The Untamed MacKenzie

“It is why people of your class marry, isn’t it? A business arrangement. Marriage is for connections and money; love is sought with mistresses.”

In spite of the uncaring words, the look in Fellows’ eyes was bitter. Louisa knew his history—the now-deceased Duke of Kilmorgan had dallied with a tavern maid, got her with child, then deserted her. When Fellows’ mother sought the duke to tell him about the baby and ask him for help, he’d denied Fellows was his.

Fellows’ Mackenzie blood was obvious, however. At one time he’d worn a thick moustache to hide some of his features, but now that he went about clean-shaven, the resemblance to the old duke and to Hart Mackenzie was clear. Fellows had never spoken of his parentage to Louisa, but she knew the duke’s denial of him had hurt him deeply and driven him most of his life.

“My reasons for refusing the bishop have nothing to do with this,” Louisa said. “I promise you. I didn’t poison him, and I’d like to go home now.”

Fellows took a step toward her, his carelessness gone, menace returning. “I will determine what has to do with Hargate’s death and what doesn’t. You need to tell me everything, or else you’ll be stammering it in front of a magistrate. He will also know when you are lying, and unlike me, he’ll turn everything against you. Because you’re an earl’s daughter, instead of being hanged or sent to prison, you might be put into a home for genteel ladies who have gone insane, but then again, you might find yourself up before a judge who wants to make an example of you.” Another step, the light in his hazel eyes sharp. “Or, you can tell me everything, and you won’t have to face a magistrate at all.”

He was unnervingly close. Louisa smelled the outdoors on him, the fresh April wind mixed with the scent of coal smoke that clung to the wool of his coat. His words terrified her, because she knew he was right. She knew how it looked—she alone with the bishop, she serving him tea, he dropping dead at her feet. Louisa was a young woman from a scandalous family, and who knew what she might do?

His deep voice rumbled around her, stern and harsh, but Louisa wanted to cling to it, to let the sound comfort her. While he meant to frighten her, he was asking her to trust him with the truth, and with her life. He was right that she had no one else to help her.

She clenched her hands and said the words in a rush. “The Bishop of Hargate told me he would release my family from any obligation to repay him if I married him. Repay him what he’d lost because of my father, I mean. He’d relieve us of that debt and the shame of it, but only if I consented to be his wife.”

Fellows’ eyes became even more focused, frighteningly so. “He told you this in no uncertain terms?”

Louisa nodded. “Oh, he made it very clear.”

Fellows went silent for a few moments. Clouds slid across the sun, thick enough to erase the happy spring sunshine and plunge the sitting room into gloom.

When Fellows spoke again, his voice was quiet. “You know you have just outlined a perfect motive for killing him.”

“Yes, I do realize that.” Louisa swallowed on dryness. “It is one reason I was trying very hard not to tell you.”

“One reason? What is another?”

“The other reason is because it is so very embarrassing.”

Fellows studied her, his eyes still. His left cheekbone bore a deep cut, the blood dried. Black bruises surrounded the cut, the bruises moving up to his temple. The right side of his mouth had taken another cut, and scrapes decorated his cheek. Again, Louisa wanted to reach up and touch his face, to ask if he was all right. She curled her fingers into her palms.

“Did anyone else know the terms of this proposal?” Fellows asked abruptly.

“I have no idea. Mrs. Leigh-Waters knew, or guessed, the bishop would propose to me, but whether she had any hint he would try to blackmail me into accepting, I do not know.”

“Even if she didn’t know, the story will come out sooner or later,” Fellows went on in his matter-of-fact voice. No false comfort for Louisa, just unvarnished truth. “Hargate might have confided in his valet that he planned to coerce you into marrying him, or his solicitor. Or he might have boasted of it loudly at his club or a meeting of his vestry, who knows?”

“Well, I didn’t know until he sprang it on me in the tea tent,” Louisa said. “That’s a point in my favor, is it not? If I’d decided to poison him, I would have had to prepare beforehand. But I had no reason to prepare, because I had no idea what he meant to ask me. Surely that proves my innocence. I would have had to bring the poison with me to the garden party, and I assure you, Inspector, I have no vials of poison about my person.”

“Proves nothing. You might have known about Hargate’s proposal in advance. Servants gossip. Solicitors and vestrymen gossip too. You might have seen yourself pushed into accepting him and decided the only way out of marrying a man who demanded your body in exchange for forgiving your father’s debt was killing him. You could have brought the vial in your pocket or a reticule. Afterward you could have dropped the bottle in the tea tent, or surreptitiously tossed it into the garden as you walked through it, or even hidden it in this room while you waited for me. Or you might have it in your pocket now.”

Louisa’s lips parted as she listened, something cold seeping through her body. His words . . . demanded your body in exchange for forgiving your father’s debt . . . were inelegant, even harsh, but again, he was not sparing her. Truth was often ugly.