“Well, the Kilmartyn housekeepers seldom stay for very long. I imagine Adrian’s advances aren’t always welcome.”
The words stung, and she could feel heat flame her cheeks. He was telling her she was only one in a long line of easy women, but in the end she hadn’t passed muster. Had she truly expected anything else? “May I help you, Mr. Brown? I imagine you know that Lady Kilmartyn is in the country, visiting friends. Indeed, I assumed you were with her.” She could sting back as well, and she was beyond caring about proper deference.
“Now why would you think that?” he countered. “In truth, Cecily’s disappearance came as a great shock to me, since she was promised to spend an afternoon at the regatta with me yesterday. I was most disturbed. But I presume Kilmartyn knows where she is.”
“He hasn’t mentioned it.”
Brown looked at her for a long, contemplative moment. “You may trust me, Mrs. Greaves. I know we are not well acquainted, but I promise you I can prove a steady friend if you find yourself in need.”
He looked so handsome, so earnest, so winning, with that elegant curl centered on his high forehead. Just the sort of man she had always dreamed of when she’d been younger. So why wasn’t she melting with longing for him? Why didn’t she trust him?
“You’re very kind, sir. I cannot imagine being in such a circumstance, but I will remember your generous offer. And indeed, how may I assist you?”
“In no way, Mrs. Greaves. I was merely here in search of my cousin, but I found nothing. Unless you know anything about her sudden departure? Did she leave a note in her room, perhaps?”
She shook her head. It surprised her how easy it was to lie nowadays. The falsehoods rolled off her tongue. “I’m afraid she left no note, but as we both know the Kilmartyns do not share the warmest of relationships. I gather Lady Kilmartyn is prone to spur-of-the-moment departures. I’m certain she’ll be in touch with you when she wishes to.”
In truth she was certain of no such thing. If the countess was still alive, and please God she must be, then she had some reason for keeping her presence a secret from everyone, including her lover.
Mr. Brown inclined his handsome head. “I’m certain you are right. But if you hear anything, perhaps you might let me know.” He held out an engraved calling card.
She didn’t want to take it, but she had no choice. She tucked it inside the apron she still wore and gave him a brittle smile. “Perhaps I can show you out? Lord Kilmartyn is out for the afternoon, as I imagine you know, or you’d hardly be wandering the corridors.”
His smile was both abashed and winning. “I confess I’ve been watching, and I did see that bastard leaving with two very unpleasant gentlemen.”
“You don’t care for Lord Kilmartyn?”
“How could I? Not when I consider the brutality he’s shown my cousin over the years. She stays secluded so that no one can see the bruising, but I’m afraid that sooner or later he might—” He stopped, as if he’d said too much.
It was an excellent performance. Bryony wasn’t sure how she recognized it as such. A great many men beat their wives—it was their legal right to do so. But Kilmartyn, for all his supposed wickedness, didn’t strike her as a man who’d hit someone smaller and weaker. “I don’t expect his lordship to be gone that long, so if you wish to leave without being seen I’d suggest you go now,” she said, trying to sound encouraging rather than annoyed. He was keeping her from escaping, and she couldn’t afford to run into Kilmartyn again. Not with the memory of last night between them.
He took her unwilling hand and pressed it. “You’re very good, Mrs. Greaves. I won’t forget your kindness.”
She watched him disappear down the hallway, staying motionless for a long time after he’d left. She’d hardly been kind—the man was a charming snake, and she was much more likely to believe he knew more about Lady Kilmartyn’s disappearance than Kilmartyn did.
The warning she’d given him held for herself as well. She needed to fetch her cape and leave this place. She simply had one more thing to check.
His temporary rooms were spotless. She searched under the mattress, half afraid she’d come up with another salacious volume of drawings, but there was nothing there. The drawers and cabinets were all devoid of anything interesting, including her torn nightdress, and she’d begun to believe it had probably gone out with the dustbin when she noticed the cupboard door was ajar. She opened it, peering inside. The tiny room was filled with an array of day and evening wear, boots and day shoes and evening slippers, and she stared at them for a moment. They smelled like Kilmartyn. Wool and leather and something else indefinable, and she could remember the taste of his mouth on hers. For a moment she closed her eyes and buried her face against one coat, breathing it in, letting the longing suffuse her. And then she pulled back, about ready to close the door when she noticed the faint splash of white at the very end of the space, almost out of sight. It could only be her nightdress, and she knelt down, reaching for it and drawing it out. And then dropping it with a muffled cry of horror. Her torn nightdress was there. So were the blood-soaked clothes of a man, and there could be only one who would wear them. Only one man tall enough and with arms long enough to fill the sleeves of the shirt.
She sat back on her heels, shivering in horror. Stupid, stupid man! What had he done? She glanced around her, finding nothing, and as a last resort she grabbed the thin silk dressing gown that lay across the bed, waiting for his return, and bundled the clothes inside. She didn’t stop to consider why, she simply acted on impulse, adding her own torn nightdress to the bundle.
She could hardly waltz through the kitchen carrying such a load—someone would be bound to ask, so she moved to the window that overlooked the back garden, opened it and let the parcel drop, watching with relief as it disappeared into a blossoming lilac bush. She went back to the cupboard, trying to get a good look at the floor, but if the blood had stained through she couldn’t see it, and with luck neither could Scotland Yard. He was safe, at least for now. She’d done everything she could for him. The rest was up to him.
The kitchen seemed warm and cozy when Bryony stepped inside. She pulled her half cape from the hook by the door and tied her reticule around her wrist. “I’m going out,” she said, sounding brisk. “I thought I’d look for those spices you were missing, Mrs. Harkins, and see if I could order new uniforms for the household. The ones we have are getting shabby. I’m certain his lordship will return soon, and in the meantime we need to continue as we mean to go on.”
“Very wise,” said Mr. Collins, never taking his eyes from Mrs. Harkins’s sturdy figure while he rubbed at the silver candlestick, slowly, almost sensually, and Bryony paused for a moment.
Oh, my, she thought. Surely love wasn’t blooming in her very kitchen? If the butler fell in love with the cook then it brought a certain stability to the household. Mrs. Harkins had almost managed to run the household—with Mr. Collins’s help she’d be easily able to do so, with Bryony gone.
The thought should have cheered her as she moved on. Kilmartyn would be fine, Lady Kilmartyn would reappear sooner or later, and no one would miss her. It was time to go home.
Except she had no home, apart from refuge with their old nanny, who was already supporting Maddy and Sophie. She could only hope they hadn’t been too much of a burden. She’d sent them a note, assuring them all was well, but they could scarcely write back. Nanny Gruen would take good care of them—at least she could count on that much. Right now all she had to worry about was Kilmartyn, and what had happened to his wife. She was a fool to ignore the obvious, a fool to try to protect him. If he truly was responsible for the death of his wife then her meager efforts wouldn’t save him for long.
Either he’d left the bed he’d briefly shared with her and gone and brutally murdered his wife or someone was trying to make it look as if he had. And if he were truly guilty she should never have tried to cover it up.
She would leave the bloody clothes where they lay, hidden
beneath the lilac bush. If the police had any real cause to suspect him they would come and search the place. She would leave the rest up to fate.
The day was crisp and overcast, and she forced herself to walk easily, moving through Mayfair at a brisk clip. If she stopped to think about what she was leaving she would weep, so she simply squared her shoulders and strode onward, her head clearing in the cool spring air. There was an odd prickling sensation in the middle of her shoulders, as if someone was watching her, following her. While her first instinct was to head straight to the moneylenders, she forced herself to move as if she were simply out on a housekeeper’s errands.
She dealt with the markets quite handily, finding Mrs. Harkins’s missing herbs, arranging for a delivery of fresh fish and poultry. City living was very different from country living. At Renwick, the eggs and dairy and most of the meat were produced on the estate. One only had to plan. Here in the city arrangements must be made, and the Kilmartyn household’s arrangements had been extremely haphazard. The deliveries were hit-or-miss, the quality unreliable, forcing Mrs. Harkins to be extremely creative.
She could take care of this—it was one thing she could do before she disappeared into the night. She knew the best suppliers, having dealt with them via the steward of her father’s household on the few times she came to town. She had already dismissed the current vendors—no more improperly aged beef or chicken with a bad odor to it. No more curdled milk or rancid butter or wheat with bugs in it. She would leave his house well ordered.
She’d finished her needless errands, including a visit to Mr. Peach to get the assurance that the rooms would be finished by the next morning, and she was moving toward the shadier area where the moneylenders plied their trade when the most extraordinary thought struck her, so shocking that she stopped where she was on the sidewalk, forcing a large gentleman to move around her, tipping his hat politely as he went.
The entire day, as she dealt with strangers and friends—and she considered the staff at Kilmartyn’s house to be friends—as she walked on the crowded streets and in and out of shops, no one had stared at her scarred face. No one had even looked twice, and not once had she been aware of it. The young man at Mr. Peach’s emporium had even flirted with her, and she’d tentatively flirted back, without once ducking her head.
She reached her gloved hand to touch her cheek in wonder. Life and death and falling in… developing an inappropriate passion for someone tended to put things in perspective, and her scarred face was of small importance in the larger scheme of things. It was an astonishing thing to consider.
By the time she found the moneylender she was feeling an odd combination of elation and tearing grief. She wasn’t going to examine the latter—there was no reason for her to regret leaving Kilmartyn and every reason to count her escape a fortunate thing. Exchanging the pearls for money proved surprisingly easy, and though the amount she received was pitiful it was enough to buy a train ticket to Devonport and purchase a few of the necessities she’d left behind. She wasn’t sure how she was going to talk herself into Captain Morgan’s household, but she wasn’t going to think about it. She was famished, and the train didn’t leave until the evening, so she found a small café near the train station and ordered a cup of tea and sandwiches.
She sat alone, her head bent, sipping at the strong tea, and told herself she was certainly not going to cry in public. That could wait until later, perhaps when she was on the train. She needed to distract herself from the memory of his green eyes, watching her, the unexpected sensation of his touch on her skin, his long, elegant hands, his mouth, on hers…
She dug into her purse, pulling out the crumpled scrap of paper. This was what she needed to concentrate on, not foolish maunderings. She stared at the familiar words, looking for answers that eluded her.
Don’t trust any of them. Someone’s stealing money, and it looks like Kilmartyn’s in league with them, no matter what excuses he makes. Don’t trust Morgan either. Never trust a pirate. Something’s going on, and I’ll get to the bottom of it, or
Had it been a message to someone, a scrap of a letter, or simply a note to himself? She had viewed it as holy writ, words from beyond the grave, and she’d done everything she could to find proof of Kilmartyn’s involvement. If she’d hired a professional then perhaps he might have found proof, but he wouldn’t have been able to get inside the very household of the man, search his desk, his drawers, beneath his mattress. She still couldn’t rid herself of the notion that there was more to his involvement than she could find, but she couldn’t do anything more. With the police breathing down his neck any guilt over her father’s death would be likely to come to light. Maybe she should simply join her sisters at Nanny Gruen’s and wait a bit, see what happened. She’d already bought her ticket to the coast, but she could cash it in for a train to Somerset. She needed time to think, to force some reason into her stubborn brain when it came to Kilmartyn. He was more than likely a murderer, and there was no reason in the world why she kept coming up with excuses, reasons to trust him.
Except that she did, she realized, putting down the sandwich uneaten. No matter what he said or did, deep inside her heart cried out for him, and her heart had never been foolish. She wouldn’t, couldn’t feel this way about a ruthless murderer.
Had the police released him? Were they wondering where she was? It stayed light quite late these days, but she checked her watch and found it was almost dinnertime. In an hour her train would leave. In an hour her absence would be noticed and commented on. In an hour she could make her way back to the house on Berkeley Square with acceptable excuses.
She would be putting herself in every kind of danger. If he were a madman, a charming killer, and he suspected who she was he would kill her as well. If he were simply Kilmartyn he would take her, sooner or later, because he wanted her, and because, God help her, she couldn’t resist him. Didn’t want to. She was so awash with confused emotions that she was afraid to examine, afraid of what she might find. That it was more than infatuation, more than impulse, but something stronger, deeper, something that wasn’t going to break, to shatter, even when he put her away from him, as he’d inevitably do.
When she stopped long enough to think about it she knew the wanting ran through him as deeply as it ran through her. It wouldn’t take mild inebriation to get her back into his bed. All he had to do was hold out his hand and say her name in his deep, warm voice, look at her with that single-minded intensity, and she’d be lost.
Rampant insanity had never been a family affliction; she must be the first to suffer from it. She paid her chit and rose, gathering her packages around her, and started the long walk back to Berkeley Square.
She was being extremely tiresome, Rufus thought from his stance across the street from the little tea shop. He’d been following her all day, and she’d gone from shop to shop, always staying in full view of people, and there’d been no way to get closer. Shoving her under the wheels of a carriage had seemed too haphazard, and his previous failure had irritated him, so this time he was leaving nothing to chance. He had a loaded pistol and a long, thin knife that apparently had once belonged to an Italian assassin. He could use either, or his bare hands. No matter what, the job would be done, and the observant Mrs. Greaves would never make it back to Berkeley Square.
At one point as he followed the tedious bitch around town he wondered whether she had any plans to return to her employer. A housekeeper would have no need of a moneylender unless she’d been filching baubles from her employer, and a smart woman—Mrs. Greaves struck him as unfortunately far too intelligent—wouldn’t risk returning after robbing someone like Kilmartyn. When her next stop was the train station he was certain she planned to make a run for it, and he considered the possibility of simply letting her go.
If she disappeared she’d hardly be likely to return to tell the police about the strange gentleman wandering the halls of Kilmartyn’s town house. If she did, she’d have to explain why she’d left, and
they didn’t treat thieves kindly.
In the end he decided that unfortunately Mrs. Greaves couldn’t be trusted. Despite her current thieving activities she had the look of a boringly honorable woman, someone with a conscience, God help him, and she might very well throw herself on the altar of truth. Besides, he’d noticed her reaction when he mentioned Kilmartyn. She was besotted with the man.
No, he would board the train, follow her to her carriage, lean over to greet her with surprise, and slip the thin knife into her heart. It would be instantaneous—he’d gotten quite good with it, and had the position and timing down perfectly. No one would even notice.
She really was the most annoying woman. Just when he thought everything was settled she rose from her seat, gathered her parcels, and Rufus was ready to strangle, stab, and shoot her immediately. He wanted to be in his club, reading a freshly ironed newspaper and drinking a cup of tea. Instead he’d spent the day in parts of London he never wanted to see again, hiding behind stalls of smelly fish as he stalked the blasted woman.
While he had a personal abhorrence for physical imperfections, he had to admit that the plain housekeeper was far prettier than he had supposed the first time he saw her. When she smiled her entire face lit up, and she definitely had very fine eyes. Too bad the scarring marred her so dreadfully. In truth, he’d be doing her a favor. It must be painful to be imperfect.
She seemed to have no idea she was being followed, lost in her own thoughts. He hadn’t thought this particular move out, trusting that he’d know what to do when the spirit moved him, and indeed, the gods answered his request.
The streets of London in this thirty-second year of Queen Victoria’s reign had undergone a transformation. All sorts of new areas were being reclaimed from the squalid human rats who had lived there, and Mayfair was no longer the only place to live.
“The useful thing about that, Rufus,” he muttered beneath his breath, “is that the rats still border the better areas. And she’ll have to come close to one to get home.”