The Deathsniffer’s Assistant (The Faraday Files Book 1) (43 page)

“You, Hector, and your brother, James North,” Olivia said.

The Duchess nodded. “James and he were especially very dear to one another. They were closer in age, you see. I was a girl and a tag along, but they tolerated me.” She reached out to brush the pane of the window as if trying to touch something that wasn’t there. “I didn’t care a whit about their politics. James and Hector were always talking about the reformists, about Lowry. Later, about the Floating Castle. They spoke of how it was going to be a monument to everything the traditionalists stood for. Categorization
isn’t
a stagnating, depreciating system. It’s still evolving, still growing, able to accomplish more and more new, impressive feats. The sylph net…it was going to be the grandest thing ever done since the days of the old wizards. It was going to be a statement.”

Chris couldn’t help himself. “I don’t understand!” he cried. “The way you talk about it—you obviously
care
. Why have you always spat at Ana’s dreams? There’s nothing she wanted so badly as to ‘bind, and they’re
desperate
for
anyone
.”

The Duchess twisted about to look at him. Her eyes glittered like steel. “Ironic, hearing that from you of all people.” She smirked at his reaction. “
Yes
, I know who you are. Haven’t you been paying attention? I’m part of a vast traditionalist conspiracy. We all know about Michael’s little rose. He was obsessed with seeming more than he was. We assumed his little wizardling was just more of that. I’ll admit, you did a good job keeping her potential hidden until White Clover.” She clucked her tongue. “All the things she can do for this country, and you’ve kept her hidden away from the people who need her the most.”

Chris clenched his fists. He went so far as to take a step towards her, but Olivia’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. “She’s my sister.” He hung the words like a net, hoping to tangle her in them. “I’m all she has. It’s my job to protect her.”

“Yes, I know. Just as I protected my own daughter,” the Duchess flung the net back at him, and he found he was the one trapped. “You don’t know anything about the Old Blood. And you certainly don’t have the first idea of what it was like to go from being Evelyn North to Evelyn val Daren. It isn’t done, you know. Old Blood marry their own. It doesn’t matter how rich or high class or well-provisioned you are, common is common. Ana was always strange enough on her own. I would not—I
could not—
allow her to be seen as
common
.”

“It was
her
choice to
make
!”

“And your sister? What would
her
choice be? Or have you ever thought to ask?”

She’s a child,
he went to say, but she’d have a response to that.
She doesn’t know what she wants.
No, that too.
I understand the situation. I’m the one to make that decision.
And that, as well. Chris ground his teeth, glaring fury at the Duchess, but every direction he turned in, there was just another wall. The tension left his shoulders and his face went slack as he realized, suddenly, that Evelyn val Daren was not and had never been any worse than he, himself.

The Duchess nodded her satisfaction. “I couldn’t explain myself to her,” she continued. “Naturally, I couldn’t. It was important her father never find out where his money was going, and so I had to keep her ignorant to keep him ignorant. He’d have just used her against me.”

He cast about for one last weapon to throw at her. “What about Ethan Grey?” he demanded. “He adored her and just because you hated her father’s interest in artists, you―”

She laughed at him, a mirthless, angry laugh. “
Ethan Grey
,” she spat, her voice dripping with the usual scorn and barbed hatred. “My complaints with that
pervert
have absolutely nothing to do with what I may or may not have thought of my husband’s little hobby. Of course, there’s some
irony
to it, but it was never my concern.”

Chris felt Olivia step up beside him. “What did the three of you argue about that night?” she asked quietly. “The night at the gallery. The night your husband died.”

The Duchess waved the question off and turned to look out to the countryside. “The same thing we always argued about. I pointed Ana towards something very obvious and Ethan was quick as a clever little fox to convince her I was being petty.”

“And what was that?” Olivia pressed.

The Duchess shrugged. “The boy is a sodomite.” Despite her air of nonchalance, the words were forced, dripping venom, from her mouth. “He used his courtship of my poor daughter as a way to―to appear
normal
before potential buyers and art collectors and gallery owners, but,
oh
, the moment no one important was watching―” She cut herself off, disgust thick in her voice.

Olivia shook her head. “Really? Hmph. I suppose I should have guessed you’d be a bigot, too. All that hatred over something so unimportant.”

The Duchess glanced up, shocked. “
Unimportant?
Did you hear what I just said, Miss Faraday? Ethan Grey is a…a…”

“An adult man whose private business doesn’t affect you in any way?” Olivia filled in mildly.

“If that were only the truth! That night, he and this―this other young fellow who was carrying the paintings about, hanging them for display,
Gods
, you should have seen them carrying on. And my Ana just standing there, staring up at him as if he were Cwenraed the Youth. Was it not my duty as her mother, to point out what was happening right before her eyes?”

Chris remembered the feeling of the Duke’s rough cheeks against his face, his tongue in his mouth. He felt a telltale burning in his cheeks. It had been
Vanessa’s
face, Vanessa’s mouth. It wasn’t the same.

Olivia sighed. “And that, something that stupid, is what you fought over?”

“In the end Ana always believed him. Over me, her own mother!”

“You left the gallery early. You told Ana not to tell anyone. You told her to lie for you.” The Duchess squeezed her eyes tightly shut and said nothing. Olivia’s voice came sharper as she pressed the issue. “Where did you go, Duchess? Why did you make Ana cover?”

The Duchess leaned her head against the windowpane. “You know where I went. To our final meeting before everything came together. Hah, and you know, I didn’t even think twice about leaving her. He had stormed off in a huff and she wanted to go after him and I was so
angry
. She never
listened
to me. She was always so convinced I was her enemy.” A weak, quivering breath. “She died―she died thinking I killed her father. She died thinking I was a murderer. Because of you, she―” And suddenly, her voice caught and her shoulders trembled, then shook. Chris’s heart skipped a beat. He opened his mouth to say something, some word of comfort, but none came. The Duchess shook with silent tears.

“Duchess,” Olivia said after a very long time, not unkindly.

“They’re both gone,” the Duchess whispered. She drew a black lace handkerchief from inside her bodice, using it to delicately dab tears from her face. Cosmetics smeared on her grey skin. “Gods, the both of them are truly gone, and I’m all alone in the world, after all.”

“Well, not completely alone. You do have your co-conspirators.” When the wounded bird that had been the haughty Duchess raised her head, Olivia’s voice lost a bit of its mockery and became almost gentle. “Tell me just one thing, Duchess,” she said. “Did the Doctor actually sabotage the Castle, or did you and your friends all just use that lovely Old Money to make it look like he did?”

The Duchess blinked away tears and gave them a tired smile with no life, love, or hope behind it. “You know, I honestly don’t know,” she murmured, and then chuckled. “And I don’t care.”

Olivia nodded. Just once. She gathered the papers from the table, put them back in the file, and closed it. “Come along, then, Mister Buckley.” She stopped at the door. With her hand resting on the latch, she turned just far enough to let the Duchess see the line of her profile. “Vanessa Caldwell killed your husband and daughter,” she said. “There’s an arrest been ordered. We’re out looking for her now. It shouldn’t take too long.”

Stunned silence. Then, haltingly. “Then…then…” A shuddering breath, and then a sigh of great relief. “Then this is all over?”

“Apparently,” Olivia breathed, and they left the broken Duchess sitting alone by the window.

he maid who had been quickly and indelicately dismissed from her lady’s presence was standing at the mirror when the two of them found their way to the main entrance hall. “Ah, ma’am, they’re coming out, now. Do you still wish to―”

Officer Dawson’s excited voice stomped all over the maid’s respectful, quiet tones. “Faraday? Are you there? Get over here.”

Olivia waved the poor girl aside like a pesky fly and then took her place at the mirror. “What is it?” she droned.

If Officer Dawson noticed the disinterest in Olivia’s tone, she certainly didn’t show it. “We got her. Caldwell. In Vernella.”

Olivia crooked an eyebrow. Chris came to stand slightly beside and to one side of her, so he could see both her and Officer Dawson’s faces. He was still putting the finishing touches on his notes from their last conversation with Duchess val Daren. “Fleeing Her Majesty’s justice by rushing to Her Majesty’s side? Very peculiar.”

Maris Dawson did not have a flattering blush. Her red skin made her orange hair look ludicrous, and her freckles stood out like chunks of carrot in a tomato soup. “She
claims
to be there visiting her sick mother. She received word Missus Caldwell was finally getting about dying and dropped everything to rush to her bedside.”

“Does the story check?”

“We’re still not sure,” the policewoman muttered. When Chris looked up from his notebook, her bushy orange eyebrows were pulled down like angry caterpillars. “We just picked her up ten minutes ago. The first thing I did after finishing on the mirror was to try and get in touch with you.”

“So,” Olivia said. She raised her hand and studied her fingernails clinically. “What
do
we know?”

“She’s denying everything,” Officer Dawson said. “But as we’ve already established, she doesn’t have an alibi, and Gods, Faraday, we have her at the
house
, in the
room
, with the
knife
. What else do you need?”

Olivia shrugged one shoulder. “What does the heartreader say? Is she telling the truth?”

“He can’t tell. She’s projecting sincerity, but he says it feels forced. He’ll need more time with her. He swears she’s shocked, but again, he can’t say if it’s because she’s innocent, or if it’s because she didn’t expect anyone to find out she was guilty, or even just because her mother is dying.”

Olivia finished her study of her hand and finally deigned to meet Officer Dawson’s eyes. “We’re going to need more than the seeing,” she said. “We can’t use it in court. You know that. All it takes it one pushy reporter, and then press latches onto it, and no more ace in the―”

“I know, I know,” Officer Dawson growled. “Trust me, Faraday, I bloody know. We’ll find something. She was
there
; she
did
it. We damn well saw her.” She shook her head and glared at her charge accusingly. “You certainly know how to kill a woman’s enthusiasm. We got her, Faraday. You got your man, as always. Aren’t you glad?” Olivia said nothing, only stared mildly into the mirror, until the policewoman sighed and lowered her gaze, pretending to fuss with the papers on the desk between them. “Did you talk to the Duchess?”