A Stroke of Malice

by Anna Lee Huber

  “Yes, well, he’s attending to a more pressing matter at the moment,” I replied obliquely before turning to Lord John.

  Marsdale gave a bark of laughter. “Don’t tell me you’ve stumbled across a dead body?”

  My gaze snapped back to his, unable to hide my startlement at his making such a pronouncement.

  But at the evidence of my distress, his amusement swiftly faded. “Dear God,” he gasped. “You have.”

  I shook my head, raising a finger to silence him. “Not a word,” I ordered as dismay trickled through me at my failure to keep the matter concealed. “Not another word. Where is your mother?” I demanded of Lord John, who stared at me with round eyes.

  “M-my mother?” he stammered.

  “Am I correct in assuming the duke is incapacitated?”

  “I should say so. Drunk as an emperor,” Marsdale rejoined, trampling over both my demand for him to remain silent and my attempt to phrase the matter delicately.

  “Then I need to speak with the duchess. Do either of you know where she is?”

  Lord John blinked at me as if he was struggling to comprehend, and I wondered briefly whether it was shock or his family’s whisky that had muddled him.

  “The last I saw Her Grace, she was waltzing with Wansford,” Marsdale replied, referring to her latest lover.

  “I . . . yes,” Lord John finally managed to reply.

  I nodded and hurried across the room with a rustle of wool, trusting both men would keep their counsel. Marsdale might be an irreverent rake, but he was no tattler, and Lord John was even more reticent. Though I had to wonder how Marsdale had hit on the source of Gage’s preoccupancy so quickly. It was true that our reputations as inquiry agents—and mine for stumbling across dead bodies—were well established, and Marsdale loved to tease me about it, but that did not necessarily mean he hadn’t had prior knowledge of the fresh corpse in the crypt.

  I hastened past a couple amorously embracing on one of the benches in the picture gallery and edged past another in the entry to the staterooms who seemed to be struggling to put one foot in front of the other. My nose wrinkled as the stench of something unpleasant reached my nostrils, and I spared a moment of sympathy for the maid in the corner of the grand foyer who was cleaning up after one of the guests.

  At this late hour, the Twelfth Night Party was no longer so much festive as doleful. Though the musicians still played in the ballroom, only two couples occupied the dance floor, and one of them merely swayed against each other. Others were draped across the chairs and benches positioned at the edges of the room. The duchess was seated on the chaise closest to the door, flanked by the Earl of Wansford and her daughter.

  Not wanting to draw undue attention to myself, I sidled closer to stand before her. At first she did not acknowledge me, her eyes staring blearily into the distance. But when I cleared my throat, drawing her gaze, it became clear that the haziness had been because she had been lost in thought, not due to a dulling of her senses.

  “Lady Darby,” she declared with forced cheer. “My dear, you must be tired. I remember when I was in such a condition.” She shooed her lover, who was already pushing to his feet. “Wansford, give Lady Darby your seat.”

  “Of course.” He offered me a gentle smile.

  Their reactions left no doubt that my features appeared drawn, but they didn’t yet realize it wasn’t entirely the fault of fatigue. Sitting beside the duchess, I allowed myself to enjoy the respite of being off my feet for one moment before leaning closer. “Your Grace, I need to speak with you in private. Something troubling has occurred.”

  Though my words were uttered softly, apparently they were not spoken quietly enough, for Lady Helmswick turned her head to regard me. “One of the children?” she asked, though I could have sworn by the way her eyes searched mine that was not what she had initially been thinking.

  “No,” I assured her. “But . . . perhaps you should join us.”

  The duchess’s expression remained as smooth as glass. In fact, but for a tiny puckering above her left eyebrow, I would have believed her completely unconcerned. “Of course, my dear. Follow me.”

  She pressed a hand against Wansford’s sleeve and murmured a few words, before leading me and her daughter into one of the antechambers tucked off of the ballroom. Though small, I would not have called it cozy. A series of tapestries hung from the walls by an artist I was unfamiliar with, each portraying a different religious sacrament, while Louis Quatorze chairs were interspersed with chaise longues upholstered in a rich plum fabric.

  However, it was the cabinet with the glass-inlaid top near the door to which I was drawn. Inside, a set of surgical instruments from the previous century were displayed—the picks, scalpels, and hacksaw affixed in their slots within a battered leather case. These instruments were not so very different from the ones my late husband had used. Given that fact, I had to wonder whether the duchess had chosen this antechamber of all the others for a particular reason.

  Catching my gaze as I lifted it after lingering over the contents of the cabinet, she waved her hand toward it negligently. “Bowmont’s uncle, Lord Robert Kerr, was wounded at sea during the American War of Independence, and those were the instruments used by the surgeons to amputate his leg. Little good it did.” She sank onto one of the chaises, draping her arm over the rounded head. “His leg turned septic and he died soon after. I don’t know why the family insists on making such a gruesome display of the implements of his demise.” Her nose wrinkled. “But I absolutely refused to leave the ghastly painting they had created of his death scene hanging over it.”

  “This chamber is dreary enough without it,” her daughter concurred as she perched on the edge of one of the chairs.

  “Now, what is this troubling thing that has occurred?” the duchess prompted as I chose the chair across from them—the better to view their reactions.

  “As you know, Lord Edward led a number of us on a ghost tour through the castle. He even took us down to the . . . the doom,” I uttered, stumbling over the appellation. “And through the underground tunnel into the catacombs of Kirkbryde Abbey.”

  She shook her head, though her eyes twinkled with good humor. “That boy has always had a touch for the dramatic. And let me guess, someone was injured? Who knows how long it’s been since that channel was properly inspected and cleared out.”

  “No. We found a body. A new body,” I clarified. “Well, relatively new. I suspect he’s been dead for two or more weeks.”

  “Good heavens,” the duchess gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. “How dreadful. It must have been a villager.” She leaned forward. “Or one of those tramps who pass through from time to time to view the abbey ruins. Just south of here there’s an oft-traveled coach road between Moffat and Selkirk, and many walkers detour toward the wilder braes and glens on the route north to Traquair, sometimes passing over our land.”

  Lady Helmswick nodded in agreement, her wide-eyed shock fading at this explanation.

  “I suppose that is a possibility, but based on the victim’s clothing, it seems he was most certainly a gentleman,” I replied. “And although identification is a bit difficult, we and Lord Edward have strong suspicions who the man may be.”

  “Who?” the Duchess asked.

  My gaze slid toward her daughter as I hesitantly formed my next words. “Lord Helmswick.”

  His wife stiffened as if I’d struck her. “But . . . that’s impossible! Helmswick left for Paris on December Fourth, and he certainly hasn’t returned since then. So he can’t be a two-week-old corpse rotting—”

  “At least two weeks old,” I interrupted to say. “But perhaps as much as four or five.”

  Her throat worked as she swallowed, her face very pale.

  “I’m sorry,” I began, but it was her turn to cut me off.

  “No.” She shook her head vehemently. “No. It�
�s impossible. This is simply too cruel of you.” Her eyes blazed. “I never believed the things they said about you. I discarded it as vicious gossip. But now I see they were right.”

  “Eleanor,” her mother cautioned.

  “You are a monster, aren’t you?”

  “Eleanor.”

  “A . . . a siren. A ghoul!”

  “Eleanor!” the duchess snapped. “That is enough. I do not believe Lady Darby relished telling you this. Just look at her. Does it look like she’s enjoying your pain?”

  I could well imagine what she saw when she looked at me because I was struggling not to tremble as my hands gripped the arms of my chair. The knowledge of the hurt I was causing her, the sharp lance of her accusations and the memories they dredged up, and the fatigue of the long day threatened to topple me where I sat.

  Lady Helmswick’s heaving breaths slowed and the ire slowly faded from her eyes.

  “Where is Mr. Gage?” the duchess asked, evident concern tightening her features. “Shall I send for him?”

  I inhaled shakily. “No, he’s retrieving the body from the crypt with the assistance of Lord Edward and a number of your servants.” I forced myself to take another calming breath, pushing away my discomfort to address Lady Helmswick. “When was the last you heard from your husband? Could we be mistaken?”

  Her gaze dipped to her bright cherry red skirts, the shiny sleigh bells she’d draped around her jingling as she moved. She reached up to remove the string from around her neck, pulling them past the ringlets now drooping over her brow. “I haven’t received word from him since he left,” she admitted. “But that isn’t unusual. Helmswick isn’t exactly the most attentive of husbands, and he absolutely abhors letter writing. It’s not uncommon for us to pass two or three months when we are apart without any direct correspondence.”

  I felt a stab of pain at the thought of passing two or three months without any word from my husband. Gage was no great correspondent himself, but I knew he would never let such a gap occur in our communication, let alone willingly allow me out of his sight for such a length of time. The same could be said of my brother-in-law, Philip, whose efforts in the House of Lords sometimes called for him to be away from his family. But upon those occasions, his letters to his wife still arrived with almost unerring frequency.

  Lady Helmswick wanted to appear as if this truth did not bother her, but I could tell from the tightening around her eyes that it did.

  “Is there someone he would correspond with?” I queried cautiously.

  “His solicitor. Maybe his steward.” She turned away. “I honestly can’t say.”

  “We will need their names and direction so that we can contact them and try to verify Lord Helmswick’s whereabouts.”

  “Of course.”

  It was evident she was struggling with some strong emotion, but I didn’t think it was worry or even grief. In fact, if I’d had to put a name to it, I would have called it relief, though a tremulous one at that. I recognized it because it was what I’d felt at Sir Anthony’s passing. To suddenly be presented with the realization that I was free of him after three years of horror and degradation had overwhelmed me, though not with pain but release. Of course, I couldn’t have known what was to come next, but at least I had been liberated from that nightmarish marriage.

  This observation made me view Lady Helmswick in a different light. I knew little about her or her husband, which meant I knew almost nothing about their marriage. But if the thought of Helmswick’s death gave her such relief, then I had to wonder what she would receive a reprieve from. Had Helmswick been such a terrible spouse, or was she eager to escape him for another reason? After all, their marriage wouldn’t be the first union to have potentially been arranged for political and financial advantages that the parties later regretted.

  Her parents, for example. I glanced at the duchess. For all their outward display of accord and indifference to each other’s affairs, her grace had let slip how she, at least, had entered her marriage to the duke with faithful intentions. Her husband’s infidelity had been both shocking and cutting. But society was vicious to the unsophisticated, and she had quickly learned to adjust her expectations and, once the requisite heir and a spare were born, to seek her happiness elsewhere.

  Having given birth to a daughter and only one son, Lady Helmswick had not yet met this unspoken requirement that would give her license among much of society to take a lover. And yet I had seen the way Marsdale’s hand brushed against her lower back earlier that evening as she entered the ballroom. I’d seen the look in his eyes. Was his attraction reciprocated, and if so, had it been acted upon?

  I rubbed two fingers against my temple, disconcerted by the rampant infidelity among the members of the ton, and the frank acceptance of it by many. Sadly, it all too often had a part to play in our inquiries, and as such I’d grown much more accepting of it and all of human nature’s follies than I’d ever believed possible. But, of course, I also would never have dreamed I would be involved with one murder investigation, let alone nearly a dozen.

  “What of you, Your Grace? Have you had any contact with your son-in-law?”

  The duchess seemed surprised at first I should ask her, but she quickly recovered, shaking her head. “No. Not for several months. I was in London when he escorted Eleanor and his children here.”

  I turned to Lady Helmswick in question, wondering if she would explain.

  Her eyes gleamed in her pale face. “The cholera outbreak.”

  Her simple reply sent a chill of fear whispering down my spine. The deadly disease that had ravaged Russia and the Baltic lands had reached the shores of Britain—despite all efforts to prevent it—in early November at the Port of Sunderland in northern England. From there, it had begun to spread to the north and south along the coast, leapfrogging its way closer to the densely populated cities, leaving death in its wake. I’d yet to hear of the disease reaching London, but Edinburgh had seen its first case around Christmas, spreading rapidly through the squalid, overcrowded tenements. In two weeks it had already killed more people than the number of deaths attributed to the typhus outbreak of the previous spring.

  Helmswick’s estate lay in Haddington, along the North Sea just to the east of Edinburgh, much too close to one of the pockets of contagion for my comfort. It had been fortuitous that the earl had thought to remove his family before the disease neared his home.

  As if reading my thoughts, his wife nodded. “We hadn’t known, of course, that cholera would actually reach Haddington, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Not with the children. So before he departed for Paris, we decided the children and I would journey here.” She glanced at her mother. “With the holidays approaching, it seemed appropriate.”

  “That’s why I left London so urgently.” The duchess reached out a hand to her daughter, who took it. “When I received Eleanor’s letter saying they were fleeing the cholera, I knew she might have need of me at Sunlaws.”

  My mouth creased into a small smile at the evidence of the natural affection between mother and daughter, all the better to deny the tiny stab of envy I felt that I should never experience something similar with my parent. My mother had died when I was eight years old, and while Alana had done her best as my older sister to fill that empty space, it could never be the same.

  However, I also couldn’t ignore the little gnaw of doubt that neither of them was being completely honest with me. Perhaps the suspicion was unjustified—the mere consequence of my jealousy—but I had noted the watchful manner in which the pair interacted, almost as if they were taking their cues from each other as to what to say. Lady Helmswick’s fear of cholera was genuine, but that did not mean she hadn’t also come here for a different reason. One that further explained her motives for sending that insistent letter, asking her mother to join her here.

  The duchess sat taller. “You don’t think . . . Could tha
t be how this man died?” she queried with wide eyes. “The cholera?”

  “No, I’m afraid it’s not so simple,” I informed her with a grimace. “He almost certainly met with foul play.”

  This seemed to knock the wind from her. “Oh, some sort of violence then?”

  I nodded.

  Her gaze trailed away only to return to mine hopefully. “And it couldn’t have been an accident?”

  I had considered just such a possibility. Perhaps the man, be it Helmswick or someone else, had fallen and hit his head on a rock. The trouble with such a scenario was that there would not have been enough force generated to create such a severe fracture in the skull. Not unless he had fallen from a great height, and no such place existed in the tunnels and chambers below ground. Add to that the obvious attempt to conceal the body by placing it in the crypt, and there was but one probable conclusion. Murder.

  “No,” I stated simply, deciding there was no need to elaborate.

  The skin across Lady Helmswick’s face tightened as she struggled to maintain her composure. She might have been relieved to be rid of her husband, but accidental death and violent murder were two very different things. While I hadn’t wished Sir Anthony well, I also hadn’t wanted him to meet with foul play.

  Well, if I were to be honest, perhaps once or twice I’d harbored ill wishes for him, when he had been at his foulest and most threatening. But if I’d had to confront the fact that he’d been murdered, I would have been quite distraught, regardless of my loathing for him.

  I did not know how Lady Helmswick truly felt about her husband, but if she was aware of his demise, then she wasn’t aware of the actual cause. Her shock and distress were too genuine. I would have staked my reputation as an investigator on that.

  The duchess’s brow furrowed, but she did not object, and her next words seemed to indicate she had accepted my assertion. “Then . . . there will be an inquest?”