Mischief (33 page)

A chill of premonition went through her. She recalled the dark figure of her dreams, he who was both Matthias and Zamaris. A man trapped in the shadows.

She turned quickly away from the bed and walked
through the cold moonlight into her own bedchamber. She closed the connecting door behind her.

Lucy’s journal lay on the table near the window. Imogen picked it up and pondered it for a long while. Her reluctance to open it seemed to intensify even as she held the slim volume. It was as though some unseen force attempted to restrain her.

Annoyed by her own dark imaginings, she sat down in the reading chair and lit the lamp.

M
atthias waited until he heard the connecting door close softly. Then he turned onto his back, folded his uninjured arm behind his head, and gazed up at the shadowed ceiling.

He knew that Imogen had gone into her own bedchamber to read Lucy’s journal. If there were answers to be found in the volume, she would discover them.

From what Horatia had said, Matthias gathered that Lucy had not been such a fine friend. It was obvious that Lady Vanneck’s kindness to Imogen had had a dark side. He told himself that the worst that could happen was that Imogen would be obliged to face some unpleasant truths about Lucy.

But he knew that he lied to himself. Learning the truth about Lucy was not the worst that could come of this.

The worst that could happen was that Imogen would learn the truth about him.

Matthias hesitated until he could wait no longer. The dreadful silence from the adjoining room threatened to drive him mad. He shoved aside the quilt and got out of bed. A powerful sense of urgency hit him with the force of a blow. He had been a fool. Perhaps it was not too late to save himself.

He found his black robe, struggled briefly to get his injured arm into the sleeve, and then abandoned the attempt.
Flinging the robe around his shoulders as though it were a cape, he went to the connecting door.

He paused, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

A chill of intense regret swept through him at the sight of Imogen seated in the chair near the window. Lucy’s journal lay facedown in her lap. Matthias knew without being told that his suspicions about the contents of the wretched volume had been accurate. He stood gripping the doorknob, bleakly aware of a terrible sense of doom.

“Imogen?”

She turned to look at him. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“Lucy was having an affair.” Imogen’s voice broke on a sob. “I suppose, given her unhappy marriage, that is not so surprising. And I do not blame her for seeking her happiness elsewhere. Truly, I do not. But, oh, Matthias, why did she use me? I thought she was my friend.”

He felt his gut clench. He had known it would be something like this. “Lucy used you?”

“That was why she invited me to visit her three years ago.” Imogen dabbed at her eyes with a hankie. “Indeed, that was the only reason she wanted me here in London. She hoped to prevent Vanneck from learning of the affair, you see. She was afraid that he would cut off her funds. Perhaps send her to rusticate in the country. He was furious with her already because she had not given him an heir.”

Matthias walked slowly toward Imogen. “I see.”

“Lucy writes that she could not abide Vanneck’s touch. She married him for his title and his money.” Imogen shook her head as though she could not fully comprehend what she had learned. “She is quite forthright about it all.”

Matthias stopped in front of Imogen. He said nothing.

“She thought that if I were her constant companion
here in Town, Vanneck would assume that I was the object of her lover’s affections.”

Matthias put the pieces of the small puzzle together in his mind. “Alastair Drake.”

“What?” Imogen slanted a sidelong glance at him as she blew her nose. “Oh, yes. It was Alastair, of course. He was her paramour. She seems to have loved him with a great passion. She writes that she intended to run off with him, but until the time came to do so, she wanted to be able to be in his company as much as possible.”

“And you made it possible for her to be in Drake’s company without arousing Vanneck’s suspicions.”

“Yes.” Imogen dried her eyes with the edge of her hand. “Alastair conspired with her to make it appear that I was the lady who had captured his affection. Vanneck and everyone else, including me, believed him. He certainly gave a … a convincing performance. For a while I even considered … Well, that does not matter now.”

“I’m sorry that you had to learn the truth in this manner.”

“Do not blame yourself, Matthias. You could not have known what I would discover in Lucy’s journal.” She gave him a small, sad smile. “I have been obliged to conclude that you were right. It seems I am rather naive in some respects. And gullible.”

“Imogen—”

“It is astonishing, when I think about it. All that time that I spent in Alastair’s company and I never once sensed that he was in love with Lucy. I never guessed that he was using me to meet with her openly as well as secretly. No wonder she was in such fine spirits whenever the three of us went about together.”

“I’m sorry,” Matthias whispered. He could think of nothing else to say. He reached down to haul her gently up out of the chair.

“Matthias, how could I have been so foolish?” Imogen leaned her head against his chest. “She wrote such
unkind things about me. She mocked me. It is as though I never knew Lucy at all.”

Matthias had no words with which to comfort Imogen or himself. He folded her close and gazed out into the night.

He wondered if he really did possess weak nerves. Then again, perhaps the savage sense of despair that had turned his insides to ice was the price one paid for trampling on the fragile flower of innocence.

Two days later Imogen paced Horatia’s small parlor, a teacup in her hand. “I still cannot bring myself to believe that I was so entirely mistaken in my judgment of her.”

“I know you do not wish to think ill of Lucy.” Horatia, seated on the sofa, watched Imogen with deeply troubled eyes. “You imagined her to be a friend, and it is your nature to be fiercely loyal to those you care for.”

“She
was
my friend. I did not imagine it.” Imogen paused in front of the window and gazed out into the street. “She was kind to me when we were neighbors in Upper Stickleford.”

“You were kind to her. You were forever inviting her to stay the night.”

“She gave me her gowns.”

“Only after they had gone out of fashion,” Horatia muttered.

“Fashion was not important in Upper Stickleford.”

“It was to Lucy.”

Imogen ignored the comment. “She often came to
visit and share a cup of tea with me after my parents died.”

“She visited you because she was constantly on the verge of expiring from boredom. Life in the country was not to her taste.”

“We talked of ancient Zamar.”

“You talked,” Horatia said deliberately. “I fear Lucy only pretended to take an interest in Zamar.”

Imogen whirled around so quickly that her teacup clattered in its saucer. “Why do you say that?”

Horatia heaved a small sigh. “I will admit that I did not know your friend Lucy well, but what I did learn of her character was not inspiring.”

“Gossip,” Imogen insisted. “Nothing but gossip.”

“I am sorry, my dear, but all indications were that she was selfish, willful, reckless, and possessed of a strange, unpredictable temperament.”

“She was desperate to escape her uncle’s house. George Haconby was a most unpleasant man. My parents never cared for him.”

“I know,” Horatia admitted.

Imogen remembered Lucy’s eyes the first night she had come to the door and asked to spend the night. “Haconby frightened her, especially when he was in his cups. There were many times when she begged to stay with me rather than be alone with him.”

“And you took her in.” Horatia lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “Imogen, I certainly do not wish to quarrel with you about the matter. Lucy is dead. Nothing is to be gained from probing her past at this late date.”

“No, I suppose that is true.”

Horatia watched her with an expression of grave disapproval. “You say you learned about this liaison between Lucy and Mr. Drake from Lucy’s journal?”

“Yes. I know it was not right to read it, but Colchester was convinced that it might contain some clues about why Vanneck was shot. I am two-thirds of the way
through it, but thus far I have found no information that would explain murder.”

Horatia frowned. “I thought Vanneck was killed by a highwayman.”

“We are not entirely certain of that. In any event, Colchester said that if I did not read the journal, he would. I felt I had an obligation to Lucy to protect her personal writings from a stranger’s gaze.”

“Indeed. And may I ask how Colchester came into possession of this journal?”

Imogen cleared her throat. “He, er, discovered it when he paid a call at Lord Vanneck’s residence.”

“Why on earth did he go to Vanneck’s house?”

“He has been concerned about some of the details surrounding Vanneck’s murder,” Imogen explained. She thought quickly. “He believed he would learn something of the truth if he talked to some of the servants.”

“I see.”

Imogen did not like Horatia’s skeptical tone of voice. “Perfectly natural, given his circumstances,” she said quickly. “After all, gossip has linked Colchester’s name to Vanneck’s murder. But I do wish he had informed me of his intentions.”

Horatia’s brows rose. “I’ll grant you that Colchester is in a rather awkward situation. But that is nothing new for him.”

Imogen glared at her. “He wished to clear his name and put the gossip to rest.”

“I fear that is an impossible task and I suspect he knows it,” Horatia said dryly. “People have always enjoyed gossip about Cold-blooded Colchester. A little thing such as the truth of the matter is unlikely to change that.”

“Do not call him cold-blooded.”

“My apologies.” Horatia did not sound the least apologetic. She sounded quietly furious.

Imogen frowned in consternation. “Aunt Horatia? What is wrong?”

“Nothing important, my dear,” Horatia said smoothly.
“Let us return to the matter at hand. You say Colchester discovered Lucy’s journal and gave it to you to read?”

“Yes. I intend to finish it tonight. But I doubt I shall learn anything other than what I already know. Poor Lucy was clearly obsessed with Alastair Drake. She was determined to run off with him. She dreamed of going to Italy, where the two of them could be free to celebrate their love.”

“I presume that while in Italy, Lucy wished to live in the style to which she had become accustomed?”

“She notes in her journal that Alastair appeared to have a liberal income.”

“Indeed.”

“But he was unwilling to take her to Italy.” Imogen recalled the tone of rising desperation in Lucy’s journal entries. “She was distraught. She loved him very much, you know.”

“Did she?”

“She wrote that Vanneck often flew into a rage because she tried to refuse him whenever he attempted to exert his marital rights. He forced himself on her on several occasions.” Imogen shuddered. “And I can well believe it. At one point she actually took steps to rid herself of Vanneck’s babe which she did not want to bear. There is something in the journal about consulting a woman in Bird Lane who dealt in such services.”

“I see.”

“I believe that Vanneck either learned of the abortion or discovered her plans to leave him.”

“And became so enraged that he murdered her?”

“Yes.” It was a neat summary of events, Imogen told herself. But every time she repeated it, she thought of how Vanneck had strongly denied any involvement in Lucy’s death.

“Well, if Vanneck killed Lucy, he has paid for his crime,” Horatia said.

“Yes, but who killed him?” Imogen asked quietly.

“We shall likely never know.”

“You are right, I suppose.” Imogen gazed out at the row of town houses across the street.

“Is something else troubling you, my dear?”

“I have been contemplating a theory about Lucy’s behavior for two days,” Imogen said slowly.

“What is that?”

“It occurs to me that she might have been ill.”

“Ill?”

“A form of madness, perhaps.” Imogen swung about to face Horatia with a sense of growing certainty. “That would explain so much. Her recklessness. Her desperation. Her strange moods.”

“Oh, Imogen, I really don’t think—”

“It makes sense, Aunt Horatia. I suspect that she suffered much at the hands of her uncle, perhaps more than she ever admitted. Perhaps it affected her mind. It was no doubt a condition that gradually worsened through the years. No wonder she seemed so different after she left Upper Stickleford.”

“I am not at all certain that she was so very different,” Horatia said.

Imogen paid no attention. She was consumed by a growing enthusiasm for her new theory. “Now I understand why she plotted to use me to conceal her affair with Alastair Drake. Don’t you see, Aunt Horatia? By the time I came to stay with her here in London, Lucy was desperate. She was no longer herself.”

Horatia gazed at her for a long time. “Perhaps you are correct, my dear.”

“It is the only reasonable explanation,” Imogen said firmly. “Lucy was never very strong. The dreadful treatment that she received, first from her uncle and then from her husband, no doubt made her unbearably anxious and distraught. It destroyed her in the end, just as surely as the laudanum. Yes. An illness of the brain explains everything.”

A sense of peace descended on Imogen. She had not been wrong about her friend after all. Lucy had been ill
and desperately unhappy. She had not been in her right mind when she had written those cruel things about Imogen in her journal.

I
mogen alighted from the carriage and went up the town house steps with a far lighter heart than she’d had when she set out for her aunt’s house. Nothing would bring Lucy back, but the warm memory of her friendship was safely enshrined once again in Imogen’s heart. Poor Lucy. How she had suffered.