Too Hot to Handel Read online

  While His Excellency sputtered over this home truth, Mr. Colquhoun glanced about the room and located William Foote among a knot of Runners, no doubt all of them discussing the fire.

  “Now, Your Excellency,” continued the magistrate, “one of my men has had considerable success in recovering stolen jewels. I am assigning Mr. William Foote to this case in the expectation that he will be no less successful where Her Royal Highness’s diamonds are concerned. Mr. Foote!”

  William Foote detached himself from the group of Runners and joined the magistrate at the bench. “You wanted me, sir?”

  “This is His Excellency, Vladimir Gregorovich Dombrowsky, part of the Princess Olga Fyodorovna’s entourage. He tells me the princess’s diamonds were stolen last night in spite of all our precautions. You seem to be the best man where these jewel theft cases are concerned, so I’m putting you in charge. Your Excellency, you may make your complaints to Mr. Foote. I have nothing more to say to you!”

  Having delivered himself of this speech, he left the bench hastily lest he say something to his noble client that he might later have cause to regret.

  Alas, Mr. Colquhoun’s troubles were far from over. He had to endure a most unpleasant meeting with his tailor, who was only slightly placated by the placing of a very expensive order of clothing that Mr. Colquhoun neither needed nor particularly wanted. Obeying a sudden impulse, he instructed the tailor to make up another tailcoat of Bath superfine in the same blue cloth as the one he had hired for his young protégé, and according to the same measurements, and add it to his order. He told himself that Lady Fieldhurst might yet give John Pickett occasion to wear such a garment; he rejected the half-formed idea that, should Pickett succumb to his injuries, he might be buried in it.

  Mr. Colquhoun was only too glad to escape Bow Street at the end of the day, and gladder still when he called at Pickett’s lodgings in Drury Lane to be met at the door by Lady Fieldhurst, no longer wearing Pickett’s brown coat over her undergarments, but clad in a morning gown of primrose yellow along with a radiant smile.

  “He spoke!” she exclaimed by way of greeting. “Mr. Colquhoun, he spoke!”

  “He’s awake, then?” the magistrate asked eagerly, stripping off his hat and gloves as he entered the modest flat.

  “No.” Her smile faltered. “I’m not sure he was ever awake, at least not fully, but he did speak, and quite coherently, too.”

  “That’s the best news I’ve had all day,” said Mr. Colquhoun, his brow clearing. “What did he say?”

  She led the way into the small bedroom, where Mr. Colquhoun was somewhat disappointed to see John Pickett lying very much as he had been when the magistrate had left him that morning.

  “He complained that his feet were hurting,” Lady Fieldhurst answered. “One of his feet, anyway. He didn’t say which, but his left ankle appears to be slightly swollen, so I daresay that is the one. I rather think I landed on it, although he denied it at the time.”

  “You landed on it? My lady, I wish you will tell me exactly how the pair of you contrived to escape the fire. Having seen the theatre for myself, or what little is left of it, I am at a loss to account for it.”

  She gestured for him to take the single chair beside the bed while she sat on the edge of the mattress, as if her natural place were at Pickett’s side. “You will find it hard to believe, I fear. The door to the box was locked from the outside, or jammed, or something, and by the time Jo—Mr. Pickett was able to get it open, the fire had reached the corridor, so going down the stairs was out of the question.”

  “Yes?” prompted the magistrate, tactfully ignoring her hastily corrected use of John Pickett’s given name. “So what did he do?”

  “He pulled down the curtain and tore it into strips, then knotted them together to make a rope for us to climb down.”

  Mr. Colquhoun’s bushy eyebrows drew together over his nose. “You climbed down a makeshift rope in an evening gown?”

  “Pray do not credit me with a courage I do not possess,” she objected, raising a hand in protest. “In fact, it was Mr. Pickett who climbed down, carrying me on his back.”

  “Good God!” uttered the magistrate in failing accents.

  “But the rope caught fire and burned through before we reached the ground, so we fell the last few feet. And I fear I may have landed on Mr. Pickett’s ankle, for he was limping rather heavily when he stood up.”

  “And this blow on the head?”

  “It happened outside, just after we had made our escape.” She hesitated, wondering how much to tell him of the doctor’s theory.

  “And all for nothing,” muttered the magistrate.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The Princess Olga’s diamonds were stolen anyway, in spite of all our efforts.” He looked down at the still figure in the bed. “I put him in danger for nothing. Mr. Pickett’s sacrifice was in vain.”

  Lady Fieldhurst saw the pain in his eyes, and came to a decision. “Perhaps not, Mr. Colquhoun. There is something I must tell you.”

  She crossed the room to the bureau and pulled open the top drawer, then reached beneath the pile of stockings. Her hand met nothing but knitted stockinette. Surely she had put the necklace right here? Perhaps it had shifted when the drawer had been closed and opened again. She pushed aside stockings, cravats, and handkerchiefs, groping into the farthest corners of the drawer. The diamonds were gone. But who could have—her eyes narrowed as she identified the only person besides herself who had been alone with Pickett in the room. Lucy Higgins, she thought, when I get my hands on you, I’m going to—

  “Yes?” prompted Mr. Colquhoun, still seated in the chair next to Pickett’s bed. “What is it?”

  She could hardly tell him about the diamonds now, not when she had no proof that they had ever been here. She was surprised to find herself relieved; she had dreaded seeing the look on his face when confronted with the possibility that his former pickpocket was perhaps not so reformed after all. Not, she reminded herself hastily, that she considered for one moment that John Pickett was capable of such a thing; still, unlike herself, Mr. Colquhoun had known him in his earlier, more criminal days, and might find it all too easy to believe. But now the magistrate clearly expected some revelation and, having committed herself this far, she had to tell him something.

  “The doctor,” she began, pausing to take a deep, steadying breath. “Your personal physician, I mean, not that dreadful surgeon! When the doctor was here, he gave it as his opinion that Mr. Pickett was deliberately struck down.”

  Mr. Colquhoun scowled rather fiercely. “I see. And what evidence, if any, did he offer in support of this claim?”

  “He did not think the collapse of the theatre roof would throw burning timbers outward in such a manner, and I confess I cannot recall seeing anything lying about that might have dealt Mr. Pickett such a blow. Besides that, Mr. Gilroy removed a few tiny splinters of black wood from the wound on Mr. Pickett’s scalp. The black color was not from charring, he said, but from paint.”

  Mr. Colquhoun removed a small notebook from the inside pocket of his coat and began to make notes in just the same way she had seen Mr. Pickett do a dozen times before. “It appears I will need to have a word with my good friend Mr. Gilroy.”

  “In the meantime, Mr. Colquhoun, would you care for tea?” she asked.

  The magistrate nodded. “Thank you, my lady, I would.”

  Her heart sank. Not until after she’d already made the offer did she remember that here there was no ringing for a servant; if tea were to be made, she would have to make it herself. Thankfully, the fire was already alight, so she had only to put a kettle of water over it to boil. Surely she could manage that! She filled the kettle and hooked its handle over the horizontal arm of the hinged crane affixed to one side of the fireplace. Then, very gingerly lest she scorch her fingers, she pushed the arm of the crane into the fireplace and over the fire. Or that was her intention, at any rate. Alas, she was a bit too cautious, and the a
rm moved only a couple of inches before halting abruptly, sending the water inside sloshing and a few drops running down the outside of the kettle to fall sizzling into the flames. After another push, and then another, the kettle was at last far enough over the fire to heat the water, but once that was done, she had no idea of how to get it out again; after all, she could hardly reach into the flames and grab it.

  When the water began to boil several minutes later, she still had not come up with a solution to this predicament. She hardly knew whether to be mortified or grateful when Mr. Colquhoun, seeing her dilemma, came to her rescue.

  “Here, let me get that.”

  He grabbed a hooked rod propped against the fireplace next to the poker, then caught the handle of the kettle with this instrument and lifted it from the crane. Julia watched, feeling utterly useless, as he traded the rod for a towel and used this to protect his hands while he poured the hot water into the teapot.

  “Not that difficult, once you know how,” he said reassuringly as he measured the tea leaves and added them to the water.

  “Thank you,” she said, giving him a rueful smile. “As you can see, I am eminently unsuited to be Mrs. John Pickett.”

  “About that,” he said, frowning thoughtfully. “If I may be so presumptuous as to inquire, what do you intend to do about the annulment?”

  She leaped to her feet and became very busy about the fetching and preparation of teacups. “At the moment, Mr. Colquhoun,” she said rather more tartly than she’d intended, “I am doing my best not to be widowed again.”

  He made no response beyond a little grunt, which she took for a sign of approval, and she was thankful he did not press the issue. He lingered for half an hour, obviously hoping for some further sign of life from Pickett. Alas, these hopes were in vain, and Lady Fieldhurst was torn between sympathy for the magistrate and impatience for his departure, so that she might turn the modest flat upside down searching for the missing diamonds. At last he took his leave, and no sooner had the door closed behind him than she turned the key in the lock and began her exploration.

  She started with the bureau, turning out not only the top drawer, but the rest of the drawers as well. She made two interesting discoveries, neither of which had anything to do with the missing jewels. In the second drawer down, she found three letters, tied together with a ribbon and written on paper of such a superior quality that her curiosity was instantly aroused. She glanced back at Pickett and found him still unconscious. Berating herself for a Nosey Parker, she nevertheless untied the ribbon and unfolded the topmost letter. She recognized it at once. Mr. Pickett, it read, I would be honored. You may call for me at eight. Julia Fieldhurst Pickett. Although of a somewhat earlier date, the other two were in her handwriting as well, both setting a time and date for a meeting with her solicitor to discuss an annulment. He’d kept her letters, the dear man, even after learning exactly what the annulment would require of him. Tears filled her eyes, and she dashed them away with the back of her hand.

  “You are turning into a veritable watering pot,” she scolded herself.

  She tucked the letters back into their hiding place and returned to her search. She saw no sign of the diamonds, but in the bottom drawer, pushed all the way to the back and covered with what was apparently a spare set of bed linens, she found a pistol. She did not know quite what to make of this discovery; she had never thought of her gentle Mr. Pickett with a gun. She wondered if, should circumstances ever require it of him, he would be able to shoot a man in cold blood; she wondered if he already had. Shuddering at the thought, she put the pistol back where she had found it.

  As Pickett’s flat was small, even the most thorough of searches did not take long. Still, the work was tiring, and by the time she had finished the fruitless task, she was very conscious of the fact that she had not slept in almost forty-eight hours. She supposed she would have to confront Lucy, but even if she were willing to leave Pickett alone, she was not about to go capering about this less savory section of London alone in search of the girl. Setting aside the problem of the diamonds until she was well rested enough to approach it logically, she searched through Smithers’s parcel and located a white linen night rail and her silver-backed hairbrush, part of a toilette set that had been a wedding gift from her parents. She removed her yellow gown and hung it from a peg beside Pickett’s coats, then stripped off her undergarments and pulled the night rail over her head. Lastly, she took down her hair and brushed it out.

  She fetched a thin blanket from the bottom drawer of the bureau (trying not to think about the pistol it concealed), then sat down on the wooden straight chair beside the bed, blew out the candle on the bedside table, and pulled the blanket up to her chin. Unfortunately, five minutes of squirming from side to side were sufficient to inform her that she was unlikely to get any sleep here, and the same search that had not yielded up the diamonds had been sufficient to inform her that the flat housed inadequate bedding for making up a pallet on the floor. If she was to sleep at all, it would have to be on the bed.

  She cast the blanket aside, then tiptoed over to Pickett’s bed, lifted the edge of the covers, and slid beneath, lying as near the edge of the mattress as she could without falling off. It occurred to her that, although she had been married for six years, she had never slept beside the late Lord Fieldhurst; like most aristocratic couples, they had maintained separate bedchambers with an adjoining door. At the end of her husband’s conjugal visits, he had always bade her a good night and then returned to his own room. As the years passed with no sign of the hoped-for heir, these visits had become more and more sporadic, until at last the adjoining door might have ceased to exist and neither of them would have noticed its absence.

  Now, lying stiffly beside John Pickett, she reflected that someday, after the annulment was granted, he would have a real wife—a real Mrs. Pickett who would know how to build a fire and be able to boil water for tea over it, and who would be entitled, if she so desired, to roll over into the center of the mattress and curl up against her sleeping husband’s side . . .

  Sleep, so near only moments ago, had fled. She threw off the covers and left the bed, looking about the darkened room for some way to pass the empty hours. She remembered the stockings in the top drawer of the bureau and fetched a pile of these, along with her work basket, then picked up the flint and relit the candle on the bedside table. She wrinkled her nose at the hole in the toe. If she were really his wife, she would throw them all out and buy him new ones. No, she thought, smiling a little, if she were really his wife, she would outfit him from head to toe just as he had been at the theatre. Not in evening clothes, of course, at least not all the time, but she had rather liked him in blue. She drew the chair nearer to the feeble light, threaded her needle, and set to work, singing softly to herself the duet from Handel’s Esther.

  “ ‘Who calls my parting soul from death? Awake my soul, my life, my breath . . .’ ”

  Dimly, through the pain in his head, Pickett heard a female voice singing, and gingerly opened his eyes. An angel in white sat beside the bed, golden hair spilling over her shoulders as she plied her needle by the light of a single candle.

  “Am I . . .” His voice came out as a croak. “Am I dead?”

  The angel cast aside her sewing and came to sit on the edge of the bed. “Why, no, you’re not dead!” She stroked the matted brown curls away from his face with gentle fingers. “You have been injured, my love, but I intend to take very good care of you.”

  She had not meant to call him that. It had slipped out all on its own, but his brain was too cloudy to notice.

  “My lady? What . . . what are you doing here?”

  “At the moment, I am darning your stockings,” she said, gesturing toward her work basket. “They really are in appalling condition, you know. Can I get you some water, or perhaps laudanum for the pain?”

  He frowned. “You shouldn’t . . . shouldn’t be here.”

  “And where else should I be, but beside
my husband in his hour of need?”

  She wasn’t sure he was capable of understanding a jest. His gaze was growing cloudier by the second, and he seemed to be slipping away before her eyes. He did smile, though, however feebly, and she knew he had heard and understood.

  “I wish . . . I . . . wish . . .”

  And then he was gone, returned to whatever twilight world held him captive. “I know,” she whispered, blinking back tears. “So do I.”

  CHAPTER 10

  IN WHICH LADY FIELDHURST COMES TO A DECISION

  A firm knock on the door awakened Julia the following morning, and she was surprised to discover that she had contrived to fall asleep on her chair after all. She rose stiffly and fumbled for her dressing gown in the parcel of clothing packed by Smithers. In fact, she had been more than a little surprised to find her pink satin wrapper folded neatly and tucked in amongst the black mourning gowns; she could only suppose the lady’s maid had found the prospect of her mistress wearing such a fanciful garment less objectionable than the thought that she might appear before a man—even an unconscious one—in nothing but her night rail. She shoved her arms into the sleeves of her wrapper, tied the belt about her waist, and opened the door, fully expecting to see Mrs. Catchpole with a fresh supply of water and a scuttle full of coal. But it was not the landlady who stood there on the other side of the door.

  “Why, Mr. Colquhoun!” she exclaimed, surprised to see the magistrate at so early an hour. “I should have thought you would be at the Bow Street office.”

  “It’s Sunday,” he pointed out. “Even magistrates have an occasional day off, you know.”

  “Is it Sunday already?” She put a hand to her forehead, blinking in confusion. “Time seems to have stood still for me, I’m afraid.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said, striding past her into the room, “which is why I’m going to stay here while you return to your own house and get some sleep.”