Page 65 of Lady Louisa and the Carriage Clock
Louisa couldn’t concentrate on sketching, but stood by her bedchamber window, staring at the back garden where numerous types of flowers were beginning to bloom. Lucy found her there when she came to help her mistress dress for Edith’s dinner party.
She listened to Lucy prattle on about a kitten that had wandered into the kitchen before Louisa went downstairs and walked across the square with a thick shawl over her shoulders. Edith could always lift her mood. If only she didn’t die of boredom listening to Alicia and Lady Kettering drone on.
When Louisa entered the entry hall of Edith’s home, a maid was cleaning a spot of mud off the floor. She looked up from her work to stare at Louisa. “Excuse me, my lady.”
“Off with you now, Eliza,” the butler said sternly to the maid.
Louisa remembered Edith mentioning that she had taken in Lord Wycliffe's butler and maid. She was sure the name of the maid was Eliza.
When Louisa arrived in the drawing room, it was to find the guests of honor had already arrived. She greeted everyone and accepted a glass of sherry. In conversation, Alicia and Lady Kettering talked over each other, and Louisa was relieved when the dinner gong sounded. She placed her glass on a nearby table as Edith and Nathaniel led the way into the dining room.
Lord and Lady Kettering were next, and she heard the lady whisper to her husband, “Come along, Adonis.”
* * * * *
Cecil arrived on Curzon Street to find Bones waiting for him with the same dour expression he’d worn the day of the burglary.
“What is it?” he asked urgently as he climbed the steps to the front door of the townhouse.
“Cook has been found. In the mews.”
“Found?” Bones’ solemn tone of voice did not bode well.
“He’s dead, my lord.”
Cecil narrowly avoided yelling in frustration, sure that this was another death to lay at the feet of the RA.
When the two men had made their way to the kitchen and out of the back door to the garden behind, Cecil was surprised by the number of people milling near the stable block.
“Tell me what happened,” he said in a low voice to Bones.
“A short while ago, Lord Hastings’s groom opened a trunk which stores brushes and blankets. He found a body instead.”
He didn’t have to ask where the groom was; the young man stood to one side looking green, the coachman patting his shoulder awkwardly. Cecil’s coach rested at the end of the alley.
Two men speaking with his neighbor Lord Hastings sported the distinctive scarlet waistcoats of the Bow Street Runners.
“Lord Wycliffe,” one of the runners addressed him.
He thought the young man looked familiar but couldn’t remember how he knew him. Then he recalled. The runner had been new to the job when he took Cecil’s statement after he found his brother’s body. “Officer.”
The other runner said, “That will be all we need for now, Lord Hastings.”
His neighbor looked at Cecil and shook his head. “Nasty business this is. First the burglary and now a murder.”
The man stalked away, his expression and words having conveyed his displeasure at residing next to the trouble at number four Curzon Street.
“Where is the body?” Cecil asked the young runner. His companion looked even younger.
“In the stable, my lord. The coroner is in there. It’s a ghastly sight.”
Cecil did not heed the warning but walked into the building where the unmistakable smell of rotting flesh hung in the air. Placing a handkerchief over his nose, he took up a spot near the coroner’s shoulder.
The man glanced up, seemingly undisturbed by the smell. “Poison, I’ll warrant.”
The remains of Cecil’s cook were at the bottom of the old trunk. His eyes were open, a frothy substance about his mouth. Cecil would guess arsenic poisoning. Unlike Daventry, the cook had been given a fatal dose all at once.
A cursory glance around the area turned up no clues. The cook had most likely been there since the day of the burglary two days before. The grooms and coachmen had been in and out of the area several times since.
