Chapter 2
“I have always loved truth so passionately that I have often resorted to lying as a way of introducing it into the minds which were ignorant of its charms.”
Giacomo Casanova
Julius arrived at Ridley House with Brendan’s letter in his hand.
The past weeks had been a frustrating exercise in futile intelligence gathering.
The more he learned about the suspects on their list, the less he knew about the murder of the baron.
It had been a kick in the gut to receive word from Brendan earlier that day.
It happened again. I have doubled the guards.
—Filminster
Blazes to Brendan and his infuriating vagueness.
What exactly had happened this time? Was anyone hurt?
Julius clenched his jaw as he lifted the heavy brass knocker on Ridley House’s front door, the lion’s head glinting in the dim morning light, and brought it down in three sharp, decisive taps that echoed off the stone steps.
A few moments later, the door swung open to reveal Michaels. The older butler stood stiffly in his dark coat, iron-gray hair smoothed with care despite the early hour, his pale eyes unreadable.
“Are they safe?” Julius demanded, voice rougher than he intended.
Michaels shut his eyes briefly, exhaling as though the question pained him. Then he gave a slow, solemn nod.
Relief flooded Julius, sending a tremor through his shoulders. He stepped forward without ceremony and patted the retainer’s solid shoulder. The scent of beeswax polish and old oak drifted in from the dim hall behind them.
“Good man.” His tone softened. He had not forgotten Michaels’s courage when the baroness had been attacked nearly a month earlier. The butler had taken a life to protect her, a sacrifice Julius respected deeply.
“Where are they?”
Michaels gestured silently toward the grand staircase, broad and carpeted in rich green wool, then stepped aside with dignified haughtiness to let Julius pass.
Julius mounted the stairs two at a time, boots thudding on the runner. Under normal circumstances, he would have slowed, arranged his features into a bored, idle mask. But he had no patience for pretense today.
He swept into the large drawing room without knocking. Sunlight filtered weakly through tall sash windows draped in heavy brocade, casting pale squares of light on polished parquet floors.
Brendan and the baroness sat on a settee under the central window, the pale upholstery contrasting sharply with Brendan’s dark riding coat.
“Ridley!”
Brendan surged to his feet, chestnut curls in chaotic disarray, his drawn face creased with worry.
As Julius approached, he noted the baroness’s face—pale, pinched, the color leached from her cheeks as though she had seen a ghost.
“What happened?”
Brendan raked both hands through his hair, further tangling it. His voice was ragged. “Lily was in … We had another attempt to breach Ridley House.”
Lady Lily Ridley, petite as a fairy with shining chocolate-brown hair escaping its careful pins, lifted her gaze to Julius. Her enormous eyes were glassy, fixed on him with fragile defiance despite the terror still lurking in their depths.
“I … visited the library this morning to fetch a book before breakfast, while it was still rather gloomy outside. I was in there for several minutes before I felt a draught in the room. When I looked over to the window, I saw a ruffian climbing in and screamed for help.”
Julius clenched his teeth as fury spiked through him.
Her voice was hoarse, rasping with strain.
She must have screamed with real terror.
A pang shot through him at the image of the brave little bride, the woman who had risked her reputation to save his dearest friend from the noose, forced to shriek for her life.
If anything happened to her … The thought roiled his gut. Julius prided himself on keeping emotional entanglements at bay, but the baroness had carved out a space in his heart for her unshakable courage. She was an ally now. Someone under his personal protection, whether she liked it or not.
This continued campaign by that faceless killer to search Ridley House for damning evidence was intolerable. Utterly beyond the pale.
The baroness rose with regal composure despite her trembling, laying a small gloved hand gently over Julius’s own.
“Trafford, you must not concern yourself. I am fine. We are fine. Brendan and I have made arrangements to stay with his sister and the Duke of Halmesbury. They have ample staff and are hiring guards to protect Markham House. Please … do not worry.”
Julius stared down at her, momentarily at a loss for words.
They barely knew one another in truth, but what he had learned of Lily Ridley, he admired with unfeigned sincerity.
He drew a slow breath, trying to steady the emotion rattling in his chest. Raising his gaze to Brendan, he licked dry lips, forcing himself to imagine with grim precision what might have happened.
The baroness was so small she could have been lifted like a parcel and spirited away before anyone noticed.
It chilled him to consider it. He was grateful beyond measure for her indomitable spirit …
and her powerful lungs. Years of unrepentant chattering had turned out to be her greatest asset today.
“This is … this is … this has gone too far!” The words burst from him, voice cracking with fury. Normally, he would have smoothed the raw edge from his tone, adopted a languid slouch in his chair, given the impression of careless amusement.
But it has! His thoughts seethed as he fought to master them. This has gone too far!
Brendan nodded heavily, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening with weariness. “I agree, but there is little to be done about it. We have to press on.”
Julius let go of the baroness’s small hand and began to pace across the drawing room floor, the thick carpet muffling his footfalls. His mind whirled with frustration. The draped curtains trembled with a faint breeze from the window cracked for air, but the room still felt stiflingly close.
“Our investigations are moving far too slowly! There has to be some method of shaking this loose. We know the killer is watching the house.”
Brendan cocked his head, worry tightening his mouth. “Well … it is more accurate to state that we know his men are watching the house.”
“What of Smythe?” Julius snapped, pausing in mid-stride to glare.
“Abbott is following him. He hopes to learn something soon.”
Julius snorted, though the tension did not ease from his shoulders. Abbott, the baroness’s brother, had since married the young lady he had so thoroughly compromised on the night of the ball, a situation that had resulted in an absurd tutoring session from Julius himself on Abbott’s wedding day.
Their plodding progress had reduced their list of six suspects to four. And now Smythe, of all people, was Abbott’s father-in-law.
“Yet, we still have another three men on the list, and I cannot learn anything new,” Julius said with suppressed fury, resuming his pacing.
The sunlight streaming through the windows picked out the gilt embroidery on his waistcoat, gleaming like threads of fire as he moved.
“I have gathered information, followed them about Town, and nothing! They attend their meetings, ride in Hyde Park, drink their brandy at Brooks’s, as though nothing has happened.
A peer has been killed, his heir accused of murder, his bride attacked …
and they go on as if it were of no account! ”
He yanked a glove off with his teeth and shoved it impatiently into his pocket before twisting the signet ring on his finger, the metal cool and hard against his skin.
“There must be more that we can do! Something to draw the killer out! We know he lurks about in the shadows! What we must to do is drive him”—he gestured sharply, voice rising—“drive him into making a mistake!”
Julius’s mind flitted to Abbott’s dour expression.
He prayed that Smythe was innocent. Otherwise Abbott would be forced to watch his own father-in-law stand trial for murder, a prospect that turned Julius’s stomach.
It was part of why he devoted so many hours trying to eliminate the others from suspicion.
Lady Filminster had reseated herself with composure, smoothing her skirts over her knees. She regarded Julius with solemn curiosity, candlelight catching in the soft sheen of her hair.
“How do you propose to do that?”
Julius paused, turning to stare out the high windows beyond her, where the rooftops of London stretched into a pale, hazy afternoon sky. The breath in his lungs felt tight. If anything happened to Brendan, or to the baroness, he would never forgive himself.
“I do not know,” he admitted at last, voice dropping to a growl. “But I shall think of something.”
Brendan cleared his throat, the sound rough with emotion. “Thank you … for all you are doing to assist us.”
Julius nodded curtly, but his eyes remained fixed on the window, brow furrowed in thought. His mind already churned with possibilities, each one more reckless than the last.
“It is nothing.”
He left Ridley House soon after that, a glimmer of an idea beginning to form, but he did not think the others would agree. It was a plan he would need to execute by himself, which was for the best. He worked better alone.
It was early evening, the glow of the setting sun catching on the high-paned windows and flooding the library with pale gold. Audrey sat tucked into a deep leather wing chair, the brass reading lamp casting a warm pool of light onto the page before her.
Flapper, her wounded starling, was on the mend at last. Though that comforted her, it also left her, yet again, with nothing to occupy her restless attentions.
She had been attempting to read a fusty old volume on human physiology, its cracked spine exhaling puffs of musty scent each time she turned a page.
She was making notes in her tidy script when a discreet cough interrupted her.
“Miss Gideon?”