“She’s an impressive person, Vai,” Joan said. “You must be so proud of her.”
“Oh, she’s smart but a little spoiled. A good heart, though. She would make a fine duchess, but alas, she cannot inherit, not as a woman. She’ll love a little brother.” Vai smiled, wistful. “Still, she needs cousins to play with too.”
“Lord Nicholas might marry,” Joan said.
“I think not.” Vai frowned. “When we were first wed, I urged Jasper to find a match for Nick. Instead, he let Nick do as he wanted, which was the right choice in the end. But the inheritance shouldn’t weigh so heavily on Jared.”
This was worse, Joan decided, than the time when her older aunts chided her about remaining unmarried. Joan had no idea what to say to this woman who offered friendship and belonging, for Joan and her children. Of course, maybe that only applied if they were mage-gifted children.
“And if I raised my children in my faith?” Joan asked.
“They would still be my grandchildren, would they not?” Vai countered.
“Can you say that you unequivocally consider me suitable to be a member of the family?”
“I’m hardly in a position to judge your suitability,” Vai said flatly. “I came from nothing and no one, so far as Jasper’s peers were concerned.”
“But your son chooses not to fit into his father’s world,” Joan pointed out. “I suspect things were not easy for him.”
“His choice,” Vai snapped. “And it has more to do with his unusual abilities than his Indian heritage. Perhaps is it you who would avoid our family, Miss Krieger. It’s not only the nobility who are proud. Think on that, before you dismiss the idea so quickly.”
Chapter 8
After that awkward exchange, Vai offered to show Joan the gardens, an offer Joan accepted with alacrity, especially as Vai pointed out the gardens were a “private” place to talk.
Fresh evening air would do her good. Learning the secrets Vai was keeping would be even better.
The gardens were gorgeous, naturally, even in the near dark.
“You didn’t tell Victoria about the attack this morning,” Vai noted.
“I thought not, due to her delicate condition.”
Vai shook her head. “Pregnant woman aren’t fragile glass.” She sighed. “But perhaps you made the right choice. It’s been a difficult pregnancy, I’ve been told. And I’ve uncovered something about the teapot that would distress her.”
“What?” Joan stopped in the middle of the path, ignoring the wildflowers to either side of her.
“The order for the teapot was placed through the regular household account of the duchess.”
“What?”
“I asked Victoria about it. She’d ordered it as a special gift to you some weeks ago. She asked if it was ready, assuming I’d received a message about it.”
“It’s difficult to believe the duchess wants to kill me.”
“It’s impossible. Murder is not in her nature.” Vai shook her head. “But obviously someone tracked down the order and took it for their own nefarious use.”
“I assume you gave Gregor this information?”
“Yes, just before dinner. He sent off a bunch of telegrams, I’m told.”
Probably flurries of orders to Garth. “Vai! If the spell had killed me and Margaret, the police might have suspected the duchess of the crime.”
“Indeed.” Vai’s lips thinned. “I believe that was the point. Ruin Gregor, ruin Victoria, perhaps ruin the family. It’s the ‘why’ that escapes me.”
“If that’s the case, they may well try again.”
“Also a possibility,” Vai agreed. “Which is why I have Agnes assigned to you. She’s not a mage, but she knows the house and she’s clever enough to spot anything suspicious.”
“Aren’t you worried about Gregor?”
“Constantly.” Vai waved away her fears. “But that’s nothing new.” She took a deep breath.
“Phyllis Dale seems quite an accomplished mage,” Joan said as they strolled along a circular path that wound back to the hall
“Taught by her father,” Vai said. “Her gift flows into her artwork, as you saw. It might be easier if it flowed into something like force beams. Those would produce mage coal enough to make her independently wealthy.”
“She must be thrilled to see her father back.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Not much of an answer. “Is she worried for him?”
“You view Phyllis as a suspect in your attack?”
“Everyone with a mage gift at Lotus Hall is a suspect. Could Phyllis Dale be involved?”
“I should have thought her utterly innocent. But many things I thought to be true have proven less so over the years.”
“How so?”
Vai smiled thinly. “If you wish to know more of the family dynamics, Joan, perhaps you should first decide to be a member of that family.” And Vai excused herself with an imperious air, leaving Joan alone with Lotus Hall looming over her.
“She certainly makes an impression,” Cooper said, walking out of another path to the garden.
“That she does,” Joan agreed, but all she wanted right now was to be alone. She wondered if Vai had ended the conversation so abruptly because she sensed Cooper nearby.
“Good evening to you, Mr. Cooper. Enjoy the gardens.” She nodded and turned away.
Cooper stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
Joan clasped her hands behind her back, ready to call her shields. I don’t trust you, Samuel Cooper.
“Easy, Miss Krieger! I’d like to talk to you, if I may?”
“About the offer to teach female mages? I thought I had a fortnight to provide an answer.”
“Nah, not about that.” Cooper grinned, using more of his charm. But it affected her less than it had yesterday. He might have tried to kill her, after all.
“What then?” she asked.
“I wanted to ask about Phyllis Dale.” He cleared his throat. “I overheard the dowager duchess mention her name. Do you know if the duke and duchess consider her a member of the family?”
Joan raised an eyebrow. “Why would you ask?”
“We, um, well…” His face actually reddened. “It’s proper to ask a relative before courting someone.”
Yes, it was. “You only just arrived today, Mr. Cooper. That is a quick infatuation.” Oh. Not so quick, perhaps. Had Phyllis been the reason Cooper had asked all those questions yesterday?
Cooper stared at the ground. “I don’t meet many female mages, Miss Krieger. As I said, I’ve always thought if I married, it would have to be to another mage, someone who would understand my abilities rather than be afraid of them.”
That sounded altruistic but her cynicism won out. “And one more likely to pass along their mage gift to children.”
Cooper shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.”
The word “incorrigible” came to mind. “I’m hardly one to have the definitive answer to your question, but the duchess seems to consider Phyllis Dale far more than a governess in service. And she’s a talented painter.” Joan shooed away a buzzing fly, considering his question.“I would think if Phyllis Dale married, she would need a husband who would be supportive of her pursuing her artwork.”
“Phyllis needs her art like she needs to breathe. That much I know, Miss Krieger.”
Phyllis, eh? And he’d called the duke a “relative” of Phyllis Dale. That was indelicate, to say the least. Fine, enough with politeness. “Why do you believe the duke is a member of her family?”
“Um…well…I heard…” he stuttered.
“Yes?” Men never expected to be called on these things.
“Fine, Miss Krieger, you well know what I mean about the all-but-certain familial relationship between Mr. Dale and the late duke. That’s what I meant.”
“You’re well informed of the doings of the Dukes of Bennington.” More so than she had been.
“Edward Dale was a famous student at Isca. He
was one of our better football players. So I’ve heard of him. And for him to have been a student…”
“He needed a noble patron. Yes, I see.” An easy inference to guess Dale’s parentage, given that the late duke himself must have been his patron. “But that begs the question of why you asked about approaching the duke when Miss Dale’s father is available.”
He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I tried. He refused to see me. The dowager duchess said he needs rest and he is not to be disturbed. Would you, perhaps, have your Lord Gregor help me see him?”
“Lord Gregor is his own person,” Joan replied.
“Ah, forgive me for speaking out of turn, then. I assumed that perhaps you two were engaged, from the way the duke seated you with the family.” A pause. “And from what I’ve heard of your partnership.”
He had her there. “I will inquire of Lord Gregor what can be done, but how will you conduct your suit of Miss Dale with you living at the Isca School and Miss Dale as governess here?” Or, better, how had he been already paying suit to her?
“Why, letters of course. They tend to be quite revealing about a person.”
“Then you should take care in your letters to assure Miss Dale that you’ll favor educating your future children in their mage gift, be they boys or girls. And that you value her talents as well, as a mage and an artist.”
“Sage advice. I hear you, Miss Krieger.” He bowed to her. “Thank you and good day. I think I’ll take a stroll in the gardens. They are beautiful.”
He bowed and wandered down a path. Joan stepped to the shadows, considering the encounter.
Not many people were qualified to teach, Moriarty had said when offering Joan the job. But Phyllis Dale was well qualified. And, seemingly, someone acquainted with Cooper.
A figure darted out of a side door. Joan stepped back farther into the shadows. The figure, a woman, crossed the lawn and into the gardens. A mage light flared in the woman’s hands, illuminating her face.
Phyllis Dale.
She took the same path that Cooper had.
Well. Interesting. Had Cooper wanted permission to court her or permission to formalize something with Phyllis Dale? Because if she hadn’t just witnessed Cooper and Dale headed for an assignation, she’d swallow her sewing needle.
Blast it, why did Lotus Hall have to be full of these mysteries? Victoria had commissioned the teapot but likely not ordered its near-deadly delivery. Phyllis Dale seemed to be a pleasant young woman but she was hiding an affair with Cooper. Cooper was sneaking around with Phyllis.
And Edward Dale’s return was shrouded in mystery.
I need a quiet space to think.
Joan walked back into the hall and was instantly lost. But the intrepid maid Agnes appeared to lead her.
Clever girl, Vai had said. Agnes could be hiding something too.
Joan kept up her guard through the winding trail up steps and past balconies to her room. Once alone, she could not rest.
Too much to contemplate.
Vai’s telegram had said to “come at once” but she’d given no reason (at least to Joan) why their arrival was so urgently needed. Perhaps Vai and Edward Dale wanted to tell Gregor about their affair before he heard any rumors.
That was not so unlikely. Vai was young and beautiful and she obviously had liked Mr. Dale previously.
Other questions:
Why had Cooper and Moriarty been invited to Lotus Hall just a day after their meeting with Joan? The timing was suspicious. Had the duke known about that offer when he invited them? If so, did that mean Joan had been neatly maneuvered into seeing the mage power within Lady Anne, as further enticement about teaching female mages? When had Phyllis Dale met Samuel Cooper before?
Then there was Reginald Benedict, whose clothing belied his claims of who he was and whose easygoing nature hid a steel spine.
And, of course, they still needed to uncover the person behind the morning’s attack.
Instinct had Joan reaching for needlework, which traveled well, to settle her mind. Her main instrument of creation was a sewing machine, but needlework had been her mother’s gift and Joan had adopted it in the last year. Later, relaxed from her efforts, she rested on the couch below the window, looking up into the starry night.
“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.”
She wished to see her future clearly.
She hated the idea of marrying Gregor for her safety. That he kept putting her “protection” as one of the reasons they should be married made it worse.
That was not why she wanted to be married.
A moment later, a familiar blackness blotted out the window. Gregor. She smiled. Soon, she was enveloped into a void where no sight existed and the only sounds were of two people breathing. The only touch, his cheek against hers.
After, when they reentered the world, Gregor ran his fingertips down her bare forearms and pulled her against his chest. He kissed her once more and she lost herself in the sensation of touch, those familiar lips, the faint scent of sweat that spoke of Gregor, and tensed with anticipation as his hands slipped under her nightgown…
And they were lost to the night.
After, neither could sleep.
“If your mother can sense your arrival, she must know you’re with me right now,” Joan said.
“If my mother cared about such things, she’d never have invited you to Lotus Hall.”
Gregor paced, naked. He was full of energy tonight, his mind whirling, obviously concerned about something he wasn’t yet ready to share. They’d both needed the lovemaking to reconnect, especially after the attack at her home.
But it had settled neither of them.
“You should have told me about your investigations into Moran’s victims,” she said.
He stopped, drawn out of his own thoughts. “I wanted to have something firm to report to you.”
“Firm enough that you’ll send your brother and Moriarty to speak to Scotland Yard to counter Moran.”
He frowned. She glared. He finally nodded again. “I cannot deny the truth of what you’ve just said.”
“Stop walling me off in a corner of your mind, Gregor.”
“I will try.” He finally stopped pacing. “What did you think of my family?”
“Your mother and Victoria seem close,” she ventured.
“Hmm…they have always been, even before Jared and Victoria were married. Victoria was one of the first members of the nobility to reach out to my mother after her marriage to my father.”
Joan frowned. “Why? Did she seek a way to Jared, then?”
“Hah! My cynicism has infected you. No. Victoria was born in India. Her father was part of the government there. She was glad to have someone to converse with about the place where she grew up and loved.” He scowled. “Rumors flew back then that Victoria had been born to her mother of an Indian lover and much was made of that lie. I suspect Victoria spit in the eye of the rumormongers by befriending my mother.”
“I like her,” Joan confessed. “I like them both.”
Gregor slipped into the silk robe he’d worn on his shadowed trip to her room.
“So do I. In any case, that friendship brought Victoria into our orbit where Jared found her and…” Gregor snapped his fingers, “…fait accompli. It seems to have worked well for them, although she rarely uses her mage talent. But Anne’s gift showing up so early pleased both of them. They’re hopeful the baby will have the mage gift too.”
“It’s a long gap between children,” Joan noted.
“She did not carry her last two pregnancies to term.” Gregor sighed.
Oh, poor Victoria. But… “If she’s had trouble, why would her husband invite visitors so close to her time? That seems unnecessarily stressful.”
Gregor flounced—for so it seemed—onto the couch. So dramatic. She smiled.
“That is one of the many questions troubling me.”
; “Including who tried to kill me.”
“That most of all.” A pause. “Part of me wants to be in London, interviewing the silversmith. But someone here knew of the teapot. The culprit originated here.”
And the suspects included all the family he had. “Do you trust your family?”
“Not for everything, no, but to think of them as murderers?” He shook his head.
“Mr. Dale is the most recent arrival. What’s he hiding?” she asked.
“Mr. Dale and my mother are hiding something.” Gregor drummed his long, elegant fingers on the couch. “I spent time at the docks this morning, searching for the ship that brought them home. That’s what delayed me in returning to fetch you, nearly making me too late to help destroy the teapot. But nothing.”
“Perhaps they used an alias or a disguise? Or some spell to hide their passage?”
“Perhaps, but to move through London with no sign? I’ve never heard of that.”
“Save for yourself,” she said.
He waved that off. “Plus, according to Mr. Niles and Henry, they arrived with only my mother’s traveling bag and Mr. Dale’s trunk. No one fetched them, no carriages brought them to the front door. As far as anyone knows, one moment they were not here, the next they were in the entrance foyer.”
“You’ve accounted for her illusion ability?” Similar, she supposed, to Gregor’s ability to disappear in shadow.
“I did.” He leaned back and steepled his hands. “What concerns me most is my mother and Mr. Dale are refusing to say more about it. To me. He refuses to answer, and she refuses to answer for him.”
“She keeps things close. Like mother, like son.”
He sighed. “I’m telling you all I know.”
“This time.”
It took a moment but he nodded. “This time.”
“Did Mr. Dale have anything to say for himself? Was there anything…sinister…in his survival?”
“He feels incredibly guilty about surviving Everest when the rest of the party did not. He veers between being happy to be home and wanting nothing to do with everyone.” Again, a quick shake of the head. “He and my father were fast friends. I cannot see him acting against his brother.”
A Hanging at Lotus Hall Page 11