Mistress - Amanda Quick [53]
“Indeed. Fortunately not all passions are impossible to assuage, Iphiginia. Some merely require the proper time and place.”
Barclay, Marcus’s stout, bespectacled man of affairs, hurried into his employer’s library shortly before four o’clock that afternoon. He was out of breath. Sweat beaded his balding head.
“You sent for me, sir?”
“I did.” Marcus looked up from the notes he had been making. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“Not at all, m’lord.” Barclay sat down gratefully, pulled out a handkerchief, and mopped his brow. “You know that I am always pleased to assist you. What do you wish me to do for you?”
“Two things. First, I want you to make inquiries about a property called Bright Place. I do not know much about it, but I believe that it may be a new speculation venture.”
“This is a property here in London?”
“I’m not certain. I suppose it could be in Bath.” Marcus recalled the elevations he had seen on Iphiginia’s desk. “One of the two places, most likely, although I suppose the property could be located in some other large town. The drawings I saw were of buildings that were clearly designed for a city, if you know what I mean.”
“I see.” Barclay stifled a small sigh, adjusted his spectacles, and made a note.
“Second, I want you to discover whatever information you can about a certain Mr. Bright.”
Barclay raised suddenly wary eyes. He cleared his throat cautiously. “Ah, would that be the late Mr. Bright?”
“It would.”
“The deceased husband of a certain Mrs. Iphiginia Bright of Morning Rose Square?”
Marcus smiled coolly. “One of the things that makes you so invaluable to me, Barclay, is that you are always possessed of the latest gossip and rumor.”
Barclay ignored that. He scowled. “You wish me to discover whatever I can about a dead man, m’lord?”
“Precisely.” Marcus leaned back in his chair. He picked up his newly modified hydraulic reservoir pen and examined the steel nib with care. There was ho sign of a leak. “You will be discreet, naturally.”
“Naturally.” Barclay mopped his forehead with his handkerchief once again. “Where would you suggest that I start looking for information on the late Mr. Bright?”
“I believe that you will want to begin your quest in Devon.”
“Devon is a rather large place, m’lord. Have you any notion of precisely where in Devon I should look?”
“You might try a little town called Deepford.”
EIGHT
IPHIGINIA SWEPT INTO ZOE’S DRAWING ROOM AT TEN MINUTES after three the following afternoon. Amelia was right behind her.
“We came as quickly as we could.” Iphiginia glanced first at her aunt, who was ensconced on her new red velvet Roman sofa. Then she looked across the room at Lord Otis, who was helping himself to a glass of brandy.
“Thank God you’re here,” Zoe said in a voice that held elements of a Greek tragedy.
Otis, a short, stocky, kindly faced man with thinning gray hair and bushy brows, gave Iphiginia and Amelia a look of grim despair. “Disaster has struck again.”
“What on earth is wrong?” Iphiginia untied the strings of her ruffled, high-crowned white bonnet. “Your note said something dreadful had occurred, Aunt Zoe.”
“I have received another blackmail demand,” Zoe said. She picked up a folded sheet of foolscap and handed it to Iphiginia. “See for yourself.”
Iphiginia took the note. She glanced at the broken black wax seal with its all-too-familiar phoenix emblem and then read the contents aloud.
Madam:
If you wish for continued silence on a certain very personal matter you must bring five thousand pounds to the new sepulchral monument constructed for Mrs. Eaton at Reeding Cemetery. Come on the stroke of midnight tonight. The money must be placed on the stone in the center of the monument.
Come alone, madam, or the price will double the next time.
Yrs.
The Phoenix
Amelia sat down heavily on a chair. “So we were right. The first one was only the beginning.”
“I told you this would happen,” Otis muttered darkly. He went across the room to where Zoe sat and put a comforting hand