Beth shifted in annoyance. “Please be plain, Mr. Fellows. The hour grows late, and I would like to retire.”
“No need to get haughty. I have your best interests at heart. Tell me, have you read of a murder in a boardinghouse near St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, about a week ago?” Beth frowned and shook her head. “I was busy traveling about a week ago. I must have missed the story.”
“She was not an important woman, so the English newspapers wouldn’t have made much of it, and the French ones nothing at all.” He rubbed his finger and thumb over his mustache. “You speak French fluently, do you not?”
“It seems you know much about me.” His manner and arrogance, in Isabella’s own drawing room, irritated her. “My father was French, so yes, I speak the language rather well. It is one reason I decided to visit Paris, if you must know.” Fellows pulled a small notebook from his pocket and turned over the pages with a quiet rustle. “Your father called himself Gervais Villiers, Viscount Theriault.” He glanced at her. “Funny thing, the Surete have no record of such a person ever living in France.”
Beth’s pulse sped. “He left Paris a long time ago. Something to do with the revolution in ‘forty-eight, I believe.”
“Nothing to do with it, madam. Gervais Villiers never existed. Gervais Foumier, on the other hand, was wanted for petty theft, fraud, and running confidence games. He fled to England and was never heard of again.” Fellows flipped another page. “I believe both you and I know what happened to him, Mrs. Ackerley.”
Beth said nothing. She couldn’t deny the truth of her father, but she had no desire to break into hysterics about it in front of Mr. Fellows.
“What has all this to do with Lord Ian Mackenzie?”
“I’m coming to that.” Fellows consulted the notebook again. “I have here that your mother was once arrested for prostitution. Can that be right?”
Beth flushed. “She was desperate, Inspector. My father had just died, and we were starving. Thank heavens she was very bad at it, and the first approach she made was to a detective constable in plainclothes.”
“Indeed, it seems the magistrate was so moved by her pleas for mercy that he let her go. She promised to be a good girl and never do it again.”
“And she never did. Will you please not discuss my mother, Inspector? Let her rest in peace. She was doing the best she could in difficult circumstances.”
“No, Mrs. Villiers wasn’t lucky like you,” Fellows said. “You have been uncommonly lucky. You married a respectable gentleman who took care of you. Then you became a companion to a wealthy old lady, so ingratiating yourself with her that she left you her entire fortune. Now you’re the guest of English aristocrats in Paris. Quite a rise from the workhouse, isn’t it?”
“Not that my life is any of your business,” Beth said stiffly.
“But why is it of such interest to a detective inspector?”
“It isn’t, not in itself. But murder is.”
Every limb in her body stiffened, like an animal that knew it was being stalked.
“I haven’t done any murders, Mr. Fellows,” she said, trying to smile. “If you are suggesting I helped Mrs. Barrington to her grave, I did not. She was old and ill, I was very fond of her, and I had no idea she meant to leave everything to me.”
“I know. I checked.”
“Well, isn’t that a mercy? I confess, Inspector, I can’t imagine what you are trying to tell me.”
“I bring up your mother and father because I want to speak frankly with you about topics that might cause a lady to swoon. I am establishing that you are a woman of the world and not likely to faint at what I have to say.” Beth fixed him with an icy stare. “Rest assured, I am not prone to swooning. I might have the footmen throw you out, yes, but swoon, no.”
Fellows held up his hand. “Please bear with me, madam. The woman killed at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, was called Lily Martin.”
Beth looked at him blankly. “I don’t know anyone called Lily Martin.”
“Five years ago, she worked in a brothel in High Holborn.”
He waited expectantly, but Beth shook her head again.
“Are you asking whether my mother knew her?”
“Not at all. Do you recall that there was a murder of a courtesan at this High Holborn house five years ago?”
“Was there?”
“There was indeed. The details are not pretty. A young woman called Sally Tate, one of the ladies of the house, was found dead in her bed one morning, stabbed through the heart, then her warm blood deliberately smeared on the wallpaper and the bedstead.”
Beth’s throat tightened. “How dreadful.”
Fellows sat forward, on the very edge of the chair now.
“I know—I know—that Lord Ian Mackenzie did that murder.” Beth felt the floor dropping from under her feet. She tried to drag in a breath, but her lungs wouldn’t work, and the room began to ripple.
“Now, Mrs. Ackerley, you promised me you wouldn’t swoon.”
She found Fellows at her side, his hand on her elbow.
Beth gasped for breath.
“It’s absurd.” Her voice grated. “If Lord Ian had done a murder, the newspapers would have been full of it. Mrs. Barrington wouldn’t have missed that.”
Fellows shook his head. “He was never accused, never arrested. No one was allowed to breathe a word to the journalists.” He returned to his chair, his face betraying impatience and frustration. “But I know he did it. He was there that night. By morning, Lord Ian had disappeared, nowhere to be found. Turns out he’d left for Scotland, out of my reach.”
Beth grasped at the straw. “Then perhaps he was gone beforehand.”
“His servants tried to tell me he’d returned home before two in the morning, gone to bed, and left for Scotland by an early train. They were lying. I know it in my bones, though his brother the duke did his best to block me from finding what Ian really did do. I wanted to arrest Ian, but I had no evidence to please my guv, and the Mackenzies are high-and-mighty lords. Their late mother was a personal friend of the queen. The duke has weight with the Home Office, and he made my superiors put me off it. Ian’s name was never mentioned—not in the newspapers, not in the halls of Scotland Yard. In other words, he got clean away with it.” Lights spun at the edges of Beth’s vision as she stood up and walked away from Fellows. She thought of Ian, his quick, flickering gaze, his intense golden eyes, his hard kiss, the pressure of his hands.
It occurred to her that this was the second time in a few weeks that a man had warned her away from another gentleman. But when Ian had told her about Mather, she’d easily believed him, whereas she wanted to deny all that Inspector Fellows said about Ian.
“You have to be wrong,” she said. “Ian would never do such a thing.”
“You say this when you’ve known him only a week? I’ve watched the Mackenzie family for years. I know what they’re capable of.”
“I’ve seen my share of violent men in my life, Inspector, and Ian Mackenzie is not one of them.”
Beth had grown up among men who solved their problems with their fists, her own father included. Her father could be perfectly charming when sober, but once he had gin inside him he became a monster.
Fellows looked unconvinced. “The girl, Lily, who died in Covent Garden worked in that High Holborn house five years ago. She disappeared after the murder, and I couldn’t find her no matter what. Turns out she’d moved into this Covent Garden boardinghouse, and a protector was paying her handsomely to live alone and keep quiet. Housekeeper says a gentleman used to visit her in the night from time to time, well after dark. She never saw him. But there was an eyewitness who saw a man visit the house the night Lily got scissors stuck into her chest, and that man was Lord Ian Mackenzie.”
The floor wavered again under Beth’s feet, but she held her head high. “Your speculation isn’t proof. What if the witness had faulty eyesight?”
“Come, come, Mrs. Ackerley. You will admit that Lord Ian is
most distinctive.”
Beth couldn’t deny that. She also knew that policemen could lead people into believing they’d seen what said policeman wanted them to have seen.
“I can’t think why you’ve come here tonight to tell me this story,” she said icily.
“Two reasons. One is to give you warning that you’ve befriended a murderer. The second is to ask you to watch Lord Ian and pass to me any information you think is relevant. He did both of these girls, and I intend to prove it.” Beth stared at him. “You wish me to spy on the brother-in-law of the woman who has befriended me? On a family that so far has shown me nothing but kindness?”
“I am asking you to help me catch a cold-blooded killer.”
“I am not employed by Scotland Yard or the French police, Inspector. Have someone else do your dirty work.” Fellows shook his head in mock sadness. “I am sorry for this attitude, Mrs. Ackerley. If you refuse to help me, I will have you as an accessory when I nick Lord Ian.”
“I have a solicitor, Mr. Fellows. Perhaps you should consult him. I will even give you his address in London.” Fellows smiled. “I like that you don’t take kindly to bullying. But consider this—I am certain you won’t want your new highborn friends tumbling to the fact that you’re a fraud. The daughter of a confidence trickster and a prostitute, worming your way into the bosom of the aristocracy. Dear, dear.” He clicked his tongue.
“I don’t take kindly to blackmail, either. I will take your warning as a concern for my safety, and we’ll speak no more of the matter.”
“Just so we understand each other, Mrs. Ackerley.”
“You may go now” Beth said in freezing tones that would have made Mrs. Barrington proud. “And we don’t understand each other at all.”
Fellows refused to look cowed. In fact, he gave her a cheerful grin as he gathered up his hat and made his way to the drawing room door. “If you change your mind, I’m staying at the hotel at the Gare du Nord. Good evening.” Fellows dramatically shoved open the pocket doors, only to find himself facing the wall that was Ian Mackenzie. Before Beth could say a word, Ian took Fellows by the throat and shoved him back inside the room.
Chapter Six
Ian’s vision filmed red with fury. Through it he saw Beth, her hair in the same sleek, complex curls she’d worn this morning, Fellows in his black suit crinkled with wear, and Beth’s blue eyes filled with dismay.
Fellows had told her. Damn him, he’d told her everything. Fellows clawed at Ian’s hands. “Accosting a police officer is an offense.”
“Everything about you is an offense.” Ian shoved the man away. “Get out.”
“Ian.”
Beth’s voice made him turn. She stood like a flower, fragile and vulnerable, the only color in a world of gray. He’d wanted Beth to remain apart from the sordid business at High Holborn and everything Ian had strived to hide the last five years. Beth was unsoiled by it, innocent. Fellows had ruined that. The bloody man ruined everything he touched. Ian didn’t want Beth looking at him and wondering what others did—whether Ian had plunged a knife into the warm body of a courtesan, then smeared the walls with her blood. He wanted Beth to keep looking at him in soft wonder, to smile her little smile when she made a jest Ian didn’t follow.
Ian sometimes wondered himself whether he had, in his rage, killed Sally. He sometimes didn’t remember things he did in his muddles. But he also remembered what he’d seen that night, things he’d never revealed to anyone, not even to Hart. Fellows fingered his collar, his face red. Ian hoped he’d hurt the man. Fellows’s purpose in life was to turn public opinion against Hart, against Ian, against anything Mackenzie. Fellows had harassed Hart and Ian so much that he’d been pulled off the High Holborn case five years ago and warned that he risked his job pursuing it further. Now Fellows was back. That meant he’d learned something new.
Ian thought of Lily Martin lying in the parlor where he’d found her a week ago, her sewing scissors through her heart. He remembered the anger he’d felt, and the sorrow. He’d meant to protect her, and he’d failed.
“Get out,” he repeated to Fellows. “You aren’t welcome here.”
“This house has been hired by Lady Isabella Mackenzie,” Fellows said. “And I have not been cautioned against speaking to Mrs. Ackerley. She’s not a Mackenzie.” Ian’s gaze slid over Fellows’s self-satisfied face. “Mrs. Ackerley is under my protection.”
“Your protection?” Fellows smirked. “A fine way to phrase it.”
“I certainly don’t like that implication,” Beth broke in. “Please go, Inspector. You’ve said what you need to say, and I’d be obliged if you’d leave.”
Fellows bowed, but his eyes glittered. “Of course, Mrs. Ackerley. Good evening.”
Ian wasn’t satisfied with watching Fellows exit the drawing room—he followed Fellows down to the foyer and instructed the footman to not let him back in under any circumstances. Ian stood in the doorway watching until Fellows walked away down the busy street, whistling.
He turned back to find Beth behind him. She smelled like flowers, faint perfume clinging to her skin. Her face was flushed, her cheeks damp, her breath rapid. Damnation. Her smile was gone, her brow puckered. Ian had difficulty reading people’s expressions, but Beth’s worry and uncertainty screamed at him. Damn it all, if she’d believed Fellows… Ian took Beth’s elbow and steered her back up the stairs to the drawing room. He slammed the doors behind him, and Beth walked away from him, holding her arms tight across her chest.
“Don’t trust him,” Ian said, voice grating. “He’s been harassing Hart for years. Have nothing to do with him.”
“It’s a bit late for that.” Beth made no move to sit down, but she didn’t pace either. She stood very still, save for where her thumbs moved restlessly on her elbows. “I’m afraid the good inspector knows many secrets.”
“He knows far less than he thinks. He hates my family and will do anything to discredit them.”
“Why on earth should he?”
“I don’t know. I never did know.”
Ian scrubbed his hands through his hair, his frustrated rage boiling to the surface. He hated that rage, the one that had so infuriated Ian’s father and had earned young Ian many beatings.
It rose in him when he wanted to explain things but couldn’t find the words, when he couldn’t understand the nonsense everyone around him was babbling. As a child he’d done the only thing he could—lashed out with fists and screaming until two footmen had to hold him down. The screaming would stop only when Hart came. The little boy Ian had worshiped Hart Mackenzie, ten years his senior.
Ian was old enough now to control his impulses, but the anger still came, and he fought the demon of it every day.
He’d fought it the night Sally Tate had been murdered.
“I don’t want you to be part of this,” he repeated. Beth simply looked at him. Her eyes were so blue, her lips lush and red. He wanted to kiss her until she forgot all about Fellows and his revelations, until that look in her eyes was gone. Ian wanted her under his body, his heat meeting hers, to hear her gasp when he fitted himself inside her. He needed the oblivion of coupling with her until they both dissolved with the passion of it. He’d wanted her as his refuge ever since he’d seen her sitting next to Lyndon Mather at Covent Garden Opera House.
He’d taken her away from Mather by betraying the man’s secrets. Mather had been right that Ian had stolen her, and Ian didn’t care. But now Beth knew Ian’s secrets, and she was afraid.
“It should be simple enough to establish that you committed neither crime,” she was saying. “Surely your coachman and valet and so forth can account for your whereabouts.”
She thought it was so, so simple.
Ian went to her and cupped her cheek, loving her petal soft skin beneath his palm. “I don’t want you to know about this. It’s base and dirty. It will soil you.”
He wasn’t certain what all Fellows had told her, though he could guess. But Fellows had dug up onl
y the barest part of the incident. The reality went miles deep, secrets so nasty they could ruin all of them.
Beth waited, expecting him to clear it up in a sentence or two, to reassure her. Ian couldn’t, because he knew the stark truth. His damned memory wouldn’t blur, wouldn’t let go of what he’d seen, what he’d done. Both ladies had been involved, and they’d both died. Would Beth?
“No,” he said sharply.
“Ian.”
Her whisper cut him to the heart. Ian released her, the shaking rage pouring to the surface again. “You shouldn’t have anything to do with Mackenzies,” he said harshly. “We break whatever we touch.”
“Ian, I believe you.”
Her fingers closed on his sleeve and held tight. He wished he dared stare into her eyes, but that was impossible. Beth spoke rapidly. “You’re afraid that Fellows turned me away from you. He hasn’t. He obviously has a bee in his bonnet. He said himself he had no evidence, and there was never a case against you.”
That was partly true, but would it were that simple. “Let it alone,” he snapped. “Forget.”
Ian wished he could forget, but he forgot nothing in his life. The events were as vivid to him as was sitting here playing the piano with her this morning. As vivid as every “experiment” the quack doctor had performed on him in the private asylum.
“You don’t understand.” Beth let go of his sleeve only to close her hand on his arm. “We are friends, Ian. I don’t hold friendships lightly—goodness knows I’ve had few enough of them in my life.”
Friends. Ian didn’t think he’d ever heard that term applied to him. He had his brothers, no one else. Courtesans liked him and liked him well, but he was under no illusion that they’d like him if he didn’t give them so much money. Beth’s gaze was intense. “What I mean is, I will not flounce off in a huff because Inspector Fellows turned up and made accusations.”
She still wanted him to clear it up, to declare his innocence at the top of his voice. Ian had difficulty with lies, not understanding the point of them, but he also knew that the truth was tricky.
The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie Page 7