Ready Set Rogue

by Manda Collins

  “Yes, that,” Ivy agreed with an apologetic smile to Sophia and Gemma. “Lord Kerr and I were only found kissing at the Northman’s house and we are now betrothed because of it. If you wish to, ah, do that with the duke, then he would of course, need to marry you.”

  “First of all,” Daphne said patiently, “the duke and I would not engage in sexual congress anywhere where we might be seen by anyone. That would be quite odd.” Before Ivy could respond to that, she went on. “And secondly, why is it that men are allowed to do it without marrying their partners but ladies are required to? It is highly illogical that ladies cannot f—”

  Sophia placed a finger to Daphne’s lips to stop her words. “We understand, dear. It does seem wretchedly unfair that ladies are required to marry the men they do that with. But nevertheless, it is the way of our world. And as your mother has explained to you I feel sure, those who do it without benefit of marriage risk any number of problems. Bearing a child out of wedlock, for instance, or being ostracized from society. Poor Ivy will be the subject of a great deal of talk, I suspect, thanks to her interlude with Lord Kerr in the Northman hallway.”

  “In point of fact,” Daphne argued, “my mother died when I was only a small child, so I was left to learn about such things from books. There is a quite interesting pamphlet called Aristotle’s Masterpiece that contains all sorts of ridiculous notions—that a child conceived out of wedlock, for instance, will be born covered all over with hair. Truly ridiculous stuff—especially when one considers how many children of the aristocracy are born on the wrong side of the blanket. I believe that—”

  “Oh, I am sorry, Daphne,” Ivy said, latching onto the news about the other lady’s mother, hoping to divert her before one or all of them broke down in tears of exasperation. “It must have been quite difficult to lose your mother at such a young age.” It also went a long way, in Ivy’s opinion, toward explaining why Daphne was so ungoverned in her conversation.

  But much as she would like to discuss the matter more, it was the death of Lady Celeste that was foremost on her mind at the moment.

  “Perhaps we can continue this discussion later?” she asked hopefully. “After we’ve gone to find Lady Celeste’s journals? For I truly fear that if we do not find out who killed her, someone else will die very soon.”

  She’d known her interruption would perhaps upset Daphne, at the very least, but all three of the other ladies gasped. And Ivy realized what she’d just done. In her effort to soothe Daphne she’d let the truth slip out.

  “Lady Celeste was murdered?” Sophia demanded, her eyes pinning Ivy to where she stood.

  “How long have you known?” Gemma asked with a stricken expression.

  “So that’s why you were shot,” Daphne said as if something had finally clicked into place.

  Ivy’s mind raced, searching for some way of explaining things that wouldn’t make them more annoyed than they already were.

  But she was saved from reply by Quill, followed by Maitland, striding into the room.

  “Elsie is dead,” Quill said without preamble. “Poisoned, and likely by the same thing that killed Celeste.”

  * * *

  When Quill arrived back at Beauchamp House, he was displeased to find that instead of keeping by Ivy’s side in the library as per his request, Maitland was instead seated in a chair outside the door of that room.

  “Why the devil aren’t you watching over Ivy as I requested?” he demanded of his cousin, who stood as soon as he saw Quill approach.

  Northman had listened with mounting frustration as Quill told him about the letter from Lady Celeste that had prompted his and Ivy’s investigation into her murder, their suspicion that the medicinal tisanes had been the means by which the poison was administered, and their visit to the gypsy woman the day before. When he got to the point at which Ivy was shot at, the magistrate had cursed.

  “I hope you’re happy now, Lord Kerr,” Northman had spat out. “Not only should you have reported this business about your aunt as soon as the letter surfaced, but you’ve very nearly got your lady killed because of your damned aristocratic notion that you can handle all of this on your own.”

  Quill had forborne from pointing out to Northman that while he was a magistrate, it wasn’t as if he had a stable of men at the ready to seek out criminals as was the case with Bow Street. This was a relatively rural locale and as such had been run by the landowners and aristocrats who lived there for centuries. And he was quite able to take care of himself and those whom he cared about. Ivy included. Instead, he had accepted the admonishment without replying and took his leave. Promising without really meaning it, that he would let the other man know of any further developments.

  He had felt the need to report Ivy’s shooting, of course, because it was the right thing to do. But now that another life had been taken, Quill knew that there was no time to wait for the wheels of local justice to find the killer. He would simply have to do that himself. And if Northman disliked it, he’d simply have to live with his anger.

  Now, however he was back at Beauchamp House facing Maitland, who contrary to Quill’s request had seen fit to sit outside the library rather than at Ivy’s side. “Well? Why aren’t you bloody well in there?”

  Maitland’s jaw clenched and his cheekbones reddened. “The other ladies are in the library with Miss Wareham. And if there were anything untoward happening I would have heard them cry out.”

  That his cousin would not meet his eye made Quill’s brow furrow with suspicion. “What aren’t you telling me?” he demanded. “Are you hiding out here?”

  When Maitland’s face only turned redder, Quill knew he had his answer. Diverted momentarily from the murders, he tilted his head. “What happened? I thought you were smitten with Lady Daphne?” It wasn’t like his cousin to leave off pursuing a woman so soon after catching her scent. “Has she given you the heave-ho already?” It was rare that the duke, with his golden good looks and sunny personality, was rebuffed, but it did happen on occasion. And Quill knew that when it did, Maitland wasn’t happy about it.

  “If you must know,” the duke said with a dignified sniff, “it is I who have chosen to back away from Lady Daphne. For the time being at any rate.”

  This was novel. “I know she can be outspoken, but surely that’s nothing you can’t handle. After all, it’s not as if you don’t put your own foot in your mouth from time to time.”

  Maitland glanced to either side, as if ensuring that they would not be overheard, then in a low voice hissed, “She wants me to sleep with her, Quill!”

  In spite of his cousin’s very serious distress, Quill couldn’t help himself. He laughed.

  “It’s not funny,” the duke said, reaching up to grip his blond locks in frustration. “I am not in the business of debauching innocents. I am a gentleman. If she were a widow, or a bored wife, perhaps, but I won’t touch an unmarried lady without some kind of understanding between us and you damned well know it. Not only is it beyond the pale, it goes against my code as a gentleman.”

  “And what was her response to this?” Quill asked, his interest piqued by this unusual turn of events. He’d known Lady Daphne marched to her own drum, but this was a surprise even for her.

  “When I said that she’d have to marry me first, she told me I was being foolish,” Maitland said, his eyes wide with outrage. “I’m a duke of the realm, by god, and she behaved as if a proposal from me was utterly unnecessary!”

  That his cousin had, in fact, asked the chit to marry him told Quill just how far gone he was over her. To his knowledge, Maitland had never before asked a lady to marry him. And since he knew well enough how sharp the pain of rejection could be, he bit back his amusement and clapped the other man on the shoulder. “Perhaps she’ll come around,” he said, despite the fact that he suspected Lady Daphne could be quite as stubborn as Maitland when she felt like it.

  “Well, she’ll have to if she wants me to give her the benefit of my legendary lovemaking skills,�
�� Maitland said, in a not-altogether-joking mode. He’d always been a bit full of himself when it came to that, Quill thought with a roll of his eyes. “I won’t settle for anything less than marriage, and she’ll simply have to capitulate or miss out.”

  It would have been quite satisfying for Quill to point out to his cousin, who had only recently been taunting him over his own fall into the parson’s mousetrap, that he himself was about to dive in headfirst. However, there were other more pressing matters to attend to.

  “Much as I would love to continue this discussion of your ‘legendary lovemaking skills,’” Quill said dryly, “there is the matter of a murderer on the loose that needs my attention right now. And if you are too frightened to go into the library with me to discuss the goings-on at the Northman house with Ivy and the other ladies, then I suggest you make yourself scarce.”

  But despite his earlier refusal to enter the library, the duke had never been one to back down from a challenge from his cousin, so he indicated to Quill that he should proceed. Opening the door, the marquess stepped inside to find the four ladies clustered together behind Aunt Celeste’s enormous desk.

  “Elsie is dead,” he said knowing that the other three ladies were not even aware that Celeste had been murdered but deciding it was high time they all spoke openly about the entire matter. “Poisoned, and likely by the same thing that killed Celeste.”

  To his surprise, however, neither the Hastings sisters nor Lady Daphne seemed particularly shocked by the news that their benefactress had been murdered.

  “I told them about Lady Celeste,” Ivy said in response to his questioning look. “I thought it was time to enlist the aid of three of the most intelligent ladies of my acquaintance in our search. Besides, who is to say that this person will not make an attempt on their lives next.”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” Maitland said hotly as he shut the library door behind him. “It’s time we put this monster out of commission once and for all.”

  “I agree, cousin,” said Quill with equal ferocity. “And since all the ladies are now aware of the situation, perhaps we should discuss our next move in this deadly game.”

  “First tell us about Elsie,” Ivy said moving to take a seat at one of the large library tables, and waiting for the others to follow suit.

  Once he had taken a chair beside her, Quill explained what had happened to Elsie, including the details of the poisoned confectionary and his discussion with Northman. “Though I know the magistrate would like us to sit back and let the authorities find out who is doing this,” he said in conclusion, “the fact that he is brazen enough to kill beneath Northman’s own roof, in addition to the fact that he took a shot at you, Ivy, while we were all there to see it, tells me that the killer is desperate now. And I, for one, am not willing to just sit by and let him try to kill you again.”

  Ivy gave a shiver and, not caring about the impropriety of the gesture, he covered her free hand with his own.

  “Something occurred to me while you were gone this morning,” Ivy said into the silence that followed. Quickly she outlined how she’d come to think about the possibility that Celeste kept a journal. “And since Daphne recalled seeing some journals in Lady Celeste’s bedchamber last night, we were about to make our way up there.”

  Feeling like a fool, Quill shook his head. “Of course, she kept journals. Don’t you remember that she was always scribbling away in them when we were children, Maitland?”

  “Yes,” his cousin said, his voice rising with excitement. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of them either. I suppose that after a certain time she never let us see her with them, and I simply forgot altogether.”

  “Then let’s go upstairs and get them,” Ivy said in a firm voice. “Because Lady Celeste deserves to have justice.”

  Chapter 28

  Though it felt a bit ridiculous for them all to go upstairs to Lady Celeste’s bedchamber at once, that is what they did. Ivy and Quill led the way with the others following close behind. When they arrived in the darkened chamber, however, all eyes turned to Daphne, who said, “They were stacked on the little shelf behind the writing desk, there.”

  Sophia and Gemma went to open the curtains to let in the daylight, and Ivy took a moment to look around the room where Lady Celeste had lived for most of her adult life. It was decorated in the colors of the sea—light greens and blues with a burst of white here and there in the trimmings of the bedclothes and on the valances over the windows, which looked out, as it happened, on the sun-dappled waters of the channel. There was a hint of rosewater and lavender in the air, almost as if Celeste had only just walked through the room, leaving her scent behind.

  Crossing to the writing desk, where Quill had taken a seat and was scanning the low shelves that ran along the wall behind, Ivy picked up the lamp he’d just lit and held it so that he might see the rows of books better. “Here,” he said tersely. “There must be decades worth of diaries here. This may take longer than we’d hoped.” He began pulling out the volumes in stacks of three and piling them onto the surface of the desk.

  “There are six of us,” Ivy said with a practical air. “Perhaps we can each take a decade to look over.”

  “We should go back to the library where we can take notes,” Gemma said, grabbing a handful of volumes and not waiting to see if the others would follow.

  It was a good idea, so Ivy tried to gather up a few of the diaries into the crook of her good arm, but ended up dropping one.

  “I’ll carry yours,” Quill said, edging her out of the way as Sophia, Daphne, and Maitland picked up the rest of the books and filed out leaving Ivy and Quill alone.

  “I hope she knows we are trying,” Ivy said in the suddenly quiet room. “That we appreciate what she did for us and will try to avenge her.”

  Slipping an arm around her shoulders, Quill said against her hair, “I think if Celeste is watching us now at all, she’s having a very hearty laugh at how quickly her favorite nephews have succumbed to two of her chosen bluestockings.”

  At his words, Ivy looked up at him with wide eyes. “Did Maitland tell you about Daphne then?”

  “More like whined,” Quill said with a laugh. “I was not very sympathetic, I’m afraid. It is far too amusing to see the tables turned on him for a change.”

  “I must admit to feeling some sympathy for the poor man,” Ivy said with a shake of her head. “I think anyone would be flummoxed by such a direct request from a lady as beautiful as Daphne. We did try to explain to her that it’s not quite proper to tell a gentleman in those terms what she wants from him. Though I do see your point about the whole marriage bit. If it’s good for the goose, why wouldn’t it be good for the gander?”

  Well, it will be a while before Aunt Celeste sees any resolution on that front, I fear,” Ivy said wryly. Then turning serious, she added, “But I do hope we will succeed in finding her poisoner. I do dislike the idea of her spirit being restless because this thing is unresolved. I certainly know I will not be able to rest easy until he’s caught.”

  “Then I suppose we should join the others and see if we can find some clue in the journals,” Quill said, snuffing out the lamp, then gathering the remaining journals in his arms and following Ivy from the room.

  When they reached the library, they found that Serena had joined them and had taken a stack of journals to go through as well.

  “I believe you have the earliest years there,” Gemma said, looking up from where she’d opened the first of a stack of six books. “Just call out if you find something that might be useful.” She gestured to a slate and a bit of chalk. “I’ll make notations as we go. Even if you’re unsure, tell us. It will be better to have too much than too little information.”

  Resuming the chairs they’d vacated earlier, Ivy and Quill sat side by side and began to go through their diaries.

  The room was silent for a long while as everyone scanned the diaries.

  As they went through the journals, D
aphne, who had been reading the past ten years of entries, had mentioned when Lady Celeste began to search for the four ladies she would leave her estate to. Quill hadn’t considered that the decision to leave Beauchamp House to a quartet of women outside the family was anything but caprice. But the passages Daphne had shared revealed that, far from whimsy, Celeste’s decision had rested on a genuine wish to see that her collection was put in the hands of scholars—lady scholars like her—who would put it to best use.

  Only about a quarter hour had passed before Daphne issued a most un-Daphne-like noise.

  Frowning, Ivy looked up and saw that everyone else was also staring at the blonde, too, “What is it? Did you find something troubling?”

  When the mathematician looked up, Ivy was startled to see tears in her eyes. “My goodness,” she said, moving to sit beside her. She exchanged a wide-eyed look with Sophia who seemed just as puzzled as Ivy. “You must tell us, my dear. If it can help us find the killer, no matter how awful, we need to know it.”

  Accepting the handkerchief that Maitland had wordlessly handed her, Daphne blew her nose loudly and said, “It’s not so much a clue as it is just something that…” She seemed at a loss for words. “Well, I suppose it moved me. That’s all.”

  “Are you going to keep it to yourself then, dear?” Serena asked with a raised brow when Daphne didn’t elaborate.

  “What?” Daphne looked up as if she’d just noticed they were all there.

  She was behaving very oddly, Ivy thought, surveying her friend. Perhaps her interactions with the duke had set her off-balance. Interesting.

  “Oh.” Shaking herself a little, as if emerging from a trance, Daphne blinked. “It was just this passage in one of the later journals. From about three years ago, I think. She talks about her reasons for choosing us, and why she wished to ensure that female scholars benefitted from the collections she’d amassed over the years. It just struck me a little, I suppose. That she felt so strongly about it. That she chose you all. And me.”