Fanning the Flame (28 page)

With the scandal and the loss of her virtue, marriage was impossible for her now.

Unless he was the man she wed.

His stomach instantly knotted. It was the first time thoughts of marriage had entered his head in years and Adam quickly squashed them. He had traveled that road before and he knew, far better than most, exactly where it led. After the bloom wore off, most married couples had affairs. It was an accepted part of the world in which he lived. It wasn't the sort of marriage he had imagined sharing with Caroline Harding. Now he knew what a fool he had been.

Not this time,
he vowed, as he had years ago.

And with those words set firmly in his mind, he continued up the path to the house, stepped inside, and firmly closed the door.

A light May rain pattered on the roof, and the wind picked up, rattling the mullioned panes. Jillian felt restless, as if her life were on hold, waiting for something to happen, though she wasn't sure what it was.

Giving in to her need for escape, she left her room and headed for the library to return the book she had borrowed,
A Midsummer Night's Dream.
She was halfway down the stairs when she looked up to see Reggie speaking to Garth Dutton in the entry.

"Very good, sir," Reggie said to Garth. "I'll fetch 'im in all haste." He didn't look back as he rushed pell-mell off to Adam's study.

Jillian continued down the staircase, a queasy feeling building in the pit of her stomach. She stopped in front of the barrister and her pulse kicked up at the grim look on his face. "What is it?"

"I was hoping to speak to Lord Blackwood first. The butler has gone to fetch him."

"It isn't . . . it isn't about the murder?"
Please God, anything but that.

Garth carefully smoothed his features into a look of calm, the sort of expression he probably used to soothe hysterical clients. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid it is."

Her pulse jerked skyward. She started to ask what had happened, but Adam approached just then. One glance at Jillian's bloodless features and his smile of welcome faded.

"What is it?"

"I take it you haven't yet read the morning papers."

"No. By the look on your face, apparently I should have."

"Perhaps we should retire to your study."

"Yes, of course." Adam led the way down the hall and into the wood-paneled room that smelled faintly of leather and smoke. "I gather this visit isn't a social call," he said as soon as the door was closed.

"No, I'm afraid it isn't." Garth was dressed in a charcoal-gray morning coat and dove-gray breeches, his clothes perfectly fitted, but his blond hair looked slightly disheveled, as if he had run his fingers through it.

He cast a sympathetic glance at Jillian. "Yesterday, a woman came forward—the wife of a peer. She claims she was with Colin Norton the night of the murder."

Jillian's knees nearly buckled. She felt Adam's hand at her waist, holding her steady.

"Apparently the lady was worried about her husband discovering her relationship with Norton or she would have spoken sooner. Norton was released late last night."

Tension tightened the muscles beneath Adam's coat. "How will this affect Jillian?"

"I'm afraid she resumes her place as the prime suspect in the murder. The trial is officially set for the ninth of May."

Jillian swayed on her feet and Adam eased her down into a nearby chair. "Oh, God, I knew it was too good to be true." Tears sprang into her eyes. "I was afraid to believe, afraid something like this would happen." Garth handed her a handkerchief and she dabbed at her eyes, determined not to cry.

Adam made his way to the sideboard and returned with a glass of brandy that he pressed into her hands. "Drink this."

She took a tiny swallow, but he brought the glass back up and she drank again, sputtering once before the liquor began to spread through her limbs.

"I'm sorry. I just . . . I wanted this so badly to be over."

"Apparently that isn't going to happen," Garth said gently, "at least not for a while."

"We've still got a week." Adam's deep voice rang with authority. "I never called Peter Fraser off the case. As soon as we're finished here, I'll go see him, go over everything again."

"I'm going with you." Jillian unconsciously knotted Garth's handkerchief. "I'm tired of doing nothing. I can't sit here a moment more. Perhaps if I am there while you go over the case, I'll think of something I might have missed."

She expected Adam to argue but he didn't. "All right. We'll start at the beginning, go back and look at every shred of evidence, every possible suspect."

Garth nodded his approval. "Good idea. We'll re-examine every possible venue. In the meantime, I'll continue working on your defense. When the time comes, we'll be ready."

Jillian swallowed, determined to be brave when all she wanted to do was run back upstairs and bury her head beneath the pillow. "I shan't give up." She forced a little stiffness into her spine. "I didn't kill Lord Fenwick. With all of us working together, somehow we'll find a way to prove it."

Adam's hand covered hers on the arm of the overstuffed chair. "The answer is there. All we have to do is find it." He straightened. "In that regard, we might as well get started."

Jillian mustered a smile and the courage to get back on her feet. "I'm ready whenever you are."

Dear Lord, how she wished it were true.

Peter Fraser's office in Bow Street turned out to be the second stop on their agenda. First, Adam ordered his coachman to drive them to Threadneedle Street.

"I never really considered Madeleine Telford a suspect," Adam said as he helped Jillian down from the carriage in front of the prestigious offices of Knowles, Glenridge, and Morrison. "I didn't think she had any sort of motive. But there are questions we need answered before we can rule her out completely."

Retying the strings on her plum silk bonnet, Jillian preceded Adam into the reception area. While he spoke to the young blond man at the desk, she sat down in a forest green leather chair, setting her reticule on an elegant mahogany table beside it.

On a matching sofa a few feet away, a well-dressed man and woman also sat waiting. The woman, blond and attractive, perhaps late twenties, in a stylish butter-yellow muslin gown, gave Jillian a brief perusal that took in her fashionable clothes, and started to smile. Her lips wobbled and tightened, the smile sliding away as she realized Jillian was the woman in the newspapers.

The lady shot up from the sofa, her chin tipped regally upward. "The air has suddenly grown fetid in here, Charles. I believe I shall await you in the carriage."

Her husband eyed Jillian with speculation and rose in gentlemanly fashion. "As you wish, my dear. I won't be long." He watched his wife march out the door, slamming it a little harder than she needed.

Jillian ignored the man's knowing glances and the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was a woman scorned. She might as well get used to it. Still, she was glad Adam hadn't witnessed her humiliation.

He turned her way as the desk clerk motioned him forward. "Mr. Morrison says he'll be happy to speak to you. Please follow me."

Ignoring the man on the sofa, Jillian crossed the room and accepted Adam's arm. He led her into the solicitor's office, which, she noticed, was as handsomely furnished as the rest of the building. Adam introduced her to Benjamin Morrison, an elegant-looking gentleman with a congenial expression and silver-flecked dark brown hair.

Adam declined the attorney's invitation to be seated. "This won't take long. I just have a couple of questions I'd like to ask."

"Of course, my lord."

"When I was here before, you told me Lord Fenwick planned to leave the majority of his estate to Miss Whitney. You mentioned there were a few bequests to other family members. I assume one of those bequests went to his daughter-in-law."

"As a matter of fact, that wasn't the case. Lord Fenwick removed the provisions he had made for Mrs. Telford in the new will we prepared for him."

Jillian felt a shiver roll down her spine. "Lord Fenwick meant to disinherit Madeleine? Surely you're mistaken."

"I assure you, Miss Whitney, I am not mistaken. The only other beneficiaries in the second will would have been the earl's spinster cousin—a woman named Harriett Telford—and a couple of the earl's lifelong servants."

"But why would he do such a thing?"

"I'm afraid I wasn't privy to Lord Fenwick's whims, Miss Whitney. All I can say for certain is that you were to receive Madeleine Telford's share of the fortune."

"Is there any way Mrs. Telford could have known about those changes?" Adam asked.

"Not that I'm aware of. Unless of course, the earl told her himself."

Adam seemed to ponder that. "Thank you, Mr. Morrison. I appreciate your time and candor."

"You're most welcome, my lord."

When they left the office and returned to the carriage, Adam sat back with a grim look on his face.

"You not seriously thinking Madeleine Telford killed the earl?"

"I'm thinking she had a very good reason to want him dead. As Henry's widow, Madeleine was under Lord Fenwick's protection. I assumed—as I'm certain everyone else did—that the earl would provide for her in his will. Without the income he provided, Madeleine would be forced into poverty. That is very good motivation for murder."

"Even if she killed him, how could we possibly prove it?"

Adam stared for a moment at the trees passing outside the carriage window. "Perhaps Peter Fraser can be of some assistance in that regard."

Peter Fraser's office in Bow Street was a far cry from Morrison's elegant establishment, being small but tidy, with stacks of paperwork in neat little piles on the floor.

Jillian sat down in a straight-backed chair, the only seat available opposite the red-haired man's battered desk, a fact that seemed to embarrass Mr. Fraser.

"Marcus!" he called to his assistant in the other room. "Fetch his lordship a chair—and be quick about it!"

"That isn't necessary." Adam stood behind her, his long fingers wrapped around the top ladder of the chair. "If you've read the morning papers, you know that Colin Norton has been released and that Jillian is once more under suspicion. That is what's important and the reason we are here."

Peter Fraser nodded. "Yes. I've rather been expecting you."

"To begin with, we'd like to reexamine the information you've collected so far, along with anything you might have come up with since Norton's arrest. Perhaps with Miss Whitney here, we'll uncover something we missed the first time round."

"Let me collect the files." Fraser cast a sympathetic glance at Jillian, leaned over, and scooped a stack of files off the floor.

He set them on top of the desk and she and Adam began to examine them. Behind her, she heard the door open and the grate of chair legs scraping the wooden floor as Fraser's assistant placed a chair for the earl next to hers and quietly left the room.

"In addition to the information you've already examined," Fraser said, "I've added a report outlining Howard Telford's alibi for the night of the murder."

"Then you've verified his attendance at the Foxmoor soiree." Adam sounded disappointed. In a way, so was she.

"According to a number of people—including Lord and Lady Foxmoor—the earl arrived early and didn't depart until late in the evening."

"I also need to verify that Madeleine Telford was home that night."

"I've a friend, a sheriff in Surrey who owes me a favor. The two of us will pay an official call on some of the servants who work for Mrs. Telford. We'll see what they have to say."

Jillian flipped through the papers, spotting information on Colin Norton as well as a file on Lord Eldridge. "Is there anything in here about the gun that was used to kill Lord Fenwick?"

Fraser plucked a pair of round gold spectacles off the desk and hooked them over his ears. "Indeed." He dug through the stack and pulled out a sheet that Jillian had missed. "According to the magistrate's records, the weapon was a double-barreled flintlock pistol, custom made here in London by a smith named Jonas Nock."

Adam picked up the sheet of paper. "Nock's work is well-respected and his guns don't come cheap. His customers include some of the wealthiest members of the
ton
."

"I remember it was very small," Jillian said, a painful memory surfacing of the pistol lying on the Oriental carpet next to the earl's lifeless body. "At the time, I remember thinking, 'surely that little gun couldn't kill him.'"

"Having a second barrel makes that 'little gun' capable of firing twice," Fraser pointed out. "The killer was prepared if the first shot didn't do the trick."

"And that small a gun could be easily concealed," Adam said. "Perhaps even in a woman's reticule."

"You're thinking of Mrs. Telford," Fraser said.

"It's possible. It's only an hour's ride from Hampstead Heath. She certainly knew her way around Fenwick's house and in which rooms she would most likely find the earl at that hour of the evening. And she freely admitted seeing him just two nights before he was murdered. He could have mentioned his intention to disinherit her."