by D. M. Quincy
As the doctor stepped out in the hallway, Charlton turned to Atlas. “What happened with the matter you were seeing to?”
“Oh.” Atlas started. He’d forgotten all about Jasper Balfour. “I left him in the gallery.”
Charlton shifted gingerly and then winced, the pain in his side laying waste to the mirth that usually lit his blue gaze. “Perhaps you should see to him.”
“He can wait.”
“The whelp is probably catching a coach to the farthest reaches of the kingdom. You must go and speak with him before you miss your chance.”
“Jasper Balfour can wait,” Atlas said firmly. “First, we need to discover why someone would shoot you.”
“Perhaps the two events are related.”
Atlas frowned. “How so? I am the one who is investigating Jasper’s potential involvement in Mrs. Pike’s death, not you.”
“Just so, but it is rather too much of a coincidence for my liking.” Charlton closed his eyes and appeared to breathe through the pain wracking his body. “But you will have to sort it all out. I am rather indisposed at the moment.”
“Too much of a coincidence?” Atlas thought out loud. He’d learned long ago that Charlton hid a sharp mind behind his glib manner. Then the realization struck him, and it could not be more obvious. He snapped his fingers. “That’s it!”
“You agree then?”
“Absolutely. I would have worked it all out much earlier had I not been distracted by the shooting.” But that had been the point, had it not? To distract him, to divert him. But from what? “Bloody hell.”
“What is it?”
Atlas hastened toward the door, passing the returning doctor. “It is a diversion.”
“What is?” Charlton’s weak voice asked after him.
But Atlas was already gone, sprinting down the corridor despite suspecting that he was already too late.
* * *
A plaintive, almost inhuman sound reached Atlas before he reached the gallery.
It was somewhere between a wail and a howl, and although Atlas had never heard anything like it before, he instantly comprehended what it portended.
He had lost his chance to learn the truth from Jasper Balfour. And Lord and Lady Balfour had lost their son.
Atlas entered the chamber to find Lord Balfour sitting on the floor, his legs splayed, the scuffed soles of his slippers facing Atlas. Tears streamed down the older man’s colorless face as he rocked back and forth, hugging his son’s inert form to his chest. Several people surrounded Balfour, but at a distance, as though his grief was a contagion.
“My son, my son,” he moaned. “Get the doctor.”
A footman hurried from the room to do his master’s bidding, but it was apparent by the bluish-purple tint of Jasper’s skin that the young man was beyond help. A life had ended. Abruptly. Improbably. An hour ago, Lord Balfour had harbored hopes for his errant son’s rehabilitation. Now all hope was lost.
Anger surged through Atlas’s veins. This was no accident. Someone had killed Jasper. He realized Harry Dean was standing beside him, ashen-faced, with his head bowed. “What the devil happened?” he asked in a low-pitched voice.
“He is dead.” Dean was perspiring and looked as if he might lose the contents of his stomach. “His mother found him. Lady Balfour was beside herself. She swooned and had to be carried away. It was”—he shivered—“beyond anything I have ever had the misfortune to witness.”
Atlas was barely aware of someone hurrying into the room and coming to a stop on his other side. Together, all three men stared down at the unimaginable scene before them.
“What happened?” Francis Pike was out of breath.
“I am not certain.” Atlas scanned the room. He saw no sign of blood anywhere on Jasper. No obvious evidence of injury.
The door he and Pike had just come through appeared to be the only way in or out of the gallery. “How well do you know this house?” he asked Pike.
Pike stared at his friend’s still form. “Reasonably well, I suppose. Jasper and I met at Eton. I spent quite a bit of time here after that.”
The doctor who’d just been tending to Charlton rushed in, his boot crunching over something on the floor—a spiky brown nut, the kind that falls from horsechestnut trees in the autumn—and immediately went to tend to the father and son on the floor.
Atlas murmured to Pike. “Would you be in a position to know if there is any other way in or out of this room?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A secret door used by servants, for example.”
“No, nothing like that. This is the only door.”
Atlas stared at the scene unfolding in front of him. The doctor placed a gentle hand on Lord Balfour’s shoulder before saying the words every father would dread to hear. Lord Balfour listened for a moment and shook his head, unwilling to believe the truth that filled his arms.
Atlas quietly slipped from the room.
* * *
Charlton yawned. “I appreciate the offer, Atlas, but my overnight guests are usually of the female variety and are interested in seeing to my pleasure.”
“I am interested in seeing to your safety, not your pleasure.” Atlas repositioned the deep chair, his uncomfortable sleeping place for the night, before the lit hearth. The doctor had advised against moving Charlton before morning.
Atlas’s current position afforded him a view of Charlton, now an indistinguishable silhouette on the large four-poster bed. Shadows from the flames frolicked across the darkened walls like celebrants at a ball.
Atlas dropped his leaden body into the upholstered seat, grateful for its softness, fatigue burrowing deep under his skin. “What if the person who tried to kill you decides to return to finish the job?”
“Do you think it will come to that?”
“I have no idea.” Atlas rested his head against the chair and welcomed the fire’s nourishing warmth. Outside, an icy rain beat against the window. “However, I think you are correct in surmising the attacks on you and Jasper Balfour are connected.”
“I was the diversion.”
Atlas closed his eyes. “Which means the killer was present this evening, a guest of Lord Balfour or of his son.”
“And he panicked once you took Jasper away for a private conversation. He must have been worried Jasper would reveal everything,” Charlton’s disembodied voice surmised from the shadows. “Does that narrow your list of suspects down to the gentlemen who were in the library and saw you take Jasper away?”
“It would seem.” Exhausted and still shaken by the attack on Charlton, Atlas had difficulty sorting through the disparate facts to attempt to pull them into some semblance of order. The calculated attack on his friend had resurrected emotions he hadn’t experienced since Phoebe’s death—a tangle of fury, horror, and helplessness. “The footman stationed in the corridor outside the gallery swears no one entered the chamber after I left Jasper.”
“How did the boy die?” Charlton asked through a yawn.
“Who knows? There were no signs of a struggle. No blood, bullet, or knife wound. He was not strangled. There was nothing obvious to suggest he was attacked.”
“Maybe it wasn’t murder.”
Atlas made a skeptical face in the dark. “What are the chances Jasper would die on his own just as he was about to reveal the murderer’s identity?”
“It is possible our killer is the luckiest bastard alive.”
“I suppose. But his luck must run out at some juncture.” Atlas intended to see that it did. He was no longer searching solely for Mrs. Pike’s murderer. He was looking for a man who had already killed twice, and who had also shot Charlton.
“Where do you go from here?” Charlton inquired. “What happens next?”
“Now we sleep.” Atlas shifted in the chair, arranging his large, long body in as comfortable a position as possible. “And tomorrow, I resume my search for a killer.”
* * *
The following afternoon, Charlton�
��s valet had barely gotten the earl comfortably situated in his bedchamber when Thea burst in, trailed by Lilliana.
“Is it true that you were shot?” Thea was flushed, and her deep brown eyes burned with concern. “What happened?”
“Mrs. Palmer.” Charlton’s pale face brightened. “What a delightful intrusion.”
Finch, the earl’s butler, appeared shocked and personally offended by the scandalous appearance of ladies in his master’s bedchamber. A respectable woman did not enter a bachelor’s private rooms unless she was the man’s mother, sister, daughter, or wife. “Mrs. Palmer, please allow me to show you to the earl’s sitting room, and then I shall inquire as to whether he is receiving.”
“Of course I am receiving.” Charlton had color in his cheeks for the first time since the shooting. “Go away, Finch.”
The butler protested. “But my lord should rest.”
Charlton kept his gaze on Thea. “Go away.”
“Yes, my lord.” Finch reluctantly quit the room, while Thea went straight to Charlton’s bedside.
“How did this happen?”
“It is just a minor wound.”
“Did you get shot or not?” she asked stridently.
Atlas interjected. “He did. Fortunately, the bullet went straight through.”
“Then it was hardly a minor wound.” Thea glared at Charlton. “You could have been killed.”
The earl’s golden brows arched. “Why, my dear Mrs. Palmer, if I did not know better, I might think you actually cared.”
“What has the doctor said? Are you following his orders?”
“To the letter.”
“I shall leave instructions for the cook.” Thea fluffed the pillows behind Charlton’s back and straightened his blankets. “You must have plain food to begin with, plenty of beef tea.”
“I detest beef tea,” Charlton said, only a little belligerently.
“Nonetheless you must have it. If I must, I shall come around every day to make certain you take the beef tea.”
“You just might have to,” Charlton said happily.
Atlas crossed the room to Lilliana, who’d shown slightly more decorum than his sister by remaining near the open door. “Who is that woman?” he asked Lilliana, jerking his head toward Thea. “Why is my sister behaving so strangely?”
“Thea cares for Charlton as a dear friend.”
“She does?” Atlas’s brows lowered. “Then why does she continually treat him as if he is a complete nuisance?”
A slight smile touched Lilliana’s lips. “For such an intelligent man, you do miss a great deal.” She said the words kindly, almost fondly.
“What does that mean?” It was not the first time Lilliana had said some such nonsense to him.
“Lady Lilliana,” Charlton said from the bed, “it was good of you to come. Do forgive me, ladies, for not rising.”
“I wish you a speedy recovery,” Lilliana answered. “We were immensely perturbed to learn you had been hurt.”
“Who is dressing your wounds?” Thea’s bossy nature, which always annoyed Atlas, was in full bloom. But Charlton seemed to be basking in it. “It must be done with care.”
“Charlton’s doctor will come every day to check on him and to look after his wound,” Atlas told her.
“But he shall not be here to ensure that I drink all of my beef tea,” Charlton put in.
While Thea continued to fuss over Charlton, Atlas stood by the door with Lilliana and filled her in on what had occurred. As he spoke, he watched Thea drag a bergère chair next to Charlton’s bedside.
Lilliana listened intently, and when Atlas finished, she thought for a moment. “I do not think all of your likely suspects were necessarily in the library. Did you not say the doors leading to the terrace were open?”
“Yes, they were, to let out the smoke.”
“Which means it is possible that someone on the terrace could have been aware of what was occurring in the library.”
He seamlessly picked up the thread of her thinking. “Someone who might have seen me arrive and greet Lord Balfour.”
She nodded. “And if that someone is the killer, they might have made it their business to go out onto the terrace in order to hear what you discussed with Jasper. But then he was thwarted when you took Jasper away to a room where he could not eavesdrop, which meant he could not keep abreast of how much Jasper might tell you.”
“And so the killer decides he needs to create a diversion.” The thought of it made rage boil in Atlas’s veins. “Which he does by putting a bullet into Charlton.”
His gaze wandered back to Thea, who was seated by Charlton’s bedside. The two appeared to be deep in conversation. The incongruous sight of his prickly sister in apparent harmony with Charlton was like seeing a fish walk on land.
“And while you were diverted seeing to your injured friend,” Lilliana continued, “the killer slipped into the gallery and did away with Jasper.”
“Except that the footman stationed in the corridor swears no one went in or out of the gallery.”
“He could hardly admit to it if he deserted his post for a few minutes. Perhaps he was drawn to the commotion created by Charlton’s shooting.”
Atlas considered her words. “That is a possibility. But there is also the question of what killed him. I saw no signs of a struggle, no blood, no obvious wound. It could have been a natural death.”
But he saw in Lilliana’s eyes that she did not believe that any more than he did. “When will you speak with the coroner?”
“I will send a note around to Endicott. Perhaps he will inform me when he receives the results of the autopsy.”
Across the chamber, Thea abruptly rose from her chair. “We should allow Charlton to rest now,” she announced. “He is no doubt tired.”
“Oh, do stay. I am not in the least bit fatigued,” Charlton said. But the deep lines fanning out from his eyes and the pronounced grooves bracketing his mouth belied his protestations.
Thea ignored Charlton’s assertions, a return to her customary treatment of the earl, and the two ladies said their goodbyes.
Atlas saw them to the door of the bedchamber. “I think I shall stay while he rests.”
“Do not keep him talking,” Thea ordered before the ladies departed.
“What the devil is the matter with her?” Atlas said as he crossed to Charlton’s bedside and settled in the seat Thea had recently occupied. “I hardly recognized my own sister. Except for the managing nature, which I am all too familiar with. I mean, really, to barge into a gentleman’s bedchamber in that manner and then proceed to order you about.”
“Indeed.” Charlton gave a contented sigh. “Once I have recovered, I must seriously consider having you shoot me again.”
CHAPTER 22
That evening, Atlas dismissed Jamie and settled into his preferred stuffed chair with the nargileh to enjoy a bit of solitude.
Inhaling deeply, he blew out through his nostrils, watching the twin columns of smoke dissipate before reversing course and meandering up to the ceiling. While puzzles helped clear his mind, the water pipe was an instrument of complete relaxation. The rituals involved, the gurgle of the water, the rhythmic inhales and exhales, watching the column of smoke float out of his mouth, were all deeply soothing.
Unfortunately, the hookah was not having the desired effect on this particular evening. No number of inhales and exhales could breathe away the regrettable truth that Atlas had made a terrible tangle of things. Why had he insisted on speaking to Jasper with dozens of guests present? It was pure folly. His impatience had led to Jasper Balfour’s death. And Charlton had been shot. His friend could have died.
A firm knock at the door ruptured his reverie. He glanced at the ormolu clock on the table beside him. Framed with gilded turquoise porcelain, the clock had come with the apartments, another vivid color in this already lively room of bright oranges, reds, and blue paisley chintz.
It was almost ten o’clock. Normally, Atla
s would assume Charlton was calling at this hour, but then he remembered the earl was at home on Curzon Street with two holes in his side, one where the bullet entered, the other where it had exited.
The tapping on his door sounded again, more insistent this time. Whoever it was seemed determined to make a nuisance of himself. Atlas reluctantly set the hookah hose down and pushed to his feet. He gave his state of dishabille—shirtsleeves, a white linen shirt open at the neck because he’d discarded his cravat, bare feet—momentary consideration before dismissing any concerns. Whoever it was should not be calling uninvited at this time of night.
He regretted the decision not to make himself more presentable the moment he opened the dark-paneled front door to find Lilliana standing on the landing. Obviously attired for an evening out, she was swathed in golden silk showcasing a deep décolletage and the double strand of pearls that fell to her waist.
“Atlas.” Her gaze took in his untidy appearance. “Forgive me for intruding.”
“Not at all.” He ushered her in and closed the door, smoothing his hair with the flat of his hand. “Have I forgotten an engagement? Is the opera this evening?” He’d been invited to join Lilliana and Somerville at Covent Garden the following night.
“Beg pardon?” She looked down at her finery and shook her head with a small laugh. “No, we are to attend the opera on the morrow. I was on my way to a rout this evening, but then I had a thought related to the investigation and directed the coachman to stop here for a moment.”
“What is it?” Rolling down his sleeves, he looked around for his slippers and pushed his bare feet into them, haphazardly trying to make himself somewhat decent for company.
She paused uncertainly in the front hall. “But this is clearly an inconvenient time.” She turned back to the door. “Perhaps you could call on me in the morning, and we can discuss it.”
“Nonsense.” He was reluctant to let Lilliana go. “As long as you are here, please do come in.”
“If you are certain?”
“I am. Otherwise, I am destined to pass the evening flagellating myself for the mess I’ve made of the investigation.”