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Flushing hotly to the top of his bald head, the solicitor quickly returned his attention to the will, reading importantly: “To Patrick Sherbourne, Eleventh Earl of Wickford, I hereby bestow all my considerable volumes of accumulated knowledge, as well as the research papers of a lifetime, with the sincere hope that he will, as it befits his moral responsibility as an honorable gentleman, continue my important work.”
“He never did!” came the incredulous outburst from the housekeeper as she whirled about in her seat to look compassionately at Professor Quinton’s only child. “Oh, Miss Victoria, I be that sorry!”
“Not half as sorry as I am,” Patrick told Standish in an undertone. “I shall have to build another library at Wickford just to hold the stuff.”
“If I might continue?” the solicitor asked as the housekeeper’s exclamation had set the two other occupants of the room—a miserably out-of-place kitchen maid who was ten pounds richer than she had been that morning, and a man already mentioned in the will and identified as the Professor’s tobacconist (and the recipient of all the Professor’s extensive collection of pipes)—to fidgeting nervously in their chairs.
“It’s all right, Willie, honestly,” Victoria Quinton soothed softly, patting the housekeeper’s bony hand. “I’m sure the Professor had his reasons.”
Wilhelmina Flint sniffed hotly, then said waspishly, “He had reasons for everythin’ he did—none of them holdin’ a thimbleful of thought for anyone save hisself.”
“Enough! What’s done is done. Please continue, sir.” Victoria said in a voice that fairly commanded the solicitor to get on with it.
“To Mr. Pierre Standish—who knows why—I bequeath in toto the private correspondence in my possession of one M. Anton Follet, to be found in a sealed wooden box presently in the possession of my trusted solicitor.”
Upon hearing this last statement, Patrick stole a quick look at his friend, but could read no reaction on Pierre’s carefully blank face.
“The remainder of my estate passes in its entirety to one Miss Victoria Louise Quinton, spinster. That’s the last bequest,” the solicitor told them, already removing his spectacles in preparation of quitting the premises. “Mr. Standish, I have the box in question, and the key, here on the desk. If you’d care to step up, I’ll relinquish them as soon as you sign a receipt to that effect.”
“My, my. Secret correspondence, Pierre?” Sherbourne suggested, looking at the other man intently. “Do you know this Follet fellow?”
“I know a great many people, Patrick,” Standish answered evenly, already rising from his uncomfortable seat to bow slightly as the ladies quit the room, Miss Quinton in the lead, the uneven hem of her black gown sweeping the floor as she went. “Your recurrent curiosity, however, begs me ponder whether or not I should be performing a kindness by furnishing you with a comprehensive listing of my acquaintance, as a precaution against your spleen undergoing an injury, for example.”
“Put m’foot in it again, didn’t I, Pierre? And after I promised, too,” Patrick remarked, grimacing comically at his faux pas. “I’ve no doubt you’ll soon find me nattering with the dowagers at Almack’s—lingering at the side of the room so as to catch up on all the latest on-dits. I implore you—can you think how to save me from that pitiful fate? Perhaps, in your kindness, even suggest a remedy?”
“A diverting interlude spent in the company of young Mademoiselle La Renoir might prove restorative,” Standish offered softly, accurately identifying Wickford’s latest dasher in keeping. “I hear the dear lady is inventive in the extreme—surely just the sort of diversion capable of ridding your mind of all its idle wonderings.”
“While ridding my pocket of yet another layer of gold, for La Renoir goes through her ingenious paces best when inspired by the sparkle of diamonds.” The Earl shook his head in the negative. “How jaded I have become, my friend, for I must admit that even Marie’s seemingly endless repertoire of bedroom acrobatics have lost their ability to amuse me. I’d replace her, if not for the ennui of searching out a successor. My idle questions to you today are the most interest I have shown in anything for months. Perhaps I am past saving.”
“Er, Mr. Standish,” the solicitor prompted, pointedly holding his open watch in the palm of one hand.
Standish ignored the man as if he hadn’t spoken. “Boredom can be the very death,” he told Patrick sympathetically, idly stroking the thin, white, crescent-shaped scar that seemed to caress rather than mar the uppermost tip of his left cheekbone. “I was bored once, my dearest, so you may believe that I know whereof I speak. Ended by wounding my man in an ill-advised duel, as a matter of fact, and nearly had to fly the country. That woke me up to the seriousness of my problem, I must say! Once free of the benighted bolt hole I had been forced to run for until the stupid man recovered—for a more cowhanded man with a sword you have yet to see—I vowed to show a burning interest in all that had been so nearly lost to me.”
“Such as?” Patrick prompted.
“Such as, my darling Patrick, an extreme curiosity about the human condition, in all its frailties. Oh yes— I also acquired an even more intense concern for my own preservation.”
“I’d really rather not carve up some poor innocent, just to start my blood to pulsing with the thrill of life, if you don’t mind, Pierre,” Wickford pointed out wryly. “Although I am sure that is not what you are suggesting.”
“What I am suggesting, darling, is that you look about yourself for some enterprise or pursuit that can serve to hold your interest for more than a sennight. In my case, the observation of my fellow creatures has proven to be endlessly engrossing. For you, well, perhaps Professor Quinton’s papers will inspire you to complete his work.”
“Or prod me into slitting my throat,” the Earl muttered, shaking his head. “I do see your point, Pierre. I thank you, and I promise to give your suggestions my deepest consideration.”
Extracting a perfumed handkerchief from inside his sleeve, Pierre waved it languidly before touching it lightly to the corners of his mouth, saying, “It was nothing, my darling man. But I’m afraid I really must leave you now, before our poor solicitor person suffers a spasm, dithering back and forth over the fear of offending me and his desire to return to his own hearth and slippers—although I fail to comprehend why anyone should fear me, as I am the most peaceful man in all England.”
“And I’m next in line for the throne,” Sherbourne responded playfully, to be rewarded by one of Standish’s rare genuine smiles.
“Et tu, darling?” he commented without rancor. “Ah well, I imagine this common misconception of my character is just a cross I must bear. Pray keep me informed of your progress, my dearest Patrick, for I shall fret endlessly until I know you are restored to your usual good frame.”
CHAPTER TWO
PATRICK REMAINED in his chair, idly watching Standish sign the receipt with a flourish and then depart, a small oblong wooden box tucked neatly under his arm. Perhaps he was desperate for diversion, but Patrick would have given a tidy sum to know the contents of that box. Pierre was a good friend, but not very forthcoming, and it was slowly dawning on Patrick just how little of a personal nature he really knew about Pierre Standish, even after serving with him in the Peninsula.
He looked around the book-lined room, wondering if M. Anton Follet was mentioned in any of the volumes, or in any of the papers holding Professor Quinton’s extensive, although incomplete, history of the British upper class. His own research was devoid of any such reference, he knew, but then he had not gone much beyond a compilation of his and a half dozen other loosely related family histories before the whole idea had begun to pall and he had shelved the project (as he had so many others that he had begun in the years since his return to London from the war).
Rising stiffly from his chair—for he had spent the previous evening with Marie La Renoir and his muscles were still sending up protests—he realized that he and Miss Quinton, who had at some time reentered the library unnoticed by him to stand in the shallow window embrasure, were now the only occupants of the depressing room.
Steeling himself to pass a few moments in polite apology for having somehow usurped her claim on her father’s life work (it would never occur to him that either he or Standish should apologize for their rudeness during the reading of the will for, in their minds, the crushing boredom of such an occasion had made them sinned against rather than sinning), he walked over to stand in front of her, a suitably solemn expression looking most out of place on his handsome, aristocratic face.
“Miss Quinton,” he began carefully, “I can only tell you that your father’s bequest came as a complete surprise to me. As I could not but help overhearing your housekeeper’s refreshingly honest reaction at the time, I can only assume that you had a deep personal interest in his work.”
Victoria Quinton turned around slowly to look at the Earl levelly, assessingly—dismissively. “Yes, you would have assumed that, wouldn’t you?”
Patrick blinked once, looking at the young woman closely, unwilling to believe he had just been roundly insulted. She was standing stock-still in front of him, her hands clasped tightly together at her waist, the picture of dowdy dullness. He had to have been mistaken—the woman hadn’t the wit to insult him. “I assure you,” he then pressed on doggedly, “if there are any papers you particularly cherish—or any favorite books you would regret having pass out of your possession—you have only to mention them to me and I will not touch them.”
“How condescending of you. In point of fact, sir, I want them all,” Victoria Quinton replied shortly. “Indefinitely. Once I have discovered what I need to know, Lord Wickford, you are welcome to everything, down to the last bit of foolscap. Make a bonfire of it if you wish.”
Not exactly the shy, retiring sort, considering her mousy exterior, Sherbourne thought, his curiosity reluctantly piqued. Possessing little that would appeal to the opposite sex, she had probably developed an animosity toward all men; no unmarried miss of his acquaintance would dream of speaking so to him. “Would it be crassly impolite of me to ask what it is you hope to discover?” he asked, staring at her intently.
Victoria turned smartly, her heavy black skirts rustling about her ankles, and headed for the hallway, clearly intending to usher her unwelcome visitor to the door. “It would be, although I am sure you feel that being an earl makes you exempt from any hint of rudeness. But I shall nevertheless satisfy your curiosity, considering your generosity in allowing me use of the Professor’s collection. I shall even pretend that I did not overhear your complaints when you first heard of the bequest.”
Patrick’s dark eyes narrowed as he stared after this infuriating drab who dared to insult him. “How kind of you, Miss Quintin,” he drawled softly as they stopped walking and faced each other. “I vow, madam, you fair bid to unman me.”
Miss Quinton’s left eyebrow rose a fraction. “Indeed,” she pronounced flatly. “As I was about to say, sir: I have dedicated myself to the unmasking of the man who murdered the Professor. The answer lies in his papers, and I shall not rest until the perpetrator is exposed. And now, good day to you, sir.”
She then moved to stand beside the open door that led down three shallow steps to the flagway lining the north side of Ablemarle Street. But her startling disclosure (and jarring candor) had halted Wickford—who could only view departing the house as his single most cherished goal in life—in his tracks, leaving him standing some distance from the exit.
“Find the murderer?” he repeated, not trying very hard to hide his smile. “How very enterprising of you, madam. Have you perhaps looked underneath your bed? I hear that many spinsters believe murderers lurk in such places.”
Victoria’s chin lifted at the insult. “I’m positive you are considered quite amusing by your friends in those ridiculous clubs on St. James’s Street, but I can assure you that I am deadly serious.”
“But your father was killed by a burglar he must have discovered breaking into his library,” Patrick pressed on, caught up in the argument against his will. “Murder, yes, I agree, but it’s not as if the man’s identity could be found amid your father’s research papers or personal library. I fear you will have to resign yourself to the sad fact that crimes like this often go unpunished. Law enforcement in London is sorry enough, but investigations of chance victims of violence like your father are virtually nonexistent.”
The front door closed with a decided crash as Victoria prepared to explain her reasons to the Earl—why, she did not stop to ask herself—so incensed was she by his condescending attitude. “The Professor knew his murderer, probably opened the door to him, as a matter of fact. I have irrefutable evidence that proves my theory, but no one will listen to me. I have no recourse but to conduct my own investigation.”
“What is your evidence?” Patrick asked, feeling a grudging respect for her dedication, if not her powers of deduction.
“That, Lord Wickford, is of no concern to you,” she told him, pulling herself up to her full height. As she spoke she slipped a hand into the pocket of her gown, closing her fingers around the cold metal object that was her only lead toward discovering the identity of the murderer. “Suffice it to say that I have in my possession a very incriminating clue that—while it does not allow me to point a finger at any one person—very definitely lends credence to the theory that you, sir, or one of a small group of other persons I shall be investigating with an eye toward motive, entered the Professor’s library as a friend and then struck him down, leaving him to lie mortally injured. Before dying in my arms the Professor charged me with the duty of bringing his murderer to justice and, I say to you now in all sincerity, sir, that I shall do just that! All I ask of you is some time before you remove the collection. I will notify you when I no longer require it.”
“Admirable sentiments, eloquently expressed, Miss Quinton,” Patrick owned soberly, “although I feel I must at this point protest—just slightly, you understand—that you have numbered me among your suspects.”
Bats in her belfry, Patrick then decided silently, becoming weary of the conversation. That’s what happens to these dusty spinster types after a while. But aloud, he continued, “I’ll respect your right to hold to your own counsel about your ‘clue,’ of course. But my dear Miss Quinton, you must know that I would be shirking my duty as a gentleman if I didn’t offer you my services should you find yourself in need of them. That is, if you are willing to accept help from one of your suspects?”
“I shan’t need your help,” Victoria retorted confidently, deliberately ignoring the vague feeling of unease that had been growing ever since she first began this strange conversation. Longing to do Sherbourne an injury, she thought to herself: If I cannot throw actual brickbats at him, I can at least attack him verbally. “For now,” she continued in a voice devoid of emotion, “it is enough that I have been able to interview my first suspect. I might add, sir, that I shall strive not to allow your boorish behavior today—and all I have read in the newspapers about your questionable pursuits—to prejudice me against you. At the moment, you are no more suspect than any of the other gentlemen who could have committed the crime.
“I apologize for baiting you so openly, Lord Wick-ford,” she then conceded, her voice softening a bit, “but you are only the second suspect I have encountered today, you understand, the first having escaped before I could speak with him. I was merely testing your responses, feeling you out as it were,” she added, not entirely truthfully, for in fact her opinion of him and his kind was not especially high.
Now Victoria had Sherbourne’s complete attention. “Second suspect, you say? As I doubt that either the solicitor or that down-at-the-heels tradesman who scurried out of here with the Professor’s collection of pipes is capable of murder, could you possibly be trying to tell me that Pierre Standish is also to be considered a suspect? My, my,” he remarked, seeing the answer on her expressive face. “At least, Miss Quinton, you have put me in good company, although I imagine I should be feeling quite put out with you for even supposing I could have had anything to do with your father’s death, except for the fact that I find it extremely difficult to take seriously anything you have said. Your last revealing statement implicating Mr. Standish has served to confirm my opinion of the worthlessness of your arguments.”
Patrick smiled then, shaking his head in disbelief. “Therefore, I won’t even dignify your assumption of my possible guilt with a question as to your reasons for it. I make no secret of my disagreement with your father when last we met, as I realize it is more than possible that you overheard us.”
“I have not yet been able to ascertain a motive for you, or any of the suspects,” Victoria was stung into saying. “To tell the truth, there may still be suspects I have not yet discovered. I am in no way prepared at this time to make any accusations.”
“I shall sleep better knowing that, at least for now, you are only assuming to place guilt rather than running off to the authorities with a demand for my immediate arrest, I assure you,” Patrick returned, bowing with an insulting lack of respect. “I shall also—need I even say it?—make it a point to enlighten Mr. Standish of his new status as a suspect in a murder, although telling him that he is not unique in his position, but has merely been lumped in with other would-be dastards, may not be a wise move on my part. Pierre does so hate running with the herd, you understand. But I’m sure you won’t let Mr. Standish’s righteous anger frighten you if he should happen to take umbrage at your accusation, for your motives are pure, aren’t they, Miss Quinton? After all, you are only doing as any loving daughter might do, and you are a loving daughter, aren’t you, Miss Quinton?”
Victoria’s pale face became even more chalklike before a hot flush of color banded her features from neck to forehead—the only portions of her anatomy Patrick could, or wished to, see—and she replied coldly, “My feelings for and relationship with my late father are not at issue here, sir. The Professor was murdered, and I have undertaken the fulfillment of a dying man’s last wish. It’s the only honorable thing to do under the circumstances.”
Patrick looked about the drab hallway consideringly. “You’ve led a rather quiet, almost sequestered life, Miss Quinton. Dare I suggest that you are contemplating using the Professor’s death as an excuse to insert a bit of excitement into your previously humdrum existence? Although, looking at you, I can’t imagine that you possess any real spunk, or you would have asserted yourself long since rather than live out your life in such dull drudgery, catering to the whims of an eccentric, totally unlikable man like the Professor. No, I must be mistaken. Obviously you believe yourself to be embarked on a divine mission. Do you, perhaps, read Cervantes?”
“This is not some quixotic quest, sir, and I am not tilting at windmills. I have control of my mental faculties, and I am determined to succeed. I suggest we terminate this conversation now, so that I may get on with my investigation and you may repair to one of your ridiculous private clubs, where you can employ that inane grin you’re wearing to good use as you regale your low-life friends with what I am sure will be your highly amusing interpretation of my plans and motives.”
Sherbourne’s smile widened as he shook his head in disbelief. “I really must read the columns more often, if their gossip has indeed painted me as black as you believe me to be. At the very least, such a vice-ridden, pleasure-mad libertine as I should be enjoying himself much more than I think I am, don’t you agree? Either that or—oh, please say it isn’t so—you, Miss Quinton, have hidden away behind that dreary gown and atrocious coiffure a rather wildly romantic, highly inventive, and suggestible mind that is considerably more worldly than your prim façade, educated speech, and high-flown ideals indicate. Is that why you’re so hostile, dear lady? Are you a bit envious of those lives you read about in the scandal sheets? Are you out to snare a murderer to fulfill the Professor’s dying wish, or do you see this as a chance to deliver a slap in the face to a society that you equally covet and despise?”
“That’s not true!” Victoria exclaimed, aghast. “How dare you insinuate that I have ulterior motives for my actions? You don’t know me. You know less than nothing about me.” The Earl’s verbal darts were striking with amazing accuracy now, and all Victoria could think of was finding some way to make him leave before she could be tricked into saying something that confirmed his suspicions. “Every word you utter convinces me more that you are the guilty party—attacking blindly in the hope you will somehow be able to dissuade me from my intentions. Let me tell you, sir, yours is an exercise in futility! I shall not be defeated by such an unwarranted personal attack!”
“As you say,” Patrick answered, one finely arched eyebrow aloft. “Well, good hunting, Miss Quinton. If you desire any assistance, or need rescuing when you find yourself in over your head, please do not hesitate to contact me.”
“I find it incumbent upon me to say that I cannot think of what possible use you’d suppose yourself to be,” Victoria marveled nastily, “considering your reputation for the aimless pursuit of pleasure, not to mention your renowned propensity for immature exploit.”
“Oh no, you misunderstand, Miss Quinton,” the Earl informed her mildly. “I shan’t come pelting into the fray on my white charger to save you, you understand, but I might be inclined to wander by and say ‘I told you so’ on my way to some nearby low gaming hell or depraved orgy.” Moving once more toward the door, he added, “Now that we have exchanged the requisite pleasantries, I do believe I shall take my leave. Do please try not to weep as I pass out of your life forever, Miss Quinton. I’d wager a considerable sum that yours is not a face that would be enhanced by a maidenly show of tears.”
“I never cry” was all Victoria answered, bent on correcting his misconception without seeming to take exception to his ungentlemanly remarks. The only outward sign that his insult had hit a tender spot was to be found in a slight widening of her curiously amber eyes, but it was enough to afford Patrick some small solace.
“I can believe that, Miss Quinton,” he answered cheerfully, patting his hat down on his head at a jaunty angle as he prepared to leave before she said something that tried his overworked patience too high. “I imagine any emotion save your obvious contempt for your fellow man to be alien to one such as you. Indeed, it must gratify you in the extreme to be so superior to the rest of us poor mortals. When your father’s papers pass into my possession—in other words, on the day when you finally are forced to admit defeat in your ‘quixotic quest’—I shall be eager to inspect the Quinton family tree. It must be thick with truly outstanding specimens.”
“You have not heard me boast of my ancestry, sir. It is you who carry a coat of arms on your coach door like a badge of honor, as if anything any of your ancestors has done can possibly reflect advantageously on you, who have done nothing to deserve the slightest honor at all.”
Patrick’s back stiffened as he swallowed down hard on an impulse to strangle the unnatural chit. He hadn’t yet gotten through her iron-hard shell, no matter what he had thought earlier. He hadn’t found a single chink in her armor of dislike and indifference that had refused to yield even an inch. She should be reduced to tears, not standing there toe-to-toe with him, trading insults.
“When first I saw you, Miss Quinton, I thought your father hid you away because of your lack of looks,” he offered now, knowing he was behaving badly but somehow unable to help himself, for the woman seemed to bring out the worst in him. “I see now I was sadly mistaken. It was your serpent’s tongue he strove so hard to conceal. Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s not nice to go around antagonizing people with every other word that rolls off your agile tongue?”
Victoria took in the heightened color in Lord Wick-ford’s thin cheeks and decided that she had tried him high enough for the moment. He had revealed nothing of himself save a reluctance to admit to anger and an ability to trade verbal insults without flinching, and he had appeared truly surprised to hear of her belief that her father had known his murderer.
Even so, she should have considered her tactics more closely before deciding to opt for a full, frontal assault. After all, hadn’t Willie always told her that one caught more flies with honey than with vinegar? Victoria winced inwardly, wondering if the Earl was right—that she was, at three and twenty, taking on all the less-than-sterling traits of the waspish spinster.
Of course, she comforted herself, his surprise could have just as easily stemmed from his realization that she had somehow discovered some evidence that could incriminate him, she amended carefully, knowing it wouldn’t be prudent to jump to any conclusions this early in the day.
She was just about to open her mouth and apologize for having behaved so shabbily when Sherbourne, who had just interrupted his latest move toward the front door as a sudden thought occurred to him, whirled to point a finger in her face and demand: “Pierre Standish, Miss Quinton. Humor me, if you please, and speculate for just a moment—what possible reason could he have had for putting a period to your father’s existence?”
“Who is M. Anton Follet, Lord Wickford?” was Victoria’s maddening reply.
Patrick inclined his head slightly, as if acknowledging a flush hit. “Ah, madam, such deep intrigue. I do so love cryptic questions, don’t you?” His smile was all admiration as he ended silkily, “If this is a sample of your sleuthing, however, I suggest you repair to your knitting box without further delay.”
“I don’t knit.”
Patrick’s eyes closed in a weary show of despair. “This, I believe, is where I came in. And, madam, this is where I depart. Good day to you, Miss Quinton.”
So saying, Sherbourne opened the front door and let it close softly behind his departing back.
It wasn’t until his coach (the one with the gilt coat of arms on the doors) had delivered him to his own doorstep that Sherbourne realized he was more than just extremely angry. He was also confused, upset, and intensely curious about Pierre Standish, M. Anton Follet, Quennel Quinton, Miss Victoria Quinton’s bizarre scheme, and the identity of the Professor’s murderer.
It did not occur to him that the one thing he was not was bored.
CHAPTER THREE
“WHAT AN ODIOUS, odious man!” Victoria Quinton told the empty foyer once the Earl of Wickford had departed, having gained for himself—although it pained her, she had to acknowledge it—the last, telling thrust in their war of words. For at least one fleeting moment during their conversation she had felt the same impotent fury she had invariably experienced on the rare occasions when she had gone up against the Professor in a verbal battle before she had at last decided that she really didn’t care enough about her father’s view of life to try to convince him of her side on any subject.
Crossing the foyer to enter the small, shabby drawing room that—as the Professor had rarely visited it—she considered her own, Victoria walked over to stand directly in front of the wall mirror that hung above a small Sheraton side table, one of the few fine pieces of furniture that her mother had brought to the marriage.
The mirror hanging above it, on the other hand, was a later purchase of the Professor’s, and it was exquisite only by way of its ornate ugliness. Peering through the virtual forest of carved wooden decoration that hemmed the mirror in from all sides, Victoria did her best to examine the features she saw reflected back at her.
“‘Not a face that would be enhanced by a maidenly show of tears,’” she quoted, tilting her head this way and that as she leaned closer for a better view, as Victoria was markedly shortsighted without the spectacles she had chosen not to wear that afternoon.
“What Lord Wickford left unsaid was that if I had been so foolish as to ask him what would enhance my looks, he would have immediately suggested the prudent disposition of a large, concealing sack overtop my head.” She smiled in spite of herself, causing a dimple Patrick Sherbourne had not been privileged to see to appear in one cheek, lending a bit of humanizing animation to her usually solemn face.
Putting a hand to her chin, she turned her head slowly from side to side once more, objectively noting both her positive and negative features. “The eyes aren’t all that depressing, if I can only remember not to squint at anything beyond the range of ten feet.” she mused aloud. “Although I do wish my brows were more winglike and less straight. I always look as if someone has his hand on the top of my head, pushing down.”
Squinting a bit as she moved almost nose to nose with her reflection, she continued her inventory. “Nose,” she began, wrinkling up that particular feature experimentally a time or two. “Well,” she concluded after a moment, “I do have one, not that it does much more than sit there, keeping my ridiculously long eyes from meeting in the middle, while my skin certainly is pale enough to pass inspection, although I do believe I should have considerably more color than this. In this old black gown I look less like one of the mourners and more like the corpse.”
She stepped back a pace and deliberately pasted a bright smile on her face, exposing a full set of white, even teeth surrounded by a rather wide, full-lipped mouth that did not turn either up or down at the corners. Her neck—a rather long, swanlike bit of construction—did not seem to be sufficiently strong to hold up her head, and her small, nearly fleshless jaw, though strongly square boned, perched atop it at almost a perfect right angle, with no hint of a double chin.
Reaching a hand behind her, she pulled out the three pins holding up her long, dark brown hair, so that it fell straight as a poker from her center part to halfway down her back. “Ugh,” she complained to the mirror, ruefully acknowledging that, although her hair was a good length, it was rather thin, and of a definitely unprepossessing color. “How could anyone with so much hair look so bald?” she asked herself, trying in vain to push at it so that it wouldn’t just lay there, clinging to her head like a sticking plaster.
Then, holding her hands out in front of her, she inspected her long, slim, ink-stained fingers and blunt-cut nails before quickly hiding them again in the folds of her skirt. The Professor had told her repeatedly that her hands and feet were a disgrace, betraying physical frailty because of their slender, aristocratic construction.
“How I longed all through my childhood for a knock to come at the door and for someone to rush in to tell me that I wasn’t really Victoria Quinton but a princess who had been stolen away by gypsies and sold to the Professor for a handful of silver coins,” she reminisced, smiling a bit at the memory. Having no real recollection of the mother who had died while her only child was still quite young, Victoria had resorted to fantasy to explain away her unease at being unable to love the strange man who was her father. “Oh well,” she acknowledged now with a wide grimace, “if my aristocratically slender bones didn’t gain me a royal palace, at least they saved me from being hired out as a dray horse in order to bring a few more pennies into the house.”
That brought her to the point she had been dreading, an inventory of her figure. “What there is of it,” she said aloud, giving an involuntary gurgle of laughter. Victoria might have inherited her above-average height from the Professor, but she had been blessed—or blighted, according to the Professor, who would have liked it if she could have been physically suited for more of the housekeeping duties—with her mother’s small-boned frame and inclination to thinness.
“Skinny as a rake, and considerably less shapely,” she amended, as her reflection told her clearly that the only things holding up her gown were her shoulders.
Victoria closed her eyes for a moment, sighed deeply, then lifted her chin and began twisting up her hair, fastening the anchoring pins with a total disregard for the pain her quick movements caused. “Point: Victoria Quinton, spinster, is an antidote,” she declared, staring herself straight in the eyes. “Point: Mr. Pierre Standish insulted me openly and then all but cut me dead. Point: The Earl of Wickford did not hesitate in revealing to me his distaste for women of my sort.” She stopped to take a breath, then ended, “Point: I don’t care a snap about the first three points.
“Mr. Standish is a soulless devil, everyone knows that, and the Earl—well, he is the most excessively disagreeable, odious man I have ever met, not that I have even spoken to above two or three of that unimpressive gender in my entire life. I don’t care a button what they think, and I am well shed of the pair of them!” She nodded her head decisively and her reflection nodded back to her.
She felt fairly good about herself and her deductions for a moment or two, until her mind, momentarily blunted by this rare display of self-interest, stabbed at her consciousness, rudely reminding her that she did need them. If she were ever to solve the puzzle of just who murdered the Professor, she needed them both very much.
Even worse, she acknowledged with a grimace, she needed to do something—something drastic—about making herself over into a young woman who could go about in public without either spooking the carriage horses or sending toddlers into shrieking fits of hysterics.
The two men who had been in the house in Ablemarle Street were not her only suspects—although they did for the moment stand at the head of the list of society gentlemen she had thus far compiled—and she must somehow inveigle introductions to certain others of the ton if her plan to ferret out the murderer was to have even the slimmest chance of succeeding.
Victoria pressed her fingertips to her temples, for she could feel a headache coming on, and looked about the room, searching for her spectacles. She still felt slightly uneasy about her decision not to wear the plain, rimless monstrosities, unwilling to recognize maidenly vanity even to herself, and decided to blame the insufferable Earl of Wickford, and not her foolishness, for the dull thump-thumping now going on just behind her eyes.
How she longed for her cozy bed and a few moments’ rest, for she had been sleeping badly ever since the Professor’s death three days earlier, but she discarded the idea immediately. “The Professor would have kittens if I dared to lie down in the middle of the afternoon,” she scolded herself sternly. Although she had never been afraid of the man, she had found it easier to keep her thoughts to herself and display an outward show of obedience, thus saving herself many a lecture.
But then, just as she was about to head for her work-basket that stood in the corner and the mending that awaited her there, she brought herself up short, and a small smile lit her features. “And who’s going to run tattling to him, Miss Quinton, if you do take to your bed—Saint Peter? You are your own mistress now, my dear,” she reminded herself, a bit of a lilt coloring her voice. “You have longed for this day, dreamed about it for years, and now—through no fault of your own—it is here. You are free, Victoria Quinton, free to do whatever you will!”
Pivoting smartly on the heels of her sensible black kid half boots, she exited the small drawing room in a near skip, heading for the staircase.
