Reckless in Red

by Rachael Miles

  “She your lady love?” He lifted his chin to indicate Lena.

  “Miss Frost is a friend,” Clive answered firmly. Thacker needed to believe that Lena had friends—solid, well-connected, English friends—or she might end up sleeping in a cell.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” The magistrate looked Clive over. “And you are?”

  “Somerville. Lord Clive Somerville.” He waited to see if the magistrate recognized his name. If he didn’t, Clive could always invoke his brother, the duke.

  “Somer . . . ville.” The magistrate paused over the name, then considered Clive with renewed interest. “Are you the Somerville who works for . . .”

  Clive cut him off. “Teaches at the surgery school.”

  “Right. Teaches. At the surgery school.” The magistrate caught the hint, his voice shifting to a more deferent stance. The wails of Mrs. Abbott grew louder, and the magistrate motioned Clive and Lena down the hall.

  Clive led Lena to the stairs leading to the attic. “Sit here for a minute.” She acquiesced, sitting on the steps and leaning against the wall. She crossed her arms in front of her body as if holding herself safe.

  Thacker pulled Clive away several feet. “You vouching for her?”

  “Miss Frost is the proprietor of the new exhibition at the Rotunda. She’s been there since before dawn.”

  “I can speak for myself,” Lena objected, her voice uncertain.

  “Yes, and I’ll talk to you next, miss.” Thacker’s voice had turned almost kind.

  Lena nodded her acceptance.

  The magistrate pulled Clive farther away. “You certain Frost couldn’t have killed that one before she left?”

  Clive shook his head. “The woman hasn’t been dead long. Two hours, perhaps three.”

  “And Miss Frost never left the Rotunda, after you arrived?”

  “I visited the Rotunda on business early this morning, and I’ve been with Miss Frost constantly since.”

  “Business?” The magistrate raised an eyebrow and waited.

  “Yes.”

  “Surgery business?” the magistrate prompted, using the euphemism Clive had given for his official inquiries for the Home Office.

  “Perhaps.” Clive shrugged.

  The magistrate stared at him for a moment, then conceded. “I have your word that she’s innocent.”

  “Yes.”

  “Her hands. Why are they bandaged?”

  “An accident today at the Rotunda.” Clive considered telling the magistrate his concerns about sabotage but decided against it. He needed to investigate more himself before he gave the magistrate another line of inquiry. “I saw it happen, and I tended her wounds.”

  Thacker fell silent, looking first at Lena, then toward her room. “Messy situation this one. The message we received was very specific.”

  “What did it say?” Clive inflected his voice as his father, the late duke, used to do when he expected compliance or information.

  “Her name, her address, killed a woman in cold blood. Hit her over the head with a mallet.” Thacker answered promptly.

  “A mallet?”

  “Yes.” The magistrate nodded.

  “And in cold blood?”

  “Yes.”

  “A mallet’s an odd choice for a woman to have at home. Did you find it?”

  “No. But we’ll search. Miss Frost is lucky you spent the day with her.”

  Clive ignored the insinuation. “I predict that mallet is going to be found in a place connected to Miss Frost.”

  “I would think so. You’ll send for me when it does.”

  “Of course. Likewise for you.”

  Thacker indicated his acceptance. “She can’t stay here, not until we’ve done a thorough search. But that one”—he pointed at the wailing Mrs. Abbott—“isn’t likely to give her another room.”

  “Miss Frost will be staying at my brother’s house in Mayfair.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Forster. The duke.”

  “Ah. Right.” Thacker nodded understanding.

  “I’d like to see what the body can tell us. Can you arrange to have it delivered to the Royal College of Surgeons?”

  Thacker pointed toward the landlady. “If that one agrees, Dean can manage it.”

  “I’ll speak with her.” He crossed to Lena. She was staring at the floor in front of her feet. When she lifted her eyes, they were filled with despair. His heart tightened. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and comfort her. Instead, he whispered next to her ear, “Stay right here. Say nothing.” If the action suggested they were lovers, so be it.

  Lena nodded, lowering her gaze back to the floor.

  * * *

  Dean had positioned his body—thin as it was—to separate the landlady from Lena and her rooms.

  Abbott was putting on a good show at grief. As Clive approached, she punctuated her howls with more accusations against Lena. “Murderess!” She spat between wails. “French whore.”

  “Mrs. Abbott.” He spoke gently, as if he believed her grief was sincere.

  Her wails only grew louder: “You will lose your head for this, you will!” She beat Dean’s chest with renewed vigor. Out of patience, Dean grabbed her wrists and held them tight.

  “Mrs. Abbott!” Clive let his voice go hard. Abbott grew silent at his show of strength. “Miss Frost did not kill your cousin.”

  “She did. A murderess she is. But she won’t get away with it. Not this time. Not here.” She pulled against Dean’s unexpectedly strong grip.

  “Your cousin has been dead only a few hours, and Miss Frost has more than twenty witnesses to her alibi.” Whatever he said was unlikely to matter, but he wanted information.

  “Other foreigners like her, I bet, pretending she was one place when she were another.”

  “I am one of those witnesses.”

  “Under her spell, are you? Lying to protect her? You’ll find out she’s a treacherous one. She killed my cousin—God rest her soul—because Gertrude discovered what she’d done.”

  Clive shook his head at Dean, who still held Mrs. Abbott’s hands tight.

  “Besides you and your cousin, who has been in the house this afternoon?”

  “No one. No one came through the front door or went up the stairs.”

  “What about the back entrance?”

  “Locked, and I have the key.” The landlady glared at him. “Ask her what she did in France.” Abbott would be no help.

  “Mrs. Abbott, which undertaker do you wish to care for your cousin?” The question of funeral expenses might divert the landlady’s attention.

  The woman’s face turned grim as she considered the cost of her cousin’s funeral. He waited, knowing what little real grief she might feel would not survive her greed. In an instant she began to wail again, burying her face in a handkerchief. “No undertaker. I haven’t the money for it. She only lived here on my favor. It will break my heart, but she must be carried to the pauper’s graveyard.”

  “Even the pauper’s yard is not free.” Clive waited as Abbott calculated the cost of a pauper’s funeral. When she pursed her lips together in displeasure, he took his chance. “If you would allow your cousin’s body to go to the surgery school, it would be a great service to medicine, and the school offers a stipend for grieving families.”

  “How much?” Her eyes glinted with avarice.

  “Seven pounds and the cost of burial in a regular cemetery, not the pauper’s field.”

  “I want her clothes back. I can sell them.” The landlady brushed her eyes, still dry, with her handkerchief. “She would want me to do that. Precious soul, my cousin.”

  “As for Miss Frost’s rooms . . .”

  Abbott turned mercenary once more. “She has no place in my house, not with her rent past due. And she knows the rules about men up the stairs.”

  “How much?” Clive hid his annoyance.

  “It will take a man richer than you to pay for her sins.” The woman crossed her arms over
her chest and scowled.

  “How much, Mrs. Abbott?” Thacker lent his authority to Clive.

  Abbott cowed a little under the magistrate’s attention. “Bob a week for the rent, but I’ll take nothing less than a month in advance. Then there’s the fee for him”—she pointed a crooked finger at Clive—“going upstairs and into her room.”

  “That would be four shillings, sixpence, and a ha’penny.” Clive added up the amounts.

  “I won’t take less than a guinea.” Abbott folded her arms across her chest.

  “My God, woman! That’s robbery.” Dean spoke at last.

  Abbott returned to wailing.

  “I’ll pay the guinea.” Clive reached into his waistcoat pocket. “But it will pay for two months’ rent and a sheet to wrap your cousin in.”

  Abbott snatched the coin from his hand.

  “That’s settled then.” Thacker eyed Mrs. Abbott. “Two months’ lodging for the lady and a bedsheet.”

  “She’s no lady.” Mrs. Abbott spat on the floor. “I’ll get your bedsheet.” She descended the stairs followed by Dean.

  Thacker watched the landlady until she was out of sight. “You may have bought the room for two months, but I warrant Abbott will take anything of value before this night is out, even if she has to step through her cousin’s blood to do it.”

  “Could Dean see that Miss Frost’s belongings are sent to the Duke of Forster’s house in Mayfair?”

  Thacker nodded at Lena. “You certain she isn’t the murderer.”

  “Certain.” Clive looked at her, arms still folded over her chest in protection. Whether she wanted it or not, she needed his help, and he would have her somewhere safe soon.

  “Dean has a new wife and a babe in arms; he might welcome a chance to pack a trunk for a coin or two . . . as we search for the mallet, of course.”

  “Of course.” Clive pulled a second guinea from his pocket. “A gift for the infant and its mother.”

  “Mrs. Abbott may be greedy and unpleasant, but she knows this neighborhood and the people in it.” Thacker pocketed the coin. “How certain are you of Miss Frost’s character?”

  “Abbott’s story troubles me.” Clive ignored the magistrate’s question. “She lives at the base of the stairs. She claims the rear door was locked. But she heard nothing. No one coming in, or going out, or going upstairs.”

  “You think she’s lying.” Thacker looked down the stairs toward Abbott’s rooms.

  “I think she has something to hide, and she’s taking advantage of the fact that her cousin’s body was found in Miss Frost’s rooms.”

  “And her aspersions divert our attention to Miss Frost.” Thacker studied Lena, sitting on the stairs. “Given Miss Frost’s alibi, I’ll look elsewhere for the murderer, but something about your Miss Frost troubles me.”

  Clive waited, encouraging Thacker to continue.

  “It’s that big, expensive French trunk in her bedroom, almost empty. She doesn’t have much in her rooms, not nearly enough to fill it. The way I see it: your Miss Frost is in a bit of financial trouble, and she’s been selling her belongings. But why keep the trunk?”

  Clive, thinking of the carpetbag, kept his face impassive. “Perhaps it has a value more sentimental than practical.”

  “Perhaps.” Thacker sounded unconvinced. Dean returned with a torn strip of bed linen, not even wide enough, Clive suspected, to wrap the body, and Thacker handed him the guinea coin. “If that mallet shows up, you’ll let me know.”

  “Of course.” Clive held back his relief; Lena wasn’t out of the house yet.

  Thacker followed Dean into Lena’s rooms, but stopped. “There’ll be an inquest. If she wishes to leave London or if she takes up lodgings somewhere other than at the duke’s house, you’ll keep me informed.” It wasn’t a question. Thacker was already shutting the door between them, but Clive nodded yes all the same.

  Clive stood for a moment, thinking. The magistrate’s questions had rubbed against a memory he couldn’t quite retrieve. But, looking at Lena, still sitting quietly where they had left her, he brushed the feeling away. After each upset—her fall, their discovery of the dead man, and even the presence of a dead woman she’d known in her rooms—she had recovered her equilibrium quickly. But Mrs. Abbott’s hateful aspersions had struck some wound deep in her core. She hadn’t withdrawn until then.

  Lena looked smaller now, younger, no longer the visionary whose dream was taking shape at the Rotunda or the respected leader who had managed more than a dozen men at their work all day. Something about her stillness—as if she thought that by not moving she might avoid the tragedy mounting around her—evoked his sympathy and his desire to protect.

  Even so, the implication of Lena finding the bodies hadn’t escaped him. Mrs. Paxton had clearly been uninvited, but what of Calder’s guest? Clive hadn’t admitted it to Lena, but he had known the dead man as Calder. He’d recognized the man’s shock of gray hair at the temples and his secondhand coat worn through at one elbow. He’d met the man only last week. Clive had circulated inquiries about one of the dead men at the surgery school, and Calder had responded with a note setting a meeting for a local tavern. Calder had been early, and he’d talked for more than an hour. Calder had provided enough details about the murders that Clive had been certain he would soon solve the case.

  Clive rubbed his hand across his forehead. A fine mess it was, and one Joe Pasten would likely never let him forget.

  Tomorrow he would examine Mrs. Paxton at the surgery school and see what tales her body might tell. Then, he would find a time to confess to Joe his mistake—that the man he had believed was Calder was not Lena’s partner, but was instead most likely one of the very murderers Clive had been investigating. Worse yet, by not realizing it, Clive had perhaps caused two more people to die.

  But first he needed to convince the duke to welcome Lena into his home and allow Clive to remain nearby.

  Chapter Nine

  Lena tried to hear what Clive and the magistrate were saying, but the words were too indistinct. She closed her eyes, letting the warm low tones of Clive’s voice resonate in her chest. In her mind’s eye, she could still see Mrs. Paxton, lying on the floor, her wound hidden by her bonnet.

  At least, she wasn’t having to convince the magistrate she hadn’t murdered Mrs. Paxton. But how would the magistrate respond when Clive reported the body in Horatio’s rooms? Two bodies, not one.

  Her fingers traced the edges of Horatio’s note in her pocket. If she believed Horatio’s letter, she shouldn’t trust anyone. She opened her eyes and stared at Clive. His back and the magistrate’s were turned toward her. She traced the line of Clive’s hair, the curve of his neck, the breadth of his chest, the strength of his arms.

  In an instant she was falling again, the boards cracking under her weight, her skin tearing as she fell, the panic bitter on her tongue. He had saved her then, protecting her even when her fall had forced him to the floor and knocked the breath from their lungs. And he was saving her now, defending her to the magistrate and stepping between her and Mrs. Abbott, bearing her landlady’s blows in her place. It had been so long since she could rely on another person to care for her. No, Clive couldn’t be the man she was supposed to run from. Why would he save her or protect her, if he were? She wouldn’t—couldn’t—believe he intended her harm.

  Or had he done it all merely to gain her trust? If being at the Rotunda all morning was her alibi, it was Clive’s as well.

  Her thoughts were disordered, jumping from one possibility to the next. Clive had been honest about his interest in Horatio and about working with the police. Hadn’t the magistrate’s tone changed when Clive introduced himself? No, Clive was exactly what he seemed to be. She was certain of it.

  If she had come home earlier—if she hadn’t spent the night at Constance’s shop—would she be dead instead of Mrs. Paxton? Had Mrs. Paxton interrupted a burglar? But nothing had been out of place, and her carpetbag had still been tied shut when Cliv
e removed it from the cabinet. Or had someone been waiting in her rooms? Someone who thought nothing of killing those who got in his way? Someone who would kill her as well if given the chance? The knowledge settled heavy and dark in the pit of her stomach.

  She couldn’t stop the questions. It was a puzzle, a dangerous, terrifying puzzle, and she had to solve it, or hers might be the next murdered body. And she couldn’t face her unknown adversary alone.

  She shook her head in her hands. Oh, Horatio. Where are you, and what have you done?

  Clive’s conversation with the magistrate grew louder. She could make out a few of the words: mallet, trunk, stairs, lodgings. But little else, and she didn’t want to know. She simply wanted to sit, unmoving, conserving her natural spirits for the next challenge. She felt empty, as if all her strength were puddled useless around her shoes. After weeks of sleeping only in bits and snatches while she pushed to complete the panorama on time, she’d been unprepared for the shocks of the past day. Had it only been a day?

  She closed her eyes again and waited.

  * * *

  “Come along, Miss Frost.”

  Lena opened her eyes to see that Clive had extended his hands to help her up.

  “I’ve told Magistrate Thacker that if he needs to speak with you, he may find you at the London residence of the Duke of Forster.”

  She wanted to object, but she couldn’t find the words. Her mind felt thick.

  When she didn’t respond, not even to take his hand, Clive looked surprised, but after a moment’s pause, he continued gently.

  “You needn’t worry: our great-aunt Agatha maintains an apartment in the ducal residence, and the duke himself rarely stays there. Though the duke is too polite to ever admit it, I believe he lives in that ruin of a house off Cavendish Square to avoid Lady Agatha’s management.” He paused, as if he’d used too many words and needed to replenish them.

  She searched his eyes. She found only kindness.

  “Mrs. Abbott will find it difficult to push for your arrest if you are a guest in the home of a duke.” He waited for her response, but getting none, he continued. “I’ve already sent a runner to Forster, informing him that you will be his guest for the next several days.”