You may begin by admitting I was right,” Arabella said as she caught sight of Morton in her mirror. He had just let himself into her dressing cabinet backstage at the Drury Lane Theatre. She continued applying her face powder with studied care.
“You were undoubtedly right, Mrs. Malibrant,” Morton said mildly. “About what, pray?”
Arabella smiled, but then recomposed her face. “Do not try your charm on me, Henry Morton. You doubted me, and should not have. Is that not what you have come to say?”
“I never doubted you for a moment,” Morton said, pulling up a joint-stool. “You are never wrong. Not even the time you had me nab the footman for stealing Lady Ellington's bracelet. He just did not have it in his possession at that moment-or ever, if my memory serves.”
“I do not claim always to be right,” she said, crinkling up her brow.
Morton laughed. “Nor do you ever admit to being wrong, but in this case, my dear, I believe you were right. Though no one but you and me seems to believe it.”
“And why is that?”
“I don't know. I told them that I had it on good authority from Mrs. Arabella Malibrant, but they seemed not to care. I was somewhat taken aback.”
Arabella's frame of mind had apparently improved, and she only made a little grimace in response to this sally. “I hope you challenged them all to duels. Who were these doubters, pray?”
“Halbert Glendinning's parents, Sir William and Lady Caroline; my Magistrate, Sir Nathaniel Conant; the coroner, the ever-worthless Sir Charles Carey. I am not even certain your Lord Arthur believes me.”
“Oh, he is not mine,” Arabella said quickly. For a moment she concentrated on her eyebrows.
Morton watched the transformation. He always marveled that what looked so garish up close became something quite ethereal at a distance.
“Do you know,” she said, sitting back and examining her efforts with a critical eye, “they used to whiten the face with lead powder, but now folk say it is poisonous and like to kill you. Do you think we could convince Mrs. Siddons to try it?”
“Certainly she is no rival to you.”
“Hmm,” Arabella responded, beginning now on her lips. “It was Rokeby, of course,” she said.
“Who had everyone using lead powder?”
“Who killed Glendinning. Or had him killed.”
“He is the obvious choice,” Morton agreed, “if Glendinning was indeed killed.”
“He was. Rokeby is a rogue, and a murderer, too. I wish someone would shoot him, but he seems to shoot them all first. Could you not shoot him, Henry?”
Why this sudden antipathy toward Rokeby, he wondered. “Officers of police are not allowed to duel. It is illegal, if you remember.”
She raised her eyebrows, angled her face this way and that, and then turned in her chair to look at Morton. “You look worried, Henry. What is it?”
“It is something Jimmy Presley said to me this morning. Do you remember the Smeetons?” He proceeded to relate his conversation with the younger Runner, and then what he'd learned from the jarvey, and lastly the interview with the Glendinnings and his altercation with Sir Nathaniel.
“Why is this affair with George Vaughan any concern of yours? If he is corrupt, what of it? It is not for you to police your fellow officers, surely.”
Morton drew a long breath. Arabella was not one for taking on the responsibilities of the world. Let others worry about their own transgressions, or the sins of their brothers. Arabella was only concerned if such sins touched her or someone of her circle. Beyond that the world might cheerfully annihilate itself, Morton was sure.
“What is it Rokeby has done to you, my dear?” Morton asked on impulse.
“Me? Nothing. I should never be so foolish as to succumb to such calculated charms. But I know several women-I cannot name them-toward whom he has been most cavalier. If no man can shoot him I might have to do it myself.”
“He would not duel with a woman.”
“Oh, I would not use anything so crude as a firearm,” she answered sharply.
Morton smiled and shook his head. “The formidable Mrs. Malibrant.”
“Why, so I am. But I am surprised to see you here this evening.”
Morton did not like the sound of this, nor the tone. “You promised this night to me,” he said, his suspicions growing in spite of himself.
“Tomorrow night, Henry. I am otherwise committed this night.”
“I'm quite sure we agreed to this night.”
She knew his memory was almost infallible. Morton was somewhat famous for it in police circles.
“Could I have misspoken myself?” she asked innocently. “Well, let us not make a Trafalgar of it. Tomorrow night I will pledge to you. No, truly, Morton. Don't look at me so.”
Morton continued to look at her just so.
“Very well, I confess. I committed myself to two engagements on the same evening. It was a mistake honestly and innocently made. A lapse of memory-not everyone's is so perfect as yours.”
“Lord Arthur?”
She nodded sheepishly.
“Is he not married?”
“In name only-his wife lives in the country. Their children are grown. Now, Henry, you know we have always agreed…”
Morton held up both his hands, rising to his full height. “Do not waste this soliloquy on me, who knows it by heart.”
But the room was small and she put herself between Morton and the door, her absurdly made-up face close to his, green eyes gazing out from a field of cool, white Lille powder.
“Tomorrow night I promise to you-no, Henry, I promise. And there will be no mistakes.” She watched his face to gauge the effect of her pledge. “Now don't go running off-I have something for you.” She searched around her table and finally produced a leather-bound volume.
“There; by your pugilistic friend, Byron.”
“Hardly a friend,” Morton protested weakly, too aware that she patronised him. It was the new book, Hebrew Melodies.
She pressed it into his hands, and he felt his fingers close around the smooth calfskin. New volumes of poetry were rare, and expensive, pleasures.
“Will you stay for the performance?” she asked softly.
Morton wondered if anyone ever refused the wilful Arabella.
“Through the first act, at least.”
“Well, come see me then and we can visit until curtain call.”
There was a knock on her door just then-alerting Arabella to her entrance. She leaned forward to kiss Henry, remembered her face paint, and smiled as only Arabella could. Then she was out the door and hurrying off to her assignation with a full house of admirers.
Morton looked down at the book in his hands, opened it to the title page, and there, in a fine, legible hand, found:
To Mrs. Malibrant:
Whom I have long admired from afar.
Byron
Morton laughed. He could do nothing else.