Chapter 2
The First Interview
D orothea had laid out the tea service with her customary competence: the finest porcelain, the silver tray polished to a mirror finish, a small arrangement of white lilies positioned so that their scent would pervade the room without overwhelming it.
I had chosen the lilies myself. They were the traditional flower of mourning, and their presence in the drawing room served a dual purpose: it signalled bereavement to anyone who entered, and it provided a convenient focal point for the eye, drawing attention away from the face of the woman who had arranged them.
My mother had taught me about flowers. Not about their cultivation or their care, subjects she considered beneath her interest, but about their strategic deployment.
Lilies for mourning. Roses for courtship.
White for innocence. Red for passion. Each bloom was a word in a language that most people spoke without knowing it, and my mother had been fluent.
I was dressed in the full black of deep mourning, as propriety demanded and as I found useful.
Black minimises the visual impression of the face, softening features and concealing the minor imperfections of complexion that might, in lighter colours, draw the eye.
My veil was pinned at the correct angle, obscuring my brow and the upper portion of my cheeks while leaving my mouth and chin visible, the arrangement that conveys both modesty and composure.
I had applied a faint rouge to my lips, not enough to be noticeable but sufficient to prevent the pallor that deep mourning can produce.
The effect, when I examined it in the mirror before descending, was precisely what I intended: a woman bowed by grief but not broken by it, composed enough to receive visitors, too dignified to be an object of pity.
The drawing room at Blackwood House was one of the larger rooms in the Mayfair townhouse, a high-ceilinged affair with tall windows that overlooked the square and admitted a pale, northern light that I found particularly flattering.
The furnishings were Richard's taste, or rather his predecessor's taste, since Richard had been the kind of man who did not notice furniture and would have lived quite happily in a tent provided it bore the Ashworth coat of arms. I had made no changes to the room since his death.
That would come later, after the mourning period, when the subtle process of erasing his presence from the house could begin.
For now, the room was preserved as it had been when he was alive, and any visitor would observe the fidelity of a widow who could not bear to alter a single detail of her husband's domestic arrangements.
This was, of course, a performance. Richard's taste in furnishings had been execrable, and I intended to replace every stick of it at the earliest opportunity. But performance was the currency in which I traded, and the currency was sound.
I heard the front door open and close, and the murmur of Parkins, the butler, receiving a visitor.
I placed my hands in my lap and composed my features into the particular expression of resigned sorrow that I had decided, after some consideration, was appropriate for this occasion.
Not too much grief. A woman who has lost three husbands in eight years cannot sustain the level of anguish expected of a first widow without appearing either hysterical or calculating.
The correct tone was quiet acceptance, the dignity of a woman who has known suffering and bears it with fortitude.
The drawing room door opened, and Parkins announced, "Inspector Aldric, my lady."
He entered. I had known he would come, of course.
My sources in the servant networks of Mayfair had informed me, within forty-eight hours of the funeral, that a detective from Scotland Yard had been assigned to review the Earl's death.
I had expected him sooner. That he had waited a full week told me something about his approach: he was not reckless, not impulsive.
He had taken time to assemble his files, to review the circumstances, to formulate his questions before presenting himself at my door.
This was either very good or very bad, depending on one's perspective. From mine, it was inconvenient.
He was taller than I had expected, and leaner.
The scar along his jawline was more pronounced in the drawing room light, a thin white line that traced the angle of his jaw from ear to chin.
His eyes were the dark brown I remembered from the churchyard, and they moved across the room with the rapid, assessing quality of a man who could not help cataloguing everything he saw.
I watched him take in the lilies, the tea service, the arrangement of the furniture, the aspect of the windows, and, finally, me.
His gaze rested on my face for perhaps a second longer than strict propriety required, and in that second, I performed the smallest possible adjustment of my expression, a slight lowering of the eyelids, a barely perceptible softening of the mouth, that conveyed vulnerability without weakness.
He bowed. "Lady Ashworth. I apologise for the intrusion. I understand this is a difficult time."
"Not at all, Inspector. Please, sit down.
" I gestured to the chair opposite mine, positioned at a distance that was intimate enough to facilitate conversation but formal enough to maintain the correct social distance between a countess and a police detective.
Dorothea appeared with the tea, pouring with the silent efficiency that was her most valuable quality.
I noted that the Inspector's eyes followed her briefly, tracking the movement of the teapot with the same focused attention he had given to everything else in the room.
He was a man who noticed details. This was what I had feared.
"The Earl's death has been a great loss," I said, accepting my cup with the slight tremor of the hand that I had perfected at the age of fourteen. "To his family, to his friends, and to me most of all. I am still struggling to come to terms with it."
"I can imagine." He sipped his tea. His hands were steady, I observed, and well-kept, the hands of a man who took care with his appearance without being vain about it.
"I hope you will forgive the nature of my visit, Lady Ashworth.
The Yard has been asked to review the circumstances of the Earl's death, and I am required to speak with those who were closest to him during his final months. "
"Of course. I am happy to assist in any way I can.
Richard would have wished it." The mention of Richard's name produced, on cue, the faintest tightening of my throat, a small physiological response that was entirely genuine and entirely misleading.
I could produce it at will, a trick of the musculature that my mother had drilled into me until it became as automatic as breathing.
The Inspector produced a notebook and a pencil. "Can you describe the Earl's health in the months preceding his death?"
"He had been unwell for some time," I said.
"A year, perhaps longer. Indigestion, at first. He was a man who enjoyed his food and his brandy, and his physician attributed his discomfort to both.
Dr. Hale prescribed bismuth and advised moderation, but Richard was not a man who took advice easily, particularly where his pleasures were concerned.
" I paused, allowing a small, sad smile to touch my lips. "He was very fond of his brandy."
"How fond?"
"He drank every evening. A bottle of the Hennessy, usually.
The same brand for years. He had it brought to his study after dinner and would sit with it until quite late.
" This was all true, every word of it, and its truthfulness was what made it such an effective lie.
The brandy was the vehicle. The Hennessy was the instrument.
Every evening, for the better part of eighteen months, I had added the arsenic to his decanter myself, measuring the dose with the precision of an apothecary, calibrating it against his weight, his tolerance, the observed progression of his symptoms. But what I was describing to Inspector Aldric was a man who drank too much and suffered the natural consequences, and that description was, in every particular that mattered to him, accurate.
"And his condition worsened?"
"Gradually, at first. By the spring, he was experiencing considerable discomfort.
Nausea, pain in his abdomen. Dr. Hale became concerned and visited more frequently.
He prescribed stronger remedies, but nothing seemed to help.
By summer, Richard was confined to his bed.
" I allowed my voice to falter slightly on the last sentence, the smallest crack in the composure, quickly repaired.
"I nursed him as best I could. I was with him at the end. "
"I am sorry for your loss, Lady Ashworth."
"Thank you, Inspector." I set down my teacup with the careful deliberation of a woman who is controlling her emotions through the discipline of small physical actions. "Is there anything else you wish to ask me?"
He flipped back a page in his notebook. "I have been reviewing the physician's records. Dr. Hale noted peripheral tingling in the Earl's extremities, beginning in April of this year. Do you recall this?"
"I do. Richard complained of it often. A numbness in his fingers and toes.
Dr. Hale said it was a nervous complaint, possibly related to his general decline.
It distressed Richard greatly. He was a man who prided himself on his vigour, and to find his body failing him was a source of considerable anguish. "
"Did the tingling precede the other symptoms?"