Page 22 of A Lady’s Guide to Murder
CHAPTER 21
Désirée du Pont
After Mrs Ford left, Henrietta asked Theo’s opinion on speaking first to Désirée du Pont, opera dancer, famed beauty and courtesan – and Perceval’s mistress, perhaps former, perhaps current. Either way, most certainly the woman about whose neck Perceval had placed a diamond necklace three days before Edmund’s death.
‘The potential dissolution of his engagement might have been another impetus for Edmund’s change of mindset regarding the, er, circumstances of our marriage,’ she said. ‘Edmund approved of Miss Babcock. He believed Perceval’s proposal to such a sensible young lady was the only intelligent thing Perceval had ever done.’
Theo rubbed his chin. ‘So once the betrothal faced dissolution, your husband wanted his own heir to replace Perceval more than ever?’
She lifted her hands. ‘Possibly, yes. And if Perceval somehow knew, that might have been motive for murder.’ She looked towards the window, considering the next move. ‘I wonder how we could discover Miss du Pont’s place of residence?’
‘She lives in a flat on Jermyn Street. Number forty-seven, if I recall correctly. At any rate, I shall recognise it from the outside.’
‘ Indeed? ’ Henrietta raised her eyebrow pointedly. ‘I see, then.’
His eyes sparkled. ‘No, you don’t. Not if you suppose I’ve had any intimate dealings with the woman. I know her direction because she’s sought my attention on numerous occasions, in the hopes of a mention in The Hawke’s Eye . In fact, I suspect she is the one who sent me the anonymous message telling me when she’d be at Hyde Park with Perceval that day. In her case, any attention, good or bad, improves her business.’
Henrietta pondered the truth of Theo’s statement. She’d first encountered Désirée du Pont’s name in his column, linked at the time to another gentleman. The next evening, at the opera with Edmund and Perceval, she’d asked which of the dancers was Miss du Pont. Perceval had pointed her out; not a year later, she was his mistress, and absorbing the bulk of Perceval’s allowance, according to Edmund’s assessment.
So, with their destination set on a flat on Jermyn Street, they began their walk to St James’s. Less than an hour later, Miss du Pont’s manservant ushered them into a bedchamber papered with floral print in garish colours. Crimson drapes hung at the windows.
Miss du Pont was propped up in an equally crimson bed, a breakfast tray spanning her lap, wearing a lace nightdress and a diamond necklace. Her black hair fell like silk about her pointed face. Her skin was ivory, her neck and bare arms long and thin, and she possessed sharp black eyes rimmed with inky lashes. Her smiling lips were blood red.
‘Mr Hawke,’ she said, trailing her fingertips suggestively over her diamond necklace. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this early morning call?’
St James’s Church had rung the one o’clock hour when they’d passed it, but Theo simply responded that they hoped to ask Miss du Pont some questions.
Black eyes examined Henrietta intently. ‘Remove your veil first.’ Her voice had lost the saccharine quality she’d used with Theo.
Henrietta lifted the lace and the intense stare turned into a knowing gleam.
‘Oh, ’tis you .’ Miss du Pont popped a grape in her mouth and unceremoniously spat the pips into a bowl. ‘My dear Mr Hawke, are you helping your duchess escape justice? Foolish, if so. Everyone knows of your obsession, but she won’t spare another thought for you once you’ve served your purpose, even if you swing for her.’
Henrietta’s blood boiled. ‘Don’t speak to him like that. And I’m not escaping justice. I am seeking it.’
Miss du Pont selected another grape and chewed it slowly. ‘There’s a reward offered for your recovery, Madame Hoity-Toity.’
Odd, if that were true – she’d only been absent from London for two days and Libby had been arrested. Then Henrietta realised who must be Miss du Pont’s source of information. ‘I imagine your lover told you so. No doubt he’s the one offering the reward.’
‘And how would you know who my lover is, sang bleu ?’
‘Everyone knows of your arrangement with my late husband’s cousin, Perceval Percy.’
‘Perceval?’ Miss du Pont laughed. ‘That milksop hasn’t been my lover since before Christmas when he met that insufferable bluestocking. What he sees in a woman like her, other than her fortune, I cannot tell, but she has him firmly tied to her apron strings, let me assure you.’
‘Then why did you meet him in the park?’ Henrietta asked.
She stroked her diamond necklace. ‘He owed me a farewell present for my silence.’
‘Silence over what?’
She grinned, popping another grape in her mouth. ‘Well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it? I’m far too fond of my diamonds to risk losing them.’
‘Silence over his plans to murder his cousin?’
Miss du Pont’s thin black brows jumped up. ‘You think Perceval murdered your husband? Impossible. He is too nerveless and weak.’
Henrietta shook her head. ‘It doesn’t take nerves or strength to slip poison in a man’s drink.’
‘It takes either nerves or desperation to do anything that might make one face the gallows,’ Miss du Pont said. ‘Perceval hasn’t got any nerve and he wasn’t desperate once Miss Moneybags came along, so he’s not the killer.’
‘You are protecting him,’ Henrietta said. ‘By your own admission, you are concealing some pertinent information, in exchange for your necklace.’
Miss du Pont laughed again. ‘What I’m concealing is not that condemnatory.’
‘Tell me what it is, then. Perceval won’t know you told me, because Mr Hawke won’t write about it. You have my assurance.’
The dancer’s eyes cut to Theo. ‘Are you tied to apron strings, too, Mr Hawke? I wouldn’t have thought you the type.’
‘The duchess and I are investigative partners,’ he replied curtly.
Miss du Pont sipped her chocolate. ‘That’s a euphemism I’ve not yet heard.’ She jerked her head at the bump at Henrietta’s abdomen. ‘Are you the one who knocked that baby into her?’
‘Never mind that,’ Henrietta said. ‘Explain why Perceval requires your silence and I shall buy you another diamond necklace if he demands the return of that one.’
‘How casually Your Grace promises diamonds here and there,’ Miss du Pont said, her voice laced with mockery. ‘What it must be, to be a duchess. Very well, I shall tell you, but only if Hawke leaves. I question your influence over what he chooses to print.’
‘I print the truth,’ Theo said, but then his attention shifted to Henrietta and his manner softened. ‘Rather, I aim to convey what I see or hear, which I admit is not always the complete story, and thus is, at times, only a partial truth.’
Henrietta smiled warmly, hoping it expressed her gratitude for his admission. ‘Please wait outside?’
He hesitated, glancing between her and the opera dancer, but at last he nodded and exited the room amidst Miss du Pont’s burbles about men ruled by pussies, which puzzled Henrietta exceedingly as she had no idea what cats had to do with anything.
After the door closed, she repeated her query about what Perceval had done to require her silence.
‘It’s not so much what he did as what he allowed me to do, when he called to inform me our affair had ended in favour of Miss Babcock. I don’t take defeat well. I require a certain sense of victory and nothing gives me victory like seeing a man who claims to be in love with someone else come for me.’ Miss du Pont made a gesture, curling her fingers into an o-shape and moving her hand back and forth in front of her open mouth.
Henrietta frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
The dancer burst into peals of laughter so violent that she dabbed a pale purple handkerchief to the corner of her eyes. ‘Good Lord, Madame Cuckold. Don’t pretend you haven’t had as many pricks down your throat as I have – and maybe more.’
Miss du Pont’s conversation was utterly baffling.
‘What down my throat?’ Henrietta asked. ‘Of what are you speaking?’
Miss du Pont’s laugh turned derisive. ‘You may fool your lovers when you act the ingénue, but Perceval spoke often of your true nature. You are fully aware a prick is a man’s penis, and you’ve sucked plenty of them.’
Henrietta’s first impulse was to recoil, until she considered the potential value of this information. If a woman put a man’s penis in her mouth, it wasn’t so different from the delicious things Theo had done to her the night before. It stood to reason that a man would enjoy the reciprocal action.
‘Oh!’ she said, pondering how Theo would react if she asked him if he’d like her to … how had the dancer termed it? … ah, yes: put his prick down her throat . But Miss du Pont was regarding her suspiciously, so Henrietta cleared her throat and resumed the interrogation. ‘And when did this … er … event occur?’
‘In early January.’
‘Yet he didn’t give you the necklace until June?’
Miss du Pont observed her nails. ‘Well, I intended to be content with a private victory. I believed it would be enough for me to observe Miss Bluestocking prancing her conquest through the Season, while I secretly knew her dear Perceval came in my mouth after he’d professed to be in love with her.’
Henrietta’s temper rose on Jane’s behalf. ‘That’s a horrible thing to gloat about.’
‘Men are horrible.’ Miss du Pont tossed her handkerchief aside. It lay like a crumpled purple bird on her blood-red counterpane. ‘Lying bastards, every one.’
Henrietta thought of Edmund and Theo, of her father and of her brothers. Yes, there were Marlows and Percevals out there as well, but she had to believe they were the exception and that the good men far outnumbered the bad. ‘ Most men are honourable and honest,’ she said, hoping her words comforted the dancer.
But Miss du Pont snarled, revealing her teeth like a vicious dog. ‘You know nothing , stupid woman. My family was like yours before Madame Guillotine; my grandfather was a marquis until he lost his lands and his head. Though my parents escaped, they were pampered fools like all aristocrates , unprepared for the harsh reality of this world. I learnt for myself how to navigate life, by means of lessons you wouldn’t have survived. So before you speak, consider if any aspect of your existence resembles the experiences of normal women, much less one like me, who earns her bread by submitting to men’s vilest desires?’
Henrietta almost retorted that she’d had her share of tribulations, but she thought the better of it. After all, what did she know of Miss du Pont’s life – and who was she to pass judgement, anyway?
‘Forgive my presumption, Miss du Pont,’ she said instead. ‘You are quite correct. I spoke out of ignorance.’ Faint surprise crossed the opera dancer’s face. ‘But, please, let us return to the matter at hand. You never answered my question about why you didn’t receive the necklace until this month.’
‘True, I didn’t,’ Miss du Pont replied, in a milder tone. ‘After I sucked Perceval off in January, he was furious. Vowed it would be his last transgression. Even mentioned confessing all to Miss Babcock.’ She snorted. ‘I never thought he really would until I first saw them together. That prim piece gave me such a pitying look, I hated her on sight. I can endure a lot, but I don’t want pity . So, I devised a plan to teach her a lesson and benefit myself, as well. I wrote to Perceval, demanding he purchase this necklace from Rundell and Bridge’s or I’d tell The Hawke’s Eye what had happened in January. Perceval agreed by return post, but I chose the time and place, and invited Hawke along, by which means I cleverly achieved both purposes: I got diamonds and now Miss Babcock knows what it’s like to have pitying glances cast her way – or she would have, had your husband not been so stupid as to die the very day Hawke’s column was published. Sadly, no one pities a woman affianced to a duke, even if the duke sticks his prick in opera dancers’ mouths.’
‘Where did Perceval get the money for your necklace?’ Henrietta asked, thinking of a perplexing problem with Miss du Pont’s story. ‘He had no allowance from my husband and he isn’t skilled enough at gambling to win it.’
‘That I can’t say.’ Miss du Pont picked up her handkerchief and twisted it absent-mindedly. ‘Perhaps you should ask him yourself.’
Yes, and Henrietta possessed the perfect leverage to get the truth from Perceval …
As she rubbed her fake pregnancy belly, gathering her courage, her attention shifted to the handkerchief in Miss du Pont’s hand. A jolt of recognition shot through her. Not only was it the exact shade of the handkerchief Theo had purchased at the Millford apothecary that very morning, but it also bore embroidered bilberries, though in a different design.
‘Miss du Pont, have you ever visited a village in Surrey called Millford?’
A fierce flame ignited in those obsidian eyes. ‘I’ve divulged all I know concerning matters relevant to you. I see no reason why I must be subjected to questions unrelated to Perceval. Since I have been nothing but cooperative, perhaps Your Highness might allow me to finish my breakfast in peace?’
Henrietta was taken aback by the response, but Miss du Pont had been helpful and for no personal gain. ‘In that case, thank you,’ she said, resigned. ‘If you ever have need of assistance, you may call upon my help.’
‘You are hardly in a position to make such an offer,’ the dancer said. ‘Have a care, Your Grace. With people as angry as they are now, who knows but this might be just the time for Old Bailey to show that nobs aren’t above the law. I can imagine a duchess swinging would go a long way towards quelling revolution.’ Her black eyes gleamed. ‘A very long way indeed.’