The Hidden Heart (28 page)

He looked up at Richard in supplication, “So you see, I would never have harmed Bettina. She was my best friend. My whole life. I’m no good without her.”

“You know, I am rather inclined to believe you,” Richard said.

“What?” Cobb swung around and looked at Cleybourne in disbelief. “The man’s a villain.”

“Oh, he is your thief, all right. You have found your Mr. Gilpin’s jewels and the pair who took them from him. I will even wager that Lord Kestwick had it right, and you were the fellow I ran into the other night in my study.”

“Yes, I was there,” Radfield returned a little sullenly. “I could hardly be expected to forgo a try at the Cleybourne emeralds, could I, when I’d landed smack on them.”

Richard arched one brow. “There are those who might consider robbing one’s host a rather poor return for his hospitality.”

“I know.” Radfield sighed. “My character is weak. I hadn’t anything against you. You seem a perfectly good man. But the emeralds are world renowned.”

Richard grimaced and went on, “However, the fact that he is a thief doesn’t necessarily mean that he killed Mrs. Woods.”

“No one did, I’m sure,” Lord Vesey put in. “Merely an accident.”

“I agree,” Kestwick added. “You are making far too much of it, Cleybourne. The whole thing is nonsense.”

Richard glanced around the room at the others. “I’m sorry. But if the rest of you wouldn’t mind…I need to speak to Radfield alone.” He raised his eyebrows toward Kestwick and the others, looking, for the moment, every inch a duke, and with a bit of grumbling, they began to file out of the room.

“You may stay, Cobb,” he said to the Runner, who was hanging about by the door, glowering. “And, of course—” Cleybourne bowed toward Jessica “—I shall need my note-taker.”

Jessica quickly hurried around to sit down behind the desk and pull out a sheet of paper. Cobb assumed a position in front of the closed door, arms crossed in front of him, as though ready for whatever escape attempt Radfield might make.

“Now, Mr.—” Cleybourne stopped. “Is that your name? Radfield?”

“Actually, it is my first name. Radfield Addison. You may call me whatever you like. Over the years I have answered to almost anything.”

“All right, then, Mr. Addison. Let us say I believe you that you did not harm your sister.”

“I didn’t. I swear it.”

“I believe that someone else may have. There have been some other odd incidents around here lately, and your sister’s death strikes me as suspicious. If someone did kill her, I am sure you would like to help us find the culprit.”

“Of course. I’d do anything.”

“First, I want you to answer me honestly. I am trying to separate the various things that happened here. You broke into my study the other night. But before that, did you break into the nursery?”

“What? No. Why would I break into a nursery? There’s nothing worth stealing there. Besides, I never saw this place before the coach broke down. Before we arrived here, I was on the mail coach, traveling from London.”

“And since you have been here, did you by any chance take a small jewelry box from Miss Maitland’s room?”

“Miss Maitland?” Radfield glanced over at Jessica. “The governess? Why would I take something that belonged to a governess? That’s absurd.”

“I just wanted to make sure. Now, then, can you tell me if your sister was involved in something else while she was here? Something besides the jewelry theft?”

“You mean, did she help me look around your study? No. She rang a peal over my head the next day for doing so. We tried not to be seen talking much—we weren’t supposed to know each other, you know. But Bets came to my room after the fight and gave me a proper tongue-lashing about it. She was afraid I had endangered us. That we’d be exposed.”

“So that’s why you killed her?” Cobb interjected. “’Cause she told you off? Didn’t like that, did you?”

Radfield rolled his eyes. “Of course I didn’t like it. But I didn’t kill her over it. She’s said much the same to me many times before. In case you don’t have sisters, Mr. Cobb, I will tell you that younger brothers are accustomed to receiving tongue-lashings from elder sisters. Besides, she had the right of it. I shouldn’t have done it. It stirred things up. Made the duke suspicious. And, of course, Bettina had figured out that you were a Runner. She was a crafty girl.” His voice faltered, and he looked down at his lap.

“Why did your sister go to Lord Kestwick’s room the night she died?” Richard asked. “Did she tell you?”

“Lord Kestwick?” Radfield looked at him in amazement. “What makes you think she went to his room?”

“I saw her. And he admitted it. He said that they had had an assignation.”

The other man continued to stare at him. “I don’t believe it. You must be mistaken. Bets hadn’t been in the trade in years. Besides, the money she’d get for a night would be a pittance compared to what she had in her trunk in her room.”

“Perhaps she didn’t do it for money.”

“For what, then? Love? She’d just met the man.” Radfield sneered. “For pleasure? No. She didn’t get that out of it. She did it too long for hire, you see. Bets didn’t much like men, except for me. And she most certainly did not like them in that way. She once told me it was all business, not pleasure, and I have never known her to take up with a man since then.” He glanced with some embarrassment over at Jessica. “Begging your pardon, Miss Maitland.”

“Accepted.”

“And if by some strange chance she were to take up with a man, it wouldn’t be with a nobleman. She hated the lot of them. They were mainly the men she saw back then, you see, and she despised them. And Kestwick is the very worst of what she disliked—haughty, cold, full of himself, and caring for no one else. I cannot imagine anything that could have persuaded her to go to his bed.”

Richard looked at him thoughtfully. “Yet she went to his room. Why else would she have gone to his room in the middle of the night? Could she have had some other scheme? Perhaps to rob him?”

Radfield considered the idea. “She would have liked taking something from one like that. But she’d just raked me over the coals for entering your study, and all I was doing was looking. I can’t imagine she would think it was worth the risk, what you’d get off one gentleman who was traveling—I mean, maybe a stickpin, some watch fobs, cuff links. Minor stuff. Lady Vesey’d be a likelier prospect.”

“Yes, well, you were already pursuing that avenue, weren’t you?”

The other man had the grace to blush. “No. Not in the way you mean. I just thought—we were attracted to each other, that’s all.” He looked down for a moment, then said, “As I said, Bets and me, we tried not to talk to each other, to pretend to be strangers who only met on the coach. So I saw little of Bettina. But, thinking back on it, the last time I saw her, just when we were chatting a little like strangers before supper, there was something about her—she seemed a little excited or…or maybe upset. I’m not sure. But she…Bets was always a calm one. No matter what happened, she didn’t get flustered. But that night, she looked a little…nervous. I asked her if she was all right, and she said that she would be. And then someone came up, and we couldn’t say anything you wouldn’t say to a perfect stranger.”

“All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Addison. Mr. Cobb, I presume you plan to escort Addison to London once the snow has melted enough to leave?”

“That I do. I’ll take him into custody right now, sir. Lock him in a room right and tight—not the one he’s been staying in. Maybe the nursery, if that’s all right with you—no windows he can climb out of, and I’ll lock the door.”

“Very well. Speak to Baxter about it.”

Cobb went over and wrapped his hand firmly around Radfield’s arm, lifting him up from the chair and propelling him toward the door. Radfield, however, stopped halfway there and turned back to Richard. “Are you saying Lord Kestwick killed her? Is that what you think?”

“I frankly do not know,” Richard admitted. “All I know is that he saw her for a time before her death, but I also know that she left his room and went back to her own. I have no idea what happened after that. Where she was going or who, if anyone, was with her.”

“Will you—you won’t let it rest, will you?” Radfield asked. “I mean, because she was who she was? If someone killed her, you will keep after it, won’t you?”

“Yes. I promise you.”

The other man nodded and let Cobb lead him from the room.

“Well.” Richard looked at Jessica. “That was certainly unexpected. I never dreamed…I guess that collar makes an excellent disguise, doesn’t it? I never looked past it, even when I knew he had been entertaining Leona in his room. I thought he was a bad priest, but still, I thought he was a priest.”

Jessica nodded.

“You were right,” he went on. “I notice you have grace enough not to say it. But you pointed out the inconsistencies in his performance—his saying the prayer wrong, quoting Shakespeare instead of the Bible.”

“Yes. But I didn’t dream he was a thief masquerading as a man of the cloth,” Jessica admitted. “I don’t even know what it was I thought—only that he acted oddly.”

“Why do you suppose she went to Kestwick’s room—supposing her brother is right and she did not go there for the same reasons Leona visited him?”

Jessica shook her head. “I have no idea. It does seem a petty theft for her. Gentlemen don’t usually travel with a large amount of jewels. He probably had some money with him, but, as Radfield said, it doesn’t make sense, what with her admonishing her brother for attempting to steal from your study.”

“Perhaps she had different standards for herself than for him. Or perhaps he is lying about the whole matter. Maybe Cobb is correct, and he is the one who killed her, and he is simply trying to throw suspicion off himself onto Kestwick.”

“Even if she did go to rob him, why would Kestwick kill her over it? Why not just reveal what she had done? Have her arrested?”

“True.”

They were silent for a moment, thinking, then Richard said, “I noticed that Mr. Talbot recognized her name.”

“Yes. Oh, you aren’t thinking it’s him because of that, are you?” Jessica asked. “Why would he kill her just because she was once a famous courtesan? Besides, he was clearly surprised when Radfield said that. He couldn’t have recognized her already or he wouldn’t have been surprised.”

“Perhaps it was an act.”

“Why do it at all? Why not just pretend not to know her?”

“What if Kestwick knew her, too?” Richard mused, thinking aloud. “What if he recognized her?”

Jessica sat up straight, struck by a thought. “What if he recognized her and threatened to reveal who she was? She would not want all of us to know that. She would not have wanted everyone to know, to lose her status here as a decent widow. If nothing else, it would have made Mr. Cobb suspicious of her, and Radfield said that she knew Cobb was a Runner.”

“Yes, but why—ah, yes, I think I see. What if he threatened her with revealing her true identity and she did go to his room for the reason we thought—because he threatened to expose her if she did not?”

Jessica looked at him. “Yes. That would explain it. Perhaps that was why she was nervous—she didn’t want to do it, but she had to. Poor woman.” She paused, then said, “Well, that would explain why she would want to kill Kestwick. But I can’t see how it would give him much reason to kill her.”

“True.” Richard sighed. “I am sorry to say it, but I fear that I cannot put Kestwick down as the murderer. I should very much like to, however, as I think he is my favorite suspect after your Mr. Talbot.”

“He is not
my
Mr. Talbot,” Jessica protested. “I hate to give up Lord Kestwick as a suspect, too. But I cannot see it having been her brother, either. Obviously he is good at deception, still I cannot help but think he was telling the truth today.”

“Yes. Perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps it was as Lord Vesey said, an accident and nothing more. Maybe I am jumping at shadows. Perhaps it is all coincidence. The study intruder was Radfield. Maybe the nursery intruder was Vesey, as we thought originally.”

“And my jewelry box was smashed by Darius? That seems like an exceptional number of coincidences to me.”

“That is true, too. My life has become quite complicated since you came into it.”

“Me?” Jessica’s eyebrows soared. “You are blaming this all on me?”

“My life was very dull before you arrived.”

“Well, I have not had murders and thefts and intruders in my life, either, I’ll have you know. It too has been quite dull. So I could as easily blame you.”

“Perhaps it is the combination. We are too volatile to mix together.” His voice turned husky, and suddenly it was clear that he was no longer talking about their meeting.

“Indeed?” Jessica asked, her breath catching in her throat, and she rose slowly to her feet. “Are you saying that you wish we had not—that we should not—” She was suddenly sick at heart.

“No!” He shot to his feet, too, consternation on his features. “No, that is not what I meant at all. I meant—I was saying—”

Richard came around the desk to where she stood, and he reached out to take her hands in his. “I meant that when I am around you, there is—I feel such heat, I cannot control it. I scarcely know myself.” He looked into her eyes, his own dark eyes blazing with intensity. “I should apologize for last night, for taking advantage of the situation. Of you.”