“Makepeace,” he said. “On the morrow, find me a private investigator. I would like to know more about Lord Darling.”
“Who is Lord Darling?”
“That is exactly what I want to know. Is he some sort of a Corinthian? What is he doing in Lady Cordelia’s house? What are his intentions? And that fellow Chester too, for that matter. That rogue might spend his days screaming, but what is he screaming about? What arehisintentions? I want to get to the bottom of it all.”
Makepeace grabbed at a decanter from a passing tray and swigged from it. “Why not? I have been dropped into a waking nightmare—no reason I shan’t live in it forever. Of course we must have an investigation into the lady’s household.”
Having set the ball rolling regarding a private investigator to provide some answers, Percival sipped his wine.
He would have his answers.
But then, what would he do with the answers he got?
What would he do if in fact this Lord Darling was a very great Corinthian set on sweeping Lady Cordelia off her feet?
“Makepeace,” he said, eyeing his butler drinking straight from a decanter, “on the morrow, find me someone who can instruct me on sporting things.”
Makepeace’s arm suddenly went limp and the wine left in the decanter drained out of it. “Sporting things?” he whispered.
“Yes, sporting things,” Percival said. “By the by, you are ruining that carpet.”
*
Tattleton eyed thesleeping goat in the servants’ hall. Of course it would be exhausted after the energetic day it had.
When would that creature perceive that it was living in an earl’s house and not on a steep mountainside?
Only this afternoon, he’d found it balancing on top of the mantel in the drawing room. Quite predictably, everything that had been on that mantel had been scattered on the floor and broken.
How had it got up there?
“Yes, I know, Mr. Tattleton,” Mrs. Huffson said, “Lord Darling has caused a bit of chaos today.”
“A bit, you say?”
“I do think he is getting of an age where he might do very well in the garden.”
“We are in whole-hearted agreement on that point,” Tattleton said.
“Perhaps we have Charlie take him out for an hour on the morrow?”
“Or even longer,” Tattleton said. “Or forever, if it please God.”
“Now, I cannot think Lord Darling is the only thing that troubles you, Mr. Tattleton. You and I have been working together for these twenty years, I think I understand when you’ve something bothering you.”
“You know me too well, Mrs. Huffson,” Tattleton said, rather cheered that at least one person in the house perceived the weight on his shoulders.
“Out with it, then.”
“Did you know that Miss Mayton, Lady Cordelia, and Lady Juliet went to Lackington & Allen this afternoon?”
“That behemoth of a bookstore on Finsbury Square?”
“The very one,” Tattleton said. “Not only did they come back with a pile of books, but they have befriended Mr. Lackington and arranged to correspond with that gentleman. I was told by Miss Mayton that the letters would be addressed to her.”
“Goodness, why?”
“That is the question, is it not? What are they trying to learn that they could not find in the earl’s library and why do they need to be in contact with Mr. Lackington? And why did they steal up the stairs when they returned, taking the books up to Lady Cordelia’s room with no mention of what they were? Not one word to the earl at dinner.”
