Chapter Forty
Lady Mary
The sound of breaking glass roused me from my slumber.
Not that I had been sleeping deeply. I’d tossed and turned for hours before finally succumbing to fatigue. I glanced at the clock, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark before I could read it. Two eighteen.
I could just close my eyes again. Wait until morning to see what had broken. A servant had probably gone down to the kitchen for a glass of milk and dropped it.
I blinked at the ceiling. Drummed my fingers on the counterpane. And, finally, threw my covers off of me and rolled out of bed. My feet rooted around the floor for their slippers. I grabbed a wrapper and my walking stick and stepped out into the hallway.
All was now silent. I looked back at my bed.
A beam of moonlight pierced the gap in the window’s curtains and crossed the counterpane, marking the spot where I should be lying.
I set my shoulders and closed my door behind me.
It wouldn’t take long to search for the source of the noise.
And perhaps when I was done, a nice cup of milk of my own would be my reward.
I first went to Perrin’s study, but the newly installed windows remained whole. I heaved a sigh of relief. The rest of the windows on the ground floor were similarly unscathed.
I paused at the steps down to the kitchen but decided to search the bottom floor last. That cup of milk was supposed to be a reward for finishing the search, after all.
I climbed to the first floor and peeked my head in the now empty guest rooms. The staircase up to the servants’ quarters was illuminated by the nearly full moon, but even I didn’t have the gumption to go knocking on the servants’ bedroom doors to ask if they’d heard anything.
All that remained on this floor was the ballroom, and with all the glass and mirrors in that room, it seemed probable that might be the source of the disturbance.
If there were any ghosts, they would be here.
It was the room Katherine had seen the face in when coming back from the ice house.
But no phantasm met me. Only my own reflection, bouncing from the mirrors to the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The white of my wrapper nearly glowed in the moonlight.
If someone saw me now, they would think I was the ghost.
A muffled whine halted my step. My eyes searched the shadows in the corners of the room. It was the dog. It had to be. He’d knocked over something, broken it, and now would cut his paws on his own mess.
I was tempted to leave him to it. I grimaced. “You dratted dog. Where are you?”
For once, Southey didn’t come running when he heard me. The beast must actually be hurt.
My mouth went dry. “Southey.” I clapped my hands softly. “Let me know where you are, boy.”
The shadows shifted in the far corner, and I heaved a breath of relief. I started forward. “Don’t move. I’ll come get….”
My feet froze. The movement from the corner was much larger than any dog. The darkness curled, transformed, until Bertram emerged to stand in the moonlight. Southey was clamped in his arms, his snout held in Bertram’s hand.
I faltered back a step. “Bertram? What are you doing here?” My question didn’t even sound convincing to my ears. I knew why he was here. And he knew that I knew. Or else, why would he come back?
“Do you remember dancing in this room?” He swayed back and forth, his gaze soft even as he squeezed Southey tighter to stop his wriggling. “What times we had. You and Cavindish. Me and Martha. Miranda and….” His swaying stopped. “Well, it would have been better had it just been Miranda.”
I sidestepped, putting a high round table between me and Bertram.
“But then, who would she have danced with?” I asked lightly.
I should have seen it earlier. There was something wrong with Bertram.
Dreadfully wrong. I’d tried to excuse his oddities as a man grieved with loneliness, but there was something more.
“She could have married anyone, lovely as she was.” Bertram glided forward, his expression vacant. “Father had to choose the one who would hurt her.”
I circled the table as he approached, darting behind a low settee.
“I won’t deny Perrin was a right sot, but he wasn’t violent.
He didn’t harm her.” Not violent, but vicious.
He probably did hurt his wife, in a thousand tiny ways, but I had a feeling Bertram was referring to something more than cutting words.
That seemed to snap Bertram out of his dreamlike stupor. “He killed her! She would have wanted me to make him pay. I’m only sorry I took so long.”
Southey whimpered.
I held up my hands. “That’s only a servants’ tale. Something told to frighten newcomers. It isn’t real.”
“Martha told me you wouldn’t believe. She knew you’d betray us.”
Arguing with a madman was difficult enough; I didn’t think I could persuade a dead wife, too.
“Your sister fell from a ladder. She never recovered.” There had been witnesses.
It had been an accident. And Perrin had seemed genuinely grieved.
No, it wasn’t Bertram’s sister whose death I started to wonder about. It was his wife’s.
I remembered her hand tremors. How she couldn’t recall that I’d been married the last time I’d seen her.
I’d believed Bertram when he’d said she suffered from scrofula.
Died from it. Now other possibilities arose.
I’d heard the rumors of Bertram’s infidelities early in his marriage.
His trips to the unmentionable London clubs.
The symptoms all fit, and my heart broke.
“He pushed her.” Bertram threw his arms out, flinging Southey away from him. The pup hit the mirrored wall and fell to the ground. He didn’t move. “But Martha and Miranda told me how to repay him. She told me all about her pretty flower. How I could use the roots, leaves, and petals to avenge her.”
“What plant?” I gripped the head of my walking stick, my palms growing slick as I trotted behind a low and long table. Something bit into the heel of my slipper, and I chanced a glance down. The remains of an oil lamp lay shattered on the floor, the fuel making the glass-strewn floor slippery.
My shoulders raised another inch closer to my ears. Bertram had already poisoned and stabbed as methods of execution. I didn’t know what he had in mind for me, but now burning to death seemed a possibility.
“Lily of the Valley. It’s a lovely flower with white, bell-shaped blossoms. I’ll make you a bouquet.”
To be lain on my grave, no doubt. “And you made a tisane from the plant? Put it in Perrin’s wine?” The cup of hot water he requested each night made sense now. Perhaps he did like to drink it before bed, but he’d used at least one to brew the poison.
“He could never have tasted it over the wormwood flavor.” Bertram kicked the settee out of the way, making a clearer path to me.
“And Mr. Taylor? Why did he have to die?”
“Taylor?” Bertram rubbed his jaw. “Oh, yes. The secretary. Grasping, greedy man. He threatened to expose me if I didn’t pay him.
He saw me holding the wormwood wine the day Perrin died.
I told him at the time that I wanted to try it, but after you told everyone it had been poisoned, he knew.
Can you believe the audacity of the man? Society has become so fallen.”
I almost laughed. Murder was justified but greed was a sin. But I shouldn’t expect logic from the insane. “And locking Mr. Evans and Miss Smith in the ice house? Did you try to kill them, too?”
The moonlight illuminated his cheek but cast his eyes in shadow. He floated toward me, inexorable. “No.” He giggled. “I was here, watching.”
The face in the window.
“That Taylor shoved the log between the door and the step.” He took two steps forward; I took two back. “He was not pleased when Miss Smith rebuffed his advances. I told you he was a venal man. I thought stabbing him appropriate as he’d stabbed Perrin.”
It was the matter-of-fact tone of his voice that sent the shiver down my spine. There was no remorse. No acknowledgement of the immorality of his act. No concern even over being caught.
Bertram couldn’t distinguish right from wrong. Consequences for his actions probably had never entered his head. And there was no way I was going to reason my way out of this.
“And the windows?” I whispered. “Did you break those or was that Mr. Taylor?”
“Oh, I did that.” Bertram mimicked throwing a rock.
“Why?”
He looked confused at my question. “Because I wanted to.”
I swallowed. And there was nothing more to it than that. Bertram desired something, so he did it. Without thought or remorse.
Pleasure. That was the false idol Bertram worshipped. He’d killed Perrin because avenging his sister would make him feel good. He’d let his wants overrule rational thought. Though if what I suspected about his health was true, it was hardly his fault.
I circled back to the tall round table, hoping the white sheet draping over it would hide my intent.
“Why did you come back here?” I placed my fingers under the rim of the table and tried to lift it.
When had my strength left me? It had happened so slowly, year after year, that I hadn’t noticed I wasn’t the spry woman I once was.
“Because you knew.” He tapped his fingers on his thigh. I’d thought it just a nervous habit, but now I saw all his fidgets, the playing with his cards, covered tremors of his own. “You knew, and you were going to inform on us.”
Yes, I had known. Once Cook Clem had told me Havenstone had been with him during the time Taylor was killed, Bertram had been the only logical suspect.
Despite Katherine’s arguments to the contrary, I couldn’t credit Miss Walker killing Perrin.
She wanted to be lady of the manor and the wealth that came with that.
Killing Perrin wouldn’t have accomplished her goals. I’d written as much to the magistrate.
The magistrate. I tucked my walking stick under my arm and gripped the table with both hands. “I’ve already written to Lord Preston. Killing me won’t save you from prosecution, it will only add another charge.”
“Yes, but—”
I didn’t wait to hear his reply. I hefted the table with all my might and turned it over onto his legs. Spinning, I ran for the door.
I was only ten steps away from the exit when he caught me. The blow hit the center of my back and sent me tumbling. My knees slammed into the floor, followed by my palms and jaw. I tasted blood before I felt the first lick of pain. My walking stick had bounced ahead of me, and I reached for it.
Bertram grabbed my hair and yanked me backwards. He dragged me past Southey, a shaking, furry little ball. Past the settee. I clawed at his hands. I knew I broke skin, but he didn’t seem to feel the pain. When we reached the floor-to-ceiling windows, he tossed me aside.
“I don’t want to stab you.” He looked down at me, hands on his hips. “I promise, this will be quick. You won’t feel much pain. I wouldn’t want a woman to feel pain.”
This time, I couldn’t hold back my harsh chuckles. It all seemed so terribly amusing. He was happy to kill me, but his chivalry didn’t want me to hurt.
Bertram was going to kill me, and I couldn’t stop laughing.
He kicked a pane of glass, the window shattering. “I don’t suppose you’ll jump for me?”
My laughter died. Bertram was going to kill me, but I wouldn’t go down alone. I twisted, pulled back my legs, prepared to kick, claw, and hammer his body in any way I could.
He turned his head, his eyes widening. There was the flash of light on a pale face, the shimmer of muted flames. My walking stick made a satisfying crack as Marie struck Bertram across the face with it.
Marie pulled the stick back then jabbed the knob end into Bertram’s gut.
He wheezed and fell back. His shoulder hit the jagged window, sending more shards of glass to the terrace below. He hung, half out of the window, his hands clinging to the edge of the window frame.
“Come on.” Marie held out her hand and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s get out of ’ere.”
I had no objections to that idea. The first step sent pain shooting up my bones, but I ignored it. I stopped only long enough to gather up Southey before hurrying after the maid into the hallway.
She took my elbow as we hobbled to the stairs. “Are you injured?”
“No.” Yes, but not enough for complaints. Southey shifted, burying his snout at my throat and whining softly. I turned left at the juncture. “We need to get…” I stopped, realizing I was speaking to air.
Marie popped her head back around the corner.
“Come on,” I snapped. I limped forward to the stairs.
“We should ’ave gone up to the servants’ quarters.” Marie trotted after me, looking over her shoulder. “There’s a couple of burly footmen who would ’elp us.”
I paused on the second step down. I hadn’t thought of that.
Bertram’s silhouette was lit by the moonlight at the hallway’s junction.
And it was too late now. “Hurry,” I told Marie.
We went down the steps as fast as we could, but I knew Bertram was gaining on us.
I’d thought to reach the stables, where I knew the hunting guns were kept and where at least one groom would be sleeping.
Now I knew we wouldn’t make it. But if we could barricade ourselves in one of the rooms, ring for the servants, we might have a chance.
If they could hear the bell from their bedrooms. If they didn’t spend too much time pulling on their wrappers and boots.
Bertram grunted when he reached the bottom of the staircase. There were too many ifs to make survival likely.
We darted into the rear sitting room, my body already reaching for the end table by the door. It was too easy to drag. It wouldn’t hold against a child pushing at the door, never mind a grown man. But I started pulling it over.
Marie slammed the door shut, only to be thrown back as Bertram pushed inside. He stepped clear of the door, blood dripping from his arms. He turned toward us, his face wearing an expression that would haunt my dreams, and ran right into Henry’s waiting fist.