Chapter Twenty
Eleanor
The hushed voices and angry gesticulations weren’t what Eleanor was expecting of the conversation between Edgar Bannister and Miss Lydia Abbott. They looked as though they knew each other much better than a son to his mother’s friend should. And hated each other.
A sharp point of bark dug into her hand, even through her glove, and she loosened her hold on the ash tree she hid behind.
The grounds in front of the Queen’s House were a good place for a meeting.
It was open and innocent, a place where many couples and individuals happened into one another, strolling the paths around the lake in St. James’s Park.
There was enough space to find one’s conversation completely private. Eleanor couldn’t hear a word they said.
But they should have had more care with their expressions.
Miss Abbott shook her head, her face pinched in disappointment, and turned to leave.
Bannister watched her go, his face red. He took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh before replacing it.
He started to leave but was stopped by a man calling his name. This conversation seemed more amicable.
“What are you doing?”
Eleanor jumped, her heart pounding so hard it hurt. Spinning, she pressed a hand to her chest. “Mr. Rollins! You shouldn’t sneak up on people.”
“What are you looking at?” He crowded into her, resting his forearm above her head on the tree, and peered around the trunk.
His throat was at her eye level, the strip of flesh above his collar so close she could roll up onto her toes and kiss it.
Her cheeks heated. That was a very inappropriate direction for her thoughts. “I was looking at nothing. Merely taking my afternoon walk.”
He turned his face to look down at her. “And your walk just happened to follow the path of Edgar Bannister?” His arched eyebrow expressed his disbelief even more than his tone.
Eleanor leaned back, pressing her spine to the trunk, trying to make some space. “It would appear so.”
“Do you have an assignation with Bannister?” Mr. Rollins narrowed his eyes. “What exactly is the man to you?”
Eleanor sucked in a breath. The Runner’s mind was always interpreting her actions in the worst possible light.
She pushed on his chest, but he didn’t move.
“He is an acquaintance, nothing more. And one who is a suspect in the murder we all agreed to investigate. For one whose job is deduction, I would have thought my reasons for being here obvious.”
“If you believe he might truly be a killer, you shouldn’t be anywhere near the man.” He looked around the tree again, his jaw clenching. “Keep your questions to the ladies at The Minerva Club.”
Eleanor’s chest tightened. She was torn between kicking the buffoon in his shin and curling into his chest. It had been so long since anyone had shown a concern for her safety.
So long since she’d felt safe. And for all the vexations Mr. Rollins caused her, she couldn’t deny his presence felt like a shelter no danger could penetrate.
She restrained herself from doing either action.
He dropped his arm from above her head to the section of trunk by her waist. When she turned to leave in the other direction, he grabbed the other side of the trunk.
Trapping her between his two arms.
She ignored the frisson of excitement that danced up her spine and gave him her most severe look. “Mr. Rollins, you do not have the authority to direct my behavior. You are not my father, brother, or husband. Stop this foolishness and release me.”
He lifted his right hand, brought his palm up the length of her arm, his touch so light she wasn’t sure she didn’t imagine it.
He followed the line of her shoulder, her neck and jaw, before brushing an errant curl off her cheek with the pad of his forefinger.
“No, I’m none of those things, and it is a shame you don’t have a father or brother to keep your behavior in check.
Is it not customary for a lady to at least have a maid accompany her when she travels out of doors? ”
“I haven’t always been a lady.” She shifted her weight, her leg brushing against his boot.
“There was a time my family had very little money, certainly not enough for an abigail to traipse about after me as I went out to work.” If he was surprised by her admission, he didn’t show it.
There wasn’t the censure in his expression that she saw in so many of her acquaintance if she ever broached the topic of her former employment.
“Now that we can afford such luxuries, I find I have neither the desire nor the need to pay someone just to follow me about London.”
“It’s for your safety.”
Eleanor huffed out a laugh. “It’s for appearances only. If someone wished to do me harm, I can assure you that Emmy, my maid, would provide no obstacle. I could blow her over with one puff from my fireplace bellows.”
He frowned, the skin around his eyes wrinkling. They were exceptionally lovely eyes. A deep green, like moss over old stone, that did funny things to her stomach. The shrewdness in them made her stomach churn for an entirely different reason.
“This isn’t a lark,” he said sternly. “A woman is dead. You need to take more care. Trailing after a murder suspect is not a task to be taken lightly.”
“Am I the murder suspect in question?” a voice said at Eleanor’s right side.
Mr. Rollins straightened, putting space between himself and Eleanor. She tensed. She didn’t know which was worse: Bannister finding her improperly close to Mr. Rollins or him finding out she had been following him.
She cleared her throat. “Mr. Bannister, how nice to see you.”
He smirked. “Come now, Ellie, we know each other better than surnames. I have seen your underdrawers, after all.”
Something that sounded very like a growl emanated from Mr. Rollins.
Her cheeks heated. “I was eight!” She smoothed her palms down the abdomen of her gown. “I was climbing a large oak tree,” she told the Runner. “And he was a perverse child who stood underneath me to try to steal a glimpse.”
“You were more droll as a child.” Bannister cocked his shoulder against the tree trunk and crossed his arms. “I fear as you’ve grown older you’ve become much duller.
It must have been those years you were forced to actually work for your food.
That humiliation must be such a burden to overcome. If it ever can be.”
It was good that her father had recovered his fortune so that the gloves she wore now were of a fine Italian silk, not the threadbare cotton ones of before.
Now, when she dug her nails into her palm, all she felt was a slight pressure, no pinch.
“Yes, there was a time I earned my wages. I didn’t have to go begging to mummy for a farthing.
” She’d never been able to enjoy her wages.
They had always gone to the family’s support.
But she wouldn’t give the sapskull the pleasure of knowing how hard life had been.
Anger flashed in his eyes but was quickly gone. “Those days are over. Father and I will come to an agreement. He would never let his son face deprivation.”
She ignored the assessing glance of Mr. Rollins.
He seemed all too content to let one of his suspects argue with the daughter of another, waiting to see if any sensational tidbits were revealed.
“Where were you from half past eleven to half past midnight when your mother was killed?” If she’d had any qualms about so directly insulting the man before, they were now gone.
His smirk deepened. “I was with a lady friend. We left Carpenter’s and took a stroll across Waterloo Bridge. You do remember what it’s like to dally in the moonlight with a man, don’t you?”
It had only been a minor annoyance, that evening at Lady Hurst’s dinner party, the way Bannister had maneuvered her away from her friends and attempted liberties in the darkened cove of a folly.
Now she wished she had raised an alarm, blackened his name.
Or at least given him a good whatfor right in the bollocks.
“If I was ever in the company of a man under the moonlight, the attention was most unwanted and very short-lived.”
Mr. Rollins crossed his arms over his chest, his disapproving look seeming to encompass both her and Bannister. “Why did you not tell me of this woman when last we spoke? You said you were with your friends all night.”
Bannister shrugged. “She was very friendly, and I was back at Carpenter’s in under an hour.”
“What is the name of this woman?” Rollins asked.
“She didn’t give it; I didn’t ask.”
“A most convenient story.” Eleanor tried to imagine this man whom she’d played with as a child strangling his mother.
Her mind didn’t want to acknowledge the possibility.
“Without her, the only people who can attest to your whereabouts are your friends, who lost sight of you for nearly an hour. More than enough time to get to The Minerva Club and back.”
The amusement drained from Bannister’s face, replaced with fury. “Watch your tongue before somebody cuts it out. Everyone knows my disagreements with my mother, but I will not tolerate the slander that I killed her. Your newfound family wealth won’t protect you.”
“Protect me from whom?” His switch from calm disdain to rage took only a moment. Now Eleanor’s mind could envision him becoming physically violent much more readily. “The man who strangled his own mother?”
Quick as a viper, he struck out, grabbing her arm, his grip bruising.
He tugged, and she stumbled into his body.
“We tolerate you because your father was respected for regaining his fortune. That doesn’t mean we like you.
With one word, I can make all of society turn their backs on you and your mother, treat you like the outcasts you should have remained. ”