A Woman Scorned (28 page)

“And who else, Jonet?” he gently prodded.

“Sir Ronald Holt, Henry’s gaming companion, and his wife.” She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “And of course, there was Mrs. Lanier.” Her voice dropped a note. “I daresay you know who she is?” Jonet’s tone made it plain that she did.

Cole paused for several seconds, then discreetly cleared his throat. “I understand,” he answered carefully, “that she and your late husband were . . . close.”

“As often as possible.” Jonet gave a harsh laugh. “But Glorianna seemed harmless enough.”

Cole caught the strain in her voice. “ ‘Seemed’? Have you now reason to believe otherwise?”

Jonet shrugged, sending the blanket slithering back down her shoulder. Inwardly, Cole sighed, but he dared not touch her again. “Oh, Ellen wants to believe Glorianna killed Henry—but I cannot agree. He was too valuable alive.”

With the back of her hand, Jonet swept away her hair, which kept tumbling seductively over her shoulder. Cole’s stomach did a flip-flop, but he stayed the course. “Jonet, there was talk about an argument that night. It was said that you and Henry quarreled.”

She paused for a long moment. “We quarreled often. But not that night.”

Cole sensed that she was being deliberately vague. “Jonet—there
was
a quarrel.”

Jonet pursed her lips stubbornly, then, finally, she looked up at him with surrender in her eyes. “Toward the end of the evening,” she said bleakly, “Henry and David had an argument in the book-room.”

Cole looked pointedly at her. “Precisely what happened, Jonet?”

Jonet looked reluctant. “I overheard the beginning of their quarrel from the corridor. And so I went in, and told them that their voices could almost certainly be heard through doors which connect it to the drawing room. Those doors close quite loosely, you know and—” For no discernable reason, Jonet’s explanation jerked to a halt, and she colored furiously.

“No, I did not,” said Cole dryly.

“Well, they do,” she answered, then lifted her chin and continued. “And so I pointed that fact out to them, and they finished their discussion in more hushed, if not more civil, tones.”

Cole studied her for a long moment. “Did they quarrel over you, Jonet?”

Jonet chewed at her lip for a moment. “You must understand—it was not that Henry cared about my relationship with David, it was simply that that gossip had gotten out of hand.”

“Did they quarrel over you, Jonet?” Cole repeated, his voice more demanding.

In her lap, Jonet’s hand fluttered uncertainly. “Yes,” she said at last. “If you must know, Henry insisted that David and I stop seeing one another. He had already tried that with me, and I told him to go to hell. And so he threatened David instead.”

Cole felt suddenly ill. “With what did he threaten Delacourt?”

Jonet avoided his eyes. “He made several wild suggestions,” she said vaguely. “Initially, he said he would seek a divorce. He said that all of society believed us to be lovers, and that he could no longer tolerate the humiliation. He said”—her voice choked for a moment—“he said that, if necessary, witnesses could be paid to give the evidence needed to charge adultery.”

Cole realized at once she was not being entirely honest, but the horror of what she had said stunned him. “My god, Jonet! You would have been
ruined
.”

“Oh?” She looked at him disdainfully. “And what am I now, Cole? Something less than a picture of moral rectitude, would you not say?”

Cole had no answer for that, but some very unpleasant thoughts were beginning to take shape in his mind. “And what was Delacourt’s response to Mercer’s demand?”

“Nothing,” she said hesitantly. “I stopped them, saying that if they must quarrel, to be discreet. I was shaken, but I suggested that we all go into the drawing room, and behave as if nothing untoward had occurred.”

Cole sensed that Jonet was holding something back. “Did anyone notice that you had all come in together?” he probed.

“I daresay they did. And that horrid man—that Mr. Lyons, the magistrate—he thought that it was I who had started the quarrel. He implied as much by the look on his face.”

“Did you tell him that it was Lord Delacourt and not yourself?”

Jonet drew herself up to her full height, and suddenly, despite her pink nose and disheveled nightclothes, she looked every inch the haughty noblewoman. “I did not. He did not ask. He merely hinted at what he believed—and it will be a cold day in hell before I stoop to defend myself from idle gossip.”

“But Jonet,” Cole persisted. “Did you not clarify this during the inquest?”

“Oh!” Jonet pulled a stubborn face. “And just what was I to say? Would you have me discuss my private life in public? Besides, at the time, I was just so
sure
Henry had died of natural causes, and the inquest happened so quickly . . .”

Cole sighed and ran a hand down his face. He was afraid he was beginning to see what part Jonet’s pride might have played in this whole debacle. “Yes, very well,” he muttered. “Let us return to the dinner party. Were there any other guests present? What happened next?”

“No others,” said Jonet. “Lord Pace was the last to leave, at about two. I remained behind with the staff. Henry disappeared, as he often did. I supposed he had arranged to meet Mrs. Lanier.” A shadow of pain flickered in her eyes. “But I was wrong. It seems he went straight to his room after all.”

“And did you see him again? Did you go to his room for any reason?”

Jonet shook her head, and refused to look up from the fists she held clenched in her lap. “We had not that . . . that sort of relationship.”

“I did not mean to suggest—” Cole felt heat suffuse his face. He was glad Jonet was not looking at him. “What I meant was, perhaps you went in to say goodnight? Or to try and reason with him?”

Beneath the lawn of her nightrail, Jonet’s slender body jerked convulsively. “No,” she answered, her voice a choked whisper. “We didn’t even have
that
sort of a relationship.”

“Yes, I see . . .” In the dim lamplight, Cole watched her quietly for a long moment, and slowly, Jonet recovered herself. His heart ached for this woman—the one who gave every impression of having been deeply affected by her husband’s death. She seemed so far removed from the cold, insolent marchioness whom he had met upon his arrival at Mercer House that Cole could scarcely reconcile the two. And what of the woman whom he had almost bedded tonight? Ah! She, too, was different—but in yet another way.

In the back of his mind, of course, he could hear his Uncle James warning him, cautioning him to be wary of Lady Mercer’s sharply honed feminine wiles—laughing at him, even, for taking her so recklessly to his bed. Cole struggled to shut away the noise. Almost making love to Jonet had been a dreadful misjudgment, yes, but surely Jonet’s grief was real?

But upon careful consideration, Cole realized that it was not so much
grief
that seemed to torment Jonet as it was a deep and abiding sadness. A kind of distant regret, a wistful longing that her marriage could have been different. Admittedly, she had not loved Lord Mercer. It was almost as if she needed to mourn for her husband—and came away as saddened by the fact that she could not, as she was by his very death. How well Cole knew that sort of anguish.

But perhaps he was merely painting her with the pigments of his own torment. How foolish that was. Jonet had little reason to mourn a man whom she had been forced to marry; a man who had never harbored any intention of honoring his wedding vows. Indeed, some would suggest she had had cause to hate her husband. James would insist that hate him she surely did.

But neither hate, nor guilt—nor even lust—had anything to do with Cole’s purpose in talking so openly with Jonet now. Slowly, it had dawned on him that he must get to the bottom of Lord Mercer’s death, and not just for his own peace of mind. Something evil was afoot. And he had known it, and tried to ignore it, from the very first. Mercer’s death was at the center of a much larger mystery. And Jonet
was
hiding something, though Cole was less and less convinced that it had anything to do with her husband’s death. But it might very well have something to do with Lord Delacourt. What might she do to protect him?

“Jonet, why are you so sure Lord James is behind what happened with the dog tonight?”

Jonet’s head jerked up, her eyes again blazing. “Why are you so sure he is not?”

Cole refused to be baited into another of Jonet’s arguments. “I am far from
sure
of anything. I just think it unlikely. Tell me, on the night of the dinner party, did you see James—or even Edmund—do anything suspicious? Did they perhaps go upstairs? I mean . . . forgive me for repeating gossip, but I had heard that there may have been poison in Lord Mercer’s wine.”

“Yes, I daresay it is possible.” Her delicate brows furrowed. “The decanter had been nearly one-quarter full earlier, but when the magistrate came, he noticed it was empty.” Jonet shook her head. “As I said, at first, I was certain Henry had died of natural causes.”

“And now you are not?” Cole asked with uncharacteristic sharpness.

As if she were now lost in thought, Jonet seemed not to notice his tone. “My father died in a similar fashion. They said it was his heart. And Henry’s death seemed so very much the same. Never did I dream that someone would . . .
Oh, God!
It’s too horrid to speak of
.”
Jonet began to shiver lightly.

“Was the wine yours, Jonet?” Cole asked softly.

She looked up at him, and in her eyes he saw the same sort of pleading he had earlier seen in Rogue’s—a sad, almost guileless hope that she would not be further hurt. “Yes,” she admitted quietly. “It was. I often took a glass just before bed. I had done so for years, but Henry rarely drank wine of any sort, unless with a meal. And then he preferred white.”

“But he had recently begun to drink it, had he not?”

Jonet’s expression chilled. “You are amazingly well informed. But yes, his doctor had recommended he do so. And since I always kept a decanter in our sitting room, it became his habit to drink from it. I . . . I really never thought anything of it.”

Cole considered her answer. “When had you last poured from it?”

“Why, the night before, I suppose.” Jonet paused as if to further consider his question. “I really cannot remember.”

Against his better judgement, Cole reached out and tucked an errant bit of hair behind Jonet’s ear. She looked up at him with some surprise, and Cole felt his face flush. “And what happened after you spoke with the servants that night?” he quickly asked.

Jonet seemed to wither. “About an hour after Lord Pace left, I went upstairs and rang for my dresser. Only moments later, I heard a loud cry, and Hannah—one of the upstairs maids—came running through our sitting room, then burst into my bedchamber.” Jonet dropped her head into her hands and stared at the rug for a long moment. “Hannah was sobbing and gasping for breath,” she finally continued. “I could make no sense of her. At first, I thought that she and Henry . . .” Without looking at Cole, Jonet let the words trail away, then exhaled on a sharp sigh. “Henry was not always gentle with—with the servant girls who . . . well, you know.”

Cole froze. No, he had not known. Or rather, he had never considered it. Nor had he really stopped to think about the effects of a husband’s infidelity on his wife. “I am sorry,” he said gravely. “I ought not to have begun this discussion.”

“I am fine,” she insisted, despite evidence to the contrary. Her hands fisted in his blanket, which she still wore. “I want to tell you. I want to have done with it.” Jonet drew another deep breath and began to gently rock herself back and forth on the sofa. “I went into Henry’s bedchamber with Hannah. He lay upon the floor in his evening clothes. I knelt down beside him. He was warm, but there was no pulse. I knew at once that he was dead. I think . . . why,I think I screamed then.”

Cole tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “Jonet, you do not need to continue.”

Jonet balled up a handful of his blanket in her fist and wrenched hard on it. But her voice was amazingly steady. “I . . . really recall very little after that,” she continued. “Someone—it may have been the butler—summoned the watch. It never occurred to me to wonder if someone had
killed
him. I could not get beyond the fact that he was gone! I could not begin to think what I would tell the children!” Nervously, her gaze shifted from one darkened corner of the room to another.

“Jonet, stop—!” Cole softly pleaded.

It was as if she could no longer hear him. As if her mind had turned inward again, to that place of dark despair. Cole had seen that look before, even on the most hardened of soldiers.

“I could not bear it,” she finally said, her voice hollow. “The awful thought kept running through my head—that morning would come—and I would have to tell my boys that their father was
dead!
I sent the bootboy to fetch David. I did not know to whom else I might turn. Shortly thereafter, the magistrate came. And then the doctor. I did not know then that a horrible nightmare had just begun.”

Cole leaned into her and gently pulled the blanket snugly about her narrow shoulders, shoulders which now looked frail and overburdened. “Jonet,” he said softly, “you did not answer my initial question. Why do you now think your husband was murdered?”

Jonet’s head came up, and she looked at him through eyes that were suddenly dark and narrow. “Because someone is determined to kill my children,” she retorted, her voice flat and cold. “Someone wants them dead, and only one man has a reason to wish both my husband and my sons out of the way.”

Cole felt his heartbeat slow, then almost stop. “James.”

“Yes.”

Cole took her hand in his and lightly rubbed it. “Jonet, I know the accident at the Serpentine frightened you, and that you are worried about the dog, but I hardly think such simple incidents mean that someone is trying to harm your children, my dear.” But the reassurance rang hollow, even to his own ears.

Then, in a voice that shook only slightly, Jonet spoke the words which Cole had long feared to hear. “There have been a half dozen such happenings, Cole, and they cannot all be ‘accidents,’ as much as I would like to think otherwise. Did you think that this—this horror was something new to me? I have been living in a nightmare for months!”