Deadly Engagement: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (5 page)

Alec’s brow furrowed. “If the encounter is as you say, then it was hardly an affair of honor, was it?”

The old man put up his brows. “Just as you say, m’boy.”

“Delvin’s opponent?”

“Lord Belsay.”

Alec half rose out of his chair. “Belsay?
Jack
Belsay?”

“That’s right.”

“Jack’s
dead
?”

The old man nodded and watched his nephew go to the window. “Her Grace said you knew Belsay.”

Alec leaned a shoulder against the wall and stared out at the lush sweep of the Green Park. “Quite well. Not of late. We were at Harrow together. When I went into the Foreign Department we lost contact. He did write occasionally, but he was a shockingly lax correspondent. He and Sel—Mrs. Jamison-Lewis are first cousins. Lord! I can’t believe the poor fellow is dead.”

The old man joined his nephew at the window. “Alec. Somethin’ don’t smell right about the whole business.”

“I agree. The Jack I remember was never one to cast caution to the winds. He certainly wouldn’t do anything so outrageous as fight a duel. Certainly not without the proper formalities. He was a stickler for that sort of thing. Besides, he was a very mellow soul. He carried a sword for protection but I can’t imagine him using it. As for forcing a fight on Delvin over Emily…? Yes, Wantage?” Alec asked as the butler trod quietly into the room.

“Excuse me, sir. There is a lady to see you. She wouldn’t give her name.”

Alec’s jaw set hard. “You must be mistaken.”

“No, sir.”

Uncle and nephew looked at one another. The butler saw it as a sign to continue.

“I showed her the salon, sir. She said it is most urgent.”

Plantagenet Halsey patted his nephew’s arm. “I’ve got some business of my own in the city; I’ll meet you at the club after y’dinner. And mind you eat it!”

Alec was still smiling at his uncle’s concerned pronouncement that he eat his dinner—just as he was used to doing when Alec was a boy—when Wantage announced him to the visitor.

It was indeed a lady, but not one but two and both dressed in deep mourning. The sight of them brought Alec up short. Gloves covered their hands and black netting concealed their faces. Agitation and distress showed in the mannerisms of the shorter woman. She could not be still. She kept clenching and unclenching her fingers in the folds of her petticoats. It was not until the taller one touched her arm and said a quiet word that Alec was noticed standing alone by the door. The shorter lady then carefully lifted her veil. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

Alec had no idea who she was.

“I don’t suppose you remember me, Mr. Halsey?” the lady said in a clipped voice.

Alec came away from the door, none the wiser. On closer inspection, the woman was much older than she first appeared. Possibly she was in her late fifties. Although she looked fragile, her voice was strong and held a note of bitterness. He glanced at her companion who had not yet lifted her veil and before he could reply was interrupted.

“I know I should have sent my card, or at the very least asked you to call on me at Cavendish Square. But the less gossip there is the better. That’s why I came to you. Quite frankly I can’t bear another day in that house!” She shuddered. “Solicitous relatives can be so overbearing. Except for my dear niece,” she said with a teary smile and touched the other lady’s sleeve affectionately, “who has been such a-a
rock
.”

“Won’t you both sit down?” Alec asked. “Would you care for a dish of tea?”

“Tea?” she said in a broken voice. “No. Something stronger for both of us, if we may.”

When Alec came back into the salon carrying a decanter and glasses fetched from the library across the passageway, he found his guests seated on the striped sofa central to the room. He went about the business of pouring out a generous drop of brandy for both ladies with deliberate slowness because, out of the corner of an eye, he saw that the lady who had spoken to him was being comforted by her niece. He handed both a glass, checking himself for the briefest of moments when he realized the niece, now unveiled to reveal her pale oval face and mop of tight apricot-colored curls, was none other than Selina Jamison-Lewis. She looked up at him but he ignored her saying to her aunt,

“Tell me how I may help you, my lady.”

“I hope you may, my boy,” was the fierce reply. “But where are my manners? I can tell you haven’t the faintest idea who I am, or what we are doing dressed in this atrocious color. Mourning is such a dull affair.”

“I must confess I didn’t know you when I first came into the room,” he said gently. “But Jack had a great look of you. I will miss him, though we were not close after school. More my fault than his. I seem to spend a great deal of my time traveling. A circumstance which doesn’t do much for one’s social life. I suppose being a diplomatist has its advantages. New faces and a chance to taste the local fare are but two, though such things tend to lose their appeal after the third posting.”

He was prattling on in his calm measured voice because the Lady Margaret Belsay was once again sobbing into her handkerchief, and he thought it best to let her do so without interference. She seemed in need of a good cry and perhaps confined to her house, surrounded by a dozen cloying relatives, she hadn’t the opportunity to indulge herself. He handed her his clean white handkerchief and watched as Selina put a comforting arm about her aunt. But when she again tried to engage his eye he turned away to refill Lady Margaret’s glass.

“Thank you,” Lady Margaret said after wiping her eyes and sitting up straight. “Thank you for not fawning over me and for giving me a good drink. My daughters are all fools. If I ask for brandy, they immediately think I’ve turned to drink. If I don’t feel like coming down to dinner they jump to the conclusion I am trying to starve myself.” She heaved a shattering breath and blew her nose. “I just wish they would all go away and leave me to my grief!”

“They obviously care a great deal about you, though perhaps they are a little unthinking. Possibly a circumstance of their own grief?”

Lady Margaret glanced at him slyly. “You are good with words, Mr. Halsey. Though, I don’t think you insincere. That brother of yours is also very smooth spoken. Yet, he is totally insincere in word and deed. I knew so from the first, but Jack—Jack was thoroughly taken in by him. I tried to warn him. What grown son heeds the warnings of a parent, especially his mother? To Jack, Delvin was as he appeared: charming, friendly, a trusty Trojan. Every mamma with an eligible daughter wanted Delvin as a son-in-law. Jack was impressed by it all. He failed to see beneath the shining facade until it was too late.”

“Jack had just as much to recommend him, my lady,” Alec said with a smile. “I should think many mammas coveted Viscount Belsay for their daughters. And he was not unhandsome, and to my memory, there was considerable wit in his talk. Not a bore by any means. Far from it.”

Lady Margaret reached out and squeezed his hand. “Thank you, my boy. It’s true. Jack was all those things and more. He was—He was extremely shy in female company. It came as a surprise to me, too. The boy grew up with six sisters who adored him, and yet he became the most awkward creature when forced to make small talk with a female. So you see why Jack was taken with Delvin the consummate philanderer. Oh, he gives the impression of being one but one always doubts men who constantly flaunt their virility. Nonetheless, whatever Delvin’s ability with females, he made an indelible mark on my son.”

“I imagine then that Jack became Delvin’s shadow at such functions where he found it necessary to engage in small talk with eligible girls?”

“Precisely!”

“Poor Jack. He must have dreaded coming-out parties.”

Lady Margaret gave the crystal tumbler to her niece and smoothed out her petticoats, weighing her next words carefully and yet eager to confide. “The newssheets say my son fought a duel with Delvin over Emily St. Neots. The gossips have fueled this claim with whispered recollections of my son and Delvin’s pursuit of the girl. No one can deny my son was seen often in her company, but then so was Delvin. Society wants to believe a rivalry existed between them. It makes for a romantic tale. I shall let them continue to believe so for the time being.”

Alec frowned. “You do not set much store in the validity of such a story, my lady?”

Lady Margaret gave a snort. “It’s absolute rot! There’s not an ounce of truth in it. It’s absurd to think my son—a
Belsay
—would seriously consider marriage with the likes of Emily St. Neots. I’ll lay odds he didn’t even flirt with the girl. He was probably comfortable in her company because Delvin was pursuing her and so spent a moment or two longer in conversation with her than was acceptable, thus giving the gossips something to grasp at. But marriage? Never! Jack would never have sullied the family name so. He was a Belsay first and foremost. He knew what was due his name. He wasn’t about to ally himself with bastard blood.”

“Aunt, please,” Selina Jamison-Lewis said in a strident whisper. “You shouldn’t say—”

Lady Margaret glared at her niece wondering why the young woman’s face had fired up red at the mention of Emily St. Neots. “Don’t be a goose, Selina! I can and I will speak about Emily St. Neots’ unfortunate parentage. For anyone to suggest Jack would entertain the idea of marrying the base born granddaughter of a Duchess is absolute nonsense!”

“Aunt, I wasn’t suggesting—”

“Leaving aside her unfortunate paternity for the moment,” Alec said, cutting-off Selina. “You do not think it at all likely Jack may have become infatuated with Miss St. Neots in the course of Delvin’s courtship of her?” he asked quietly, attention seemingly fixed on the silver buckle of his right shoe. “After all, you say Jack was shy in the company of females and yet he was comfortable in hers. And Miss St. Neots is not—er—unattractive.”

“Where are your eyes, young man? Emily St. Neots is a beauty: gray eyed and yellow haired. She has her mother’s delicate features and there is a certain bearing about her person, not unlike Olivia. But I know my son was not so infatuated, and not so insanely jealous of Delvin, as to want to fight a duel for her.” She shuddered. “As for marriage?
Never.
”

“Yet,” Alec said with a dry throat, “Delvin is about to wed her?”

“I know. It’s a disgrace. That’s Delvin’s affair. It only goes to prove what a mercenary snake he really is. Although I don’t approve of the girl, I am not insensitive to her plight. I am amazed Olivia permitted it.” Lady Margaret shrugged. “No doubt she is more than happy to have Delvin. It will make her granddaughter a Countess. It’s vastly more than she can have hoped for when she foolishly decided to bring up the bastard offspring of her disgraced daughter’s affair with a stable hand!”

Alec was puzzled. “My lady, many people consider my brother to be a gentleman of character and bearing. Nor have I heard he has done anything to give society a disgust of him. Is he not one of the favored sons?”

“Your constraint is to be commended, Mr. Halsey,” said Lady Margaret with a sad smile. “But it does not excuse the deplorable neglect you suffered at the hands of your father and brother.” She saw him glance at Selina and added, “Oh, you needn’t worry that I have discussed your circumstances with anyone except your mother. She and I were close friends and it was she who confided in me, just before her death…”

“You were more fortunate than I, madam,” Alec said flatly, a heightened color to his cheeks and his tone indication enough he had no wish to discuss the Countess of Delvin. “You have not told me how I may help you.”

“I am at a loss to understand how you can be so insensitive to your circumstances,” Lady Margaret continued, not to be diverted. “It was never my intention to break a promise I made to your mother many years ago, but after what her
monster
of a son did to my poor boy, my conscience is clear. Are you not outraged by what was done to you?”

Alec put up a hand then dropped it. It was a gesture of resignation. “Lady Margaret, I don’t pretend to understand my parents’ actions. To try and do so would surely send me mad. Nor can I blame Delvin. No one would be the wiser except my mother decided she needed to clear her conscience before she died. Her confession answered a good many questions about my upbringing. It can only have made my brother miserable—”

“—and what he is today,” Lady Margaret said with finality, finishing the sentence for him and Alec made no protest with her presumption. She stood up and Selina did likewise. She needed to walk. There was stiffness in her knees and they ached. “I came to ask a favor of you, Mr. Halsey,” she said in an unsteady voice. “I was your mother’s closest friend, and you and Jack were close at Harrow. Now my son—my
only
son—is dead. I want you to find out why Delvin saw fit to murder my blameless boy.”

Alec looked at her sharply.

“Don’t look at me as if I’m having a mental collapse! My son’s death has devastated me, but I’m not about to be committed to Bedlam. I am made of stronger stuff. And I intend to remain strong because I am determined to see that monster strung up at Tyburn for his foul act!”

“There is no love lost between my brother and I. To be quite frank, I despise him, but you are asking too much of me to believe him capable of murder; the murder of one of his closest friends at that.”

Lady Margaret made movements to leave. She stuffed Alec’s crumpled handkerchief into her reticule and shook out her petticoats. “Think on it, Mr. Halsey. It isn’t as far-fetched as you suppose. Come, Selina.”

“If it is as you say, then what proof have you?” Alec asked gently. “That Jack did not survive his injuries is hardly cause to brand his opponent a murderer, my lady. Duels often result in death. If Jack had survived…”

“Delvin made certain my son would not live,” Lady Margaret stated.

Alec’s blue eyes widened in disbelief. “My lady, I don’t see how—”

“Mr. Halsey, Jack’s body was covered in multiple wounds,” Selina interrupted, leaping to her aunt’s defense. She’d had enough of sitting silently by while her grief stricken aunt was treated with condescension; however much the Lady Margaret wished that she remain a silent partner to the interview. “It is the physician’s opinion that these wounds were inflicted, not in the coolness of an orchestrated duel where one elegant thrust of a rapier brings an encounter to a close, honor satisfied, but in a frenzied attack guaranteed to ensure my cousin did not live through the encounter. I believe that gives my aunt right to brand Delvin a murderer.”