Trubshaw came in smelling of gourmet cat food (Salmon Purrfection, to be exact) and sat on my feet, grumbling. In his opinion I should have been admiring him, not the Earl of Radcliffe.
‘He’s worth looking at, Trubble.’ Even in the small area of the head and shoulders miniature it was easy to make out Lucian’s dark hair, cut short and tousled, his eyes sea-green and hooded, his straight nose and the mole by the corner of his mouth. He stared out of the frame with a deceptive arrogance and a completely accurate degree of smoulder.
Then the image began to blur and shift. I had enough presence of mind to let go of it and hit Save and Close before everything went black. I was airborne, tumbling in a strong wind, falling…
Last time I landed in a filthy back alley between King Street and Pall Mall, at night, in the middle of a fight. This was much better and no-one was trying to kill me either. Instead I landed on a large sofa in a bright, warm room and into the arms of the Honourable Mr James Franklin, Lucian’s lovely brother. He’s blond, but otherwise unmistakeably a Franklin, about twenty-five and gay. Being gay was not healthy in early nineteenth century England where you were labelled with any number of offensive names and risked penalties ranging from death on the scaffold to hours in the pillory (where you might get stoned to death if the crowd turned nasty). The noose and the pillory were unlikely for the brother of an aristocrat – the privileged usually managed to flee abroad – but it was a precarious, dangerous, existence.
I’m exceedingly fond of James and when his arms came round me I held tight and kissed him. I’d just time to register that his cheeks were damp when there was a roar from the doorway.
‘What the hell is going on?’ It was Luc. ‘Cassandra?’
‘Yes,’ I said, somewhat superfluously. I mean, how many twenty-six year old females in leggings, trainers and sloppy sweaters were there in Albany in 1807? Then I stopped being picky when he crashed to his knees in front of the sofa and yanked us both into his arms. As group hugs went it was pretty good.
‘Cassie.’ More hugs. ‘You got your bag?’
‘The day I landed back home. You picked the right legal firm. When are we now?’
‘The eleventh of May, same year. Just after breakfast. Are you all right?’ He kissed me, a somewhat distracted peck.
‘I am. What’s wrong here? James?’
‘We’ve just heard that a friend of mine, George Coates, has hanged himself.’ He scrubbed his hand across his eyes and sat back, jaw clenched.
‘Not a very close friend?’ Not a lover, I meant.
He understood. ‘No. But I liked him, knew him well. I don’t know how Philip is going to cope. Doctor Philip Talbot. They were… involved.’
‘How did you hear?’
‘His landlady sent a message. You only just caught us,’ Lucian said. ‘She sounds exceedingly distressed and we want to get there before she thinks to get the Constable in.’
Of course, they had to search, make sure there was nothing that would incriminate anyone else, hide the dead man’s secret life before his family discovered it. ‘Give me five minutes to change and I’ll come too. You still have my clothes?’
Luc stood up, reached for the bell pull, but before he got to it Garrick walked in. Lucian’s gentleman’s gentleman is – was – fortyish and stocky and imperturbable and the only other person in on the secret of who I was and when I’d come from.
‘Good morning, Miss Lawrence, I thought I heard your voice. Your garments are laid out in the spare bedchamber.’ To hear him I might just have popped out to the shops an hour ago.
‘Thank you, Garrick.’ I gave him a kiss on the cheek as I went past and he did colour up a little. I could never get him to call me Cassie, and I had no idea what his first name was – he would probably have fainted if I’d used it anyway – but we had bonded over joint cookery sessions before.
I scrambled out of my clothes and into my petticoats, stays (laced at the front) and gown. I kept my knickers, I don’t care if ladies of the time went commando, it’s draughty, although given the dire shortage of facilities for females to relieve themselves, it must have been handy. The narrow ankle boots were uncomfortably lacking in support and the laces were fiddly, but I remembered the knack of it, shook the contents of my bag into the reticule, jammed the bonnet on my hair (dark blonde and cropped into a style that was dashing but acceptable for 1807) and whisked out of the door. Garrick was waiting with a spencer for me to put on and we were ready to go.
‘We’ll take a hackney, it will attract less attention,’ Luc said as we went down the steps into the Albany courtyard at the pace considered acceptable for a lady. It amused me that he did not baulk at taking me to see a suicide but treated me like spun glass in the street. One part of his brain had grasped that I was some kind of law officer when I came from but the protective Georgian gentleman mode kicked in instinctively once I was in skirts.
In the space of a month I’d forgotten how everything smelt outside. The combination of coal smoke and horse dung and human waste and cooking and the sweat of crowded unwashed, un-deodorised, humanity was an assault on the senses. Men like Luc and James who followed Brummell’s habits of bathing and grooming were in a minority.
The hackney carriage stank of the last passenger who had apparently dined on raw onions so I deployed my handkerchief as a fan. ‘Is it far?’
‘No, he had a small apartment in Conduit Street, easily walkable if we weren’t in a hurry.’
The carriage lurched across Piccadilly, up Old Bond Street and into New Bond Street.
‘Tell me about George Coates,’ I said to James. He had himself under control now, grim-faced but dry-eyed.
‘About my age, works – worked – as a clerk in the Home Office and just been promoted, I think. Youngest son of a large family, Yorkshire minor gentry. He’s been close to Philip for almost a year, I’d say.’ His gaze went unfocused as he thought back. ‘He’s seemed tense recently but I’d put that down to pressure at work. George was always a hard worker, conscientious rather than brilliant – I cannot imagine what drove him to do this.’
‘If he did do it,’ I said, thinking aloud.
‘What?’