The Edge of Desire by Stephanie Laurens
Regardless, she meant to play an active role in the hunt.
They halted on the road for lunch, but didn’t dally. Once they were bowling along again, this time behind a pair of flighty blacks, she said, “You were speaking the literal truth, weren’t you—about us having to identify and catch whoever killed Randall in order to exonerate Justin?”
Christian held the horses in as a mail coach rumbled by, then let the reins flow again. “Unfortunately, your brother overlooked a number of factors in scripting his little drama. Clearing him of suspicion from the authorities will be straightforward enough—that we can do with evidence alone.”
“But clearing him of suspicion from the ton—clearing his name so he’ll be accepted in society again and be able to marry well—for that…”
“Indeed.” With a flick of his wrist, Christian sent the restive pair racing past a lumbering carriage. “To achieve that, we’ll need to produce not just factual proof, but the murderer himself. Nothing else will do.”
Letitia humphed. “If I know the gossips—and I do—we’ll even need to prove that the murderer, whoever he is, doesn’t know Justin. Or me. Or even Hermione.”
“As none of you know any of Randall’s friends, that, at least, shouldn’t be too hard.”
Letitia mulled over the issue of Randall’s friends—the odd circumstance that, after eight years of marriage, she had absolutely no idea who they were. She’d had no interest in her late husband’s life—no interest in him; their social paths had remained by her decree disconnected.
Not that Randall had minded.
As if following her train of thought, Christian asked, “Did Randall accompany you to the usual functions?”
“Yes, but only the major ones, or those where he knew certain other guests would be—those with whom he wanted to rub shoulders.” She thought back. “He wasn’t all that socially inclined, not in tonnish terms, but he did like to be seen, to claim his place, as it were, every now and then.”
Another mile swept by, then he asked, “I assumed that he married you for your social connections. Wasn’t that the case?”
She grimaced. “I assumed the same, but the answer was yes and no. I was more like…oh, a trophy. At least that’s how I felt. Not so much a person as an object, something to be acquired and put on a shelf to be admired, but otherwise…”
That, she realized, was a reasonably accurate summation of her marriage. There never had been any pretense, at least not between them, that Randall had married her for love, not even for desire.
Unprompted, she murmured, “Our marriage was more like a civil truce. I didn’t like him, I didn’t respect him, but we’d made an agreement and I stuck to it. And for all that I detested him, so did he.”
She wasn’t surprised when Christian asked no more, but she knew he had more questions—ones he couldn’t, had no right to, put to her. Such as how often Randall had shared her bed. The answer was far less than she’d expected, but Christian didn’t need to know that. Didn’t need to know that courtesy of her earlier association with him, she’d had the confidence and the ammunition to drive Randall away—and keep him away. He’d never asked her who her lover had been, so he’d never known to whom he was being compared. All he had known was that he didn’t measure up—not in any way.
With a younger brother and more male cousins than she could count, she’d known where the major chink in men’s armor was. Reducing Randall to a near impotent state, at least with respect to her, hadn’t been too difficult.
She’d gained control of that aspect of her marriage, and had otherwise largely lived a life apart from her husband. Unfortunately that meant…
As they rolled into London, she sighed. “I do hope you have some idea of where to search for Randall’s friends, for I freely admit I have none.”
Christian glanced at her. “No man is an island. Donne was correct. Randall will have had some connections somewhere.”
He looked up at the sky. They’d made good time, yet late afternoon was edging into evening. “It’s too late to call on that colleague I mentioned. I’ll take you back to the house.”
Letitia wrapped her shawl more tightly about her as the shadows of the buildings engulfed them. “Hermione and Agnes will be waiting to hear.”
They weren’t the only ones. After halting briefly in Grosvenor Square to pick up one of his grooms, Christian drove on to South Audley Street. Tossing the reins to his groom with instructions to walk the horses around to the mews behind Grosvenor Square, he alighted and handed Letitia down. As the curricle moved off, he glimpsed a familiar head ducking behind the area railings opposite. Inwardly shaking his head, he turned and climbed the steps to where Mellon, struggling to hide his disapproval, and failing, stood holding the door.
Shrugging off his heavy greatcoat, he left it with the butler, then walked into the front parlor. Letitia wasn’t, as he’d expected, seated on one of the sofas regaling Hermione and Agnes with their news. Instead, she stood poised by one of the front windows, peering—glaring—past the lace curtains. “That horrible little man is still there! Did you see?”
Lips quirking, he halted by the sofa opposite the one Agnes and Hermione occupied. “However reluctantly, one has to give him credit for unswerving devotion to his cause.” He nodded to Agnes and Hermione.
Letitia humphed, and turned back into the room. Joining him before the sofa, she sat, allowing him to sit, too.
“So Justin’s perfectly all right—you spoke with him?” Eyes bright, almost painfully eager, Hermione leaned forward.
Letitia nodded. “The idiot thought he was protecting me.” She described where Justin had been hiding and what they’d learned from him.
At the end of her recital, she glanced at Christian. “You may as well stay for dinner—if you haven’t any other pressing engagement?”
When he inclined his head in acceptance, she rose and headed for the bellpull. “We need to put our heads together and decide what to do next.”
He waited while she summoned Mellon and gave the order for an extra place at dinner. He’d have to question Mellon again, but now was not the time. He shifted his gaze to Hermione. She was biting her lower lip, clearly chewing on her thoughts. In the circumstances, she was currently at the top of his interrogation list.
When Mellon retreated and Letitia returned to the sofa, Hermione looked up at her. “So you don’t think Justin killed Randall—and you’re looking for the real murderer?”
Flopping back down beside Christian, Letitia nodded. “To clear Justin’s name completely and beyond question, as we must—the future head of the House of Vaux cannot carry the stigma of being suspected of murder in even the least degree—then we have to produce the real murderer, and have him convicted of the crime.”
Mellon returned to announce that dinner was served. They all rose and repaired to the dining room. As he took his seat alongside Letitia’s at the end of the table, Christian noted that no expense had been spared—not with the highly polished table, a stunning example of the craftman’s art, nor with the silver and crystal, both on the table and on the sideboard against the wall. Expensive artwork, curtains, rugs, and satin-striped upholstery completed the room, along with an elegant crystal chandelier.
Flicking out his napkin, he glanced at Letitia. “Did you entertain much?”
She looked up, then, as he had, looked around the room. “A little, but not as much as I might have.” Realizing the significance of his question, she added, “And they were always my friends and acquaintances—the only names Randall ever suggested were politicians or ton figures he wished to meet and talk with, not people he already knew.”
Seated opposite Christian, Agnes shook her head. “He never did bring people home.” Agnes looked at Letitia. “Not even when you and Hermione were out.” She glanced at Christian. “When Letitia takes Hermione with her, I usually remain at home. And people like Randall always overlook the old ladies of the world.”
At their peril. From the
Agnes looked down as the soup course was placed before her. “Sadly, rack my brains though I have, I can’t offer any suggestions as to Randall’s friends.”
“Nor can I.” Hermione picked up her soup spoon.
Conversation lagged as they worked their way through the fish course, the entrée, then moved on to dessert. Throughout, Hermione frowned abstractedly at her plate.
Christian waited until the footmen withdrew, then under the table nudged Letitia’s knee. She looked at him. When he directed her gaze to Mellon, standing correct and upright behind Randall’s empty chair, she blotted her lips with her napkin, then waved an imperious hand. “You may go, Mellon. We won’t need anything more.”
Mellon would have preferred to stay and satisfy his curiosity—he’d heard their earlier comments about his late master’s friends—but he had to bow and withdraw.
When the door closed behind him, Letitia turned to Christian—to discover him regarding Hermione with that steady, gray, impossible-to-escape gaze of his.
Hermione, wrapped in her own thoughts, remained oblivious.
“In order to expose Randall’s real murderer—as we must—we need to learn exactly what went on here on the night he was killed.” His gaze still on Hermione, Christian laid his napkin on the table.
Recalling that her sister knew something about that night that she’d yet to share, Letitia, too, fixed her gaze on Hermione.
Who finally looked up.
Finding both Letitia and Christian focused on her, Hermione glanced at Agnes, only to see her aunt also waiting patiently to hear what she would say.
Hermione grimaced. She brought her gaze back to Christian’s face. After a moment of studying him, she said, “Before I tell you what I know about that night, swear to me that you’ll make sure Justin’s safe.”
Letitia opened her mouth to utter a blanket assurance; Christian stopped her by closing one hand about her wrist.
Holding Hermione’s gaze, he said, “I swear on my honor as an Allardyce, and as Dearne, that I will do everything in my power to see your brother cleared of Randall’s murder.” He arched a brow at Hermione. “Good enough?”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“So what did you see?” Letitia frowned. “And how did you come to see anything at all?”
Christian squeezed her wrist again, then released her. To Hermione, he said, “Start with your evening, before you went to bed.”
Hermione looked down at her fingers, smoothing the hem of her napkin. “Agnes and I had a quiet evening. I was already in bed when Letitia came home.” Her gaze flicked up to Christian’s face. “My bedroom is above the study.” She returned her gaze to the napkin. “I can’t hear people converse in there, no words, but I can hear loud noises. I heard Letitia railing at Randall—I knew it was something about me, but I didn’t know what.” She glanced at Letitia. “You kept saying it was nothing, but it was obviously something—enough of a something to have you screeching.”
Letitia made a dismissing gesture. “The issue died with Randall. It’s…”
Hermione arched a brow. “Dead and buried?” She nodded. “I did wonder whether that was, at least in part, behind what I later saw—or thought I saw.”
When she didn’t immediately go on, Letitia opened her mouth—Christian grasped her wrist and silenced her again. She shot him a weak glare but desisted. Grudgingly.
“So I heard Letitia ranting.” Hermione picked up her tale. “Then I heard her slam the study door and storm up the stairs and into her room. I thought, after that, that I’d be able to fall asleep.” She paused. “I was just dozing off when I heard Randall and another man talking—I couldn’t hear the words, I never can, but I could hear the rumble of their voices. I tried to sleep, but couldn’t, then I heard a thud. A heavy thud.
“I listened, but the voices had stopped. I told myself it was the door shutting, or something like that…only I knew it wasn’t. I know the sounds in that room, and I’d never heard a thud like that—sort of soft but heavy.”
Christian asked, “Did you notice the time?”
She shook her head. “My candle was out. I kept trying to fall asleep—I don’t know for how long. I kept imagining what that thud might be. I actually thought it might be a dead body. In the end, I knew I wasn’t going to sleep until I knew, so I got up to go and see. I thought that the worst that might happen was that Randall might be at his desk—he often worked late. If he saw me, I was going to say I couldn’t sleep and was heading to the library for a book. But I had to dress—I wasn’t going to get caught by anyone in my dressing gown.”
“Did you hear anything while you were dressing?” Christian asked.
“Or going downstairs?” Letitia put in, trying to hurry things along.
Hermione frowned. “No—not until I was on the landing. I didn’t use the main stair, but the one in my wing. It comes down in the corridor past the study. When I reached the landing, I heard the study door open. I hadn’t taken a candle—I could see well enough—so I crouched down on the landing and looked through the banisters.”
She glanced at Letitia, then at Christian. “I saw Justin come out of the study. I didn’t see his face—he turned and looked back into the room, then he walked on to the front door.” She paused, caught by her memories. “I would have called to him, but he seemed…strange. Stunned, I suppose, now I know what he’d done. Even then, I suspected something bad had happened, so I didn’t say anything, just watched him open the front door and walk out, then he pulled the door closed behind him.”
Straightening in her chair, Hermione paled, but met Christian’s eyes gamely. “I waited a little, everything was quiet, then I crept down the stairs and looked into the study. I didn’t go in—I could see enough from the doorway. I…I thought Justin had killed Randall. It was so horrible…but I’d never liked Randall—never liked that Letitia had had to marry him no matter how much she pretended it was a love match. And, well, he was dead now—that was obvious. But I didn’t want Justin to be caught, so I thought…the only thing I could think of doing was to lock the door and slip the key back inside. I hoped it would look like the key had fallen out of the lock later—perhaps while they were beating on the door. I knew no one could possibly think Randall had taken his own life, but I thought having the door look like it was locked from inside would at least confuse things.”
Christian grimaced. “In that you succeeded, but Mellon knew Justin had called to see Randall and later left.”
“But I didn’t know that,” Hermione said. “Justin might have just arrived and Randall had let him in—I couldn’t tell. Anyway, the key was in the lock, Randall usually kept it there, he sometimes did lock the door—so I locked the door, slid the key back inside, and went back upstairs.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I didn’t get any sleep, though.”
Christian could imagine. He considered, matching Hermione’s story with Justin’s, then he looked at Letitia, frowning in concern at Hermione, then at Agnes, who was patting Hermione’s hand.
For her part, Hermione seemed relieved. It was she who asked, “So what will you do now?”
Both Letitia and Agnes joined her in fixing inquiring gazes on him.
Deciding no harm could come of sharing his deductions, he glanced at the door, confirmed it was shut, then in a voice that wouldn’t carry, said, “I believe what happened was that after Letitia left Randall—while Justin was reading in the library after having dismissed Mellon—someone else called on Randall, someone he was expecting, given Mellon didn’t hear the doorbell. His visitor was someone he knew, someone he trusted. That person sat in the chair by his study fire and they shared a glass of brandy.”
“So the person was almost certainly a man,” Letitia pointed out. “Very few women drink brandy.”
He inclined his head. “So this man and Ran
All three of his listeners were nodding.
“So,” he concluded, “our next step is to learn who the friend Randall entertained that night might be. And to confirm, if we can, how he got into the house, and how he left it.”
All three women’s expressions grew determined.
“And whoever he is,” Hermione said, “he’s Randall’s murderer.”
Letitia was pleased Christian had shared his thoughts so freely—without her having to drag them from him—but what she now wanted to know was how he proposed to learn who Randall’s mysterious friend-cum-murderer was. However, not wanting to encourage Hermione to think she could play any role in their hunt, she waited with what patience she could muster until Hermione and Agnes retired.
The instant the door shut behind them, she swung to face Christian, once more seated beside her on the sofa in her parlor. “How—”
He pulled her into his arms. Into a kiss. Not a scorching one. One she might, if she’d put her mind to it, have resisted.
But she didn’t resist. Instead found herself melting into his embrace. Mentally cursed, but by then it was too late.
He kissed her until her wits had long flown, until she was breathless, and achy, and thinking of things she’d had no intention of thinking about—sins she’d had no intention of committing—until he’d kissed her.
When he lifted his head and looked into her eyes, his heavy-lidded with the passion and desire that always—always—lay between them, she could barely marshal one coherent thought. And that one…
She fought against the drugging tide, tried to reorient—knew she had questions she wanted to ask, but couldn’t lay her mind to any of them. Blinking, she tried to reassemble her wits.
Before she succeeded he was on his feet, and she was on hers, and he was towing her to the door.