chapter 42
James’s head snapped up at the sound of her voice. “Laura!” The word was almost a shout. “Come down here.”
“I beg your pardon.” Laura bristled. Gone over a week, having parted on unpleasant terms, and now he offered not even a greeting, just a short, sharp demand, as if she were a dog.
Down the hall, the other members of the family emerged, drawn by James’s loud voice. He paid them no attention, just continued to glare at Laura. He moderated the volume of his voice but increased the intensity in his brief command. “Laura. Come. Here.”
Laura thought about turning her back and stamping up to her room, finishing with a slam of her door. But there was something so strange about his tightly held posture, his burning gaze . . . and however blunt James could be, he was never so rude, at least not to her.
So, after a moment’s hesitation, she suppressed her resentment and took a step down. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Netherly’s hand twitch, almost as if he was going to reach for her, but he did not. Oddly, she noted, James did not watch Laura as she came down the stairs, but kept his eyes fastened on Mr. Netherly. When she reached the bottom, James lashed out with one hand and wrapped it around her wrist like a manacle, pulling her behind him.
“James! You’re hurting me.”
“Pardon,” he said absently, still without taking his gaze from the other man, and dropped her arm. “Now you, Netherly.”
Laura saw that Claude had come into the foyer behind them. He, too, was watching Netherly. What in the world was going on? Mr. Netherly’s eyes flickered from James to Claude, and after a moment’s hesitation, he began slowly down the steps.
James waited. Laura saw that his right hand was curling into a fist. She wanted to blurt out a question—or a dozen—but the silence was too fraught with tension. She dared not distract James.
Netherly paused again on the bottom step, and James tightened all over, like an animal about to spring. At that instant a series of joyous barks erupted from the far end of the hall, and Demosthenes, fresh from his walk, charged down the hall to greet James. Startled, he glanced toward the noise. Netherly seized that moment to leap past him.
James whirled, reaching for the other man, but he was too late. Netherly grabbed Laura and jerked her back against him, one arm holding her tightly against his chest and his other hand encircling her throat.
“Don’t.” He tightened his hand around Laura’s neck, cutting off her air. “I’ll kill her.”
James stopped, raising his hands in a peaceful gesture. “I’m not going to do anything. Just let her go.”
Strangely enough, the uppermost emotion in Laura was not fear, but irritation—beginning with her initial annoyance at James and fueled by her anger—equally divided between Netherly for grabbing her and herself for standing there flat-footed and getting caught. She wasn’t sure what was going on—impossible as it seemed, surely it must be that Tessa’s poet was the man who had tried to kill her—but she refused to let him use her to escape.
“Get away from the door.” Netherly’s words were for Claude, who stood between him and the entrance, but he kept his gaze on James.
James gave a short nod to his brother, and Claude stepped aside. Demosthenes had come to a halt beside James, greeting forgotten as the dog lowered his head, growling, his lip curling up from his teeth.
“Stay,” James told the dog, his voice carefully calm. “He’s not going to hurt her. Are you? So far you haven’t managed to actually kill anyone. You don’t want to murder a woman in front of a houseful of witnesses.”
“No,” Netherly agreed, ignoring the numerous gasps from the spectators down the hall. “So do as I say, and Lady de Vere will be fine. Open the door.”
At a nod from James, Claude opened the front door. Her captor began to move backward, dragging Laura with him. As he stepped into the open doorway, Laura threw herself down and to the side as hard as she could. Netherly’s hand clenched, clamping off her breath, but the sudden violent shifting of her weight sent him lurching against the doorjamb. James sprang forward. Netherly flung Laura at him, then took to his heels.
James caught Laura and bent to peer into her face. She gasped for breath, nodding to assure him that she was all right. They turned to look out the door, as all the other occupants crowded into the foyer behind them, exclaiming and asking questions.
Mr. Netherly was running away across the wide lawn, with Claude chasing him, but neither of them could match the speed of the huge dog that bounded after them. Demosthenes passed Claude and launched himself at Netherly, landing with all his nearly two hundred pounds and knocking Netherly to the ground.
James smiled, his arm tightening around Laura, but he called, “Hold! Dem, hold!”
Demosthenes, standing with his front paws firmly on the recumbent man’s chest, cast James a look so full of disapproval that Laura almost laughed. Claude tried to haul the man to his feet, but Dem was disinclined to budge. Finally, James, who had not yet let go of his tight hold on Laura, heaved a sigh and handed her into his mother’s care, then went to shift Demosthenes off the prone form. He didn’t hurry.
Demosthenes was rewarded with a large meaty bone in the kitchen. Claude and James hauled the wobbling Mr. Netherly back into the house and into the drawing room. Everyone else crowded in after the three men.
James cast a quick glance around, seeking Laura. He could still taste the sick fear he’d felt at seeing her in Netherly’s grasp, the man’s hand around her throat. He had to clamp down hard to keep fury from surging up and overwhelming him. His eyes found Laura standing beside his mother, the two women’s arms around each other’s waists. He wasn’t sure who was supporting whom, but with Walter hovering around them, too, he trusted that Laura was in safe hands.
His business was with Netherly. Shoving the man into a chair, James stepped back, leaving Claude beside his mother’s erstwhile swain, a heavy hand on his shoulder. The man’s eyes flickered around the room, doubtlessly hoping to find support. The room fell silent, but James waited, idly tugging his cuffs into place, letting the tension build in his quarry.
“What do you want?” Netherly snapped at last.
James smiled to himself at the show of frayed nerves. “The constable should be along in a moment. I left word for him in the village as we drove through. It will go easier for you, I imagine, if you confess.”
“Confess to what?” His quarry struggled to achieve an air of outrage. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You went after me without any reason. No wonder I ran.”
“James, what is going on?” Tessa asked. “What has Mr. Netherly done?”
James glanced at his mother. “He tried to murder me.” He turned back, his gray eyes now steely. “Worse, he tried to kill Laura, as well.”
Though that was the obvious reason for the struggle, his words still brought gasps from most of the women there.
“You accused Claude of that the other day!” Adelaide cried out. “Now you’re saying it was Mr. Netherly?”
“Your mother’s admirer?” Cousin Maurice added doubtfully.
“Yes,” James said shortly. He gave a nod to Adelaide. “You are quite right to be upset. I wronged Claude.”
“Not for the first time,” Claude put in, but his tone was more amused than resentful.
“Mm. Probably not the last, either,” James retorted.
“But why do you think it’s this chap?” Archie asked.
“How did he try to kill you?” Patricia’s question came right on the heels of her husband’s. “I don’t understand.”
“Why would he want you dead?” Walter’s question was the one that still puzzled James.
“I don’t know, but hopefully he will enlighten us.” When Netherly did nothing except sneer in response, James went on. “He tried to poison me with mercury, but fortunately Laura figured it out and stopped it.”
“You are so clever, darling.” Tessa squeezed Laura’s arm.
“I assumed Claude was behind it,” James continued. “But when we began to discuss the matter . . .”
“When you were willing to listen to me,” Claude corrected.
“When I listened to Claude, or more to the point, when I described the method to him, he informed me that Mr. Netherly’s family owns a factory that manufactures various gauges, including thermometers. Which contain mercury. Your poet, Mother, was the only person in the place with access to mercury, and he had ample opportunity to place the poison both in London and here.”
Tessa sucked in a sharp breath, tears glittering in her eyes. “How horrible!” She turned a look on Netherly that did not bode well for the man. “How could you!”
“I did nothing of the kind!” he denied hotly. “You’re mistaken, de Vere. Your brother has manipulated you into believing lies. I have no reason to harm you. And the fact that my grandfather owns a factory which uses mercury doesn’t prove I had any or that I planted it in the house. How could I have put it in your medicine? It was Walter who picked that up at the apothecary. You should look to your brothers, not me.”
James smiled a trifle evilly. “I said nothing about the mercury being in my medicine. Odd that you should know it was if you weren’t the one to put it there.”
Netherly began to splutter, but was unable to come up with a defense. He cast a desperate glance around. “I don’t know anything about mercury. I wasn’t brought up in the family business. I was raised to be a gentleman.”
“Pity they didn’t do a very good job of it.” James reached inside his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I visited with your uncle this afternoon, and he was pleased to tell me how smart you were, how you had absorbed knowledge about the family business even though you were too fine to work there. He was also gracious enough to allow me to see his records.”
James unfolded the paper slowly, confirming Laura’s suspicion that he had inherited a bit of his mother’s flair for drama. “I must commend your uncle’s bookkeeper; the man keeps meticulous records.” He read a date and an amount from his notes and he looked back to the captive. “You are listed as the purchaser of that quantity of mercury on that date, shortly before I fell ill with mercury poisoning. Rather a large amount; your uncle was puzzled why you would need so much. But I suppose it would require quite a bit to contaminate two houses, wouldn’t it?”
The room erupted into chatter. James turned away, making his way toward Laura. He needed to be with her, touch her, as if to assure himself that she was there and well. Tessa said something to Laura, and she pivoted to face James.
She held herself erect, her expression guarded, and it crashed in on James that whatever he felt, whatever had happened, things were still not well between them. He stopped short and shoved his hands into his pockets. Neither of them spoke.
“James!” Tessa was quick to take up the conversational slack. “Darling! This is astonishing. Why on earth would Mr. Netherly try to kill you?”
“I’ve no idea. I can only assume he hoped to persuade you to marry him and thought I would be an impediment.”
“But I would never have married him!” Tessa said, astounded. “I assure you, I gave him no encouragement to think so.”
“It’s puzzling, but the evidence was clear.”
Tessa continued to chatter, and Walter was full of questions. James shifted impatiently. All he wanted was to get Laura away from everyone so that he could talk to her in private. Annoyingly, Laura continued to regard him in that assessing way . . . which could not possibly be a good sign.
“Laura, I want to talk to you,” he said abruptly, abandoning any attempt at subtlety, and took her arm.
As he did so, his mother exclaimed, “Of course you do. Laura was such a heroine! I could scarcely believe the way she pulled away from that man.”
“Yes, and it was a damned foolish thing to do.” James scowled at Laura. “You could have been killed.”
Laura’s brows shot up. “That is what you wanted to say to me?”
She jerked her arm away and whirled, rushing from the room.