Chapter Twenty-Four
Marie
“Isn’t it too soon to be intruding like this?
” Marie chewed on her bottom lip. It was a familiar front door, but with the master of the house now dead, it held a somber air.
“And you’ve never met Mrs. Hicks. Paying a condolence call on a stranger can’t be the done thing, especially as you only found her husband’s body earlier today. ”
Lady Mary rapped on the door. “Two men are dead. We can no longer afford to observe the rules of proper etiquette.”
“But it’s so late.” Marie looked back at the carriage.
Ernest sat on the driver’s seat and Brett stood by the closed door.
Her stomach erupted in butterflies. If she was being honest, imposing on a new widow was only a small reason for her nerves.
Brett winked at her, only making her feel a little better about the situation. “She might be eating dinner.”
“The sun is still up. Barely.” Lady Mary grimaced. “Besides, I’ve already knocked.” And as if to emphasize the point, she knocked again.
The door creaked open. The servant Marie and Brett had previously questioned stood in the entryway. “Yes?”
“Lady Mary and companion here to see Mrs. Hicks,” Lady Mary said.
The man shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but the missus isn’t seeing anyone.” He leaned forward and looked both ways. “Her husband was just killed.”
“I know that, young man.” Lady Mary pressed past him. “That is the reason why we are here. Now which way is your sitting room? Through here?” And she wandered down the hall and into the room on the left.
Surprisingly, she had picked the right room. Lady Mary settled herself as though she owned the building. “Please tell Mrs. Hicks we’re here and that the matter is of the utmost importance. We’ll wait.”
Marie’s eyes rounded at her mistress’s audacity. When the manservant had left them, presumably to fetch the grieving Mrs. Hicks, she loosed a low whistle. “You truly aren’t larking about now, are you?”
“I’ve never larked about,” Lady Mary said, frowning.
“But if you mean I’ve become more serious about this investigation, you are correct.
The time for niceties has passed.” Lady Mary rested her chin on the knob of her walking stick.
“Besides, I know what it is to lose a husband. Sitting in one’s room crying doesn’t help the matter. ”
Marie thought of Brett, and her heart ached. Poor Mrs. Hicks. Poor Lady Mary.
It took a couple minutes, but eventually Mrs. Hicks joined them. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her hair looked as though it had been hastily pinned up.
Lady Mary introduced herself and Marie. She patted the spot on the settee next to her. “Come. Sit here,” she told the new widow. “I was very sorry to have found your husband dead.”
Mrs. Hicks lowered herself next to Lady Mary. “You found him?”
“Yes, didn’t the magistrate tell you?” Lady Mary twisted her lips. “I have been investigating why Mr. Trent was killed and went to speak to your husband and found him. The connection between the two deaths is all too apparent.”
Mrs. Hicks rubbed her temple. “Fenton told me about Mr. Trent, but he thought it had something to do with his wife’s affair. Why would the same person kill my husband?”
Lady Mary patted the woman’s knee. “That’s what I intend to find out. Now, has your husband said or done anything unusual in the past few days? Anything that made you suspicious?”
“No.” Mrs. Hicks frowned. “He was worried, of course. That woman hadn’t paid him or the other men at the factory, but that isn’t unusual.”
“That woman?” Marie scooted to the edge of her seat. “Mrs. Trent? What did Mr. Hicks have to say about her?”
“Only that she was a fool, not letting Fenton take control of the factory.” Mrs. Hicks blew her nose into a handkerchief. “I told him that her aspirations might not align with his, that he should start looking for different employment, but he dismissed my concerns.”
“Did your husband ever mention my name?” Lady Mary asked.
“No. Should he have?”
Marie heaved a sigh. It looked unlikely that they’d ever learn why Mr. Trent had wanted to contact Lady Mary. And perhaps they didn’t need to know. Perhaps it had nothing to do with the murders.
“And you’re certain your husband did nothing out of the ordinary these past days?” Lady Mary pressed. “Anything at all?”
“No.” Mrs. Hicks cocked her head. “Well, except bringing home one of those dreadful tins of food. He knows I won’t eat what he makes. Unnatural, it is.” She gave a delicate shudder, one Marie agreed with wholeheartedly.
“A tin of food?” Lady Mary straightened. “Do you still have it?”
“I suppose.” Mrs. Hicks stood and went to the wall. She pulled the servant call. “What does a tin of food have to do with anything?”
The same man who’d opened the door for them appeared. He was the Hickses’ sole servant, and Marie wondered if the widow would keep him on. Without her husband in the house, for some reason it didn’t seem quite proper just him and Mrs. Hicks.
Mrs. Hicks asked him to retrieve the tin, then sat back down next to Lady Mary.
“Perhaps it has nothing to do with the murders,” Lady Mary said. “But if it wasn’t his habit—”
“It wasn’t.” Mrs. Hicks pressed her hands to her lap. “I tried each of the types of food he canned as he asked me, but I told him no more. I didn’t want it in my house.”
“—then I find it of interest that your husband behaved so out of character,” Lady Mary finished. “Perhaps there is something besides food in the tin.”
The servant returned, a tin in his hand. He held the rim between just two fingers as he passed it to his mistress.
She examined the rims and shook the tin. “It looks and feels like any other can of food. Or at least what Fenton thought passed as such.” She handed it to Lady Mary.
“Hmm.” She adjusted her spectacles. “It does appear….”
“What is it?” Marie asked.
Lady Mary squinted at the top. “The date. Mutton soup. This is the tin that should have been destroyed that I found under the table at the factory. Why would he bring it here?”
“Destroyed?” Mrs. Hicks leaned back.
“It was produced the same week as the batch of contaminated food that killed those soldiers.” Lady Mary rolled the tin between her hands.
“Your husband said every tin canned that week was supposed to be destroyed but this one somehow escaped that destiny.” She chewed on her bottom lip.
“Do you mind if I take this?” Lady Mary asked her.
“Please, take it from my house.” Mrs. Hicks held up her hands. “That’s all I need, someone getting sick. First the intruder, then Fenton dying, then….” She swallowed. “Well, I guess nothing compares to Fenton dying.”
Lady Mary shoved the tin in her reticule. “What intruder?”
“Last night.” Mrs. Hicks picked at her skirts. “While I slept, someone broke into the house and rummaged through my husband’s things in the next room. I was just in the next room,” she emphasized.
“How did he get in?” Marie asked. “Could it have been your husband?” Before he’d gone to the factory and gotten himself killed, that was.
Mrs. Hicks pointed at the wall. “It wasn’t Fenton.
A window was forced in the next room. My manservant noticed the bottom sill was damaged when he went to open it this morning, plus some dirt was trod into my new rug.
” She shook her head. “It wasn’t until later that I noticed that Fenton’s room had been gone through.
Whoever did it hadn’t been concerned with keeping things in order. Clothes were strewn everywhere.”
“Did you tell the magistrate?” Lady Mary asked.
“Of course, but as I couldn’t see that anything was missing, I don’t know why they would care.” She dabbed beneath her eyes. “Not when there are more serious crimes.” Her shoulders began to shake.
An intruder in the house of a murdered man?
Even Sir Kelsey would recognize the seriousness of it.
Lady Mary shifted. “Well, we should leave you be. You must want your solitude.” Her voice had softened and she looked upon the new widow with sympathy.
She patted the woman’s knee again, then stood.
“If you can think of anything else, please let me know. I’m on Arlington Street. ”
Mrs. Hicks nodded but said nothing.
Lady Mary hurried from the room, Marie quick on her heels. Upon exiting the house, her mistress went to the driver’s seat and spoke quietly to Ernest. “Tell Stavers to prepare a delivery for a new widow. He’ll know what to do.”
“Yes’m,” Ernest said. “She won’t go hungry for a long while.”
Lady Mary nodded to Brett and he lowered the coach steps and helped them inside, clambering in after them. Lady Mary took out the tin of food. “Why would he bring this home with him?”
Marie explained to Brett it was of the batch that should have been destroyed.
He raised a shoulder. “He wanted to be sure it wasn’t included with a lot to be sold?”
“Why not destroy it?” Lady Mary tapped her bottom lip with her thumb. “This is significant. I just don’t know how yet.”
Marie had her doubts. She leaned back, letting her arm press against Brett’s.
Exhaustion tugged at her eyes. She’d had no sleep the night before and a day full of adventure. She felt drained. She felt exhilarated.
Brett’s thigh was warm against hers. In the dark of the carriage, he trailed his fingers up and down her thigh, lighting up every nerve ending in his path.
She gazed up at him, heat suffusing her body.
And her day wasn’t over yet.
*
Even though she was expecting it, the knock at the door still made Marie start. Before she could answer, Brett poked his head inside.
He held up a plate. “Cook made a cake. You left dinner before you could try any.”
Nerves had twisted Marie’s stomach, making it impossible to eat much of anything.
Lady Mary had taken supper in her room, but the other servants had spent the meal giving them knowing looks.
She knew they all meant well, but the pressure to do something, to be someone she didn’t yet know had sent her fleeing as soon as she could politely escape.
When she’d reached her room, she had taken off her boots and stockings, but sat on her bed otherwise fully clothed. Having Brett here now felt both scandalous and thrilling. “Perhaps we should tell her the truth.” She twisted her skirt in her hands. “It’s wrong to keep this from her.”
Brett settled next to her. “We agreed to wait until after this murder business was over. You know how she’ll get.”
Marie did. And that was part of the problem. Lady Mary wouldn’t approve of being kept in the dark, and Lady Mary’s disapproval was something best avoided.
Brett raised his fork. “Try it. Cake makes all worries disappear.”
Marie’s lips twitched, and she accepted the bite. It was good. All of her worries didn’t magically disappear, however. “You should ’ave seen ’ow sad she was. Mrs. ’icks. He must ’ave snored loudly. It wasn’t from lack of love that they slept in different bedrooms.”
Brett swallowed his own bite of cake. Sugar dusted his bottom lip. “You’re dropping your h’s again. I don’t like it when you’re upset.”
No one had ever much cared before whether she was upset or not.
The idea that Brett did, that he thought it was part of his job now to make her happy, did funny things to her insides.
She swiped his lip with her thumb. “It’s difficult to stay upset when you’re here.
” She made sure to pronounce that h. It was part of her job now to make sure he didn’t worry.
He grabbed her wrist before she could lower her hand. With his gaze fixed on hers, Brett brought her thumb to his mouth and suckled it.
Marie’s lungs froze. “That doesn’t seem very sanitary,” she whispered.
He released her thumb with a pop. His grin warmed her straight through.
“You’re going to have to learn to share everything, including sugar-coated fingers.
” His own fingers slid to the back of her gown, fumbled with the laces until the bodice went loose.
His breath butterflied across her neck, raising her fine hairs.
Marie swallowed. Her body felt tight, like she wanted to jump out of her skin.
She didn’t want to worry about this. Nor think about killers and poor widows.
She just wanted to lose herself in this moment.
In Brett. “Kiss me?” She knew from past experience that when Brett’s lips were on hers, her mind blanked of every concern.
“As you wish.” Brett lowered his head. His kiss was sweet from the cake. Sweeter still was the tenderness behind it. He cupped her face, tasting every corner of her mouth as he tugged her gown down her shoulders.
Marie’s heart pounded behind her breastbone as he lay her down. “This is mad,” she murmured. “We’re mad.” The whole day had been mad.
She never could have guessed last night how much her life would have changed in one day.
Never could have imagined that she’d let his impetuousness rub off on her.
Right now, this moment, she was starting on a new path, one she didn’t know where it would lead.
She could only hope Brett would follow it with her to the end.
Their clothes were tossed to the floors amid her nervous giggles. Giggles turned to moans. Moans into gasps.
After, Marie lay half on top of him. Brett’s fingers combed absently through her hair while she felt his heartbeat slow to normal beneath her palm. “So that’s what all the fuss is about,” she said.
Brett huffed out a laugh. “It will get even better. Especially when we get a bigger bed. This was barely made for one.”
Marie rolled fully atop him. All of her earlier fatigue had disappeared, and she grinned. “I’m not complaining. Are you?”
Brett spun, putting her beneath him. “No complaints.” He lowered his head to hers. “We’ll make it work.”