Chastity crumpled the paper in one hand. How dare someone make her sister cry. How very dare they. She pressed a hot breath between her teeth.
“I will find whoever did this,” she declared.
“It will not stop the gossip, my dear,” Aunt Sarah said. “I remember when I wore quite the daring gown to the ball of ‘75 and they drew me with the most ridiculously large bosoms.” Her aunt chuckled. “Of course, I would not mind such a drawing so much now. Especially now my bosoms are not quite where they once were.”
“This is libel. Anton should sue.”
“If you can even find out who was behind the drawing,” Demeter pointed out.
“Does father know?” She looked between them.
Demeter shook her head. “He will not find out.”
“Good.” Their father was an absent-minded man these days and growing more fragile in mind by the day. Thankfully Anton had taken on most of the ducal duties, allowing Father to occupy himself with his studies and keeping his strength up. “I will fix this,” Chastity vowed. “Do not fear.”
And whoever did this would pay. Most dearly. No one made her sister cry.
∞∞∞
The sheriff’s neatly slicked white hair offered a perfect parting down the center. His clean-shaven face made Valentine considerably aware of the day’s growth he’d allowed to sprout upon his jaw. He itched to rub a hand across it. The man deferred to him with the courtesy his rank demanded but Valentine saw the confidence with which he held his gaze. It told him all he needed to know about the law’s interest in his nephew’s death.
Suicide.
And no further investigation.
“We found a note upon the body, my lord.” Mr. Parr offered up a letter. “Can you say if it is Mr. Harper’s writing?”
“Of course not,” he snapped.
While Julian might be his nephew, that carefully guarded secret had meant they had never corresponded directly. The fact Julian could read and write had been down to some careful investing in his education but not so much as to draw attention to the fact they were related. Valentine had hoped to lift Julian to the rank of butler one day and have him installed in one of the great houses in the country—a fine job with security.
The note was nonsense anyway. Julian worked hard and enjoyed his job. If the fact his mother had died giving birth to him ever upset him, he never let it show. Valentine gave the boy everything he could want in the form of Mr. and Mrs. Harper. Caring and discreet guardians, who loved him as if he were their own. And surely Julian knew he could come to Valentine if he truly ever needed help? So why had the lad not come to him? None of it made sense.
“We believe he was jilted by a lover.”
“This woman he was seen with?” Valentine asked.
He avoided gossip but there was no escaping the talk of Lady E. He highly doubted the gossip to be true. He could not claim to know Lady E. any better than her sister with the torn shoes and spoiled manners but Julian would know better than take a privileged lady as a lover.
He hoped.
Christ. He should have stayed in London with him. Valentine had established Julian at the London house for a few reasons—one being the distance between them meant people wouldn’t compare Julian’s features to his own. The other had been to give the boy some freedom. Every young man needed to experience life away from his family and he was nearing twenty. Valentine might have no taste for it since Julian’s birth but he would deny Julian nothing and the boy had been itching to work in Town.
“He would not be the first young man to have his heart broken by a lady.” Mr. Parr shrugged.
Valentine held back a bitter curse. The one pleasure of being in the countryside was the freedom to do whatever the hell he liked, including cursing until his mother likely heard him all the way over in Italy.
Julian was no fool, he wanted to bellow. If he wanted pleasure, he’d do what every other man his age did and find himself a brothel. But he could not claim to know his footman so closely. No one could know of their relationship or his sister’s memory would be forever tainted and he’d rather join Julian in the afterlife than cast shade upon Harriet.
“How did he die?”
“Hanged.” Valentine might appreciate Mr. Parr’s bluntness were it not for the fact he was speaking of Julian.
“He strung himself up in the stables, it seems. There were marks around his neck and we found a noose hanging from one of the beams. Someone must have pulled him down to try to save him.”
“Do you know who?”
Mr. Parr shook his head. “There were hundreds in attendance that night. No doubt we missed speaking with the person responsible.”
“Mr. Parr, you are no simple man, I believe. Surely it does not make sense for Mr. Harper to hang himself at a ball?”
“A man in love will do all manner of things. My thinking is he hoped to get the lady’s attention. Maybe make her feel regret for her actions. Perhaps he did not even intend to die but hoped she would come to his rescue.” The sheriff shrugged. “Alas, we shall never know.”
“There is more to this,” Valentine said tightly.
“I admire your interest in this case, Lord Kendall. Few employers would take such interest in their staff. I hope they know how lucky they are.”
Mr. Parr retrieved his hat from the entranceway table and set it on his head in an efficient movement that left Valentine in no doubt the sheriff had no intention of spending more time on this affair.
“It is a sad turn of events, my lord,” he added. “But one that you could do nothing about. Who knows the content of many men’s minds.” He paused by the door. “I will, of course, update you should the person who found him come forward.”
“Thank you, Mr. Parr,” Valentine forced himself to say then swiveled on his heel to the parlor room. He gestured the footman out and slammed the door shut behind him, making the wall sconces rattle.
There was no sense in agitating the man who oversaw the case but it had taken all his willpower not to roar at him, to demand action. The sheriffs of London had their hands full with enough crime. The suicide of a lowly footman would mean little to them, especially with the note they found.
He paced across the rug to the window to watch Mr. Parr march away, swiftly crossing the road in front of a wagon and vanishing down a tight alleyway. He doubted he’d see the man again.
So that was it. Julian’s death would be ruled a suicide. He curled his fists. It was wrong. All wrong.
“Bloody hell.” He slammed an open hand against the windowsill, his palm stinging with the force. “Bloody, goddamn, hell, bugger.”
Jaw tight, he caught sight of his reflection and paused to take a breath, both sets of knuckles pressed to the painted windowsill. He knew what a man about to commit suicide looked like. He’d witnessed it up close.
There was no chance Julian was like his father.
Chapter Three
“This will never work.” Eleanor paced past Chastity toward the empty fireplace of the drawing room, the gold lace trim on her sensible gown ruffling at each step, then back again to the window. Afternoon sunlight dappled through the lingering raindrops on the window. All her sisters had gathered to address the problem that was these awful rumors about Eleanor which had not ceased all week.
Oh yes, and now she suspected they had the murder of a young man to solve.
Chastity had a plan to find the murderer. A potentially outrageous one. But it could work.
Eleanor gnawed on the end of a thumb, tugging on a dark, springy curl that had sprung loose from its usual simple chignon. Eleanor had been afforded all the luxuries of a duke’s daughter since her mother died and Chastity’s own mother insisted she be brought over to England but she never completely embraced the lifestyle as Chastity and Cassie did—perhaps because she was never fully accepted by Society. As much as they all loved her, there would always be those who would see her as an outsider.
But all of that had been survivable. Until tod
ay.
Chastity glanced about the room and shuffled forward on her chair, hands laced together. Her sisters needed to know she was deadly serious about her plan.
Cassie, who should have been enjoying the glow of being a newlywed, had delayed her honeymoon to be with Eleanor. Somehow her sister had grown before her very eyes from her youngest and wildest sister to a strong, courageous, and determined young woman.
Chastity had to be the one to fix this though. Not Cassie, not Demeter, and most certainly not Eleanor. Cassie should be enjoying time with Luke, and Chastity was the only widow. She had freedoms her younger sisters did not.
Besides, as the oldest, it was her responsibility to fix this.
Unless one counted Aunt Sarah, of course, who currently sat at the writing desk, doodling a drawing of Simon the cat, whom she had adopted upon discovering he had a likeness to her late husband—also named Simon.
Everyone pretended the cat really was Simon as Aunt Sarah insisted his spirit had come to her in her time of need, and Chastity had to admit, the creature often behaved like Uncle Simon did, moving with the same gentle ease and napping on the armchair by the fire in the blue room.
Though all cats behaved like that, did they not?
She shook her head. Her point was, this was down to her. Aunt Sarah could be useful in a fix but to say her mind was often somewhere else was putting it mildly.
“Someone else should do this,” Demeter said, twisting a glass bracelet around her wrist again and again.
If one looked closely, one would spot flowers inside—a habit her sister adopted when after she had become sick as a child and lost her hearing temporarily. Her speech had yet to be formed so she used the language of flowers to communicate her feelings. Chastity suspected it brought comfort to her shy sister but wasn’t certain her reliance on flowers was a particularly healthy habit. Today, they told her Demeter was worried.
As were they all.
“There is no one else,” pointed out Chastity, gesturing around the room at her three sisters and aunt.
Eleanor perched on the edge of the windowsill and stared out at the gardens while Cassie and Demeter sat together on the sofa of the drawing room. The room had been their mother’s favorite and where the Duchess’s Investigative Society started. There had been many members outside of the family over the years but as some had wed or moved away, it had come down to just their family and Chastity had slowly brought her sisters into it.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. Much to her late-mother’s chagrin no doubt. She wasn’t even meant to invite her unwed sisters to help but it had seemed harmless to let them help. Typically, it was small, delicate, female matters that only the touch of a woman could manage. Few men knew of their existence or if they did, did not believe them to be anything other than a silly group of women pretending to do something useful, but they had helped real people, including finding a missing brother before Cassie’s wedding.
“Perhaps this will all pass,” Eleanor suggested.
“It has not yet.” Cassie’s chin turned into a determined point. “I’ve a right mind to hunt down whoever is spreading such malicious gossip. To paint you as a...a...”
“Harlot!” Aunt Sarah piped up. “Hussy…floozy…jezebel…strumpet…”
Cassie’s face paled. “I was not going to put it like that!”
Chastity noted the tension in Eleanor’s shoulders and she suspected her sister to be holding back tears while she kept her face to the window. “I think that will do, Aunt Sarah.” She held up a hand.
“I have more.” Aunt Sarah grinned. “I have even been called some of them in the past.” She sighed. “I do not doubt this to be terrible for dear Eleanor but they are only words.”
“They are words and drawings,” Eleanor said tightly, her back still to them. “Ugly, horrible drawings that shall last forever. If Cassie has children, they will be able to look upon them one day.” Her shoulders trembled and her voice cracked.
“Anyway,” Cassie continued, “to paint her like that is one thing—even if it is a vile thing indeed and could ruin a reputation—but to suggest you had a hand in his death is preposterous.”
“It could ruin you all,” Eleanor muttered.
Cassie shook her head vigorously. “We hardly care about that!”
“Did they not find a note upon his body?” asked Demeter.
Chastity nodded. “It suggested he was crossed in love. But there is a murmur that Lord Kendall—his employer—questioned whether the man would really do such an act.”
“He is not wrong.” Eleanor twisted upon the sill. “I spoke to Mr. Harper only a short while before...his death...and he was most happy, speaking of his love for a woman.” She sighed and pressed her head against the windowpane. “If only I had stayed inside but I intended to fetch my sketchpad and sneak away. I had quite the marvelous idea.” Her shoulders dropped. “I suppose it was not that great an idea now.”
“Who is Lord Kendall anyway?” Cassie frowned and shoved a golden curl from her face. “I cannot even picture the man, though I have heard the name before.”
Chastity shrugged. “I have little idea—he is an earl so goodness knows how we have missed him. But it does not matter. If he believes what Eleanor says to be true—that the man would not kill himself—it means this really could be a murder case. And we should find out who did such an act. Then no one can possibly continue to malign Eleanor’s reputation.”
Eleanor rose from the windowsill. “I still do not like this plan. How could you possibly pass for a servant? You are a duke’s daughter. Someone will recognize you.”
Chastity offered a slow smile. “You would be surprised what I have disguised myself as, dear Eleanor. Or how good I am at playing pretend.”
She kept her smile fixed in place, ignoring the tiny, strange pang the declaration caused. Her sisters could never know quite how adept she’d become at living a falsehood during her marriage. And, anyway, such skills meant she was excellent at getting people to talk. If his lover murdered the poor man, she would find it out. But first she needed a job.
At this Lord Kendall’s house.
∞∞∞
Valentine uttered a grateful prayer for the thick fog that swirled in off the Thames, clouding the already dark night with a soupy mix that would ensure no one saw him arrive at the house. If he was to keep his sister’s memory intact, no one could know the man discovered at Guildbury Hall was his nephew.
He rapped lightly on the door and glanced around. Clustered into a tight corner, the Harper’s house offered glowing lamps in their windows, delving into the foggy evening like a lighthouse on a rocky coastline. It was no grand house, but Valentine always ensured Julian and the Harpers were well looked after—without drawing attention. Mrs. Harper had been thankful to leave her job as a maid and Mr. Harper wanted nothing more than a son to raise—something they had not managed in their seven years of marriage at the time.
Julian’s death would cut them both deeply.
He drew in a breath of smoke-scented air and held it as the door opened. Now nearing fifty, the warm twinkle in her eye or the air of efficiency that had led him to believe she would be a good fit for his nephew had not vanished. However, that twinkle could scarcely be seen behind the grief carved deep into the creases around her eyes. He had not looked forward to this. But it had to be done.
“It is good of you to come, my lord.”
“Valentine, please.”
“Of course.” She motioned him in, glancing around the quiet street before shutting the door.
Another reason for him choosing Mrs. Harper had been her understanding of the delicacy of the situation. She aided his sister during her labor and helped her hide her lack of courses. The lengths the woman would go to keep secrets amazed him. Though, of course, since he had been aware of his sister’s illegitimate child, he too had plenty of secrets to keep.
The balmy evening offered no reason to have a fire but the parlor room presented a cozy war
mth with lit candles and lamps and slightly threadbare but soft furnishings. Mr. Harper rose from his seat as soon as Valentine entered and offered a dip of his head and hearty handshake.
“I wish we could be meeting under better circumstances.”
Valentine gave a grim smile. He’d seldom met with the Harpers and could count those occasions on one hand, but Mr. Harper could write so they corresponded when necessary about Julian. He certainly never anticipated having to make such a visit.
He drew off his gloves while Mrs. Harper busied herself pouring tea and setting the cups on the mahogany table covered in lace, likely made by Mrs. Harper’s own hand given that lace adorned almost every surface in the room. The embroidered flower framed proudly above the fireplace indicated Mrs. Harper had a keen interest in all needlepoint.
Mrs. Harper coughed and her husband shot into action, snatching up the one cup with a tiny chip in one corner before Valentine could take his own. The floral cups and matching teapot were positioned just so in front of a group of three chairs. He swallowed the knot in his throat.
Once he had set his gloves and hat on the nearby console table, he eased into the third chair and shoved aside any thoughts that Julian had likely been the last person to occupy it.
“The sheriff visited today,” Mr. Harper commented.
Valentine nodded. “He spoke with me but two days ago.”
“No doubt he told you what he did me. That Julian killed himself because of some tiff with a lover.” Mr. Harper’s lips twisted, making his thick gray moustache tilt.
“He would never do such a thing.” Mrs. Harper offered a china cup to Valentine and he took it, despite having no taste for tea or the cake on offer. “We just know it. He was a God-fearing boy.” Her voice cracked on the last syllable.
Mr. Harper leaned over and squeezed his wife’s hand. “Lord Kendall knows.”
“I do.”
“He was most happy with his job and had even met a girl—a sweet thing by the sounds of it. Nothing like they are painting.” Mrs. Harper’s cup rattled in her hand and she set it down on the table. “Forgive me, but it is hard to believe he is gone and now Society is making it their entertainment. I do not think he even knew this Lady E. and he would certainly know better than to get involved with a lady.”
Temptations of a Duke's Daughter (The Duchess's Investigative Society Book 2) Page 2