She rose and placed her glass on the table, patting her hair to smoothness. “I do hope you will excuse me. I am very tired, and it is quite late. I will of course return these things to the lumber rooms, my lord,” she said with an arch smile at Father. “I should not like to have it said I took anything that did not belong to me.”
She dropped a deep curtsey and left us then. I sank further into my chair, wishing I could escape as easily as that.
“I am sorry,” I murmured. “I had no idea.”
“Yes, you did,” Brisbane said bitterly. “You knew I would never seriously consider marrying a woman like that. You taunted me with it that day by the river. But you could not reason further to realise I was engaged upon an investigation?”
I spread my hands helplessly, wishing Father would say something, anything at all. “I did realise it, but I never took her for a villainess. You even implied someone else might use her as a scapegoat, if you will remember. You said someone else might cache jewels in her room to throw suspicion upon her. And even if I were inclined to believe the worst of her, two minutes in her company would have cured my doubts. She looks like a Dresden shepherdess and she talks like a milkmaid!”
Brisbane’s mouth twisted. “Well, your little Dresden shepherdess managed to steal one of the single most valuable jewels in the entire kingdom, and if I do not recover it…”
His voice dropped off as if he could not bear to give voice to the magnitude of his ruin if he failed. “What did she steal?” I dared to ask in a very tiny voice.
“The Tear of Jaipur,” Father said softly. “I have only seen it once, but it was the most magnificent thing I have ever laid eyes upon.”
“A diamond?”
“Not a diamond,” Brisbane corrected, his voice thick with sarcasm. “The diamond. The largest one in the queen’s personal collection. It was a gift from an Indian potentate when she became their Empress.”
I nearly laughed aloud. The very idea was preposterous, another one of Brisbane’s nursery stories to keep me in the dark. “The queen? Charlotte stole the queen’s diamond? How? Did she scale the walls of Buckingham Palace? Or did she overpower the guards like Colonel Blood?”
Father winced and Brisbane looked grimly at the glass in his hands. He rolled it between his palms, the flames on the hearth flickering in the reflected depths of the whiskey. Too late I realised he had told the truth.
“The queen had given the jewel to her daughter-in-law. No, I will not say which,” he said sternly as I opened my mouth to ask. “But she gave it as a mark of extreme favour. And the stupid woman gave it away.”
I blinked at him. “To whom?”
“A lover,” Father said, pulling a face. It might have been a deliciously scandalous story if matters had not turned out so disastrously for Brisbane, I thought.
“How could she possibly expect the absence of such a thing would not be noted?” I demanded.
Brisbane shrugged. He did not grimace, and I wondered if the aftereffects of the hashish were still allaying the pain of his injury. “He spun her a tale. He told her he wanted to keep it, just for one night, a pledge of her faith and devotion.”
“And she believed him?” I scoffed, but Father gave me a world-weary shake of the head.
“Never underestimate the stupidity of a woman in love,” he said. “Or a man,” he hastened to add.
“The lady did believe him,” Brisbane continued. “She gave him the jewel for one night and never saw him again. His name was Edwin Campbell. He is Charlotte’s husband, or rather, the man she acknowledges as her husband. I have found no evidence they were ever wed. She took the diamond from him and he has not seen her since.”
I shook my head. The tale hung together, but loosely, like cobweb lace. “Why would she move openly in society if she were hiding from her husband?”
“He was taken to gaol shortly after the theft for other crimes. He refuses to speak against her. Poor devil still believes she will come back to him, with the diamond.”
“But she is leaving the country? You are certain?”
“As certain as one may be of information one has bought. But it seems the only possible course for her. She has the diamond. She cannot hope to sell it here, but on the Continent, in the Americas even, she could make a tidy fortune and live quite comfortably.”
I shook my head. I could not quite take it all in. “I cannot believe she is a thief. I thought her so refined, so feminine.”
“Make no mistake, she is the daughter of a gentleman, and she has been educated as a lady. Presenting herself as a genteel society widow was no great difficulty for her. And Campbell was a rather talented forger. He wrote letters of introduction for her, and with those she wormed her way into the highest circles. She was invited to parties at the wealthiest houses. She was quick and careful, and if the hostess noticed some time later a valuable trinket was missing, she would never connect the theft with the charming and garrulous Mrs. King.”
“Clever,” I said, admiring her just a little in spite of myself. She was thoroughly amoral, and her lifestyle was utterly reprehensible, but there was still something, some elusive quality about her that drew one in. Perhaps it was charm, or a vulnerability she thought she had masked with her deceit.
“Clever and vicious. She was nearly apprehended once by a lady’s maid. She bashed the woman over the head with a candlestick and nearly killed her.”
I caught my breath. The implication was horrifying. “Brisbane, you do not think, I mean, it is not possible. Not Mr. Snow.”
“No,” he said slowly. “She could not have killed him. Her hands are smaller than yours. If Edwin Campbell were a free man, I would have suspected him instantly, particularly as Snow had jewels in his pocket. But he is a guest of Her Majesty’s, enjoying the hospitality of Wandsworth Prison at present. And the jewels Lucian Snow had in his pocket were not of the variety to tempt the lady. The Grey Pearls would have been much more in her line.”
“You think she stole my pearls?”
“I know she did, I can feel it in my bones. But without a witness, without the pearls, without a confession, I have nothing. Less than nothing,” he said, his mouth thin with bitterness. “I do not even have the Tear of Jaipur.”
I said nothing for a long moment. Father remained silent, and the only sounds were the ticking of the mantel clock and the rustling of the fire.
“The princess herself retained you to recover it?” I ventured finally, afraid of his answer.
“Through the prime minister,” he said calmly. It was even worse than I had feared.
“And now you will have to go to them and admit you have failed,” I said wretchedly.
“The letters patent,” Father began. The letters patent, drawn up to bestow Brisbane’s viscountcy, a viscountcy that would not be his until the letters had been published.
“Useless,” Brisbane cut in, his voice clipped.
I looked from one to the other. “The letters patent? For your title? What do you mean they are useless?”
Brisbane looked into his whiskey glass, studying the amber depths. “The letters were drafted by Lord Salisbury. He approached me about recovering the jewel for Her Royal Highness after some success I had on behalf of the Prince of Wales in the autumn. The letters were to be held until the diamond was recovered. If I fail, he will burn them.”
Puzzled, I turned to Father. “But you have already been addressing him by the title of viscount.”
Father shrugged. “A ruse to sweeten the honeypot for Charlotte King. Jewel thieves are terrible snobs.”
I shook my head, feeling suddenly sick. “Because I interfered, you will lose a title? And an estate?”
Brisbane drank off his whiskey and put the glass carefully onto Father’s desk. “It does not matter, my lady. I was not born to it. The loss of it does not grieve me.”
The words should have been comforting, but somewhere underneath them was a current of some indefinable emotion in his voice that made me ache. Was it
longing? Did he care so much for what he had never had? I thought of the life he might have led, lord of the country manor, perhaps a husband and father, caring for his stock and his tenants, managing them all with fairness and generosity. I could have wept for him. But something in his face, his implacable, unyielding face, warned me not to.
I rose, a trifle unsteady after the shocks I had endured and the whiskey I had drunk. “There is no possible method by which I may apologise as profoundly as you deserve. I can only tell you I will regret my thoughtlessness, my impetuosity, every day of my life.”
I left them then. I heard the low rumble of voices as I closed the door. I did not stay to eavesdrop on what they might have said. They had their own differences to sort between them. I had interfered enough for one night.
Or so I thought. There was one last bit of meddling yet to come. It was a silly thing, really, that finally revealed to me the murderer of Lucian Snow. It happened when I tripped on my slipper on the stair. I was tired and stumbled a little, catching the sole. I looked back to find the slipper sitting on the stair, the toe facing backward, and when I went to pick it up, I understood what we ought to have seen before.
When I reached for the slipper, I instinctively turned my hand, thumb facing back, so that when I straightened and brought the slipper up, the toe would face forward. A simple, stupid detail one would never think on in the course of an ordinary day. But this had been no ordinary day. A man lay murdered under my father’s roof, strangled by a right-handed man.
Unless the murderer was upside down. No, that was ridiculous. It was Snow who had to be upside down, and once I knew that, the rest of it fell tidily into place. I sank down onto the stair, closing my eyes to better imagine it.
I saw the two men in the chapel, perhaps by arrangement, perhaps by accident. Snow turns his back. Was he caused to do so? He could have been. The little bundle of jewels would have been a pretty lure. He could pocket them and then, his back still turned, he is struck down by a single vicious blow from the candelabrum.
Stunned, perhaps dying already, he slumps unconscious to the floor. His murderer turns him onto his back, and standing at Snow’s head, reaches over his face to strangle him. The bruises would speak eloquently of a right-handed man, the perfect alibi for a left-handed murderer.
I opened my eyes, surprised to find myself still on the stair. I had seen it so clearly in my mind’s eye. All but the face of the killer, and it did not require much imagination to supply that.
I rose and put on my slipper, determined not to waste a moment. I sped to the gentlemen’s wing and knocked softly at one of the doors. It took an agonisingly long time before he replied, but at length he did. I had expected I would rouse him from sleep, but his hair was neatly combed, and his eyes, though shadowed with anguish, were clear and alert.
“My lady,” he began, his expression one of naked astonishment. But I gave him no opportunity to say more. I pushed him into the room and closed the door behind us.
He recovered from his surprise and quickly gestured toward the chairs by the fire. I took one, schooling my expression carefully. I must not seem accusatory if I hoped to win his confidence. I must be gentle, sympathetic even.
With that in mind, I reached out when he had seated himself and I took his hand in mine. He started, but did not remove his hand, and after a moment I felt it relax in mine.
“I think you know why I have come. You are burdened. Would it not ease you to speak?”
He sighed then, a great exhalation carrying all the weight of the world with it, but he did not speak. His hand was warm and smooth in mine, and larger than I had expected.
I had thought it would feel less substantial somehow, but there was a solid, sinewy strength in his fingers.
“It weighs on you, does it not? You should not carry this burden alone.”
He gave a little groan and started to pull his hand away, but I held it fast and courtesy would not permit him to push me away.
“I shall not leave until you talk to me. Believe me when I say I am your friend, and I can help you. My family has a great deal of influence, and if you confide in me, I will do everything in my power to see justice is done. You believe that, do you not?”
He nodded, closing his eyes. His hand was now clasping mine, and I knew he was very nearly there. Just one last push…a shot in the dark, but my only chance to reach him.
“I think that she would want you to tell me.”
His eyes flew open. “She said I must never,” he whispered hoarsely.
I tightened my grasp on his hand. “She is overwrought. If she were thinking clearly, she would never want you to suffer, I am certain of it. And you are suffering now. It is written plainly on your face.”
His expression did not change, but I noticed a sudden brilliance to his eyes, the shimmer of unshed tears. I had found his most vulnerable spot. And like Paris bringing down Achilles, my aim must be true.
“It is not right you should suffer. All you have to do is tell me, and it will be over.”
For an instant I thought I had pushed him too far. But then his body sagged and his other hand reached out to cover mine.
“Yes. That is what I want, for it to be over,” he murmured.
“Then tell me. I will not abandon you. I swear it.”
“I believe you,” he said simply.
And I settled in my chair and waited for Henry Ludlow to tell me everything he knew.
THE TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep, And in his simple show he harbours treason.
—II Henry VI
It was not his fault. He was Sir Cedric’s employee and cousin, poor relation to a monster who held the purse strings. Whatever crimes Sir Cedric had committed, Ludlow must fear being charged as an accomplice. I could well understand why he had kept silent. But as his kinsman he must know Sir Cedric better than most, witnessed the ferocity of his temper, his obstinance. And he must have drawn his own conclusion about the author of the murder in the chapel. Lucy’s claim to sanctuary must have cemented the conviction that Sir Cedric had murdered Lucian. A woman knows the heart of her beloved, and what she does not know, she intuits. Even if Lucy had not been privy to his plans, she had looked at the broken body on the floor of the chapel and known the handiwork of her beloved.
“His arrogance,” Henry began softly, “was deplorable. I have rarely ever encountered a man so replete with it, and for so little cause. I would have hated him on his own merit, even if she had not revealed to me exactly what he was.”
I felt the niggle of a question, but did not ask. Now that Henry was talking, I was reluctant to interrupt him.
“I have known other men like him—that bluff, hearty sort. Think they own the world, and they very often do. They stand astride the world like Colossus and they never see what they crush beneath their feet. I hated him from the moment I first made his acquaintance.”
I had no choice but to break in. “Why did you accept a position in his employ?” I ventured softly.
Henry blinked at me. “Employ? I was not speaking of Sir Cedric. I was talking about Lucian Snow.”
“Ah, yes, of course. I do apologise. Go on,” I said with an encouraging smile, but inwardly I was thinking feverishly.
“His inhumanity, his impiety, characteristics to be deplored in a clergyman. To listen to him expounding his plan to reform the Gypsies did not improve my opinion of him,” he said angrily. “And when I heard how he had left the army and taken a living so blithely, as a means of keeping himself with little effort and no care whatsoever for his parishioners, it made me quite physically ill.”
He looked intently at me, his eyes alight with passion. “Do you know what I would have given for a living of my own? My very heart’s blood. It was all I ever wanted. A small country parish where I could do some good. That was my entire life’s ambition. To shepherd a flock. To guide, to help, to protect, to inspire. That is all I wanted. It was my dearest dream, and it
was taken from me. And given to a man like that—no, not a man. A child. He looked at it as if it were a plaything, to be picked up and cast aside when it suited him, with no care for the needs of his parishioners, no interest in them save whether they had pretty daughters,” he said, with real bitterness.
His hands were holding mine very tightly, and even if I had wanted to remove them, I doubt I could have done so.
“But I was cordial to him, because it is my job to be cordial to everyone with whom Sir Cedric chooses to associate. I told myself I should not have to bear him long. He would only be here until the wedding was celebrated. After that he would return to his lodgings in the village, and I would see him no more. I would think on him no more.”
Henry’s eyes slid away from mine then, and I knew he was seeing it all again in his mind’s eye.
“And then she came to me, in tears. He was blackmailing her, demanding payment for his silence over some youthful transgression he had discovered through mutual acquaintances. She would not tell me what it was, only that he had misunderstood something quite terribly, had twisted an innocent mistake into something ugly and untrue. She had no money, and she faced utter ruin if he was not silenced.”
The room was quite warm, I decided, or perhaps it was just that we were sitting too near the fire. But I dared not move and draw attention to myself. Henry seemed not to notice. A drop of perspiration trickled down his hairline, but he did not dash it away.
“You must not think we are friends. I would not presume such a thing—but we are confidants after a fashion. I told her of my disappointed hopes, and she told me of hers. She trusted me.” My mind raced on, piecing the snippets he dropped in my lap. I had never heard any scandal attached to Lucy’s name, but she had lived quietly. And if the youthful transgression was an innocent mistake as she claimed, it seemed reasonable we would not have heard talk of it. As for her relationship with Ludlow himself, it was entirely understandable. A young, romantic girl betrothed to a much older man of stern temperament—what other gentleman would serve so well as a confidant than her husband’s cousin, her own future kinsman?
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