Chapter Twelve #2
“Which means he’s not protecting you like he promised.” Her father crossed his arms at his chest. “Fecking blighter. I never should have allowed this marriage to go forward.”
Her anger boiled over into a red tide. “Felix is nothing but kind, honorable, loving, with more integrity in his little finger than your paragon Danforth ever had.”
“What the hell does that mean?” her father wanted to know.
Well, if they wanted the sordid details…
Caroline huffed. “Lord Danforth tried to rape me at that summer ball you hosted. Told me I wasn’t good enough to marry but he’d welcome me into his bed as a plaything.
Thankfully, I escaped from him, and that was why I caused that scene, of which you berated me for and banished me to your country estate.
But I saved another young woman from that same fate, so not all was lost.”
Shock etched across her mother’s face. “Stop telling tales, Caro. Lord Danforth was a lovely man.”
Yet the color went out of her father’s face again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Caroline shrugged. “Would you have believed me?”
“I, uh…” Was that… shame in her father’s expression?
Well, good. “By the by, where is Debra?” Did they need to interview her?
“I think she’s visiting one of her friends who has a house here.”
“And Andrew? Still in Brighton?”
“I assume so.” Though her mother looked doubtful. “Your husband practically demanded all of us to stay.”
Ignoring that barb, Caroline nodded. “We need to speak with him again.”
“He’ll be around for dinner with a friend. We’ve invited a couple of eligible ladies.” Her mother’s expression softened. “You’re welcome to come.”
“Shall I bring Felix?”
The silence was heavy. Finally, her mother nodded. “Fine.”
“Lovely.” She tamped down on the words she truly wanted to say. “Very well. We’ll be there. We have an interview to conduct in the meanwhile, but it shouldn’t run long.”
“Well, dinner is at six. You have just over two hours. We won’t hold it back.”
Of course she wouldn’t. Caroline crossed the room. “You won’t need to.”
*****
As luck would have it, she and Felix found Danforth’s mistress walking the shore. She’d apparently concluded her visit with Debra and then felt the need to stretch her legs.
“Uh, Lady…” Felix turned toward Caroline. “I don’t believe I ever heard her name.”
She snickered. “Lady Sarah Copperfield, one of the Marquess of Battenmore’s daughters. I’ve met her a few times since she’s one of Debra’s friends and is around the same age.”
“Ah.” He nodded as they approached the woman with strawberry-blonde hair. “Lady Sarah, a word?”
The woman turned about. Wind coming off the waves whipped her hair about her head and shoulders, for she hadn’t worn a hat. Her jonquil yellow skirting rippled about her legs. “Who are you?”
“Major Kourier. I’m investigating the murder of Lord Danforth.” He put a hand on Caroline’s arm. “This is my wife. She is partnering in the detective work. Might we ask you some questions?”
“I would rather not talk about Danforth.” A hint of frost lingered in her voice.
Caroline nodded. “I understand that all too well, but witnesses saw a woman of your description arguing with him shortly before he died, so we’d like to clear you as a suspect.”
Surprise crossed the woman’s pretty face. “You think I killed him?”
“We are trying to narrow down our suspect list,” Felix said as he retrieved his notebook and pencil from his jacket pocket. “You were seen arguing with him.”
“Yes, well…” The other woman crossed her arms at her chest. “I’m afraid I won’t have the best of things to say about Lord Danforth.”
“None of us do,” Caroline said quietly with a glance to Felix. “Why don’t you tell us how long you’ve known him?”
“Seemingly all my life. Our parents were friends. I suppose that is why we were comfortable with each other.”
“Why didn’t you marry him?” she asked before she could recall the question.
“He didn’t want me like that, and when we first started our relationship, I wasn’t interested in matrimony anyway.”
Felix nodded. “How long were you his mistress?”
“A couple of years.” With a sigh, she tried to finger-comb her wind-tossed hair. “I have four older sisters, which means by the time I came along, no one cared. Much of the time, I was left to my own devices, and that was how I liked it.”
Caroline frowned. “Did you become a mistress for the attention?”
“From Danforth or my parents?”
She shrugged. “Both?” A huff escaped her. “The truth was that Danforth was exciting. Being with him was a thrill, and he was lovely in bed. I thought I’d indulge myself for a few years, but then I did the stupidest thing a woman could do.”
“What was that?” Felix asked with his pencil poised over his notebook.
“She fell in love with him,” Caroline guessed with an empathetic smile at the young woman. “But he didn’t return those feelings.”
“He did not,” the lady said in a soft voice.
Caroline laid a hand on her arm. “Is that why you argued with him the night before the wedding?”
“A bit.” Lady Sarah walked a bit down the beach, which made her and Felix follow. “However, he asked to speak with me first. For one fleeting moment, I thought that with the wedding upcoming, he might have felt moved to ask for my hand. That wasn’t the topic he introduced at all.”
“You will pardon my ignorance.” Felix stepped in front of her, halting her forward movement. “Apparently, since I’m not female, I don’t instinctively know what my wife does.”
A ghost of a smile curved the lady’s lips. “Danforth told me he needed to stop seeing me after the wedding. He intended to court a woman from the beau monde because he needed to marry well.”
Confusion crossed Felix’s face. “I’m confused. Are you not the daughter of a marquess and therefore part of the beau monde? No doubt your father would have set a large dowry on your head.”
Poor thing. Caroline laid a hand on his arm.
“She might be the marquess’ daughter, but she isn’t…
legitimate and therefore not entitled to the things her sisters would already get.
” When he still seemed lost, she sighed.
“Lady Sarah is a by-blow. No doubt her birth was passed off as legitimate, but gossip gets out, and she was treated immediately different by her mother, sisters, father, and everyone else who knew the secret.” She looked at the other woman. “Am I correct?”
“Yes.” Instead of being annoyed, the lady actually grinned. “I like you. You guessed my secret straightaway. Everyone else in my life panders and acts like a sycophant because of my father.”
“Be that as it may, your father clearly wished to take care of you.” Incredulity rang in Felix’s voice. “Why else would he have taken you in and raised you with his other daughters? That means he wants to see you marry well in the ton.”
“I’m the daughter of his mistress. My very presence is scandalous and a constant reminder of his unfaithfulness, but I believe he loved her.
” She bounced her gaze between them. “The major is na?ve, I think,” she said to Caroline with another smile.
“But I like that too. No putting on airs with the pair of you; I feel I can finally be myself.”
Caroline nodded. “So he wanted you to marry, but not to a scoundrel like Danforth, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Except you’d fallen for Danforth and wanted him.”
“Also, yes.” Lady Sarah shrugged. “Danforth was a prick. Image was everything to him.”
A snort came from Caroline. “Then he should have done a better job at hiding his true nature.”
“Agreed. I argued with him that morning because I didn’t like that he was running a scheme with that Knapp fellow.”
“What?” Shock went over Felix’s face.
“Oh, yes. I don’t know how, but they were thick as thieves…” She frowned. “Except, each time I saw them in the shadows, the man had the look of Knapp but altogether… wasn’t? It was most bizarre.”
“What does that mean?” Caroline asked, for she was quite confused.
“Just that. They were the same but different somehow.” The mistress shrugged.
“It doesn’t matter. We argued. He said it didn’t concern me.
” The other woman once more combed her hair back from her face.
“Then, he just sent me off without comment or thanks to the years we’d spent together.
Then he had the audacity to ask me to introduce him to one of my friends. ”
This time, Felix snickered. “As long as he benefited from everyone he met, he was happy.” He shook his head. “Were you angry enough when he acted the arse that you might have attacked him in a rage?”
“Ha!” Lady Sarah laughed. “Not over that. My feelings were hurt, of course, but at the back of my mind, I knew what sort of man he was.”
Caroline frowned. “Did he do something else worse than cutting you loose?”
“Oh, he did.” She narrowed her gaze. “I was quite annoyed with him because he’d introduced me to a questionable man who claimed he was an investor.
I gave him four hundred pounds to put down on steel and other popular textiles thinking it was an easy way to make up the lost income from Danforth’s defection. ”
The sound of Felix’s pencil against the paper scratched in Caroline’s ear. “What happened?”
“When I saw the man at the wedding, I questioned him about the investment since I hadn’t heard from him in months. He told me the coin was gone.”
“Gone?” Felix frowned. “Lost in the markets?”
“Who knows? I couldn’t have a straight answer, but I suspect this ‘investor’ absconded with the funds.
Because of that, I will have difficulties paying my monthly bills.
” An expression of uncertainty came over the lady’s face.
“Without Danforth’s protection and the money taken from my savings, my future is suddenly murky. ”
Silence followed the statement.
Caroline pressed her lips together. “Were you angry enough to kill Danforth after that?”
For the space of a few heartbeats, Lady Sarah considered the question. Then she nodded. “Perhaps. Women have much secret strength, but I didn’t kill him.”
“Why not? He did you wrong. Twice.”
She shrugged. “He simply wasn’t worth going to prison for.”
“Fair enough.” The major jotted down a note. “Who else hated Danforth enough to see him dead? Stabbed in an emotional rage per se.”
Lady Sarah snorted. “Anyone who’d met him? If he’d referred his friends and acquaintances to the investment man, then any sane person would blame him for ruining them. I believe the same thing happened to your brother, Mrs. Kourier.”
“Andrew invested as well?” Shock plowed into her chest.
“Oh, yes. He learned the same time that I did the investments were false and the money was gone. That evening before the wedding? He and Danforth got into a row about it.”
“Good heavens.” The more they learned about Danforth, the more horrible his reputation grew, and what was more, Andrew had lied.
Caroline shifted her footing on the pebbled beach.
“What did you think of his chasing skirts? That he wasn’t loyal to you, when, as you’ve admitted, you’d fallen in love with him and had hoped he might marry you? ”
“What do you think I thought or felt?” Annoyance scudded across the other woman’s face. “Yet at the back of my mind, I knew that’s how some men were, but what are women like me to do? We must go where the coin is, and unfortunately, most men with funding aren’t good ones.”
The world simply wasn’t kind to women of any status or station.
Caroline again laid a hand on Lady Sarah’s arm.
“Don’t despair. Your heart will mend and you’ll love someone in time.
Until then, have a candid talk with your father.
If he can arrange a match to your liking, take it.
You never know what might come of it, but at least it will lighten your burden. ”
“And admit I have failed at living my own life? Submit to a prison not of my own making?” the other woman asked in a soft voice.
“It’s better than being beholden to a protector who might prove fickle.”
The lady scoffed. “Apparently the major isn’t the only na?ve one. Husbands can have roving eyes and pricks as well.”
Worry rolled through Caroline’s belly. “I wish you luck in whatever you do. Also, you didn’t deserve Danforth. No one did.”
“I appreciate that.” Lady Sarah glanced at Felix. “Are we finished here? I wish to be alone right now. Danforth might have been a scoundrel, but for a time, he was mine. I am in mourning.” That fact was reflected in her eyes as sadness.
“Right.” Felix nodded. “Yes, don’t let me keep you any longer. I’m quite satisfied we won’t have further questions for you. Thank you.”
With a nod, the lady continued on her way down the beach.
Caroline sighed. “This is discouraging.”
“Such is the nature of our work.” He took her hand and then wheeled her about to go the other way. “We have just enough time to head back to the cottage, dress, and then join your family for dinner. I’d rather not invoke your mother’s ire.”
“Neither would I.”
Why is life suddenly so difficult?