“Percival, I think. You look like a Percival,” he teased.
“No, no, something manly. How about Drummond or Bu-ford?” She opened the humidor on top of the dresser and stuck a cheroot in one corner of her mouth. She gripped it between her teeth so that it took an upward slant, exactly as Terry used to do.
Neil felt a sharp pang of loss at the sight, recalling the first time he’d caught Terry smoking. “Don’t,” he said before he could stop himself.
Her eyes flew to his, and he knew instantly that she understood. Jerking the cheroot out of her mouth, she tossed it back into the humidor without a word.
A moment passed before she broke the silence. “Well, all right, Percival it is then, if you insist. And Betts, short for Elizabeth. Papa used to call me Betts. Yes, Percival Betts!”
Smiling rakishly, she offered her hand for him to shake. “I am born.”
MacLinden rapped on the bedroom door before he entered. “Security downstairs is fine. Your Oliver seems to know what he’s about. Good man,” he said, noting Elizabeth Marleigh’s transformation. “And so you appear, my lady! I must say, though, you’re too well turned out for a valet.”
He walked around her, observing from all angles. His gaze locked on the front of her trousers and he raised a brow. “Perhaps we ought to pass you off as a patient—a medical curiosity, I should think.”
Lady Marleigh looked indignant, Neil laughed out loud and MacLinden couldn’t stifle a grin. “Why, such a virile specimen as yourself ought not to languish as a mere servant,” he continued, teasing. “Why don’t we set you up as the doctor’s protége?”
“Not a bad idea, Lindy,” Neil mused. “A valet wouldn’t accompany me everywhere, but an assistant certainly might.”
The lady shook her head. “I know nothing about medicine!”
“Doc does have a point,” MacLinden said, brushing off her protest with a wave of his hand. “The clothes really are a bit too fine for a hireling, anyway. All right then, we’ll introduce you as the son of a family friend. You’ve studied medicine in Edinburgh and come to London to sharpen your skills in…?”
“Research,” Neil supplied with a satisfied nod. “I’ll be involved in research. That should keep us fairly well isolated for the most part, but give us leave to poke about as we will.”
“What of your patients?” MacLinden asked.
“I have none as yet,” Neil explained. “I’ve been abroad until recently, as you know. I was to take up my new position at St. Stephen’s next week and look about for an office to let for my private practice, but I’ve had to make other plans.”
“Now you’re the earl and such wouldn’t be appropriate, eh? Noblesse oblige and all that?”
“Just so,” Neil agreed dryly. “I’ll set up my own laboratory here in the conservatory, but I needn’t be in a hurry to begin any actual work. The organization of it will be a perfect cover, since I would need an extra pair of hands about. Dr. Percival Betts should serve nicely, don’t you think?”
“Percival?” MacLinden asked, pursing his lips in distaste.
“Dr. Percival Betts at your service, Inspector,” Elizabeth said, offering her hand to shake as she had done earlier.
“She is born,” Neil said with a wry twist of his lips and a quirked eyebrow.
“Better than fully grown, I daresay,” MacLinden remarked with another pointed look at the lady’s crotch. “Do something about that, will you, before Doc’s cronies decide to write you up in the medical texts?”
Neil sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The whole ridiculous scenario was giving him a headache. “I have a horrible premonition that the first time you show yourself, everyone’s going to point and say, ‘Oh look! It’s Lady Marleigh in breeches! How utterly daring of her, and let’s call the peelers.’ This is insane. Why don’t we just hide you?”
“Because you need me to help find the killer! I promise you no one will know me,” she said, apparently upset that he questioned the effectiveness of her disguise.
Lindy agreed. “She’s right. We do need her to keep an eye out for this man Terry met at the theater. As for the disguise, I don’t believe I would recognize her if I met her on the street, unknowing. Look at her objectively, Neil. Unless she comes face-to-face with someone who knows her quite well, I think she should be perfectly convincing.”
Neil paced. He wished he didn’t feel so disoriented. Seeing the woman got up like a man and playing the part so well unnerved him. “A big part of London’s male population probably does know her quite well!” he said.
“No, they don’t,” she argued. “Father and I just came down from Edinburgh shortly before he died. We hadn’t yet accepted any invitations in town when it happened. Then there was the, hurried journey back to Kent for his burial. I was veiled at the funeral and spoke with almost no one. Cousin Colin took care of everything. I stayed secluded until—” She broke off with a distant look and swallowed hard.
“Until?” Lindy prompted.
“The weekend at the Smythes’ estate,” she said, forcing the words out as though they hurt her throat. “Colin encouraged me to accompany him to Lady Smythe’s for a quiet weekend. Said it would ease our grief. I didn’t want to go. Father had been laid to rest only three weeks before.”
“But you did go,” Neil remarked with more accusatory force than he intended.
“Yes,” she answered defiantly. “I went.”
Lindy tapped the heel of his pipe thoughtfully and cleared his throat before speaking. “Well, there’s Lady Smythe we must avoid, I suppose. And of course, the men. What about those with whom you…”
“Consorted is the nice word you’re looking for, Lindy,” Neil supplied. Then he turned on her. “What about the two men discovered in your room with you?” The thought of it made him want to shoot the men and to shake her for her stupidity.
“Their mission did not include writing odes to my eyebrows. I doubt they looked once above my neck!”
“They bloody well did a damned essay on the rest of you, though, didn’t they?”
“Children, children!” Lindy soothed. “Let’s keep to the matter at hand.” He grasped Neil’s arm, but the new earl jerked away angrily and stalked to the window, looking out.
Seemingly satisfied that the outburst was over, Lindy continued the questions. “Now then, Betts,” he said, indicating to both of them that he intended her to be Betts from now on, “you say you don’t think Lords Frame and Tilburn would recognize you in disguise?”
Neil noted that she
