Teresa Grant

by Imperial Scandal

  “Don’t you?” Violet’s gaze was trained on Cordelia.

  Cordelia’s fingers curled inward, nails pressing into her palms. “If George and I were destined for each other, something has obviously gone sadly wrong.”

  Violet was still staring at Cordelia. “You think you and George should be forgiven anything—”

  “Thought, perhaps.” Cordelia uncurled her fingers with deliberation and reached for her teacup.

  “And after all that, you didn’t even stay loyal to him. Any more than Julia stayed loyal to Johnny.”

  “Violet—” Cordelia drew a sharp breath. “For what it’s worth, I don’t always like myself very much.”

  “And then after George there were God knows how many others,” Violet said, gaze still fixed on Cordelia.

  “For heaven’s sake, Violet,” Jane said.

  “It’s no more than the truth, Jane.” Cordelia took a sip of tea. “But that’s between me and Harry.” She returned the cup to its saucer. “Why did you arrange to meet Julia, Violet?”

  “I don’t see—”

  “Vi, please. I just want to learn what happened to my sister.”

  “Violet.” Jane touched her sister-in-law’s arm. “I think the truth can only help now. If Mr. Rannoch and Colonel Davenport are looking into Julia’s death there are bound to be questions. Better to answer them now.” Better, her gaze implied, to speak before Suzanne rather than her husband.

  Violet sprang to her feet and paced to the window. She stood for a moment looking out at the leafy oak tree in the garden behind the house. “I came into the drawing room one day last week. Tony was writing—which was odd in and of itself, Tony has never been much of a writer. He pushed whatever he was writing between the pages of a book when I came into the room.”

  “Naturally you were curious,” Cordelia said.

  “Don’t be spiteful, Cordy.”

  “I’m not. I’d have been curious myself.”

  Violet curled her fingers round the window frame. “Tony received a summons from his commanding officer and had to leave the house at once, so of course he couldn’t retrieve the paper. As soon as he was gone, I looked at it.” She cast a defiant glance over her shoulder. Neither Cordelia nor Jane rose to the challenge.

  “It was a love letter to Julia.” Violet paced to the fireplace, gripping her elbows. “Julia, of all people. She’d done enough damage to our family. Tony should have known—It was a dreadful insult to Jane.”

  “And an insult to you,” Jane said in a quiet voice.

  Violet fingered a card of invitation to the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, tucked into the gilt frame of the mirror that hung over the mantel. “I was going to confront Tony. I had all sorts of terribly satisfying things worked out to say to him. But the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced Julia had done something to make him stray—”

  Jane gave a dry laugh.

  “—and men can be so foolishly stubborn. So it was no good talking to Tony, I needed to talk to Julia. I sent her a note. That note, the one Cordy found.” She made a gesture toward the square of paper on the sofa table.

  “What were you going to say to her?” Suzanne asked.

  Violet spun round, eyes wide with justified outrage. “What damage she was doing. That it had to stop.”

  “And you thought she’d stop just like that?” Jane asked.

  “I thought she’d listen to reason. Not that Julia was ever that reasonable. But we used to be friends. I thought—” Violet shrugged, fluttering the knots of seafoam ribbon on her bodice. “I just needed to talk to her.”

  “Did she meet you?” Suzanne asked.

  “Two days ago. She was on time, I’ll give her that.” Violet rubbed her arms. “She didn’t seem to have the least suspicion what it was about. She thought I wanted to talk about Johnny. Which I did, in a roundabout way. I said that having taken him she might at least have had the decency to appreciate him. Even then she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about until I told her I’d found Tony’s letter to her. Then she said—” Violet’s gaze slid to the side.

  “It’s all right, Vi,” Jane said. Her eyes held concern for her sister-in-law, but beneath it Suzanne thought she detected a lingering trace of bitterness. “I think I’m quite past Julia’s ability to hurt me.”

  “She said when I was married myself I’d understand these things.” Violet’s mouth twisted. “As though she was a font of wisdom, and I was—I told her I didn’t need to be married to understand perfectly well that she was betraying her husband and interfering in my brother’s marriage. Julia said—” Violet bit her lip and fixed her gaze on the moss roses in the hearth rug. “She said Jane wouldn’t be hurt by what she didn’t know about, and if I were sensible I’d keep quiet about the whole thing. The affair would end as these things always do, and Jane would be none the wiser.”

  “Tony’s charms appear to have worked less well than usual,” Jane murmured.

  “I rather lost my temper then. She was so hideously self-assured, and she didn’t have the decency to be properly in love with Tony, any more than she had been with Johnny. That was the only possible excuse for what she’d done with Johnny. I’d even half-convinced myself I couldn’t stand in the way of their grand passion, and I’d done something noble by stepping aside. But if she was going to toss him aside like last season’s gowns—I called her all sorts of names. Julia didn’t even—”

  “Have the decency to lose her temper back?” Cordelia said.

  “No.”

  Cordelia nodded. “She was like that from childhood. One of the nursery maids would come in to find me yelling, and Julia looking at me with those wide blue eyes, and I’d inevitably be punished for losing my temper with my sweet little sister.” Cordelia bit her lip, perhaps at the memory that her sweet little sister was gone.

  “I galloped off in a temper,” Violet said. “It wasn’t until I got home and I’d flung my riding hat and gloves across the room that I realized somehow I’d ended up feeling I was the one in the wrong.” She cast a glance at her sister-in-law. “I’m sorry, Jane. I’m sorry Tony put you through this. I thought he was more decent than George. Even after I knew about Julia, I thought it was just the one lapse.”

  Jane got to her feet and went to Violet’s side. “Tony isn’t your responsibility, Vi.” She squeezed Violet’s shoulders.

  “Did you see Lady Julia at the ball last night, Miss Chase?” Suzanne asked.

  Violet dashed a hand across her eyes. “Across the room briefly early in the evening. We didn’t speak. I didn’t speak to her again after that morning in the Allée Verte.” She took a step toward Cordelia. “I’m sorry she’s dead, Cordy. Truly. However angry I was, I’d never have wished that on her.”

  Cordelia met Violet’s gaze. For a moment, Suzanne would have sworn that what passed between these two women who were both masters of artifice was bone-deep and genuine. “Thank you, Vi.”

  The organ and the tabor sounded unnaturally loud in the sudden stillness. A splash cut the air. Across the canal, two young boys who had escaped their mothers in the tea garden were tossing pebbles into the water.

  Davenport shifted his injured arm and ran his gaze over the man who had just claimed it was his intention to marry the very-married Julia Ashton. “Forgive me for dwelling on petty details, but I was under the impression that you and Julia were both already married.”

  Tony flushed. “Of course. We knew it wouldn’t be easy—”

  “You were taking a leaf from Lord Uxbridge and Lady Charlotte Wellesley’s book?”

  Lord Uxbridge’s elopement with Wellington’s sister-in-law and their subsequent divorces from both their spouses had been the scandal of the beau monde seven years ago. The events had been talked of again recently when Uxbridge was appointed to command the cavalry under Wellington. Wellington had merely said he’d take good care Uxbridge didn’t run off with him. He didn’t care about anyone else.

  “We—” Tony swallowed. “Julia and
I were going to go away together. Naturally there would have been unpleasantness—”

  “Two divorces.”

  “—but eventually we would have married.”

  Davenport folded his arms across his chest, cradling the elbow of his bad arm. “Were you planning to run off and consider the world well lost for love before or after war breaks out?”

  A muscle tensed in Tony’s jaw. “I’m not a coward.”

  “And?”

  “Of course we wouldn’t have left before Bonaparte attacked. After the battle we were going to go to Italy.”

  “Comforting that you’re confident of such a quick victory.”

  Malcolm leaned forward. “Lady Julia had agreed to go away with you?”

  “Of course. I told you, we were in love. There was no other alternative really, given how we felt about each other. Difficult, as I said, a lot of loose ends—”

  “Children,” Davenport said.

  Tony took a sip of beer, though he seemed to find it bitter. “That was the hardest for Julia, her son. But in the end she decided it wasn’t fair for him to grow up with a mother who was miserable.”

  “So she was going to leave him with his father?” Malcolm asked.

  “Ashton adores the boy. Of course Julia hoped she’d be able to see him eventually.”

  “And your own children?” Davenport was observing Tony with the expression Geoffrey Blackwell wore when he looked at something particularly disagreeable under the microscope. “You have two, I believe. Were you planning to exercise a father’s rights and keep them with you? Take them to your exile in Italy and let Julia be their stepmother?”

  “I—” Tony ran a hand over his hair. “I hadn’t thought that far.”

  Davenport continued to lean back in his chair, but from the look in his eyes and the tension in his arms, he wanted nothing more than to plant Tony a facer. Malcolm, thinking of his own son, was of much the same mind, but such an action would be sadly unproductive in the investigation.

  “Did Lady Julia ever seem to you to be afraid?” Malcolm asked.

  “When I first met her she was terrified of Vedrin and the hold he had on her with her gambling debts.”

  “And more recently?”

  Tony appeared to give the question genuine consideration. “She felt guilty. About Ashton, about her son. But afraid—No. What makes you think she was afraid?”

  “She wrote to her sister that she was.”

  “Cordelia?” Tony’s gaze flickered to Davenport. “Your wife.”

  “She goes by that name.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense.” Tony frowned into his beer glass. “I know Julia was in the habit of corresponding with Cordelia, but she told me she found it harder and harder to write to her of late. Since our affair began. Because of course she couldn’t write to her about that so she had to fill the letters with trivialities.”

  “Why?” Davenport said.

  “She had to have something to put in the letters.”

  “Why couldn’t she tell Cordelia about the affair?”

  “Tell her sister she was involved with another man and about to leave her husband and child—”

  “You think Cordelia would be scandalized? You’ve known my wife since she was a child.”

  “That doesn’t—”

  “And your brother was her lover.”

  Tony’s gaze slid to the side. “For God’s sake, Davenport—”

  Davenport raised his brows. “Considering you’ve admitted to betraying your own wife, having an affair with a married woman, and planning to run off with her, I don’t see what you’re caviling at saying. Unless you’re embarrassed by referring to the fact that I was cuckolded. Believe me, I got over it years ago.”

  Tony’s gaze locked with Davenport’s own. “I think Julia was afraid Cordelia would advise her to act differently based on her own example.”

  Davenport stretched his legs out toward the edge of the canal. “That doesn’t sound like Cordelia.”

  “Julia said her sister had changed in the last few years.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Cordelia, either.”

  Tony’s gaze settled on Davenport’s face. It looked a little less unfocused than it had previously. “But then it’s been some years since you’ve seen your wife, hasn’t it?”

  “Fair enough. And of course in the end your brother and my wife didn’t run off together and seek release from their respective marriages. Did you ask your brother why he didn’t marry Cordelia?”

  Tony’s gaze widened. “I thought—”

  “That I stood in the way of a divorce? My dear Tony, why would I seek to keep a woman who so obviously didn’t want me?”

  “You didn’t—”

  “Cordelia never asked me for a divorce as it happens. I saw no need to put us both through it. But we’ve rather drifted from the point. Julia did write the letter to Cordelia saying she was afraid. That she feared for her life.”

  “Feared for her life?”

  “Are you sure Vedrin had stopped bothering Julia?” Malcolm asked.

  “He had no reason to continue. I’d paid off the debts.”

  “You’d paid off the debts she told you about. You don’t know that she told you about all of them.”

  Tony tugged at his stained shirt collar. “She didn’t actually. I got Vedrin to tell me the full amount. And then I paid it all.”

  “You don’t know that she hadn’t acquired more debts since,” Davenport said.

  “She stopped gambling.”

  “You’ve spent every moment with her since the affair began?”

  “She promised me. She swore to it.”

  “And lovers never lie.”

  “Julia wouldn’t have.” Tony’s eyes were wide and blue and earnest. “Not to me.”

  “For a man capable of leaving his wife and children, you have a touching romanticism.”

  Malcolm shifted his chair to avoid the glare of the sun off the pavement. “Where were you last night, Tony?”

  “Where you were. At Stuart’s ball.”

  “I slipped out as it happens. I was at the Château de Vere when Julia was killed.”

  “You—”

  “And I managed to get back to the ball without anyone except my wife realizing I’d gone. Amazing how easy it is to do that at a large entertainment.”

  Tony stared at him. “You’re suggesting I could have—You think I rode to the château and killed Julia? Good God—”

  “Can you tell us who you spoke with between midnight and two?” Davenport asked.

  Tony ran a hand over his hair. “I took Sarah Lennox in to supper. I danced with her afterwards. I danced with my sister and with Catherine Somerset and then with—My wife. Then I realized I hadn’t seen Julia since supper. I went looking for her. Wandered through the ballroom and salons. Exchanged greetings, but I wasn’t noting whom I spoke to.”

  “When did you learn she’d been killed?” Davenport asked.

  “This morning. At breakfast. Freemantle called round and told my wife and Violet and me.”

  “For God’s sake, Chase,” Davenport said, “this will go a lot faster if you avoid lying. You obviously haven’t slept. You learned last night.”

  Tony swallowed. “All right, I saw Ashton leave the ball alone.” He glanced to the side, then met Davenport’s gaze. “I followed him home. I knew something was wrong. I was afraid Ashton had discovered the truth, and he and Julia had quarreled. I never guessed—After I saw him go into the house alone I bribed the footman for information.”

  “Do you think Ashton did know about the affair?” Malcolm asked.

  “No. That is—” Tony stared from Malcolm to Davenport. “You don’t think Ashton—”

  “We don’t have enough information yet to think anything,” Malcolm said. “But lovers and husbands are obvious suspects.”

  Tony looked from Malcolm to Davenport. The sun fell hard and clear over his face. “I didn’t kill her. I know you don’t believe
me, but I hope to God instead of wasting time on me, you’ll discover who was behind her death. And then I’ll finish the bastard myself.”

  14

  Suzanne cast a sideways glance at Cordelia Davenport as they left the Chase house. Lady Cordelia had tugged on her gloves, adjusted her bonnet, and taken her leave of Violet and Jane Chase with every appearance of composure. More composure than either of the Chase ladies had shown. But now her face was set in firm lines beneath the brim of her bonnet. As though she were hanging on to her self-command by her fingernails.

  As the footman pushed the front door to behind them, Lady Cordelia’s foot slipped on the sand-scoured steps. Suzanne caught the other woman’s arm in a firm grip. Beneath the light muslin of her gown, Cordelia was shaking and, despite the sticky heat, her skin was ice-cold.

  “I’m sorry,” Cordelia said. “I—”

  “Entirely understandable. We both need fortification.” Suzanne retained her grip on Cordelia’s arm as they descended the remainder of the steps, and then steered the way down the street and round the corner. A blue and gold sign, slightly faded but still bright in the sunlight, proclaimed Les Trois Roses café. It had become a favorite haunt of Suzanne’s during her weeks in Brussels for the excellence of the coffee, the quality of the wine, and the discretion of the staff. She said nothing until she and Cordelia were seated at a table in a secluded window alcove and supplied with glasses of Bordeaux.

  Lady Cordelia curled both hands round the glass. It shook in her fingers. She took a quick sip, then set the glass down with great care. She stared into the deep red of the wine, eyes dark with the ghosts of memories. “Of all the names I’ve justifiably been called, I never thought of myself as missish. What a poor creature you must think me.”

  “On the contrary.” Suzanne draped her scarf over the chairback and stripped off her gloves. “I’m amazed you maintained your composure so well. It’s never easy to confront the past.” She took a sip of wine. It tasted more bitter than she remembered.

  Cordelia laced her fingers together round the stem of her own wineglass. “We all grew up together. The Chases didn’t have a feather to fly with and neither did Julia and I, but none of us understood about mortgaged estates and the lack of proper dowries yet. We lived in a sort of charmed, golden world. Picking strawberries, sneaking bottles of champagne from our parents’ wine cellars, playing with the Mallinsons at Carfax Court and the Devonshire House children at Chatsworth.”