“Couldn’t get a word in edgewise, I suppose,” the valet said, shaking his head. “You’ve drying mud caked on the soles of your boots. I’ll have them, please.”
Grumbling under his breath, Val pushed himself upright and turned so that his legs hung over the edge of the bed. “Before you rail at me, there’s also a smudge on my left knee, rightly earned as I rescued a young princess.”
“Huzzah. And may I add it is an honor to be in your employ,” Piffkin commented as, with Valentine’s foot in his back to assist him, the boots were removed. “I’ll have the buckskins now, sir.”
Valentine complied, and was handed a dark blue silk banyan in return, tying it tightly about his waist. He did all of this without conscious thought. He’d been taking orders from Piffkin since he was in short coats, and some things shouldn’t change or else the entire world order could be turned upside-down. “Don’t you want to know why I was pouting?”
“You’re done, then? Good. I would imagine, since you were heading out to confront the suspicious governess, that you were met with failure and, worse, may have given yourself away in the process. Should I be packing, sir, or do you wish to dispatch Lord Mailer to his dark reward before we go? Your stiletto, sir,” he ended, handing over the blade that had been secured in a special sleeve inside the right boot. “I suggest a swift, straight cut across the windpipe, but from behind, please, as bloodstains are the very devil in the laundry.”
Valentine rewarded the valet with a lopsided grin. “You speak as if I go about routinely killing people.”
“No, sir. I speak as if certain you will be forced to dispatch at least one someone before this week is out. I doubt you’ll have a choice.”
“Peeking at my correspondence again? Because that’s pretty much what Simon told me I’d have to do. Rest assured, Piffkin, if that does prove to be the case, I won’t spend weeks agonizing over the deed. This is war.”
“More than war, Master Valentine. Hellfire.”
Valentine deposited his long body on what he hoped would prove a comfortable chair, and then raised his stockinged feet up onto the low table. “Is there anything you don’t know, Piffkin?”
“Yes, sir. It would appear I remain at a loss to know why Miss Marchant has so upset you.”
“I suppose I could quote Lord Mailer and say it’s because I suspect she may be smart. Because that’s certainly true. Smart. Too smart not to have noticed something strange is going on here, and too smart to attempt to deny she has some suspicions. On the other hand, she may also have some names for me, which would be an immense help.”
“How gratifying. However, I believe we’re still missing the bits that contributed to your pout, sir,” Piffkin said, taking a brush to the dried mud on his master’s buckskins.
“I’m getting to them, if you’ll allow me to first say I believe I shall never enter another greenhouse. The strangest things seem to happen in them.”
“You’re not dirty enough to have fallen into a pit.”
“There are pits and then there are pits. In this case I suppose you’d say a human pit.”
“You’re in danger of falling into Miss Marchant? That hardly seems proper, Master Valentine.”
“You’re such a wit, Piffkin,” Valentine said dully. “Consider her more of an enigma. I don’t think she just happened to find herself employed here. From what I deduced from Mailer, I’m not inclined to think there was an advertisement placed in the local or London newspapers. I believe she sought out a position here in particular. I think she’s come here with some motive of her own, showing up unbidden to worm her way in as governess to a pair of infants who have as much use for a governess as you have need of a comb.”
The valet raised a hand to the sleek, polished pate above his bushy brows. “I am experimenting with a new wax. However, it does, sadly, cost you one pound six per pot. Not an extremely large pot.”
“But worth every groat, I’m sure. I could probably read by the glow from your head in a full moon. Speaking of which—our Miss Marchant has confirmed my information that the Society have been gathering here during the full moon. She’s seen them, at least the ones who stay here at Fernwood. But I was forced to tell her more than I wished in my attempts to get what I thought was the truth from her, and now she refuses to leave, even after I handed her some rather unlovely information that would have had any reasonable woman hot-footedly racing for the nearest posting inn. I never should have said a word to her, not a single word.”
“You do at times reveal a penchant for needlessly complicating matters, Master Valentine.”
“Putting my foot in it, you mean. As I told her, it was the disguise, mostly, that steered me in the wrong direction, if I’m to have any excuse at all. She was shocked to hear what I had to say, genuinely shocked. But her reaction fell far short of what I would have expected. She already knew, or at least suspected something havey-cavey going on beneath that inquisitive little nose of hers. Now it’s left to me to learn why she’s here. Then I should be able to convince her to leave.”
“Would you go if someone asked you to leave, especially after you’d taken such pains to get here in the first place? You know, the way you have done?”
Valentine spared a moment to recall the warm, silky softness of Daisy’s ringlets against his hand. “She’s in the way, Piffkin.”
“Females are always in the way, it’s their nature. It’s more than that. You’re intrigued.”
“I don’t have the luxury to be intrigued, for God’s sake, or the possibility of being distracted while making certain she doesn’t get herself into trouble. As you so brilliantly pointed out, there could be bears.”
“So she goes.”
Valentine got to his feet. “So she goes, if I have to tie her up and personally toss her in the coach. I’ll have her taken to the Manor, where Kate and Simon can watch over her.”
“Until you have the leisure to be distracted,” Piffkin said, neatly catching the banyan Valentine tossed at him.
“Until the Society is exposed and destroyed. No matter why she’s here, her abrupt departure will be suspect and she could be marked for elimination.”
“Yes, of course. While I am already charged with removing her ladyship and the kiddies to the hideaway inn Twitchill and the others have adjourned to whenever you think it appropriate. Thus burdened, I couldn’t possibly take Miss Marchant along with us. Shame on me for thinking anything else.”
“Miss Marchant is quite concerned about her ladyship. Remember, I caught her out last evening, departing the woman’s chambers. Hardly the action of a governess. I believe Lady Caroline indulges in laudanum, or perhaps hides in it. Lord knows she doesn’t eat. She spent the entire meal yesterday variously staring at me or the wall.”
The wall. Just the one, when there were four to choose from, not to mention two gaudy chandeliers. Valentine closed his eyes, attempting to mentally reconstruct the Mailer dining room: sideboard, footman, door, bank of windows, footman, one of those depressing paintings of dead game, door, another sideboard, more windows, fireplace, painting above the fireplace.
Ah, yes, now he had it. The painting above the fireplace. Lady Caroline hadn’t been just idly staring, she had been attempting to send him a message. But why would she do that, if she believed he was about to become a member of the Society, either happily or as a result of some sort of blackmail, as Simon’s brother had been, to his damnation? Had she been trying to warn him away, or draw his attention? It would be a hell of a thing if she had seen through him when her husband had not.
“A young woman forced to seek the solace of opium. How very sad. Would you care for your breeches