by Liz Carlyle
Swiftly, he went through the storefront. The three women working there greeted him cheerfully, and coming down the stairs, a laundry worker with a teetering stack of linen wished him good morning. Oddly enough, it all made him feel as if he belonged. And the thought did not make him particularly uncomfortable.
Though it was only ten o’clock, he cracked the office door to find that Cecilia had already arrived. Even better, she was alone. He felt relief wash through him. At once, her head jerked up from her work, and she stood. David closed the distance between them, opened his arms, and tried to draw her to him.
Sensing her reluctance, he kissed her swiftly and let her go. “Good morning, my dear,” he said as his lips left hers.
Cecilia’s lashes fell nearly shut, a surprisingly maidenly gesture given her uninhibited demands of the previous night. “Good morning, David,” she returned, her voice warm but just a little distant, as if there were something weighing on her mind.
David felt a wave of disappointment. He supposed that he had wanted to hear fervor in her voice, had wanted her lips to open beneath his, and her hands to cling to him, as it had been last night. He squashed the feeling. He was being unrealistic. This was a place of business, and, more important, it fell to them to set a good example. The very thought of his attempting to set a good example for anyone should have made David laugh, but it didn’t. Yes, Cecilia was right to maintain a degree of distance.
So why did he dislike it so greatly? Why did he fear her mood was driven by something altogether different? “You’ve come early,” he remarked, hoping that it meant she had missed him. “And you look particularly lovely. That gown—it is far more elegant than the dresses you usually wear to the mission.”
“Oh, Giles and I are going directly to Lady Kirton’s tea this afternoon,” she explained casually as she shuffled through the papers on the corner of her desk. “Her daughter is to be wed in a fortnight’s time, and there are many entertainments planned.”
David felt something inside him collapse just a little. He had hoped that her daffodil-yellow gown with its rows of lace and flounces had been meant for him. “I missed you, Cecilia,” he said softly, brushing the back of his hand across her cheek. “My bed was so empty this morning. You left a void, my dear. A hole in my heart, perhaps.”
Cecilia looked faintly amused. “Why, I have heard it said that you do not have one, my lord,” she teased.
With a flourish, David snared her hand and lifted it to his lips. “I have not, my love,” he answered dramatically, staring over her knuckles and into her eyes. “For I have given it into your safekeeping.”
Cecilia drew back her hand, holding it at her breastbone and staring down, as if searching for some physical evidence of his touch. “Do not make a joke of me, David,” she said softly. “For I am easily wounded.”
David wanted to reach out and hold her, but her voice made him fear she would not permit it. “My dear, I assure you, I am all seriousness. Why the solemn face and quiet voice?” he prodded. “Where is my hissing little kitten this morning?”
Cecilia’s expression brightened marginally. “Forgive me, David,” she swiftly answered, throwing out her hand, palm first, as if she feared he might attempt to console her. “I am fine, honestly. It was wrong of me to tease you, for I know very well that you are a good and generous man, no matter how you may wish to pretend otherwise.”
Unable to resist, he again stroked her cheek with his hand. “Oh, how you flatter me!” he teased. “Indeed, I do not think I can bear to go home alone tonight, Cecilia. I can only pray that the chambermaid has changed my bed linen today, or your scent will still linger, and I’ll find myself burning, sleepless with lust.”
Cecilia smiled. “Oh, David, are you never serious?” Absently, she picked up a pencil from her desk and began to toy with it.
Impulsively, he grabbed both her hands in his, causing her to drop it. “But what, pray, am I to do about this delightful sensation which I feel when you are near? Or this equally miserable one I feel when you are far away?”
Steadily, she lifted her gaze to his. “Well, what do you suggest?” she asked. The challenge in her words struck fear into his heart.
David paused for just a heartbeat. “Well, I daresay we could get leg-shackled,” he lightly suggested, almost afraid she might implode on the spot. “If that is what you wish,” he hastily added.
At that, Cecilia merely stared at him, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly. “No, thank you,” she said very coolly, jerking her hands from his and turning to face the bank of sooty windows. “I have already had one husband marry me for the wrong reason, and I do not care to have another.”
“What do you mean?”
But Cecilia did not turn around. “If ever I marry again,” she said quietly, “it will be to a man who is sure he cannot live without me. It will be for love, not convenience. It will be a partnership, with all that the word implies. Complete trust. Total honesty. Commitment. And it will be entered into reverently and seriously, not impulsively and frivolously.”
Unsure of what she was asking—or if she was asking anything at all—he stepped close behind her, lightly placing his palms on her shoulders. But her shoulders were still rigid, and in his heart, he feared that the worst was happening all over again.
Good God, what had possessed him to speak of such a thing now? This was hardly the way—or the time or place—in which a man ought to propose to a woman. Particularly one he full well expected to refuse him. Moreover, there was much he needed to sort through in his own mind before speaking of such a thing. And following that, a great deal that needed saying before he could ask so much of her. Was he going to have to slice open a vein and bleed the truth? And then, what if she wouldn’t have him? He wasn’t ready to hear that yet.
“Cecilia,” he said, his voice choking a little as his lips brushed her hair. “You mean to stay with me, do you not? As my lover, I mean? You have not changed your mind?”
“No, I have not,” she responded, finally turning around to look up at him. Her wide blue eyes searched his face. “Is that what you fear?”
David managed to laugh. He couldn’t bear this seriousness which hung over them. The lighthearted banter they usually maintained was so much easier. Was there no way he could cajole or tease her back into good humor? It seemed so much safer.
“Yes, darling,” he lightly responded. “My greatest fear is that you will see the error of your ways and—”
But just then, a swift knock sounded. David and Cecilia sprang apart just as the door burst inward. Mrs. Quince stood on the threshold, her face the bright red of a potential apoplexy victim. “Well, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another!” she announced in the voice of doom.
“What?” asked David and Cecilia at once.
The matron drew herself up to her full five feet. “That horrid pinchbeck necklace of Maddie’s went missing,” she announced, jabbing one stubby finger at the ceiling. “Nan stole it—and more’s the pity she didn’t just pitch it out the window instead of hiding it beneath her pillow for all the caterwauling going on upstairs.”
“How dreadful,” murmured Cecilia, nervously smoothing her palms down her skirts. “I shall speak to her at once.”
Succinctly, Mrs. Quince nodded. “You do that, ma’am, for that Nan’s in need of some proper moral guidance, and I daresay another ten commandments lecture wouldn’t go amiss.”
“Yes, a—a lecture, to be sure,” echoed Cecilia, starting toward the door.
Suddenly, Delacourt held up a staying finger. Cecilia froze in her tracks, giving him an odd, sidelong look. Mrs. Quince turned to stare at him. “You’ve a question, m’lord?” the matron asked.
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Delacourt struck a thoughtful pose. “About those commandments—forgive me, Mrs. Quince, but it’s been a while. And you are clearly an expert.”
“On the commandments?” answered Mrs. Quince tightly.
Delacourt did not miss a beat. “Indee
d, yes. Or maybe I’m thinking of the seven deadly sins? Anyway, does not one of them admonish us not to covet our neighbor’s wife?”
Color flushed down the back of Cecilia’s neck. Mrs. Quince looked at him as if he were witless. “Why, the commandments do, to be sure!”
“But what exactly does that mean, ma’am? I mean, coveting. That’s rather more wicked than just—oh, say, wishing or admiring, isn’t it? It’s more like—like lust, is it not?”
Looking deeply confused, Mrs. Quince managed another nod. “Yes, and a terrible sin it is, too.”
Delacourt deliberately drew his brows together. “But what if he were dead?”
“Who?” asked Mrs. Quince fretfully.
“My neighbor. The one whose wife I covet. Metaphorically.” Delacourt smiled warmly, and opened his hands in an innocent, expansive gesture. “I mean—just how stringently are these commandments and rules and things applied? That, you see, is what I’ve never understood. Indeed, Mrs. Quince, I am persuaded that a lack of specificity has led many an otherwise well-intentioned fellow right down the wrong path.”
The matron set her ample fists on her ample hips. “Well, no disrespect intended, m’lord, but there’s no lack of specificity when the fires of hell are licking at your bum, now, is there?”
Delacourt scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “No, ma’am,” he said gravely. “I confess, you have me there.”
Mrs. Quince looked somewhat mollified. “Still and all,” she demurred. “If the poor devil’s dead—why, then he really don’t have a wife, does he? I daresay it wouldn’t apply, would it?”
Pensively, Delacourt lifted a finger. “See, now, Mrs. Quince—that’s just what I think. But you have to think these things through pretty carefully, do you not? Otherwise, a fellow could make an egregious misjudgment. But it would probably be safest just to make an honest woman of her, would it not?”
The matron’s expression of misgiving began to return. “M’lord, I’m not perfectly sure I take your meaning.”
Cecilia snapped back into motion, hastening toward the door in a rustle of yellow silk. “Humor him, Mrs. Quince,” she sweetly whispered, brushing past her out the door. “I think his valet hitched his cravat just a notch too tight this morning.”
After a curious parting glance, Mrs. Quince followed Cecilia from the room, but her gray serge had scarce swished out of sight when Maximilian de Rohan appeared on the threshold, filling and darkening the door with his grim, unrelieved black. Beside him stood Lucifer, his glossy black head reaching almost to the inspector’s hip bone.
Chapter Fourteen
The Corruption of Inspector de Rohan
“I got your letter,” said the police officer by way of introduction. He was, David had noticed, a man of amazingly few words.
“Good.” With a wave of his hand, David motioned the inspector toward the worktable. “Sit down, de Rohan, if you will?”
“I’ve brought in the dog,” he said, his words barely apologetic. “There were children playing in the street below, and if they should taunt him—”
“To be sure,” David interjected, understanding perfectly. “Now! I think we have much to discuss.”
If de Rohan resented David’s ongoing involvement in the case, he was far too clever to show it. With a harsh scrape, the inspector drew a chair from beneath the table, tossed down a leather folio, and took a seat on David’s right. “I somehow sense that there is going to be an interesting story behind this request,” he said with a bemused smile as Lucifer flopped down at his feet.
David lifted one brow sardonically. “Regrettably so,” he admitted. “But it will keep. Were you able to make inquiries into the ownership of Mother Derbin’s brothel?”
De Rohan’s smile shifted. “I was,” he said hesitantly. “But daresay it will do us little good. It appears to be held by a company—a business partnership, on its surface. These things can be very difficult to unravel, particularly if deception is the owner’s goal.”
Thoughtfully, David tapped his silver pen on the desk. “Did you get an address?”
“A counting house in Leadenhall Street, but there was a sign on the door which said the office was closed due to influenza.” De Rohan smiled faintly. “It may even be the truth, for there’s a great deal of it going around.”
“Bloody hell!” David swore, letting his fist crash down onto the table. “Is there nothing we can do? Can we not force the door? Drag someone from their bed?”
Cynically, de Rohan laughed. “Spoken like a true aristocrat, my lord. Certainly, you may break down the door, and quite probably with impunity. But the police have no authority to do anything at all. Indeed, at this point, I don’t even have the evidence to compel them to speak with me, nor have I the right to search for it,” he snapped. “Not even if I should find the front door blown off its hinges and all of their records spilt upon the floor.”
David pushed himself away from the desk. “Look here, de Rohan, I’m sorry,” he admitted. “I know you are doing your job. And you are right. We don’t have any evidence. But perhaps we could get some?”
De Rohan looked askance. “I don’t care for the sound of this.”
“Perhaps you ought not listen, then,” suggested David with a dry smile.
De Rohan frowned, deepening the lines about his mouth. “Perhaps you ought to tell me just how you came to find yourself inside Mother Derbin’s,” he countered darkly.
Reluctantly, David sighed and leaned back a little in his chair. “I rather feared it might come to that,” he admitted. “May I just say I went in under false pretenses, and leave it at that? There is a matter of gentlemanly discretion involved.”
Succinctly, de Rohan nodded. “Go on.”
Just then, Cecilia swept back through the door, her yellow silk skirts instantly brightening the room. At once, de Rohan and David jerked from their chairs. To David’s surprise, the police inspector made Cecilia a very elegant bow.
“Lady Walrafen,” he said warmly. “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Inspector,” she responded pleasantly, her gaze catching on Lucifer. “And you’ve brought your lovely dog!”
Curled on the floor at de Rohan’s feet, the big dog gazed at her with a look of utter devotion. Then, like the gentlest of puppies, he rolled onto his spine, letting his legs splay open and his tongue loll out—which was pretty much what David was inclined to do whenever he saw Cecilia. He suppressed a grin as Cecilia knelt to scratch Lucifer’s ears.
“De Rohan has come to report on some information I requested,” he explained, watching her small fingers stroke the dog’s glossy fur. “Really, Cecilia, you need not concern yourself with it.”
Cecilia merely stood and laid her hand on the back of the chair opposite David’s. “Nonsense,” she said lightly, seating herself. “I’m keenly interested.”
De Rohan looked perfectly comfortable in having her join them. Indeed, the man seemed to have some singular notions as to what well-bred ladies should be exposed to. Perhaps his middle-class upbringing had not made such things plain to him. Inwardly, David sighed. Or perhaps de Rohan’s notions were not altogether wrong. David was no longer perfectly sure, particularly where Cecilia was concerned. He just prayed she kept her mouth shut about last night.
“You were saying, Lord Delacourt?” de Rohan interjected, returning to their topic.
“Er—yes,” David resumed, toying with his pen once more. “Let us simply say that I gave Mother Derbin the impression I was seeking companionship for the evening,” he began. “And while in her drawing room, I caught sight of Bentham Rutledge. You may remember him from the Prospect of Whitby?”
De Rohan looked concerned. “The blue-blooded ne’er-do-well?”
“The very same. A remarkable coincidence, is it not?”
“In my line of work,” said de Rohan slowly, “there is rarely such a thing as coincidence, remarkable or otherwise. Where does he live?”
“In Hampstead, or so I am given to understand.”<
br />
“Not the sort of place a bold young blade normally resides,” de Rohan quietly commented.
“No,” murmured Delacourt. “That fact had not escaped me.”
Cocking one eyebrow, de Rohan flipped open a leather folio and scratched out a few notes. “What else do you know of him?”
David shrugged. “Very little, in truth,” he answered. And then, as succinctly as possible, he explained what he had learned about Rutledge’s background and proclivities, including the fact that he had fled to India after a duel gone wrong. “A bad seed,” he concluded, lifting his gaze to meet de Rohan’s. “But...”
“But what?” pressed de Rohan.
David cut a swift glance toward Cecilia. She was staring at him intently. “But perhaps not a vast deal worse than I was at his age,” he softly admitted. Then sharply, he cleared his throat. “Nonetheless, I can tell you that Rutledge was not at all pleased to see me. Indeed, he looked distinctly uncomfortable—seething with suppressed violence, I should have described him.”
“And you would know?” de Rohan softly returned, looking at him from beneath his black, angular brows.
David felt the skin about his mouth tightened. “Yes, I think that I would know.”
“The man Mr. Rutledge shot in the duel,” interjected Cecilia suddenly. “Did he die?”
“No,” said David quietly. “But he was expected to. And since he was the rather pampered son of a duke, the outcome would likely have been very bad for Rutledge had he remained in England.”
Cecilia looked pensive. De Rohan leaned back into his chair. “And as for your female companionship,” he continued. “Did you find any?”
Swiftly, David nodded. “I bribed a prostitute named Angeline to tell me what little she knew.” He lied with alacrity to keep Cecilia from admitting her involvement. “Apparently, the two murdered girls had gone down into the cellar—a place which is strictly off-limits for the women who work there.”