Axel (27 page)

“Matilda was furious with her,” Matthew said, by way of consolation. “Said it was the most vulgar thing she’d ever heard a woman brag about, and I should tell you to set Caroline aside. Coming from Tilly, that was a brilliant display of hypocrisy, but protective of you for all that.”

“Your wife cuckolded you, mine led me around by my parts and made sport of me to other women in the family. You wonder why I’m not leaping back into the marital affray when I can instead have the pleasure of academic company, and the rousing intellectual challenge of Oxford university life. Dean Clemens says one of the colleges is about make me an offer, Matthew.”

Good God, not this again
. Axel had been maundering on about a fellowship at Oxford since he’d put off full mourning.

Time to circle back to the relevant points—or pour more brandy. “Oxford doesn’t deserve you, and Caroline didn’t have a very well-developed sense of marital privacy. Mrs. Stoneleigh, obviously, is cut from a different cloth.”

“Matthew, for all Abigail has confided some surprising particulars to me, I can’t help but feel she’s still not being entirely honest.”

Good for her, if she was making Axel work to earn her trust. “Women are canny. They have to be. When they trust a man, his power over them approaches life and death, and from what you said before dinner, Abigail Stoneleigh came perilously close to death at her husband’s hands.”

“Gives a fellow pause, and probably gives the lady pause as well.” Axel stood and gathered up his boots. “Just how bad was Caroline?”

Matthew wanted to say she’d been bloody awful, particularly when she’d been at the wine and was in a mood, but if a man’s memories were all he had, one had to tread lightly.

“For all her faults, she loved you.”

“And I loved her, more than I knew at the time, but Matthew, nobody loved Abigail. For eight years, she managed on her own—no parents, no siblings, no children, and a spouse whose capacity for evil would make the devil blush. Stoneleigh subtly maligned her, robbed her when she was at her most vulnerable, denied her any friendships, and alternately abandoned her and left her no privacy… that was before he tried to poison her.

“The notion of remarriage holds limited appeal for me,” Axel went on, “but for Abby… I can’t see her ever taking such a risk again. Marriage to Stoneleigh nearly killed her. A prospective suitor with little charm doesn’t waltz his way past a trauma like that.”

Axel had clearly assessed the challenge such a suitor would face, though. Matthew could write that much heartening news in his first letter to his wife.

But like a pair of young horses, the professor and the widow would trot back and forth on separate sides of the pasture fence, snorting and pawing, tails over their backs, but neither one was willing to take a leap for the sake of a shared future.

Fortunately, Matthew knew exactly how that felt and with the help of his new wife, had learned a few things about how to open gates.

“Y
ou left them
alone
?” Matthew asked, glowering at the closed door.

Axel took his brother by the arm and led him away from the Candlewick family parlor.

“Marriage has made you forgetful, Matthew.” Also damned happy. The glow of contentment radiating from Matthew would have illuminated both glass houses on a moonless night. “I
asked
Sir Dewey to call on Abigail. Condolence calls are paid to the bereaved, not to the magistrate investigating the murder resulting in the bereavement.”

Matthew’s fists went to his hips, which display put Axel in mind of the male peacock, preparing to strut the bounds of his territory.

“The murder was barely a month past, Axel. Sir Dewey is rushing his fences.”

“Sir Dewey is saving me, and quite possibly you, several freezing miles on horseback. When he’s made his bow to Abigail—who needs the distraction of his company—we can ask him a few questions.”

“Questions?” Matthew uttered the word the way university scholars spoke of freshly baked rum buns in the dead of winter.

Axel moved off down the corridor, lest Abby catch him trying not to eavesdrop.

“Did Sir Dewey know of the safe?” Axel began. “Why didn’t he mention it, if so? Does he know where the second safe is? What’s his explanation for the magnitude of Gregory Stoneleigh’s wealth? Where exactly did they go on these shooting excursions? Were he and Gregory lovers?”

Matthew stopped short. “Hadn’t thought of that. That’s quite good. That will throw him right off stride, and then you can follow up with the question you really want him to answer. Which would be…?”

Are you in love with Abigail Stoneleigh?
Except Axel had already asked that one, and received a perfectly gentlemanly response.

“You’re the brilliant investigator. How about you think of the brilliant questions?”

Though Matthew was stepping down as magistrate by midsummer, before a blessed event could steal all of his attention not already reserved for his wife and children.

“Why not ask him if he killed Gregory Stoneleigh?” Matthew asked.

“Of all people, Sir Dewey had no motive. He’s a nabob, for one thing. He tolerated Stoneleigh’s crotchets, for another, such as a man bent on uxoricide can be allowed mere crotchets. Then too, nobody can place Sir Dewey on the premises that night.”

And Sir Dewey did not strike Axel as a man fond of violence. Unlike Stoneleigh Manor, Sir Dewey’s abode boasted no displays of crossed swords, mounted pistols, or gory scenes from the hunt field.

“Only a scholar would refer to killing one’s wife as uxoricide,” Matthew retorted. “Sir Dewey could have hired the murder done. Put Ambers up to it, or even Shreve.”

If Ambers had done murder, he was certainly malingering at the scene of the crime when all sense should have sent him off to the Continent.

Axel had led his brother to the library. Here, Axel could picture Abby curled on her end of the sofa. He could rearrange the bouquets he’d chosen for her that morning. He could cast longing glances in the direction of his collection of erotica, which in his fantasies he shared with her.

Abigail liked books, and she liked
him
, as far as he could tell.

Matthew yanked the bell-pull.

“What in the perishing hell are you ringing for? Luncheon was less than two hours ago.”

“If we’re to entertain Sir Dewey, some food and drink are only hospitable.”

Sir Dewey was at that moment sitting before Axel’s best everyday service, and a tray doubtless piled with tea cakes, scones, jam, butter, clotted cream… fruit. Anything Axel’s cook could conjure that Abby might enjoy nibbling on.

“You cannot possibly be hungry,” Axel said.

“And you cannot possibly long for your glass houses.”

They shared a moment of fraternal accord that only looked like mutual exasperation.

“Am I interrupting?” Sir Dewey Fanning sauntered in, all fine tailoring and lean good looks. Axel wanted to kick him right in his handsome teeth, doubtless a symptom of having neglected the glass houses.

“Sir Dewey, greetings. May I make known to you my brother, Matthew Belmont, late of Sussex. Matthew, Sir Dewey is a neighbor of several years standing.”

Sir Dewey’s bow balanced geniality and dignity. “I understand you are an experienced magistrate, Mr. Belmont. I’m sure you’ll give us the benefit of your thinking regarding the situation at Stoneleigh Manor.”

Oh, for God’s sake.
Kicking was too good for such blatant graciousness.

“Perhaps we might discuss that very topic?” Axel said, gesturing to the sofa. “I have a few more questions for you, if you have time to oblige me.”

Sir Dewey flipped out the tails of his dark blue riding coat and took a seat. “Inquire away. If I know the answer, I’ll gladly share it. I must say, I’m greatly relieved to see Mrs. Stoneleigh looking so much better.”

“Better?” Matthew asked, taking the armchair nearest the fire. “I gather she was not at her best at the funeral?”

“Even before that, she was… fading. Losing flesh, growing pale. Several times I saw her steady herself when she’d risen too quickly. Clearly, the professor’s care and cosseting have helped put her back to rights.”

If Axel attempted to cosset Abigail beyond basic hospitality, she’d unman him.

“Your visit is much appreciated as well,” Axel said, taking the other armchair. “I’d hoped Weekes might put in an appearance, but he has yet to brave the elements.”

Or tear himself away from Mrs. Weekes’s baking abilities, while Matthew had ridden nearly a hundred miles in the depths of winter, left his new bride and his children, to come to his brother’s side.

The tea tray arrived, to which Matthew applied himself with predictable assiduousness, leaving Axel free to interrogate their guest.

“Why, exactly,” Axel asked, as Matthew troweled butter onto two scones, “did you leave the import business, and did Sir Gregory buy out your interest? And please help yourself to the offerings on the tray.”

If Matthew left any.

Sir Dewey selected a scone, then fixed himself a cup of tea, his movements leisurely.

“I see where you’re heading with this, and I agree with you,” he said. “The business bears closer inspection, being a source of revenue, debt, and entanglement with various third parties. So… I decided to extricate myself from the partnership before I had even left India, and had been corresponding with Gregory to that effect. I implemented the decision shortly after my arrival here.”

He took a bite of scone. Axel waited in silence, as Matthew dabbed jam on both scones—rather a lot of jam.

“As to why I left the business,” Sir Dewey continued, “that will necessitate a descent into indelicacies. One can make a pretty penny by importing the trivial exotica that appeals to the monied classes—silks, paisley shawls, peacock feathers, incense, and so forth. Sir Gregory was increasingly drawn to importation of the aspects of Eastern culture that appealed to the prurient.”

“He
imported
erotica?” The hounds-and-horses, pipe-smoking cavalryman across the way hadn’t seemed the type. He hadn’t seemed the type to plot his wife’s murder, or to defraud an innocent young woman either.

Sir Dewey dusted his hands over the tea tray. “One must experience India to comprehend its nature. It’s at once the most spiritual and the most profane society I’ve ever seen. Much that’s ordinary is made sacred—cooking, growing flowers, cogitating. Erotic matters are similarly elevated to a form of worship, even while they are also pursued in their most crude and uninspired forms. I did not concur with Stoneleigh that profit was an adequate reason for presenting only the crude and uninspired aspects of this paradox.”

In other words, Sir Dewey did not want to be caught trafficking in naughty pictures—no sane English knight would.

“A culturally enlightened viewpoint,” Axel said. “Would Gervaise Stoneleigh know what manner of business he’s inherited?”

Sir Dewey rose, taking a tea cake with him on a perambulation about the library.

“I can’t say how successful Gregory was at developing his suppliers, so I don’t know what manner of business it had become. I know only that Gregory was confident of the demand and was determined on his course. Gregory would also have maintained an inventory of fans, feathers, shawls, carved ivory, incense, and so forth. Those items are profitable year in and year out.”

“But Gregory wasn’t an exceptional businessman, was he?” Matthew pointed out around a mouthful of scone.

Sir Dewey sniffed at the little white rose, the one Axel had positioned at Abby’s end of the sofa.

“This fragrance is… this is intoxicating. I wonder if you’d part with a specimen for my own conservatory, Professor?”

Get your nose away from Abigail’s rose, you bastard.
“Of course. That one’s quite hardy though not the most robust bloomer. About Stoneleigh’s business skills?”

Sir Dewey popped the tea cake into his mouth and peered at the music stacked on the piano.

He even chewed
handsomely
.

“Gregory apparently did well with his imports, but he made impulsive decisions too. He’d get fixated on some fanciful scheme—importing tigers from India to populate European menageries, for example—and no amount of reason would sway him. I’d had enough of that, and of his rapacious view of provincial trade. I did not need Gregory’s coin, so the better part of friendship was to sever the business relationship.”

“Could Stoneleigh have lost money at his business?” Axel asked.

Sir Dewey circled back around to the tea tray and resumed his position on the sofa, while Matthew remained unhelpfully busy with the scones.

“Of course he’d suffer setbacks. In that sort of business, you purchase your inventory six months before your customers purchase it from you. If you acquire goods few are interested in, then you’re out of luck. A ship can go down, a war can break out and destroy your caravan, or you can pay substantial bribes to one minor raja, only to have his brother overthrow him and demand yet more in protection money.”

“Sounds exciting.” Matthew said, choosing for himself the chocolate tea cake Axel had been considering. “Perhaps the better question is how did Gregory expect to make money at it?”

“Easily,” Sir Dewey replied, taking the only other chocolate tea cake. “The business was initially old Mr. Pennington’s, and he brought Gregory into it only during Gregory’s last few years in India. Pennington had the local contacts, and out of respect for Pennington, people did business with Gregory in his stead. When Gregory left India, my job was to maintain those contacts, which function I was happy to perform, provided Gregory dealt honorably with them.”

Axel settled for a lavender cake. “You’re saying he didn’t?”

Sir Dewey’s shrug was eloquent. “Toward the end, payments supposedly went astray, goods in trade back to India were of inferior quality. I had questions.”

“So you got out,” Matthew concluded. “Seems like the prudent thing to do, and particularly well advised given how Gregory treated his wife.”

“Oh?” Sir Dewey held the last bite of tea cake before his mouth. “Do I want to hear this?”