A Suspicious Affair by Bárbara Metzger Read Free Book Online Page B

it.
    “Really, it’s the perfect solution. You send a note next door and hire Lady Armbruster’s abigail. Obviously she is looking for a position.”
    Marisol almost choked on a thin slice of cheese. “Really, Aunt Tess, I do not think I could be comfortable with my dead husband’s dead mistress’s maid bringing my chocolate in the mornings.”
    “Happens I have a daughter looking for work, Your Grace,” Dimm offered, shoveling cheese and fruit onto his plate before the footman could remove the serving dish. “She used to be an apprentice seamstress but her eyes were going bad and her husband didn’t want her working none. But he’s off with the army now and she’s lonely and bored. Might answer both problems.”
    “And it might get you an informant in the household,” Marisol congratulated, raising her glass to him. “But since I have nothing to hide, it might serve. Send your daughter to me this afternoon and we’ll see if we suit.” She stood to leave the table. The men, perforce, stood. And the footmen cleared away the plates. Dimm sighed.

Chapter Five
    A tart had fallen to the floor. Jeremiah beat the little dog to it and was munching the thing on his way out of Denning House. It was coming on to rain, naturally, so he paused in the doorway to raise the collar of his overcoat. He’d learned a lot this noontime, but not much of it having to do with the case.
    He was trying to decide whether to go to Lincoln’s Inn Fields to try to winkle the terms of the will out of Stenross, Stenross, and Dinkerly—as in who would have benefited most from the duke’s passing—or to return to the gentlemen’s clubs and start raising the hackles of half the nobs in town by discussing their gaming debts. Debts of honor, the nodcocks called them, and the toffs didn’t usually pay them off with a ball of lead. Still, an investigator’s job was to turn over every rock and see what crawled out. Jeremiah nodded. Had to remember to tell young Gabriel that one.
    Then a horseman galloped up on a tall bay horse all flecked with mud, and drew to a halt in a splash of water. Likewise spattered, the rider dismounted, tossed the reins to a groom who ran out, and strode two at a time up the stairs to the covered entrance to Denning House, where Dimm was still standing.
    “Have you found the killer?” the Earl of Kimbrough demanded when he saw the Runner in the doorway.
    “No, milord, but I’m working on it.”
    “No, you are not, by Jupiter,” his lordship snapped back. “You are standing around wasting time, eating sweets and trying to keep your toes dry. You would not last long in the army, mister, nor in my employ.”
    “No, sir,” Dimm found himself murmuring, almost tempted to salute, except the rest of the tart was in his saluting hand, and he wasn’t in the army anymore.
    “Blast, then it’s even more important I see the female. Here,” he said, turning to the butler who had come to the door. The earl handed over a card, one corner carefully turned down to show he had called in person. “Tell Her Grace it is important that I see her.”
    “I am sorry, my lord, Her Grace is not receiving.” The butler looked up, subtly trying to draw attention to the hatchments over the door, as if Kimbrough were unaware this was a house of mourning.
    “Dash it, she has to see me! Tell her it’s crucial. Tell her it’s about her husband.”
    “Her Grace is resting, my lord. Perhaps you’d do better to discuss your information with Mr. Dimm here, who is handling the investigation.”
    The earl’s curled lip spoke eloquently of his opinion of the Runner’s investigation. “Just tell her I absolutely must see her.”
    When the butler moved off, shaking his head, Kimbrough paced the narrow hallway. “Blister it,” he muttered, “she’ll send back a polite refusal. A slight indisposition, dash it, or a headache. Yes, I’d wager on the headache. By Jupiter, the baggage is not going to put me off.” He stormed down