One
Eleanor cowered at the end of the bedstead as shattered glass rained down on her head. ‘Oh, botheration!’ She shook the larger shards from her flame-red curls, her sharp, green eyes peering up at the ceiling now devoid of its ornate chandelier, the plaster rose sprouting only a wire.
‘Double botheration!’ She hurled the long bamboo cane responsible for the damage onto her bed, pulled on her slippers, and crunched across the glass. In her grey, silk pyjamas and with her slender figure she looked every inch the martial-arts student. She opened the door and jumped back. ‘Clifford! Please don’t lurk outside like that! You frightened the sense out of me.’
Her butler dropped his white-gloved hand, which had been raised ready to knock. ‘Apologies, my lady, but I rather fear that happened a long while ago.’
‘What? Now look here.’ She glanced up at him and caught that twinkle in his eye. She found herself grinning back. He had not only been her late uncle’s butler but also, despite the class difference, his friend. And so it was proving with her.
‘In fact, don’t come in. Well, actually, you’ll have to, I suppose.’ She opened the door for him to see. ‘You may have heard a teensy noise.’
‘Indeed, my lady. Mr Penry called from his butcher’s shop in the village to ask if we would be good enough to keep the noise down.’
‘Very funny.’
Clifford pulled the bell sash at the head of Eleanor’s bed twice. ‘Not to worry, the ladies will do a swift job, given the circumstances.’
‘Circumstances?’
‘That you have precisely thirty-seven minutes before we need to leave.’
‘Oh golly, that’s not long. But wait, need to leave for where?’
Clifford adjusted his perfectly aligned shirt cuffs. ‘If you remember, my lady, the Fenwick-Langhams are holding a masked ball and I will be driving you there in the Rolls.’
Eleanor picked up her uncle’s fob watch from the bedside. She’d found it when she’d inherited Henley Hall after his unexpected death, and kept it as a memento of the rare times she’d spent with him. ‘Thirty-seven minutes is’ – she looked down at her pyjamas – ‘ample. And I’m sure the ladies will… ah! Here they are.’
‘Oh, my stars!’ Mrs Butters, the housekeeper, flustered in and stood peering at the mound of glass and silver fittings. ‘Thank goodness Master Gladstone wasn’t in here, his paws would be full of cut chandelier crystal.’
Gladstone was the elderly bulldog Eleanor had inherited along with Henley Hall, and much else besides, from her late uncle.
Mrs Butters looked up from the mess on the floor. ‘More importantly, are you alright, my lady?’
‘Yes, I’m quite fine. Do come in, Polly.’ Eleanor didn’t need to peer round the door to know her young maid would be waiting on the other side.
Polly loped in on her willowy legs and looked around the room. ‘Oh lummy!’
‘Yes, Polly, oh lummy indeed,’ Clifford said. ‘But not to worry, her ladyship has finished her martial-arts training for the moment, so kindly clear up the aftermath.’
Eleanor cocked a questioning eyebrow at him. How could he possibly have known? ‘Look here, Clifford, I just thought it would be a good idea to be better prepared, given the events of the last few weeks. Hence a dash of self-defence training.’
‘Indeed, my lady, assuming, of course, your assailant was planning to pounce on you from the chandelier.’
‘Very droll. Actually, I think it’s a shame Baritsu died out so quickly, I rather like it. Sherlock Holmes practised it, you know.’
Clifford cleared his throat. ‘Sherlock Holmes did indeed practice a form of martial arts, my lady. I believe, however, the correct name is actually Bartitsu, with a middle “T”, being a blended word of the surname of the gentleman who invented it, Mr Barton-Wright and jiu-jitsu. Unfortunately, the Bartitsu Club closed seventeen years ago in 1903, my lady, even though Mr William Barton-Wright is still teaching it I believe.’
Eleanor never stopped marvelling at just how much her butler seemed to know on any subject under the sun. With the mess cleared away, Mrs Butters bobbed a half curtsey. ‘Will there be anything else, my lady? Shall Polly help you dress?’
‘Good heavens, no!’ Eleanor replied a little too quickly. ‘I mean, no thank you. I have yet to work out which of these silk brocaded apparatuses of torture I will choose as my penance for this evening.’
The housekeeper chuckled and winked over her shoulder as she ushered Polly from the room. Clifford gave a polite cough. ‘Perhaps getting one’s skates on, as I believe the expression is, would be advisable?’
‘Tsh, tsh, skates are hardly the appropriate footwear, silly.’
‘I am given to understand that there will be several people there you have met previously at the rose garden luncheon Lady Fenwick-Langham put on two months ago.’
She groaned and flopped backwards onto the bed. ‘Great! A stern old dowager and her soppy niece and a henpecked husband and his American wife who delights in ribbing my lack of fashion sense.’
‘And, of course, a certain gentleman…’
Eleanor sat up. ‘What! Oh no, not Colonel Bardifoot-Puttleton. Whatever I do, he seems to disapprove of.’
‘It’s Colonel Puddifoot-Barton, my lady. He is a highly decorated soldier. Admittedly, he can be a trifle… caustic on the surface, but if you dig—’
‘One has to dig very deep to find any redeeming traits in the man. And, frankly, I am not in the mood for digging. I’ve tried to get on with him, but he has an unmatched skill for turning even a simple “Hello, Colonel, how are you?” into a declaration of open war!’
Clifford picked up the two dresses hanging on the door of her wardrobe and laid them carefully on the bed next to her.
‘True, my lady, but I wasn’t actually speaking about the colonel, rather a younger gentleman.’
She coloured at his last remark and tried to sound disinterested. ‘Oh yes, Lancelot.’ She peered at the dresses. ‘Which do you think he would like?’ She slapped her forehead. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean for that to come out aloud.’
Clifford smiled. ‘I should think, my lady, that the gentleman will be delighted to see you in either. However, since you’ve asked, I would suspect the blue dress will catch his eye most assuredly.’
‘Right, then I’ll wear the red! I’m not having him goggling at me all night. I’m supposed to be a lady.’
‘Well, we live in hope,’ Clifford muttered as he left the room.
Alone, Eleanor yanked off her house pyjamas, throwing them in a heap on the bed. She couldn’t help smiling on opening her wardrobe. Mrs Butters had surprised her the day before by making an exquisitely detailed set of hanging storage pockets. Made in duck-egg blue silk voile, they were perfect for her stockings.
Choosing a middle denier pair in glossy black, she yanked them on and grabbed the red dress from the bed. With one leg in, she paused, frowning. Clifford was bound to have guessed that she would pick the one he hadn’t suggested. Oh what a fool, she’d nearly fallen for it. He obviously thought she should wear the red one. She reached for the blue gown. But wait, supposing it was a double bluff?