I chastised myself for not heeding that unsettling sensation in the pit of my stomach, and after I’d just spoken to Charlotte about knowing the difference. If I’d paused to light a candle to take with me, might I have seen the person who may or may not have pushed me? Or would I have burned myself or set my dress on fire when I stumbled down the stairs?
I sighed, but it was too late to second-guess my actions now. The damage—whatever it was—was already done. Shying away from examining that fact too closely, I tightened my grip on Gage’s callused hand. There was no doubt his thoughts were troubled, but from the manner in which his eyes traced the elegant scrollwork carved into the wood of the headboard I knew something else had occurred to him. That’s when I realized there might be another way of approaching the information we sought.
“Who was missing from the regency gallery before the footman summoned you?”
His gaze shifted to meet mine.
“That is where you were, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but . . . the chamber is so large. In that crowd, there was no way I could have noted everyone who was present and who was not.”
“But you did notice someone who was not there, or you’re fairly certain of it.” I gentled my voice. “I can see it in your eyes. Sebastian?”
When still he did not speak, my nerves tightened with dread. It must be someone whose possible perfidy would hurt me much more than a mere acquaintance.
His chest rose and fell on a swift intake of breath that seemed to shudder through him. “There were two, actually. But their absence may mean nothing.”
I waited for him to continue.
“The Duchess of Bowmont slipped out a few minutes before. Though she had been stepping in and out all evening, no doubt managing the details of the party and the desires of so many of the guests to depart the next morning.”
That was true. There was nothing odd in that. Which meant he must be anxious about accusing the other person. “Who else?”
The corners of his pale blue eyes tightened. “Marsdale.”
My heart squeezed in my chest.
“I noticed that he was missing not long after you left the room.”
There was a question in his eyes, and I answered it. “Lady Bearsden asked me to speak with Lady Stratford. The discovery of that dead body had upset her.”
“Understandable after what she endured at Gairloch,” he replied in a controlled voice. I wondered if he was also contemplating what I’d suffered.
“Yes.”
I didn’t want to think about how Marsdale might have pushed me down the stairs. Yes, he was an inveterate scoundrel, but at some point along the topsy-turvy road of our acquaintance I’d begun to think of him as a friend. I didn’t want to believe there was true malice in him. Or that he could direct it at me. So I turned my mind to other possibilities.
“Was Lady Helmswick present?” Perhaps Marsdale had stepped out to be with her.
Gage’s gaze shifted over my shoulder, narrowing in thought. “No, I don’t believe she was. But I only recall noticing that because I’d thought maybe you would seek her out to speak with her.”
“What of the duchess’s other children?”
“Lord Henry was there. He seemed to have taken up permanent residence in the corner near the sideboard, making only the most minimal of conversation with those who approached him.”
I realized I recalled seeing him there as well, his silvery gray eyes assessing those who wandered near his roost. “He knows something.”
This bit of insight did not surprise him. “I agree. But whether he’ll tell us is another matter entirely.”
My shoulders had begun to slide slowly down the pillows, and I shifted, trying to prop myself up so that my neck was not contorted at such an awkward angle. I sucked in a harsh breath as I did so from the stab of pain that shot through my shoulder.
Gage reached out to help me, the deep shadows of concern gathering in his eyes again. Once I was settled, he picked up the glass of whisky from the table. The glass sparkled in the candlelight as he tipped it toward me. “Are you sure you don’t want any of this?”
“No.”
His mouth tightened with some unspoken worry, and then he tossed back the last of the libation. He grimaced at the sharp bite of it at the back of his throat.
“What of the other Kerr brothers?” I asked, returning to our previous topic of conversation.
He shook his head, setting the glass aside. “I don’t know. I can’t recall whether I saw Lord John or Lord Edward.”
“And Traquair.”
His expression turned wry. “Was trading daggered glances with Mrs. Blanchard again.” His father’s mistress.
So Gage had also noticed their animosity at the Twelfth Night Party.
“There’s something there as well.” I plucked at the coverlet with my left hand. “Though whether it has anything to do with the dead body, I don’t know.” I strongly suspected it was something less malevolent, but still unsavory.
Gage had turned to stare at the landscape painting of a Scottish loch which hung on the wall beside the bed. “The duke’s mistress might have a different insight into the family than others do.”
Having made the celebrated actress’s acquaintance, I suspected much of it would be vitriol poured against the duchess, but I took his point. She might possess knowledge that could be helpful to us, whether she knew it or not. “Perhaps I should arrange a private tête-à-tête with her.”
A glimmer of amusement lit my husband’s eyes. “I suspect she might be more willing to share whatever she knows with me.”
Having taken the woman’s same measure, I had to concede he was right, but that did not mean I was pleased by the prospect of his being closeted with her.
Such an aversion must have shown on my face, for he gave a short bark of laughter. “Don’t tell me you’re concerned about my meeting with the woman?”
“Of course not.”
But he could tell I was lying. He leaned over me, arching a single eyebrow, the spicy scent of his cologne teasing my nostrils. “Good, because you should be perfectly aware by now that I much prefer inquisitive portrait artists to anyone else.”
I smiled softly up at him, tracing his rugged features with my eyes. The small cleft in his chin and finely sculpted cheekbones, the strong jawline and supple lips, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes that marked the passage of time. I wished I could pull him down to me, could feel his mouth pressed to mine, but I knew any enjoyment would be shattered by the pain in my shoulder and my side.
So instead I merely basked in his gaze. In the almost piercing quality of the crystalline blue hue of his eyes, picking out the silver flecks near his irises. In the ripple of mirth and affection and tenderness that transformed them as he stared down at me.
I lifted my left hand to trace his jaw, only to still as a knock sounded on the door.
Gage surged to his feet. “Thank heavens. Hopefully that’s the surgeon.”
From my position in the bed, I couldn’t see the door, but I heard the duchess’s voice as he opened it. “I heard what happened,” she gasped without preamble. “And I am so dreadfully sorry. Is she badly injured? May I speak with her?”
“She’s in a great deal of pain at the moment,” he replied, and I exhaled in relief, not yet ready to face anyone. “It isn’t a good time for guests.”
“Yes, of course. Oh, but this is terrible. I’ve been telling the duke for years we should have the staircases refurbished and runners added to them. There have been far too many accidents over the decades, but he insists they give the castle character. Allowing us to tread in the footsteps of his ancestors,” she added scornfully. “But this is much too much.”
“The surgeon and physician. Have they been sent for?” Gage managed to ask before she could continue. I had never known the duchess to prattle so.
I did not hear his response, for I was distracted by something far more momentous. A small fluttering sensation in my abdomen. Though I could hardly grow stiller, already lying unmoving as I was, I held my breath, silently willing the child inside me to move again. When they did—delivering a swift kick, which stretched my skin—the tears I had refused to let fall earlier overflowed my bleary eyes and spilled down my cheeks. I pressed my left hand to the spot where the baby continued to assault my insides, weeping softly in such profound relief that I didn’t care how much their tiny kicks and punches were hurting my tender ribs.
That was how Gage found me moments later. His eyes widened with panic as he hurried over to the bed. “Kiera, what is it? What’s happened?”
“The baby moved,” I blubbered between sobbing breaths.
Comprehension dawned and he sank down on the mattress beside me a trifle less gently than before, for I felt the twinge in my shoulder, and reached his hand out to slip it beneath mine where it rested over my abdomen. When he felt the movement as my skin swelled with the babe’s swiping motion, his gaze lifted and locked with mine.
Struggling as I was to stop weeping, the sight of his eyes shimmering with unshed tears threatened to completely undo me. However, he mastered himself. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his throat as he swallowed hard. Then he lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a fervent kiss into the palm, followed by another and another. When finally he lowered it, I curled my fingers around the moistness his breath had left behind and carried it up to my heart.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Early the next morning, I reclined in my bed, propped up by a mound of pillows as Alana, Philip, Trevor, and Gage gathered around me. The sun had barely crested the horizon, but from my vantage I could see the brilliant winter blue sky out the large bay window. It was a weather breeder—a morning so fine and serene that it seemed impossible that a storm should follow. But I had witnessed my fair share of such deceptive weather in the Highlands and the Borders. By midday, the sun would be choked behind clouds and the wind howling down from the heights.
Alana perched on the bed by my side, fussing over the bandage wrapped around my right shoulder and the sling fashioned from my cornflower blue scarf cradling my arm. When the surgeon had arrived the night before, he’d explained it was partially dislocated. Gage had helped to hold me upright as I endured the excruciating pain of his resetting it into place. But once the deed was done, the immediate relief was so palpable I nearly collapsed. He explained that the joint would be tender for some days following, and that I would have to keep it immobile, but it should heal without any complications. The pain in my ribs would last longer, but fortunately none appeared to be broken.
After feeling the baby kick, the news that I should be able to resume painting in a week, a fortnight at most, made me dissolve into tears yet again. The surgeon had chuckled good-naturedly as I attempted to apologize for my display of emotion, and assured me his wife had been the same way when she was carrying their bairns.
The physician who arrived soon after was less sympathetic. Between lectures on the proper way to care for myself when with child—much of which contradicted the advice given to Alana by Dr. Fenwick, the physician accoucheur in Edinburgh I also intended to use for my confinement—he managed to perform a very rudimentary examination. In truth, the baby’s movements were far more reassuring and indicative than anything he had done. He also left a bottle of laudanum for any continued pain, with strict instructions on the dosage I should take.
Upon his departure, Bree—who had been present for these final directives—promptly derided the man a fool. “I wouldna give even a horse such an amount. No’ unless I wanted to knock ’im flat. A quarter o’ that dose should do the trick.” She nodded her head decisively. “An’ we’ll increase it if need be.”
She had been right. Perhaps a slightly larger dose would have dampened the pain completely, but I much preferred to suffer the occasional twinge and keep my wits about me than to fall into a poppy-induced slumber. This turned out to be fortuitous, for while I’d been ordered to remain in bed for the duration of the day—a directive I was content to obey for the moment—I proceeded to receive a parade of visitors, beginning with my brother and sister.
“There’s no cause to fret, Alana,” I assured her. “I’m not in any further danger.”
“That you know of,” Trevor muttered under his breath.
I glared at him where he stood at the end of the bed, his eyebrows raised in challenge.
“Perhaps you should bow out of the rest of this investigation.”
My gaze swung to my sister where she sat nervously pleating the coverlet.
“After all, you are over six months along. Before you know it, you’ll be entering your confinement.” She swiveled to look over her shoulder at her husband. “And didn’t the duchess say suspicion has fallen on Lord Helmswick’s valet? So the matter is nearly resolved anyway.”
“Nearly resolved?” I replied with a forced laugh, struggling to restrain my mounting frustration. “Well, yes, only if you like a convenient scapegoat. And only if the body proves to be Helmswick.”
That the duchess was sharing these mere speculations as fact infuriated me, especially when we’d asked her not to. Most of the family had been opposed to the idea that Helmswick could be the victim, but as soon as suspicions had been pointed in the direction of the valet, they were perfectly content to accept it. Well, they couldn’t have it both ways. And I wasn’t about to let a valet take the blame if someone else was the guilty party, no matter how lofty their title or connections.
“Regardless.” She pressed a hand gently to my sling. “Maybe . . . maybe you should give up these inquests for a time.”
I shook my head in perplexity, searching her anxious gaze—the bright lapis lazuli of her eyes so like the shade of my own. “Where is this coming from? I merely slipped on the stairs. It could have happened anywhere.” I darted a glance at Gage, who shook his head minutely, telling me he had said nothing about the possibility I might have been pushed. We had decided it would be best not to share such a detail, even with my family, for they would only worry.
“Perhaps.” Alana plucked at a loose string of green thread on her skirts. “But you must recognize that such pursuits are highly fraught, and patently reckless for a woman in your condition.”
I scowled at my sister, anger bubbling in my veins.
“Surely you mean to give it up once the child arrives.” She gestured over her shoulder toward where Gage stood, leaning against the bedpost. “Perhaps Gage means to abandon it as well. So what is the difference of a few months?”
For a brief moment, I’d wondered if perhaps my husband had asked my sister to persuade me to step aside from our inquiry work. But one look at the deep furrow between his brows when she suggested he might also quit the field told me otherwise.
“While I appreciate your concern,” I bit out as politely as I was able to under the circumstances, “I don’t believe any of this is your business.”
“Now, Kiera,” Philip protested. “We’re only thinking of you, of the child. What’s best for you both.”
“What you think is best for me. You don’t see me sweeping in to tell you what to do with your time, or how to behave.”
“That’s because the manner in which we choose to occupy ourselves is perfectly natural and quite respectable, while yours is . . .” Alana broke off, biting her lip.
But I refused to let her turn away from what she had been about to say, even though her brow had crinkled in regret.
“Unnatural?” The sharp tone of my voice communicated how furious I was. That had been the accusation lobbed at me time and time again, in shouts and denunciations, in whispers a
nd hisses—by Sir Anthony’s colleagues and the police magistrates, by the newspapers and broadsheets, by the crowds of spectators outside the Bow Street Magistrates’ Office and the members of society clustered in the drawing rooms of Mayfair. Hearing my sister use it so carelessly made something dark twist inside me and set my blood pounding in my veins. I turned my head to the side, unable to continue looking at her.
“I-I misspoke,” she stammered. “I should have used different words.”
Yes, she should have. But then, I might never have known how she and Philip truly felt about our continuing to act as inquiry agents. Trevor, too, for I could feel his stern gaze pinned on me. I’d known they were concerned for my safety, but they’d seemed to accept my aptitude for such pursuits, my need to seek the truth, in anything and everything. I couldn’t leave a puzzle unfinished, a mystery unsolved. What was my art, but a desire to capture the essence, the truth of another human being with naught but canvas, brushes, and pigments?
Now that I was to become a mother, it was only natural that their concern should also extend to the baby, but that didn’t seem to be what they were saying. The only word I could hear ringing in my ears was “unnatural.” Unnatural person. Unnatural woman. Unnatural mother.
I was already struggling with the concept of motherhood, terrified that I would be a horrible parent. Their words, their disapproving glares only fed the fears mounting inside of me.
“But surely you can understand—”
“You should leave,” I stated, cutting off my sister’s words, unable to listen to any more of her censure.
My words were met with shocked silence. One I felt compelled to fill, just to make myself clear.
“Now. Go back to Blakelaw House. Your children need you.” When still none of them moved or even spoke, I turned my head to find my sister blinking at me like I’d lost my senses. It set a spark to the tinder of my fury. “That’s what you wish to do, isn’t it?” I demanded, flinging my left hand out. “So go. Be with them.” My eyes narrowed. “You’re not needed here.”
A Stroke of Malice Page 19