Кейси Майклс - The Butler Did It

She knows she’ll have a splendid time. After all, she’s psychic. How else would she have known that Mrs. Hartford would perish in a nasty fall down the stairs and leave her seamstress five thousand pounds?

As Daphne would have said: Mrs. Norbert Could Be Trouble.

Perry Shepherd, the Earl of Brentwood, has already been “trouble” to Morgan Drummond. His lordship had been one of the marquis’s chums in school, and during his one Season in London. Right up until the moment, as a matter of fact, that the marquis had challenged him to that infamous duel over the affections of a comely young Covent Garden dancer (What was her name?).

Yet, the duel to one side, the earl still likes the marquis. Really. After all, the scar on his cheek is actually rather dashing. The ladies seem to fancy it, and the earl certainly fancies the ladies, so he’s rather well pleased with the whole thing, even if the scar gives his valet the very devil when he shaves him.

Perry also would be happy to take up his friendship with Morgan once more when that man returns to London, sort of help ease the man’s way back into Society. Besides, London has been sadly flat without Morgan there to comment on the foolishness and frailties of the ton and, as Perry well knows, where Morgan goes, it is many things, but it is never, never dull.

Yes, the earl will call on his friend Morgan as soon as he learns that the man has arrived at his home in London.

There is a staff in residence year-round at the marquis’s Grosvenor Square mansion in Mayfair.

Mrs. Hazel Timon, for one, is housekeeper of the marquis’s London domicile. But not for long, as she has a nice little nest egg growing in the trunk at the bottom of her closet.

Mrs. Timon rides herd on Claramae, the young, comely but vacant-headed maid of all work on the skeleton staff. Claramae also acts as ladies’ maid when needed, and spends as much time as possible flirting with the rascally Riley.

Footman, under-butler, groom, coachie, Riley does whatever is needed. He’s happy to be of service. This is obvious by the way his hand is always out whenever he is of service.

The Grosvenor Square staff being quite small in the absence of its owner, that leaves just one more servant: the estimable, and quite inventive Thornley.

For years, Thornley has played the role of butler to the Drummond family, father and son.

He is loyal. He is as proper as one can get without having an actual pole thrust up one’s…suffice it to say, he’s quite proper.

Thornley is two more things. He is ambitious, and he is a practical sort who can’t abide waste.

Thornley rules the mansion as butler, as majordomo, as the most important, elevated servant, during good times and bad, including the past five long years, while the young master sulked in the country and the London mansion stood empty.

But ruling a skeleton staff that does little more than occasionally polish some silver and swipe cobwebs from the corners, while eating their heads off, is not much of a challenge for the man.

At least it wasn’t. For the first two Seasons the mansion stood empty as the city came to life from late March through the King’s birthday.

For the past three Seasons, including this one, Thornley, acting on his own initiative, has found a way to keep the staff busy. He has been leasing rooms in the mansion to those who need accommodations while in town for the festivities.

Because a house, even a London mansion, needs people. Needs life.

And the profits aren’t too shabby, either.

SO, HOW MANY WERE THERE going to Saint Ives…er, who all will be gathering at that Grosvenor Square mansion? Ticking them off on one’s fingers would get:

One small but inventive staff.

One Interesting Family.

One old friend.

One slightly illegal adventurer.

One possible killer.

Lastly, arriving late and without notice, one dedicatedly mild-tempered Marquis of Westham.

Perhaps he should have sent a note….

If possible honestly, if not,

somehow, make money.

—Horace

TRAFFIC BECAME BOTH more frequent and slower as Morgan Drummond, Marquis of Westham, neared the metropolis of London atop his favorite mount, Sampson.

The stallion took exception to nearly every coach, wagon and curricle that approached them along the roadway, and Morgan was kept occupied in restraining Sampson from breaking into a gallop that could only end in disaster—at least according to Wycliff, Morgan’s valet, who rode along just behind him, shadowing him like a damp gray cloud on an otherwise sunny day.

It was a cloudy day, in point of fact, but Wycliff could make anything feel worse than it actually was. It was his particular gift.

“There he goes again, my lord!” Wycliff exclaimed in clear (and expected) horror as a dray piled high with empty cages lumbered past. “Hold him, my lord! Hold him!”

Morgan, a top-o’-the-trees whipster who would have no trouble commanding six highly strung and definitely randy stallions while tooling a coach through a field filled with flirtatious mares, merely gritted his teeth and danced Sampson carefully past the dray wagon.

“Remind me, Wycliff, if you will, precisely why you have chosen to accept my invitation to ride with me today,” the marquis drawled as the valet, his face ashen, drew his aged gelding abreast of Sampson.

“You put forth a wish to ride ahead of the coaches, my lord,” Wycliff said, employing both hands on the reins of his persecuted mount. “I could not in good conscience remain safely in the coach. There…there could well be brigands about, my lord.”

“Too true. Tell me, what had you planned to do if any attacked us? Faint on them?” the marquis asked, casting a short glance at the valet, just long enough to be reminded of the man’s tall, reed-slim and rather badly proportioned body, his bald pate that looked so naked even beneath the man’s low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat (held up mostly by Wycliff’s astonishingly protrudent ears), and the fellow’s narrow, pasty face that must have been turned to the wall when lips were being handed out. “That said, and considering your truly humbling loyalty to my person, you won’t mind overmuch if I toss you to the first ones we meet, will you?”

The valet laughed. Giggled, actually. Nervously. Partly because he was a nervous sort, but mostly because he was one of those unfortunate souls born without the ability to recognize sarcasm, although he did laugh at odd moments, as if he sometimes had inklings that he should. “You are so droll, my lord, I always say so. Brilliant wit, my lord! I am so proud to be in your employ. Indeed, sir, I exist only for the pleasure of serving you.”

“My, aren’t I the lucky one.” Morgan smiled thinly, and urged Sampson ahead once more. “Do try to keep up, Wycliff.”

“Yes, my lord, indeed, my lord. Keeping up, my lord,” Wycliff answered, digging his heels into the gelding’s flanks, which served to break the patient horse into a slow and rather bumpy trot.

Wycliff was in the way of a test, and the marquis had employed the man three months earlier because, and not in spite of, the valet’s grating effect on his lordship’s nerves. It wasn’t the man’s features that annoyed him; he wasn’t that shallow. It was the nervous, always inappropriate giggle, and the perpetual doomsaying, and, mostly, the man’s creepily subservient ways that set Morgan’s teeth on edge.

The way Morgan saw it, if he could make it to London without pummeling the man heavily about the head and shoulders before sticking him skinny-shanks-up in a trunk in the boot of one of his two traveling coaches, he should be able to handle any provocations being in the metropolis for the Season might toss at him.

Because he was about to become one of the most sought-after bachelors of the Season, Lord help him.

Morgan knew he cut a fine figure atop the bay stallion, dressed in his best hacking clothes, finely polished Hessians, and his favorite curly brimmed beaver. A five-caped dusky gray driving coat fell in neat folds from his shoulders and cascaded over Sampson’s twitching flanks.

A fully loaded and ready brace of pistols nested in special pockets built into the saddle in case any of Wycliff’s feared brigands dared approach, and the gold-tipped sword cane had been slid into its holder, also incorporated into the saddle.

He wore dove-gray gloves on his hands, covering the gold-and-ruby signet ring that had been his father’s, and had tucked a fine wool scarf beneath his coat, knitted by his mother and handed over two days ago with the admonition to wear it or Catch His Death Of Cold (A pity Lady Westham’s health did not support a sojourn to London; she would have had Kindred Spirits waiting for her there).

A handsome man, in his prime at thirty, the marquis could lay claim to startling blue eyes, a thick mop of blacker-than-black hair, a truly glorious, aristocratic nose, a firm, strong jaw, and the physique of a true Corinthian: broad shoulders, narrow through the hips, long, muscular legs.

He knew he turned heads; he had always turned heads, even in the nursery. He had always been lucky, and popular with the ladies, and having a title and not inconsiderable wealth had done nothing to diminish the high regard in which he had been held during his first and only London Season.

There were even those who had congratulated him on the outcome of his duel with Perry Shepherd, the truest friend one man could have.

Fools. Sycophants. Morgan was not looking forward to meeting any of those people this time around, or in following any of the pursuits that had engaged him for most of that first Season.

He would not drink to excess, he would not play cards for any but tame stakes, he would avoid mills, and Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon. These were all occasions of sin for a man with a volatile temperament.

Instead, he would frequent the balls, the soirees, the Italian breakfasts for six hundred of one’s closest friends. He’d even force himself through the doors of Almack’s, perish the thought, and in general, he would behave as what he was, a man on the lookout for a wife.

When he thought of his plan, he knew it to be a recipe for boredom, and that seemed like a good thing. No temptations, no pretty Covent Garden ankles vied for by all the young bucks, no provocation more than having to deal with Wycliff when the man wrung his hands over the fact that Morgan often preferred to shave himself.

Confident, sure of himself, Morgan Drummond, Marquis of Westham, rode on toward London, into the dense, yellow, odoriferous fog that hung over the city, and straight for his destiny.

EVEN AS MORGAN RODE toward his destiny, Emma Clifford, along with her mother, Daphne, all but stumbled into the foyer of the marquis’s Grosvenor Square mansion, followed hard on their heels by the maid, Claramae. It was noticed immediately that the maid was weeping, an action, to Claramae, that was as natural, and as frequent, as exhaling.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” Thornley said, for he, as butler, was already present in the foyer. He made it a point to always be present where he was needed, leading to the whispered rumor that he was, in reality, triplets. This seemed to explain to the staff how the man could appear to be in three places at once, with all three watching to make sure the servants missed not a speck of dust on the library shelves, didn’t overlook polishing the doorknobs, or ever dare to sample meals meant for abovestairs.

Thornley, his spine rod-stiff, his chin lifted high, took a moment to assess his lodgers. Well, all right, the Marquis of Westham’s lodgers, if one wished to nitpick.