CHAPTER THREE
Chris smiled ruefully after the surprise wore off. “Well, well,” he murmured. “So that’s it.”
“I guess you’ve forgotten more about love than I’ll ever learn,” she mused. She shrugged. “I told you I was a dead bust as a modern woman.”
“No, you’re not,” he argued. “You’ve got potential,” he added in a deep, sensuous tone. “All it needs is developing.”
“Are you volunteering?” she asked with a wry smile.
He tugged on a lock of her hair. “Don’t tempt me. We’ve got enough complications without adding that to them. Tansy, remember?”
She grimaced. “Sorry.”
“No harm done,” he said with a chuckle. He let go of her hair and cranked the car. “First we’ll find Tansy and solve her problems. Then we’ll have time to devote to our own.”
“I don’t have a problem.”
He gave her a look of mild astonishment. “You don’t like French kisses, and you don’t think that’s a problem?”
She glared at him. “It isn’t!”
He smiled slowly. “See what I mean?”
She decided that it would be best if she ignored him, so she tried it for the five minutes it took to get to the manor house.
“This is where things get a little sticky,” he said thoughtfully, as they sat at the closed gates where three carloads of reporters were camped out.
“Can’t you use the phone over there and tell her we’re lost and need directions?” she suggested.
“That wouldn’t work. I’ll guarantee every one of these newshounds has already tried that angle. I suppose the direct approach is always the best one.” He got out of the car, smiled genially at the reporters as he worked his way past them, and picked up the telephone at the gate. He spoke softly so that the reporters couldn’t hear him. After a minute he nodded, put the phone down and got back in the car with Della.
“She’s sending a man down for us. I described the car I’m driving,” Chris told her.
“What did you say that got her to open the gates?” she asked, astonished.
“I said that I was a relation of the Duke of Marlboro and I needed to speak to her urgently about her late husband.”
“And she believed you?”
He chuckled. “As it happens, we know each other,” he admitted. “I didn’t realize she’d married, which is why I didn’t recognize her as Lady Harvey. I knew her as just plain Clothilde Elmore.”
Della was immediately jealous and uncomfortable. He didn’t say that the woman was an old lover, but she probably was. She hated the thought of those other women, and that was dangerous. She had to remember that she was here on a job, and not to try to catch the eye of this reformed rake—if he was reformed, which she doubted.
“What are you going to tell her when we get to the house?” she persisted.
He stared at her amusedly. “You’re the reporter. Hadn’t you better start formulating some hard-nosed questions?”
“I guess I had,” she agreed, and pulled out her pad.
He covered her hand with his before the other reporters got a look at it. “Not here,” he said softly. “They can’t know we’re infiltrating.”
“Oh. Sure.” She put the pad up. “I’ll just do it mentally.”
He looked as if he had doubts about that, but he didn’t say another word. In a few minutes, a small car with two passengers shot down the driveway. One man came to Chris’s car and climbed in the back. The other man opened the gate. Chris shot through the opening before the reporters could push their way through. The gate closed to a chorus of jeers and catcalls from the frustrated onlookers.
“Neat, that,” Chris mused as he followed the other car up the long driveway.
“Damned vultures,” the man in the backseat muttered in a thick Cockney accent. “Poor Lord Harvey not even buried, and all this going on. The poor old man. He did so hate publicity.”
“Something I share with the late lord,” Chris muttered.
The man in the backseat took a good look at the driver in the rearview mirror. “I know you,” he said suddenly. “You’re that Deverell from America, the one who was caught in bed with…”
“Never mind,” Chris said icily. “That’s past history.”
“Well, sure it is, guv, but you must know how her ladyship feels now,” he added.
“Indeed I do,” Chris replied.
“She’ll be glad of company. Had to live like a hermit these past two days, what with the inquisition from the Yard and all.” He shook his head. “Poor old man, poor old lord,” he said sadly, “naked as a jaybird and floating in the river, all those people taking pictures of him. He was so stately, such a gentleman…. Deverell,” he repeated suddenly, staring at Chris harder. “You’re her son! It was your mother killed the poor old man!”
“My mother won’t kill a fly on her salad,” Chris said with utter disgust. “She may be a licensed lunatic, but she’s no murderess.”
The man looked vaguely placated. “You sure of that?”
“I’d stake my life on it. If Lord Harvey was murdered, my mother didn’t do it.”
“Had to be murder, don’t you see,” came the heavy reply. “Had a bruise the size of my fist on the side of his head. He drowned, but he was unconscious when he drowned they say.”
“He was hit on the right side of his head, too, wasn’t he?” Chris asked carelessly.
“Sure was. Right at the temple. The blow was so hard it broke the skull. Sorry, miss,” he added when he saw Della go white.
Chris glanced at her. “I told you that you were too soft for the sort of work you do, didn’t I?” he asked bluntly.
“What sort of work does she do, then?” the passenger asked.
“She’s trying to make it as a crime novelist,” Chris lied with a straight face. “But she gets sick at her stomach when she has to read about real crimes. I think she should write political thrillers, myself.”
“That’s my sort of book,” the passenger said smugly. “Politics is the most interesting thing I know about. Not that most of what you read in the papers is the truth. No, sir.”
“I’ll agree with that, having been a victim of the gutter press myself,” Chris said.
“It’s not all gutter press,” Della felt compelled to say.
“No, there are some good journalists,” Chris agreed. “But then, they don’t write for the tabloids!”
Which left Della without a comeback. She stared at the gray stone manor house with real interest. It was the closest she’d ever been to affluence on this scale. The place was surrounded by landscaped lawns and gardens, even a fountain where the driveway circled the house. There was an elegant porch with flower urns everywhere, and a huge garage and tennis court and swimming pool in the back.
“Nice gardens, aren’t they?” the passenger said. “The late Lord Harvey was an avid gardener, always puttering out there, he was.”
“My mother has the same passion,” Chris said, “although she rarely stays home long enough to indulge it. She lived over here some years ago, when I was in boarding school.”
“You have English ties, guv?”
“I’m a cousin to the Duke of Marlboro.”
“Well, I’ll be!”
“And a cousin to the ruling royal family, as well,” he added on a chuckle. “So you see, Great Britain isn’t so foreign to me, after all.”
“I should say not, sir!”
They pulled up at the front door and the passenger got out quickly to help Della from the small automobile, smiling at her shy thanks.
“I’ll put the car around back for you, sir,” the passenger said, taking the keys. “Just give us a ring when you’re ready to leave. Right-o, then.”
* * *
A butler answered the door and escorted Della and Chris into the elegant, antique-furnished living room, where the mourning Lady Harvey lay sprawled across the sofa in a gauzy rainbow-colored lounge dress that would have probably financed the entire annual budget of a Third World army.
Chris introduced himself, naming Della as his traveling companion with a finesse that made her blush. Lady Harvey extended her white arm and allowed Chris to kiss her knuckles with a continental air.
“So nice to meet you,” the former Clothilde Elmore drawled in a cultured accent. “I’m in mourning, you know, but I look terrible in black. Do sit down.”
“I’m sorry about your husband,” Chris said.
She waved a hand. “He was in his early seventies, you know, and his health was failing,” she said languidly. “Not that I won’t miss him, of course, but he was so much older than I.”
That was debatable, Della thought. The woman had obviously had several face-lifts, but her throat and hands showed her true age, and she was no spring chicken.
“I’m looking for my mother,” Chris continued. “I understand that she’s implicated in the homicide.”
“Homicide? What homicide?” Lady Harvey exclaimed, sitting straight up with a hand to her throat.
“But the tabloids…” Della began.
Lady Harvey burst out laughing, although there was an odd flush in her face. “Good Lord, I had no idea they were spreading such drivel. Harvey was waterskiing in the lake day before yesterday. He came loose, hit his head on the stern of the boat your mother was driving, and drowned. That’s all there is to it.”
Chris almost fell over with relief. “Thank God!”
“I cannot imagine how anyone could construe this as anything other than a tragic accident,” she continued curtly. “What motive would your mother have to murder him anyway? They were old friends through her late husband. The three of them were great pals, although they stopped corresponding when Cecil and I married, of course. I had nothing in common with such hijinks, quite honestly. Your mother was always in the middle of some outrageous circumstance.”
“She doesn’t know any other way to live,” Chris agreed. He scowled. “But if there’s no homicide, why is my mother being sought?”
Lady Harvey waved a hand. “I have no idea. The police questioned her, and myself, and went away. My attorney tells me that there is no evidence of foul play and no further investigation is warranted.”
“Then I’ve made a trip for nothing,” he said with a smile as he got to his feet. “I’m very grateful to you. But you say you have no idea where my mother might be?”
“None whatsoever, she left the country just after the police came, or so I heard. She didn’t tell me where she was going.” She thought for a minute. “Bainbridge might know. She and Cecil were friends with him, as well. Yes. You might try Lord Bainbridge. He lives just down the road, anyone can direct you.”
“Thank you. You’ve been most gracious, and at such a trying time,” Chris said, bending to kiss her hand again.
“Oh, not to worry, I’m grateful for the company. Those dreadful reporters won’t go away, God knows why.”
“They’ll tire eventually and worry someone else,” Chris assured her. “Good day.”
The car was brought around by the same man who’d accompanied them to the manor house. He waved them off, the gates were opened, and Chris and Della drove through the massed press corps.
“Wait just a minute, please,” Della asked as he started to pull out into the main road. She motioned to a woman journalist and rolled the window down.
“She says that there was no murder, and that Scotland Yard has determined that it was an accidental death,” she told the brunette. “If that’s so, why are you all still out here?”
“She said that?” the journalist asked. “It’s news to us. We had word this morning that accidental death has been ruled out and murder charges are pending against a woman named…” She pulled out her pad and read, “Tansy Deverell, an American.”
“She said that Lord Harvey was waterskiing, fell and hit his head on the boat’s stern and drowned,” Della persisted.
“He was knocked unconscious with a blunt object suspected to be a silver cane head,” the woman replied. “Mrs. Deverell was known to possess such a cane. The police have it now. And Lord Harvey was found in the river, not in a lake, stark naked.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Della said heavily.
“Neither do we. But her ladyship up there stands to inherit ten million pounds, and even with inheritance tax, that’s a bundle. Furthermore, she’s mixed up with some bloke from a militant workers’ party—” She stopped dead. “Who are you?”
“I’m an American journalist,” Della said honestly. “My paper sent me here to see what I could dig out. Well, you see, Mrs. Deverell is an American.” She let the implication sink in.
“I see. Wouldn’t know something about her, would you?” the woman asked cagily.
“Just that she has claimed to have been kidnapped by aliens once, and a sheikh tried to add her to his harem.”
The woman journalist laughed delightedly. “Thanks! She doesn’t sound like a murderess, does she? What a delightful old bird! I wish she was my mum.”
“So do I,” Della said. “Thanks.”
“You, too!”
Chris drove off while Della was closing the window. “You didn’t have to be so forthcoming!”
“Yes, I did. She gave me information, I gave her information. We’re even.” She glanced at him, saw the lines of strain. “I still don’t think she did it, evidence or no evidence. I’d like to know more about this bloke from the worker’s party.”
“You looked relieved when they said the MP was hit on the right side of the head. Why?” she asked curiously.
He grinned. “Because Tansy is left-handed. Let’s go see Bainbridge. Maybe he can clear some of the details up for us.”
Lord Bainbridge could, and did. He was no friend of Lady Harvey, but he knew quite a bit about her.
He brushed back his thick white mustache and leaned his bulk back in his huge armchair by the fireplace. “Tramp, she is, begging your pardon, ma’am,” he told Della. “Nothing but a tramp. I warned Cecil about her, but he was so obsessed with her beauty that he wouldn’t rest until he’d married her. Face-lifts and tummy tucks and war paint and padding, that’s all she was, with a mercenary eye. All of us could see it. Now she’s killed him and she’ll blame poor Tansy to save herself.”
“Tansy isn’t a killer,” Chris said curtly.
“I know that. We all know that. But she’s the prime suspect. It seems her ladyship has an ironclad alibi. She was giving a speech at a children’s benefit at the time Cecil died.”
“Nobody can be that precise about the time of death,” Della said flatly. “Especially if his body was in the water for any length of time. The water temperature could distort the time of death by at least two or three hours.”
He shook his head. “He was wearing a wristwatch and apparently lifted his arm to ward off the blow. His watch face was cracked and stopped at what they presume was exactly the time of death.”
“How convenient,” Chris muttered.
“Not convenient. Planned,” Della countered. “And devilishly clever.”
“If only Tansy hadn’t run,” Chris said heavily. “It’s made her look guilty, even if she isn’t.”
“I don’t think she ran,” Lord Bainbridge confided. “I think she’s been taken somewhere for safekeeping so she can’t tell her side of the story. I think she saw the murder.”
Two pairs of eyes widened. “By whom?”
“By her ladyship’s boyfriend,” the old man said. “Tony Cartwright. He’s a young street tough with a loud mouth and a following. He heads one of the militant groups that wants to oust the ruling party. He’s been tossing money around like corn flakes just lately, and he has no visible means of support. My guess is that Lady Harvey has been funding him and her husband found out and made the mistake of confronting her with it. Or maybe he even caught them together in a compromising situation. Cecil was never one to keep his mouth shut. He’d have gone in headfirst.”
“And died for it,” Chris supposed. His eyes narrowed. “What can we do?”
“My suggestion would be to hire a private detective and have Tony and her ladyship watched,” came the immediate reply. “In fact, I have just the man for you. He was with Interpol for a while, and before that, rumor has it, the SAS. He’s costly, but he’s worth every penny. I can put you in touch, if you like.”
“What’s his name?”
Lord Bainbridge smiled. “You can call him Seth.”
“Does he have an office?”
Lord Bainbridge shook his head. “He does a lot of hush-hush government work, as a free agent. He takes the occasional private case, if it interests him. Frankly, he doesn’t need the money anymore.”
“You think he’ll take this case?” Chris asked.
The old man nodded. “I think so. Let me have the name of your hotel and I’ll ask him to contact you tonight.”
Chris let out a long breath. “You’ve taken a load off my mind. My mother is a lunatic, but I love her.”
“Many of us have, and lost her,” the old man said wistfully. “Yes, even me. You have no idea what a beauty she was fifty years ago. I met her in Madrid one summer and never got over her. I’d do anything I could to help her.”
“Does Lady Harvey know that?”
He shook his head and chuckled. “Doubt she’d have sent you to me if she had. She thinks I was best friends with her husband and might feel vengeful. I’m sure she thought I’d slam the door in your face. Tough luck for her,” he added grimly.
Della and Chris thanked the old soldier and went back to their London hotel.
Chris was dejected as he left Della at her door. “I’ll phone you if Seth gets in touch with me,” he said. “Try to get some rest. I don’t know where this will lead us, but I hope Lord Bainbridge was wrong about Tansy being held prisoner. This whole damned thing is crazy!”
“Most crimes are, but they make great sense to the perpetrators.” She put a soft hand up to his lean cheek. “Try not to worry. It will be all right.”
His teeth clenched. He caught her by the upper arms and pulled her to him. “I don’t know how I’d have gotten through the day without you,” he said huskily and bent to her mouth.
The words softened her as much as the slow, sweet kiss he pressed on her open lips. She gasped and his own lips opened, pressing deeper. He made a sound under his breath and his hands let go of her arms to catch her hips and pull them deliberately into his.
She pulled away, breathless. “It’s…public,” she stammered.
He was having trouble getting his own breath. She was delightful, pretty and sweet and intelligent. He’d looked at women as acquisitions until the wreck. Now he saw what he’d been missing for most of his life—a woman with a heart. Perhaps he had to grow old enough to appreciate what was inside instead of outside.
He caught both her hands in his and lifted them to his lips. “You’re a treasure,” he said quietly. “Thank you for coming to England with me.”
“Well, I didn’t have a lot of choice, remember,” she stammered, because the kiss had shaken her.
He chuckled. “So you didn’t.” The smile faded. “Going to stay? I’ll send you back home if you really want to go.”
“Oh, no, not yet,” she said quickly. “We have to clear your mother first!”
He was tracing the simple silver-and-turquoise ring she wore on her right middle finger. “Did you mean what you said, about liking Tansy for a mother?”
She nodded. “I barely remember my mom. She was always away with Dad somewhere. We never really knew each other. Not like I know Grandad, anyway. He’s my best friend.”
“I’d like to meet him when we go home,” he said sincerely. “He must be one special guy.”
“He is.” She searched his eyes with her warm gray ones. “So are you,” she added softly.
His eyes were smiling now, as well as his mouth. He looked up and down the hall and then bent and kissed her once more, briefly and tenderly. “I’ll take you down to dinner when they open the restaurant,” he said. “Wear something pretty.”
She laughed uninhibitedly. “It’ll have to be this,” she indicated her beige pantsuit. “I didn’t bring a dress.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Size ten?”
She gasped. “You roué!” she accused.
He shrugged. “What can I say? I spent a lot of years as a playboy. Guessing sizes is only one facet of my enormous store of knowledge.” He gave her a wicked grin. “I’ll have them send something over.”
“Look here, you can’t buy clothes for me,” she said at once. “People will think I’m a kept woman!”
“Nobody, anywhere, could look at you and think that,” he said flatly. “You don’t have the hard edges of anybody’s mistress.”
“What hard edges?”
“Sophistication,” he said. “It’s not as alluring as the glossy magazines make it out to be. It’s artificial and cold.” He searched her eyes. “You’re a warm, welcoming fire on a cold and rainy night.”
Her eyebrows went up.
“Too corny?” he asked with a flash of white teeth. “I’ll work on my approach before dinner. Consider the dress a loan, a stage prop. We wouldn’t want people to think we were trailing a murderer, now would we? After all, we have no credentials and no permission to interfere in the case.”
“She’s your mother,” she said quietly. “You have every right.”
He traced her small, straight nose. “Still going to smear her in the press?”
“Don’t be silly,” she replied. “I only want to tell the truth.”
“Your editor won’t like it.”
“Some editor, somewhere, will,” she said. “Integrity is and should be part of every journalist’s makeup. I won’t slander anyone for a story.”
“No wonder I like you.”
He kissed the tip of her nose and sauntered off down the hall.
She watched him go with mixed emotions. She knew he’d been a playboy, that he knew all too much about women. But he was attractive and sensitive and he had a wonderful sense of humor, even though he was worried about his mother. That concern was just as alluring as his smile and charm. He really cared about Tansy, and he was willing to take chances to save her. No wonder women fell over themselves to get to him. She was on the verge of it herself.
She unlocked her door with the card key and stepped inside. And just as she closed it back again, a shadowy figure rose from the sofa in the suite’s sitting room and came toward her.