‘Apparently,’ Luc said, with a sideways look at his brother and me.
‘We’ve been having a very exciting time,’ I told Garrick brightly as we made our way to another side street where a small boy was standing guard over our carriage.
From the way he grinned at Garrick and caught the coin he tossed him, he’d helped out before. ‘I watered ’em, Mr G and I chased off Piggy ’iggins and his bruvver what wanted to look inside.’
‘Good lad.’ A second coin went spinning into the grubby hand as James opened the carriage door and flipped down the step for me. Luc followed, then James got in and glared at him.
‘You’ve overdone it.’ He leaned forward and stared into Luc’s eyes. ‘They look all right. How’s the headache?’
Luc waved a hand dismissively and I resisted the urge to fuss over him. When I said nothing and didn’t attempt to wave smelling salts under his nose, or dab his forehead with a dainty handkerchief soaked in lavender water or whatever the typical Georgian female response was expected to be, he visibly relaxed.
‘I need to process what I’ve learned today,’ I said. ‘Can we wait until we get back before we talk about it?’ I saw them both mentally translating process then I closed my eyes and hoped that they would too. At least there was silence.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Two minutes.’ I peered into the vast iron frying pan that I’d found while Garrick was inspecting Luc’s head wound and James was, from the muffled curses filtering through from the bedchamber, holding his brother down.
I’d changed into my modern clothes, banged on the door and said I’d do dinner and had gone to forage. What I was cooking now that we’d all gathered in the kitchen was an un-Spanish Spanish omelette crossed with a frittata. I’d parboiled some potatoes while the men were otherwise engaged, fried them sliced along with onion, mushrooms and ham and now I was pouring in the beaten egg. There was no peppers or garlic but I’d found some interesting hard cheese to grate over the top and James was cutting slices off a vast crusty loaf while Garrick ground black pepper for me in a pestle and mortar.
Apparently Luc had slept for about twenty minutes and that seemed to have made him feel better, although not having a hat pressing on his battered head probably helped even more. When I spoke he got up, went into the scullery and came back with a jug of ale, then took the handle of the pan and heaved it into the middle of the table. ‘What do you call this?’
‘If I had sweet peppers and garlic and some spiced sausage I’d call it a Spanish omelette. As it is, call it the Lawrence Improv.’
‘I call it bl– very good,’ James said after two mouthfuls.
‘Tell them about Lady Turnham,’ Luc said. ‘Save Reece until later. I can’t talk about him and eat at the same time.’
I explained about what I’d told Chloe and why I’d confided in her. ‘And if she discovers anything she’ll let us know here.’
To my relief they seemed to accept that it was a good idea. ‘She doesn’t know we think the murder and the suicide are linked?’ Garrick asked.
‘She knows that they knew each other socially. And she knows that Talbot wasn’t interested in women – I told her we discovered that from his valet.’
James nodded, clearly taking the point that I’d kept him out of it. ‘Can we trust her?’
‘Her discretion, I’m sure of. And we can trust her to ask the right questions without giving anything away. She’s very bright and she’s so lively and interested in everything that I think the ladies she’s talking to won’t suspect her motives.’
We polished off the omelette, dumped the dishes – I was going to find out how much the maid was paid and insist she got a bonus – and retreated to the drawing room and the incident boards with a bottle of port, a bowl of nuts and the remains of the cheese.
To my surprise Luc poured wine all round then took his glass and a handful of walnut
s and hitched on hip on the table by the boards. ‘So, what do we know that is new?’
‘That Elliott Reece is a complete little toe-rag and that he likes women and hates the Count,’ I contributed.
Luc grinned at the description then sobered. ‘Sir Thomas is prepared to sacrifice family honour to keep his nephew safe.’
‘Coates was baited by Elliott Reece in the weeks before his death and his colleagues – Coates’s, that is – did wonder whether he was interested in changing sections and working on intelligence matters or whether his new interest in it was because of Reece,’ I said.
‘Or vice versa,’ James mused. ‘Reece gives George a hard time for whatever reason, George starts digging into something that is strictly speaking Reece’s province in order to… what? Show him as being incompetent?
‘On the other hand Elliott has a powerful patron in his uncle. George had no-one,’ James continued, arguing against himself. ‘It would take more than incompetence to oust Reece, that’s too easily covered up.’
‘What are his politics?’ I asked. ‘Reece’s, I mean.’
‘His uncle will be Tory, or at least a Whig with strong Tory leanings, like Portland, the Prime Minister, or he wouldn’t hold the position he has. I expect young Reece is the same. Why?’
‘He was needling me about my political views as an American, which I’d told him I was. He asked why I had come here when the English were my enemies and the French my natural allies. When I said I didn’t approve of the Terror and so forth he made some remark about democracy and people rising on merit, which I thought was pretty hypocritical, given his uncle no doubt got him his position.’