And Dangerous to Know Read online

  Darcie Wilde is the author of:

  And Dangerous to Know

  A Purely Private Matter

  A Useful Woman

  AND Dangerous TO Know

  DARCIE WILDE

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER 1 - The Darker Shades Of Morning

  CHAPTER 2 - Early Callers

  CHAPTER 3 - Unseasonable Arrivals

  CHAPTER 4 - The Troubles Of Lady Melbourne

  CHAPTER 5 - The Complex Travels Of Correspondence

  CHAPTER 6 - Grave Omissions Of Fact

  CHAPTER 7 - The Vulgar Mention Of Money

  CHAPTER 8 - The Art Of Concealment

  CHAPTER 9 - The Presence Of Past Sins

  CHAPTER 10 - The Affairs Of Unruly Hearts

  CHAPTER 11 - What May Be Learned After Sunset

  CHAPTER 12 - The Business Of Bow Street

  CHAPTER 13 - Enter, A Lady

  CHAPTER 14 - The Mad Wife In The Sitting Room

  CHAPTER 15 - The Doctor

  CHAPTER 16 - The Private Business Of Families

  CHAPTER 17 - Afternoon Calls

  CHAPTER 18 - Unpleasant But Necessary Revelations

  CHAPTER 19 - Parlor Games

  CHAPTER 20 - What The World Well Knows

  CHAPTER 21 - Unwanted Introductions

  CHAPTER 22 - A Chance To See And Be Seen

  CHAPTER 23 - A Cup Of Tea And A Quiet Chat

  CHAPTER 24 - The View From Clubland

  CHAPTER 25 - Preparations For An Evening Out

  CHAPTER 26 - While Otherwise Engaged

  CHAPTER 27 - The Gentle Perils Of Reunions

  CHAPTER 28 - The Attractions Of The Ballroom

  CHAPTER 29 - The Possibility Of Advancement

  CHAPTER 30 - An Early Morning Meeting

  CHAPTER 31 - Lady Caroline’s Story

  CHAPTER 32 - A Conspiracy Over Coffee

  CHAPTER 33 - The Effect Of Rather Too Much Conversation

  CHAPTER 34 - A Sojourn To Kentish Town

  CHAPTER 35 - In A Lot Of Wine, A Little Truth

  CHAPTER 36 - A Thorough Examination Of The Circumstances

  CHAPTER 37 - A Quiet Meal In Good Company

  CHAPTER 38 - Following The Thread Of The Conversation

  CHAPTER 39 - Those Small Hidden Concerns

  CHAPTER 40 - A Matter Of Timing

  CHAPTER 41 - Mr. Townsend Decides

  CHAPTER 42 - A Small Space Of Calm

  CHAPTER 43 - Loosening Secrets

  CHAPTER 44 - Goings On Belowstairs

  CHAPTER 45 - The Offices Of Henry Colburn, Publisher

  CHAPTER 46 - A Bad Spell

  CHAPTER 47 - The Price Of Loyalty

  CHAPTER 48 - All The Tangled Threads

  CHAPTER 49 - For There Is No Honor Among Thieves

  CHAPTER 50 - Casual Conversation

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2020 by Sarah Zettel

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-2086-3

  First Kensington Hardcover Edition: January 2020

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2092-4 (e-book)

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-2092-X (e-book)

  CHAPTER 1

  The Darker Shades Of Morning

  He talks to me about the woman, and of the thing

  being forgotten—is it so?

  George Gordon, Lord Byron, private correspondence

  Adam Harkness pushed his way into the Brown Bear public house. April’s bright, damp dawn had just begun to seep between London’s chimneys, but the room was already crowded with working men after a mug of beer or a bowl of stew. Harkness touched the brim of his old-fashioned tricorn hat to Seamus Callahan, the landlord. In answer, that worthy spared one hand from plying his beer jug to wave Harkness toward the cellar door.

  The Brown Bear was just like any of the hundreds of public houses across the length and breadth of London, save for one thing. This house stood directly across from the famous Bow Street police station. Down the years, the Brown Bear had become a sort of annex to the business of the station and its magistrate’s court. Prisoners were held here, questioned here, even searched for stolen property here. A man might think he’d been invited in for a friendly drink, only to find he was being called out for his crimes by a witness sitting in the back of the room.

  And sometimes, while men ate and drank upstairs, a much grimmer table was laid out in the cellar.

  “I’m sorry to have roused you so early, Mr. Harkness.” Sir David Royce straightened up from his work.

  “I’m sorry you should have to.” Harkness crossed the chill cellar to stand beside a long table with its sad burden. He had served long enough as a principal officer at Bow Street that the smell of death no longer alarmed him. Neither did the sight of a corpse.

  She was a pale woman, and no longer young. Not even death had erased the lines around her mouth and eyes. But neither was she very old. A quantity of dark hair—clean and well brushed—tumbled loose about her shoulders. Her skin was only minimally marked by sun and wind. Her hands looked strong, but the nails were clean and the fingers were not obviously splayed or callused. She’d lived a life indoors, then, perhaps as a lady’s maid or a shopkeeper’s assistant.

  A ring of bruises stood out sharply around her mouth.

  “What’s happened here?” Harkness asked.

  “This unfortunate woman was brought here in a hired wagon, around two o’clock or so. The carters were extremely reluctant to stay while I was sent for.” Sir David Royce was a portly, balding man with steady hands, sharp eyes, and a methodical mind. He held the office of King’s Coroner for Middlesex County. It fell to Sir David and his subordinates to inquire into all unexpected deaths reported in a county that included both London and Westminster.

  Sir David was constantly busy.

  “I owe our host upstairs a little something for holding the pair of them spellbound with his beer and conversation.” Sir David rubbed his hands on a piece of toweling, which he slung over his shoulder. “I began my examination as soon as I was called, and I admit, I’ve been wrestling with what to do since.”

  “How so?” With most crimes, such as theft, it was left to the victim to make complaint and seek redress, and to pay any costs that might arise in that attempt. But murder was a violation of the King’s Peace. The coroner’s sworn duty was to help uphold and preserve that peace by identifying the person or persons who broke it in the first place.

  “Harkness, I believe this woman has been poisoned. You see those bruises on her mouth? She’s been made to swallow a considerable quantity of laudanum, very probably mixed with brandy. You can still smell it on her.”

  Adam inhaled. Under the noxious odors that accompanied a death, he could still detect the tang of alcohol, anise, and camphor that made up a common blend of laudanum.

  Harkness straightened and wiped at his mouth. “Is she . . . intact?”

  “She’s not virgin, but I can’t find signs of force used on her, except those I already pointed out. I’ll be looking again when the light’s better, but I do not think rape is at the root of what happened to her.”

  “Could she have met with an accide
nt?”

  “To accidentally drink enough laudanum to die, she’d have to have accidentally emptied a full bottle into a pint of brandy and then accidentally gotten the whole lot down without falling unconscious or becoming violently ill. And there’s no sign that she stumbled and fell because of intoxication.”

  “Then what is the matter?” asked Harkness. “Convene the inquest. If you need my help, you have it, of course.” As coroner, Sir David could command the assistance of the Bow Street officers whenever he needed. The magistrates wrote out the warrants as a matter of form, and the Crown paid the fees.

  Sir David sighed. “The problem, Mr. Harkness, is that this good woman was originally found at the gates of Melbourne House.”

  The coroner paused expectantly for Harkness’s reply. When Adam just shook his head, Sir David deflated visibly.

  “What have I missed?” Harkness asked. “I know Melbourne House is in Piccadilly. It’s home to Peniston Lamb, Lord Melbourne. Lord Melbourne’s a gamester, a horseman, and in Parliament. And I believe his wife, Lady Melbourne has a name for herself . . .”

  “Lady Melbourne is notorious,” said Sir David. “Not only is she a leading political hostess, she has had any number of lovers. Including, they say, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.”

  “Ah.” Harkness felt an unwelcome light begin to dawn in his mind. “That could become . . . delicate.”

  “And then there’s the matter of Lady Melbourne’s son, or more accurately, her son’s wife, the infamous Lady Caroline.”

  Harkness looked again at the dead woman. “This isn’t . . .”

  “No, no. Whomever we have here, she is not Lady Caroline Lamb. I’ve had that lady pointed out to me at the theater. She’s a tiny person with very red hair.”

  “Then how does this infamous Lady Caroline come into the matter? I thought you were concerned about Lady Melbourne?”

  Sir David laughed. “Heavens defend us, Harkness! I forget sometimes how closely you focus on your own little world.”

  Considering that Harkness’s world involved criminal activity across the length and breadth of the United Kingdoms, he would have disagreed with the epithet “little.” But he held his tongue about that.

  “Lady Caroline,” said Sir David with theatrical patience, “is a public scandal in silk skirts. She might be genuinely insane, poor woman. But regardless of that, she numbers among her lovers, a certain George Gordon, Lord Byron.”

  That brought Harkness up short. “Byron the poet?”

  “Poet, radical, madman, unrepentant seducer of women, and God knows who or what else,” replied the coroner grimly. “The rumors are . . . most unsavory.”

  “Sir David, please tell me you don’t think Lord Byron . . .”

  “Mercifully, no. Lord Byron is currently in Switzerland, or maybe it’s Italy. Lady David was reading about it the other day.”

  Which was a relief. Harkness did not care to imagine the public uproar if the celebrated Lord Byron was accused of murder.

  “But you do think this woman may have been killed by someone in Melbourne House?”

  “It’s possible,” answered Sir David. “The carters insist they didn’t know what they were hauling. They were just paid, and generously, to take a load wrapped in canvas to the Brown Bear. But they were very clear that the load was heaved into their cart while they were inside the courtyard gates.”

  “Who paid them? Who helped them?”

  “They could not, or would not, say. And that’s only part of the problem,” added Sir David sourly. “Any connection to Lord Byron, however tenuous, is going to set the whiskers of every single newspaper man from here to Landsend twitching. And here we have a dead woman who was found practically at the feet of Byron’s Mad Lady Caroline, and the possibility that someone in Melbourne house tried to get the body away from Melbourne house . . .”

  “And it has the makings of a bloody mess,” Harkness finished for him. “But it’s strange, Sir David. If someone simply wanted her . . . gone, they could have her thrown into the river. Or dumped her into an alleyway.” Even Piccadilly had its fair share of deserted mews and dank lanes. “Why didn’t they?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Sir David. “Some rudiment of conscience, or overconfidence, or even remorse? A bit of all three?”

  “But not enough of any to risk the house’s residents being called to testify at an inquest.” Harkness sighed. “When will you issue the warrant?”

  “I won’t.”

  I can’t have heard that right. Harkness frowned, but Sir David nodded.

  “I’m not going to say anything at all about this woman. I will finish my examination, write down my notes in my private journal, and see her interred.”

  “You won’t convene an inquest?” Surprise reverberated uncomfortably through Harkness. He had never seen Sir David hesitate when it came to carrying out his duty, no matter who he might be bringing into his court. “Even though you’re certain this is murder?”

  “As long as this stays quiet, whoever is responsible will think their measures have succeeded and will do nothing more.”

  Like flee the country, like call upon their influential friends, like bribe any witnesses to remain silent. Harkness nodded in reluctant understanding.

  “But while they are, hopefully, sitting secure, we’ll be busy in other ways.” Sir David glanced toward the cellar door. “I need a favor from you, Harkness.”

  “If I can.” Harkness respected Sir David, and liked him as a friend, but he would not give his word until he was sure he could keep it.

  “You recently spoke to me about a lady, one who was of great assistance with that business at Almack’s last year . . .”

  “Miss Rosalind Thorne.” Despite the gravity of their conversation, Adam felt a small smile form. He’d been fortunate to know a number of remarkable women in his life, but Rosalind Thorne was someone extraordinary. That lady was fiercely intelligent, with nerves of steel and a sharp sense of humor, all combined with a queenly demeanor.

  “I believe she lent a hand sorting out the mess with Fletcher Cavendish and Mrs. Seymore as well?” said Sir David.

  “Miss Thorne’s made something of a specialty of being useful to ladies who have problems . . . outside the workaday.”

  “How high do her connections run?”

  “Into the first circles.” In fact, Rosalind Thorne had been born and raised among the haut ton. Her family lost their place when her father lost his money, but her family name guaranteed that she remained welcome in many aristocratic homes.

  “Harkness, I need you to find out if she will use her connections to penetrate the walls of Melbourne House. If this woman”—he gestured to the body on the table—“ran afoul of any person in the house, and if that person is trying to keep the matter a secret, we’ll need to discover all we can before that person decides to cover their tracks any further.”

  Sir David could call anyone to testify at an inquest. As a Bow Street officer, Adam might brandish his staff and his warrant to enter a house and search it for evidence. But the law neglected to grant him, or the coroner, the power to compel any man to talk.

  Especially if that man, or woman, was bosom friends with the Prince of Wales.

  Miss Thorne, however, was no rude officer. She was a gently bred lady. Those same families that would unite against Bow Street would open their doors to Rosalind Thorne—their doors, their diaries, and their secret hearts.

  “Very well,” said Adam. “As soon as I can, I’ll go see if Miss Thorne is at home.”

  “I hope that she is,” Sir David replied, more to the woman beneath her makeshift shroud than to Harkness. “For all our sakes.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Early Callers

  Tell me always when you see anything wrong & believe me that greatest act of friendship will be most gratefully felt and acknowledged.

  Mrs. George Leigh, née Augusta Byron, private correspondence

  As it happened, Miss Rosalind Thorne w
as at home, but she was not alone.

  “Rosalind, tell George he’s a shortsighted booby.” Alice Littlefield glared at her brother.

  “Yes, do.” George looked down his long pointed nose at his sister. “And then you can tell Alice she’s an unreasonable child.”

  Rosalind Thorne put down her bite of toast. “Coffee?” she inquired.

  Rosalind’s morning had begun somewhat later than Mr. Harkness’s. Unlike him, she had been permitted time for a breakfast of coffee, toast, and marmalade in the small but neat parlor of her house in Little Russell Street. Her intention upon rising had been to spend a peaceful hour with her stack of correspondence. This modest plan, however, was entirely disrupted by the unexpected arrival of Alice and George Littlefield, both spattered by fresh spring mud and both in high dudgeon.

  Brother and sister looked at her now in surprise as she lifted the silver coffeepot. Both shook their heads.

  “As you please.” Rosalind set the pot down again. “Perhaps you would settle for telling me what’s happened?”

  Rosalind and Alice had been friends for ages. When they appeared together, they made a striking pair. Like her brother, Alice was slim, dark, and quick, although George was much taller. Rosalind, on the other hand, was tall, golden, and dramatically statuesque. But that was not where the contrast ended. Even as a girl, Rosalind had been steady and thoughtful, while Alice had always been quick and rambunctious.

  Despite their apparent differences, the two became fast friends as children, and for much of their childhood, the promise of futures had been a sparkling one. Alice’s debut was one of the most highly anticipated of her season. For her part, Rosalind had achieved that elusive but much-sought-after dream. She had fallen in love. Even better, her chosen beau, Devon Winterbourne, returned the sentiment in full measure. There were problems, of course. Rosalind’s parents—especially her father—were utterly determined that Rosalind should marry into both wealth and title. Devon Winterbourne was a scorpion, a second son, and so did not stand to inherit. But he was the second son of the Duke of Casselmaine, which was a distinctly respectable level of peerage, even by her father’s soaring standards. Rosalind, her confidence buoyed by love, had been certain that she could talk her parents ’round, especially if she had her sister, Charlotte’s, help.