by KJ Charles
“That’s not his most serious fault,” Victoria observed, her voice very nearly under control. “Why did you use my father’s kirpan, Jack? Was that directed at me?”
“I did not touch that knife. If someone wanted to cast guilt on you—I don’t know why they’d do that. It wasn’t me.”
“It’ll be easy enough to find out,” Bill said. “Scotland Yard has a Fingerprint Bureau now, did you know that? Remarkable business. Everyone’s fingerprint is different, you see, and we leave them on whatever we touch. They’ve just convicted a murderer that way in Argentina. All the police have to do is check the hilt of the knife and compare the fingerprints left there to all of ours, and they’ll have the answer, with no room for debate. Unless you used gloves, Jack?”
Jack’s expression suggested he had not used gloves. “You’re lying,” he managed. “This is nonsense. Anyone could have touched the hilt. I could have, when I saw him—in fact, I’m sure I did.”
“You did not. I found Haworth’s body,” Bill said. “I was in there continuously until I locked the room, and I have had the key on me since. I will swear on oath that not one single person touched the knife after the body was found. You didn’t go near him.”
“And what’s your word worth when you already lied for Jimmy?” Jack flashed.
“More than yours, old man. I work in Whitehall for a bureau that doesn’t recruit idly, and I’m here on business. If your fingerprints are on that knife, you’ll have some explaining to do. If they aren’t, needless to say, you’ll be fine. Will you be fine?”
Jack’s mouth worked. He didn’t reply, and the silence damned him.
“Oh God,” Lady Anna said, high and shrill. “You killed him. You killed him and you came to me— Oh Christ!”
“I suppose we can’t give him a thrashing before the police arrive,” Jimmy said through his teeth.
“You will not do a damn thing,” Jack said, and withdrew his hand from his pocket, flicking out the blade of the straight razor he held. Victoria cried out. Fen took a shuddering intake of breath.
“Put it down,” Bill said. “You’ll only make things worse for yourself.”
“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “Now, Jimmy will order the motor-car warmed up while Merton goes and fetches me that knife. Miss Carruth and I are going take a trip out together, and none of you will stand in my way.”
He lifted the razor as he spoke, letting the blade flash in the sunlight. Fen’s eyes widened. And Pat took her hand from the deep pocket of her plain, practical dress, and with it the pearl-handled Harrington top-break revolver she’d carried there.
“Oh, Pat,” Fen said. “You are wonderful.”
Jack gaped. Pat extended her arm, levelling the gun at him. “Step away from her. If you think I’ll hesitate about pulling the trigger, you’re wrong.”
“She could put a bullet through your eye at twenty times the distance,” Bill observed. “All-England Ladies’ Champion. I’d advise you to take her very seriously indeed.”
“Move,” Pat said with all the force at her disposal, and Jack let go of Fen’s shoulder and stepped back. “To the side.”
She meant to get him away so Fen could stand without blocking her sightline. That was all she was focused on: Fen, safe. She didn’t expect him to leap sideways, pushing Lady Anna in front of him, and disappear through the room’s side door.
“Damn it!” Jimmy took off after him at a run, Preston at his heels. Bill sprinted out through the door they’d entered by, presumably in case the man doubled back. Pat was glad to see London hadn’t entirely dulled his instincts.
She lowered her gun, exhaling. Fen rose, came over to her, waited like a sensible young lady for Pat to place the revolver on a table, and only then collapsed into her arms, her head against Pat’s bosom, gripping her waist with shaking hands.
“Fen,” Pat said. “Oh heavens, Fen. Are you all right?”
“Mph.” Fen took a moment of shaky breathing, then looked up with that determined tilt of the chin. “Yes, I am. He didn’t hurt me, not really, but it wasn’t at all enjoyable. Jimmy and I had realised it must have been him, and I think he must have heard us talking, because when Jimmy went to find Victoria he came down all smiling and told me to come for a chat, and then I saw he had the razor. He dragged me in here and more or less threw me on that chair and was very threatening—asking who had I been talking to, why I was asking questions and so on. He isn’t nearly as pleasant as he seemed.”
“No,” Pat said. “No, he isn’t, is he?”
Across the room Lady Anna was sobbing in Victoria’s arms. Pat cast her a questioning look and received a tip of the head that did for a shrug. They were family; Victoria could handle this. And the men could handle Jack, and she had Fen safe, and she had just held a murderer at gunpoint.
“Goodness,” she said. “Shall we order tea?”
THE POLICE ARRIVED two hours later, a sergeant and two wide-eyed constables, just as the sun came out.
Jimmy as family representative and Bill as intellectually competent adult took them off to explain the situation, which was, in effect, that they had a corpse upstairs and a murderer locked in the cellar. Lady Anna had been put to bed, white-faced and near-catatonic, where her mother sat with her; Preston and Victoria had disappeared once more. So Pat and Fen drank tea until they were awash and kicked their heels with varying degrees of ladylike restraint until the police departed with the battered-looking Jack, and Jimmy and Bill returned.
“In heaven’s name let’s go outside,” Pat said, not mincing words. “I want to hear what’s going on without ghosts looking over my shoulder.”
Jimmy led them all around a winding path to the summerhouse with the view, where Pat and Fen had sat what felt like years ago. The air was sparkling clean, the sun breaking through the remaining clouds and tinting the purple-greys a vivid pink. The roof had leaked so the seats were all wet and they had to stand, which was no hardship; Pat never wanted to sit down again.
“Well,” Bill said. “The main thing is, Jack’s been taken off.”
“Was he sticking to his line that we’d all made him the scapegoat?”
“That was jolly good, wasn’t it?” Bill said, with what sounded like professional respect. Pat made a mental note to ask a few more probing questions about what his job actually was. “Ingenious, and might well have worked under other circumstances. But the fingerprint business knocked the stuffing out of him, figuratively speaking, and then Jimmy did the same in a more literal way, and he spilled the beans when the sergeant picked him out of the cellar.”
“He confessed?”
“His line is now that he had to do it because Haworth had learned about his adultery with Lady Anna and was threatening to kill her and their son. Nobly protecting the woman he loves.”
“There will be the most dreadful scandal if he argues that in court,” Jimmy said. “Anna won’t be able to show her face in Society for years.”
“That might not be a bad thing, you know,” Fen said. “There are doctors who might be able to help her, rest cures and so on.”
“I know. Now the swine is dead, she might even agree to see one.”
“I don’t suppose he’s telling the truth?” Pat asked. “I’d feel dreadful if we were wrong about the gambling and he was acting on Lady Anna’s behalf.”
“You needn’t worry,” Bill said. “There was a letter in Haworth’s pocket, one he’d drafted for Jack to sign admitting he was a cheat. Evidently he hadn’t turned the screws that far when he was killed. If we’d searched the body, we’d have known who did it immediately.”
“Really?” Fen said. “How utterly exasperating.”
“That’ll teach us to do the right thing,” Pat said. “Talking of knowing things immediately, Bill Merton, why on earth did you not say about the fingerprints before? There we were, fretting and puzzling and running around to find the killer—”
“Because I was talking rubbish,” Bill said. “The hilt is intricately wor
ked steel and you need a smooth surface to take a fingerprint. I was hoping Jack didn’t know that.”
“In that case, well played.”
“So what now?” Fen asked. “That is, of course Jack will stand trial, but will the rest of us have to answer questions?”
“Probably, but they won’t be difficult ones. They have a murderer and a confession. Where anybody else was or what we were doing is neither here nor there.”
Fen beamed. “That’s a relief. And what about your father, Jimmy? The Threppel and Swing business?”
“The Earl has agreed to cooperate fully with me,” Bill said. “Now he’s not obliged to protect Haworth, and considering the scandal couldn’t really be any worse, the whole thing should become a great deal easier to unpick. I’m going to stick around a while longer and get things sorted out.”
“I’m blasted grateful,” Jimmy said. “For that, and to all of you. Fen, you’ve been a brick about everything, and I’m awfully sorry to have played the fool. Pat, you really are the best pal a chap could have. If you hadn’t dug into this business instead of waiting for the police, Jack might have got away with it.”
“For pity’s sake, Jimmy, it was Fen’s idea! Not mine. She came up with the idea and led it, and did every bit as much as me.” Pat realised she’d raised her voice, and modulated it slightly. “Do stop underestimating her, for goodness’ sake. You’ve done quite enough of that.”
“It’s really all right,” Fen assured her, although her cheeks were pink with pleasure. “Anyway we shouldn’t have got anywhere without you being so frightfully clever about noticing the cards, not to mention holding Jack up like a bank robber. It was marvellous.”
“Yes, it was,” Jimmy said. “Aged me about ten years. Very well: you’re both wonderful and I don’t deserve either of you, let alone Bill.”
“Never mind, old man.” Bill was looking out across the vista of the rain-cleansed moors, yellow and green and gently steaming, but Pat could see the smile twitching at his lips. “That’s all right.”
“I hope it is,” Pat said, which was as close as she could reasonably come to You had better love my brother and cherish him, James Yoxall, or the next person I hold at gunpoint will be you. “What about that poor boy, your nephew?”
“Well, Maurice is dead, so things are already looking up, and Ma has sent for him. We’ll have to see what Anna wants to do, of course, but Ma and Pa would love to have the little chap make his home here. He ought to get to know his people, and it’s a good place for a boy to grow up.”
“It is,” Bill agreed. “Now the worm’s been got out of the apple, or the snake out of Eden, or whatever it is. Not that one should feel glad about a murder.”
“Perhaps not, but there’s no point being sentimental.” Pat gave him a nod.
“Oh, I don’t know, old thing. I think a spot of sentiment has its place, now and again. Do I understand you two are off to Miss Carruth’s house?”
“As soon as we’re allowed to leave, yes. The Sergeant asked us to stay tomorrow in case the Detective Inspector they’ve called in has any questions. The day after, perhaps.”
“That’s all right,” Bill said. “I don’t suppose we can take guns out tomorrow, as a matter of respect, but we can certainly go for a decent walk. I’d like a chance to get better acquainted with Miss Carruth in less dramatic conditions.”
“Fen, please,” said that young lady, dimpling. “That would be lovely.”
“And I’m Bill. Excellent. All right, Jim, shall we leave the ladies to their fresh air?”
The two strolled off together. Pat thought she could detect a looseness to Jimmy’s shoulders that hadn’t been there in the early part of their visit. “It is a jolly good thing,” she said aloud.
“Being rid of Haworth?” Fen asked. “Yes, it is. I’m sorry to say it, but he can’t complain if people don’t miss him. Well, obviously he can’t in the circumstances, but you know what I mean. It’s all rather lowering from a human nature point of view, isn’t it? Haworth himself, of course, but also Jack trying to blame Victoria and incriminate Jimmy and involve Lady Anna. The Earl and Jimmy getting into worse and worse tangles instead of facing up to things. Lady Anna, because really.”
“Preston and Victoria are a very nice pair.”
“Yes, they are,” Fen said. “And they were right to step away as much as possible from all the unpleasantness, because it was not in their power to mend it. And then there was you, Pat Merton, teaching a silly, unhappy girl how to shoot and standing up for me in the face of that vile man, and setting out to solve a murder because you were worried about your brother—”
“It was your idea.”
“Yes, and you made sure to tell Jimmy so,” Fen said. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that. And as for bringing a gun, like Annie Oakley coming to my rescue—goodness. Would you have shot him?”
“Of course. I shouldn’t have killed him unless it had been necessary, but I’d have happily shot him.”
Fen wriggled. “You have no idea how extraordinary that is. Not that I want you to shoot anybody for me, but it’s something to know you would. I shall definitely learn to use a gun. For all we know, I might have to return the favour one day.”
“How many country-house murders do you think we’re likely to encounter?”
“It’s as well to be prepared,” Fen said. “When is your birthday?”
“October. Why?”
“Because I’m going to buy you earrings. If you’re going to take me seriously, the least I can do is treat you fluffily in return. You deserve a bit of fluffiness.”
“You are an entire armful of fluffiness,” Pat said, placing her own arms as demonstration. “And I don’t know about deserving you but I’d certainly like a chance to try. I didn’t ever imagine I’d meet anybody special; I didn’t think I was the kind of person who had that kind of thing. Maybe you’re special enough for two.”
“You know my views on this,” Fen said. “We’ll go to King’s Norton.” She rested her head lightly on Pat’s shoulder, hair and breath sending a light tickle of pleasure over her chest. “We both need to relax, after all this. You can give some thought to what you want to do with your life, and I can think about what I want to do, and we can do all sorts of wonderful nothing together, and perhaps we might even come to some decisions eventually, between us. Mightn’t we, darling?”
Pat looked out over the view, the fresh new world opening up in front of her, as bright with promise and possibility and as bursting with life as the glorious woman in her arms. “Yes. I dare say we might.”
Acknowledgements
With huge thanks to Paul for gun-reading, and Alicia for putting up with it.
Deep gratitude to my invaluable early readers Moog Florin, May Peterson, and Talia Hibbert, without whom...
Thank you to Veronica Vega for editing, and Lennan Adams at Lexiconic Design for the glorious cover, as inspired by the Think of England cover by Erin Dameron-Hill.
A big shout out to the KJ Charles Chat group for their support, particularly to the tag team of Zee and Bren who came up with the title!
For more Edwardian country-house plottery, and to see how Pat and Fen got on...
Think of England
England, 1904. Two years ago, Captain Archie Curtis lost his friends, fingers, and future to a terrible military accident. Alone, purposeless and angry, Curtis is determined to discover if he and his comrades were the victims of fate, or of sabotage.
Curtis’s search takes him to an isolated, ultra-modern country house, where he meets and instantly clashes with fellow guest Daniel da Silva. Effete, decadent, foreign, and all-too-obviously queer, the sophisticated poet is everything the straightforward British officer fears and distrusts.
As events unfold, Curtis realizes that Daniel has his own secret intentions. And there’s something else they share—a mounting sexual tension that leaves Curtis reeling.
As the house party’s elegant facade cracks to reveal treachery, bl
ackmail and murder, Curtis finds himself needing clever, dark-eyed Daniel as he has never needed a man before...
“Downton Abbey meets M/M romance ~ an absolutely brilliant historical novel with industrial espionage, murder, blackmail and two unlikely heroes up against the odds. What more could I wish for?”—Sinfully Sexy Book Reviews
And some late Victorian shenanigans here...
Any Old Diamonds
Lord Alexander Pyne-ffoulkes is the younger son of the Duke of Ilvar, with a bitter grudge against his wealthy father. The Duke intends to give his Duchess a priceless diamond parure on their wedding anniversary—so Alec hires a pair of jewel thieves to steal it.
The Duke's remote castle is a difficult target, and Alec needs a way to get the thieves in. Soldier-turned-criminal Jerry Crozier has the answer: he'll pose as a Society gentleman and become Alec's new best friend.
But Jerry is a dangerous man: controlling, remote, and devastating. He effortlessly teases out the lonely young nobleman’s most secret desires, and soon he’s got Alec in his bed—and the palm of his hand.
Or maybe not. Because as the plot thickens, betrayals, secrets, new loves, and old evils come to light. Now the jewel thief and the aristocrat must keep up the pretence, find their way through a maze of privilege and deceit, and confront the truth of what's between them...all without getting caught.
“The sparkly heist qualities of this book hide some sharp, painful edges, and Charles’ brutally gorgeous prose offers up gem after gem after gem to make the reader laugh and gasp and weep and swoon.”—Seattle Review of Books
“Super fun, yummy romance, twisty plot, more-ish characters, excellent revenge, lots of banging. Get it now for all of your comfort read needs.”—Malka Older
