Elizabeth Thornton - [Special Branch 02] (10 page)

He’d followed her right up the Angel’s stairs, observed the room she’d entered, and promptly returned to the front counter and taken the room next door. If he wanted to, he could kill her right now and slip away before anyone was the wiser. But there was a miniature portrait involved. It was more than likely, Wheatley had told him, that the girl knew where it was hidden or might lead him to it. If at all possible, he should get the portrait before killing the girl. And the same went for Mrs. Barrie.

Mrs. Barrie could wait. She had a son. She wasn’t going anywhere. He’d get to her soon enough. But the maid—he must remember to think of her as Gracie—but Gracie was panicked. He wanted to see what she would do next, who she would try to see or talk to, where she would go.

He looked at the clock. It would be hours before she made her move. She would want the security of darkness. Well, that suited him just fine. There would be a little house somewhere, secluded, he thought, where a runaway wife and her maid wouldn’t attract anyone’s notice. And that, too, was all to the good.

If she had the miniature, it would be there.

He speculated on that miniature for a long time and concluded that there must be something about it that could ruin Hugo Gerrard. He wasn’t tempted to do more than speculate. He had built up a lucrative business for himself, and blackmail would only spoil it. That’s what killing the maid and the widow were to him, a business.

But not all his kills were like this. Some were a
challenge, exciting, dangerous. He smiled to himself, remembering his last assignment. Now that was something to be proud of. He’d bluffed his way into a wedding party and drowned the elderly groom in front of a hundred witnesses, in his own fountain. Everyone thought the groom was drunk and the coroner had brought in a verdict of accidental death. And he had walked off with a small fortune, courtesy of the grieving widow.

Gracie and Mrs. Barrie. He just couldn’t drum up any excitement. The risks were minimal. There was no thrill in that. Any stupid person could do the job.

He wondered how much Wheatley had told Gerrard about himself. Whatever he’d told him was all a lie, because Wheatley didn’t know anything. Harry had met Wheatley when he was using one of his many aliases, and one of his many disguises. If he appeared as himself and looked Wheatley straight in the eye, the barrister wouldn’t know him from Adam.

He wasn’t supposed to know that Hugo Gerrard was the man who was paying for his services. He yawned. Wheatley must take him for a fool, with nothing on his mind but making a little money. That’s the impression he liked to give. But he regarded himself as a professional, as well as something of an artist. He’d done his homework. And if anything went wrong, his first loyalty was to himself.

Having smoked his cheroot down to the stub, he got up and threw it into the grate. His next order of business was to study himself in the mirror above the washstand. He could change his appearance to suit the part he was playing, but in this case, it wasn’t necessary. It didn’t matter if the maid had seen him in the library. She wasn’t going to describe him to anyone.

It occurred to him that she might know that
Rowland was dead. But if she did, she wouldn’t want to believe it.

He stared at himself in the mirror as he rehearsed his role. “Gracie!” He said the name softly and urgently. “Gracie! This is Johnny. Let me in.”

That would never do. He tried again. “Gracie, Gracie can you ’ear me? It’s Johnny. Let me in.”

L
ater that evening, Gwyn was in the kitchen chopping vegetables for the beef broth she was making for supper, when Maddie brought her a letter that had just been handed in at the door. After wiping her hands on her apron, Gwyn broke the seal and quickly scanned it.

It was from Armstrong, the attorney, saying that he would see her tomorrow at two o’clock, if it were convenient, and if not, the matter of the legacy would have to wait for another week because he had business in Dover.

She’d make it convenient, if only because her curiosity was driving her crazy.

“Is it about the coat?” Maddie asked.

“No. Just a letter from my attorney.”

Maddie wasn’t interested in attorneys. She was admiring the blue coat that was now draped over an airing rack in front of the fire, and her hand brushed reverently over its surface. “It’s a beautiful coat,” she said. “A lady’s coat. A real lady is what I mean.”

Gwyn folded the letter, slipped it into her pocket, and went back to chopping vegetables. “I wouldn’t eare if it was made of sable,” she said. “I want my own coat back.”

“Well, if this coat belonged to me,” said Maddie, “I’d want my own coat back, too. Never fear, the lady who owns this coat will be knocking at your door before the day is through.”

“She doesn’t know where I live.”

“Well, she can find out, can’t she? Maybe someone at the library will tell her.”

“The library is closed and will be until the window is replaced.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

Gwyn looked up. “Do? Do about what?”

“This coat. Are you going to wear it until you get your own coat back?”

“Certainly not.”

“But it’s the only winter coat you’ll have. I told you not to give your black coat away.”

“I didn’t give it away. I loaned it to my neighbor’s sister. Don’t worry, Maddie, I’ll wear my summer pelisse.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “And this coat is going to go begging, while you shiver and come out in goose bumps?”

“I’m sure it will only be for a day or two. Besides, I wouldn’t feel right about wearing such a fine garment. Think how I would feel if it got torn or marked.”

“You wore it to come home, didn’t you?”

“No. It was wet through, and one of the ladies gave me a ride home in her carriage.” Maddie looked crestfallen and Gwyn couldn’t help smiling. “Maddie,” she said, “I can’t wear the coat when it belongs to another lady. It wouldn’t matter if it was in tatters. I only brought it home because it’s too valuable to leave in the library when workmen are there. Anyone could walk in and take it.”

“One of these days,” said Maddie staunchly, “you’re going to have a coat just like it, just see if you don’t.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure,” said Gwyn, and she made a face.

After this exchange, Maddie left to go to Mrs. Jamieson in Soho Square, but she returned almost immediately. “I forgot to tell you,” she said. “Mrs. Perkins says a young man came to your door the other night and asked to speak with you. He didn’t say what he wanted or leave a name. Mrs. Perkins thinks he came from the landlord, you know, to look over repairs.”

The other night
must be the night of that awful party when Mrs. Perkins was looking after Mark, and
repairs
were a sore point with Gwyn. The landlord seemed so reasonable, but he never did anything about them.

“Is he coming back?”

“He didn’t say, and Mrs. Perkins didn’t ask.”

When Maddie left, Gwyn bustled about the kitchen getting supper ready. There wasn’t time to think about the coat again until hours later, when Mark was in bed and the candles were lit.

A lady’s coat
, Maddie said.
A real lady
. And as Gwyn examined the coat closely in her bedchamber, she had to agree with Maddie. It was far superior to her own faded blue worsted. There were no labels in it, nothing to help her find the owner or the dressmaker who had made it. She tried it on and studied her reflection in the mirror. The coat might have been made for her.

No. Not for her. Only a woman of taste and the money to go with it could have bought this coat. And that puzzled Gwyn, because the young woman who had left the coat hadn’t given her the impression that she was a real lady or that she had money to spare. The picture that formed in her mind was of a young wife whose husband was a clerk in some office or other, and clerks didn’t make the kind of money that could buy this coat.

Still thinking of Gracie, Gwyn slipped off the coat and folded it over a chair. She’d met other women at the library who went in fear of their husbands. Lady Mary Gerrard came to mind. She’d appeared at the library about four months ago to attend a lecture on English landscape gardening, and she’d become a regular attender after that. Judith was right. Lady Octavia knew what she was doing. By arranging lectures that had nothing to do with the cause, she brought women into the library whom they wouldn’t normally see, and if they liked what they saw and heard, they came back for more and helped spread the word.

In the beginning, Lady Mary appeared more timid than most. All she wanted was friendship and conversation. She’d come to the right place, because during the day, the tearoom was always open, and Lady Octavia and her helpers made a point of welcoming strangers.

That’s what happened in her own case. She passed the library to and from her house every other day. One day, she decided to investigate, and she stayed for tea. And that was the beginning of her interest in Lady Octavia’s work with unfortunate women.

That’s where she’d met Lady Mary, in the tearoom, and after she mentioned her own interest in landscape gardening, the ice was broken. There was nothing timid about Lady Mary when she was talking about landscape gardening. She’d donated books from her own collection for the reference library. She’d visited all the great houses in the south of England, just to see the gardens. But her pride and joy were her own gardens at Rosemount, gardens that had been designed by a young landscape gardener named Williard Bryant, who had died tragically before his promise could be fulfilled.

“One day,” Lady Mary said wistfully, “I’m going to
open my gardens to the public, and everyone will know how talented Williard was.”

It would never happen, Judith told Gwyn later, because Lady Mary’s husband would never permit it. Whatever gave his wife pleasure was of little interest to the Right Honorable Hugo Gerrard. In fact, he was more likely to forbid it because he liked to throw his weight around.

There was even talk of Gwyn visiting Rosemount, but she and Lady Mary both knew that wasn’t going to happen. So Lady Mary did the next best thing. She brought in a box of sketches of the gardens and had it catalogued in the reference library to be shown only when someone was on hand to ensure that nothing was taken. Gwyn saw those sketches and knew that Lady Mary had not exaggerated about young Bryant’s talent. She sensed there had been a romance there, but Lady Mary never spoke of it.

There was more to her friendship with Lady Mary than landscape gardening. An odd bond had formed between them. Maybe it was because Lady Mary was such a good listener, or maybe it was because each tacitly recognized they’d traveled the same path. But their friendship only flourished in the tearoom of the Ladies’ Library in Soho Square, and that was enough for them.

About a month ago, Lady Mary’s visits to the library had suddenly stopped. When Gwyn and some of the ladies went to call on her, they were turned away at the door. Lady Mary was indisposed, they were told. That’s when Lady Octavia stepped in. There was nothing timid about Lady Octavia. She refused to be turned away.

She’d come back to the library shaking her head. Poor Lady Mary was more than indisposed. She was suffering from some kind of dementia. It was very sad, but she was receiving the best of care.

Gwyn wondered, then, just how much Mr. Gerrard had contributed to his wife’s dementia, and it made her as mad as fire. It was a gamble. If a woman married a kind man, well and good. If not, he could make her life miserable.

She could speak from her own experience. She’d taken a gamble on the debonair Captain Nigel Barrie with his handsome face and smooth tongue, and she’d paid for it in ways no one could imagine, except perhaps women who had gambled and lost like herself, women like Lady Mary.

Restless now, she wandered downstairs. Without conscious thought, she sat down at the piano. She would play something lively, she decided, something to give her spirits a lift. But when her fingers moved over the keys, it wasn’t a lively piece she played, but something slow and romantic; a song of lost love.

She suddenly stopped playing and put a hand to the back of her neck. When she felt a burning sensation, she quickly turned and searched the room with her eyes. There was only one candle lit, and she could see a man sitting in one of the armchairs, watching her. It was Jason.

For one wild moment, she thought she’d conjured him out of her mind. He moved slightly, and she was instantly on her feet.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, crossing to him. “How did you get in?” Then, as relief swamped her, and because she knew she was in no danger, she let loose with her temper. “You frightened me half to death! I could have had a gun and shot you. Don’t you have any sense?”

“Do you have a gun?” he asked in an amused tone.

“As a matter of fact, I do, and I know how to use it. I was a soldier’s wife, remember?”

“That is one thing I have never forgotten,” he said quietly.

His face was still, almost stern, too stern to ask what he meant.

“Sit down, Gwyn.” He pointed to an armchair on the other side of the fire.

She sat.

“I tried the front door pull,” he said, “but no one answered.”

“It doesn’t work. You should have used the knocker.”

“So I went to the back door and found it open. I heard the piano and knew you were in this room. You didn’t hear me when I entered, and anyway, I didn’t want to interrupt. I’ve always enjoyed hearing you play.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

Ignoring her coldness, he went on, “I locked the back door after me. You should be more careful, Gwyn. Anyone could break into your house.”

Her eyes flashed to his. “Someone did. You.”

He rubbed his neck and stretched the muscles in his arms and shoulders. “Look, I know it’s late,” he said, “and I apologize if I frightened you. But I have some unpleasant news I wanted you to hear before you read about it in the newspapers.”

A shiver of alarm danced along her spine. “Is this about the party at Sackville’s house?”

“Yes.”

The fact that he was taking his time in telling her confirmed her worst fear. “My name will be in the papers.”