Mrs Bishop came down carrying what looked like a bed robe, bundled Laura into it and took her upstairs. Perry slid the bottle back into a gap in the rack on the wall, dusted his hands off and quirked an eyebrow at Theo who was brushing cobwebs and frayed bits of sacking off his coat. ‘Fell over, did you?’
‘I know what it looks like, but – ’ But what? What in Heaven’s name am I going to do?
‘No need to explain matters to me, old man, I’m not her father.’
‘You’re the nearest thing she’s got to a brother,’ Theo retorted. ‘I don’t blame you for asking. I just wish I knew how to get out of this coil.’
‘You’ll think of something. After all, Crow gave you a vote of confidence the other night,’ Perry said, turning to climb back up. He sounded suspiciously as though he was laughing.
Oh yes, nothing funnier than a friend in love. If that is what this is… It has to be or otherwise why am I contemplating doing something utterly dishonourable by breaking a betrothal?
Whatever came over me? I must be mad. Laura washed as best she could, given that the fire under the boiler had gone out in all the excitement and the water was cold. You know perfectly well, her conscience scolded as she looked in the mirror to see how much damage snipping off locks of hair to tuck under Pitkin’s cap had done. Lust, that’s what it is. Desire, plain and simple. I can’t even tell myself it was love just now – I just wanted to be skin to skin with him. He’ll think you a hoyden, a hussy. A round-heeled woman, she added, heaping on the coals of fire. One who falls easily onto her back. He’ll offer me a carte blanche next, I suppose, unless he found me hopelessly gauche and inexperienced.
The sound of male laughter distracted her from the futile, miserable, thoughts. That wasn’t Perry or Theo. Had Mr Redfern called already? Then she recalled he had said someone else had arrived.
She checked over her appearance in the mirror, decided that looking like a Puritan on the way to a funeral was perhaps overdoing the reaction to Theo’s kisses, took off the plain fichu and threw her new Norwich shawl around her shoulders. Someone would have warned her if the visitors should be avoided, so it must be safe to venture out, and she couldn’t stay in here hiding her blushes for ever.
There were two strangers in the drawing room and, from the way everyone was behaving, they were old friends. She stopped in the doorway as they rose to their feet. One of the newcomers was a pale-skinned red-head with a sharp, intelligent face. Irish, she thought, from his colouring. Could this be the Duke of Calderbrook’s valet, Flynn? The other, dressed entirely in black with the exception of his shirt and neck cloth, was lean, tall, dark, with his hair clubbed back, emphasising the sharp bones and assessing eyes. Not the Duke, she was certain.
With all four men standing the room seemed to contain an excess of masculinity. Perry stepped forward and took her hand. ‘Come in, Laura, and meet Viscount Ravenlaw – Jared – and Michael Flynn, Calderbrook’s valet, right-hand man and the source of the best gossip in London. Gentlemen, Miss Darke.’
A valet sitting down with two viscounts and a baron? And one of the viscounts with a rapier propped against his chair? Her understanding of what happened in the world of the ton was clearly wide of the mark.
‘Gentlemen.’ She dropped a slight curtsey and took a seat in the semi-circle they had formed.
‘I wrote to Cal – that’s the Duke – to ask him about the Napoléon and whether he knew anything about gold and the French and instead of writing back he sent Flynn and Jared,’ Theo explained.
‘Cal is otherwise engaged making a spectacle of himself,’ Ravenlaw remarked, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back. He was possibly the most elegant man Laura had ever seen and, she suspected, one of the most dangerous.
‘Unkind,’ Flynn said with a grin. ‘Admittedly he’s fussing like a mother hen, but he is holding the basin and mopping the brow with admirable fortitude.’
‘Whose brow?’ Perry asked, looking baffled.
‘I suspect the Duchess is expecting a happy event,’ Laura suggested.
‘Exactly. No other woman has ever undergone this process, or so one would infer from Cal’s state of nerves. If I were Sophie I would have shot him by now, but then Her Grace is a highly superior female.’
‘She’s in love with him,’ Ravenlaw said. ‘Mystifying as that might seem to the rest of us. However, he did pull himself together enough to make some enquiries in government circles as soon as he got your letter, Theo, and he was sufficiently concerned to send the two of us instead of writing. This could be mere chance, a dropped foreign coin in the possession of a smuggler. Or it could be the clue that might solve a serious breach in the country’s security. Have you got the coin?’
‘In my strong box,’ Perry said, getting up.
‘Bring a magnifying glass if you have one,’ Ravenlaw called after him as he went out. ‘We need good light for this.’ He moved to the table in the window and took two small square envelopes from his inside breast pocket, shook a gold coin out of each and set them side by side on the table. One envelope was marked P, Laura saw, the other, L.
Perry came back and handed the Napoléon and a glass to the Viscount who studied it closely for a minute, then lifted each of the coins from the envelopes in turn and held them against the piece from the tomb. ‘Ah. Now this is what we hoped.’ He handed the glass to Laura. ‘Here is the coin you found. Now compare it to this one.’ He lifted the golden disc from the envelope labelled P. ‘Look at the side with the laurel wreath. Can you see any differences?’
Laura stared through the glass until her eyes watered. ‘No… Although this one – ours – has a little chip on one of the laurel leaves. See?’
‘That is not a chip. Look at this.’ He handed her the coin labelled L. ‘Keep the one from the tomb on the right so they are not confused. It is evidence.’
‘But this one has exactly the same fault. Look.’ She pushed them across the table towards Perry and Theo, keeping her right index finger on the one she had found.
‘You are right. The tip of one laurel leaf is missing.’
Ravenlaw took back the coins and slipped the ones he had brought into their envelopes. ‘I need you to write a statement of where this was found and when, sign it and seal it up wit
h the coin.’
‘Are you going to explain?’ Theo demanded as Perry went off to the study for the second time.