Strike at Midnight(65)

“So you do know her?” I asked Lord Peacock, and he begrudgingly turned away from Lord Dumpty. He looked back at me with a slightly red hue on his cheeks.

“I didn’t realize that was her name,” he said quickly. “But if that is indeed the woman you are asking about, then she was quite angry that the duke didn’t take their relationship more seriously. However, they separated amicably.”

“Your friend over there said that he dumped her quite viciously.”

“He’s drunk,” he said, and then we both looked over to see that Lord Dumpty’s head had fallen forward onto his many chins as a short nap mid-meal grasped him.

“A friend of the duke said he never entertained women at his home,” I said, trying a different tactic with Lord Peacock. “Where else would he entertain them?”

“He had a second house, a small residence not far from The Tamed Wolf.”

“His friend never mentioned that,” I said, wondering why Sir Raymond wouldn’t have disclosed such information.

“He was very discreet about it,” he said as he nudged Lord Dumpty in the side to stop him from snoring. It was starting to draw attention. Lord Dumpty snorted and blinked his eyes open when he felt the nudge in his ribs.

“What?” he slurred, and Lord Peacock must have given him one hell of a glare because he sat up in his seat in a way that propriety required.

“Did you find out anything else?” Lord Peacock asked me, but I was aware there were too many people chatting around us for me to go into any detail.

“There is, but I need to follow a few more leads before we have anything substantial. We’re getting close, though.”

“Such a shame,” Lord Dumpty said, and when I looked over he was shaking his head with a solemn look on his face. “The duke was such a kind friend, and so inoffensive. He seemed so happy when we saw him last after we shared—”

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,” Lord Peacock said as his goblet turned over with a vengeance and spilled all of his contents in Lord Dumpty’s direction.

“Barnaby,” he shrieked, jumping up out of his seat. “I’m drenched.”

“Will you please address me as a lord in public?” Lord Peacock said in hushed tones, and a few people around us stopped what they were doing to see what was going on. He stood up with Lord Dumpty and handed him a napkin to try and wipe himself down. “It’s only wine. Clean it off.”

“Clean it off?” Lord Dumpty asked in disgust. “Clean it off?” He snatched the napkin out of Lord Peacock’s hand and tried to wipe the wine off his soaking-wet breeches. “This won’t clean off, and it’s a Leonardo special. I swear, Barnaby Peacock if I didn’t know you better, I would think you had done this on purpose.” He threw the napkin on the table and turned on his heels before marching off out of the dining room. A few servants tried to approach him to see if he needed any assistance, but he just waved them away as if they were persistent flies hovering around his head.

Another servant was very professional in cleaning up the remainder of the mess on the table and chair where Lord Dumpty had been sitting, and the chatter soon started up again when our surrounding circle realized that there was nothing more to see.

Lord Peacock gave his apologies and sat back down in his seat, and I couldn’t help myself in looking over in the prince’s direction to see if the outburst had carried its way to the head of the room. It was a move I regretted as soon as my eyes landed directly on his and he was looking at me with concern. I subtly shook my head, and I was grateful when he nodded back and turned back to his father, who was trying to get his attention.

“He is a bit of a handful at times,” Lord Peacock said to me as he turned my way. “I apologize for his rude behavior.”

“That’s not a problem,” I replied with a smile, trying to recall the last thing Lord Dumpty had said. “What did he mean about sharing something on the night you last saw him?”

“His winnings,” he said as he went back to his food. “He was a very generous person. I do hope you find him soon.”

A smile of understanding formed on my lips, but it didn’t reach my eyes. There was something off about all of this.

Pieces were coming together, but they were disjointed and not giving us all we needed to find the duke. Shivers crept up my spine at the thought of how close the silly bitch, Helena, had gotten to destroying the duke’s life. If it hadn’t been for Sir Raymond, no one would have known.

Someone had targeted Helena specifically because they knew that the duke would have been an easy person to replace. His scatterbrained staff was used to him disappearing and hadn’t raised the alarm. His friends who had known about his private residence in town hadn’t even thought to go investigate when rumors had been raised about his absence. It had been the perfect ruse. And someone, somewhere, had known this. But why target Lord Camembert? Why him?

The need to talk to Lord and Lady Camembert had just moved to the top of my list of priorities.





*



After the banquet, we managed to escape to our rooms with no further distractions from the prince.

He had tried—a few times—but fate was on my side, as he was always disrupted on route to me by one person or another, and I had escaped unscathed.