Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [75]
Emily did not answer.
Half an hour later they were in the carriage, turning from the river into Beaufort Street.
“What number?” Charlotte asked.
“About here,” Emily replied.
“What do you mean ‘about here’?” Charlotte said. “What number is it?”
“I’m not sure. Tallulah didn’t know.”
“You mean she didn’t remember, I suppose,” Charlotte said sarcastically. “If Thomas arrests anyone in that family they can plead insanity and get away with it. Come to that, so could we.”
“We are not doing anything to get arrested for,” Emily retorted sharply.
Charlotte did not reply.
Emily called out for the driver to stop and, with a challenging look at Charlotte, she alighted, rearranged her skirts, and walked across the pavement towards the front of a house where three other carriages appeared to be waiting. By the time she reached the door, Charlotte had caught up with her.
“What are you going to say?” Charlotte demanded. “You can’t just ask if they had an orgy here last Friday and do they know who was here!”
“Of course not!” Emily whispered. “I’ll say I forgot something … a glove.”
“Doesn’t sound to me like an affair where they wore gloves.”
“Well, I’d hardly go home without my shoes!”
“If you could go home without your memory or your wits, why not the odd shoe?” Charlotte said waspishly.
Emily was prevented from replying by the door’s opening and a footman’s staring down at her. He was in full livery, and stood a full head above her.
“Good afternoon.” Emily smiled dazzlingly at him, swallowed convulsively, and began. “I was at a party last Friday evening, and I believe I may have left behind me, er … my …”
The footman’s stare would have frozen milk.
“I believe that would have been at number sixteen, madam. This is number six.” And without waiting for any further remark he stepped back and closed the door, leaving Emily on the step.
“I gather sixteen has something of a reputation,” Charlotte said with a reluctant smile.
Emily said nothing. The color was burning her face in a mixture of embarrassment and anger.
“Well, come on.” Charlotte touched her arm. “Having come this far, we might as well finish it.”
Emily would dearly liked to have gone back to the carriage and never returned to Beaufort Street in her life. The look on the footman’s face would haunt her dreams.
“Come on,” Charlotte said urgently. There might even have been laughter in her voice.
Reluctantly Emily obeyed, and they made their way up the street towards number sixteen. This time it was Charlotte who rang the bell.
The door was opened by a young man with an open-necked shirt, possibly silk, and dark hair which flopped over his brow.
“Hello?” he said with a charming smile. “Ought I to know you? Forgive my absentmindedness, but there are occasions when my mind is absolutely absent. Off on travels to another world where the most fantastic things happen.” He regarded her with candid, friendly interest, waiting for her reply as if his explanation had been utterly reasonable.
“Not very well,” she said, sketching the truth. “But I think I may have left my glove here last Friday. Silly place to wear gloves, I know, but I told my father I was going to the opera, so I had to dress as if I were. I came with Tallulah FitzJames,” she added, as though it were an afterthought.
He looked completely blank. “Do I know her too?”
“Slender, dark,” Emily chipped in. “Very elegant and rather a beauty. She has a … well, a long nose, and very fine eyes.”
“Sounds interesting,” he said approvingly.
“I’m sure you know her brother Finlay,” Charlotte said, making a last attempt.
“Oh! Fin … yes, I know him,” he agreed. “Do you want to come in and look for your glove?”
They accepted and followed him into a wide hallway, and then through a series of rooms all decorated in exotic styles, some strongly Chinese, some Turkish or mock Egyptian. They pretended to look for the glove, and at the same time asked the young man more about Finlay FitzJames,