The Counterfeit Heiress (3 page)

“Cécile may never forgive you,” I said as my husband untied the long ribbon, embroidered with the Greek key, that crossed the bodice of my dress and wrapped around my waist.

“I rushed straight to her side, offered to spirit her home and call for a doctor. How have I not taken adequate care of her? She chose to stay at the party. If anything, I may find it difficult to forgive her for barring us from making an early exit. I told you I had no desire to stay until dawn.”

“She is worried about her friend,” I said, placing over the back of a chair the delicate silver ivy that had hung from my waist. Colin removed my headdress. “She did not need anything further from you regarding her own self, but she does want us to look into the matter of the woman impersonating Estella Lamar.”

“I do not wish to speak of it.” He fiddled with the pins in my hair, causing it to spill in masses of unruly waves over my shoulders. “Come to think of it, there is nothing of which I wish to speak at the moment.” He bent over and kissed my neck and I knew distracting him from his purpose would be folly. Deciding this purpose was far more interesting than any conversation, I tugged at his cravat, and was silently cursing Beau Brummell for adopting such complicated knots, when a sharp knock on the door brought us both to attention.

“Mr. Hargreaves, sir, Davis here.” Our butler never opened my bedroom door without first announcing himself. “A footman has come from the Duke of Devonshire. His Grace requires you most urgently. I am afraid a guest at his party has turned up dead. Murdered, sir. I assume I need say nothing more.”

We were out the door almost at once. Rosy-fingered dawn had already begun to streak the sky as we returned to Devonshire House, where the duke, after a brief and private chat with my husband, thanked me for not being angry at our having been disturbed at such an antisocial hour and then left us to our work. He showed no surprise that I had accompanied my husband. My reputation had preceded me, and he knew full well I would have my piece of the investigation; I had proved myself too many times in the past for it to be any other way. Colin explained the situation to me as soon as we were free from our host, who, despite accepting my having a role, had not felt personally comfortable discussing murder with a lady. The body of a middle-aged woman had been found, not in his grounds, but more than a mile away, her clothing, or rather, her costume, giving her away as a guest of the duke’s. The police had come to Devonshire House in the hope of identifying her, but here the duke had failed them. All he could tell them was that he had believed her to be Estella Lamar until Cécile du Lac had corrected his error. He had thought it best to summon Colin at once. The family, he had explained, did not desire any part in a scandal. Neither he nor the duchess had the slightest idea as to the truth about their mysterious guest, and they were eager to have the matter separated from them and their home as quickly as possible.

Colin directed our carriage to Lambeth Bridge, where members of Scotland Yard met us. They frowned when they saw me but kept their thoughts silent as they led us to a sad scene near the grounds of St. Mary’s School. The body, still dressed in the robes of Artemis so similar to my own, lay crumpled in a heap underneath a tree.

“This rather changes the situation,” I said. “Perhaps Cécile is right to be concerned about her friend.” We inspected the poor woman’s remains—she had been stabbed in the neck—and then I left Colin to examine the rest of the scene while I went straight back home to wake up Cécile. Ordinarily, she insisted on sleeping until at least eleven, but when I arrived in Park Lane a bit before nine, she was already up, dressed, and breakfasted. Cécile had never been the sort of lady who put on airs or needed coddling. She took the news of the death of Estella’s would-be doppelgänger without so much as a Gallic shrug, called for the carriage, and demanded that we go to her friend’s house at once.

“Estella Lamar lives in London?” I asked as the carriage crossed through Mayfair toward Belgravia. “Wouldn’t it have been simpler to call on her there than to wait to see her at a ball?”

“Estella has never liked uninvited callers,” Cécile said. “Furthermore, it seems unlikely that she spends much time in residence here, given her proclivity for travel. I had no reason to think it possible to find her in London until I learned last night she was supposed to be at the ball.”

The Lamar mansion—for it could be called nothing short of that—covered the better part of a block not far from Belgrave Square. An ornate gilded iron gate blocked from the street the imposing edifice, a masterpiece of Georgian architecture, and we were admitted to the house by a liveried servant without having to wait. Once inside, the butler seemed almost too eager to assist us.

“I am terribly sorry,” he said, “but Mademoiselle Lamar is not at home.”

“Not at home because she is not in residence or not at home because she is not seeing visitors?” I asked. “Please do not trifle with me—”

“Milady, I would be most distraught if you thought I would dare trifle with you. Mademoiselle Lamar is not in residence, nor has she been for some time. Are you closely acquainted with her?”

“You are impertinent for a butler,” Cécile said, narrowing her eyes and nodding. “I find it surprisingly endearing.”

“I beg your forgiveness, milady.” He bowed, twice. “I only meant to inquire in the hopes that you might have knowledge of our mistress’s plans. Her lengthy absence has left all of us below stairs a bit rusty, I suppose. If you are close to her, you might know when she will grace this house once again with her presence.”

“When was she last here?” I asked.

“Oh, milady, I could hardly say.”

“Try,” Cécile said.

“I mean no disrespect,” he said, bowing again. “It was … let me see … old Monsieur Lamar and his wife died in 1875. Mademoiselle was here only briefly while she was in mourning, so I suppose we haven’t seen her more than that one time since she took possession of the house.”

“She has not been here in more than twenty years?” I asked.

“That is correct, milady.”

“Yet she means to keep the house?”

“So far as we can tell, milady.”

Cécile and I exchanged confused glances. “The house does not appear to be shut up,” I said. “Are all the rooms open?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle Lamar gave clear directions when she inherited that the house was to be fully staffed and ready for her arrival at all times.”

“You are not working with a skeleton staff?” I asked.

“No, milady.”

“And you have been in this mode for two decades without anyone living above stairs?” To call this situation unusual would be to grossly underestimate it. Families often spent long periods of time away from their town homes—although two decades was an extreme absence—but they always had the servants close up the houses when they were away. Furniture and paintings were covered, curtains drawn, and only the barest staff left on board wages to ensure nothing dire happened while their masters were away.

“That is correct.”

“Does she keep in contact with you?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, she has always been a conscientious mistress,” the butler said. “She sends a letter from nearly every stop in her travels. We had one from Siam not two months ago.”

“Siam?” Cécile asked. “May I be so bold as to ask to see this letter? I have known Mademoiselle Lamar since my youth and am most interested.”

“Then you no doubt are all too aware of her concerns about King Chulalongkorn’s interactions with the west. She does not want the Siamese to lose any bit of their native culture.”

“Is that so?” Cécile asked. “How very like Mademoiselle Lamar.”

“If you would allow me to lead you to a sitting room, I shall gladly share the letter with you.”

Once he had left us alone in a pretty—if dated—room covered in William Morris paper and furnished in comfortable and attractive fashion, Cécile and I scrutinized Estella’s letter. She did indeed mention concerns about the Siamese king’s relationship with western powers, and she gave a wonderfully newsy account of her arrival in the country, more newsy than one would expect a lady to write to her butler. Furthermore, she gave almost no direction regarding her wishes for the keeping of the house.

“Estella was never like that,” Cécile said. “Inappropriately friendly with servants?”

“It is highly unusual,” I said. “Do you recognize her handwriting?”

“So far as I can remember, yes,” Cécile said. “I have had letters from her, but not more than one or two every year.”

“Do you write back to her?” I asked.

“Yes, although I suspect she does not always receive my replies as she rarely responds to anything in them. Travel can make that sort of thing difficult. One often misses one’s post, and Estella might not have always left a forwarding address.”

“Quite.” I rang for the butler. “Were you aware that your mistress had responded to an invitation from the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire? Apparently she intended to appear at their ball last night.”

“Why, we have heard nothing, milady,” he said. “That letter is the last we have had and you can see for yourself she made no mention of such a plan. Surely she didn’t come to London and not stay in the house?”

“No, that seems unlikely,” I said. “However, someone else, an imposter, came to the ball claiming to be Miss Lamar. Have you had any contact with such a person?”

“I can assure you not,” he said, pulling himself up straight. “None of us in the house would ever stand for a pretender. We are all so very fond of Mademoiselle Lamar, you see.”

“How long have you been in her employ?” I asked.

“Her father hired me when he married the second Madame Lamar.”

“So you knew Estella as a child?” Cécile asked.

“Yes, milady. That is why we all feel so, well, if I may speak freely?”

“Please do,” I said.

“We feel protective of her, milady. She never had an easy time of it.”

“How so?” I asked.

“I couldn’t explain it precisely, but she didn’t seem like other young ladies. Never much liked being around people her own age. Always preferred being alone or with her mother, and of course her mother was not much at home, so she often seemed lonely.”

“Was there tension between Miss Lamar and her parents?” I asked.

“No, milady. Her father spoiled her and her mother coddled her.”

“Did they spend much time in London?” I asked.

“They came three times a year without exception until their deaths and always brought their daughter.”

“Would you object to our taking a look around the house?” I asked. Estella may not have been in it for years, but I held out hope that its furnishings and her possessions might give us some insight into why the murdered woman had chosen to impersonate her. The butler hesitated, but in the end acquiesced, leaving us to explore. Two hours later, Cécile and I emerged without having found any hint of clarity. The house, though beautifully furnished, was void of all personality save for its owner’s large collection of porcelain dolls, which were displayed, their glass eyes staring, in a dim and crowded room off the nursery. I was all too happy to close the door on them.

Estella

ii

Despite being of an age when most young ladies were married and settled, Estella identified herself an orphan. She missed her parents dreadfully, or so she said, over and over, primarily to her dolls. It was true her mother had stopped telling her stories years ago, and that she had rarely seen her father, although he had continued to present dolls to her on occasion, which should have suggested to her just how little he knew about his daughter. Jewelry would have been more appropriate at this stage in her life. Furthermore, Estella could not deny the fact that her parents’ deaths had come with an unexpected benefit—now that they were gone, no one expected her to move in society, at least not for a while. This was a revelation. Estella could stay holed up at home without anyone pressuring her to go out. Instead, she was lauded for her daughterly devotion and for taking so seriously the period of mourning intended to honor her mother and father.

The family solicitor, also the executor of her parents’ estate, took practical matters in hand for her. Estella was past the age that would have required a guardian, but Monsieur Pinard had been able to tell almost at once that she would need a great deal of assistance when it came to managing her inheritance, particularly as her father’s will had caused deep consternation among her half siblings. The inheritance law,
droit de succession,
required that an estate be divided into two parts: the
réserve légale,
which must be split equally among the deceased’s children, and the
quotité disponible,
which could be disposed of without limitations.

Estella and her four siblings shared the
réserve légale,
each of them receiving an equal portion of seventy-five percent of the enormous fortune their father had amassed in his lifetime. The remaining twenty-five percent he gave in its entirety to Estella. Compounding the matter was the fact that his wife, the dreaded stepmother, had been given in her marriage settlement all of the family’s material possessions: the houses in London and Paris, the villa in the south of France, jewelry, art, and furnishings. As Estella was her mother’s only child, she had inherited it all, much to the consternation of her half brothers and half sisters.

Monsieur Pinard could offer no explanation to the frustrated and angry heirs as to why their father had not given them a portion beyond what the law required; Monsieur Lamar had not given him one. The will was sound, and despite their best attempts, the children of the first Lamar marriage could not break it. Once forced to accept this, they turned their attention to their much younger half sister. Surely Estella could be persuaded to share.

They descended upon her a month after the courts ruled against them, smothering her with compliments and treats and invitations, not understanding that Estella could not bear such overtures. She used mourning as an excuse to put off receiving them and began to isolate herself more and more in the house in Paris. Only her dear friend, Cécile du Lac, was allowed to call, and then only when the visit was prearranged.