Chapter 24
“I know you’re disappointed that Willoughby couldn’t tell us more,” I told Max the next day as we walked from the tram stop at St. Stephen’s Green toward Grantham Street. The weather was mild but the gray, overcast skies continued, casting a pall suitable to our moods over everything.
Sidney had managed to track down the other guard on duty the night Harlow was attacked, but his best chance of catching him in a talkative mood involved patronizing a place that was not suitable for ladies.
Given the fact that my husband had not put up a fuss about my visiting such a salubrious place as Kidd’s Back pub with him in the past, I understood this meant that the hovel Alvin Martin frequented must be quite disreputable, indeed.
If I insisted on accompanying him, he might spend the entire time defending my honor rather than getting answers from the guard.
So instead, we’d decided to divide and conquer. He would question Martin while Max and I paid another visit to Mrs. Harlow.
I’d not pressed Max the previous day on his feelings about Willoughby’s inability to tell us where his father had stashed his proof of Ardmore’s perfidy, but I could tell his discontent was acute.
That he felt he’d failed us and perhaps even his father, when that was the furthest thing from the truth.
He turned his head to the side, gazing up at the respectable Georgian town houses lining the street.
“I was learning to accept that we would probably never have the answer and then, almost as if by a miracle, Captain Willoughby appeared. And what’s more, he wanted to cooperate.
” He sighed. “I’m afraid I got my hopes up. ”
“Only to have them dashed.” I’d wondered how he’d shown so much restraint in not demanding answers from Willoughby immediately. He’d been afraid to ask.
I wanted to tell him that all hope wasn’t lost, that we might still locate what his father had hidden, but I knew that would only be cruel. The truth was, we were out of clues, and the blame for that must lie with either his father or Ardmore.
But Max knew this. My reiterating it purely strained the point. So I squeezed his arm where it was looped with mine, offering what empathy I could.
“How are your sister and the children?” I asked, knowing he’d spoken with Livia the day before. Her husband had been killed during the war, and Max had invited them to live with him at his estate on the Isle of Wight, both for their good and his own.
“They’re doing well.” He paused, and I could guess what was coming. “She’s urging me to return home.”
“She’s afraid for you,” I said, and then added, “not unjustifiably.” A thought occurred to me. “As it stands, who inherits should something happen to you?”
A frown marred his brow. I knew it wasn’t the most pleasant of topics, but Livia couldn’t help but consider it. After all, she’d lost both a father and husband within the past four years and she had two young children to take care of.
“A cousin,” he answered. “He lives in Australia.”
“Do you know each other well?”
“No.”
So Livia wouldn’t know him well either, and he might be the closest male relative on whom she would rely, if the worst happened and Max was killed. I didn’t need to spell this out for him. From his tone of voice, he already knew it, so I changed topics.
“The last time Livia wrote to me, she was proposing hosting a house party.” My innocent tone didn’t fool him.
“In which she intends to parade every eligible woman she knows in front of me,” he remarked wryly. “Yes, I know. And I’ll tell you what I told her. I’ll marry when I’m good and ready and not a moment sooner.”
“I just want you to be happy,” I replied in my defense.
“Marriage does not necessarily equate to happiness,” he replied gently but firmly. “Especially if it’s not to the right woman.”
I conceded this with a nod. After all, we’d witnessed our fair share of miserable marriages since the war. Sidney and I might have turned into one if not for a bit of luck and both of our commitments to making it work.
“You’ll find her,” I assured him.
His gaze drifted tenderly over my face. “Maybe.”
I scowled. “Don’t idealize me, Max. Marriage to me is no picnic.”
“Oh, I know.” He chuckled dryly. “I’ve seen the gray hairs you’ve given Kent over the past year and a half.”
I shook my head but withheld a retort because we’d arrived.
Mrs. Harlow and her friend Mrs. Mitchum both received us again, the latter seeming almost overcome by the notion of an earl sitting in her drawing room, her hands flapping anxiously. Mrs. Harlow was less impressed, though no less enthralled by Max’s good looks.
“My, Mrs. Kent, the company you keep.” She delivered this barb while smiling flirtatiously, but I could see the dark circles under her eyes indicating lack of sleep and how her black silk gown hung on her frame.
“Mrs. Harlow, the last time Mr. Kent and I were here you indicated that you didn’t know precisely how your husband had met Lord Ardmore,” I said, jumping straight into the heart of the matter. “But as we understand it, you met Ardmore first and later introduced him to your husband.”
She stiffened. “I’m sure I said nothing of the sort.”
“You claimed they’d met ‘some way or another,’” I repeated, giving her no quarter. “Why didn’t you want us to know you’d introduced them?”
She turned to the side as if trying to evade our gazes.
“Why lie about such a thing?” I pressed.
“I didn’t …” she began to retort, and then broke off, looking at her friend, who sat listening with wide, ingenuous eyes. “Louisa, why don’t you show Lord Ryde your collection of Wedgwood china. I’m sure he would be fascinated.”
Max recognized this for it what it was. A ploy to remove her friend from the room so that she wouldn’t overhear whatever Mrs. Harlow wished to tell me. He slid to the edge of his chair. “I would, indeed.”
I suspected this was a lie, for I’d never seen Max show an interest in pottery of any kind, but he gave no indication of it, listening attentively to Mrs. Mitchum, who was already chattering away in at first confused and then nervous excitement.
Mrs. Harlow chose this moment to spring up from her seat and move to stand in front of the window overlooking the street, her arms crossed before her.
“Are you concerned we were followed?” I asked as I joined her.
“I saw you at the Shelbourne.”
I frowned in confusion, unsure what she was accusing me of.
“With Ardmore.” Her expression conveyed she wasn’t buying my display of bafflement. “I saw him pull you into a room.”
“You were there?”
“I knew he would be there.” She arched her chin. “I wanted to speak to him.” The implication being that she hadn’t been able to speak to him elsewhere. “But then I saw him with you and I thought …”
I shook my head vehemently before she could say it. “He was threatening me.”
She inhaled, holding her breath for a tense moment before releasing it. “I know. I saw your face when you emerged after him. Saw … the way you tried to scrub off his touch. And I realized … Benji might have been right.” She bowed her face so that her hands were covering it, a sob shaking her frame.
“Right about what?” I asked gently, not knowing how long Mrs. Mitchum could talk about her Wedgwood.
She sniffed, swiping at the tears glistening on her lashes.
“About a week before he died, he tried to warn me that Ardmore was using us. I tried to deny that I had any idea what he was talking about, but it was clear that he knew.” Her face blanched.
“That he knew and he didn’t care. That was the part I became fixated on, not the warning. ”
“Understandably,” I conceded. Especially if she’d only taken up with Ardmore, as I suspected, because her husband paid little attention to her.
“You’re right. I did introduce them. Before anything happened between us,” she clarified.
“You met him at your father’s estate?”
She nodded. “I was rather distraught at the thought of losing my childhood home. Seeing this, he told me I could still visit whenever I liked.” Her eyes shimmering with regret, she turned to look out the window.
“At the time, I thought him kind. I even helped him procure the estate a friend of my father wished to sell.”
Another estate?
“Also in County Galway?” I inquired.
She shook her head. “Kerry.” From her tone of voice, she didn’t see anything interesting in this fact.
“Ardmore was charming and attentive, and I soon realized he was interested in more.” Her mouth twisted bitterly.
“I thought it was genuine, but now he wants nothing to do with me. And worse”—her voice cracked—“I fear Benji was right, and that …” She swallowed and then whispered, “He might have done it.”
My heart stilled. “Ardmore?”
She nodded, swiping again at her cheeks.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because Benji was supposed to meet with him that night. He was going to confront him about something.”
I was hard-pressed to suppress my eagerness to hear her answer. “Did he say what?”
“No, but …” She grimaced as if trying to remember his exact words. “He told me he might face some trouble for what he’d done, but that everything would be all right in the end.” She shook her head. “I didn’t know what that meant. I still don’t.”
But I thought I knew. If he’d secured the components of explosives for Ardmore—gelignite, as Willoughby had indicated, and fulminate of mercury, as Lieutenant Faulkner had claimed—if he’d done so without official authorization, he could have been facing a great deal of trouble.
Having filled in Max, I was lost in contemplation of this as we strolled back toward Camden Street to wait for a tram. The sky had grown even more forbidding, and I feared we were about to be rained on.
“Do you mind if we stop at the bank on our way?” he asked me. “I know it’s a little out of the way, but I need to transfer some funds.”
“Of course. You’re welcome to use Sidney’s account,” I replied almost offhandedly. I assumed Max hadn’t anticipated being here long enough to have established one of his own.