The Painted Lady (16 page)

So did the painted lady.

* * * *

He was sane in the country, Kasey reminded himself hours later when he stirred again. He was in his right mind everywhere but in that attic, with that painting. So he left.

“Take some time off, Ayers,” he told his man. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Goin’ to the country again, Sir?”

“No. I just don’t feel like painting anymore.”

“What about the women? Never say you don’t feel like entertaining a rare handful now and again? I hear there’s a new girl in the chorus at Drury Lane. All the swells are filling the Green Room every night, trying for her favors.”

“I... I don’t think so.”

Ayers scratched his head. “Your last repairing lease didn’t seem to do you much good, did it?”

* * * *

Kasey found his cousin in the wood-paneled office of the Grosvenor Square house, as usual. “I need you to take care of a few things for me, Charles,” he said, taking the seat across the desk from his secretary and man-of-affairs.

Charles Warberry set aside his ledgers and drew out a fresh sheet of paper, saying, “I am glad you are here. As soon as you are done, there are a few matters I need to discuss with you also.” He dipped the quill pen into the inkwell and held it poised over the page, waiting for the duke’s instructions.

“It’s about the Lonsdale Street house.”

The pen dripped onto the clean surface and Warberry cursed, reaching for the blotter. “Yes?”

“I am thinking of selling it, so I want you to begin looking into a fair price and possible buyers.”

Charles nodded and made a notation, then looked up. “What about the, ah, contents of the house?”

“You mean the paintings?” Kasey knew his cousin had never approved of his private pastime, since it increased neither the family’s holdings nor its honors. Warberry looked upon artists as only slightly more savory than actors. “You’ll be relieved to know that I’ll want them crated up and shipped to the property in Cornwall, as soon as the Lonsdale Street house is sold.”

“All of them?” The pen dripped again. “That is, you never go to the Cornwall estate.”

“Precisely.” Kasey found the pen knife near the inkwell and started to trim a fresh quill. “You will no longer have to worry about anyone discovering the family’s shameful secret. All the skeletons will remain locked in a closet, this time far away from the London gabble-grinders.”

Charles did look relieved, or maybe he was pleased to dispense with a faulty pen. “I suppose I am to wish you happy, then?”

“You may wish it all you want but I sincerely doubt the outcome. Still, I can always purchase another cottage somewhere if I feel the need.”

Charles frowned. “I meant your coming nuptials.”

Kasey might be bacon-brained, but he did not think he was betrothed. “Have
I asked you to send in any announcements? To have the Cartland engagement ring sent out to be cleaned?”

“You know you have not, Caswell. I merely assumed that you were about to step into parson’s mousetrap, since you are disposing of your house of convenience. What other reason could you have?”

That it was haunted? Kasey did not think that would improve his chances of foisting the house on another buyer. As for trading a bijou for a wedding band, Kasey had never given the matter much thought. Taking a wife had never meant leaving one’s bachelor ways behind, to him. For most of his married friends, leg shackles had meant more discretion, not necessarily less affairs. Creatures like Lady Phillida would not think of interfering with a man’s pleasure. They would, in fact, most likely be pleased their husbands were bringing their base desires to brothels, not their wives’ beds. Which might be why as many married men as single frequented the green rooms and houses of accommodation. No, Kasey had not precisely planned on honoring his wedding vows.

Perhaps he should consider it, he thought now. If he wed another kind of woman, one who was pure at heart, would he not wish to honor her with his faithfulness, the same way he would demand hers? Then, too, some people married for love. Kasey did number a few such mooncalves among his friends and acquaintances, very few, but some. If a man loved a woman enough, Kasey supposed, he would not want any other female, hard as that might be to imagine. Maybe it was not so hard, after all. The devil take it, he’d been imagining far more bizarre circumstances lately.

“Charles, do you ever think of falling in love and marrying?”

“Which one?” his cousin replied, answering the question.

“Both, together.”

Charles made a rude noise. “A man in my position cannot afford to let his heart rule his head. What if I fell top over trees for a poor woman? I could not support her in style. What if I was enamored of an heiress like your Lady Phillida? Her papa would not let me through his door, not unless I was delivering a message from you.”

“I am sorry, I never thought about your situation.” Kasey sincerely regretted that any action—or inaction—on his part was keeping his cousin from a fuller life. “Don’t I pay you enough?”

Charles studied the few notes he’d made on the page in front of him. “The problem is that you pay me, period. Working men are not considered eligible partis among our class. I would just as soon not hitch myself to some Cit’s daughter, if she’d have me.”

“That’s fustian. You have breeding and education and a steady income; what more could a gentlewoman want?”

“Oh, a title, a fortune, a house of one’s own. Little things like that.” Charles put the pen down. “Not that I am complaining, mind. You pay me more than a fair wage, and I have no expenses to speak of, so I have some money set aside. I have a few notions on how to use that brass to improve my lot, too.”

“Well, if you need a loan to finance your investments, I am willing to listen to any reasonable scheme.”

“Thank you, I shall keep that in mind.” Warberry straightened the nearly blank page. “Are you certain you are feeling well, Caswell? You’ve been acting devilishly peculiar lately, going off in the middle of the fall Season, selling your love nest, now speaking of love matches. Are you quite up to snuff, old man?”

“Fine, I am perfectly fine.” Kasey was not about to confess exactly how peculiar he was these days, so he changed the subject instead. “I have another matter for you to look into. A delicate one, if you will. Do you know anything of Catherine, Viscountess Edgecombe? She is approximately your age, give or take a lie or two.”

“A considerable heiress, wasn’t she, before marrying Edgecombe?” Warberry sat up straighter.

“I don’t know about that, but it is possible. I met her on my recent travels and promised to look into her husband’s affairs.”

“What, is he dead now? I hadn’t heard.”

“No, the dastard is very much alive, which makes for a damnable coil.”

“Damnable indeed, if the woman is the cause of your vagaries.”

“Do not go making more of this than exists, cousin. Catherine is merely an acquaintance in difficulties.”

“Now that you mention it, wasn’t there a scandal involving Lord and Lady Edgecombe some few years back?”

“Yes, and the dirty dish had Catherine declared insane. She’s been locked up, genteelly, but still a prisoner, ever since.”

“Is she mad?”

“Furious, and who can blame her? But if you mean is she fit for Bedlam, no. She is as sane as I—well, she is as sane as you are. Look into it, if you will, Charles, and see if that maggot she married will agree to a separation. Then she can live wherever she wishes, once he releases her funds.”

“Doesn’t she wish to live with him?”

“Hell, no. The makebait might decide to find a more permanent way of getting rid of an unwanted wife this time.”

“You’re not thinking of setting her up at the Lonsdale Street place, are you?”

“No, I told you I am considering selling it. Lady Edgecombe is merely a friend, a friend in trouble. I am confident you will be able to work something out with her husband or his solicitor. You’ve never failed me yet.”

Charles almost knocked the inkwell over this time, in his distress. “Well, I’m afraid I have. Failed you, that is. I haven’t been able to convince the men from Bow Street to take their investigation elsewhere. I... I am sorry to say this, but I very much fear that they believe you’ve killed someone.”

Chapter Seventeen

“Dimm’s the name, Your Grace. Jeremiah Dimm. I always tell people that’s my name, not my brain.” The Bow Street man waited for a chuckle that did not come. “And this here is my nevvy, Thomas. They call him Dimmer, over at the office, ‘cause he don’t know much yet. He will soon, I swear. M’sister sent him to me to learn a trade, and I don’t get my privacy back till he can earn his way.”

Kasey had agreed to meet the men in his library. Now they faced him across the expanse of a cherrywood desk twice as large as Charles Warberry’s, although it saw half as much work. The duke had not intended to ask these uninvited, unwanted, and unlikely guests to be seated, full knowing the power of intimidation. Still, the garrulous Inspector Dimm looked to be someone’s kindly grandfather, with his snowy hair and thick brows and twinkling blue eyes. The spotty-faced youth appeared so overwhelmed by his surroundings and situation, Caswell could not help feeling sorry for him. Calling on a duke in his own home, calling that same duke a suspect? They must both be dicked in the nob, he thought, a malady which seemed to be affecting a lot of people lately.

He jerked his head toward the cushioned chairs in front of the desk. “Sit and state your business.”

“Right kindly, Your Grace. Thank you. Years on the force can ruin a man’s feet, don’t you know.” Dimm shuffled to a chair and settled his considerable bulk into it with a sigh, his legs stretched out in front of him. The youngster sat on the edge of his seat, his body perfectly upright and rigid.

Kasey was not about to offer the intruders refreshment, so he said, “Very well, you are here. Now what is this about? You have been bothering my secretary, frightening my aunts, and questioning my servants. I find this behavior outrageous, Dimm, and demand an explanation. It had better be a good one, too, or I’ll go straight to Townsend himself, and have your job, if not your head.”

“I ‘spec you could do it too, Your Grace. Being a duke and all.” The officer of the law took a pair of spectacles from his inner pocket and a pad from his outer pocket. He fumbled around for a pencil until the nephew handed him one. “Aye, the lad’s learning to be prepared already. Good.”

Kasey drummed his fingers on the desk, waiting.

Dimm consulted his day book. “Bow Street was approached five days ago by one Dorothea McMonahan, widow of the late Reverend Mr. Gideon McMonahan, of Huddersfield. Now residing with her daughter at Number Twenty-six, Essex Place, London.”

“Deuce take it, I do not know any Mrs. McMonahan. Wait, wasn’t that the name of the female who called on my aunts while I was gone?”

Dimm nodded. “She called here twice, according to her sworn statement. Once she spoke with your man, Mr. Warberry.”

“And they all sent her off with a flea in her ear, I presume. I do not know the woman, and if anything ill befell her afterward, no power on earth can lay that at my door.”

“The widow’s in prime twig, you’ll be happy to know. And a deuced good cook, too.” Dimm sighed, remembering the lovely meal he’d had, that he hadn’t had to cook himself. “That’s not to the point, of course.”

“You mean there is a point?”

“Ahem. Perhaps you might indulge me a few moments more of your valuable time, Your Grace, when I explain how Mrs. McMonahan came to Bow Street when she could get no answers here, as to the whereabouts of her daughter, Miss Dolores Malton.”

“I don’t know any—do you mean Dolly? She has a mother? I mean, a respectable mother?”

Dimm coughed, looking to his red-faced nephew. “Every fallen woman fell from somewhere, Your Grace. The way Mrs. McMonahan tells it, the vicar’s death left them with nothing. Miss Dolores came to London for work, and found it, in a manner of speaking. It weren’t what her mother could like, and she prayed nightly for better, but it was that or the poor house. Dolores, what you know as Dolly, did her best by her poor mum, and went to church regular, too.”

“Went to church, you say? Something’s happened to Dolly?” She’d been the auburn-haired beauty he’d been trying to paint when the apparition arrived. He couldn’t recall if they’d ever had a conversation longer than, “Oh, that feels good.” Certainly she’d never mentioned her mother, nor her vicar father. Topics like that did tend to put a check on a chap’s pleasure-taking.

“Now that’s what we’ve been investigating, m’nevvy and me. Seems she disappeared, sudden-like, without saying a word to her dear old mum.”

“Well, she certainly is not here!”

“No, we didn’t ‘spect so, but the investigation led us in this direction, you see, and no further, on account of your people being closemouthed and uncooperative.”

“My aunts? You asked my aunts about a bit of muslin? About one of my bits of muslin? I’ll show you uncooperative, I will, by Harry, with my boot!”

“No need to get yourself in a pelter, Your Grace. We asked the ladies as pretty as you please where you’d gone off to, that’s all. They couldn’t tell us. The cove what works for you at Kew couldn’t. Your secretary wouldn’t.”

“Rightly so. My people do not gossip about my whereabouts.”

“Aye. But it does look too smoky by half, your leaving Town without a word to anyone.”

“So you think I... I... what? You think I murdered my mistress and hid her body away?”

Dimm shook his head and made a notation in his book. “No. sir, I ain’t paid to think, just to find the facts. Fact is, something havey-cavey was going on, with your man here making excuses about business interests and that Ayers fellow saying you were ailing. ‘Pears you left your brother thinking you were overwrought about something. Disturbed, he said. Right worried, he was, too.”

Disturbed? Kasey was ready to throttle his brother. And Jason was only disturbed that his bills weren’t paid on time. Kasey knew he had to satisfy the men from Bow Street else all of Town would be speculating, so he said, “When I last saw Miss Dolly Malton, she was very much alive. I sent her home with my man of all work Ayers. The next day I decided to end the relationship, sending her a handsome reward for the pleasure we had shared. I did not see her, and that was the end of it.”