Alyssa Everett (6 page)

“I suppose you’d rather see my cousin hang?”

Whatever my grievances with Helen, she was my sister, and her flabbergasted tone when John suggested she ask me for money still stung. No wonder we never shared any secrets, if she believed I thought so little of her. I owed her my support.

“All Cliburne has to do is stick to his claim it was self-defense,” I argued, “and the coroner’s jury may well rule the death an accident. If they don’t, then surely John and Helen will come forward before the case goes to trial. Must you be in such a hurry to see my sister ruined?”

“I don’t see why I should care one way or the other about your sister when it’s clear enough she’s been lying to Teddy for some time now.”

“And may I remind you that your cousin Mr. Mainsforth is every bit as complicit in those lies? Cliburne is his half-brother, and blood is supposed to be thicker than water.”

“Which explains why you insist on protecting your sister at Teddy’s expense.”

My hands balled into fists, but with an effort I reined in my temper. I could see I had only one hope of changing Ben’s mind: an appeal to his better nature. “Surely you must have
some
sense of honor.” I spoke with exaggerated patience. “And Cliburne loves Helen. He won’t thank you for dragging her name through the mud.” Ben didn’t reply, so I pressed my advantage. “I grant you Helen hasn’t told Cliburne whatever it is her blackmailer knows. But can you honestly say you’ve never kept a secret yourself, that you’ve never done something so foolish or so embarrassing you couldn’t bear for it to be made public?” My eyes traveled meaningfully back down to the front of his breeches. “
Never?
”

Ben colored, while I waited, holding my breath. After a moment’s sullen reflection he replied, “Very well. I won’t say anything about the blackmail unless it becomes necessary to save Teddy’s life. But I trust you know how to show similar restraint.”

“Of course I do.” I turned to lead him out of the house. “I didn’t slap your face in the cupboard, did I?”

I could almost feel his angry stare boring into my back.

Chapter Five

Ben

When I came downstairs the next morning, my parents were sitting at the breakfast table, my father with his paper, my mother stirring her chocolate, chin in hand. I paused on the threshold, battling the temptation to turn and just keep walking. These intimate meals with only the three of us always rubbed me the wrong way. They reminded me how narrowly we missed being a normal family.

It was a stupid way to feel. I was a grown man. But while I could put the taunts and jeers I’d endured at Eton behind me, it was harder to overlook the way my father had married a tenderhearted romantic like my mother, only to humiliate her. Men were supposed to protect the women in their lives. She deserved better.

Resigned, I went in with a private sigh. “Good morning, Mama.” I bent to kiss her cheek. “Father,” I added with a swift glance in his direction.

“Good morning, Ben.” My father folded his paper and set it beside his plate. As usual, he looked every inch the respectable aristocrat—elegant, immaculately dressed, and silvering at the temples.

My mother’s brow wrinkled as I pulled up a chair. “Ben, dear, what’s all this about an inquest? Your uncle sent a note this morning saying he’d like you to drop by Daventry House to discuss it.”

I took a piece of toast from the rack and scraped butter across it. “It’s a bad business. Do you remember I told you Teddy’s intended was keeping company with the neighbor’s footman? Last night someone bashed in the footman’s brains.”

My father raised one eyebrow, and my mother gasped. “No!”

“That’s barely the half of it. Out of some misguided desire to shield Lady Helen, Teddy’s claiming responsibility. If the coroner’s jury rules the death a homicide, it may mean his neck. Fortunately I came across some new information—”

My mother had gone pale. “You don’t really mean you intend to involve yourself in this! With a murderer on the loose? Ben, no!”

I frowned, nonplussed at her reaction. “Mama, Teddy is your nephew. Surely you don’t expect me to stand by when his life could be at stake.”

“Quite right,” my father agreed. “Even if your family weren’t involved, Margaret, Ben has a duty to report anything he knows that might be relevant to the investigation.”

“Exactly.” I nodded in my father’s direction. “Though, to be honest, I’m hoping to avoid certain questions. There’s Lady Helen’s reputation to be considered.”

My mother’s eyes widened in dismay. “But only last night you were saying you thought her all wrong for Teddy.”

“And I still think so. But she has a sister...”

My father smiled. “A beauty, is she?”

Why did he even bother asking? For years now I’d known he didn’t particularly care whether a girl was a beauty or not, yet we had to go on pretending we were a family like any other. “Lady Barbara? She’s a perfect harpy. But I promised her I wouldn’t say anything potentially damaging to her sister unless it became necessary.”

“How does this Lady Barbara look?” my mother asked.

I drummed my fingers on the table. “She’s a redhead. Tall and green-eyed, with a husky voice.” And positively spellbinding curves, I added in my head, since I was the only one at the table likely to care.

My father’s face turned pensive. “Leonard’s daughter, did you say? I believe I met her once. Her grandmother was the late Lady Merton.”

My mother sniffed. “Lady Merton! That woman was a scandal to her family. She ran away from her first husband—”

“A brute who beat her,” my father put in calmly.

“And when Merton met her, she was acting on the stage!”

“She was a lady of great courage, and still a rare beauty even when I knew her,” my father said in an unruffled tone that nevertheless declared the matter settled. “And Ben’s young lady is a perfectly lovely girl.”

“She’s not my young lady.” Crossly, I tore the crust from my toast. “I don’t even like her. In fact, I positively dislike her. I simply promised her I wouldn’t say anything that might reflect poorly on her sister. I did it as much for Teddy as for anyone else, since he’s determined to protect Lady Helen.” And because Barbara had threatened to publicize that embarrassing incident in the linen cupboard. It was just the kind of low, underhanded trick I’d expect from a girl like her. First she drove a fellow to distraction with that maddening body of hers, then she turned it to her advantage.

“Oh, Ben,
please
don’t get involved,” my mother begged. “Or, if you must, insist you don’t know anything. I mean...a murder! The killer could be lying in wait for you even as we speak. And he could be an expert at throwing knives, like that little Italian gentleman who performed in the traveling circus at Greybridge last year, knocking the lemon off his assistant’s nose.” Her eyes grew round with horror. “And to think, you were out after dark last night. You might already be lying dead in the street!”

My father reached across to cover her hand with his. “Ben will tell the truth, as I know you’d wish him to do.”

It was a thoroughly supportive remark, but it rang hollow coming from my father. The truth? Since when did our family tell the truth? In our imaginary world, my parents’ marriage was happy and my father didn’t consort with men and the two of us were as close as any father and son.

My mother looked imploringly at me, sending a silent plea that I should steer clear of the Leonard business. I pretended not to see it. I’d had a lifetime of training in ignoring inconvenient realities.

Still, it wasn’t her fault our happy family life was nothing but a sham. “I’ll be careful, Mama. But at the very least, I mean to talk to Uncle Daventry today and make available for the inquest what little information I can.” I intended to talk to John too, but for now I thought it better to keep that to myself.

“Let me know when the inquest is to be, and I’ll cancel my appointments and come with you,” my father said. “I’m sure Teddy could use a show of solidarity. Daventry will be there, I assume, but if one peer is likely to impress the jury, two should make an even stronger impression.”

I had no doubt my father would make an impression on the jury all right, but exactly the wrong kind. He might be a peer, but he was also a sodomite, and as the Duke of Ormesby, he was probably the best-known sodomite in all England. His involvement would do Teddy far more harm than good.

I rose and gave him a curt bow. “Thank you, Father, but I’d prefer to attend on my own.”

Barbara

With Ben’s recommendation in mind, I was up bright and early the next day, slipping into Helen’s room to search it as soon as she went down to breakfast.

I knew I might not have much time. My eyes ranged quickly over the furnishings—the lace-covered bed, the cluttered dressing table, the bookshelves decked with girlish souvenirs. Now where would my sister hide letters from a blackmailer?

I checked under her pillow, behind the clock on the mantel, and inside the stiff brocade costume of the doll she kept propped against the pillow on her bed. Nothing. Nor was there anything but a bit of paste jewelry in her jewelry case. When I knelt before her dressing table and pulled the drawers all the way out one by one, however, I discovered a small sheaf of letters stashed behind the bottom drawer.

The first two letters were from Cliburne, leading me to fret I’d stumbled on nothing more than a stack of billets-doux. With a heroic effort of will, I managed to respect the lovers’ privacy and pass the letters by. Shuffling hurriedly through the stack, I discovered a message written in crude block letters.

LADY HELEN

I SAW YOU LAST NITE AND I KNOW WHAT HAPPINT IN BRYTEN. IF YOU DO NOT WANT LORD CLYBERN TO KNOW WHO YOU WERE WITH THEN LEEVE FIFTIE POUND BEHIND THE BOOKS ON THE TOP SHELF IN THE MENERVA PRESS SECTION OF HOOKAMS BY FIVE TUMORROE. TELL NO ONE OR ELSE.

Hookham’s—precisely where John Mainsforth had seen Helen with Sam. The second message was much like the first.

I KNOW YOU SAW HIM AGIN. LEEVE ANOTHER FIFTIE POUND IN THE SAME PLACE OR LORD CLYBERN WILL HEAR OF IT.

There were two more in the same vein. I stared down at the threatening letters. Now that I’d found them, what was I to do with them? I supposed I could give them to Mr. Dawson, but I hesitated to go to Bow Street when I didn’t know how damaging Helen’s secret might be—and it looked to be very damaging indeed, for there was clearly a man involved. The same went for showing the letters to Papa, since there was no trusting his temper. I briefly considered confronting Helen, but if she was too frightened to speak out in Cliburne’s defense, I doubted she would tell me anything now.

The only person with whom I could safely share the letters was Ben. He already knew Helen was being blackmailed, and he seemed every bit as determined as I was to learn the identity of Sam’s murderer. Ben might be the most irritating and self-satisfied young man I’d ever met, but there was no denying his air of capability. Working together, perhaps we could bring the real killer to justice.

My heartbeat quickened. Yes, Ben was the very person I needed to see. Unfortunately, I could hardly write openly to a bachelor who wasn’t related to me. How was I to contact him?

Mulling it over, I tucked the relevant letters inside the sash of my gown and was just sliding the dressing table drawer back into place when a scratch sounded on the open bedroom door. “Lady Barbara ...?”

Startled, I looked up to discover our first footman. “Oh, hello, Frye.” I drew back from my handiwork with a blush.

“Did you lose something, my lady?”

I got to my feet, dusting off the knees of my gown. “Yes, I...I think one of the ear-drops I was wearing last night must have fallen off here in my sister’s room.”

“I’ll help you find it—”

“No, no, I just remembered where I must have dropped it. Was there something you wished to see me about?”

He gave a tight, anxious nod. “Yes, my lady. I know I should go to Mr. Lewis, but I was hoping perhaps you might speak to him first, on account of you’ve always been so good to me, and he already says I’m clumsy.”

Poor Frye. In his blue-and-gold livery and powdered wig, he wasn’t bad-looking—a footman had to present a certain appearance, after all—but he had such a gawky, socially maladroit way about him, he was never going to be popular with the ladies. Perhaps that was why I had a soft spot for him. I knew how painful it was to be overlooked by the opposite sex. “What is it?”

“It’s about the linen cupboard in the butler’s pantry, my lady. When I was locking up last night, I discovered it’d been broken into. There’s nothing missing—I made sure—but I’m afraid Mr. Lewis will say it’s my fault. And it wasn’t, my lady. The doors were already off their hinges when I made my rounds. I don’t know how—”

“Oh.” In my determination to search Helen’s room, I’d forgotten all about the cupboard doors Ben had smashed to splinters. “I know exactly what you mean, Frye. Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with the murder last night. I was there when it happened. And yes, I’ll be happy to speak to Lewis about it.”

His tense expression dissolved into a look of relief, albeit a puzzled one. “You were there? But how...?”

“Lord Beningbrough had a little accident with the cupboard.” At Frye’s look of confusion, I elaborated. “You know, Lord Cliburne’s cousin.”
Oh
,
drat
,
please don’t let our footman wonder what Ben and I were doing in the butler’s pantry together.
However innocent it might have been, it would look bad—and, to be perfectly honest, it hadn’t been all that innocent.

Frye appeared even more puzzled, but he merely said, “Well, I’d be grateful for your help, my lady.”

At his words, inspiration struck. “Actually, I have a favor of my own to ask in return.” I reached for the paper and pen Helen kept in her top drawer. “Do you know Ormesby House on Piccadilly? It’s that great white mansion, the one with the stone entrance flanked by statues of Atlas supporting the heavens.”

“Near the corner of Green Park? Yes, my lady.”

“Good. You must keep this our secret, Frye, but I need you to carry a message there for me.”