The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie (31 page)

There hadn’t been enough money for an organ, so Thomas had blown a note on a pitch pipe, and the congregation had lurched through the hymns they knew by heart.

O, God our help in ages past,

Our hope for years to come,

Our shelter from the stormy blast,

And our eternal home.

She could hear the even rhythm of the slow tune, old Mrs. Whetherby’s high-pitched warble floating out from the front row.

The church was empty. The whitewashed walls looked the same, as did the high lectern to the right of the altar. Beth wondered if the lectern door’s hinges still squeaked as they had every time Thomas marched up the tiny flight of stairs and opened the half door.
The trump of doom,
he called it.
Now they have to listen to the vicar preach.
When Beth suggested he have the sextant oil the hinges, Thomas replied,
Then there won’t be anything to wake them up when the sermon’s over.

Everything in this narrow church spoke of Thomas and Beth’s old life, the small measure of happiness she’d found here. But that was long ago, and Thomas’s voice was faint and far away. Now she was hurt, alone, and feared she’d never see Ian, the man she loved with all her heart, again.

Ian shoved his way past Cameron and Fellows and bolted out of the room. He heard Hart behind him snap, “Stop him.”

Cameron came after Ian, but Ian was faster. He was down the stairs and out the door before Cameron could catch up, and made straight for Hart’s carriage. He yanked open the door to see Katie asleep on one of the plush benches. She was alone. Ian shook her. “Where is Beth?”

Katie blinked at him. “I dunno. I thought she was with you.”

Ian’s heart hammered. He slammed the door and strode to the coachman leaning on the wall near the horse’s heads, chewing a plug of tobacco.

“Where is she?” Ian’s voice rang out, and the horses jerked back.

“Your missus? She ran inside, guv. I thought…”

Ian didn’t wait for the rest of his spluttered explanation.

He ran back to the house, meeting Cameron halfway. His brother paused, turned back.

“Ian, what the devil?” Ian dashed into the house, shouting Beth’s name. Hart looked down from the landing, Fellows beside him. Two ladies popped out of a room on a higher floor. “Where is she?” Ian shouted at them.

Hart and Fellows only stared, but one of the girls answered, “She ain’t up here, love.”

“Did you see her?”

“I saw Ma Palmer hurrying down the back stairs,” another put in. “Guess she didn’t want to see the good inspector.” Fear and rage narrowed Ian’s focus.
Beth. Find her.

“Ian!”

Cameron’s shout came from the bottom of the back stairs, the way to the kitchens. Ian barreled down them, then through the quiet kitchen and through a back door. Cameron stood in the tiny yard behind the house with a lantern he’d snatched up from the kitchen. Ian peered at what had Cameron’s attention. A brown-red stain had splotched the bricks, new against the coal grime. “Blood,” Cameron said quietly. “And a smear here, on the gate.”

Ian’s heart pounded so rapidly he was nearly sick. As Fellows came out to see what was going on, Ian caught the inspector by the collar and shoved his face at the stains.

“Bloody hell, your lordship,” Fellows bleated.

“Find her,” Ian said. He jerked Fellows upright. “You’re a detective. Detect something.”

Cameron opened the gate and stepped into the alley.

“Ian’s right, Fellows. Do your damn job.”

Hart put a hand on Ian’s shoulder. “Ian.”

Ian twisted away, unable to bear his touch. If Beth was dead… Fellows quickly stepped away. “He’s not going to have one of his mad attacks, is he?”

Ian turned his back on Hart. “No.” He strode out of the gate to join Cameron, pulling Fellows by the collar with him. “Find her.”

“I’m not a bloodhound, your lordships.”

“Woof, woof.” Cameron said, giving Fellows an evil grin. “Good dog.”

Beth cried out as Mrs. Palmer shoved her onto the hard wood of a pew. No one was there, not a sextant sweeping a floor or the rather doddering vicar who’d taken Thomas’s place nine years before.

Beth grabbed Mrs. Palmer’s wrist. “No, don’t leave me.”

“Don’t be foolish. Someone will find you.”

Beth hung on with all the strength she could muster. “Please don’t leave me here alone. Wait for the vicar with me. Please. I don’t want to die alone.”

Her tears were genuine. The pain had increased, waves of it rolling over her. Would Ian understand where she’d gone? Would he find her? For all his obsessions with minutiae, he wasn’t stupid and had a brain that could reason complex mathematical problems and memorize the intricate language of treaties. But could he fit the pieces together and come up with an answer to the puzzle?

Mrs. Palmer made a noise of exasperation but sat down in a rustle of skirts. Beth slumped against her, unable to support herself.

“Did you kill Lily Martin?” Beth asked in a whisper, too numb now to fear. If Mrs. Palmer had simply wanted to kill Beth, she would have done it by now. The woman was afraid, and Beth had the sudden feeling she was now more afraid of Hart than of being caught by Inspector Fellows. If Mrs. Palmer let Beth, the wife of Hart’s beloved brother, die, Hart would never forgive her.

“Of course I killed Lily,” Mrs. Palmer said viciously. “She was a witness to Sally’s murder.”

“Then you think Hart really did kill Sally.”

“Hart was so angry with Sally. The little bitch was blackmailing him to get money so she could run off and leave me. Hart told me he would fix her, make her regret trying to play her games.”

“You were angry at Sally, too.”

“If Sally wanted money so much, she could have asked Hart for it. But she wanted power over him. As though she ever could control someone like Hart. He has the will to command. I saw that when I first met him, when he was all of twenty years old.” Her voice dropped to fond tones. “He was a bonny lad then. All handsome and charming, before so many people hurt him.”

Beth found herself with her head on Mrs. Palmer’s plaid broadcloth lap, staring up at the older woman’s face. Mackenzie plaid, Beth realized, blue and green with white and red thread.

“I’m sorry,” Beth whispered. “You must love him so much.”

“I’ve made no secret of that.”

“It must have been hard for you to watch him marry, to start shutting you out of his life.”

Not the most diplomatic thing to say,
Beth thought, but she’d lost control of her words.

“I knew he’d have to marry,” Mrs. Palmer said calmly. “I’m thirteen years older than he is and hardly one of his class. He needed to marry some peer’s daughter to host balls and fetes and charm his colleagues. He’d never become prime minister of England tied to a woman like me.”

“But plenty of lofty gentlemen have mistresses. Mrs. Barrington liked to rail about it.”

“Who the hell is Mrs. Barrington?” Beth was too weary to answer, and Mrs. Palmer rambled on. “No one would mind so much Hart having a mistress, no. But it’s more than that.”

“Because he was your lord and master?” She remembered Ian’s words, and curiosity drifted through her pain. “What exactly did he do?”

“If you know nothing of that life, you would not understand.”

“I suppose not.” Her attention drifted again. “I don’t believe Hart killed her,” Beth said, alarmed at how faint her voice had grown. “He would have waited until Ian was elsewhere. But someone else might have panicked and shoved a knife into Sally.”

“Someone like me,” Mrs. Palmer said. “Perhaps I killed her.”

To protect Hart. Beth’s eyes drifted closed. She tried to imagine the scene, Ian peering through the half-open door, Hart looming over Sally with a knife in his hand, Lily Martin in the hall outside. Something was wrong with that. If only Beth could stay awake long enough to decide what… Mrs. Palmer stood up abruptly, as though she heard something, but no one came into the chapel. Beth’s head bumped the hard bench, and she closed her teeth around a groan. “You’ll be fine here,” Mrs. Palmer said. “Someone will find you.”

“No,” Beth whispered in genuine fear. She reached for the woman’s hand. “Don’t let me die here alone.” If Beth could make Mrs. Palmer stay long enough for Ian to figure out where they were and bring the inspector along, Ian could be cleared and safe from Inspector Fellows forever. Mrs. Palmer looked around the chapel, shivering as though a cool breeze touched her. “Why should I stay to be caught?”

“Because you didn’t mean to. You thought Lily would betray Hart, and you were scared.”

Mrs. Palmer bit her lip. “You’re right. I went to her to find out what she knew, and she started raving that the money Ian was giving her wasn’t enough anymore. The scissors were right in her basket. I picked them up…”

She stared at her hand, flexing it in wonder.

“Hart will help you,” Beth said.

“No, he won’t. I ruined everything. Lily’s death put Inspector Fellows back on the scent. Hart will never forgive me.”

Beth grasped the edge of the pew, trying to stay conscious. Sleep beckoned her, sweet sleep where there was no pain. “Did you really kill Sally?”

“It doesn’t matter, does it? I’ll go to the gallows for Hart, and he’ll understand how much I love him.”

“Lily and Sally were lovers,” Beth whispered. Her mind reached for something, but lights flickered on the edges of her vision.

Mrs. Palmer snorted. “Lily had a photograph of Sally in her sitting room, can you believe it? Sally had thrown her over all those years ago. I took it away with me. I didn’t want to give the police any hints, but they made the connection anyway.”

“Sally and Lily,” Beth whispered. She closed her eyes, and the scene played again in her head. Lily staring into the room while Hart was with Sally, watching Hart leave her. Perhaps thinking that Hart had already given Sally money. Lily furious because Sally had given her the push, and she wouldn’t have Sally or the money. A knife lying on the table next to the bed and Lily snatching it up. Ian watching from the parlor as Hart stormed out of the house, Ian seeing Lily in the hall, a witness, he thought, to a crime committed by his brother.

“I have to get away.” Mrs. Palmer shoved her hands into the pockets of Beth’s gown, snatching the drawstring bag that held Beth’s coins. She grabbed Beth’s hand and started working the silver ring with the diamond chip from her little finger. “I’ll take this, too. I can flog it when I get to the Continent. And the earrings.”

“No.” Beth tried to close her fist, but her hand was ice cold and so weak. “My first husband gave it to me.”

“A small price to pay for me not killing you.” Mrs. Palmer snatched the earrings out of Beth’s ears, the tiny pain sharp. Isabella had given Beth the earrings in Paris when Beth had admired them.
Keep them, darling,
she’d said, careless
and generous. They suit you better than they do me.

Mrs. Palmer stood up. She looked old in this light, a Woman who’d kept herself young with paint and perseverance. Now she looked tired, weary, a woman who’d tried too hard for too long.

“I love Hart Mackenzie,” she said, her voice fierce. “I have always loved him. I will make certain that little woman loving whore Sally won’t ruin him even after all these years. I made sure Lily wouldn’t.”

“Stay and explain to them,” Beth gasped out.

In sudden rage, Mrs. Palmer hauled Beth up by the hair.

Beth cried out, her side like fire.

“You had no right to go digging everything up, bringing the inspector to my house. You’re as much to blame as I am.” Spittle flecked her lips.

Beth couldn’t fight anymore. Her whole body wanted simply to stop. She’d die here in Thomas’s little church, not ten yards from the churchyard where Thomas lay. She thought she heard the lectern door squeak, and she saw Thomas standing by it in the white cassock she’d darned so often. His dark hair was gray at the temples, his kind eyes so blue.

Be brave, my Beth, she thought he said. It’s almost over.

“Ian.”

Mrs. Palmer scanned the chapel, her fingers still gripping Beth’s hair. “Who are you talking to?”

Shouting interrupted her, deep male voices, one of them Ian’s. Mrs. Palmer screamed, hauling Beth in front of her like a shield. Beth groaned in agony. Ian, his face white, eyes wild, barreled into Mrs. Palmer. He was shouting something, but Beth couldn’t hear him, couldn’t understand his words. Mrs. Palmer stumbled, shrieking, and Ian caught Beth as she fell.

He was beside her, warm, solid, and real. Beth tried to reach for him, but her arms wouldn’t work. He lifted her and cradled her against him on the pew. His golden eyes were wide as he looked straight into hers.

“Ian.” Beth smiled and touched his face. She was the one who couldn’t hold the gaze, as her eyes drifted sideways. In her peripheral vision, she saw Hart rush in, followed by Cameron and Inspector Fellows. Mrs. Palmer stood tall against the wall.

“I’ll not hang for that slut,” she said in a loud, clear voice. Her knife gleamed in her hands, and she plunged it straight between her breasts.

Beth heard Hart’s cry, saw Mrs. Palmer’s knees give and her body slide down the wall. Hart caught her in his arms. Mrs. Palmer looked up at Hart. “I love you.”

“Don’t speak,” Hart said, his voice incredibly gentle. “I’ll get a doctor.”

She shook her head, her smile weak. “It’s all dark now. I can’t see your face.” She groped blindly for him. “Hart, hold me.”

“I’m here.” Hart gathered her against him, pressing a kiss to her hair. “I’m here, love. I won’t leave you.”

Ian didn’t even look at them. He had his eyes closed now, rocking Beth. Beth tried to say, “I knew you’d find me,” but darkness closed on her, and her lips would no longer move. She slid into unconsciousness just as Mrs. Palmer’s last breath rattled through her throat.

Ian used Hart’s opulent carriage to take Beth home to the ducal mansion on Grosvenor Square. Hart’s house was always staffed, always at the ready for any business the duke might want to conduct in town. Ian carried Beth inside, and the well-trained servants scrambled to obey his frantic commands.