A Most Discreet Inquiry (The Regent Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  What critics are saying about The Regent Mysteries:

  A delightful blend of humor, romance, and mystery, a romp through Regency society, sprinkled with appealing characters and colorful figures from British history.” – In Print

  "Bolen is a masterful storyteller who brings us enchanting love stories that offer fresh outlooks on love, while combining humor and mystery." – Regency Inkwell

  With His Lady’s Assistance (Book 1 of The Regent Mysteries) was named a finalist in the 2012 International Digital Awards contest for long historical.

  * * *

  A Most Discreet Inquiry

  It all started quite innocently when Lady Daphne Chalmers's duchess sister came to her sleuthing sibling for help in retrieving love letters she wrote to Major Styles, now deceased. But as Daphne and her own lover, Captain Jack Dryden of His Majesty's Hussars, join forces to track down the letters, they follow a trail of treachery and murder that threatens the entire kingdom.

  Cheryl Bolen’s Books

  Regency Historical Romance:

  The Regent Mysteries Series

  With His Lady's Assistance (Book 1)

  A Most Discreet Inquiry (Book 2)

  The Theft Before Christmas (Book 3)

  An Egyptian Affair (Book 4)

  Brazen Brides Series

  Counterfeit Countess (Book 1)

  Book 2 and Book 3 coming soon

  House of Haverstock Series

  Lady by Chance (Book 1)

  Duchess by Mistake (Book 2)

  Countess by Coincidence (Book 3)

  The Brides of Bath Series

  The Bride Wore Blue (Book 1)

  With His Ring (Book 2)

  The Bride’s Secret (Book 3)

  To Take This Lord (Book 4)

  Love In The Library (Book 5)

  A Christmas in Bath (Book 6)

  The Earl's Bargain

  My Lord Wicked

  His Lordship's Vow

  Christmas Brides (Three Regency Novellas)

  Marriage of Inconvenience

  A Duke Deceived

  Romantic Suspense:

  Falling For Frederick

  Texas Heroines in Peril Series

  Protecting Britannia

  Murder at Veranda House

  A Cry In The Night

  Capitol Offense

  World War II Romance:

  It Had to Be You (Previously titled Nisei)

  American Historical Romance:

  A Summer To Remember (3 American Romances)

  A Most Discreet Inquiry

  (The Regent Mysteries, Book 2)

  Cheryl Bolen

  Copyright © 2012 by Cheryl Bolen

  A Most Discreet Inquiry is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Not since the next-to-eldest of Lord Sidworth's daughters snared the Duke of Lankersham had Sidworth House been in such a dither. Footmen in scarlet livery, madly scurrying chambermaids, and a contingent of supervisory-sounding servants were practically tripping over themselves readying the earl's home for the day's momentous occasion: the wedding of Daughter Number One.

  With no intention of criticism toward the lady in question, none of those anticipating the happy event had ever thought to see the day Lady Daphne Chalmers would wed.

  This lack of expectations had not been precipitated because the lady did not have pedigree, nor because she could not bring a respectable dowry, nor because she was not amiable. She possessed all these qualities in abundance. Those who vastly admired Lady Daphne (and there were many of those, to be sure) could not deny that the poor girl—no, girl was not precisely the right descriptor—the poor woman, was a hopeless spinster. She had been on the shelf so long that a new generation of debutants had made Lady Daphne's group as distant a memory as her father's powdered wig.

  Yet today Lady Daphne was getting married.

  It had been expected Lord Sidworth would be so desperate to marry off the eldest of his six daughters that he would lower his aim. Initially, he had thought only the finest aristocrat in all the three kingdoms worthy of his firstborn—and favorite.

  Now, though, Lord Sidworth had given his consent for his beloved Daphne to wed a man with far fewer recommendations than the earl would once have considered barely acceptable. Lady Daphne's intended was not an aristocrat. Nor was he possessed of fortune. Nor did he hold a commanding rank in the Prince of Wales' Royal Light Hussars. He was a mere captain.

  Captain Jack Dryden even had the effrontery—while begging His Royal Highness's pardon—to turn down a more exalted title urged upon him by both Lord Sidworth and by the Prince Regent himself. The stubborn captain would accept neither an aristocratic title nor a higher rank in his majesty's service, both offered by the Regent, who admired Captain Dryden excessively.

  The captain further aggravated his future father-in-law by refusing the enormous dowry Lord Sidworth wished to settle upon Lady Daphne. (Captain Dryden did finally capitulate enough to accept a dowry that would allow his wife-to-be to live in a style not abhorrent to one raised as an earl's daughter.)

  Despite the great disparity in stations of the intended couple, everyone in the ton thought Lady Daphne had done very well for herself. Both the Prince Regent and the Duke of Wellington credited Captain Dryden with all manner of heroic activities, including saving the Regent's life. Men envied the captain's tall, well-formed body while admiring his skill with the sword.

  And women. . . well, women had a propensity to flutter eyelashes, drop hankies, and positively swoon when in the presence of the exceedingly handsome man whom Daphne herself had dubbed Captain Sublime.

  Those not well acquainted with the happy couple no doubt thought Captain Jack Dryden a great fortune hunter. Or they might think him a hanger-on to aristocratic coattails. Neither could be further from the truth.

  Those who knew Daphne and Jack knew theirs was a true love match.

  Quite recently, while investigating threats against the Prince Regent, Daphne and Jack—who had not been previously acquainted—had been forced to pose as lovers, and their ruse ended up being anything but.

  Initially, Jack had not been attracted to Lady Daphne. He lamented that he was going to have to feign attraction to a bespectacled woman who was tall, skinny, and in possession of the most unruly head of hair imaginable. Therefore, the incendiary effect that particular lady's presence began to wreak upon his passions had been as shocking to him as would have been the sprouting of a third leg.

  Equally as shocking was the discovery that the noble lady was in no way adverse to uniting herself with a captain of such unfortunate origins. The lady was actually adamant that Jack was t
he most noble man she had ever known. He knew he was neither noble nor worthy of a woman as wonderful as Daphne, but what was he to do when the Regent himself declared they belonged together?

  On this most blissful of wedding days, Cornelia—Daphne's duchess sister—accompanied by her much-taller twin, swept through the door of Sidworth House, smiling broadly. “I declare, Virginia,” she said to her sister, “I cannot wait to see Daphne in the wedding dress I had made for her.” The two did not pause long enough to even take off their velvet bonnets but began to race upstairs toward Lady Daphne's bedchamber.

  “Even Daphne would have to look lovely in that dress,” Virginia said, “for I do believe I've never seen anything lovelier.”

  Cornelia nodded. “I will own, it was difficult not to claim something so vastly beautiful for myself, but I did so want Daphne to look . . .well, to look as lovely as possible on her wedding day.” She frowned. “Especially since she'll be standing next to that ---”

  Virginia paused on the step and stared into her sister's brown eyes—the only feature the twins had in common. “That paragon of masculinity?”

  Cornelia, Duchess of Lankersham, nodded, still frowning. (Lamentably, her own duke was not only not a paragon of masculinity but was a bit on the portly side and in sad need of hair on top his shiny head.)

  In front of Lady Daphne's door, the twins paused. “I just know Daphne will be radiantly beautiful today,” Virginia said.

  Her face lifted into a smile, the duchess nodded in agreement and swept open the door to Daphne's bedchamber.

  And she gasped. (This was not a gasp of acute admiration.)

  Virginia shrieked.

  Still in her night shift, spectacles slipping down her nose, Daphne straddled a wooden chair that had been strategically placed in front of a window. There, with a paint brush in her right hand and copious amounts of brown paint splotching her face, she sat before an easel displaying a still-wet painting of a horse.

  She looked up at her sisters and smiled.

  Cornelia's lips compressed, and her eyes narrowed. “Pray, why are you not dressed?”

  Concurrently, Virginia asked, “Whatever are you doing, Daphne?”

  “In the middle of the night I got the brilliant idea of painting a portrait of dear Jack's charger as a wedding gift to him.” She leaned back and surveyed the portrait of the roan gelding sporting a blue and silver shabracque. “I do believe it's one of my best efforts. And you know how Jack loves that beast!”

  “I could almost understand it,” Virginia mumbled to the duchess, “were she giving her bridegroom her own miniature, but a horse?”

  The duchess was too angry to form a response. She stood in the center of Daphne's bedchamber and began to scream. “Mama! Papa!”

  From her frantic tone, her parents (and all the servants, as well) would surely believe the room was being consumed by flames.

  In seconds, Lord and Lady Sidworth burst into the chamber.

  “Oh, dear,” Lady Sidworth said, shaking her head when she realized the bride had neglected to don her bridal dress. “I should have insisted my maid come to her this morning, but Daphne was so opposed to the idea!”

  Daphne glared, first at the duchess, then at her mother. “Must you speak of me in the third person? I am right here. And you, Mama, know I don't care a fig about beauty and having a lady's maid. The wife of an army captain cannot afford so unnecessary an expenditure.”

  “You must own, Mama,” the duchess said, “there would be nary a thing for a maid of Daphne's to do. Look at her! She hasn't even brushed her hair—not that she ever does.” Cornelia stomped up to her elder sister. “I daresay a brush hasn't touched your hair since last night.”

  Daphne gazed into Cornelia's angry face. “Of course not, silly. Why would I dress my hair before I finished with the painting? You know what a mess I make when I paint.”

  Cornelia sighed. “For god's sake, Daphne! It's your wedding day.”

  An almost ethereal smile came over Lady Daphne's face. She quite possibly would have looked pretty, were it not for the brown paint marring her creamy complexion. “I assure you I haven't forgotten that.”

  “But, Pet,” Lord Sidworth said in a gentle voice as he approached his most beloved daughter, “you were supposed to leave for the church in five minutes.”

  “We'll just have to keep Captain Dryden waiting!” Cornelia said. “We must see that Daphne's made presentable.”

  The bride-to-be's mouth gaped open. “I did not realize I was to leave in five minutes. However will I get all this paint off?”

  Though no one had noticed her leaving, the other twin returned to the chamber with a moist cloth. “I'll just dab this spirit of turpentine on your face and hands, dear love, and get rid of that brown paint as quick as you please.”

  “Daphne cannot show up at her wedding smelling of that horrible turpentine!” Cornelia protested.

  “If we follow it with soap and water and liberally apply my rose water afterward, I think it will work,” Lady Sidworth said. “It wouldn't at all do for Daphne to stink up the church.”

  “I wonder if Jack likes the smell of rose water,” Daphne commented as Virginia gently removed the paint from her nose. “He's become most fond of my spear mint scent.”

  Cornelia rolled her eyes. “I fail to see why you won't wear perfume like other women. You're so exasperating!”

  “I am not like other women,” Daphne answered with a shrug. “I have no interest whatsoever in what is fashionable.”

  “And Captain Dryden loves her just as she is,” Lord Sidworth said with a pride like the barnyard rooster who'd just sired a peacock. He strolled to the chamber door. “I shall leave you ladies, but please hurry. I'll send word to the church that you'll be slightly late.”

  “I don't care what my elder sister wants,” Cornelia said with a great deal of authority. “Pru's to come here straight away and help pin up that unruly mass of hair on Daphne's head. I won't have her looking like that on her wedding day.”

  Lady Sidworth went to the bell pull. “I'll ring for her right now.”

  “I declare, Cornelia,” Daphne said, glaring at her sister, “you treat all of us—including your very own mother—as if you're some deity, and we're your subjects.”

  Virginia paused and examined Daphne to see if she had missed any spots. “She's right, Your Grace.”

  Cornelia stomped her slippered foot. “If my good opinion is not needed, I'll just take myself off to St. George's!” She stormed from the bedchamber.

  * * *

  Standing with his brother at the front of St. George's, Jack kept searching the church's doorway. It really wasn't like Daphne to be late. Normally, she was one of those persons who has every single minute accounted for. Beforehand. Her sisters he could see being late because—being more interested in fashion and such than Daphne—they could get delayed trying on gowns and arranging hair or any number of things ladies of fashion did.

  Yet the most fashionable of the six sisters, Cornelia, Duchess of Lankersham, was already there at the church. She and Lankersham had entered St. George's with the air of royal personages. After only the briefest nod in Jack's direction at the front of the church, they had strolled along the nave like a king and queen at coronation. No pew would do for them except the first. Jack found himself wondering if they chose it because it was the closest to the altar or if they did so because the duchess craved admiration.

  There was much to admire, not only in her dark, petite beauty but also in her impeccable eye for all that was fashionable. Not that Jack considered himself particularly knowledgeable on matters of taste in women's clothing.

  It was difficult for him to believe this haughty aristocrat and Daphne could have come from the same womb. While Daphne was tall, the duchess was short. While Daphne had no interest in fashion, the duchess lived for it. And while Daphne was no great beauty, the duchess was.

  Cornelia entered the pew first. Her bald-headed duke came next. How uncharitable
of Jack to think him bald. Lankersham was not completely bald. A circle of dark hair ringed his head, reminding Jack of a picture he'd seen of some friar—or was it a papist saint?

  Jack's gaze came back to the front of the church and to the vicar in silken vestments who stood beside him. He favored the clergyman with a smile as he shrugged. His bride must be a half hour late now.

  Daphne had insisted only family members be invited to the small wedding. Owing to his father's ill health, Jack's family was represented only by the one brother who stood beside him.

  The Earl of Sidworth's family was much larger, and because of their class, all the aunts and uncles and cousins possessed London town houses for The Season, and since this happened to be The Season, there were enough members of Daphne's extended family to fill a fourth of the church.

  As time stretched on, the guests' voices, respectfully quiet at first, began to fill the church with the drone of their chatter. Jack, too, contributed to the swell of voices when he turned to David and spoke. “I'm becoming worried about Daphne. She's never late.”

  “You know what women are when dressing their hair and that sort of thing.”

  Jack frowned. “It's obvious you haven't met Daphne.”

  His bride was a full three quarters of an hour late, but the wait was worth every minute. Joy pulsed into every crevice of his body when he looked up and saw Daphne sweep through the church doors on her father's arm. Her golden hair was dressed. And most becomingly. Normally a bushy mane, her hair was swept back from her slender face in the style of a Grecian goddess.

  Next to her father, who was nearly as tall as Jack's six feet, two inches, Daphne didn't look so very tall. There was even a certain elegance about her today in the soft ivory gown that trailed behind her. As she drew closer, her sparkling green eyes met his and held. There was not another face in the kingdom he would rather behold, not another woman who stirred his lust like this boy-chested woman who about to become his wife.