Axel (23 page)

“No, he would not have.” Axel turned one of the enormous clay plots sitting on the floor, one that held a small tree—and he turned it easily. “You have good judgment, Abigail, and you would have chosen Pettiflower over Stoneleigh, given half a chance. You were given no chance whatsoever.”

He surveyed the tree, which now caught the light at a different angle.

You have good judgment…. You were given no chance whatsoever.
From him, those words comforted.

“Were you planning to work in here this afternoon, Axel? I can ask Nick to take me over to Stoneleigh Manor.”

His gaze as he studied the tree said that yes, he longed to spend hours among his roses, but his smile… oh, his smile was a rare, precious bloom.

“Nick is not the magistrate, so he has no authority for questioning Ambers and Shreve. I have promised you answers, and some of those answers lie at Stoneleigh Manor. To Stoneleigh Manor we shall go, after we’ve tended to sustenance.”

With that, he kissed her. Truly, properly, wonderfully kissed her. “I dreamed of you too, Abigail. All the way into Oxford, all the way home, through bitter wind, on the snowy highway, while resisting the urge to thrash those lying scoundrels, I dreamed of you.”

He put the key to the glass house in her hand and gestured her toward the door. The kiss, the key, the flowery words… in Abby’s heart, springtime beckoned. After a long, miserable, lonely winter spent half asleep, ailing in spirit, and out of sorts, springtime finally beckoned.

Axel was reasonably certain that within the next three years, his glass houses could produce a rose without fully developed thorns, to much polite acclaim from his fellow rose enthusiasts.

Who would then smirk behind their brandies and mutter pityingly in their conservatories about Belmont’s latest oddity.

Axel routinely cut the thorns from roses he took into the house. He could achieve in a few moments mechanically what years of experimentation might not yield. Success required more than a simple stripping of the rose’s defenses, however.

And yet, the thornless rose within Axel’s theoretical grasp would have no scent. Its blossoms would last less than a day once cut. They would be puny, and lack both color and a pleasing shape.

Riding over to Stoneleigh Manor, he sorted through his situation with Abby as he might have considered potential crosses.

Solving the murder was necessary, for the sake of duty and honor, but also so that Abigail would feel safe in her own home.

Parting with Abigail’s company on any terms had grown problematic, and yet again, for her sake, creating a safe path to widowed independence was clearly what honor required.

Conducting a liaison across the property line bore the promise of obvious pleasures, but also great awkwardness. Did a fellow send a note, seeking the boon of afternoon tea on Tuesday, and hope for the favor of a reply? Did he live in anticipation of a visit from the object of his longings?

Did he boldly invite her to inspect his latest, robust pink blossom?

What about when that fellow removed to town for weeks at a time to wallow in academics and… celibacy? Why would Abigail—after years of marriage to a negligent, felonious, martinet—tolerate such an arrangement?

“You’re very quiet,” Abby said, over the crunch of horses’ hooves on the snowy lane.

“My late wife often remarked on my propensity for quiet. Are you nervous, to be returning to Stoneleigh Manor?”

“Yes.”

Axel hadn’t wanted Abigail to pay this call, and yet, he knew she must.

“I will be on the premises with you at all times,” he said. “If you experience the least frisson of unease, the slightest hint of a possibility of a worry, you scream, and I will charge hotfoot to your side. The tiniest spider, a glimpse of a mouse, a suspicious noise that turns out to be the pantry mouser above stairs, and I’ll fly to you, brandishing my pistol before you can take your next breath.”

Abigail turned her mare through the Stoneleigh gates, which still bore their swaths of crepe, though white snow had collected in the black folds and creases.

“I love it when you tease me, Professor.”

Who was teasing?
“I will interview Ambers in the colonel’s study. You will gather up more clothing, or lecture the footmen, or do whatever you need to do. I’d also like to speak with Shreve.”

“In the colonel’s study? That’s diabolical.” Abigail apparently approved of diabolical.

“My brother Matthew suggested it by letter. He has much more experience in these matters.”

Matthew had more experience in matters involving the ladies, who’d always found him charming, and he had more experience in matters of murder. Advice in either regard would have been welcome, but Axel had found the words to solicit Matthew’s opinions regarding only the murder.

Ambers was not in evidence in the stables, so Axel escorted Abby around to the man’s quarters, a tidy two-story cottage far more commodious than what Wheeler enjoyed. A maid answered the door, looking flustered to find both the magistrate and her employer on the stable master’s front porch.

“Please send Mr. Ambers up to the manor at his earliest convenience,” Abigail said. “And do set your cap on straight, Miller, lest Mrs. Jensen get to scolding.”

The maid remained in the doorway, alternately dipping curtsies and gawping, while Abigail marched down the steps, Axel trailing behind her. When he linked arms with her to escort her across the garden, she came to a halt.

“I tell myself it’s merely a house—
my
house now. Not a very pretty place, with all that black hanging about the windows.”

“Black doesn’t flatter you either,” Axel said. “I’m glad you don’t insist on full mourning when you’re at Candlewick. You might consider putting in flower beds along the front walkway. Lavender borders work nicely where the drainage is good, heartsease does well in spring and autumn—”

She’d started walking, towing Axel along. Caroline had frequently ignored him when he’d begun on horticultural musings.

“I like delphinium,” Abby said. “Your eyes are that blue, sometimes. When you kiss me.”

“You’ve peeked? Abigail, I’m mortified.” Also pleased.

Axel had peeked too, though apparently not at the same moments. He’d watched her face as pleasure overcame her, mentally compared the curve of her lashes against her cheek to the curve of a rose petal at full bloom. Desire echoed through him at the memory, despite the cold, despite his need to wring answers from Shreve and Ambers.“I was an utter virgin regarding kisses, Mr. Belmont. I suppose one doesn’t peek?”

She’d been a virgin in other ways too—a virgin to shared pleasure—but had she been a virgin in the simplest sense of the word?

“Are we in a hurry, Abigail?” For the idea that Stoneleigh hadn’t consummated the marriage
in any sense
made Axel want to stop, stand still, and simply ponder.

“I want to be done with this, Axel, but every step we take closer to that house, the more angry I grow. I can still hear him:
A lady doesn’t call attention to herself. A lady is modest at all times. A lady never seeks to put herself or her own needs forward, but thinks always of others.
Gregory said a shop girl trying to masquerade as gentry must be grateful for a little well-intended guidance.”

“You married a right bastard, Abigail. A true gentleman does not presume to correct a lady.” Or use foul language before a lady.

“I do so enjoy your facility for honesty. Let’s get this over with.”

Axel led her up the steps, which some fool had neglected to shovel free of snow, and opened the door for her. She swept through, sparing the black-clad knocker not a single glance.

The foyer was deserted—no butler, porter, or footman to be seen.

“I was right to do this,” Abby said, untying the black ribbons beneath her chin. “The staff is not dealing well with Gregory’s passing, and they need to know I haven’t forgotten them.”

The mirror over the sideboard was sashed with black, also finely coated with dust. Axel resisted the urge to assist the lady out of her cloak, though he did hang it on a peg for her before seeing to his greatcoat.

“I sent no warning of our impending visit.” Matthew had advised that a sneak attack yielded more productive interviews. “You might find the servants gambling for farthing points over a tipsy hand of whist below stairs.”

“Which I, of all people, do not begrudge them. I want to start sorting through Gregory’s belongings, and ridding the house of as much of it as I can. If I recall the reading of the will, there were specific bequests. Ambers was to have Gregory’s collection of pipes, Shreve his snuff boxes. First, I want to see the study.”

“To whom did he leave his weaponry?” The whereabouts of the household firearms mattered when a lady was feeling insecure. Other than the relics on display in the library, Axel couldn’t recall a gun cabinet on the premises.

“Gregory owned only small arms,” Abby said, running a finger through the dust on the mirror, “and those mostly left over from his cavalry days. The fowling pieces in the library are merely for display.”

“What about when he went shooting? Did he use Sir Dewey’s firearms?” Matthew claimed that guns had quirks and characteristics, and successful hunting usually required knowledge of a specific firearm.

“I don’t know.” She cast a glance down the corridor, from which no helpful footman or housekeeper emerged.

“Shall I go with you, Abigail?”

“No, thank you. In my own home, among my own staff, I should be comfortable enough. Perhaps you might alert the servants that company—that
the owner
is on the premises?”

Emotion quivered through her voice. Anger, very likely, possibly fear beneath that, and maybe, far below the reach of conscious thought, excitement at the prospect of turning this oversized hunting lodge back into a gracious country estate.

They were alone, and Axel knew not what to say that would fortify her against those conflicting sentiments. He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her cold knuckles.

“All you need do is scream. One good cry of dismay, a shout will do. I’ll be down that corridor like a hawk on a field mouse.”

“A lady never creates needless drama.” Abby kissed him on the lips—a right smacker that promised woe unto the man who protesteth such familiarities under the lady’s own roof—and then she marched off toward the study.

Not five minutes later, Axel interrupted a rousing argument over late-morning tea in the servants’ parlor. He’d climbed halfway up the footmen’s stairs when a terrified scream rent the air.

A
xel was down the corridor faster than a plummeting hawk, his arms around a distraught Abigail.

“Gun,” she panted, gaze fixed on the open door to the study. “He has a gun. A man, in there—” She waved toward the study, her whole body trembling. “There’s a safe, and a gun, and you can’t go—”

“You lot,” Axel barked at the servants assembling at the top of the steps. “See to Mrs. Stoneleigh.”

He thrust Abby in Mrs. Jensen’s direction, stole a look into the study, then strode in, swiped the gun off the sideboard and set it on the desk.

“You wait right there,” he instructed Shreve, who looked ready to wet himself, “or I’ll arrest you before you twitch in the direction of the door.”

Shreve had given Abigail an awful fright, and for that alone, he should be arrested, questions of murder and thievery aside. Axel went back to the corridor, where servants in various stages of unliveried dishabille remained gawking.

“Mrs. Stoneleigh was understandably upset to find an unexpected situation at the scene of her husband’s demise,” Axel said. “You may return below stairs.”

The lot of them remained unmoving.

“You may return below stairs
now
.”

“Please do as Mr. Belmont asks,” Abby said. “Thank you all for coming to my aid.”

Mrs. Jensen, a formidable, aging blonde with a hint of pumpernickel in her speech, drew herself up.

“I can remain, if madam would like.”

The footmen, maids, and assorted others were clearly willing to remain as well.
Now
they showed loyalty to their mistress?

“I was simply startled, and I’d forgotten today was half day,” Abby said. “Mr. Belmont will summon help if it’s needed. Before I leave the premises, I’ll impose on Mrs. Jensen for a chat.”

“Of course, madam.” The housekeeper cast Axel a sniffy glance, then herded her charges in the direction of the stairs.

“I’m fine,” Abby said when her staff had departed. “That’s Shreve in the study?”

She sounded fine, but she was adept at
sounding fine
. She was once again the pale, self-contained creature Axel had encountered the night of the murder.

“Shreve has swooned by now,” Axel said. “The damned nerve of the man, giving you a fright like that. You’ll assist with this interview, if you’re up to joining me in there. All you need do is look bereaved and affronted, which one supposes you are, though you should also ask any questions that come to mind.”

He held out a hand, a presumption—a hopeful presumption, because he needed to touch her.

Abby studied his outstretched palm as if it held a blue and purple rose. “You want
me
to ask Shreve questions?”

“Of course.” Involving her in the interrogation was the only reasonable means of keeping her by Axel’s side. “That was a fine specimen of a scream, Abigail.”

She grasped his hand. “I’ve been saving up, apparently.”

They lady preceded Axel into the study, head held high. “Shreve, you have a deal of explaining to do. Mr. Belmont is by nature a patient and fair man, but the circumstances are most troubling. Set aside any notion you harbor of dissembling, or the gallows could await you.”

“M-madam.” Shreve bowed. “Of course, m-madam.”

“Mrs. Stoneleigh, perhaps you’d like to have a seat?” Axel gestured to the desk at which Stoneleigh had died. Abby settled herself behind it with all the aplomb of a judge taking the bench.

Shreve remained by the side board, a wall safe gaping open behind him.

“What’s this?” Abby moved the gun aside and peered at a sheet of vellum. “You intended to leave the colonel’s employ?”