by D. M. Quincy
Atlas bowed. “My lord.”
Roxbury’s focus returned to Lilliana. “Had I known you were in need of an escort, I would have been pleased to fill the role.”
“There was no need,” she replied easily. “Atlas is here with me as part of the investigation.”
“Is that so?” The marquess’s eyes went to Atlas. “I cannot imagine why a footman’s death would bring you to a charity benefit at the exchange.”
“It is a lead I am following up”—Atlas was reluctant to reveal anything of import to Roxbury—“which could easily come to nothing.” Miss Archer might be Lady L, but the marquess remained a viable suspect. It was eminently plausible that the threatened ruination of Roxbury’s only daughter could have driven the man to murder.
Roxbury said to Lilliana, “If you are serious about this matter, perhaps you should engage a runner.”
“Atlas has made significant progress. He is very clever.”
“Of that there is no doubt,” Roxbury said smoothly. “But surely a professional would be better able to establish whether Davis was murdered.”
“Possibly,” Atlas agreed, all amiability. It was nothing to him if Roxbury thought him unequal to the task before him. He preferred to be underestimated. It worked to his advantage.
“Papa, there you are.” A young lady in a pristine white gown appeared at the marquess’s side. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Have you?” Roxbury regarded his daughter, who shared her father’s even features and fair complexion, with obvious fondness.
She took his arm. “There are some lovely white leather gloves that I simply must have.”
“The dozen pairs you already possess aren’t enough?” he teased.
“A woman can never have too many gloves,” Lilliana said. “Hello, Adora.”
“My lady.” Adora Bradford dropped into a graceful curtsey.
Lilliana gestured toward Atlas. “Allow me to make Mr. Catesby known to you.”
“How do you do?” Adora regarded him with thinly veiled curiosity. “I believe Lady Lavinia mentioned meeting you.”
Lilliana’s lips twitched. “Did she now?”
Atlas preferred not to imagine what Merton’s daughter might have said about him. He sketched a bow. “My lady. I trust Lady Lavinia is well.”
“You can see for yourself,” she said pertly. “Lavinia is in attendance this evening.”
He suppressed a groan at the thought of spending the evening trying to evade the child’s amorous intentions. On the other hand, most of the people on his list of suspects were present that evening, which might prove useful.
Adora tugged discreetly on her father’s arm. “Won’t you come and purchase the gloves for me, Papa?” she entreated. “After all, it is for a worthy cause.”
“I am certain that helping the less fortunate is what motivates your desire to acquire the gloves.” The marquess gave a farewell nod to Lilliana as he allowed Adora to steer him away. “Do excuse me. I’ll come and find you later.”
Lilliana’s answering smile was welcoming and gracious. “I shall count on it.” Atlas scowled once the marquess turned away and drifted into the crowd.
“Do put yourself at your ease,” Lilliana said once she caught sight of Atlas’s dark expression. “It is a light flirtation and nothing more.”
Atlas gritted his teeth and said nothing, even though he doubted Roxbury saw his interactions with Lilliana as harmless flirtation. The man wanted to marry her, and they all knew it. Just then, something on the gallery level attracted his notice, causing him to forget his foul mood.
“Look, there’s Miss Archer.”
Lilliana followed his gaze. “So it is.” She set her almost-empty champagne glass down on the nearest available surface. “There’s no time like the present. Let’s go and speak with her, shall we?”
Atlas took one quick last gulp of his drink before handing his empty glass off to a passing waiter and quickening his pace to catch up with a brisk-moving Lilliana, who’d already started up the stairs that led to the gallery.
Once they reached the gallery, they saw that Elizabeth Archer was accompanied by her father. The two of them stood close together, examining a painting depicting the old London Bridge some fifty years prior, before all of the houses and shops on the medieval span had been demolished.
“Good evening, Miss Archer.” Lilliana spoke first. Archer and his daughter turned to greet them, Elizabeth’s eyes widening slightly, while Archer kept his composure.
“Lady Roslyn.” Miss Archer curtseyed. “May I present my father, Mr. Archer?”
“Mr. Archer.” Lilliana acknowledged the man with a regal dip of her chin. “I understand you are acquainted with Mr. Catesby.”
“Indeed I am, my lady.” He spoke stiffly and carefully, without the confidence Atlas had seen at their first meeting. Lilliana’s icy majesty seemed to be having an effect on the elder Mr. Archer.
“You are looking at one of my favorite depictions of the London Bridge,” Atlas said.
Archer glanced back at the painting. “It shouldn’t be long now before the new bridge is built.” A design for a new bridge over the Thames had been approved a decade earlier with construction expected to begin in a few years’ time.
“I should have liked to see an iron arch spanning the river,” Atlas said. He’d been intrigued by the proposal of a metal bridge, but it had been rejected as impractical. The winning design consisted of five stone arches, a more conventional approach.
“I myself feel safer on stone,” Archer said. “Who knows if the iron will hold?”
Lilliana had apparently had enough of their polite chatter. “May I borrow your daughter for a few minutes, Mr. Archer?”
Curiosity lit Archer’s eyes. “Certainly, my lady.”
She rewarded him with a radiant smile. “My brother is a patron of the Society. I am very interested to hear how his donations are being used.”
“Of course, my lady.” Archer turned to his daughter. “My dear, I will go and find Mama.”
“I’ll join you after”—she glanced uncertainly at Lilliana—“my conversation with Lady Roslyn.”
Once her father strode down the hall and vanished down the steps, Elizabeth licked her lips. “How may I help you, my lady?”
Atlas interjected. “Perhaps we should remove to a more private location.”
“I don’t see the need for that,” Elizabeth said in a steely tone. Atlas suspected she did not care to be alone with him and Lilliana.
Lilliana came straight to the point. “We have discovered the identity of the young woman who wrote intimate letters to Mr. Davis.”
The girl swallowed visibly. “I cannot think what that has to do with me.”
“It was everything to do with you,” Atlas put in. “Because you are she.”
Elizabeth’s lips thinned. “As I have already told you—”
Lilliana stepped closer. “Do not bother to deny it,” she interrupted. “We have compared the writing on your notes to the penmanship on Lady L’s intimate letters.”
“They are one and the same,” Atlas said.
Panic filled Elizabeth’s eyes. “No.” She retreated, shaking her head in denial, until she’d almost backed into the painting behind her. “Perhaps the writing is alike, but it wasn’t me.”
“Miss Archer.” Atlas spoke in soothing tones. “We are not here to censure you for a love affair, nor do we intend to share what we’ve learned with anyone.”
Lilliana laid a gentle hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “We are simply attempting to determine who killed Mr. Davis.”
“It wasn’t me. It’s not true.” Elizabeth was still shaking her head. “It isn’t.”
Atlas did not care to see any woman in distress, particularly one as young and vulnerable as Elizabeth seemed at that moment, but he forged ahead, reminding himself that she could very well have poisoned Gordon Davis. “I have spoken to your former maid. She says you exchanged letters with Davis, that h
e visited you at your home, and that you were alone with Davis in the laundry with the door closed.”
An exclamation of distress erupted from Elizabeth’s mouth. “Sara is a liar.” She searched for words, speaking in panicky short breaths. “A liar and a thief. You would take the word of a thief?”
“You will recall,” he reminded her, “that Mr. Davis’s neighbor also saw you with Mr. Davis.”
“Two people have seen you with Mr. Davis,” Lilliana interjected, but her jaw was tight, and she too seemed shaken by the depth of the young woman’s disquietude. “And your penmanship is identical to Lady L’s.”
“I think,” Atlas added, “that if we continue to search, we will find others who have seen you in Mr. Davis’s company.”
Elizabeth’s eyes watered, and she began to shake, her desperate gaze bouncing between Atlas and Lilliana. “My father cannot know. And Mr. Montgomery mustn’t ever hear of this.”
Their conversation had begun to draw the notice of people around them, the patrons who were taking a turn around the gallery. Lilliana neared the girl and put an arm around her, offering comfort. “Calm yourself. We have no desire to hurt you.”
Atlas stepped closer, using his bulky form to shield the girl from observers. “People are beginning to take notice,” he murmured. Lilliana gave a sharp nod and guided the girl to the nearest alcove, out of the sight of the other guests.
“Sit.” Lilliana urged the girl onto a painted wooden bench in the recessed space. Atlas remained in the aperture to thwart any inquisitive eyes.
“You don’t understand,” Elizabeth whispered, a hunted expression on her pale face. “I loved Gordon. I thought we were going to be married.”
“Of course you did.” Lilliana sat on the bench next to the girl. “That much was very obvious from your letters.”
“I was foolish. Young and stubborn. I should have listened to Sara. All along, she had the right of it.” Tears streamed down Elizabeth’s cheeks. “She warned me that my father would never accept Gordon as my husband. I should have listened.”
Atlas stepped forward to offer his kerchief. “Did Gordon behave . . . dishonorably toward you?”
She accepted the linen and swiped it under her reddened nose. “He wouldn’t return my letters when it was over. I begged him to. But he refused.”
Lilliana held the girl’s hand. “Why did Mr. Davis refuse to return the letters? Did he say?”
“He had heard that I was betrothed to Mr. Montgomery. Gordon was so very angry.” She looked entreatingly from Lilliana to Atlas. “I wasn’t being inconstant. It was just that I came to accept the reality of my situation. When Mr. Montgomery began to pay his addresses, I realized that I must wed a man my father approved of. And besides, I had begun to hear things.”
“What sorts of things?” Atlas asked.
“I received an unsigned note that said Gordon had taken up with a woman in that house where he lived. And Sara heard he was involved with a grand lady in Mayfair. He denied it all, of course.”
Frustration churned in Atlas’s gut. He knew where to start in regard to the lady who lived in the same house as Davis, but the identity of Davis’s married Mayfair amour seemed more elusive than ever.
Lilliana pushed a stray curl of Elizabeth’s back into place. “Did you believe Davis when he told you he was faithful to you?”
“I had no way of knowing. But he was such a handsome man, and I am . . . rather plain.” She sniffled. “I began to wonder whether what Sara said was true . . . that Gordon wanted to wed me to better his position in life and not because he loved me.”
Atlas’s thoughts went back to the mysterious note. “Did you ever learn who sent the unsigned letter alerting you to Davis’s supposed indiscretion with a fellow boarder?”
“No, I did not.” She wiped away more tears. “By then, it hardly signified. I was betrothed to Mr. Montgomery.”
Lilliana patted the girl’s hand. “Why did you keep up a correspondence with Mr. Davis even after you’d become betrothed to Mr. Montgomery?”
“He still had the letters.” A new rush of tears poured down Elizabeth’s splotched red face. “He threatened to ruin me. When I asked for the letters back, he said he would only return them directly to my father’s hands.”
“That scoundrel.” Atlas’s neck burned. “He took terrible advantage of you.”
“It was my own fault. I behaved so badly.” She pressed Atlas’s now-rumpled kerchief hard against one watery red eye and then the other. “Now my life is ruined.”
Lilliana squeezed her arm. “Mr. Catesby is correct. Davis was a cad who took terrible advantage of a young, sheltered, and inexperienced girl.”
“Why are you being so kind?” Elizabeth looked from Lilliana to Atlas in bewilderment. “Especially now that you know the terrible things I’ve done.”
Atlas wondered if the terrible things Elizabeth referred to included poisoning her revengeful ex-lover. “Miss Archer, aside from your maid, who else knew of your association with Davis?” Had her father or her brother been driven to extreme measures to protect Elizabeth’s honor and reputation? Atlas would certainly have called out any man who had acted in such a dishonorable way with one of his own sisters. “Did anyone in your family know? Your father or brother, perhaps?”
“No!” Her eyes widened, her alarm apparent. “And they must never learn of this.”
“Rest assured,” he responded, “they will not hear of it from me.”
“Nor from me,” Lilliana said.
“Elizabeth? Elizabeth?” Mr. Archer appeared behind Atlas, concern stamped on his face. “I heard you were ill.”
Lilliana rose. “Miss Archer must have eaten something that upset her constitution.” She spoke with smooth command. “However, she does seem to be better now.”
Elizabeth smiled shakily. “I am fine, truly, Papa. I hope I didn’t distress you.”
“Not at all, my dear.” He hurried forward to offer his arm to his daughter. “I’ll fetch Mama and we can depart.”
Elizabeth pushed to her feet and clung to her father’s arm. “I am rather weary.”
“I owe you both my thanks for looking after my daughter,” Archer said as he prepared to escort his daughter away.
Guilt flashed through Atlas. “We did nothing—”
“That is not true.” Elizabeth returned Atlas’s kerchief to him. “You have been very kind.” He shoved the damp cloth into his pocket, watching as father and daughter made their way toward the stairs.
Behind him, Lilliana sank back down on the bench. “I feel terrible for distressing the girl so.”
He joined her on the bench. “That was rather unpleasant.”
She looked at him. “But what Elizabeth has just told us suggests she had a very strong motive for murder.”
Chapter Nineteen
Atlas saw Lilliana home shortly after Elizabeth’s departure and returned to his apartments for a long hot bath. Afterward, he pulled on a comfortable old banyan he’d picked up in France many years prior, before the war, on one of his first journeys after Cambridge.
He dismissed Jamie soon after, eager to settle in at his game table before the window to work on his puzzle. With the frame now complete, he focused on the faces in the crowd, trying to decipher which pair of eyes belonged to which floating mouth and lower jaw. As he worked, the familiar sense of calm settled over him, clearing his mind.
He worked in the blissful quiet except for the sounds from the street below, the roll and clatter of carriages and the clopping hooves of the beasts that pulled them. Through the window, he could hear the chatter of young bucks gallivanting along Bond Street, many visiting the discreet sporting hotels where beautiful women were available for a generous sum.
He was having trouble with one particular part of the puzzle, the collage of people in the market. He tried one piece after the other, determined to find the correct one.
A knock at his door broke Atlas’s concentration. He was tempted to ignore it and conti
nue with his puzzle, but curiosity pulled at him. He had few visitors late at night. He rose and padded barefoot to the front hall to find a moderately disheveled Charlton standing on the landing outside his dark-paneled front door.
“Charlton?” he said with surprise.
Charlton grinned. “Who the devil did you think it was this late at night? Your buxom and most agreeable landlady? Or perhaps the elegant Lady Roslyn?”
Atlas moved aside to allow his friend to enter. “Do shut your mouth before I’m forced to teach you some manners,” he said mildly. “Why are you here?”
Charlton ambled in, heading toward the sitting room. “If you tempt me with that heathen smoking pipe of yours, I shall tell you why I am here.”
“And if I don’t prepare the nargileh, you will go home and leave me in peace?”
Charlton walked over to the game table and stared down at the half-completed puzzle. “I promise that you will want to hear what I have to say.”
Atlas eyed his friend. He rarely observed Charlton in a disordered state. The man was normally fastidious about his appearance. However, this evening, his golden hair was rumpled, his waistcoat only half buttoned, and his cravat nonexistent. “Are you foxed?”
“Not at all. But I do feel a pleasant buzz from the few glasses of champagne I consumed this evening.”
With a shake of his head, Atlas went to prepare the hookah. Removing the stem from the vase, he filled the receptacle with water.
Charlton picked up a puzzle piece and dropped it back onto the table. “This looks impossible to decipher.”
“If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing.” Atlas sprinkled the shisha tobacco in the contraption’s clay bowl, making certain it was loose enough for air to pass through.
Charlton turned away from the puzzle and stumbled into a small table piled high with heavy books, noisily upending it. “So sorry,” he said, stooping to right the table and collect the scattered books.
“Try not to wake the neighbors, will you?” Atlas lit the coals and inhaled on the hose for a minute or so to ensure that the nargileh was properly lit. “My landlady’s apartments are downstairs. She lives behind the shop.”