Page 64 of Miss Dramatic
“Do you know how tiresome beingthemarquess becomes in these surrounds?” Tavistock asked, going straight to the sideboard. “I might as well be one of the hyenas in the royal menagerie, I’m such an oddity. The local folk are very dear, but also prone to gawking. I’ve trotted out the ’98 to fortify my nerves for the duration of the gathering. Do join me.”
The vintage in the decanter was good, but hadn’t a patch on the real ’98. Tavistock was saving that to share with Amaryllis on their first wedding anniversary.
He poured two servings, nosed his portion, and lifted his glass. “To successful performances.”
Drysdale returned the gesture. “To successful performances. Speaking of which, what did you make of young DeWitt’s foray into the theater? Not quite the done thing, was it?”
“My years foraying about on the Continent weren’t the done thing either.” Tavistock knocked back his drink, which had been half the size of Drysdale’s serving. “Young fellows can benefit enormously from kicking over the traces, or so my marchioness claims. Between us, though… She’s very relieved DeWitt has put all that behind him. We have hopes he’ll take a wife soon, though Diana’s come out must take precedence.”
“Miss DeWitt is all that is lovely, I’m sure, and there’s a younger sister, too, I believe?”
“Caroline. Wonderful child, but agirlchild. She’s at that awkward age between birth and maturity. Believe I’ll have a bit more. Will you join me?”
“I’m still working on my first. Wonderful vintage.” Between sips, Drysdale appeared to take a subtle inventory of the library’s appointments. The Constable over the mantel was the usual bucolic scene with a sky worthy of the Low Countries—the clouds were also a bit brownish. The opposite hearth sported a severely sunny depiction of Venice by Canaletto.
Tavistock didn’t care much for either piece—nopersonality, despite the accomplished technique. The library also held his books, though, and that made the chamber a storeroom of treasure indeed.
“Would it surprise my lord to know that young DeWitt parted from the Players on less than cordial terms?” Drysdale asked, perusing the atlas open at the standing desk.
“DeWitt doesn’t say much about his time away, and we don’t pry. By damn, this is good brandy.”
“I suspect DeWitt of larceny,” Drysdale said, taking out a quizzing glass and peering more closely at the map of Crosspatch Corners. “Stole some baubles and more than a bit of coin. We couldn’t prove anything, but I could not let it be suspected that we harbored a thief.”
Tavistock retrieved a key from under a bust of Aristotle and began opening and closing the drawers of the desk sitting before the Constable hearth. “Now see here, Drysdale. I’m a peer, and you are not a peer, so talk like that can’t be dealt with over pistols or swords, but you mustn’t go insulting my brother-by-marriage under my own roof. Where in blazes…?”
“I meant no insult, my lord. More of a warning. Has my lord misplaced something?”
“Why would I need a warning?” Tavistock locked the desk, replaced the key, and went to the sideboard. There, he retrieved a key from beneath a bottle of calvados and repeated the opening and closing of drawers and cabinets, making a good deal of noise in the process.
Who knew playing the fool could be so diverting?
“Some people can’t help themselves,” Drysdale said gently. “They see something pretty, and they must have it. The issue is not one of necessity in the sense you or I would use the term, but of a wounded soul hoping to come right by nefarious means. The noose means nothing to such wretches. Then too, they usually excel at purloining what they fancy, so the noose isn’t truly much of a threat to them.”
Tavistock set the key back under the calvados and straightened. “What are you prosing on about? DeWitt is not a thief. Growing up in this village, he couldn’t so much as sneeze in the stable at noon without the vicar praying for his health before sundown. He’d have no opportunity to steal even an apple from the livery, much less perfect the art of appropriating… What did you call them? Baubles? And a bit of coin?”
“More than a bit. I intend to have reparation from him while I’m here, my lord. I want you to know that.”
What Drysdale apparently wanted Tavistock to know was that Gavin should be suspected of hanging felonies. That Gavin was not to be trusted, much less respected. Perhaps Drysdale was a better actor off the stage than on it.
Tavistock extracted a key from under a candlestick on the mantel and crossed to the cabinet that held the maps, a piece of furniture much like a clothespress, with myriad wide, flat, shallow drawers on rollers. En route, he purposely brushed too close to the reading table, pretended to stumble, and came up cursing.
“If you have business with DeWitt,” he said when he’d finished airing his French vocabulary, “you needn’t burden me with the details. He’s an adult, a man of means, and much respected locally. I merely caution you to discretion.” Tavistock unlocked the mechanism at the side of the cabinet. “Bloody furniture. Footmen move it about every time they beat the carpets.”
Drysdale sipped his drink and pretended to study the Canaletto. “And if my issues with DeWitt should involve the law?”
Tavistock rubbed his thigh. “The law? One supposes you have proof and witnesses and such?”
“An entire acting troupe has reason to wish DeWitt had never crossed our path. I have witnesses.”
But not proof. “Thespians are known for their ability to dissemble. They support themselves with it, in fact, meaning no offense. Testimony alone won’t get you very far when our magistrate is the estimable Mr. Pevinger, as counseled by his formidable wife and daughters. Ah, here we are. My darling lady tells me where she puts them, but always when I am balancing the ledgers or seeing to my correspondence.” Tavistock held up a string of emeralds, letting them wink and twirl in the last of the slanting evening light. “I’m having the piece replicated in amethysts. Not as valuable, I know, but a lovely complement to her ladyship’s complexion.”
Drysdale had given up any pretension of admiring the art. “You keep your emeraldsin the library?”
“More than emeralds, though much of the collection remains in Town. We haven’t a safe, and installing one would insult the servants. My wife was raised in these surrounds, and insulting the servants is apparently the eighth deadly sin. Damnedest notion I ever heard this side ofliberté, égalité, et fraternité.”
“The usual approach would be to keep those goods in a jewelry box, my lord.” Drysdale had sidled across the room and was goggling at the open drawer. Amaryllis had put together a pretty display on maroon velvet. Two parures and various other adornments in precious and semiprecious stones, gold to the left, silver to the right.
“A jewelry box?” Tavistock tucked the emeralds into his breast pocket. “If you were a maid intent on lifting a fetching brooch, where would you look, Drysdale? You’d look in the jewelry box after popping the lock with a hairpin. I grasp—begrudgingly, but I do—the business about not insulting the servants, but neither will I forgo all caution. Domestics are only human, and these goods, as you call them, would tempt many a weak character. The marchioness and I compromise by keeping the jewels under lock and key but in an unlikely location. Where did I leave my drink?”
