"I trust you will be wearing black, to denote the death of our dreams," Byron said, smiling.
"Marry in black, you'll ride in a hack," was Coffen's contribution.
That brought conversation to a halt. After a stunned pause, Byron turned to Prance. "I'm here about that business you were kind enough to help me with, Prance. The Bee has stung again. Can I steal you away for a minute, or ..." His raised eyebrows tacitly asked if the Berkeley Brigade knew of the affair.
"If there's been a third, we should all hear about it. Coffen already knows," Prance said with a nervous glance at Corinne. Her head turned to him, her body stiff with attention. He didn't have to look at her face to know it would be alive with accusation.
Byron nodded. "I agree."
Prance briefly outlined the situation, causing Corinne's nostrils to pinch in mute fury at her and Luten's having been left out.
"You ought to have told us in the first place," Coffen said. "I could have been looking for clues sooner. That carriage of Lord Horner's, for instance."
"I asked Lady Jergen about that," Byron said. "She
thinks
she felt a hole in the upholstery, which she says
could
have been blue. Hardly corroboration, but–"
"It was the same rig," Coffen said. "I just dropped in to tell Prance what I learned at Maida Vale, which by the way, ain't where you said it is, Reg."
"Don't be absurd. Of course it is."
"It ain't the way I got there, but never mind. That bridge is under the water now. Daresay Fitz took a wrong turn."
“He shouldn't have turned at all."
"Then how was he to get from Berkeley Square to Edgeware Road? Coffen demanded, his voice rising in anger.
"That soon he went astray!"
"Get on with it, Coffen," Corinne said sharply, and earned a smile from Byron.
"That Mr. Hummer that was supposed to have bought the rig, all a hum. There's no such person. Who lives at the Oaks on Maida Vale Road is a Mr. Winkler, and he's neither young nor wears a face you'd easily forget, which is how the man who bought Horner's rig was described. Winkler has such a squint I thought for the first few minutes he was talking to one of his hives. He runs an apiary, which ain't an ape hatchery as you'd think. There's no apes there. It's a place where they sell honey. I've got a few combs in my rig."
"A home for bees,
en effet,”
Prance said.
"That as well," Coffen nodded. "You can't get honey without bees. Don't bother telling me it's a metaphor or some dashed thing, for I can see well enough the fellow is pulling our legs. Hummer, bees. All a hum. Winkler didn't know what I was talking about when I accused him of buying Horner's carriage. He was mad enough that his bees' names had been taken in vain that he let me look all through his stable. He has a rickety old black rig and a dog cart and a wagon for delivering his honey into town, but he don't have Horner's carriage. He does have a team of bays, but who don't, unless you're a Corinthian who thinks it's smart to drive greys. Mind you, I've nothing against greys when they don't act ups. Too frisky by half."
After this tirade, he helped himself to a glass of wine. Prance, recalled to his duties as host, relinquished Petruchio to Byron and served his guests. He couldn't decide whether he was flattered or offended that Petruchio cuddled up so cosily in Byron's arms.
"This is all interesting," Corinne said, "but I believe Lord Byron mentioned a third victim?" They all turned to hear the details.
"The lady is a Mrs. Webber," Byron began.
Coffen asked, "How'd you find out, Byron?"
"Adele—Lady Jergen—told me. She's an old friend of Mrs. Webber. Lady Jergen had arranged to call on her this morning and was told she was indisposed. She went to her bedroom and found her in tears. The story soon came out that Mrs. Webber was being held to ransom."
"What for?" Coffen asked.
"The usual, an amorous indiscretion. Billets doux."
Corinne blinked twice and said, "Are you quite sure, milord? I can't imagine Mrs. Webber— "
"I too was astonished, for the lady seems so heavily encumbered with virtue the convent seems the only place for her."
"But surely she is a widow," Prance said. "Whom does the Bee plan to tell about this indiscretion? It's not as if she were a deb. Society will hardly slam its doors in a widow's face for having a
cher ami
."
"It seems it's the mama-in-law she's worried about," Byron explained. "For financial reasons she makes her home with her late husband's mama, a regular Tartar. Very high on morals. She's of that ilk that considers sin a synonym for adultery, or to be more accurate, fornication of any sort."
Coffen, who had less objection to fornication than to discussing it in front of a lady, cleared his throat loudly and lowered his brows at the poet.
"Is her lover married?" Prance enquired. "Or why does he not marry her and rescue her from her den of morality?"
"The indiscretion is by no means contemporary. It occurred only days before her marriage, some seven years ago," Byron explained, lifting a quizzical eyebrow at the familiar time reference. "There is a fortune at stake. Mrs. Webber has a son, born approximately nine months after the wedding. The mama-in-law has the blunt and won't leave it to her grandson if she suspects the boy, his name is Harold after the soi-disant papa, is adulterine. One assumes the match with Webber was another marriage of inconvenience, which we foolishly call convenience. And we know what the wily old Duc de Rochefoucaud had to say about that."
"What did he say?" Coffen asked. "I don't believe I know the fellow."
Prance undertook to enlighten him. "That where there is marriage without love, there will be love without marriage."
Coffen daubed at a smear of honey on his trouser leg. "Hmph, but not usually so close together. How'd the Bee find out about it, I wonder. And what real evidence does he have to back it up?"
"Letters," Byron said. "Mrs. Webber has been married twice. After her first husband died, she met Harold Webber at Brighton and became engaged to him. She didn't love him but she needed a home. She was in love with another fellow, whose name I haven't heard yet, but he was even poorer than she was, so they couldn't get married. They exchanged love letters, which she foolishly kept. Lady Jergen wants me to call on her, on Mrs. Webber I mean. I hoped you might accompany me, Prance.
"Delighted," Prance said at once. He took Petruchio from Byron and sat him on his blue cushion, which he promptly began shredding with his sharp claws.
Corinne felt a strong urge to go with them but knew Luten would dislike her running around in Byron's company.
"We'll all go," Coffen said, rising.
"We can hardly all go storming in," Corinne pointed out.
"You can stay home if you want to," was Coffen's reply.
"We'll tell you all about it later," Prance said to her and before she could make up her mind, they were off, leaving her little choice but to go home.
She was extremely vexed as she sat, frowning into the grate, wishing she were off with them on this new chase. Why should she have to be left out, just because Byron was along? Byron had no objection to her company. He had looked disappointed that she wasn't going with them. Good gracious, they—especially Luten—were as bad as the elder Mrs. Webber, suspecting sexual intrigue every time she was in the same room as Byron. Next time she would go with them, and let Mrs. Grundy howl.
"We're to meet Mrs. Webber at Adele's house," Byron explained as the carriage rattled over the cobblestones, north past the polite mansions of Davies Street to the familiar house on Grosvenor Square, where they were as welcome as spring after a long winter.
"Dear Byron! I knew we might depend on you," Lady Jergen cried and presented the group to Mrs. Webber.
"So kind of you to come," Mrs. Webber said, rising with both arms outstretched to greet them, and a brave smile fighting to overcome grief.
Both Byron and Prance had met the lady before. It was Coffen who was seeing her for the first time who subjected her to a critical examination. "Showoff' was his first impression. It was the way she extended her arms, like an actor who wanted to take up more than his share of the stage, that caused the impression. Belle Bynton, an ingénue at Covent Garden, put him on to that stunt. He noticed Prance, another showoff, did it sometimes as well. Luten, on the other hand, who had something to show off about, seldom raised either his arms or his voice. He acted stiff as a rod, like a decent Englishman.
As he took a closer look at Mrs. Webber, the word "churchy" came to mind due to the prissy way she held her lips. This was fast followed by "dowdy," neither one of which he associated with showing off, except for an occasional preacher. No lady with the slightest interest in causing a stir would be caught dead in that drab, dove grey gown she had on. Despite both the lips and the grey gown, he decided she was really quite pretty, you just wouldn't notice it to look at her. Nice glossy brown hair that you couldn't appreciate under that plain round bonnet without either a flower or a feather to dress it up. And a good pair of brown eyes to go with it.
She put a hand on either cheek and said in a strangled voice that took him right back to his first impression, "I'm so ashamed of myself. I feel such a Jezebel! I should never have done it." She turned a tearful gaze on Lord Byron and said in a voice trembling like an Italian tenor, "But if you have ever loved, Lord Byron, you will understand my feelings."
Coffen watched Prance bridle up when she left him out of that speech. And with some reason. After all, it was the Berkeley Brigade that was to pull her chestnuts from the fire. But that was the way with the ladies. No other man existed when Byron was in the room. He was like a flame. They couldn't take their eyes off him.
"I not only understand, Madam, I approve," Byron replied, as he led her back to the sofa. "But then I've lived in other moral climes than England, climes where love is recognized as a virtue, and such things as enforced chastity are not taken for granted."
Coffen expected that Mrs. Webber's churchy lips would pinch at this unchristian view, but she just smiled that simple smile all the ladies wore when Byron was spouting his immoralities. He could be telling her he had a cloven hoof under that built-up shoe of his and she'd go right on smiling like a moonling.
The gentlemen were seated, tea was poured and they settled in to discuss the matter. With shy looks and much lip biting and hand wringing, Mrs. Webber told her story, which left Coffen free to indulge in two pieces of dandy gingerbread.
"After my first husband died," she began, "many years ago when I was just two and twenty, I felt my life was over. For twelve months I neither went out nor saw company. I scarcely bothered to eat. In fact I became so frail that my aunt, with whom I was living, called a doctor." A faraway look came into her eyes. "That was how I met Andrew Hale," she said. "He was a new young doctor in Brighton at that time. He was a natural healer. He didn't pamper or cosset me. He
ordered
me to eat. It was just what I needed—a firm hand.
"And he made me go out for drives and walks. He–he accompanied me to make sure I went,” she said shyly. "That is how it began, all innocently. He had his way to make in the world and I had no dowry to speak of. Mr. Webber had a summer cottage at Brighton. He saw me at a small private party and fell in love with me. I'm sure I don't know what he saw in me! But he began to call and before I returned to London, he offered for me."
Tears pooled in her fine eyes and her voice sank to a whisper. "It was the hardest decision I ever had to make. The bit of money my first husband left me was nearly gone. The aunt I was living with couldn't afford to keep me. I had no skills to earn my living. Andrew wanted to marry me, but he was living in two rooms under the eaves in a little cottage. It was impossible! I
had
to accept Mr. Webber's offer, which I did, for Andrew's sake as well as my own. But the night before I left Brighton for London to be married I—”
Her head fell to her chest and she took a deep breath before lifting her head and looking her listeners–really Lord Byron–in the eye before continuing. "I spent that night with Andrew in a small inn just outside Brighton," she said in a choked whisper. "And I lied about it! I told my aunt I was leaving for London a day earlier than I really was. I felt I deserved that one night of happiness if I had to live the rest of my life with a man I didn't love, and without Andrew. Andrew was gone when I awoke in the morning. He had left a letter–such a lovely letter–on the pillow for me, along with one red rose. I never saw him again. I heard later from my aunt that he had returned to Scotland. All I had left of him was my poor faded rose and those letters." A silent tear trickled unheeded down her cheek as she gazed off into the distance, remembering.
Prance, who was easily moved, daubed at his moist eyes. Lady Jergen was sniffling into a handkerchief and Byron looked entirely sympathetic. Coffen felt an urge to clap but suppressed it.
"If you don't mind my asking, Mrs. Webber," he said, "how did it come you and Doctor Hale was writing each other letters when you both lived in Brighton and met often?"
"They were mostly just notes, arranging visits, you know, to meet at such and such a place, but expressed somewhat warmly. It was only his last letter that gives my sin away. I should have burned it, of course, but how could I?" Coffen recognized a rhetorical question and didn't interrupt her. "It was my dearest possession."
He nodded. "I can see you'd want to keep it. How long ago did you lose it?"
"Oh, it was a few years," she said vaguely. "Two, three—I can't be sure. Time has little meaning to me now."
"How did it happen?"
"I was traveling with my mama-in-law. My room was broken into when we were at Bath. We were on our way to visit friends in the Cotswolds. We actually remained in Bath a week with Webber's sister. We wouldn't have been at the inn if our carriage hadn't broken down outside of Bath. That was late at night, so we had to put up at an inn until morning."