Secrets of the Heart (27 page)

“Of course.”

The Runner looked at Rachel, giving her a slow smile. “He's a downy one, he is.”

“Yes,” Rachel agreed. “I have found that he is very crafty.”

Michael looked at her narrowly, but Cooper seemed happily unaware of any undertone to their conversation. “Aye. He is that.”

“And very good at deception,” Rachel added.

“Oh, yes. The guv'nor's the best.”

Rachel cast Michael a significant look, one eyebrow raised.

“Well, Cooper, thank you for that encomium,” Michael commented dryly.

“You're welcome, sir.” The twinkle in Cooper's eyes told Rachel that perhaps the man was more aware of the undercurrents of their conversation than he let on.

That next afternoon Cooper came to their house. Michael and Rachel met him in Michael's study, where Cooper set a large box down on Michael's desk.

Michael cast a wary eye at the box. “What have you got for me? It looks like quite a bit.”

“Aye, that it is, sir,” Cooper agreed cheerfully as he laid a list of names on top of the box. “This list is of all the cases of the sort you wanted that we could remember. No doubt there's more of 'em, but I reasoned this'd be enough to start you off.”

“I believe so,” Michael replied dryly, casting an eye at the large stack of paperwork.

“I brought the Runner's report on some of 'em, ones that seemed most like what you wrote me about. Hope you can figure something out about them. If anybody could, it'd be you, I'd wager.”

“Thank you for your confidence, Cooper,” Michael replied, adding, “I am afraid I feel rather less sanguine about my abilities at the moment.”

Cooper took his leave, nodding again to Rachel, then turning and striding out of the room like a man relieved of a great burden. Rachel walked over to Michael's desk.

“I would say you have your work cut out for you,” she commented.

“
We
have, my dear,
we
have.”

Rachel sat down in front of the desk. She did not like to admit how much she wanted to help him with the files. The cases would be far more interesting than calling on anyone or receiving calls, but more than that, she knew that she wanted to spend the afternoon with Michael. It was humiliating, she told herself, that she could still want to be with him after what he had done.

Even if, in the calmer state of mind she was in today, she no longer believed that Michael had perpetrated his charade on her because he wanted to ridicule or humiliate her, she could not overlook the fact that he had kept a large part of his life secret from her almost the entire time they had been married. Clearly she was not someone he trusted, certainly not someone he loved. He was a stranger to her, and six years of marriage had not changed that.

That fact made it even more humiliating that she felt as she did about Michael. Or James. Or whoever it was for whom she had these muddled, yearning emotions! All she knew was that she felt a simmering excitement around him and, at the same time, a quiet contentment…not to mention a hundred other conflicting feelings that made being around him so pleasurable and torturous all at the same time. Yesterday, after going to see Cooper, they had spent the evening discussing the oddities of the case and Michael's other cases, and she had enjoyed it far more than she would have a party. And when, later, Michael went out to visit the sort of informants whom he could meet only at night in dark and secret places, Rachel had been distinctly disappointed and lonely as she put on her nightgown and climbed into her big, empty bed to sleep.

She knew, deep down, that it was these feelings, more than any concern about helping Anthony, that had really made her agree to stay here—just as, now, they impelled her to sit down across the desk from Michael and agree to help him with the files.

“Shall I read some of them and you others?” she asked.

“Let's go through them together,” he suggested. “It will be slower, I know, but I think it would be better if we had two minds working on the problem. Here, come sit here beside me.” He pulled up another straight-back chair next to his and placed the files on the desk between the two chairs.

“What are we looking for?” Rachel asked, going around the desk and sitting down beside him. Her pulse quickened, though she managed to keep her voice and face cool and calm.

“I'm not sure,” he replied. “Some connection. A pattern.”

“We already know that they have one thing in common, right? The person who stood to benefit the most in each could not have committed the crime.”

He nodded. “That, and none of them have been solved.” Michael ran his finger down the list on top of the stack. Ah, here is my most recent, Lord Setworth's illuminated manuscript. And, yes, further down here is the goldsmith that I told you about. All right, let's see what else we have.”

Michael set the list aside. “First, we have Harold Benton. Murdered. Hmm.” He scanned down the report, saying, “He was to be a witness in a trial against his former partner in crime, one Bart Mansfield. This Mansfield sounds like a piece of work.” He read down a list of crimes of which the man was accused or suspected.

“My goodness. He seems to be the complete criminal,” Rachel commented. “My guess would be that he was the one who did poor Mr. Benton in, so that he could not testify against him.”

“That would have been Bow Street's opinion, too, except for the fact that the man was in Newgate, awaiting trial for his misdeeds, when Benton was struck down. So Mansfield could not have done it.” He read some more of the particulars, then added, “Seems the Runner in charge suspects that Mansfield got someone else to do the job for him, but they were unable to prove it.”

He continued to read through the string of investigations—a seemingly endless series of robberies, thefts and homicides, none of them alike except in the fact that they had baffled their investigators.

“Now,” Michael said, picking up the fifth report. “This concerns one Dutton Parkhurst, Esquire. He was stabbed to death one evening as he was walking home from his club. One of his servants went out to look for him when he did not return home, as he was a man of very regular habits, and found him slumped in a doorway. He thought at first that he was drunk, though that was not like him, but then he saw the blood all over the front of his coat. There were no witnesses. Nothing was stolen from his body. His nephew, who inherited his fortune, was with a group of friends all evening. They went first to a play and finished up the evening gambling. There were numerous witnesses to his presence there, and…” He paused, frowning.

“What is it? Did you find something?” Rachel, watching him, sat up straighter.

“No. It's just…the name of this nephew. It sounds familiar. Roland Ellerby.”

He straightened suddenly. “Wait. I think—”

Michael thumbed rapidly through the papers remaining in the stack, stopping at one of them and scanning down it. “Yes! I thought I had heard his name. Roland Ellerby was one of the guests at Lord Setworth's estate party two weeks before his illuminated manuscript was stolen!”

He looked up at Rachel triumphantly.

She leaned forward. “Michael, that must mean something! Surely that could not be coincidence.”

“I am beginning to think that none of this is coincidence. Rather, it is all very well planned and carried out.”

“Do you think there is someone who goes about doing what Anthony said? Committing a murder or a theft and then forcing the person who benefitted from it to do them a favor?” Rachel asked.

“That still sounds absurd,” Michael said, shaking his head.

“Surely all these people who benefitted could not have just banded together and decided to carry out the various crimes.”

“I wouldn't think so. It would be too unwieldy. There would be too much danger of one of them developing a conscience and turning the others in,” Michael said. He put his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers together, staring thoughtfully into space. “But what if there was one person, someone entirely unconnected to the beneficiary of the crime, who knew how much that person would like it if some crime or other were done, in this instance getting rid of a rich uncle. And say the criminal, the mastermind of this scheme, went to this nephew and offered to do away with the uncle, told him when it would happen so that the nephew could provide himself with an unassailable alibi. And all our mastermind asked in return was that in the future the nephew—or whoever benefited—would do a favor for him. In this case, the favor turned out to be going to an estate party and learning the whereabouts of a valuable object that the criminal wants to steal. Then the criminal goes in or hires a thief to go in and remove the valuable object, and the money he makes off it is his payment for doing away with the uncle.”

“Or, in some cases, he could ask for direct payment, I suppose—or blackmail someone, as he is doing to Mr. Birkshaw now. ‘If you don't do as I tell you, I will make it appear that you committed the crime.”'

“Exactly.”

“But who could it be?” Rachel mused. “It would have to be someone who knew a great deal about people who had money or valuable possessions, as well as about who would benefit most from, say, a wealthy relative dying.”

“Yes.” Michael looked at her thoughtfully. “It would almost seem as if it would be someone of the
Ton.
”

“Michael!” Rachel stared at him, shocked. “You are saying that—that it is a peer? Even someone we know?”

He shrugged. “I am sure there are a fair number of larcenous peers. Now, whether there are many who are clever enough to have thought of this, that is another matter altogether,” he said dryly.

Rachel chuckled. “You are dreadfully unkind.”

“Mmm. Or too truthful.”

“There are others it could be,” Rachel suggested. “Servants hear a great deal of gossip, not only upstairs, but also from other servants at other houses. One can often get the most up-to-date gossip from one's lady's maid. Dressmakers, milliners…and I'll warrant men exchange a great deal of information in front of their tailors or boot makers, as well.”

“Yes, and there are secretaries to men of wealth and power,” Michael added. “That would seem a good field for a possible mastermind—a man of intelligence, even good social standing, perhaps, and lacking in money, or he would not have had to take the position.”

“Yes. You are right. Or perhaps there is more than one person—two, say, one who knows the criminal world and another who knows the wealthy world.”

Michael nodded. “That's a good thought. Thank you, Rachel.” He smiled at her as he stood up. “I think I should go talk this over with Sir Robert.”

“Blount?” Rachel asked, surprised and, she realized, disappointed, that he was leaving. “But why?”

“He has the best mind I know for this type of thing,” he answered.

“Oh, yes. That's right. He is the one who got you into investigating such things,” Rachel said. She remembered now his telling her about Sir Robert's bringing him into the business during the war and later introducing him to Bow Street. Of course, it had been James Hobson who had been telling her the story at the time….

She rose, the ease she had felt with Michael gone now, chased away by the memory of his deception.

Michael, watching her, felt his heart sink. He wished he had not mentioned Blount. Things had been going well until then. Now Rachel looked as aloof as she had yesterday morning when they set out. It seemed as if their conversations were filled with hidden traps, ready to snap to at the first unwary move he made.

“I suppose I will go to the Wilkinson soiree tonight,” Rachel said. She did not really wish to, but it would be a way to fill an empty evening. “I presume you will be with Sir Robert all evening?”

“I'm not sure—yes, perhaps.” There would be little point in his coming home early, he thought. Rachel would not be there.

Michael hesitated, wishing, once again, that he could redo the last few minutes. Then, with an awkward nod, he picked up the list and left the room.

Rachel plopped back down in her chair. She thought about going up and dressing for dinner. It seemed pointless, with Michael being gone. Perhaps she would just have her supper brought to her on a tray in her room. She knew she had no interest in going to the Wilkinson soiree, either.

She ate an early supper and spent most of the evening reading. The whole time there was a niggling little hope inside her that Michael might come home earlier than he had said, though she tried time and again to quell it.

Finally, around ten, she went up to her bedchamber and rang for her maid. She did not want to appear to be waiting up for Michael, so she put on her nightgown and dressing gown and took down her hair. Turning the lamp down low, she sat down on the window seat in her room, gazing out into the dark night and brushing her hair.

The moon was only a sliver, providing little light on the landscape, but street lamps at the end of the block provided two circles of illumination in the blackness. Outside the glow of the lamps, one could see little other than the looming bulk of buildings.