by Anne Renwick
“And I with my husband.” Beaming, she lifted onto her toes and pressed a quick kiss to his lips, uncaring of who might be among the strangers strolling the evening streets of Mayfair. “Are we here?”
His eyes sparkled. “We are. Ready to conduct your first interview of a suspect?”
Cait slanted him a look. “Please, I have three brothers.”
He laughed. “As an agent, then.”
“I can only hope he’ll be uncooperative. I’d very much like an excuse to see him molder in a Lister Interview room for a few hours.”
Together, they climbed the stairs.
Entered.
And elbowed past the steam butler who claimed, “Lord Saltwell is not at home.”
But their feet proved faster than a mechanical servant’s ability to latch onto the stair’s hoist mechanism. Within seconds, she and Jack were knocking on doors, calling out for Carruthers. He wasn’t behind door number one, but when they threw open door number two—
“Again?” A tousled head half-lifted from a pillow, then fell back. Naked as a newborn beneath a thin sheet, the new Lord Saltwell lay sprawled on his bed. His voice held a note of protest, but the tenting of the bedclothes at his groin indicated female company was both expected and desired. “Oh, it’s you. Did someone else die? I’m going to need fortification before we talk.” He rolled, reaching for a glass upon the bedside table.
Jack snagged a dressing gown from the floor and threw it at Carruthers. “You’ll cover yourself in the presence of my wife.”
“Wife?” The man grinned. He balled the cloth at his waist. “Nobody thought you’d go through with it. Congratulations.” He raised the glass, then tossed back two fingers of the amber-tinted drink. “Apologies, thought you were my—er—”
“Wife?” Cait echoed, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t most of the married ton slip in and out of each other’s bedrooms via adjoining rooms?” She spoke while crossing the room, reaching for one particular door handle. “Shall I see if Lady Saltwell will join us, or were you expecting someone else?”
“My wife is some four months along,” Carruthers complained. Unconcerned, he shoved himself from the bed onto his feet. The sheet fell away exposing a rampant erection and—as her eyes snapped upward—a raw, inflamed patch at his neck where puncture marks dotted his skin. At his throat, shoulder—all along his arm—were tiny pinpricks of scar tissue. Evidence of repeated venom-tipped fang punctures. “Like many in a loveless marriage, she prefers I occupy myself with another partner for now. So much so that she herself selected my mistress and installed her in the guest room.”
“A woman by the name of?”
Carruthers shrugged the dressing gown over his shoulders, tied it at the waist. “Helena.”
Cait gaped.
All this time, the venomous woman had been in Mayfair? Mixing business and pleasure, nipping this man’s neck yet confining her hunting grounds to her old neighborhood. Was he aware of his mistress’ reproductive efforts? Unconcerned? Too enamored of her bite to care either way?
Snapping her jaw shut, she caught Jack’s gaze, then quipped. “Virility, fertility, paternity.”
“Rather a theme of late.” Jack pulled his TTX pistol from its holster. “We clear the wife’s room, then locate Helena.” He shot a narrow glare at Carruthers. “Stay here.”
Gripping her own weapon, Cait threw the door open and hurried through the connecting bath and dressing rooms. “Lady Saltwell?”
The viscountess’ suite was empty. The bed was neatly made. No ashes littered the hearth. And the underlying smell of a cleaning agent permeated the air. All serving to highlight two incongruencies. A trinket box upon a dressing table was askew. The door of a wardrobe was ajar.
Cait flipped up the lid. Empty. “I can think of only one reason a lady might pocket all her jewels: to finance an escape.” She turned on her heel, reached for the handle of a wardrobe. “Are there gowns missing from her—”
She gasped as a body tumbled out onto the floor.
Thunk.
Jack dropped to one knee, pressed his fingers against the throat of a young woman.
“Dead?” An unnecessary question judging from the vacant eyes that stared up at her.
“Very,” he said. “But still warm.”
Cait leaned closer, drawn by a certain familiarity of the woman’s features. “Corpse candles! That’s the apothecary’s assistant!” She pressed a hand to her chest where her heart gave a great thump, then took off, racing. Bending, Cait plucked a crumpled paper from the woman’s fingers. A receipt for a jar of lotion marked T. Everly and Company. “She played me false. Miss Smyth must have known who the chemist’s customer was all along and,” she swallowed, “came bearing gifts to warn Helena?”
“If she had thoughts of blackmail, it was a most fatal decision.” Jack tipped up the woman’s face. A dark crust ringed the edges of a ruined nose. “I would venture to guess we’ll find her pituitary has been removed.”
That drew Cait up short. “And in Lady Saltwell’s room, not Helena’s. Could there be two lamia working together? One married to Carruthers, the other serving as his mistress?”
He swore. “That or we’re looking at a hostage situation.”
A few tense moments of searching turned up nothing else. Not that she’d held much hope of discovering they’d conveniently left the pituitary extractor behind, a murder weapon which they might haul back to Lister for examination.
They burst into the hallway, throwing one door open after the other, searching for lamiae. But all were empty.
Hazy-eyed, Carruthers emerged from his suite. He waved a glass, sloshing its refreshed contents. “What on Earth are you doing?”
“Where is Helena?” Jack demanded. “Which is her room?”
Carruthers pointed to an open door. “That one. If it’s empty, well, she’s my paramour, not my prisoner.” He tossed back his drink.
“And you last saw her when?” Cait asked.
From beneath heavy-lidded eyes, his gaze oozed, like the slime that seeped through sewers, over her body’s form. Was it the influence of the venom or the nature of the man? Both? Impossible to know.
She snapped her fingers in front of his face.
“We know what the venom does. Its effects upon you are, regretfully, obvious.” She flicked the lapel of his dressing gown aside. “And at least one of these bite marks is recent.”
His grin spread. “Three hours, give or take?”
Cait rolled her eyes. Trust a man to be proud of his staying power, no matter its exogenous source. “Your wife, where is she?”
“With the children in the nursery? Or perhaps she’s gone out.” A shoulder lifted. “Who can say? Her advancing pregnancy seems only to increase her desire to be out and about, serving on one committee or another.”
“Think harder, Carruthers,” Jack yelled, already halfway up the stairs. “There’s a dead woman on the floor of her bedchamber.”
“Dead?” Carruthers stared at the empty glass in his hand as if surprised to find it so, then turned and careened back into his bedroom.
Hitching up her skirts, Cait ran after Jack to the upper floor.
“Deserted,” he informed her. “No child, no nursemaid.”
“Dying embers in the grate,” she noted, turning about. Push toys and blocks scattered upon the carpet. An abandoned cup of tea upon a table. A shawl draped over the back of a rocking chair. All signs of recent occupation. “That’s odd.” She frowned. “A cradle and a cot? They’re expecting their second child, correct?” She lifted a ring of teething pegs, eyeing the deep gouges left by a coping child.
“Yes. Their son is nine, perhaps ten months old.”
“Yet judging from the rumpled linens, both beds appear to be in use.” Rifling through various bits of baby clothing deepened her sense that something was off. The two stacks of diaper clothes confirmed it. “Two sizes,” she said. “One pile folded for a three-month-old, the second for a child nine months or older.”<
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“Carruthers did mention children, plural.” Lines appeared on Jack’s forehead. “Would a wet nurse care for her own child in an employer’s household?”
“Unlikely.” Cait looked about, bewildered. “But if so, her own child would, necessarily, be of the same age or older. Not younger.”
She stepped into the nursemaid’s room. A single bed. A washstand. A foot stove. A chest of drawers. A pier glass. A chair and writing desk placed beneath a window to catch the light. Standard furnishings, but all items were of high quality.
Particularly the bedding.
She holstered her weapon, then tossed aside the bedcovers, pressing a hand to the mattress. “Feather-filled,” Cait announced. “Not horsehair or wool. Lady Saltwell’s nursemaid lives in great comfort, an uncommon state for most servants.”
“Clothes are missing from their pegs.” Jack peered beneath the bed. “And there’s not so much as a carpet bag in evidence.” He swore. “Gone. We must have missed them by mere hours.”
“Could all three have left, together?” Cait stalked from the room. “Lady Saltwell selected her nursemaid, as would be expected. But to hire her husband’s mistress? It simply isn’t done. Which begs the question, who was Lady Saltwell before her marriage?”
“A former actress?” Jack followed her. “One who met Helena in Covent Garden.”
“Perhaps both of them traveled to England from Greece, together?”
“Or all three?”
Aether, a trio of lamiae?
Cait ran down the stairs and found herself gasping for air. High fashion wasn’t suited to all this running—the corset nipped in her waist to an excessive degree, leaving her short of breath. As a Queen’s agent, a wardrobe overhaul would be in order. “One snagged a husband, then hired her friends into lives of relative luxury?”
“It tracks,” Jack said. “Carruthers was known to favor the burlesque and Covent Garden was his stomping grounds.” He leapt over the railing to land outside the gentleman’s door. “Your wife,” he yelled, stalking back into the bedroom. “You met her where?”
The prone form upon the bed didn’t so much as groan.
He rolled Carruthers onto his back, slapped his face and repeated the question. But the man was insensate, useless.
“Jack.” Panting, Cait pointed to an open—and nearly empty—bottle of laudanum on the bedside table. There would be no reviving their suspect for questioning, not for several hours.
He swore. “Drink and drugs.”
So much for direct answers.
“We interview the downstairs staff.” Cait pivoted, exited the room. “Steambots might be mute and steam butlers uncooperative, but kitchens are never fully automated. The cook or a maid will know something, and perhaps even be able to point us in Lady Saltwell and company’s direction.”
“Go.” Jack tugged a punch card and a message canister from his pocket. “Black needs to be informed of the situation. I’ll send a skeet pigeon from the aviary, then meet you below stairs.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
As fast as her feet would carry her, Cait descended. In the foyer, the steam butler rolled from one end of the hallway to the other, clanging his annoyance.
“Not at home. Not at home. Not at home.”
“I must speak with Miss Helena.” Cait addressed the steambot, uncertain how else to politely identify the lamia in hopes of receiving a rational answer. “Might you point me in her direction?”
“Not at home. Not at home. Not at home.”
Alas, it appeared there was a glitch in his programing. A quick smack to the steam servant’s forehead did nothing to reset or alter his behavior. Perhaps he’d torn a punch card? But such did not—yet—number among her skills. A deficiency to be addressed at a later date.
Cait dodged past the useless steam butler, pushed open the green baize door and rushed down into the kitchens where she dropped both hands onto the large wooden table and stood, gasping. From now on, she needed stop wearing corsets. A least, not ones with steel boning.
An open-mouthed cook stared at her, blinking, as raspberry jam dripped from a spatula she held. Cait had interrupted the preparation of a Victoria sponge.
A face—that of a young maid—peeked out from around the edge of a door.
“And who might you be?” the cook inquired. “Rushing in here, unannounced and unaccompanied?”
“Apologies,” Cait wheezed, “for my abrupt intrusion. The steam butler is stuck in a loop, insisting no one is at home. We’ve located Lord Saltwell, but need to speak with Lady Saltwell, her nanny and Miss Helena.” She pulled back the edge of her jacket to reveal the TTX pistol strapped in place. “Immediately.”
“They left,” the maid said, wide-eyed. “About an hour ago.”
The cook frowned. “And how would you know such a thing?”
“I saw their boots pass the window,” the maid replied, lifting her gaze to the short half-windows that permitted a grimy light to leak in from the street. “It’s me that polishes them. Miss Helena went one way. Lady Saltwell and Nanny the other. They left about an hour ago with the pram.”
“One child?” Cait asked. “Or two?”
Tight-lipped, the servants exchanged a look.
Cait waited, letting the grinding of the nearby steam mixer’s gears fill the air as it worked to knead the dough that would be tomorrow’s bread.
“I know there is more than one child in that nursery,” she said. “Why?”
“I’m not at all certain we ought be answering your questions.” The cook looked down, spread the jam carefully over the golden cake. “Without permission of our employer.”
“Just now I found a dead shopgirl stuffed in your lady’s wardrobe,” Cait said. “More agents are on their way. Expect your employment here to come to an abrupt termination.”
That dropped their jaws.
“Now, if you’ll answer my questions,” Cait pressed. “Unless you prefer to do so at the Lister Institute. Why is there more than one child?”
The cook swallowed, set aside her spatula. Placed the second sponge atop the jam, dusting the top with a handful of sugar.
“Well, then, we might as well enjoy my most recent efforts over household gossip.” She lifted a knife. “Katie,” she addressed the maid. “If you’ll serve tea?”
The maid measured leaves into a teapot, then lifted the kettle from the stove to pour boiling water over them.
“Those three have an arrangement,” the cook said, cutting slices, lifting them onto plates. “Unconventional. Worse, it’s immoral. I said as much when I was made aware.”
“But they pay double for us to look the other way,” Katie added, setting the teapot on the table before them. “Milk? Sugar?”
“Yes, please. One lump.” Cait looked back to the cook. “The lady, the nanny, the mistress. And two children.”
“Gentlemen often interfere with maids once the bloom is off the bride.” The cook set a plate before Cait, passed her a fork. “Lady Saltwell does her best to steer the lord away from the staff. Not an easy task with such a randy one.”
Was that why the Lord Saltwells, past and present, had been targeted by a lamia? Did such creatures always choose fertile men with excessive sexual appetites? Cait snorted. Not that such criteria narrowed the selection of prey, even if one limited the pool to male members of the peerage.
The cook continued. “Lady Saltwell herself arranged for another woman to take her place in her husband’s bed.”
Odd, but if one wished to keep one’s spouse at home…
“The nanny?” Cait took a bite of the sponge, closed her eyes in appreciation, contemplated offering her a job. Pending the outcome of inquiries, of course.
“One might think,” the cook answered. “But it was Lord Saltwell the elder who was overly fond of that particular woman’s company, if you take my meaning. He was a frequent visitor to the nursery. Soon after the birth of his grandson, he had another bastard son on the way.”
Cait wr
inkled her nose. “So the nephew of the nanny’s son is under the nanny’s care.”
“It’s utterly baffling, what the gentry get up to.” The maid set a cup of tea before her. “And both Lady Saltwell and the nanny are expecting. Again.”
Goodness, such rampant fertility.
“That’s awfully fast.” Cait straightened. “And what of Helena’s role?”
“Installed in our household days after the wedding.” The cook lowered her voice. “Our lady arrived already expecting their first child.”
“And Helena has been in and out of the new Lord Saltwell’s bed ever since.” The maid flushed, looked away. “More than once I’ve entered my lord’s bedchamber—as duties require—and found her beneath his sheets.”
Cait sipped her tea, then set the cup down. “Two children in the nursery,” Cait tapped on the table before her. “One the current Lord Saltwell’s legitimate heir, the other his unacknowledged bastard brother.”
“Babies are precious things.” The cook lifted an eyebrow. “The more in a household, the better. Or so Lady Saltwell informs me.”
“Is her husband aware of the particulars?”
The cook shrugged. “Hard to know. Our lord spends his days moving between various addictive pleasures.”
“And Helena, is she also expecting?” She took another bite of the wondrous cake.
The maid shook her head. “Not yet, a situation that seems to upset her. Of late, she’s been in Lord Saltwell’s bed more than she’s been out of it.” Another blush. “Not that he’s objecting.”
Yet bedsport was not the creature’s aim.
After a year of infertility, Helena’s failure to conceive must have triggered her murderous rampage through the streets of London. She’d taken to injecting her already randy and fertile lover—Carruthers, the new Lord Saltwell—with testicular extract before eliciting further arousal with her potent venom. All enhanced by her own use, consumption or otherwise, of a young woman’s pituitary gland.
Yet still failed to conceive?
All horribly fascinating, but none of this information brought her closer to apprehending the lamia. Or the nanny. Or, given the body in her wardrobe, Lady Saltwell herself. The three of them sounded complicit, which suggested—
