I blushed. “Marsdale is only interested in tormenting me,” I protested.
“Which, in your case, indicates interest. You’re not like the typical ladies of our acquaintance, where displays of attention and flattery work easily. You’re a bit more challenging than all that.”
I scowled in indignation. “I should hope so.”
Gage smiled as if I had said something humorous. “Marsdale is a rather curious fellow, and I think your presence will actually loosen his lips instead of sealing them.”
I didn’t want to talk about Marsdale anymore—or contemplate why Gage did not seem bothered by his pursuit. “In the meantime, I wondered if perhaps we should search Lady Godwin’s chamber.” The thought had occurred to me after we passed by it twice this afternoon when we visited with Lady Stratford.
It was his turn to blush. “I already did.”
“When?”
He cleared his throat. “After our interview with Lady Lydia and Mr. Tuthill.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That was what you needed to do? Why didn’t you take me with you?”
He seemed to struggle with answering the question, for he tugged at his coat sleeves. “Well . . . I thought it would be best if you were not caught searching the room with me, just in case someone were to happen by.”
I arched an eyebrow in skepticism.
“I didn’t find anything of interest, in any case.”
“Did you even know what to look for?” I asked, recalling the mental list I’d constructed while I dressed for dinner.
Gage took exception to my criticism. “Madam, this is not my first investigation. I believe I know a bit more than you about what I need to search for.”
I ignored his irritation. “Yes, but do you know what to search for in regards to a woman who is with child?”
“How would those items have anything to do with incriminating a murderer?” Gage asked crossly.
“Well, it could tell us how many people knew she was expecting. For example, did her lady’s maid know?”
“We can interview her and ask her that.”
“Yes, but did Lady Godwin have anything lying around that would imply such a thing to others who might visit her room?” I asked impatiently.
Gage looked upward in thought. “No. It appeared like any lady’s bedchamber.”
I bit my tongue before I could ask just how many ladies’ bedchambers he had been in. I suspected I wouldn’t like the answer. “Fine,” I replied sharply. “Then I shall wish you a good night.” I turned to march out of the library, but he grabbed my arm to stop me.
“Promise me you will not pursue any leads without first informing me.”
I scowled.
“Tell me now,” he insisted, his pale blue eyes holding my gaze steadily. “Or I will ask Philip to lock you away for your own protection.”
“I don’t need protection,” I snapped.
Gage raised a single eyebrow. “Lord Westlock’s attack last evening, and the other guests’ hostility toward you, say otherwise.”
I frowned, hating that he saw as much as I.
He squeezed my arm. “Promise me.”
It was clear he was serious. I also knew that as much as Philip believed in me, and as often as he indulged my eccentricities, he would always place the matter of my safety before anything else. He would not hesitate to take Gage’s advice.
I stared defiantly at Gage, angry that he would place Philip and me at cross-purposes and win. No matter the futility in the fight, there was no way I was going to give in to his demand without first attempting to extract some assurances of my own. “I will if you will promise me the same,” I demanded.
He lowered his brow, clearly not liking the bargain. But after discovering he had searched Lady Godwin’s rooms without me, no matter the reasons, I was certainly not going to let him run free while I could not.
“All right,” he reluctantly agreed. “But do not think that I will let you control this investigation,” he warned, gripping my arm tighter. “You are assisting me. And what I say goes. If I believe for a minute you are in danger, I will pull you from this investigation and have you locked up somewhere safe. Do you understand?”
I had absolutely no intention of complying with such a command, not when I needed to be free in order to catch the murderer and prevent Gage from suggesting me to the magistrate. However, there was no need for Gage to know that. It would be best to carry on with him in blissful ignorance. So I bobbed my head once in agreement before fleeing the room.
I was grateful for the anger fueling my movements as I hurried up the central staircase and through the hallways toward my room, for it distracted me from the gloom and shadows that otherwise might have frightened me. By the time I reached my bedchamber, I was so absorbed in contemplating ways to thwart Gage that I nearly stepped over the piece of paper lying on the floor just inside my door.
I stumbled to a halt and stared down at the folded white foolscap, wondering if I should have been expecting it. I glanced behind me into the corridor, peering in each direction before I closed and locked the door. Only then did I bend and pick up the letter, for I knew that was what it had to be—another note from either the murderer or a guest who was very diligent in their persecution of me. I turned the page around in my fingers, checking it for markings, and then unfolded the paper. It crinkled between my stiff fingers.
PERHAPS YOU SHOULD LEAVE THE INVESTIGATING TO THOSE WHO ARE MORE EXERIENCED BEFORE YOU REGRET IT. ETERNALLY.
I blinked down at the words. Ice formed in my veins, chilling me to the core. If whoever had sent this intended to frighten me, they’d certainly done their job. But there was no way I was going to quit this investigation. There was simply too much at stake for me to heed to threats, especially if they only came from a vindictive guest on a witch hunt.
The idea that the letter might have been written by the killer’s hand gave me greater pause, but I was no less determined to defy them and discover why they wanted me off the inquiry so badly. Was there something the murderer worried I would uncover that Gage or Philip might not? Why? Because of my grim experience?
I frowned and refolded the letter, irritated to see that my hands were still shaking. Then I stuffed it into the drawer of my escritoire with the note from the night before. I knew one thing—I certainly wasn’t going to show the letter to Gage. After our altercation in the library, I knew he was looking for an excuse to ban me from the inquiry and lock me in my room, and I wasn’t about to give it to him. For the time being, I was more scared of what my absence from the investigation could cost me than what the murderer might do, foolish as that might be.
Even so, I tossed and turned long into the night and wondered if I was making a grave mistake.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You’d better have a good reason for pulling me out of bed at such an ungodly hour, Gage,” Marsdale drawled as he entered the parlor connected to his bedchamber the next morning.
Under the circumstances, I was inclined to agree with him, having barely pulled myself out of bed in time to meet Gage after another long, restless night. I would have been quite happy to allow Marsdale to sleep on, disturbing him closer to his normal rising time at noon. But of course that would have wasted hours of daylight and valuable investigation time. The procurator fiscal would not allow me to make up for lost time, and neither would the murderer.
Marsdale’s steps faltered when he saw me, and his eyes lit with a gleeful anticipation I found most unsettling. “Now why didn’t you tell me the lovely Lady Darby would be joining us?” he demanded. “I would have hurried along much quicker. And worn much less clothing,” he added with a wicked grin before flopping down onto the settee much too close to me.
I knew I should have chosen the chair. I pulled my skirt out from unde
r him and scooted as far away from him as the piece of furniture would allow. My maneuvering only made him grin wider.
“Let Lady Darby be,” Gage told Marsdale, his brow lowered in a fierce frown.
The duke’s heir slouched deeper into the cushions and stuck out his lower lip in a pout.
As Gage predicted, Marsdale had insisted on being difficult from the moment we appeared at his door that morning. He tried to refuse us when Gage sent Marsdale’s valet in to wake him at eight, and then at a quarter after, and half past. Only Gage’s threat to send four of Philip’s footmen in to drag him out of bed and tie him to a chair seemed sufficient enough to motivate him to move. Even then, he had still taken his time preparing to receive us.
I studied his appearance with some interest, wondering just how terrible he had looked when he rolled out of bed if this was how he appeared after nearly half an hour of primping. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair stood on end, but his jaw had clearly been shaved. I could still smell the soap. In place of a frock coat, he wore a black velvet dressing gown over a pristine white shirt and a pair of buff trousers. The shirt gaped at his throat, providing me a glimpse of the dark whorls of hair sprinkling his chest. I tried not to focus on the sight, lest Marsdale notice my interest. However, it was more difficult than I would have thought. Rarely had a man appeared before me in dishabille. Even Sir Anthony was always punctiliously dressed in my presence, and he came to me at night in the dark wearing his nightshirt. I suppose there were his anatomy subjects to consider, but the body of a living man was quite different from that of a dead one.
“You’re becoming quite a bore,” Marsdale told Gage, all the while keeping his eyes on me and the neckline of my mauve-and-dove-gray morning dress. “In fact, Mrs. Cline complained to me of it just last evening.”
Gage sighed heavily. “We’re not here to discuss me. I want to talk about your relationship with Lady Godwin.”
“Why would you care about that?” Marsdale replied offhandedly. “She was demanding and dull.” His eyes slid over me intently, as if taking inventory. “Lady Darby seems like she would be a much more interesting companion. Did you bring her to share?” I stiffened. “I’m not normally interested in such a thing if it includes another male, but for Lady Darby, I think I might be willing.”
“Marsdale!” Gage barked angrily.
A blush heated my face clear to the tips of my ears, and I couldn’t stop an image from forming in my head of Gage cradling my face between his hands, and Marsdale . . . My imagination seemed to give out at that point. “But how . . . ?” I began to ask in puzzlement before my brain could stop me from doing so.
Marsdale burst out in delighted laughter while Gage shook his head at me, discouraging me from finishing the question.
“Oh, Lady Darby, you are a treat,” Marsdale gasped, cradling his head in his hands. His face was suffused with an interesting combination of pain and amusement. I assumed the ache was caused by last night’s overindulgence, and I suddenly wished for him to suffer a great deal more of it. “I could teach you . . .”
“Marsdale,” Gage interrupted. “I did not bring Lady Darby with me so that you could torment her. Now, if you will. Let’s return to the matter at hand.” He glared at the marquess. “You should be taking this seriously. After all, you are being considered as a suspect in a murder investigation.”
Marsdale turned to give Gage his full attention for the first time since entering the room, and I shifted in my seat, grateful to be released from his gaze.
“I’m a suspect. Truly?” He actually seemed intrigued by the idea. I thought he had only been toying with me last night when he became so interested by such a prospect.
Gage narrowed his eyes. “I was informed that you were involved with Lady Godwin earlier this year.”
“Yes. I allowed her to bed me a few times,” he replied airily.
Surprised by the way he had chosen to phrase his answer, I couldn’t stop myself from asking. “She bedded you?”
He turned back to me with a smirk. “It was at a house party. I was bored and she was eager, so I let her crawl under my covers. All in all, it was a rather tedious encounter.”
I widened my eyes, taken aback by his blasé attitude. I had the distinct feeling Lady Godwin would not have viewed their liaison in such derogatory terms, and that she would have been furious to discover he had.
“Have no worries, Lady Darby,” he went on to say, reaching out to drag his finger over the back of my hand. I pulled it away from him, tucking it in my lap. “I’m certain our encounters will be anything but tedious.”
I arched an eyebrow haughtily at him. He was certainly in fine form, and I wondered if he was normally this crude in the morning, or if perhaps he was trying to punish me for last night’s rejection.
“When was this house party?” Gage interrupted before I could come up with a proper set-down.
Marsdale’s eyes laughed at me as he addressed Gage. “Sometime around Saint Valentine’s Day. Val Corbett finds it bloody hilarious to host his annual hunting party to correspond with his namesake’s holiday.”
I glanced at Gage. If that were true, then Marsdale was unlikely to be the father of Lady Godwin’s baby.
“You did not bed her again after that?” he pressed, his pale blue eyes washed gray by the bright hue of his bottle-green coat.
Marsdale grimaced and turned to Gage. “God, no. Why are you pressing me so about this? Did someone toss the viscountess’s skirts before killing her?” I cringed. “If so, you’d best speak to Fitzpatrick. He’s been swiving her for weeks.”
“I’ve already spoken to Fitzpatrick,” Gage replied with exaggerated patience.
“And he accused me?”
Gage studiously avoided my eyes. “Well, no.”
“Ah, so you’re just speaking with all of her former lovers,” Marsdale replied, widening his legs so that his left knee almost brushed mine. “That could take a while. The viscountess spread her legs for more men than a twopenny whore. And most of them aren’t here at Gairloch.”
I screwed up my face in disgust. “Surely not.”
“Well, no. Not quite that bad. It’s merely an expression.” His eyes perused my face lazily. “Perhaps I should be couching my words in more polite terms, but this is hardly a polite conversation. Which makes me wonder why you’re here.”
I struggled to continue meeting his eyes and not glance at Gage. He was far sharper than either of us had expected him to be at nine o’clock in the morning when he had been foxed the night before. However, I doubted he would run about telling everyone of my presence in his chamber this morning—at least, not in my current capacity. He might try to imply that I had been in his bed.
“Lady Darby is here at my request,” Gage pronounced, saving me from coming up with an explanation. “I thought you might cooperate better with a lady present.”
“If you really want me to cooperate, you should offer me something in return,” Marsdale replied, his words dripping with insinuation.
I frowned at him.
“How about, I won’t ask Cromarty to lock you in your chambers without a drop of alcohol or a single woman,” Gage threatened, bristling in his chair across the tea table.
Far from being intimidated, Marsdale seemed amused by Gage’s irritation. “What else do you want to know? More about Lady Godwin’s sexual proclivities?”
“Where were you when Lady Lydia screamed?”
He sighed, as if bored by Gage’s question. “Lord Stratford and I retired to the men’s parlor for a smoke after dinner. However, Stratford left me shortly after, and I’m afraid no one else joined me until Lord Lewis Effingham stopped in to tell me about the gruesome sight everyone found in the maze. So I have no one to corroborate my alibi.” He did not seem particularly worried about this, and even
smiled rather smugly.
“Do you have any idea who might have murdered Lady Godwin? Any idea who might have wanted to hurt her?”
Marsdale shrugged. “I haven’t the foggiest.”
Gage scowled at Marsdale’s nonchalant attitude. “Well, if you think of anything, I would appreciate it if you would let me know.” He began to rise, and I followed suit.
“I have a question,” Marsdale said.
I tensed and braced for whatever lewd jest was about to pop out of his mouth next.
“Lady Darby, do you still paint?”
The query sounded innocent, but I knew that could hardly be the case if Lord Marsdale was asking it. “Yes,” I replied cautiously.
“I would like to hire you to paint my portrait,” he declared.
My heart jumped at his words. It had been nearly a year and a half since someone other than family had commissioned me to paint for them. All of my recent work had been created from my own whim, in hopes that someone would find the subjects I chose interesting enough to purchase. I longed to paint a real person again, someone beyond the figures in my imagination or the members of my family.
“Truly?” I asked, not certain I could trust Marsdale’s words. Not that I doubted he would want a portrait of himself. The aristocracy liked to commission paintings of themselves for posterity, and he was definitely arrogant enough to enjoy such a thing. However, he had teased and tormented me since his arrival, and I wasn’t certain how this statement might play out in the private game he seemed to be playing.
“You are certainly talented enough. And I would rather have my image depicted while I am still young, rather than after my father is deceased.”
I realized he was speaking of his ducal portrait, and I instantly began imagining how I would dress and pose him to his best advantage. Perhaps at the top of a grand staircase or on a terrace or balcony—something to suit his haughty demeanor. He was handsome enough not to require the softer light of evening, though I still felt the muted shadows of late afternoon would suit him best. No robes or scepters or any of the other silly props so often present in the depictions of lords and royalty. He would look most impressive dressed in his austere evening kit, or perhaps riding attire.
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