And Then She Fell

by Stephanie Laurens

  They found the perfect spot at the end of the balcony, where another spiral stair led down to the gallery’s floor just a little way from one of the four massive granite columns that supported the ceiling of the long room’s central section. The piano was being positioned at the foot of that column.

  Henrietta stood beside the balustrade, one gloved hand on the smooth rail, and looked down, watching as five liveried staff muscled the piano around under the direction of a dapperly dressed but currently harassed-looking individual. She glanced at James, beside her. “I think that’s Sir Thomas’s secretary.”

  James, who had been scanning the room below them, focused on the poor man, then snorted. “I don’t envy him his job. Bad enough having to organize all this, but on top of that to have to deal with temperamental artistes . . . I can’t imagine there’s many lining up for that honor.” Gossip had painted the soprano who was to perform as having the voice of an angel and the temper of a demented devil.

  “I gather he—the secretary—has been with Sir Thomas for years, so no doubt he’s grown accustomed to the drama.” Henrietta leaned further over the railing to peer down.

  James had to quash a sudden impulse to seize her and drag her back; he was already so tense, so much on high alert, that his instincts were searching for any excuse to drag her into his arms.

  To seize her and keep her safe, to remove her from any danger. Gritting his teeth, he reminded himself of his role and that, from his instincts’ point of view, the evening was going to get significantly worse before it got any better.

  “Good!” Henrietta said. “Here’s the soprano now.”

  James heard the barely restrained impatience in her voice, and also the underlying tension. There was nothing worse than waiting to act, holding off putting their plan into motion, but now the moment was nearly upon them. . . .

  In the crowd below, he saw many of their company—those pretending to obliviousness as well as the others who were hanging back and very much more surreptitiously keeping their eyes glued on Henrietta.

  The accompanist took his place at the piano, and with word quickly spreading, the crowd shifted and re-formed the better to hear and appreciate the performance. The pianist ran his fingers over the keys, then paused, and the soprano swept dramatically forward as if she were on a stage. Taking up position before the piano, she nodded to the pianist, then visibly drew in a breath, opened her mouth, and sang.

  Her voice was so powerful that it filled the room, reaching to the furthest corners. The rise and fall of the music, the song, was captivating, and effortlessly held the audience spellbound. James toyed with the notion of staging his and Henrietta’s charade right then—while all those below were distracted—but even as the thought formed, he discarded it; the singer was so very good there was a definite chance the murderer might be distracted, too, and might miss their performance.

  So he waited. Even though the singer was so engaging, he couldn’t appreciate her talent; he was too on edge, too focused on what he and Henrietta had to do next. On the image they had to successfully project.

  When the soprano concluded her performance, the applause was thunderous. As it faded, Sir Thomas stepped forward to announce that a celebrated tenor would perform for the gathering in half an hour, and then later in the evening, the diva and the tenor would return to send the attendees home with a duet.

  After further accolades and applause, the soprano retreated, along with the pianist and the secretary, and the guests returned to their previous occupation. Noise rose in a wave and crashed over the scene.

  Her expression reflecting something akin to rapture—a common enough expression on many ladies’ faces at that precise moment—Henrietta turned to James, met his gaze. “We do it now.” Her expression altered, sobering—as if he’d said something to bring her jarringly back to earth.

  He nodded curtly, lips already a thin line. “So we’re having an argument.”

  She tipped up her head. Chin firming, lips tightening, she flatly stated, “Yes. You’ve said something horrible—God only knows what.”

  They’d rehearsed through the afternoon, but that hadn’t been in their script. He narrowed his eyes, tipping his face downward to meet her militant gaze, an aggressive frown hovering over his face. “Don’t you dare make me laugh.”

  In response, she tipped her nose higher and all but tossed her head. “Nonsense. A laugh will do you good.”

  He scowled blackly; it was easy to make light of what they were doing—their “disagreement” charade. This was the simple part of the plan; what came next was the bit neither of them felt the least inclined to do.

  “So I’m going,” she pronounced, turning away, but pausing, as if to allow him one last chance to apologize, or to otherwise say the right thing.

  “Take care.” He had to grip the balustrade to stop himself from reaching out to her.

  She swung fully away with an almost violent flounce and, her back to him, head high, took the two steps to the spiral stair and, nose still elevated, went very deliberately down.

  Stone-faced, jaw clenching, he tightened his grip on the balustrade, then, forcing himself to slowly let go, he turned on his heel and stalked, slowly, rigidly, back along the balcony.

  It took effort, real effort, not to turn and glance back at her; it took almost as much effort not to check on the others, especially those who would, by now, he hoped, be trailing her, sticking close by as she made her way through the crowd. They’d reasoned the murderer, unless he had studied the family’s connections, wouldn’t realize the link between, for example, Gerrard Debbington and Henrietta Cynster.

  Gerrard and Charles Morwellan were two of those who would shadow Henrietta wherever she went in the crowded room, waiting to see if any gentleman approached her. They’d hypothesized that if the murderer saw her, his target, believably alone, he wouldn’t be able to resist and, under cover of the crowd, would approach and seek to inveigle her out of the room.

  So now James had to wait on tenterhooks, wait and suppress every instinct he possessed, all of which, knowing Henrietta was swanning into danger, were desperately urging him to react, to go after her, protect her, to do his all to keep her safe. . . .

  Sadly, in this instance, keeping his distance and playing out their charade was the only way he could, ultimately, ensure her safety. Only through capturing her would-be murderer would she ever be safe again.

  He paused on the balcony, swiftly scanned the crowd below, then walked down the spiral stair at the balcony’s end, far from where Henrietta had joined the crowd near the room’s center. He’d noted several friends with whom he could pass the time, as he’d be expected to do had their disagreement been real. To preserve the fiction, he would speak with his friends and avoid all members of her family, which was what he proceeded to do.

  Of course, all his acquaintances had heard of his engagement and wanted to meet his fiancée. He had a glib answer prepared—that she’d paused to speak with some elderly relatives and would no doubt catch up with him soon.

  The effort it cost him was more than he’d expected, yet he held to his role, stayed at that end of the room, and doggedly fought the impulse to search the crowd.

  Henrietta, meanwhile, made her way through the throng milling in the room’s center. It was easy to stop and chat, and even to accept the felicitations on her betrothal. Even though James was not by her side, people were so accustomed to her drifting through ton ballrooms alone that few remarked on his absence, and those who did were easily deflected. If they’d just had an argument in reality, she would behave with a high hand and allow no signs of any disturbance to mar the façade she presented to the world.

  But as the minutes ticked by and James did not come after her, she might be expected to seek out a quiet place to stop and think. To take stock.

  After half an hour of chatting inconsequentially, noting the members of their company who were close by in the throng, she started easing toward the edge of the crowd, slipping t
oward the rear of the wider central section that was opposite the piano.

  When the tenor came out to sing, and the crowd re-formed and focused their collective attention on the diminutive man, she was able to step back, into the relative shadows at the rear of the throng, into a space that was far less crowded.

  She stood facing toward the tenor, but more or less alone. The nearest couple was standing in front of her, their backs to her. There was clear space on either side of her, the best invitation she could manage for a gentleman to approach her, especially with everyone else absorbed with the tenor, transfixed by his soaring voice.

  As she stood there, waiting, fighting not to allow any of her nervousness to show, she was acutely conscious of feeling exposed. What if he’d brought a gun, or a knife . . . but no. They’d discussed those possibilities, and everyone had agreed that trying to kill her in the gallery itself would be futile; the murderer would never be able to get out, get away, without being recognized.

  Which was precisely the reason he wanted to kill her, to protect his identity, so . . . he would approach her, and, one way or another, get her to leave the gala with him.

  One part of her mind wondered in an academic sort of way what arguments he might use to accomplish that, but most of her nerves were dancing, taut, twitching and twisting with an unnerving blend of impatience and fear.

  From the corner of her eye, she could see Gerrard and Jacqueline Debbington at the rear of the crowd to her right, their gazes and their full attentions fixed, supposedly, on the tenor.

  Ahead and a little to her left, further into the crowd, stood Jeremy and Eliza Carling, but they, too, had their backs to her.

  Rather closer to her left stood a gentleman and lady she’d met but didn’t know well, Rafe and Loretta Carstairs. There were others, too; she wasn’t alone, yet her lungs tightened and she had to fight not to grip her reticule overly tightly.

  She waited. Waited.

  The tenor ended his performance, and no gentleman had approached her. Stifling a sigh, she forced herself to plaster on a smile and move into and through the crowd again. She chatted with friends, smiled and nodded to acquaintances as she made her way across the wider central section of the room. Several gentlemen, spotting her alone, halted and smiled and passed the time, but all were known to her, and none made any attempt to engage with her other than in mundane social ways.

  Eventually, she circled back behind the pillar opposite the piano, as if seeking refuge from the constant chatter and press of bodies; when the soprano and tenor came out together for their final duet, she was standing in the lee of the pillar, as concealed from the body of the crowd as she could get even had said crowd not been focusing on the singers. Once again, everyone’s back was to her.

  Once again, she waited.

  Waited.

  And, once again, no gentleman or, indeed, anyone else, approached her.

  “I don’t believe it,” she muttered beneath her breath as the tenor and soprano ended their aria and the crowd again burst into thunderous applause. Grimacing faintly, she put her hands together and politely clapped, but the truth was she’d heard not a single note.

  The crowd started to shift, to drift, its focus dissipating; presumably the singers had departed.

  Henrietta looked around. “What now?” she whispered. They’d been so sure the murderer wouldn’t be able to resist her as bait that his refusing the lure was the one eventuality for which they hadn’t planned.

  As if in answer to her question, Sir Thomas raised his voice, thanking all for their attendance, then informing them that, as this was the museum and the event was at an end, they were now free to leave via the doors at either end of the room.

  The crowd started to break up. People searched for others of their party, then headed toward the doors. As the bodies thinned, Henrietta dithered, unsure, then she heaved a sigh, marched around the pillar to the side fronting the central part of the room, and, somewhat glumly, took up station there, waiting again, but this time for James. He, she had no doubt, would come for her.

  James didn’t know what he felt as he realized the gala had come to an end and no disturbance of any kind had marred the evening. Disbelief, relief, and frustration all vied for dominance in his mind; jaw setting, he stepped free of the stream of guests heading for the nearer door and turned back up the room, scanning for someone who could confirm their failure.

  Devil saw him first and hailed him. James waved and they met, Devil with Honoria on his arm, by one side of the room.

  “Nothing.” Devil bit off the word; he looked as disgusted and deflated as James felt. “Perhaps, after all, he wasn’t here.” Devil tipped his head toward the furthest of the four granite pillars. “Henrietta’s waiting at the base of that pillar. I’d suggest you make it appear as if you’ve both come to your senses and wish to make up, rather than allow whoever this cursed villain is to guess that we’d planned anything.”

  “We’re holding a debriefing in Upper Brook Street.” Honoria smiled faintly, then stretched up and planted a kiss on James’s cheek. “Don’t worry. We’ll think of something.” Drawing back, she nodded regally. “We’ll expect to see you soon—don’t dally.”

  James’s lips twisted wryly and he bowed. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  Then he turned toward the far pillar.

  Henrietta was, as Devil had said, standing at the base of the pillar, waiting. What Devil hadn’t said was that she was looking lost, even forlorn.

  That made his own approach—and the fiction Devil wanted them to promulgate—rather easier.

  Smiling ruefully, he approached. Eyes on hers, he halted, then, after a moment, held out his hand. “Pax?”

  “Yes, please.” Henrietta placed her hand in his, then shifted closer as he twined her arm with his, then she sighed and tipped her head so it rested fleetingly against his shoulder. “That was one hellish waste of time.”

  All their supporters who had attended the gala congregated in the drawing room in Upper Brook Street. Tea was dispensed and distributed, along with sweet biscuits. Everyone partook, putting off revisiting their failure for as long as they could.

  But Royce, Duke of Wolverstone, arguably the one person there most experienced in such intrigues, cut directly to the heart of the matter. “So it didn’t work, but I fancy I know why.”

  Devil narrowed his eyes at Royce. “Why?”

  Royce’s lips twitched, but he immediately sobered. “Your plan was sound, but it was a plan designed to catch a different type of villain.” Across the room, he met James’s and Henrietta’s gazes. “A different sort of murderer. If our villain in this instance had been a typical ton gentleman who had, for whatever reason, found himself murdering not just Lady Winston but then her dresser as well, and now attempting to kill Henrietta, all out of panic, out of blind fear of his identity becoming known . . . then he would have, almost certainly, approached Henrietta at the gala. Even if he made no move to harm her there, or to remove her, because he hadn’t planned it, nevertheless he would have approached her and spoken with her and assessed his chances, maybe tried to establish himself as someone she might, next time they meet, trust.” Royce set down his cup. “But he didn’t do any such thing.”

  “But can we be sure he was there?” Gabriel said.

  “Oh, I think so.” Royce steepled his fingers before his face. “I do think the assumption that he would have been there was sound, but you can check that by comparing the guest lists from Marchmain House and tonight.”

  “I know Sir Thomas quite well,” Horatia said. “I can ask him for his list.”

  Royce inclined his head. “Please do. At this stage, we need every little piece of intelligence we can gather.” He glanced around the room. “Because I have to warn you that the fact the murderer didn’t take the bait tonight does not bode well.”

  Silence hovered for several seconds, eventually broken by Lucifer’s growled “How so?”

  Royce paused, then said, “Because I don’t think he
saw through our plan.” He looked at James and Henrietta, seated on the sofa opposite. “Your charade was”—Royce smiled faintly—“exquisitely gauged. It was not too much, not too obvious. You kept in character. No one who was watching, as I was, would have thought anything other than what you intended them to think—so that wasn’t the reason he didn’t act.”

  Letting his gaze travel the room, Royce went on, “And I watched everyone else, too—we all played our roles to perfection. No one gave our game away.”

  “So why didn’t he take the bait?” Barnaby asked.

  Royce glanced at Devil, then looked at Barnaby. “I believe the reason he didn’t act was because he evaluated the possibility and found it wanting. He walked through it, both in his mind and at least in part in actuality. As you’d theorized, he couldn’t murder Henrietta in the gallery itself—he had to get her to leave with him. But, and you couldn’t have known this before we arrived there tonight, there are only two doors to that room—and because of the valuables stored in the gallery, the doors were manned by museum staff. There were at least six staff at each door throughout the evening. In addition, because of the gala and the peculiar structure of the room with the doors being at either end, none of the guests were going in and out. Hardly any left during the event, only at the end.

  “So there was no way our man could have left the room with Henrietta and not have been seen, not have been noted.” Royce paused, then added, “It was too great a risk. He wanted to take the bait, but he resisted because he evaluated the chance and decided the odds weren’t in his favor.”

  Once again, Royce looked around the small crowd disposed about the drawing room. “And that,” he continued, “is what’s so disturbing. A murderer who, despite his most desired bait being dangled before him, can resist acting, more, can resist reacting at all, is a very dangerous man.”

  “Ah.” Barnaby grimaced. “So we have ourselves an intelligent murderer.”