Chapter Eleven
Mrs. Philpot, Carl Darrow’s landlady, recognized them with a grunt of welcome and gestured for them to go straight up.
Constance more than half expected Darrow to be nursing a thick head—either from falling on it yesterday or from an excess of alcohol. Or both. Certainly, she couldn’t hear the violin, though there were some massively complicated scales coming from the piano in the sitting room.
Darrow practiced mornings, she remembered. Geoffrey Reid had the afternoons.
When Solomon knocked, a grumpy “Enter” snapped from within, seeming to confirm her suspicions.
However, Darrow sat at the table by the window, busily writing. He was in his shirt sleeves, but as soon as they walked in, he sprang to his feet and reached for his coat. His eyes were clear, despite a rather colorful bruise around one eye.
“Sorry,” he said, bowing to Constance. “An argument with a hackney floor. It won.”
“I thought it was Mr. Montague who won?”
He paused. “What do you mean?”
“My husband saw him trip you.”
Darrow blushed, suddenly looking much younger.
“Why lie?” Solomon asked.
“Wouldn’t you?” Darrow retorted. “What else could I do? There aren’t so many reasons for a bereaved husband to attack another man on the day of his wife’s funeral.
I chose to preserve her reputation—and mine.
I don’t care about Montague’s, though I daresay he wouldn’t like to be known as a cuckold. ”
He swung away, waving one hand toward the comfortable chairs. “But you saw him, Mr. Grey. You saw how violent he is? And how he covers it up with such civility for the benefit of observers? No wonder Caterina was afraid of him.”
“Would it surprise you to know,” Constance asked, sitting down, “that no one else believes she was afraid of her husband?”
“No,” Darrow said. “She told me things she told no one else.”
“She told Marianne Locke that she was ending her relationship with you,” Solomon said.
Darrow frowned. “But she didn’t,” he said blankly. “Why would she say that? Why would she do that?”
“Because her husband had found out,” Solomon said. “And she chose him over you.”
If he had hoped to surprise any ugliness out of Darrow with such a brutal statement, he was disappointed.
Darrow just looked bewildered. “But I could swear Montague didn’t know, not before the funeral…
” His eyes widened. “Would Marianne have told him that very day? I know she disapproved and wanted me out of Caterina’s life…
But I never thought her capable of such hurtful behavior. ”
Neither did Constance, though appearances were often deceptive.
Darrow shook his head, staring down at the carpet. “No, she wouldn’t,” he answered himself. “I thought him too dull to find out, but I must have been wrong…” He raised his head suddenly. “That was why Caterina finally agreed.”
“Agreed what?” Constance asked.
“To come away with me. We planned it all last Monday and this Tuesday. We were to leave on Friday, after her evening performance. She was so happy…”
Constance met Solomon’s gaze.
“Where were you going to go?” he asked.
“Back to Italy. She missed home and sunshine, and she was desperate to get away from Montague.”
“And you were both willing to abandon your promising careers here in England?”
Darrow smiled. “In matters of music, England is nothing compared to the entire continent of Europe. The world is much bigger than London.”
“And you were both prepared to face any difficulties Caterina might have had with the governments in Italy?”
Darrow shrugged. “She didn’t believe it would be an issue.”
“Will you go by yourself?” Constance asked.
He shook his head, once more morose. “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the same without her.”
Solomon stood up. “Well, we’re sorry for disturbing you. Thank you again for your honesty. Er… Why didn’t you tell us this in the first place?”
Darrow met his gaze without fear. “Because it’s none of your business. And because, even then, I was trying to protect her memory.” His lips twisted. “And yes, my own reputation.”
*
“They can’t both be right,” Constance burst out almost as soon as Mrs. Philpot had closed the door behind them.
“They can both think they’re right,” Solomon replied. “Both Darrow and Marianne seemed genuine to me, but they don’t necessarily have all the facts.”
“Neither do we,” Constance complained. “Only Caterina did, and she can’t tell.”
Solomon ushered her toward the carriage, which had just appeared around the corner. “Perhaps she can. We need to look more closely at everything she did, everywhere she went and everyone she spoke to from the Monday she was supposed to end things with Darrow, to the day she died.”
“That’s more than a week,” Constance protested.
“It won’t be easy. But her life seems to have been more of a bubbling cauldron than we realized. Some man picked roses in the square—”
“If Janey’s informant is accurate,” Constance interrupted.
“As you say. Someone certainly entered Caterina’s room, possibly via the window, and left her twelve red roses.”
“And disturbed her pillows,” Constance added bleakly. “Someone was in her room who shouldn’t have been. They may or may not have killed her, but it’s looking increasingly likely. Let’s visit my mother.”
Solomon’s eyebrows rose, though he gave the order to the coachman and handed her inside. No wonder he was surprised. She had almost frightened herself with her sudden urgency.
“You want to ask more about Kellar?” he asked.
“Yes.” Though she had no specific questions.
She just needed to see that Juliet was safe and was trying to justify it.
“We have three real suspects in Caterina’s murder.
Montague, Darrow, and Kellar. Of the three of them, Kellar is by far the subtlest. If Caterina died because she knew something about him, something that would damage his ambitions for this new position he’s pursuing, then it’s quite possible that Juliet knows it too. ”
Solomon took her hand in a strong grip. “It doesn’t follow at all,” he said gently. “If Caterina knew anything to his discredit—and we don’t know that she did—then it was about something that happened decades after Juliet last saw him.”
“True,” Constance allowed, yet the speed of her heart didn’t slow, and the knot of worry in her stomach did not unravel. Rather, it seemed to be tying and retying itself into bigger and more complicated tangles.
It was not far to her mother’s shop, and she jumped out of the carriage before Solomon could move. She went straight through the gate to the back door. Somehow, she prevented herself from battering on it like a mad thing. Even so, her knock was loud enough to earn Juliet’s wrath.
And yet no one answered. The knot in her stomach dived deeper, seemed to fill her whole body. Damn you, Ma, don’t do this to me…
She knocked again and stepped back. “Juliet!” she called at the upper window.
Solomon took her place at the door and turned the handle. It swung open.
“She would never leave it unlocked,” Constance whispered. “Never.” Juliet had known too many thieves and casual “borrowers” in her life to give just anyone easy access to her shop and her home.
“Wait here,” Solomon said quietly, and went in.
Of course, she followed him.
*
Digby Montague sat on his late wife’s bed, his violin and bow in one hand, and gazed around the familiar room.
He should probably feel the presence of her spirit here, at least some echo of the woman who had been his wife only days ago.
He should be able to imagine her here with him. It would be some comfort.
He had come up here to play to her, as if that would somehow connect her to him once more.
She had liked him to play to her, even though his skill was so imperfect.
Sometimes she had sung along with him, not in her full, operatic voice that could reach the furthest corners of the largest theatres, but softly, sweetly, just for him.
He wanted to remember that, to feel it again.
But the emptiness glared back at him. Still silence battered at his ears. She was not here. There was no point in playing.
Imagination had never been his strong point. But then, he’d never needed imagination with Caterina. Her reality was overwhelming enough. His beautiful wife, vital, talented, and deeply, humanly flawed, had been wiped from the Earth in an instant, leaving nothing behind.
Except her money.
And the insulting suspicions of Sebastian Kellar, who had made it so difficult to get at her money while she was alive.
Well, there was no denying that it would be useful to Digby now.
He found himself staring at the naked pillows on the bed. Reaching out, he touched one, smoothed it as though preparing it for her lovely head.
No more.
Unbearable to be here. He was a practical man, and he had work to do.
She had been such a distraction to him since he had first encountered her.
He had been so helpless in her power, so doting that he had neglected his business.
The loss of one shipment should not have been this catastrophic.
But with hard work—God knew he needed that to keep the nightmares at bay—and Caterina’s money, he would save Montague and Son. That would be his legacy. And hers.
He sprang up and strode from the room, abandoning his violin like a sacrificial offering. He rushed downstairs to his study, where he penned a commanding note to his solicitor.
*
At some point, climbing the stairs with terror in her heart, Constance’s hand had crept into Solomon’s, for she became aware that he now held it with comforting firmness. Whatever she had to face at the top of the stairs, it would not be alone.
But still the fear could not be squashed, the sheer impossibility of life without her maddening, infuriating mother…
“Ma!” she called sharply. “Juliet!”