Chapter 5
I stifled a jaw-cracking yawn as I reached the bottom of the staircase, wishing instead I was crawling beneath my warm covers rather than venturing back downstairs to meet Portia Whitlock.
Had I realized how soon most of the guests would choose to retire, I would have suggested an earlier hour for our private conference.
I’d tried sending Bree to notify her, but there’d been no answer to the knock on Miss Whitlock’s bedchamber door.
The evening had gone as well as could be hoped, especially after Mr. Birnam’s ill-mannered behavior at dinner.
Upon joining the ladies in the mauve drawing room, I’d realized that a laissez-faire approach to hosting was not adequate.
If I didn’t take charge, Mr. Birnam certainly would.
As such, I requested that each of the ladies who played pianoforte take a turn at the keyboard.
Then when the gentlemen joined us, I coaxed everyone into playing a few rounds of charades, before dividing those who were interested into pairs for cards.
Mr. and Mrs. Birnam grumbled a bit at this maneuvering, but everyone else seemed satisfied with my benevolent administration.
Well, everyone except Lord Milngavie and Lady Brougham, who ended up being Mr. and Mrs. Birnam’s partners, respectively.
But they would soon discover I intended to alternate partners and dinner companions throughout the week and hopefully be content with that.
However, the players at the tables began to dwindle as guests retired, wearied from their travels that day, the earlier hunt, or Mr. Birnam’s pontificating.
Shortly before eleven, I’d gone upstairs to see to my daughter, Emma, leaving the few gentlemen who remained to my husband’s and his father’s care.
I hadn’t heard Gage enter our suite when it was time to leave for my appointment with Miss Whitlock.
I’d not had a chance to tell him about my midnight rendezvous, but Bree was aware of my plans should he return before I did.
Even so, I elected to take the grand south staircase down to the passage which led past the library and study, suspecting the men might have retreated to these cozier environs.
The house was quiet, both upstairs and down, though the wall sconces lighting the corridors had not yet been doused.
However, I spied a footman in the library extinguishing the lamps there.
Save him, I saw no one else in the other chambers I swept through.
At least, Miss Whitlock and I wouldn’t be interrupted.
As I passed from the plush Aubusson rug outside the study onto the black-and-white marble tile floor of the great hall, my footsteps echoed off the high ceilings, sounding overloud to my ears.
I turned my head to peer down the length of the room now wreathed in heavy shadows.
I’d never been in the great hall this late at night, and I had to admit the chamber had an eerie quality to it.
The high windows over the main doors above me allowed hallowed moonlight to filter into the space, but it failed to penetrate even halfway into the chamber’s enormous depth.
Someone could be standing at the opposite end, watching me, and I might have no idea they were there.
I shook my head at the absurd thought. Clearly, I was allowing the unnerving atmosphere to run away with my good sense. Even so, I tightened the paisley shawl I’d draped over my shoulders against the night’s chill and hastened my steps.
I could see the door to the blue room which led directly into the morning room stood ajar.
I suspected this meant that Miss Whitlock had arrived before me and so pushed it open to announce myself.
However, I’d taken no more than two steps into the room before I stumbled to a halt, my heart stuttering in my throat.
Miss Whitlock lay crumpled on the floor with Mr. Birnam leaning over her.
He’d not yet noticed me, and I watched as he bent to pick up a glass bottle lying beside her.
It was as he shifted that I got my first look at Miss Whitlock’s face and gasped in horror.
The burns were appalling, peeling away or dissolving skin, muscles, and sinew.
As I inhaled, I could smell it. The scents of singed hair and flesh. It was enough to make my stomach lurch.
There was only one thing I knew of that could have wrought such damage, and it wasn’t fire.
My gaze jerked to Mr. Birnam’s hands, now lifting the bottle. “Don’t touch that!” I shouted too late.
He inhaled a sharp breath through his lips, releasing the bottle so that it thudded against the carpet, rolling toward me. I stepped gingerly around it, urging Mr. Birnam into the water closet beyond. “Rinse your hands with water. Do it immediately.”
He hurried to do as he was told, cursing foully in pain as he went, and I turned back to Miss Whitlock.
She didn’t appear to be breathing, but I had to be certain.
The trouble was, how to go about doing so without exposing my own skin.
I knelt carefully beside her, examining both arms. The left sleeve of her blush gown seemed less damaged, so I reached for that wrist. It was still warm and pliant as I felt for a pulse, though the fingers appeared to have stiffened. There was none.
Lifting my gaze once again to Miss Whitlock’s face, a sob escaped my lips. The poor woman. Who would do such a thing? Why?
I’d heard of acid attacks before, but I’d never seen one—had hoped never to encounter one. But here the evidence was all too obvious, including the bottle that winked up at me in the lamplight, the words “Birnam’s Oil of Vitriol” stamped in the glass.
I could hear Birnam still blaspheming in the smaller chamber beyond, frantically trying to rinse the acid from his hands. Inhaling a shaky breath, I forced myself to my feet. I needed help. Now.
Stumbling from the chamber, I dashed back across the great hall and through the study. There I encountered the footman just departing the library. He startled as I came hurtling down the corridor toward him.
“Fetch Mr. Gage or Lord Gage. Whoever you can find. I need them in the blue room. Now!”
His eyes wide, he hastened in the direction of the stairs, and I retraced my steps.
Discovering that Mr. Birnam was still in the water closet, I halted just inside the doorway, forcing myself to take a few slow deep breaths so that I could better assess the situation.
After all, there was nothing I could do now for Miss Whitlock.
Nothing except catch the monster who had done this to her.
The obvious answer seemed to be Birnam. After all, I’d found him standing over her body. But he might just as easily have come along after the fact. And if he’d thrown the oil of vitriol in her face, then why had he reached for the bottle, burning his own hands in the process?
I couldn’t dismiss the possibility that this had been a ploy.
That upon my arrival, he’d panicked and taken drastic measures to divert suspicions from himself.
But if the acid attack had just happened, then why hadn’t I heard Miss Whitlock scream, as surely she must have?
It would have been terribly painful, and her death would not have been instantaneous even if she’d inhaled or ingested some of it.
It seemed far more likely that the attacker would have fled rather than stand and watch.
Birnam had also appeared to be genuinely in shock, and my observations of him thus far had not led me to believe he was a good actor.
No, his thoughts tended to be writ large across his every feature.
But that didn’t mean I was ready to rule him out entirely, or to be alone with him for longer than necessary.
I trusted the footman would send help quickly, but in the meantime, there were a couple of tasks better off completed before they arrived.
I slid open the top drawer of the console table against the wall next to the door, knowing I would find a steel-point pen.
Then, inching forward, I avoided all the spots in the Axminster medallion carpet which had been damaged by acid.
A spot on the silk upholstered settee near Miss Whitlock’s body also now bore a ragged hole.
Otherwise, the furnishings in the chamber, which functioned as a receiving room, appeared undisturbed.
It was evident that the assailant’s aim had been true, and the victim had borne the full brunt of the attack.
I forced myself to look more closely at Miss Whitlock’s ravaged face, cataloging her injuries.
In the course of our inquiries, I had examined a fair number of victims’ bodies endeavoring to uncover clues.
They were each of them disturbing in their own way, but not since some of Gage’s and my earliest investigations had I been this rattled by the state of a corpse.
The wounds were gruesome. Had Miss Whitlock survived, she would have been severely scarred, with no nose, one ear, and likely the loss of sight in both eyes.
But it was the viciously personal nature of the attack that was most alarming.
The killer hadn’t aimed just to harm her, but to obliterate her.
I swallowed hard, forcing the bile that had risen back down my throat, and lowered my gaze to her neck and then torso, using the pen to shift aside clothing when needed.
Then I moved on to each of her hands. The right was badly damaged, making me suspect she’d either lifted it to shield herself or reached up to swipe the vitriol from her face before she’d realized it was acid.
The left was less burned, but I found no marks to indicate self-defense.
The attack must have been a surprise. She probably hadn’t even seen it coming.
Anger coursed through my veins that someone should do something so ruthless and dastardly, and while under my father-in-law’s roof! What on earth could Miss Whitlock have possibly done to provoke such a thing?