A Study in Death (Lady Darby Mystery, A Book 4) (16 page)

The lines at the corners of her eyes deepened, but she allowed me to distract her. “I wanted to ask what you thought of hiring a string quintet for the wedding instead of just having the organ. I know how much you love the Mozart quintets.”

I felt the familiar stirrings of anxiety that surfaced whenever she mentioned the wedding. I forced a smile. “That would be lovely.”

Her face fell. “Did I get it wrong? You do like the Mozart quintets, don’t you? Or am I confused?”

“No. You’re right. I do like them. Particularly Number 3. I just hadn’t given it much thought.”

She gazed at me fondly. “You were anticipating the same dry music. Not for this affair. Something much more lyrical is called for.”

I turned away, lest she see how nervous her plans were making me. Seeing a drawing on the bedside table, I picked it up to examine it.

“Philipa said you were helping her with it this afternoon.”

“Yes. She wanted to do something to cheer you.” The picture depicted their family on a trip to the park—with father and mother, Malcolm, Philipa (with an overlarge bow in her hair), Greer, and the new baby. She had also included me with what looked to be a sketchbook tucked under my arm. I chuckled. “For a six-year-old, she’s really quite good.”

Alana smiled. “She says she wants to be like her aunt Kiera and draw people’s pictures.”

A warmth flooded through me, but I arched my eyebrows in humored skepticism. “We’ll see how long that lasts. She also wants to be a mother. It’s all she ever wants to play.”

“Yes, Malcolm complained of the very same thing.”

I set the drawing back on the table. “Has Philip seen it?”

“No. He’s out.” Her brow creased. “Or at least he was. Perhaps he’s returned.”

I could see the worry reflected in her eyes, and it made the fury I had only recently banked flare back to life. I vowed, no matter his protests, I would force Philip to talk to me tomorrow. This had to stop. His odd behavior was causing Alana more harm than good, and no matter his distance of late, I knew my brother-in-law did not want that.

I noticed her rubbing a hand over the side of her belly in fast, anxious strokes. “Does it hurt?”

She stopped, as if she’d only just realized what she was doing, and then resumed. “No. But it itches. Although that cream Lady Drummond sent me has helped immensely.” Her eyes dimmed. “I wish I could thank her.”

I smiled tightly. I’d considered telling her to stop using it, but if it was helping, then it seemed wrong to ask her to discard it just because the thought of her using it made me feel uncomfortable.

She yawned and I rose from the chair to excuse myself. Like a small child, she protested she wasn’t the least bit sleepy, but I could see the drowsiness dragging down her eyelids. I leaned over to kiss her forehead, and then slipped out.

True to her word, Bree had left a tray of bread and cheese and an apple on my bedside table. I sat in the chair by my hearth and ate. However, rather than making me drowsy, as expected, I suddenly felt more alert. I doused my lamp and climbed the stairs to my studio. If I wasn’t going to sleep, then I could at least be productive. Lady Drummond’s portrait was almost finished, and I hoped by concentrating on it, my mind might be free to ponder our inquiry. I was always worried there was something I’d missed, some crucial observation, and ironically, distraction seemed to be the best way of uncovering it.

I
was still in my studio the next day when Gage finally came to see me, though I was no longer working on Lady Drummond’s portrait. Sometime around sunrise I’d finished it and slunk back to my room to rest for a few hours. Upon waking, I’d realized I would drive myself mad if I didn’t do something to occupy my mind while I waited for Gage to call. So I climbed back up to my studio to continue working on a painting I’d begun months ago.

However, as the day stretched on and I watched the sun rise and then begin to sink in the sky, the anger I had suppressed began to build again. Perhaps Gage didn’t intend to show himself. Perhaps, like his father, he had dismissed me from the investigation entirely. By the middle of the afternoon I was so furious that I had to set aside my paintbrush. I was too consumed with hurt and resentment, which made my movements stiff and jerky.

Instead, I threw open my window, ignoring the chill in the March air, and set about preparing a batch of new canvases. The exertion of stretching the fabric over the frames and then coating them with an emulsion of gesso and linseed oil was just the mindless activity I needed. When Gage did arrive, I was making such a clamor that I didn’t even hear him until he spoke.

“That smell is awful,” he declared, burying his nose in his sleeve.

“Of course, it is,” I snapped. “It’s animal glue, chalk, and linseed oil. It’s not meant to smell good.”

He stared at the new canvases arrayed before me with a sickened look on his face.

I sighed in exasperation. “Either go or come. But shut the door. I don’t want the fumes wafting down to the nursery at the other end of the hall.”

He wrinkled his nose and shut the door. “Can’t we talk somewhere else?”

I turned back to the task I was performing. “We could have. Had you arrived six hours ago when I expected. Or better yet, we wouldn’t even need to have this discussion had you not expelled me from the Drummonds’ town house like an errant child.” I swiped my brush across the canvas in front of me in broad strokes.

“That’s not what I did,” Gage argued.

“Oh, excuse me. I meant to say, like an errant
wife
.”

“That’s not fair. You heard my father. Had I not asked you to leave, he would have ejected us both. He does not jest when he makes threats.”

I rounded on him. “And just how was he going to eject us? Physically? Your father might still be healthy, but he’s at least sixty, and no match for you.” I set aside my jar of gesso emulsion and dumped the brush into a glass of linseed oil. “You bowed to his will, Gage. You fell in line and hopped to his orders just like you were one of his sailors. You did exactly what you said you refused to do.”

“That is not what happened,” he bit out.

“Isn’t it?”

“No. We needed information from Lord Drummond, and I recognized that the fastest way to get it was by listening to my father. He was right about one thing. Lord Drummond is not comfortable around you.”

“Because I actually stand up to him.”

He exhaled in frustration. “I don’t know that he would have told us anything had you been there.”

I gave him a bitter smile. “I guess we’ll never know.”

He turned to the side, raking his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Kiera. I made a judgment call. Maybe it was wrong, maybe it was right. But what’s done is done.”

“So this is what I can expect when we’re married? That I’ll come second to your father’s wishes.”

“Don’t,” he ground out. “Don’t make this another excuse for you to be afraid of marriage. You know that’s not what happened.”

I stared at him with pain pressing down on my heart. “All I know is that you could have supported me,” I said in a quieter voice. “Your father has been despicable to me, and he and everyone else have been calling me a meddlesome ghoul for insisting that Lady Drummond was poisoned. Last night proved them all wrong, but instead of standing by me, you sent me away.”

His face softened as if he seemed to finally grasp what I had been trying, but apparently failing, to say. I inhaled a shaky breath and turned away to clean my brush. The last thing I wanted was to break down in tears. With everything that was happening, I wasn’t sure I would be able to stop.

I heard Gage shuffle a few steps closer. “Do you want to know what Lord Drummond told us?”

“Yes. Did your father let you press him about the suspicious information we uncovered?”

“Not as hard as I would have liked,” he muttered crossly. “But enough to get some answers. I think he wanted to know what his responses would be as much as I did. It is
freezing
in here,” he exclaimed, breaking off.

I glanced up to find him staring at the open window. “I am aware. But those fumes you were complaining about earlier would have been strong enough to make me ill had I not opened the window.” I laid the
brush down to dry and turned to look at him, leaning against the table. “The cold is easy enough to bear when faced with the other prospect.”

“Well, are you finished? Can I close it now?”

I nodded. “But leave it open about two inches. The gesso emulsion isn’t finished drying, so there are still vapors to smell.”

I watched as he reached up to push the window down, admiring the breadth of his shoulders and the dashing figure he cut. As he turned to face me, I whirled around to carry my supplies back to their shelves in the special storage unit Gage had built for me. If I was as bad an actress as he claimed, the moment he saw my face, he would know what I had been looking at, and then I might never get him to answer my questions about their interrogation of Lord Drummond.

“So what did Lord Drummond have to say for himself?”

Gage leaned back against the wall beside the window with his arms crossed indolently over his chest. “He claims that he didn’t know anything about it. That he truly believed his wife had died of an apoplexy like Dr. Davis pronounced.”

“So he’s claiming he’s innocent?”

“Yes. When I asked him why he’d so readily accepted the physician’s diagnosis even though it had been made in such a hasty manner, he argued he had no reason to doubt it. I’m afraid we can’t dispute that.” He scowled. “Though I would like to question Dr. Davis about it.”

I removed my painting apron. “What of the allegation that he needed money and had already spent Lady Drummond’s dowry?”

“He scoffed at the suggestion, as did Father. In any case, it’s easy enough to verify. And I intend to.”

I reached up to hang my apron on its peg on the wall. “Did he know if his wife was expecting?”

He shook his head. “Once again, he claims that if she was, he didn’t know anything about it. I suggest we ask her maid.” He paused. “If she survived.”

I stiffened at the reminder. “I hope they would let us know if she
hadn’t.” I frowned. “Or would they have alerted your father? And we already know how easily he shares information.”

“I suspect they would send word to you before Father.” He pushed away from the wall and cleared his throat. “Let me rephrase that. I suspect Jeffers would send word to you before Father.” He skirted my table and the easel where the painting I had been working on was propped. “You were not with us in the drawing room while we waited to hear the fate of Lady Drummond’s maid, but I noticed how much the Drummond butler disliked my father. He could have put some of the butlers I’ve encountered in London to shame with his display of haughty disdain.”

“Really?”

Gage nodded, turning to study the portrait.

“I’ve never seen Jeffers behave that way, and I’ve been at the receiving end of more than my fair share of condescension from butlers,” I muttered dryly. Servants, especially those of higher rank, were oftentimes far more snobbish than their masters.

“Well, then. I like him even more.” He turned to me. “Do you think we could tempt him away? After all, we’re going to need a butler for our own household.”

This startled a short laugh out of me. “You want to poach Lord Drummond’s butler?”

“Why not?” He shrugged, moving closer. “I’d like to know the staff I have installed in our house are loyal to not only me, but my wife. And the fact that he dislikes my father doesn’t hurt.” He stared down at me almost eagerly. “What do you think?”

I tilted my head. “I
think
you’re straying from the topic.”

He didn’t look the least chagrinned, and I wondered if these playful comments were meant to distract me.

“So we need to question Aileen. Did you ask Lord Drummond whether his wife had a lover?”

“No.”

I frowned.

“Given the answers we still needed to find elsewhere, it didn’t seem necessary.”

“Didn’t seem necessary?” I repeated. “His reaction could have told you a great deal. Was he jealous? Secretive? Angry?”

Gage scowled. “Father would never have allowed such a question, so it seemed fruitless to ask. It would only have given Lord Drummond time to plan his response if it should come up again.”

“Which, I suppose, means you didn’t ask about his brutal treatment of his wife, or how his first wife died?”

“No. Because, once again, Father would not have allowed it. And the answers to the true cause of his wife’s first death are better found elsewhere. If he’d had anything to do with it, he simply would have lied.”

I reluctantly conceded that. “Well, did you at least find out whether he has a mistress?”

“Yes. And I can assure you there is no danger of her becoming the next Lady Drummond.”

“Why? Is she already married?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

His expression grew wary. “Let’s just say, she’s not the type of woman a man of Lord Drummond’s stature would wed.”

I realized then what he meant. “You can’t know that for sure,” I argued. “After all, the Duke of Lancaster married an opera dancer.”

“Allow me to phrase it this way: my father is more likely to marry a dairy maid than Lord Drummond is to wed his current mistress.” Gage lifted his eyebrows in emphasis.

This silenced me for a moment, but then I couldn’t help but ask. “Is she that disgraceful or is Lord Drummond that supercilious?”

His lips quirked. “A little of both, I imagine.”

I nodded, wondering who this woman was.

He clearly sensed my curiosity, because he dipped his chin to say, “I’m not telling you any more.”

I couldn’t help but smile. He’d accompanied me into one of the darkest corners of Edinburgh the night before, and yet he was attempting to shield me from the scandalous activities of a member of the demimonde.

“I imagine I could discover her name in a quarter of an hour if I really tried,” I teased.

“I’m sure you could. But it’s not her name I’m worried about.”

“What? Do you think I’ll call on her?”

His eyes hardened in scolding.

My eyes widened. “You do. Well, perhaps I will at that,” I declared, folding my arms over my chest. “I’m sure her conversation would be enlightening.”

He stepped forward to stand over me and I arched my chin to stare him directly in the eye. “I know you jest. But seriously, do not visit this woman. She’s not some misunderstood society miss.”

I narrowed my eyes, not liking to be told whom I could and could not befriend, but I didn’t argue. I understood how the rules of decorum worked. Women of quality did not socialize with courtesans and doxies, no matter how cultured they might be. Their husbands could discreetly do as they wished with them, but their wives were supposed to ignore their existence. Not that I was worried Gage was regularly mingling with such women. Sir Anthony had kept a mistress, but in his case I had been quite happy for him to take his attentions elsewhere. I hoped Gage would never decide that was necessary.

He left soon after, leaving me to contemplate how satisfied I was with his explanations, as well as the manner in which he and Lord Gage had questioned Lord Drummond. I still felt unsettled by Gage’s easy dismissal of me the night before, but I was also tired of thinking about it, so I did my best to push it to the back of my mind and focus on our investigation.

I didn’t believe they had pressed Lord Drummond very hard for answers, and I blamed Lord Gage for that. He still seemed intent on sheltering his friend. I scoffed. And he claimed
I
was the one who wasn’t being impartial.

I paced back and forth in front of my easels. I wished I had been there. Even if Lord Gage had insisted I remain quiet, I could have at least observed Lord Drummond’s reactions. They often told me far more than the words a person said.

My eyes strayed to the easel on the left draped with a cloth. I reached out and carefully pulled back the cover to stare at Lady Drummond’s likeness. Critically, I knew it was not the best portrait I had ever painted, but it was still quite good. I thought I had done well to capture her essence. And when I looked into her eyes, I could almost imagine she was staring back at me, listening to what I had to say and forming a careful response, just as she had in life.

The portrait was not completely dry, and wouldn’t be for almost a week, but I suddenly apprehended exactly what I needed to do. I was certain that if Lady Drummond had been alive, she would have been willing to risk this image of her likeness for the truth.