Sweet Deception (34 page)

“You are
not
going to personally interview murderers.”

Emma huffed, caught off guard by his rather authoritarian statement. “I am speaking theoretically, Derick. However, should I decide at some later date to conduct research of that nature, it wouldn’t be your business anyway, would it?”

She’d asked the question rhetorically, but now, seeing the conflicting expressions pass over Derick’s face, she found she really wanted to hear his answer. He looked as if he dearly wanted to assert some authority over her, but the only person who would have that right would be a husband—and he knew it. She watched as stubborn protectiveness turned to contemplation, which turned to longing, which turned to…regret.

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” he murmured, and Emma experienced a fierce pang of regret herself.

She blew out a pent-up breath. “Regardless, since this is such a small, isolated area without a huge population to consider, the principles of my theory might hold up without the additional data,” she said. “First, however, I
need to determine which two of my three suspicious deaths are most likely to be your couriers.”

She walked over to her desk and settled herself behind it, picking up the three sets of records. It took her less than five minutes to decide which of the three to remove from her map, though she did find it difficult to focus with Derick’s intense gaze on her the whole time. She felt it like a living thing, warming her skin.

“This man had personal belongings on his body.” She rose from her desk and moved to the map, erasing one of the marks. “Nothing that would identify him, but still. Like Farnsworth, the other two had been stripped of everything but their clothing, though neither had been left to the animals as he had. We can, of course, exhume the bodies in the morning to see if they have the same hidden boot compartments, but I feel safe in my assumption that these remaining two are your couriers for our purposes tonight.”

“Makes sense.”

“Now I just need to assess the geographical characteristics of the crimes.” She moved back to her desk and pulled a geometry compass and a measuring stick from the drawer. “The simplest method for what I have in mind would be to draw a circle, being certain that the points of the two most distant crimes are both on the line.” She stuck the compass in her mouth and used the stick to measure the distances between where the bodies were found, calculating the approximate center. Then she placed the point of the compass there and rotated it, letting the pencil flow into a great circle, making adjustments as needed. “By this method, the circle would represent the area within which the killer has killed, making the midpoint the most likely location of his residence.”

When she was done, she pulled the compass and stepped back. Both she and Derick peered at the map. “Hmmm.” The midpoint was directly between Aveline Castle and Wallingford Manor, almost precisely at the
cave where they’d played together as children. Well, and as of this afternoon, as adults, too. The heat that accompanied that reminder had nothing to do with embarrassment.

She looked at the map a little more closely. No, not at their cave, but at another, smaller one, not far from it, but still—not where a killer would be expected to live.

“Hmmm,” Derick repeated her assessment. “Unless there’s a traitorous cave-dwelling hermit who has squatted on our lands for the past decade, I would say that didn’t work.”

“Well, that was too simple a method anyway,” she said. She grabbed a piece of chalk and walked over to her board. “I wonder…if I plot the crimes with
x
and
y
coordinates…” Chalk clicked against slate in rapid staccato as she quickly drew out a graph and converted the locations on the map into coordinates.

“Perhaps the mean will tell us where the killer lives.”

Emma jotted the equations she would need and got to work.

But strangely, as part of her mind became engaged in the math automatically, it left another part free to think about today—about Derick, about herself, about
them—
unfettered by emotion. The highly logical part that allowed her to see past extraneous detail and get to the heart of the matter—if one
could
get to the heart of a matter without using emotion. A paradox, that.

So what
had
changed between yesterday, when she’d considered herself so in love with Derick, and today? Well, she’d learned that his role as a spy had been much…different than she had imagined. Pushing aside the natural insecurities that arose at the thought of forever being compared to those many women who had come before her, did it change the fact that Derick was still a hero? And given all else that he’d admitted to her tonight, an even more wounded hero than he was before? Was he any less in need of the love she would give him?

So she’d discovered that his entire reason for being in Derbyshire was a deception. But was deception for a noble purpose necessarily wrong? Or intended personally against her? Didn’t she, in a way, deceive the government herself by pretending that her brother was capable of acting as magistrate because she knew she would do the best job of it?

She also realized that she believed Derick when he said he hadn’t purposely lied to her. Not that it made it right, but to a man who’d lived as he had these past many years, it was at least honorable in its own way. When she put her hurt feelings aside, she could also see that he hadn’t tried to seduce her. He must have known she’d have been perfectly willing. It would have been the easiest course of action for him, in truth, and yet he’d not taken that avenue. Out of respect for her? Because she was different from any other target he’d had?

After long moments of concentration, her answer pointed to yet another area in the middle of nowhere, both literally and figuratively. Literally, her equation still indicated an area between Aveline Castle and Wallingford Manor, though closer to the castle. Figuratively, she still wasn’t sure what she wanted to happen or not happen between her and Derick. She sighed with frustration.

“Perhaps I should try the median rather than the mean,” she mumbled, clicking away again, this time focusing on nothing but the math.

Her results simply reversed themselves, moving the point closer to Wallingford Manor this time.

“Emma.” Derick reached out and clasped her hand, gently prying the chalk from her fingers. He used his thumb to press circles against her palm, massaging the ache from where she’d been gripping the chalk so tightly. His touch was tender, soothing, incredibly erotic—and dear to her. “Don’t fret yourself,” he murmured. “You’ve done more than enough, more than I could have asked.”

“I’m just not sure I have enough points of data.” She closed her hand around his, turning hers slightly so that it rested palm to palm against his. “Nor do I think my equation is complex enough. I need some time to think and I’ll need to make some assumptions…” She dropped his hand, and turned her gaze from his face. Instead, she stared at her board. At a safe place. “But I’m not ready to give up.”

As she spoke the words, she realized they applied not only to the problem at hand but to how she felt about Derick as well.

Everything she’d thought she knew about him had been challenged today, stripped away like childhood fantasies when faced with the stark realities of life. She didn’t have enough data to be sure of him anymore. And her silly little Derick equation? She snorted. It wasn’t nearly complex enough to take into account everything he was, and wasn’t.

She did need time to think about all she’d learned, time to process it and yes, she would have to make some assumptions from all of the new information she hadn’t known before. Assumptions about his past, assumptions about his present…maybe even about his future. But she wasn’t ready to give up on him. Maybe she would be in the morning, but not yet.

“I’ll just keep mulling it over,” she said, knowing he would think she meant her murderer equation.

“Perfect. I’d like you to put your mind to work on something else, too. My mother kept journals, but the woman wrote like a damned gossip columnist, never inscribing a person’s name, just listing characteristics or situations to describe who she was talking about. Perhaps if you read them, you will be able to recognize people she wrote about at strategic times and we can see if she had any close associations outside of your brother who might have acted as her accomplice.”

“All right,” she agreed.

“For my part, I’ll oversee the exhumation in the morning. Maybe one of the couriers had something of value to the investigation in his boot compartment. At the very least, their identities should be confirmed so that they can be put to rest properly. Give their families some peace, perhaps.

“Then, I’ll revisit all of our possible suspects. Our priority shall be Harding. He had the best access to your brother, an association with my mother, and he was clearly here in Derbyshire during everything. Not to mention that he ran the first chance he got. We’ll conduct a search in earnest for him first thing.”

Derick had paced away from her, and now seemed all business. She was glad of it and did her best to follow suit.

“You know, if it
was
Harding and he
did
kill Molly, what if her death wasn’t what it seemed? Nothing else has been.”

Derick was already nodding. “Yes. I had that same thought.”

She looked over at her map and her equations. “Perhaps I should plug where we found
her
body into my formulas to see if that makes any difference?”

“If you think it will help, by all means. While I’m out hunting Harding, can you discreetly re-question the staff here and at the castle, then, regarding her murder? See if you can unearth anything new?”

Pleased that Derick had faith in her to do so after he’d shown her up at it last time, she answered, “Of course.”

“Good. Now, as to our other two suspects. Several days ago, I sent off a dispatch to have a friend look into the tourist you mentioned, Stubbins. As a frequent traveler through the Peak District, he could easily have been the man responsible for the couriers’ deaths.”

Emma frowned, trying to reconcile the kindly Mr.
Stubbins as a killer. Yet, he certainly had the physical strength…

“Can you remember if he was here during the time you estimate Farnsworth was killed?”

“Well, I am no longer certain precisely when Farnsworth met his end,” she reminded him, “but Stubbins
was
here at some point in the past couple of months, though without a conversational or written record, I can’t be positive exactly when.” She thought back, trying to remember anything she and Mr. Stubbins had talked about that might point to a specific date. “I can’t say—no reference point comes to mind.

“Although,” she continued, just remembering, “he
was
here the week before your mother killed herself. I know because we were discussing how cold it was again this year. Stubbins made the point that it had been two years to the date that Mount Tambora had erupted halfway around the world, and grumbled that the weather should have righted itself by now. That would have been April tenth, and your mother was found April nineteenth. He may still have been in town, for what it’s worth.”

“Hmmm. Perhaps that’s nothing, but I’d certainly like to know where he was last month, and even tonight, for that matter, before he’s ruled out. We’ll have to wait until I hear back from the War Department on him, however. As for Smith-Barton, I’ll interview him again tomorrow afternoon.”

“Again? You visited Albert?” Emma waited for the familiar feelings of failure at the thought of her broken engagement. Instead, gratefulness bloomed in her heart that she wasn’t tied to the man. If that bounder had gone through with their marriage, she would never have had these past weeks with Derick.

Emma tried to picture the two men in the same room together. Albert was slight and pale and, in comparison
to Derick at least, a little effeminate. Derick was tall, dark and wholly masculine—not in an overpowering way but in a subtle, inherently male way that stole her breath even to be near him. She realized she’d rather have had one afternoon in Derick’s arms than a lifetime in any other man’s, in spite of everything.

Didn’t that answer all of her questions? She didn’t know, but they were discussing Albert right now. “What on earth did you say to him?”

The dark half smile that lifted Derick’s lips made Emma wish she’d been a fly on that wallpaper. Albert had likely been terribly intimidated. That thought brought Emma just a touch of guilty joy.

“I told him he was a bloody fool to let you go.”

Emma caught her breath at the sudden heat in Derick’s eyes. Whatever
was
between them was strong, unusual. When she allowed her hurt and anger and insecurities to get out of the way, she knew that—even in all of her inexperience.

Would
she
be a bloody fool to let Derick go? That was the real question, wasn’t it? And one that she wouldn’t be able to answer with him in the same room, enticing her senses, distracting her thoughts. She probably wouldn’t even be able to think straight with him in the same house.

“Yes, well, it’s late and we both should find our bed.”

Derick’s black eyebrows winged high.

“I mean beds.” Emma felt her skin blotch red. “W-would you like me to meet you at the castle in the morning? It would make more sense for me to come to your mother’s journals rather than have you bring them back here.”

Derick’s eyes had gone the same mossy green as they had earlier in the forest. “I’ll escort you to the castle in the morning myself. I’ll be staying at the manor tonight, Emma.”

“Here?” A nervous thrill shot through her. “Why?”

“Someone tried to get into your house this very evening, and we now know for certain there is a killer on the loose. Maybe he will just watch and see, thinking that perhaps your finding Farnsworth will be no different than your finding the other couriers. Or maybe he’s spooked now, knowing how close Farnsworth had come to him and thinks getting rid of you will ensure he’s not caught. Either way, you can’t really think I’m going to let you stay alone here, unprotected.”