by Liz Carlyle
“Forty percent,” Grace reminded him. “Not the original fifty.”
“Ah, so the control Mrs. Holding wielded during her widowhood was significant.”
“I gather she wielded nothing more significant than a darning needle,” Grace replied. “Ethan’s mother believed a lady’s place was in the home. From what Fenella says, trustees managed everything until Ethan and Josiah were experienced enough to go it alone.”
“Fascinating,” Ruthveyn murmured. “How did Ethan Holding get on with his minority partner?”
“Quite well,” said Grace. “They argued at times, as strong men will. But on the whole, they were close.”
“Who handled the money?”
“Josiah Crane,” Grace answered. “He had the head for numbers. He and Fenella. I think it must be a Crane family trait. Ethan is—was—the public face of Crane and Holding. People liked him. They trusted him.”
“Certainly Her Majesty’s government trusted him.”
“Yes,” said Grace simply. “There had been talk, even, of a knighthood.”
“Indeed?” murmured Ruthveyn. “So you might have become Lady Holding?”
Grace laughed a little bitterly. “As if that would matter to me,” she said. “There are titles aplenty in my late mother’s family, and none of them the better off for it. One cannot eat a title or live in it. A title cannot keep one warm at night. A title is just for show—your pardon, my lord.”
“No pardon needed,” said Ruthveyn.
Grace felt embarrassment warm her face. “I daresay you were born to the purple,” she murmured, “and that the marquessate has been in your family since Domesday.”
“No, just a minor title, I’m afraid,” he replied. “My forbearers, however, managed to acquire quite an assemblage of titles and honors, by hook or by crook, or by service to the Crown—ah, but I become redundant, do I not?”
“And the marquessate?”
He lifted one wide shoulder. “My doing, I suppose.”
“Ah,” said Grace. “More service to the Crown?”
Something dark sketched across Ruthveyn’s face. “Is that not the usual way?” he countered. “Yes. For service to Her Majesty.”
Just then, a clock somewhere in the depths of the house tolled the hour. Grace’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh!” she said. “That cannot be the time!”
Ruthveyn extracted a gold pocket watch from his waistcoat. “I fear it is,” he said. “Have you another errand?”
“I don’t know,” said Grace pensively. “I wanted to ask Rance…well, if he thought I needed a barrister. But the thought horrifies me.”
Ruthveyn tucked the timepiece away. “You have been accused of no crime as yet,” he said calmly. “Go about your business. Behave as any innocent person would. Lazonby retained the best counsel in London—a member here, as it happens. Until I can reach Lazonby, you may rely upon his counsel to protect your interests.”
To protect your interests…
But what were her interests? What was left to her? The quiet, inconsequential existence she had managed to carve for herself since her father’s death had been drained of all hope as surely as had Ethan’s. And now the outside world and all its ugliness was pressing down upon her again.
“I rather doubt, sir, that I can afford the best counsel in London,” she said quietly.
“You will leave that in my hands for now,” he said. It was a statement, not an offer.
She felt Lord Ruthveyn’s gaze still and steady upon her, and a sudden chill crept down her spine. Grace wanted to flee from this dark, imposing man and his piercing eyes—yet in the same breath, she sensed the swirl of his darkness all around her, almost cloaking her in its protection. He was offering her his help. Moreover, he was not a man to be lied to, or trifled with. She knew it instinctively.
And he was all she had. She swallowed hard, and lifted her eyes to his. “I accept your kind offer, sir,” she said. “What is his name?”
“Sir Greville St. Giles,” said Ruthveyn. “He keeps chambers in the Inner Temple, but you may send word to me here should it prove necessary. If the police dare to arrest you—and I think they will not—you will tell them St. Giles represents you. Following that, you will say not one word further. Not under any circumstance. I shall have you released before the day is out, I do assure you.”
Grace believed him. He looked like a man who might go to the ends of the earth—and perhaps even into the black pit of hell beyond—merely to prove a point.
“Thank you,” she said again. Then she came swiftly to her feet. “And now I really must go. I have intruded upon your kindness too long.”
Ruthveyn rose, for she’d left him with little choice. But at the door, he hesitated, blocking it with the broad width of his shoulders. “I do have one last question, if I may?”
She looked up at him. “Yes?”
Ruthveyn looked down his hawkish nose at her. “Mademoiselle Gauthier, did you by any chance kill Ethan Holding?”
Grace’s mouth fell open. “No!” she finally managed. “I—why—how can you even think me capable of it!”
“We are all of us capable of it, mademoiselle,” he said coolly. “Such is the nature of man. But I accept your answer. So…if not you, who?”
She looked at him with unvarnished frustration. “Why, some sort of…of thief, of course! The house was filled with artwork and silver. No one wished Ethan dead.”
“On that point I beg to differ,” said Lord Ruthveyn. “I know nothing of him, and already I can think of several people who might have done so. Who found the body?”
Grace’s eyes widened. “I did.”
Ruthveyn drew back a fraction. “In the middle of the night?”
Again, Grace was struck by how dangerous the man looked. How near he stood. For a moment, it was as if all the air had been sucked from the room, and she could feel the heat of his gaze running down her face to her throat and beyond.
“It wasn’t the middle of the night,” she managed. “It was half past twelve.”
“Explain.”
“Josiah Crane had lent me a book of poetry at dinner,” she replied, “and I had declared my intent to stay up and finish it. Ethan slipped a note under my door, asking that if I was still awake, would I kindly come to his study.”
“Indeed?” Ruthveyn’s voice was a low rumble. “Did he often do that sort of thing?”
“No, never,” said Grace, her brows drawing together. “And it was a little oddly worded.”
“In what way?”
Her frown deepened. “He called me Miss Gauthier,” she said. “And he seemed to think he owed me an apology for something.”
“What did he usually call you?”
“Grace, when we were alone,” she said. “After our betrothal, I mean. And when he wrote during his travels—yes, usually Grace, unless he enclosed the letter with someone else’s.”
“And what, pray, had Holding done to owe you an apology?”
Grace lifted her shoulders weakly. “That’s just it,” she said. “I cannot think. He was a little cross at dinner, for he was tired. He’d just returned from a fortnight at the Liverpool yards. He and Josiah talked mostly of business, and I…I, well, I did not attend, honestly.”
Ruthveyn seemed to consider this. “Did you often dine with the family?”
Grace looked away. “For dinner, yes. I think Ethan was overly impressed that I was the granddaughter of an earl,” she confessed. “And pleased his sister had befriended me.”
“He hoped your polish might rub off?”
Grace gave a withering laugh. “Silly, isn’t it, when I’d spent much of my life in military outposts? But merchant families oftentimes feel inferior to anyone with a drop of blue in their blood. And Ethan was a little”—here she smiled wistfully—“well, he used to say he would always have the air of tar and timber about him. But I think he had hoped Fenella might marry well. She had a huge marriage portion, but their social circle was not large.”
“And Josiah Crane?” said Ruthveyn. “Did he dine there often?”
“Once or twice a week.” She paused a moment. “When they were young, I think Ethan expected Josiah and Fenella would make a match of it, but…well, nothing happened.”
Ruthveyn pondered it. “Very well,” he said at last. “So you went at once to Holding’s study when the note appeared under your door?”
Grace bit her lip, and shook her head. “No, fool that I am,” she whispered. “Instead, I pinned up my hair and drew on my wrapper—I was worried about propriety, of all things!—and it was a fatal ten minutes. Oh, God! I wish now I’d not waited an instant!”
“Mademoiselle Gauthier, I am sorry,” said Ruthveyn. “But I do not think it would have mattered. Tell me, what did you do once you found Holding?”
“I screamed!” she declared. “And then I…I tried to help him. But there was no helping him. And then some of the servants came. Someone went to fetch a constable. After that…well, I do not quite recall the order of things. But there were a great many people and questions. They kept all of us apart from one another. And now I think…yes, I think from the very first they suspected me.”
“Most regrettable,” Ruthveyn remarked. “Were any locks broken? Any windows?”
Slowly, she shook her head. “No one mentioned any,” she whispered. “But there must have been. Mustn’t there? Trenton—the butler—locks everything up without fail. The house is a fortress—to keep the children safe, Ethan always said.”
“And the note that was slipped under your door?”
Again, Grace shook her head. “I must have dropped it in Ethan’s study,” she admitted. “I daresay the police have it now.”
“I daresay they do,” said Ruthveyn dryly. “And you were not allowed free in the house again?”
“Almost no one was,” said Grace. “Even Fenella went home with Mrs. Lester. She said she couldn’t bear to stay there until the killer was caught.”
“And who, pray, is Mrs. Lester?”
“Ethan’s first wife’s sister,” said Grace. “She lives not far from Rotherhithe—which is where Eliza and Anne have gone.” It was taking all her will not to burst into tears again. “And I daresay…well, I daresay that is where they shall stay now, isn’t it? That is what Mrs. Lester has always wished.”
“You do not like her?”
Grace hesitated. “I do not know her well,” she confessed. “She quite dotes on the girls. But it was her late sister’s wish the girls remain with Ethan, in the only home they had ever known. Mrs. Lester has five boys of her own, so perhaps it was thought they would be rambunctious? I do not know. I know only that Ethan had a good father, so he took such duties seriously.”
“Miss Crane will not keep the children?”
She shook her head. “An unmarried woman with no real blood claim?” Grace mused. “No, I imagine the girls will go to their mother’s side now. Mr. Lester is very rich—the family owns timber warehouses, I think—and he spoils his wife something frightful. Fenella will wish to keep the peace. And as to what I think”—here her voice broke wretchedly—“well, that no longer matters, does it?”
Ruthveyn set his head to one side in that assessing way of his. “You are thinking that Mr. Holding’s death has taken the children away from you forever,” he said, “when you were just growing accustomed to the notion of being a mother. Indeed, your whole life has turned upside down.”
Grace managed a watery smile. “I loved the girls, you know,” she said. “But Mrs. Lester does, too. She has a houseful of servants and toys, and has always yearned for daughters. Once this is over…well, I shall ask permission to visit. I shall hope for the best.”
For the first time, his dark eyes seemed to soften. “I had a stepmother myself,” he said solemnly, “though I was nearly grown. But Pamela was kind—too kind, really—and much loved. You have my sympathy.”
“Thank you.”
He turned, then hesitated for a moment, his hand upon the doorknob. “Where may I find you, Mademoiselle Gauthier, after today?”
“Find me?” she asked. “Find me for what?”
The softness in his eyes had vanished. “Should something come up.”
For an instant, Grace hesitated. But hesitating would make matters no better. For now, she was stuck. “I am at my aunt’s house in Manchester Square,” she answered. “Lady Abigail Hythe.”
“You look none too happy about that.”
Grace’s mouth twisted wryly. “One must be grateful for a roof over one’s head—or so I am often told.”
“Ah, like that, is it?”
She shrugged and let it go.
Lord Ruthveyn pulled open the door and offered his arm. “So you were followed here by one of Metropolitan’s finest, were you?”
Grace managed a weak laugh. “Yes, and by now he must be wondering what’s become of me.”
Lord Ruthveyn glanced down at her. “Let’s keep him wondering, shall we?” he murmured, starting down the wide, white staircase. “Do you know Spenser House? There is a narrow little passageway just round the corner from it that gives onto Green Park.”
“A secret passageway?” Grace smiled.
Ruthveyn shrugged. “An often-overlooked passageway,” he clarified. “Let me take you through the gardens and show you the back way out. Perhaps you can enjoy a leisurely stroll home in solitude.”
They had reached the bottom of the wide staircase. The dark young man still stood at the tall counter, running a finely manicured finger down one page of an open ledger.
“Belkadi,” said Ruthveyn.
“Yes?” The man lifted his eyes.
“Have you seen Pinkie Ringgold?”
“Across the street,” he answered absently. “Playing doorman for Quartermaine’s hell.”
They could only mean Ned Quartermaine, thought Grace. Everyone knew of him; he ran the wickedest, most exclusive—and the most discreet—gaming salon in all London. It was so discreet, Grace had apparently walked right past it, unaware.
“Go over there,” said Ruthveyn, “and start a row with Pinkie.”
Belkadi shut the ledger. “Very well,” he said. “Do you wish anything broken? Bleeding?”
“No, we’ve a constable dawdling about,” said Ruthveyn. “Just put the fear of God in him and create a distraction while I show Mademoiselle Gauthier out the back.”
Belkadi bowed and started for the door.
“And drag Pinkie’s carcass over here when you’re done,” Ruthveyn added as they turned down the narrow back stairs. “I’ll fetch Bessett. I should like the four of us to have a word.”
Eyes wide as saucers, Grace glanced over her shoulder as Belkadi vanished out the front door.
Ruthveyn patted her hand where it lay lightly on his coat sleeve. “There, Mademoiselle Gauthier, you see? Belkadi will feign a little danger to distract the police.”
Grace cut a dubious glance up at him. The only danger in St. James’s, she had begun to suspect, had her fingers wrapped round his arm.
And quite possibly, her life in his hands.
CHAPTER 3
Pinkie Pays a Social Call
Women, thought Lord Ruthveyn, have ever been the bane of my existence.
And one needed no gift of foresight to know that this one would be no different.
Try as he might to avoid the fairer sex—avoid them, that was to say, even more assiduously than he avoided the rest of the human race—he was nonetheless a man, with a man’s appetites. And, apparently, a man’s wish for intrigue. Perhaps there were even a few shreds of chivalry left in him.
Whatever it was that drove him, it took Ruthveyn all of three minutes to drag his friend Bessett from the coffee room and brief him regarding his curious encounter with Mademoiselle Gauthier. It took another five, however, to justify his decision.
They stood near the top of the marble staircase, Lord Bessett scrubbing a pensive hand round his chin. His eyes, as usual, were wary. “You feel strongly we should tak
e this on, I collect,” he mused. “I confess, I cannot see why the Fraternitas has any business in it. Even if she did know Lazonby in Algiers, the woman is not one of us.”
“You don’t know that.”
A knowing smile tugged at Bessett’s mouth. “Oh, but you do,” he said. “And if she were, you would have said so already.”
Ruthveyn’s expression tightened. “I’m not sure of anything here.”
“How much does she know about Lazonby?” Bessett dropped his voice. “Did you tell her where he was?”
“Don’t be absurd,” he replied. “I told her he had been called home, which, insofar as it goes, is perfectly true. Now do you mean to help me or not? Until we hear from Lazonby, this is what I mean to do.”
Lord Bessett threw his arms over his chest, and appraised Ruthveyn through narrow eyes. “Now why is it, old chap, I get the feeling the lady is comely?” he murmured. “Then again, feminine pulchritude never held much sway with you, did it? You were always drawn to inner beauty.”
Suddenly, there was the sound of the downstairs door crashing inward, followed by a shuddering thump, a couple of thuds, then a string of curses that colored the air blue.
“That will be old Pinkie Ring,” said Ruthveyn on a sigh. He jerked open the door to the coffee room. “What’s it to be, Geoff?”
Bessett inclined his head almost regally. “It is to be exactly as you wish, Lord Baphomet. Are you not our Prince of Darkness? And we your lowly Templar masons?”
Ruthveyn jerked his head at the door he held wide. “You’ve been reading too much medieval rubbish again,” he snapped. “Get in, and try to keep those two from killing one another.”
It was no easy task.
In the end, they were compelled to put a large table between Belkadi and his quarry, then send for a bottle of strong sherry, though the afternoon was but barely upon them.
“I didn’t say noffik, you bleedin’ savage!” Pinkie Ringgold swore, lunging across the table at Belkadi.
“Whoa!” Bessett leapt up, grabbed Pinkie, and hauled him back toward his chair.