LITMIR.BIZ

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never meant to see a man, just a long, cold winter.”

      “So you did sneak into her room and look in her drawers,” Daphne said, slowly catching up.

      “Looked at ’em, picked ’em up and inspected ’em,” Fanny said (as Emma gave in and began laughing), then downed the remainder of her port. “I had so hoped she’d been a streetwalker, even a kept woman. But she’s a demned seamstress, which makes her about as interesting as the mud fence she so greatly resembles. But I have hopes yet for Sir Edgar. There’s something about that man that screams out to be investigated.”

      Emma sobered. “Grandmama, you will not be looking at his drawers, understand? I won’t have it.”

      “And I’m not interested in his drawers. He’s older than dirt,” Fanny shot back. “I’ve got bigger fish to fry, gel. I just want to know our fellow tenants. Or are you looking to get murdered in your bed?”

      Emma sighed in the midst of picking up shards of very fine china cup and looked to her mother, who was going rather pale. “She doesn’t really mean that, Mama.”

      “Yes, she does,” Fanny said, winking at her granddaughter. “There we’d be, dreaming sweet dreams, and bam, eternal rest, with sewing scissors sticking out from between our ribs. Or maybe a pillow over our heads, pressed there by Sir Edgar, who is really a bloody murderer who, even as we lay there, cold and dead as stones, spends the rest of the night going through our drawers.”

      “She doesn’t really mean that, either, Mama,” Emma said as Daphne clutched an embroidered silk pillow to her ample bosom. “Grandmama, you’re impossible.”

      “And I pride myself on it,” Fanny said, standing up to go refill her glass. “Except, of course, you’re so easy, Daphne. I really wish you’d give me more incentive to tease you. But, then, I’ve got other fish to fry here in London, don’t I? And them I’ll tease to much better effect.”

      Emma laid the pieces of broken china on the tea tray and sat back once more, to stare in her grandmother’s direction. “What are you planning, Grandmama? We’ve got some funds left, but probably not enough to bribe your way out of the local guardhouse. And, come to think of it, we’d first need to take a family vote as to whether or not we’d wish to spend our last penny saving you. I’d consider that, Grandmama, as I know where my vote would go, and Cliff still hasn’t quite forgiven you for making him ride all the way here inside the coach with us.”

      “You should both thank me for that. You know what would have happened if he rode up with the coachman. He’d have found some way to take the ribbons, and we’d all be dead in a ditch right now.”

      “Dead, dead, dead,” Daphne lamented, still clutching the pillow. “Have you no other conversation today, Mother Clifford?”

      “I do, Daphne, but you don’t want to hear it. Now, Thornley told me that all social events have been postponed again because of this fog, which leaves us at loose ends this evening, again. I’m bored to flinders, frankly, so what I thought was that we could corner Sir Edgar, all three of us, and press him for a bit of his history. You know. Where he was born, who his father was, why he keeps several extremely large, heavy trunks hidden behind the locked door of his dressing room. I saw them go up the stairs when he arrived, but they’re sitting nowhere they can be seen. He has to have locked them up for a terrible reason.”

      “Let’s talk about locking you in your dressing room,” Emma said succinctly, ringing the small bell on the tea tray, at which time Thornley appeared in the doorway, just as if he’d been standing right outside all along, waiting for the summons…and hearing every word the ladies said.

      “You rang, Miss Clifford?” Thornley inquired, already picking up the tea tray, and not appearing at all surprised to see that one of the marquis’s priceless china cups was now in seven uneven pieces.

      “Yes, thank you, Thornley,” she said, laying her damp, tea-stained serviette on the tray. “I was wondering—” she looked straight into the man’s eyes “—do you happen to know the whereabouts of Mr. Clifford?”

      Thornley, eyes quickly averted, looking somewhere in the vicinity of the portrait of the late Marquis and several of his hounds that hung over the mantel, said, “I believe he is resting, Miss Clifford.”

      “He’s still in bed?” Emma sighed. “It’s nearly gone five, Thornley. What time did my brother get in this morning?”

      “I couldn’t really say, Miss Clifford,” Thornley said, still avoiding her gaze, even as she stood—which didn’t come close to putting her on eye level with the man, but she’d hoped to at least be able to read his expression.

      But Thornley had no expressions, other than Proper, and possibly, Prudent.

      “Very well, as I know he accompanied my brother, I’ll ask Riley,” Emma said, brushing past him as she headed for the stairs. She stopped, turned back toward the pair of sofas. “Mama? Do you have another penny?”

      “That won’t be necessary, Miss Clifford,” Thornley said stiffly. “Riley escorted Mr. Clifford to a…a sporting event last evening, and they returned here at approximately six this morning, Mr. Clifford rather the worse for wear. Riley has been reprimanded, Miss Clifford.”

      “A sporting event?” Fanny asked. “What was it? Mill? Cockfight? Oh, wait. A sporting event, you say, Thornley? Or a sporting house?”

      Emma watched as Thornley’s ears turned bright red. Poor fellow. He could keep his spine straight. His expression never betrayed what he might be thinking. And she hadn’t really needed to see his eyes. Those ears of his were a dead giveaway.

      “Ah!” Fanny crowed, punching a fist into the air. “Good for him, and about time, too!”

      Daphne, who had come within Ames Ace of swooning into the cushions at the thought of being murdered in her bed, now gave way to the blessed darkness that swam before her eyes.

      DARKNESS WOULD HAVE BEEN swimming in front of Morgan’s eyes, save for the fact that the fog wouldn’t let it. The entire countryside had turned a thick, ugly gray-yellow, slowing the progress of the pair of coaches to a crawl.

      They should have reached London hours ago, he knew, snapping shut his pocket watch after checking the time. He’d returned to the coach at the last posting inn, to rest Sampson, and because he did not much care for the feel of the gray-yellow damp on his face, but it was now past his usual dinnertime, and he was hungry. Damn early country hours, where he’d become accustomed to eating his main meal long before six.

      “We still should arrive before eight, don’t you think?” he asked a morose and rather pale-looking Wycliff, who didn’t seem quite at his best riding backward in the coach. “In plenty of time for supper.”

      “I…I really hadn’t thought much about…about food, my lord,” the valet choked out, somehow able to speak without really opening his teeth.

      “Really? And here I am, famished. As I recall the thing, Mrs. Timon always had a way with a capon. Gaston will be in charge of the kitchen while we’re there, but for the most part, Mrs. Timon does just fine. Except for the eel. Don’t care for eel, Wycliff,” Morgan said, watching the man closely.

      “I…I also don’t care for…for eel, my lord.”

      Morgan was being perverse, he knew it, but he had cause. Wycliff had made a cake of himself after departing that last posting inn, insisting almost to hysteria that the three harmless-looking farmers who had shared the common room with them were sure to follow the coaches, intent on slitting their throats.

      Morgan would consider a figurative crawl inside Wycliff’s head, just for a moment, to see where the man’s brainbox had been wound up incorrectly, except he’d first have to fight his way through the maggots that doubtless collected there.

      “No? Then, at last, we’re agreed on something. The thing about eel, Wycliff, is that rather rubbery texture when it isn’t cooked just right. Do you

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