Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The booksellers of Paternoster Row kept their doors shut against the damp October chill. Fenwick’s Books and Bindings was locked, the blind pulled low. Hugh pounded on the door until the glass shivered in its frame.
Emma glanced at the narrow street crowded with clergymen, lawyers, and earnest clerks who carried books as though they were credentials.
“It is early.” She’d lain awake long enough to watch the darkness turn to grey, to hear the storm subside. And to remember exactly how his hands had felt beneath her nightgown. “The sign says she opens at ten.”
He’d insisted on rising with the larks and leaving Stonefold at eight. They’d washed in cold water and barely exchanged two words over breakfast in the carriage. She might have punched him on the nose, were it not for the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t watching.
The scratches inside the cupboard said he’d suffered enough.
He stepped back off the pavement and scanned the upper windows. “Mrs Fenwick lives above the bookshop. No doubt she’s hiding some runaway, mistaking us for someone who gives a damn.”
And there it was, the stern tone he wore like armour. Last night he’d tossed it aside and stood bare. Even then, there had been iron beneath the tenderness.
“How do you know Mrs Fenwick sells identities?” He’d been vague about that, and infuriatingly silent about what happened in the library. “Was it part of a story for the paper?”
“No. A private investigation. The one person who might shed light on who really fired at the duel was last seen here before they vanished. Though you can’t mention it to anyone.”
Her chest gave a curious leap. He’d trusted her with a secret. Would he trust her with the one that truly mattered? “You think the man who fired assumed a new identity?”
“Not a man. Miss Vienna Mallory. Sister of the deceased.” He looked up just as the curtain twitched. “Mrs Fenwick could offer you a new life for the right price.”
“I rather like the one I have.” The one where they discussed the case by day, and did other things at night.
His eyes searched hers, the beginnings of a smile playing at his mouth, and she knew he was not thinking about Vienna Mallory.
The bolts scraped. The door opened a few inches, and a woman in a yellow turban peered through the crack.
“It’s you.” She squinted at Hugh through tired grey eyes. “I’ve told you before. The stories you spin are better put in print. I mean gothic tales, not the morning news.”
Hugh stepped closer, wedging his boot in the gap. “I’m not leaving. I suggest you let us in before everyone on this street learns how you make a living.”
“I sell books, Mr Stanton. States so clearly on the sign.” Her gaze shifted to Emma. “Excuse this gentleman, miss. He fancies himself London’s own Shakespeare. That’s the only way I can account for his far-fetched plots.”
“Says the woman who arranges Twelfth Night schemes from her bookshop,” he countered. “Admit it. You deal in new personas.”
“Here he goes again.” The woman gave a humourless chuckle. “Throwing accusations about without a shred of evidence. It’s a wonder that tongue hasn’t landed him in Newgate.”
Emma had her own thoughts about that tongue, and none of them involved Newgate.
“Mr Stanton’s accusations aren’t baseless,” she said. “We have evidence that names your establishment.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “More stories, I expect.”
He grinned. “Something in print.”
“A letter written by Miss Bellingham.” Emma noticed the woman’s subtle flinch. “We could mention it to Lady Bellingham. Have a friend at Bow Street begin an investigation. I’m sure people would come forward. Miss Bellingham’s butler seemed to know a great deal.”
The woman gripped the door, lips pursed.
Hugh eased back a fraction. “You think I’m here to drag some frightened woman back to her family. I’m not. My colleague has reasons of her own to stay hidden. But the truth is, we were left this.”
He removed Mr Bellingham’s note from his pocket, the one prised from the pew, and handed it to Mrs Fenwick.
“Mr Bellingham is dead,” Emma said, blinking away the memory. “Murdered. You’re either harbouring a fugitive who is implicated in his murder or a witness who can help us find who killed him.”
A watchman slowed on the opposite pavement, eyeing the open door and the gathering conversation.
Mrs Fenwick noticed him too. “I’ll not discuss this on the doorstep. Get inside before you attract half the street.”
The overhead bell gave a tired rattle as they entered.
The shop was exactly what the exterior had promised. Shelves ran floor to ceiling, crammed and bowing under the weight of books, the whole place tilting slightly, as though the volumes kept it upright. It smelled of leather and old paper and the mustiness of pages no one had turned in a decade.
Mrs Fenwick locked the door and took a moment to read the note. A weary sigh escaped her. “I can pass on a message, nothing more.” She glanced at Emma. “I’m sure you appreciate being left in peace. You wouldn’t want someone poking around stirring trouble.”
“I’m not implicated in a murder, Mrs Fenwick.” Though Melinda had probably throttled Abigail in pursuit of answers. “Helping me wouldn’t make you an accessory.”
“I can assure you, Miss Bellingham has hurt no one.”
Mrs Fenwick said it without hesitation. It was the first answer she’d given that didn’t sound rehearsed.
“What about Vienna Mallory?” Hugh said. “Someone shot her brother from the trees, and it wasn’t Bastian Saint-Clair.”
Mrs Fenwick shifted her feet. She thrust the note back into Hugh’s hand. “The ladies I help leave their pasts at the door, Mr Stanton. I ask no questions and expect none in return.”
“But they tell you why they’re running.” He tucked the note back into his pocket. “You’d need to be certain there’s no hope of them returning, or it might put your operation at risk.”
Emma watched his profile as he spoke. The man could dismantle a stranger’s lies in minutes. His own truths were guarded like crown jewels.
“There’s more than my livelihood at risk.” Mrs Fenwick’s knuckles whitened on the oak counter. “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“Then explain it to us,” Hugh said.
She sank onto the high stool. “You’re not the only people to come here looking for Miss Bellingham. I told them both they’d made a mistake and must have the wrong address.”
Emma stepped forward. “Both? Were they alone, or did they come together?” The butler couldn’t have been the only person who knew about the charred note.
“Separately. One a gentleman. The other ...” Mrs Fenwick hesitated. “A young woman. They didn’t give their names, and I didn’t ask.”
Hugh was already moving to the next question. “Has anyone ever come here looking for Vienna Mallory?”
“No.”
He straightened. “But she’s alive?”
Mrs Fenwick gave a reluctant nod. “There’s nothing more I can tell you. If you mean what you say and intend the ladies no harm, it’s best we leave the matter there.”
It wasn’t clear whether Mrs Fenwick was trying to protect her clients, her income, or her life. There was one way to know for sure.
“I was there when Mr Bellingham died.” The memories came: the chill of the graveyard, the light leaving his eyes, his last gasp for breath. She blinked against the prick of tears. “He didn’t deserve—”
She choked on the last word.
Hugh was beside her, his hand at her back, warm through the wool. “He was killed slowly, tortured for information. The note he left suggests he didn’t know how to find his sister. I’m more inclined to believe he wanted us to follow the trail.”
Mrs Fenwick’s gaze drifted past them to a lopsided bookcase against the far wall, to one shelf in particular.
Emma came closer to the counter. “Mr Stanton would not break a confidence, not for a bribe, not for a front-page story.”
Hugh said nothing, but she felt him go still behind her.
“That’s what he’s told you, dear. Gentlemen will say anything to impress.”
“No, it’s what I’ve come to know about him.” A sweet ache stirred in her chest, excitement and fear in equal measure.
Hugh cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Mrs Fenwick, it’s in your interests to help us find the killer. He’s taken one man’s life in his search for answers. What’s to say he won’t take yours?”
The woman sprang off her stool like someone half her age. “It’s why I shouldn’t have let you in. The less we all know, the better. You’ve gone and ruined everything. Who’s going to save the poor wretches now?”
Emma understood. She’d left the theatre with Hugh because she trusted him. Mrs Fenwick traded in the same fragile currency. Without it, there would be no women to save.
“There is a solution,” she said.
“If there is, I’d better hear it.”
“We don’t need to find Miss Bellingham. We just need to find her brother’s killer. Tell us why she left, not where she went.”
“And we’ll need a description of those who came looking for her,” Hugh said. “Then we’ll leave you in peace.”
After a visible quarrel with her conscience, Mrs Fenwick straightened her turban. “It had something to do with a mine and her father’s will. She said he’d made her a target. Said no more than that.”
Emma looked at Hugh. Every lead brought them back to Hartham Colliery. Perhaps a visit to Staffordshire was overdue. And Melinda wouldn’t follow her there.
He cupped her elbow and drew her aside, his hand slow to leave. “I asked my friend Montfort to examine Sir Robert Bellingham’s will. I suspect he’ll have answers.”
She caught the clean scent of his shaving soap. The urge to lean into him was becoming a nuisance. “Her brother inherited shares in the mine. Who inherited them when he died?”
“Montfort will know.”
“Does he live in town?”
“Yes, but he was probably waiting until tonight to tell me what he found. And if the killer is looking for us, it’s best to avoid the obvious places.”
“Tonight?” He had invited his friend to Stonefold Grange? Was he afraid to be alone with her? His thumb, absently stroking her elbow, said not. “We didn’t prepare a room.”