Page 6 of Peril in Piccadilly (Pippa Darling Mysteries #7)

Chapter Six

Wolfgang was waiting at the table when I walked into the Savoy tearoom later that afternoon. He got to his feet when the ma?tre d’ escorted me across the floor, but he didn’t circle the table to pull out my chair. Perhaps I no longer merited the courtesy of his personal attention now that I had announced my opposition to moving to Germany. Or perhaps he simply felt that we were past the stage where he had to exert himself to impress me. Either way, I wasn’t certain I liked the portent.

I didn’t make a fuss, of course, because that would have been improper. Instead, I thanked the ma?tre d’ graciously and smiled at Wolfgang as he sank back down on his chair again. “Good afternoon.”

He smiled back. “Philippa.”

If he was upset with me, it was not immediately visible.

“I didn’t think I would hear from you again so soon,” I said.

He looked politely confused, as if he couldn’t imagine why. “Because we parted on uncertain terms yesterday, do you mean? Of course not, mein Schatz . Cold feet are normal.”

He reached for my hand across the table. When I extended it to him, he looked down upon it with every appearance of shock. “What happened to you?”

The last half a day had been so eventful that it honestly surprised me that he didn’t already know. Last night felt so long ago. But of course it had all happened in the less than twenty-four hours since I had last seen him.

“I fell,” I said. “On my way home last night.”

“My dear.” He squeezed my fingers gently before letting go again. “I hope it wasn’t a motorcar?”

God forbid. I would have looked a lot worse had that been the case.

“Not at all,” I assured him. “A mishap on the stairs into the underground.”

He eyed me. “I wish you wouldn’t take the underground by yourself at night, Philippa.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” I said. “Not to mention a lot cheaper than a Hackney.”

And while Uncle Herbert seemed happy to provide, there was no reason to squander his money unnecessarily.

“I would have been happy to escort you home,” Wolfgang said. His tone held a subtle implication that the only reason he hadn’t done, was because I had left the restaurant in a snit, but it was mostly left unsaid. Or perhaps I imagined it, and there was no subtext whatsoever.

“I know you would have done,” I said peacefully, “although you don’t have a motorcar of your own either, you know, Wolfgang. There was no point in you paying to take me home and then going back to the Savoy. I was closer to home in Piccadilly, and you were closer to the Savoy.”

“A gentleman—” Wolfgang began stiffly, surely preparatory to telling me that it was his job to see me safe home, useless female that I was. Luckily, the waiter appeared before he could tell me what a gentleman should or shouldn’t do—as if I didn’t know the answer perfectly well already—and we ordered tea and cake. The waiter withdrew, but by now Wolfgang had wound down, and didn’t seem inclined to pick up the issue again.

“How bad is it?” he inquired instead, eyeing my hands. “Is that the only damage?”

“That and my knees. Although speaking of damage… you’ll never guess what happened last night.”

He arched his brows, and I went on, since he truly wouldn’t be able to guess. “Rogers rang up from Sutherland House at half four this morning and told us that there had been a burglary at Marsden House. Laetitia’s engagement ring is gone.”

I couldn’t quite keep the glee out of my voice. Wolfgang was silent for a moment, probably placing the locations of Sutherland House and Marsden House, and the persons of Rogers and Laetitia, into their proper slots in his head. “Does that mean that the engagement is over,” he asked, “as well?”

Oh, if only.

I snorted derisively. “Hardly. The only way Crispin gets out of marrying Laetitia at this point, is if he drops dead, and I wouldn’t put it past her to try to wheel him to the altar then, too.”

Although that was perhaps a touch unkind of me. She really did seem to want him for himself at least as much as she wanted the chance to become the Duchess of Sutherland later.

Wolfgang nodded. He looked as if he were thinking deeply. “Why would… Rogers is part of the staff at your cousin’s Town house, I suppose?”

Crispin wasn’t my cousin, of course, unless Wolfgang was talking about Christopher. But— “The butler,” I confirmed, “yes.”

“Why would the butler contact you?”

“Oh.” Valid question. “Lord St George spent the night with us.”

Wolfgang’s facial countenance underwent a change. “With you and your cousin Christopher?”

I nodded.

“In your two-bed, one-bath flat?”

“Yes,” I said. It should be noted here that Wolfgang had never been to the flat. But I must have described it in enough detail that he knew what it consisted of. “He’s done before. One of us sleeps on the sofa in the sitting room.”

I couldn’t share a bed with Crispin, after all—that would be beyond inappropriate—and given Christopher’s sexual orientation, I suppose that the two of them sharing might be equally awkward. Not that there had ever been a question of it. Crispin usually ended up in my bed, while I slept on the sofa. The Chesterfield fits me better—he was taller and broader—and besides, I have never felt comfortable asking the future Duke of Sutherland to bunk down in our sitting room.

Of course, knowing what I knew now, Crispin had probably been delighted to end up in my bed, even without me in it. Although that concept brought up some concerns which I had no intention of dwelling on at the moment. I’d deal with them the next time I had to put him up overnight. Instead, I focused my attention back on Wolfgang, who looked contemplative.

“A burglary,” he said, in the tone of a man who was trying the concept on for size.

I nodded. “The Sutherland diamond ring is gone. And the matching earrings. And apparently the necklace Laetitia was wearing yesterday—I don’t know if you noticed it. I didn’t, although if she said she was wearing one, there’s no reason to think she would lie about it.”

“Unless she lied about the whole thing,” Wolfgang said, “because she wanted to make herself out to be a victim.”

I looked at him for a second, blankly, before I caught on to what he was implying. “You mean, no one was there, and Laetitia pawned the diamonds herself? Or plans to?”

Wolfgang lifted an elegant shoulder. “Who knows?”

I did, I suspected. “I doubt she would do that. Not only has she worked very hard to get her hands on that diamond ring,” and what it signified, “but it’s not as if she needs the money. Her father is the Earl of Marsden.”

Wolfgang shrugged, just as the waiter appeared with the teapot and cups, the cake, the little crustless sandwiches, the creamer and sugar pot. We sat in silence while he distributed it all across the table, and then he took a step back and asked whether there would be anything else.

Wolfgang shook his head, and the waiter withdrew. “I’ll pour,” I said, “shall I?”

That seemed acceptable—he probably felt it was my feminine duty. I rather thought the waiter ought to have done it, since we were paying customers. But I suited action to words: filled Wolfgang’s cup with the genial beverage, and then my own. While I did so, Wolfgang let his eyes wander around the room. I was just putting the pot back down when he said, “Isn’t that…?”

I positioned the hot teapot carefully on the trivet before I raised my eyes to his face, and then turned my attention in the direction he was looking, at the door to the lobby.

No one was there, or no one that shouldn’t be. The ma?tre d’ was standing beside the door as usual, and was looking into the restaurant, but there was nothing noteworthy about that. I gave him a politely dismissive smile when he glanced at me, and then squinted past him into the lobby. “Who?” Or whom.

“Never mind,” Wolfgang said, hands busy with sugar and milk. “I must have been mistaken.”

“Did you see someone you knew?” I turned back to the door for a more thorough look. The ma?tre d’ had turned away now, back to his podium, and was fiddling with what looked like paperwork, marking it with a fountain pen.

“I thought I saw your cousin,” Wolfgang said.

I flicked him another look, just as he pushed my teacup across the table at me.

“Christopher, do you mean?” It wasn’t likely that Francis would be here. He doesn’t much like London these days, not since he stopped coming up here to carouse with his friends from the trenches. These days, he prefers to stay sober, and to stay in Wiltshire with Constance, and with Uncle Herbert and Aunt Roz.

“The young popinjay with the motorcar,” Wolfgang said and sat back on his chair.

“Crispin? He’s not my cousin. And he wouldn’t be here. He and Laetitia headed back to Dorset this morning. They must be there by now.”

Wolfgang threw a doubtful glance at the door. “Are you certain? I could have sworn…”

Well, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that Crispin lurked in the lobby while I was enjoying a meal with Wolfgang—and after Christopher’s revelation this morning, suddenly a lot of small things like that took on a new significance in my mind. But he had sounded fairly serious about taking Laetitia home. She had sounded rather serious about wanting to go. He wouldn’t have had time to motor to Dorset and back, although I supposed it was possible that they had changed their minds and were still at Sutherland House.

I glanced again at the door, doubtful now too. “I wouldn’t think so, although I suppose it isn’t impossible. I don’t see anyone who looks like him, at any rate.”

Wolfgang shook his head. “Most likely just my imagination.”

“Certainly,” I said, although I wasn’t sure I believed it. He had seen Crispin enough times by now that he should be able to recognize him. If Wolfgang thought he had seen him, then I was inclined to believe he had done.

Unless Christopher had decided to check on me, of course. In the beginning, he had insisted on escorting me to the Savoy for my dates with Wolfgang himself, and on handing me over with a warning to behave. That had stopped after the first few times, once Christopher became more comfortable with Wolfgang and trusted that the latter wasn’t going to chloroform me and take me off to Limehouse (or to his room upstairs) to do unspeakable things to me. But my tumble down the stairs last night seemed to have brought Christopher’s latent protective instincts to the fore again, and perhaps he really had decided to loiter in the Savoy lobby to keep an eye on me. From a distance, he and Crispin look very much like one another, and under the artificial lights of the Savoy, Crispin’s platinum hair might very well look more like Christopher’s sunny blond, or vice versa.

Naturally I didn’t say anything about it. If Christopher was hanging about because he was afraid that Wolfgang was trying to murder me, it wasn’t a subject I wanted to broach with Wolfgang. Nothing good comes from telling a man that your family suspects him of trying to do away with you.

I turned back to him with a smile. “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. If something was wrong, someone would let me know. And if you truly did see Crispin, he’s most likely just escorting Laetitia somewhere. Just as last night.”

Wolfgang drew breath. “About last night…”

“Please, may we forget it? I’m sorry for becoming emotional.”

He blinked at me, and I added, “Won’t you tell me about Schloss Natterdorff? I should at least not reject the idea until I know what I am rejecting.”

He stared at me for a second, intently, as if he were trying to determine whether I was telling the truth or not. Just as it was getting uncomfortable, his expression melted into warm eyes and a wide smile. “ Mein Schatz .”

He reached across the table. I lifted my hand to meet his. We were just about to clasp hands when my teacup upended with a clink of porcelain on porcelain, and brown liquid soaked into the tablecloth and approached the edge of the table.

Instead of clasping Wolfgang’s hand, I pushed my chair back. I had destroyed one evening gown by tripping down the stairs to the underground yesterday. I wasn’t about to ruin my favorite afternoon frock by soaking it in hot tea.

Wolfgang jumped to his feet, too, of course, and the waiter as well as the ma?tre d’ descended at a run. The waiter gathered up all the flatware and silverware, and the ma?tre d’ whisked the tablecloth off and draped it over his arm before escorting us to another table. It was only a minute or two before the waiter had supplied another teapot, two more cups and saucers, and more cake and sandwiches. I poured again, and then sat back on my chair.

“That was exciting.”

Wolfgang nodded, looking around, but of course no one was uncouth enough to be watching us.

“Where were we?” I prompted, and he gave me a rueful smile. In case I haven’t mentioned it thus far, Wolfgang is exceptionally good-looking, with wavy, golden hair and midnight blue eyes. Even the Mensur scar that bisects one cheek isn’t enough to destroy the appeal.

“I believe I was about to attempt to take your hand,” he told me with self-depreciating humor. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

“I would hardly call it a mistake,” I demurred, since it hadn’t been my trying to get out of holding his hand that had caused the mishap. I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, to be honest; I had just noticed the result. It may have been my hand that knocked the cup from the saucer. Then again, it might have been his. “Perhaps, for now, we ought to forego the hand-holding and instead focus on tea and cake while you tell me about Germany.”

He beamed, and while I dumped sugar and milk in my new cup of tea and transferred a fresh cucumber sandwich onto my plate, he proceeded to do just that.

“I don’t know how much you remember from being a child in Heidelberg?—”

“Not much,” I admitted. “And I remember less and less every day, I’m sorry to say. Although I was eleven when I left Germany, not a small child, so I do remember a few things.”

He nodded. “ Schloss Natterdorff sits some thirty kilometers from Heidelberg. I don’t think you visited as a child.”

“I don’t imagine so,” I agreed. I’m sure I would have remembered, if so. A castle is the sort of thing that sticks with you. Instead, my memories were of the small flat we had lived in in Heidelberg, and the streets of the town, and the river.

“It sits on the outskirts of the village of Natterdorff,” Wolfgang said, and went on to describe something that, frankly, sounded a lot less like Mad Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein, and rather more like Sutherland Hall or Marsden Manor. Not a fairytale castle with towers and turrets against the picturesque backdrop of the Hessian highlands, but more like a manor-house in the style I had become used to.

Of course I didn’t show my disappointment, just kept him going with smiles and encouraging noises. We had moved from the orchard and stables past the number of bedrooms and baths, and he was describing the wallpaper in the formal ballroom when the ma?tre d’ materialized beside the table.

He stood there politely, without clearing his throat or interrupting, but of course he was impossible to ignore. Wolfgang tried, I’ll give him that, but it was only fifteen seconds or so later that he interrupted his own description of the damask to look up. “Yes?”

“A message for monsieur .” The ma?tre d’ held out a small envelope on a tray, like Tidwell was wont to do at Sutherland Hall.

Neither he nor Wolfgang were French, but perhaps the ma?tre d’ did not want to sully his mouth with the German, and let’s be honest, English simply doesn’t have the same snooty flair.

Wolfgang eyed him for a moment before plucking the note from the tray. The ma?tre d’ withdrew, with a polite clicking of heels, and Wolfgang glanced at the envelope in his hand. His stare was intent enough that it seemed he might be trying to see through it to the message inside.

“Go ahead,” I told him. “It could be important.”

He hesitated, but after a moment he unsealed the flap and pulled out a small notecard from within. The message written on it was short: I saw his eyes flicker for just a second, over what was surely only a line or so of script. His jaw tightened and he glanced over at the entrance to the restaurant, to where the ma?tre d’s podium stood beside the door to the lobby. Perhaps he was hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever had left the note. If so he must have been disappointed, because the ma?tre d’ stood alone, and wasn’t looking our way.

“It isn’t St George,” I inquired, “is it?” Just in case Wolfgang was right, and he actually had seen Crispin in the lobby earlier. Or Christopher, I supposed.

His lips stretched into a semblance of a smile, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “No, no, mein Schatz . Merely a business matter that needs my attention.”

He slid the notecard back into the envelope and put the whole thing in his pocket.

I watched it disappear before I asked, “Is there anything I can do?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’ll deal with it later. Now—” he gave me another smile, this one a bit more natural-looking, “where were we?”

“In the ballroom,” I said, “with the pale blue damask wallpaper and crystal chandeliers.”

He nodded, and went back to describing Schloss Natterdorff and its many delights.

He spoke glibly and at length, but nonetheless, I did get the impression that he was distracted. He fidgeted on his chair almost as much as Crispin had done on the rather memorable occasion when I had dropped a handful of rose hips under his collar just before luncheon.

The Honorable Mr. Astley, all of eleven or twelve years old at the time, had lasted through the meal under his father’s disapproving eye, although it had taken days before he deigned to speak to me again. I still wasn’t entirely sure that he had forgiven me. On this occasion, it was only five minutes or so later that I felt I ought to offer to take myself off and so give Wolfgang the opportunity to deal with the contents of his message. It wasn’t as if he could jettison me , after all. A gentleman can’t do that sort of thing, at least not to a lady he hopes to see again.

“I should be making my way home,” I said with a smile.

I won’t go so far as to say that Wolfgang looked relieved—he did put up the token protest: “Already? Are you certain I can’t talk you into staying for a bit longer?”—but he got up without demur and offered me his arm for the walk into the lobby.

“Don’t feel as if you have to take care of me,” I told him as we passed through the door and onto the black-and-white marble floor. The ma?tre d’ bowed unctuously as we passed. “You said you thought you saw St George, didn’t you? Or perhaps Christopher? I’m sure either one of them would be happy to see me home.”

I scanned the lobby for a head of fair hair. I had found them both here once before, taking up a corner of the lobby, waiting for me, but the armchairs were empty this time. Or empty of Astleys, at any rate. There were plenty of people around, albeit no one I recognized.

“Don’t be silly,” Wolfgang informed me. “Of course I shall see you home if you want me to. Or I’ll put you in a Hackney, at the very least. No more tube rides for you.” He squeezed my elbow.

I smiled back. “It’s perfectly all right, Wolfgang. I can see myself home. There’s an entrance to the underground right down the street, and it’s still daylight. Nothing would happen to me.”

I had taken the underground to the Strand, as a matter of fact. I had deemed it a good idea to get back on the horse, so to speak, so I wouldn’t develop some inconvenient phobia of the tube forever, out of fear that something might happen to me. I had perhaps been a bit extra careful on the stairs going down into the tunnels, but nothing had occurred, and I had made it here in one piece. I could just as easily make it back to Bloomsbury.

“Nonsense,” Wolfgang told me, and nudged me out the front door, past the doorman, and towards the first Hackney waiting in the queue. “In you go.” He opened the door for me.

“Thank you.” I climbed in, docilely, even as I wondered whether it was my own cynical nature throwing up suspicions, or whether he really was trying extra hard to make sure I was away from the Savoy before he dealt with his note. “I’m perfectly capable of taking the tube home, you know.”

“Not after yesterday.” He brushed his lips over the back of my knuckles carefully before he shut the door behind me. “Safe home, mein Schatz .”

“Where to, guv?” the cab driver inquired, and Wolfgang gave him my destination and enough coin for the fare before stepping back and raising a hand.

“Right you are,” the cabbie said, and off we went, down Savoy Court towards the Strand. I turned my head and peered out the back window in time to see Wolfgang lower his arm. He did an about-face towards the door to the hotel just before we turned the corner, and then we were out of sight down the Strand.

I leaned forward. “Pull over at Charing Cross station, if you please.”

The driver peered at me in the mirror. “You don’t want to go to Essex Street?”

I shook my head. “I realized I left something in the tearoom at the Savoy. I want to go back there and get it.”

“I can take you back to the Savoy and then on to Essex Street.”

“That won’t be necessary,” I said. “Keep the money the gentleman gave you,” because that was more likely than not the problem here, not so much that he particularly wanted to make the drive to Bloomsbury, “and set me down at Charing Cross. I’m sure you can find another fare there.”

He squinted. “You sure about this, miss? Seems the least I can do is take you back to the Savoy.”

“That’s all right,” I said, “just pull in here, and… thank you.” We rolled onto the cobbles beside the Eleanor Cross. “I’m just going to hurry back to the Savoy and pick up my… um… my gloves, and then I’ll take the tube home. You just stay right here and find another fare. The gentleman will never know the difference.”

There was a twinkle in his eyes. “Afraid he’s got something going on the side, are you?”

“Something like that,” I agreed with the best humor I could manage. Certainly a lot more than if there had been any truth to the suggestion. “There was a note delivered over tea. I’m just going to keep watch for a bit. See whether someone stops by, or whether he goes out somewhere, or something like that.”

He nodded. “But you don’t need me for it?”

I shook my head. “Oh, no. No, you stay out of it. Get another fare and get paid twice.” I pushed the door open. “Good evening, sir.”

He didn’t stop me when I swung my legs out of the Hackney, or when I shut the door behind me, or as I scurried away across the cobblestones, back in the direction of the Savoy, but I could feel his eyes on me until I had turned the corner and was out of sight.