Mortal Arts (A Lady Darby Mystery)

by Huber, AnnaLee

  I nodded, deciding to believe him. In any case, it wouldn’t do any good to press the matter. “Do you recall who was on duty with William Thursday last, particularly in the afternoon?”

  “I was,” he replied with a great deal of confidence. “And then Lachlan.”

  “Lachlan? Where was Donovan?”

  “He had the day off.”

  I cast a fleeting look at Gage, wondering if he found that piece of information as interesting as I did. “Did he tell you how he planned to spend it?”

  Mac scoffed at the idea. Obviously the two men were not good friends. “Nay. Just that he left the estate.”

  “And William. Can you tell me with any certainty whether you or Lachlan was with him at all times during that day?”

  “Aye. He ne’er left my sight. And wee Lachlan woulda told me had he escaped his. That lad is scairt o’ his ain shadow, as well as me.”

  We’d heard from Mac’s own lips just how stealthy Will had become. He just might have escaped without them knowing it.

  But for the several hours it would have taken him to row to Cramond Island and back? Could he really have gone missing for that long without it being noticed? And where had he kept Miss Wallace? She had not died until the night before last, five days after being taken.

  The only place I could think of was Banbogle Castle. Which would mean that her body could have been lying inside, long since gone cold, while I chatted with Will just yesterday. The idea sent a chill down my spine. The castle would have to be searched. I only prayed we didn’t find evidence I was right.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Since William was still unresponsive, Gage and I decided our next course of action should be to speak to Donovan and find out just where he’d gone on the day Miss Wallace disappeared. I followed Gage down the hall away from Will’s rooms, nearly colliding with his back when he hesitated at the junction of the corridor. The door leading to the main staircase was to the left, but he glanced to the right, toward the servants’ stairs. With a wry glance over his shoulder at me, he strode down the hall to this second set of stairs. As suspected, the door was unlocked.

  “Well, Mac is on duty.” I sighed.

  Gage arched an eyebrow, but gestured me through the doorway. It would be quicker to take this flight of stairs straight down to Donovan’s room in the servants’ quarters. We descended a flight and a half only to stumble to a halt at the sight of the person coming up.

  Miss Remmington glanced up at us guiltily, her eyes still rimmed in red from crying.

  Taking in the sight of her clad in cloak and bonnet, her cheeks pink from windburn, I gasped. “Oh, no! Tell me you didn’t!”

  She wrapped her arms around herself and bit her lip.

  “Good heavens, you did!” My voice echoed in the enclosed space. “You promised me you would let us finish our investigation.”

  She lifted her trembling chin in defiance, her eyes shining with tears. “Someone had to alert the authorities. Lord Dalmay has to be punished.”

  I rushed down the remaining stairs to stand over her. “But what if he didn’t kill her, you foolish girl! And now you’ve brought that power-hungry oaf of a constable down on our heads. Do you think he cares about being sure he’s found the real culprit? About getting justice for Miss Wallace?”

  “But I thought . . .” Miss Remmington murmured, her rebelliousness crumbling before our eyes. “He has to have done it,” she said, sounding less certain. “Who else could it be?”

  “There are a few other possibilities.” Gage descended the stairs to join us, some of the tension and anger he had restrained coming unleashed. “But now that you’ve alerted the constable we’ll be wasting our time dealing with him instead of interrogating them.”

  Miss Remmington began to cry in earnest. “I didn’t know.”

  “Because you didn’t listen. Next time you’re so bent on vengeance, be sure you have all the facts.”

  She buried her head in her hands, but he was having none of it.

  “Pull yourself together,” he snapped. “You’re going to help us. Now, what exactly did you tell Mr. Paxton?” He took hold of her upper arm and shook her. “What did you tell him?”

  “J-j-just that I had intr-troduced Lord Dalmay to Miss Wallace.” She hiccuped. “And that he had spent time in a lunatic asylum.”

  “That’s it?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Now, you are going to tell Michael Dalmay what you’ve done.”

  She gasped in dismay.

  “You were the one who accused his brother of murder before a foolhardy constable, so you can be the one to tell him so. And you need to do so now. Mr. Paxton will have gathered his associates and be making his way here. We need to be ready for him when he arrives.”

  She blinked up at him with weepy feminine delicateness, but it did nothing but anger him further.

  “Do you want to help fix what you’ve done or not?” he snarled.

  She startled. “Yes.”

  “All right, then. Michael is in his brother’s room. Go straight up. The door at the top of the stairs is unlocked. Go!”

  She scrambled past us up the stairs, her feet rapping against the wood, in as much of a hurry to get away from Gage’s fury as she was to help, I thought.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked, panicked now that some of my anger had faded.

  “Defy him,” Gage replied with a stubborn tilt to his chin. “I’m not about to hand William Dalmay into Constable Paxton’s custody, whether he’s guilty of murder or not.”

  I was relieved to hear it, but uncertain just how he was going to manage that. But I knew better than to question him when he had that determined look in his eye.

  Rather than continuing down the next flight of steps to the kitchens and servants’ quarters, he hauled open the door to the ground floor. The sound of another door closing below made me turn back as Gage hurried into the entrance hall corridor, but I could hear no footsteps approaching from below. I considered investigating the noise, but Gage was already so far ahead of me down the passage that I chose to ignore it.

  * * *

  When Constable Paxton and his two associates rode up to Dalmay House less than an hour later, he was greeted by a phalanx of angry men. Gage and Michael, wearing their most forbidding expressions, stood side by side on the drive before the front door, blocking his entrance, while Lord Keswick and Lord Damien took up positions behind them, looking none too welcoming themselves.

  I had been surprised by Damien’s willingness to step into the fray, considering the doubts we all still held about William’s innocence. I could only assume that his loyalty to his family had weighed heavily in the decision. After all, he couldn’t wish for his sister’s fiancé’s brother to be taken up in shackles. Imagine the resulting scandal. And Lady Hollingsworth’s shrieking fit when she found out. She was already going to be angry that word of William’s stay in an asylum had gotten out, but if he were arrested, Caroline would never be allowed to marry Michael.

  A pair of the Dalmays’ burliest footmen flanked the entrance and bolstered the number of men Mr. Paxton would have to fight his way through to six. Laura and I stood in the doorway and refused to be shooed away by either Keswick or Gage—or the sanctimonious butler glaring disapprovingly at our backs. Miss Remmington had long ago retreated upstairs, but I suspected she found a window to peer through in order to observe the scene below. Had I been in her shoes, I wouldn’t have been able to resist, no matter how guilty I felt for causing the confrontation.

  We could see the dust kicked up by their horses’ hooves long before we actually caught a glimpse of them. It was like watching a thundercloud approach from the distance, growing louder and fiercer as it neared. The analogy was not inapt, as the sky today was far less friendly than it had been over the past week. The misty banks of clouds we were so familiar wit
h in Scotland had overtaken the sun, preventing its warm rays from breaking through. I suspected rain would move in before nightfall, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the wind followed, blowing some of the bright autumn leaves that had been clinging so stubbornly to their branches to the ground.

  I doubted Mr. Paxton had anticipated receiving such a reception, but the time we’d had to watch his approach down the long, straight drive, he’d also had to prepare for our unfriendly greeting. He might have been a prideful buffoon, but he was no idiot. He knew we weren’t all standing out there to welcome him.

  And his response to this was antagonism. Not the smartest course of action when faced with six men, two of whom by this point were towers of fury. He drew his horse to a stop at the last possible moment before he would have crashed into Michael and Gage, making me flinch, though they didn’t seem to react at all, except their postures became stiffer and angrier.

  Mr. Paxton glared down at them like they were insects. “I’m no’ here to argue wi’ ye, Dalmay. I’m here for your brother. Where is he?”

  “Not going with you.”

  Mr. Paxton’s eyes narrowed. “Dinna make me arrest ye, too. The man’s committed murder. He needs to be locked up.”

  “And how do you know that?” Gage asked. “Just this morning you declared Miss Wallace’s death an accidental drowning.”

  Mr. Paxton’s face reddened. “I’ll no’ be talkin’ to you, Mr. Gage. You’ve been interferin’ wi’ my investigation, and by all rights I should have ye taken up for it.” He stabbed his finger toward Gage. “You should’ve been the one to tell me aboot William Dalmay’s affliction and no’ Miss Remmington. She’s the only one wi’ a lick o’ sense.”

  “That’s Lord Dalmay, to you,” Michael corrected him in a hard voice.

  “He’s no’ really a lord,” Mr. Paxton protested.

  “Yes, he is,” he enunciated carefully. “And has been since our father died.”

  “What, are ye daft, man? He spent time in a madhouse.”

  “That changes nothing. They cannot strip a man of his title simply because he’s declared insane, which my brother is not.”

  The constable huffed and opened his mouth to argue, but Michael cut him off.

  “He’s not. He never received a proper hearing before the Court of Chancery regarding his mental state. He has never been proved to be anything but sane.”

  “Then how’d he end up in the madhouse?” He sneered.

  Michael’s shoulders were taut, his hands clenched into fists by his sides. “He was confined to that asylum against his will. He’s the victim here, not the perpetrator. And I’ll thank you to remember that.”

  Mr. Paxton’s horse shifted, but he paid it no heed, merely tightened his grip on the reins. “Regardless o’ how you say he got there, the fact remains that Will . . .” Michael glared at him and Mr. Paxton puckered his lips in distaste, but corrected himself. “Lord Dalmay spent time in a lunatic asylum. He canna be in his right mind. And Miss Remmington believes he killed her friend.”

  “She’s overwrought.” Gage spoke up again. “She misspoke.”

  “Ye can force her to take back her words, but I heard the ring o’ truth in her statement, and ye won’t convince me to believe otherwise.”

  I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell from the tone of his voice that Gage was losing his patience. “What you heard was a woman grieving and desperate to avenge her friend’s death, and she picked the closest and easiest target. You can’t arrest a man on such flimsy evidence.”

  The shade of Mr. Paxton’s skin now rivaled the deep red of his hair and mustache. “I can. And I will. Now step aside.”

  “You have no authority here.”

  “I do. And I’ll arrest all o’ ye if ye stand in my way a moment longer.”

  “You can try.” I tensed as Gage stalked closer to Mr. Paxton, worried the constable or his horse might lash out at him. But Gage seemed not to share this fear, and he reached out to grab hold of the horse’s bridle. “But as I said, you have no authority here. Lord Dalmay is a baron, and as such, a member of the peerage, which gives him the privilege of being exempt from civil arrest.”

  I stifled a gasp and shared a glance with Laura, who seemed not to have forgotten this fact, to judge from the smile of enjoyment that curled her lips at seeing the constable’s reaction.

  The man’s chest puffed out like an angry robin and his eyes bulged so large I worried they might pop out of his head. “The man is no’ a peer.”

  “Oh, but he is,” Gage replied silkily. “So unless you have a warrant—which I know you do not, because no magistrate would ever dare to issue one on such flimsy evidence, especially for a peer—then you haven’t the right to even threaten to arrest him.”

  He turned to the two men Mr. Paxton had brought with him, who seemed content to merely observe the proceedings. I suspected they were simple villagers, maybe retired soldiers, who were only doing as the constable had asked of them.

  “I suggest if you don’t wish to be brought up on charges of unlawfully detaining a peer along with Mr. Paxton here that you return home.”

  The men looked at each other and one shrugged, as if to say this wasn’t his matter. Then they slowly began to turn away.

  Seeing that his reinforcements were abandoning him, the constable snarled. “This isna over. I’ll be reportin’ you all to my superior.”

  “You do that,” Gage replied without concern. Then in one smooth motion he released Mr. Paxton’s horse and stepped far back from the man and the horse’s reach.

  With one last furious glare at all of us, he pulled his horse around, its hooves scrabbling for purchase in the loose gravel, and rode down the drive after his men.

  Gage and the others watched to make sure the constable didn’t return or veer off the lane and attempt to approach the house from another path.

  “Damn the man!” Michael exclaimed.

  Gage reached over to clasp him on the shoulder, guiding him toward the door. “I’m afraid your efforts to keep hidden your brother’s whereabouts for the last decade have all been for naught. Paxton is going to tell every man he knows and then some.”

  Michael nodded dejectedly and turned to Lord Keswick, who was trying to apologize for his sister’s actions.

  “Why didn’t you remind me about the rules of privilege?” I demanded of Gage, linking my arm through his as he passed by me into the warmth of the entry hall. “Had I remembered, it would have made this confrontation much less anxiety ridden. I couldn’t figure out how you were going to thwart Mr. Paxton.”

  He offered me an enigmatic smile. “What? And ruin the excitement?”

  I arched a single eyebrow in chastisement. “So if we discover that Will is guilty of murdering Miss Wallace, he will be tried before the House of Lords, not the criminal courts?” I asked in clarification.

  “That is correct. But in his instance, it’s far more likely he would receive a hearing before the Court of Chancery first to decide if he’s insane. If he was found to be, then he and his property would be placed in the custody of the king, and he would be detained in an asylum of the Lord Chancellor’s choosing.”

  “Does the Lord Chancellor allow the family members any say?”

  Sensing my concern, Gage pressed his hand over mine where it rested on his arm. “He might. But even if he doesn’t, there’s no cause for alarm. The Lord Chancellor would never choose a place like the Larkspur Retreat.”

  “So, effectively, if Dr. Sloane were still trying to get William back, he’s now lost all ability to do so.”

  Gage stopped to look at me as if I’d just said something important.

  “William’s stay in a lunatic asylum is no longer a secret, so should he prove to be innocent but still require more care than Michael can give him, Michael can search wherever he likes for another place to take his brother,�
�� I elaborated. I doubted Michael would ever do such a thing, but should he have to, there were no more concerns over secrecy.

  Gage pressed a hand to his head. “Bloody hell! Why didn’t I see this before?”

  I widened my eyes in alarm. “See what?”

  He paced away from me a few steps and back again. “Dr. Sloane. He’s been truly manipulating us all.”

  “What?”

  He stood staring down at his feet for a moment, almost in awe.

  “What do you mean he’s been manipulating us?” I demanded.

  Gage’s eyes turned hard and he shook his head. “The bloody bastard.”

  “Gage,” I exclaimed, growing agitated.

  He glanced up at me. “I’ll explain. But first . . . Michael,” he called across the room to where Michael was deep in conversation with Keswick. Michael looked up in question. “Do you want to help prove your brother is innocent?”

  He straightened. “Of course.”

  “And you, Keswick?”

  He murmured his assent.

  “Keswick, take a pair of footmen with you to Banbogle Castle. Check to see if there’s a boat stored there, and if there is, send word back, but don’t let it out of your sight.”

  “What is this all about?” Michael asked as Keswick departed. He looked as bewildered and exasperated as I felt.

  “I’ll explain. But I need you to make sure Donovan is not in your brother’s chambers.”

  “Donovan?”

  “Yes. And if he is, bring him down to his room in the servants’ quarters. Either way, we’ll be waiting for you there.”

  Gage hurried away before he could answer, toward the flight of servants’ stairs we’d used earlier. I had to practically run to keep up.

  “Gage. Gage!” I grabbed hold of his arm just as he was opening the door and pulled him around to face me. “Would you mind telling me what’s going on?”

  He wrapped his hand around my upper arm and pulled me into the dim stairwell. He cast a fleeting look up and down the stairs to be certain we were alone and then began speaking in a hushed voice. “All along we’ve suspected that Dr. Sloane was eager to have William Dalmay back at his Larkspur Retreat. You yourself suggested he might know something Sloane doesn’t want revealed. So he decided to control the situation. He put one of his men in position to keep an eye on Dalmay and report back to him.”