” Simon was incredulous. “Belsay couldn’t threaten a gnat!”

“Then why did they cross swords? Perhaps I was wrong in choice of sibling. Perhaps they fought a duel over you?”

This made Simon laugh heartily. “Me? Much you know about your brother! He loathes our kind with a passion bordering on lunacy. He hated Belsay more than most.”

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with Jack’s visits to a particular club above an apothecary’s shop?”

Simon’s brow puckered for a moment then he smiled. “You’d be surprised how many fine, upstanding gentlemen of good birth and character indulge in all sorts of deviant behavior. The Ganymede Club was just one such club catering to every taste and perversion, and populated with the likes of your drawing room crowd downstairs.” He took another pinch of snuff, a sidelong glance at Alec. “Your new valet tell you what happened?”

“That the gaming hell and club were raided and the apothecary Dobbs strung up for sodomy, a crime for which, his apprentice is convinced, he was wrongly convicted.”

Simon Tremarton shrugged his indifference. “Someone had to fall and, luckily for the rest of us, Dobbs was at hand.”

“You’ve no remorse—”

“
Remorse
?”

“That an innocent man was hanged for a crime he did not commit.”

Simon pulled a face full of disgust. “For God’s sake, Halsey, the man was one rung above a muckraker. Better he than one of us.”

Alec wrenched open the door onto the passageway. “You’re despicable and conscienceless. Get out before I wring your neck!”

But Simon Tremarton was infuriatingly calm and hovered in the middle of the Turkey rug. He produced a yellowed envelope from an inner pocket of his frockcoat and held this up. “For three thousand pounds you can have this letter. It proves your brother murdered Jack Belsay and why.”

“I’ll not pay you a penny for it. Get out.”

“No matter,” said Simon with a sigh and pocketed the envelope. “I’ll squeeze five thousand out of our dear Earl. He can’t afford not to agree to my terms.” And with a flourish bowed. “If you’re not careful I shall ask you for the first minuet!” he called out from the passageway. “
Au revoir, mon beau
.”

Alec slammed the door so hard it shook on its hinges. He paced the room, a hand to his hair, hoping the anger would burn itself out before he did damage to an inanimate object, and very possibly his hand. Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement and looked round with a jerk to find Sir Cosmo lounging sheepishly in the doorway that connected sitting room to dressing room.

“I see your valet has a turn for chemistry,” he said conversationally. “Heard the commotion out in the corridor and thought you might need a hand. Wandered in and found the lad hunched over all sorts of scientific apparatus. He was telling me about his apprenticeship as an apothecary. Interesting lad. Good of you to let him continue to mess about.”

“Yes, and having an apothecary’s apprentice as a valet is rather odd. I know. But there you have it. Frankly, Cosmo, it’s a long and complicated story for which I don’t have the patience or the time to appraise you.”

“Want a drink? The lad fetched up a bottle of burgundy.”

“Thank you,” said Alec and followed Cosmo through to the dressing room, the greyhounds prancing along behind. He took the glass Cosmo poured out for him and after a sip said in a much calmer tone, “Did you have any success with the guests?”

Sir Cosmo glanced knowingly at Tam, who had scrambled to his feet, and Alec, quick to understand, sent Tam to take the dogs for a run saying, “I won’t need you for another half hour.”

Sir Cosmo waited to hear the outer door close. “You showed more patience than I with that weasel Tremarton.”

“I wanted to throttle him! Hear the whole?”

“For the most part. The lad must have, too, though he kept on with his experimentation, as if deaf to it all. Do you give much credit to Tremarton’s drivel?”

Alec sipped his wine thoughtfully. “That Delvin murdered Jack? Undoubtedly. The whole scene at Green Park points to it, the absence of seconds, of any of the formalities of dueling. Jack wasn’t jealous of Delvin. He wasn’t even interested in females. He was having an affair with Simon Tremarton.”

Sir Cosmo shook his head. “Defies reasoning!” But his surprise sounded rehearsed.

Alec frowned.

“You’ve known all along about Jack’s inclinations.”

“Er, well, yes,” confessed Sir Cosmo guiltily and added hurriedly when Alec’s frown deepened, “Not that Jack told me. I dare say the majority didn’t look beyond what they saw. Of course a few of us had our suspicions about J-L, though it’s not something you want to ask a man or want to know about a man, and he had married Selina, so that somehow put it to rest. But when Selina confided in me about her marriage, it was a horrible shock, and then when she mentioned Jack’s part in it all, and I thought about it a bit I could see how it was and then, well, there you are!”

“I beg your pardon, but I’m not understanding you,” Alec said politely. “What did you know about Jamison-Lewis and what has he to do with Jack and his preference?”

This time Sir Cosmo was surprised and he blinked.

“Ah! Well. I’m for it now…” he said more to himself and took snuff. He slipped the enameled box back into his frockcoat pocket and wondered how best to explain himself. He coughed. “I presumed you knew. But as you had no idea about the—the beatings I can see now that you’d have absolutely no idea about the rest of the sordid business. Perhaps it would be best if I didn’t say more. My tongue’s running on and Selina might not want me to—”

“For God’s sake, Cosmo!” Alec said with annoyed exasperation. “Tell me and be done with it. Now I know how that monster treated her, surely it can’t be worse than that?”

“Jack was J-L’s catamite,” Sir Cosmo said bluntly, the color ripening in his face. “Had been for years. Nothing changed after J-L’s marriage. Selina was there to provide an heir. George looked on her as nothing more than a brood mare and used her accordingly.”

Alec sat down heavily. He felt as if the breath had been knocked out of him.

“What I don’t understand is where this unsavory worm Tremarton comes in on the act,” Sir Cosmo continued, oblivious to the impact of his words. He could very well have been talking to Alec through a thick fog. “Jack must’ve kept the affair with Tremarton a well-guarded secret. Everyone knew what a jealous possessive monster J-L was with Selina so imagine his feelings if he’d found out Jack was cheating on him!” Sir Cosmo rubbed his stubbled chin. “Come to think on it, Alec, Jack was much more comfortable with his inclination than J-L ever was. Went to a lot of trouble to be the man’s man, did J-L. Think that’s why he finally married. Ned knew about J-L, but he never openly showed his disgust for the man. I think your brother was a little afraid of him.”