by Gaelen Foley
He nodded grimly. “Even more damning, a few of the iron shutter-latches had been found among the rubble with the teeth still locked together.”
She stared at him in shock. “My God, that means someone…would have to have locked the people in, then intentionally burned the place to the ground. Why? Why would someone do something so evil to scores of strangers?”
“To cover up another crime, I believe—an act that he deemed even worse.” He paused. “At any rate, whoever was behind the anonymous threats to the fire inspector instructed him to say that it had been a kitchen fire. In fear of his life, the old man falsified his report accordingly. Shortly after the kitchen-fire report came out, the cook was found in an apparent suicide. This seemed very much like an admission of guilt; case closed.”
“So, whoever threatened the fire inspector also got rid of the cook,” Lizzie deduced.
He nodded. “Back to our kitchen haul-boy. Though he was only nine years old at the time, Tom Doolittle gave me the most significant clue of all. Naturally, it cost me a plum to bribe it out of him,” he added cynically. “It seems the scullery maid had sent Tom out to fetch water from the pump, and that, he claims, was when he heard the gunshot.”
“Gunshot?” Lizzie whispered, her eyes widening.
“Voices arguing from somewhere up on the second-floor gallery. Tom heard a man yell, ‘Shut up, you Irish whore!’—then a single gunshot.”
She stared at him in somber amazement.
“Now, if someone had gotten shot that night,” Dev continued, “it could possibly have shown up in one of the coroner’s summaries.”
“That sounds logical.”
“But there was no mention of any bullet anywhere. Of course, one tiny lead ball could have easily been missed. Or—”
“The coroner was receiving death threats, too.”
“Bravo,” he murmured with a grim half-smile. “A pity he and the fire inspector never saw fit to confide their mental tortures to a living soul, but the killer was surely counting on their terror to keep them silent. The coroner refused to speak with me; you may be interested to know I was unable to break him down. But apparently our conversation preyed on his mind for days after. A week later, I received a file by messenger. When I inquired, the servant told me that his master had packed up and left the country, but at least he had sent me the information that had been suppressed for over a decade. Sure enough, as it turned out, one of the bodies had indeed been found with a gunshot wound to the chest.”
“Whose?” she whispered, not sure she wanted to know.
Dev paused. “My father’s.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” She gazed at him in pain.
He did not speak for a moment, then cleared his throat. “Someone in the hotel that night shot my father, then—I believe—burned the hotel down to hide the crime.”
“That rude shout about an Irish woman that the haul-boy heard from the upper gallery—you told me your mother was Irish. Do you think both your parents were somehow targeted?”
“That’s exactly what I wondered when Tom first told me what he’d heard. My mother was a lady, but I’ll tell you, she never backed down from an argument if she saw something she didn’t like.”
“But who would do such a thing? Who would burn forty-seven people alive to hide the death of one?”
“Not just any one: A viscount. My father was a quiet, gentle man, but everyone who knew him loved him. The whole aristocracy held him in high esteem. Whoever killed him must have realized who he was, perhaps after the fact. But as far as I knew, it could have been anyone—another guest, an employee, or someone drinking in the pub.”
“What about brigands, highwaymen in the area? The coaching roads are often plagued with them.”
“I thought of that. I checked with the landlords of the other posting inns on that stretch of road, but they had no criminal activity to report. There was only one thing left to do: I started at the top of the list and began looking into the background of every person on it, searching for clues, anything suspicious. Past criminal records. Anything. It was a long, long process of elimination.”
“It must have taken ages.”
“Over a year—and many more bribes. There was one name on the list that I could not make heads or tails of: Mrs. Mary Harris. I could find nothing on this woman. She had come in on one of the stagecoaches. No one knew her; there was no record of her existence that I could locate. Do you have any idea how many women there are in this world named Mary Harris? A lot,” he said flatly.
She smiled. “I suppose there must be. It was thanks to a Mrs. Harris that I lost my post at the school. That was the outraged parent the headmistress mentioned to you.”
“Ah, yes,” he said in chagrin. “Well, there you have it. Every Mary Harris I traced was either alive and well, or not a Mrs. I was beginning to think it was a case of mistaken identity. At any rate, I was following a lead on number thirty-two on my long list of the dead, a Mr. James Cox, blacksmith from a nearby village, a regular at The Golden Bull’s taproom. He had been drinking there that night and met the same horrible fate as the rest.
“In the course of looking into the blacksmith’s life, I was able to track down one of his old drinking mates from the pub and ask him a few questions—an old navvy by the name of Jackson. Earlier that evening, before the fire was set, Jackson was actually in the pub with Cox and the rest of their circle. He left early because he had apparently promised his wife he would lay off the bottle. It was a promise that saved his life.”
“Indeed.”
“As Jackson tells it, the whole pub was abuzz that night because one of their drinking mates called Wiley had spotted a woman in the lobby that he swore was the famous London stage actress, Ginny Highgate. Wiley was sure it was her, even though the woman he saw was wearing a veil. He had seen her in some Extravaganza Water Spectacle at Ranelagh Gardens. He asserted that she was probably trying to disguise herself to hide her fame. Are you still with me?”
She nodded. “Go on.”
“The name Ginny Highgate was not on my list, so I realized that this Mary Harris might have been an alias the actress was using to avoid being recognized and mobbed by adoring men. Because Miss Highgate had signed in under a false name, to this day, I do not know if her family is even aware that she died in that fire. To them, she would simply have…disappeared.”
Lizzie stared at him in intense thought. “Women who join the theater world are often disowned by their families.”
“Right you are. I figured there had to be someone in London who knew or cared something for Ginny Highgate. I shall now apologize for the next bit of my story, which is rather scandalous.”
She nodded. “Continue.”
“From the manager at Ranelagh Gardens, I was able to trace Ginny Highgate back to the brothel where she got her start. I had a most enlightening interview with the madam.”
“What did you learn?”
“Two things of note. One, Ginny Highgate was also Irish.”
“Then the insult the haul-boy heard from the gallery could have been directed at her.” She winced. “She was on the scene. She was Irish. And it would have been literal.”
“Exactly.”
“Isn’t that interesting?” she murmured. “My Mrs. Harris from the school is Irish, too.”
He shrugged. “It’s a common name.”
“What’s the second thing you learned?”
“I found out that Ginny Highgate, aka Mary Harris, was a favorite of the Horse and Chariot Club—almost their exclusive property—passed around, rumor has it, among several of the members, who were her protectors in succession. Randall, Carstairs, Staines. Now, I cannot be sure how all of this adds up, but after spending a good deal of time studying the bastards, I have a theory, if you want to hear it.”
She nodded quickly.
“You see, a packet leaves for Ireland every day from the port at Holyhead, and to get there from London, you have to take that same stretch of the Oxford R
oad. I believe Miss Highgate was on her way there, leaving London, leaving her lover—whichever of them it was. According to the madam, Miss Highgate had made her fortune and talked of going home to Ireland. But what if her protector at the time did not wish to give her up?”
Lizzie stared at him.
“I think Ginny Highgate became the victim that night of a scorned lover’s wrath. One of those bastards from the Horse and Chariot Club, perhaps with a few companions in tow, must have chased her all the way to that inn, and there, I believe that my father—gentlemanly, civilized to a fault—stepped into the middle of it, trying to calm the situation down.”
“And they shot him,” she whispered.
He nodded slowly. “All I can think is that they must have panicked when they realized they had murdered a fellow peer, especially one of my father’s popularity.”
“So, you think they set the fire to cover up the crime?”
“And to get rid of the witnesses.”
“Including your mother and sister,” she said softly.
They both fell silent.
“So, what is your next move?” she asked.
“I still require proof,” he said evenly. “The law won’t care what my instincts tell me. I must find evidence damning enough to bring the killer to justice, and that is nigh impossible when we are talking about a member of the aristocracy. Whoever has done this, I want him publicly shamed, disgraced. I want him hanged with a mob to jeer and spit on him. I want him stripped of all he owns. Lands, title if indeed he holds one. I want him to suffer. I want his family to suffer. By God, I want his name obliterated from the book of eternity.”
Lizzie shivered slightly at the leashed wrath that burned in his eyes. She cleared her throat a bit. “I can see you’ve given this some thought.”
The ghost of a sardonic smile twisted a corner of his lips. “Only two years’ worth.”
“My poor love.” She gazed across the cramped space of the coach at him, wanting to put her arms around him, but she held herself back, one serious question still left unanswered. She searched his eyes. “I can’t believe you kept all this from me. God, Devlin, if your theory is true, then they know who you are. As the son of the man they shot down, they must suspect your intentions against them.”
“I’m sure they do. They watch my every move. That’s why I take care to behave like a hellion whose only thought is pleasure and why I spend money like it’s water. For the most part, I’ve convinced them that I have yet to outgrow the wicked ways of my misspent youth.”
“You even had me fooled at the start.” She lowered her head, trying to think how to phrase the question that still nagged at her. “Devlin, Alec told me of an extremely upsetting practice that is required of any man who would join the Horse and Chariot Club—”
“Lizzie,” he interrupted gently, “I did not touch her.”
She let out a quiet exhalation of relief. “I knew in my heart that you would never harm an innocent. But how did you outwit them? Alec said the rule is that the other men must—watch.”
He shook his head. “Just a myth. Even legends of the Horse and Chariot Club are sometimes exaggerated. Remember the night I stole you away in my carriage? Do you recall the wound on my side? You asked where I’d got it.”
“You never did tell me.”
“I cut myself to provide the required proof that I had ‘despoiled’ the lass. Once the men were satisfied, I spirited her out of there and handed her over to Ben, who drove her back to her village, safe and sound.”
“Oh, darling.” She moved across the carriage and encircled him in her arms, holding him for a long moment. She laid her head on his broad shoulder and closed her eyes. “Isn’t it hard for you to face them, knowing one of them killed your sire? How can you bear it?”
“They rather fascinate me, in some strange way. Hell, I’ve lived among savages before,” he added wryly. “A few of them I sometimes almost like. Quint Randall, for instance. He’s not half bad. I feel sorry for him. Not sure why. And then the duel. Staines challenged me, but Carstairs talked him out of it and made the man apologize.”
“Hmm, no doubt this Staines will hate you even worse now. Please be careful, Devlin. It’s so dangerous. I couldn’t bear for anything to happen to you.”
“Because you love me?” he whispered, gathering her closer.
“Exactly,” she purred, straddling his muscular thighs as he pulled her astride his lap.
“I adore hearing you say that.”
“Then I’ll say it again. I love you. I love you,” she breathed.
They were kissing heatedly when the coach slowed.
Devlin glanced out the carriage window at the tall wrought-iron gates. “We’re here,” he murmured, then paused. “I haven’t been back here in a long, long time.”
“Are you ready for this, Devlin?” she whispered as she caressed his face. “I’m sure this place must hold many painful memories.”
“It’s all right because you’re here now. Come.” Linking his fingers through hers, he lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles, then helped her out of the carriage while his servants opened the gates.
The night wind was fresh and balmy as it blew through the thickly wooded park and played with tendrils of Lizzie’s hair.
Hand in hand, they walked up the tree-lined drive. The grounds looked rather overgrown, with weeds sprouting up here and there in the pitted driveway and a tangle of grasses and vines weaving through the wrought-iron gates.
She noticed the outline of a building in amidst the copse of trees to their left. “What’s that?”
“Mulberry Cottage.”
Squinting to see it better in the dark, she could just make out the thatched roof and gingerbread trim of a large cottage orné.
“Why, Devlin, it’s adorable! Is it a guesthouse?”
He said nothing.
Glancing from the cottage to him in delight, she was startled to see his face etched with grim remembrance in the silvery moonlight. “Come on,” he whispered, pulling her hand gently.
They continued up the drive.
Lizzie held Devlin’s large, warm hand in hers with a strange, dreamlike feeling settling over her. Perhaps it was the moon and the lulling whisper of the wind in the trees, but she felt as though they had stepped into a fairy-tale kingdom slumbering under a dark enchantment.
The tension she had sensed in her companion seemed to have eased as they left the vicinity of Mulberry Cottage.
Ahead, through the tunnel-like canopy of trees that lined the drive, she glimpsed the big house, alabaster in the moonlight.
At the end of the drive, she drew in her breath, halting to stare in awe at the splendid Palladian mansion. All gleaming white, the center dome rose, like a scoop of Gunter’s vanilla ice cream over a stately front portico with four Ionic columns. Symmetrical wings stretched long on both sides of the entrance, with Wyatt windows all the way down to the ground. There was no sign of life.
“Devlin, it’s magnificent,” she whispered.
He swept a courtly gesture. “For you, my love.”
She looked at him uncertainly, but he slipped her a secretive smile and then led her up to the front door, which he rapped soundly with the lion’s mask knocker.
“I have a key, but I don’t want the servants to shoot us. As I said, I haven’t been here in a while. Aunt Augusta was the last one to live here. When she moved to Bath, the house was closed up. Since then, there’s been only a skeleton staff to keep everything clean and well cared for, but they are loyal. You suppose that’s enough of a warning?” Without waiting for her answer, he took a key out of his vest pocket and unlocked the door. The hinges creaked loudly when he inched the door open, poking his head in. “Hullo? Anybody here? Mr. Jeffries!”
“Master?” a weak, elderly voice called. “Is that you?”
Stepping into the house, still holding Devlin’s hand, she saw an ancient butler in a dressing gown and tasseled nightcap shuffling down the hall with a pewter ca
ndlestick holder in his hand.
“Oh, my lord, gracious, we are taken quite off guard. I shall wake the others at once—”
“No need. Let them rest,” he soothed. “We shall need nothing till the morrow.” Except each other, his smoldering glance at her added without a word.
The ancient fellow, half-asleep and looking bleary-eyed, was overjoyed when Devlin introduced her. “This young lady is to be your new mistress, Mr. Jeffries. She is called Elizabeth, and we shall soon be married.”
“Oh! What happy tidings,” he breathed, his sleepy eyes widening, then bowed low. “Saints be praised, a beautiful young bride for my master. I wish you happy, sir. Most happy!” The old man appeared to be on the brink of tears. “Heartfelt welcome, Lady Strathmore, and much joy. The staff is at your call. There are only three of us at present, but we will do aught you ask.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jeffries,” Lizzie answered, touched by his sincerity. The old man gazed at her as though she were the eighth wonder of the world.
“Miraculous! There will be life once more at Oakley Park. Perhaps children? Ah, it’s been so long.”
She blushed. “Thank you, Mr. Jeffries. You are very kind. But I see we have disturbed your sleep.”
“Ah, I will to bed!” he exclaimed, taking the hint all of a sudden. “My lord and lady shall not wish to be disturbed. No, no.”
“Indeed,” Devlin murmured rather wickedly.
Suppressing a chuckle, the old butler lit a candle on the console table for them, then bowed once more. “Good night, my lady. My lord.” As though he could barely await the arrival of a whole nursery full of Strathmore babies, Mr. Jeffries hobbled back to his quarters.
“I reckon we’d better snap to it, girl.” Devlin caught about the waist to haul her up close to his chest with a playful growl. “You heard the man.”
She tilted her head back, narrowing her eyes at her future husband. “You really are a rogue, you know.”
“Aren’t I, though?” he whispered, and bent his head, claiming her mouth.
She giggled against his lips when he suddenly swept her off her feet, draping her body over his arms. “Get the candle.”