Petteril's Wife, page 2
For propriety’s sake, she could not travel alone with a single gentleman, and so the comical masquerade of the married couple began. They shared the secret joke, addressing each other as Mr. and Mrs. Whittey—the name being chosen for its closeness to Petteril’s family name of Withan.
He had largely shed his viscount’s hauteur, returning to his more natural academic character while she played the ambitious lady of some middling rank—which she had been practicing with some hilarity anyway, ever since she became unexpectedly reunited with her old friend Annie the courtesan. Petteril had trained her more ruthlessly, pulling her up for every slip and making her keep in character for hours at a time before they left England, and every day, all day, since. Sometimes, she even caught herself thinking in the nobs’ accent, and giggled.
And now she was trying to keep up with other people’s foreign accents, and even a new language where she and Petteril began, for once, as equals.
As they walked arm in arm in Dado’s wake, he told her in low tones the little he had learned at the Envoy’s office, including the death of the Conde de Cartaxo, which might just be associated with Bertie’s disappearance.
“Do you think he did it?” April asked.
“Not without a dashed good reason,” Lord Petteril said. “Bertie has a very strong sense of survival.” He wrinkled his nose as a gentle breeze, which would otherwise have been most welcome, wafted a foul stench of food and human waste in their direction.
The streets were much quieter now. In fact, they seemed to be the only people around, their footsteps echoing eerily along the roads. Presumably everyone was avoiding the heat which, if anything, was more intense than when they arrived.
Captain Everett was discovered in a house that appeared to have been taken over as a home for convalescent officers. He seemed delighted to see them.
“Anyone found Withan?” he asked Dado hopefully. He was a pleasant looking young man of medium height, with brown curly hair and a snub nose.
“No,” Dado said, indicating Petteril and April, “but they also look for him.”
As Dado turned to leave again, clearly knowing his place, April, who had never known hers, itched to take out her notebook and pencil from her reticule and take notes. Remembering her new role, however, she curtseyed to Captain Everett’s bow.
“Whittey,” Lord Petteril said, shaking hands. “And my wife.”
“Everett, captain in the 52nd.” Seizing the walking stick propped against his chair, he limped to the door and yelled into the depths of the house in Portuguese before turning back to his guests. “It’s hot for walking,” he observed. “Especially if you’ve just landed. Please, sit down, ma’am.”
Unwilling to take the captain’s chair when his leg was not healed, April whisked over to the window seat. A servant appeared with a tray of lemonade and wine in jugs and three glasses and departed again.
“So what’s your interest in Major Withan?” Everett asked, pouring the refreshment, which April seized with a relief that approached joy.
“I’ve been sent to find him,” Lord Petteril said. “He has friends in high places.”
Everett nodded sagely. “Cousin’s a lord. How can I help?”
“According to Dado, you are a friend of his.”
“Amusing fellow. Eager to get to action. Been a Hyde Park soldier all his life and bored to tears.”
April exchanged glances with Lord Petteril. If Bertie was still looking forward to military action, he would hardly have deserted.
“When did you last see Major Withan?” Petteril asked.
“The evening before he was due to leave. Sixth of June? Came and hauled me off to drink wine with some other friends, about five or six of the clock, then brought me back here. I was still using crutches then—dashed tiring way to get about, so I appreciated the company.”
“Was he always so helpful?” Petteril asked, not troubling to keep the surprise from his voice. Bertie Withan was almost entirely self-centred.
Everett grinned. “Not always, but I suspect he was on the way to a lady.”
“What lady would that be?”
“Couldn’t say.” Everett took a long drink but found, when he lowered the glass at last, that Lord Petteril’s steady dark gaze was still upon him. “Well, I can’t!”
“Being a gentleman,” Petteril said, “who does not bandy a lady’s name about. I too am a gentleman of discretion, and my wife never gossips except to me. In this case, for Major Withan’s sake, I believe you have to tell me the truth.”
Everett sighed. “I don’t actually know the truth. To be frank, I didn’t really know Withan—he was only in Lisbon a few days and I’ve been on the peninsula for nearly two years. He thought I knew the ropes, as it were, and my confounded leg was taking forever to heal. I was bored and glad to show him what I could of the town.”
“Carousing,” Petteril translated.
Everett grinned.
“Where did you carouse?”
“Several places. He took me to a condessa’s ball once, and to the opera another night, but apart from those, you might call the rest houses of—er...decreasing respectability.”
“Which condessa?” April asked.
“The Condessa de Cartaxo. Beautiful lady—almost as beautiful as you, Mrs. Whittey.”
April laughed. “Was it the condessa he went to see the night before he left?”
Everett opened his mouth, closed it again, then, running his fingers through his hair, said, “It might have been. There was another lady he admired too, Senhora de Almeida—although her daughter might have been the true attraction.”
“Busy man,” Lord Petteril commented, “considering he was only in Lisbon a few days.”
Everett gave a lopsided grin. “You don’t know the half of it. They were his more respectable pursuits.”
“There were other girls,” Petteril guessed, “in the back streets? Perhaps even in the one where the Conde de Cartaxo met his end?”
Everett flushed, glancing uneasily at April. “If you know so much, why are you asking me?”
“Because I don’t know. I’m only guessing.”
“I don’t believe for a moment that Withan had anything to do with the conde’s death.”
“Did you take Withan to that—er...house?”
“Once,” muttered Everett. “To be more accurate, Dado took both of us.”
“Could you take me?” Lord Petteril asked.
Everett’s jaw dropped.
To April’s amusement, a tinge of colour crept along his lordship’s cheekbones.
“To speak to the girl concerned,” Petteril said hastily. “It’s possible she was the cause of any quarrel, whether it involved Withan or not.”
“Oh. Of course. I’m sure the Portuguese authorities will already have questioned them.”
“They might not have asked the right questions,” April remarked, setting down her empty glass beside her.
“These people don’t like questions at all,” Everett warned. “The conde is far from the only man who’s died in these back streets since I’ve been in Lisbon. It’s more than possible poor Withan is another. You really don’t want to go there, Whittey.”
“You could just give me the address,” Petteril said mildly.
“Actually, I couldn’t. If it has one, I don’t know it.” He sighed. “I could take you there, but Dado had better come with us and, if possible, some fighting fit officer, fully armed!”
“I can’t just now,” Petteril said, standing up. “We have an appointment soon. But if you will permit, I’ll call on you tomorrow.”
“Thank you for the refreshment,” April added. “It was just what I needed.”
“IF BERTIE DID KILL this conde, for whatever reason, would he really have run away?” April asked.
Back in their hotel room, April had collapsed on the sofa, her hat and reticule beside her. Lord Petteril, coat abandoned, was lounging against the rail of the shaded balcony, only just within her view. He appeared to consider.
“If he kept his boyhood characteristics,” his lordship said at last, “he is more likely to have brazened it out or lied through his teeth. On the other hand, he is in a foreign country, doesn’t speak the language, and might not have trusted the British to back him against a powerful native family. Even if he did run, where would he go?”
“To one of his women?” April suggested, sitting up and dragging her notebook out of her reticule.
Petteril came back into the room, closing the French windows. “You mean someone could be hiding him?” he said thoughtfully. “Not for ransom but for love?”
“It’s a possibility,” she insisted, writing the latest information and her own thoughts in the notebook. Both the speed and the formation of her letters was improving all the time.
Before she had met Lord Petteril, only four months ago, she had never even written her own name.
“It is,” Petteril agreed, sitting down beside her so that he could read what she was writing. “Only it would hardly further his ambition to fight the French. He’d be cashiered for desertion if he was ever caught. So the alternative must be truly dreadful.”
She liked sitting beside him as though they were equals, though it was a touch distracting.
He stirred. “We don’t know enough. We don’t know any of the people involved with him since he came here.”
“Except Captain Everett,” April pointed out. “And we only have his word that Bertie left him at his lodgings and went on to meet some woman.”
“You didn’t believe him?” Petteril asked.
“Actually, I did.”
Petteril sighed. “So did I. And his irritating reluctance to mention the ladies in question tends to speak in his favour rather than against him. Shall we go out to dine?”
Dining with his lordship, whether in private or public, was still such a novelty that she flushed with pleasure. “Do I need to change again?”
A knock on the door interrupted them. Lord Petteril rose and went to open it. A fussy, middle-aged man of some importance bustled in, shoving a bag into his lordship’s arms. “Whittey? Kelvin, the Envoy’s man. Major Withan’s effects.”
“How do you do?” Petteril murmured. “Allow me to introduce Mrs. Whittey, my wife.”
Kelvin, the Envoy’s man, spared April a glance and then a longer one. April didn’t like him, both because of that longer look and because of his dismissive rudeness to his lordship whom he clearly deemed beneath him.
“Some refreshment, Mr. Kelvin?” April asked, rising to bob the smallest curtsey.
“Sadly, I have no time, ma’am. Perhaps you would give us the privacy necessary for me to educate your husband? Before he crashes into affairs of which he is necessarily in ignorance and causes a diplomatic incident I have to spend the next three months dealing with.”
“Then I withdraw the offer,” April said coldly, walking past him to the bed where Lord Petteril upended the bag full of Bertie Withan’s “effects”. He did not look in the least offended by Kelvin’s manner, more interested in raking through the little pile on the bed.
April ran her hand around the inside of the bag, but there seemed to be nothing else.
“A comb, a book, a letter from Lady Petteril,” his lordship murmured. “Otherwise, this looks like his laundry—two shirts, a nightgown, some undergarments, two neckties and a couple of handkerchiefs. Is this all you found?”
“It’s all he left,” Kelvin said impatiently. “He must have taken his trunk with him.”
“Then you subscribe to the theory that he left Lisbon?”
“And was waylaid by bandits on his way to Cuidad Rodrigo, yes. I’m afraid he brought it on himself by not traveling in company with Captain Hood and the other soldiers. In short, Major Withan was an arrogant sort.”
“The hotel staff did not see him leave,” Petteril pointed out.
“The staff are always busy,” Kelvin snapped. “And since he did not pay his shot, I daresay he was anxious to leave unseen.”
“Uncharitable,” his lordship murmured, turning to face Kelvin once more. “Don’t you like him?”
“I never met him.”
“I see,” Petteril said.
Kelvin’s eyebrows flew up. “And what exactly do you see?” he asked testily.
Petteril did not answer directly. Instead he said, “You all speak of him in the past tense. You, Mr. Jeffery, Captain Everett. You assume he is dead with no evidence and no reason.”
“No evidence?” Kelvin looked about him exaggeratedly. “If he is not dead, where is he?”
“If he is dead, where is he?” April countered.
“Good point,” Lord Petteril murmured, while Kelvin glared at her as though she had grown horns.
“Our private talk, Whittey,” he commanded.
“Oh, you may speak before Mrs. Whittey.”
“Such matters bore the ladies,” Kelvin said.
“The ladies need not concern you. Mrs. Whittey is aware that the major is something of a rake. Do sit down.”
Kelvin condescended to sit on the sofa. Petteril handed April into the chair opposite and leaned his hip casually against the arm.
“We diplomats,” Kelvin began portentously, “walk something of a tightrope here in Portugal. Britain needs this base to continue fighting Bonaparte. And not all the Portuguese are grateful for our help in pushing the French out of their country. Some did better under the French, such as the Conde de Cartaxo. You see why some might imagine the British are happier with him out of the way.”
“Are we?” Lord Petteril inquired.
“No. To be frank his death is a nuisance we could do without. Our people already kept an eye on Cartaxo and concluded he had changed his sympathies with the regime. Certainly he has put supplies Wellington’s way, and ours too.”
“So Major Withan had no motive for killing him?”
“No, but since he was pursuing Cartaxo’s wife, the conde might well have the motive for a fight.”
“I gather the major also pursued other women.”
“Senhora de Almeida. Besides some back street doxies. Senhor de Almeida,” he continued, “is also an important man in the Portuguese government. He is very pro-British, and we do not wish to ruffle his feathers.”
“Would he be prepared to ruffle ours over Major Withan’s behaviour?”
“Senhora de Almeida is a virtuous lady. A great lady, even. She knows how to behave, and so does her husband.”
“Did Cartaxo?”
Kelvin met his lordship’s gaze superciliously. “Of course.”
“Would you introduce me to the condessa? And to the Almeidas?”
Kelvin rose to his feet. “I will not. I am far too busy to conduct your social life. Besides, I cannot imagine either family would accept introduction to so minor a functionary.”
“They must deal with clerks and secretaries all the time,” the viscount said modestly. “I engage not to invite any of them to dance. If you are too busy, Mr. Kelvin, perhaps you could spare a moment to write down the addresses of both the condessa and the Almeidas?”
April rose and indicated the desk between the two windows, where a sheet of paper and a pen-stand with ink awaited. With ill grace, Kelvin wrote two addresses in perfect script.
“Thank you,” Petteril said.
Kelvin glared at him. “And you are not to harass the poor, widowed condessa.”
“Does she blame Major Within for her husband’s death?” Petteril asked.
“I never heard that she did. Don’t let us down, Whittey.” And with a nod to April, he walked out without shaking hands.
“What an unpleasant, self-important little man,” April remarked, then recalling a few past encounters with London’s underworld, she added, “Perhaps you should be a more dangerous clerk the next time you meet him. What shall we do now?”
“Dine,” said Petteril.
Chapter Three
Piers woke the following morning from an excellent sleep in an actual bed. Even the heat had not kept him awake, and he was hopeful of the various clues he had learned yesterday.
Accordingly, he sprang out of bed without having to listen first to discover exactly where April was or in what stage of ablutions or dressing. Yet as he splashed cold water over his head and body, in perfect solitude, it struck him that he might actually miss that odd dance of propriety in their ship’s cabin—squeezing one’s eyes shut or hastening in or out of clothes in the gloom and going up on deck in the rain to let her dress in private. There had been an odd companionship in it, and pleasure that she trusted him. And all without discussing it.
His original plan had been to go first to this brothel Bertie had frequented and call on his more aristocratic acquaintances later. However, a glance at his fob watch showed him he had slept rather later than he meant to. Perhaps they should catch the condessa between breakfast and sesta.
When he rapped on the dressing room door, April called cheerfully for him to enter the main bedchamber. Dressed in a charming shade of jonquil, smiling and hatless, her eyes gleaming with delight in her surroundings, she was momentarily more dazzling than the morning sun.
“This is such a beautiful place,” she enthused, keeping to her nob’s accent. “I wish London was like this. Where are we going first? To the condessa’s?”
“Breakfast,” Piers replied, as his stomach rumbled. “En route to the condessa’s.” She was hardly dressed for a condolence call, but she looked so pretty that he said only. “Bring the black gloves.”
They broke their fast at a little baker shop with a table beneath a shady tree. Used to a more substantial breakfast, Piers was at first disappointed to be presented only with new bread along with thin slices of cheese and cold meat and olives. However, the bread was warm and delicious, and he found when they had eaten the lot that he really didn’t want any more.
The sun was getting ever warmer as they walked on, away from the stenches of the city to the sea and along the coast to the wealthier district of Belem where the Condessa de Cartaxo resided.
