Her hands shook, nearly spilling the brandy. She felt Armande's fingers close over hers, their strength helping her support the glass and raise it again to her lips. She forced herself to drink.
He settled beside her on the sofa and she had a strong urge to fling herself into his arms, an equally inexplicable urge to shrink away from him. A silence settled over the salon, as oppressive as the heat within the closed-up chamber.
Her grandfather was the first to break it, setting his own glass down with such a sharp sound that Phaedra jumped. Weylin glared at no one in particular. "It is one hell of an end to my fete-day. That wretched woman's accident could not have been more ill-timed. Now I suppose I must look out for another housekeeper."
Gilly stopped his pacing long enough to stare at her grandfather, his green eyes sparking with contempt. "Accident! Holy Mary, Mother of God!"
"You watch your nasty papist tongue, m'lad." Weylin wagged a warning finger at Gilly, his thick finger slightly unsteady owing to the unaccustomed amount of brandy he had consumed. "It was an accident, and I'll have no one saying any different. Or next I know the rector will be refusing to bury the woman in the churchyard, and there'll be all manner of scandal. Damn the creature, anyway. If she wanted to kill herself, couldn't she go fling herself into the Thames like everyone else does?"
"Suicide? Now there's an interesting theory," Gilly said. He cocked one eyebrow, his gaze no longer leveled at her grandfather, but at Armande. "I wonder what his lairdship would be thinking. Tell us, me laird, do you believe Madam Pester to be the sort of woman who would take her own life?"
Phaedra could not begin to guess where Armande's thoughts had been. From the hazed look in his eyes, he had been miles away. Gilly’s question wrenched him back. He regarded her cousin with frowning surprise. "I did not know the woman well enough to say what she was likely to do."
"Didn't you? I would have wagered that Madam Pester numbered you amongst her most intimate acquaintances."
Phaedra saw Armande tense. His eyes blazed at Gilly, the line of his mouth turning white and pinched. Phaedra uttered a faint sound of protest, though what she sought to deny, she hardly dared to think. Feeling ill, She set down her brandy glass before she dropped it.
The only one who did not seem to comprehend Gilly's insinuation was her grandfather. He glowered at Gilly. "Damnation, boy! What would the marquis be intimate with the housekeeper for? Not even Arthur Danby ever took notice of Searle. And Lord knows when he is drunk enough, that fool would take after anything in petticoats."
"I was not referring to the carnal sort of intimacy," Gilly said.
Weylin growled, "Then what the devil are you talking about?"
Armande jerked to his feet. "I am not pleased to understand Mr. Fitzhurst, either."
Phaedra wanted to beg Gilly to stop, but she was strangely helpless. It was all a nightmare, spinning out of control. She could neither direct its course nor waken from it.
Gilly leaned one arm up against the mantel, the hard set of his jaw belying the casualness of his pose. "I could not help remarking how shaken your lairdship appeared to discover Madam Pester's untimely end. Of course, it took you the deuce of a long time to arrive. You must have been the last of us all to come gawking."
"I don't share your penchant for grim spectacle," Armande said.
The two men squared off, Gilly's eyes hard as emeralds, glittering with accusation, Armande's like frozen flame. Phaedra struggled to her feet to fling herself in front of Gilly, but she wobbled, her legs feeling too weak to hold her.
Her movement had the effect of deflecting Armande's gaze from Gilly, drawing the full force of it upon herself. As Armande reached out to steady her, she felt Gilly's arm close about her shoulders, drawing her protectively back against him.
She stared at Armande, trying hard to see the face of the man she loved.•But it was impossible to focus on the present as the fragments of memory whirled through her brain. She heard the echoes of her own voice warning Armande against the housekeeper, and Hester threatening the unseen man in the garden; saw the garret door ajar, finding the books put there by Armande, and the open window, through which she well knew no one could have fallen, not without help.
Phaedra had no idea what her face revealed until she saw her own tormented thoughts reflected in Armande's eyes. She might just as well have taken a knife and plunged it through his heart.
He turned abruptly away.
"If you will excuse me, Mr. Weylin," he said, "I will leave this inquest to Fitzhurst and your granddaughter. They appear quite capable of reaching a verdict without any help from me."
Armande stalked from the room. Phaedra took a hesitant step, wanting to go after him, but Gilly's arm only tightened about her.
Sawyer Weylin huffed out of his chair, his heavy jowls quivering. "What the deuce is going on here, Fitzhurst? I'll not have you insulting guests under my roof. I only permitted Phaedra to have you about in the first place as a reward, a small treat."
Although still pale, Gilly had recovered some of his insouciance. "Mayhap you should have been after giving her one of those little lapdogs instead. Far tamer than an Irish hound."
"You insolent whelp! I'll have you thrown out on your ear. These manners might do for Ireland, sir. But in an English drawing-“Weylin broke off with a sharp gasp, doubling over, clutching at the region of his heart. A spasm of pain distorted his features, his flesh turning as gray as his wig.
"Grandfather!" Phaedra reached out to him, Gilly seeking to support the old man from the opposite side. Drawing in several ragged breaths, Weylin straightened, pulling away from them both.
"No need to shriek in my ear, girl. I am all right. Just cannot deal with any more tonight-" He stumbled toward the door. "Been too long a day, far too long. Need my bed."
When Phaedra tried to accompany him, he waved her aside.
"Just remember when you retire yourself, make sure you put out your hound."
He hobbled through the doorway, his gout-ridden foot, as ever, giving him pain; but his shoulders were squared, and he appeared to have recovered from his momentary spasm. Phaedra watched anxiously from the doorway until she saw Peter coming to help him up to bed.
Closing the door, she leaned up against it. Quiet descended over the room once more, the silence itself seeming to threaten her. The air felt heavy with all the things she knew Gilly wanted to say, things she didn't want to hear. She gazed back at him, pleading with her eyes.
Her cousin's grim expression softened. He closed the distance between them, gathering her into his arms. She buried her face against the worn fabric of his coat while he stroked her hair, murmuring gently to her, as though she were crying. But she felt far beyond tears as she clung to Gilly for comfort-much the way she had when they were children, and one of their reckless escapades had led to a scrape.
He drew her back to the couch, forcing her to sit down, her head resting upon his shoulder. "The old gaffer was right," he murmured. "Sure and it's been the very devil of a day."
"I shall never forget it as long as I live," Phaedra said. When I looked down the window and saw her lying there-all that blood.”
"Don't think about it anymore, Fae." Gilly kneaded the back of her neck. "It’s over. They'll take her off to be buried in the morning."
But Gilly knew as well as she that it was not over. There were too many questions, too many suspicions that would not be buried in that grave with Hester.
"I suppose she could have killed herself," she said. "Such a strange, bitter woman!"
She felt Gilly's shoulder tense beneath her cheek. "Nay, darlin'. I cannot allow that. You full well know to be thinking such a thing would be but self-delusion."
"Why would it be?" she asked, pulling away from him. "Why is it so impossible that Hester could have leaped from that window by her own free will?"
The brief moment of comfort and kinship between them had faded. Gilly's lips tightened as he answered, "Setting aside the question of Hester's
sensitive, delicate nature, there's another damned good reason why suicide cannot be considered. If someone else besides me had troubled to take a good look at her body, I wouldn't be the only one raising up doubts."
"What about Hester's body?"
"She landed face down, but there was blood smeared in her hair. She had taken the devil of a crack on the back of her head. Madam Pester never went through that window of her own accord."
Phaedra stood up and took a nervous turn about the room. "Well, she could have hit the side of the house on the way down. There was no sign of any sort of struggle in my garret."
"Then why didn't anyone hear her scream? A woman taking a plunge like that would have been bound to cry out. Considering Madam Pester's genteel set of lungs, she should have been heard all the way to Westminister."
"Not if she had willed herself to be silent."
"Damn it, Fae!" Gilly caught her shoulders in a bruising grip. "You can't keep walking about with the wool pulled over your eyes. You know cursed well that woman was murdered, and only one person could likely-"
"You have no reason to suspect Armande," she started to cry, then stopped, betrayed by her own words. It was not Gilly who had brought up Armande's name, but she.
She continued desperately, "It could have been some vagrant who crept inside the Heath, a footpad come to steal."
"And it might have been the ghost of old Lethe. Phaedra, you've got to face the truth this time."
"You are asking me to believe the man I love could be a murderer. Don't you understand that is as painful as asking me to believe that you killed Hester?"
Although Gilly continued to frown, his grip upon her slackened, becoming gentle.
"Do you know what Armande did for me?" she asked. "He replaced my books that Ewan destroyed, put them back on my shelves in the garret. Do you think a man capable of such consideration could-could-"
"Spare a few minutes from the shelving to stuff Hester out the window? Aye, I do." I would have liked to have done it myself.
"Don't!" She wrenched away from him. "It is vile of you to make such jests."
"I'm not jesting! You know what manner of a prying woman Hester was. I won't even pretend to grieve for her. It is a wonder someone didn't fling her off the roof a long time ago. My only concern is to make sure you're not next."
"It is bad enough for you to imply that Armande killed Hester, but to say that he would ever hurt me-"
"He's a man with too many secrets. We both know that. I think he'd destroy anyone who seemed a threat to him." Gilly heaved an exasperated sigh. "Though the Lord alone knows how Madam Pester ever managed to find out anything about de LeCroix. He might be as innocent as my grandfather for all there is to be found in his room."
"Then you were there," Phaedra cried. "You did search, even after I begged you not to."
"Aye, for all the good it did. Even that locked box of his which looked so promising yielded nothing."
"You pried into Armande's wooden chest?"
"You needn't look at me as if I stole something of value from the man. All I found in the box was this." Gilly fumbled for something tucked in his inner pocket.
Phaedra blanched with horror. "Gilly, you shouldn't have taken anything from his room! Whatever it is, you must put it back before Armande finds it missing."
"Not until you've seen it. It is nothing to make such a great fuss about, unless you can see more significance in a pretty bit of porcelain than I do."
"Porcelain?" Phaedra repeated. Her brow furrowed in puzzlement until she focused on the delicate object Gilly balanced in his hand. It was a shepherd boy with curling dark hair and blue eyes. There might have been a dozen such ornaments to be found upon the shelves in London's great houses, but the style of this particular one had a flair all its own. Phaedra knew immediately whose hand had wrought that delicate statue.
She stared at it until the entire room blurred. As from a great distance, she heard Gilly's voice calling to her. "Fae? Phaedra! It is only china, not a blasted ghost."
But Gilly was utterly wrong. That was exactly what he clutched between his fingers, a ghost from seven years past. Its phantom twin was buried upstairs in her dressing table drawer.
The light from the small candle in Gilly's hand provided feeble illumination, hardly enough to hold at bay the engulfing darkness of her bedchamber. Yet it was sufficient for her task. The taper's soft glow flickered across 'the two sculptures Phaedra set side by side atop her dressing table-the winsome shepherd lass with her melancholy smile reunited at last with her mate, the sad-eyed shepherd boy playing upon his pipes in a pose so lifelike Phaedra half-expected the haunting melody to fill her room. Works of art, both of them, fitting gifts to have delighted the monarch Franz Joseph and his sister, the lovely Marie Antoinette.
Instead the figurines served as a memorial to another brother and sister, James and Julianna Lethington. Phaedra told Gilly all she knew of the Lethington tragedy, from Julianna's hopeless love for Ewan which had led to her destruction, to James's own death upon the gallows.
When she had finished, Gilly touched the head of the porcelain shepherdess almost as though he caressed a living thing, his green eyes bright with compassion. "And now," he said, "you know what became of the younger brother."
Phaedra's gaze flew to the shadowy outline of the door leading to Armande's chamber. She still wanted to deny that Armande was Jason Lethington, but there was too much evidence against him.
Besides his cherishing the shepherd figurine, there was his extraordinary knowledge of the processes that went into making china, and the flash of pain in his eyes that long-ago day when he had recognized the dove-gray cloak belonging to Julianna. Phaedra realized with anguished clarity what torment she had put Armande through when she had had him arrested and carted off to Newgate. The prison's grim interior had reminded him, he had said, of the death of a friend. Not a friend, but his own brother, James.
"Forgive me, my love," she murmured. She had been privileged this summer for an all-too-brief time, to glimpse the young man that Jason Lethington must have been, the blue eyes formed for laughter, the sensitive mouth for tenderness. Now that she understood the bitter sorrow that had made it possible for him to transform himself into the icy marquis, she grieved for him. Aye, and feared for him at the same time.
"Hester likely found the shepherd," Gilly mused aloud. "After seeing the piece you had, she must have guessed the significance of it, threatened Armande with exposure, and he-"
Her cousin broke off, his hand clamping down over hers, giving it a fierce squeeze. Gilly’s face bore no trace of his former belligerence, only a sadness that matched her own.
"I understand what you're feeling for the man, Fae. The poor devil. He's endured more than enough grief to drive any man to madness. And Madam Pester only got what she’s long deserved.”
Gilly stroked the back of his fingers along the curve of her cheek. "But no matter what pity I might feel, I can't take the chance that he might hurt you. If he realizes that you also know his secret-"
"He would never harm me," she said. "Just because of what his brother did, you talk as if murder runs in his blood. After some of the things I have done to him, Armande had cause and more to--I mean Jason had ... " She halted in confusion, raking her fingers through her hair, not knowing what to call the man. She took refuge in the one fact she was sure of, saying fiercely, "He loves me, Gilly."
"Mayhap he does. But even if he does not seek to silence you, he could harm you in other ways."
She shook her head, wanting to convince her cousin he was wrong. But she couldn't. Too oft had she received similar warnings from Armande himself. How hard had he struggled to put distance between them because of his fear of hurting her.
"You've not thought this through, Fae," Gilly persisted. "What do you imagine Jason Lethington is doing here in your grandfather's house, pretending to be some French marquis?"
"I don't know," she said softly.
"He could only hav
e one motive-revenge against those that destroyed his family. With Ewan dead, that leaves only one man Lethington might yet hold accountable, the old gaffer."
Gilly's suggestion chilled her. "My grandfather? Don't be ridiculous. He was not involved in the feud between the Granthams and Lethingtons. All he did was arrange my marriage to Ewan."
"For a man bent on vengeance, that might be enough."
"But he saved my grandfather's life." Phaedra's argument faltered as she remembered Armande's strange behavior that night. He had refused to be thanked for his deed, and even then she had marked in him a shade of regret that amounted almost to self-disgust. She recalled his cryptic words-that he had come to London with but one purpose in mind, and he feared that she would hate him when he had done.
"It doesn't make sense," she said. "If Armande has come to the Heath to harm my grandfather, why hasn't he done so? He's had plenty of opportunities."
"There still may be much we don't understand. Hester's ramblings about the Lethingtons and this-“ Gilly picked up the shepherd, "doesn’t offer proof of Jason's identity. We have to attempt to turn back time, by about seven years."
"How are we supposed to do that?" Phaedra asked.
"By going back to where the Lethingtons lived, I reckon. Jason would have to have left some traces of himself behind, something to link him more definitely to the man we know as Armande de LeCroix."
"And when we have the proof that he is Jason, what then?"
Gilly didn't answer her, but he didn't have to. Phaedra's eyes locked with his and saw her own misery reflected there. She wanted to frame one last plea, beg Gilly to give up the pursuit. But she no longer could do so. For Armande's sake as well, the truth had to be revealed.
She couldn't believe that her Armande had cut down Hester Searle. But if her lover kept on down the dark road he now traveled, she feared it could lead to madness, the loss of his very soul.
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