The Deception of the Emerald Ring (36 page)

The silver pawn hit the table with a metallic ping. Four sets of eyes followed its rotations as it rolled on an elliptical path before finally settling to a stop just in front of Miss Gwen's cup.

Jane's hand stilled, and she returned the coffeepot to its place on the tray with unnecessary care. "Now, that is interesting."

She scooped up the little silver die, examining the markings on the bottom with a practiced eye.

"I heard Lord Vaughn in discussion with the marquise," said Geoff, as Jane inspected the seal, "a few minutes before I came upon Letty—and the body."

Remembering that unpleasant scene, Geoff took a quick look at Letty. Across the table, Letty was stirring sugar into her coffee with every appearance of composure. She might have carried off the pose if she hadn't put in eight lumps and stirred with more vigor than was strictly necessary.

Reaching across the table, Geoff snagged the sugar bowl before she could go for a ninth. Looking up, Letty flushed slightly and managed a sheepish smile.

Geoff felt an unpleasant constriction in his chest, like a very bad cold.

Letty's hands were red from scrubbing; her bloodied gloves were wadded into a little ball next to her cup; and her hair was still up on one side, but down on the other. Over the past few hours, she had been propositioned by his cousin, confronted with the corpse of an acquaintance, then assaulted and insulted—by him.

And her only concession to weakness was to put too much sugar in her coffee.

He didn't know whether to take off his hat to her or get down on his knees and apologize.

It wasn't just tonight. Looking at her, resolutely stirring her eight lumps of sugar into a brown sludge, it struck him, for the first time, just how trying the events of the past few weeks must have been for her. When she was the villainess, it hadn't mattered that her likeness was plastered across a thousand broadsheets, her good name dragged through the mud. Leaving for Ireland without her had seemed like an excellent way of thumbing his nose at the woman who had deliberately destroyed his only hope of happiness—and serving England while he was at it. The quintessential case of two birds with one stone.

All of that, of course, was only justifiable in the context of her culpability. Someday, he would find out exactly how she had come to be in his carriage. It didn't really matter anymore. However it had come about, he was sure of one thing: It had been an accident.

And it had hurt her far more than it had hurt him.

Jane returned the seal to the center of the table and reached for the coffeepot, resuming her abandoned duties as hostess. "You heard Lord Vaughn with the marquise?"

Geoff propped one leg against the opposite knee, forcing himself to look away from Letty. Apologies would have to come later. Apologies and Geoff remembered that he was supposed to be carrying on a sensible discussion about Vaughn and the marquise. Anything else would also have to wait for later. "They did not appear to be on the best of terms."

"No," said Jane slowly, passing a cup down the table to Geoff. "They haven't been. Not for some time, if Vaughn is to be believed."

"I wouldn't believe that man if he told me the sky was blue," Geoff said bluntly, remembering Vaughn's artful flirtation with Letty at Mrs. Lanergan's party. No honest man spun such a polished line of patter. "But, given the outcome, Vaughn seems to have been telling the truth in this. Unfortunately, a group of stagehands carrying scenery chose that moment to pass by. I lost track of Vaughn and the marquise. Until Letty found her body."

"You believe," Jane summarized, "that while you were trapped on the other side of the scenery, Vaughn killed the marquise."

Miss Gwen made a derisive noise.

Jane silenced her with a glance. "Tell me, while you were listening, were you able to see the marquise?"

"How did I know it was she, do you mean?" He could understand Jane's question. His interactions with the Marquise de Montval in London had been few, and her most notable characteristic, her unusual coloring, was easily masked by a wig and cosmetics—masked or counterfeited. Some traits, however, were harder to hide than others. "The marquise's voice is unmistakable."

"Oh, I won't argue with you on that," said Jane. She looked oddly relaxed, as though she had come up against a difficult problem and solved it to her own satisfaction. It made Geoff decidedly uneasy. "But you didn't see her, did you? You didn't see what she was wearing?"

Geoff looked grim about the mouth. "No. The angle of the door blocked my view."

"There you have it, then." Jane indulged in a sip of coffee.

"Have what?" asked Letty, looking from Geoff to Jane. She had, Geoff noticed, smartly pushed her sugar-laden cup aside.

"The answer," said Jane. "Your theory would be very sensible—"

"Would?" Geoff raised an eyebrow. Aside from the confusion that assaulted him when confronted with the fatal combination of his wife and wheeled conveyances, all his logical faculties were in proper working order.

"If," Jane continued, "Miss Emily Gilchrist were the Marquise de Montval."

Geoff raised a restraining hand. "Just because I didn't see the marquise wearing Emily Gilchrist's clothes doesn't invalidate the theory. Consider the evidence. First"—Geoff held up a finger—"we can place Vaughn and the marquise backstage at the crucial moment. Second, you have their remarkable similarity in coloring. There aren't many women—in our circle, at least—with hair that dark and skin that white. Finally, we have the seal of the Black Tulip concealed in Emily Gilchrist's reticule. It all points the same way."

"But, you see," said Jane gently, "Emily Gilchrist can't be the Marquise de Montval."

"Why not?" asked Letty, saving Geoff the trouble of doing so.

Miss Gwen just smirked.

Jane paused a moment before dropping her bombshell.

"Because the Marquise de Montval is Augustus Ormond."

Geoff's face was a study in skepticism. "Ormond is the Black Tulip?"

"Surprised you, didn't it?" gloated Miss Gwen. "A bit of humble pie does any man good. Eat up, sirrah!"

Geoff ignored her. He looked directly at Jane. "Why Ormond?"

Jane lifted her cup, the very image of innocence.

"Because Lord Vaughn is working for me."

If Letty hadn't already been sitting down, she would have. From the smug expression on Miss Gwen's face, she had already known for some time. Geoff, on the other hand, looked as though he would have dearly liked to say something unfit for female ears, and was only restraining himself through an extreme exercise of will.

"For you, or with you?" Geoff finally clipped out.

Jane smiled to herself over her cup. "He would say 'with.'"

Letty stared down into her cup of sludge, watching the pieces form up like tea leaves.

It was all embarrassingly clear—in retrospect. Jane's banter with Vaughn in the crypt. All that rubbish about charades. At the time, the topic had struck Letty as decidedly unwise. But it hadn't been. Not when Vaughn already knew. As for the meeting in the crypt, that hadn't been by chance either, had it? Jane had always intended for Geoff to examine the pulpit, while she went below for a prearranged meeting with Lord Vaughn. Letty had been a last-minute addition to that party; neither Jane nor Vaughn had made allowances for an extra party. Not that she had posed any problem for them. Letty winced at the memory of being induced to perform the introductions—even worse, the ways she had tried to intervene to protect Jane's identity. How they must have laughed!

Letty could have happily joined her husband in a few choice words.

"Was Lord Edward Fitzgerald really Lord Vaughn's cousin?" Letty asked in a strangled voice.

"Yes." Jane regarded her sympathetically, as though she knew what Letty was thinking. "They didn't get on, though."

Geoff leaned back in his chair with an air of deceptive casualness. "How long has this been going on?"

"Lord Vaughn released the Marquise de Montval from custody on my behalf," Jane explained calmly. "Due to their prior relationship—and certain other factors, which are no one's business but Lord Vaughn's—I believed she would be less likely to question his motives."

It didn't escape Letty's attention that Jane had sidestepped Geoff's question.

Geoff tried again, with no more success.

"How did you happen to make Vaughn's acquaintance?"

"We met in Paris," said Jane.

She did not volunteer any further information.

"Do you mean to say," Letty broke in, "that Lord Vaughn has been minding the Black Tulip for you all this time?"

"Absent the echoes of the nursery, yes. I provided Vaughn with reports to be fed to the marquise, and Lord Vaughn relayed information about the marquise's movements to me." Jane arranged her hands demurely in her lap. "It was a most profitable arrangement."

"I can see your reasoning," said Geoff, with great difficulty, "but you might have saved us all a great deal of bother by informing the War Office of your little arrangement."

Jane looked prim. "I prefer not to confide everything to the War Office. They have a regrettable tendency to lose dispatches to the French."

"Let me rephrase that," said Geoff pleasantly. "You might have seen fit to inform me. Or did you not trust me to hold my tongue?"

"The shoe is not so pleasant on the other foot, is it, eh?" inquired Miss Gwen.

"A necessary subterfuge. Lord Vaughn and I agreed—"

"You mean that you decided," interjected Geoff.

"—that it would be safer for all if we kept our little arrangement a secret."

"Not from me," put in Miss Gwen smugly.

"How could I possibly have any secrets from my dearest Auntie Ernie?"

"But why would someone murder Emily Gilchrist, then?" broke in Letty, deeming it wise to change the subject.

"And how do we explain these?" Geoff gestured to the seal and paper occupying pride of place in the center of the table.

"You said Miss Gilchrist's assailant dropped them?"

"That is a losing argument," countered Geoff, leaning back in his chair. "The marquise would never have carried a pink reticule with a man's costume. She's too careful for that."

"Running about in breeches." Miss Gwen sniffed as though she smelled something unpleasant. "Disgraceful."

"As have I on occasion." Jane cast her chaperone a sideways glance ripe with amusement. "With your connivance."

"That," declared Miss Gwen, with equal parts dignity and illogic, "was different."

"The reticule?" said Geoff.

"It was quite definitely Miss Gilchrist's," said Letty. "I remember seeing it on her wrist earlier in the evening ."

"Gilchrist must have stolen the seal and letter," declared Miss Gwen. "Used them for a spot of blackmail."

"How would she know the value of them if she wasn't involved?"

"Hmph," said Miss Gwen.

"I have an idea," put in Letty, cupping her coffee cup in both hands. "What if there wasn't one Black Tulip, but two? That would explain why they both have seals."

"Why only two?" declared Miss Gwen sarcastically. "Why not three or four?"

"Why not, indeed?" echoed Jane.

Miss Gwen looked at her charge as though she suspected her of having run mad. "Absurd!"

"It might be a syndicate," argued Letty. "Like a merchant trading company."

"More like pirates," said Miss Gwen austerely, "with no respect for their betters."

Jane gazed thoughtfully at the green-and-white pattern on the wall. "Neither analogy is entirely inapt."

Letty struggled to put her idea into words. "It isn't really that shocking when you think about it. After all, you have a league. Why shouldn't they?"

"Something more than a league, I think," said Jane softly. "There was a reason that Geoffrey mistook Miss Gilchrist for the Marquise de Montval."

"To be fair"—Letty rose to her husband's defense before they could rehash that whole argument again—"there wasn't much of her face left to recognize. I only knew her by her dress."

"And by something else," prompted Jane.

Geoff drained his cup. "You can't base a theory on a chance similarity of physiognomy."

"You really believe it was chance?"

"What are you suggesting?"

"I think you know," said Jane.

"I don't," put in Letty.

"Petals," said Jane, her lips curving into a slight smile. "Petals of the Tulip."

"Petals, indeed!" declared Miss Gwen. "You have been among the French too long."

"All the better to know how they think."

Miss Gwen's sentiments regarding the French mind were best expressed in a vehement snort.

"There might be something to it," said Geoff, only partly because he enjoyed contradicting Miss Gwen. "It would appeal to a certain sort of humor to employ a series of agents with the same coloring and general physical type."

"Are you saying," demanded Miss Gwen, "that if our adversary's pseudonym were 'the Rose,' we would find ourselves chasing a series of red-haired persons?"

"Possibly," said Geoff. It did sound rather foolish when put that way. But there was something to it, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. "I never liked the idea of the marquise as the Black Tulip. She was never quite clever enough."

"If all these agents are merely petals," broke in Letty, "wouldn't you need " Letty's horticultural knowledge failed her.

"A stem?" provided Geoff, with a smile that turned Letty's cheekbones a faint pink more becoming than anything found in the botanical kingdom.

"An evil mastermind," mused Miss Gwen, happily oblivious of any undercurrents that failed to involve espionage, treachery, or torture, with a preference for the last. "I like it."

"I'm so glad our deductions meet with your approval," murmured Geoff.

"Not as a theory, young man." Miss Gwen regarded Geoff haughtily over the top of the coffeepot. "For my novel."

"But who is he?" demanded Letty, before Miss Gwen could expatiate further on her literary endeavors.

Miss Gwen cleared her throat ominously.

"Or she," Letty corrected herself. "The real Black Tulip, I mean."