“Since he’d created the intolerable situation with Pritchard in the first place,” Mr. Baines went on, “he felt honor bound to set it right.”
“Hah! The man has no honor in him.”
“That’s not true, madam! He has worked himself into a frenzy trying to resolve your difficulties. He was willing to give you thirty thousand pounds of his own money to make up for what he’d done.”
“Is that why he wanted to give me the money?” she asked. “Or was it a way to control me, to have a say in what happened to my school?”
She simply did not know whom to believe and what to think. David had never once said he loved her. And now it was beginning to dawn on her why that might be. But until this madness was over and his wife’s killer caught, until she could speak to David alone, she could never know for sure.
She shook her head. Could she ever know for sure? She now knew the kind of deception he was capable of. How could she ever trust him again?
Everything had changed between them—and she feared it could never be made right.
Chapter Twenty-four
David had just finished explaining to Pinter what the situation was between him and Charlotte, about her letter to him years ago, and why he’d felt a need to revenge himself. He’d had no choice; Pinter had demanded to know it all.
He stared at the man as Pinter mulled over what David had told him. David wished he could bash the man’s head against the nearest wall, after watching him systematically destroy the fragile relationship David had built with Charlotte. But that certainly wouldn’t help either him or Charlotte.
“Now you understand that she has been entirely deceived by me for years,” David said. “There is no way in hell that Mrs. Harris had anything to do with my wife’s death.”
“So you say,” Pinter retorted.
David curled his fingers into his palms to keep from throttling the man. “Look at those letters, and you’ll know she didn’t. And it’s madness to think that she and I would have conspired over it, for God’s sake. I sent her a letter the very night of Sarah’s death! Why would I have bothered?”
“Because it was a convenient way to establish your own alibi while your lover was insinuating herself into your wife’s bedchamber?”
“Don’t be an ass, Pinter. Charlotte is a highly respected schoolmistress. She’s incapable of killing anyone, either at my command or on her own. Her reputation ought to speak for itself.” His eyes narrowed. “And you’ve got other perfectly legitimate suspects you’re ignoring—my wife’s footman, for one. So while you’re pursuing this mad line of investigation, the real murderer is roaming free about the city. Has that not occurred to you?”
“Believe me, my lord, we are pursuing every possible scenario.”
But the man’s implacable expression filled David with a futility he had not felt before. “So what will it take for you to believe that neither I nor Mrs. Harris had anything to do with this?”
“We’ll question her servants and yours, try to confirm your separate alibis. And we’ll look at those letters. Not to mention anything else we might find in your wife’s room, like her own letters or a diary or—”
David snorted. “My wife was not the letter-writing sort. She certainly wasn’t introspective enough to keep a diary, unless it was to record her gambling losses.”
And all of a sudden, it hit him. The idea was so perfect he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. How better to exonerate both him and Charlotte? And to eliminate whatever suspects were not viable?
“Mr. Pinter, would you allow me to make a suggestion regarding your investigation into my wife’s murder?”
“Depends on what sort of suggestion it is,” the man said dryly.
“Whoever really killed my wife doesn’t yet know how far your investigation has gone. Is that correct? Even Mrs. Harris knows nothing beyond what you’ve said today, and that is precious little. And you’ve already acknowledged that my alibi prevents me from having done the deed with my own hands.”
Pinter eyed him warily. “True. What’s your point?”
“The newspapers are already full of the fact that Sarah’s death was a murder. What I propose is that you make an official statement today that your investigation has brought to light that my wife kept a diary. Tell the papers that you expect the diary, which went missing after her death, to reveal important information about who murdered her, and that anyone who might know the whereabouts of said diary should come forward. With any luck, the real murderer will panic and attempt to break into my house looking for the incriminating evidence.”
“Unless the real murderers are you and Mrs. Harris.”
David stiffened. “That is why this will only work if you keep Mrs. Harris as much in the dark about the supposed diary as the rest of your suspects.”
“Oh?” Mr. Pinter said skeptically. “You think I can trust you not to inform her the minute you have a chance?”
“You needn’t worry about that.” He drew in a heavy breath. “When we leave here, you’re going to arrest me and place me in the gaol. That will ensure that I have no contact with any of your suspects, including Mrs. Harris. Since only you and I know the truth, the trap will be secure.”
Mr. Pinter’s eyes narrowed. “You’re willing to go to such a length to prove Mrs. Harris innocent.”
“I’m willing to do anything to prove her innocent—and me. I will not have this hanging over my head any longer. I want to know who murdered my wife as much as you do.” He glanced at the closed door to Mr. Baines’s office. “As long as you continue to follow false leads, that will never happen.”
“Why should you care about finding your wife’s murderer? Her death cleared the way for you and your…friend.”
“My wife deserved better than to be drowned in her bath, and I should have protected her from that. My curse is that I failed to keep her safe while she was alive. I don’t intend to fail in bringing her killer to justice, now that she’s dead.”
Pinter stared at him a long moment, then gave an odd little smile. “It’s a good plan, actually. I wish I’d thought of it myself. Assuming that our murderer is not clever enough to see the trap, it might even work.”
“If it doesn’t, you haven’t lost anything,” David pointed out, then added acidly, “And you’ll already have me conveniently in the gaol.”
“Surely you realize, my lord, that I cannot put you in the gaol.”
“Why not?”
“You’re a peer. With as little evidence as we have right now, there would be such an outcry among your friends and family that it would make my work even more difficult. You have powerful friends in the government, like the Duke of Foxmoor, the present secretary of war. I am not taking on the whole world to solve this murder. Besides, if I arrest you for the murder, what incentive does the ‘real murderer’ have to come looking for the diary?”
“Fine, do as you please then,” David snapped, in frustration. “But remember that my powerful friends also happen to be Mrs. Harris’s powerful friends. And if you mean to pursue her as a suspect—”
“Let me finish, my lord. I’m only suggesting that you not be arrested or go into the gaol. Instead, I propose another arrangement—that you remain at your town house, where you’ll be guarded by my men, but without anyone’s knowledge. You will inform your family that you are retiring to a friend’s house in the country to avoid the press, and you will take up your knocker, close up the town house, and handle your servants as if you were leaving town.”
David released a breath. Pinter had decided to pursue his proposition. Thank God. “What about the skeleton staff that generally remains to watch the house?”
“Give them a holiday. My men will take on their roles. But it must look as if the house is virtually empty if this is to work. That is why the public will be told the same thing as your family. It does no good for us to set a trap if our villain will not walk into it.”
“Thank you,” David said. “Both for considering my
proposition and for giving me and Mrs. Harris the benefit of a doubt.”
Pinter’s gaze hardened. “I’m willing to try this unorthodox approach, but I can’t allow it to go on long. I can’t afford to have my men tied up in something that may not get results.”
“I understand. But I suspect that whoever killed Sarah was close enough to her to know where she tended to hide things, or she wouldn’t have allowed him into her bedchamber. And he won’t be able to resist the urge to check and make sure she didn’t hide a diary.”
“You’d best hope you’re right,” Pinter said dryly. “I may not have enough evidence now to arrest either of you, but if you are guilty, I will find it.”
“I would expect no less of you, sir.” David glanced toward the closed office door. “I do have two requests that I hope you will grant me in exchange for my cooperation in letting you take over my life.”
Pinter scowled. “And what might those be?”
“Since I won’t be able to act on the knowledge, I think the least you could do is tell me who brought this matter to your attention in the first place.”
For the first time all morning, Pinter looked a bit flustered. “Actually, my lord, we don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“We received an anonymous letter saying that we should take a closer look at your wife’s suicide note. It enclosed the draper’s bill, and it also gave the information that your wife had planned dinner with a friend the day after her death. When we spoke to the friend, she confirmed that, though she did not recall telling anyone of it.”
“So it could have been anyone—my brother-in-law, the footman, even that blasted moneylender Timms, if he’d happened to see Sarah that day and she’d mentioned it.”
“Your brother-in-law?”
David sighed. He didn’t want to get Richard into trouble with the law unnecessarily, but neither did he want to see the man create havoc for everyone he loved.
“Sarah’s brother, Richard Linley. He has blamed me for her death ever since it happened. A week ago he asked me for money, which I refused to give him because he’s as inveterate a gambler as Sarah was. I wouldn’t put it past him to stir up trouble in retaliation.”
Pinter drew out his notepad and jotted down a few words. “Perhaps my men and I will have a little talk with Mr. Linley. If he wrote the letter, we want to know about it. We can determine if he knows more than he’s saying.”
“That’s a start. And another thing…”
David briefly sketched out the situation with Timms. Pinter wrote notes on that, promising to look into the moneylender as well, though he agreed it was unlikely that Timms could have entered Sarah’s bedchamber late at night without being seen.
After tucking away his pad, Pinter said, “You mentioned two requests. What is the other?”
“I want a few more minutes to speak with Mrs. Harris before we leave.”
“I can’t let you talk to her alone or—”
“I know, it will defeat the purpose of the trap. You can witness it. But I have to make her understand why I did what I did.”
Something that looked remarkably like pity flashed briefly in Pinter’s eyes. “All right. But be quick about it.”
They went back into the room to find Charlotte staring out the window while Baines piled fourteen years of letters into a box for Pinter’s man.
“Charlotte,” David said. “I have to go now.”
She turned from the window in alarm. “Are they arresting you?”
“No.” He dared not say more about that, not if he wanted to free her of any suspicion. But God, it killed him to keep silent, knowing what she would think when he disappeared from her life without a word.
“Are they…arresting me?”
“We’re not arresting anyone at this time, Mrs. Harris,” Pinter put in. “But his lordship and I have a few important matters to discuss. You’re free to go, but I would advise you not to leave the area.”
She paled at that, then came toward the door without looking at David.
He couldn’t just let her go like this. Stepping into her path, he murmured, “I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you.”
“Really?” she said caustically. “Not even when you were concocting your plan for revenge?”
He flinched. “As I told you, once we began writing each other, everything changed. And by the time I invented the legacy, I wanted only one thing: to make amends for what I’d done.”
“I do not believe that is all you wanted,” she said in a heart-wrenching voice. “Whether you admit it or not, you wanted to punish me for humiliating you and your family all those years ago.”
“That’s not true!”
“Isn’t it?” Her gaze was surprisingly clear-eyed. “Earlier, when you told me why you did it, your anger over it seemed as fresh now as it must have been fourteen years ago. You may not realize it, but you still resent me for what I did. Your anger bubbles to the surface whenever you speak of it.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I think it is simpler than you will admit. The real reason you did not tell me the truth was you wanted to ‘guide’ me as Cousin Michael always did. I took away your control of your own life back then, and you figured that turnabout was fair play. So it was your turn to make sure that things went according to plan. To make me dance to your tune.”
The possibility that she might be right only fueled his temper. “I did this because I care about you!”
“You did this because you could not stand to let me learn what you really are. Because if I did, I would no longer feel a need to hold on to my guilt. We would both be culpable for wronging each other. And that would put us on an equal plane, wouldn’t it? You were not about to allow that.”
“Have you forgotten that I asked you—” He shot Pinter a glance, but what was the point of hiding anything now? He couldn’t make things any worse. “That I asked you to marry me a few days ago?”
“How could I forget that? You proposed the sort of marriage where you had all the control, and I had none.” Her eyes darkened with pain. “You proposed closing the school. How tidy it would have been for you if I had accepted. You would never have had to admit to being Cousin Michael. You must have been very desperate to keep control of my life.”
Now he could see just how deeply he’d hurt her, and it struck the death knell to all his hopes for them. The fact that some of her suppositions were true only made it worse. He had tried to avoid ever admitting the truth to her. He had tried to manipulate her.
“You’re right,” he said. “I was desperate. But not for the reasons you say. I didn’t want to lose you, sweeting.”
“Do not call me that anymore.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I kept wondering why you would not say you loved me. You said you needed me, but you said nothing of love. And today I figured out why. You cannot forgive me for breaking your heart years ago. And I doubt you ever will.”
As he stared at her, stunned by her words, she slipped from the room.
You cannot forgive me for breaking your heart years ago. And I doubt you ever will.
How could she even think it? It wasn’t true, damn it!
“My lord,” Pinter said beside him. “We should go. We have much to do.”
David nodded numbly. Charlotte was never going to forgive him for his deceptions. And that meant he’d lost her for good.
Chapter Twenty-five
For the next few days Charlotte tried not to think about David. It didn’t help that Bow Street runners swarmed over the school for two of those days, questioning the servants and staff. Thankfully, the fall term had ended last week, so there were no girls around to gossip and spread news to their parents about the school’s being involved in the investigation. But the teachers were present, and according to Terence, had praised her and defended her honor most vigorously.
With the papers full of speculation about Sarah’s murder, she was grateful for her staff’s support. No
t to mention their discretion, since so far her connection to the investigation had not been mentioned in any story. The press was too busy chewing over the official statement from the magistrate’s office, something about a diary it was looking for. At least Mr. Pinter seemed to have moved the focus of his interest from David, for the papers said that David had gone off to the country.
Without a word to her, without trying to see her alone? She should not be hurt, given her final words to him, but she was. She had not expected when they parted that she would not see him again.
With the Bow Street men now gone from the school, she struggled to bury her hurt and avoid her staff’s questions. She kept busy assessing the school’s financial situation. Acknowledging that she could no longer hope to find a place near London, she began investigating moving the academy into a more remote area where she might afford to rent a large enough building to house her pupils. Buying was out of the question. She lacked the money.
David was willing to give you thirty thousand pounds to buy property. And you threw it back in his face.
Of course she did! He was arrogantly trying to manipulate things to his advantage, to cover up his crime.
She sank onto the settee in her private drawing room. Crime? Giving her low rents for fourteen years? Loaning her money? Advising her in areas where she couldn’t possibly have had any expertise?
“He lied to me, curse him!” she shouted to the empty room.
Yes, and there had been no mistaking his remorse over that.
Tired of the incessant thoughts running through her mind, she laid her head back and closed her eyes, but that only made things worse. This was where David had first kissed her after their years apart. This was where he’d nearly ravished her. For all his manipulating and controlling, he had not planned that, she was almost certain. It had seemed to take him as much by surprise as her.
Was she being unfair to attribute darker motives to him? Perhaps he was no clearer about his own feelings than she was. And perhaps she had been a trifle hard on him that day in Mr. Baines’s office.
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