Ivory and Steel (20 page)

“I just need to know who is responsible,” she managed.

“Need,” he repeated, and a crease formed in his brow. Gently he smoothed a stray tendril back from her eyes. “Whom do you suspect?”

Tears stung her eyes once more. She wanted to hear him deny it—yet how could she voice such a terrible accusation? How could she even entertain it in her mind?

He stiffened. “Me,” he breathed. His hands closed about her shoulders, tightening, his fingers digging into her skin. “You suspect me, don’t you? You actually think I killed the dowager to protect Allbury.
Don’t you
?”

Slowly, against her will, her gaze lowered to his neck, where a snaking scar sliced across his jaw and disappeared into his neckcloth.
He had fought in battle
…

“What are you thinking?” he demanded.

“How-how often you must have been in close combat,” she whispered, the words dragged from her against her will.

“Far too often,” he breathed. Smoldering dark green eyes glared at her. “Do you honestly believe I am so callous that I could cold-bloodedly take the life of a girl barely out of the schoolroom?”

“No I—”

“Or the dowager for that matter? Yes, I have killed. I am a soldier and have been for more than ten years. But I do not stoop to murder.” He released her abruptly then stood staring down at her. Pain shone in his eyes before they went blank, closing her out, denying her. “It seems there is a great gulf between us after all, Miss Dearne.” He turned on his heel and marched up the stairs.

Chapter Sixteen

With dragging feet Phyllida mounted the steps in Ingram’s wake.
Was
he guilty? Mr. Frake seemed to think so. She couldn’t forget the way the Runner had stared at him, musing about their villain having an orderly mind, wanting to settle the thing neatly. That description certainly fit Ingram.

Why did gentlemen have to rate honor and loyalty above all else? In theory they were admirable traits. But in practice they led to death, on the dueling field—or by murder.

No, not murder. He wouldn’t have seen it that way. For him, taking Louisa’s life would have been the act of an officer and a gentleman. An execution. She had violated the code of decency by which he lived. He believed she bore an illegitimate heir to a title. For honor to be restored, she had to die.

Phyllida curled onto her bed, hugging herself. Mr. Frake thought he was guilty…

But she didn’t. Intellectually she had accepted the possibility. But never in her heart. He would not have executed either Louisa or the dowager. Not the man she loved. She did indeed know him better than to believe evil of him.

Relief surged through her, mingled with joy—only to explode the next moment. Her dreams, her hopes, her love, all shattered about her, the broken fragments as sharp and cruel as any steel blade. She had betrayed him by her suspicions. He would never forgive her for that. She had seen it in his eyes.

She buried her face in her pillow, too numb to think, even to feel the pain that welled within her. She had betrayed him, just as he had expected her to from the first moment he saw her, when he had noted her resemblance to Louisa…

No!
her mind screamed. She dragged herself up on the bed. She wouldn’t give up without a fight. She would prove to Mr. Frake that Ingram could not be guilty. And she would prove her love to Ingram.

She rose and paced the length of her darkened chamber. Since Ingram
could
not be guilty then someone else had to be. So there must be something else, something they had not yet found. Something they had overlooked.

She stared blindly into the dark recesses of her bed’s curtains. Louisa’s room searched, then her own. But that was for the diary. Of course the murderer might not have realized those scandalous volumes didn’t reveal his identity. Even the letters tucked within the pages…

She froze. Letters. At the funeral she had spoken of the letters she had found, and that night the murderer had come to her room, searching for them. Not the diary. A letter.

But there had been nothing dreadful revealed in the ones she had found in the attic. Nor in the ones that had protruded from between the pages of Louisa’s diary.

Unless there were more.

She sank onto the edge of her room’s chair, her mind whirling. She and Mr. Frake had stopped searching the dowager’s room once they had found the diaries. What if they had missed something? Like more letters? That had to be it!

Something must still be there, something that would clear Lord Ingram and show him innocent beyond any possible doubt.

She trembled and a shaky laugh escaped her. She would find it, now, and prove to Ingram she believed in him.

With hands that shook, she donned her wrapper, lit a candle and slipped from her room and down the corridor. Only the lamps on the stairs illuminated the way. The rest of the house lay in darkness, as if mimicking the deaths of its two mistresses.

She shook off that fey feeling and let herself into the dowager’s bedchamber through the hall doorway. Shadows danced backward as if escaping the light of her single taper. Lord, she was getting too fanciful. No one would be about this night, Mr. Frake had advertised the fact they had found the diaries. Quickly she kindled the three candles in their holder then turned toward the wardrobe where the dowager had placed the diary.

The rustle of fabric, an exhaled breath, brought a scream to her throat as she spun about. It ebbed away and her trembling hand crept to her thudding heart as she leaned back against the cabinet, her legs too weak to support her.

“You,” she breathed.

Mr. Frake shook his head. “Now, miss, I didn’t mean to go a-frighting you like that. Take a deep breath,” he added, cocking a kindly eye at her. “Seems as if you and me had the same thought.” He crossed to the table and blew out the candles. “Can’t have the room smelling of smoke, we can’t. Might tip off our visitor.”

“Visitor? You mean we are right? There’s another letter?” She peered at him through the darkness. Only the single taper she had carried from her room remained lit. “I thought you suspected Ingram!”

“That’s a gentleman as takes his loyalties seriously,” the Runner agreed. “But I couldn’t quite convince myself he’d up and commit murder as cool as you please.” He placed her candle on a chair whose back screened the flickering light from the door. “So I thought I’d have another look around in here. Found several more letters, I did, but only one of any interest.”

One. That was enough. “What does it say?” she demanded.

From the cupboard he drew a crisp sheet. “I wondered at first why your sister kept this. Not addressed to her, like the others was.”

Phyllida scanned the missive, written by an officer in the Peninsula, but found little of note in the account of daily life in an army camp. Mostly it concerned the comic exploits of a Sergeant Simpson. Puzzled, she turned to the Runner. “I don’t understand.”

“I think—” He broke off.

A line of light appeared under the door and slowly, quietly, it opened.

“Back here, miss.” Mr. Frake faded into the shadowed recesses of the bed curtains.

Phyllida started after him then froze. It was too late. With a heroic effort of will she turned toward the door. Not Ingram. It couldn’t be Ingram…

Lady Woking stood in the wavering glow of her candle, a pale, ghostly figure in a gray gown and cloak. Her fingers twitched on the fan that dangled from her wrist. “Miss Dearne,” she said softly. Her gaze rested on the sheet of paper in Phyllida’s hands.

Phyllida stared at her blankly, not comprehending. Of all the people who might have come she’d never expected her. There could be no motive, no proof…

“Give me that letter.” Lady Woking held out her hand.

Phyllida took an involuntary step backward. She wouldn’t betray her confusion, not if the woman might be fooled into betraying herself. “I don’t think so,” she said and was pleased at how steady her voice sounded.

Lady Woking set her candle on a table and moved forward, putting Phyllida uneasily in mind of a cat about to pounce upon its prey.

“Do you really think you will live to show it to anyone?” She slid the fan from her wrist and fingered the ivory blade.

“Oh I think she will, Mrs. Simpson.” The Runner stepped out from his hiding place.

Lady Woking’s hands clenched and for a moment her eyes flashed. Then she straightened her shoulders, her manner once more regal. “You startled me, Mr. Frake. But you have my name wrong. I have not been Mrs. Simpson for a very long time.”

Mr. Frake relighted the candelabrum then closed the door. He remained standing before it. “You might not have gone by that name but it is nevertheless yours. Your first husband is very much alive.”

Simpson… Phyllida lowered her gaze to the letter she held, searching out the date. Barely six months ago…nearly a year and a half
after
her marriage to Lord Woking. This letter provided the proof, the damning evidence, that Lady Woking had committed bigamy.

Lady Woking laughed softly. “So you have read that ridiculous letter. Contrary to what you seem to have deduced, my husband—my
first
husband—is very much dead, and has been so for many years.”

“But this date—” Phyllida looked up from the letter.

Lady Woking took a corner between delicate fingers and scanned the missive. Her eyebrows rose a fraction but she remained calm. “So that is what it actually says.” She bestowed a pitying smile on Phyllida. “You both—and Louisa—merely found mention of another man with the same name. Louisa chose to jump to a shocking conclusion. I would have thought you, at least, might have more sense.” She inclined her head toward the Runner. “The name Simpson is not in the least uncommon.”

Frake shook his head. “That’s a good try at an explanation, m’lady. A very good try. But there is no need for you to be a-coming to the house—or to the dowager’s room, for that matter—in such a stealthful-like way, unless you sought the evidence. Nor to threaten Miss Dearne in order to get it.”

“Nonsense.” This time, though, a slight tremble sounded in the lady’s voice, betraying her effort to keep it steady. “I came this way because I feared you would assume precisely what you have. And as for the threat… Do you really think I would hurt someone for such a paltry reason? I merely wanted that letter burned. I have no desire for my husband—my
real
husband, Lord Woking—to be hurt by Louisa’s scandalous ideas. I believe her diary should be consigned to the flames as well, before it causes anyone pain.”

“What did the dowager intend to do with it?”

“I doubt she realized how dreadful those volumes are.”

“So she wouldn’t destroy them.” The Runner’s voice almost purred. “Who else knew she had found them?”

“Really, how could I possibly know that? Any number of people I should imagine.” She sounded more confident now.

Mr. Frake nodded. “It’s of no great matter. The real issue here, I believe, is your first husband.”

She stiffened. “I told you, he died only months after our marriage.”

The Runner rocked back on his heels. “That will be easy enough to prove.”

Her hand dropped from the letter. “Will it?”

“Certainly. His death must have been recorded or your present marriage would not be valid.”

“He was killed in battle. In case you didn’t realize, their recordkeeping is not of the best under those conditions.”

“But someone notified you of his death, did they not?”

She nodded, mute.

“Then it will be recorded. I’ll just check in the morning.”

“No.” Lady Woking breathed the syllable.

Or had she spoken at all? Phyllida couldn’t be certain.
“Is
that reason enough?” she asked, suddenly uncertain. “For two murders, I mean? If she married a second time, believing her first husband dead, surely the consequences would not be that dreadful.”

Mr. Frake cocked his head toward her. “That depends on what you consider dreadful, miss.”

“There would be a scandal, of course,” Phyllida admitted. “But it is not as if she remarried at once. It was more than twenty years before she took her second husband.”

“I doubt very much it’s the scandal she feared, miss. There are other considerations of far more importance. Our fine lady here would lose everything—her wealth, her position, everything she’s worked so hard for. Then what good would be all those airs and graces she cultivated so well that she could teach them to young ladies?” He turned back to Lady Woking and nodded. “Good country folk indeed. You rose far above your common origins, Mrs. Simpson. But it won’t do you no good now. Once you’d committed the first murder it was no longer your position you needed to protect but your life.”

The penalty for murder, Phyllida realized, was hanging.

With a flick of her wrist Lady Woking freed the sharpened steel blade from its ivory casing. In one swift movement she grasped Phyllida around the shoulders and stepped behind her. As Phyllida gasped the needle-fine point jabbed into her neck, stinging, bringing blood.

Mr. Frake started forward then froze. “Don’t hurt her,” he said, his teeth gritted.

Lady Woking only laughed.

Phyllida cringed at the sound then threw herself sideways. The woman’s bulk held her and the knife slashed downward, toward her shoulder. Phyllida cried out but this time remained still. Something warm flowed along her collarbone to the hollow at the base of her throat then down her breast. She closed her eyes, fighting back the rising nausea of shock and pain.

“If you try that again you’ll be sorry.” Lady Woking’s voice remained even, deadly cold. She trailed the knife along Phyllida’s neck, leaving a scratch that seeped more blood. “Mr. Frake, you will open the door. If you really do not wish to see Miss Dearne hurt you will do nothing to interfere with my leaving.”

“Let her go.” Only the slightest tremor sounded in the Runner’s voice.

“Oh I think not, my good man. I am not such a fool.”

The door flew wide and Lord Ingram, garbed in his deep green dressing gown, stopped on the threshold, taking in the scene in one rapid glance. His face hardened but as he started to crouch for a powerful lunge, Lady Woking stopped him with a sharp command. She drew the knife back a mere inch, but it was enough.

Even with her head forced back Phyllida could see the blade, poised for a fatal stab. Coldness washed over her, leaving her numb, her body not reacting to the raging panic that welled within. She couldn’t escape…

Slowly Lady Woking took a step forward and Phyllida, perforce, went with her. “Get away from the door,” she ordered. “Both of you.”

Mr. Frake stood his ground, unmoving, his gaze never wavering from the woman’s face.