My Lord Murderer (4 page)

“Don’t lose hope,” came Drew’s cheerful voice from the doorway. “I have a plan of my own.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to look up at him. He stood in the doorway leaning on his cane, dressed in a smoothly fitting coat of grey super-fine over immaculately-fitting white breeches. Even his soft leather boots and his dark curls brushed into a casual ‘Brutus’ proclaimed the ideal Corinthian gentleman. His sister sighed with pleasure at the sight of him; a man who looked like that could never be thought a murderer, she decided with satisfaction.

“Good! If you have a plan, we no longer need be worried,” Wys said with relief and without a bit of curiosity. As long as his friend would not have to face social ostracism, he did not care about the particulars.

But Selby was not so easily satisfied. “And what is this plan, if I may ask? If you have some way to convince the
ton
of your innocence without revealing the story of what happened, you have more than a plan—you have a miracle!”

Hetty clapped her hands together in pleasure. “He’s thought of something brilliant,” she crowed. “I know he has! What
is
it, Drew? Tell us!”

“You’ll learn in due course. But if you’ll excuse me, I must be off,” he answered indifferently.

“Oh, no, you won’t,” his brother-in-law declared, clumsily raising his bulk from the chair. “You’ll
not
be excused. I won’t permit you to treat us in this cavalier style. Here we are, the best friends and well-wishers you have in the world! Do you intend to leave us in the dark, after we’ve spent a sleepless night and a fruitless morning in your behalf?”

“That’s
just
what I intend to do,” Drew told him, a slight smile curling the corners of his mouth. “If you are foolish enough to lose time and sleep worrying over me, you must not expect
me
to feel responsible.”

“You’re a thankless, selfish monster,” his sister pouted. “Where are you off to so rudely, if I may be permitted to ask?”

“I suppose you may ask,” her brother retorted. “But I don’t necessarily have to answer.” And he turned and walked away to the stairs.

Hetty looked at Wys and Selby in irritation. “He’s quite infuriating,” she said. “I don’t know why we bother about him at all.” But she rose from her seat and ran out after him. Wys looked at Selby, shrugged and followed. Selby, shaking his head mournfully and feeling much put-upon, toddled after them.

Hetty had stopped halfway down the stairs and was observing her brother in the hallway below. Ignoring Mallow, who was handing Drew his high-crowned hat and a pair of grey leather gloves, she called out, “I insist that you at least tell me where you’re going.”

Unmoved, Drew put on his hat and, consulting a mirror hanging on the wall near the front door, adjusted it to a rakish angle. Then he turned to the stairway. There, in various attitudes of irritation or consternation, stood his three ‘well-wishers.’ He smiled broadly. “I’m going to pay a call on Lady Rowle,” he said.

“Lady Rowle!” gasped Wys. “You’re mad!”

“She won’t let you into the house,” Selby stated firmly.

“And if she did, I don’t see what good it would do,” Hetty added. “She’ll only have you turned out and make you look a bigger fool than you did last night.”

“Thank you,
dear
sister, for those comforting words,” Drew answered with a sardonic bow.

“Of course,” Wys mused optimistically, “if you’ve changed your mind and intend to tell her the story…”

“I have
not
changed my mind,” Drew said firmly.

“Then damme if I see what good it will do you to see her,” Selby muttered irritably.

Drew looked up at the three worried faces staring down at him and was forced to grin again. “Would it not solve everything to have the world see me everywhere in the company of Lady Rowle, her hand on my arm, her face gazing up at me in adoration?” he asked of his astounded audience.

Wys snorted and Selby choked. “In
adoration
?” Hetty asked incredulously. “Are you completely demented? You propose to convince her to appear on your arm in public, gazing up at you in—in—?” Words failed her.

“Told you he was mad,” muttered Wys, shaking his head.

“
I’m
willing to be convinced,” Selby said in a calm but skeptical tone. “How do you propose to accomplish this preposterous plan?”

“It’s quite simple,” Drew said with a twinkle. “I propose to
marry
the girl.” And he touched his cane to his hat in a gesture of farewell and went quickly from the house, leaving the others staring after him, completely speechless at last.

Chapter Three

T
HE
R
OWLE TOWN HOUSE
was the only property inherited by his widow after the estate had been settled, but it was an elegant legacy. Wide and imposing, it was set well back from the street, its circular driveway lined with aging shrubs and the front door flanked by an impressive row of fluted columns. The most impressive house on a fashionable street, it gave mute evidence of the wealth which had once sustained the family. That wealth, Gwen Rowle soon realized, was almost completely dissipated in paying the enormous debts that came due at the time of Rowle’s death. Were it not for the generosity of the dowager Lady Hazel Rowle, who lived with Gwen and who had independent means, Gwen would not have been able to stretch her small income to sustain an establishment of that size.

Gwen had formed a close attachment to Rowle’s mother from the first, and their mutual affection had been a solace to both of them during the months following Rowle’s death. Each accepted with good grace the foibles and eccentricities of the other—Lady Hazel, with Gwen’s blessing, saw to the running of the house, and although the older woman enjoyed surrounding herself with the pomp of liveried servants, gilt-edged dishes, and massive, old-fashioned furniture, Gwen did not voice any objections; on the other hand, when Gwen’s parents sent her young brother Tom to live with them, hoping the seventeen-year-old would acquire a bit of town-bronze, Lady Hazel put up with his breezy, noisy informality without a word of complaint.

This morning, as Lady Hazel joined her daughter-in-law and young Tom at the breakfast table, she had every intention of provoking a quarrel. Gwen was behaving like a stubborn fool, and Lady Hazel had lain awake all night working up the determination to put an end to it. With a brusque good-morning, she gingerly lowered herself into her chair and reached shakily for the teapot.

“Are you quite well this morning, Hazel dear?” Gwen asked, looking at her mother-in-law closely. Hazel was a remarkable woman, her tall, spare frame belying her inner strength. Looking at her long, thin fingers and her tiny wrists, one would think that the slightest disturbance would cause her to break. But she had been a tower of strength to Gwen through her troubled marriage and its tragic aftermath, and Gwen had learned that—despite her fragile appearance and delicate manner—she possessed a character of sturdy stuff. This morning, though, Gwen detected dark shadows under Hazel’s pale blue eyes and a more-than-usual tremor in her fingers. Her heart went out to Hazel in pain and guilt.

“Don’t concern yourself with me, my dear,” Hazel said reassuringly, “I didn’t sleep very well, that’s all.”

“I thought as much. You upset yourself over our talk yesterday, didn’t you?”

“I suppose so.”

“What’s the trouble, Aunt Hazel?” Tom put in. In the two months since he’d been living with them, he had become quite fond of her and had given her the honorary title ‘aunt.’ “Has Gwen been making a nuisance of herself?”

“Well, listen to
you
!” his sister remonstrated. “Who’s the nuisance here? I suppose it was
I
who was more than an hour late for tea yesterday!”

“That’s not what has upset you, is it Aunt Hazel?” Tom asked in a wheedling tone.

“No, of course not, dear. Only it
is
unsettling not to be able to serve tea at the proper time. You
will
see to it that you’re not late today, won’t you?”

“Well, perhaps you shouldn’t wait for me at all. The fellows and I are going to take a ride into the country in Ferdie’s new phaeton, and I’d rather not have to worry about the time.”

His sister looked at him crossly. “Are you going out with Ferdie again? I don’t like you to spend so much time with him.”

“Why not?” he asked belligerently, but before his sister had a chance to answer the boy went into a paroxysm of coughing.

Hazel and Gwen exchanged looks. “If your cough is acting up again, Tom, perhaps you shouldn’t go out today,” Hazel suggested mildly.

“Humbug! This little cough don’t signify,” Tom answered, unconscious of having spoken disrespectfully to the dignified lady who was looking at him in concern.

“Don’t bother to argue with him, Hazel. The boy never admits to being sick. Mama could never keep him in bed, even when he was little,” Gwen said.

“Right,” Tom agreed complacently. “But let’s get back to Ferdie. What is wrong with my seeing him?”

Gwen shrugged. “I don’t know. He just seems a bit rackety to me.”

“Rackety! He’s due to come into twenty thousand pounds before long,” her brother hooted.

“I’ve never heard that a big income gives a man character,” Hazel murmured mildly.

“I say, Aunt Hazel, whose side are you on?” Tom demanded. “Didn’t you just say that it was Gwen who upset you, not me? I don’t want
my
hair combed because you’re in a pucker over something
Gwen
said!”

“Really, Tom, I’m not ‘in a pucker’at all! Wherever do you find such dreadful expressions?” Hazel remonstrated.

Gwen regarded Hazel with troubled eyes. “But you
are
in a pucker, I can tell. Is it about that dreadful Drew Jamison coming here again?”

Tom turned to his sister eagerly. “
Is
he coming here again? I say, Gwen, if he does,
please
let him in this time! It would really raise my credit with the fellows if I told them I’d breakfasted with ‘Sure-shot’ Jamison!”

Gwen whitened. “Tom!” she said, shocked.

Tom, realizing what he’d said, looked hastily at Hazel. “Oh. Sorry, Aunt Hazel. Sorry, Gwen. I didn’t mean—”

“You’re becoming quite incorrigible, Tom,” Gwen said tightly, “and I’ll thank you not to say things you have to be sorry for. In fact, it would be best if you did not mention that man’s name in this house. As for my admitting him, I can assure you that I’ll never do so—not while I have a breath in my body.”

Tom shrugged and got to his feet. “I can’t seem to say anything right this morning. If you’ll excuse me, then, I’ll take myself off.” With a wave to his sister and a kiss dropped lightly on Hazel’s head, he left the room.

Hazel looked across the table at her daughter-in-law in disapproval. Gwen was behaving in a decidedly unnatural—even unhealthy—way. The manner in which she had jumped on poor Tom, who hadn’t meant any harm at all, was a sign of her oversensitivity on the subject of Rowle’s death. She, Rowle’s mother, naturally couldn’t expect her own grief to have diminished by this time—she knew that she would always carry that pain with her. But Gwen had been Rowle’s wife for less than a year. She was young and had her whole life before her. Surely it was neither desirable nor normal for Gwen to dwell so morbidly on the past.

Lady Hazel was a sensible and realistic woman, and she well knew what sort of man her son had been. Even as a child, he’d been spoiled and willful. Then he’d succeeded to his titles before he was mature enough to understand the responsibilities that accompanied them. He had been well on his way to dissolution and impoverishment when the duel took his life. Lady Hazel had never been able to control him, even when he was a boy, and had watched with anguish as the passing years had sunk him deeper and deeper into self-indulgence, corruption and debt. Her grief at his death had been somewhat tempered by the knowledge that, had he lived, his future would have held only misery for his family and himself.

But Gwen’s grief, excessive to begin with, had turned to bitterness. Lady Hazel suspected that Gwen’s excess was caused by hidden feeling of guilt about her marriage. It was quite possible that Gwen had taken upon herself the blame for Rowle’s weaknesses. Lady Hazel sighed. Poor Gwen, married such a short time, had been left with a legacy of grief and guilt. Lady Hazel was determined to do something to prevent Gwen from poisoning her future with recriminations and bitterness. This business with Drew Jamison was the place to draw the line.

Lady Hazel had never met Lord Jamison, but she knew enough about him by reputation to be sure that he had not killed her son in cold blood, as Gwen was determined to believe. The murdering monster that Gwen had conjured up had no relationship to the sound, sensible, kind, and well-balanced young man she knew Jamison to be. She’d heard many stories of his generosity to his friends, knew that he was adored by his servants, that he managed his estates astutely, that he was
not
a hothead (there had never, until the duel, been a word of scandal attached to his name), that he was spoken of with admiration by all of society and (most revealing of all that his character was above reproach) that every woman Hazel knew who had a marriageable daughter would have preferred Drew for a son-in-law over any other man in London. Now, because of Gwen’s rash behavior in Lady Hester Selby’s ballroom, Lord Jamison’s reputation was being ruined by rumors and whispers, and Gwen had withdrawn again into her bitter retirement. This nonsense had to stop.

Lady Hazel looked across the table and studied her daughter-in-law’s frowning face. Gwen looked utterly lovely despite the fact that her bronze-colored hair was not yet dressed for the day, but instead framed her face and fell to her shoulders in appealingly-disordered waves, and that her dark eyes were stormy and her long fingers plucked nervously at the sleeves of her loose morning robe. Hazel loved this stubborn girl. In the year of her marriage to Rowle she had shown what she was made of, and in the terrible months after Rowle’s death she had been Lady Hazel’s only source of love and sympathy. While there was breath in Hazel’s body, she would prevent this girl from throwing herself away on the altar of guilt. She took a deep breath and plunged again into the skirmish that had been taking place at their breakfast table repeatedly during the last few days. “Do you mean to say,” she challenged, “that you intend to refuse to see him again today?”