“Have I mentioned how lovely you look tonight?” His voice was velvet.
Mira shook her head.
His hand trailed down to brush her shoulder, following the broad, deep neckline of her gown. “You look like Aphrodite rising from the sea,” he said, quirking one eyebrow at his own whimsy, “all waves and fire and soft, creamy skin. Lovely.”
“Thank you.” She could only manage the faintest murmur.
“No, Mira-mine. Thank you.”
He leaned down, then, his body curving around hers, making her feel small and delicate and cherished. His heat washed over her in a luscious wave, bearing the scent of cloves and sea air and woodsmoke. Lightly, his lips brushed hers, a gossamer hint of a kiss, but it was enough to spark a fire deep in her belly.
She yearned toward him, her body seeking contact as though compelled by some natural force, something stronger than her own will. With a soft sigh, she abandoned herself to that compulsion, allowing instinct to guide her.
“Oh, ho, ho! What do we have here?”
Mira pulled away from Nicholas in alarm, peeking around his shoulder to see Lady Marleston tittering into her hand.
The older woman looked like an overblown rose, abundant flesh overflowing the ruched bodice of her scarlet gown, hair amassed in a pile of exuberant curls atop her head, her features lax and ruddy from intoxication. She swayed slightly on her feet as she leaned forward to speak in a conspiratorial whisper. “Antishi…ansnishi…ahem, anticipating the wedding, are we?”
She laughed again, sending a hot blast of moist, alcoholic breath directly into Mira’s face. Lady Marleston was redolent of some strange liquor, something sweet and yet peppery, sugary but with an awful bite. Something familiar.
Mira drew back and stared at the woman in amazement.
Nicholas cleared his throat, drawing Lady Marleston’s confused attention.
“Madam,” Nicholas said, his voice slow and firm, like the tone one would take with an obstinate child, “madam, I believe you are quite drunk.”
He might have gone on, chastising Lady Marleston for her vulgar observation and sending the woman on her way, but Mira cut in.
“Lady Marleston, might I ask what you have been drinking?”
With a wild swing of her head, Lady Marleston shifted her attention back to Mira. “Pardon me, dear?”
Slowly, Mira repeated, “What have you been drinking?” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Nicholas frowning in puzzlement.
Lady Marleston also frowned, in earnest concentration. “Oh yes,” she replied, her face lighting up with a self-satisfied smile. “But, oh no. I have not been drinking at all, dear. I simply took a tonic.”
“What tonic?” Mira said, struggling to keep her patience in the face of Lady Marleston’s drink-addled wits.
“Beatrix gave me a tonic for my head. Her physician recommended it for her megrims, and I was coming down with one this evening. Nasty stuff, even when you mix it with sugar. But Beatrix swears by it. I took the dose she gave me, and when that didn’t work, I took a little more. And then just a teensy bit more.”
Mira turned an expectant gaze on Nicholas.
“Absinthe,” he said, seeming to anticipate her question.
“Absinthe?”
“Yes, it is a decoction of wormwood in an alcohol base. Spices are added to make it more palatable, aniseed and who knows what else. Some Frenchman produces it for sale on the continent, and he claims it cures all sorts of maladies. Beatrix takes it for headaches.”
“Does anyone else in the household take this remedy?” Mira asked, tension stretching her voice taut as a bowstring.
“Not that I know of,” Nicholas responded. “Mira, why the sudden interest in Beatrix’s headaches?”
“I—”
“This is dull.” Lady Marleston lowered her brow and pouted her lip in a petulant sulk. “You are dull. I’m going to find Henrietta Bosworth. She’s a card.” Lady Marleston swung about on her heel, tilting precariously to one side, and then forged off into the crowd.
Mira shook her head, watching her go, and then turned back to Nicholas. “I’m not interested in her headaches but in that odor. It was the same scent I noted when the horseman ran me off the path to Dowerdu. Only it was faint then, just a whiff in the folds of the rider’s cloak as it brushed past my face.”
“You smelled absinthe when you were run off the cliff?” Nicholas spoke with a sense of unreality, as though he were repeating words in a foreign tongue without having any clue of their meaning.
“Yes,” Mira murmured, squinting at a button on his waistcoat as she thought through all of the implications of this new twist.
“Hmmm. I was not aware that my father ever partook of Beatrix’s remedies. I would have thought him more inclined to take a stiff gin. Something a little more English, if you take my meaning.”
“Your father did not do it,” Mira muttered, still staring at Nicholas’s button.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your father did not do it.”
“Mira, you have just spent the better part of a week reaching the seemingly inescapable conclusion that he very much did do it, and I have even agreed to swear out an information against him.”
“Mmmm, no,” Mira replied with a tiny shake of her head. She leaned back to look Nicholas in the face. “I am afraid that I concluded tonight that your father is not, in fact, the murderer.”
“And how, pray tell, did you reach this conclusion? I thought we were in agreement as to his guilt.” A hint of annoyance had crept into his tone. “As you took such pains to explain to me a few short days ago, the fact of his affairs with two of the victims strongly suggests that he is the murderer.”
“Yes, well, I thought so as well. But not any longer. When I spoke with Uncle George earlier, I asked him about his activities yesterday. Uncle George was with Blackwell all day. They left at dawn to go to a neighboring village to inspect a brood mare. Uncle George said they rode for hours to get there, so they must have ridden for hours to get home, as well. Blackwell would have been miles away from Dowerdu when I was run off the cliff. He did not try to kill me.”
Nicholas stared blankly at Mira for a moment before responding. “Yes, I suppose I see your point. But if my father was the mysterious wealthy lover, yet he is not the murderer, then who is?”
The answer seemed to well up from some hidden spring of intuition, and Mira spoke almost without thought.
“Beatrix.”
As she said the name out loud, all of the pieces fell into place, the import of every subtle hint now standing out in stark relief against the blur of the week’s events.
“It makes perfect sense,” Mira continued, warming to her new theory. “Beatrix’s volatile temper, her reputation for violent outbursts, her obvious interest in my inquiries…and she was in the library while I was waiting for you yesterday morning, she knew I was going out. I lied about where I was going, but it would have been a simple thing to follow me a bit. If she saw me wandering down the path toward Dowerdu, she might have guessed where I was going.”
Nicholas held up a hand. “But why would Beatrix kill those girls?”
“Jealousy? Blackwell had affairs with Bridget Collins and Tegen Quick. Perhaps it wounded Beatrix’s pride to see herself cast aside in favor of such young girls after watching her own youth slip away while she was trapped out here in Cornwall.”
“Perhaps,” Nicholas responded, nodding thoughtfully. “But that would only explain her killing Bridget and Tegen. What about Olivia Linworth? There is nothing to suggest that Olivia Linworth was intimately involved with my father.”
Mira paused to consider the question, thoughts whirling through her mind in a dizzying rush. “Maybe Blackwell expressed an interest in Olivia, or perhaps Beatrix only suspected one.”
Even as she spoke the words, they rang hollow to Mira, and the frown on Nicholas’s face indicated that he was not persuaded either. It was one thing for Beatrix to be so outraged by
Blackwell’s romantic affairs that she was driven to murder, but it was quite another for her to be distraught over some small flirtation. If Beatrix killed every woman Blackwell admired, there would be no women left in all of Cornwall. No, jealousy might have driven Beatrix to kill Bridget and Tegen, but she must have had another motive for killing Olivia. Unless…
Unless Beatrix was not only jealous of Blackwell.
“Oh no,” Mira breathed, as the blood drained from her face and formed a cold, viscous pool in her gut. “Jeremy.”
She clutched at Nicholas’s sleeve, and her voice trembled with urgency. “Nan said that Beatrix is fiercely protective of Jeremy, almost smothering him. If she knew that Olivia and Jeremy were planning to elope, if she thought Olivia was going to take her precious son away…” Mira had a sudden image, vivid and terrifying, of Beatrix accusing Bella of scheming to secure a husband. Of Beatrix’s features contorted with rage as she struck the younger girl. Of her standing frozen afterwards, hand upraised, eyes empty and wild.
“Nicholas, what about Bella?”
Nicholas’s face reflected the dawning horror Mira felt. Without a word, he took her hand and pulled her through the cavorting crowd, his head swinging back and forth as he searched the throng of faces.
“I do not see her. Either of them. Bella or Beatrix.” His low voice, barely audible over the increasingly boisterous festivities, thrummed with tension.
“I last saw Bella by the carriages,” Mira offered.
Instead of Bella, they found Lady Phoebe leaning against the largest of the Blackwell coaches, a dreamy smile brightening her usually dull face, her hair tousled, bodice askew, lips swollen and red.
“Phoebe,” Nicholas snapped. She drew back and frowned, suddenly focused on the world around her again. “Phoebe, have you seen either Bella Fitzhenry or Lady Beatrix?”
“Both of them,” Phoebe answered, in a voice that was surprisingly rich and low. “Miss Fitzhenry took off walking toward town a bit ago.” Her mouth quirked up in a tiny smile. “She was acting rather cagey, if you ask me. Moving quickly, looking over her shoulder. Nervous as a cat.
“Lady Beatrix followed not long after. Walking fast, too. But she did not look anxious, just determined.” Phoebe’s smile widened. “I believe Miss Fitzhenry may be in a spot of trouble.”
Nicholas tightened his grasp on Mira’s hand. “Thank you, Phoebe,” he muttered, already moving away from her, heading toward the horses that were tethered at the rear of the carriages.
“We need to move fast,” he said, throwing a sidelong glance at Mira, “and I cannot on my own.”
Indeed, his limp was already growing more pronounced, his stride broken and slow.
“Can you ride?” he asked as they reached the horses and stopped beside a massive creature with a fey silvery coat.
Mira shook her head. She had never had the occasion or the means to go riding, had always lived in Town and taken hackneys or the Fitzhenry coach wherever she wanted to go.
“Then you shall have to ride with me. You’ll have to mount astride, at least until I am there to steady you.”
Nicholas bent down and clasped his hands to give her a boost onto the animal’s broad back. With just a moment’s hesitation, Mira placed her foot in the cradle of his hands and, as he lifted her, swung a leg over the horse. The bulk of the horse between her legs forced her gown up, exposing her ankles and calves.
Nicholas smiled up at her. “Brave girl,” he said, bending to place a quick kiss on her ankle. He then swung up behind her, and, settling into the saddle, pulled her into the curve of his body. “Hold tight,” he breathed into her ear. And they were off.
Mira focused only on holding tight to Nicholas until Blackwell Hall came into sight, its windows lit and blazing against the stygian dark of the night, and the knot of panic in her stomach tightened.
Nicholas drew the horse up in the front drive. They left the sweating, heaving animal where he stood, and, hand in hand, clambered up the main steps.
The house was empty, all of the servants having been given the night off to attend the festivities, and Jeremy was likely behind them, bringing a coach from the livery in Upper Bidwell. The housekeeper, cook, and a few maids and grooms were expected back after midnight to prepare for the late supper Beatrix would serve her guests. But midnight was still nearly an hour away, and Mira’s ears rang with the eerie silence.
Both Nicholas and Mira slowed their pace when they entered the house, and they traded a questioning look. Almost simultaneously, they shrugged. Neither knew quite what to do next.
“I don’t suppose I can convince you to wait outside, can I?” Nicholas whispered.
Mira tilted her head in chastisement. “Absolutely not.” She offered him a thin smile. “Besides, what if Beatrix is out there?”
“Mmmm. Good point.”
Giving her hand a reassuring squeeze, Nicholas started up the stairs, steps cautious and quiet.
Nicholas had his foot on the top step when a sudden cry echoed through the silence. The sound galvanized them into action. He took off at a loping run, his limp almost disappearing in the spurt of energy. Mira trotted along behind him with her skirts lifted nearly to her knees.
By unspoken agreement, they headed toward Mira’s bedroom, the Aviary, in which Bella had hidden her bags. As they ran, they heard the thud of something falling to the ground, then heavy breathing, and another muffled cry. They raced past Mira’s silent room, following the sounds of struggle through the corridor and toward the walkway to Nicholas’s tower. As they neared the antechamber, they caught sight of a writhing tangle of limbs and satin.
Nicholas froze mid-stride, throwing out an arm to keep Mira back, and they both gasped at the scene before them.
Beatrix held a squirming Bella in front of her, a knife pressed to the delicate column of the younger woman’s throat. It might have been only an illusion, but even from several feet away and in the dim light of the hallway, Mira thought she could see the fluttering of Bella’s pulse beneath the blade. She bit her tongue to keep from calling out to her cousin, afraid she might startle Beatrix, force her hand.
Despite the threat to her life, Bella was putting up a fight. Her fingers dug into Beatrix’s arm, clasped around Bella’s waist, with enough force to make visible indentations, and she held her legs rigid, her dainty heels searching for purchase in the hallway carpet so that she could slow their progress.
“Beatrix.” Nicholas’s voice was gentle, reasonable, but it stopped Beatrix in her tracks as effectively as a shout. Her head flew up, eyes wide black holes in her face. Every muscle in her body seemed to contract, and the tip of the knife nicked Bella’s flesh. Bella let out a small squeak, but otherwise went still.
“Beatrix, where are you going?”
“Out.”
“Out where?”
“To the allure.”
“Why?”
“I should think that would be obvious, Ashfield,” Beatrix replied, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. “I am getting rid of this…this viper,” she skimmed the blade down Bella’s neck, following the line of sinew standing out there from the young girl’s strain.
“Like you got rid of Olivia Linworth?”
“Oh, yes. Just exactly like that.” A thick liquid sound welled up from the depths of Beatrix’s throat, something like a laugh but dark and desperate. “So much neater than using the knife, don’t you think? Though not quite as satisfying.”
“Knife?” Nicholas asked. “You killed Tegen and Bridget as well?”
“Of course. Those little tarts sleeping with my husband right under my nose…I was mortified. If I’d been strong enough I would have killed your father, but instead I had to end the affairs by getting rid of the girls.”
Mira could keep quiet no longer. “Please do not hurt her, Lady Beatrix,” she pleaded, her voice taut with fear. “Please.”
Beatrix’s brows drew together, and her lips flattened in a smirking smile. “Miss Fitzhenry. I think I sho
uld be doing us both a favor by disposing of this wretched creature. She has spent the better part of a week defaming you. ‘Mira is so plain. Mira is so dull. Mira is so unsophisticated.’” Beatrix laughed again. “I am surprised you have not done her in yourself.”
Mira shot a quick glance at Bella’s face. Her cousin’s eyes were wide and imploring, her face a tight mask of fear. “She’s my family, my lady, and I love her.”
Her mind spinning, Mira cast about desperately for some argument that would dissuade Beatrix from her course. “Besides,” Mira stammered, “I realize that Bella is what society has made her to be.” Mira tried to capture Beatrix’s gaze with her own, willing the older woman to remember her humanity. “You understand that, don’t you?” she queried, forcing a note of sympathy into her voice. “How difficult it is to have no choices in this world? We’re all three of us victims of our lack of choices—you, me, and Bella. We share that.”
Beatrix rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Miss Fitzhenry, I have nothing in common with either you or this one.” The knife again pricked Bella’s delicate skin. “You are both grasping, looking for money and a title, just like that harridan Kitty Fitzhenry. I was never like that.”
Beatrix’s mad composure slipped for a moment, and her face contorted with raw pain. “I followed my heart,” she shrieked. “I…” She paused, and her voice fell to a strangled whisper. “I would have given up anything and everything to marry the man I loved, even though he was penniless. But then he died. He left me all alone. I may not have loved Blackwell, but I did not marry him out of greed.”
She started moving down the hallway, dragging a whimpering Bella with her.
“I have lost my youth, my life, in this wretched place, and Jeremy is all I have to show for it. He is my life now, and I will not allow this greedy bit of muslin to destroy him.”
Nicholas edged down the hall after Beatrix, not closing the distance between them but not allowing her any lead either. He kept his arm thrown wide to hold Mira back.
Once Upon a Wallflower Page 21
