Kiss in the Mist by Elizabeth Brady (20)

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Great-Aunt Celia was sitting at the end of Amanda’s bed when she entered her room. Without the cane, she swung her legs easily over the edge, looking even more youthful than she normally appeared.

As she looked up and found Amanda’s gaze, her smile was a bit sad. “Come,” she patted the bed. “Sit with me a moment. I have something I’d like to say.”

When Amanda settled beside her on the plush feather mattress, Great-Aunt Celia took one hand in both of hers.

“Tomorrow, I know, will be difficult. I understand what you’ve done tying yourself to Denbigh, I do. I know why you did it. Lady Denbigh and I had a nice, long chat at the park and even she understands that her son’s name will give you some measure of protection. No, no, don’t say anything, let me say my piece. What I have to say, well… I am disappointed.”

Here it came, she thought. Amanda had wondered when. Why now, of all times? She might have walked out of the room, but Great-Aunt Celia still held her hand.

“I’m disappointed because I wanted more for you. I wanted you to have a choice. I wanted you to know that you were being chosen and not pushed into something. I wanted you to have the thrill of a Season and to flirt and be charmed. I wanted that for you. And now…” her hands squeezed. “Now, you won’t get that. I hope you had a little taste. But whatever happens tomorrow, I want you to remember what I told you before: you are not a diamond, so don’t try to be. Diamonds are all the same, all glitter. You are as ruby is to glass.”

Amanda didn’t know her aunt at all. But she knew such a great deal more. Tears rolled fat and heavy down her cheeks. The two women sat, holding hands, with their legs kicking over the edge of the bed. Once her tears dried, the not-yet-forty-year-old brought her to giggles with stories of her childhood, foibles of her father, the cake Amanda had ruined by adding her special mud icing. She kissed the top of her head and closed the door behind her, leaving Amanda with a sense of optimism she hadn’t felt in days.

Amanda fell asleep reading the Debrett’s (Fantasmagoriana was carefully stowed in the bottom of a trunk). She’d looked up the Pruett family, tracing along Daniel’s name with such a rush of joy she couldn’t contain. She followed the entry to Great-Aunt Celia and her marriage to the youngest son of an earl. She turned to Sophie, trying (unsuccessfully) to find her distant connection to the Worthington’s. (She would make another attempt when she was awake enough to follow a circuitous path of logic to find it.) She discovered Mr. Abercrombie, for all of his social-climbing, was actually one step removed from a title himself in about three or four different ways. Mr. Urquhart was not in the book that she could find. Lord Darvel she hesitated to explore. When she did, she noted he was from a long and proud line. It was a shame that it had come to such an end.

And then she found Julian Armytage, (at the time of publication, not yet Lord Denbigh).

She was dreaming about blue eyes and cinnamon when pulled, violently, from sleep.

Someone shook her arm.

“Wake up, wake up!”

“Hussh, Geoffrey, what is it?”

“In the garden, Amanda, you must wake!”

“Not more ghosts, Geoffrey.” She tried to bat him away.

“Of course not, Amanda, I’m not that dense. It’s Miss Sophie. In the garden!”

Amanda propped herself on her elbows, trying to make sense of what he said. “What would Sophie want with you? She hasn’t even met you.”

Geoffrey sighed. “She thought it was your window!”

“Why would Sophie be in the garden?” she yawned, obstinately remaining abed.

“I tried to ask her through the window, but it’s too muffled and I didn’t want the whole house to wake. She’s said to come down. It sounded important.”

Amanda yawned again, tears welling. She blinked them away and started to swipe her eye with a hand when she noticed the square of linen clutched in her palm. She quickly shoved the handkerchief back under her pillow before her brother noticed.

“Come along, then. Do you have shoes? And a coat? What’s she thinking that it can’t wait until morning?”

“Amanda, really. She’s come to our house, under cover of darkness, the night before an inquest wherein you will be implicated in murder. Here are your slippers,” he put them on her feet as she groggily flung them over the side. “She must have found something!”

It seemed natural to pick their way down the staircase, though Great-Aunt Celia’s staff would never allow so much as a squeak to encroach upon their boards. The household aslumber made the house eerily silent. Amanda wished she had snatched up a candle from the hall, but they made their way along the passage in near darkness.

“Ow! Watch yourself, you nearly made me tumble!”

“Your steps are too short.”

“You can easily solve the matter by going back to bed! Why I let you come… I’ve yet to punish you and still allowed you to accompany me, I must be mad.”

“Shh, someone will wake!”

The truth was, guilt nagged. She’d excluded and ignored her brother to the point where he ran off to conduct potentially dangerous experiments on his own. She should have given him something to do, something productive to occupy him and make him feel worthy. If that something was now to follow her in the middle of the night to meet a friend in the garden, so be it.

They crept down one of the servant’s passages to the rear of the house. The night was still and the air felt thick and heavy, the prevailing, odd mist of this year without summer just beginning to form.

“Sophie!” she called in as loud a whisper as she could manage.

“There,” Geoffrey pointed, “by the bush.”

“Pulled from a lovely dream, trekking through the garden at night. This had best be good.”

“Come, quickly!” Sophie called. Her voice was oddly muffled in the thick air. It was beginning to mist, virga heavy above them. “Come on!” She skipped further down the path and Amanda and Geoffrey rushed after her. Sophie’s perfume left a trail of lavender-water scent, sharp and lingering. With the stagnant air, the perfume cloyed Amanda’s nostrils.

If she’d been more fully-awake, she might have noticed immediately. But they’d taken a good ten paces before she jerked Geoffrey to a halt.

“Amanda wha—”

She was too late.

Boots. He’d grabbed Geoffrey, covering his face with a cloth. Amanda started to scream, but the second man had his massive paw around her mouth. She smelled something sweet. Her lungs burned cold. She couldn’t feel her hands. The last thing she saw before she blacked out was the fresh cut upon his arm. She felt a grim satisfaction.

Great-Aunt Celia had pinked the dastard man, indeed.

 

“Help! Someone please, help us!”

Amanda had awakened cold, nauseated, and with a frightful headache. Geoffrey was curled up beside her, sleeping heavily. The ether they’d been drugged with was powerful, but not lethal.

I am saved by my lack…

Oh, if only Amanda had thought of Sophie’s words sooner. She didn’t wear scent. They’d been lured to the garden, lured to this place. This damp, dark, smelly, awful place!

They were somewhere underground. There was absolutely no light, but the walls were solid stonework and there were two high stone platforms or tabletops to either side. She’d stumbled on a set of stairs, bruising her knee horribly, but the door at the top was solid, thick, and had no keyhole. She’d tried feeling for the hinges, but they must have been on the other side of the door. Besides, with a door this heavy, they’d be too tight to remove without a tool.

They were stuck.

She didn’t know how long she’d paced in the darkness when she heard Geoffrey stir back to consciousness.

“Geoffrey, I’m here! I’m right beside you!”

Umph. “Oh, Amanda, I do not feel at all well.”

“The sickness wears off.”

“Where are we?”

“I do not know. A cellar? I have tried shouting for help, but no one comes when I call.”

“Why would your friend trap us here?”

She helped Geoffrey to sit, gently stroking his back. “That was not Miss Sophie. I have a strong feeling she will be infuriated with me to discover an imposter lured us here.”

“What do we do now?”

“I am sorry to tell you this, but we wait.”

 

Julian could hear the pounding upon his front door all the way from the dining room.

“What the devil?”

His mother dropped her fork onto the plate.

There was a commotion in the entrance, then the thick thud of boots. A man burst into the room, brown hair, hazel eyes, a wild expression.

Principal Officer John Lowe looked nothing like he had upon his previous visit. Julian raised an eyebrow and set his napkin upon the table. This man was dangerous. John Lowe, he had known, was not a man to cross.

Somehow, he had crossed him.

“I wondered when we might meet again, Officer Lowe.”

“I thought we had an understanding.”

Both of Julian’s brows rose. “None of your sheep went missing. Their fleece is fluffy as ever.”

Lowe made an agitated pace to his right. Then his left. He was furious, that was plain to see, but for the life of him…

“I didn’t want you investigating!” Ah. “I wanted you to protect them, not join in search of a murderer—that is my job! You were meant to keep an eye on them! Use your power, your influence!”

Which he’d done. In a way. “They rather forced my hand.”

Lowe pumped his fists at his sides. “Does no one listen to a word I say?” Well, in Julian’s defense, he had been rather cryptic with lambs and fields. “The one time I ask for help! Did you know there was a break-in? What if Shelby had been there?”

Ahh. Poor man. Julian shook his head in commiseration.

“Have a seat before you wear a hole in the wood, fall through the floor, and land upon the cook.”

“No, no, he’d land upon the butler, dear,” his mother supplied, helpfully. “The pantry is beneath us. The kitchen is under the morning room.” She added a dollop of mustard to her plate, then looked at Mr. Lowe assessingly. “Anyone else and Winston likely wouldn’t mind, but you’re a bit of a stocky fellow, if I may say, and it’s rather late at night. Help yourself to the smoked fish, it is excellent this evening.”

Julian blinked at his mother. She didn’t make a habit of inviting laymen to join the supper table. This was, in fact, the first time Julian could ever remember such a breach of protocol. Mr. Lowe must truly look pitiful to a woman’s delicate sensibilities.

She was right.

Instead of firing off his anger, Mr. Lowe deflated into a chair and put his head in his hands. “I leave for two days and there’s a break-in, a half-cocked plot to lure a murderer into the open, and a defenseless woman is attacked! Those are three things which have never occurred on my watch! Never!”

Julian took a plate and began to fill it with food from a server. “I cannot say that I approved of the course of events myself. If it mollifies you at all, Miss Pruett thought it best to keep the servants out of things. Shelby was safe and snug away from the action… as it were.”

“It doesn’t.” Julian put the plate of food on the table in front of the man. “It does. Though there shouldn’t have been any action to begin with!” Hazel eyes burned into him. “I thought you were as invested as I. Or was I mistaken?”

Julian’s jaw clenched at the insult. He counted down his rage. He even avoided pounding the dining table beneath his fist. Small victories. “You were mistaken in the ladies’ force of character. Where did you go during those two days?”

“Dover. I traced the dead man’s route.”

“How did you know M. Rudin embarked at Dover? Or was French at all?”

“You have done some work.” Lowe almost looked impressed. “From his clothes, Paris was obvious. The scorching of his jacket, but particularly his chest pointed to chemicals. Two and two together—the locals remembered a French chemist as having rented Number Sixteen. Thankfully, I was able to return before reaching the coast. He’d sent himself a trunk which followed close enough behind him. To his credit, he also left inside copies of correspondence inviting him here.”

“A bit sloppy of Sir Sinister, wouldn’t you think?”

“Sir Sinister?”

“The name the ladies have been using for our murderer.”

Mr. Lowe smiled. “I had expected some kind of documentation, but what I found was the proof to exonerate you with the coroner. Or at very least, to cast serious doubt.”

“Well, sirs, it is not the topic of polite dining conversation—” Julian raised a brow. His mother had been with him through the worst of his recovery. She’d heard words from his lips most sailors didn’t know and she’d seen his mottled flesh without a grimace of distaste. It didn’t occur to him that talk of murder over food would upset her. He had an apology on his lips. “—but I must know how the man died.” Mr. Lowe coughed, but managed to swallow his smoked fish. “It’s been plaguing me for days. He wasn’t poisoned, he wasn’t strangled… how do you know he was murdered?”

Principal Officer John Lowe blinked, slow, steady, deliberately. He watched Candace Armytage and judged. He made his decision. “The body had been moved. At first glance I knew everything was wrong. The marks upon his person were not a living bruise, but one after death where his blood had gathered. They did not match his resting position. Forgive me, ma’am, but dead men do not normally move themselves. Thieves would never have bothered. He was in a disused, secluded area visited regularly only by one young woman. So, either it was an amazing coincidence or someone put the body there for her to find.”

“So, if he was killed… elsewhere…” she trailed off.

“I am well-aware the man died at Number Sixteen, you need not try and hide that. I have at least three people who saw Rory carrying him.”

“Are you saying the man was killed inside the house?” Julian asked. A rage ripped through him that Darvel might have harmed anyone with Amanda and Geoffrey under the same roof.

“Not at all.” Mr. Lowe smiled. “I’m suggesting a dead man walked in.” Candace took a breath to argue, but Mr. Lowe put up a hand. “I know I said that dead mean don’t move themselves, but allow me this singular exception.”

Candace sent the man a sharp look. “Then, if he was not hit upon the head, he wasn’t strangled, it wasn’t poison, how did the man die?”

“He was stabbed, madam. In his side, through the ribs just so, with a thin blade called a stiletto. All it left was a tear in his jacket. Popular among thieves in Naples, perhaps, but here it’s still only used by the upper-class, mostly ceremonial. It possibly ruptured his lung.”

Julian nodded. Now that he knew of the knife, it made sense. “Especially with a thin blade, Mother, the wound could close immediately causing any blood to leak internally. He’d know from the pain he’d been stabbed, but likely not the extent until he collapsed. He took the fastest route to aid—the path down the mews. By the time he arrived, he must have realized the truth, so he hid his treasures in the one place he knew they’d be safe.”

“I see,” his mother said. “Then all that’s left to be done is question Lord Darvel?”

Mr. Lowe smiled, “You have been thorough, it seems. I have a man interrogating him as we speak.”

Relief flooded Julian. Along with a bit of disappointment. Some primal part of him had wanted an opportunity to plant the man a good facer.

There was another commotion below. This time, no irate runner burst through the door. Instead, a hassled footman attempted to maintain a sedate pace while the din persisted.

“Yes, man, what is it now?” Julian pinched the bridge of his nose.

“My lord, a messenger has come from Mrs. Lidgate’s residence. It appears Master Pruett has gone missing during the evening.”

“Oh, Geoffrey, not again!” Julian groaned.

“Add a missing person too!” Mr. Lowe sounded forlorn. “How will I manage to live this down?”

“Calm yourself, Mr. Lowe. The boy ran off this morning—Yesterday morning? What time is it?—Nevertheless, he ran off to conduct experiments. My money has him in the back garden of Number Sixteen, playing with science. Have the carriage brought around for us?”

The footman cleared his throat. “It seems that Miss Pruett is also absent from the residence.”

The chair fell as Julian stood.

 

Would Amanda have gone off? Had she felt merely giving evidence at the inquest was not enough? Did she take action without him?

No.

They had an understanding. They were to do things together. From now until forever.

She understood.

She wouldn’t have acted on her own, would she?

A sinking feeling pooled in his stomach. She might. If she didn’t feel the same way, if she didn’t realize that they were in this together, she would. As she had before.

“Get the carriage ready immediately. If it’s not ready, we shall walk to Curzon street. If they aren’t at Number Sixteen, they will have gone to Darvel’s.”

“Lord Darvel’s…” The concern in the runner’s hazel eyes made Julian’s hackles rise. “Why would they go there?”

 

Waiting in the dark of the damp crypt gave a girl ideas. Doubts plagued her. If Lord Darvel were the killer, where did he get the money to hire thugs to follow and kidnap them? He had no ready tick. He might have had to sell more than the delicate tea set. Though advertising it as a “weak-tea-colored-water set” would be more accurate.

But what if they were wrong? What if it wasn’t Darvel? What if… her throat caught. What if it was the one person they’d never considered? Sophie had flat-out rejected the idea. Brains, but no brawn. What if the killer was Duncan Urquhart?

Amanda couldn’t swallow past the cold ball stuck in her throat.

She’d met Mr. Urquhart at the card party with all the others. He had a scientific, cunning mind. He hadn’t shown up to call at her house, but he was a much more subtle man. He was with them when Amanda and Julian had gone to the apothecary’s. They’d told him what they discovered! He’d been speaking with Lord Darvel before the impromptu invitation for a scientific gathering—had he been pulling the strings from the beginning?

No. No, it had to be Lord Darvel. All the pieces fit. Amanda reviewed all their clues in her head for simple reassurance.

She’d accuse Lady Worthington next. Or had she accused her already?

There was very little reassurance in a pitch black cell.

For a time (how long, she didn’t know, minutes were impossible to gauge here), Geoffrey had explored the room where they were trapped. He even clambered onto Amanda’s shoulders to feel the ceilings—an incredibly difficult feat seeing as how the boy was nearly her size! They’d explored what nooks and crannies they could, but the only way out was the thick wooden door at the top of the stairs.

Despite the looming panic, the siblings curled together for warmth and tried to sleep. Better rest in uneasy dreams than dread every uncertain moment awake.

If only she’d found some way to tell Julian…

There was a clamber, the sound of metal scraping, and the door to their prison swung outward. Amanda blinked toward the sound, trying to see anything in the darkness. She pulled Geoffrey behind her into the furthest corner of the room.

“Let there be light,” a voice intoned in the darkness, his dramatic rolling R echoing throughout the chamber. Darvel. A snicking sound cut through the quiet. Suddenly, the room filled with a bright, warm glow: “And there was light.”