She shrugged and went to pour herself her own drink. “The persona we developed for Glenrothes has borne truth through our recent encounters. He should already be feeling the sting of Society’s scorn through the cut direct from them all. So what is next?”
“I have an urgent need for my wife to accompany me back to London as soon as possible. I’m under some amount of pressure to regain the fortune she has denied me by declaring me dead and only she can provide me what I need. At the same time, however, a reprimand is needed to demonstrate my power over her… a bit of retribution for her defiance and shameful behavior.” He templed his fingers and stared at Vanessa thoughtfully before rising and moving to the window.
“Retribution?” she parroted, confused. “But when do I get my money?” Shaftesbury had explained to her who his wife was, or rather who her father was, and assured her he would pay handsomely for her aid in separating his wife from Glenrothes. She would most certainly need the funds to get by if she were to be unsuccessful in reengaging Francis after Shaftesbury forced the countess back to England. Vanessa’s father had long ago disowned her for her ‘disgraceful’ behaviors, though she didn’t think anyone else was aware of that fact. She had been on her own with only the money she had extorted from Glenrothes three years before and was running low on funds. She doubted her father would rouse himself to help her in anything beyond protecting the Westmoreland name.
“You will get your reward, my dear, when I have got my bit of revenge for the trouble my wife and her lover have caused me. This entire situation is quite beyond humiliating. Glenrothes has made a whore of my wife.” His eyes narrowed as he flicked aside the curtains and looked down into the empty street. “For that they will both suffer.”
“What are you going to do? Torture her?”
“No, I have something much better in mind,” he answered. “I think to make her truly suffer I cannot hurt her directly, but rather hurt someone she loves.”
Vanessa had the grace to look mildly concerned. “I may not be the best person alive but I don’t hold with hurting children, Shaftesbury.”
“Not my son, you twit.” He was really getting tired of the woman. She truly had the most base intelligence. It was no wonder Glenrothes had gotten rid of her so long ago. “To make my wife truly suffer, I will have her watch someone she loves” – he drawled the word – “suffer in her place. Someone who deserves to be punished for touching what is mine.”
“Francis?” she wondered out loud in surprise. “You can’t kill him! If you do I’ll get nothing! Everything else would go to Richard.”
“I am not going to kill him. That would be over much too fast without the necessary pain and suffering on his part. No, it must be something with a bit more of a lasting effect.”
“Like what? He’s got more money than Croesus, you know?” she informed him. “The worst blackmail would hardly put a dent in his bank account.”
William rolled his eyes. “Is money all you think about?” he sneered. “No, my dear, the punishment I have in mind for him will ruin him completely. It will blacken his name and deny him his life.”
“I don’t understand,” she insisted. “I thought you were just planning on ruining his reputation. What else can you do to him? He is Glenrothes, do you know what that means?”
“Scottish titles,” Shaftesbury dismissed with a sniff. “They mean nothing and it doesn’t make him above the law.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Well, my dear,” he said circling the room thoughtfully, running his finger along the sideboard and examining his dirty finger with a frown. “I am going to have him arrested and when I have Evelyn back in England, she will suffer not knowing of his fate, whether he lived or was hanged for his crimes. The process will be long and painful but with no chance of reprieve. In the end, Glenrothes will meet the hangman as punishment for his actions. They will both suffer.” His smile was one of evil satisfaction.
“A peer can only hang for murder,” Vanessa informed him, feeling a bit of uncertain panic race through her as Shaftesbury relayed his plan. “Even I know that. Anything else is a slap on the wrist. How are you going to get him to kill someone? It will never work. He won’t do it.”
“He doesn’t need to do it, you dimwit. Everyone just needs to assume it was him.” The earl circled the room as he neared her. “So it has to be someone he has a conflict with, someone who stands in the way of what he wants. Someone he has had a public confrontation with.” He traced the back of his fingers up her throat before turning his hand to cup her neck in his palm lightly. “Someone he conveniently threatened to strangle very recently.”
“You?”
“Why, my dear,” William drawled with a low chuckle, circling his thumb lightly against her throbbing pulse. “That would be most problematic for me. No, no, I was thinking more of his lovely ex-wife, of course.”
Confusion crossed Vanessa’s features. “I don’t understand… that’s me!”
“Yes, it is and you have played your part beautifully, providing motive for such an evil deed. Perfect, lovely motive.” With that, Shaftesbury wrapped both of his hands around her neck and squeezed, cutting off any sounds of protest as she fought against him, scratching at his hands and kicking wildly.
Her face reddened as she stared at him. “Not at all what you expected, is it?” her murderer asked, his eyes lit with a feral glee. “It’s really quite a bit more than I did.”
Only now when death was upon her did Vanessa see the evil in Shaftesbury. He had used her and now he was done with her. Stars burst behind her eyes as she felt unconsciousness creeping toward her from the blackness beyond. More the fool I, she thought.
The earl took several moments to enjoy her shock and pain before pressing his thumbs inward deeply effectively crushing her windpipe. He pushed her away and she fell to the ground, her eyes still open, staring at him, as the life slowly seeped out of her.
“My dear twit.” The earl drew on his gloves as he looked down at her. Her lips were turning blue, now just shades lighter than her deep blue gown, and her eyes slightly bulging as her lungs struggled to pull air through her damaged windpipe. “You have been extremely helpful to me these past days. Truly, I couldn’t have accomplished all of this without you. Even in death you will be so useful. You will be discovered here in the morning. Given your past and most recent contretemps, the authorities will naturally assume Glenrothes killed you in his rage over the many lovers you had taken and your recent dramatics. He will be sent off to prison before losing his own life to the hangman’s noose. A fitting punishment for my wife, I think? To watch her lover die amidst a sea of public degradation?”
Putting on his hat, he tipped it to her slightly, poking her with his cane. “I thank you for your valuable assistance.” He left without a backward glance.
Chapter 42
Francis snuck out of Eve’s room before dawn, leaving her sleeping. Nodding to Hobbes who stood, mouth agape, in the front hall, Francis went into the predawn mist back to his own home.
He was just finishing bathing and dressing back at his townhouse when a knock came on the door of his rooms. Without waiting for an answer, Jack strolled in, looking tired and rumpled in his clothes from the previous evening. “Good, you’re up.”
“Looks as though you haven’t even been to bed yet.”
“Oh, I’ve been to bed, just haven’t slept.” Jack stretched with a cocky grin. “I had promised Lady Hamilton my evening. Energetic lass.”
“Married women will not get you the fortune you need, Merrill,” Francis commented as he finished tying his cravat. “You might want to at least try for a widow if you don’t like the debs.”
“I was trying for a widow until you showed up and snagged her from me,” he reminded. “Ah, but of course she isn’t a widow any longer. I suppose I should be happy that I didn’t get her an inch from the altar before her husband showed up and ruined my good fortune.” He clapped his friend on the back as Francis grim
aced. “Anyway, I am off to bed but I told Godfrey I’d let you know on the way up that there are some men downstairs waiting to talk to you.”
“Men? Who?”
“Looked fairly official to me. I saw them come in as I was walking up the street. Bloody hell! You think they are here about that fight the other night?” Jack asked. “You think that jackass Shaftesbury went to the bobbies?”
“I don’t think he would have much to gain in doing so,” Francis answered with a shake of his head, though a puzzled frown furrowed his brow. “Man like that must know that the authorities tend to overlook such minor contretemps when nobility is involved. I suppose there is nothing for it but to go and find out.”
“Can’t wait to see this,” Jack shrugged as Francis raised an eyebrow. “Could be interesting, besides, you might need a witness to your innocence.”
Two men rose as Francis and Jack strolled into the drawing room. Jack was right, they did have an ‘official’ air about them. Both wore suits of middling quality, in muted colors and serviceable styling. The taller man was a bit older than the other, graying and dignified. Francis pegged him as the superior to the younger chap, who smiled at them with a kind of feral glee when they entered. “May I help you gentlemen?”
“Glenrothes?” asked the elder of the pair.
“Aye,” he answered warily.
“Gerald Thompson, Edinburgh police. This is one of my detectives, Mr. Shaw.” Francis shook hands with both men and indicated Jack. “Haddington.” Jack also shook hands with both men as Glenrothes invited the pair to sit.
“I suppose I should get right to the point. I am sorry to inform you, my lord,” Thompson began gruffly, “that your former wife, the countess of Glenrothes, was found dead this morning in her room at the Grand Hotel.”
For a moment Francis sat stunned as the news sank in. A thousand thoughts chased one another around his mind. Vanessa was dead? How? When? How strangely convenient… for him. Not looking at Jack, who was gaping in amazement and struggling to keep any expression from his own face, Francis asked quietly. “May I ask how it happened?”
“Lady MacKintosh was found early this morning by one of the maids at the hotel,” Shaw consulted a small notebook he carried with him. “Initial conclusion made by the coroner is that she was strangled and her windpipe crushed. She would have suffocated within minutes.”
Francis absorbed that for a moment, waiting, trying to feel something. He knew he should but he felt… nothing. “How ghastly.” It was incredible as well, though he didn’t say that. A quick glance to Jack showed he was thinking the same thing. The murder of his wife had certainly made his entire life significantly more simple. “Who did it?”
The older man cleared his throat uncomfortably. “That is, of course, the other reason we are here, my lord, other than to inform you of her death. Rumor has it that you have been seen in several instances arguing with your wife in public.”
Ah, there it was! “Ex-wife,” he reminded blandly. “We have been divorced for many years, sir.”
“Had been,” Jack murmured.
Francis shrugged and agreed with his friend’s correction of tense. “Well, aye, had been.”
“How many years were you married?” Shaw poised a small pencil over his notebook.
“A dozen?” Francis thought out loud. “’Bout a dozen I suppose, by the time the divorce was finalized.”
“Maybe eleven,” Jack drawled keeping an eye on the younger detective as he lounged carelessly against the back of the settee and put his feet up. It set Shaw on edge, he could see with a glimmer of humor, that blasé indifference to the facts. “Could be… maybe.” He raised a brow at Francis and both men shrugged as if the exact number were of no importance.
“And when did you get divorced, my lord?” Thompson continued, while Shaw glared at Haddington, who only smiled blandly back at him.
“It was approved by Parliament about four years ago.”
“Rumors have been abounding across town lately that you were seen arguing with the countess Glenrothes in public venues several times over the past week, my lord,” the detective went on. “Might I ask what you were arguing about?”
Francis took a deep breath, feeling irritation welling up in him. “I had not been arguing, my good man. She was. She wanted money, I simply wanted her to go away. I think those ‘arguments’ might also be defined as negotiations. What are you getting at?”
Shaw’s eyes gleamed up at him over his spectacles. “Why did you divorce your wife, my lord?”
“Why does any man divorce his wife?” Glenrothes shot back, sensing that the younger man was somehow enjoying trying to put him on the defensive.
“Rumor also has it that you have been seen in the company of the Countess of Shaftesbury on several occasions recently.” With that change of subject, Thompson inserted himself into the questioning, for Francis now knew that was what this was.
“The countess is a dear friend of my brother’s wife and has been staying with them for several months.” He tried to make his voice convey the most impersonal tone he could. “I have merely been a polite escort to my sister-in-law’s friend from time to time, as has Haddington on numerous occasions. It is nothing more than that.”
Jack nodded in agreement as he could also easily see where they were going with their questions.
“And the fight involving the countess at the Duke of Roxburghe’s residence last night?”
“Merely defending a friend from an unwanted suitor,” he shrugged it off.
“Seemed to be a bit more than that, I would say. So the countess is merely a… friend,” Shaw asked slyly, but changed the topic again when Francis couldn’t hold back a frown.
Thompson cleared his throat. “Why did you divorce your wife, did you say?”
“Because she was disposed to fucking every man she met.” Glenrothes leaned forward, resting his arms casually, and spoke with bland sarcasm. “It tended to irritate just a bit. Surely any self-respecting man would have done the same in my place.”
The men exchanged a look. “Is that how it was?”
“Indeed it was.”
Jack chuckled dryly. “Could give you the names of a dozen men to back it up.”
“Is that so?”
“There are sworn testimonials to the fact in the records from the Parliamentary inquest.” Francis sighed as if he were bored with the entire subject. “Might we get to the point of this questioning, gentlemen?”
“Of course,” Thompson conceded. “Where were you last night, my lord?”
“And there it is. You think I killed her, yes?” he asked, having no intention of telling them where he was last night. “Very well, I give you my word that I did not.”
“And we should take your word on that?” Shaw sneered.
“I am Glenrothes,” Francis informed him coldly, leveling him with a stare that had the young man suddenly studying his boots intently. “Aye, I think you should.”
“And if we did not?” Thompson asked. “Then what?”
“Then I would ask you this. Why would I kill her?” he questioned with a raised brow, nobility leaking from his every pore. “I have no motive. Other than her constant requests for money – which I can easily afford, by the by – I have no reason even to bring her to mind regularly. She is naught but a nuisance and an embarrassment. A pest. And why now? Why would I choose this place and time? If I wanted to kill her, I have had plenty of opportunity over the past dozen years to do it quickly and quietly. If I were bent on murder, Mr. Thompson, I might have buried her in the gardens of my estate with no one the wiser. No one has seen her in town for years. So why do it now, right after we ‘argued’ in public and leave the body for it to be easily discovered, ready for fingers to be pointed at me?”
“Why indeed?” Jack agreed in a provoking tone.
Thompson stroked his chin thoughtfully. “So you admit that you would have liked to see her dead?” He raised his hand in submission as Francis started to argue the po
int. “Your arguments raise valid points, my lord, and, I will admit, the authorities are reticent to accuse or arrest noblemen in instances like this. Always messy. Much too public. Makes us look bad when we’re wrong.”
“Well, you are wrong now.”
Chapter 43
“Have you any alibi for your whereabouts last night?” Shaw persisted, disliking that his superior was backing down from the fight. Politicians! Personally he liked to see the nobles get what was coming to them every once in a while.
“I returned here after dinner with my brother’s family last night.” It was not a flat out lie, more a lie of omission. He had returned home after leaving Richard’s last night. It had taken him no more than ten minutes to leave again.
“Is there anyone who can corroborate that?” Shaw prodded. “Haddington, perhaps?” Shaw took in Haddington’s attire. “Although it seems that you are just getting in, unless you slept in your clothing?”
Jack scalded the man with a mean look through narrowed eyes that had the underling looking away quickly. “Is there anyone else, my lord?”
“My staff can verify what time I arrived if you would care to question them.” They can also verify what time I came back in this morning, he added silently.
“And you were here all night?”
Clever to ask the question, Francis thought. That Shaw was no man’s fool. “Where else would I be?”
“Where else indeed.” Thompson clapped his hands on his thighs and stood.
Shaw was slower to stand but bent his head to his notebook again. “Just one last thing, my lord. We have a witness who says he saw you leaving the Grand Hotel at half four this morning.”
Questions for a Highlander Page 50
