Page 59 of The Case of the Curate

After dinner, Chadbon again hurried the gentlemen through their port and into the drawing room with the prattling women. At Newman’s suggestion, some of them got up a game of cards.

Nye, taking advantage of his elder statesman reputation, excused himself and retired early. Although he tried to avoid her, his sister Sophie caught his eye with her own suspicious glare. God, why did she keep tagging along with him? He supposed she was useful for notes and things, and she did organize everything from travel to the summarizing of important government documents he couldn’t be bothered to read himself. But devil take it, she was one disapproving bore too many.

Ignoring her, he went directly up to his room, where he examined himself in the looking glass. He was showing his fifty-plus years a little, but he liked to think of it as character, and he was still quite a handsome devil.

A virile, handsome devil. Ambrose was very trusting, sending his young wife to dull parties without him…

Nye was still smiling when he sauntered out of his bedchamber again and along the deserted passage to the room he already knew belonged to Lady Ambrose. Just as he’d thought, a light still shone beneath the door. Casting a glance down either end of the passage, he scratched at the door.

Getting no response, he lifted the latch and whisked himself inside. The light was from a lamp on the desk, which cast a pleasant glow on the woman sprawled on the sofa, sound asleep.

Most assuredly not Lady Ambrose. This woman was a few years older, with a snub nose and hair of undistinguished mouse brown, and she wore a dull, gray, respectable dress with a starched white collar. A lady’s maid.

Damn it, what was she doing here? He would rather not be seen by her, but she would have to be dismissed—and silenced—by her mistress.

He glanced around the room. Where the devil was her mistress?

Certainly not languishing in bed, which had clearly not even been sat on.

No, unless she was hiding in a closet, the supposedly indisposed Lady Ambrose was not here. A frisson of unease crept up his spine. He did not suspect her of another liaison, for everyone else was still in the drawing room. No, he knew instinctively that wherever she was, she was still asking the questions he could not afford to have answered.

The blasted housemaid again.

Kate Ambrose had to be stopped.

Chapter Twelve

Rupert, in slightly grubby shirt sleeves, materialized out of the gloom to stand at the bars of his cell, blinking in the sudden light from Kate’s lantern.

“Kate?” he said with the same sort of pleased astonishment with which he’d greeted her at Chadbon Court.

The wretch had forgotten she was involved in this. In fact, judging by the smell of alcohol as she drew nearer, he had forgotten he was involved in it, too.

“Rupert, are you foxed?” she demanded.

“Devil, a bit,” he said cheerfully. “Here, Salter, make your bow to—” He broke off.

“Forgotten my name?” she asked sweetly.

“No. Just considering you might not want it bruited abroad.”

A man in a tattered and filthy coat loomed up from the pallet on the left. “Don’t worry, miss. Any friend of Mr. Grande’s is fine with me. Me lips is buttoned.”

“Sergeant Salter of the 95th Rifles,” Rupert said. “An old friend I knew in Brussels.”

Sergeant Salter was thin to the point of emaciated, and one sleeve of his coat flapped about when he moved.

“You were at Waterloo,” Kate guessed.

“I was. Wouldn’t have survived either without him.” Salter jerked his head at Rupert, who looked startled.

“I didn’t sew you up!”

“There’s more to life than sewing a man up and mopping his fevered brow.” Salter grinned. “Like an ear that don’t judge and a tongue that don’t lecture. And a bloody fine brandy.” He coughed. “Begging your pardon, miss, not used to ladies’ company these days.”

Kate regarded him with some interest. “So what are you doing in here?”

“Drunk and disorderly, miss,” he said with a regretful sigh. “Up before the beak tomorrow. Could have knocked me down with a feather, though, when I met the chaplain here. Magistrate must be a complete—”