The Masterful Mr. Montague (18 page)

Penelope smiled. Reaching up and wrapping a hand about his nape, she stretched up and brushed her lips over his. “So, you see, you and Stokes have nothing to be concerned about.”

His lips were hungry, following hers. “Why’s that?” he murmured, then closed the gap to sample the sweetness of her delectable mouth.

When he raised his head, she murmured, her tone suggesting impatience, “Because, having taken Lady Osbaldestone’s dictum to heart, we’ve agreed, Griselda and I, that, regardless of temptation, we will never do anything that might keep us from returning safe and sound to our children every night.”

“Ah. I see.” There were times, especially when she was explaining the intricacies of feminine thought, that he felt quite dense, but as the links between all she’d said finally formed, he realized . . . and did, indeed, feel relieved.

Shifting to raise her other arm and drape both about his shoulders, she stepped closer still, pressing her luscious curves against the spare planes of his harder frame. “And just to settle the matter, I promise we won’t go beyond the fashionable areas without Phelps and two grooms, exactly as I used to do before Oliver came along.” Tightening her arms, she brought her lips to his. “So you can stop worrying.”

He pulled back just enough to meet her eyes, to read in them her inherent understanding.

To appreciate anew that this was one of their strengths, their empathetic connection; it still made him uneasy at times to know how lacking in barriers he was when it came to her, how accurately and effortlessly she read him, yet there were benefits, too, and this was one.

She understood, and because she did, they would walk hand in hand through the minefield of their emotions. Of her wants and his needs. And they would find the balance.

A balance that would allow them both to enjoy their lives to the fullest, to exercise to the utmost the talents they’d been blessed with so that they gained the greatest, the deepest, and broadest satisfaction from their days. From the contributions they made, to themselves, to their family, to society.

He saw and appreciated, and inwardly acknowledged. Holding her gaze, he murmured, “Thank you.”

Her lips curved. “Perhaps,” she whispered, as at her command he bent his head, “you might express your gratitude in a way that doesn’t involve words.”

His laugh rumbled in his chest but never made it past his lips. She sealed them with hers, drank in his delight, and gave him her own, her passion and her joy, in return.

They moved into the dance in concert, in effortless accord.

Shedding their clothes, they let their hands roam, let them shape and sculpt, possess and surrender.

They found their way onto the bed, rolled and writhed, arched and gloried.

Delighted anew, as they did every time, in the passion-filled, desire-laced moments. In the exquisitely intense intimacies.

Heat rose as the last barrier fell.

Their bodies came together, merging on a single shared gasp.

Eyes closed, fingers laced, lips brushing, kissing, mouths melding, then parting, they journeyed through the familiar landscape that, as always, bloomed anew.

He’d wondered if they would lose this, if with the familiarity bred of matrimony this intimate intensity would fade.

It hadn’t. If anything, the wonders of the journey had grown richer, more vibrant, more varied, more pleasure-laden.

More shattering.

When at the last he hung poised above her, muscles like iron, veins cording his arms, the heat of their striving bodies nothing less than a furnace as he drove into her willing body and took them through the last veil into paradise, he knew beyond words, beyond thought, beyond understanding that this wonder, this joy, this aching togetherness would never end.

Not in this lifetime, and if they had any say in it, not in the next, either.

Chapter 9

V
iolet was late down to breakfast the next morning. She walked through the door still sliding the last of her pins into her bun. “I couldn’t sleep, then I overslept.”

Cook, seated at the table and crunching a slice of toast liberally spread with her marmalade preserve, nodded dourly. “Know just what you mean. Took me ages to drop off, and I feel right lethargic this morning.”

Violet poured herself a cup of tea from the pot left on the warmer. Setting the cup and saucer beside her plate, she slipped into her chair. “Where’s Tilly?”

“Not down yet, either.”

Violet and Cook sipped and munched, needing no words to share the moment. Violet welcomed the normalcy of the simple meal; last night, alone in her room, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the fate that had overtaken Runcorn—a hale and healthy man several years younger than she. If the villain could so easily snuff out the life of such a robust man, what of her? How safe was she?

Such thoughts had gnawed at her until nothing would do but for her to get up and push and shove and shift her small dresser across her bedroom door.

She’d felt silly. She’d told herself it was an overreaction, yet once the barricade had been in place, she’d been able to fall asleep.

Of course, pushing the dresser away from the door had delayed her even further that morning. And then she’d discovered that her door had been fractionally ajar; she’d assumed Tilly had stopped by on her way downstairs from her attic room and had expected to have to make an embarrassing explanation . . . she frowned and glanced at the clock. “Tilly . . . perhaps we’d better go and wake her. She might be unwell.”

Cook’s blue eyes met Violet’s; from their expression, Violet realized Cook was thinking much the same as she was—that it was strange that Tilly had not come down, no matter her state. Nothing short of complete incapacitation would have kept her from making her way to the kitchen, especially given the warmth there compared to the chill—real as well as imagined—that pervaded the rest of the house.

A whisper of unease slid through Violet’s mind, leaving behind the first stirrings of trepidation.

Cook compressed her lips, then stated, “I’ll come with you.”

Violet nodded and rose. She led the way out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Reaching the first floor, she paused at the head of the stairs; along with Cook, she strained her ears but heard nothing—no footsteps, no rustling.

No hint of life.

Trepidation welled; foreboding settled like a leaden cloak about her shoulders.

Exchanging a worried, increasingly fearful look with Cook, Violet walked slowly to the narrow door at the end of the corridor. As with her bedroom door that morning, it, too, stood slightly ajar. Dragging in a breath, Violet reached out with one hand and pushed the door fully open. Beyond, the stairs to the attic lay shrouded in perpetual gloom.

Again they listened, and heard nothing.

“Tilly?” Cook called.

No sound.

They climbed the stairs, Violet first, Cook on her heels. Stepping into the narrow corridor that led to the three small bedrooms tucked under the eaves, they halted at the first door.

The door was closed but not shut. Violet tapped. “Tilly?”

The door swung further open; when no sound came from within, Violet pushed it wide.

They didn’t need to go in to see what had happened.

Tilly lay on her back on the bed, her limbs twisted and tangled, her sightless eyes staring straight up at the ceiling.

Her mouth was open in a ghastly rictus, as if she’d been screaming to the last.

Violet stared at her friend—at the body that was all that was left of her. An icy chill bloomed at Violet’s nape, then swiftly spread over her shoulders and sank into her. Her eyes still looked, but her brain refused to see.

“Oh-my-God. Oh-my-God.”

The horrified whisper dragged Violet back, into the moment. She looked at Cook. The normally ruddy woman was parchment pale; eyes wide, she had her hands pressed to her face and was whispering through her fingers.

Without looking back at the bed, Violet swallowed, dragged in a short breath—all she could manage—then put an arm around Cook’s shoulders and turned them both from the room, away from the doorway and the sight beyond. “There’s nothing we can do.” Her voice sounded far calmer, far more composed and controlled than she felt. “Come—let’s go downstairs and send for the authorities.”

There was nothing they could do for Tilly other than seek justice.

The journey back down the stairs and into the kitchen passed in a blur; when next her mind reengaged, Violet found herself in the kitchen, pouring cups of strong tea for herself and Cook, who had collapsed into her chair in a storm of noisy weeping.

Grabbing the rough pad of paper and the pencil Cook kept for making shopping lists, Violet sat at the table, took a gulp of her tea, then started to write.

Cook lifted her blotchy face from her folded arms. “Don’t you dare send for that idiot doctor—he’ll just say Tilly died of old age!”

“I’m not.” Violet hadn’t even considered sending for Milborne. She continued writing. “I’m sending for Inspector Stokes. And Mr. Montague—her ladyship trusted him, and I do, too.”

She had no idea if Montague could do anything to help, but . . . she wanted him there. She just needed to see him, to sense his rock-solid certainty again, to let it settle her and anchor her. Without that . . . the instant she stopped doing something specific, she felt like her mind would splinter apart.

Cook sniffed, then in a watery voice asked, “You need two boys?”

Eyes on her writing, Violet nodded. “One for Scotland Yard, and the other for Chapel Court in the City.”

Heaving a heavy sigh, Cook dabbed at her eyes with her apron, then pushed back from the table and got to her feet. “I’ll get Tommy and Alfie from next door. They’ll do it and be quick.”

“Thank you.” Violet kept writing. Kept her mind ruthlessly fixed on what she could do, rather than on what she couldn’t.

She couldn’t go back to the night before and confess to Tilly that she was afraid—afraid enough to put a dresser across her door.

Her fear had been the only thing that had saved her—but she hadn’t been brave enough to let it save Tilly.

S
tokes could barely believe it. He stood in the open doorway of the tiny attic bedroom and stared—glared—at the body on the bed.

He’d brought the Yard’s surgeon, Pemberton, with him. At the side of the narrow bed, straightening from his first cursory examination, Pemberton shot Stokes a glance. “Same as the other one. Smothered with a pillow.” Pemberton waved at the pillow that had been tossed onto the wooden chair in the corner behind the door. “That one at a guess.”

Stokes humphed. “What’s your best guess as to when?”

Pemberton grimaced. “Sometime in the wee small hours, but that is just a guess.”

Stokes continued to stare at the bed. After a moment, he said, “The old lady was weak—this one wasn’t.”

“No.” Pemberton nodded. “The maid fought back as hard as she could, but whoever stood above her holding down the pillow was stronger than she was.”

“So in your opinion, the murderer’s unlikely to be a lady.”

“A female of any sort.” Pemberton glanced down the body, visually assessing the limbs partially revealed by the disarranged sheets. “This victim appears to have been a hale and hearty woman. She wouldn’t have been easily overcome.”

Stokes grunted. “Anything else you can tell me?”

Pemberton shook his head. “Nothing else you don’t already know.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Stokes had already searched the small room, but the murderer hadn’t helpfully left a calling card or anything else resembling a clue. The room was spare and held little in the way of possessions; he doubted the murderer had bothered rifling through them, and there were no overt signs that anything had been disturbed.

Descending the narrow stairs to the first floor, then heavily going down the long flight to the ground floor, Stokes shook his head and muttered to himself, “He came to murder her, that and nothing else. But why murder the maid?”

Reaching the hall, he crossed to the constable he’d left guarding the front door. “Anything or anyone?”

“Just Mr. Adair, sir, and his missus and yours, like you expected. They went back to the kitchen—said they’d wait for you there.”

Stokes nodded, rather surprised that Barnaby hadn’t come straight upstairs . . . but then, he’d had Penelope and Griselda with him, and if Barnaby had come up to view the body . . . so no, he shouldn’t be surprised that his friend had chosen the less disturbing path. “Pemberton’s crew will be along shortly, but at this point I’m not expecting anyone else. Let me know immediately if anyone arrives.”

“Aye, sir.”

Stokes headed back through the house to the kitchen. Montague had been on the doorstep when he’d arrived, and he’d been glad to leave the other man to calm Miss Matcham and the volatile cook while he took care of business upstairs. Before he’d left the Yard, he’d sent a message to Barnaby, conveying the news and suggesting he join him at Lowndes Street—and having escorted Griselda to the Albemarle Street house on his way into work that morning, he’d extended the invitation to Penelope and Griselda, too.

Given how much the pair had learned yesterday, and accepting that they approached most situations from a different perspective, and therefore saw things neither he nor Barnaby did, he’d swallowed his natural resistance and included them . . . because he knew he’d have been a fool not to.

And not just in a professional sense.

He walked into the kitchen, and six pairs of eyes swung to fix on him. They’d all gathered in chairs about the kitchen table.

“So?” Barnaby prompted as Stokes lifted a chair from beside the fireplace and carried it to the table.

Setting the chair beside the one Griselda occupied, Stokes sat, met Barnaby’s gaze, then looked at Violet—Miss Matcham—and the cook. “As you’ve no doubt guessed, she—Tilly Westcott, Lady Halstead’s maid—was killed in the same way her ladyship was, smothered by a pillow placed over her face while she slept.”

“Was anything different?” Barnaby asked.

“Not in the murderer’s modus operandi, but there was one significant difference, one Pemberton—the police surgeon—just confirmed.” Stokes glanced at Violet and the cook. “Was Miss Westcott in good health?”

“She was fit as a fiddle yesterday,” Cook said.

Violet nodded. “She was entirely well as far as we knew.”

“Would you say she was a strong woman?” Stokes asked.

“Strong as a horse, she was,” Cook averred. “She could lift and carry things that’d make my back ache.”

Violet glanced around the table. “Tilly was taller than me, strapping and rather raw-boned. So, yes”—Violet looked back at Stokes—“she was quite strong.”

Stokes inclined his head. “So Tilly was much stronger than Lady Halstead, and she fought back—that much is obvious. But the murderer still successfully smothered her.”

“So the murderer couldn’t have been a woman—not in this case.” Penelope glanced at Barnaby, then looked down the table at Stokes. “How likely is it that Lady Halstead’s murderer and Tilly’s murderer are
not
the same person?”

“Not very likely at all.” Stokes paused, then said, “So the murderer is a man, one strong enough to overpower a strong woman.”

“Any guess as to when it happened?” Barnaby asked.

“Pemberton says in the very early hours.” Noise reached them from the front hall. Stokes rose. “That will be more constables. I’ll send them to ask around the neighborhood in case anyone saw anything, but given the time and the weather last night, I’m not expecting that we’ll have any luck.” He walked out of the kitchen, leaving everyone else thinking; he returned two minutes later and resumed his seat.

“So how did he get in?” Penelope looked from Stokes, to Barnaby, to Montague, and Violet beside him. “Any ideas?”

Barnaby straightened. “That was one issue we never resolved about her ladyship’s death—how the murderer got into the house.” He met Stokes’s eyes. “There was heavy rain last night, just before midnight. If we search now, we might get lucky and find some sign.”

The winds that had whipped through the city the previous evening had been the harbingers of a storm with attendant downpour, and it was October; there were leaves everywhere. Stokes looked at Violet. “When you first approached the front door this morning, did you notice any dampness or leaves, any sort of detritus, in the front hall?”

Violet shook her head. “The first time I went that way was when I let you and Mr. Montague in, but I wasn’t looking all that closely—I’m not sure I would have noticed.”

“And we’ve had too many people come in and out of the front door since to bother checking now,” Stokes said.

“But coming in via the front door—that would be a truly arrogant act.” Penelope looked at the cook. “Where’s the back door?”

The cook swiveled to point. “Over there. But”—she looked up at Stokes as he rose to his feet—“I’ve been through it this morning to fetch the boys to take Violet’s notes.”

“That’s all right.” Stokes headed for the archway into the back hall. “Barnaby? The rest of you, please stay here.”

Together with Stokes, Barnaby searched, but there was no sign of anyone with damp shoes going deeper into the house from the back door. Not even the cook had left any visible trace.

As they returned to the kitchen, Stokes grimaced. “No luck, so that’s the doors ruled out—”

“No—there’s a side door.” When they all looked at her, Violet explained, “There’s a door to a narrow alley that runs between the street and the mews.” She pushed back her chair. “I’ll show you.”

Montague rose and gave her his hand to assist her to her feet.

She thanked him with a smile that felt weak, then went around the table. She led Stokes and Adair out of the kitchen, into the rear of the front hall, then through a narrow archway under the stairs. Two turns and she halted in the short, dark corridor that ended in the side door. She nodded toward it. “That’s it.”