by Louise Allen
Do these polite professional men think I murdered him? she wondered bleakly as she tried to collect her thoughts to form some kind of orderly list of things to be done. Does Jared?
Chapter Ten
Jared got back to Great Ryder Street to find the decorators slapping paint on the walls, a plumber working his mysteries in what would be the changing room and the carpenter and his apprentice obstructing most of the floor space with planks of wood destined to be panelling in the salle d’armes.
Upstairs Dover, his hair tousled, a smudge on the end of his nose and his shirtsleeves rolled up, was contemplating the kitchen with what looked like smug satisfaction. He turned as Jared walked in. ‘How are things, sir?’
‘Not good. This looks promising though.’
‘I got the carpenter to put up shelves for a larder and hung a curtain in front and I’ve sorted out all that ironmongery you bought at the auction. We have all the kitchen wares we need, save for some more knives and spoons. The mattresses and pillows and sheets are on order and will be delivered this afternoon.’ He followed Jared back into the sitting room, ticking things off on his fingers. ‘I have opened various accounts and I had a look at the auction rooms – there’s some useful stuff in tomorrow. May I tell the plumber to run a pipe up here and a drain down? There’s room for a small sink in the corner of the kitchen and the water pressure’s good – we can have a tap, not a pump.’
‘Whatever you think would improve the place,’ Jared said vaguely. ‘You’re doing a good job, carry on. Ignore me, I need to think.’
He sat at the table, took paper and pen and began to doodle shapes, words, patterns. None of it meant anything, not yet, but eventually he would draw lines, connect words and thoughts and something coherent might emerge.
Dover put bread and cheese and pickles down in front of him along with a mug of ale and went off quietly to the other end of the table to eat his own luncheon. Jared grunted his thanks and ate and drew until finally he sat back and studied the results of an hour’s work.
The centre of the page was occupied with an elongated, twisted triangle which was, he realised, a stylised Britain. Amongst the words jotted down were a handful underlined. Husband One? Cause of death? Family?? North. Why?
Jared got up and fetched the fat red volume that was the latest edition of the Peerage, an essential reference for anyone seeking the patronage of the upper classes to have about them. He flipped through to find the Viscount Northam and studied the list of land holdings. Allerton Grange, the place Northam had told him he had bought from an impoverished relative lay, he realised, between Pickering and Whitby in the North Riding of Yorkshire. No wonder the name had rung faint bells with him.
‘Hell and damnation,’ he said aloud. Of all the places it had to be there, less than twenty five miles across the moors to Ravenscar. He had sworn never to go back to North Yorkshire.
‘Is anything wrong, sir?’ Dover looked across, a pickled onion impaled on the tines of his fork.
‘Ghosts, that is all. Just ghosts.’ And he was starting at shadows. Even the most malevolent spectres could not haunt the entire North Riding just waiting for him to turn up. And if they did – so what? He gave a mental shrug. He was a grown man now, a hard, experienced man with a different name and a new identity, not a seventeen year old still wet behind the ears and capable of being wounded to the heart by betrayal, mistrust and unfairness.
He thought back to Guinevere’s reluctant telling of her first marriage, flicked through his notebook and wrote Francis Willoughby, 2 years ago, fall from window, on the sheet of queries. That was a death that would have prompted a post mortem. If she would not be more open with him about it, then he was going to have to make enquiries. Just as old ghosts haunted him, he suspected that they haunted Guinevere also – and this was the most obvious one to be rattling chains. I suppose he really is dead… Surely she would not risk bigamy… Jared gave himself a brisk mental shake. Of course the man was dead.
But that first husband was the only trailing thread in all of Guinevere’s story that he could catch hold of. Lady Northam was going to have to be very frank with him, he decided, or he would have to be even more frank and warn her that he could not help her unless she told him everything.
‘Someone is coming,’ Dover said and got up from the table where he had been reading the Morning Post. Jared glanced across, reading upside down, and saw he was circling advertisements for auctions.
Heavy boots tramped up the stairs and Dover swung the door open.
‘Lady downstairs asking for Mr Hunt.’ Jared recognised one of the builders.
‘I expect that is Faith, Lady Northam’s maid, with a message about the Coroner and the inquest. Go down and show her up please, Dover,’ he called. Either that or it was Sophie – who should know better than to go visiting building sites and bachelor’s lodgings.
He folded away his notes, closed the Peerage and stood up, listening. There was the tramp of hobnail boots going back down, Dover’s lighter tread, then a murmur of low voices, one of them female and unidentifiable, then the sound of two people climbing the stairs.
A black-clad, heavily-veiled figure came through the door with Dover close on her heels. ‘I am sorry, sir, but the lady insisted.’
Oh Hades, Guinevere. ‘Dover, go downstairs, make certain no-one disturbs us.’ He managed to hang on to his temper until the door closed behind the expressionless manservant. ‘What the devil are you doing here, Guinevere? Have you understood nothing of what I have been warning you about?’
Guinevere flung back her veil to reveal a white pinched face, reddened eyes. She should have lost all her beauty and the fact that, in his eyes, she had not, was enough to fan the flames of his anger with her. Jared strode to the window and looked out. ‘Do not tell me you came in your own carriage.’
‘Of course not. Do you think me a complete idiot?’ When Jared turned and simply looked at her, one eyebrow raised, she coloured up. ‘Well, not that much of an idiot, anyway. I came in a hackney.’
‘And where is Faith?’
‘At home, making a pretence of me lying down in my room resting.’
‘Wonderful,’ Jared said bitterly. ‘No sooner is the Coroner out of the door than you set about compromising yourself with the utmost thoroughness and involving a servant who may have to testify under oath.’
‘I am veiled, no-one saw me. At least, no-one could identify me,’ she flung back.
‘No? How many tall, slim ladies with expensive clothing and in heavy mourning do you think can be associated with me? What are the builders going to describe when the Coroner asks them who has been calling on me? What is Dover supposed to say if he is questioned in a court? Or me, come to that,’ he added.
‘You would not – ’
‘No, for you I would lie, under oath.’
‘Oh. Jared.’ Her hand went to her lips, the other closed on a chair back.
‘Because your husband paid me to protect your life,’ he added. ‘And that includes saving you from the gallows, Heaven help me, even when you seem to be doing your utmost to put yourself in the dock. So yes, I would perjure myself, I owe the man that, at least.’ She swayed as she stood and he pulled out a chair. ‘Sit. You look ready to faint.’
Guinevere stumbled, he reached for her and then she was in his arms, her face pressed against his shoulder, her body warm and fragile and shivering against his. His mind went dark with need and desire, blackened by anger and fear for her and his own disgust with himself.
She is a widow of less than a day, he raged silently. Stop this. Now.
The chair was there and he swung round and pushed her unceremoniously into it then went to take the one on the other side of the table. The shabby, old, mercifully solid, table.
Guinevere took a long, shuddering breath, then looked up. ‘I am sorry. I am very frightened.’
And so you should be. ‘We will get to the truth of this,’ Jared promised her and saw the tiny signs of relief, the infinit
esimal relaxation of the tight lines around her eyes and mouth, the droop of her rigid shoulders. She trusted him and the knowledge was like a heavy load on his back. What if I fail? ‘But only if you tell me the truth yourself. All of it.’
‘I have!’ Her head came up sharply and she glared at him, radiating defiance.
‘The truth about your first marriage. The truth about your relationship with Lord Northam. Everything.’ When she looked down at her clasped hands he fisted his on the table, resisting the urge to get up and take her in his arms, shake the truth out of her. Kiss it out of her.
‘Start with Lord Northam.’ Perhaps it would be easier not to take her straight back to that first marriage. ‘Did you love him?’
‘Of course, as I would love a grandfather, an old family friend, a fond love. Was I in love with him? No and I never pretended to be. He knew that and he never pretended he was in love me either.’
‘Did you sleep with him?’ Jared asked bluntly.
‘No.’
‘Never? Not on your wedding night?’
‘No, never.’ She was blushing, but she met his gaze levelly. ‘I suppose you are now going to tell me that I am not legally married.’
‘Non-consummation is not the automatic grounds for annulment some people think it is,’ Jared said. ‘And, given that you had been married before, I doubt anyone could prove it in any case.’
‘That is what Augustus said. He told me that the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak, which is probably somewhat blasphemous, but was at least honest. And he described a birthmark in an intimate place and a scar at the top of his thigh which he said would be more than enough to convince both his valet and his doctor, should it come to it.’ She smiled faintly. ‘He had a wicked sense of humour, bless him.’
‘So why did he marry you?’
‘I asked him that when he offered for me. He said he was lonely, that he missed feminine company. I was in a desperate fix and I needed him and Augustus liked to be needed, to help people. His daughters had grown up and were a long way away and he was rattling around in that great house, he said, growing old and musty. I would open the windows, let the air in, make him wake up and pay attention.’ Her smile was firmer now, fond and reminiscent.
‘And he enjoyed the kudos that having a young wife on his arm gave him, showing me off to his friends – he was quite frank about it, used to chuckle that he had made Lord This and Mr That green with envy. He said that my first husband had obviously been a scoundrel and it gave him satisfaction to think how angry he would have been to see me married to a viscount.’
‘Did you take lovers, Guinevere?’ Jared asked, deliberately breaking into her softened mood. He hated doing it, but if he was to jolt the truth out of her, even the deepest, darkest, grubbiest secrets, then he had to use every weapon at his disposal.
‘No.’ The response was immediate, fierce, utterly credible.
‘I believe you, but I had to be certain. It was one possible motive to harm you – a discarded lover.’
‘No,’ Guinevere repeated, more moderately now. ‘I owed Augustus too much to do that and, besides, I was… never tempted.’
There was the slightest hesitation. ‘Never?’ Jared probed. Was there some spurned man out there whose disappointment had turned sour and vengeful? ‘You may have to answer questions about relationships at the inquest, it is best to be absolutely prepared for the most intrusive enquiries.’
‘I would never speak of it at the inquest. But once,’ she admitted, her gaze fixed on her hands again. ‘Only once was I tempted.’
‘Who? Is it anyone who might have become obsessed, who might have felt he had received encouragement and was then spurned? Some men can become irrational, imagine encouragement where none has been given.’
‘Oh no.’ She raised her head and there was a rueful smile on her lips. ‘This man is far too intelligent and controlled to either imagine things, or to act rashly. Probably I would have to hurl myself naked into his bed before I got a reaction – and that would probably be to dump me straight out onto the floor.’
‘Guinevere?’ Surely she does not mean..? ‘No,’ he said, more in response to his own reaction than to what she had said.
‘Exactly.’ The smile was still there, reflected now in her eyes, the expression of a woman who has thrown the dice, is expecting Fate to drop a thunderbolt on her head in response and yet feels a lightening of the spirit in acting at last. ‘See? I knew that is what you would say.’
‘For us to become lovers would be the most dangerous thing you could do,’ Jared said, jolted into absolute honesty.
‘You say that almost as though you have thought about it. Of course,’ she corrected herself. ‘Of course you have. You were lecturing me about gossip almost from the start. Silly me, how embarrassing.’ The flags of colour were flying in her cheeks now, but she pressed on, her voice light, as though she was jeering at herself. ‘It must be such an annoyance in your work to have foolish women falling for you all the time.’
‘It is not, because they do not.’ He wanted to get up and pace. Or, more accurately, he wanted to get out of the door and run. Or… No. He made himself stay where he was. ‘And you are not. Foolish, that is.’ Guinevere bit her lip. ‘Or if you are, we are both fools.’ There, he had said it, the worst thing he could have said under the circumstances. He could have pretended not to understand her, he could have snubbed her, he could have shouted Fire! Instead he sat there and told her the truth, that he desired her in return.
A lesser woman would have bridled, asked Whatever can you mean? A lesser woman would have flung herself into his arms. This one swallowed visibly, then, her wide grey-green-blue eyes fixed on his face, said, ‘What do you think we should do about it?’
‘Pretend you are still a married woman,’ Jared said grimly, wondering where the nearest source of ice-cold water was.
‘Difficult, considering that we are attempting to solve my husband’s murder.’
‘We could try visualising Newgate at regular intervals,’ he suggested and then could have bitten his tongue at the sheer horror of the image. ‘Hell.’
To his amazement Guinevere laughed. ‘You are such a comfort to me, Jared.’
‘A what? I am being brutally frank, I have admitted the most dishonourable desires, I have failed to preserve your husband’s life or find the slightest clue as to his murder and you say I am a comfort?’ He did get up then, took three steps away so he could look out of the window and not at those brave eyes or the trembling lip she was biting to control or the body he wanted to possess.
‘You treat me like an adult,’ Guinevere said to his back. ‘For Augustus I was a cross between a beloved granddaughter, his favourite hound and an art object he was proud of acquiring. Everyone else – the doctor, my lawyer, Faith – all want to shield me from reality. I know I am in danger, I know someone has been trying to torture me for weeks and now has killed an old man who was dear to me, and being sheltered and treated like a child makes me want to scream.
‘Augustus once told me I must find someone else when he was gone, while I was still young. I mourn him and I honour his memory – but that does not mean I have to be a hypocrite for wanting the one thing I did not have in my marriage. It is not being disloyal, physical relations were never part of our marriage.’ She broke off abruptly, then said with a ghost of a laugh, ‘My goodness, I am being appallingly frank, am I not?’
‘You have certainly wrecked any hope I have of sleep tonight,’ Jared admitted, and found, as he turned back to her, that he could smile about it too. ‘You are in shock still, which is why you are being so outspoken, I believe. We will maintain our very proper relationship of employer and agent – and we will maintain that until this killer is caught and convicted. And then – ’
Then I will discover how you taste, how you feel, how the colour of those lovely eyes changes when I lie over you, in you. We will make each other cry out – ‘And then we will see whether we still wish to be lovers.�
� Because that was all she could ever be to him. Should he tell her that? No. Too soon. This was shock and her need to be held, to find oblivion from her grief and fear. In a day or two she would be absolutely appalled that they had had this conversation and would be grateful that they could pretend it had never happened.
Chapter Eleven
A clock on the mantel shelf struck the hour, reverberating through images of broad, bare shoulders, of her fingers running through that dark brown hair, freed from its constraints, of that taut swordsman’s body over hers. ‘I had best be going back home,’ Guin said. And stayed exactly where she was.
‘I need to talk to you about your first husband.’ Jared was all business again. Was his imagination running riot with images of their lovemaking as hers was or could he control that with as much discipline as he appeared to apply to everything else? ‘But you are right. It is dangerous for you to be here any longer.’ He went out of the door. ‘Dover! Hail a respectable-looking hackney will you?’
He waited while she resumed gloves and veil and picked up her reticule then preceded her down the stairs, shielding her with his body from the workmen and, after a swift glance up and down the street, sent Dover out to help her into the hackney that was waiting at the kerb.
‘I will call tomorrow. Send for me at any hour if you are concerned about anything.’
Now, if he had said If you need me… He is so careful with his words, she thought as Jared closed the door and gave the driver the direction. And he has the tenacity of a wolfhound. What am I going to tell him about Francis? If I tell him the truth about my first marriage, how I must have contributed to Francis’s death, he will never believe anything else I tell him about this one.
Guin sat bolt upright to keep her back from the musty upholstery of the carriage. She did not want to believe it, but she was beginning to think that this must all be linked, somehow, to her disastrous mistake in falling in love with an utter scoundrel. But how? She was miles from Yorkshire, Francis was dead, the inquest had cleared her of all blame – which only went to show how unreliable inquests were. How ironic if they found her guilty of murdering this husband when –