"I suggest we form our own little club, dedicated not to drinking and telling bawdy jokes but to needling the minister."
"You mean you wish to persecute "Persecute"?" asked Constantina. The play on Grentham"s Christian name, Percival, was often used in London Society, though n.o.body ever dared say it to his face.
"Exactly," replied Arianna.
The dowager chortled. "Sounds like fun. He needs a few pokes to his self-importance."
Sophia"s reaction was much more uncertain. "Isn"t that asking for trouble?"
"Trouble needs no invitation to find me," quipped Arianna. "Grentham takes special pleasure in trying to make my life miserable. I am simply returning the favor."
Her expression remained doubtful, but Sophia refrained from further protest.
As they came abreast of the archway, it was Constantina who fired the first salvo. "Is that you, Percy?" An intimate friend of the minister"s mother, she had known him since he was in leading strings. "Why are you skulking in the corner?"
Grentham turned his head slightly and looked down his well-shaped nose at them. "I prefer to call it "observing," Lady Sterling."
"Yes, the minister likes to peep, Aunt Constantina," murmured Arianna. "He watches a great deal of what goes on here in London. I daresay he recognizes our companion, despite having never formally met her."
Grentham"s eyes narrowed.
"What do you mean?" asked Sophia, her voice sharp with surprise.
"Oh, it was Lord Grentham who so kindly informed me of your private meetings with Saybrook," Arianna explained. "He seemed to know all the details, including those concerning your looks."
Sophia"s face tightened in outrage. "You spied on me, sir?"
"I doubt that he did the dirty deed himself," answered Arianna. "He has minions who do that."
Flames flared in Grentham"s gaze. She could almost hear the hiss of smoke and crackle of brimstone.
"Percy, allow me to formally introduce you to Miss Kirtland." Constantina intervened before the sparks could set off a conflagration.
Dangerous. Arianna reminded herself that it was dangerous to play with fire. As an experienced chef she should know that.
The minister inclined a nod to Sophia. "I was acquainted with your father. He drank and gambled to excess."
"Those were the least of his flaws," shot back Sophia.
He blinked.
It was almost comical, thought Arianna wryly. The minister-a man much feared throughout England for his cold-blooded cleverness and ruthless tactics-appeared outgunned by a trio of females. Steel versus silk. And for a moment, the delicate flutter of their words seemed to have him on the defensive.
"You probably have the rest of them written down in one of your dossiers," Sophia went on. "Though why my father"s personal failings should be of any interest to the government is beyond me."
"Hmmph." Like all men, Grentham seemed to feel a masculine grunt somehow disguised the fact that he had no other answer to make.
Again, Constantina intervened. "You have come to a ball, Percy. So why don"t you ask my niece to dance?" The dowager punctuated the suggestion with a rap of her walking stick.
He looked as if he had just been asked to press an asp to his chest.
"Normally I wouldn"t be any more eager than Lord Grentham to take a twirl together across the parquet," said Arianna softly. "But in fact, I have a few questions to ask him, and a waltz affords a bit of privacy."
His jaw tightened, but Grentham offered an arm, perfectly angled, as proscribed by the gentlemanly rules of deportment. To give the Devil his due, he had faultless manners to go along with his exquisitely tailored evening clothes.
Spin, slide, sidestep-Arianna was concentrating so hard on not squashing the minister"s toes that the first figures of the dance pa.s.sed in grim silence. Dancing was a newly acquired skill and she somehow felt that making a misstep would cede the advantage to her partner.
"Is this merely an exercise in futility?" Grentham finally asked. "Or is there really a reason you wished to speak with me?"
She raised her eyes from his well-shod feet. "Actually there is. I see that Stoughton is in London and I wish to know why."
For an instant, he looked tempted to tell her to dance her way straight to h.e.l.l. But then he relented-a fact that must mean he had his own reasons for sharing information, thought Arianna. The minister was not motivated by altruism.
"The colonel came here to complain about the investigator sent to St. Andrews by my office. He claims that Mr. Castellano was actually in league with the radicals and quite likely murdered a scientist for-as he put it-reasons as yet unknown."
"His reaction earlier this evening to Saybrook"s name was suspicious. It shouldn"t have meant a thing to him, but I was watching his face carefully and it did," she mused. "I wonder . . ." A frown tugged at her lips. "My husband said you used only a pseudonym for him in arranging the mission. So no one within your circle of advisers knew his true ident.i.ty, correct?"
Crystalline shards of light dipped and darted over his features as they pa.s.sed under one of the ma.s.sive chandeliers, blurring with the swirling shadows cast by the other couples. "Not precisely."
"It"s a simple question, sir," she countered. "And so is the answer-yes or no."
"Oh, come, Lady Saybrook, don"t pretend to be so naive. You, of all people, know that things are never so neatly black-and-white. The edges fuzz; the shades muddle into an infinite range of grays." A small smile. "Granted, some are darker than others."
"If I want a lecture on art, I shall visit the studio of Thomas Lawrence."
"And what do you want? Information?" With a firm hand and agile step, he guided her to a less crowded section of the floor. "Very well, I was going to inform your husband of the fact tomorrow, but you might as well save me the trouble of a meeting. The fact is, I did drop his name to one person within the group."
"In other words, you used us as bait to draw out Renard."
He shrugged. "I had every confidence that you and the earl could defend yourself if it came to that."
"Who?" she asked.
"Lord Mather."
Arianna thought for a moment. She had met the viscount at one of the diplomatic parties given by Saybrook"s uncle. Her only recollection was that of a portly man with thinning gray hair and a pa.s.sion for collecting violins.
"You think him Renard?"
"No," answered Grentham decisively. "But I recently uncovered information that made me suspect he was involved in some sort of illicit activity in Scotland. The attack on you seems to confirm it."
"Yet my husband seemed to think you were surprised that our coach had been waylaid."
A low, humorless laugh sounded close to her ear. "I was. It seemed such a crude, ill-conceived plan, which doesn"t fit with Renard"s usual sophistication. Which is why I"ve ruled out Mather as our fox."
"I agree," she mused. "So how does all of this fit together?"
"That, my dear Lady Saybrook, is what you and your husband are supposed to be finding out."
The music was fast rising to its final crescendo. "I"ll pa.s.s all this on to Sandro. But I"m sure he"ll want to speak with you."
The minister let out a martyred sigh. "Unfortunately, you are probably right. However, tell him I prefer not to do it at Horse Guards."
She nodded.
As the violins trilled their last notes, he drew his gloved palm away from the small of her back. "Now that we"ve had our charming tete-a-tete, allow me to return you to your friends."
"You need not keep looking daggers at Miss Kirtland," murmured Arianna. She had noticed Grentham"s interest throughout the dance. "She"s proving a great help in a.n.a.lyzing the chemical data we discovered, so you really shouldn"t be trying to bully or frighten her just because she stood up to you."
His mouth compressed to a hard line as they approached the archway. "I, too, have some advice to offer," he said very softly. "Be careful about making presumptions. This case-"
A rap of Constantina"s cane cut him off.
"Come, Percy. It is only polite that you now partner Miss Kirtland for the coming set."
"I hate to disappoint you, Lady Sterling, but I did not come here simply to dance attendance on the ladies. I have some business to deal with, so must beg off from further frivolities." The minister inclined a sardonic bow to Sophia. "I am sure that the lady will suffer no disappointment."
Thump. The stick hit the floor with surprising force, and its rebound came perilously close to whacking him across the b.u.m. "Good G.o.d, Percy, try to unbend and have a little fun sometime. It would do you a world of good."
His lips twitched, and in the shiver of shadows, it appeared . . .
No, impossible, decided Arianna. Grentham was not really holding back a chuckle.
"Enjoy the rest of the evening, Lady Sterling. And do try not to kill anyone with that lethal weapon."
"Ha." A touch of bemus.e.m.e.nt played over Constantina"s face as she watched him walk away. "That was rather interesting."
Arianna agreed, but given all the discoveries of the last few hours, there wasn"t time to dwell on the minister"s revelations. Time enough later to go over everything with Saybrook.
"Indeed, but let"s forget about Grentham for now"-she noted that Sophia"s scowl was still firmly in place-"and concentrate on the reason we came here in the first place."
"Who else are you looking to meet, my dear?" asked Constantina.
"Your introductions to the gossips of the ton were a great help, but I was wondering, do you perchance see any relatives or close friends of the Sommers family?"
"The Duke of Lampson, eh?" The dowager"s gaze took on a speculative edge, but to her credit she didn"t ask any more questions. After a quick scan of the room, she shook her head. "You"ve already made the acquaintance of Colonel Stoughton-"
"Stoughton." Arianna felt her insides give an unpleasant little lurch.
"Why, yes, his father and the duke were cousins, so the colonel is second cousin-or is it third?-to the duke"s sons. I seem to recall that he is the same age as the youngest . . . you know, the unfortunate Lord Reginald, who was recently murdered in a robbery attempt somewhere on the Continent."
Tap, tap. The dowager turned and signaled a footman to bring more champagne. Tap, tap.
Arianna drew in a deep breath. Perhaps the pieces of the puzzle were finally falling into place.
"How was your evening?"
"Eventful," murmured Arianna, tossing her shawl and reticule on the kitchen worktable. "And yours?"
He looked up from the mortar and pestle, where he was grinding several dried ancho chili peppers into a fine powder. "The same."
A kettle of water was simmering on the hob, and silvery skirls of steam drifted across the table, muddling with the shadows-but not quite enough to obscure his face.
"Is that a bruise on your cheek?" she asked.
"The one on my ribs is far worse," he replied with a lopsided smile.
"Good G.o.d, what happened?"
"We discovered, as Baz so bluntly puts it, another dead body."
"Dio Madre." Her hands froze on the chocolate pot. "Brynn-Smith?"
A nod confirmed the surmise.
"But if he was dead, how did you come to have such bruises?"
"The killer had not yet left the room," replied Saybrook. "Unfortunately he had the elements of darkness and surprise working in his favor. I reacted a step too slowly and he got away."
Arianna washed the bitter taste of fear from her throat with a quick swallow of hot chocolate.
"If you wait a moment, I"m almost ready to add some spice," he said. "By the by, have you seen where Bianca put the vanilla beans?"
"I would rather have mine sweet tonight." She spooned a generous helping of sugar into her cup and was mortified to see that her hands were shaking. Over the last few months, her husband had come within a hairsbreadth of death more times than she cared to count. The margin for error was too small to keep tempting fate.
"So," she murmured, trying to keep her voice flat. "We"ve no clue as to the killer"s ident.i.ty?"
"Baz caught only a fleeting glimpse in the flare of a lucifer. The man was tall and lean, with fair hair-not an overly helpful description." The earl took out a sc.r.a.p of silk from his pocket and placed it on the table. "However, I did manage to tear off a piece of his waistcoat as we were wrestling on the floor."
The slubbed fabric, patterned in alternating stripes of mulberry and navy, tickled against her fingertips. "I"m not sure that this is much of a clue either."
"There are some benefits to being a lordly aristocrat who patronizes the fashionable tradesmen of Town. Baz got the impression from the man"s coat that he was a gentleman, and this silk is certainly expensive. So in the morning I shall visit my tailor and show him the remnant. As you see, there is a bit of st.i.tching left at the seam. There"s a good chance he"ll be able to identify the maker."
Her hand suddenly stilled. "Mr. Lawrance is tall and fair-haired. And he favors stylish clothing."
"I shall ask Weston who fashions his wardrobe."
Arianna took another sip of her sweetened chocolate. "You will have to be making one other visit tomorrow," she said. "You will be wanting to meet with Grentham, but he doesn"t want to do it at Horse Guards."
"Why-that is, why do I want to meet with the minister, and why must it be at a clandestine location?"
"Because Colonel Stoughton is in London." She went on to tell him all she had learned from the minister. After watching her husband"s reaction-naught but a mild twitch of his brows-she added, "You don"t seem overly surprised by his using us as bait."
"I"m not. I suspected that Grentham might be considering such a move. In his place, I would have done the same thing." He grimaced. "Good G.o.d, what a frightening thought that my mind is starting to work like his."
"Speaking of surprises, I have several more," said Arianna. "First of all, Miss Kirtland has a history with Stoughton."