Only when it was quite gone, did Lindsay turn and slink home.
Chapter Ten
The next evening wasthe night of Hector Cruikshank’s supper party.
Lindsay’s suit was ivory silk embroidered with turquoise and gold thread. He wore his finest jewels and had Wynne powder his hair brilliant white. Wynne rouged his cheeks too and applied a round patch at the corner of his mouth and a heart-shaped one with a tiny arrow through it below the corner of his left eye. When he left Locke Court, he looked every inch the proud, vain, wealthy collector he claimed to be.
For the sake of his shoes, he took a chair to Cruikshank’s new house. The chairmen were broad-shouldered, with heavily muscled arms and very quick on their feet. They had him at his destination in under ten minutes and Lindsay gave them a couple of extra coins for their trouble, countering the rear-chairman’s gruff thanks with a flirtatious wink. The man’s scent peaked intriguingly, though he dropped his gaze and jogged away.
Left alone, Lindsay considered his surroundings with interest, noting how very different they were from Cruikshank’s previous residence. The cobbles of the new-built road beneath his feet were immaculate, the whole street quite empty. No barefoot children here, or women in aprons scrubbing steps. No orange sellers or piemen or knife grinders.
Once the chairmen were gone, no one at all.
Lindsay regarded the short row of houses of which Cruikshank’s was one. There were four in all. Four identical townhouses, each with a glossy black front door, a shining brass knocker and three storeys. The ground floor windows were large and arched, those on the higher floors a similar size, but plainer and rectangular. Every measure, from the height of each window to the placement of each block of sandstone, was regular and even, the whole construction elegant and restrained.
Drew Nicol had designed these houses. Something in Lindsay warmed at that thought, an odd feeling of misplaced pride that he impatiently dismissed.
Of the four houses, only one had signs of occupation—curtains at the windows and candles burning. The others stood empty, waiting for their new owners.
As Lindsay approached the door of the occupied house, it opened, revealing Cruikshank’s servant, Meek, kitted out in a new livery of canary yellow breeches and a black coat trimmed with canary yellow braid. Lindsay chuckled, amused by Meek’s sour-faced expression. He was plainly unhappy with his new clothes, and when Lindsay reached the doorstep he saw that the man had made no other effort in their honour. His hair remained as greasy as before, his fingernails as ragged and dirty.
“Mr. Somerville,” Meek said, his tone accusing, his gaze communicating his distaste for Lindsay’s glittering clothes. “Yer the last tae arrive.”
Lindsay smiled brightly at this welcome. “Ah, Meek. A lovely evening is it not? Look at that moon!” Three-quarters full, she was, but Meek didn’t even look, merely grunted and turned away, walking back inside the house, leaving Lindsay to close the door behind him.
Lindsay followed Meek inside, amused by the man’s appalling manners.
“They’re up here,” Meek said, mounting the stairs and leaving Lindsay to follow him.
“Where?” Lindsay asked. “The dining room?”
“Aye—they’re all sittin’ at their places, waitin’ for their dinner.”
Lindsay raised his brows behind Meek’s back. It was only just gone six—criminally early to be dining in his opinion. He’d assumed there would be some drinking and conversation before the meal was served. Well, he reminded himself, this wasn’t Paris.
As they neared the dining room, the rumble of multiple masculine voices talking was discernible behind the stout wood.
