An Artless Demise Page 13

  This was not the first time we’d asked Jeffers to undertake such a task, but it never ceased to amuse me how much enjoyment our fastidious butler seemed to derive from it. Apparently, he had a hidden yearning for adventure. One that might better explain his eagerness to accept a position in the household of a pair of inquiry agents known to have faced more than their fair share of disruption and danger. He practically became giddy when he uncovered any information that might be of importance.

  I hid my grin behind the newspaper as I perused Mr. Day’s article about Feckenham’s murder. It focused on the details Gage had shared and did, indeed, include our request for further information. But Mr. Day also couldn’t resist inserting a mention of bodysnatchers and their possible, if unlikely, connection to the murder. I shook my head good-humoredly. The sensational sold newspapers. I knew this well. At least the man hadn’t descended into rampant speculation.

  “What of the other papers? How did they report the crime?” I asked, folding the Observer and setting it aside.

  “They’re fairly sparse. Not much of interest.”

  However, the bland tone of his voice was too determined, and his proclamation that the stories held little of interest patently false. I glanced up to find him absorbed in his breakfast, the newspaper at the top of his stack turned to some financial page. If Gage paid any attention to matters of economics, it was not at the breakfast table.

  “That’s doing it much too brown, darling.” I held out my hand, demanding he give me the papers.

  He hesitated for a moment, the solemn look in his eyes making my nerves tighten, but he relented. No doubt realizing it was better for me to discover what was being bandied about in print here in my own home rather than somewhere more public.

  What good cheer I had greeted the morning with dissipated as I caught sight of some of the headlines: Possible Burking in Mayfair. Dark Deeds in the West End. Earl’s Heir Targeted by Burkers.

  Picking up one to peruse its contents, I was frustrated to find it filled with few details and a great deal of conjecture. It didn’t help that the articles surrounding it were tales of attempted burkings on the streets of London after dark. Though we’d known through Gage’s contact at the police that such reports were on the rise, this was the first evidence of their sheer volume, and the first time they’d been listed in print for public consumption. Some were obviously products of the public’s paranoia—a robbery or attempted assault transformed into a bungled attempt at burking. Others were not so clear. Either way, they had the potential to incite panic. Which meant that, regardless of the facts of the matter, the word burking would continue to haunt our inquiry into Feckenham’s murder until proven otherwise.

  I slapped the last paper down, scowling at it. “Perhaps you should have risked addressing all the newspapermen. Maybe then they wouldn’t have resorted to this . . .” I gestured at the print “. . . this fabrication.”

  Gage set down his coffee cup. “It may seem that way, but no. They still would have printed what they wished. And they might have added some sly reminder of your past experience with such matters.” His brow furrowed. “We can be thankful at least they didn’t do that.”

  “Thankful” was not the response I had in mind, but I grasped what he meant. Either way, things were growing ever more complicated.

  As if the fates were determined to oblige this thought, Jeffers returned to the room carrying a silver salver. “This missive was delivered for you, my lady.”

  I plucked the smudged paper from the gleaming tray, curious who would have sent me such a soiled missive. Perhaps the footman or errand boy who delivered it had dropped it. I did not recognize the handwriting, and flipping it over, I discovered the seal was unstamped. Baffled, I slit it open with my butter knife and unfolded the single page.

  I frowned at the poor penmanship and spelling as I began to read. All too swiftly my confusion turned to dismay and then outright horror. Suddenly I felt like I couldn’t draw breath. My chest constricted as if I’d been punched in the abdomen. And whether it was the child protesting this treatment or my own stomach rejecting the little food I’d eaten, my insides cramped with fear.

  “Kiera, you’ve gone pale. What is it?” I heard my husband ask, his voice tight with concern. But I could not respond, only stare at the words before me, blinking rapidly as if that would change them or clear them from my sight.

  “Kiera?”

  I made some attempt at speech, which emerged as more of a mewl, and then Gage snatched the paper from my hand. I did not resist. But neither could I sit and watch him read it.

  Air rushed back into my lungs as I pushed back from the table, the chair scraping against the floor and nearly toppling over in my haste. I whirled toward the windows, my hands shaking as I gripped the sill. I couldn’t see Gage, and he made no sound, but I could imagine the shock radiating through him as it had through me moments earlier.

  My lady,

  You may not no us, but we no you. Just like we new Sir Anthony Darby. He called us his paticular Friends. Asked us to call on him in Henrietta Street at the creeper covered blue Door with certain Subjects he rekwested. Such paticulars as we hold we thinks woud be of Interest to the Papers. Specially them that pertain to you. And we thinks they will not care whether these Paticulars can be prooved.

  If you do not want these Secrets printed in the Papers to besmirch you and your husband’s name, we woud be obliged to foreget them if you saw fit to reward us in Sir Anthony’s usual manner.

  By the time Gage joined me at the window, I’d at least regained some measure of self-possession, if not all my faculties. He didn’t attempt to touch me, perhaps realizing that if he had I would have retreated from him.

  “I take it the creeper-covered blue door is familiar to you,” he murmured, staring out at the soft white candytuft blooms bordering the terrace.

  It took me a few moments to gather my words. “Yes. The . . . the door at the back of Sir Anthony’s house. It led to the cellar.”

  “Where he . . . conducted his research?”

  Had the discussion not been so fraught, I might have laughed at this polite bit of understatement. “Yes.”

  He nodded, pausing before he ventured his next question. “What is it that you think they know?”

  I glanced sideways at him into his steady gaze. His calm, matter-of-fact manner of speaking loosened the alarm gripping my chest.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Not . . . not for certain.”

  “But you have a guess? A fear?”

  My eyes dropped, unable to hold his sympathetic gaze. “Yes.” I swallowed, trying to force down the lump of dread blocking my throat. “The . . . the number of bodies he purchased. The manner in which they were procured. The instructions he gave to acquire what he sought. The reason . . .” But at this, I shook my head, balking at speaking my next thought, my greatest fear. “Frankly, it doesn’t matter. With enough details in their possession, they could lie and say whatever they wish. About Sir Anthony. About me. And most of London would believe them,” I finished in a low voice.

  His eyes flashed, allowing some of his tightly restrained emotion to slip through. “I don’t give a fig about Sir Anthony. But for them to wrongfully implicate you . . .” His hands tightened into fists at his side. “That’s a problem.”

  I didn’t need Gage to point that out. My heart already raced with the panic I’d felt so many times during the weeks after the scandal over my involvement with Sir Anthony’s work erupted. I’d thought to never feel that again, but the lurching sensation of my pulse flooded me with memories. The anxiety I’d thought I’d learned to control made my skin prickle and my stomach turn.

  “Do you know who these blackmailers are? Could they be these men on trial—Bishop, Williams, and May?” Gage asked.

  “I don’t know. I told you, I never met the resurrectionists Sir Anthony purchased from
! I don’t know their names. I don’t even know what they look like.”

  He took hold of my arms. “I know, Kiera. I’m sorry. I’m merely trying to make sense of this.”

  “Well, I am, too!”

  He gathered me close, even as I stood rigidly in his embrace, staring over his shoulder. “I know this is a shock for you. I’m not accusing you of lying or withholding anything. I’m merely trying to garner information so we can decide what to do next.” He pulled back far enough to see my face, though he did not remove his arms from around me. “You’re my wife. I’m not going to abandon you to face this alone.”

  I knew he said this to reassure me, but the swirling in my stomach only worsened at this reminder that my life and reputation were no longer all that was at risk. If I was ostracized or worse, he would be also. And so would our innocent child.

  But even worse than society’s disfavor, if the London mob were to somehow seize hold of us . . .

  I shuddered at the thought.

  In response to my shiver, his hands rubbed up and down my arms and his lips curled into an encouraging smile. But he hadn’t been in London when my scandal broke. He hadn’t seen the way society crossed the street to avoid me, or read the words printed about me in the newspapers. He hadn’t witnessed the snarling, angry mob outside the Bow Street Magistrates’ Office. And now the terrified populace hovered on a knife’s edge because of the Italian Boy’s murder, waiting to take their enmity out on any likely suspect. One which I fit quite handily.

  “I suppose we could pay the criminals what they wish,” he proposed. “But I dislike that course of action for a number of reasons. The first and foremost being, I despise the idea of blackmail. The second, that they might decide they can extort us for more money in the future. It sets a dangerous precedent.” His head tilted in thought. “Do you have any idea what they meant when they referred to rewarding them in Sir Anthony’s usual manner?”

  I shook my head. “I never really gave the matter much thought. I guess I always assumed Sir Anthony or his butler paid them directly when they delivered a subject.”

  “Then we couldn’t pay their demands even if we decided to.”

  “Unless they expect us to ask Stilton.” I paused to consider. “If he’s even still employed by Sir Anthony’s heir. From what I could tell, he didn’t approve of his nephew, and the feeling was mutual.”

  Gage looked up as the door opened behind me. “Jeffers, who delivered this missive for my wife?” he asked, moving forward to lift it from the table where he’d dropped it. “Was it an errand boy, or did it come by post?”

  His expression didn’t reveal even a flicker of surprise at such an unorthodox question. “I shall have to inquire, sir. One of the footmen accepted the delivery.”

  “Please do.”

  He bowed and departed as Gage turned back to me.

  “Maybe there’s a way we can trace the letter back to whoever sent it.”

  This seemed like a genuine possibility. Although the men hadn’t signed their names to the missive for obvious reasons, it was doubtful they’d gone to great lengths to keep their identities secret. And if they had paid a messenger not to snitch, his allegiance could probably be swayed by a few coins.

  Gage coaxed me back to the table, where my food and cup of chocolate had grown cold. I pushed aside the stack of newspapers with their morbid headlines glaring up at me, feeling I somehow should have foreseen this blackmail letter coming.

  After all, the public’s awareness was now heightened. For the moment, bodysnatchers would find their usual method of plying their trade seriously hindered. Those who typically turned a blind eye to such a thing would now be vigilant and unwilling to dismiss them so easily. In the meantime, they had a living to make, and as few of them had legitimate employment, extortion seemed the likeliest option. The only shock should have been that someone had not tried to do so to me before. But then I hadn’t returned to London until three months prior, and there hadn’t been the inquest into the Italian Boy providing extra inducement to comply with their demands.

  A few moments later, Jeffers returned with our footman, Samuel. “He says an errand boy delivered the message. I thought you might wish to question him about the lad.”

  “Yes, very good, Jeffers,” Gage replied before addressing the footman. “Did you get a good look at the boy?”

  Samuel clasped his hands behind him, rocking back on his heels. “I would say so, sir. Though I can’t say there was anything unique about him. He looked much like all the others. About twelve years old. Short. Dark hair under a cap. Though now that I think of it, this one appeared a bit neater than some of the others I’ve seen.”

  “Did he look like one of the Italian Boys?” Gage remarked, voicing the same question that had formed in my mind.

  “Yes, sir. Very like.”

  Gage’s gaze swiveled to meet mine before he addressed Samuel and Jeffers again. “If either of you or the staff should happen to see the lad again, detain him. But do not do so harshly. We have some questions we need to put to him, and it would be best if he was in a cooperative frame of mind.”

  “It could be a coincidence,” I ventured after the servants had departed.

  “It could,” Gage conceded, and then grimaced. “But I doubt it. It seems far more probable they wished to scare you.”

  I stirred the chocolate in my cup listlessly. “Or implicate me by having an Italian Boy seen near our home.” I refused to flinch from the truth.

  His expression turned blacker, perhaps recalling, as I already had, what Lord Melbourne had said about how spiteful the resurrectionists could be. In the course of our previous inquiries, we had become associates of a sort with the head of one of the largest criminal gangs in Edinburgh, all in the pursuit of the greater good. But we would be fools to delude ourselves into thinking these bodysnatchers were in any way the same. We could not make the mistake of believing they had the least amount of honor, or that they would hesitate to inflict harm.

  “Perhaps Goddard, my friend with the Bow Street Runners, might know how to trace these fellows.” His eyes narrowed at the letter where he’d laid it on the table before him. “Or at least have some idea who the plausible culprits are. I’ll send a message to him at the Great Marlborough Street Police Office asking him to meet with us.” He sat taller, seeming relieved to have a course of action to take.

  “We should also inform Bree and Anderley. Maybe they have some insights we do not.” I suggested.

  He nodded. “Anderley has been spending enough time in the dredges of London on this Italian Boy inquiry. He might even recognize them if he happens to see them skulking about. Or if the errand boy returns again.”

  I studied his pensive countenance, wondering again at Anderley’s connection to all of this. “You trust him greatly, don’t you?”

  Gage glanced up in distraction, but his attention swiftly focused, as if he sensed all the words behind that small query I hadn’t said. I’d never asked about their history together. Never questioned why they worked so well together, why they seemed to fall into a familiar rhythm. But this investigation seemed different somehow, though I couldn’t figure out exactly why.

  “With my life,” he replied seriously, and then amended it. “With your life.” His gaze dipped to include that of the child I carried.

  I lifted a hand to cover the precious mound of my stomach, opening my mouth to voice my next question, but he rose to his feet before I could do so.

  “I’ll pen that letter to Goddard now. The sooner he can meet with us, the better.” He rounded the table to drop a kiss on my head before beating a hasty retreat.

  He’d known I was going to ask further questions about Anderley. I was certain of it. What I wasn’t certain of was why he was so determined to dodge them.

  I knew next to nothing about Anderley’s past. I’d never needed to. But I suddenly real
ized that, even with my keen artist’s eye and sharp intuition, I’d deduced very little about him. Very little beyond what he allowed me to. He was somewhat of a chameleon, shifting guises as the situation called for, but almost always steady and contained.

  He was darkly attractive, fiercely loyal, and possessed a mischievous sense of humor—one that did not quail at being made the figure of amusement. His valet skills were unmatchable, as evidenced by Gage’s impeccable appearance and his ability to meet even the most absurd of his master’s whims. But he could also ride, shoot, and engage in fisticuffs as well or better than any man I’d ever known. He had a decided affinity for the theatrical, and a pleasing tenor singing voice. If not for the fact he’d been with Gage for nearly fourteen years, since his days at Cambridge, I might have believed him an actor playing a part.

  There was but one thing I’d been able to recognize in him that it was evident he’d not wished me to—his ability to blunt his emotions, to stifle and pack them away and refuse to give them sway. I recognized that capacity in him because I also possessed it. It was how I’d survived my marriage to Sir Anthony. Since meeting Gage, I’d been freed from such a necessity, but the ability never went away. It was still an impulse I had to suppress whenever the situation was fraught or I feared Gage’s reaction.

  Anderley had only recently begun to display more than polite regard for me, and I supposed I was the same with him. Our mutual mistrust had meant we hadn’t taken to one another easily. Perhaps because we’d realized what that mistrust meant—that we were each hiding a deep pain.

  Maybe that was why we were both so devoted to Gage. For he’d also sensed that in us, drawn us out, and attached himself to us anyway.

  I turned to stare out the windows at the orange and gold leaves of the ash tree in the garden. Given this devotion, it would take much for Gage to break his valet’s trust and reveal his past. I could not ask that of him. Not unless it became necessary. For although I sensed it had some bearing on this inquiry into the Italian Boy, it was but a peripheral matter. Let him keep his secrets. As I would keep mine.