All About Love

by Stephanie Laurens

  A minute later, Lucifer murmured, “Was this volume of Aesop’s Fables the reason you killed Corporal Sherring?”

  Despite the fact that he’d murmured, his voice carried through the room. He turned to glance at Appleby; Phyllida did the same.

  Appleby’s face was a mask of blank astonishment. His mouth opened, then shut, then opened again. “How did—“ He broke off. “It hardly matters now.” He paused, but couldn’t stop himself. “How did you learn of it?”

  “Hastings saw you do it.” Demon glanced around, then looked back at the shelves.

  “He never said anything.”

  “Hastings is a decent man.” Again Demon glanced at Appleby. “He couldn’t conceive of the sort of man who would kill his closest friend.”

  Appleby stiffened. “Sherring was a fool. A provincial nobody with a father rich from trade. They’d bought their way into a title and an estate—and all the luxuries that went with it. I was born better than him, but I would never have had half of what would have been his.”

  “So you arranged to even the score?” Like Demon, Lucifer continued to methodically search. The others glanced at them and followed suit.

  Having everyone so steadily occupied calmed Appleby. “Yes, in a way. But they showed me how—he and his father. The night before the last battle, letters were brought around. I never had any, of course, so, thinking to be kind, Jerry Sherring read his aloud. His father had filled his library with expensive books and his gallery with valuable paintings.

  “His heir, Jerry’s older brother, cared not a fig for anything but hard coin. The old man was in failing health, but, almost on his deathbed, he’d made a fantastic discovery. He’d stumbled on a miniature by an old master. He was sure it was genuine, but wasn’t strong enough to follow it up. He didn’t want his heir to know of it and sell it off cheaply, so he hid it until Jerry, who felt as he did, could return from the war and help him.”

  “So he hid the painting in the book?” Lucifer glanced around briefly.

  “Yes.” Appleby stood directly behind Sweetie. Although clearly swept back into the past, he was too close to the chair for Lucifer to attempt to overpower him. “It was all there in the letter. The old man even warned Jerry to tell no one of it. Jerry didn’t consider that he’d read the letter to me.”

  “He trusted you.”

  “He was a fool—he trusted everyone.”

  “So he died.”

  “On the battlefield. He would most likely have died there anyway. I just made sure of it.”

  “And then you accompanied his body back to his family, playing the grieving friend.” Lucifer glanced along the shelves. The others remained facing the books, but their searching had slowed; all were following the tale. “So what went wrong?”

  “Everything—everything that could.” Appleby’s tone turned bitter. “It took two weeks to get free of the army and across the Channel, then all the way up to Scunthorpe. The Sherrings lived beyond that. I arrived to discover the father dead and the brother already in possession.”

  “I’m surprised that was a problem.”

  “It wasn’t in itself, but the brother’s wife was an unexpected complication.”

  “Women often are.”

  “Not in that way.” Appleby’s tone was contemptuous. “The damned female was a tightfist, just like the brother. They’d known Jerry would kick up a fuss over selling the father’s collections, so they’d had the dealers around before the old man was cold in his grave. They’d sold the Aesop’s Fables.”

  Lucifer looked at Appleby. “You’re not going to tell me you’ve been searching through all the collections in England?”

  Appleby laughed, but the sound wasn’t humorous. “If necessary, I might even have done that. Nevertheless, as has happened repeatedly in my search for this treasure, hope gleamed in the darkest hour. The brother’s wife had a list of those she’d invited to the sale of the library. Fifteen collectors and dealers. I spun her a tale of wanting to buy some book of Jerry’s as a memento and she gave me the list.” He laughed again, bitterly. “Like everything in my life, that list was a boon and a burden rolled into one.”

  Lucifer turned back to the shelves. “The list was alphabetical?”

  “Yes!” Appleby’s temper exploded in a threatening hiss. “If I’d started working on it in reverse, I would be a hugely wealthy man today. Instead, I followed the list.”

  “That, I assume, accounts for the unexpected demise of Mr. Shelby of Swanscote, near Huddersfield.”

  Silence held sway for a long moment, then Appleby said, “You have been busy.” Lucifer said nothing, nor did he turn around. Eventually Appleby continued. “Shelby would have lived if he hadn’t been such a suspicious old coot. He caught me in his library one night. If he’d simply walked in, I’d have been able to slide away—I had an excuse ready. But he stood there and watched me search for some time. After that, I had to kill him.

  “I could never let any of them suspect I was searching for anything—that’s why it’s taken me five long years to reach Welham’s library. In every one of the fourteen other cases, I had to find a job, sometimes with the collector, which made life easier, but often in the neighborhood, then learn enough about the collector’s household to know when I could search. I’ve become an expert on reading dealers’ disposal ledgers. That was always the first thing I checked. But none of them has sold that book and the painting hidden in it has never surfaced—you may be sure I kept my ear to the ground over that. I know the book’s here, and the painting’s still inside. You’re going to find it for me—I’m going to have it in my hands tonight.”

  There was a feverish intensity in Appleby’s last words that had everyone exchanging glances. With a sigh, Lucifer turned. “If that’s the way it is, then . . . we’ve already finished cataloguing this room. And the library. There’s no copy of Aesop’s Fables in either room. False covers, yes, but not the book.”

  Appleby considered him through narrowed eyes.

  Lucifer waved toward the library. “If you’d like to look at the inventory . . .”

  “No, that won’t be necessary, will it?” Appleby’s eyes were slits, but his tone was more confident. “You just want me out of here, don’t you? You’re so damned rich you don’t give a damn about any painting, old master or not.”

  “I wouldn’t go quite that far, but the painting certainly doesn’t rate against Miss Sweet’s life, which brings us to much the same point.”

  Appleby studied Lucifer’s face, then nodded. “Very well. Which room do you suggest we search next?”

  “I’d take the dining room next. The back parlor seems to run more to garden, household, and recipe books.”

  They’d all stopped searching and turned; Appleby ran his eye along the line. He drew a tight breath. “We’ll move in reverse. I’m going to back out of the door, then I’ll wait in the front hall. I want you to file out, single file still, cross the hall, and go into the dining room.”

  Pulling Miss Sweet to her feet, he held her to him and backed out of the door. Everyone followed, trooping silently along. Toward the rear of the line, Phyllida stared at the door, then glanced at the shadowy space behind it and the huge halberd standing there.

  “No,” Lucifer whispered. “We don’t need it—all we need to get Sweetie free is that volume of Aesop’s Fables.”

  Phyllida frowned, but shuffled past the halberd and out of the room.

  As they filed into the dining room with the big table in the center and bookcases all around, Appleby waved the ladies to one side and the men to the other. Phyllida hesitated; Lucifer squeezed her fingers, then let her go. His last words ringing in her mind, she made for the bookcase by the corner window. Ironic that in this house of bookcases, the one that housed the vital volume was the one Appleby had passed most often, the one by the window with the faulty latch. Phyllida started searching along the shelves; Flick searched the bookcase beside her.

  Appleby retreated to a corner of the room, pul
ling a chair from the table and pushing Sweetie onto it. He had a wall of bookcases at his back, the door at some distance, and Mrs. Hemmings was the closest person—no threat.

  Once they were all settled, Lucifer asked, in a mildly conversational tone, “How did Horatio die?”

  “It was an accident. I never meant to kill him. I didn’t even know he was in the house. I didn’t hear him come downstairs and along the hall—his feet were bare, so there was no sound. He was suddenly there, in the doorway, asking what the devil I was doing. He’d seen me searching. I rose and walked toward him. He was a fair size and in reasonable health—I didn’t think I could strangle him. He stood there and watched me come. Then I saw the letter knife on the table.” He paused, then said, “It’s surprisingly easy if you know how.”

  “Why did you try to kill Phyllida?” Sir Jasper turned, frowning, then forced himself to continue searching.

  “Miss Tallent?” There was laughter in Appleby’s voice. “That was such a farce, with her stumbling on the body and then Cynster coming in and the halberd falling. I was so strung up I nearly laughed aloud. I saw her notice the hat, but then she bolted. When I left the house, hat and identity still concealed, I knew that no matter what happened, no matter what hurdles appeared, I was meant, in the end, to have that painting. I’d be able to live like I was meant to live—in reasonable comfort, like a gentleman.”

  “So why go after Phyllida?” Jonas asked.

  “She came back for the hat.”

  Phyllida turned to stare at Appleby. He smiled, tightly. “I was in the hall when you asked Bristleford about the hat. You hadn’t forgotten it—you weren’t going to forget it.”

  “But I didn’t know whose it was.”

  “I could hardly rely on your faulty memory continuing faulty. You’d seen me often enough wearing the wretched thing—it was the only hat I had. Of course, with Cynster here to fill your eyes and your mind, you were distracted enough not to remember, but you might have at any time.”

  Lucifer caught Phyllida’s eye and frowned—she shut her lips on the information that she’d never noticed Appleby enough to remember his hat. She turned back to the bookshelves.

  “I’d got rid of the hat immediately, of course. I stuffed it in a hedge at the back of Ballyclose. Later, I got to thinking, so I went back to find it and burn it, but it was gone. I assumed some tramp had taken it. I thought I was safe, or would be once I ensured Miss Tallent didn’t remember whose hat it was.”

  “So you tried to shoot her.”

  “Yes.” Appleby’s voice tensed. “Then I tried to strangle her. All that did was make Cynster keep a closer watch on her, but I hoped it was also frightening her enough to keep her from remembering me. I tried to get at her again during the Ballyclose ball—I suspected she might search Cedric’s hats. My plan didn’t work, but then . . . she got me to walk out onto the terrace and around the corner with her, asking after Cedric . . . I could hardly believe my luck. I almost strangled her and hid the body in the bushes, but people might have seen us leave the ballroom together. Then Cynster arrived. I had to watch her walk away again.”

  Phyllida glanced, briefly, at Lucifer.

  “Then she found the hat. Worse, she took it to Cedric. If I didn’t act immediately, I’d be found out. So I wrote the note from Molly, knocked Phyllida out, and set the fire.

  “The hat burned, Phyllida didn’t.” Appleby’s tone was terse. “I gave up trying to kill her. At least the hat was gone—she had no proof to connect me with anything. But you’d put locks on this house, and there was still the possibility that suspicion would turn my way. I obviously had to act boldly and decisively to bring my search to a rapid and successful conclusion. The fete gave me the perfect opportunity. So here we are.”

  After a moment, Lucifer said, “You meant to take a hostage.”

  “Of course. It was the only way to get the job done—too risky to search a shelf or two at a time. I want that volume of Aesop’s Fables in my hands before nightfall.”

  Phyllida’s tongue burned with the need to ask why. She glanced at Flick, and saw the identical thought in her eyes. They both drew breath, then turned their attention back to the shelves and continued pretending to search.

  Silence fell, broken only by the steady shuffle and thump as books were hauled out, then returned to their places. After some minutes, Phyllida glanced across the room. Lucifer caught her eye; he nodded.

  Phyllida moved across the bookcase as if starting on the next shelf, and slid out the brown, buckram-covered tome whose spine bore the title Aesop’s Fables in simple gold lettering. She weighed the book in her hand, then opened the cover—she could see where Lucifer had lifted a corner of the front cover paper. She pressed her fingers into the thick cover; there was a softness behind the paper. Lucifer had said he’d checked; she trusted he’d known what he’d been doing.

  Shutting the book, she marveled that such an innocent-looking thing could be responsible for three deaths. For depriving Lucius Appleby of his sanity. Certainly his humanity. It had nearly accounted for her, too.

  Straightening her shoulders, she lifted her head and looked across the room at Appleby. “I believe this”—she held out the book—“is the volume you seek.”

  Appleby nearly stepped forward, nearly stepped away from Sweetie, but at the last he pulled back. He couldn’t read the title. He stared at the book hungrily, then licked his lips. He flicked a glance at Lucifer and Demon. “Everyone stay still.” Appleby tugged Sweetie to her feet, then locked his arm about her shoulders as before, the knife in his right hand. He nodded at Phyllida. “Hand the book to Mrs. Hemmings, then retreat to where you are now. Everyone else, stay where you are.”

  Phyllida did as he asked. Mrs. Hemmings turned to Appleby. He beckoned her forward with the knife. “Give the book to Miss Sweet.”

  Mrs. Hemmings approached cautiously, then pressed the book into her old friend’s trembling hands. “There, now.”

  Mrs. Hemmings stepped back.

  “Good.” Appleby glanced briefly down at the book. He was shaking. “Open the front cover.”

  Sweetie fumbled but did so. His gaze on Lucifer, Demon, and the other men, Appleby grasped the cover, not looking but pressing his fingertips into the concealed pocket. A fleeting expression of unutterable relief, of flaring victory, traversed his face, then his expression blanked.

  He closed the book. “I want all of you to move to the end of the room, up against the bookcases.”

  Lucifer hesitated, then moved down the room. The others followed. All except Lady Huddlesford. She stood her ground.

  “Miss Sweet is nearly done in.” Lady Huddlesford lifted her chin; she had never looked so imperious. “If you want a hostage, take me.”

  Miss Sweet blinked. Trapped against Appleby like some poor, innocent bird, she peered at Lady Huddlesford and visibly rallied. “Why, thank you, Margaret. That’s a very kind offer, but . . .” Despite Appleby’s arm, Sweetie straightened her spine. “I believe I’ll manage. It’s quite all right, really.”

  Lady Huddlesford considered, then inclined her head. “If you’re sure, Amelia.” With that, she swung majestically around and joined the others.

  “If that’s settled”—Appleby’s voice sounded strained, wild excitement mingling with something closer to panic—“we’ll leave you. I’ll take Miss Sweet as far as the wood. I’ll hear any footsteps long before you reach us. If I do, things will not go well for Miss Sweet. However, if you remain precisely where you are until she returns to you, you have my word she will not be harmed.” He paused, his gaze flicking over Lucifer, Demon, Jonas, Sir Jasper—if he was searching for understanding, there was none to be had. “I never meant to kill anyone, not even Jerry. If there’d been some other way . . .” He blinked, then straightened. Pulling Sweetie with him, he shuffled sideways to the door. “I will kill anyone who gets in my way.”

  “We’ll wait here.” Lucifer kept his voice calm and steady, as he had throughout.

 
Appleby nodded. “In that case, I’ll bid you farewell.”

  Under his breath, Lucifer murmured, “Au revoir.”

  They waited. With a raised hand, Lucifer stopped anyone from moving. “He’s on the edge—we’re not going to give him any reason to panic.”

  Minutes crawled past. They heard the scrunch of gravel, the sound dying away as Appleby dragged Sweetie through the kitchen garden toward the wood. They exchanged glances but no words. They were all thinking of Sweetie.

  Then came a patter on the gravel, drawing closer to the house. It was so light a sound, they were too afraid to imagine it was footsteps. Then the baize door at the back of the hall banged the wall; in a rush of pitter-patter steps, Sweetie appeared in the dining room doorway.

  “He’s gone!” She fluttered her hands furiously. “Away through the woods he ran!” She flung out an arm in the general direction of the wood—then fainted.

  Lucifer caught her before she hit the floor. He carried her into the drawing room and laid her on the chaise.

  Later, when she recovered and told her story to the assembled ladies of the village, Miss Sweet was, for the first time in her life, the heroine of the hour.

  As afternoon edged into evening, Lucifer, Phyllida, Demon, and Flick, with Jonas, Sir Jasper, Mr. Filing, and Cedric, gathered in the library to make a new plan.

  “I’ve sent Dodswell to fetch Thompson and Oscar,” Lucifer told them.

  “Aha!” Demon said. “So that’s what you meant by ‘au revoir.’ ”

  Phyllida and Flick and everyone else looked their silent question; Lucifer explained. “Someone approached the Beer smuggling gang to arrange passage to France. It had to be tonight. The Beer gang told the man to meet with Oscar’s band, who would normally run a cargo tonight.”

  Jonas looked out the window. The wind had come up as the sun had gone down; the storm was moving steadily in. “No one will be running anything tonight.”

  “I know that, you know that, most of us know that. The question is, will Appleby know that?”