Vow of Deception: Ministry of Curiosities, Book #9

by C. J. Archer

  I sighed into him. "You're not playing fair."

  His smile turned lazy and he leaned down to whisper. "You haven't played fair with me ever since I met you. Everything about you is perfect. I never stood a chance."

  For someone who could be as blunt as a brick, he somehow managed to say all the right things.

  "Gus'll be a good half hour at least, so we have time before we dine," he said, taking my hand. "We'll meet the others back at Lichfield." He gave orders for everyone to disperse and prepare for our return. David was the only one who grumbled at being ordered about, but the others complied cheerily.

  Gus went in search of hackneys with a promise to send one our way. As I waited with Lincoln, and listened to the happy chatter of those around me, I realized he already had a plan.

  "Seth told you everything that happened this morning?" I asked him.

  "Yes." He put his arm around me. "Apparently you did exceptionally well. It seems I wasn't even required."

  "I will always require you, Lincoln. Never think otherwise."

  He blinked rapidly and tucked me against his side. His kiss lingered on the top of my head.

  "Where are we going first?" I asked.

  "Around the side of the church."

  "There are only gravestones and trees there and no cabs."

  "Also no witnesses. You're going to summon Julia's spirit."

  She wasn't someone I expected to see on my wedding day, but if this matter was to be resolved, it was necessary. She was our only hope of finding out who pushed her. Once we learned that, the trail would hopefully lead us to the person who betrayed us.

  Yet I hated to think what her answer would be. As much as I didn't quite believe Harriet was entirely innocent, the thought of her being a murderer and traitor sickened me.

  "What's her middle name?" I asked as we stood in the graveyard, pretending to pay our respects to the deceased. No one was about but it was wise to be cautious. It was unnerving summoning a ghost at the best of times, but even more so in a holy place.

  "Iris," Lincoln said. "Remember to use Buchanan not the Harcourt title."

  "Julia Iris Buchanan," I intoned. "Come to me, the spirit of Julia Iris Buchanan."

  A breeze ruffled my hair and brushed my skin. It was warm, not cool, and no ghost appeared. "Julia Iris Buchanan," I said again, then added, "Otherwise known as Lady Harcourt. I summon you here to speak with me."

  Nothing happened. I tried again and was about to try another time, when Lincoln told me to stop. "I expected you to fail," he said.

  "Why? Does she have another name? Perhaps I should use her maiden name." What a scandal that would be if it turned out she'd never married Lord Harcourt after all.

  "It won't make a difference. Her spirit can't be summoned because she's not dead."

  Chapter 18

  Luckily Lincoln held my hand as I stumbled through the graveyard back to the front of the church or I would have fallen. I hardly noticed where I stepped. My mind reeled with questions and theories, none of which made any sense.

  The others had left and a hansom waited for us by the curb. Lincoln assisted me to the seat and closed the door in front of our knees. Lincoln gave the driver directions to Harcourt House through the ceiling hatch before changing his mind and giving him a different address. I didn't recognize it.

  "How did you know she wasn't dead?" I asked as we drove off.

  "I had a long time to contemplate it in my cell," he said. "There were too many things that didn't make sense, and I concluded that we were wrong. Swinburn wouldn't risk his life and reputation to bring about my downfall, and Julia wouldn't take her own life. She's not the type."

  He wasn't the first to say it. I should have taken more notice of those who knew her well. "But…I don't understand. Did she stage her own death? How, when her body was recovered and identified?"

  "Identified by Buchanan. To be fair, I don't think he knew when he visited us after seeing the body in the mortuary. He thought she was dead. I asked Fullbright only last night about the injuries and he said the face was badly damaged. Buchanan identified the body based on clothing, rings and other personal items."

  "Items that could easily be given to someone else." I shook my head slowly, barely able to comprehend the lengths she'd gone to. "She found someone of similar height and weight to herself, didn't she?"

  "Most likely a whore. She dressed her in her own clothes and sent her on her way. She put on men's clothing and at the right moment, pushed the imposter in front of an omnibus."

  I swallowed the bile rising up my throat. I knew the answer to my next question but asked it anyway. "Why?"

  He squeezed my hand but offered no response.

  "Where are we going?" I asked.

  "Buchanan's residence. She'll need help now. She can't go home, she can't be seen by anyone who knows her, and he's the only one who'd help her."

  It was true. He'd do anything for her; he was completely devoted, in his own perverse way.

  Andrew Buchanan rented rooms in an uninspiring Bloomsbury house. The landlady led us up two flights of stairs. Buchanan opened the door on our knock and was clearly shocked to see us.

  "Fitzroy! What the devil are you doing here?"

  Lincoln thanked the landlady, dismissing her. He waited until her footsteps receded then muscled his way inside. Buchanan offered little resistance, although he tried.

  "I say! What are you doing?"

  Lincoln peeled off into the adjoining sitting room only to emerge moments later. He searched the rest of the lodgings, ignoring Buchanan's protests as he trailed behind.

  I made myself comfortable in the sitting room. It was rather barren, with the barest of furniture and no pictures on the walls. No knick knacks made it a home. A box of unpacked books stood to one side, perhaps because there was no bookshelf to arrange them on. The window was open and the curtain drifted back and forth with the light breeze. Even so, the room was stifling.

  Lincoln and Buchanan returned. Lincoln's expression was unreadable, and Buchanan's was anxious. At least he was sober, and there were no signs of mourning. When he'd come to Lichfield after learning of Lady Harcourt's death, he'd been inconsolable, and I'd predicted he'd be like that for weeks. The clear-eyed, clean-shaven man before us was out of character. I needed no more evidence that Lady Harcourt was alive, and not only did he know it, but he was helping her.

  "What's the meaning of this?" he demanded.

  "Just a visit," Lincoln said, his eyes hooded.

  "We thought we should see how you were faring," I said. "You were in a bad way last time we met."

  "Yes. Well. Thank you, I'm fine now. I am rather busy, though."

  "Are you moving back into Harcourt House?" I indicated the box of books.

  "No."

  "Why not? Now that she's gone, it must belong to you and your brother in its entirety."

  His lips stretched thin. "I can't face it yet. This place will do me nicely for now."

  "Of course. Did you know that Lincoln and I got married this morning?" I held up my hand to show him the wedding ring. I hadn't even put gloves on before racing out of the house.

  Slowly, slowly, he smiled. It wasn't cruel or disdainful, as I expected from him. It was victorious. "I'm pleased. Very, very pleased." He shook Lincoln's hand then kissed my cheek. "Congratulations. And here I thought you wouldn't get out of prison in time, Fitzroy."

  "How did you know I was in prison?"

  "Well." Buchanan affected a laugh. "I believe it was Lord Gillingham who told me."

  "You're lying."

  Buchanan's mouth shut with a clack of back teeth.

  The front door opened and I shot to my feet, expecting Buchanan to warn Lady Harcourt to flee. But he did not. Perhaps because it wasn't her. Perhaps we'd been wrong and she wasn't hiding out here.

  The throaty voice coming from the hallway put my doubts to rest. "I cannot believe it!" cried Lady Harcourt. "They let him go!" She appeared in the doorway, stopping dead whe
n she spotted Lincoln.

  It was one of those moments in which time freezes. No one and nothing moved, not a finger or an eyebrow. Even the breeze died.

  Lady Harcourt did not try to run away, perhaps because she knew she could never outrun Lincoln.

  "It seems congratulations are in order," I said when no one else tried to break the heavy silence. "You are not dead, Lincoln is free, and we are married. What a wonderful day this has turned out to be."

  Her throat moved with her swallow and she reached out to grasp the door. It would seem our news had unbalanced her more than the sight of seeing us.

  That was why Buchanan hadn't warned her—he wanted her to see that she'd failed and that Lincoln and I married after all, despite her machinations to keep us apart. He was always trying to win her back, always trying to force her to love him above any other, even now.

  "Won't you congratulate them, dear Julia?" Buchanan drawled. "Show them you're pleased for them. Come now, water under the bridge and all that."

  "Stop it," she snarled. "Stop this charade, Andrew. You are in as much trouble as I am."

  "For what?" he blurted out.

  "For harboring me. For not notifying the police that I was alive after I showed up here."

  "True," Lincoln said. "But that is not a hanging offence. Murder is."

  She swallowed again but she let go of the door. Buchanan promptly sat. "Don't tell anyone," he begged Lincoln. "Let her go. If she hangs, it will be on your conscience."

  Lincoln didn't take his gaze off Lady Harcourt. If he'd heard Buchanan's plea, he showed no sign. She stared defiantly back, daring him to capture her.

  "She committed murder just so she could stage her own death," I said to Buchanan. "An innocent woman—"

  "Whores aren't innocent," Buchanan said. "Not even the ones of respectable birth and good breeding." He fluttered a hand in Lady Harcourt's direction.

  She rounded on him. "Will you not stop? Can you not see it's over? Do you exist only to torture me?"

  "A man must get his pleasures where he can."

  She made a harsh sound low in her throat. "You were pathetic when I showed up on your doorstep. Pathetic and ridiculous. He fell all over me," she told us. "He was so happy to see me alive that he couldn't stop pawing me." She crossed the room to the window and slapped a hand on the sill. "He took me right here with the curtains open. Anyone could have seen. The neighbors…" She closed her eyes. "It was hideous and humiliating. I wished I really was dead."

  Buchanan's chest heaved. His hands opened and closed at his sides and his face screwed up, as if he were trying hard not to cry or shout or both. She thrust out her chin, daring him to react.

  With her sickening words ringing in my ears, I stood. "I'll ask the landlady to fetch the police."

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Buchanan rush toward me. I had only a moment to settle into a fighting stance, my fists up to defend myself. Lincoln was too far away to stop him.

  But Buchanan hurtled past me, straight for Lady Harcourt. I realized what he was going to do in the moment before he did it. My reaction was too slow.

  I watched in horror as he pushed her out the window then followed her through it. There was no scream or shout, merely a distant thud.

  I covered my cry with both hands. My knees trembled and I had to sit again. Lincoln strode to the window and peered out.

  "Are they…?" I murmured.

  He nodded. "People are already milling. I have to see that the police are informed."

  "Go. I'll be down in a moment."

  He touched my shoulder as he passed. Someone in the distance gave a horrified cry and another shouted. Then everything went quiet, calm, and I suspected Lincoln had taken charge.

  I wanted to join him but I waited for the drift of mist to coalesce in the sitting room. I wasn't all that surprised when two figures formed, one in the shape of Lady Harcourt and the other of Andrew Buchanan. They were inseparable even in death. How fitting.

  "Well," she said, looking at him. "That's that." She touched the bloodied, damaged side of her face then stared at her hand.

  The back of Buchanan's head had caved in, leaving his handsome face untouched. He smiled at her. "Forever together, as it should be. We are meant for one another, Julia. You know that. This proves it."

  She simply lifted one shoulder, the movement as elegant in death as in life. If someone had just pushed me out the window, I would do more than shrug when confronting him.

  "You goaded Mr. Buchanan," I told her. "You wanted to end it all, but you wanted him to end it for you, didn't you?"

  She drifted to the window and peered down at the bodies. Or perhaps she was looking for Lincoln.

  "He's quite the man," she said, confirming that he did indeed capture her interest.

  Buchanan's spirit shimmered violently and he bit off a string of foul words. "Can you not forget him now? It's over!"

  "Even if he never met me," I told her, "he wouldn't be with you."

  "I thought sending him to prison would keep him from you." Her spirit deflated, although there was no breath within her to expel. "It was a foolish notion, borne of desperation. I admit that now."

  "You told Mr. Salter about the ministry," I said. "You told him and other newspapermen about Lincoln being the leader, and you urged your parliamentary friends to set up a committee to investigate him."

  "The newspapers, yes, but I have no political sway. I heard the Duke of Edinburgh boasting about it so I suggest you look there."

  So he'd played a part after all. We could do nothing to bring him to justice, but at least his influence had been trounced by his brother's.

  Her full lips curved seductively. "The possibility of losing Lincoln upset you, didn't it, Charlotte?"

  I didn't answer. I simply sat with as serene an expression as I could muster through my anger. The last thing I wanted was to act exactly as she hoped. She would end her existence here without that satisfaction.

  "I came up with the idea of landing Lincoln in trouble after reading the report about the attack in The Star," she went on. "It went a little too well. I wasn't expecting his arrest. I don't know who informed the reporter about werewolves, but I knew you would suspect Ignatius of the attacks. Horrid man."

  Buchanan's spirit shimmered again. "If you disliked him enough to implicate him, why did you want to marry him?"

  "Don't pretend stupidity, Andrew. You know why. I needed the security marriage to him would bring me. He would have released me before we walked down the aisle, you know. I admit to being a fool there. I gave him everything I knew about Lincoln and the ministry. I should have kept some in reserve." Her voice drifted away and her spirit thinned. She was about to cross.

  "We could have been happy together," Buchanan whined.

  She looked at him and her ghostly form strengthened.

  "We could have run away together, gone where no one knew us," he said. "We could have made a fresh start." He swooped and circled her before settling once again. "But you wanted to stay so you could be near him."

  She looked down at the scene below again. "It made me happy knowing his plan to marry Charlotte was thwarted. So very happy. He broke my heart so it was only fair that I played a hand in breaking his."

  "Except you didn't." I flashed my ring at her and stood. "Now, if you don't mind, our guests are waiting."

  Her spirit rushed forward and stopped in front of me. She bared her teeth. It was rather a frightful sight, considering those on her left side were smashed or missing altogether. "I will haunt you, Charlotte! I will make your life miserable!"

  "No, you won't. You can only haunt the place where you died." I indicated the sitting room. "I can't imagine Lincoln or I will ever have the need to come back here."

  The spirit suddenly dispersed, emitting a chilling scream that rang in my ears and hung in the air long after she was gone. I looked out the window but couldn't see her there, either. I allowed myself a deep, slow breath of relief.

  Buchana
n swirled around, looking for her. He tried to leave the room but found he could only go out the window, down to his death, and back up again. Everything else was off limits. When he realized she was gone, he pleaded with me not to leave yet.

  "What happens now?" He looked frightened and confused, almost childlike.

  "You either cross over to your afterlife or stay and haunt here," I said. "It's your choice."

  "There's no point staying here without her."

  "Goodbye, Mr. Buchanan."

  "Call me Andrew. We were friends, after all, weren't we, Charlie?"

  I said nothing, just watched as his spirit dissolved. Then I went downstairs and joined Lincoln.

  * * *

  We found our guests in a genial mood sitting in the shade of an oak tree on the lawn. Leisl, Lady Vickers and the Marchbanks sat on dining chairs while the rest lounged on rugs. Even David smiled. Cook commanded the picnic basket while Seth topped up Eva's glass. She watched him through lowered lashes, a secret smile on her lips. Alice watched them both with a small frown. It would seem my friend was jealous of the attention Seth paid Eva. Good. Jealousy meant she cared about him. He would be pleased, and I half suspected he was flirting with Eva for that exact reason. I only hoped she didn't get the wrong end of the stick.

  Our arrival was met with warm embraces and congratulatory cheers. Seth placed a glass in my hand and Cook produced dish after dish from the basket. Somehow he'd managed to cook pies, tarts and scones, roast beef and duck, and prepare the most mouth-watering desserts with no staff to help him.

  "This is excellent," I told him. "You're a marvel."

  He beamed and his entire head flushed red. "Best thing is, there be plenty more to take round to Mrs. Sullivan and her orphans later."

  "You do think of everyone." I kissed his cheek and received another blush for my efforts. "Is the dining room damaged?" I asked, looking at the house.

  "It wasn't hit but most of the glasses and crystal broke," Seth said as he eyed off a plate of scones. "It's a bit of a mess. We salvaged some chairs and other bits and pieces." He indicated the vases of roses and silver cutlery.