Ivory and Steel

by Janice Bennett

  Mr. Frake nodded to himself. “Do you recognize the locket?”

  “No, I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Nor the hair?” He held her gaze a moment.

  She glanced at Lord Ingram. His hair was dark—nearly black though, not the rich brown of the lock tucked beneath the glass. “No,” she said, and didn’t know if she was disappointed or relieved.

  Oh why couldn’t she think clearly? And why couldn’t Louisa still be here, alive, and all this just be a dreadful nightmare? She missed her, even vain and selfish as the girl could be. And why did Lord Ingram’s mere presence have to unsettle her?

  Her gaze strayed to him where he knelt beside a pile of gowns, which had been roughly dragged from the wardrobe. What did he hope to find? The diary—or something else?

  Just how well had he known Louisa? The girl had been precocious, a sad worry to her preceptresses. A gentleman with Ingram’s striking good looks, resplendent in his scarlet regimentals… Yes, he would have appealed to Louisa, and she would have known no hesitation in casting out lures to him.

  Or any other gentleman sufficiently intriguing.

  Any other gentleman. That lock of hair… Suddenly, the glances—the little intimacies—exchanged between Louisa and Mr. Quincy Enderby over the last few months took on new meaning for her. Lord, what a foolish innocent she had been! She had honestly believed Louisa would never stray so far beyond the bounds of propriety. Her marriage would not have ended her flirtations, it must have added new dimensions to them.

  How could Louisa? Phyllida closed her eyes. Mr. Quincy Enderby.

  Her mind raced. That gentleman was rumored to have married Louisa’s friend Maria only for her dowry. Louisa had been quite angry with him only two nights before, though Phyllida hadn’t discovered why. His rich brown hair matched that in the locket. And he had been in the opera box the night Louisa was murdered…

  Chapter Six

  “Did you think of something, miss?” The Runner watched Phyllida intently.

  She swallowed. “I just realized about the locket. The hair may be Mr. Quincy Enderby’s.”

  “Ah.” Mr. Frake pulled the necklace from his pocket and opened it once more. “Well now, so it might. That would explain Lord Allbury’s coldness on meeting that gentleman in Jermyn Street this afternoon.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Ingram demanded.

  The Runner rocked back on his heels. “It seems likely his lordship knew the marchioness was carrying on with another man. It wouldn’t be the first time a husband up and murdered his wife in a fit of jealousy.”

  Ingram’s squared jaw jutted out. “He’d have been more likely to murder Enderby.”

  Phyllida looked from one to the other of them, shocked. “He wouldn’t have killed anyone!”

  The Runner regarded her thoughtfully. “Are you so certain of that, miss? There’s the title to be thought of, you know. With his wife in the family way, he’d want to be pretty certain-like the child would be his.”

  Phyllida opened her mouth then clamped it shut. “No,” she said when she could finally master herself. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Nor can I,” Ingram declared. “The idea is ludicrous.”

  “Is it, m’lord?” Mr. Frake tapped the locket against the palm of his hand. “You’ve known the marquis for a long time?”

  “More than twenty years. We were at Eton together.”

  The Runner nodded. “Now, think careful-like before you answer, m’lord. Just how do you think he’d react if he suspicioned the child Lady Allbury carried was not his own?”

  Ingram’s brow snapped down but for a long moment he remained silent.

  “A man of the marquis’s position,” Mr. Frake went on, “might kill his wife to prevent the birth of a misbegotten heir to his title.”

  “Another man, perhaps.” Ingram spoke through gritted teeth. “Not Allbury.”

  “No,” Phyllida seconded. “He-he wouldn’t.” Though to her dismay she saw the possibility.

  “Is that so, miss?” The Runner eyed her narrowly. “There is the chance, though, of the marquis not being the father?”

  “I don’t know.” Phyllida strode toward the window, her hands clenched, then turned back to the two men. “I wouldn’t have believed it—it never even occurred to me—except for that locket.”

  “Protecting the succession seems a pretty strong motive for murder,” Mr. Frake said.

  “Rubbish!” Lord Ingram glared at him. “You might do better suspecting the dowager. It is she who holds the title and the great name of Rutherford in such high regard.”

  “Does she, now? I wonder if she suspicioned her daughter-in-law had been a-straying?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?” Ingram glared at him.

  “Mayhap I will.” He nodded slowly. “Mayhap I will. Miss Dearne, do you think you could ring for your sister’s abigail? I think we could use some help in here.” On that, he left the room.

  Phyllida stared at the door as it closed behind him then pulled the bell rope. “Do you think he will really confront the dowager? That is one task I do not envy him.”

  “No,” Lord Ingram agreed. His gaze rested on her and a frown deepened the lines in his brow. A puzzled expression flickered across his face.

  Phyllida gathered her courage then faced him directly, “Do you see a shadow of Louisa when you look at me?” she asked abruptly.

  His eyes narrowed in concentration as he studied her. “Not a shadow, precisely.”

  “I’m not that much like her.” Phyllida met his gaze squarely. “In coloring perhaps, but that is all.”

  For one long moment his features froze. “Indeed?” he said at last.

  She stiffened. His dislike for her hadn’t faded after all. In the name of heaven, what had Louisa done to him? Would she ever know the truth? About Louisa—about Ingram—about any of this?

  She drew a steadying breath. “Will you answer one question for me?”

  His jaw tightened. “If I can.”

  “Did Allbury not write to you concerning his marriage? You are such old friends…” Her voice trailed off.

  “I see,” he said after a long moment. “What could seem more obvious to you than that I went to the opera last night, prepared to see—and possibly murder—Louisa?”

  “I didn’t—” She stared blankly at him. That was one thought that hadn’t occurred to her.

  He held up his hand. “I did know he had married. He wrote, regretting the fact I could not lend him my support for the ceremony. He did not, however, mention the identity of his bride.”

  “He—” Phyllida’s brow puckered. “Why in heaven’s name did he not?”

  Ingram’s gaze rested on her face. “I thought at the time it was because he had succumbed to his sense of duty to his name and allowed his mother to arrange a suitable match for him with someone for whom he did not care a jot.”

  “But now you know the marriage was shockingly unequal.” Phyllida’s throat felt dry.

  “Certainly not of his mother’s choosing,” he agreed. “Which left me to wonder why he did not write to me of his bride’s beauty or her manifold charms as he had with the several young ladies who had captured his fancy over the years.”

  “He was enamored of her—at first.” She found she could not meet his steady regard. “Is this another matter about which you don’t choose to ask him?”

  “I already have.”

  Phyllida looked resolutely down at her slippered toes.

  “Do you not want to know, Miss Dearne? Or do you already? It’s quite a touching story, about an adventuress who set a trap for a marquis’s honor and caught herself a matrimonial prize.”

  “She wasn’t an adventuress,” Phyllida breathed.

  “No? Merely an opportunist? You have not done badly out of your sister’s machinations either, Miss Dearne.”

  “How dare you?” But her protest lacked conviction; the accusation held too much truth. No wonder he thought her like Louisa. To her
dismay, moisture brimmed in her eyes and her throat tightened with remembered shame and anger. “It is not what it seems.”

  “Indeed,” he said once more. He turned away to another pile of papers and picked them up.

  The door opened and Phyllida averted her face. Mr. Frake nodded to them then his thoughtful gaze surveyed the bedchamber.

  “Did you learn anything?” Ingram demanded.

  The Runner merely shook his head, an enigmatic smile just touching his lips. “Her ladyship seemed to think the question impertinent,” he marveled.

  The abigail arrived and all four set about the task of straightening the room. No trace of any diary did they discover though, nor could the maid give them any clues. Either it remained hidden or their trespasser had taken it already. Depressed, Phyllida replaced the last hatbox on the top shelf of the cupboard and turned to look once more about the room. “I wonder if we’ll ever find it?” she said.

  Mr. Frake shook his head, his expression grim. “There’s always a chance, miss. What with her abigail here never having laid eyes on it neither, it seems her late ladyship kept it well hidden. Mayhap you’ll think of some place she might have locked it away.”

  “Perhaps I shall,” she agreed, but without optimism.

  She escorted the Runner to the servants’ hall and Lord Ingram took himself off to the best guest chamber to oversee the unpacking of his things. Phyllida found herself wishing heartily she might not see either of the two men again that day but knew it for a forlorn hope. Dinner in Ingram’s company loomed over her like her personal Sword of Damocles.

  That impending threat intensified her restlessness. If she didn’t escape this house and Ingram’s accusing glares she thought she might scream. A walk in the garden wouldn’t do though, for there her mind would be free to wander, and she had a shrewd fear which direction it would take. Ingram haunted her. The type of diversion her mind required could best be found between the marbled covers of some delightfully implausible novel.

  Light and entertaining reading material found no home on the library shelves of Allbury House, thanks to the dowager marchioness. Her taste ran to sermons while her late husband had preferred the works of the Greek and Latin poets. The current marquis never read anything more demanding than the racing journal or the Morning Post. Phyllida hurried along the hall to her room where she donned a pelisse and a chip straw bonnet hastily redecorated with black ribands. Hookam’s Lending Library beckoned. She glanced at a mantel clock. The afternoon was not as far advanced as she’d thought. The library would still be open.

  A book borrowed by her sister, which should have been returned long ago, provided an excellent excuse. Phyllida found the two slim volumes in Louisa’s dressing room and only regretted she had already read them herself. It might have saved her a trip.

  She could easily have walked the several blocks, despite her lack of chaperonage, but Allbury, whom she encountered on the stairs, would not hear of it. He called out the town carriage for her use, thereby consigning her to a wait of twenty minutes or more while the horses were readied. Knowing it was useless to argue, she made her way to the garden in the center of the Square to kick her heels.

  The carriage—Louisa’s elegant barouche, not the ancient servants’ landau—arrived at last and Phyllida rode in state to Bond Street. The driver set her down before the doors of Hookam’s and promised to return for her in half an hour’s time.

  She entered the building, blinking in the dimness of the interior after the still-bright light outdoors. A moment passed before her eyes adjusted then she headed for the shelves.

  “Miss Dearne? Phyllida?” A young lady, overdressed in a fluttery peach gauze with two flounces topped by a rouleau, sat on a bench where she had been leafing through a thin volume. She raised a plump hand in its peach kid glove.

  Prostrated by grief indeed. Phyllida managed a false smile. “How do you do, Mrs. Enderby?”

  “Maria, please.” The girl twisted the handle of the gaudy peach-colored parasol that rested at her side. “Poor dear Louisa and I were such friends, it doesn’t seem right you should call me anything else.” She sniffed, drew a wispy lace-edged handkerchief from the frilled reticule that hung from her wrist and dabbed at her noticeably dry eyes. “Such a dreadful time for you,” she murmured. “I am so glad to see you have gotten away from the house for a little while.”

  “I needed to return these.” She held up the twin volumes.

  Maria Enderby nodded. “I remember Louisa telling me about that book. Have you read Marmion yet?” The girl sighed. “Such a delightful story.” She studied the marbled cover a moment. “Do you know, it is the most fortuitous circumstance, meeting you like this.”

  “Is it?” Phyllida managed to maintain her smile.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t mention it though. Not now, I mean. Not when you’ve managed to escape it all.” She looked up, earnestness on every feature of her plain face.

  “It’s quite all right,” Phyllida lied. “What may I do for you?”

  “It’s my letters, you see. I wondered if I might have them back.”

  “Your— Oh, to Louisa, of course.”

  Maria Enderby nodded eagerly. “We corresponded with one another after she left the seminary. I stayed on for another term, you must know. There-there must be quite a stack, for we wrote faithfully. At least twice a month.”

  “I’ll set them aside for you as soon as I find them.”

  Maria looked up quickly. “You don’t know where they are?”

  Phyllida shook her head. “Her papers are not in any order—yet. I shall have to sort through the lot.”

  “No!” the young lady cried, agitated. “You mustn’t put yourself to any bother. I-I’ll come and help. Yes, that will be best. I’ll return to Allbury House with you and search. You mustn’t trouble yourself.”

  Phyllida raised her eyebrows.

  Maria Enderby met her questioning gaze then looked down almost at once. Her shoulders seemed to droop. “There are certain…confidences I was so unwise as to commit to paper, which I would not want anyone else to read.”

  “I see.” Phyllida forced the amusement out of her voice. “I promise no one will look for them but myself and I need do no more than glance at the signatures to know if they came from you. I am not one to pry.”

  A heavy sigh of relief escaped Maria. “No, you are not, thank heavens.” She smiled warmly. “I am very grateful, Miss Dearne—Phyllida. I do believe I can trust you.”

  “Of course you may.” Phyllida took her leave of the young lady and turned once more toward the shelves. Poor girl, if she indeed had been indiscreet in her letters. Phyllida knew well her sister’s penchant for using just such information to the detriment of others.

  She reached for a volume then froze, her hands only inches from the leather spine. Indiscreet confidences. What exactly might the girl have disclosed? And just how sorry was Maria Enderby to see her old school friend dead?

  That thought plagued her during her return to Allbury House. As she entered the august portal though, her mind was given a new, and very unpleasant, direction. The hushed atmosphere closed in about her. A maid, red-eyed from recent weeping, hurried past, her arms filled with the black crepe that made Phyllida think of mausoleums. At the top of the first flight of stairs the door into the main drawing room stood open. Through it she glimpsed the solemn-faced clergyman, deep in conversation with Allbury.

  Louisa’s body must have been laid out in state inside.

  Phyllida turned on her heel and ran up the next flight of stairs. Only last night, not even twenty-four hours ago, Louisa had still been alive…

  The oppressive aura of death hung about the house, and so it would remain, at least until after the funeral. Another whole day to get through… She didn’t know if she could bear the constant reminder of her loss. Then Allbury would depart with the hearse for the castle. She could only hope Lord Ingram would go with him.

  She entered the Ladies’ Sitting Room just off
the stairs and came to a halt, her troubled thoughts broken off. It looked—it was—different. Someone had rearranged the furniture. A different painting—a landscape—hung on the wall where Louisa had ordered a Holbein of an earlier Allbury to be placed.

  Phyllida moved slowly about the apartment, detecting other changes. Confused, she returned to the stairs and started up once more.

  A crash from the floor below caused her to reverse direction in a hurry. As Phyllida reached the landing Mrs. Battersea emerged from the first of two connecting drawing rooms, her arms loaded with an eight-branched candelabrum, an ormolu clock, three figurines and a small firescreen embroidered by Phyllida’s mother.

  Phyllida ran forward and caught the screen as it slipped then carefully extricated it from the woman’s too full hands. “What is happening? I thought I heard a crash.”

  Mrs. Battersea clucked her tongue. “That brass poker, it was.” She shook her head. “Over it went. That mad, her ladyship is.”

  Phyllida gestured to her armload. “Whatever is going on?”

  The woman’s lips tightened. “Redecorating, that’s what we’re doing, miss. Ordering things back the way they was, her ladyship is, back before his lordship’s marriage.”

  “Removing every trace of her, is she?” Phyllida asked helpfully, fighting against the knot in her stomach.

  The housekeeper, embarrassed, bobbed a curtsy and tried to move past.

  “Countermanding every order her successor gave?” Phyllida pursued.

  Mrs. Battersea rolled a nervous eye at her. “You see, miss, it’s—”

  Phyllida took pity and waved her on. “I see exactly. Thank you, Mrs. Battersea.”

  The woman hurried away with her burdens and Phyllida, still holding the screen, entered the drawing rooms.

  The dowager marchioness, resplendent in a black silk robe over a white underdress, looked up from a box where she placed an assortment of knickknacks purchased at considerable cost by Louisa. An ostrich plume, dyed a decorous black to match her silk turban, bounced jauntily against her flushed, wrinkled cheek. Her disdainful gaze rested momentarily on Phyllida before she returned to her work.