Captives of the Night (44 page)

Sherburne and Avory were definite problems. Neither man possessed the character for weeks of cool, patient plotting — especially for a crime so underhand as poisoning. The timing and crime might fit Lady Carroll's character, but she was no Helena Martin. How could she — without help — have entered, unnoticed, an empty, locked house? And if it weren't empty, would she have been brazen enough to enter while Francis Beaumont was there alone? Was it possible she had swallowed her revulsion and gone to bed with him just for a chance to poison his laudanum? Would she have left so much to chance?

And suppose she had. What, then, of the missing letters? Admittedly, there may have been no more letters after the ones Beaumont sold to Avory and his father. But all Ismal's instincts told him there had been more, that it was as Leila had surmised: Helena had been at the house twice because Langford had hired her to steal.

It was very doubtful he had hired her to kill as well. It was one thing to take back his son's letters, which rightfully belonged to the family. Even the courts must agree, though the law might nitpick about the methods employed. But to conspire murder with a prostitute who, if caught, would assuredly incriminate him was foolish beyond permission.

Nor could Ismal believe Helena would be so reckless as to commit the greater crime while employed by Langford to commit the lesser, and relatively safe one. Yet if she'd committed only the one, safe crime, why had she been so worried?

"Ismal." Madame shook his arm. "We're home. If you want to talk about this, I can cancel my engagement for tonight. It’s just a gathering of Lady Brentmor's gossipy friends. They won't miss me."

He studied her animated countenance. She was very pleased with herself. Perhaps she was entitled. He knew to his own cost that her hunter instincts were excellent. Perhaps she was closing in on her quarry. Whatever happened, he had better be in on the kill.

"I am not sure I wish to speak to you," he said. "You have been very disobedient."

"I'll make it up to you." She tugged at his neckcloth, bringing his face close to hers. "We can have dinner together. I'll tell Eloise to make your favorites. And then…" She lightly brushed her lips against his. "You can practice your favorite perversions on me."

"Aye, you think you can wrap me about your finger," he said. "With food and lovemaking. As though I were an animal. As though I had no higher, spiritual needs." He wrapped his arms about her.

"You are not altogether correct. But close enough. I shall come after nightfall."

Taking her into his arms was a fatal error. Once he held her, it was very difficult to let go. It was very difficult not to bring his mouth to hers again. Then it was impossible to make do with one quick, chaste kiss.

He lingered. The kiss deepened. The warmth swirled through him, and the sweetness. He'd just brought his hands to her cloak fastenings when the carriage door swung open. Wet wind gusted in, and a large umbrella appeared at the door.

"If you don't hurry, Leila," called a feminine voice, "this curst gale will blow me to kingdom come."

Ismal jerked his hands away from the cloak, just as Lady Carroll poked her head through the door.

In the midst of the storm, as in the eye of a hurricane, there was a short, sharp silence.

"My lady," Ismal said politely. "What a delightful surprise."

"
Monsieur
," said Lady Carroll, green eyes gleaming. "My sentiments exactly."

Some hours later, Leila sat at the dinner table, watching Ismal crack nuts while she tried to formulate a tactful response to the issue he'd just raised with her. This would have been difficult in any case. It was rendered doubly so by the complication he'd added: in the course of escorting Fiona home, he'd let her know just where he'd met up with Leila. He had also given Fiona the same explanation for Leila's being at Helena Martin's that Leila had planned to give Langford.

She decided to deal with the complication first and hope he'd forget the other issue… for about a year.

'It never occurred to me to explain our encounter that way," Leila said carefully. "That was clever of you. And as usual, it was at least partly true. I certainly didn't plan to meet you there."

He dropped a nutmeat onto her plate. "That is not why I told her. You had spoken of connections and timing. I think there are more connections than we have perceived. I believe this may be why we have fixed on these five people, of all the hundreds who might wish to kill your husband. Our instincts tell us something, but we do not yet understand what it is."

He glanced down at her plate. She shook her head. "I've had enough. I want to hear about our instincts."

"Today you told me you had a feeling Helena Martin was the key," he said. "That gave me some ideas. So I tried your technique with Lady Carroll. I mentioned Helena as a test and watched the reaction. She is not so hardened a character as Helena. .Her Ladyship was most disturbed, then quickly tried to cover her discomposure by putting me on the defensive. She knows very well there is no preventing your doing whatever you set your obstinate mind to. Yet she insisted to me that you would not be getting yourself into scrapes if I were not so lackadaisical about courting you."

So much for hoping he'd forget about
that
issue.

"She was talking utter rot," Leila said. "One doesn't even consider courting a widow until she's out of full mourning."

He cracked another nut and popped the meat into his mouth.

"A year," she explained. "Fiona knows that perfectly well."

"A year," he said. "That is a very long time."

"I think it’s one of the few sensible rules," she said, squirming inwardly. "It would be very easy for a woman to make a great mistake when her mind is disordered by grief."

After a moment's sober consideration, he nodded. "Even if she is not grief-stricken, she might be lonely, and so, vulnerable. It would be unfair to exploit her feelings during this time. There is the matter of freedom to consider as well. A widow is permitted more latitude than a maiden, and she does not answer to a husband. It does not seem unreasonable to grant a woman at least twelve months of such freedom."

"All of which Fiona ought to understand," Leila said, frowning down at her plate. "
She's
certainly been in no hurry to give up her freedom. She's had six years."

"I agree she was unreasonable. But she was alarmed, as I said. Still, I am glad we have discussed this. If she presses the matter, I shall explain that you and I have discussed it, and I shall repeat what you have told me. So I will inform everyone who questions me about my intentions."

She looked up, her heart thudding. "Everyone? Who else would — "

"Better ask who else has
already
questioned me. In addition to Nick, Eloise, and Gaspard, there is Sherburne — who speaks for multitudes, apparently. Next it will be Langford, I think." He rose. "Unless I miss my guess, he will have heard from two women by tomorrow: Helena Martin and Lady Carroll."

She stared dumbly at him, unable to collect her thoughts. They darted from Sherburne to Fiona, from Intentions to Connections.

"It is complicated," he said as he drew her up from the chair. "But we can sort it out more comfortably upstairs. Tonight we shall have plenty of time for conversation." He smiled. "Also, I believe there was some mention earlier of
perversions
."

While he trailed Leila up the stairs, Ismal was pondering perversions. He wondered whether Beaumont had deliberately denied his wife pleasure or had simply been incapable of satisfying her. Whatever the man's motives, it was clear by now that Beaumont had restricted his marital intimacies to a few basic acts and satisfied his less prosaic tastes elsewhere.

Ismal wondered what service, for instance, Helena Martin had been obliged to provide Beaumont. The images conjured up drew his gaze to the master bedroom door. He paused, his hand on the banister.

"Ismal?"

He frowned. "There are no secret compartments in this house," he said, moving to the door. "No false drawers or hiding places in the furnishings. Quentin's men are very thorough and know what to look for. I also looked." He opened the door and entered the dark room. "But the papers must have been in the house, and that must have been why Helena came. Assuredly she did not need your husband as a customer. She had richer and more attractive ones with simpler tastes. But she would not have come only to kill him, for she could have arranged to do this elsewhere, without having to bed him."

While he talked, he found a candle and lit it.

"Shall I fetch a lamp?" Leila's voice came from the doorway.

"No, no. She would not have had more light than this. Less, perhaps. I — " He looked round and gave her an abashed smile. "Forgive me."

"That’s all right. You've got an idea." Ismal recognized her "investigative" voice, crisp and businesslike.

"A riddle," he said. "How and where did she find the letters, if there were letters?"

"You want to see with her eyes, is that it?" She advanced into the room. "I can tell you that Francis generally conducted our marital relations in near darkness. He may have been different with others, but I doubt it. He was subject to headaches."

He nodded. "That is what I thought. Since he drank and used opiates to excess, his eyes would be sensitive."

"What else were you thinking?"

"That your giving Helena the earring did not trouble her nearly so much as the mention of your keen sense of smell." He sat on the edge of the bed. "You said you noticed the usual disorder when you returned on New Year's Day. Did you come into this room?"

"Yes. Francis was shouting for Mrs. Dempton and storming about. I had to remind him she'd taken the holiday."

Ismal patted the mattress. Obediently, she sat beside him.

"Close your eyes," he said. "Make a picture in your mind. What did you observe?"

She told him where various garments had been strewn. She described the disorder of the dressing table… the drawers of the wardrobe, which had been partly open… fresh wine stains on the rug… his neckcloth, tied to the bedpost…

Her eyes flew open. "And the curtain there was torn — pulled right off the rod." She got up and moved to the foot of the bed. Drawing the hanging out, she showed the place where Mrs. Dempton had mended it. "A large tear," she said. "You'd have to yank hard to do that."

"And it is near the bedpost the cravat was tied to," he said. "If he tied her to the bedpost, and she was in discomfort — or pretending to be — she might have clawed at — "

"In
discomfort
?"

He saw her fingers tighten on the fabric. "Your husband took pleasure in others' emotional pain," he said. "It is reasonable to suppose he would also take pleasure in their physical pain. Being a professional, Helena would surely give him a dramatic show."

Leila let go of the hanging and moved to the opposite side of the bed. "Well, then, I was luckier than I knew. Poor Helena."

"Helena knew well enough what to expect and how to deal with it," he said. "She did not come up from the sinkholes of London by magic, you know. Not many with such low beginnings manage to live past adolescence, let alone rise to the heights she has. That is a formidable woman, Leila."

"I understand. It's just the — the irony. If Francis hadn't married me, I should have learned firsthand what Helena knows." She gave a short laugh. "How exasperating. No matter how you look at it, he truly was my knight in shining armor. I might have ended on the Venice streets, or the Paris ones, if not for him. Certainly he saved me from the more immediate danger. Those men who killed my father might have…" She shivered.

The reminder stung deep and sharp as a viper's fangs, and Ismal lashed out reflexively, his voice harsh. "Aye, he was like the prince in the fairy tale. He stole your innocence, and for once — perhaps the only time — in his life did the honorable thing and gave you his name. Then he gave you so agreeable a view of wedded life that you will risk your reputation and career before you will even
consider
trying it again."