‘It had crossed our minds, yes.’
‘If he has been that from the beginning… Lucian, he was very convincing.’ She sounded distressed. ‘But then I suppose he would have to be, I suppose. Would the French really have played such a long game?’
‘Perhaps.’ I could almost hear Luc’s shrug. ‘But there he is in the Home Office where all the intelligence work within Britain is carried on.’
‘How very worrying. I begin to see why someone might want you dead – you are threatening anyone with something to hide in the Home Office, all the patients whose medical history is exceedingly sensitive and your brother’s intimate circle.’
‘I am afraid so, Mama.’
She sighed. ‘I had best get back to Charles and Matthew.’
‘I’ll come to see them this afternoon. You will take care, Mama?’
‘I will.’ The two pairs of feet moved close together, there was the sound of a cheek being kissed. ‘And where have you hidden your… cousin?’
‘I have taken a house for her in Hill Street.’
‘Respectable.’ Lady Radcliffe’s voice faded as she went out into the hall. ‘You will turn me grey before my time, wretched boy. Do eat a proper breakfast, you need it, it seems. No, do not try and see me to the carriage wearing that robe! Garrick will escort me.’
There was the sound of the front door and then Luc came in, walked towards me and, before I could wriggle out, collapsed onto the sofa.
I gave a yell as the webbing underneath sagged, pinning me to the floor and he rolled off so we lay almost nose to nose.
‘That,’ Luc said, ‘Was a very narrow escape.’ He moved backwards, held out a hand, hauled me out from under the furniture, then kissed me until I was glad we were already on the carpet because I was becoming dizzy.
‘Imagine if she’d found me looking like this,’ I said when we came up for air. ‘I’m not even dressed decently.’
‘Seems perfect to me.’ Luc, who had managed to lose his robe in the process, was sketchily clad in just a shirt and was happily discovering the benefits of an absence of corsets.
‘Mmm… Stop it.’ I wriggled free reluctantly and got up. ‘We will traumatise Garrick and anyway, we need breakfast.’
Luc stood up, giving me a tantalising glimpse of his muscles working. ‘I suppose so. Did you hear all that?’
‘Yes. Secret agents who are put in place years before they are needed are called sleepers, by the way.’
Garrick came back in as we were making ourselves comfortable at the kitchen table. ‘Her ladyship is using the closed carriage and has one of the under-keepers with a shotgun inside and both grooms and the coachman are armed,’ he reported.
I made coffee and toast while Garrick cooked bacon and eggs and Luc cut bread. ‘You’ll be with your children this afternoon so what shall I do?’ I asked him as I juggled hot toast from hand to hand on the way from the hearth to the table. ‘I could call on Chloe and see if she has gleaned any information.’
‘Garrick will drive you,’ Luc said. ‘Armed. We could all be targets.’
‘And I’ve got the knife you gave me,’ I remembered.
We ate and sent a message warning James that his mother was in Town and spent the rest of the morning tidying up the boards.
‘I think we can eliminate everyone from Coates’s building,’ Luc said, chewing the end of a pencil. ‘And I haven’t changed my mind about Talbot’s valet, I’m sure the poor devil didn’t kill him.’
‘I agree. So what does that leave us? The Home Office for Coates, the patients for Talbot and their private lives for both of them. What if Coates had been unfaithful, had ended that relationship but was threatened by the unknown lover? He kills himself, full of guilt, and the unknown man murders Talbot in a jealous rage.’
‘That does link the two deaths and I can’t believe they were coincidence,’ Luc mused. ‘The other way they could be linked is through the Home Office if someone was using their private lives to blackmail Coates. I cannot for the life of me see how Talbot’s medical practice might lead to Coates’s suicide.’
‘We are going to have to leave the infidelity and the jealous lover theory to James, aren’t we?’
Luc nodded. ‘I suppose we had better keep an open mind on the patients, especially in the light of those coded ledgers.’
‘At
least let’s see what Chloe and your mother come up with,’ I suggested. Something was still niggling at the back of my mind about Talbot’s patients, but I couldn’t for the life of me pin it down. ‘Now I am going to wash my hair and decide what to wear to make calls.’