Alyssa Everett (17 page)

Or perhaps I should say the
eye
at the window, for I could see little more than one eye in the narrow sliver of daylight between Lady Leonard’s draperies. It vanished in the same instant I caught sight of it.

I leaped up. “Did you see that?”

But Barbara, still blushing and looking adorably flustered, hadn’t noticed anything, and when I dashed to the window and parted the velvet panels there was no sign of anyone, only the tiny patch of garden and the pavement below.

I headed for the door. At least today I wasn’t sprawled on the floor, too dizzy to be of any use. Barbara called after me, but I was already running out, determined to catch the culprit.

Outside the morning room I nearly collided with Teddy, who was apparently leaving the house after his talk with Lord Leonard. His eyes widened at the way I came hurtling toward him. “Whoa! Where’s the fire?”

“Sorry, can’t talk now.” I shoved him aside.

He caught me by the sleeve. “Wait, what’s happened? Can I be of help?”

I shook my head and tore free, racing past him to the entry hall.

The front door was standing open, and the Leonards’ footman was admitting my cousin John.

John wore a preoccupied expression as he stepped inside, though he was otherwise his usual sartorially splendid self—sleek coat, high shirt-points, even a quizzing glass hanging on a black ribbon around his neck. “Why, hullo, Ben,” he said when he spotted me. “I didn’t know you’d be—”

Running up to him, I seized him by the shoulders and looked him squarely in the face. “Did you pass anyone as you were coming in?”

John’s brows rose. “Pass anyone? No. Why, whom did you expect?”

I barreled past him and out the front door. “Ask me later,” I called over my shoulder, racing down the front steps as the bug-eyed footman closed the door behind me. John’s arrival so soon after I’d spied the Peeping Tom certainly seemed suspicious, but I’d demand an accounting of his whereabouts later. For now, I needed to see for myself who else was outside.

I could spy no one lurking beneath the morning room window, nor under the dining room window on the other side of the entrance, below Barbara’s bedroom. I glanced back and forth, but the pavement was virtually deserted.

Across the street lay the park. To any observer, I must have looked like a madman, darting from the house and across Davies Street, vaulting the fence, racing from one tree to the next, checking for my quarry behind the tree trunks. The park was empty, save for a pair of nursemaids attending three small children at the far end of the path. Nothing looked the least bit sinister.

Frustrated, I started back. If the man I’d seen wasn’t John, then how had he escaped? He could have ducked into one of the neighboring houses, in which case I had no hope of finding him, or at least of identifying him with any certainty. Then again, he might have sought cover by slipping into the servants’ entrance at Leonard House.

Reaching the front of Barbara’s house, I peered over the short wrought-iron railing that enclosed the steps leading down to the servants’ entrance—and that was when I spied the man at the bottom of the stairs.

He was huddled in the corner of the stairwell with his back against the coal vault doors and his knees drawn up to his chin, so that he occupied a minimum of space. He wore a bottle-green coat and fawn trousers, and his beaver hat lay upturned at his feet. He wasn’t arrayed in the first stare of fashion, but neither did he look like a vagrant.

“You there!” I called. I didn’t recognize him, at least not from my vantage point.

When he didn’t answer or even look in my direction, I rounded the railing and started down the steps toward him. “You, what are you doing there?”

Still no answer. The closer I got, the more I had a bad feeling about the man. When I was only a few feet away, I realized he wasn’t breathing.

Swearing under my breath, I took the last two steps in a stride and squatted grimly beside the huddled form. He’d been turned the wrong way for me to see, but one side of his skull was dented in like broken eggshell. A rock the size of a cabbage, presumably the weapon used to strike him down, lay inside his upturned hat. When I pressed my thumb to the man’s wrist, the flesh was still warm, but there was no sign of a pulse.

Damn. Not another murder.

He couldn’t be the same man I’d seen peeping through the window. There hadn’t been time enough for anyone to murder the Peeping Tom, tuck the body away and then make an escape before I emerged from the house. So who was he, and what was he doing here?

Before I went raising the hue and cry, I needed to know whether he was one of Barbara’s brothers, or if he was the blackmailer, carrying incriminating letters from Lady Helen. Quickly and with a grimace of distaste, I went through the dead man’s pockets until I found his card case in his coat. I took out his card and held it to the light.

Jacob Harriman, Editor

The Courier

He must have come in answer to Barbara’s inquiry about the caricature, only to meet with a deadly reception. Had he spied the Peeping Tom at the morning room window and simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or had the killer followed Harriman here and struck him down to prevent him from revealing who’d drawn the caricatures?

A heavy hand clapped me on the shoulder, startling me enough to nearly topple me off my haunches.

“Lord Beningbrough, I arrest you in the name of the law!”

I lurched to my feet to find myself face-to-face with Mr. Dawson, the Bow Street Runner. “Arrest me? Surely you don’t think—”

Dawson looked winded and red in the face. “I’d advise you not to say too much, my lord. Murder is a bad business, a very bad business.” He reached behind him and pounded on the door to the servants’ entrance with his closed fist.

I could hardly credit he was serious. “Now, see here. You can’t really believe I did this!”

The servants’ door opened, and everything after that became a blur—the Leonards’ maid crying out for help when she saw the dead body, the butler and two footmen coming at a run to aid in my arrest, my efforts to shake them off, the commotion that brought all the occupants of Leonard House crowding out the front door...

The ladies and gentlemen stared down from the front steps in openmouthed shock as the butler and footmen literally dragged me up the servants’ stairs. Even as I struggled, protesting that I’d
found
the curst fellow that way, Mr. Dawson called instructions to Lord Leonard to send for the coroner.

As my captors hauled me to the street, my eyes met Barbara’s. She stood frozen in shock, her face as white as a Cotswold lamb.

Then—and I’m still not sure why, because I’d long considered him the wellspring of all my troubles and wished he were part of anybody’s family but mine—with the
posse comitatus
wrestling me away, in desperation I shouted over the footmen’s heads to Teddy and Barbara. “My father! Get word to my father!”

Chapter Sixteen

Barbara

I begged, pleaded and finally insisted that Cliburne take me with him to Ormesby House to see the duke. After all, I had crucial information about the reason Ben had rushed out onto Davies Street and discovered the body.

As Cliburne’s phaeton made its way through the busy afternoon traffic, I caught myself wringing my hands. I had to tuck them under me on the seat to keep them still. I couldn’t stop picturing the look on Ben’s face as Mr. Dawson had him dragged away. Oh, God, arrested for murder...

But I had to stay as calm and clear-headed as possible. This was no time to give way to feelings of helplessness or missish emotion. Ben was in trouble. He needed my help.

Cliburne glanced sidelong at me, smiling with a poor attempt at bravado. “There’s really no cause for worry. Don’t forget, I was in similar straits only a few days ago, and the coroner’s jury was willing enough to believe me innocent.”

“Yes, that’s a good point.” But I was only agreeing because Cliburne so clearly wanted me to. His predicament has been far less dire than Ben’s. After all, this was the second violent death at Leonard House in a week. Helen’s testimony at the inquest had already suggested a link between Ben and the first victim, and Mr. Dawson was claiming he’d caught Ben red-handed with the second.

The brave face Cliburne had put on faded to a frown. “I only hope my aunt isn’t at home. She won’t take the news well.”

I doubted any mother would, but unfortunately the duchess was bound to hear of her son’s arrest sooner or later. Murder will out, as the saying goes, and judging from the newspaper reports on the inquest, the press loved this sort of scandal. It didn’t help that the dead man had been a newspaperman himself, and his death bound to become a
cause célèbre.

If only I could prove John Mainsforth was the real killer! I was more convinced than ever of his guilt. Watching in dismay as Ben’s captors hauled him away, I’d been shocked to turn and discover Mr. Mainsforth at my elbow, a blank look on his face. What could be more damning than his sudden reappearance just as another victim was found dead? But suspicions were all I had, and Ben stood accused of a hanging offense.

The thought made my hands shake.
Stay calm
, I reminded myself.
Keep your wits about you.
I was about to face Ben’s father, and I had no intention of letting the duke think me some foolish, fainthearted schoolgirl. Helen might make an appealing damsel in distress, but I had little more than backbone to recommend me.

Soon the phaeton rolled up before the broad marble steps of Ormesby House, and two grooms in livery took the horses’ heads. Cliburne leaped down to help me from the carriage.

We hurried to the front door, where an exceedingly correct porter answered our knock. “Is my aunt at home?” Cliburne asked without preamble.

“No, my lord.”

Cliburne gave me a look that said,
So far
,
so good
. “What about the duke?”

“If you’ll wait here, my lord, I’ll inquire whether His Grace is in.”

He was, and thanks to Cliburne’s family connection, we were soon on our way to the library for an audience with the Duke of Ormesby. Trailing behind Cliburne, I stole nervous glances at our surroundings. Ormesby House was even grander on the inside than it looked from the outside, and that was very grand indeed. We’d already passed an impressive array of pedimented doorways, coffered ceilings and classical sculptures, and we had yet to reach the library.

“About my uncle...” Cliburne whispered as we followed in a footman’s wake.

“Yes?”

“You should probably know he and Ben aren’t exactly close.”

I hastened to assure him I was aware of the duke’s rumored predilections. “Don’t worry, I know about—”

Cliburne cut me off. “What I mean to say is, you mustn’t take it amiss if Ben’s never mentioned you to his father.”

“Oh.” Well, I hadn’t expected
that.
It was one thing to suppose Cliburne might consider the duke not entirely presentable, quite another to learn I wasn’t sufficiently presentable for the duke. “I see.”

The footman ushered us into the library. I lifted my chin.
Don’t worry about that now.
This isn’t about you.

His Grace of Ormesby came around his desk to greet us as we entered. For a moment I forgot all thought of my own self-consequence and could only wonder at the resemblance between father and son. The duke was some twenty-odd years older than Ben, of course, and he dressed with decidedly more style, the cut of his dark coat faultless, his starched cravat tied austerely in an Oriental. Still, he had the same broad shoulders and long legs as Ben, the same thick hair and gray eyes, even the same chiseled features. It was like peering into the future and seeing Ben as he might look in middle age.

“Teddy.” The duke greeted Cliburne in an avuncular tone. “And...Lady Barbara Jeffords? We’ve met once before, I believe, at a party given by your late grandmother. Ben speaks most highly of you.”

He smiled, the same heart-stopping smile as his son. I could see now why Cliburne had been more concerned about my presentability than the duke’s. It was impossible to believe this urbane, well-spoken gentleman could really be the monster of depravity rumor had painted him. Despite the worry gnawing at me, I was absurdly gratified Ben
had
mentioned me to his father. “I know it’s most irregular for me to come here this way, but—”

“It’s Ben, Uncle,” Cliburne broke in. “Something dreadful has happened.”

The duke’s smile vanished abruptly and all the color drained from his face. “How bad is it?” he asked in a croak. “Is he still alive?”

Cliburne blinked in surprise. “Alive? It’s the other fellow who’s dead. But—”

I realized in a flash that the duke must know his son had been the recent target of a marksman and had consequently assumed the worst. I rushed in to spare him any further alarm, for he’d gone positively ashen. “He was perfectly sound when we last saw him. But a man was killed outside my family’s house today, and they’ve arrested Ben for the crime. They’re taking him before the magistrate at Bow Street.”

Despite Cliburne’s warning that Ben and his father weren’t close, the duke looked badly shaken. “How did it happen? If it was a fair fight— If he was defending himself—”

“We didn’t see,” Cliburne said.

“But it wasn’t a common brawl,” I furnished. “The dead man must have been struck down from behind.”

The duke went to the library door, closed it softly and turned back to us with worry lines etched between his brows. “Tell me everything you know.”

And we did—only, in the grip of the moment, somehow Cliburne and I wound up starting at the end and working backward. We began by telling the duke about Ben’s protests as he’d been dragged away, took turns describing the dead man, and then explained how we’d been in separate parts of the house when we’d heard the commotion outside. When we reached the point Ben had gone charging out, I stumbled to a halt, not sure how to relate what Ben and I had been doing alone together or why he’d been in such a mad rush to confront a Peeping Tom.

“We were...talking, and he spotted someone at the window looking in.” My cheeks burned. “Given the murder a few days ago, he thought the man might pose a danger.”

I could sense how weak my story sounded, and how obvious it must be that our tête-à-tête had been far from innocent. Surely the duke could put two and two together, and guess at the kind of improprieties I’d permitted. I braced myself for a frown or a disapproving stare.

Instead he gave me a preoccupied but sympathetic half smile. “So Ben dashed out to protect you, Lady Barbara? Don’t distress yourself. I’d have been most disappointed in him had he not.”

Somehow, I’d maintained my self-control so far, watching in silence as Ben was dragged away to Bow Street, marching stoically past Mr. Harriman’s lifeless body on my way to Cliburne’s phaeton, fighting my fears on the drive to Ormesby House, and even describing the awful events of the afternoon. Yet now the duke’s words made my eyes hot. I’d steeled myself to face the day’s painful realities, but I’d never expected the duke to be such an unabashedly fond father, or to treat me with such kindness.

Striving not to cry, I answered in a voice gone suddenly tremulous. “But it’s my fault the newspaper editor was there at all. I wrote to him myself, and...”

And Ben would never have appeared in that caricature in the paper or gone charging out of Leonard House if he hadn’t been mixed up with me. Yet I’d simply watched, mute with dismay, as his captors hauled him away.

More than anything, I wished now I’d told Ben how I felt about him. There was no denying it anymore, even to myself. I’d sensed all along that I was falling for him, an emotion that was worlds apart from the shallow infatuation I’d felt for Cliburne, whose chief charms had been that he looked good and added to my consequence. Now I understood why I’d made all those humbling confessions to Ben. He was the only gentleman I’d ever met who was man enough to take whatever I might throw at him—sarcasm, defiance, even the secrets I’d never dared share with anyone else—and still think well of me. Who else but Ben possessed the courage to run out to confront a killer because the man might have seen me behaving like a wanton?

The duke lifted one well-shaped eyebrow. “And...?”

“And...” But I couldn’t get the words out.
And I’ll never
,
ever forgive myself if anything happens to your son.

When I choked on my reply, the duke’s gaze swung to Cliburne. “I believe your aunt keeps some tincture of valerian in the drawer of her work table in the drawing room, Teddy, or perhaps in the escritoire there. Would you be good enough to fetch it for Lady Barbara? And a glass of water as well. She could do with something to calm her nerves.”

If Cliburne thought it odd that he should be sent on a servant’s errand, he gave no sign. When the door closed behind him, the duke took my elbow and guided me to the leather chair before his desk. “Do sit down, my child.”

I sank into the chair gratefully, weak-kneed, brushing away the tears that threatened to spill down my cheeks. “I’m so sorry. This isn’t like me at all.” I’d wanted to impress the duke as level-headed, brave and resourceful, and here I was, on the verge of blubbering like Helen. “Ask anyone. I never cry.”

“It’s quite all right.” The duke handed me his handkerchief. “I’ve known ladies to cry over far less consequential matters, I assure you.”

I dried my eyes ineffectually with the handkerchief he’d given me, noting vaguely that it bore the same comforting almond scent as Ben’s shaving soap. “But you’ll think me a watering pot, and I’m not, truly. I realize you have more right than I do to worry. It’s just—” I gulped down a noisy sob, “—it’s just that I love Ben so
very
much.”

I gasped, realizing I’d spoken the words aloud, and to the duke of all people, a lofty personage with whom I was barely acquainted. Yet at the same time it felt oddly liberating to make the confession, as if until that moment I’d been a slave to my pride and only by confessing my feelings had I finally broken free.

The duke squatted down on his haunches before me so that we were eye to eye. “Well, of course you do. Anyone can see that. All the more reason we must set matters right. Was this Mr. Harriman the same man Ben saw watching you through the windows?”

I shook my head. “I think Mr. Harriman was already dead when Ben saw the Peeping Tom. Ben rushed out so quickly, I can’t imagine how anyone would have had time to kill a man, conceal the body and escape before he arrived on the scene.”

“But unless we can prove someone else was outside the house, Ben remains the prime suspect.”

I hesitated a moment before reaching for the folded caricature I’d tucked into my reticule. “And there’s another problem, Duke. Even if the victim wasn’t the Peeping Tom, Ben had good reason to be angry with him. Mr. Harriman was the editor of the
Courier
, and this appeared in his paper yesterday.”

The duke unfolded the caricature and studied it. At first he said nothing, reading with his mouth curved down in a frown. Finally he looked up. “Ben saw this?”

I nodded.

He sighed, and with a pang I remembered that the duke himself figured in the scurrilous verse printed below the caricature.
For his nature he got from that b
——,
his father
. I looked away, acutely uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry, my dear,” the duke said, clearly misinterpreting my blush. “Sorry to see your name dragged into something so vulgar and sordid.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.” And, to my great surprise, it didn’t. All my old worries that the
ton
might laugh at me or pity me seemed suddenly unimportant. “The only thing that matters is Ben, and proving his innocence.”

“Steadfastly put, Lady Barbara. You have a great deal of your grandmother about you.”

That only made me blush harder, especially since Grandmama Merton had been famous for a youthful career on the stage in which she’d appeared in flesh-colored tights and precious little else. “As to the murder, sir, I...”

“Yes?”

I’d been about to say,
I
have my suspicions who’s really responsible
. But pointing the finger of suspicion at John Mainsforth would also mean divulging what I knew about Helen and the blackmail letters.

Could I trust the duke? There was so much ugly gossip about his private life, and John Mainsforth was his nephew by marriage. Ben himself disapproved of his father. On the other hand, surely a duke must have highly placed connections, useful contacts I could never hope to match myself. He seemed so very kind, and Cliburne evidently trusted him, and any fool could see he cared for Ben.

It took scarcely a second to make up my mind. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Balling the handkerchief he’d given me in my fist, I told the Duke of Ormesby everything I knew about Helen, the blackmail plot and my suspicions.

Ben

“Let me go!” I shouted as my captors pushed, pulled and dragged me through the narrow door of the Bow Street magistrates’ court. “Damn it, you’re making a mistake!”