Maria Carrisbrook had the gift – rare even among beautiful women – of crying prettily. Tears were now pouring freely down her cheeks and her lip trembled a little; but there was no sobbing or snuffling, no blowing of the nose. Dido found the performance strangely disquieting and wondered inconsequentially whether Maria had been born with the talent or whether it was an accomplishment she had acquired. She very much wished that it would stop; but the tears flowed on as Maria applied a dainty handkerchief to her eyes and looked hopefully over the top of it.
‘Do you really think you could arrange things so very… satisfactorily, Miss Kent?’
‘I think it must be attempted.’
‘But what will you do? Will you challenge this person? Tell him what you suspect?’
‘Ah! There – as someone says in one of Shakespeare’s plays – is the rub. I cannot. It would not be right. You see, if my plan is to work, then the facts must be put rather… forcefully. A kind of threat will need to be made…’ She walked around the table; stirred up the rose-petals in their bowl and breathed in their sweet, dusty scent. ‘It is not something to which I feel I am equal – I do not think any woman of ordinary delicacy would feel equal to it. It would need a man. A gentleman would have to play the part for us.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Maria eagerly, tucking away her handkerchief, ‘perhaps Mr Lansdale…’
But Dido shook her head immediately. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That would not do at all. He must not be seen to interest himself in the business. If the magistrates were to hear of it, it would appear very bad indeed.’
‘Then who can we ask to act for us?’
Dido was silent for some moments – not from not knowing the answer to the question, but rather from being reluctant to speak it. However, there was no avoiding it…
‘I think,’ she said, ‘that Mr William Lomax would be the most proper person for the task. He knows a great deal about the business already, and understands the workings of the law.’
Maria looked a little sly. ‘I am sure he would be very willing to carry out any commission of yours.’
Dido only scowled at the compliment. ‘I am sure there is no man living who I would less like to ask,’ she said. ‘For, though I cannot think his humanity will allow him to refuse the errand; I know he will blame me for devising it. However, I shall go and consult with him now.’ She dusted fragments of rose petal from her hands and turned towards the door with determination. ‘It cannot be helped. It seems that there is no choice: either I must sink even lower in his esteem – or else Mr Lansdale must be hanged!’
Maria watched her, very puzzled; but, just as she reached the door, she called her back. ‘Miss Kent, I have not yet thanked you.’
Dido turned back reluctantly. The thought of the interview ahead of her was unpleasant, but it was not in her nature to delay a task on which she had determined and she was very eager to have everything settled.
‘There is nothing to thank me for, Lady Carrisbrook. I have only returned to you what was your own.’
‘But you are being so very kind in trying to save me from exposure and… And you have shown great… delicacy in the questions you have asked me. And, most particularly,’ she added with a nervous smile, ‘in those questions you have not asked me.’
Dido said nothing, but only stood holding the open door in her hand.
‘Forgive me, I cannot help but ask – are you not curious about my life before my marriage? The things you have discovered about my residence at Knaresborough House are such as might make the dullest of women curious. And you are certainly not the dullest of women.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And yet you ask no questions at all about me…or about my family.’
Dido gazed down upon the floor and looked exceedingly awkward. ‘A married woman,’ she said, ‘belongs to her husband’s family. She takes his name – his title. Who, or what, she was before ceases to be of any consequence. I see no reason to trouble you with impertinent questions, Lady Carrisbrook.’
And with that, she turned and walked away in search of Mr Lomax.
Chapter Thirty-Two
It was the supper hour when Dido returned into the hall. The glees were over and some of the guests were already gone into the dining room; while some were still chattering in the drawing room; and others had escaped entirely from the excessive heat of the house to walk about on the candle-lit terrace.
And it was among this last group that she discovered Mr Lomax. He was standing a little apart, beside one of the great yew bushes that flanked the steps to the lawn. The light from a paper lantern showed his eyes downcast and his jaw thrust out in just such a way as, had he been but a child, everyone would have called a sulk. Dido smiled to herself, rather taken with the notion of sending him away to a corner of the nursery until he had ‘learnt how to conduct himself’. But, unluckily, dealing with a grown man in an ill temper could not be so simple.
He must, somehow, be persuaded into performing her errand: that was the point of first importance. That he might also be persuaded into approving her conduct was, she acknowledged, all but impossible. Yet her spirit rose at the prospect of his disapproval. She had done nothing wrong: her own conscience acquitted her entirely. And besides, it really was rather gratifying to discover that at five and thirty she could still arouse such strong emotion in a gentleman’s breast – even if the emotion was, as it had always tended to be, exasperation rather than any softer feeling.
She held up her head and stepped forward to meet him with a defiant smile. But his greeting was not propitious. He bowed and hoped, rather stiffly, that ‘her business was now settled to her satisfaction.’
‘It is very kind of you to ask, Mr Lomax,’ she said, continuing to smile graciously. ‘My business is…going on fairly promisingly.’
‘Do you mean that it is not yet finished?’ he demanded. ‘You are still engaged upon this dangerous course of investigation into Mrs Lansdale’s death?’ He began to search her face with a very satisfactory anxiety. It pleased her greatly to think that some part at least of his anger was born of concern for her welfare.
‘You need not trouble yourself,’ she said. ‘There is no danger at all. For I find that, after all, there was no murder. There was not even any house-breaking. So, you see, there cannot be any villain waiting in the dark to exact some terrible revenge upon me for my temerity in investigating his affairs.’
He frowned: he put his fingers together and rested his chin upon them – as was his habit whenever he was endeavouring to understand something. ‘Do I understand you correctly, Miss Kent? Are you saying that Mrs Lansdale’s death was entirely natural?’
‘No. I only said that she was not murdered.’ She smiled invitingly. ‘Would you like me to explain it all to you?’
He hesitated and she was amused to see that curiosity was now contending with annoyance upon his face. Behind them the voices of their fellow guests were beginning to fade as they made their way towards the supper table. In the quiet of the terrace a moth beat against a paper lantern.
It ended with him making no concession; he only held out his arm to her and suggested that they take a turn along the terrace. But, judging that this was all the invitation his pride would allow him to give, Dido launched into her account of Mrs Lansdale’s three doses of Black Drop. And he listened to it all without a protest.