“It’s time for us to go.” He turned her back toward the sitting room.
“What?” She struggled against him, twisting to face him.
“We need to put you in a safe place.” His eyes were sympathetic. “Then I’ll return and call for the magistrate.”
She looked past him, seeing for the first time a red stain on the edge of the sheets. She pulled out of his arms and rushed around the bed.
A man lay on the floor opposite, clearly dead. His face was already a gray white, the sort one would find in a mannerist painting. His blood formed an alizarin crimson pool around his head. She turned away, the color burned into her memory.
Clive was there, burying her face in his strong arms. “I’m sorry. I know you were fond of him.”
She pulled away slightly. “Him? I don’t know him.”
“That’s Calder.” His voice was surprised.
“No. It’s not. I don’t know who he is—I mean, was. But he’s not Horatio.”
“Most people faint or vomit when they see their first murdered body.”
“I’m only a bit overset from having thought it would be Horatio. The blood doesn’t bother me. Dried, it’s always the same color, caput mortuum. The actual color of blood doesn’t look real enough at a distance and in large format, so I’ve made adjustments. A little more alizarin and a little less iron oxide. And a battle scene needs a range of bloods, vermilion for the fresh wounds and madder lake when the blood has dried.”
She was chattering, and she knew it, but somehow it helped to overcome the shock of finding a dead man in Horatio’s room. Had Horatio gotten away in time? Was he the man’s killer? It was hard imagining the dapper old man as a killer, but then she hadn’t imagined he would steal her money and disappear either. She’d believed he was fond of her.
“Let’s go back into the sitting room.” He led her to the bedroom door.
“No.” Her eyes swept the room, avoiding the dead man. “If something here explains why Horatio left and why that man is dead, we must find it before you call the magistrate.”
He pulled out a chair for her to sit. “Whoever was here before us—perhaps that man on the floor—has already searched the bedroom, and we have just searched this room. Unless you know of a particular place Calder might have hidden something, we should leave before someone finds us here and assumes we are the murderers.” He returned to the bedroom and came back with the hatbox. He set the box on the floor before the bookcases and began opening the books and emptying their contents into it.
“I see you have come to appreciate my method,” Lena observed.
“I’ve come to appreciate that we have no time to dally.” He placed Lena’s pile of notes and objects on top and shut the box. “Can you think of anywhere else we need to search?”
“Horatio’s painting box. But it’s not in here.” She looked toward the bedroom, then steeling her courage, she rose.
“His what?”
“He has a box of sorts, with paper and brushes and small pots of paint. If it’s here, he’ll return for it. If it’s not . . .” She stood at the door to the bedroom, giving the room a careful examination. When she was satisfied that the box was gone, she walked to the other side of the bed, and from a distance carefully examined the man’s face. Though it was unlikely she would have forgotten his appearance, this time she looked beyond the colors of his wounds to the structure of his face. She needed to remember the narrow scar along his hairline, the broken blood vessels on and around his nose, the cyst forming a knot in the middle of his eyebrow.
“What are you doing?” Clive held the hatbox under his arm. “We need to go.”
“I’m remembering.” Lena turned away from the body and walked to the bedroom door.
“Most people would want to forget this.” He let her pass, then pulled the bedroom door shut behind her.
“When we find Horatio, he will want to know who was lying dead in his bedroom.”
“Was the box there?”
“No. He doesn’t intend to return here.”
“Then we need to slip away quietly as well.” He took her arm gently. “I will take you to my brother’s house. You will be safe there until I return.”
“Return?” She examined his face, his jaw firm and honest. “From where?”
“Once you are safely situated, I will call the magistrate and sort this out with him.”
“I will go with you.” She lifted her chin in determination. “Perhaps the magistrate can help discover Horatio’s whereabouts.”
“The magistrate’s first suspect will be Calder, but he needn’t suspect you as well.”
“Me? Why me? I haven’t killed anyone.”
He looked exasperated. “You must understand how this looks. You are a woman visiting a man’s boardinghouse accompanied by a man you barely know.”
She felt a prick of alarm. Had she trusted him too soon?
“Your business partner has disappeared, leaving a dead body in his rooms. This could only be worse if Calder’s absconded with all the money from the Rotunda. Then you would also have a good motivation for killing your partner.”
She forced her face to remain impassive. “But, I’ve told you, that man isn’t Horatio.”
“Without the windows open, this room would be dark. You mistook him for your thieving partner and killed him by mistake.”
“What role do you play in this story of yours?”
“It’s not my story. It’s the story the magistrate will spin the minute he sees you here, and in it, I will be cast as the lover.”
“Mine or Horatio’s?” she asked, letting sarcasm inflect every syllable.
“In cases of murder, either will do, though, given a choice, I would prefer to be yours.”
The room grew small around them. She noticed the warmth of his hand on her elbow. And his eyes. His irises were more green than blue, more vibrant than celadon, but lighter than viridian. She stared into their depths, wondering if it were even possible to paint that color and the flecks of gold in the centers. Then soon all thought disappeared. The seconds seemed to stretch out infinitely, as they studied each other’s faces. She leaned forward. He placed his hand on her upper arm, and desire, shimmering like gold leaf, warmed them both.
A sound in the hall broke the moment. She stepped back, and Clive let his hand fall to his side.
“I will wait for you at my boardinghouse, or, if you prefer, I can visit a friend who owns a bookstore.” She walked decisively toward the hall door. “I’ll give you either address, and you can find me there.”
“You are a capable woman, Lena, fully able to manage your own life. But, given the accident at the Rotunda and the body in the next room, indulge me by visiting my brother’s house. This week, my sister Judith is in residence with her foundlings, along with my great-aunt, at least one of my brothers, and, I believe, several of Lady Wilmot’s cousins.”
Lena rubbed the pulled muscle in the bottom of her thumb, trying to ignore the fact that for a moment she’d very much wanted to kiss him. He waited quietly for her decision, and his patience swung the balance.
“I need to retrieve some things from my rooms first.”
Clive waited for her to walk through, then balancing the hatbox, pulled the door shut behind them. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Eight
On the street, she reached for the hatbox, but he refused. Raising a finger, he signaled to a street urchin, then paying the child a penny, gave instructions on where to deliver the box.
“You should have tied it shut. This way, he’ll stop halfway to your brother’s and see if there is anything worth stealing.”
“Had I tied it shut, he would have been certain the box held something worth stealing. As it is, he will find scraps of paper and a wood carving or two. Besides, I told him that if he delivers the contents intact, there would be a penny in it for him tomorrow.”
“That’s a pretty two pennies for a hatbox I could have carried.”
“That
boy will have food today and tomorrow earned from honest work.” Clive matched his stride to hers.
“That boy will be laughing with his mates at the toff who doesn’t know the value of a penny.” Lena’s words alone could have sounded like a rebuke, but her tone was tender as was the slight touch she gave to his arm.
“Toff? How do you know such street slang?”
She ignored the question. “I’m three flights up in the corner house.” She gestured toward a run-down but respectable house on a run-down but respectable street.
“You’re in the attic?” Somehow from the way Lena carried herself, he’d expected her to choose a better class of lodging.
“No, that pleasure belongs to my landlady’s cousin, a mean-spirited spinster who makes my landlady seem like an angel.”
“But she isn’t?” He followed her toward the house, admiring the purposeful efficiency of her stride.
Lena shrugged. “It’s forty-six steps from the front door to my room. Most days if I can get to step thirty-eight, I can escape without any engagement.”
“What about the other days?” He followed her to the front door, all the while admiring her graceful carriage and easy movements.
“I speak in broken English, with a heavy infusion of French. Lately, to reduce my interactions, I speak almost entirely French,” she said matter-of-factly. She put her hand on the doorknob and turned back to face him. “I’ll need five minutes, ten at the most. I haven’t much here, but some things I’d rather not leave. If you hear me speaking French, add fifteen minutes.”
She opened the door, and he followed her into the dimly lit hall. “I’ll accompany you.”
She shook her head, nodding toward the landlady’s room. He put his hand on her shoulder to stop her from ascending the stairs.
“I will be happy to speak to your landlady to explain why I need to accompany you to your room. I will of course stand in the hallway while you get your things.”
“Do you have sixpence?” She slipped out from under his hand and began climbing the stairs quickly.
“Of course.”
“That’s all you’ll need.” She stopped briefly at the landing. “Sixpence for a male visitor to go up the stairs.”
“What does she charge for coming down?” He took the steps between them two at a time.
“Coming down is free.” She resumed her climb, moving quickly and easily up the steep stairs. “But if you cross the threshold to my room, it will cost you another ha’penny.”
“A ha’penny to enter a woman’s room. Is this a house of ill repute?” He whispered so only she could hear him.
“Ill repute?” Lena laughed. “My, aren’t you prim? Ill repute goes a bit too far. It often serves as a house of assignation. But Mrs. Abbott ensures that she fares as well as any man’s mistress, though—I’d say—with less effort.”
“Are you concerned that living here will damage your reputation?”
She paused on the stairs for a moment, weighing him against some internal balance. He submitted to her gaze, wondering how he had fared in the assessment.
Pitching her voice low, she continued to climb. “I have a great regard for my reputation. I provide my clients with fine work at a good price. I pay the laborers I hire a fair rate. I give to those who are in need.” Each phrase was punctuated by her ascent of another stair. “But like every other man of your rank and class, you don’t mean my reputation as a painter, or as an engraver, or as a businesswoman. Instead, you ignore all those measures by which you would judge a man, and you reduce my worth to a single criterion: my chastity. That sort of reputation is of concern only to the landed classes, meant to ensure that the heir to the land is the actual child of the landlord. And by child, of course, we mean son.”
* * *
He felt himself color. When he was pursuing an inquiry, he asked such questions without thinking to learn someone’s opinions. But he should have considered that posing it to Lena under these circumstances would make him sound like that sort of man—the sort he avoided at his club. He started to object, but stopped himself. As an investigator, he’d learned to listen, both to what was being said and what wasn’t.
“In your world, a young lady’s sole ambition must be to marry well, but in this neighborhood, marriage is more often a handicap than a luxury. I have only one use for your sort of reputation: to have enough of it so that if the queen ever needs a painter, I am not ineligible.”
At the third floor, she looked down the hall in both directions before moving quickly from the stairwell to her door. “That’s odd: usually by step twenty-six either my landlady or her cousin has come into the hall to watch me pass by.” She opened the door with a key tied to a string inside her waistband. “I leave a lantern inside the door, but at this time of day, we may be able to do without it.”
The sickly sweet smell of decay met them, blossoming through the open door. In Horatio’s rooms, open windows had carried away most of the smell, but Lena’s rooms had been closed up tight for two days and a night.
Lena recoiled backward into his chest. He held her for a moment, her back against his chest, his strong hands on her shoulders, reassuring her. “Stay here.”
This time she did exactly as she was told. She waited by the door, the memory of the body in Horatio’s bedroom still too fresh. Had Horatio been hiding in her rooms, waiting for her to return? Was he dead here, lying in his own blood all the time she’d been cursing him?
She watched Clive’s strong back as he crossed her small sitting room in four long strides. He stopped at the open door of her even smaller bedroom.
“It’s a woman. Not too long dead by the look of her.” He stepped out of sight. “Describe your landlady.”
“Quite stout. Gray hair, almost white. She pulls it back tight.”
“Gray hair, yes. But not stout.”
“Is she wearing a dark gray dress with lace at the wrists or a blue walking dress designed for a much younger woman?”
“Flowers embroidered down the arms.”
“That’s Mrs. Paxton.” She pressed her hand to her mouth to hold back her distress. The first body—a man she didn’t know—had startled and sobered her. But she’d kept her mind on Horatio and on hoping he had escaped unharmed. This time, the body was a person she had known, someone she saw almost every day. Even if she didn’t like the woman, she did not wish her dead.
“She let herself in; a set of keys are on the floor beside her.”
“She snoops. Snooped.”
He backed out of the room. “It’s time to take you to my brother, then I’ll return with the magistrate.” He stepped toward her, his expression equal parts determination and concern.
“I can’t simply walk away from this. These are my rooms. I knew her. The magistrate will want to talk with me.” She stepped forward, challenging him.
From the main hall, heavy knocks at the front door were followed by the sound of the landlady’s voice, sharp and shrill.
“Is there another way out? Through the attics perhaps?” He looked around the room as if a way of escape would magically appear.
“Not that I know of . . . I usually only sleep here, so I always used the doors.”
“When did you leave this morning?”
“I stayed last night at a friend’s. But lately, I’ve been leaving slightly before dawn. Horatio and I used to divide the labor of managing the exhibition, with him opening up for the craftsmen, and me closing. In the past several months, I’ve taken care of both.”
The voices—two men and the landlady—climbed the flights of stairs slowly.
“Luckily, you’ve been with me all day. Think quickly: what things did you wish to take?”
“There’s a carpetbag already packed behind the cupboard. It’s already tied to a rope. You can lower it out the window there to the left, then at the end of the rope, let it drop.”
He didn’t ask questions. He merely went to the cupboard, withdrew the heavy bag, and lowered it through the o
pen window to the ground below, then dropped the rope to the ground as well.
Clive had already returned to her side, when the two men—one apparently the magistrate, the other a younger beanpole of a man, clearly his subordinate—reached the landing outside her flat. They were followed by Mrs. Abbott, who looked surprised to see Lena home.
“Are you Miss Frost?” The magistrate, a dour-faced man, wiped his brow with a handkerchief.
“She understands you well enough, but she only speaks French, that one.” The landlady spat out the words.
Lena swallowed, then addressed him politely in English. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m Thacker, the magistrate. This is my assistant, Mr. Dean. We’ve received news of a murder in your rooms.” He shoved the handkerchief up his sleeve and sniffed the air. “That’s the smell of blood all right.” He looked at Lena’s hands, still bandaged, and raised an eyebrow. “Do you wish to confess?” Thacker’s partner, Dean, positioned himself as if Lena might run.
“I didn’t kill her. I returned home only a few moments ago. She was dead already.”
The landlady’s eyes grew wide. “You hussy: your English is as good as mine!”
“She?” Thacker ignored Mrs. Abbott. “Do you know the woman’s name?”
Lena looked at Mrs. Abbott apologetically, then answered. “She is Mrs. Paxton, Mrs. Abbott’s cousin.”
Mrs. Abbott’s face turned from shock, to anger, to a sort of pleasure, to avarice, all in the space of a heartbeat. She began to wail, beating at Lena with closed fists. Clive stepped immediately between them, the blows falling on his chest and arms, until Dean pulled Abbott back.
At Thacker’s signal, Dean shepherded Mrs. Abbott, flailing, farther down the hall. Her cries soon became words: “Murderess. Murderess. I know who you are. You will pay for this.”
Clive pulled Lena, unresisting, against his side. She leaned into him, feeling his presence warm like sunlight.
“Wait here.” For the next eternity, the magistrate examined the body and Lena’s rooms. Lena stiffened when the magistrate leaned out the open window, but he returned to question them before he looked down.
Reckless in Red Page 10
