Read The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie Online

Authors: Jennifer Ashley

Tags: #Mystery, #Romance, #Historical, #Adult, #Regency

The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie (8 page)

BOOK: The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie
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“The model is Cybele,” Ian answered. “Mac doesn’t want Beth there while Cybele is.”

Pain flashed through Isabella’s eyes. “He never bothered about such things with me.”

Ian didn’t answer, and Beth couldn’t help asking, “Is this Cybele so awful?”

“She’s a foulmouthed tart,” Isabella said. “Mac introduced me to her to shock me when we first married. He loved to shock me. It became his raison d’etre.”

Ian had turned his head to stare out the window, as though the conversation no longer interested him. Isabella’s delight evaporated, and her face looked pinched and tired.

“Oh, well, Ian, if you aren’t staying for breakfast, I’ll drag myself back to bed. Good morning to you.” She drifted out, leaving the door open behind her. Beth watched her go, not liking how unhappy Isabella looked.
“Can
you stay to breakfast?” she asked Ian. He shook his head and rose to his feet—did he regret leaving or was he happy to go? “Mac expects me at his studio. He gets worried if I don’t appear.”

“Your brothers like to look after you.” Beth felt a pang. She’d grown up so alone, with no sisters or brothers, and no friends she could trust.

“They’re afraid.”

“Of what?”

Ian kept his gaze out the window, as though he didn’t hear her. “I want to see you again.”

A hundred polite refusals Mrs. Barrington had drilled into her flitted through her head and out again. “Yes, I’d like to see you, too.”

“I will send you a message through Curry.”

“Ever resourceful, is your Mr. Curry.”

He wasn’t listening. “The soprano,” he said. Beth blinked. “I beg your pardon?” She remembered the newspaper article that had bothered her so much the day she’d met Mac.

“Oh. That soprano.”

“I asked Cameron to pretend to argue with me about her. I wanted people to focus on the soprano and forget about you. He was happy to oblige. He enjoyed it.” People must have seen Beth enter the Mackenzie box, perhaps had seen Ian spirit her away to Cameron’s coach. He’d created a public argument with Cameron to divert attention from Beth to the Mackenzies, famous for their sordid affairs.

“Pity,” Beth said faintly. “It was such a well-done story.”

“It is not what happened.”

“I realize that. I’m overwhelmed.”

“Why should it overwhelm you?”

“My dear Lord Ian, the paid companion is the last person anyone thinks to spare gossip about. She is drab and faded—her own fault, really, that no one wanted to marry her.”

“Who the devil told you that?”

“Dear Mrs. Barrington, although she didn’t put it quite like that. I should be demure and forgettable, she said. She had the best of intentions. She was trying to protect me, you see.”

“No.” He stared at her, his gaze resting on a curl over her ear. “I don’t see.”

“That’s all right. You don’t need to.”

Ian went silent again, lost in his own thoughts. Then he looked at her abruptly, crushed her to him, and pressed a swift kiss to her mouth.

Before Beth could gasp, he stood her bodily aside and strode out of the room. Beth stood still, her lips burning, until the cold draft from the slamming front door announced that he’d gone.

“Darling, how lovely,” Isabella said that evening, holding out her arm so her maid could slide a glove up it. “You and Ian.” Her green eyes danced, but shadows stained her face.

“I am so pleased.”

“Nothing lovely about it,” Beth said. “I am being horribly scandalous.”

Isabella gave her a knowing smile. “Whatever you say. I shall wait avidly for further news on the subject.”

“Do you not have a ball to attend, Isabella?”

Isabella kissed Beth’s cheeks, bathing her in a wash of perfume. “Are you sure you don’t mind me running off, my dear? I hate to leave you alone.”

“No, no. Go and enjoy yourself. I’m rather tired tonight, and I don’t mind time to gather my thoughts.”

Beth wanted a quiet night, not feeling up to the scrutiny of Paris this evening, even with Isabella’s protection. Isabella knew “absolutely everyone,” and had introduced Beth around with enthusiasm. Isabella hinted that Beth was a mysterious heiress from England, which seemed to go over well with the artists, writers, and poets that flocked to Isabella. Tonight Beth was willing to forgo the glamour. She would write about her day in her journal, then retire and indulge in fantasies about Ian Mackenzie. She had no business indulging in fantasies about him, but she didn’t care.

Once Isabella had gone, Beth asked the butler to serve her a cold supper in her chamber. Then she took up a pen and turned to her diary.

She’d begun an account of her adventures in Paris, which she scribbled about whenever she had a moment. As she chewed leftover meat pie, she flipped to clean pages at the end of the notebook.

I’m not certain how he makes me feel, she wrote. His hands are large and strong, and I wanted too much for him to lift them to my bosom. I wanted to press my breasts inside his palms. I wanted to feel the heat of his bare hands against my nipples. My body shouted for it, but I refused its wishes, knowing it was impossible in that time and place. Does that mean I wish him to do such things in another time and place?

I want to unbutton my frock for him. I want him to unlace my stays and ease them from my body. I want him to touch me as I haven’t been touched in years. I ache for it. I do not think of him as Lord Ian Mackenzie, aristocratic brother of a duke and well beyond my reach; not as the Mad Mackenzie, an eccentric people stare at and whisper about.

To me, he is simply Ian.

“Madam,” Katie bleated from the doorway.

Beth jumped and slammed her notebook closed. “Good heavens, Katie, you startled me. Is something wrong?”

“Footman says a gentleman’s called to see you.”

Beth rose. Her skirt caught a spoon and sent it clattering to the floor. “Who? Lord Ian?”

“I would have said so right away if it was him, wouldn’t I? No, Henri says it’s a gent from the police.”

Beth’s brows rose. “The police? Why should the police want to see me?”

“I don’t know, madam. Says he’s an inspector or something, and he’s English, not a frog. I promise you, I haven’t stolen a thing since you caught me when I was fifteen. Not a bleedin’ thing.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Beth retrieved the spoon with a shaking hand. “I don’t think stealing oranges in Covent Garden ten years ago would warrant an inspector chasing you to Paris tonight.”

“I hope you’re right,” Katie said darkly.

Beth locked her notebook away in her jewelry case and pocketed the key before she made her way downstairs. The French footman bowed to her as he opened the door, and Beth thanked him in his own language.

A man in a faded black suit turned from the fire as she entered. “Mrs. Ackerley?”

He was tall, though not as tall as Ian. He wore his dark hair slicked back from his forehead, and his eyes were hazel. He was in his thirties and nearly handsome, though his luxuriant mustache didn’t hide the grim set to his mouth. Beth stopped just inside the door. “Yes? My companion says you are from the police.”

“My name is Fellows. I’ve called to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

He held out an ivory card that had seen better days.

Lloyd Fellows, Insp., Scotland Yard, London.

“I see.” Beth gave the card back to him, not liking how it felt in her hand.

“May we sit down, Mrs. Ackerley? There is no need for you to be uncomfortable.”

He gestured her to a plush armchair, and Beth perched on the end of it. Inspector Fellows took the hard chair from the desk, turned it around, and sat, looking utterly composed. “I won’t stay long, so you may dispense with the usual polite offering of tea.” He eyed her keenly. “I’ve come to ask you how long you have known Lord Ian Mackenzie.”

“Lord Ian?” Beth stared in surprise.

“Youngest brother of the Duke of Kilmorgan, brother-in-law to the lady who owns this house.”

His tone was brutal and sarcastic, but the look in his eyes was… odd. “Yes, I do know who he is, Inspector.”

“You met him in London, I believe?”

“Why is that your business? I met him in London, and I met his brother and his sister-inlaw here in Paris. I don’t believe any of this is against the law.”

“Today you spoke to Lord Ian here in this house.” Her heart beat faster. “You’ve been watching me?” She thought of the drapes pulled back from the windows of this very room, and herself perched on Ian’s knee, kissing him madly.

Fellows leaned forward, his expression unreadable. “I’ve not come here to accuse you of anything, Mrs. Ackerley. My visit is in the nature of a warning.”

“Against what? Speaking to my friend’s brother-in-law in her home?”

“Mixing in the wrong company could prove your downfall, young woman. You mark my words.”

Beth shifted in annoyance. “Please be plain, Mr. Fellows. The hour grows late, and I would like to retire.”

“No need to get haughty. I have your best interests at heart. Tell me, have you read of a murder in a boardinghouse near St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, about a week ago?” Beth frowned and shook her head. “I was busy traveling about a week ago. I must have missed the story.”

“She was not an important woman, so the English newspapers wouldn’t have made much of it, and the French ones nothing at all.” He rubbed his finger and thumb over his mustache. “You speak French fluently, do you not?”

“It seems you know much about me.” His manner and arrogance, in Isabella’s own drawing room, irritated her. “My father was French, so yes, I speak the language rather well. It is one reason I decided to visit Paris, if you must know.” Fellows pulled a small notebook from his pocket and turned over the pages with a quiet rustle. “Your father called himself Gervais Villiers, Viscount Theriault.” He glanced at her. “Funny thing, the Surete have no record of such a person ever living in France.”

Beth’s pulse sped. “He left Paris a long time ago. Something to do with the revolution in ‘forty-eight, I believe.”

“Nothing to do with it, madam. Gervais
Villiers
never existed. Gervais
Foumier,
on the other hand, was wanted for petty theft, fraud, and running confidence games. He fled to England and was never heard of again.” Fellows flipped another page. “I believe both you and I know what happened to him, Mrs. Ackerley.”

Beth said nothing. She couldn’t deny the truth of her father, but she had no desire to break into hysterics about it in front of Mr. Fellows.

“What has all this to do with Lord Ian Mackenzie?”

“I’m coming to that.” Fellows consulted the notebook again. “I have here that your mother was once arrested for prostitution. Can that be right?”

Beth flushed. “She was desperate, Inspector. My father had just died, and we were starving. Thank heavens she was very bad at it, and the first approach she made was to a detective constable in plainclothes.”

“Indeed, it seems the magistrate was so moved by her pleas for mercy that he let her go. She promised to be a good girl and never do it again.”

“And she never did. Will you please not discuss my mother, Inspector? Let her rest in peace. She was doing the best she could in difficult circumstances.”

“No, Mrs. Villiers wasn’t lucky like you,” Fellows said. “You have been uncommonly lucky. You married a respectable gentleman who took care of you. Then you became a companion to a wealthy old lady, so ingratiating yourself with her that she left you her entire fortune. Now you’re the guest of English aristocrats in Paris. Quite a rise from the workhouse, isn’t it?”

“Not that my life is any of your business,” Beth said stiffly.

“But why is it of such interest to a detective inspector?”

“It isn’t, not in itself. But murder is.”

Every limb in her body stiffened, like an animal that knew it was being stalked.

“I haven’t done any murders, Mr. Fellows,” she said, trying to smile. “If you are suggesting I helped Mrs. Barrington to her grave, I did not. She was old and ill, I was very fond of her, and I had no idea she meant to leave everything to me.”

“I know. I checked.”

“Well, isn’t that a mercy? I confess, Inspector, I can’t imagine what you are trying to tell me.”

“I bring up your mother and father because I want to speak frankly with you about topics that might cause a lady to swoon. I am establishing that you are a woman of the world and not likely to faint at what I have to say.” Beth fixed him with an icy stare. “Rest assured, I am not prone to swooning. I might have the footmen throw you out, yes, but swoon, no.”

Fellows held up his hand. “Please bear with me, madam. The woman killed at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, was called Lily Martin.”

Beth looked at him blankly. “I don’t know anyone called Lily Martin.”

“Five years ago, she worked in a brothel in High Holborn.”

He waited expectantly, but Beth shook her head again.

“Are you asking whether my mother knew her?”

“Not at all. Do you recall that there was a murder of a courtesan at this High Holborn house five years ago?”

“Was there?”

“There was indeed. The details are not pretty. A young woman called Sally Tate, one of the ladies of the house, was found dead in her bed one morning, stabbed through the heart, then her warm blood deliberately smeared on the wallpaper and the bedstead.”

Beth’s throat tightened. “How dreadful.”

Fellows sat forward, on the very edge of the chair now.

“I know—I
know
—that Lord Ian Mackenzie did that murder.” Beth felt the floor dropping from under her feet. She tried to drag in a breath, but her lungs wouldn’t work, and the room began to ripple.

“Now, Mrs. Ackerley, you promised me you wouldn’t swoon.”

She found Fellows at her side, his hand on her elbow.

Beth gasped for breath.

“It’s absurd.” Her voice grated. “If Lord Ian had done a murder, the newspapers would have been full of it. Mrs. Barrington wouldn’t have missed that.”

Fellows shook his head. “He was never accused, never arrested. No one was allowed to breathe a word to the journalists.” He returned to his chair, his face betraying impatience and frustration. “But I know he did it. He was there that night. By morning, Lord Ian had disappeared, nowhere to be found. Turns out he’d left for Scotland, out of my reach.”

BOOK: The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie
9.92Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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