Fanning the Flame (31 page)

Maggie sat down on the tapestry stool in front of her mirror and tried not to think how futile it would be to let herself fall in love with him.

Chapter Twenty-One

Peter Fraser listened to the echo of his scuffed leather shoes as he crossed the marble floor in the entry of the Earl of Blackwood's town house. It was ten o'clock in the morning, early yet for wealthy members of the
ton,
but instinctively he knew the earl would want this news no matter what time it arrived.

As he expected, as soon as his message was received, Peter had been summoned, and the squat, beefy man who looked nothing at all like a butler but apparently was one stood waiting to lead him down the hall to Blackwood's study.

"Come in, Fraser." The earl motioned him forward, into a masculine room lined with books and furnished with deep brown leather chairs. "I received your note. We've been expecting you.'”

The earl strode over to greet him but the woman, Jillian Whitney, remained seated, looking paler than she had the day she had come to his office. Worry lines marred a forehead that had been smooth that day beneath the upsweep of her fiery hair. And she was noticeably thinner, her startling blue eyes even more pronounced. Still, she was a beautiful woman. He wished he wasn't the bearer of such bad news.

"You said it was urgent," the earl said, not a man to waste words. "What have you found?"

"I've just received the balance of the names on Jonas Nock's list." Peter handed the sheet of foolscap to the earl. "A pistol of the very same size and caliber was purchased by Henry Telford six months before he killed himself."

"My God, then Henry's wife Madeleine must be the one who—"

"I'm sorry, my lord. The pistol was given as a gift to Henry's father, the late Lord Fenwick, on his sixty-sixth birthday three years ago. I've already verified the fact with several people who attended the party Henry gave in his father's honor."

Peter glanced at the woman, who had realized the implications of what he'd just told them and risen shakily to her feet. "Perhaps Lord Fenwick left it With his s-son for safekeeping."

Peter shook his head, wishing again that the news were not so grim, wondering if perhaps all of them were wrong and the woman had actually murdered the earl.

"According to his valet, the earl highly prized the weapon. He kept it in a velvet-lined box in the top drawer of the desk in his study. Apparently until the list was produced no one associated the murder weapon with the pistol Henry Telford had given to the earl."

Blackwood glanced over at Miss Whitney, who looked even paler than before and had sagged down into her chair.

"Anything else?" The earl's voice remained calm, but his eyes looked dark and turbulent.

"That's all, I'm afraid. We're still trying to verify that Madeleine Telford was at home the night of the murder. We'll let you know as soon as we find out."

"Thank you, Peter." Blackwood walked him to the door and waited till he left the study.

As he headed down the hall, he imagined what the man must be thinking and wondered if the Whitney woman's staunchest defender had also begun to have his doubts.

As soon as the door was closed, Adam strode to the sideboard and poured himself a brandy. He took a long, steadying drink, then turned to Jillian, who sat woodenly in her chair. She looked pale and shaken, as brittle as a leaf and ready to crumble at any moment. He tried to harden his heart, tried to be objective as he so badly needed to be.

She didn't look at him. Instead, her gaze fixed on a row of leather-bound books sitting on a shelf along the wall, but he doubted that she saw them.

"The gun belonged to the earl," she said dully, her voice so faint he barely heard the words. "It was right there in his study." She looked up at him and her eyes were so bleak his heart pinched hard inside his chest. "It was right there where I could reach it, where I could take it out of his top drawer, aim it at his heart, and pull the trigger."

His chest was aching. He looked her straight in the face. "Did you?"

She moved her head slowly back and forth and her lovely blue eyes filled with tears. "No." She glanced away. "I don't expect you to believe me. Not anymore. No one else will. Why should you be any different?"

But he did believe her. Now more than ever. He didn't know why. Every shred of evidence pointed to the fact that Jillian was guilty. His instincts where women were concerned had failed him time and again, and yet he believed she was innocent to the core of his soul.

Setting the brandy glass down on the sideboard, he started walking toward her. When he reached her chair, he caught her shoulders, drew her up and straight into his arms. Jillian started to shake. She felt small and fragile, her slender body stiff with her effort to remain in control.

"I believe you," he said into her hair, inhaling the faint scent of roses. "I know you didn't do it. I don't think you could ever hurt anyone."

She made a soft little sound in her throat and her arms slid up around his neck. Then she started to weep. Adam sank down in the chair and drew her gently onto his lap. Jillian cried as if she had lost all hope, cried all the tears she had been keeping locked away. He let her weep until the sobs turned into faint little hiccups, then he handed her his handkerchief.

"I'm sorry." She dabbed the moisture from her eyes and gave him a watery smile. "I've been saying that an awful lot lately."

"It's all right to cry. You've got more than your share of reasons."

She dragged in a shaky breath and blew her nose. "I just had such high hopes and now . . . now they have all turned to dust." Her eyes locked on his face. "No matter what happens, I'll never forget what you've done for me. The way you've stood by me when no one else would."

"We aren't giving up," he said, but he was thinking of the ship's departure he had found in the
Evening Post.
The
Madrigal
would be sailing for the Indies, leaving just before the trial was set to start. He wondered if it was too late for him to book passage.

"How can we possibly prove I didn't kill the earl when everywhere we look seems to point right back to me?"

"Yes, it does." He bent and pressed a kiss on her trembling lips. "And just a little too conveniently."

She wiped her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I'm beginning to wonder if that wasn't exactly the plan. Perhaps whoever did this intended that the blame should fall on you. Did anyone know you would be in the earl's study the night he was killed?"

"Not specifically, I don't think, but it would probably be a good assumption. We had got in the habit of spending the evenings there together, and especially if the earl was feeling too poorly to go out. Usually we read or played chess. He was used to late hours, and even when his gout acted up, he rarely retired before midnight. I was always pleased to keep him company."

"Then the servants would have known. And a number of them would have had access to the gun the earl kept in his desk."

"But most of them were devoted to him and none of them had a reason to want him dead."

"Perhaps not. But whoever it was who killed him had to have been in the study at some point in time. Either Eldridge or Norton might have killed him for revenge, but neither of them had access to the pistol or knew you would be there that night. That leaves us with the new Lord Fenwick or Madeleine Telford or one of the old earl's servants. According to Peter Fraser, Howard was there earlier in the week. He could have taken the gun, but his alibi for the night of the murder has been confirmed. Madeleine told us she was there two nights before he died. Did she know the earl's habits?"

"I imagine she did. For a while after Henry died, she lived there in the house. She kept the earl company in the same manner I did."

"And she knew that he had been ill, that he would likely be home that night."

"But she was in Hampstead Heath the night of the murder. Unless she slipped away without being seen, made the long ride into London, then returned—again without being seen. And we still don't know if either of them knew about the changes in the will. If they didn't know, they had no reason to want him dead."

Her shoulders slumped. "Which brings us right back to where we were when we started."

"Unless we can find a crack in the alibi either of them gave us. If we can prove one of them lied about his whereabouts that night, it's a pretty fair assumption he knew he was about to lose his share of the Fenwick fortune."

He caught a faint flicker of hope in her eyes. "What can we do?"

"Hire more men. Have them question the servants in Madeleine Telford's house and as many of the guests at the Foxmoors' soiree as they can track down. I'll ask Rathmore and Greville to help. They know most of the people who were there that night. If we're lucky, perhaps someone will remember seeing something that might have been overlooked."

"And if each of them is where he has said?"

"There is always the chance one of them hired someone to kill him, but in some ways that would be even more risky."

"Because the person who shot him couldn't be trusted to keep his silence."

"Exactly. Which is why we're going to up the reward we've offered. Maybe this time greed will take over and someone will come forward with the information we need."

Jillian said nothing more and neither did Adam. They were down to their very last options and there were only four days left until the trial.

Adam thought of the chance for escape Jillian had refused and prayed she wouldn't be sorry.

Freight wagons, coaches, and hackney carriages clogged the cobbled streets, making Garth's after-work journey home seem to take an eternity. Eventually, his driver drew up on the reins and the barouche pulled over in front of his town house in Portman Square.

With its tall, Corinthian columns and impressive domed entry, the residence was elegant by anyone's standards. Garth was proud it had been purchased with money he had earned from his profession and not his rather substantial inheritance.

Wearily climbing the stairs, he stepped through the door and handed his high beaver hat to the butler. "Good evening, Pims."

Edward Pims, tall and regal and far too staid for his mere thirty years, made a very proper bow. "Good evening, sir. Your grandfather, the baron, is here. He awaits you in the drawing room."

Garth sighed. God's teeth, hadn't his day already been trying enough? First, the Marquess of Simington's stepson had been tossed into jail for debauching a tavern wench in full view of a half-dozen patrons. Then Sally Weatherby, the married daughter of a wealthy merchant Garth had known for years, had come to him for help when Sally's husband had taken a bat to her after a night of drunken carousing.

The rest of his day hadn't been any better: hours combing over his notes for the Whitney trial, a trial it looked as if he might very well lose. The only thing that made the miserable day bearable was thoughts of the evening he planned to spend with Maggie.

In that regard, the person he least wished to see was his grandfather, the baron.

Garth steeled himself. "Thank you, Pims." As he strode down the hall and slid open the doors to the drawing room, he could smell the pickled herring, Wilton cheese, and freshly baked bread his grandfather loved and Cook generally kept for the old man's all too frequent visits.

"Good evening, Grandfather. You're looking well."

Tall and only slightly stoop-shouldered, with once-blond hair turned silver and the same green eyes Garth had inherited, at five and seventy, Avery Dutton was still a vital man.

"I am hardly well," he grumbled as he always did, forcing Garth to hide a smile. "I am coming down with an ague and the ache in my back has flared up again. Worse than that, there's a rumor going round that you've been carrying on with the Hawthorne gel."

Garth had wondered how long it would take for the old man to get word. Apparently, not nearly long enough.

"If you're speaking of Lady Margaret, I saw her home from Lord Winston's anniversary party after she came down with a headache. If that is carrying on in your estimation, then I suppose I am guilty."

Avery drew himself up. "Don't patronize me, you young stallion. The gel's a beauty and no doubt, but she is young and well into the marriage mart, and you, sir, have a different sort of match to make."

"Is that so?"

"You know well enough that it is. You'll be taking my place all too soon. 'Tis well past the time that you wed and started siring offspring. And Margaret Hawthorne is not the wife for you."

Garth walked over and casually picked up a slice of bread from the silver tray next to where his grandfather sat, pretending a nonchalance he didn't really feel. He held the bread under his nose, inhaling the yeasty scent. "And just why is that?"

His grandfather's wrinkled face turned red. "You know very well why 'tis. The gel's a Hawthorne. That is reason enough. Rumors swirl around Blackwood and his family like fog through a London street. I won't have our family name connected to his. I won't have the Dutton line mongrelized by a match between you and that young woman."