“Where are you off to, guv?” Curry called behind him, but Ian didn’t answer. He moved down the hall, placing his feet precisely in line with the carpet’s border. At the landing, he turned at a right angle and followed the line down the stairs. Curry panted behind him. “I’ll just go with you, then.” Ian ignored him. He walked across the black and white marble tiles below, his feet finding only the white ones, and out the back door to the garden.
Walking, walking, to the steward’s house and inside to the case containing the guns for pheasant shoots and a brace of pistols. He knew where the key was and had two pistols out before Curry, with his shorter stride, could catch up. “Guv.”
“Load these for me.”
Curry raised his hands. “No.”
Ian turned away. He found the bullets himself, shoved the box of them into his pocket, and walked out. On his way through the garden, a young undergardener rose from pruning a rosebush, staring at Ian with his mouth open. Ian grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him along with him.
The young man dropped his shears and trotted obediently alongside Ian. Curry came after them, panting. “Leave it,” he snapped to the gardener. “Get back to work, you.” Ian had no idea to whom Curry was talking. He kept his grip firm on the young gardener’s arm. He was a wiry lad, strong as steel.
At the end of the garden, Ian handed an empty pistol to the gardener. He withdrew the box of bullets and opened it, shoving it in the young man’s open hand. The bullets were shining, their brass casings catching the sun. Ian admired the perfect shape of them, tapered at the top, blunt on the bottom, how they fit precisely into the revolver’s chamber.
“Load that one,” he told the gardener.
The boy began to obey, fingers shaking hard.
“Stop,” Curry commanded. “Don’t do it for him.”
Ian guided the young man’s fingers to place the bullet in the revolver’s chamber. The revolvers were Webleys, loaded by breaking the barrel forward on a hinge. “Careful,” Ian said. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Put the pistol down, lad, or you’re for it.”
The young man sent Curry a terrified glance.
“Do as I say,” Ian said.
The young man gulped. “Yes, m’lord.”
Ian clicked the revolver back together, sighted down the barrel, and shot a small rock that had been resting on another rock fifty feet away. He shot again and again until his pistol clicked on an empty chamber.
He shoved the pistol at the gardener and took the second one. “Reload that,” he said, and sighted down the fresh weapon.
Ian shot six more times, blowing both rocks to pieces. He took the first gun and centered it on another rock, while the young man loaded the second one again. Dimly Ian heard Curry shouting at him, then at the gardener, but he couldn’t make sense of the words. He heard others behind him. Cam. Hart.
His world narrowed to the blue steel of the pistol’s barrel, the tiny explosions of rock downrange, the burst of noise as he squeezed the trigger. He felt the solid butt of the gun against his palm, screwed up his eyes at the acrid scent of burned powder, shifted his weight to take the kick. He shot, handed off the pistol, shot again, over and over. His hands ached, his eyes watered, and he kept shooting.
“Guv,” Curry yelled. “Stop, for the love of God.” Ian sighted, squeezed the trigger. His arm bucked, and he straightened it, shooting again.
Heavy hands grabbed his shoulder. Hart’s voice, roaring in rage. Ian shook him off and kept firing. Fire, hand over pistol, grab second pistol, aim, fire.
“Ian.”
Beth’s warm tone floated to him, and her cool hand rested on his. The world came rushing back.
It was dimmer now, twilight having taken the place of bright afternoon. The undergardener sobbed at his side, dropping the empty pistol and pressing his hands to his face.
Ian’s arms ached. He slowly unclenched the pistol that Curry eased out of his hand and found his palms blistered and raw.
Beth touched his face. “Ian.”
He loved how she said his name. She spoke the syllables gently, her voice always soft, caressing.
Hart loomed up behind her, but Ian dissolved into Beth. He slid his arms around her waist and buried his face in her neck.
“When he comes back and finds you gone, ‘oo will he strangle?” Curry bleated. “Me, that’s ‘oo.”
Beth handed Katie her valise and adjusted her gloves. “You told me that when he disappears like this, it’s often for days and days. I’ll be back before then.”
Curry’s mulish look said he didn’t believe that. Ian had slept with Beth, made love to her last night after Curry had bandaged his hurt hands. But when Beth had awakened, Ian had been gone, not only from their bedroom, but from the house and park around it. None of the horses was missing; no one had seen him go.
Hart was livid and demanded a search. Cameron and Curry had persuaded him to let Ian alone. Ian would come back when he was ready. Didn’t he always? Hart, his look told her, blamed Beth.
“You’re doing right, m’lady,” Katie whispered to her as they climbed into the carriage. “I always thought he was a nutter.”
“I’m not leaving him,” Beth said sharply, loud enough for the coachman to hear. “I’m simply taking care of business in London.”
Katie glanced at the coachman and winked at Beth.
“Right you are, m’lady.”
Beth snapped her mouth shut as the coachman started the horses. She felt a pang. She’d miss Kilmorgan. The ride to the railway station proved uneventful. As the coachman lifted out the valises, Cameron’s son, Daniel, suddenly rolled off the backboard, where he’d been crouching. “Take me with you,” he blurted.
Beth hadn’t yet made up her mind about Daniel. He was definitely a Mackenzie, with his brown-red hair and golden eyes, but the shape of his face was different. His chin and eyes were softer, making him handsome rather than hard. His mother had been a famous beauty, according to Curry, celebrated in her day.
Just like our Lord Cameron to marry a wild one like her, Curry had said. Anything to get under his father’s skin.
Daniel’s attempt to mimic Cameron in all ways touched Beth’s heart. He wanted Cameron’s attention and approval, Beth could see, and Cameron didn’t always respond.
“I’m not certain your father would be happy,” Beth tried.
Daniel’s face fell. “Please? It’ll be dismal up here with Ian going to ground and Hart biting everyone’s head off and Dad growling like a thunderstorm. With you gone, they’ll be even worse.”
Daniel would be in the middle, Beth sensed. He’d chafe and rebel, which would make Hart and Cameron harder on him.
“Very well,” Beth said. “You didn’t happen to pack a bag, did you?”
“Naw, but I’ve got clothes in Dad’s house in London.” Daniel ran a few steps and did a cartwheel. “I’ll be good, I promise.”
“Are you mad?” Katie hissed as Beth turned to the ticket window. “Why d’ya want to saddle yourself with that hellion?”
“He’ll be useful, and I feel sorry for him.”
Katie rolled her eyes. “He’s a right nuisance, that one. His pa needs to tan his hide.”
“Being a parent is complicated.”
“Oh, is it? You ever been one?”
Beth hid the swift pain in her heart. “No, but I’ve known plenty of them.” She smiled at the stationmaster as he came to the counter.
The stationmaster put Daniel’s ticket on the Kilmorgan account, looking slightly surprised that Beth asked for the tickets instead of sending a servant. The idea of her ladyship purchasing anything for herself seemed to fill everyone with horror.
“I’d also like to send a telegram,” she said crisply, then waited while the obliging stationmaster fetched his pencil and paper.
“Who to, m’lady?”
“Inspector Fellows,” she answered. “At Scotland Yard, in London.”
Chapter Seventeen
Be
ing alone no longer soothed him.
Ian watched the water run along the bottom of the gorge, his boots muddy, the hem of his kilt wet from the splashing stream.
At one time in his life, fishing in Abernathy’s Gorge with nothing but the wind, sky, and water would have seemed like perfection to him. Today he felt drained and empty. He wasn’t strictly alone. Old Geordie fished on a rock not far from him, his pole silently dangling from his weathered hand. Long ago, Geordie had been a stable hand for Ian’s father, but he’d retired and lived a reclusive existence up on the mountain, miles from anywhere. His cottage was tiny and run-down, Geordie too unsocial even to hire someone to help him keep up the place.
Not long after Ian’s release from the asylum, he’d stumbled upon Geordie’s retreat. Back then, Ian had been volatile and restless, easily unnerved by the scrutiny of his family and servants. He’d slipped away and wandered the wilds alone, ending up thirsty and footsore on the doorstep of a gray stone cottage. Geordie had silently opened the door, eased Ian’s thirst with water and whiskey, and let him stay.
Geordie, the taciturn man who’d once taught the boy Ian to fish, had not asked any questions. Ian had helped Geordie repair a part of the roof that had peeled off, and Geordie had fed him and given him a corner to sleep in. Ian had stayed until he felt more able to cope with the world, then returned home.
It had become habit for Ian to come up here when events became too much for him. He’d help Geordie with what repairs needed to be done, and Geordie would comfort Ian with silence.
Ian had arrived early this morning. He’d stripped off his shirt and gone to work plastering the inside of Geordie’s cottage to keep the wind out during the coming winter. Geordie, too feeble now to do much work, sat and smoked his pipe, saying nothing, as usual. After Ian had finished, he and Geordie shouldered fishing poles and silently made their way to Abernathy’s Gorge.
Beth would like it there.
The thought struck Ian from nowhere, but it was true. She’d like the rush of the stream, the beauty of the heather among the rocks, the sweet smell of the air. She’d smile and say she understood why Ian came here, and then she’d likely make a jest that Ian didn’t understand.
Ian glanced at Geordie. The old man sat on a rock in a threadbare kilt. He held a fishing pole negligently in one hand, and had the inevitable pipe stuck between his teeth. “I’m married,” Ian told him.
Geordie’s expression didn’t change. He removed the pipe, said, “Oh, aye?” and shoved it back into his mouth.
“Aye.” Ian fished in silence a moment. “She’s a beautiful lass.”
Geordie grunted. He returned his attention to his line, the conversation finished. Ian could tell that Geordie was interested, however. He’d actually spoken. Ian fished awhile longer, but he found that the sounds of the gorge and the calm of fishing didn’t still his mind as usual. He kept replaying his scene with Beth, which had ended in his muddle with the pistols. He’d bedded her into sweet oblivion after that, but woke still troubled.
She knew the stains on his soul, the darkness in his eyes. Ian remembered how she’d gazed at him in interested innocence the night he’d met her at the opera, and knew she’d never do so again. Everything had changed. Damn Fellows. The afternoon turned to evening, though the Highland summer sun was still high. Beth would be readying herself for supper, though if she were sensible, she’d take it alone in her chamber. Hart’s glare at the dining table could ruin an appetite.
Ian pictured her sitting at her dressing table, brushing her long, sleek hair. He loved the satiny slide of it, like warm silk on his hands.
He wanted to sleep with her against him, feel the damp warmth of her body along his. Summer air would pour through the window, and he’d breathe in its scent and hers. Ian drew in his fishing line. “I’ll be off home, then.” Geordie’s head barely moved in a nod.
“Goin’ back t’ the missus,” he said around the pipe.
“Aye.” Ian sent him a grin, gathered up his gear, and strode off down the gorge.
“He’s here,” Katie whispered. “In the drawing room.”
Beth rose, peered into the mirror, smoothed a strand of hair, and left her bedroom. “Don’t come with me.”
“Catch me going anywhere near the man.” Katie plopped down on the one chair in Beth’s bedroom in the Belgrave Square house. “I’ll wait.”
Beth hastened out, her hands pressed to her skirts to keep them from rustling. The staircase and hall blazed with light, Beth having firmly told Mrs. Barrington’s servants that she wanted to be able to see when she went up and down the stairs. The old butler had chuckled, then wheezed, but saw that it was done.
Inspector Fellows turned when she entered the drawing room. Beth thought of how she’d first met him in Isabella’s drawing room in Paris, her agitation and amazement as Fellows had told her all about Ian Mackenzie. She determined to conduct this interview with a little more composure. Fellows looked much the same as he had in their first encounter. His suit was made of cheap dark material but well-kept, his thick hair brushed back from his forehead, his mustache trimmed. Hazel eyes regarded Beth with an intensity comparable to Hart’s.
“Mrs. Ackerley.”
“My marriage is legal,” Beth said crisply, pulling the doors shut. “So I am no longer Mrs. Ackerley. Lady Ian Mackenzie sounds strange to me, but you can address me as ‘your ladyship,’ if you wish.”
Fellows gave her a wry smile. “Still the ferocious guardian. Why did you send for me?”
Beth raised her brows. “I might have grown up in the gutter, but I apparently learned better manners than you, Mr. Fellows. Shall we sit down?”
Fellows made a show of waiting for her to sit before he lowered himself, ill at ease, to the edge of a Belter armchair. Mrs. Barrington’s horsehair furniture was hideously uncomfortable, and Beth felt a moment’s glee watching Fellows shift against the chair’s unyielding surface. “Give up, Inspector; the chairs are impossible. If you don’t want me to ring for tea, then I shall simply begin.” She leaned forward. “I want you to tell me everything you know about the murder at the High Holborn house five years ago. Start at the beginning and leave nothing out.”
Fellows looked surprised. “You are supposed to be telling me what happened.”
“Well, I don’t know, do I? If you explain it to me, perhaps I can share what I’ve learned. But you must go first.”
He stared at her a moment, and then one side of his mouth turned up. “You are a harsh negotiator, Mrs. Ackerley—forgive me—Lady Ian. Do the decadent Mackenzies know what has descended among them?”
“I find the decadent Mackenzies quite gentlemanly. They care deeply about one another, have been kind to me, and love their dogs.”
Fellows looked unimpressed. “Are you certain you wish to hear the story? Some bits are gruesome.”
“Be remorseless, Inspector.”
He had remorseless eyes, did Inspector Fellows. “Very well. Five years ago, almost to the day, I was called to investigate a crime in a private house in High Holborn. A young woman, Sally Tate, had been stabbed five times through the heart with a knife, according to the coroner. She bled some, and her blood had been smeared on the walls around her.”
I tried to wipe it off on the walls, on the bedding… Beth shut her eyes, trying to forget the harsh sound of Ian’s voice as the words tumbled out.
Fellows continued “It took some time to pry out of Mrs. Palmer, the owner of the house, the names of the gentlemen who’d visited there the night before. You do know that the place was once owned by Hart Mackenzie? He bought it to keep Mrs. Palmer, a famous courtesan he’d taken as his mistress. He sold her the house when his political career began to rise.”
“I presume you did discover who was there?”
“Oh, yes. Five gentlemen attended Mrs. Palmer’s salon the night before. Hart Mackenzie and Ian. A gentleman called Mr. Stephenson—Hart had brought him to win him to his side in some financial game. A Colonel Harrison, who
was a regular guest of Mrs. Palmer and her young ladies, and his friend Major Thompkins. They apparently all managed to leave well before the murder occurred, very convenient for them. I was able to interview each man the next morning, but not Ian Mackenzie, who had been bundled off to Scotland by his brother Hart.”
Beth smoothed her skirt. “You speak of them familiarly, Inspector. You say Ian and Hart, instead of ‘his lordship’ and ‘His Grace.’”
Fellows gave her a deprecating look. “I think about the Mackenzies more often than I do my own family.”
“Why, I wonder?”
His color rose. “Because they are blights on society, that’s why. Rich men who spend money on women, clothes, and horses and don’t do an honest day’s work. They’re useless. I’m surprised you take to them, you who know all about an honest day’s work. They’re nothing.”
Bitterness rang in his words. Beth stared at him, and Fellows flushed and tried to compose himself.
“Very well,” she said. “You interviewed all the gentlemen but Ian. Why don’t you suspect them?”
“They were respectable,” Fellows said.
“Visiting a brothel is respectable, the vicar’s widow asks with her brows raised?”
“They were all bachelors. No wives breaking their hearts at home. Mr. Stephenson and the two military officers were astonished by the news of the murder and were able to account satisfactorily for their movements. None of them had gone near Sally Tate, and they’d departed the house just after midnight. Sally Tate was killed near five in-the morning, according to the doctor. They left Hart and Ian Mackenzie behind. Ah, I mean, His Grace and his lordship.”
“And Ian’s servants swear Ian had returned home by two,” Beth said, remembering what Fellows had told her before.
“But they’re lying.” Fellows sat forward. “What I’ve pieced together from their stories is this: Hart Mackenzie brings his friend Stephenson and his brother Ian to enjoy an evening with high-class courtesans. At about ten, in the parlor, the four men—Hart, Stephenson, Thompkins, and Harrison—begin a game of whist. Ian declines the invitation to play cards and reads a newspaper. According to Major Thompkins, Sally Tate sat down near Ian and started talking to him. They had a good chin-wag for about a quarter of an hour, and then she convinced him to go upstairs with her.”