Ivory and Steel (12 page)

The figure spun and an arm enveloped in fabric struck her in the face. Her breath escaped in a gasp and she rolled sideways, but the shadowy shape followed, crawling across her bed.

She screamed then screamed again as something crackled—like the breaking of ivory. Phyllida dove for the floor as a blade slashed into the mattress where she had lain a moment before.

Chapter Nine

For one endless moment Phyllida’s opponent loomed over her, then turned and fled through the open door, slamming it shut behind her. Phyllida dragged herself to her feet and lunged for the handle only to find it jammed. She shook it, yelling she knew not what, hoping only to raise the household. Frustrated, she hammered her fists against the oak panel.

“Phyllida?” Constance’s voice sounded in the hall. “What is going on?”

“Let me out! She’s getting away!”

A key grated in the lock then Phyllida thrust the door open and set off for the stairwell. As she reached it she tripped, caught the banister and slid down two steps before stopping. Wrenching pain shot through her arm and she gasped.

“Phyllida?” The marquis appeared on the landing below, rubbing his eyes. A satin dressing gown of brilliant flowers against a purple background wrapped about him.

Footsteps pounded down the hall behind him and the marquis turned as Lord Ingram, knotting the deep-green sash of his own dressing gown, joined him. “What the devil—” he began, then took the steps two at a time to kneel at Phyllida’s side. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

She nodded. “Someone was in my room, searching. She tried to-to stab me.” She shuddered and hugged her sore shoulder.

“Where—” he began.

Phyllida shook her head. “She locked me in. She must have escaped by now.”

“I’ll send Fenton to check the doors.” Allbury ran up the stairs, past them, heading toward the servants’ quarters in the attics.

Ingram lifted Phyllida to her feet. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” She rubbed her arm but knew no real damage had been done.

“We should have a look at your room.” He glanced toward the hall above. “Miss Yarborough, can you take Miss Dearne to your chamber?”

“No,” Phyllida protested. “I’ll be all right.” She led the way down the hall then paused just over the threshold.

Constance, carrying a candle high, moved past her then stood in the center of the apartment, looking at the garments scattered across the floor. Her gaze fell on the bed and she gasped.

Phyllida forced herself to take a step closer. Amid the disheveled sheets and comforter a fan lay open, sketched but not yet painted. The wavering light gleamed off the thin steel blade that penetrated the mattress.

Phyllida reached out and gripped the jamb to steady herself. Lord Ingram pushed past then stood for a long minute just staring at the broken fragments of ivory scattered across the pillow.

“I’ll send for Frake,” he said and turned away, only to be brought to a halt by the dowager marchioness’s basilisk stare.

The woman glowered at him then turned her furious gaze on Phyllida. “What is the meaning of this, miss?”

“You may see for yourself,” Ingram snapped and pushed past her, out the doorway.

“Oh my lady,” Constance cried. She tucked a corner of the dowager’s shawl more closely about the woman. “It is quite dreadful.”

Dreadful. Phyllida shivered then went to the single chair her chamber boasted and collapsed into it as her knees gave way. Someone had searched her room, been willing to kill to avoid discovery… A hand rested on her shoulder and she started then looked up.

Ingram stood over her, frowning. “I’ve sent a footman for the Runner. Fenton reports the front door is unbolted so I believe we may assume your assailant is no longer in the house.”

She nodded and shivered again.

He looked about then picked up her dressing gown, which lay across the foot of the bed where she had discarded it upon climbing between the sheets. Stiffly she rose and put it on then huddled into the thin muslin, seeking a warmth it didn’t offer.

“You said ‘she’.” Ingram looked down at her, his brow furrowed. “Did you get a clear look at the woman?”

Phyllida shook her head. “It was nothing but a dark shape.”

“Then, why ‘she’?”

Phyllida considered, then shook her head. “An impression of skirts. A sound, like the rustle of satin—” She broke off, staring at Ingram’s dressing gown.

It could have been a
man…

* * * * *

Mr. Frake straightened up from his examination of the fan, which remained plunged into the mattress. Shaking his head, he looked back at the large number of people crowded into Miss Dearne’s bedchamber. She sat in the corner, shivering, sipping a cup of tea. For her sake he hoped someone had liberally laced it with brandy.

“No idea at all, miss?” he asked at last.

Miss Dearne set her cup down. “None, I’m afraid. It was completely dark in here.”

“Nothing?”
he pursued.

“Only the rustle of satin. I’ve tried to remember but there weren’t any smells—no perfume or soap or anything. She—he—didn’t speak.”

He grunted. “And you think this person was after the letters?”

“I can’t think of anything else. Someone must have heard me tell you about them, and your saying you would get them tomorrow. This morning,” she corrected herself.

He nodded. “That gives us one definite clue, at least. Can’t say I’m not glad to get that, even though it did cost you a bad fright, miss.”

“What is that?” Ingram, who stood in the doorway, regarded him from over the marquis’s shoulder.

“That the reason the young lady was murdered was something written down, probably in a letter.”

“Maria Enderby,” Miss Dearne breathed.

Frake turned toward her. “Yes, miss?”

“I-I’m not certain, of course. But yesterday—no, the day before—she asked me to return to her the letters she had written to Louisa. She was upset when I said I didn’t know where they were. She didn’t want anyone to read them. She said she had written things—foolish confidences.”

“Oh aye?” Mr. Frake drew out his pipe and chewed on the stem. “I think I’ll just take that lot away with me and beg your pardon for not having done so before.”

A tentative smile touched Miss Dearne’s lips. “It was I who told you they were of no importance.”

Mr. Frake shook his head. “That’s no excuse for me, miss. I was so eager to get the news—” He broke off and glanced at Ingram. “Well that’s neither here nor there. I’ve gotten my reports, which didn’t get me nowhere, and you nearly got yourself killed. It’s not often I makes a mistake, miss, and I’d much rather it didn’t cause you any trouble when I do.”

“How did our intruder get in?” Allbury asked. “We know he left by the front door but—” He broke off, shaking his head, his expression helpless.

“Window at the back of the house was propped open,” Frake explained. “Must have happened before everyone left after your gathering.”

“It wouldn’t have been easy to climb through a window,” Miss Dearne said, her tone thoughtful. “I doubt Maria Enderby could do it.”

“Well now, miss, considering as my man found a wooden crate beneath it, I don’t think it would have been all that difficult. Easy, in fact.”

He pulled the fan blade free of the mattress then gathered together the letters Miss Dearne had brought down from the attic. Miss Yarborough, wide-eyed and eager to please, brought him a hatbox, and he packed everything in it to take away with him. After advising Miss Dearne to take something for her nerves, he said his good nights and took his leave.

He hadn’t expected this—though he supposed he should have been prepared. Nor could he decide if the box beneath the window had provided a stealthy entry or a clever ruse to divert suspicion. Their villain might have been in the house all along and the whole setup designed to throw Bow Street off the track. If he’d had the least inkling he would have used those letters as a trap and they’d now be done with the business.

A rustle of satin. A lady’s robe or a gentleman’s dressing gown? He snorted. Nasty business, attacking Miss Dearne like that. He muttered a few choice oaths and took himself home to his comfortable if somewhat cluttered rooms near Covent Garden.

What remained of the night, he spent poring over the letters entrusted to him. As the first tinges of dawn crept into the sky he shoved the last sheet aside in disgust.
Foolish confidences
Maria Enderby might have written to her friend but she would have to have been foolish indeed to feel the need to murder her because of them. The girl was guilty of no more than youthful romantic daydreams. At least according to the letters he held. There might be others.

On the whole, he decided, he had learned nothing from his nocturnal labors.

But he now had another line of inquiry, which he would pursue that morning. His investigations into the backgrounds of the others who had visited the Allbury’s opera box had turned up one bit of promising information. Subsequently, after sharing a breakfast with the aging tom that prowled the neighborhood in search of a handout, Mr. Frake set forth once more to pay a visit to Lady Woking.

The butler, a wooden-faced individual who put Mr. Frake forcibly in mind of his dyspeptic uncle, opened the door to him. He could not take it upon himself to say whether her ladyship was at home or not, the butler intoned, but after another long, assessing scrutiny of the Runner’s dapper, almost gentlemanly, appearance he condescended to permit him into the mansion. After taking his name—but not his hat—the butler left him to kick his heels in a small back parlor while he went to find his mistress.

Twenty minutes passed before Harriet, Lady Woking, put in an appearance. Properly put in his place, he should be by now, Mr. Frake reflected with a touch of amusement. He laid down the periodical he had been perusing and stood as the stately lady made her grand entrance, trailing a shawl of Norwich silk behind her.

She paused for effect just over the threshold, resplendent in a gown of deep blue silk edged with blond lace. Artistically arranged graying curls protruded from beneath a blue silk turban and a rope of particularly fine pearls, her only adornment, hung low over her generous bosom. Until her marriage, Mr. Frake remembered, she’d been the deportment mistress at that select seminary in Bath where Lady Allbury, Mrs. Enderby and Miss Yarborough had all been her pupils. She certainly knew her subject.

“Mr. Frake? I’m sorry if I kept you waiting.” She sank gracefully onto a brocade chair in a rustle of silk and gestured with a faint smile for him to resume his own seat. “What may I do for you?” she continued as he complied.

“Just a few questions, m’lady.” He paused. He knew how to create an effect too.

One delicately arched eyebrow rose. “Yes?”

He copied her bland smile. “Why have you hidden the fact this is your second marriage?”

Her hands clenched and the smile faded from her face. In a moment her poise returned. “I didn’t think it mattered. It was such a very long time ago, you see.”

“Does your husband know about it?”

She directed a look of pure scorn at him. “Of course he does. Do you think it should matter to him I was a widow? He was a widower—as I assume you already know.”

“Then why is it such a secret?” he pursued.

Tiny lines formed in her smooth brow. “For the simple reason it is no one’s concern but my own. Has this any bearing on your investigation, or are you merely permitting yourself to indulge in vulgar curiosity?” The last she said gently, with a slight smile, making a joke of it.

He returned the smile with one of his own. “When looking for a reason for murder, one is forced to ask some very unlikely questions. Just to eliminate possibilities, you see.”

“I see.” Her fingers smoothed her skirts. “This is one possibility you may now dismiss. My first husband—” She stopped suddenly as a look of disgust flickered across her well-bred features. “It really is best forgotten, for me, at least. It was a runaway marriage. I was only sixteen at the time. He was a-a private,” she shuddered as she spoke the word, “stationed in the town where we lived. He died in battle scarcely three months later.” She rose and went to the window, which looked out over the back garden. “Needless to say I have done my best to put the whole regrettable incident behind me.”

“Your family. Country gentry, were they?”

The pearls rattled as her hand clenched the long strand. “They were good enough.”

He frowned a moment. “And your husband knows all this?”

“My husband,” she said slowly, “would be appalled if he knew I had ever allied myself with a common foot soldier. Appalled but nothing worse.” She turned and met his gaze. “If you believe Louisa—Lady Allbury—learned my secret and I murdered her to keep her quiet, I fear you are mistaken.”

He shook his head. “It would make a nasty scandal for a se’nnight but no more, I should say.” He cast an appraising glance over the elegant figure before him, a still-beautiful woman embracing middle age with graceful bearing and impeccable poise. “Most likely it would be dismissed as nonsense,” he added, though mostly to himself.
He
certainly couldn’t see this lady entangled with the sort of riffraff who took the king’s shilling.

Her smile returned, lighting her soft brown eyes and easing the tension from her face, as if she read his mind. “Thank you. I can rely upon your discretion?”

“Certainly, m’lady.” He picked up his hat. “You might just call this another loose end tucked away all neat and tidy now.”