Page 18 of Murder at the Debutante Ballby

“Lovely,” she declared. “It’s a shame you don’t want to be kissed.”

That was the thing. I did want to be kissed. It was marriage I wanted to avoid.

“I’m soexcited for you to meet the Newcombes, Cleo,” Aunt Lilian said. She sat opposite Flossy and me in the carriage, looking small and frail beside her robust husband. Her busy fingers twisted the fringing of her shawl until the silk threads became knotted. “Mrs. Newcombe is a dear, and she has the most charming daughters. They’re too young to join us tonight, of course, but her son will be there.” She bestowed a mischievous smile on me then Flossy. She had him in mind for one of us, but it wasn’t clear which one.

“I met them at the ball,” I said. “They seemed very nice.”

“Oh yes! So you did. You even danced with their boy, too. Silly me, I forgot.” She touched her temple. “I wonder if you also met some of the other guests who’ll be there tonight.”

Partly to divert her away from matchmaking, and partly because her chattiness meant it was a good time to obtain information from her, I tried to subtly find out more about the guests who’d attended both the Quornes’ dinner and the ball. If I could narrow the list down to ones who might be having financial difficulties, or were suspected of being light-fingered, it would give us some strong suspects for the art heists.

I began at the top, with the hosts themselves. “Speaking of the ball, I heard something interesting about the Quornes last night, but I can’t remember what it was. Do you know what it could be, Aunt?”

Her eyes widened and she leaned forward to tap my knee. “I do, as it happens.”

Uncle Ronald drew his double chins in and peered down his nose at me. “I didn’t think you like to gossip, Cleo.”

“Leave her be, Ronald,” his wife chided. “She’s just making conversation to pass the time. You remember the Quornes, don’t you, dear? Lord Quorne was almost forty when he met his future wife. She was only eighteen at the time.”

Flossy pulled a face. “Don’t you dare marry me to a forty-year-old. He must be thirty at the absolute worst.”

“Their age difference isn’t the interesting part. Lord Quorne met her when he was traveling up north, but no one knows where precisely they met, or how. Her family are complete unknowns.” She leaned forward even further and lowered her voice. “She could be the daughter of the village blacksmith. We simply don’t know. When he returned to society with her, they were already wed. He simply introduced her as his wife, with no mention of who her father was. Their first child was born a mere seven months later.”

“Lilian,” Uncle Ronald scolded.

“The girls are old enough to know how babies are made, dear.” She turned back to Flossy and me, her eyes huge in the dim light of the swaying carriage lantern. “We were all dreadfully curious about her, but no one dared ask. Did you ever speak to Lord Quorne about her, Ronald?”

“He’s a quiet, serious man, not prone to conversation.”

Aunt Lilian settled back into the seat. “I’d forgotten all about it until now. Who brought it up, Cleo?”

“I can’t recall.” The intrigue surrounding Lady Quorne was a good start. I filed the information away and tried picturing the list in my head. “Speaking of gossip, what do you know about the Begg-Forsythes?”

“Nothing really. Why? What have you heard?”

“Perhaps it wasn’t them. The Campbells?”

She shook her head.

I rattled off a few more names until I thought it best to stop. My uncle was frowning at me, his expression somewhere between disappointment and confusion.

We’d slowed down anyway, and finally came to a stop. A footman opened the carriage door for us and assisted my aunt down the step to the pavement.

He helped Flossy next. “Why did Floyd not have to come tonight?” she asked.

“I told you,” Aunt Lilian said. “The Newcombe girls aren’t old enough.”

Flossy rolled her eyes.

I was pleased to be seated next to a middle-aged gentleman who liked to gossip. By the end of the evening, I’d asked him about every guest who’d been at both the ball and the Quornes’ dinner. While he had some interesting pieces of information, none of it was relevant. Like the suspicions surrounding Lady Quorne’s background, none of the gossip pointed to a thieving past or financial woes.

I also inspected the ladies’ jewelry as subtly as I could, but their gemstones looked genuine to me. After the ladies withdrew, leaving the men to their port in the dining room, I took a turn about the drawing room to admire the paintings hanging on the wall. One in particular had caught my eye earlier and I now had the opportunity to take a closer look. It was by Grandjean, the same artist of the painting stolen from the Quornes.

“You have an interest in art, Miss Fox?” I hadn’t noticed the hostess, Mrs. Newcombe, come up behind me. She was a handsome woman in her forties, plump and short, with dimples in her cheeks. She nodded at the painting. “It’s Paris in the autumn. Aren’t the colors vibrant?”

The Quornes’ painting had been of Paris, too. I wished I were an expert and could tell whether this one was genuine or not. After learning that Reggie Smith wanted to put back the Bunburys’ painting because it was a fake, I’d wondered how important that fact was to the case. The murder could be about the two thefts, or it could be about the Bunburys’ being a forgery.

“I can see why you love it so much,” I said. “Did you get it over there?”

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