Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer

with outward apathy. Her spirits were not raised by the contemplation of her image in the mirror set within the panel of her wardrobe door. The discreet dinner-dress, bought for just such an occasion as the present one, had, for its provenance, the Inexpensive Department of a London store distinguished more for its reasonable prices than for its exclusiveness of design, and had been worn rather too often. Not even the addition of a pendant of antique and charming design, bequeathed to her by her Italian mother, could redeem it, she considered. A dab of Indian ink had concealed a cut on one of her satin sandals; but her thick brown locks, springing attractively from a broad, low brow, would have been the better for re-setting. "Oh, blast, who cares, anyway?" demanded Beulah of her scowling reflection, and dragged a comb through her hair once more.
    She was guilty of the extravagance of hiring a taxi to convey her from Nevern Place to Charles Street, and alighted from it just as Mr. Seaton-Carew was about to press the bell beside the front door of the house. He waited for her to join him, saying, in the half-caressing, half-bantering tone he was apt to adopt when addressing pretty young women: "Well, and how is my little protegee?"
    "Thank you, I am perfectly well, and you would oblige me if you would stop calling me your little protegee!" Beulah replied.
    He laughed gently, and gave her arm a squeeze above the elbow. "What a farouche child it is!" he remarked. "Ungrateful, aren't you? Eh? Who got you this job, I should like to know? And what thanks has he ever had for doing it? Now, you tell me that, you impossible young termagant!"
    "If you had got it for me without telling Mrs. Haddington every detail of my past career, I might have been grateful - even to the extent of letting you paw me about!" retorted Beulah fiercely, detaching his hand from her arm.
    Again he laughed, and this time playfully pinched her chin. "Does Lilias put it across you? What a shame! But I really couldn't foist you on to her without letting her know the worst, could I?"
    Beulah sought angrily in her purse for her latch-key, realised that she had left it in her shopping-bag, set her finger on the bell, and pressed it viciously. "I told you the truth, and you pretended to believe me!"
    "Of course I did! That's one of the rules of the game, my silly sweet."
    "And, what is more, you did believe me!" Beulah flashed. "I know enough now to be sure that you'd have found quite another use for me if you hadn't! You saw I wasn't in the least the sort you were looking for, but it occurred to you that you could supply your dear old friend with a slave who wouldn't leave her the first time she was poisonously rude if you sent me to her - complete with my dossier!"
    He still seemed to be genuinely amused. "Poor little savage! Do you hate me for it?"
    "No more than I hate cockroaches!"
    At this moment, Thrimby opened the door. Mr. Seaton-Carew stood back with an exaggerated gesture of civility to allow Beulah to precede him into the house. His eyes mocked her; he said, as he handed Thrimby his hat: "What do you do to cockroaches, my dear? Put your foot on them?"
    "When I get the chance!"
    "What a cruel little girl! I'm afraid you won't, you know!"
    She turned, at the foot of the stairs, to look back at him. "Don't be too sure of that, Mr. Seaton-Carew! Add determined to cruel, and you'll be very nearly right!"
    "Your overcoat, sir?" said Thrimby, in a voice that clearly expressed his opinion of this interchange.
    Beulah postponed her entrance to the drawing-room until the last moment, and did, not join the party until after the separate arrivals of Lord Guisborough and Mr. Harte. She found her employer very stately in black velvet and diamonds, with a large black lace fan, mounted on ebony sticks, which she carried in one hand. This was in imitation of a certain much admired Duchess, and was a plagiarism which Mr. Harte had instantly recognised and appreciated. He