Secret Admirer

by Michele Jaffe

  Tuesday closed her eyes for a moment. If Morse left, she would have to give him his back wages, and she would not be able to afford to do that until she finished the portrait of Dowager Castenaugh as Venus. Morse had stayed as long as he did only because he was in love with CeCe. She opened her eyes. “Father, I am afraid you can’t fire him. You see—”

  “Can’t fire him? This is my house, ain’t it? Won’t have surly numbskulls waiting on—who the devil are you?”

  Tuesday turned and saw Lawrence standing in the door. He must have followed her up. Before he could answer, she blurted. “That is no one. Father, something dreadful has happened.”

  Sir Dennis’s eyes were immediately riveted on her. “What did you do this time, Tuesday?”

  “Nothing. It is just—Curtis is dead.”

  “Dead? What did you do to him?”

  “He was murdered.”

  Sir Dennis’s mouth worked for a few moments before he managed to find words. “Murdered?” he repeated, his color rising dangerously. “You’ve done it again, Tuesday. Best thing that ever happened to you, Curtis was, you were damned lucky to have him. Young, handsome. From a good family. What he wanted with you I’ll never know. And now you got him murdered!” Sir Dennis, who appeared to be boiling, flopped back into his chair, rage vaporizing into self pity. “Must you destroy everything? Every last shred of my happiness? Murdered! I suppose everyone will be talking about it now. Tuesday, girl, you are my torment.” His eyes moved from Tuesday back to Lawrence. “Who the devil did you say you were?”

  Lawrence took two steps into the room. “The Earl of Arden.”

  “An earl huh?” Sir Dennis’s color was quickly returning to normal. “You must know my son, Howard. Not a thing like his sister. Marvelous boy, Howard. Don’t judge us all by Tuesday. Been a disappointment since the day she was born. You don’t look much like an earl.”

  “So I have been told.”

  “What are you doing here, then? Did you come with the musicians?”

  “Musicians?” Tuesday asked.

  “Musicians,” Sir Dennis repeated in a falsetto, mocking her tone. “Yes musicians. Man in my position is entitled to some entertainment. Told Morse to send up some musicians and do you know what he did? He laughed in my face. Tuesday, go get some musicians.”

  “Father, I—”

  “What do I ever ask you for? Too busy going and getting your husband murdered to find me musicians are you? Too busy sullying the family name? Will you continue to torment me with this disobedience, child? I told you to go. Now get. And take that man with you. Don’t like the look of him.”

  Tuesday hesitated for a moment, then turned and left. Lawrence stepped aside to let her pass, then followed her down the stairs. As they went by the mirror, he saw that the painting he had admired that morning was reflected in it. If he had not known better, he would have thought the hall was filled with furniture, instead of being empty.

  In marked contrast to Sir Dennis’s handsomely furnished suit. It was then that Lawrence understood.

  “He doesn’t know, does he?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Know what?”

  “That you are ruined. That you have been selling the furnishings of the house in order to survive. You leave that mirror there so that if he were to look down the stairs everything would look normal. That is what you meant this morning about not being able to show me your husband’s chambers. You and he share the studio.”

  “Not exactly,” she replied.

  He saw a flush rise up the back of her neck. The knowledge that the family fortune had been decimated, even if he had been the salient force behind its decimation, would surely kill Sir Dennis, Tuesday’s brother had argued, and therefore the news was to be kept from him at all costs. His suit of apartments was the only one that still retained its old appearance, although Tuesday had found herself guiltily wondering the other morning if he would really miss the small ivory casket with the gold hinges that stood, apparently unused, on the corner of a table. The musicians needed for an afternoon concert were as out of her reach as a trip to the Indies in a gold-encrusted boat. But her father could not know that, just as he could not know that she supported the household by painting portraits. “Please, Lord Pickering, lower your voice.”

  She had called him Lord Pickering. And she was having one hell of a day. He decided he could humor her. “Are all the rooms empty?” Lawrence asked in a whisper as they entered the service corridor that led to what he now understood was not only her studio but her living quarters.

  Tuesday was overwhelmed by the need to be by herself. She wanted to think, alone, without some hulk of a man following her and badgering her with questions. Questions she could not answer. “You may look for yourself. None of the doors have locks on them.”

  “I will. As soon as you have—”

  “—answered your questions,” Tuesday finished the sentence for him. She opened the door to her studio, not the one he had entered through earlier, and turned to face him. “Where shall we start? With the fact that my husband has not been living here for the past two months?”

  She stopped because he was not listening to her. He was not even looking at her. She followed the direction of his gaze.

  He was looking behind her, to her work table. Where someone had left a good sized round box, about the size of a man’s hand with the fingers outstretched.

  The box was decorated with brightly colored enamel. On the sides, unicorns and maidens inconceivably danced together while swains played pipes and leaned on trees. On the lid, a garland of roses surrounded a bright red heart pierced by an arrow. Around the edge of the lid ran a band of lettering in dark green enamel, set off in gold. Tuesday moved to the box and read the message.

  Then she set it back down on the table and wrapped her arms around her body and said, “No, please God, no.”

  Chapter 6

  The Lion watched them from outside Worthington Hall. It was warm in the shadows of the alley that faced the woman’s windows, but that was not why his heart was racing. It was because it had started.

  He had seen them pull up in the carriage, had watched with glee as Lawrence Pickering scanned the street before he let Her out.

  Look all you want, Your Lordship. You won’t find me!

  It was going so perfectly. And this was only the beginning. If it felt like this now, what would it be like later when it got really serious? When they were hunting for him night and day? When he was leading them around by the hair?

  The Lion watched Lawrence Pickering with admiration. Even wearing day-old clothes that were supposed to be a drunk’s, the man looked good. It was something about the way his garments sat on his body, not just hanging there like other men’s. But it was also the way he wore them, something about the way he walked, carried himself. The Lion had practiced in the mirror and could do it pretty well.

  It was exhilarating, finally, to have a real adversary. Up until now, no one had much bothered about his killings. But that was all over. He and Lawrence Pickering, our nation’s greatest hero, going head to head. My God it was good. And what made it so rich was that his Lordship didn’t even know about it. He didn’t know someone else was running the show. Didn’t even know the Lion was watching him right that second. Figuring ways to kill him without ruining his clothes.

  Something rattled in the areaway behind him. He swung around and saw a dog nosing through a pile of kitchen scraps. It didn’t even notice he was there, stupid dog. It was ignoring him. Ignoring him.

  The tingling started in his stomach and moved out through his body. The Lion bent down to scratch the dog’s head and it looked up. For a moment it studied him curiously, its tongue hanging out of its mouth, its tail wagging. Then it plopped down and rolled onto its back, to have its stomach scratched. When the Lion didn’t move, it waved its paws and looked expectantly at him. The Lion stared back, and all of a sudden the dog’s eyes changed. They were no longer ex
pectant. Now they registered disgust.

  Dragon eyes a voice in the Lion’s head said.

  Just like the whore. The tingling got stronger. She was supposed to be scared, supposed to look scared, but instead she looked at him with contempt. No respect, looked at him to make him weak, to mock his greatness.

  The tingling filled his head. She was the last one to do that. Stupid bitch. The tingling roared in his ears, flickered in front of his eyes. He’d showed her. He’d show the dog, too. He’d—

  It was over before the Lion even realized what he had done. He looked down at his hands and saw the blood, but he was good at his job and hadn’t gotten any on his clothes. The dog, not quite dead, whimpered a few times, then went still.

  He hated dogs.

  He returned his attention to the windows, to his real adversary. Lawrence Pickering was standing over the table, cool, nonchalant. The man sure had style.

  He would do Pickering the same as he had done the dog, the Lion decided then. Use his knife, aim for the stomach, make it clean and fast. That way he would have enough time to get the name of the man’s tailor before he died.

  Chapter 7

  My Heart is your Heart is my Heart is your Heart is my Heart.

  The words were emblazoned around the lid of the box in an unending band, like the unending nightmare Tuesday had woken into that morning.

  She braced herself against the edge of the table to keep from trembling. “Do you think—” She stopped, swallowed. “Do you think that it is—that it could be—Curtis’s …?”

  Lawrence picked up the box. “I don’t know. I’m going to have one of my men take—”

  She shook her head. She said, “Open it. Here. Now.”

  Lawrence was tempted to argue, but her expression, the whiteness of her knuckles, changed his mind. He undid the small clasp and flipped up the lid.

  It was empty.

  Tuesday stared at the burgundy velvet interior for a moment. Then she collapsed against the table and began to laugh.

  She had been a bloody fool! Had she really thought the box had Curtis’s heart in it? She was trembling more now than before. How absurd she had been. How completely—

  “There is something inside,” Lawrence said, and her laughter vanished.

  Lawrence lifted a gold chain from the box, from which dangled a burgundy enamel heart the same color as the fabric lining. He dropped it into his palm and turned it over.

  “ ‘For Tuesday, as always,’ ” he read the inscription aloud and looked up at her.

  “Is today Tuesday?” she asked. When he nodded, Tuesday was tempted to laugh again and again with relief. “This has nothing to do with the murders,” she explained to Lawrence. “This happens every Tuesday.”

  “This?”

  “Presents. He leaves one every week.”

  “ ‘He’?”

  “Yes. The Secret Admirer. At least, that is what CeCe calls him,” she explained, and seemed to wince a little. “He won’t reveal himself, you see, and we don’t know anything about him. No one can describe him and as far as we know, no one has ever seen him.”

  Tuesday had tried repeatedly to find the source of the gifts and put an end to them. They added to her edginess, to the feeling that she was being watched. But none of her efforts yielded any answers. No one saw him come or go. No one saw him leave his packages at the back door as was his invariable custom. No men who excited any kind of abnormal notice bought flowers or sweets from the vendors in her neighborhood. He was as good as invisible.

  Compared to everything else that had happened that day, however, Tuesday thought, a man so inconspicuous that no one had ever noticed him was hardly something to worry about.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “For about two months. Since Curtis stopped living here.”

  “Always on Tuesday?” She nodded and he went on. “Your name day. It appears that someone is trying to honor you. Who is it?”

  “Honor me,” she echoed, shuddering. “I told you, I have no idea who.”

  Lawrence began straightening the sketches on her work table into neat piles. “Lady Arlington, it is extremely challenging for me to believe that you do not even have a guess about the identity of your invisible lover.”

  “He is not my lover. He does not love me, he is just lonely and confused,” she insisted, and the words had the sound of a well-worn argument. Probably, Lawrence suspected, with her maid. He could not think of many women who would deny that men loved them. Most of the women of his acquaintance were just the opposite—so eager to be perceived as attractive that they destroyed their reputations by claiming affairs they had never had. Was she telling the truth?

  “For a while I thought it was a joke,” she went on, absently upsetting the pile of papers he had made. “Then, when it kept going, I tried to learn his identity but, as I said, no one had seen anything. Ultimately I hoped that by just ignoring the presents, they would stop.”

  Lawrence was astonished by how little she knew about men. Ignore them and they go away? “You realize, Lady Arlington, that whoever has been sending you these presents could very well be the murderer. If he was in love with you—or just thought he was in love with you—he would undoubtedly benefit from your husband’s death.”

  “Of course. You are right.” It sounded from her tone like she had not realized it before. But she did now. She nodded slowly.

  Lawrence put all her brushes in a row from smallest to largest. “Yet you still maintain you don’t know who the Secret Admirer is.”

  “No. I told you.” She had picked up the box and was turning it around in her hands (my Heart is your Heart is my Heart is your Heart) as he spoke.

  Avoiding his eyes, Lawrence thought.

  “That is too bad. It would be in your best interest to suggest a substitute.”

  “A substitute?” she asked. “For what?”

  “For yourself. As the murderer.”

  Her head snapped up. “You can’t—You don’t—” She could tell by his expression that he did and he could. He was dead serious.

  She turned her face away from Lawrence, to buy herself a moment to think.

  And then she saw it.

  On an easel, at the far side of the room just beyond Lawrence’s left shoulder, stood a painting.

  A painting of a corner in a wood-paneled hallway with a knot in the wood that looked like a death’s head and a splattering of blood. A painting of the murder scene they had just come from. A painting she knew she had carefully hidden away in the earliest hours of the morning. Hard, cold fingers of fear closed around her heart.

  There is no escaping from me, don’t you know that by now? the voice from her dream whispered. You just keep your whore mouth shut or I’ll do the same to you as I did to him.

  She looked back at Lawrence. She had to get him out of there before he saw it.

  She faced him, holding his gaze now. “You do not really think that I am the murderer.”

  Lawrence was impressed. He would have expected an accusation of murder to illicit a tantrum, or at least a blush, but the only visible effect of his words was to make her grip the box so tight her knuckles went white.

  “Feel free to persuade me. I do not know what to think. You knew about the rose petals at the murder scene—rose petals my men had taken away an hour before. Only someone who had been there or been told of the murder could have known about those. How would you explain that?”

  “I could have smelled them. I mean, I did smell them,” she stammered. It was clear that he was not buying it, but that was the least of her problems right now. “Besides, I often mention rose petals. I adore them. It was just a coincidence that I said ‘rose petals’ when—”

  “I do not believe in coincidences.”

  She paused. “Really? How boring for you.” She was speaking as if they were making light conversation, passing the time at a ball or dinner. “If there are no coincidences,
do you believe that everything is planned and ord—”

  It was Lawrence’s expression that stopped her. He looked up from the glass jars of pigment he was arranging in a line by color. “I do not think you understand how serious this is, Lady Arlington.”

  “I promise you, you are wrong. And if I did not, the way you are frowning and grinding your teeth would surely inform me.”

  She was mad. She was mad and was going to drive him mad. “Lady Arlington, unless you start talking, start giving me true-sounding and compelling answers, I am going to have to conclude, however unwillingly, that you are lying because you murdered your husband.”

  “True sounding? What would be a true-sounding motive for me to have killed my husband?”

  “Perhaps when you kicked him out he took—”

  “I did not kick him out.”

  It took Lawrence a moment to get it. “Curtis left you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are lying.” Lawrence said the words before he realized it, without thinking. They hung in the air for a moment.

  In a flash her playfulness was gone. She said, “Get out.”

  “What?”

  “I said, get out.” She moved backward—toward the door, away from the painting. “If you think I am lying, I do not see that we have anything else to discuss. And I don’t like the way you are organizing everything. Get out. Now.”

  Something about her insistence that he leave pricked Lawrence’s suspicions. Instead of following her, he seated himself on an uneven gray velvet chair and moved it so it was at a right angle to the settee. He spent a moment frowning at his hands, then pinned her with his gaze. “What is it, Lady Arlington? Did he refuse to leave so you took other measures to get rid of him?”

  Standing with her hand on the door latch she stared him down. “You know, Mr. Pickering, I do not think there is a question you could put to me that I would answer.”

  “Aren’t you being just a bit too evasive? If you are trying to convince me you killed your husband, you are doing a very good job.”