Collins nodded.
“And Christopher is… well, you’ve met Christopher. Miss Fletcher wasn’t his type.”
Collins’s lips twitched, but he didn’t say anything.
“She absolved Lord St George of involvement,” I added. “He told me that he hasn’t had anything of that nature to do with herfor six months, and she confirmed it. She showed no outward sign of being pregnant, so whenever this happened, it was less than half a year ago.”
Collins nodded.
“Dominic Rivers is here, as I told you. He’s well known to this group, and provides them all with dope. I don’t know whether that includes things like pennyroyal, or if he sticks with cocaine and opium and the like, but it would be worth asking him about it. I also don’t know who invited him here. Lord St George said he hadn’t done, and I know that Christopher or I didn’t. I don’t think Francis or Constance knew who he was. He arrived with the Honorable Reginald Fish, so it might have been him.”
Collins scribbled it down. I took a breath and continued. “I know nothing about the Honorable Reggie. We met for the first time yesterday. He looked and sounded like the typical young man about town, and I have no reason to think he isn’t. He danced a dance with Cecily last evening, so I know they know one another, but beyond that I can’t tell you what their relationship might have been like.”
“But it’s possible he was the father of the child?”
“It’s possible from where I’m standing. It’s also possible that it was Dominic Rivers or Lord Geoffrey Marsden.”
Collins nodded. “Who else is here? There was another young gentleman, wasn’t there?”
“There were two,” I said. “The blond is theGraf von und zuNatterdorff?—”
“German.”
There had been no emotion in Collins’s voice, but I bristled nonetheless. “My cousin, as it happens. Or so he says.”
Collins didn’t comment, just waited with his pencil stub poised over the page of the notebook. When he didn’t say anything else, I continued grudgingly. “As far as I know, he’snever met Cecily before. As far as I know, he’s never met anyone here, except for me, Christopher, and Crispin.”
“Did Lord St George invite him?”
“I think Laetitia did,” I said. “I can’t imagine any world in which Crispin would have wanted Wolfgang here. They don’t get along.”
“But you can imagine why Miss Laetitia would have wanted that?”
I couldn’t, honestly. In her position, I would have done it to irritate Crispin, but there was no reason why Laetitia would have wanted to irritate her new fiancé, and it wasn’t as if she would have done it to do me any favors, either, since she and I don’t get along.
Besides, his being here was upsetting Francis, and apparently also Bilge Fortescue, so inviting him at all was a thorn in a lot of people’s sides.
“You’ll have to ask her,” I told Collins. “But that’s Wolfgang. The last gentleman in attendance—other than the Earl of Marsden—is Bilge Fortescue.”
Collins’s eyebrows rose as he wrote it down.
“William,” I corrected myself. “William Fortescue and his wife, Lady Serena. Apparently he’s nicknamed Bilge because he talks a lot of rubbish.”
“What information do you have about Mr. Fortescue?”
“Not much beyond what I’ve already told you. He and Francis went to Eton together. And then to France. He married Lady Serena a few years ago. My cousin didn’t go to the wedding, and I don’t imagine he has seen Bilge Fortescue in years. Mr. Fortescue was rude to Wolfgang when he and his wife first arrived, but so was Francis, so I can’t really complain about that, I suppose.”
“It’s natural,” Collins said absently, still writing, “for someone who served in the War.”
“I suppose. At any rate, that’s the whole group. Or the male half of it, anyway.”
“What about the female half?”
“There’s Constance Peckham and Laetitia Marsden. You know both of them. There’s me. There’s Bilge’s wife, Lady Serena. TherewasCecily Fletcher. And there’s Lady Violet Cummings and the—apparently—Honorable Olivia Barnsley. I’ve seen Violet Cummings before—I recognized her face in the ballroom yesterday—but I’ve never met Olivia Barnsley.”
“Can you tell me anything about either of them?”
“Olivia spent the evening with the Honorable Reggie,” I said, “or so Nellie told me. Lady Violet seems to be making up to Geoffrey Marsden.”
