The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie

“Your obsession ends now.”

“Mrs. Ackerley—“

“My name is Lady Ian Mackenzie.” Beth reached over and yanked the bellpull behind Ian. “And from now on, you will do exactly what I say.”

Fellows went purple. “I know they’ve bamboozled you despite my best efforts. But give me one reason I shouldn’t try to expose their wrongdoings, their exploitations, how they blatantly use their power to manipulate the highest in the land, how they—“ , “Enough. I take your point. But you must stop, Inspector.” “Why should I?”

Beth smiled at him. “Because I know your secret.”

Fellows’s eyes narrowed. “What secret?”

“A very deep one. Ah, Katie, just bring that package I had you buy the other day, will you?”

Chapter Twenty-three

Fellows stared at her. Ian straightened from his negligent sprawl, suddenly focusing on Beth.

“What secret?” Ian demanded.

“You don’t know nuthing.” Fellows sounded as Cockney as Curry.

Katie waltzed back into the room carrying the package Beth had instructed her to have ready. Her eyes were full of curiosity. Beth hadn’t confided in her, and she’d been very annoyed about it. “Is this the one you mean?” she said. “You going to a fancy-dress ball or something?” Beth took the package and opened it on the table next to the chaise. Ian rose and towered over her, as curious and mystified as Katie.

Beth turned around again, holding up the package’s contents.

“Would you indulge me, Inspector? Put these on?” Fellows’s face drained of color, and his eyes became fixed, like those of an animal in fear. “No,” he snapped. “I think you’d better,” Mac said quietly. He folded his arms against his wide chest and stood like a wall behind Fellows. Beth walked straight to the inspector. Fellows backed away rapidly, only to bump against Mac behind him. Ian stepped beside him to cut off any other retreat. “Do as she says,” Ian said.

Fellows went still, rigid and shaking. Beth lifted the false whiskers and beard Katie had purchased for her and held them to Fellows’s face.

“Who is he?” she asked.

The room went silent with shock.

“Son of a bitch,” Mac whispered.

“Blimey,” Katie said. “He looks just like that bloody awful painting of that hairy man on the staircase at Kilmorgan. Gives me the creeps, that thing does. Eyes follow you everywhere.”

“So there is a resemblance,” Fellows said to Beth. “What of it?”

Beth lowered the pieces of hair. Fellows was sweating.

“Perhaps you should tell them,” Beth said. “Or I can. My friend Molly knows your mum.”

“My mother has nothing to do with tarts.”

“Then how do you know Molly’s a game girl?”

Fellows glared. “I’m a policeman.”

“You’re a detective, and Molly never worked in your beat when you were a constable. She told me.” “Who is your mother?” Mac asked in a stern voice. “You mean to say you don’t know?” Fellows swung around to face the brothers. “After all these years of taunting me, of rubbing my face in your wealth and privilege? You even almost cost me my job, damn your eyes, my only way of making a living. But you didn’t care about that Why should you care that I’m the only one that looks after ray mother?”

“They truly don’t know, Inspector,” Beth interrupted. She wrapped up the false beard and handed the package to a smug-looking Katie. “Men often can’t see what’s beyond the tips of their noses.”

“I’m an artist,” Mac interjected. “I am supposed to be a brilliant observer, and I never saw it.”

“But you paint women,” Beth said. “I’ve seen your paintings, and if a man is in them, they’re vague and in the background.”

Mac conceded. “The fairer sex is much more interesting.” “When I saw the portrait of your father at Kilmorgan, the resemblance struck me.” She smiled. “Inspector Fellows is your half brother.”

Hart’s sitting room filled with Mackenzies. Curry bustled in with them, and the other three manservants hovered in the doorway, looking worried and curious at the same time. Beth was breathing hard, shaky from her trip down the stairs, and Ian made her sit next to him on the sofa. Why he believed he could keep Beth out of trouble, he didn’t know. She was headstrong and had a will of steel. His own mother had been a victim of his father, terrified of him. Beth’s mother had been a victim as well, but Beth had somehow managed to transcend the horrors of her childhood. Her troubles had made her courageous and unflinching, characteristics that had been lost on the idiotic Mather. Beth was worth saving, worth protecting, like the rarest of porcelains. Hart entered last, his eagle gaze taking in his brothers, Beth, and Fellows. Fellows was on his feet, facing them all under the room’s high ceiling.

“Who is your mother?” Hart asked him in his cool ducal voice.

Beth answered for the inspector. “Her name is Catherine Fellows, and they take rooms in a house near St. Paul’s Churchyard.”

Hart transferred his gaze to Fellows, looking the man up and down as though seeing him for the first time. “She’ll have to be moved to better accommodation.” Fellows blustered. “Why the devil should she? Because you couldn’t abide the shame if someone found out?”