Another woman blessed by Nature with the ideal English peaches-and-cream beauty. Hannah thought of the noblewoman like the finest milled white bread served to royalty, whereas she was the rougher and darker grained loaf consumed by the common folk.
“As ever, I was surrounded by a number of most attentive beaux. Do you require all their names?” Lady Gabriella asked.
One beau in particular, from what Hannah had observed of their tête-à-tête outside the ballroom. “There was a gentleman who was most solicitous of you last evening, but I could not place him.”
A cold stare glanced to Hannah and then back to Wycliff. “Mr Jonathon Rowley. He is not titled, but he possesses sufficient income for me to overlook his lack of noble birth. He is indeed most enamoured of me. His family own a number of smelly breweries, but they have branched out into a more suitable line of business. They import champagne and have quite a select clientele.”
There was something in Lady Gabriella’s expression that nagged at Hannah. Something not quite right. Or perhaps it was the opposite—she was too perfect, like a finely crafted doll. Not a single blemish or spot marred her appearance. Even her eyebrows were perfection and probably took a maid a full hour with a tiny brush to sculpt their dramatic arches.
Hannah lowered her eyes but stared at the other young woman, trying to discern what clues her subconscious had noticed. Yes, there. The artful curls about her face concealed the faint edge of a mask at her hairline.
The fan aided the illusion, as the slow movement of the navy feathers meant it was harder to focus on the smaller details of her face that would reveal the mask. While Lady Gabriella’s eyebrows were a masterpiece, with each hair embedded in the porcelain, they were incapable of expressing any subtle emotion.
The finest masks were crafted by those with magic coursing through their veins. They created ceramics that could mimic the muscle movement underneath the cool surface. But that movement didn’t quite seem right when you concentrated on it. They were stiff, like the material of which the mask was made, and not the fluid movement of skin.
With the other woman’s status confirmed, Hannah pondered how to alert Lord Wycliff to the clues. Lunging forward and ripping off the delicate mask while proclaiming Aha! seemed uncalled for, no matter how satisfying she might find it. She turned her head and tried to attract the viscount’s attention. Not an easy thing to do, since he seemed intent on ignoring Hannah’s presence, all his focus on Lady Gabriella.
Hannah coughed as though something had lodged in her throat, which earned her a scowl from both parties.
“Do you require a glass of water?” Wycliff asked with drawn brows.
“No, thank you.” Between coughs, when he deigned to look at her, Hannah mouthed the word mask and tapped the side of her face. She hoped the viscount caught her direction and that it went over the head of Gabriella, who appeared to be contemplating her fingernails.
Wycliff arched one black eyebrow, then directed his intense stare at the noblewoman. After a long pause he said, “Your mask is quite exquisite. The porcelain is almost sheer and allows your mouth some movement. Is it Venetian?”
The ostrich feathers stilled. Lady Gabriella raised one hand and almost touched her cheek. “Yes. They have magically gifted artisans who are masters of porcelain masks. Most men cannot tell, even upon the closest inspection. A man can kiss my lips and never notice.”
The fan dropped and Hannah found herself compelled to stare at the lush pink lips. She held her tongue, so she didn’t reveal her lack of information about kissing. Did lips not stray when kissing, so that a man wouldn’t notice the thin edge of the mask? Putting aside whatever lips did, how did a man take a woman in his arms and fail to notice the absence of a beating heart in her chest?
She tucked the question away to ask her mother that evening. Or Lizzie might know, now that she had tasted of her lovely duke.
One black eyebrow arched and the viscount’s lip on the same side was pulled upward as though the two were connected by a string. “Not all men are so easily fooled, I assure you.”
Hannah bit her lip to hold in a snort. He had been fooled until she had alerted him to the mask. However, if the viscount was throwing barbs at another, it gave her a rest. Not that any person, deceased or not, deserved to bear the brunt of his foul mood.
“Perhaps you haven’t kissed the right woman, my lord, that you fail to be swept away in the moment.” The fan began its dance up and down once more.
He withdrew a notebook from his pocket and a slim silver pencil. “Did you dance with anyone that evening?”
Gabriella laughed and turned her perfect face to the viscount. “I assure you, Lord Wycliff, my dance card was full. Mr Rowley quite monopolised my time and I barely had the opportunity to dance with half a dozen other eligible men.”
Hannah had managed one dance—with her father. She wished the floor would open up and swallow her. She was as empty as the hollowed-out woman on her father’s autopsy table. How marvellous it must be, to know yourself to be beautiful and desired. To have men swarming around you like bees on sugar syrup. Why did some women have all the attention while others had none?
Hannah’s needs were simple: one man who adored her would more than suffice for a lifetime.
“I will require your dance card.” Wycliff stared at Gabriella, his brows pulled together like angry caterpillars about to do battle with one another.
Lady Gabriella folded the fan and pointed it at Hannah. “Miss Miles, do make yourself useful and pull the bell.”
Hannah drew a deep breath to stop herself from bobbing a curtsey. Lady Gabriella might treat her as a servant, but that didn’t mean she had to act like one. With quiet, measured steps she walked to the tasselled pull by the door. She gave it one short tug.
The conversation continued without her.
“It is curious that your card was full when, given your state, you can never marry or present a man with the necessary heir,” Lord Wycliff said.
Lady Gabriella’s face remained impassive, a permanent half smile caught in the porcelain. Only her eyes revealed her changes of mood. The blue froze over, like water that has turned to ice. “Certainly, when I announced that I would never marry, it was a most severe blow to the eligible men of the ton. Then a curious thing occurred. I find being dead brings with it a certain…freedom. Men are odd creatures. When you remove the obligations of marriage and offspring, they have flocked to enjoy my company in increasing numbers.”
Wycliff made that little grunt in the back of his throat. Hannah decided it was a noise of slight incredulity, as though he thought the speaker wasn’t being entirely truthful.
The butler who had admitted them slipped back into the room and awaited further instructions.
The ostrich feathers glided through the air. “Ask Breton to fetch my dance card from the Loburn ball. Wycliff wishes to number my admirers.”
“My lady.” The butler bowed and disappeared as silently as he had come.
“Did you leave the ballroom at any time?” The silver pencil was poised over the notebook.
“I do not want for a thing, Lord Wycliff. My father is wealthy and influential in the House of Lords. I have benefactors who are close to the Prince Regent. I assure you, I am protected and cosseted like a valuable jewel. If you are looking for a starving Afflicted who would stoop to feeding on a footman, then I suggest you try the lesser nobles who are without my resources to feed their hunger.”
If this were a tennis match, then Hannah wasn’t quite sure which party had scored the match point. Lady Gabriella did have a most convincing argument. Why would she fall upon the footman in a sudden murderous hunger? From the way Mr Rowley had stared at her, Lady Gabriella was in more danger of being devoured by him.
“How does your mother manage, Miss Miles? I imagine it was quite a tumble for your family, stripped of your mother’s privileges when her pulse stopped. However do you make ends meet? Or do you scrimp on fashion to ensure she is fed?” Lady Ga
briella laughed, a tinkling sound with a harsh edge.
Hannah dug her nails into her palms to stop a heated retort. She would not rise to the bait. Women like Lady Gabriella thrived on the visible suffering of others. Hannah’s gown was a few seasons old. The cut was functional, the fabric robust, the stripe and colour plain. She saw no need for the latest fashions only to cover them with her canvas apron while she handled another woman’s internal organs.
Although now she had a hankering to crack open Lady Gabriella’s chest to examine the state of her heart and determine if it were as rotten as her character.
“Our needs are few and we manage quite well. Thank you for your concern.” With some effort, Hannah managed to keep a pleasant smile on her face, her tone neutral.
The other woman narrowed her eyes. “Well, perhaps it’s a blessing you are not out in society. Your sort can probably muddle through with only one or two old gowns. Whereas I must suffer through weekly appointments with my modiste to keep up my appearance.”
“Yes, I am quite blessed that I am not in your situation,” Hannah agreed.
Further salvos were silenced by the butler returning with the requested dance card. He handed it to the viscount, who scanned the lines of names.
For the first time in their brief acquaintance, Hannah was glad of the viscount’s abrupt nature. He tucked the dance card in a pocket along with his notebook and pencil, and stood. This time he inclined his head to Lady Gabriella. “I have no further questions.”
Then he strode from the room and Hannah gladly followed in his wake.
9
The next morning, bad weather threatened and Hannah’s mother declared her intention to sit out in the garden. Or the damnable Amazonian wilds, as her father called it. Hannah trailed a hand over foliage as she followed her father through the trees, her mother in his arms.
Seraphina had a particular affinity for nature and in their time at the house, she had encouraged trees to soar on the bare plot. Now the house looked as though it had been built in the depths of a forest hundreds of years ago. Branches laced overhead to filter out the sunlight. Ferns and flowering ground cover scrambled among trunks and roots. Hannah had loved to explore the undergrowth as a child, and spent many a happy hour pretending she was an explorer lost in a strange world. Now she saw the large trees as offering sanctuary from all that happened in London.
Lady Gabriella was welcome to her lush parlour. In spring, Hannah preferred to be surrounded by delicate, lace-like ferns.
By the stream that ran down one side of the property was a sweep of lawn that brushed the sides of the water. A wooden bower, its back to the trees, was covered in damask roses, magically encouraged to bloom almost continuously and their greenery sheltered a cushioned bench. On the other bank of the stream, a laurel hedge almost looked civilised as it bounded the side they shared with a neighbour.
Her father fussed and arranged the cushions behind her mother. “It is going to rain. Sera, are you sure this is wise?”
“You know I adore the rain. Now, off to your laboratory with you, Hugh. Hannah and I need some womanly time alone.” She pushed him away with a laugh.
“Enough said. I’ll leave you to it.” He kissed his wife’s cheek through the veil and then saluted before disappearing through the trees.
Hannah sat on a blanket at her mother’s feet. Overhead, she watched clouds gather and crash into one another. Judging by the darkening grey above, her mother would not have to wait long for the rain. Hannah tried to find shapes and objects in the clouds, but there were too many devouring each other and she could only conjure Viscount Wycliff’s frown.
The laurel hedge rustled and shook and attracted Hannah’s curiosity. When she turned her head, the row of clipped branches undulated as though a sea monster skimmed beneath the greenery. Branches sprouted up and sideways until they reformed into a unicorn. Opposite, a dragon grew from the greenery and flapped its twiggy wings. The unicorn bowed its head and used its horn to parry the dragon.
Hannah watched the two shrubbery actors, but the swirling storm above called her more. She heaved a sigh as a particularly dark cloud enveloped its neighbours.
Seraphina lowered her hands and the unicorn and dragon sank back into the hedge. “You used to find great amusement in my cavorting topiary.”
Hannah tipped back her head to bestow an upside-down smile on her mother. “I’m sorry, Mother. I find I have too much on my mind.”
Her mother picked a dusky yellow rose and twirled it between her fingers. “Such as a gruesome murder?”
“Yes. The circumstances bother me and are a constant niggle in my mind.” Hannah lived with death and helped her father put it under a microscope in his laboratory, but this particular instance haunted her waking moments.
“Well, it certainly put a dampener on Lizzie’s grand engagement ball. It took some work to ensure it didn’t reach the newspapers.” Seraphina tucked the rose behind a veiled ear.
Hannah watched one dark grey cloud crash into another and swallow it to produce a larger and angrier-looking cloud. “That timing indeed bothers me. Who would do such a thing to Lizzie? But it is more—” How to give voice to the growing unease within her?
“Pick a point at which to begin unravelling your thoughts, dearest.” Her mother’s voice was soothing, like the babble of the river.
It was indeed a slight to Lizzie, to mar her engagement ball in such a fashion, but had that been the primary goal of the murderer or an unintended consequence?
“Why commit such a crime at a ball with two hundred people in attendance? The risk of discovery was high. Revellers were roaming the house, as were the staff.” How was it no one had seen anything? Or perhaps the activity was the perfect mask; with so many people bustling around the house it was impossible to pinpoint who, if any, had done something criminal.
“Perhaps it was a crime of great impulse. A moment glimpsed and seized.” Seraphina stroked a hand through the air and the laurel hedge trimmed itself with a neat line along the top.
“That is Viscount Wycliff’s theory. That one of the Afflicted committed the murder while in the grips of a great hunger. Unfortunately, we did see two such murders when the curse first struck. Yet, we know that an Afflicted in such an extreme state would be agitated and incoherent. What some would call raving mad. This murderer moved undetected among those present and committed their crime in a place where they found one person alone. While it might have been opportunistic, it shows some presence of mind. A starving Afflicted would have leapt upon someone in the ballroom.”
That was what worried at Hannah. The explanation seemed plausible, yet it didn’t fit with the behaviour of those at the ball. Were they missing something and an Afflicted had become capable of such a heinous crime for some other reason than an overriding hunger? Was this little more than an old-fashioned murder performed by an Afflicted…lashing out when something was spilled on her dress or in frustration at the cruel actions of a former husband?
“An interesting observation, Miss Miles.”
Hannah sat up to find the dark cloud had dropped from the sky to ruin her enjoyment of the garden.
“Lord Wycliff,” Seraphina said.
He inclined his head, apparently locating his manners in the presence of a mage. “Forgive me, the maid said you were in the garden and I offered to find my own way.” He placed his hands in the small of his back, an action often done unconsciously by men who had spent a lifetime in the military.
Hannah realised her hair had pulled free of its knot and she gathered up the loose strands, searching to find the pins to secure them. “Shall I fetch Papa to carry you in, Mother?”
Her mother waved a gloved hand. “No, thank you, dear. You know how much I enjoy it when nature puts on a tempestuous display. I shall stay here awhile longer.”
A few minutes earlier…
* * *
Wycliff glared at the maid and said he would find Miss Miles himself. How difficult would it be to walk throug
h to the garden? As it turned out, it was no garden, but an untamed forest. Trees crowded the space and obscured the open paddocks beyond. The forest could have hidden a multitude of the enemy waiting to ambush the unwary. He trod with light feet on the winding path and wished he had a sword in his hand.
A rustling made him stop, his senses alert to danger. A peacock appeared from under a bush and crossed his path, dragging its train. One feather snagged on the undergrowth and the unblinking luminous eye stared at him. He shouldn’t be surprised to see the bird here. Peacocks were much favoured by mages in the casting of their spells. Sir Manly had commissioned a crest for the Ministry of Unnaturals that would feature the all-seeing eye.
He continued on and the path opened out by the river with a narrow ribbon of lawn. The younger woman, the one with a pulse, lay on the grass staring at the clouds. Her mother sat in a bower and resembled a marble bust draped in linen that had been left on a bench, instead of placed atop a plinth.
He paused before he burst out of the undergrowth, as Miss Miles’s voice drifted through the ferns and shrubs.
“—a starving Afflicted would have leapt upon someone in the ballroom.”
As an investigator for the Ministry of Unnaturals, he was privy to confidential information about the undead women, such as their indelicate and inhumane appetite for human brains. His files contained notes about how such creatures acted when hungry, but he had not considered it relevant to his investigation. He had thought the nature of their craving sufficient. Now Miss Miles’s comment made him consider events in a new light.
“An interesting observation, Miss Miles,” he said as he stepped into the thick grass.
“Lord Wycliff,” Lady Miles said.
He inclined his head to what had once been the most revered mage in England. Being in the presence of what was left of the woman made his hackles rise. It was unnerving to be unable to see her face. The hairs on his body lifted in response to being near her, just as when he stepped outside in the depths of winter without a thick overcoat.
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