Darling Beast (Maiden Lane 7)

“No, you wouldn’t,” Apollo muttered.

“How did you know about Lord Kilbourne’s difficulties, may I inquire, Your Grace?” Trevillion asked quietly.

“Oh,” Montgomery murmured, bending to peer at the mechanical hen, “one hears these things.”

“Usually only if one has paid informants,” Trevillion said, very dry.

“They do help.” Montgomery straightened and smiled sweetly. “Now, if we’re done with the pleasantries, I suggest we discuss how we’re going to prove Lord Kilbourne’s innocence so he can get back to work on Harte’s Folly. I really must insist my garden be open for business by next spring, and this… hiccup… threatens to put the whole thing back months.” He made a moue of discontent. “I really shan’t have it.”

“My garden,” Makepeace muttered, but his heart was obviously no longer in it. He fetched the steaming teapot. “Right. Trevillion sit there”—he indicated his vacated chair—“you”—he pointed at the duke—“can sit on the bed or not at all. Now, who’s for tea?”

And a few minutes later they all had steaming—if mismatched—cups of tea in what had to be the oddest tea party Apollo had ever attended.

“Now then.” Makepeace slurped noisily at his teacup merely, Apollo suspected, to annoy the duke. He’d dumped half the contents of a rather fine gilded sugar bowl into his tea and it must have been like drinking treacle. “Let’s hear it. What’s your grand plan?”

Montgomery sniffed cautiously at his tea and took a very small, very delicate sip. Immediately his eyebrows shot up and he hastily set the teacup down on a pile of books. “Obviously we must find and expose the real murderer.”

“Obviously,” Makepeace drawled back.

The duke ignored that. “Am I to assume from Captain Trevillion’s presence that you’ve already made some inquiries?”

Apollo exchanged a glance with Trevillion and Apollo nodded.

“Yes, Your Grace, I have done some investigation into the matter.” The captain cleared his throat. “It seems Lord Kilbourne’s uncle, William Greaves, is in some debt to his grandfather’s, the earl’s, estate.”

Montgomery, who had been poking at his teacup, looked up at that. “Splendid! We have a viable candidate for a substitute murderer. Now to simply alert the authorities with a well-placed hint—”

“A hint about what, exactly?” Makepeace exploded. “We don’t have a scrap of real evidence that ’Pollo’s uncle did anything.”

“Oh, evidence is easily manufactured, I find,” the duke said carelessly as he dropped a marzipan orange into his tea. He watched it sink with interest.

There was a short, appalled silence.

The duke seemed to realize something was amiss. He glanced up, his blue eyes wide and innocent. “Problem?”

Fortunately it was Trevillion who replied. “I’m afraid we can’t simply manufacture evidence, Your Grace,” he said calmly but firmly. “We must discover the evidence naturally.”

“How tedious!” The duke actually pouted before assuming a rather alarmingly crafty expression. “It’ll take much less time my way, you comprehend.”

“Oh for God’s sake!” Makepeace burst out and for a moment Apollo was afraid he’d have to physically restrain him. “You’re discussing falsifying evidence to hang a man.”

“Don’t be a hypocrite, Mr. Harte,” the duke snapped. “You believe him just as guilty as I. You just want to salve your conscience by working for the evidence. The end result is the same, I assure you: an arrested man and Lord Kilbourne saved from Bedlam.”

“Nevertheless,” Trevillion said. He didn’t raise his voice, but such was its command, the other two men looked to him. “We’ll do it our way. Your Grace.”

For a moment the soldier and the aristocrat glared at each other.

Then the duke suddenly knocked over his teacup, spilling the mess on a stack of papers. “Oh, very well,” he said, petulant, over the squawks of Makepeace. Apparently the papers were broadsheets he’d been meaning to read. “I suppose there’s no help for it. We’ll have to go to William Greaves’s country house outside Bath and hunt around like farmers’ wives after chicken eggs.”

They all stared at him.

“What now?”

Trevillion cleared his throat, but Makepeace, perhaps because of his sodden broadsheets, beat him to it. “How do you propose we get into Greaves’s country house? Surely he’ll notice four men tramping through his rooms.”

“I doubt it,” Montgomery purred, “since he’ll be holding a country party in a little over a fortnight’s time with an especial play as the centerpiece of the event. Naturally, I have been invited. I’ll simply arrive with my very good friend, Mr. Smith”—he sent a significant glance at Apollo—“and there you are.”

“There we won’t be, because the first thing Greaves will do will be to have ’Pollo arrested,” Makepeace objected.