The Edge of Desire

by Stephanie Laurens

  As if all that had occurred in those years hadn’t affected what lay between them.

  He didn’t understand how that could be so. She’d walked away from her promise to wait for him and happily married another man. When he’d returned briefly to assume his title after his father’s death, he’d heard that her marriage to Randall was widely regarded as a love match—there being no other explanation for a lady of Letitia’s birth and family circumstances marrying so far beneath her.

  Yet tonight, on the exquisite green and gold silk rug in her parlor, they’d plunged into the past—and it—every moment, every touch, every gasp—had been exactly as it had been before.

  If anything, even more intense than before.

  Even to that moment afterward when she’d gently tumbled his hair.

  Everything had been the same—yet given what had happened between then and now, how could that be?

  Mentally shaking his head, he got to his feet and righted his clothes.

  Then he headed for the door, dousing the candles as he went. The front hall was in darkness. He opened the front door, set the latch to lock behind him, and stepped out into the balmy night.

  Walking home through the darkness helped clear his head.

  By the time he reached his front door, he’d clarified at least two points.

  While he didn’t understand what had happened, he intended to find out.

  And although he’d intended the price for his services to be nothing more than, at the most, a fleeting liaison, he’d changed his mind.

  Now, he wanted a great deal more.

  Chapter 4

  Exactly what he now wanted of Letitia Randall née Vaux was a point Christian hadn’t yet decided. The following morning, he put that matter—defining his prize—aside, and concentrated instead on winning it.

  He and Tristan met at the club. Over breakfast, they reviewed all they’d been able to glean over the past days concerning Justin Vaux.

  “He’s twenty-six—no longer a wet-behind-the-ears whelp.” Pushing his empty plate away, Tristan sat back. “From all I could gather, he’s viewed by his friends as a curiously sober sort. ‘A reliable man,’ to quote one.”

  “Aside from his temper, presumably,” Christian dryly replied.

  Tristan inclined his head. “Oddly, however, while everyone acknowledged it—his temper’s existence—it didn’t seem to feature in, to influence or color in any real way, their experience of him.”

  Christian snorted. “The Vaux are largely frauds.” When Tristan looked his query, he elaborated, “They do have tempers—histrionic and dramatic ones. Ones that rely on the tongue for expression.” He considered, then said, “One should perhaps remember that while the Vaux have never been warriors, they’ve always been valued by the most powerful in the land—for their tongues. They’ve been diplomats, envoys, all manner of messengers and ambassadors. Most of the males in the senior line have served in that capacity at one time or another.”

  “Not the sort of delicate missions normally entrusted to those who can’t control their tempers.”

  “Precisely. They can control themselves when they wish, at least to a manageable degree. However, the truth is they love—to the point of addiction—the drama and sheer energy they can let loose, and so if there is no pressure to rein their tempers in, they don’t. Won’t. Instead, they indulge themselves, to the general terror of all those around to hear.” His lips curved. “Mind you, I have it on excellent authority that the current generation are but a pale imitation of the ancestor who gained the family their nickname.”

  Tristan snorted. “Probably just as well, although that hasn’t in this case stopped the ton from attributing a murderous impulse to the infamous Vaux temper.” He met Christian’s eyes. “Which brings me to our next point. Quite aside from any temper-induced fury, nonwarrior that he is, could Justin Vaux have killed his brother-in-law, especially in such a brutal manner?”

  Christian held Tristan’s gaze for some moments before saying, “I can imagine him killing with a pistol—a single shot. Or with a sword thrust. What I find difficult to imagine is him committing the unnecessary violence. By all accounts there was very little left of Randall’s face.”

  Tristan grimaced.

  “And,” Christian went on, “while admittedly I haven’t met Justin since he was fourteen, even then he was a stickler in some respects, quite rigid in his adherence to our codes. Again, a Vaux trait. I can imagine him killing Randall—quickly and cleanly, even strangling him—but what I cannot imagine is him doing so and then fleeing. If Justin had killed Randall, brutally or not, he would have been the one to raise the alarm. Quite aside from it being unusual for a Vaux to decline to appear in a scene of high drama, they’re incredibly proud, something that goes bone-deep, alongside their stubbornness.”

  Tristan pressed his lips together, then stated, “Everything you’ve said—all we’ve found and all we feel—about Justin Vaux suggests, strongly, that he’s acting to protect someone.”

  Christian nodded. “I agree.”

  “So the question is: Who?” Tristan shifted. “Let me play devil’s advocate. Could Lady Letitia have killed Randall, and Justin then acted to protect her by deflecting attention to himself?”

  Christian had already considered it. “I can readily believe Justin acting in that way—it would fit his character as I know it to a T.” He met Tristan’s gaze. “But equally I know, absolutely, that Letitia did not kill Randall. While I admit she had, on the surface, a motive of sorts in opposing Randall’s plans for her sister, she could have—and would have—dealt with that easily enough by other means. In that disagreement, the power lay with her and she knew it. Beyond that, she has no motive. And beyond that again, I seriously doubt she has it in her to intentionally kill anyone, and if she’d unintentionally harmed Randall, lethally or otherwise, not being the sort to readily lose her wits, she would have summoned assistance immediately.”

  Tristan held his gaze steadily. “As devil’s advocate, I would have to point out that she might not have done the actual killing.”

  It took Christian a moment to realize what Tristan was implying.

  As understanding dawned, Tristan went on, “If, as it appears, the marriage had deteriorated, it’s not inconceivable that Letitia has a lover. Perhaps she schemed with her lover and he killed Randall. Or perhaps the lover acted on his own initiative and killed Randall without her knowledge. As for motive, who can tell what goes on between man and wife—what passions and jealousies might come into play?” Tristan broke off, then continued, “I was going to suggest that perhaps Randall’s death came about in self-defense, but that won’t wash given the injuries.”

  “Indeed.” Christian hesitated. “I don’t believe that Letitia has a lover, certainly not a recent one.” He didn’t want to believe that she might, even now, have a lover in the wings. He forced himself to evenly say, “But I can’t swear to it.” He straightened from his slouch. “I’ll make discreet inquiries.”

  They revisited the items on their investigative list. “So we have three fronts,” Christian summarized. “Justin Vaux—both his whereabouts and any hint of a motive, on neither of which we have any firm information. Secondly, we need to confirm if Letitia has a lover, and therefore some motive beyond what we know, and if said lover might be involved.”

  “And lastly,” Tristan said, “Randall himself. We need to know much more about him, especially if neither Justin Vaux nor his sister are the murderers.”

  Christian grimaced. “Indeed. Once we eliminate them…at present the field is empty.”

  “Which is going to make it doubly hard to argue the Vaux’s combined innocence.”

  Christian nodded and stood. “I’ll look into Randall and his circumstances, and inquire about any lover Letitia may have. But first I’ve an appointment with Pringle—I asked him to take a look at Randall’s body.”

  “An excellent idea. Meanwhile I”—Tristan rose, too—“will scout through the clubs for
more pertinent information on Justin Vaux—whether anyone knows of any reason he might have headed to Dover, or if, as we suspect, he was merely blazing a trail for us to waste time following.”

  Christian met Pringle in an anteroom off the police morgue.

  While the dapper little surgeon washed his hands, he happily recited a list of Randall’s injuries. “Those to the face are the most severe, of course—extremely heavy blows with the poker. And yes, before you ask, it was Randall’s poker that was the sole weapon. No hint of any other blunt instrument coming into play.”

  Picking up a waiting towel, Pringle turned to look at Christian. “What was most interesting, however, was that he wasn’t killed by the blows to the face and the sides of his head.” Pringle grinned at Christian’s look of surprise. “Indeed. The gentleman was killed with one lucky blow to the back of his head.” Raising a hand, now clean, Pringle indicated the base of his skull.

  Christian frowned. “Why a ‘lucky’ blow?”

  “Because it was delivered with far less force than the blows to the face. In many men, it wouldn’t have killed them. Randall had a thin skull, as it happened, so it did for him. Regardless, the killing stroke—administered first—was weak and definitely struck from behind. All the rest—the blows to the face and sides of the head—came later.”

  Disappointment settled in Christian’s gut. “So in your opinion, a woman could have delivered the blow that killed Randall?”

  Unaware of the importance of the question—that the chance to eliminate a female as the murderer was what had prompted Christian to ask him to examine Randall, and then pull strings, using his rank to arrange it—Pringle grinned. “Indubitably. Any reasonably tall woman could have done it—I say tall so the angle of strike fits.”

  Letitia was definitely tall.

  Christian fell silent, digesting the news.

  But Pringle hadn’t finished. “What, however, in my humble opinion, a woman couldn’t have done was deliver the blows that came later.”

  Christian refixed his attention on the surgeon. “You’re sure?”

  Pringle pursed his lips, weighing the question, then nodded. “Perhaps a strong woman from the circus might have, but any normal woman simply would not have been able to impart such force, even with him laid out on his back and her standing over him. Whoever struck those after-death blows was a male—a grown man. I’d stake my reputation on it.”

  Christian inwardly grimaced at the scenario taking shape in his mind. “How long after death?”

  Again Pringle pursed his lips. This time he took longer before he answered. “My best estimate—and I stress it’s only an estimate, this is an inexact science after all—would be at least fifteen minutes after death. Possibly as many as thirty, but not much longer. The injuries caused by the heavy blows were bloody—there was definitely some blood, but in none of the injuries, nor in the relevant reports, can I find sufficient blood to suggest the man’s heart was still pumping. It wasn’t. He was already dead, and from what else I saw on the corpse, for at least a little time.”

  “So it looks like he was first struck down when he was facing…the desk?”

  Pringle considered, then nodded. “Again I’m going by the reports, but there wasn’t any indication he’d been moved other than being turned over, which of course he was. And yes, with the knowledge that he was first struck from behind, not from the front as was assumed, he was indeed facing the desk, not the hearth.”

  Randall had been facing away from the person who had shared a drink with him. The person who’d sat in the other armchair.

  Christian tucked the information away and refocused on Pringle. “Do you have any insight into why anyone would deliver those blows to the head and face of an already dead man?”

  Pringle nodded. “Indeed I do. A guess, of course, but I believe it bears examining.” Laying aside the towel, he reached for his coat. “Those later blows were extremely deliberate, struck with concerted, focused force. Any notion they were the product of some frenzied attack is purest fancy. No. Those blows were administered, I believe, to achieve precisely what had been achieved before you called me in. The police doctor didn’t look closely enough—he assumed that the blows to the face and sides of the head killed Randall, and that, as I said, would exclude any woman as a suspect.

  “I believe,” Pringle caught Christian’s eyes, “that the postmortem blows were administered with the sole objective of hiding—disguising, if you will—that a female could, in fact, have been the murderer.”

  Christian nodded; the scenario in his head had solidified.

  “Just as well you called me in when you did,” Pringle went on, shrugging into his coat. “If I hadn’t got here this morning, it would have been too late. They’re releasing the body to the undertakers as we speak—he’ll be buried this afternoon.”

  Christian already knew about the funeral; he nodded again. “Thank you.” He waited until Pringle settled his coat, then shook his hand and left him to make his report to the police.

  Christian paused on the steps outside the dismal gray building. The raucous sounds of the bustling city surrounded him but made little impact on his senses. His mind was focused on what he was increasingly sure had happened in South Audley Street four nights previously. Justin Vaux had administered those dreadful blows to his already dead brother-in-law’s face, and then fled, leaving a trail any child could follow, all to draw attention from, to protect, the person Justin believed had killed Randall.

  Letitia.

  Christian walked back to his house in Grosvenor Square, using the journey to turn Pringle’s findings and his deductions over in his mind; with every step, every minute thus spent, he only grew more convinced that his conclusion was correct. Justin had acted to protect Letitia.

  Why, as ever, was what he didn’t know.

  Regardless of Pringle’s assertion that a tallish woman could have killed Randall, Christian knew, with the same absolute, unshakable conviction he’d felt from the first, that Letitia hadn’t delivered that killing blow.

  Who had—for if his scenario was correct it couldn’t have been Justin—was the other major question he’d yet to address.

  Reaching the steps leading to his front door, he started up, then paused. An instant ticked by, then he turned and looked across the square at the house directly opposite.

  He considered the sight for a further minute before, straightening, squaring his shoulders, he went down the steps, crossed the street, and followed the path through the park filling the square, eventually reaching his senior paternal aunt’s door.

  He knocked, and was admitted—with some surprise—by her ladyship’s butler, Meadows, who informed him their ladyships—Lady Cordelia Foster, Countess of Canterbury, and her sister, Lady Ermina Fowler, Viscountess Fowler—had just sat down to luncheon in the smaller dining parlor.

  Girding his loins, he allowed Meadows to show him in.

  “Christian, dear boy!” Seated at the end of the smaller table—still long enough to seat twelve—Cordelia waved him to her. A still handsome woman now in her late fifties, she was surprisingly energetic and remained a force to be reckoned with among the ton—even with the improbably blond curls that framed her face.

  He obliged, crossing to her chair and placing a dutiful kiss on the cheek she offered, then circled her to perform the same greeting with the sweeter tempered Ermina, a milder version of Cordelia but no less observant.

  “Come and sit!” Cordelia waved imperiously to the chair on her left. Meadows was already setting a place there. “As you’re here and we’re lunching, you can lunch, too.”

  Although he hadn’t intended to, he was happy enough to fall in with her wishes; Cordelia’s chefs were invariably excellent, although they never lasted long.

  He sat, then eyed the dishes the footmen Meadows waved in placed before them. “You’re new chef is Austrian.”

  “Clever boy! Yes, indeed, Frederick is my new find. Quite a novel craze, Austrian dishes. They
say Wellington and the others brought back the taste after the Congress of Vienna. The congress was a complete failure, of course, but the food, apparently, was excellent.” Cordelia glanced at Meadows as the last dish was set in place. “Leave us, please, Meadows. I’ll ring if we need you.”

  “Very good, ma’am.” Meadows bowed low. “My lord.” With a second deferential bow to Christian, Meadows retreated.

  The instant the door closed behind him, Cordelia fixed Christian with an interrogative eye, the same gray hue as his own. “Well, my boy—what do you need to know?”

  The direct attack had him blinking.

  Ermina smiled gently—and closed in for the kill. “Well, dear, you never do appear without a summons, not unless you need something from us, which is usually information.”

  Her earnest soft gray gaze was quite enough to make him inwardly squirm.

  Ermina’s smile deepened as she shook out her napkin. “I daresay it’s about Letitia and this dreadful business of Randall’s murder.”

  Christian glanced from her to Cordelia. From the eager gleam in Cordelia’s eye, she was only too ready to answer whatever questions he had; clearly, delicacy and tact would be wasted. “Indeed.” Delicacy and tact aside, he wanted to reveal as little as possible; his aunts rated among the most well-connected gossips in the ton. “As you say, Randall has been murdered, and so the question of whether Letitia has a lover, and whether together or separately, for the obvious reason, they killed him, naturally arises.”

  Both his aunts stared at him. Their expressions initially suggested shocked surprise; that was quickly replaced by censure.

  Cordelia snorted. “For men the question might ‘naturally arise,’ but I assure you no such nonsensical thought has surfaced in any female brain within the ton.” With that statement, uttered in a tone even he would think carefully about questioning, Cordelia returned her attention to her plate.

  From across the table, Ermina shook her head at him. “No, dear—you’re quite wrong in even suggesting such a thing. Even putting such an outrageous suggestion into words.”