“Deciding will be a pleasant diversion from business,” Belami said lightly.
“Where will you be staying if I need to be in touch with you?”
“At my own place on Marine Parade,” Belami said.
“I expect to see you soon. I won’t be able to keep Prinney away from Brighton for long, when his
soi-disant
son is there. Godspeed.”
McMahon accompanied Belami to the door and along the passage to the courtyard, discussing further aspects of the case. “We must at all costs keep Smythe from moving into the Royal Pavilion. That would be too close for comfort. He has carte blanche to do so if he wishes. It’s strange he didn’t jump at the chance, is it not, when his pockets are to let?” McMahon asked. He directed a long, curious look at Belami.
“Very odd,” he answered with a considering frown.
This was the detail that occupied his mind as he hastened to Belvedere Square and Deirdre. Why did Smythe refuse to stay at the Pavilion where he could mix with the well-to-do, who might land him a good position? McMahon had intimated he was not well off. But then Smythe probably found the prince’s company suffocating, and the old cronies roosting there would hardly be to a young man’s taste. That must account for it.
Or perhaps he’d found himself some female company that was not fit to introduce to polite society. His mind veered to Lady Gilham for a moment. He little thought what pranks that female had in store for him. He allotted half an hour to handling her case.
Chapter Two
“So we are off to Brighton! An odd season for it, I must say,” the duchess exclaimed when Belami informed them that he had to go there.
His black eyes opened wide in horror at the mental vision of this dragon’s company. His work would involve him with rakes, rattles, and roués—every one of whom the duchess would hate on sight.
“What fun!” Deirdre exclaimed, her large gray eyes shining with delight. Belami gazed at her and found his heart softening to the idea. It wouldn’t take him twenty-four hours a day to handle Lady Gilham and Smythe, and it would be good to have Deirdre near him.
“It might be best if I go alone,” he said, but in no very firm way. Within a minute Deirdre had pouted her way to success.
“You realize what I have told you is in the strictest confidence,” he told them.
“We are not gossips!” her grace informed him with a gimlet shot from her sharp eyes. “Naturally I would never breathe a word to bring discredit on the dear prince. But just between ourselves, Belami, what do you make of this Smythe fellow? Is it possible he is indeed of royal blood? Fitzherbert was always fat as a flawn. It would be hard to know till the last few months whether she was enceinte. She hid herself away every time she and the prince had a tiff, so it might easily enough be true. I almost wish the prince could carry it off. The tales coming home from Italy about his wife are enough to turn us all into Republicans. I hear she runs about in outlandish states of undress, naked from the waist up with a pumpkin on her head, and dances with her servants. It would be a blessing if we could get rid of her once for all.”
“But what of Princess Charlotte?” Deirdre asked. “She is the only member of the royal family who is in the least degree tolerable. The Whigs will work to dump the prince and put his daughter to rule the country.”
“Even she is more than half hoyden,” the duchess said severely. “We must avoid it at all costs. When do we leave for Brighton, Belami?”
“I plan to leave as soon as I can get a few jackets thrown into a case. Why don’t I run along today and have the servants make the house ready for your arrival tomorrow?” he suggested.
“Tomorrow? Rubbish, we can be ready in a trice,” the duchess countered. Actually a week was her preferred packing time.
“I’ll go and tell the servants,” Deirdre said, hopping up in her eagerness.
“I’ll take my own carriage and follow you. Is an hour too long a delay before parting?” the duchess inquired.
“That will be fine,” Belami said, blinking at her eagerness.
She was so hot to be on the trail of Prinney’s son that she elbowed her niece aside at the doorway and darted down the hall, leaving Deirdre alone with her fiancé, a situation usually avoided.
Deirdre turned and smiled at Belami. “It seems we must postpone our trip to the travel agent to arrange our honeymoon,” she said.
“This won’t delay our wedding,” he promised rashly. “I’ll apply to the bishop for a special license as soon as we get back from Brighton and we’ll get married right away.”
“Actually, Auntie has been speaking of having the wedding at Fernvale. Our friends and relatives aren’t in London at this time,” she said, looking for his reaction.
“I don’t want to wait a minute longer than necessary. The spell I had cast over her might wear off before then,” he said lightly. “She’ll rescind her permission, and we’ll end up darting to the border for a wedding over the anvil.”
“Then you’ll just have to get Herr Bessler out of Newgate and have her mesmerized again,” Deirdre said, as this was the spell originally used to bring the duchess into line. A light laugh escaped her lips at what she had just said. She would never have thought it possible to be involved in such havey-cavey goings-on as she had since her betrothal to Belami.
Now the quickening of her blood told her another spree was about to begin. She was every bit as eager as the duchess to fly off to Brighton and meet up with the new set of characters Belami’s strange avocation threw in his path.
His dark eyes softened as they regarded her. Deirdre was rapidly emerging from the chrysalis that had enshrouded her to spread her radiant new wings and enchant him. Her upbringing by the duchess had been severe, but beneath the antique gowns and hairdo there lurked an unsuspected flair for fun and fashion. He was never quite sure which he preferred, the innocent girl with the lingering trace of shyness or the new woman of fashion that peeped out at times. No matter, both had the raven-black hair, the stormy gray eyes, the short, straight nose and the full lips.
“Her grace is not the only one who is mesmerized,” he said softly and pulled her into his arms. He sensed the reluctant girl holding herself back, felt the quiver that ran through her as he pressed his advances, and began tightening his grip for the final transformation.
“Deirdre!” The shrill notes of the duchess sent them flying apart.
“One of these days,” he said through gritted teeth, then left.
His friend, Pronto Pilgrim, was waiting in Belami’s drawing room when he arrived home. It was a case of opposites attracting between Pronto and Belami.
Pronto was an ungainly man whose major talent was for bungling things. His undistinguished appearance—short, small-shouldered, bow-legged, with a face whose most noticeable feature was a broken nose—was strangely at odds with Belami’s elegant physique and striking good looks.
“When are you and Deirdre getting leg-shackled?” was Pronto’s first speech. There was a hangdog look about him today. He had just recently decided that he, too, loved Deirdre Gower.
“As soon as can be. Right after I get back from Brighton, I hope,” Belami answered. “I’m in a bit of a rush today, Pronto. Do you want anything in particular?”
“Brighton? What the deuce are you going to Brighton for when you’ve just gotten engaged?” Pronto asked suspiciously. “Damme, Dick, this is no time to be oiling around some bit of fluff!”
“Bite your tongue, you ridiculous object!” Belami answered with a laugh. “It’s not my bit of fluff I’m chasing this time.’’
“All the worse, poaching on some other man’s. ‘Pon my word, Dick, you ain’t changing your ways a bit. You promised you’d swear off the muslin company.”
“This is business, Pronto. Confidential business or I’d let you in on it. I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. I suggest you have your monkey suit pressed up and be ready to stand as my best man next week.” Belami looked impatiently at the clock on the mantelpiece.
Pronto sniffed and began nibbling on the corner of his thumb, a great aid to concentration. “Charney don’t like your dabbling in crime if that’s what it is,” he felt obliged to remind his friend. “Just might be enough to turn her against you again.”
“She likes it well enough this time,” Belami said nonchalantly.
“You don’t mean she’s gone and lost that dashed diamond again after we just found it for her!” Pronto exclaimed indignantly.
“No, no, it’s an entirely different matter, but mum’s the word.” A shapely finger was raised in admonishment.
“I’ll be off then and let you get packed,” Pronto said with a suspicious alacrity. He normally reacted at the pace of an aged tortoise. “I’ll drop in and entertain Deirdre for you from time to time,” he offered with a cagey light in his blue eyes.
“She’s coming with me, but thanks anyway for the offer. I’ll look you up as soon as we return. I really have to go now, Pronto.”
“I won’t detain you,” Pronto said and ambled out, muttering into his collar.
Dashed Belami thought he was so clever just because he had solved a couple of crimes. Anyone could do his deductions when he got the knack of it. Motive, method, opportunity—Pronto had heard him say so a dozen times. That’s all there was to solving these cases. Who did it, when, and why, in other words. And how—that was the trick.
It was as plain as a pikestaff, after some basic deducing over a couple of ales at the Daffy Club, that Belami was nipping off to Brighton to pay off some lightskirt he had under his protection. And simple-minded enough to let Deirdre go with him, which naturally meant Charney went too.
Whether he knew it or not, Belami would require the help of his best friend, Pronto Pilgrim. Who had arranged for the time and the privacy for Herr Bessler to mesmerize Charney in the first place and make her give Belami permission to marry Deirdre? Pronto Pilgrim! Who had done half the work in finding the diamond stolen from the duchess? Pronto Pilgrim! Who always helped Belami out of his scrapes? The same Pronto Pilgrim! And if by any chance Charney did learn of the matter, who would throw himself forward to rescue Deirdre from heartbreak? Pronto Pilgrim! But he wouldn’t do a thing to expose Belami. He was a gentleman, by Jove.
He nipped smartly around to his apartment in Albany and had his bag packed for a short visit to Brighton. He’d put up at a spot convenient to Belami’s house on Marine Parade. The 0ld Ship was a decent hotel. Even had a spot of dancing in the evenings and a card game on Wednesdays as he recalled. He’d drive like the wind and be there before nightfall, if only the night would behave itself and not go getting dark in the middle of the afternoon, as it had the habit of doing in the winter. Prinney had made the trip in four and a half hours, or let on that he had at any rate. Pronto didn’t see any reason why he couldn’t better that record.
* * * *
There were three carriages with disgruntled passengers on the trip to Brighton. Belami regretted the slow pace he had to set to allow the duchess’s ancient carriage and team to follow him and resented that she wouldn’t allow Deirdre to go with him. Deirdre was also unhappy with her aunt, while the aunt saw no reason for Belami to trot his team along at such a wickedly fast pace. She preferred eight miles an hour, and, with a bit of ice on the roads as there was today, six seemed a more ladylike speed.
Pronto Pilgrim was miffed that Dick hadn’t invited him along. After all the sprees they had been on together, why was he left out now? But that’s how it would be once Belami was hitched. By the living jingo, it would serve him well if Deirdre caught him with the lightskirt.
The unhappiest person of all on the trip was Pierre Réal, Belami's groom. A dashing trip along icy highways was balm to his soul, but to inch along, holding in the grays all the way, gave a bitter foretaste of how marriage would change things.
Matters did not improve much when the first two carriages reached Marine Parade. Unalerted to their master’s arrival, the servants had no fires laid upstairs and insufficient food in the larder to please that excellent trencherman, the duchess. Her bedroom was inhumanly cold, but she had the bed heated and remained in it, rolled in blankets, till food was brought in and cooked, and the drawing room made habitable by a roaring fire.
Pronto, on the other hand, found the Old Ship so warm and convivial that he decided he would delay his own private investigations till the next morning.
Deirdre amused herself by looking over one of her future homes and planning renovations. She was much too happy and excited to mind the cold.
After Belami had spoken to his servants, he changed his shirt and cravat and went to call on Lady Gilham, to get the minor detail of her blackmail out of the way. The address was the corner of the Dyke Road and North Street. It was not a fashionable part of town, but the house was a decent brick building of modest proportions. He knew he should have written first asking for permission to call, but when one is the prince’s emissary, permission seemed unnecessary. A dark-suited male servant answered the door. This was in keeping with the establishment, not a liveried butler but not a female servant either.
The door to the saloon was closed, but he heard voices from within, a woman and a man speaking in low tones. A curled beaver hat and a pair of York tan gloves sat on the hall table. He smiled to see that the lady already had another suitor on the line and regretted that he was apparently not well to grass. The nap of the hat was worn around the edges and one finger of the gloves was out.
He handed the butler his card and said that he was not expected, but that he had a message from the Royal Pavilion. The butler carefully showed him into another waiting room and closed the door, depriving him of a view of the other gentleman, who was heard taking his leave immediately. All the view he had from the keyhole was of a pair of dark breeches.
Belami darted to the window to try for a look as the man left, but the butler came at once to the door and called him. He was very curious to see what sort of female had attracted Prinney.
His usual flirts were plump, aging, managing women with a superficial softness concealing a spine of iron. They invariably led him by the nose, procuring favors for themselves and their families. Belami had a mental picture of another such specimen. She wouldn’t actually be an intelligent woman, but she’d be clever, cunning. He’d have to tread lightly to outwit her.