Black & Blue (Lord & Lady Hetheridge Book 4)

Black And Blue

Lord & Lady Hetheridge, Book #4

By

Emma Jameson

Black & Blue

Lord & Lady Hetheridge Book #4

Copyright © 2013 Emma Jameson

Published by Lyonnesse

First eBook Edition, 2015

All Rights Reserved

Cover design by J. David Peterson

Formatted by PyperPress

License Notes:

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publisher's Note:

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

Dedication

Once again, this book is dedicated to the fans of Lord & Lady Hetheridge. You'll never know how truly grateful I am.

Chapter One

Once upon a time, Anthony Hetheridge, ninth baron of Wellegrave and chief superintendent for New Scotland Yard, enjoyed a neat, orderly life. Awakening before dawn most days, he ate breakfast with his subordinates, spent lunch poring over his open cases, and remained on the job until six or seven that evening. Yet he never felt overworked, because his London home, situated in the heart of Mayfair, was an oasis of tranquility. Gracious rooms, a walled garden, a place for everything and everything in its place. His old-fashioned manservant, Harvey, always kept a hot meal waiting. After supper, he read in his study for an hour or so, then retired to bed, content to repeat the cycle the next morning. But somewhere in the vicinity of his sixtieth birthday, Tony's private life began to feel a little, well,
too
private. Tempting fate, he wished for a change. And something wonderful and terrible happened: his wish came true.

"It's not fair!" a small boy shrieked as Tony entered the kitchen, knackered from another long day at the Yard.

"I say." He caught the boy, Henry Wakefield, before he could dart past him into the night. It was only a quarter past six, but pitch dark and bitterly cold as only mid-January could be. "What's all this?"

"I'm leaving!" Henry, pudgy and short for almost nine years old, glared up at Tony, his round face scarlet with rage. "I'm going to Robbie's. His mum said I could sleep over anytime. They like me at Robbie's. They
listen
to me at Robbie's. Here, no one cares! I'll never get Kate's attention unless I kill someone."

"Is that so?" After a day spent tackling phone calls, meetings, and policy revisions—the unglamorous bulk of police work at a chief superintendent's level—Tony could have done with a real murder just then. But it was bad form to say so, at least outside the Yard. "Why don't you sit down? Put me in the picture."

"There's no point. It's hopeless!" Henry twisted in Tony's grip, wild enough to break free. Perhaps their weekly fencing sessions had begun paying dividends of strength and agility. That, or his fury was borne of true desperation, not just another boyish disappointment.

"
Henry
." The word filled the kitchen, echoing off tiled floors, gleaming countertops, and a multitude of copper pots and pans, relics from his grandmother's day. How long had it been since a child threw a tantrum in Wellegrave House's preternaturally serene kitchen? So long Tony could practically hear bustles creak and walking sticks thud as Edwardian ghosts bestirred themselves to investigate.

Henry stopped halfway to the kitchen door. Slowly, he turned, mouth quavering, hands clenched into fists at his sides. One kind word, and he'd burst into tears.

"It's hardly fair to say I can do no good when you haven't given me a chance," Tony continued, deliberately stern. "Why don't we—"

"Terribly sorry, Lord Hetheridge." Harvey, who never ran if he could walk and never walked if he could glide, burst into the kitchen, panting as if he'd run all the way from Battersea. His face was crimson, forehead glistening. That normally immaculate uniform was splashed with reddish-brown. And his comb-over, usually shellacked in place, had reversed direction, giving the appearance of a man who'd flipped his lid.

"I fear there will be no supper tonight. The soufflé has fallen. The sauce is burnt. And the state of the chicken—" Harvey closed his eyes. "Simply shameful. Forgive me, my lord. We've had more excitement than one servant can manage."

Keeping a firm hand on Henry, Tony eyed Harvey's shirtfront. "Is that blood?"

"Yes."

"Whose?"

"Lady Hetheridge's."

"Good God. Is she quite all right?"

"Yes, my lord. But we may yet need to ring 999 for, er—" Harvey's eyes slid to Henry, and he censored himself. "Our guests."

"I'm going to Robbie's," Henry declared stoutly. He wiped his nose with his sleeve.

"No, you're not." Tony tightened his grip on the boy's shoulder. "You're coming with me. Harvey, where is my wife and our guests?"

"The parlor, sir."

"And where's Ritchie?"

"In his room, playing Legos. I don't believe he's aware of what's happening."

"Thank heaven for small favors," Tony said. "Harvey, why don't you sit down? Have a brandy. Order us all some takeaway—curry will do. Hot for me, mild for Kate and the boys. Now then, Henry." He steered the child out of the kitchen. "Let's get this sorted, shall we?"

* * *

For years, Tony had relied on Wellegrave House's stairs. A day or two off from such activity and his arthritic left knee might conclude it had been given a license to pack it in. What would fail next? An elbow? His spine? Tony's view on stiff, aching joints was simple: one who admits the existence of pain stops, and one who stops, dies. Given his status as a newlywed (a term he publicly flinched at but secretly enjoyed), Tony had no intention of stopping anytime in the next forty years. So Wellegrave House's antique lift was more or less off limits to him. But Henry, drawn to all forms of technology, loved it. He particularly enjoyed playing elevator operator, closing the brass gate, working the mechanism, pulling the gate open and announcing the floor. Tonight, however, he walked past the elevator like it didn't exist. Trudging up the stairs beside Tony, he kept his head down and his mouth set.

"Who is it?" Tony asked the boy, though from Harvey's utterance of "our guests," there could be little doubt. His new in-laws, the Wakefields. What else could cause Harvey, an aspiring stage actor before he'd swapped the footlights for domestic service, to pour so much fear and loathing into two little words?

"It's my mum. My gran, too." Henry sighed. "I thought I wanted this. I used to pray every night that Mum would get out of the hospital. I prayed to meet Gran, too. And now I have."

Tony didn't know what to say. Before Henry had come into his life, his experience with children had been virtually nonexistent. Was he meant to offer some platitude? He wasn't in the habit of coddling his subordinates. And heaven knew, his father had never coddled him. In the late Lord Hetheridge's estimation, praise, encouragement, and treats were for his prized Springer Spaniels, not his children.

Perhaps that's why I've never owned a dog
, Tony thought.
I considered them competitors, not companions.

A framed portrait on the landing caught his eye—a faded oil of his father enthroned
en familie
in a leather chair, whiskey in hand, favorite bitch and three pups at his feet. Arranged on the wall around it were black-and-white photographs of Hetheridges long dead: aunts and nephews, cousins and uncles, all with the same grim mouth and icy stare. Though Tony passed this landing at least twice a day, time had rendered the portraits invisible. Now, for the first time in ages, he found himself truly seeing the frozen faces that had scrutinized him since boyhood.

I can't even name half those people. Why in bloody hell have I let them look down on me for so long?

Henry gained the landing with obvious reluctance, stopping a few meters from the closed parlor door. It was inviting enough—oak stained dark brown with a crystal door knob, identical to every door on that floor. Henry eyed it like a condemned man might eye the gallows.

"I don't know Gran too well. But Mum?" he stammered, fighting to get the words out. "She seems… you know. Not sick so much as … um…."

"Just you wait, you bloody stupid cow! You'll be sorry," a female shrieked from inside the parlor. Tony didn't recognize the voice, but Henry did.

"Mum. Stop!" He flung open the door and rushed inside.

Following, Tony slipped automatically into detective mode. As he absorbed the scene, even the parlor's basic details leapt out. Foam green wallpaper flecked with gold. Shelves packed with leather-bound books. Two brass lamps, a velvet settee, a cold fireplace with a polished fender, and a glass-fronted drinks cabinet. Usually, that cabinet was locked, but tonight it stood open, two bottles of scotch removed. One had migrated to the coffee table; the other lay smashed on the India rug.

Kate looked more tigress than baroness. Her upper lip was cut and crusted with dried blood; her wild blonde hair floated around her face like a mane. By the drinks trolley stood her elder sister, Maura Wakefield, a glass in one hand and an icepack in the other. Her hair, brassier than Kate's, was threaded with white. Deep lines cut along the sides of her mouth. Her nose was twice as red and swollen as Kate's upper lip. As the younger women faced off, their mother watched from the velvet settee. These days she styled herself as Mrs. Louise Wakefield, but her rap sheet listed her as Lolo Carter, Lolo Shumway, and Lolo Dupree. In those old mug shots, bottle-blonde Louise sported hairstyles of the rich and famous: Twiggy, Kylie, Diana, even Baby Spice, back when the Spice Girls were a recording group, not a quiz show answer. But time and hard living had turned her hair white, stacking lines four deep on her brow. For all that, she looked happy, perhaps because of the large scotch in her hand. And together the three women formed a triangle as highly charged as its counterpart off the coast of Bermuda.