by Lynn Messina
Or so Bea liked to assure herself.
Mr. Skeffington thanked her for the tea and declined the addition of sugar.
“You are looking well,” her aunt said, even though the color had yet to return to his face. “I’m relieved to see it after the…um…”
And there, in fewer than a dozen words, Aunt Vera had wandered into treacherous territory, only a syllable or two away from mentioning the unpleasantness at Lakeview Hall. Hyde-Clares in general did not like to talk about hideous events and her aunt had a particular aversion, as she seemed to find it rude or uncouth to discuss anything that wasn’t benign or pleasant.
Now she fumbled for a way to quickly change direction and decided to substitute the word visit for “dreadful murder of Mr. Otley by your mother.”
“I cannot remember when we last had such an…uh…interesting stay in the country,” she added, striving to appear unconcerned by the awkwardness of her own slip. “I’m sure everyone else did as well. Although, of course…”
But she could not bring herself to make an exception for the victim or the villain and trailed off awkwardly with an angry look at Beatrice, as if this, too—the discomfort she felt in her own drawing room—was all her fault. She considered the unmasking of Lady Skeffington as the killer to be the sole responsibility of her niece and resented the fact that the meddlesome young lady had forced them all to confront the truth.
Vera Hyde-Clare firmly believed in the graceful evasion of distasteful information and preferred reality to be served with a satisfying sprinkling of sugar.
Mr. Skeffington, however, would have none of her discretion, stating the matter forthrightly and making her complicit by crediting her with raising the topic in the first place. “I’m glad you brought it up, Mrs. Hyde-Clare, for I don’t want to tiptoe around the subject. The awful events of the fall happened, and there is no use in pretending they didn’t,” he said, his tone defiant even as he managed to avoid saying the words. “My parents are in Italy now and plan to move on to Greece when the weather warms up. I don’t know if you heard how the matter proceeded with the magistrate.”
They’d heard—of course they had. ’Twas not every day that a baroness was remanded to local authorities on the charge of murdering one of her guests. And yet the occupants of the room remained silent, for none of them wanted to discomfit their visitor or, in the case of Aunt Vera, herself.
“It did not go as smoothly as my father had hoped,” Mr. Skeffington explained, “for, although Gosport was inclined to be reasonable about the whole thing, he could not dismiss the fact that my mother had confessed to the crime in front of a Runner. He was in quite an awkward spot—unable to dismiss the case and unwilling to refer it to the Crown—so he placed my mother under house arrest and quietly urged my father to remove her from his jurisdiction.”
Although fleeing one’s country seat to avoid criminal prosecution hardly constituted embarking on a grand tour, Aunt Vera chose to see their escape to the Continent as an opportunity to travel. “How delightful. Helen always did long to explore more of the world. When we were in school together, she would frequently talk about having wonderful adventures when she grew up. She had a particular interest in the Parthenon, so I’m not the least bit surprised to hear she will be traveling to Greece soon. I’m sure your father is quite pleased as well, for he is a great angler and the Mediterranean is known for its abundance of fish.”
But Mr. Skeffington would not allow her the consolation of a silver lining. “Actually, they’re both wretched, for my mother hates discomfort of any kind and my father is deeply suspicious of foreigners and they are surrounded by both at every moment. I suspect my father will see her settled in Athens and then return to England. He has said repeatedly in his letters to his steward that he has done nothing wrong and sees no reason why he should be punished too.”
He put his teacup down with unexpected force, causing it to rattle loudly against the saucer, and turned to Bea with surprising intensity. “They’re monsters, Miss Hyde-Clare,” he said, plainly feeling some sort of connection to her after the ordeal they had both endured, albeit in significantly different ways. The violence he had suffered had been entirely emotional, but it left its scars just the same. “They’re absolute monsters. I don’t know how it’s possible that they could have been like this my whole life and I not see it.”
The pain in his voice was unmistakable, and Bea realized with dawning horror that he had come to Portman Square seeking its mitigation. He, like her aunt, considered her a central player in his parents’ downfall and somehow believed that gave her a special power to make things better or different.
Overwhelmed by the impossibility of his expectation, Bea felt an almost irresistible desire to run out of the room. Alleviating his personal anguish was no more her responsibility than his parents’ dreadfulness was his. Furthermore, she had her own difficult relations to contend with, including an aunt who would seek to lock her in a tower and throw away the key if only the house had been fortuitously blessed with that particular architectural feature.
But obligation did not follow the strict dictates of decorum and instead flouted them openly. It lay down on the settee and stretched it legs, so to speak.
With a deep sigh, Bea examined the young gentleman whose formidable black brows contrasted disconcertingly with his light-green eyes. He was only two years younger than she and yet seemed a generation apart. “You are being far too hard on yourself, for you are their child and cannot be expected to see them clearly. Your perspective has been molded by affection, both theirs for you and yours for them. But even those who had the benefit of a less sentimental connection did not see them clearly. Isn’t that correct, Aunt Vera?” she asked, turning to consult the opinion of someone who had known Lady Skeffington when she was still Miss Poole. “You had been friends with Helen since you were classmates at Mrs. Crawford’s School for Girls and you never suspected she was capable of repeatedly hitting a man over the head with a candlestick until he was dead, did you?”
The look her aunt sent her was murderous, but she managed to temper it to mild annoyance by the time she turned to her guest. “Although I disagree ardently with the brutality of my niece’s description, for I cannot believe the event happened in quite such a heartless fashion, the substance of her observation is correct. I knew your mother for decades and never suspected she was capable of anything more violent than shooing away a fly,” she said kindly. Then, as if unable to accept even the slightest hint of culpability, she was compelled to add that she had seen little of Lady Skeffington in recent years. “As you know, she held a privileged place in society and her presence was much in demand at routs and dinner parties. She did love hosting, as well, and there were several house parties at Lakeview Hall to which I was not invited. And of course her relationship with Mr. Otley must have demanded a fair amount of her attention, for one cannot conduct an extramarital affair without carving out some time for it.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Aunt Vera gasped at her thoughtless candor and slapped her hand over her lips. Although nobody else in the room reacted, including Mr. Skeffington, whose expression indicated that he’d had a similar thought himself, she could not withstand the egregiousness of the faux pas and fled from the room with the claim that she’d heard Mrs. Emerson calling for her. It was a blatant lie, for no housekeeper in a respectable establishment would ever think to yell her employer’s name down the hallway, regardless of whether she was entertaining company or not.
Flora apologized at once for both her mother’s abrupt departure and Mrs. Emerson’s supposed rudeness. “It’s the blancmange, you see. The peace of the household rests on its successful execution.”
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Skeffington did not see at all, but rather than seek clarity, he returned his attention to Bea, whom he considered to be the more sensible woman. “I cannot thank you enough for your kindness. You must know that for months I’ve been haunted by my treatment of you. It seems impossib
le to me now that I actually hit you over the head with a wooden plank. It’s far too similar to my mother’s treatment of Mr. Otley for me to breathe easily.”
Ah, Beatrice thought, realizing it was this possibility that bedeviled him the most. “I believe the simple fact that you are aware enough of your own actions to wonder such a thing means you are incapable of it.”
“I agree,” said Flora, leaning forward on the cushion. “You are already too thoughtful, Mr. Skeffington, and more thoughtful still, having seen the horror up close.”
“Yes, that’s precisely what Miss Otley said,” he announced with a pleased smile.
“Miss Otley?” Aunt Vera said, sticking her head into the room with alarming swiftness. Either she had been listening at the door from the moment she’d left or her sense of a rival’s presence was so finely honed she could appear within a fraction of a second of one’s mention.
“Why, yes, we have been in almost constant communication since the events of the fall,” he explained. “It turns out that having monstrous human beings for parents creates a rather impervious bond among their offspring. In the act of consoling each other we’ve discovered a fondness and lasting affection. We are to be wed next Christmas, for we need to wait an appropriate amount of time after the end of her mourning period.”
“Wed?” Aunt Vera asked faintly as she sat down next to her daughter on the settee. “As in married to each other for all of eternity?”
Although Bea knew the blow her aunt had just suffered was genuine, she couldn’t help but be amused by her dramatics. No doubt she was thinking how unfair it was that Mrs. Otley, despite losing her husband to a candlestick and herself being revealed as an adulteress, still somehow managed to pull off the match of the century for her Incomparable daughter. Naturally, Aunt Vera had hoped to nab the Skeffington heir for her own daughter, which was why she had attended the house party with such alacrity and purchased two lovely and entirely unnecessary new gowns for Flora. At the time, Mr. Skeffington had seemed interested in neither young lady, but the events of the fall, as he chose to describe his mother’s murderous attack on Miss Otley’s father, seemed to have matured him.
They must have matured Miss Otley as well, for when Bea had known the beautiful young lady she had been dismissive of her parents’ plan to rivet her to a lowly baron. Her sights had been fixed on a marquess or a duke.
“That is wonderful news,” Flora said with sincere enthusiasm as her mother whimpered beside her. “I offer my warmest congratulations. Is Miss Otley in town? Is she accepting visitors?”
Mr. Skeffington said that she was indeed and would be quite delighted to see the Misses Hyde-Clare at their earliest convenience. He also rushed to explain that the engagement was not a matter of public record yet, as the ton would consider it indecent so hard on the heels of her father’s death.
With each word he spoke, Aunt Vera’s anguish increased, which was patently absurd, Bea thought, for her discomfort with unpleasant truths was so acute she could never have withstood the awkwardness of joining her family with a murderer’s. As Mr. Skeffington had yet to return to society, it was impossible to say what his welcome would be, and although it was decidedly unfair to deliver the sins of the mother unto the son, the beau monde was hardly known for its evenhanded dispensing of justice.
Nevertheless, her daughter sought to ease her grief by speaking softly to her and gathering her hands in her own.
Not sure if she was more amused or disgusted, Bea looked at Mr. Skeffington and offered her congratulations as well. “I’m sure you will both be very happy. I think your temperaments will match very well.”
“Thank you,” he said with a distracted look at the settee. She was about to apologize for her aunt’s ridiculous display, of which he couldn’t possibly know what to think, when he stood up, crossed the couple of feet that separated them and sat down in the chair next to her. Then, leaning his head close to hers, he spoke softly but in an urgent rush. “I’d hoped to have a few moments alone with you to discuss a very troubling matter. It’s an entirely indelicate subject and wholly inappropriate and I won’t be the least bit surprised if you gasp in horror and throw your tea at me, but I’m thoroughly at my wit’s end and have no idea where else to turn. Indeed, my decision to speak to you might be the result of a wild panic I seem incapable of overcoming, but that’s only because I am beside myself with fear and anxiety. Something must be done.”
His frantic speech was by far the most remarkable one Beatrice had ever heard and she stared at him in alarm, for he appeared to be on the verge of apoplexy. “Please speak, Mr. Skeffington, I will do whatever I can to ease your fear and anxiety.”
Slowly, he nodded and took a deep breath. “I would like you to investigate a murder.”
CHAPTER THREE
Although Bea’s first response was an eager and excited yes—yes, yes, of course I will investigate your murder—her thoughts instantly swerved to the source of the question and she stared at him aghast as she tried to figure out who the victim could be. Not Miss Otley, obviously, or her mother, for no man would have been able to sit in a drawing room making polite conversation with a tragedy of that magnitude drumming a beat in his head. By his own account, his parents were well and safe on the Continent. Could it be his friend Lord Amersham, who had accompanied him to Lakeview Hall in the fall…
Aware that her aunt would not be inconsolable forever, she chastised herself for wasting time with speculation and put the question to him directly. “Who?”
The young man sighed with relief at the calm practicality of her question, unmistakably grateful that she hadn’t descended into hysterics. “Do you recall Mr. Wilson? He was Mr. Otley’s business associate in India and Mrs. Otley’s lover.”
Beatrice required no reminder of who Mr. Wilson was, for she had convinced herself he was responsible for the murder of the spice trader. Despite having no reason to believe he was in England, let alone the Lake District, she had been certain he was secreted away somewhere on the estate, hiding in the guise of a new employee. It was while she was looking for him in one of the outbuildings behind the stables that Mr. Skeffington had knocked her on the head with a wooden plank and locked her in the shed.
“I do, yes,” she said, barely able to comprehend the unlikely turn of events. That the man she had believed responsible for Mr. Otley’s untimely death had suffered the same fate himself seemed extraordinary.
His composure somewhat restored by her cool acceptance, Mr. Skeffington explained, his voice too quiet for her aunt, who was moaning softly, to hear. “He was found dead this morning. It was horrible, Miss Hyde-Clare, simply horrible for he was discovered in”—here, he lowered his voice until it was a mere whisper—“Mrs. Otley’s bed. She had sworn that the affair was over. Emily refused even to speak to her again until the connection had been severed, and her mother complied. Or, at least, she’d claimed to. But this morning Emily heard terrible, terrible sounds coming from her mother’s room, and when she raced in to discover what the matter was, she found Mr. Wilson in her bed, his body wracked by convulsions he couldn’t control. He was, she said, in tremendous pain and could not stop arching his back in the most alarming manner. Just when she feared he would split himself entirely in half, the convulsions stopped. She’d thought the fit of paroxysms had passed, but upon closer examination she realized that he had expired. Can you imagine what that was like for her?” he asked with growing despair. It was apparent that he could imagine, and had done, little else in the interval since discovery. “I am in agony on her behalf.”
Although the story Mr. Skeffington told was shocking and repellant, a nightmare transposed to the drawing room, Bea wasn’t shocked or repelled. She was genuinely horrified, of course, for Emily, who did not deserve to witness such a traumatic event so soon after her father had suffered his own violent end, and she spared a thought for Mrs. Otley, her lie exposed in a horrifyingly public manner. But she was also intrigued and curious, and her mind immediately went to
the method the villain had used. What she knew of poisons was limited to the little she’d gleaned from her reading over the years, but she recognized the properties of a toxic substance in his description. The question, of course, was which one.
“No, Mr. Skeffington, I cannot imagine what that’s like, and my heart aches for poor Emily. She has already been through so much, and now to have this devastating situation.” She shook her head gently, uncertain if the Incomparable she’d met in the Lake District had the mettle to deal with Mr. Wilson’s tragedy on top of her father’s. She had seemed as hard as stone when discussing her marriage prospects during their walk to the folly but had crumbled like a castle of sand when confronted with the depths of her parents’ depravity. “I agree there’s no time to waste. We must start the investigation at once with an examination of the scene of death. There is always information to be gained from it.”
Bea spoke firmly and with conviction, almost as if she were a Bow Street Runner herself, or, somehow more fancifully, an expert in detection who offered her services for a modest fee. But in truth she was simply making an educated guess as to the best way to proceed, for she had done this only twice before. At best, she would call herself an informed amateur.
The Duke of Kesgrave would call her a foolish one.
At once, she pictured Kesgrave’s disapproving frown.
No, she thought, pushing the image away, for this circumstance could not qualify as crossing her path. The duke had been speaking to a very specific condition in which a dead body literally placed itself in her path, as it had in both the library at Lakeview Hall and offices of the London Daily Gazette on the Strand.