I caught Chloe just tripping down the steps of her house, an outrageously pretty hat with a curling ostrich plume on her head.
‘Cassandra!’ She waved enthusiastically when she saw me, causing the maid behind her to wince visibly. ‘Miss Lawrence, were you coming to call? How lucky you caught me because I was just off to make calls myself and now you can come with me.’ She lowered her voice and murmured, ‘I intend visiting several of You Know Who’s patients.’
‘Thank you, but can we go in Lord Radcliffe’s carriage? Only he insists on his man Garrick accompanying me and I don’t think he wants me to take an open carriage either.’
Chloe seemed delighted by the hint of danger. ‘Excellent. Come along, Jones, we are taking Miss Lawrence’s carriage.’
We climbed in under Garrick’s disapproving stare. I could see he was not at all sure that Luc wanted me gadding about making calls on anyone other than Chloe but, on the other hand, knew perfectly well that he wasn’t going to be able to stop me.
Mrs Gladwin, the first lady we called on, was a disappointment. She was only too happy to discuss her health at great length, but the entire twenty minutes of our call was devoted to her singing the praises of the departed Doctor Talbot who had cured her of the terrible hot flushes she had endured.
‘And the tea was not even good,’ Chloe complained as Garrick escorted us back to the carriage, his eyes scanning the street in a way that made me distinctly jumpy. He only needed a black suit, a bulge under one arm and an earpiece to be a twenty-first century bodyguard.
‘Where to next, Lady Turnham?’
‘Lady Reece, Mount Street,’ she said.
‘Miss Lawrence, are you sure?’
‘Yes, thank you, Garrick.’ What on earth he thought was going to happen to me, even if Sir Thomas was behind all of this? Poisoned tea? Lethal muffins?
We passed two ladies leaving as we arrived and were ushered into a drawing room that had me blinking. It wasn’t that it was in poor taste, it was more that it was overpoweringly perfect, a cavern of lush formality in teal green, gold and polished woods.
Two footmen were replenishing the hot water urn as we walked in and another was setting a fresh platter of tiny cakes on the side table. Lady Reece and Annabelle were seated either side of the tea things looking as though an artist had just carefully posed them for their portrait. Annabelle looked pale and sulky.
I took a quick look at the clock. Half an hour was the maximum time for a so-called morning call and I had no idea how Chloe was going to open the subject of Talbot and extract anything meaningful in that time.
‘Lady Reece, Annabelle. Do allow me to introduce my friend, Miss Lawrence, all the way from Boston in America.’
‘I have met Miss Lawrence,’ Annabelle said, her voice colourless. ‘Good day.’
‘So pleased to meet you.’ Lady Reece extended her hand for the briefest of hand-shakes. ‘Do take a seat.’
‘Thank you. Yes, Miss Reece and I met at a dance class, although I am the merest beginner against her skill.’
That piece of crawling wrung a faint smile from Lady Reece. ‘Dear Annabelle is very accomplished in many things.’
‘I am introducing Miss Lawrence about,’ Chloe said. ‘The poor thing deserves some pleasant company – she had the most ghastly introduction to London – a murder no less.’
‘Doctor Talbot, I assume,’ Lady Reece looked unamused at corpses being mentioned over the tea table. ‘I must say – ’
‘Lady Radcliffe, my lady.’
I dropped my plate.
Chapter Seventeen
Fortunately there was nothing on the lovely piece of Minton that I dropped and the carpet was so thick that the plate bounced. A footman hurried to retrieve it and, just for a moment, I considered fainting, crawling under the tea table or screeching Fire.
Impossible, all of them. I was well and truly trapped up to my neck in a quicksand of gentility. With Luc’s mother.
‘Hermione, dear.’ She passed me, hands outstretched, pretending my clumsiness had not happened. ‘You see me back in Town and not a moment too soon – my wardrobe is a disgrace. I have left my son with his boys – the noise is indescribable – and decided to seek the tranquillity of my friends.’
Lady Reece rose, they kissed cheeks. Annabelle got to her feet and produced a curtsy and had her cheek kissed too. Chloe rolled her eyes at me and shrugged. She had no idea how to get out of this either.
‘Lady Turnham.’ Lady Radcliffe obviously decided she had allowed long enough for the unknown gauche female to pull herself together. She and Chloe shook hands and Cloe turned to me.
‘Do allow me to introduce my friend. Miss Lawrence, from Boston in the United States of America, recently arrived in London.’