Chapter 14 #2
Number thirteen in the line of narrow terraced dwellings had a single front window on each floor of the smoke-blackened brick facade. In an earlier century, it had likely housed a respectable family.
Perhaps there were respectable tenants living here now, but Graeme doubted it. A door knocker hung by one nail. He banged his fist on the door instead. When there was no answer, he tried the latch and the door opened.
“Shall we?” he asked.
She nodded, and he ushered her across the threshold.
The age-old scent of mildew and human odors greeted them.
A dim light shone through the transom above the door, highlighting scarred flooring, peeling paint, and the worn steps of the staircase.
A door led off the interior hall. The house had most likely been divided into separate lodgings, perhaps one per floor in the narrow structure.
“We should start on the top floor,” she whispered.
They were half-way up the stairs when the ground floor door opened and a woman of middling years stepped out.
“Here now, where are you going?” she asked.
If this was Lunetta Casale, his cousin Archie’s tastes had degenerated. Attired in a threadbare dressing gown that had once been colorful, and with a dingy white cap covering straggling locks that were an improbable shade of yellow, she might be one of London’s more disreputable abbesses.
Blythe stepped down and leaned past him. “Lunetta has asked for me to come,” she said in a shaky voice.
The woman frowned, her eyebrows drawing together.
Graeme pulled out a coin and tossed it. She caught if deftly.
“Where is her room, madame?” he asked. “Or is she still with a customer?”
“This ain’t a bawdy house,” the woman said.
Not until evening, he thought.
“You’re her friend, are you not?” Blythe asked. “Tell her Lord and Lady Chilcombe are here to see her, as she requested.”
“You’ve brought the money?” the woman asked.
“What money is that?” Graeme asked.
Before the woman could answer, Blythe took another step down. “Wait,” she said breathlessly, “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”
Without taking a step, the woman shrunk back. “Don’t play coy, milord. You know what money. Lunetta’s not… not well. She asked me to handle the matter.”
“You have what she was offering?” Graeme asked. “Show us, then.”
“Show me the money.”
Blythe’s chest tightened as jumbled memories careened about in her head, stirring a panicky anger.
The unnaturally yellow hair, the eyes so dark they were almost black, the jaundiced skin—this woman had been at Risley Manor.
“We are at an impasse, my lady.” Graeme’s words, spoken softly into her ear, jolted her back to her senses.
“I don’t remember your name,” Blythe said. “I will call you madame, and I will see Lunetta. Now. If she is ill, I can arrange care for her.”
The woman scoffed.
“You appear to be ill as well,” Blythe said. “Is that why you want money?”
“There’s someone else who’ll pay more for that will if you don’t want to come up with five hundred pounds.”
“We’ll have to see it first, of course,” Graeme said. “Show it to us.”
“It’s not here. Look now, you’re getting a bargain. There’s someone else who’ll pay more.”
The sound of a cat crying drew the woman’s attention and had annoyance flashing across her face.
Not a cat, a baby.
Graeme handed the woman another coin. “See to your child,” he said. “Tell your friend we’ll return this afternoon and expect to see her.”
He hurried Blythe out of the door and down the street, his hand clamping hers over his arm. The hackney had waited, and he all but lifted her inside before jumping in after her and shouting directions to the driver.
The truth came to Blythe in a rush. “Lunetta Casale must be dead,” she said.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps she sold the will on to that woman.”
Blythe shook her head. “There’s someone else who’ll pay more. Those were almost the exact words from the note I received, supposedly from Lunetta.”
Graeme was silent a long time and she realized: she hadn’t shown him the note.
“She sent me a note. Only one, and I received it the day you arrived.”
“Tell me about this woman we met today,” he said quietly.
She turned her head to the window, looking out blindly, some of the horror of that night obscuring the passing view.
Madame. That was what Archie had called her. Madame had been painted and primped, and she’d carried a crop in her hand, following a glittery-eyed Archie into Blythe’s bedchamber. She’d handed the crop to Archie, and both had approached Blythe.
The sluggish memory was like a poorly remembered nightmare. The cup of cocoa a maid had brought her—not her maid, Louisa, but another maid—had been drugged. She’d not had more than a sip. That had been enough to make her stagger. To turn her limbs to jelly.
Lord Vernon had been the wraith lingering in the doorway, though she’d held off the memories and panic for months before remembering.
A hand touched her shoulder and she reflexively shook it off, clawing at the window, her breath coming in panicked gulps.
“Blythe.” The hand touched her again, a gentle pat and she cringed. “Blythe.”
Archie calling her. Come around the bed, Blythe. You will like this.
“Blythe, my love. You are safe, Blythe.”
Blythe. Someone called her name. Graeme. Graeme was here, concern in his voice.
Safe. Her gaze focused on carriages, wagons, houses, sweepers, gentlemen, and maids with children in tow.
They would soon reach Chilcombe House.
He was still here and he’d been trying to comfort her with his touch. What must he think?
Must she care what he thought?
Still… he had the upper hand. There was a political game over the will to be played out, and perhaps he really did mean to help her.
“I am sorry, Graeme.” She shook her head. “I assure you, I am not a candidate for Bedlam.”
“I know you are not, Blythe.”
“What are we to do next?” she asked. “Lure Madame out of the house and search? We ought to do that soon before she offers the will to Diddenton.”
“We will keep that in mind as a possibility. First, though, I have another approach in mind. May I see that letter from Lord Vernon to his father?”
“Why not? You know about everything else.”
“Blythe,” he said, reaching for her.
This time she allowed his touch; allowed him to wrap her in an embrace, allowed him to comfort her.
“I don’t quite know everything, do I?” he asked, his voice gentle. “But I can and will wait until you are ready to tell me.”
She kept her attention fixed on a spot on the floor where another passenger had brought in mud, fighting the memories.
Louisa had come along later to help her.
Coralie had only seen the worst of the miscarriage.
Only Archie, that woman, Madame, and Lord Vernon had been present, and the thought sent anger surging through her.
She’d wanted Archie dead. She’d be happy to see Madame and Lord Vernon follow him.
But she wasn’t a murderer.
Adwick greeted them at the door with a letter for Graeme, and he recognized the Foreign Office seal.
“They said it was urgent,” Adwick said. “Will you take breakfast? Lady Hermione has just arrived in the breakfast room. Captain Lynford has not arisen. The children’s food has just gone up to them.”
Graeme helped Blythe with her pelisse and handed his hat to Adwick.
“I’d best read this letter first before the other one, Blythe.”
“Tell Lady Hermione we will be along directly,” Blythe said. “Lord Chilcombe, I can bring that item to the library, if you’ll wait for me there.”
He shook his head. “My sitting room, I think. Come, I’ll escort you.”
At the staircase, he paused. “It is in your room, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Well-hidden.”
While she went off to retriever her letter, he cracked the seal on the one he’d just received. He’d been called to a meeting in an hour’s time. Not at the Foreign Office, but at a private address in Mayfair.
Annoyed at the interruption to his plans, he rubbed his eyes, fatigue gripping him. He would need to change his clothes and he would need coffee.
A knock at the door brought Blythe. She handed him the letter with shaking fingers. Clive, his new valet, appeared behind her.
He sent the lad to fetch him a tray.
“Sit down, Blythe,” he said, leading her to a sofa. “Please give my apologies to Lady Hermione. I’m called to an urgent meeting but I’ll return here directly afterward.”
She moved as if to stand, but he seated himself next to her.
“Stay, please, while I read this. I may have questions.”
The letter from Lord Vernon was water-stained in places. Surely not tears—he recalled that it had been snowing that day.
When he finished, he folded the paper. “This will go in the safe. Agreed?”
“Yes.”
“And I must ask you where the safe is and who has access to it.” He ought to have thought of that before.
Blythe grimaced. “I’m sorry. There are actually two: one in the library that Adwick can open.
The Chilcombe jewelry is in there. There also is one in your suite that only you will be able to access.
” She handed him a key. “I ought to have given you this sooner. You will find this one more convenient. After Archie died, I had a new safe installed here.” She stood and drew him up.
“It’s in your bedchamber. Let me show you. ”
He would finally have her in his bedchamber. If only the circumstances were different.
He followed her into the inner room, and she led him to the fireplace where the safe had been concealed behind nearby paneling.
“It’s a special Chubb lock,” she said. “Impossible to pick.”
The iron box interior smelled new.
“It’s empty.”
“Yes. There were some documents in there, stock certificates and such. I’ve had them moved to the other safe so that Adwick can retrieve them for the broker when he visits.”
After the letter was safely stowed in the empty compartment, he handed the key back to her. Color rose in her cheeks as she stood looking at it.