The authorities discovered Mr. Hastings in a brothel. A valuable necklace that belonged to the murder victim, Miss Risby, was in his possession at the time. His wife, Victoria Hastings, long believed to be dead, was also on the premises.
Readers will be further astonished to hear that the first Mrs. Hastings is the proprietor of the notorious establishment on Swanton Lane known as Phoenix House. Her husband is an investor in the brothel and a frequent patron.
When found, Mrs. Hastings was dazed and bleeding from a head wound. She was described as suffering from an acute case of shattered nerves. Confronted with the sight of her husband she flew into a violent rage. She accused Mr. Hastings of having attempted to murder her by throwing her into the river. She attributed her survival to the merest chance.
In addition to Mr. and Mrs. Hastings, another man believed to be involved in criminal activities was reported to have been at the scene. He disappeared before the authorities were able to question him….
Someone banged the front door knocker. Louisa put down the paper and listened to Mrs. Galt go toward the front hall. The door opened. She heard Anthony’s voice.
“Never mind, Mrs. Galt. I’ll show myself into the study.”
“I’ll just go and put on the kettle,” Mrs. Galt said.
Louisa listened to Anthony’s footsteps coming toward the study. The familiar little thrill of longing and anticipation tightened her insides. He walked into the cozy room, a package under one arm.
“Good day, my love,” he said, crossing to the desk. “I trust I am not interrupting?”
“No,” she said quickly. “I was just reading the morning paper.”
“The excellent report by I. M. Phantom on recent murderous events in High Society, I presume.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Shocking stuff.” He put the package down on the desk, reached down, and hauled her up out of the chair. “Absolutely shocking, but it does make for riveting reading.”
He kissed her soundly. She put her arms around his neck and softened against him. When he eventually released her and looked down at her, a familiar, exciting heat in his eyes, she blushed and pushed her spectacles higher on her nose.
“Have you any more news from Mr. Fowler?” she asked, sitting down again very quickly.
He exhaled deeply and lowered himself into one of the reading chairs. “This, it appears, is one of the great difficulties that arises when one engages in an illicit liaison with a member of the press.”
She beetled her brows. “What are you talking about?”
He spread his hands. “The latest news, rumors, and gossip always come first.”
“Hah. You know very well that is not true. You kissed me before I even had a chance to ask you about your meeting with Fowler.”
He raised a finger. “Only because I have learned to move quickly where you are concerned.”
She folded her hands on the desk. “Well?”
“I doubt that matters will conclude as neatly as one might hope, but there will, nevertheless, be some justice.” Anthony stretched out his legs and relaxed into his chair. “There is no word of Quinby’s fate as yet, but Fowler is not overly concerned. He told me in private that he has every expectation that Clement Corvus will take care of Quinby.”
She swallowed hard. “Oh, dear.”
Anthony’s eyes hardened. “Do not trouble yourself with sympathy for Quinby. He kidnapped you without a qualm. He knew full well that Victoria Hastings planned to dump you in the river. In fact, she was going to use him to carry out the deed.”
“Yes, I suppose that is true. Still, one cannot help but feel a certain pity for the man. How dreadful it must have been for him to live all his life cut off from the privileges that would have been his if his father had acknowledged him.”
“You are entirely too softhearted, my dear. As for Quinby, he should have known better than to cross Clement Corvus.”
“What about Mr. and Mrs. Hastings?”
“According to Fowler they are still hurling accusations and offering proof of the other’s guilt. Meanwhile, the second Mrs. Hastings is said to have moved back into the home of her parents and will shortly be filing for divorce on the grounds that her husband is a bigamist. Her grandfather has cut off all funds to Hastings. In order to dampen the scandal, there are rumors that Lilly will soon be wed quietly and quickly to a young man of her choosing. I suspect that he is the very same young man she brought up to her bedroom the night I opened Hastings’s safe.”
“I’m happy for her. What of Hastings?”
“According to the gossip in the clubs Hastings will soon be destitute. The investment consortium has fallen apart, naturally. Even if he does not hang, he will be utterly destroyed, barred forever from the only world that matters to him.”
“Society.”
“Yes.”
“I wonder what will become of Victoria Hastings.”
“Fowler is convinced that Victoria is quite mad and will likely be sent to an asylum.”
“Hmm.”
Anthony raised his brows. “You doubt that she is insane?”
“I wouldn’t put it past her to act the part if she thought it would save her neck.”
“I assure you, if she is sane, being locked up in an asylum would prove a fate worse than death.”
She shivered. “I do not doubt that.”
“There is one more thing to report,” Anthony said quietly.
“Yes?”
“I encountered Julian Easton at my club this afternoon.”
“Oh, dear. How did it go?”
“He was very subdued. He actually apologized to me. You were right. It seems he blamed himself for Fiona’s death. She had gone out into the gardens to meet him the night she died.
They had arranged a rendezvous, but she ran afoul of Mr. and Mrs. Hastings before Easton went to join her. When he arrived at the appointed spot, she was not there.”
Louisa sighed. “How very tragic.”
“That is all I have to report,” Anthony said. “I suggest we turn to another, more interesting topic of conversation.”
She looked at him curiously. “What is that?”
“You and me, of course.”
She blinked, froze, and then hastily removed her glasses. “I have been meaning to speak to you about that very subject.” She plucked a handkerchief out of her pocket and hurriedly began to polish an imaginary smudge on one lens. “I fear your family has gained an unfortunate and entirely inaccurate impression of how matters stand between us.”
He steepled his fingers. “They think that I am going to marry you.”
“Yes, I know.” She adjusted her spectacles on her nose and looked at him. “I tried to correct the misunderstanding the other night on the way home from Phoenix House, but no one would listen to me.”
He smiled. “In time you will discover that once they have fixed upon a notion, the members of my family tend to be decidedly stubborn. It is, I fear, a family trait.”
She sat forward uneasily. “It is really very awkward, Anthony. I do not feel right allowing them to believe a blatant lie.”
“Then we must make it a reality.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
He pushed himself up out of the chair, came around the desk, and pulled her to her feet for the second time.
“Anthony, please, you cannot solve this problem by kissing me.”
“I love you, Louisa.”
She felt as though the ground had fallen away beneath her feet. “What?”
“I love you,” he said again, softer this time. “Is that so hard to believe?”
She fought for breath. “But we have been acquainted for such a short period of time, and there are things you do not know that would surely change your opinion of me.”
“I sincerely doubt that.” He captured her hands and kissed her fingers. “I’ll allow you the time you need to fall in love with me. All I ask in return is that you promise me th
at you will give my offer of marriage serious consideration.”
“I don’t need time,” she said before stopping to think. “I am already in love with you. It is just that marriage is out of the question.”
He released her hands, picked up the package on the desk, and handed it to her. Uncertain, not knowing what else to do, she began to untie the string with trembling fingers.
“I know that you are quite taken with the notion of an illicit affair.” He said, watching her unwrap the brown paper. “I admit I cannot guarantee that marriage will offer as much in the way of excitement, but in my opinion it would be a far more comfortable proposition.”
“No, really, it wouldn’t be,” she said, fighting back tears. “Not at all.”
“Just think, we would be able to share a warm bed every night rather than having to make do with gardening benches and stolen moments. We could have breakfast together every morning while we savor your latest brilliant reports in the Flying Intelligencer.”
“Anthony, stop. You don’t know what you are saying.” The package was open now. She stared, dumbfounded, at the leather-bound copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost. “Oh, Anthony.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I didn’t steal it out of Pepper’s safe. He agreed to give it up. It was merely a matter of finding the right price.”
She touched the mottled calf binding with her fingertips. Tears burned in her eyes. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say that you will marry me, my love. I predict that all of the difficulties you perceive concerning my family will cease to exist.”
She felt a great tightness inside, squeezing her heart. The tears escaped and trickled down her cheeks. She jerked off her spectacles, grabbed a handkerchief, and began blotting madly. She had known this moment was coming, she reminded herself. It was just that she had hoped for more time.
“This is the thing with an illicit affair.” She lowered the handkerchief and looked at him through her tears. “It cannot end happily.”
“There are exceptions to every rule.”
“This is not one of the occasions when the rule may be broken.”
“Why not?”
“There is a secret in my past that is so dreadful that, if you knew it, you would be horrified. I cannot allow you to bring me into your family. It would not be right.”
He looked amused. “I cannot imagine you having a secret of that magnitude.”
She should not say a word, she thought. If she had any common sense, any sense of self-preservation, she would keep her mouth closed and send him away. But she loved him. She could not let him leave on a lie.
“Anthony, I am the woman who murdered Lord Gavin.”
“Yes, I know,” he said very casually. “Now, about my proposal—”
She stared at him, her mouth open. Perhaps she had not heard him correctly, she thought.
“You know?” she managed.
“I reasoned it out a few days ago.” His eyes gleamed with amused impatience. “Now if we might return to the subject of my proposal?”
“You don’t understand.” She retreated behind her chair, clutching the back so fiercely that her fingernails bit into the wood. “Anthony, I bashed his head in with a poker. He was a very important gentleman.”
“No one seems to miss him very much. I have the impression that, although they have never met you, Gavin’s widow and the other members of his family are privately grateful to you. To say nothing of the female shopkeepers who were saved by your action. Gavin was an evil man.”
“That is beside the p–point. I am wanted for murder. If the police ever find me I will be hanged. Think of the scandal.”
“You are not wanted for murder. As far as the police are concerned, you are a suicide, remember.”
“But—”
“The case is closed. No one is searching for you, my love.”
“What if someday someone recognizes me?”
“Highly unlikely, but in the event that were to happen, my family and I would gladly perjure ourselves on the matter of your identity. When you marry me, you will become a Stalbridge. We protect our own.” He smiled his slow, knowing smile. “Trust me when I tell you that no one will even think of contradicting us.”
“Quite correct,” Emma declared from the doorway. “Louisa, dear, I believe I told you back at the start of this affair that the Stalbridges might choose to ignore Society for the most part, but Society cannot ignore them. The family has the sort of money and connections that make people invulnerable. You will be safe with them.”
Louisa looked at her. The tiny, smoldering spark of hope that she had kept locked tightly away deep inside suddenly flared into a bright flame.
“Oh, Emma,” she said, “do you really think so?”
Emma chuckled. “I trust that after you are a married lady, you will find time to help me finish my memoirs, of course. We were just getting to the thrilling bits, if you will recall.”
“Of course,” Louisa said, smiling mistily.
Smiling, Emma winked and disappeared down the hall.
Louisa turned back to Anthony. “Are you certain this is what you want?”
“It is not merely a question of wanting.” He gathered her close. “I need you, my love. You and I are two halves of a whole. I believe we were made for each other.”
Joy flooded through her. She wrapped her arms very tightly around his neck.
“Yes,” she said simply.
“Welcome to the family.”
His mouth closed over hers. She abandoned herself to a love that she knew would carry them both safely into the future.
Amanda Quick, The River Knows
(Series: # )
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends