Revealed (21 page)

“So the legend Lord Whitford spoke of is the truth?”

“More or less,” he answered. “And Whitford obviously decided it was more so, else he paid too much for them.”

“Marcus, please,” Phillippa said, a hitch of worry in her voice, “be serious. This isn’t about the weapons. What happened next?”

“After I discovered the pistols were missing, I offered my services to Lord Whitford, to assist in regaining order.”

Actually, he’d had to pull the still-brawling Lord Whitford off the pudding-slathered mongrel that turned out to be the chef, Marcel, and called for the constable. Lady Whitford was found sobbing hysterically in the corner of the ballroom. She was covered in the detritus of a banquet gone bad and babbling to herself; Marcus could only make out a few words, mostly “ruined” and “laughingstock.” Once the constable had arrived, Lady Whitford was escorted up to her rooms by her faithful lady’s maid, who petted and soothed the poor creature like a mother hen, while Marcel was questioned by a relatively calmer Lord Whitford and the constabulary.

As it was, Lord Whitford proved rather incapable of question-asking, and therefore, left the brunt of the conversation, rather remarkably, to Mr. Marcus Worth, and if he found Mr. Worth’s presence odd and his manner too authoritative for a younger son and legislative clerk (although hadn’t he heard he was no longer employed in that position?), he did not speak up. It was far too useful to have a man of sense involved.

Marcel, it seemed, had been as perplexed as anyone to see the dead, mangled blackbirds in the pie. “I do not know what has happened,” he said, sputtering. “I put ze doves in ze pie fifteen minutes before the crust was cut; my sous-chef and ze pastry chef assisted
moi
. Someone must have switched the pies!”

“Two identical six-foot pies?” Whitford scoffed, sneering down at the traitorous Frenchman he had allowed into his kitchen. “Not bloody likely, you, you . . . Frenchman!”

“Lord Whitford, please,” Marcus began calmly and indicated the constable, who stood placidly by, taking down every word that was said, all the better to sell his notes to the
Times.
Lord Whitford proceeded to hold his tongue, and Marcus continued.

“You think the pie was replaced,” Marcus began, and again shot a quelling look to a sneering Lord Whitford. “The piecrust and dish are right here. Do you see anything that could support that theory?”

Marcel, seizing the opportunity to reclaim his innocence and his superiority, stood and went to examine the remains of the pie splattered on the dining room floor. The shards of the massive red ceramic dish he found uninteresting and moved on to the crust. Picking up a large chunk, he examined it closely, tested its weight in his hand. He held it aloft to the light of a candle. Then he snapped his fingers.

“Send for Mademoiselle Quinn!”

One of the footmen at the door snapped to attention, bowed smartly, and headed quickly to the kitchens, bringing back moments later a bewildered young redhead, perhaps twenty, who wore the dough-crusted apron that bespoke her role as the pastry chef.

Marcel went directly to her, handing her the piece of crust.

“Mademoiselle Quinn, what is this?”

“It . . . it is crust from the pie, Chef.”

“Are you certain?” he asked in clipped, authoritative tones. “Look closely.”

She did. She peered at it, also holding it up to the light of a candle. Then shock came over her features, as she exclaimed, “This is not my crust! Who has done this?”

Marcus immediately came forward, a warily curious Lord Whitford and the constable in tow. “How can you tell?” he asked.

“This is layered dough, folded over again and again to make it puff and rise when it bakes,” Miss Quinn answered, her thin, nimble hands moving quickly as she spoke. “This crust only has eight layers. My crust always has sixteen.”

“Always?” Marcus replied.

“You dare to question my pastry chef?” Marcel responded, his nose again at its rightful place, high in the air. “No one in my kitchen makes a dough with less than sixteen layers! No one!”

“Lord Whitford, are you satisfied? Someone must have switched the pies.”

Lord Whitford’s eyebrows went through the top of his head. “But . . . but how? Why?”

“Two very important questions, but I think I can answer one of them,” Marcus said, and drew Lord Whitford aside.

“Lord Whitford,” he said in a low voice, “have you done a thorough search of your home?”

“A search?”

“It’s possible that the entire point of this disruption was to cause . . . a disruption.” And then, with only the smallest moment of hesitation, Marcus told him of the missing pistols from the gallery.

Lord Whitford took off like lightning, forcing the constable, Marcus, and Marcel the chef to trail in his wake. He thumped through the halls with such wakeful terror that all the servants he passed automatically joined the growing entourage behind him.

Lord Whitford reached the gallery of armaments, came to a halt in front of the case that Marcus knew to be empty, and seemed astonished to find it so. After going very pale, then purple, then swallowing his rage and returning to a normal shade, Lord Whitford addressed the assembled staff with the authority of the master of the house and ordered a search of every crevice of his home.

Then, with a swift eye to Marcus, he marched off toward a staircase. Marcus followed, leaving the befuddled note-taking constable behind to handle the various napkin rings and flower-pots the servants discovered missing.

Lord Whitford led Marcus to a private study on the second floor, obviously his personal space, as it was dressed in masculinity and strewn with open books and sheaves of paper. It had also been ransacked. Lord Whitford, however, did not look concerned at the mess. His look of concern was reserved for the painting on the wall, a landscape done in cloyingly romantic tones and the only level picture in the room.

“What was missing from the safe?” Phillippa asked, perched raptly on the edge of her delicate chair.

“Beg pardon?” Marcus asked, snapped out of his story and back to reality. He must have fallen silent without realizing it, for Phillippa wore an expression of impatience that was oddly endearing.

“The safe? I assume that was what was behind the painting.”

An eyebrow went up. “Why do you think that?”

A small, superior smile flitted across her features. “First of all, Lord Whitford prefers his art more representational than pastoral. In the entire Whitford Mansion, I saw dozens of portraits and twice as many canvases depicting glory in battle, but not a single landscape. And as you said, it was the only level picture in the room, which makes me think it was attached to the wall. On hinges perhaps, so it could swing away, revealing something hidden. And thirdly,” She paused for a moment, preening visibly. “I believe paintings have been hiding safes since paintings and safes began. Not particularly original on Lord Whitford’s part, but he never struck me as a particularly original man.”

Marcus took a moment to regard her. Not to see her as other people saw her, but perhaps as she saw herself. She knew herself to be beautiful—she must—half the gossip columns were devoted to her lovely visage. She was confident, but that confidence was not borne out of her beauty. It was part of her very core, a product of her clever mind.

And she worked remarkably hard to keep it hidden from society but, surprisingly, not from him.

He must have taken too long in his regard, because she resorted to snapping her fingers to literally snap him out of his reverie.

“Mr. Worth! You still haven’t answered my question,” she spoke with patience.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, “I’m . . . still not used to these hours.”

“Shall I call for tea?”

“No . . . I would prefer not to disturb the servants . . .” His voice was sharp as he tried to infuse his speech with energy. Wake up, Marcus, he mentally slapped himself. You’re not home yet.

A small, wry smile played bitterly across her features. “Afraid to be seen with me?”

Marcus smiled in kind, replying, “Not at all, but I should think you would rather avoid being seen with me.” When her eyebrow went up, he explained. “Entertaining a gentleman . . . at night . . . in your home . . . ?” Of course, the longer he went on, the paler his argument sounded. “I . . . I slipped in through the gardens. I don’t think anyone saw me . . .”

A soft laugh lifted through the air as Phillippa replied, “Worried about your reputation?”

“Mrs. Benning, you yourself told me I have no discernable reputation.” But what was left unsaid hung between them:
I was worried about yours.

She must have felt his thoughts, suspended in the air, because she held his gaze in the firelight and then took a deep breath before she spoke.

“Well,” she replied, seeming to brace herself with cheerfulness, “you have one now, since you spoke with me on Bond Street, and everyone saw it, and you danced with me this evening—oh, and I spoke to Lady Hampshire; I have hope that you should receive an invitation to the Racing Party within the next few days, and if you don’t, I’ll take it upon myself to cut that good lady out of my calling rounds until she obliges me—but you shouldn’t worry about being here; my servants know better than to gossip about whom I do or do not entertain in my home. However, you are not being entertained, nor am I. We are conducting serious business, which leads me back to my original question of what was missing from the safe.”

It took Marcus a moment to work through her speech, but upon reaching its conclusion, he reluctantly handed over the answer she required.

“Schematics.”

“Schematics?” she repeated incredulously.

“The only thing missing from the safe, according to Lord Whitford, was a set of technical drawings—schematics—for a new pin barrel firing system he was developing for his arms manufacturers.”

“No money? No jewels?”

“This thief was very specific. He tore the room apart but took only the schematics. The housekeeper and head butler reported that nothing else was missing from the Whitfords’.” He paused, ran his fingers through his unexpectedly short hair. “The thing is . . . the pistols’ case—the lock wasn’t broken, the glass wasn’t marred by so much as a finger smudge. But the study . . .”

“Was a complete mess, you said,” she finished his thought for him. “Why would he make such a mess in the study but not the gallery?”

“He wanted us to know,” Marcus scowled. “For some reason, Laurent wanted us to know he had taken the schematics. It’s important.”

“Or maybe . . .” But her voice trailed away, uncertain.

“Or maybe what?”

“No, it’s stupid. You’re the expert; you know better what we speak of than I,” she dismissed his inquiry with a wave of her hand.

“Mrs. Benning, you have never in our association hesitated to give your opinion; pray, don’t stop now,” he answered wryly.

“Well,” she began nervously, “it seems to me there wasn’t much time to get from the gallery to the safe upstairs and then escape with the crowd. What if there were two men? One who stole the pistols and one who rifled the Whitfords’ personal study?”

As Phillippa hedged and hesitated with her theory, Marcus’s mind was filled with new ideas. He had never even considered that it was two men; he had only seen Laurent. All this time he had thought the information from the department was leaked casually, almost passively, and that was the end of the traitor’s involvement. But of course that man could just as easily have been active in his treachery, although it was the height of danger to do so. If caught, the traitor would have no easy excuse for his behavior, while merely leaking information was far, far easier to deny.

One other thing occurred to Marcus, and it was a thought that filled him with equal parts fear and warm anticipation: Phillippa Benning was quick, useful. Maybe indispensable.

“Mrs. Benning you may have a surprising future in espionage.”

She blushed at that. “Why, Mr. Worth, what a compliment, coming from you.”

They let the fire crackle between them, Marcus enjoying the comfort of the surroundings far more than he should. He could sit here forever in this lovely and yet not overbearing pink room, the lady to his left tatting something—although he doubted Phillippa Benning tatted anything—and, granted, he could use a more accommodating chair, the sofa was a bit spindly on its legs . . . but maybe it was his weariness, maybe it was the company, maybe it was the warmth from the steady fire. Marcus soon realized that in that moment, there was no place else he would rather be.

And that thought made him sit up rather quickly.

“I should go,” he began, getting to his feet. “I need some rest before tomorrow.”

“What’s tomorrow?” Phillippa asked, also rising.

“More . . . more looking,” he replied, his eyes catching her face and ultimately regretting it. Her eyes shone with anticipation as they looked up at him, her soft coloring glowing in the firelight.

“You should come call,” she burst out abruptly. “Not in the middle of the night, of course. By the bye, what would you have done had I been asleep in my bed? I know the Blue Raven has a reputation for stealing into ladies’ bedchambers, but . . .”

“I told you not all stories are true, Mrs. Benning.” He reached the door of the salon and turned to face her. “I knew you were awake in this room because I could see the candles burning from without. It’s safe to say I would have never entered your home unless I saw the candles. I would have”—he paused with his hand on the doorknob—“likely sent you a note in the morning.”

“Oh,” she breathed. Then, taking a step closer, “You should come call in a day or two. Lady Hampshire makes her rounds on Wednesdays. If you’re here then, it could help secure you an invitation to the Racing Party.”

He nodded and turned to open the door, but she held him once again.