Lucius Grenville, London’s most famous dandy, had scandalized society last year by marrying an unknown actress who’d already been his mistress. Matrons who’d had high hopes that Grenville would wed one of their daughters were furious with him, and even his fellow dandies thought he’d gone too far.
Gradually, however, the more sensation-seeking of the ton grew too interested in his new arrangement to entirely condemn it. It was now becoming fashionable to have Grenville and his wife at soirees and suppers, provided there were no innocent debutantes there to be corrupted by them.
Marianne, who had risen to the role she now found herself in, was impressing her hostesses with her fine manners and natural grace. I’d come to realize she’d been a much better actress than her company had given her credit for, but I also had the feeling Marianne’s origins were close to that which she now portrayed.
Like Lady, Marianne never mentioned her past. I knew she’d once upon a time taken up with a company of strolling players, which led to her employment at Drury Lane theater, but her instincts in what to say and do when in society were too well honed to be entirely feigned.
Grenville, I discovered once I entered his hallowed halls, was in his dressing room. When the footman ushered me inside this chamber, Grenville was standing in the center of it with his chin raised high. Gautier, his valet, busily tied a golden-colored cravat around Grenville’s neck into a complicated knot.
“A new style,” Grenville said, his voice muffled. “Gautier is a genius at cravats. I tell him the knots should be named after him, but he demurs.”
Gautier ignored this quip while he finished his artistry and tucked the ends of the cloth inside Grenville’s silk brocade waistcoat.
“Your cravat is yellow,” I observed in mock amazement.
Pure white linen had been de rigueur for a very long time. A black cravat or stock might be worn during the day and for riding, but white was the gentleman’s choice for evening wear.
“Butternut,” Grenville corrected me. “I thought it time Brummell’s strictures were relaxed a bit. He’s been gone from us five years now, poor fellow.”
Grenville, who’d easily stepped into George Brummell’s place once that man had exiled himself to France to avoid his creditors, dictated without words what the society gentlemen should be wearing. In the next few weeks, I’d no doubt see a number of dark yellow cravats around the necks of the upper classes.
“As to this business with Denis,” Grenville said as Gautier eased a black cashmere frock coat over his shoulders. “You’re already in the thick of it. Tell me all.”
I did not need to ask how he knew so quickly about my involvement in the incident. Any number of Donata’s servants would have passed word to Grenville’s that I’d been whisked away by Gibbons this morning. News of the sensational murder had likely already flown around London.
I seated myself on a straight-backed chair and regaled him with my tale, my valet’s brother, Matthias, entering to quietly furnish me with coffee.
“It is a devil of a thing,” Grenville said once I’d finished. “I wrote to you after I read the sordid details in the latest broadsheet, and Matthias announced you were already investigating. I knew Mr. Pickett, you see. Or at least, something of him.”
“Did you?” I exclaimed. Grenville’s eyes gleamed with gratification as I rose to his bait with proper astonishment. “You might have said so at once.”
“I wanted to hear what you knew, first.” Grenville stuck his arms out straight from his sides while Gautier, unbothered by our revelations, began to brush down his coat. “I met Mr. Pickett not long ago. He was introduced to me at Tattersalls, by Langley, an old school friend. Pickett struck me as a rather excitable man, worried about many things. He feared he was up to his neck with the so-called Cato Street conspirators, though neither Langley nor I could fathom why. It seemed unlikely.”
We had all been following as the Cato Street plot unfolded in the newspapers. The gentlemen, who called themselves the Spencean Philanthropists, had been planning the murder of the entire cabinet, Lord Liverpool with them. More details about the conspiracy had been revealed almost every day since the arrests weeks ago, including the informants who’d been planted in the group. I’d never seen the name Pickett mentioned.
“Up to his neck?” I asked in bafflement.
“So he said, but I could not decide if the fellow was sincere or not. If he was convinced he was about to be arrested at any moment, why announce the fact to us?” Grenville shrugged, causing Gautier to cluck in disapproval. “I tried to assure Pickett that the whole thing was nothing to do with him, but he persisted. Although, who knows? Perhaps one of the conspirators managed to escape the net and silenced Pickett before he could name him.”
“Now we are entering the realm of the fantastic,” I said. “The journalists have listed all the conspirators and their backgrounds with painstaking thoroughness. Spendlove was at the raid—as was Pomeroy. Spendlove would have told me with triumph if Pickett had been one of them.”
“Then why was Pickett so certain?” Grenville asked. “There must be something in it.”
I was aware of people who persuaded themselves that if anything exciting or dangerous happened—the more notorious, the better—it had something to do with them. Pickett could be such a man.
However, I had to admit that the Runners had arrested only those actually inside the Cato Street house that night. It stood to reason that some of the group might have managed to lie low and avoid capture.
In that case, though, why had Pickett freely offered this information to Grenville? Had Pickett meant he was one of the plotters who’d escaped or that he’d been associated with the conspirators in a more obscure way? And was this connection why he’d contacted Denis?
“I hope he was exaggerating and had nothing at all to do with the Cato Street men,” I said. “If Denis agreed to help Pickett escape to the Continent, Denis might face a treason charge. Spendlove would be in transports of joy if this proved true.”
“I’m not certain I believed him,” Grenville said. “As I mentioned, Pickett was an excitable fellow. Would he not worry that we’d rush to fetch a Runner to arrest him?”
“Perhaps he knew you’d not credit him if he burst out with it in the way he did,” I suggested. “Or, perhaps he knew of your associations with Denis and hoped you would encourage Denis to help him.”
“Well, we can stand in my dressing room speculating all we like, but it will not bring us to the truth. Someone must know whether Pickett was involved and what he wanted of Denis.”
“I was on my way to Curzon Street to read the letter Pickett sent to Denis.” I idly twirled the head of my walking stick. “But I was preempted by a summons to Grosvenor Street to watch Gautier tie your new cravat.”
