They fell to the floor together, glass glittering in the lamplight on their coats to give the scene a strange fairylike quality that belied the violence and blood that was starting to appear in smears and smudges everywhere. Peter struck Rowan with his fist, catching him off guard and gaining the upper hand for a breath or two.
Gayle screamed. “Stop! Please, stop!”
But neither man heeded her, locked in what had become a life-and-death struggle. They rolled across the floor, striking one of the worktables only to send another volley of glass and chemicals to the floor around them.
Then, instead of pushing Peter away, Rowan suddenly pulled him close, as if to embrace him, and whispered in his ear. “That hell . . . for murdering . . . Blackwell’s firstborn . . . Your friend who paid you . . . will be the one to send you off to it, Peter . . . when they find out . . . that you’ve failed.”
“No! I can’t fail!” Peter James got a hand around Rowan’s throat and began to squeeze with all of his might.
Rowan managed to grind out the words, “You . . . already . . . have.”
The blood on Peter’s hands made them too slippery to hold on for long, and Rowan knocked him off to take in huge healing gulps of air. Peter struggled to his feet, his eyes full of terror, making him look for all the world like a lost child. Rowan glanced to make sure that Gayle was behind him before he went on, determined to strike while he could. “Who hired you, Peter? Betray him and I’ll do what I can for you.”
“You don’t know . . . A man like that . . . I’m dead if I talk.”
“A man like that, Peter, who pays for death delivered in neat packages, doesn’t appreciate messy delivery boys. He won’t let you live. You’d better make you peace with God while you can, because you’ll be dead before the police have you to their station. But if you tell . . .”
“I’m dead.” Peter’s eyes filled with tears, his spirit breaking under the strain. “I’m dead either way.” Without warning, he pulled a vial from his pocket, drinking it in a single gulp as he ran to the opposite side of the worktable out of their reach.
“Peter, no!” Gayle watched in horror as he immediately began to gasp for air, his face growing red. She moved toward him, forgetting the danger and only wishing to help if she could.
“Damn it, no!” Rowan raced to reach him as well, but already Peter was wild with convulsions, gyrating in a macabre dance of agony and suffering. Rowan tried to catch at his coat, but Peter began cartwheeling in pain, screaming as the poison truly took hold.
He pulled away from them only to circle back and run toward them, a blood-covered banshee foaming at the mouth. Instinctively, Rowan shifted out of the way, taking Gayle into his arms to shield her as Peter James hurdled himself into the plate glass, shattering one of the great windows, and fell to his death in the narrow paved alley below.
Rowan let go of Gayle to look, battling the fury that came with knowing that no matter how much the man might have earned his end, he’d taken with him the name of their antagonist—and the secrets of the sacred treasure that he’d been after.
He turned back to attempt to say something comforting, praying that Miss Renshaw was none the worse for the excitement, but Gayle had fainted dead away.
Chapter 29
He took off his glass-embedded coat and lifted her gently up into his arms as Michael and several watchmen burst through the door, with Carter on their heels, armed with a fireplace poker. “Are you all right, doctor? You’re bleeding!”
“I’m fine, the blood was his mostly. The poisoner is there.” He nodded toward the shattered window. “He confessed and then committed suicide before I could stop him.”
“Convenient that,” one of the policemen commented, openly skeptical of Rowan’s story. “Very helpful of your villain to off himself like that and save us the trouble, eh?”
“Wait!” Another policeman hailed them from the other end of the room at Gayle’s bedroom door. “There’s a girl here!”
A sobbing Florence limped out of Miss Renshaw’s room, openly distressed to be the witness. “I . . . I was just straightening up . . . I usually tend to Miss Renshaw’s room on Mondays but. . . .” She hiccupped and one of the younger policemen led her into the room and began to pet her hand and speak as soothingly as if she were a child.
“Shhh! There, now. You’re a brave lamb, you are!” the ginger-haired policeman crooned, unaware of the glaring look his tenderhearted approach was earning him from his superior officer. But Florence clearly perked up at the attention and became much more coherent.
“I meant, I wouldn’t have been up here . . . It’s a bit of good luck I was. But I wasn’t brave, at all! I was listening like a common gossip when Mr. James came in, I confess it. But when he started talking about how he’d poisoned people but made it look so Dr. West did it—I knew he was going to kill Miss Renshaw!” She started to cry, accepting her new beau’s handkerchief with trembling hands. “And I just covered my head! Sh-she saved my life and I . . . I just hid under a bed!” she finished.
Rowan spoke up, still cradling Gayle. “You did the right thing, Florence. Don’t trouble yourself. You stayed safe and we’re all fine.”
Florence sat up straighter and dried her eyes to attempt a weak smile of gratitude. “I never thought Peter James was such a thing! To kill his own sweetheart if she didn’t see things his way!”
“Sweetheart?” the captain asked, standing at Rowan’s shoulder.
“He was sweet on her, certain. Sending a note and hanging about. I just thought . . . what with him so eager to ask her to walk with him on her days off. N-not that she had any days off as I know of, but . . . he seemed nice enough, didn’t he?” She looked directly at the young officer kneeling by her. “If I had a sweetheart, I’d have wished for a nice walk on my days off”—she leaned over to add carefully—“on Fridays.”
The pair began to smile and the captain growled, “Ah! Young love!”
Michael mercifully didn’t look at Rowan as he did his best to stay composed. But Rowan had had enough for one day. “Sort it out. I’m not going anywhere, but I need to get Gayle to a bed, unless you’d like to interrogate me while I hold her.”
Without waiting for a response, he carried her from the room to his bedroom below stairs.
Chaos unfolded, but it was a strange orderly chaos as he and Michael gave their statements and finally sorted out some of the mess. Carter was beside himself while Mrs. Evans immediately began overseeing the laboratory cleanup, ignoring the police who tried to lecture her about evidence and reports. As far as Mrs. Evans was concerned, justice was all well and good, but broken glass tracked all over her home was not a thing to be tolerated—and if they wished to serve the public good, they could each grab a dustpan.
One of the policemen had been assigned to sit with Gayle so that when she awoke, she could give her own interview without any chance of Rowan’s influence or collusion, and Rowan had been asked to wait downstairs in his library until she had finished.
It was maddening.
A small crowd of curiosity seekers had gathered outside, and he could only imagine what the neighbors were thinking now. Bodies flying out my windows and a small army of policemen tramping in and out of the house—at least Michael was here so I’m not suffering any looks about the loss of our low profile.
The sting at the end of the barb was when Florence had tossed out that detail of Mr. James’s attachment to Gayle. As one-sided as it may have been, he knew how it had sounded. Michael’s look had been full of sympathy and it had grated against Rowan’s nerves.
He knew that she wasn’t romantically involved with anyone else—most especially with Peter James. But he had been jealous of the easy manner she’d had with Peter from the first, sharing her confidences and unguarded smiles. She’d trusted James and thought him kind.
The man was an unscrupulous thing capable of murder— and not once did she call him a villain or a liar or look at him like he’d contracted leprosy. There’s irony
!
“You look like hell.” Rutherford held out his handkerchief.
“I’m going to take that as a compliment. I’m trying not to think of all the places I’m going to be finding glass over the next few days.” Rowan reached up to dig out a small triangle of clear crystal just above his cheekbone. “I feel like I’ve been peppered with buckshot.”
Michael poured them both a whiskey and shut the library door to guarantee their privacy for a few minutes. “Any clues at all as to who hired him?”
Rowan shook his head. “Although, I think a return to Fitzroy’s is warranted. Perhaps he’ll remember a new customer coming about more recently or seeing James meeting with someone outside of the business.”
“In the penny novels, the murderers always make a good speech about why they did what they did before throwing themselves out of windows.”
“Are you telling me that you’re reading penny novels these days?” Rowan jested, grateful for the levity of the conversation. “That’s the second time in less than a week you’ve mentioned them, Rutherford. I’m buying you books for Christmas. It’s settled. We need to improve your library, man.”
“Nonsense. I’ve been in this library dozens of times and there’s not a good blood-letting crime story in the lot.” Michael glanced around as if assessing Rowan’s collection. “No, sadly . . . so if you buy me books for Christmas, Rowan, be prepared for me to do you the same favor!”
“Hmm.” He took a sip of the whiskey, letting the burn warm him slowly from the inside and waiting for the numbness to set in. “My grandfather would roll over in his grave. I think I’ll put them in my medieval section just to spite him.”
“You were quite heroic today, West.” Michael downed his drink then refilled the glass. “Miss Renshaw is bound to be grateful for—”
“Don’t.” Rowan held up his hand, wincing a little as he did. “I know you mean well, Michael, but don’t.”
“I know. It’s complicated.” Michael held up his whiskey as if to toast the sentiment. “It always is, Rowan. It always is.”
Chapter 30
Waking up in Rowan’s bed, it took her a few seconds to realize where she was and absorb that the man sitting on a chair next to the four-poster bed was no one she had ever seen in her life. A police inspector was dutifully waiting for an interview, and Gayle sat up, openly confused at his inquiries. After a few minutes of painfully recounting her last moments with Mr. Peter James, Gayle felt the odd urge to cry.
“Did he say anything else?”
Gayle shook her head. “No.” She’d done her best to relay the conversation word for word, praying that it made more sense to the inspector than it did to her. To add insult to injury, it was painfully clear that her interviewer was convinced that she was hysterical with all her babbling about Jaded gentlemen and Rowan’s headaches.
“So the bottom line is that someone paid him three thousand pounds to try to poison Mr. Blackwell, and he tried to kill Dr. West . . . because he thought that Dr. West was unkind to you.” The man finished his notes and gave her a sympathetic smile. “Honestly, I think it a clear-cut case of a lunatic with access to his employer’s bins, but we’ll check out everything.” He touched his hat and stood to leave. “Thank you, Miss Renshaw.”
As soon as he was gone, she groaned in humiliation and buried her face in the pillows. Rowan is safe. After all of it, I just have to remember that Rowan is safe.
“How are you feeling?”
She sat up with a squeak, thrilled to see Rowan leaning against the door’s frame, his doctor’s bag in hand. “I never faint.”
“You cannot in good faith make that claim ever again, Miss Renshaw.” He crossed over to a nearby reading table, setting his bag down on the floor next to a chair, and came over to retrieve the bedside lamp to improve the light for his apparently makeshift examination room.
“I’m perfectly fine! I don’t need—”
He didn’t let her finish. “I need, Miss Renshaw. I need you to get a few glass splinters out of my hands and forearms, and oddly enough, out of the back of my skull. Michael has hands like an overgrown thug, so if you don’t mind . . .” He began to lay out a white bandage and place on it some tweezers, a long metal curved wire, and a small scalpel. “Consider it practice.”
His expression and tone were neutral enough to catch her attention. She’d longed to see him, all the pent-up anxiety and practiced apologies fell away in the quiet that had fallen between them. No matter what else was about to unfold, for these few minutes, she would be given the chance to care for him and see to his needs.
She slid over to the side of the bed and reordered the tools to suit her reach, adding a saucer to collect the glass in. Then she surveyed the room, leaving him briefly to pour out some water into a basin, and returned with it, determined to do her best. “Would you . . . care to take your shirt off?”
Rowan slowly closed his eyes and shook his head. At last, he opened his eyes and carefully pulled up one bloodied sleeve past his elbow before taking a seat. “Here.” He held out his left hand. “If you could start here, it’s stinging like I’ve been swarmed with bees.”
“We should use vinegar to clean the wounds, but”—she didn’t risk looking up from his hand at his reaction—“perhaps it’s better to just flush them all out afterward and then a warm bath.” She picked up the tweezers and began the painful process with as gentle a technique as she could manage. His skin was warm beneath her fingers, and Gayle did her best not to smile at the simple pleasure of touching him again. “Try to relax, Rowan.”
Rowan held still while she worked and finally began to speak. “The police are finished gathering their statements. It’s over and they’ve taken away your Mr. James.”
“He is most certainly not my Mr. James!” She looked up through her lashes and realized he was teasing. “You never believed he was.”
“No, I never did. I know he’s barely an acquaintance. I’m not blind to the knowledge that all those primal urges to strike out at any man between the ages of eighteen and eighty who might wander into your path are misguided.”
“No, but it’s flattering to think you might.” She eyed the growing pile of red-stained bits of glass in the saucer. All for me, these “stings” as he called them—would that I could kiss him for each one.
“Very well then, I have to ask, who is Mr. Chester?”
“My parents’ solicitor and he’s a toad of a man.”
Rowan nodded. “Good.”
A spark of hope came to life as they fell into a comfortable banter, and Gayle prayed that this demonstration of a lighter mood might bode well. “When Aunt Jane suggested him, that’s when I knew just how desperate she’d become for me. Perhaps I should send the unfortunate man a note of thanks.”
“And what would you be thanking him for?”
“For being my Rubicon. I knew once I’d turned down Mr. Chester, there would never be any more offers.” She poured a little more water over his wrist, and then went on. “Quid pro quo. I owe you a few answers, don’t I?”
“I’ve never pressed you for them. You don’t owe me anything, Miss Renshaw.”
Gayle looked up at the neutral retreat in his tone, but his eyes were a storm of desire and uncertainty, and she plunged ahead. “Then consider this a gift, freely given, Dr. West. Aunt Jane was my father’s sister, and I never understood much of the relationship between them, but they were never close. He left home when he was very young and apprenticed to become an engineer. My father was Richard Renshaw, and he designed a few machines for the textile industry and did very well. My mother was the only daughter of a knight. When my grandfather died, my family received his house and lands in the Lake District, and I remember my father teasing my mother for marrying beneath her. There was no title to pass down, but when I was little, before Emily died, I recall my father calling her Lady Rose to make her smile.”
“You come from a good family, Gayle. But then, anyone would have guessed you weren’t from South W
ales . . . or raised by wolves.”
She shook her head, turning to his right hand to continue working as she distracted him with her story. “No, but after they died, Aunt Jane seemed to think I should make a better match than the average girl in Standish Crossing—what with a knight for a grandfather!”
“How did your parents die?”
“I was told my father had cancer, but after studying with you these last few weeks, I’m sure it was something else. Near the end, he retreated to his hunting lodge and died there with an attendant at his side. It must have been something far more shameful than cancer of the stomach, because my mother began showing symptoms of an illness she refused to describe and took her own life a few days after he’d gone.” Gayle pushed his sleeve up farther to gently pull the last few slivers from his forearm and elbow. “I’ve never told anyone, Rowan. Even Aunt Jane was told it was cancer and that my mother simply died of grief. People think I’m odd enough wanting to be a physician, but my mother’s suicide would give their arguments a little more bite. So you see, perhaps I’m not from such a good family after all.”
“Your secrets are safe with me.”
She nodded, secure in his promise, then stood to find the cuts on his head, parting his thick russet hair to meticulously locate the offending pieces of glass that had been embedded into his scalp during his fight with Peter. It was a wicked trick to make sure she stood as close as she dared so that he would feel her warmth at his back, but Gayle was shameless in her campaign to draw him out. “You saved my life, Rowan. But how? How did you know it was Mr. James? I never thought of Mr. James as the kind of man to harm anyone, but somehow you knew. When he appeared and I heard the bell announce that you’d left on call, I had the worst feeling. And then when he started talking about the money and leaving London . . . I feared I’d be found dead on that floor.”
Ecstasy Wears Emeralds Page 25
