by Lois Greiman
But what were those ends? If he was Brendier’s and Lindale’s murderer, what was the purpose? For a time she had imagined he had killed Lindale to avenge the attack on her person, but perhaps that was wishful thinking. Perhaps on some level she had wanted him dead. Perhaps she was no better than McBain. Perhaps, in fact, it had been he who had molested her at Inver Heights, despite the gentleness he had shown her just a few nights before. Despite the adoration in his eyes.
Men could be conniving. But so could she. And she would learn the truth.
Thus she sat in Lady Lindale’s drawing room. The widow had been as gracious and kindly as ever. They sat facing each other, a small platter of cucumber sandwiches between them.
“And what brings you by, my dear?”
“I’ve been worried for your welfare,” Faye said, and felt not a tingle of pain for her lie. She was beyond that now, cold, driven. “I wished to stop by to ascertain your well-being.”
“I’m well enough,” she said, and poured the tea. The stream followed a graceful arc, making barely a ripple as it fell into a gilt cup painted with ivy. “Mots has stayed on.”
“Your nephew.”
“My husband’s. Yes. A sweet boy. But honestly a few moments of solitude would not be unwelcome.”
“I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Oh no, please,” said Lady Lindale, quickly setting her cup aside. “I did not mean to insult you. It is simply that young men are so…young,” she said, and smiled.
“Is he planning to live here indefinitely?” Faye asked.
“Not indefinitely, I’m sure. He became master of a lovely home in Park Lane, after his father’s death.”
“So he inherited nothing from your husband?”
“Not at all true,” said Lady Lindale. “He received a fine snuffbox and a writing desk he long admired.”
Faye scowled. Could the desk be significant? Or was she only hopelessly trying to find another to take the blame for Lindale’s death when she knew the true culprit all along.
“But you needn’t worry,” Lady Lindale said, tilting her head. “Mots will be perfectly capable of keeping a wife in fine style.”
“I didn’t mean to imply—”
“He’s a good catch for any woman looking to make a match.”
“I’m certain he is.”
“His great-grandfather was the Baron of Warton.”
Something stopped whirring in Faye’s head. Even she had heard of Warton. It was one of the most prestigious estates in England. “Who is the current baron?”
“A younger son I believe. Though I’m not entirely certain.”
“And he’s in good health?”
Lady Lindale raised her brows. “I assure you, Mrs. Nettles, Mots will make a good husband even though he’ll not inherit the barony.”
“Of course. Of course he will,” Faye said, and, excusing herself, hurried from the house.
She spent the remainder of the day speaking with Brendier’s staff. His wife was staying with her mother for an undetermined amount of time, so there was no help to be found there, but a young woman named Ada remembered McBain’s visit.
“Oh aye, a great pillar of a Scot,” she said, eyes bright. “I remember him well.”
Faye squelched a half dozen unwanted emotions. “He visited the day prior to your master’s death, I believe.”
“Aye, it could have been. It could well have been the day before.”
“How did they get on?”
“Well enough I suspect, though the master was never a mean drunk.”
Faye felt her heart clench. “They were drinking?”
“I didn’t mean nothing by it. It wasn’t like my lord was a sot, but he was in some pain, and the wine eased his discomfort.”
For a moment Faye couldn’t speak, for suddenly she remembered the herbalist McBain had mentioned in passing. The very essence of a witch, he had called her. Why had he visited her? Might he have been buying some toxic blend? Hensbane or nightshade or mandrake?
But no. It was foolishness. Rogan McBain was a warrior. If he wished someone ill, surely he would have no trouble causing their death. But perhaps he was too clever for that. Poison was said to be a woman’s revenge. What better way to turn suspicions aside?
“Where did he acquire the wine?” Faye’s voice sounded odd to her own ears, but the maid seemed not to notice. She shrugged.
“’Tis impossible to say. The master kept a full cellar.”
“Did McBain bring it?”
“The Scotsman? I wouldn’t say so, but truth to tell, I may not have noticed. He had them eyes, you know. All solemn, brimming with truth and earnestness.”
Faye questioned the others, but most of them were male and remembered little of the Celt’s visit.
She returned to Lavender House exhausted but sleepless. Her eyes felt scratchy, her body achy on the following day. Nerves jumping, she made a journey to Hookums Lending Library. Flipping through the pages of a giant tome, she finally found Warton’s lineage. It was an old line, but she was hardly interested in a match. She was interested in murder. According to Lady Lindale, her husband’s nephew would inherit nothing with the old baron’s death. But someone would.
Faye noted the names and pictures. Both Brendier and Lindale might have eventually inherited the title of Baron of Warton, but it was a long road, though the current patriarch was well into his seventies.
Faye scowled, frantically searching for more information. Apparently Warton had had no sons of his own. Thus, his nephew, a round-faced man named Theodore, was poised to inherit upon Warton’s death. What did that mean? Was he doomed to suffer the same fate as Brendier and Lindale? Or was it Warton himself who was at risk?
A portrait struck her consciousness. Chiseled jaw, dark, unruly hair.
Dread pounded in her head as she skimmed the text. Gerald Franquor. She glanced at the portrait of the woman beside him, and there, staring up from the page, were Rogan’s eyes, all but identical except for the sky blue color. The world slowed as she read the caption. Elizabeth Skye Franquor had been born to the McBain clan, but had married an Englishman. She’d died in childbirth, bearing a son about whom no further information was available.
She searched frantically through the remainder of the book, but there was little point, for she knew the truth; Rogan McBain was Lord Brendier’s cousin. Rogan McBain stood to gain a fortune and a title if but two more men died. Rogan McBain had deceived her.
But he would not do so again. She was no man’s pawn.
She would go to Theodore Franquor first, and if necessary, she herself would keep him safe. She touched his portrait, making a vow. And it was then that she felt a tiny sliver of danger slice through her veins. She jerked her hand away, breath tight in her throat. But this couldn’t be. She had no gifts for sensing danger. But perhaps Rogan McBain did.
Memories of him lunging from the bookseller’s tent stormed through her mind. How had he known little Posie was in trouble? How but some battle-honed premonition? Had he known Faye was just outside? Is that why he had acted, to influence her even further? Perhaps he was far more clever than she knew. Perhaps he had been able to curtail the truth-seeking attributes of the amulet, but maybe this power of his had seeped from him to her. Or was fatigue finally bringing on the madness she’d fought off for so long?
Tentative, breath held, she touched the portrait again. Danger sizzled through her, unmistakable now. She jerked to her feet and hurried toward the door. But she did not even know where Theodore Franquor lived.
It took her nearly half an hour to reach Bow Street Magistrate’s Court. By the time she raced inside, she felt breathless and frantic.
“There’s going to be a death,” she said.
The man behind the desk turned slowly toward her. “What’s that, madam?”
She tried to calm herself, to portray some semblance of sanity. She smoothed her hair back behind her ear, but there was little hope. She had ridden hard to get there. “I have reas
on to believe Theodore Franquor’s life is in danger.”
“Mr. Franquor of Medville House?”
“You must send someone immediately.”
He was watching her carefully. Was this how her contemporaries became locked away? Not crazy at all, but frantic. Or perhaps she was confusing the two.
“Of course,” he said. “But it’s a long ride to Southwark. “Why not take a seat for a bit and I will—”
She never waited to hear the rest. Instead, she turned and flew back outside. It took her two hours to find Medville House. But Theodore Franquor was not there. A fat doorman with a hooked nose informed her that he was at his estate in Bournebridge.
The night was as black as sin as she raced through the streets of London. Rain slapped her face. But she spurred Sultan on, riding astride, leaning hard over his straining neck.
Franquor’s second estate was little more than a hunting cottage. Built of native stone, it stood alone in the midst of a broad stand of hawthorns and elms.
Faye slowed Sultan to a walk. It was dark. The rain had dwindled to a drizzle. A curl of smoke twisted from the chimney, suggesting habitation, warmth, and yet those were not the feelings that emanated from the building.
Fear, nurtured from infancy, crept up her spine, tingling along her nerve endings, freezing her breath. But she would not quit. Not now. She had shielded herself from the truth in the past. But no more.
Her legs felt wooden as she slid to the ground and wrapped the reins through a hitching post. Sultan’s breath warmed her sleeve as he blew, and for a moment, Faye was tempted almost beyond control to remount. To ride away. But truth was everything. She knew that now.
Her boots were all but soundless against the graveled walk. Not a noise disturbed the quiet. Her knock at the door seemed ungodly loud, but no one answered. She knocked again, the sound hollow and piercing in the stillness.
Instincts crowded in, insisting she had done all she could. That she could leave now, conscience clear. Indeed, she almost turned away, but in the end she could not.
The handle felt cold against her fingers. The door creaked inward.
“Sir.” Her voice shook. “Mr. Franquor, I would have a word.”
No sound answered.
She forced herself to move. To do. To step inside. A fire crackled in the fireplace, and in a moment she saw the body. It lay at an odd angle, crumpled at the foot of the stairs. Fear flooded in, almost drowning her, and yet she did not stop. Instead, she stepped toward it, heart hammering, feet silent on the carpet until she stood only inches from the hand that lay outstretched as if reaching—
A scrap of noise sounded from the entry. She jerked her gaze up, heart pounding, and he was there. Rogan McBain, face as somber as death.
“No,” she rasped, and suddenly she realized the truth. She had not come here to prove him guilty, to make him pay for his crimes. She had come to keep him from killing again. To hide his sins, to keep him safe.
“I feared you’d come.” His words were little more than a rumble of sound.
But even as he said them footsteps echoed outside.
Rogan lurched toward her. She meant to leap away, to save herself, but she was frozen in place, and in an instant he had grabbed her arm, propelling her across the floor, all but tossing her into the hallway.
“Go,” he ordered. “Out the back and away.”
She shook her head, but even as she did so a voice bisected the silence.
“What goes on here?”
Rogan turned slowly toward the man who stepped inside, praying with silent urgency that Faye was gone. Safe. Well away from this place that had drawn her.
The constable was a lean, red-faced fellow with heavy side-whiskers and a blue greatcoat that reached to his knees. A second man, not as tall, but youthful and quick, rushed in behind him. His scarlet waistcoat seemed strangely incongruous against the somber, firelit darkness. He delayed not an instant.
“Cranton! Look.”
They turned toward the body in unison.
“We were told there might be trouble here,” Cranton said, and pulled a club from beneath his voluminous coat. He was neither powerful nor well armed.
Rogan raised his hands, gladly surrendering.
Had she gone? He had no way of knowing and strained to hear her footfalls, to know she was safe. But there was no noise from behind him.
“He’s dead,” said Redbreast.
“By your hand?” Cranton asked.
And so it came to this. To the spot where they would learn of Rogan McBain’s true mettle.
The world seemed to stand still, awaiting the verdict. Outside, in the cool open air, rain dropped with rhythmic brilliance from the night sky.
“We argued,” Rogan said, and found it was not difficult after all to find the lie to save her. Indeed, he would do far worse to keep her from harm. To keep her safe and free.
“And you pushed him down the stairs?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he turned toward the body. Is that how he had died? There was a broken wine bottle near the wall. The floor was wet beneath his head.
“Search the house,” said Cranton. “There might be someone hiding in—”
“I was in a rage,” Rogan said. The lie seemed to rumble through his very soul. Redbreast hustled upstairs and was back in a heartbeat. “When he turned away, I struck him from behind.”
“It’s a lie,” Faye said, and winced as she stepped into view.
“Lass.” He found her eyes with his, locked on them. They were as sad as eternity, as deep as forever. “Why are you yet here?”
Cranton shifted nervously. Perhaps he sensed the power that emanated from her. The power Rogan himself had missed for so long. But he felt it now. Like a sizzle of lightning, it seemed to scorch his very soul. But it mattered not if he burned, for she was everything. Aye, she might have killed. But if that was so, the victim deserved to die. ’Twas as simple as that.
“Who are you?” Cranton asked, but Faerie Faye’s eyes held Rogan enthralled. Calm and brave, she watched him for an instant. Then, almost smiling, she turned toward the elder Redbreast.
“He died by my hand,” she said.
“No, lass,” Rogan rumbled, and clenched his fists.
“What?” The older officer was scowling, carefully shifting his gaze from one to the other. The younger left the stairs to stride through the lower level, knife clenched in a steady grip.
“I killed him,” she said. Her voice was as clear as morning.
Cranton’s gaze flitted from one to the other. “The Scot said he was to blame.”
She smiled a little. “Rogan McBain is a warrior, sir. A decorated soldier. And a hero. He would do no such thing.”
“Then why did he—”
“He’s protecting me. Mr. Franquor and I were having an affair.”
“And…”
“He threatened to leave me.”
“That hardly seems a reason to kill a man.”
She did smile now. The expression was beatific, carefree, kindness, and light. “Have you ever been in love?” she asked, and suddenly her eyes filled with tears, though her perfect face remained absolutely unmoved. “Have you ever been willing to give all?”
“Lass—” Rogan rumbled.
“No,” she said, and shook her head before finding his eyes with hers. Her brow was smooth, her eyes clear. “There is much I don’t understand. But you are a worthy man, Rogan McBain.”
“I’ve done things that—”
“I know truth,” she said. “And I know goodness. You’ll not suffer for your affiliation with me.”
“I believe you’ll both come with me,” Cranton said, and in that instant fear flickered in Faye’s earth-stone eyes. It was more than Rogan could bear.
He stepped forward, placing himself between her and the constable, just a few feet from the door.
“You’ll not take her,” he said.
The captain spread his legs. The boy with the knife had re
turned to the stairs, but he stood a goodly distance away. Rogan could take them both down if need be.
“What’s this then?” asked a voice.
They jerked their gazes to the doorway as a slim youth stepped inside.
“Cur!” Faye hissed.
“Who are you?” snapped Cranton.
The boy lifted his head the slightest degree, almost as if he were testing the scents. “Well, I’m not the killer,” he said, and glanced from Faye to Rogan, brows raised.
The constables were looking nervous. And for good reason. There was something eerie about the boy, something unearthly and rare and capable.
“Who might you be?” Cranton asked, but he kept his distance from the boy. He was not, apparently, a foolish man.
“Have you searched the house?” Cur asked.
“There’s none other here,” said the youth.
“Are you certain?” Cur asked, and strolled leisurely down the hall.
He raised his nose again, narrowed his eyes, then bent to study a drop of scarlet that marred the white wall.
“Have you tried there?” he asked, and pointed to a door placed under the stairs that led to the upper floor.
“It’s too small,” Redbreast said.
“Try anyway,” Cur insisted.
Cranton nodded. The boy stepped cockily toward the pantry, opened the door, and glanced inside. “As I said—”
“Farther back,” Cur said. The words were almost a growl.
Crouching, the boy stepped inside, but suddenly a form hurtled past. He stumbled out of the way, and a woman sprang forth, eyes wild, hair frazzled.
A moment of silence lapped the room, then, “Lady Lindale.” Faye’s voice was raspy and hushed.
“What happened?” she asked, then turned toward the body, eyes wide and already tearing. “No. Not dear Theodore.”
“Who are you?” Cranton asked, but it seemed to take a moment for his words to register in her shaken mind.
“I am Lady Lindale. Of Inver Heights. Is he…” Her voice broke, but she rallied. “Is he dead?”