Let's Talk of Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

Lady Caroline Lamb.”
    “It’s all nonsense, Luten,” she said, pleased with his jealousy. “Pay Prance no heed. He is just teasing you. Is that the letter to Prinney?”
    “Yes, I’ll ask Evans to have it sent off. I daresay I should let Brougham know as well. Pity I bothered mentioning the matter to him, as it has turned to ashes,” he said bitterly.
    He called Evans and dispatched the message. Prance went home to order hock and soda water, and to begin planning the wedding. He could hardly connive at fostering any romance between Byron and Corinne when he was in charge of the wedding. He was a rogue, but he was not a scoundrel.
    Corinne and Luten enjoyed a brief spell of quiet. She sympathized with him over his lost chance of bringing the Whigs into power, and consoled him that he was young, there would be other opportunities.
    “I have put it entirely from my mind,” he said, and tried to believe it. “How can I be sad, when you will soon be my wife?”
    “We have one thorny problem to settle,” she said. “We have to choose whether Coffen or Prance is to be best man. I hate to hurt either of them, but we cannot have two best men, can we?”
    “Coffen is your cousin. That gives him the edge,” he said, knowing she preferred Coffen.
    “Yes, but Prance would look better. I want to impress my friends at home in Ireland, you know. I wonder if he will be satisfied with being Master of Ceremonies, or director, or whatever one calls the person in charge of a show, for he certainly plans to make a show of it.”
    He rallied enough to ask in a joking way, “Am I not catch enough to impress your folks?”
    “You’re one step up from my last husband,” she said with a saucy smile. “He was only an earl. You are a marquess.”
    “Next time you’ll try for a duke, I expect?”
    “How did you know I have my eye on Doncaster?” she said, naming an octogenarian neighbor in Ireland.
    “First you’ll have to be rid of me,” he said, drawing her into his arms. “Demme! Who can that be?” he exclaimed, as the door knocker rattled. “If it’s Prance, I’ll —”
    Evans bowed himself into the room and handed Luten a note bearing a magnificent gilt, or possibly gold, crest.
    “It’s from Prinney, no doubt acknowledging my note,” he said, opening it. “He didn’t waste much time.”
    “What does it say?” Corinne tried to look over his shoulder.
    When he turned to look at her, she saw the glint of joy in his gray eyes. His thin lips opened in a boyish smile of real pleasure. He leaned forward and placed a kiss on the corner of her lips.
    “We’re back in business,” he said, throwing his head back and laughing. She could not but notice this pleased him more than any talk of their wedding had done. “Prinney wants us to discover who murdered Fogg—as a favor to Lady Hertford. He also wants to confirm that the shot was not meant for himself. He dislikes to give up his role of martyr. I daresay he thinks it might win him some public sympathy, though he does mention discretion in our investigations.”
    Although Corinne was happy for him, she could not suppress a surge of frustration at the delay of the wedding. “But does the same reward still apply?” she asked.
    “Oh yes. I have it in writing now. Let him try to wiggle out of it. Listen to what he says. ‘The reward we discussed still applies. It is what we have both long wanted.’ He used to be a Whig, you recall.”
    “Lady Hertford won’t like it.”
    “Very true. He must be planning to dump her.”
    “Speaking of ladies being dumped, I shall tell Prance there’s no hurry with the wedding plans, then,” she said, but in a teasing way.
    He took her hand and squeezed it. “Let him go ahead. This won’t take us long, my dear. We already have clues to follow. Let your patience in this matter be your wedding gift to me,” he said, in a husky, loving voice that won her over completely.
    “And here I’ve already made a down payment on a