When she had gone Luc sat down again, slumped against the back of the chair and reached for the champagne bottle. ‘You terrify me.’
‘And you terrify me.’ I poured more wine, keeping the bottle out of his reach when he immediately tried to take it over. ‘We have huge cultural differences, vast differences in how we see the world. I don’t want to worry you or hurt you or confuse you and I know you feel the same about me.’ We looked at each other in silence for a while, then I pushed one of the platters towards him. ‘Have a cheese puff, in the absence of chocolate they do help.’
He took two, chewed, nodded. ‘I must set Garrick on to stealing the recipe. Why did you confide in Lady Turnham?’
‘Because I need help with the ladies – I don’t know them well enough to ask intimate questions. And she saw the knife Garrick gave me, it fell out when I took out my handkerchief, so I needed a reason for carrying it. She knows I had some involvement with the cases – everyone does after the newspaper reported on the inquests. She doesn’t know Coates’s secret or that James knew him as a friend. And she’s brigh
t and amusing and independent.’
I wanted to reach out across the table and take his hand but I knew I couldn’t, not in the middle of this throng of people. ‘Are we all right now, you and me?’
‘Yes.’ Luc smiled. ‘Let’s go and find out what James has found out. If he’s simmered down enough to have done any investigating, that is.’
‘Oh Lord – we should be watching his back as well and you got distracted by my problems.’
‘He’s over there.’ Luc nodded to where a group were lounging on the stone rim of a large ornamental pool. ‘He’s found some of Sir Thomas Reece’s young men. And there’s Elliott Reece.’ He was halfway out of his seat before I could grab his arm.
‘Don’t go over there looking like murder. He doesn’t know James has anything to do with me. Or you, come to that.’
‘True. But I want to hear what he says. If we walk around the lawn that way we can get close to James and you will be hidden by that urn on the stand, the one with the seat next to it.’
The seat was empty and I saw many of the ladies around the garden getting to their feet and making for a marquee at the far end. The sound of a string ensemble tuning up drifted towards us. Many of the younger men, and certainly the group around the pool, took no notice.
We took our refilled glasses with us and drifted casually past flowerbeds and knots of guests, many of whom greeted Lucian. He acknowledged them but didn’t stop or introduce me and we arrived at the urn before anyone took the cast iron seat next to it. The urn was vast, the kind I remembered seeing at Versailles, and it had been planted with ivy that cascaded down in great sprays that shielded me from the men just a few feet away but allowed me to hear and see them through the foliage.
Luc sauntered round and leaned his hip on the stone surround next to James. I saw him say something in his brother’s ear and James half-turned and smiled in my direction.
The four men nearest me were talking about racing, arguing about blood lines until my eyes crossed with boredom. The disagreement was fuelled by the wine they were sharing from two bottles and their voices were loud enough to prevent me hearing what was being said by the main group where Reece, Luc and James were.
I almost slumped back in the seat in disgust, then I remembered my training and concentrated on studying the body language of the larger group. They were clearly comfortable together and they had absorbed the brothers without any sideways glances or signs that they were guarding their words. Two were chatting easily to James, another was speaking to Luc and seemed to be reminding him that they had met on some previous occasion.
The rest – I counted eight – included Reece who was holding forth on something, presumably throwing his weight about in an effort to recover his self-esteem. I was pleased to see that there was a grass stain on his beautiful cream-coloured pantaloons from where I had decked him. The men around him were holding their own in the discussion, I thought, not apparently cowed by the boss’s nephew.
Luc glanced across the lawn and I saw he was watching the Comte de Hautmont strolling towards them. Then the others became aware of his approach too and I was reminded of a pack of dogs spotting another hound they knew but were wary of. He’s French, I reminded myself, and they are the group responsible for intelligence. Are they as suspicious of him as I am?
Then I saw Elliott Reece’s face and thought, Is my enemy’s enemy my friend? Because if so, I’m on de Hautmont’s side. Which was irrational and dangerous thinking. Elliott was a scumbag, but that didn’t mean that the Count was on the side of the angels just because he didn’t like him.
The Count acknowledged the larger group with an elegant lift of his hat and joined the four nearer me. They seemed to accept him happily enough, drawing him into the dispute over which of two stallions was going to produce the better progeny. I watched him and, over his shoulder, the sour expression on Elliott Reece’s face, then jumped when the Frenchman looked directly at me and dropped one eyelid in a slow wink.
I couldn’t help it, I grinned back. Suspicious I might be, but the man had style. And charm. But a successful spy wouldn’t creep around with a repellent expression and wearing a long black cloak. Style and charm were perfectly compatible with espionage. But for which side? I wondered suddenly, now thoroughly confused about what I thought of the Count.
‘You’re not allowing the froggy boy-lover into your syndicate I hope, Smithson.’ Reece’s voice was so close that I jumped. For a moment I was distracted by the discovery that calling Frenchmen “frogs” went back this far, then I took in the full import of the insult. Reece was saying that the Count was gay? Was my gaydar that out of tune?
de Hautmont turned. ‘I take exception to your statement that I am a lover of boys, Reece.’ He sounded quite calm and very dangerous under it.
‘Oh, I apologise unreservedly. I completely acquit you of buggering boys. A lover of men, I should have said.’
From the expressions on the faces around him I could see that Reece had gone far too far, that his colleagues were appalled. Several of them stepped back, distancing themselves from him, and I saw the realisation dawn that he’d gone out on a limb far too fragile to support him.
I felt a flicker of understanding. I had humiliated him in front of a witness and now, with what he thought of his pack around him, he had lashed out at the outsider to make himself feel big.
‘You will withdraw that remark and apologise, Reece,’ the Count said.
Reece had gone pale, but he shook his head. ‘Why should I do that?’ My slight sympathy faded. He had neither the grace nor the wit to apologise.
‘Then you will name your friends, Monsieur.’ The Count’s accent had become stronger, the only outward sign of his anger.
The group around Reece drew back even further except one young man who went to his side and began to whisper urgently in his ear.