A Pretty Deceit

by Anna Lee Huber

  “Come on, then.” I urged Reg forward. “Before your mother forces Miles to shuffle back out here after us.”

  He scoffed. “True. And she already sends that man shuffling after more than enough.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The moment Reg and I stepped inside off the terrace, we could hear my aunt’s wails and moans issuing from the Chinese Drawing Room. I cringed at the strident tone of her voice, briefly considering sneaking past. Until a familiar deep voice responded. Hastening forward, I paused in the doorway to gaze in relief at my husband—whole and seemingly healthy—as he chuffed my aunt’s hands.

  He looked up, one lock of his dark hair falling forward to curl over his forehead, and offered me a resigned smile. I was sure this was far from the scene he’d hoped for upon his arrival, and wondered how long he’d been sitting there, comforting my aunt as he waited for us to return.

  The Chinese Drawing Room was so named because of the four beautiful hand-painted Chinese panels that graced the walls. An elegant fretwork motif decorated their mahogany frames, as well as the doors, the dado rail, and the shutters over the windows, which were thrown open to let in light. The delicate chandelier overhead was fashioned of a similar wood, as was the daintily carved furniture, including the settee where Sidney and Aunt Ernestine perched.

  “Oh, thank heavens!” she exclaimed at the sight of us. “When you were gone so long, why, I feared the worst.”

  “What did you expect to happen to us, Mother?” Reg retorted snidely. “For us to stroll off a cliff? Be eaten by a bear?”

  “No, but if there is some madman running about the grounds, shooting people . . .”

  “Mr. Green wasn’t shot, Aunt Ernestine,” I replied before Reg could voice the nasty thought curdling his lips. “Or stabbed,” I added for good measure as I sank into a cane-back chair upholstered in a pale blue floral. “And he died several hours ago.” My gaze met Sidney’s, communicating I had a great deal more to tell him later.

  “Well . . . I suppose that’s a relief. Oh, but poor Tilly Green. For her husband to survive the war, only for this to happen.” She stiffened, gazing at me in question. “Unless . . .”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not suicide.” I frowned. “At least, I don’t think so.” Though I supposed it was possible. Mr. Green could have poisoned himself. But with what? We’d found no vial or drinking vessel. Unless he’d been lying on it.

  I looked up at Sidney. We both knew how difficult it was for the soldiers returning from war. How they struggled to put the horrors of those four years behind them. How challenging it was to rekindle their bonds with families and loved ones when the government propaganda had created such an unbridgeable divide between the truth and what had been printed in the newspapers. All one had to do was look at the alarming number of suicides among veterans to understand there was a problem.

  My aunt sighed. “Well, I suppose, at least, that can be some relief to her.”

  I frowned.

  “That he didn’t wish to leave her,” she clarified. “Given the circumstances.”

  Sidney looked to me for clarification, but I decided now was not the time.

  “I suppose something will need to be done for the family.” She closed her eyes, pressing a hand to her chest as she inhaled a strained breath. “Oh, but I can’t think of that now.” She scowled at the door. “Where is my maid?”

  “Miss Musselwhite is accompanying her sister home.” I turned to regard Reg, who still stood at the edge of the rug. “Mrs. Green came here looking for her husband. Apparently he left home last night and never returned. As you can imagine, she was incredibly distraught when she learned of his death.”

  “Oh, but she never asked my permission to do so,” my aunt surprised me by protesting.

  “I gave her permission,” Reg replied. “It was the humane thing to do.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have done that! I . . . I have need of her.” She rubbed circles on her chest, her voice tightening with agitation. “She’s the only one who can administer my medication.”

  “Do you actually need another dose?” His voice was doubtful.

  “Yes,” she snapped. “This morning has been a great strain for me, and you know how that affects my heart.”

  “Is that what the medicine is for? Your heart?” I asked.

  “It’s for her nerves,” Reg retorted flatly.

  “And my heart,” she countered. “Dr. Maslen prescribed it for me before the war, and that new young fellow who took his place, Dr. Razey, agreed.”

  “Could I give it to you?” I offered, trying to keep the peace. “Do you have the dosing instructions?”

  “Thank you, Verity, but only Miss Musselwhite understands exactly how it’s to be done.”

  “Of course.”

  My aunt turned to look at Sidney. “Someone simply must fetch her.”

  “You are not sending Kent, or anyone else for that matter, to collect Miss Musselwhite,” Reg protested, clearly having guessed his mother’s intentions even without the benefit of his sight. “Her sister’s husband just died. Pulling her away would be cruel.”

  His mother stammered in outrage. “But my medicine!”

  “If you have need of your medicine, I’ll send one of the servants for Dr. Razey. I’m sure you won’t object to him administering it.”

  She glared at her son in impotent fury before pushing to her feet. “Reginald, if you will please escort me to my chamber.”

  Reg’s mouth flattened into a thin line of protest, but then he heaved a sigh of resignation. “Yes, Mother.”

  Sidney waited only long enough for them to exit through the parlor door before teasing me. “I leave you here alone for two days and already you’re stumbling over dead bodies.”

  I turned to glower at him, and his expression turned more serious as he leaned toward me.

  “What’s going on, Ver?”

  I glanced toward the doorway. “Not here.” Taking hold of his hand, I pulled him to his feet, urging him to follow me through the house and up the stairs to our bedchamber. I closed the door to the corridor and the one that led into the adjoining dressing room before turning to speak.

  “Wait,” Sidney interrupted, abruptly pulling me close. “Before this conversation devolves into mayhem and murder. . .” His hand slid beneath my curls to cup the back of my neck as his lips sealed over mine.

  His mouth was supple and sure, and it quickly drove every thought from my head except for him. I pressed against him, raking my fingers through his dark hair. I could smell the wind in his hair and the mild aromatic smoke from his special blend of Turkish cigarettes still clinging to his clothes.

  Why his kiss should feel even more potent after two days apart, I didn’t know, but I supposed it had something to do with the fact that sometime in the past four months I’d grown accustomed to him being around. After four and a half years of months-long separations and near constant goodbyes—not to mention the fifteen months I’d believed him to be dead— such a thing had seemed impossible. The very thought that he would ever be around long enough for me to become inured to his presence had seemed unimaginable. And yet, here we were.

  He was the one to end the kiss. The deep blue of his irises was almost swallowed by his pupils. “Many happy returns, my darling,” he murmured, his voice roughened by desire.

  I smiled almost shyly. “Thank you.”

  His arms circled my waist, anchoring me to him. “You didn’t think I’d forgotten your birthday, did you?”

  “No, but given the topic of discussion in the parlor, I know it hardly seemed appropriate for you to extend your best wishes there.”

  “True.” His brow ruffled. “Not that your aunt wouldn’t have found some way to make the occasion about her.”

  “She does have a rather self-centered outlook.”

  He arched his eyebrows at this bit of understatement.

  “But enough about her.” I anxiously surveyed his face. “You didn’t drive all night, did yo
u?”

  “No, I stopped at an inn east of Exeter. Though I didn’t exactly receive the welcome I was hoping for when I arrived at Littlemote after dragging myself out of bed before sunrise this morning to get back on the road.”

  I laughed. “No, I suppose not. Not if Aunt Ernestine immediately launched into histrionics.”

  “And you off ‘poking ghoulishly’ at a dead body. That sounded like much more fun.”

  My head reared back in astonishment. “Is that really what she said?”

  “You don’t think I came up with such a theatrical description, did you? She fairly accused you of turning her son against her, as well.”

  I rolled my eyes. “She’s doing that well enough on her own.”

  He guided me toward the oak settee upholstered in caramel and cream brocade situated near the tallest window. “Yes, well, forget her for a moment and tell me about this Mr. Green.”

  I relayed everything I knew about Mr. Green’s death, including a few of my conjectures on the things I didn’t, watching Sidney’s face closely as he sifted through all the information.

  “Why do you think it’s not a natural death?” he queried, as always seeming to see to the heart of the matter whether I wished him to or not.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t.”

  “No,” he granted, clasping his hands behind his head as he sank deeper into the cushions. “But it’s obvious you’re suspicious.”

  I frowned at a worn spot in the carpet, trying to put into words the vague sense I had that something about Mr. Green’s death seemed abnormal. “I suppose I am. It was just . . . such an odd place to die. And the manner in which he was lying there . . .” I shook my head, trying to dislodge the memory of his tortured expression. The man had been through the hell of war, and yet something about his death had terrified him.

  “I imagine a natural death could be just as painful as an unnatural one. And if he were suddenly struck by . . . a heart attack, shall we say, he would hardly be able to choose the moment or location when and where it occurred.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  He tilted his head. “Men do fall dead from a simple heart attack. Even men as relatively young and fit as Mr. Green.” Far too much wisdom shimmered in his gaze. “Or don’t you wish to hear that?”

  I struggled not to fidget, uncomfortable with the realization that he had recognized even before I had how such a notion unsettled me. That just because Sidney had survived the war and returned to me didn’t mean he couldn’t be snatched away again forever. And not by some traitor’s bullet, but something as unassuming as a heart attack, or heaven forbid, another round of that dreaded Spanish influenza.

  I inhaled past the tightness in my chest. “Yes, I suppose it’s easier when death has a more tangible culprit and cause.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him watching me with a tenderness I felt too fragile to endure. Summoning the last dregs of my self-possession, I straightened my green skirt primly. “Whatever the reason for Mr. Green’s demise, that shall be the police surgeon’s duty to decide. Either way, it will still be painful for his wife. Doubly so if it proves to be murder.”

  “How so? Because someone chose to kill him?”

  “Because she will undoubtedly be the chief suspect.”

  He lowered his arms in interest. “I understand that the spouse is often a suspect in such things, but that doesn’t mean it’s always so.”

  I turned to face him more fully. “True. But do you remember the couple arguing in the middle of the road that you almost struck with your motorcar?”

  He nodded.

  “That was Mr. and Mrs. Green.”

  His eyes widened.

  “Apparently, those public quarrels were not uncommon. About forty villagers and I witnessed another in the churchyard after service yesterday. And there’s a great deal of gossip about and disapproval of her drinking. How, more often than not, she’s corked.”

  I expected Sidney to react similarly to Reg, albeit with less disdain. Instead he sat quietly, his gaze fixed across the room, though I could tell his thoughts were somewhere in the past. At first, I thought he was recalling my confession to him some months prior. How I’d admitted to drinking more than a few gin rickeys to get me through each evening late in the war. But then he spoke in an abstract voice.

  “I had a sergeant. A tall, wraithlike fellow from somewhere near Leeds. Rather stoic chap. His best mate was in one of the Bantam Battalions.” He cracked a smile, using the name the soldiers had bestowed on the special units of men who had enlisted in 1916 after the height requirement for new recruits had been dropped from five feet three inches to five feet tall. “The two of them together made the funniest sight, especially when the bantam one started rambling in his unintelligible dialect while my sergeant merely bobbed his head or answered with crisp ‘ayes’ and ‘nays.’”

  Given the very little he ever shared about the war, about the men he’d commanded at the front, I was justifiably stunned to hear my husband volunteer such information. And I struggled not to show it, lest he stop. All I could do was smile in acknowledgment and hope it wasn’t too strained, but not too eager either. Fortunately, he wasn’t paying me any heed.

  “One of the photographers prowling about snapped a picture of them once. I wonder if it ever made it into print anywhere.” He shook himself. “Anyway, this sergeant had a wife and a few children back home.” He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and extracted his battered silver cigarette case—the one I’d given him as a wedding present before he left for the front. “He didn’t talk about them much. At least not to me.” His voice deepened. “But I’ll never forget when he came to beg me for compassionate leave.” He frowned down at the unlit fag in his fingers. “How his wife had been driven to drink out of fear. How he needed to go to her, to help her.”

  I watched as he lit the cigarette, inhaling a deep drag. “Did you approve his request?”

  “I did.” He exhaled a stream of smoke. “But HQ denied it.” He inhaled again, a greater indication of his agitation than perhaps he knew, for I’d noticed how he smoked more when he was angry or unsettled. When he needed a distraction for his hands and his mouth. “He was killed a few weeks later.”

  My heart squeezed in answer to the hollow ache in his voice. I wanted to ask after the sergeant’s family, to know what had happened to his wife, but I didn’t dare. Not knowing that would only add to the burden Sidney already felt. So instead I leaned closer, resting my head on his shoulder. He continued to smoke in silence for a few moments while the ormolu clock ticked away on the mantel, and then lifted his arm to drape it around me.

  “So Mrs. Green is not an isolated case,” I finally ventured to say.

  “No, she isn’t.”

  I wondered how many more women there were across the country like her, across all the belligerent nations. How many of them were also scorned and derided, chided for their failure to bear up under the strain, for daring to show such weakness?

  “I’m sorry, Ver,” he murmured, and I lifted my head to look at him. “I don’t imagine this was how you wished to celebrate your birthday, is it?”

  “Well, no. But it seems churlish to complain. After all, I doubt Mr. Green planned on dying. And now his family must go on without him.” It was a lowering thought.

  He stubbed out his fag in the dish on the table at his elbow and then gathered me close. “I somehow doubt your aunt and cousin are going to be much help in making merry, and you don’t seem to feel much like it either. Justifiably so. So why don’t we postpone our celebration until later this week in London.”

  “I would like that,” I replied earnestly, and then attempting to rally for his sake, I draped my arms around his neck. “But do I still get my present today?”

  “That depends,” he teased. “Tell me first, when are we returning to London?”

  “Tomorrow, if you like.”

  He reared back in surprise. “Truly? You’re not going to insist we remain here until w
e know whether Mr. Green’s death was caused by fair means or foul?”

  “I think the police have matters well in hand. There’s little I can do.”

  “And what of the matters your father asked you to look into for your aunt?”

  “The person responsible for all the forgeries is my dearly departed uncle.”

  “Ahhh,” he replied.

  “You don’t sound surprised.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I figured it was something like that.”

  I opened my mouth to question how he’d come to such an assumption, but then closed it, deciding the answer was probably obvious. After all, I’d worked it out rather quickly myself. “Mr. Green recommended my aunt hire an expert to examine the roof over the master bedchambers, but since the estate can’t afford the repairs, she has not. And the maid who is missing likely took off for London to become an actress, possibly with the smaller items missing from the manor in her bag to fund her new life.”

  His eyes shone with admiration. “You’ve made quick work, haven’t you?”

  “Well, it’s not as if any of it was difficult to deduce,” I demurred, basking in his praise all the same. “And it’s not as if I had to drive all the way to Falmouth to gather my information. What did you find out? Were any of the employees at Rockham’s import-export business willing to speak with you?”

  His face transformed into such a fearsome scowl, I was almost sorry I’d asked. “Not a one.”

  “Truly?”

  He nodded. “They clammed up the moment they realized why I was asking questions.” His voice was deathly earnest when he spoke next. “Someone got to them, Verity. Someone told them to keep their mouths shut.”

  There was no need to speak the name of the person responsible, for we both knew it. Lord Ardmore. Once more, he’d beaten us to the punch.

  I exhaled in frustration. “We need to get back to London. Maybe Max has uncovered something in his father’s papers at his office in Parliament.” Even as I said it, I didn’t really believe it, for I knew if Max had discovered something, he would have found a way to contact us.