“You are a walking display of your most excellent work,” Minerva agreed in admiration.“Keep your eyes and ears open.We have no idea of who or what we’re looking for.”
“Killers ought to wear cloaked hoods,” he said dryly.“Velvet and silk are wasted on them.”
She repeated that to Paul later and he laughed.“We will post a sign in the road—no killers allowed unless appropriately garbed in hooded cloak.Have you learned anything at all?”
“Not from staff, no.I gather from Jacques that Chatham’s valet is most likely the bumbling man who disturbed Verity last night.I left Kate upstairs, helping gather bells and noise makers to set traps.”Minerva removed her apron and cap and smoothed her serviceable twill with her palms.It had been a very long day.“If Snoop John tries to return, he will regret it, but I suspect he’s simply incompetent.”
“I cannot think that anyone here would harm children or cold-bloodedly stab a woman no one really knew.”Paul offered his arm to lead her upstairs.
“Jacques says the viscount’s valet was looking for willing maids, perhaps for his employer?”Minerva wrinkled her nose in distaste.“I hate thinking that way, but what if Chatham had used Willa in the past...?”
“Unlikely.From the gossip I’ve heard so far, he’s young and has never been outside London, until he came into his title and inheritance.I talked to a few of the stablemen and the marquess’s valet.Chatham rode in on a recently purchased mare and barely knows how to ride.He doesn’t belong to any of the gentlemen’s clubs.So he does not originally come from money.”
“Out of extreme curiosity, do we know ifChathamis a territorial or family title?”Minerva had spent a great deal of time in the duke’s library reading up on the peerage for the duke’s secretary.But she had not memorized Debrett’s.
“No notion.”Paul glanced at her in puzzlement.“Viscounts come with different titles, like earls?”
“Not many and I have not researched the history, but I assume, as in the rest of the peerage, the title was attached to either land or family at some distant date.”There was her cynical mind at work, looking for evil under every rock.
Paul’s more godly mind tracked her thoughts however.“So Laurence, Lord Chatham could be a mere Laurence Turner andChathamis the family estate?”
She grimaced.“It’s possible.Not likely but possible.Laurence is his first name?”
“So I have heard.He did not ask me to call him Larry but I overheard his friends do so.How do we find out?”
“I sneak off to the library when none of the gentlemen are in there.”Not easily done.The library was immense and always an attraction to visitors.Even though she was the librarian, she could not lock the doors and keep out family.“Who invited him?”
“He arrived on the coattails of the duke’s grand-nephew by marriage.”
“That would be Watson or Shaw?I heard nothing particularly untoward about either of them.I know most of the duke’s close family but I recognize neither.”Tired of fretting, Minerva lifted her hem higher than she ought as she preceded her husband up the servants’ stairs.She was eager to reach their bedchamber.
“Shaw, the short, rumpled one.No income of his own.No army to join.Duke told him he’d offer a benefice in one of his parishes if he’d finish Oxford.Apparently, he’s not a student either.”He didn’t sound offended by life’s unfairness.
If Paul had a duke’s patronage, he could do so much good with wealth and a larger parish...And here was a lazy aristocrat rejecting the largesse Paul deserved.Minerva was offended for him.
Paul practically pushed her up the last flight of servants’ stairs to the wing where Minerva—as part of the earl’s family—owned a room.Owned, according to the earl’s eccentric will.They would never be homeless.But it had never been about the roof over their heads.They both wished to make the world a better place.Some days, Minerva wasn’t entirely certain why.
“Idle young man, looking for trouble.Nothing new there.”At the top, she leaned into Paul’s embrace.“We should get them all bosky and ask if they know Willa.”
Paul froze.“They’re all still drinking in the dining room.”
“Me and my big mouth,” Minerva muttered, following his thoughts.“Can’t we leave them to Damien and the captain?”
“The lawyer and the magistrate?Can they act as witness if anything incriminating is said?”
“What are they going to say?”she argued.“I like killing helpless women?”
“I shall moralize on opium and prostitutes and set Hunt’s cousins to arguing.”Paul dropped her arm and furrowed his brow.
“Which accomplishes what?”she asked peevishly.She was supposed to be the one with the devious mind.He was supposed to write sermons and save souls.
Except his devious mind had helped solve more than one murder.
“With luck, I shall establish who knows about opium and has knowledge of the local house of ill repute.We have to start somewhere.”He kissed her brow and abandoned her to the drafty corridor to find her own way back to her room.
Devil take it, if he could go a-spying, so could she.She dashed for her room to clean up and change our of her flour-spattered attire.
Twenty-nine
