Half A Mind TO Murder (Dr. Alexandra Gladstone Mysteries Book 3)

by Paula Paul

  Alexandra stiffened. “Or him.” There was an unpleasant edge to her voice, and she was aware of Nicholas’s hand covering hers.

  “You’ve been very kind and very helpful, Dr. Mortimer,” Nicholas said, helping Alexandra to her feet. “But we really must be going. It’s quite late, and I’m afraid we’ve disturbed you too long.” He was leading her firmly toward the door, and Alexandra was chagrined to realize he was hurrying her away before she embarrassed both of them.

  Chapter Twelve

  Alexandra was very much aware of Nicholas sitting across from her as they rode together in his carriage toward Kensington. She was even more aware of the silence between them, so thick it seemed to have curdled. She found it impossible to speak, however, since she was angry with both him and herself. She was angry with him for intruding on her private affairs that had brought her to see Dr. Mortimer and angry with herself, as well as embarrassed, for her bad behavior, which made her appear not only petulant, but, she feared, unintelligent.

  Finally, it was Nicholas who broke the heavy silence. “I say, you’re rather quiet tonight, aren’t you?”

  “Am I?” She could not yet quell her petulance.

  Nicholas frowned at her. “I should think you’d want to discuss the case in light of all that Dr. Mortimer said.”

  “The case, Mr. Forsythe, is not your concern.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Still peevish, I see.”

  She had just turned her face toward the curtain, open to the gathering lamplight of the city, but quickly returned her gaze to him. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Of course you’re angry with me for asserting myself and showing up uninvited. I expected it, but I should have thought you’d have gotten past that by now.”

  “It seems to be your habit, Mr. Forsythe, to assert yourself at all times where and when you will, in the belief that anyone who is annoyed will get past it, eventually. Rather bad behavior, I should say.” Once again she tried to turn her face to the open window curtain.

  “Speaking of bad behavior—”

  She returned her gaze to him so suddenly and with such intensity that it appeared to startle him, causing him to stop in mid-sentence. “I know what you’re going to say,” she said, aware that her cheeks were blazing with embarrassment and emotion. “That I behaved badly as well. There is something you don’t understand…that I can’t…” She lowered her eyes, knowing she was being foolishly defensive. “I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t embarrass—”

  “I was going to say, speaking of bad behavior, I’m afraid my behavior as a host at luncheon with you and Miss Nightingale was less than stellar.”

  She found she couldn’t speak. She could only look at him in silence.

  “You didn’t embarrass me,” he added quietly. “Or anyone else.”

  Except myself, she wanted to say, but still she could not speak.

  Nicholas, too, was quiet for a moment before he spoke. “Perhaps a nice dinner would relax both of us. I know a wonderful place where… A light dinner, I mean. I know your custom is to avoid a heavy meal in the evening, so perhaps—”

  “I should be happy to have dinner with you, Mr. Forsythe,” Alexandra said. She had found his eagerness to put her at ease disarming. The least she could do was show some civility and accept his invitation.

  Nicholas smiled and glanced quickly behind the curtain. “We’re almost home. If you’d like a moment to change, I can meet you downstairs in half an hour.”

  She returned his smile, then allowed him to help her out of the carriage. He had a way of making her relax. If there was harm in that, it would be her own fault. Experience had taught her that.

  She was grateful for the half hour he’d suggested before they meet downstairs. It would give her time to collect herself, to try to come to terms with her own childish behavior. She had no intention of changing clothes and preening in front of a mirror. There was nothing wrong with the linen dress she was wearing. The only thing she would concede was to splash some of the water from the pitcher on the washstand on her face.

  She was blotting the water off with one of the finely embroidered linen towels the maid had provided when she caught sight of the green satin faille gown she’d spied earlier, when she’d pulled her light linen suit from her trunk. She’d been annoyed at first that Nancy had been foolish enough to pack it, but this time she couldn’t resist a closer look. After all, the fabric did have an uncommon richness to it, rather like the inviting depths of a shady forest. She allowed her fingertips the slightest touch of a sleeve, and they were met with a cool seductive feel of satin. The sensation radiated up her arm and made her shiver. She stroked the fabric with her entire palm, and then, in spite of herself, she slowly pulled the dress from where it nested in the trunk and held it in front of her as she gazed at herself in the mirror.

  The woman whose reflection she saw surprised her. She had never noticed that her eyes were quite so large and round and reflected the color of the dress, nor that her skin was a paler shade of the ecru lace, nor that the two colors together gave her auburn hair a glint of fire. Turning away from the mirror, she tossed the dress back to the trunk where it settled with a swish, half in and half out of the trunk. She was about to leave the room, prepared to wait in the drawing room for the rest of the half hour they’d agreed upon when the dress caught her attention again. She stared at it for several seconds before she began frantically unbuttoning the jacket of her linen suit. She flung it aside and stepped out of her skirt and had just pulled the lovely green frock over her head when there was a knock at the door and Broomsfield stuck her head inside.

  “Oh, miss. Why didn’t you call? Here, let me help you with that,” she said hurrying to smooth the skirt of the dress and to button the tiny buttons in the back. Before Alexandra could protest, Broomsfield had led her to the dressing table and forced her into the chair with a gentle shove. Her fingers flew about her head at what seemed to be blinding speed before she stood back and held the end of the brush to her chin in a pensive pose. “There we are.” she said.

  Alexandra was stunned. Her hair had been pulled up and then allowed to fall in a cascade of curls at the back of her head in a style far more worldly than she’d ever worn. Not even Nancy had ever wrought such work.

  “You don’t like it.” The maid looked as if she might burst into tears.

  “Of course I like it,” Alexandra said quickly. “It’s…it’s lovely, really. I’ve never…well, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

  Broomsfield’s expression changed to one of giddy relief. “It is lovely, isn’t it? Master Forsythe will find you irresistible, I’m…” Her eyes widened for a moment as if she was surprised at her own breach of propriety, then she looked down at her hands, which were clasped in front of her.

  Alexandra stood and turned to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Broomsfield. You have quite literally transformed me.” Her words brought a timid smile from the maid, and she followed Alexandra out of her room, fussing with the drape and folds of the rustling green skirt all the way to the top landing.

  Nicholas was waiting in the front hall, seated beneath one of the portraits of an austere military figure from another century. He stood as soon as he saw her and didn’t take his eyes from her as she descended all the way to the bottom of the stairs. “I’ve never seen you so…lovely,” he said, as if he wasn’t sure of the word. “May I?” He took the light shawl she carried on her arm and placed it around her shoulders, then offered her his arm.

  He was dressed impeccably in trousers and matching coat of fine black wool. His white shirt smelled of starch with a hint of musk. The whiteness of it provided an intriguing contrast with the swarthy skin of his face and the intense blue of his eyes.

  It was a short drive to the crowded restaurant Nicholas had chosen, and when they were led to their table by the maitre d’, she was aware of dozens of eyes following them. In spite of a new measure of self-confidence the dress had given her, she had no dou
bt that Nicholas was more likely the focus of their gazes, since he was undoubtedly well known by most of them, judging by the nods and murmured greetings he returned as they made their way to their table.

  Nicholas ordered wine as soon as they were seated. Alexandra was glad to be handed a menu—anything to divert her mind from the eyes she still felt upon her back where the dress dipped to a V deep enough to reveal most of her shoulders. The menu was in French and written in an elaborately swirling cursive that, to Alexandra, seemed affected.

  “May I suggest the veal?” Nicholas said, leaning toward her. “It’s cooked with onions and tomatoes and garlic and covered with mushrooms.”

  She recognized it as his attempt to save her an embarrassment if she couldn’t read the menu. In spite of the fact that she knew good manners would require her to accept his suggestion, she was not fond of veal. And in spite of the fact that she knew she was showing off, she told him, in French, that she preferred le poisson cocote.

  He laughed. “There is, as always, more to you than meets the eye,” he said.

  “Not at all,” she said, with a little laugh of her own. “I’m simply being arrogant and vaunting.”

  “It’s good to see you relaxed. It was obvious Dr. Mortimer’s hypothesis about Mrs. Pendennis made you uncomfortable,” Nicholas said.

  “It’s Miss Pendennis, not Mrs.,” Alexandra said, growing serious again. “And yes, the hypothesis was disturbing, and my behavior, I’m afraid, embarrassing.”

  “I can understand how it would feel to face even the suggestion of a friend’s guilt in those circumstances.”

  She didn’t tell him that Gweneth Pendennis was not really what one would call a friend, but that she felt a kinship with her that was more profound than mere friendship. There was no need in complicating what was supposed to be a relaxing evening. Instead she smiled benignly as he tasted the wine the steward had brought and nodded his approval. When the wine was poured, Nicholas raised his glass. “To your career, Dr. Gladstone,” he said.

  Alexandra picked up her own glass and touched his before she tasted the wine. It was feathery dry on her tongue. “I’m afraid I’ve never had anyone toast my career before,” she said.

  “And why not? It’s what drives you. It’s the center of your life, is it not?”

  She looked at him a moment before she answered. She was accustomed to veiled remarks about the importance she attached to her career, spoken as a transparent cover to disapproval—a rebuke that a husband and children were not the center of her life, as should be the case for every woman. Yet, she could not detect the sarcasm in Nicholas.

  “Yes,” she said at length. “It is the center of my life.”

  “It’s the people…your patients… No, they’re not just your patients, they’re your friends, who make it important to you. That’s why you’re so concerned by these recent events.” He looked at her as if she were some particularly arcane puzzle he’d been given to solve.

  “These recent events, as you call them, are unspeakably horrific, Mr. Forsythe. They would be cause for anyone’s concern.”

  “Indeed,” he said, setting his own glass aside. “And you are afraid. In more ways than one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dare I speculate that you’re afraid you know who the killer is? And that’s what is distressing you?”

  She looked at him, partly surprised and partly relieved that this time he was not nearly as perceptive as usual. “If you’re thinking I believe Gweneth Pendennis is guilty, then you are most certainly wrong, although I can understand how you might misinterpret my protectiveness toward her. It’s just that the circumstances in which she finds herself have caused her a great deal of pain, and I wish to protect her from more.”

  “Even if she’s guilty?”

  “She is not guilty.”

  “You are certain?”

  She hesitated to speak. She had inadvertently led herself into a quagmire again, and she wanted desperately to move away from the subject of Gweneth Pendennis. She could not allow him to guess that she felt a kinship with the woman because of her own past. How could she ever tell him that she had found herself pregnant at the age of nineteen and that she would have suffered the same shame as Gweneth had she not miscarried? How could she bear to live again the shock and then despair she’d felt by telling him that the man she loved had told her he could not marry her, and that he would not acknowledge the child. How could she speak aloud the hurt and grief that had caused her, or worse, the guilt she’d felt for being secretly glad to have lost the child a few weeks later?

  “Forgive me, Dr. Gladstone. I see that I’ve upset you.”

  She had been looking away, staring at nothing, but his remark brought her gaze quickly back to him. She saw the way he studied her—curious, questioning, perhaps even suspicious. “It’s a troubling situation,” she said. “Frightening even.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Perhaps we should talk of something else.”

  She managed a small laugh, forcing herself to find her way out of the morass she’d led herself into. “I know you well enough, Mr. Forsythe, to know how insatiably curious you are about the murders. You’ve found yourself a bone you won’t easily let go of. Perhaps we should play Dr. Mortimer’s little game—his intellectual exercise, as he called it—and see if we can find a motive for someone else.”

  “Really?” Nicholas said with genuine surprise. “Whom do you suggest?”

  “Why not me?”

  “You?” He laughed. “You’re joking, of course.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I don’t see the point,” he said.

  “All right, then, we’ll do someone else. Nancy, perhaps.” She was working hard at keeping levity in her voice.

  “I don’t think we should make light of this,” he said.

  She felt chastised by the look in his eyes as much as his words.

  “If we’re going to play the game,” he added, “we should consider someone with a motive.”

  “Such as…”

  “How about the apothecary’s apprentice you mentioned.”

  “Clyde? What would be his motive?”

  “You mentioned in your narrative to Dr. Mortimer that you’ve speculated that Harry Neill and the others may have been purposely infected with anthrax. With Harry Neill out of the way, there’s no one to run the apothecary shop. Clyde could have seen it as a way for him to take over and have a shop of his own, thereby circumventing finishing his apprenticeship and having to hire on as an assistant.”

  She toyed with her wine glass a moment. “But what reason would he have to kill the others?”

  Nicholas’s brow furrowed in a pensive frown. “Perhaps Clyde was careless and left some clue they stumbled upon. Or perhaps they all witnessed his killing Harry.”

  “Even the stranger Polly found in the alley? Not very likely, is it?”

  “Perhaps not,” Nicholas said, frowning again.

  “And it doesn’t fit the prototype Dr. Mortimer described. Someone who kills for what the victims represent rather than for a self-aggrandizing motive.”

  Nicholas’s frown deepened. “Must it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  By that time their food had arrived, and their conversation stopped as the waiter arranged dishes on the table, including plates with beautifully presented entrees, the likes of which Alexandra had never seen. The taste, she soon realized, was equally remarkable. Except for the meal Polly had prepared for her, she had never tasted anything so exquisite.

  Remembering that, she thought once again of Nancy and Polly and the boys back in Newton and found she still could not rid herself of the feeling that they were all in danger.

  “Is something wrong?” Nicholas asked.

  His question surprised her. She hadn’t realized her concern was at all obvious. “No,” she said, pretending to misunderstand. “The dinner is perfect. Thank you for asking me here.”

  “I wasn’t asking
about the food.”

  She looked up suddenly from her plate, and then down again. She didn’t like the way he unnerved her.

  “I was asking about you. But you’re not used to that, are you? People asking about your welfare.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, forcing herself to look at him.

  “What?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I’m used to or not used to. You mustn’t examine me too closely.”

  “And why not?” He looked at her steadily and seemed to have forgotten about his veal.

  “Please don’t pretend you don’t know where this is leading.”

  He laughed and cut his veal without taking his eyes from hers. “One of the things I like most about you is that you are so direct. It’s very seductive, you know.”

  “I’m not trying to seduce you, Mr. Forsythe.”

  He popped a morsel of veal in his mouth with his fork and smiled at her with his eyes as he chewed and swallowed, then, touching the napkin to his mouth, he said, “Of course not,” and smiled again, this time with his mouth as he cut into one of the delicately browned potatoes on his plate. He was clearly enjoying himself.

  Alexandra resisted the urge to defend herself verbally and placed a bit of fish on the back of her fork and brought it to her mouth. There was a long silence as they both ate their food. Nicholas was the first to speak. One word.

  “Fearless.”

  Alexandra looked up at him. “Excuse me?”

  “Fearless,” he said again, showing her that smile that meant he was still enjoying himself. “That’s what you are. Restrained, cool, and fearless.”

  “Is that a criticism?”

  He studied her face a moment, as if he wasn’t sure of the answer. “No, I don’t think so,” he said finally. “I dislike being with a woman whom I have to guard against trampling.” Something came up in his eyes as he said that. It passed quickly, however, so that she was not sure it had been there at all. He looked at her again. “Things seem to be going badly with the Boers in the Transvaal,” he said.