Banquet of Lies Page 6

  He was either gone or crouched down, waiting for Jonathan to come to him.

  Jonathan leaned down to finger the knife in his boot, but a shout from behind him made him step back into the garden, then swing the door shut and lock it. He turned to face a man coming toward him with a lantern raised high.

  “Who is it?” The voice was firm and a little sharp.

  “Lord Aldridge, from Aldridge House. I noticed a burglar in your house. But he’s got away.”

  “Lord Aldridge?” The voice quavered a little. “A burglar, you say?” He lowered the lantern, and Jonathan looked into a wrinkled face that belied the sharp strength of the man’s voice.

  “I was passing by on my way home and saw a lantern in the window. I thought Barrington was away but knocked in case he was back. The light went out and I heard running, and then the window opened on the side. I gave chase, but he was too quick.”

  “I heard the knock.” The man peered more closely at Jonathan. “I came to see what was what. Escape through there, did he?” He indicated the back garden door.

  Jonathan nodded. “Shall we check that all is well in the house? I don’t think he had anything in his hands, or if he did, it was small.”

  “I’m Jones, your lordship. Me wife ’n’ me look after the place, with a girl to do the heavy work me wife can’t do no more.”

  Jonathan looked up at the hulking building, at least double the size of Aldridge House. “That’s a lot of house for so few.”

  “All closed up.” Jones shrugged. “If we need something doing, we call people in, but Sir Barrington hasn’t been back for near two years. Never even met him, meself. When old Simons, their butler, passed on, the other staff moved on to other jobs. Couldn’t bear to stay, ’specially with the house empty. So Sir Barrington’s solicitors appointed me ’n’ Mary to take it on.”

  They were back at the front door, which stood open, and Jones went first, lantern high.

  “Two rooms down to the right, I think. That’s where it seemed the light was coming from,” Jonathan said.

  The room was a parlor or drawing room of some kind. Everything was covered in dust sheets, except for a small, delicate Sheraton writing desk. It was open, and papers were scattered around the floor.

  Jones put the lantern down on top of it and stared. “There ain’t nothing valuable in there; it’s just the post that comes in for Sir Barrington. His solicitor picks it up once a week. I put it in this desk meself. If Mr. Greenway thinks it’s not important enough to forward on to Sir Barrington or isn’t summat for him to deal with, it gets left in there.”

  “When did Mr. Greenway last come to collect the post?”

  “Yesterday mornin’. And there ain’t been any new post since then.”

  Fortunate. Very fortunate.

  “Would you like me to let the authorities know about this, Jones? Or inform Mr. Greenway, so that he can take it further?”

  “If you would, your lordship.” Jones didn’t try to hide the relief in his tone.

  They searched the ground floor for open windows. Only the one the thief had climbed out of was open, and it had clearly been jimmied with the crowbar that lay abandoned inside the room.

  With no choice but to leave it for the next day, Jones locked the room behind them and led Jonathan back to the front door. “I’ll have the carpenters in in th’ mornin’. Have them look at all th’ windows, make sure they’re all sturdy.”

  Jonathan gave a nod and walked home. He’d thought at first it might have been Giselle Barrington in the house, but the person running across the garden had definitely been a man.

  Was someone looking through Barrington’s correspondence for evidence of where she was? Or when she planned to return?

  Or were they hoping Barrington or his daughter might have posted the tsar’s document to Goldfern?

  His front door swung open before he reached it, and Edgars was there to take his coat.

  “Good evening, sir.”

  He gave a nod. “All well here?”

  Edgars hesitated a moment. “All fine, my lord.”

  Jonathan turned sharply. “What is it?”

  Edgars looked away, uncomfortable. “Just the new cook, acting a bit strange.”

  “Strange? How?”

  Edgars looked down at his shoes, a red flush on his cheeks. “She went out, sir, and then came flying back in as if the devil himself were after her. Said she thought someone was following her.”

  Jonathan looked toward the servants’ staircase. “I wonder . . . I saw a burglar over at the Goldfern place. He got away. I wonder if our cook saw him?”

  “A burglar?” Edgars raised his head. “She did seem very frightened, my lord. Perhaps she was right to be.” He looked at the stairway as well.

  “Call her up to the library if you will, Edgars. I’m going to Barrington’s solicitor tomorrow, and I might as well have all the information I can about the matter.”

  “Certainly, my lord.” Edgars looked as if he were being forced to swallow a frog.

  “What is it?” Jonathan tried to keep the irritation from his voice.

  Edgars looked down the stairs again and fidgeted in place.

  He was frightened of her! Or at least nervous around her. In that respect, his new cook was like every other cook he’d ever had.

  “I think she’s gone to bed,” Edgars said.

  “Knock softly. If she doesn’t answer, we’ll leave it for tomorrow.”

  What had Madame Levéel done to his usually forceful butler to leave him as prickly as a drenched cat? Jonathan wondered if Edgars would actually knock, or pretend he had and say she hadn’t responded.

  He walked to the library and stood by the fire, looking into the flames and soaking up their warmth.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  So Edgars had found some mettle after all. Jonathan turned, a faint sense of wrongness he couldn’t pin down chiming in his head. But his brain stopped working entirely when he saw her.

  Madame Levéel stood in the doorway, wrapped in a silk and lace confection like a beautiful bonbon from one of the finest confectioners in London.

  She had clearly been either about to go to bed or called from her bed, but she didn’t seem annoyed. Her face was curiously blank, in fact, as if she were controlling some strong emotion.

  “Sorry to have disturbed you,” he finally managed, after she’d stared at him for half a minute, waiting. “Edgars said you thought you were followed by someone when you were out earlier, and I caught a burglar in the act at Goldfern, the house a few doors down. I just wanted to know if you had a good look at your man?”

  She went white. Quite, quite white, and her eyes widened. She lifted a hand and scrabbled it against the doorway until she had herself steady. “You caught a burglar at Goldfern?” Her voice was faint.

  He frowned, the spell her appearance had cast over him receding a little. He noticed now that she looked extremely tired, with dark shadows under her eyes.

  “I didn’t lay hands on him, if that’s what you mean. I chased him down but he got away. Ran out through the door in the back garden wall, out into the alleyway behind.”

  “Into the shadows,” she said, her voice quiet and a little strange.

  He cleared his throat. “Did you see someone?”

  She shook her head. “It was just a feeling, like I told Edgars. A feeling of being watched, followed. I didn’t see anyone.” She drew her dressing gown close around her. “I was frightened, but it was all in my imagination.”

  He stared her, and she eventually dropped her eyes and pulled the robe even tighter about her, pulling it taut over every line and curve in her body.

  She most likely thought she was preserving her modesty. He would have laughed, but he didn’t think he was capable of it at the moment.

  “It’s possible he had an accomplice, waiting for him, or he was waiting in the alley for you to leave before he broke in.” The thought of her being so vulnerable made him a little sick. />
  “An accomplice?” She bowed her head completely and closed her eyes, and then she shivered. Lifted her face to his. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any help.”

  Without waiting for a dismissal, she turned and stumbled away, as if the thought that there could have been a real basis for her fears had stripped her of all proper decorum.

  And as he watched her go, two things occurred him. The first was to wonder how and why a cook was wearing silk and lace nightclothes, and the second was the realization of what had appeared wrong when she first addressed him.

  Most servants called him “my lord” automatically.

  Madame Levéel had not.

  Perhaps it was because she was French, but that didn’t ring true. If she’d used the equivalent French term, that would have been enough—but she’d addressed him as an equal. And now that he came to think of it, she had left him the same way.

  9

  She was so tired, she swayed like a drunk in the dawn light that found its way through the clouds and fell through the high kitchen windows. It was almost too late to go to the early morning market, but she’d have to take her chances and find whatever was left of the good produce.

  Mavis had stoked the stove and put a kettle on, and Gigi stumbled around the kitchen looking for coffee so she’d at least be half-awake when she bargained with the traders.

  A shadow man with a lantern had prowled Goldfern in her dreams. And according to Lord Aldridge, he had run straight for the gate she’d been crouched above, only minutes after she’d left.

  It was possible he’d gone over the wall shortly before she had herself, and while she sat on it watching the house, he’d been breaking in. The thought of how close she’d come to running straight into him had fear holding her close with hoary, freezing hands.

  And then Aldridge added terror to fear, with his mention of an accomplice. If someone had watched her climb the wall, then followed her back to Aldridge House afterward, she was as good as dead.

  The shadow man had used an accomplice at Tessin Palace to draw her father out. It wasn’t inconceivable he would use one here. Her hands tightened on the cupboard door she was opening, and she wanted to withdraw to her room, cover her head with the blankets and stay there until everything went away.

  She could only hope the sense she’d had of malevolent eyes on her in the alley was just in her mind. Some kind of reaction to her memories of the night her father was killed.

  She stared into the cupboard, blinked, and reached for a hessian sack of beans with an exclamation of delight, lifting out the coffee in triumph.

  She sniffed it.

  What little smell there was was moldy, and she was horrified to find tears suddenly in her eyes.

  A headache beat a steady rhythm in her head, and she stood with the bag in hand, trying to get herself under control. She wanted a cup of coffee, needed one, but a bad cup was worse than no cup at all.

  “What’s that?” Edgars stepped out of his rooms so quietly she almost dropped the bag.

  “Coffee beans.” She massaged her temple with stiff fingers. Perhaps she should just get a fresh bag at the market.

  “Yours?” Edgars sounded surprised.

  “No. I found them in the pantry, but they’re too old to use.” Her voice was hoarse, as if she had a cold.

  He shrugged. “His lordship doesn’t take coffee at home; he gets it when he’s out. No need to get any more.”

  Gigi lifted her head sharply, her temper flaring. “There is every need to get more.” She tossed the beans on the table. “Whether his lordship takes coffee at home or not, I require it. In my cooking, at times, but also to drink. Especially if I am to get up at dawn to go to the markets.” She picked up the cooling cup of tea Mavis had made her, took a sip, and shuddered.

  It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t coffee.

  She put it back down and stepped away from it.

  “I’ll ask his lordship if he will allow it.” Edgars pursed his lips, and she saw something in the way he did it—an edge of power, being used for its own sake.

  From the corner of her eye, she noticed Iris coming down the stairs. She ignored her and stared straight at Edgars. There was too much beating at her, and coffee was the last straw. Coffee, and Edgars’ attempts to put her in her place. She would show him her place, all right.

  “I will get the coffee now when I’m at the market, Mr. Edgars, as part of the household shopping. And you are welcome to tell his lordship all about it. If Lord Aldridge cannot afford to let his cook drink coffee if she wants to, or if he is so petty as to not allow anyone in his house to drink something he doesn’t wish to drink, even though it will not affect him in the slightest, then he has hired the wrong cook and I will give my notice immediately. You can hurry along and tell him at your earliest convenience—or even better, I’ll do it myself.” She was breathing in sharp, quick pants.

  It was insupportable.

  Some people had to live with this! Had to take it, too, because they couldn’t simply walk away from their jobs. They needed them.

  And so did she, she remembered belatedly. Where else would she find a place so well situated to watch Goldfern?

  No matter. She forced herself to keep her rigid posture. If she couldn’t drink coffee in this house, she would rather make another plan.

  It wasn’t about the coffee, anyway. It was about egos and control.

  She glared at Edgars and took up the four baskets she’d set on the table. “Come, Iris, we’re late already.” She held two of the baskets out to the maid.

  Iris came past Edgars warily and took them, her eyes on her hands, rather than on either of the fighters in the ring.

  Gigi turned on her heel and marched up the stairs, fought the key a moment before it gave.

  As she held the door for Iris she looked back down on Edgars, who stood exactly in the same spot, his face white with a small red mark on each high cheekbone, as if he’d been slapped twice.

  Forcing herself calmer with a deep breath, Gigi closed the door carefully and took the alley down to Chapel Street. Their destination was in the opposite direction from Goldfern, but she couldn’t resist a quick look in its direction.

  A man walked past it, his head turned to the house, his back to her, in the clothes of a well-heeled member of the nobility. In this area it was a common sight, except for the extremely early time of day.

  Returning home after a night in the gaming hells or playing cards at his club?

  “Have you seen that man before?” Gigi asked, and Iris, who was facing the other way, turned on her heel and squinted in the dawn light.

  “Can’t say I ’ave. Can only see his back, and I don’t notice the nobs if I can help it.”

  Gigi stared after him, looking for anything familiar about him, and as if he could feel their eyes on him, he turned and stared back for a moment, then continued on his way.

  She caught the flash of a cravat, blue as a duck’s egg, and a black or very dark blue jacket, but that was all.

  Was it her imagination or did he pick up his pace?

  He could be the shadow man.

  He was the same general height, with hard, sharp features, but even this very quick glimpse of his face was more than she’d seen of the shadow man at Tessin Palace.

  She started down the street with Iris beside her, and only looked over her shoulder again as they turned left onto South Audley.

  The man was standing at the very far end of Chapel Street, just a tiny figure in the distance. Watching them.

  Fear pricked her neck and arms with cold, sharp needles, and she shivered.

  Iris kept her eyes on the street as they walked, her arms folded across her chest so she could tuck her hands under her armpits to keep them warm. “You put Edgars in his place, right and proper.”

  She didn’t say it in a way that gave Gigi the impression she approved.

  Gigi narrowed her eyes. The way Edgars had spoken to her, she should have demanded an apology from him, as well a
s putting him in his place.

  That, and trying to deny her coffee, was a declaration of war.

  “You’ve put him in a spot now. He either has to go to Lord Aldridge and tell him about your threatening to give notice, or he has to give you your way. And as he knows his lordship wouldn’t mind at all if you wanted coffee, and would love a cup at home if someone could make it properly, he looks a fool either way.”

  “Why did he pick a fight over it, then?” Gigi was outraged all over again.

  Iris sighed. “I don’t know. I think it’s ’cause he loses his head sometimes. Gets so excited about where he’s at, he can’t help it.” It was as if the thought dragged her down.

  “If he’s going to play the fool, he has to accept he’ll sometimes end up looking the fool.” Gigi knew her voice came out hard, unbending.

  “He’s got away with it since Cook left. ’Cause you’re younger ’n’ him, and a woman, maybe he thought he could best you.” She kicked a small stone out of her path. “You have to understand, he didn’t grow up with much. ’Bout the same as Mavis, or maybe worse. That’s why he hired her on, I think. Aldridge House is the only place he’s ever worked. Came as a stable boy, moved up to footman, and now he’s butler. Pulled himself up by his bootstraps, ’e ’as.”

  Gigi looked at Iris, but her head was bowed and her cheeks were high with color. There was more to the story than this.

  “You know a lot about him,” she said, taking her gaze off Iris in the hope she would talk more easily.

  “Grew up near him. We played together as children. Got a job when he was footman, as the scullery maid.”

  And he’d been playing high and mighty ever since, Gigi guessed, with enough flashes of the old Edgars to keep her hoping he’d change.

  “You’ve moved up the ranks, too, then.” Gigi paused. “And it hasn’t gone to your head.”

  Iris shrugged. “He took Mavis in. He’s not that far gone.”

  That was true. There were rarely absolutely black villains in real life, her father was fond of saying. They were found in fairy tales to illustrate evil clearly, but most villains were colored in shades of gray.