Keeping Bad Company

Table of Contents

Cover

The Liberty Lane Series from Caro Peacock

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

DEATH AT DAWN

(USA: A FOREIGN AFFAIR)

DEATH OF A DANCER

(USA: A DANGEROUS AFFAIR)

A CORPSE IN SHINING ARMOUR

(USA: A FAMILY AFFAIR)

WHEN THE DEVIL DRIVES *

KEEPING BAD COMPANY *

* available from Severn House

Writing as

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

First world edition published 2012

in Great Britain and the USA by

Crème de la Crime, an imprint of

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

Copyright © 2012 by Caro Peacock.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Peacock, Caro.

Keeping bad company.

1. Lane, Liberty (Fictitious character) – Fiction. 2. Women private investigators – Fiction. 3. London (England) – Social conditions – 19th century – Fiction. 4. Detective and mystery stories.

I. Title

823.9´2-dc23

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-235-1 (Epub)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-020-1 (cased)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

A
footman refilled our champagne glasses so smoothly that the gentleman talking to me didn't pause in the story he was telling about a certain minister on a recent visit to Paris. The gentleman was keeping his voice low because the minister in question was at the other end of the room, in a group around a minor royal. Half the cabinet were present, in court dress of tailcoats, breeches, silk stockings and buckled shoes. It was very much a ‘decorations will be worn' occasion, so the men's chests blazed with orders from all over the globe, gilded, jewelled and enamelled. It struck me as a pity that by the time a man had earned the right to wear silk stockings and jewels, he was usually well past the age when he might look dashing in them. There were exceptions, of course, like that rising politician, Mr Benjamin Disraeli. He was in the group with the minor royal, doing most of the talking as usual. His calves were svelte in silk, his black curls flowing, waistcoat ornamented with some multicoloured honour he must have managed to acquire on his honeymoon European travels. On the edge of the group his wife, Mary Anne, in ill-advised frills of purple silk, watched him adoringly.

Mr Disraeli had greeted me soon after I arrived, in company with a young gentleman from the Foreign Office.

‘What a pleasant surprise to see you, Miss Lane. May I say that you're looking particularly well this evening?'

The second part of his remarks might have been true. I'd taken trouble for the occasion and was wearing my new amethyst-coloured silk with the low neckline and puffed sleeves, my favourite dragonfly ornament in my hair. The first part was untrue. It wasn't a surprise to see me because he'd been partly responsible for my attendance at this diplomatic gathering. I sometimes carried out work of a confidential nature for the Foreign Office. Although Mr Disraeli was too ambitious and mercurial to be much trusted by the authorities, he was known to be an acquaintance of mine so was occasionally used to see whether I'd undertake particular assignments.

On this occasion, the task was straightforward and I'd accepted. The gentleman to whom I was listening was, to put things bluntly, a spy in the pay of a foreign embassy. He'd been involved in a nasty piece of work that had caused the suicide of a British diplomat. All I had to do was to slip a particular fact into our conversation that would make clear I was aware of it and see how he reacted. In return for my report, I could expect ten guineas, the knowledge that I'd helped expose a traitor and the possible gratitude of the Foreign Office. My target was near the climax of his grubby story. He leaned towards me confidentially, giving himself the chance to look straight down my bodice. I resisted the temptation to swing my elbow into his ribs. The question I was going to ask him as soon as his story finished would be a much more effective weapon. Only, I never managed to ask it.

I glanced over his shoulder across the room and saw a young gentleman break away from a group of people and come striding towards us, frowning. The sense of urgency about him made me wonder if my employers had, for some reason, changed their minds at the last minute. Nothing distinguished him from all the other young diplomats, except possibly that his face was redder than most. He was in his mid twenties, slightly plump and wore a decoration with crossed swords that looked as if it might be Indian. Something about him seemed familiar. I searched my memory, wondering where I'd met him before and what in the world I might have done to annoy him so much. As he came nearer it was worse than a frown, positively a glare, and directed straight at me. My target must have sensed he was losing my attention because he raised his voice.

‘. . . then, would you believe, the chambermaid said to him . . .'

Then he gasped and pitched forward, nearly knocking me over. That was because the glaring man had cannoned straight into him, catching him with all his weight on the shoulder. My target was gulping indignant noises. Apologies were in order, but the glaring man didn't make them. He disregarded his victim entirely, looking me full in the face, his eyebrows a black bar.

‘Liberty, what do you think you're doing here?'

His voice carried. People were staring. I returned his glare with one of my own.

‘I believe you have the advantage of me, sir.'

Meaning that he was a boor twice over, first for barging then for addressing me by my first name. By now the other gentleman had recovered enough to ask him what the devil he thought he was doing. Again he was ignored.

‘I'm taking you home this instant, young lady.'

I thought the red-faced young man had taken leave of his senses. So did some other gentlemen, including my escort for the evening, who were rushing over to protect me. They closed round the young man and tried to hustle him away. He resisted and stood his ground.

‘Kindly don't interfere. This is a private matter.'

‘Insulting a lady isn't a private matter,' one of the gentlemen said.

‘I'm not insulting her. I'm simply removing her from bad company.'

‘Why should you suppose you can dictate my company?' I said, furious.

And yet, even as I said it, an impossible thought was taking shape in my mind. It came from his voice and the defiant way he was standing. So perhaps, deep down, I wasn't as surprised by his next words as the gentlemen to whom he spoke them.

‘So if you'll all excuse me, I am taking my sister home.'

M
y brother, Thomas Fraternity Lane, should have been four and a half thousand miles away and on that first evening I heartily wished that he still were. Which was sad, because for the past seven years the dearest wish of my heart had been to see him again. Seven years ago I'd stood with my father, now dead, on the shore at Gravesend and watched the waving white glint of Tom's handkerchief from the rail of the ship that was carrying him away to India. Tom was fifteen then, I eighteen. Letters from India every six months or so recorded Tom's career as a rising young administrator with the East India Company. Letters from me, slightly more frequently, recorded all the things about my life that I dared tell him without driving him into a frenzy of worry or disapproval. He wasn't due for home leave for several years. By that time, I might even have found a way to tell my only brother that his only sister was earning a living as a private inquiry agent. Or perhaps my life would have changed in such a way that I could tell it glancingly, as something that belonged in the past. His sudden and unexplained presence in London had ended that hope. Within seconds of being reunited, we were fighting as if we were back in the nursery.

Given our surroundings, the fight had to be more decorous than when the weapons were shuttlecocks and toy soldiers. Tom, myself and my escort for the evening, Mr Calloway, took ourselves into the lobby where a few footmen were leaning against the wall, waiting for their masters to come out to their coaches.

‘What are you doing here? Why didn't you tell me you were coming home?' I said to Tom.

‘I didn't have a chance. In any case, I didn't expect to find my sister practically in the arms of a man with one of the worst reputations in London.'

‘I was
not
practically in his arms. Anyway, how do you know?'

‘Because one of the men I was with was looking at you both and sniggering about old so and so making another conquest. Conquest! My sister!'

‘I can assure you I'm nobody's conquest. If you want to know, it was quite the reverse.'

‘I don't want to know. Don't move from here. I'm going to find a hansom.'

‘And carry me into it with a sack over my head?'

‘If necessary, yes.'

Mr Calloway gave a diplomatic cough. He'd collected my cloak and had it over his arm.

‘Mr Lane, may I suggest that we both escort your sister home.'

He had such a reasonable air about him that my angry brother unbarred his eyebrows and lowered his voice.

‘May I ask who you are, sir?'

‘Malcolm Calloway, of the Foreign Office, at your service. I had the honour to be introduced to Miss Lane by our mutual friends, Sir George and Lady Talbot. She very kindly consented to accompany me to the reception this evening.'

It was the first I knew of George's knighthood. Trust Mr Calloway to be ahead of the Gazette. His explanation left out a lot of things, but it calmed Tom a little.

‘But that appalling fellow . . .' Tom said.

‘I entirely agree with you, Mr Lane. Unfortunately, my attention was diverted. If I'd known he was inflicting his presence on Miss Lane, I should certainly have taken the action which you so promptly did.'

I tried not to catch Mr Calloway's eye. He knew very well why I was there that evening. Part of my anger with my brother was that he'd made me fail in a professional obligation and, probably, cost me a much-needed ten guineas. My cloak wafted itself round my shoulders without visible assistance from Mr Calloway. His glance to the footman by the door produced a carriage as soon as we stepped out on to the pavement, not a hansom but a hireling two-horse landau with room for the three of us. Mr Calloway handed me in and stood back so that Tom could sit beside me.