Fire at Midnight

by Olivia Drake

  “This is Ivy’s home, too. She has every right to display her tatting.” Uneasy with his praise, Norah minimized her compassion. “Why did you wish to see me?”

  “Because we have a few things to discuss alone.” He planted his palms on the table and lowered his voice to a velvet murmur. “First of which, Mrs. Rutherford, I want to know why you drew a picture of me.”

  Heat suffused her cheeks. “Pardon?”

  “I saw the likeness in your sketch pad, a flattering one, I might add. May I venture to guess you’ve been thinking of me?”

  She cast about for a retort to cover her confusion. “You interest me in the same sense as any creature, including our cat. If you’d snooped further, you’d have seen sketches of Marmalade, too.”

  “A pity. Your welfare has been uppermost in my mind.”

  His eyes glowed like midnight fire in his sinfully attractive face. Her breathlessness came back with a vengeance. “Oh?” she said. “If you’re so concerned, you might have attended the funeral.”

  He straightened. “Surely you know I couldn’t have.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one, I didn’t know you needed me.”

  “I don’t need you.”

  He lowered his eyes a moment, and she could almost swear her words had cut him deeply. “I also wanted to spare you the embarrassment. No one is supposed to know your husband died at my house. The gossips would have worn out their tongues wondering what respects the notorious Marquess of Blackthorne owed to Maurice Rutherford.”

  His logic and thoughtfulness took her aback. “I see your point,” she conceded. “I shouldn’t have leaped to the wrong conclusion. Please forgive me.”

  “Of course.” He touched a cluster of hothouse camellias left from a funereal tribute, the petals forlornly edged in brown. “I also wanted you to know that I haven’t been idle this past week.”

  “That concern never crossed my mind,” she lied.

  “I did my best to track down your husband’s mistress.”

  The starch left her legs. Norah wilted into a chair by the table. Why would he bother? “I thought ferreting into people’s private affairs was the task of the police.”

  “They lack my connections in society. The gentry will reveal their secrets to one of their own before they tell a commoner.”

  Half afraid to voice the questions clamoring in her mind, she nodded slowly. “Tell me what you found.”

  Kit Coleridge went to gaze out the window. “I scoured every club, questioned acquaintances and strangers alike, even bribed a few butlers and housemaids.”

  “And?”

  “And I couldn’t find even a trace of her.” He swung around. “Though many have heard the rumors, not a single person knows her identity.”

  Norah’s breath emerged in a painful whoosh. “Someone must know her! Perhaps Jerome. He and Maurice have been friends for years.” She started to rise. “Why didn’t I think to ask him?”

  “Don’t trouble yourself,” said Kit Coleridge. “I’ve already spoken to him.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes. I caught him as he returned home from Italy this morning, before he came to see you.”

  She sat in stunned silence. Jerome hadn’t breathed a word. Of course, he wouldn’t, she realized. He was too protective of her. “That’s why you seemed to know everyone in my family.”

  “Yes.” Lord Blackthorne knelt before Norah and gathered her hands in his. The shock of his familiarity, coupled with his unforeseen news, paralyzed her. “Mr. St. Claire knew nothing of a paramour, either,” he said gravely. “I’m beginning to wonder if your husband’s mistress even exists.”

  A slow pounding assailed her insides. “Don’t be absurd. A ghost didn’t thrust a hatpin into his heart.”

  “I know. But perhaps we all snatched at a false assumption.”

  “Then who was the woman dressed in scarlet? A thief who panicked?”

  “Perhaps. I suspect she was someone your husband knew, someone close to him.” Kit Coleridge bared his white teeth in a look both fierce and gentle. “Possibly even someone from this house–”

  All heat fled her body. Jerking her hands free, she sprang from the chair and pushed past him. “How dare you come in here and accuse my family.” Her voice vibrated with anger. “Ivy couldn’t have murdered her own brother—she was too devoted to him. And Winnifred might bluster, but she’s hardly a killer.”

  He leaped to his feet and towered over her like a dark archangel. “She said she wanted to marry Thaddeus Teodecki. Perhaps she had counted on a legacy in your husband’s will.”

  Norah swallowed the prickle of tears at the back of her throat. “Regardless, the police will prove it was someone else.”

  “They may indeed. God, I hope they do.” He pressed his hand to her shoulder in the soothing gesture of a friend. “Trust me, Norah. I would never willingly cause you pain—”

  “Madam?” Culpepper’s voice rang from the doorway. Contrary to his unflappable nature, he wrung his gloved hands. “Pardon me, but that policeman is back. I put him in the kitchen.”

  Norah gathered her scattered thoughts. “Inspector Wadding?”

  “Yes, madam. I asked him to return at a more convenient time, but he was most insistent on speaking to you and the other ladies.”

  “Please show him into the parlor, then.”

  “As you wish, madam.” The butler bowed and departed.

  “Let’s see what he wants,” the marquess murmured. “We can finish our talk later.”

  They reached the parlor at the same time as the inspector. Clad in worn tweeds, he gripped a tattered pad and the stub of a pencil, which he used to scratch his long ear. “Ahem—beg pardon for intruding, ma’am.”

  “It’s quite all right.” Norah had no patience for small talk. “Have you learned something?”

  “Not yet.” Wadding shifted his big feet. “Er, if it won’t be too distressing, I must show you some–”

  “You mean to say you haven’t caught the murderess yet?” demanded Winnifred, surging up from her chair. “It’s been a week already. How long will that hussy roam free? She’s a menace to decent folk–”

  “Please let the man speak,” Norah said. “Inspector, feel free to ask anything that will bring my husband’s killer to justice.”

  Wadding fumbled with pad and pencil, then groped in his pocket. “I’d like to see if any of you might know the owner of this. I’ve showed it to most everyone at the scene of the crime, but nobody knows who it belongs to.”

  The others gathered around as he unfolded a frayed bit of gray felt. In his palm, a large Siberian emerald glinted in a gold collet setting. From the gem stretched a thin, wickedly long shaft.

  “My gracious,” Ivy said, her hand on her faded cheek. “It’s so very pretty.”

  Wadding glanced grimly around the group. “It’s the hatpin that was stuck in Mr. Rutherford’s heart.”

  Winnifred gasped. Lord Blackthorne frowned. Jerome released a hissing breath as Ivy sagged against him.

  Dizziness swamped Norah. She swallowed hard against a rising nausea. It couldn’t be true; it was too horrid. The admission pushed past the dryness in her throat.

  “The hatpin is mine.”

  Chapter 4

  “I understand Mrs. Rutherford had dinner with both of you on New Year’s Eve,” Kit said.

  His voice echoed within the plastered walls of the refectory. Two long tables lined with benches comprised the sole furnishings. Beside him, he could see Norah’s lustrous hair and slim body, but he kept his gaze trained on the couple before him.

  The Reverend and Mrs. Sweeny made an unlikely couple, Kit thought. Elias was a taciturn man with sparse sandy whiskers and a consumptive cough. His high boiled collar propped up his bald head like an egg perched in an eggcup. In contrast, Verna Sweeny had an abundance of brown corkscrew curls, a pudding face with black currant eyes, and a smiling mouth. She cradled a sleeping baby in her pudgy arms.

  Mrs. S
weeny smiled at Norah. “Indeed we did have the poor darling to dinner. How dare the police try to accuse her of doing in her own husband! I told Inspector Wadding that Reverend Sweeny and I will vouch for her in any court of law. Isn’t that so, Reverend?”

  He coughed and nodded. “Yes, dearest.”

  “Thank you both,” Norah said. “I appreciate your kindness. She hesitated, then added, “May I hold the baby?”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Sweeny said. “John is the newest addition to our orphanage. A constable found the wee lad abandoned in an alley yesterday, howling for his dinner.”

  “In such cold weather.” Her brow furrowed, Norah gathered the slumbering infant close to her breast. Tenderness eased her lovely features and brought a wistful smile to her lips. She smoothed her hand over his tiny, blanket-swathed form, then caressed his downy hair and rosy cheeks. “Oh, isn’t he sweet? His mother must have been in dire straits to leave him.”

  Kit wished Norah would regard him so warmly. He wished she would look at him at all. In the few minutes since he’d met her here at the school, she had granted him only a perfunctory greeting.

  “John’ll have a safe place with us.” Taking the baby back, Verna Sweeny shivered, her doughy chin jiggling. “But I’m more concerned about you, Norah. To think Mr. Rutherford might be alive today if only he’d come along like you asked him.”

  Kit’s attention perked up. “He was invited here?”

  “’Course he was. But Norah said he had another engagement. I know he disapproved of our school, but it isn’t seemly for a husband and wife to go their separate ways on a holiday. Isn’t that so, Reverend?”

  Elias Sweeny coughed an assent. Kit wondered how the preacher managed to speak long enough to deliver a sermon. On the other hand, his congregation must cherish his brevity.

  “If you’ll excuse us, we must be getting to the children now,” Norah said, with a last lingering look at the infant. “Your lordship, I’ll show you to your classroom.”

  As he accompanied her to the door, Mrs. Sweeny called out after them, “We’re quite overwhelmed by your generosity, my lord. An angel surely must have sent you to relieve our burdens.”

  Kit stared at Norah. “An angel indeed.”

  “Amen!” the Reverend added, clasping a black-bound Bible to his sunken chest. In a rare burst of fervency, he added, “May God reward you in the afterlife!”

  Bother the afterlife, Kit thought, indulging in an irreverent study of Norah Rutherford’s slender back as she led him down a musty passage. Now, there was one reward he hoped to collect in the temporal world.

  A black snood imprisoned her curly red hair at the nape of her neck. A black lacy scarf draped her shoulders. The bustle on her black woolen gown swayed enticingly as she walked.

  Black, black, black.

  The dismal reminder of her grief daunted Kit. Only a degenerate like him would lust after a widow whose beloved husband was barely cold in the grave. She deserved at least a year or more to mourn. Even then, she might never want a rogue who had known more women than Lothario. Kit couldn’t blame her for thinking the worst of him. He himself had woven the soiled cloth of his reputation. He ought to turn around right now and walk out the door. Leaving her to her grief would be an act of courtesy, the act of a true gentleman.

  But he was a lovesick fool.

  Kit tried to fathom his powerful longing for a woman who clearly disliked him, a typical, priggish English lady who judged him by the color of his skin. A lady like Emma Woodfern.

  The old hurt clamored for release. He fought down the appalling sickness of rejection and concentrated on Norah Rutherford, marching along the passage like a crusader on her way to save the world.

  The image endeared her to him. Norah wasn’t a typical English lady, not by any stretch of the imagination. He thought about the tender emotions she kept hidden, the artistic talent that created jewelry of exquisite beauty, the generous nature that caused her to drape her house in lace and devote her mornings to teaching orphans. She adored children, judging by the way she had cuddled the abandoned infant. He envisioned her nursing his baby at her full breast, and imagined himself someday sharing with her the boisterous, loving family of his youth.

  Perhaps Norah Rutherford was the one woman who could put an end to his bachelorhood.

  Kit rallied his determination. He would prove himself a commendable man. She believed him incapable of change, so he must use this opportunity to establish his reformed nature.

  At the end of the passage, they reached a steep staircase. A bare window overlooked a deserted courtyard. The chanting of girlish voices floated from somewhere in the distance. Norah glanced over her shoulder at him. Morning sunshine gilded the freckles dusted on the dainty bridge of her nose.

  “The boys’ classroom is upstairs.” She clutched her skirt in preparation to ascending.

  “Wait.”

  She paused, one foot poised on the bottom step. Her heady scent of roses swirled around him. Her very nearness fired his loins even as her cool expression smote his heart. “What is it?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind already.”

  Her supercilious expectancy irked him. “No. But we never had the chance to finish our talk.”

  “You were there when I answered Inspector Wadding’s questions. I see no point in repeating my explanation about the hatpin.”

  Kit tried a different approach. “Where did your husband tell you he was going on the night he died?”

  Her clear green gaze skittered away. “He didn’t say.”

  “Didn’t he ask you to accompany him?”

  “No. Not that it’s any of your concern.”

  He could see only her profile, as pure and precious as one of her designs. Pride and pain etched her expression. He burned to know how she had fallen in love with a man twice her age, what they had in common besides a passion for jewelry. On a hunch, Kit said, “Did you and he often socialize apart?”

  Her back stiffened. She whirled on him, her fingers enmeshed in the folds of her skirt. “I don’t care for your prying. My private life is my own.”

  Her frosty tone hurt, yet he kept his expression meek. If it took a year, two years, even a lifetime, he would win her over with gentlemanly charm and shatter her negative image of him. “Kindly accept my apology, Mrs. Rutherford. I’m merely trying to get a picture of your late husband’s habits. In the interest of finding out who wished him dead.”

  She gazed at Kit as if weighing his sincerity. He remembered how good she had felt clasped in his arms. Despite the chill in the school, his insides felt like a furnace. From far away came a girl’s high voice lisping the alphabet: Q, R, Eth, T...

  Norah sighed, and the rigidity of her features eased. “Please excuse my discourteous manner, my lord. I realize you’re only trying to help.”

  The lavender shadows beneath her eyes indicated a sleepless night. He ached to hold her, not just as a lover, but as a friend. “Then tell me what happened when you asked your husband to dine with the Sweenys.”

  She clutched her shawl and turned toward the small courtyard outside. “They issued the invitation when I came to visit the children that morning. Maurice and I hadn’t made plans for the evening, so I’d hoped... Well, the Sweenys were so kind that I couldn’t bear to refuse them again.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes. They encouraged me to be honest with Maurice.” She bent her head and studied her clasped hands. Her hair glowed like fire against her alabaster skin. “You see, I hadn’t quite told him of my work here.”

  He took a step closer. “Why not?”

  “I was afraid he’d forbid me to associate with a lower class of people.”

  The haughty bastard. How could she have loved a man like him? Kit kept his expression neutral. “And did he forbid you?

  “Actually, no.” Forehead pleated, she had the hazy aspect of a person puzzling over the past. She absently turned the wide gold wedding band on her finger. “When Maurice came home tha
t afternoon, I conveyed the invitation. He was displeased, but distracted somehow.”

  “What did he do? Scold you?”

  “He...barely spoke to me. He only said something had come up, and he had to go out. He didn’t even try to stop me from accepting the Sweenys’ invitation myself.”

  The swine had left his loving wife and gone to meet the woman who murdered him. Damn, who was the red-caped female? “Where did he usually go when he went out in the evenings?”

  “To his club.” Norah bit her lip. “Or so he said.”

  Her tormented uncertainty made Kit long to touch her. Afraid she’d spurn him, he propped his hand against the wall. A flake of plaster drifted onto his coat sleeve. Absently brushing it off, he said, “You told Wadding that on Boxing Day, when you discovered the setting was loose, you gave the hatpin to Maurice.”

  “Yes. He took it into the shop for repair. He must have done so, because it was fixed.”

  “Did Mr. Teodecki mend it?”

  “Why, no.” Her auburn brows arched in surprise. “Thaddeus is a master craftsman. Simple repairs are done by an assistant.”

  “I see. So we don’t even know if it disappeared at the shop or when Maurice brought it back home.”

  She signed again. “No.”

  “But one fact is certain.” Kit hardened his jaw against an upsurge of rage and fear. “Whoever stole the hatpin wanted you to be accused of the murder.”

  She shook her head in vigorous denial. Feathery curls haloed her face. “I don’t believe that. The hatpin could have been in Maurice’s pocket. The murderess probably found it by chance.”

  Norah’s distress coiled deep inside Kit, so much that he couldn’t keep from touching her. Grasping her shoulders, he knew a keen awareness of both her softness and her strength. “But neither Ivy nor Winnifred could offer a solid alibi for their whereabouts that night.”

  She jerked back. “That doesn’t make one of them a murderess. There must be another explanation.”

  “We have to start somewhere,” he said, daunted by her vehemence yet determined to help her. “How about Winnifred? She’s a woman of forceful opinions. Did she and Maurice have a falling out?”