A Most Unladylike Adventure (15 page)

‘It could have been part of his scheme to rid himself of two obstacles at once,’ Louisa said, shuddering at the horrific idea of Hugh lying dead on a murderer’s say so. ‘But why put such a plan into action in the first place, after three years of sitting on his hands and doing no worse than stir up the odd rumour against you?’

‘Because my father is so ill and I’m the only heir he’s got to the Priory and estates, as my sister doesn’t seem to want them,’ Hugh answered.

‘There’s probably more to it than that, Hugh, but the very idea of your presence in the area seems to have our murderer in a panic. He obviously prefers you in London or halfway across the world and safely estranged from your family, and beyond the pale of local society,’ Kit said thoughtfully.

‘So he probably lives near your precious Gracemont?’ Louisa asked.

‘Either that or he visits regularly enough not to easily stop doing so if I was living there once more.’

‘We need a list of the local families and their friends and relations, so we can eliminate them from the list of suspects, then visit the ones that are left,’ Louisa said brightly.

‘Over my dead body,’ Kit rapped out harshly and Hugh just glared as if she’d suggested going about the neighbourhood with no clothes on.

‘We need to do more than that, even if I was prepared to let you make such a target of yourself,’ Hugh eventually said gruffly. ‘It will be obvious enough to this rogue, whoever he might be, what we’re up to if we turn up at every house in the area as soon as I get home with my new bride.’

‘Precisely, bride visits,’ Louisa said smugly and sat back in her chair to wait for them to realise what a perfect scheme it was.

‘Most of the households in the area will turn me away from their doors, new bride or not,’ Hugh replied with a bitter smile she recognised as armour.

‘They’ll be sorry when the real villain is unmasked,’ she said hotly.

‘Maybe,’ he replied with a shrug of would-be indifference.

‘And he’s intent on not letting Hugh go home in the first place,’ Kit pointed out.

‘So we have tonight and tomorrow to track him down and stop him.’

‘Of course we have,’ Hugh agreed sarcastically.

‘Let’s get on with it, then,’ she said, all
those resolutions to become more tractable and sweetly feminine flying out of the window.

‘It’ll take a while to write that list you’re demanding,’ Hugh protested, but sat down at the library table and drew the blotter towards him even so. ‘An inventory of my wife’s local lovers is probably the best place to start,’ he said impassively.

‘You knew who they were?’ she asked, shocked that the woman could openly humiliate him like that.

‘The whole neighbourhood knew,’ he said as if it didn’t matter.

‘I suppose servants will gossip,’ she said, half to herself.

‘No more than their so-called betters and, for some self-torturing reason I can’t currently understand, I made it my business to know who they all were.’

Hugh had to mend his pen before the list was done. As it went down one column and then another, Louisa felt naïve and astonished and quietly furious that so many men could treat a gentleman like him, and a serving officer in Nelson’s navy who risked his life time and again for their protection, with so little respect. Apparently even her early experiences
of life on the streets hadn’t quite prepared her for the politer betrayals of the
ton
.

‘Finished?’ Kit asked with a wry look that probably went a lot further towards softening this ordeal for Hugh than all the temper and tears she was fighting on his behalf and she silently acknowledged there were times when men understood other men very much better than women could.

‘No,’ Hugh said as he stared down at the list as if he didn’t quite know where it had come from, ‘there’s one name that still eludes me.’

‘Let’s see how your list compares with mine, then?’ Kit said calmly and unlocked his desk to take out another closely written sheet. ‘I made it up from the information your father had been able to discover and that very instructive visit to your second cousin, who appears to know all the gossip in the West Country.’

‘The old rogue,’ Hugh said with apparent fondness, as he studied both lists then added one or two names to each one that had been overlooked. He looked mildly surprised as he read over them and still he hesitated to hand over the lists for their consideration. ‘One of her lovers used to come to Ariadne’s room after dark, masked and dressed from head to
toe in black, at least according to Dickon and his friends in the taproom. They had hours of raucous amusement speculating over the young nodcock’s identity, once they thought I was too drunk to care what they talked about any more.’

‘Dressed in black?’ Louisa echoed hollowly, unable to believe what her ears were telling her, although it was vital to their search. ‘Oh, surely not?’ she said aloud so they stared at her as if wondering about her sanity. ‘Don’t you recall how I was dressed the night I came back into your life, Captain Darke?’ she asked Hugh when she’d finally decided she wasn’t running mad.

‘You were all in black, and it might be best if I didn’t recall the exact details. Are you suggesting
you
might have murdered my wife and my brother, my dear? Highly unlikely, considering you were still in the schoolroom at the time and are obviously not that way inclined,’ he reminded her with a wolfish grin that reminded her how very masculine she preferred her lover to be.

‘Louisa
is
my sister, Kenton,’ Kit protested with a fierce frown, but she was too busy fitting two and two together to worry about his ruffled sensibilities.

‘And where do you think I got it from?’ she asked, overly patient at their uncharacteristic slow-wittedness.

‘It wasn’t a problem at the forefront of my mind at the time,’ Hugh drawled and she spared a warm shiver of delighted awareness for the heat and memories in his heavy-lidded eyes.

‘I did notice,’ she said drily, ‘but I stole the shirt and breeches and lost an equally black coat along the way. I balked at the mask in case anyone saw me, thought I was intent on stealing their silver and raised a hue and cry.’

‘Where did you steal them from, then?’ he asked, suddenly as sharply interested in that question as she could wish.

‘Charlton Hawberry,’ she said, still hardly able to believe what her mind was telling her. ‘He had them locked in a very fine cedar chest in his dressing room.’

R
ecalling her boredom upon being shut in that poky little room with a narrow truckle bed and nothing to do but poke around in his ridiculous wardrobe for most of the day, Louisa decided Charlton Hawberry would receive no less than his due if she’d stumbled on his darkest secrets while she was in there. It was probably best not to remember just now how she’d later been forced to take part in a seedy masquerade when her uncle was brought up to see her with her own clothes half-ripped off and ensconced in the vulgar splendour of Charlton’s bedchamber as if she’d been there all day, and night.

‘It seemed the ideal dress for a night-time escape, so I just stole it and didn’t give much
thought to why it was hidden away so ridiculously. I did wonder if he’d set up some sort of latter-day Hell Fire Club with what he thought fittingly satanic regalia, but I was more interested in getting away than examining his motives for possessing such an outfit in the first place. Keeping it in such a fine box, with a lock that gave me some trouble to pick, was a mistake as far as I was concerned, since I was so bored in his horrible dressing room that I whiled away the tedious hours, once I’d done my best to escape by conventional methods, with learning how to open it.’

‘I should have tracked him down and killed him just for that,’ Hugh said with a grim smile that made him look more wolfish than ever.

‘And I should have done a lot more than kicking him in the…Well, I’ll leave you to work out where I kicked him.’

That surprised a bark of genuine laughter out of him and broke the heavy tension in the room for a moment, but the implications of what she’d found in that locked box were too stark to ignore, given the story they were finally putting together.

‘He must know that you picked the lock and stole his disguise by now,’ Hugh said, as if that was the most significant fact of all.

‘Whatever he knows, or doesn’t know, it was proof of what he’d done and I took it away,’ she reproached herself bleakly.

‘If you hadn’t opened it, we would have taken a great deal longer to work out what he is, even if I’m very sure I never met a man called Charlton Hawberry at any of my neighbours’ houses, and I would remember a name like that, even if I was as drunk as a lord at the time.’

‘It has to be an alias,’ Kit confirmed tersely. ‘I was a fool not to realise he was flying under false colours when he disappeared so completely after Louisa’s escape that it was almost as if he’d never been.’

‘Which of course he hadn’t, not that he was worth knowing in any guise,’ she added disgustedly.

‘So who on earth can he be?’ Hugh asked, as if she ought to know.

‘How do I know?’ she said impatiently. ‘I heard and saw nothing that would give us a clue to his real identity, either before or after he abducted me.’

‘But you did see him and, however he tried to disguise himself, he couldn’t alter his basic physique or the colour of his eyes,’ Kit pointed out, looking to her for a description
of her erstwhile suitor she was struggling to put together.

‘He’s just nondescript,’ she said with a shrug. ‘The first time he attended one of Aunt Poole’s At Homes, I couldn’t recall a single thing about him afterwards, for all Uncle William kept talking about him as if the Prince of Wales himself had chosen to honour his drawing room with his presence.’

‘Having been handsomely paid to do so, no doubt,’ Hugh observed.

‘No doubt at all, but if Charlton is the murderer, it makes his motives far more sinister, don’t you think?’ she pointed out. ‘I am your employer’s sister, which put me at the very heart of the Stone & Shaw business. If he’d managed to wed me, he no doubt believed he’d be able to get you dismissed and further disgraced, so you would never dare return home.’

‘Not so,’ Kit said grimly. ‘Marrying my sister by force would not endear him to me and Hugh’s no mere employee, he’s a shareholder and a friend.’

‘Does Charlton know that, do you think? His main strength seems to be his ability to fade away from a place as if he’d never been there, but he’s weak in every other way and I don’t think he’s very subtle either, or he
would never have committed murder in the first place,’ Louisa said.

‘No, he’s clearly a reactor and not a planner, since his schemes are never particularly good, but that makes him very dangerous indeed,’ Kit warned.

‘And his plan has gone very wrong, since Hugh’s about to marry into the Alstone family and not him. So who knows about the marriage so far?’ Louisa asked her brother.

‘The vicar of St Margaret’s, most of the clerics at Lambeth Palace, and the lawyers, of course,’ he replied grimly.

‘An open secret, then?’ she said and met Hugh’s eyes with a rueful smile.

‘More or less,’ he agreed with a distracted frown. ‘And what a fine way to kill all his birds with one stone if there should be a tragic accident on the way home from the church, don’t you think?’

‘An accident where all three of us were killed—surely that would be almost impossible to engineer?’

‘Perhaps,’ Hugh agreed distractedly, ‘but he’ll make some sort of move. He’ll have to, since he knows he’ll hang anyway if he’s caught. What’s the man got to lose by attacking
us when he’s committed two murders already?’

‘Everything, I should imagine,’ Louisa said as she realised anew just how desperate and dangerous this so-called Charlton Hawberry must be.

‘Yes, and why wear that mask in the first place, I wonder?’ Hugh mused. ‘The rest of the county seemed happy enough to take the garden stairs up to Ariadne’s chamber once the rest of my father’s household were asleep; indeed, I heard it was nicknamed the Backstairs to Heaven by some of the local wags.’

‘Perhaps he’s married?’ she suggested, trying not to pity Hugh for that appalling betrayal when he didn’t want her sympathy or anyone else’s.

‘As are half the worst rakes of the ton, but they don’t go about their carousing and seducing dressed in such a theatrical fashion,’ Kit pointed out.

‘You would know far more about that subject than I,’ Louisa replied sternly, ‘but perhaps Hawberry has more to hide than most men.’

‘Or more to lose, perhaps?’ Hugh said as he tapped the list on the edge of the desk and looked very thoughtful indeed.

‘So he’s a man who likes illicit pleasures, but lacks the sort of natural arrogance to find the risk of being caught out and identified part of the fun. Somehow he had to care about his reputation, even when visiting a lady of…’ Louisa let her voice trail off because she realised what she had been about to say of Hugh’s dead wife and, even if she’d sickened him with her lovers and her lies, he must have loved her once upon a time, or why marry her in the first place when he could have had his pick of the débutantes?

‘Dubious morals and tarnished reputation?’ he finished for her. ‘No need to wrap it up in clean linen, my dear, I’ve had three years to come to terms with what my wife was. Indeed, by the side of her horrible death and my brother’s murder, her chosen way of life hardly seems very important any more.’

‘Maybe not to you,’ Kit said thoughtfully, ‘but it obviously mattered very much to our mysterious Mr Hawberry.’

‘So why should it mean so much for him to be seen, when it would have been a minor setback to any other man?’ Louisa asked, shaking her head over the puzzle of who, or what, Charlton Hawberry really was.

‘Because he would lose more than them if
he was found out,’ Hugh said slowly. ‘He must be in a position of moral authority to dread discovery so.’

‘Either a law lord or a politician of some sort then, or perhaps even a cleric?’ she offered eagerly.

‘Which fits him best then, Lou?’ her brother asked. ‘You have actually met the man, you’ve been in his home and, even if it was only a temporary one where he had to be careful not to reveal his true self, everyone gives a little away through their possessions and the way they insist their household is conducted. How would you best describe your insect-worm?’

‘Secretive, fussy, nondescript,’ she managed as she racked her brains to something to say about the man, apart from the fact that even the thought of being in the same room with him made her flesh creep. ‘He’s very cold, with fishy eyes that make you feel as if there’s nobody much behind them, but really I got the impression he’s very intelligent, but not very clever with it, if you know what I mean?’

‘I do, which is a conundrum in itself,’ Hugh said, as if he was trying to fit such a man against any he might know.

‘It’s almost as if he doesn’t feel in the way that other people feel. As if he has no idea
other people have emotions and needs, because his own are so important that they blot out anyone and everyone in his way.’

‘And there stands any cold-blooded murderer,’ Kit said frustratedly and she sighed, impatient with herself for not being able to describe the man who must be the ruthless killer trying to get Hugh hung for his own crimes.

‘Such a man would speed rapidly along his chosen path to glory for a while, but probably only get so far along it before he hit obstacles,’ Hugh said as if thinking out loud. ‘Chilly ruthlessness will get a man so far and no further, but to rise to the top requires a touch of greatness, which it sounds as if this Charlton Hawberry lacks.’

‘That’s him exactly,’ Louisa agreed, finally allowing herself to hope they could do this, track the monster down and overcome him before he managed to hurt Hugh even more than he already had.

‘So who is he?’ he said, obviously running all his former neighbours through his head in an attempt to weed one out. ‘All we know is he’s ruthless and ambitious with an unprepossessing exterior and a purely physical need of beautiful women.’

‘He didn’t seem to need me very much, thank goodness,’ she said and saw Kit exchange a wry look with Hugh over her head. ‘I suppose you’re silently informing each other that he prefers whores to ladies?’

‘Well, virtuous ladies at any rate—he doesn’t seem to have objected to making my wife the object of his desire,’ Hugh observed cynically.

‘And I do know some men like to hurt women for their own filthy gratification,’ she said before they could sidestep that issue as well. ‘I grew up in the stews, you know, and I’m not blind or entirely stupid.’

‘Louisa’s right, Hugh, even if I wish she didn’t know anything of such dark dealings. What if the perverted fool went too far that night, your wife tried to fight him off, then your brother heard her fight for life?’

‘But why kill them both if he was masked and disguised like that?’

‘Because a man could hardly keep himself masked and pristine when a young and desperate woman was tearing at his hands and face in terror for her very life,’ Kit said, preoccupied with reconstructing the past as dispassionately as he could since Hugh would probably never manage to, being so close to
the victims of that terrible night. ‘Your brother must have seen enough to recognise her attacker before he went to raise the alarm. He was probably intent on making sure everyone knew exactly what he’d seen, rather than wasting time stopping to fight with the louse when I suspect your wife was already dead. Maybe he was even looking for his brother—if he could sober you up long enough to listen—but the bastard shot to kill, so Marcus Kenton never told anyone what he’d seen.’

There was silence in the cosy room as they took in the full horror of what had probably happened that night. Louisa found herself pitying Hugh’s late wife’s terrible end, even if the woman had inflicted such pain and damage on the man she loved as Ariadne Kenton could never have loved him, and done what she had.

Oh, no. She
loved
Hugh Kenton!

What an idiot to think she was safe from that huge and frightening emotion, just because her mother had loved a man who wasn’t fit to tie her shoelaces. The idea that she had chosen far better than her mother, even if she hadn’t known until now that she was choosing her true love, struck her, but she was too
busy coping with this latest disaster to fully appreciate it just now.

‘Are you going to faint, Louisa?’ Kit asked her so sharply her shock must be a bit too obvious on her face.

‘Of course not—when did I ever do that?’

‘Never, but there’s always a first time, I suppose.’

‘Not for me. Now, how are we going to track this killer down? It’s all very well knowing what he’s done; what we need now is proof of his identity.’

Hugh looked very thoughtful as he considered ways and means. ‘We must force him into the open somehow, so I wonder how contrite Rarebridge is.’

‘Extremely, I should imagine,’ Kit agreed and Louisa wondered how men held whole conversations with barely a word of sense between them.

‘An elegant evening reception for an old friend and neighbour he feels he has wronged in the past and his new wife should serve,’ she said before they could come up with some scheme to exclude her and put themselves in acute danger.

‘I doubt if he’ll spring for that; his father keeps him very short and his house is full with
his sister’s vast tribe of children descending on him. Apparently she refused to leave them at home, but insisted on bringing them up for the only Season when she’s not been either with child or giving birth since her marriage. Even I almost felt sorry for Rory, surrounded as he is with four young children and attendant nannies as well as that unfortunate husband of his sister’s,’ Hugh said.

‘Why is he so unfortunate?’ she asked.

‘I don’t really know, he just is,’ Hugh replied with an inarticulate shrug. ‘No way of describing him other than that, really.’

‘If you don’t think he will co-operate, I’ll visit our cousin Lord Carnwood and prod his conscience instead,’ Louisa said calmly, although the notion of bearding the family dragon in his den made her quail.

‘No, Louisa, I received news today that our cousin’s grandson and heir has died, so I expect the Earl is only in town at all to find out if he can disinherit me, since I am his heir presumptive now,’ Kit said with a wry grimace that told them how little he actually wanted to inherit the earldom and all its attendant responsibilities.

‘I’m very sorry for him then, despite the fact he should have helped Mama out when
we were young, even if Papa was a hopeless case. His heir must have been little more than a boy.’