A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  He stood, staring down at her. “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do,” Emmeline said, her gaze not wavering. Every detail, from the red capillaries threading his cheeks to his bulbous nose reddened by the brandy, to his blue eyes, watery and with a curious coldness in them, imprinted on her memory. The uncle she adored fled from her vision to be replaced by this monster before her. “I think you understand all too well, as do I. Now I know why you wanted no woman of authority—no wife, no housekeeper, not even a mistress—in your home.” Her voice was trembling; she cleared her throat to steady it. “No female of any authority to see what you were up to and interfere in your disgusting habits. No one to protect those little girls.”

  Sir Jacob narrowed his eyes and assumed an air of outraged virtue. “Emmeline, you have a filthy imagination! If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then I am appalled! Your mother would be ashamed.”

  “You’re wrong. My mother would want me to stand up for those children.”

  He swallowed, his chins wobbling. “I have never done a single thing to hurt a child. How can you even think it? Emmeline, you know me better than that.”

  He said all the right words, had all the right expressions, appeared every bit as hurt and outraged as he should. Doubt rose in her mind, but it could not gain a foothold. His protestations were a hollow sham. Now that she had accepted the awful truth, she could see the past through a clear glass, not with the twisted vision of familial love. “What did you do to Maria, Uncle?” Once again her hands balled into fists at her side, gloves the only thing that kept her fingernails from digging into her palms. “Do I need to be more clear?” She softened her tone and stared. “Dear Uncle Jacob, why was my little sister, Maria, afraid of you?”

  He shook his head, disappointment in her the mask he chose to don that moment. “She was not afraid of me. I won’t put up with being vilified. I have done nothing of which to be ashamed.”

  “You’re lying.” In one flash of insight that rocked her on her feet, Emmeline understood something suddenly. She put out her hand, clutching the back of a chair to steady herself. “I see it now,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “The Maidenhead Canal Company … Woodforde assumed it was called that because of the town of Maidenhead, but … it’s something else, isn’t it? A little jest among you and your fellow company holders! That’s why you were reluctant to let Woodforde invest, why you want to pay him off to divest, why you have dug no canal: it has nothing to do with canal building!” She covered her mouth with her gloved hand, her stomach threatening to eject its contents again though there was nothing left but bile. “It’s a joke about virginity,” she whispered. “Breaking through, making a channel. A maidenhead canal!” She whirled, ready to walk away.

  “I never took the virginity of those girls!” he blurted.

  It was the first time the ring of truth was in his voice and she doubted herself, but then she saw the evasion in the words. She turned and watched him, noting the trembling lip, the starting eyes, the alarm on his face. And the lie. “But you did other things. Maria would not sit on your lap,” she said, her voice trembling. “Nor would she stay alone in her room when you visited. You did other things, didn’t you? You preyed upon her because she was sweet and blonde and pretty, and because she loved you with all her heart when she was a babe.”

  “I adored Maria. I would never have hurt her!”

  “I think you believe that,” Emmeline said, sadness welling up in her heart for the little sister she never understood fully.

  “She was the pretty one,” he continued. “The sweet one. Not like you, all vinegar and willfulness. I did nothing to hurt her; I loved her tenderly. We had a special bond, she and I. It broke my heart when she died.”

  “I think you wish to believe that you never hurt her. I imagine you tell yourself that often, but that’s a damnable lie. You betrayed our family, but Maria most of all.” Emmeline thought she and Maria had shared everything, but there was a secret her sister had been ashamed of, and it had destroyed her.

  “You never have understood men,” Sir Jacob said, his tone wheedling. “We have needs. I never hurt those girls. And I treat them well, trinkets and sweetmeats and—”

  “Stop! That is exactly what Sir Henry Claybourne said to me as I held a knife to him while I rescued little Molly!” she spat out at him. She wanted to leave; she had much to think of, to ponder, and forgiveness to seek from Maria’s spirit if it should be possible. But this was about more even than the children her uncle and his friends had harmed, and would continue to harm unless she stopped it. She must stop it, and would somehow, but there was also murder to consider.

  A mantel clock tocked and chimed the hour. Time was hastening on and she must find the truth. She stalked toward her uncle and examined his face, which had become gray, the color ebbed from it. He looked ill. She stood staring down at him. “It must shock you that I am the infamous Avengeress. Poetic justice, in a way, don’t you think? I know much, you see, but not all. I know about notes Sir Henry sent around the night he was killed. Was one of them to your procurer? Was it he who killed Sir Henry after the brewer threatened you all with disclosure? He thought someone had talked, didn’t he? He thought that someone had spilled what you all were doing, that my visit was the result, and he was frightened and angry. So he sent a message to St. James. To you. Sir Henry became a danger to your scheme.” She paused and glared down at him. “Who killed Sir Henry Claybourne?”

  “I don’t know,” Sir Jacob confessed.

  She thought he was telling the truth, but she no longer trusted all her instincts about him. She headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have much to do, and people to see.”

  “You’re being irrational. This is just … those girls are servants!”

  She stopped at the door and looked back. “They matter. Every single one of those children matters to someone, or should, as much as Maria mattered to me. This ends now, and every girl your despicable group is abusing, including the ones in that orphanage run by your male bawd, Dunstable, will be rescued and placed somewhere safe. I will see to it myself, and your fellows one and all will be charged for your crimes.”

  Josephs was on the street by the door, ready, with Gillies and a frightened Polly—Lindy—in the carriage. Morag, the cook, was horrified by what the child, in a halting manner, had admitted to her and Gillies. Emmeline was resolved to stop the trade in children and expose the ring of men procuring children like bottles of wine to be savored.

  She wished she could take Lindy home, but with Birk snooping, that was impossible. Whatever would follow this cataclysmic shift she could not foresee, but for now she needed her household stable. They took Lindy to stay with Lady Sherringdon, who would know what to do. Emmeline’s friend was not home but Tillie was, and she promised to care for the frightened child.

  “Dr. Woodforde will be at St. Barts today,” Emmeline said to Josephs as he was handing her back up into the carriage outside of Lady Sherringdon’s home. “Take me there; I must speak with him.”

  “What if he’s one of ’em, miss?” Gillies asked when Emmeline climbed back into the carriage and Josephs closed the door.

  “I’d wager my life that he is not. He has a list of men who are, and I am going to use it to expose them all.”

  “A list?”

  “The investors in the Maidenhead Canal Company.”

  Twenty-Six

  Reputed to be the oldest hospital in England, St. Barts was a teaching facility, and Woodforde, once a student, devoted free time to the students and patients of the hospital. Though in the middle of a research project with his respected former teacher, Dr. Abernethy, Woodforde came out with Josephs to the courtyard, climbed into the carriage, and listened to Emmeline’s request. She kept it brief, telling him only that the canal company was possibly a cover for an illegal sc
heme.

  He searched her eyes. “Does this have anything to do with our recent conversations?”

  “It’s possible.” She didn’t mention her uncle.

  He nodded. “I trust your judgment, Emmie. I can’t leave my work currently, but if Josephs will come back into the hospital with me, I’ll give him a note to take to my valet. The list of investors is in my desk; Julian knows where. I would like to know the rest of this tale,” he said, looking at his pocket watch. “If Doctor Abernethy did not need me now I’d go with you. May I visit this evening?”

  “Of course, Woodforde.” She steeled herself for telling him the worst. How he would respond to her revelations, she could not imagine.

  They retrieved the list of investors at his home and returned to Chelsea. Birk, already wearing black armbands to show his respect for the sorrow of the royal family, greeted her at the door. Rattled by her day and all she had discovered, Emmeline still had to maintain a reasonable appearance in front of her butler. She told him that there were no parcels because they hadn’t bought any fabric; the drapers’ shop had been too busy and she didn’t wish to wait beyond the time she had already spent there.

  A moment to breathe; that’s all she wanted. As Birk bowed and disappeared, she pulled off her gloves, noting the shadows in the hall that warped the wallpaper design. Hanging at eye level were the Hoppner painting of Emily, Leopold’s first wife, with their daughters, a gift from Emily’s father, and the painting of Emmeline and Maria when they were children, painted by Thomas Lawrence. There was another of her brothers by the same artist, but it was displayed at Malincourt, of course. She touched the silver card tray, which sat on the new Sheraton hall table, a recent purchase. The hall smelled of furniture wax and orange peel from a pomander Mrs. Riddle liked to make. Everything was exactly as she had left it.

  And yet it was different, somehow.

  Or maybe she was different. When she’d departed, she had simply intended to purchase fabric for herself and Fidelity, but now her world, her family, all her memories were altered.

  Birk reappeared. “Pardon me, miss, but there are some letters. Would you like to have them in the drawing room, or …?”

  “Upstairs. My room. Gillies, will you take the mail, please?” Gillies had carried in with her a package Simeon had given Josephs for Emmeline. She’d have to look at it and see what he and his journalist had discovered. “Tea, Birk. And perhaps have Cook send up something to eat. I’m famished.” She was going upstairs that moment to speak with Fidelity—she was dreading the conversation, but it must be done—and she hoped tea would soften the blow. How silly and futile that was, she already knew. Nothing could prepare her dear companion for the revelation that her old friend and beloved cousin was an abuser of children.

  Fidelity was napping, which delayed the hour of revelation. Emmeline retreated to her own room, and while Gillies put away her outdoor things and tidied, she sat at her dressing table, opening and reading the mail. There was a letter from her brother Samuel, who was looking forward to marriage sometime in the future. He had the young lady picked out and she was agreeable; they had walked out a few times, and he had been received into her home most kindly. But his happiness must wait until he attained another living and could afford a better home. He was full of plans: small adjustments to his house, a leak in the roof mended, repairs to his barn, and news about his parishioners, but he wrote little about Leopold and his family, even though he lived in the vicarage on the Malincourt estate.

  Lady Sherringdon had written to her as well. Emmeline had expected this letter after talking to Tillie when dropping Lindy off at the Sherringdon home, and she was curious as to the contents. Adelaide reported that she had rescued another little girl who was being abused, but she didn’t believe it was connected to the others. Emmeline remembered additional information the maid had told her of, that by way of the chain of household servants she’d learned that Sally, who had run away from Martha Adair’s home, was seen working as a sewing apprentice at an exclusive dressmaking shop.

  Lady Sherringdon’s letter contained this information, too, and more. The rumors were true; this was the apprenticeship Sally had left Martha’s to attain. But how had Sally made the connections necessary? It was unthinkable that such a place should take in a begging girl who had no character reference to recommend her. She must have been vouched for, but by whom?

  “Gillies, listen to this,” Emmeline said, and read part of the letter from Lady Sherringdon: “It is an exclusive shop, frequented mostly by the wealthy wives of tradesmen.” She frowned down at the sheet. “Martha told us she learned about Sally’s predicament in the Claybourne home from her housekeeper’s sister’s daughter’s—or her daughter’s sister’s—employer, if memory serves. So, to untangle it, the employer of her housekeeper’s niece, most likely, since the other doesn’t make sense. I don’t believe her housekeeper has a daughter, and even if she did, her housekeeper’s daughter’s sister would be the housekeeper’s daughter too.” She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, clearing the detritus from her mind. “Can we find out who that is, do you think?”

  “I should think so, miss.”

  “Why did I not follow up on this before? I gave up on it without a thought, but I should have asked you. I’m going to send Martha a note.”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “I’m not sure it does, but I’m uneasy about it all. I feel like there is something I’m missing. The murder is likely a simple matter; the two men who argued with Sir Henry killed him, or Ratter did and was in turn murdered for what he knew. But what if I am leaping to conclusions? I’ve been known to do that.”

  “Aye, miss, a time or two.”

  “If I send you on a task, to go back out to select black or gray fabric for a mourning gown and all the notions to go along with it, can you track down, perhaps, who recommended Sally to her position? We have the name of the dressmaker,” Emmeline said, waving her friend’s letter.

  Gillies nodded. “I’ll do my best, miss.”

  “Have Josephs take you. Tell Birk I have a headache and am sending you in my stead, in hope the drapers’ will be less busy. Tell him I wish at least one new mourning gown started immediately. That will give you the reason to visit the dressmaker’s.”

  “Aye, miss,” Gillies said, wiping a smear of powder from the edge of the dressing table. She paused, looking down at Emmeline. “I’m sorry miss, about your uncle.”

  “I feel … bereft,” Emmeline admitted, folding Adelaide’s letter. “Is it horrible that I almost wish he had died rather than to have learned this about him?”

  “’Tis another death in a way, miss. It’s the death of what you believed about your family.”

  “And it’s the death of any peace I had about my sister’s life. I thought I knew her, all her sorrows and troubles, but she hid her pain from me and I never guessed.”

  “She hid the truth out of love for you.”

  “That makes it so much worse. I would give anything to go back and learn it from her. Now I’ll never know the whole truth because Uncle Jacob …” She shook her head, unable to speak as sobs welled up, clogging her throat. She put her face in her hands and let it all go; Gillies put one arm around her shoulders as she wept.

  Throat raw, tears spent, eyes red, Emmeline finally calmed. It would come again, she knew, as raw and awful as the moment Maria died from what was called a “wasting” disease. She could not eat and was wracked by pain, passing away in the Coleman Institute as a pale wraith, so thin her body barely made an impression in her bed. It was a horrible memory.

  Gillies brought her tea and food, scones with preserves, then departed; Emmeline could hear voices downstairs and the closing of the front door behind her maid. There was much more to do and to ponder, and none of it was served by dissolving in tears. She opened the package from her publisher, that he had given Josephs. Simeon wrote that he had r
eceived many notes from the public about the murder, and there were clues to follow up if she was able. She shook her head, not sure she was. He then said that he had had a man watching the Claybourne house closely who had noted some interesting visitors, among them Miss Aloisia Hargreaves.

  Why would she be visiting Lady Claybourne once again? With all that had happened, Emmeline had put aside finding out more about Miss Hargreaves, but that was about to change.

  Also, Simeon had received the name and address of a woman who had worked for the Claybournes but was now living in retirement in the home of her daughter and son-in-law (the young woman had married well, a barrister) in Cheapside. He suggested she visit the woman, who wrote claiming to have information on the knight’s household that would surprise. Simeon suspected the former employee would need a bribe to part with information, and he promised to reimburse Emmeline. He planned to publish in the paper anything startling she could glean.

  That would be a task for the next morning, Emmeline decided, along with a visit to Miss Hargreaves.

  She wrote a couple of Rogue columns and the note to Martha, as well as a letter to Samuel and one to her eldest niece, Amelia, who would be coming to London for the Season next spring. As the youngest princess’s namesake and a sensitive girl, Amelia would be saddened by the princess’s death. Knowing Leopold, he would not heed any lowering of spirits in his eldest daughter. Rose, his wife, was with child again, and Amelia could likely use a kind word or two.

  Even as she wrote, Emmeline was aware that she was avoiding thinking about her uncle. She wanted to rage, to unleash her fury. But she had been too well trained, perhaps, in the art of submerging her feelings and appearing calm in the face of devastation. It had not escaped her that slipping out as the Avengeress was, for her, an outlet of her wildest impulses, a dangerous but heady game that could, if she were discovered, destroy her reputation and send her into exile. It was in effect a way of controlling those wild impulses, channeling them into what she considered appropriate actions.