The Unwanted Heiress (8 page)

Sudden Deaths, &c.—Information should be sent to the coroner in all cases of sudden or accidental death, or death by violence, or in cases where persons are found dead, or die under suspicious circumstances.
—
Constable’s Pocket Guide

Rather than cause panic, Lady Beatrice and her indulgent parents decided not to inform all their guests about Lady Anne’s tragedy. They condescended to send for a Bow Street runner, however, when Nathaniel insisted.

An investigation was better than letting Lady Anne’s father, Lord Telford, hear a lot of false rumors and mete out his own justice. Telford had the right to challenge whoever had murdered his daughter to a duel, and Nathaniel was uncomfortably aware that if Lord Telford spoke to Sir Henry, Nathaniel might find himself looking down the barrel of a pistol.

He couldn’t forget the angry glances in the garden after they found the body. Apparently, Bolton had busied himself encouraging the notion that Nathaniel had been involved in Lady Anne’s death. If he
had not been a duke, he had no doubt that he would have been beaten soundly and remanded to the hangman after a brief trial by his peers.

While they waited for the coroner, Nathaniel escorted
Lady Anne’s confused parents into a private room and explained what had happened. Upon learning of their daughter’s death, Lady Telford moaned and half-fainted into her husband’s arms.

“Brandy!” Nathaniel ordered, sending a footman to fetch a bottle with several glasses. “
I am terribly sorry about Lady Anne. If there is anything I can do, please let me know—I am at your service at any time.”

Hugging his wife, Telford raised his head briefly to nod at Nathaniel. When their carriage arrived, Nathaniel helped the men carefully place Lady Anne’s body, wrapped in her cloak, inside. Her mother stood sobbing in her husband’s arms while the earl watched, his face as white as his neckcloth.

“I cannot—” Lady Telford broke off with a sob. “I cannot go in the carriage with her. I cannot bear it.”

Lord Telford pressed his wife’s face into his shoulder while she cried. “Hush, we
will wait for the return of the carriage. Hush.”

They sat down and huddled together on a bench in one of the private rooms, staring dully at the floor, their gray faces creased with exhaustion and shock.

“Use mine,” Nathaniel said, gesturing to a footman. “There is no need for you to wait here. My driver can bring the carriage back for me later.”

Mumbling his thanks, Lord Telford put an arm around his wife. When the carriage arrived, the couple stumbled outside and climbed into the vehicle.

Once the grieving parents left, Nathaniel and several other men, including Bolton, went back out to the garden where the body had been found. The Bow Street runner, Mr. Clark, was already there, making annotations in his occurrence book. After a few questions, Nathaniel noticed more dark glances cast his way. More and more attention focused on him. There were not many clues, and several guests had seen Nathaniel in the gardens.

“I was
not there at the time,” Bolton said, staring at Nathaniel from under lowered brows. “But several others saw His Grace leaving the garden at a run.”

The enmity Bolton held toward Nathaniel did not surprise him
, and Nathaniel returned Bolton’s dislike. The man was a sore loser and preferred complaints to action.

“His Grace was in the garden at the time of the murder?” Mr. Clark confirmed, writing something with a stubby pencil into his book. He flicked a quick, apologetic glance at Nathaniel. “Well, there could have been any one of a number of reasons why His Grace would be dashing through the shrubbery.”

“Before that, he was dancing with poor Lady Anne. He was laughing, knowing he planned to kill her!” Bolton said, his brows beetling over his dark, deep-set eyes. “He danced with her three times!”

“Now, sir, there
is nobody who knows what another body is thinking,” Mr. Clark replied in a soothing tone.

“Why
would I want to kill her?” Nathaniel interrupted.

Bolton leaned toward Nathaniel, his fists clenched and his face flushed. “Because
you are a damn misogynist—you hate women!”

“I don’t hate women! Why would I dance with her thrice if I hated her?” Nathaniel felt his own temper rise in response to Bolton’s anger. He turned partially away, deliberately maintaining a casual appearance.

Bolton shrugged but didn’t back down. “If you are not, then why are you always throwing them out of your carriage and running the other way when one dares to greet you on the street? If you ask me, this is just the first we have discovered. There have probably scores of others you have murdered, and there will be more. I don’t care if you are a duke. You cannot say you were not in the garden when Lady Anne died! For all we know, you dance with all your victims three times before you kill them!”

“I was in the garden, but I had nothing to do with
Lady Anne’s accident. In fact, I was speaking to my uncle’s ward, Miss Haywood, on the terrace.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Clark replied, mopping his brow with a large white handkerchief. “
I am sure we all appreciate your patience with this terrible affair. Although it is a mere formality, can this ward of your uncle’s verify your whereabouts the entire time?”

“Part of the time. Have you thought to examine the clothing of those who were seen in the garden?”

“Not yet, Your Grace.”

“You should consider doing so,” Nathaniel suggested in a calm, almost bored, voice. “In fact, I believe we should start with those standing here.”

The muscles in Bolton’s jaw clenched as the color in his florid face grew deeper. “Just what are you trying to prove?”

“Nothing, other than the identity of the murderer,” Nathaniel replied smoothly. “Don’t you want to discover who killed Lady Anne?”

“Yes, damn you!” Bolton held out his hands. They were smeared with black earth, bits of grass and long reddish streaks of dried blood. “I have blood on me, it is true. But I touched her to see if she was alive. I helped carry the body inside.”

“No one is blaming you, Bolton,” Nathaniel said, having a difficult time keeping the sarcasm out of his voice. “The stains on your hands are from touching dried blood, not fresh.” Then, he held up his own hands, pulling his white cuffs further out from his sleeves. “Look carefully, gentlemen.
You will find no bloodstains on me.”

He gestured to the statuette lying on the ground next to Mr. Clark. “I could not have bludgeoned her without some sort of stain—”

“That doesn’t prove your innocence,” Bolton said.

“And I was so thoughtful in trying to prove yours,”
Nathaniel murmured.

Clark scrutinized the ground where the body had been found and picked up the statuette, staring at the blood-stained cheeks. “It might have been possible to hit her from behind with this and not get any blood on you.
”

“
Possible, but not very likely.” Nathaniel moved the lantern over the grass, letting the circle of light hover over several dark spots. “Look! There and there—blood. If it sprayed onto the lawn in this fashion, how could the murderer have escaped without getting any on his clothing?”

“It i
s possible,” Bolton repeated. “Cowardly trick, hitting a girl from behind. I daresay you could have managed to avoid the blood.”

The Bow Street runner dutifully noted the information. “A duke has no need to be bashing young women over their heads,” he replied after closing his notebook and turning to address Lord Thatcher, Lady Beatrice’s father. “
I will need a guest list, my lord.”

“Certainly.
I will send it over to you on the morrow.”

“
Then I will just nip out one more time to speak to a few witnesses if you gentlemen don’t mind. And would you have a sack for the statuette used in the commission thereof?”

Lord Thatcher gave hurried orders to one of the footman standing near the edge of the terrace, positioned to keep curious guests away from the gardens. The rest of the men quietly drifted indoors, entering the ballroom to collect their families and return home.

It was a sad end to the evening.

When he got to the door, Nathaniel prayed his carriage had returned. Fiddling with his cane and gloves he requested his coach and stood near the door, trying not to pace.

“Your Grace,” the butler said with a bow. “Your coach stands ready.”

“Thank you,” Nathaniel replied with relief.

He strode through the door and down the stairs so rapidly that he skipped several steps. A footman idled at the side of the carriage, and when he saw Nathaniel, he opened the door.

Nathaniel leapt inside. Barely seated, he sniffed and then sneezed. Thick rose-scented perfume filled the enclosed space.

From his right came a light, nervous titter.

He stuck his head out the window and gasped for breath
before he asked, “Who are you?”

Another laugh greeted his question.

Thankfully, his driver had to wait for another carriage to pass and the vehicle had not moved. “Lansbury! Stop. Don’t go anywhere. I’ve forgotten something.”

“Your Grace!” the woman exclaimed.

He recognized her voice. “Lady Alice—I beg your pardon. My driver will take you wherever you wish to go.”

With those words, he flung the door open and jumped down. Before shutting the coach door, he stuck his head back inside. “Oh, and bon nuit!” He slammed the door shut and slapped the coat of arms on the side. “Lansbury, take Lady Alice to her home. Don’t worry about me
, I fancy a walk. Oh, and Lansbury, tell Mrs. Evans to make a thorough, very thorough, search of the house. We don’t want any surprises tomorrow morning.”

Nathaniel sighed and watched Lansbury flick his whip over the heads of the horses. The carriage finally lumbered away.

However, before he could turn back to the sidewalk, someone clapped Nathaniel on the back. He nearly jumped out of his clothes.

“Bravo!”
Peter Harnet said between chuckles.

Nathaniel glared at his closest friend’s unlined face. He felt years older than Harnet, althou
gh they were both twenty-eight.

“Lucky escape, that. Which one was it this time?”

“Lady Alice,” Nathaniel replied shortly.

She’d slipped out ahead of him and hidden in his coach, most likely on instructions from her mother. Perhaps it was time to stop riding in coaches and particularly ones with his crest on the side.

“Umm. You could do worse. Young, pretty and moderately wealthy. Sure you don’t fancy being compromised by her?”

“No, and you
would think they would be a little more concerned about their safety after what transpired tonight.” He glared after his coach.

The dark-haired, blue-eyed beauty did not interest him in the slightest
, at least not after he had caught her last month trying a similar trick on an elderly, widowed earl who had absent-mindedly entered a maze during a costume ball. Nathaniel was on his way out of the shrubbery, having entered the dark labyrinth at night on a wager. He claimed he could get to the ornamental pergola in the middle and find his way back out in twenty minutes without getting himself entangled with any one of a number of stray females wandering the grounds. Unlike the earl, Nathaniel had been extremely careful to ensure he was quite alone during his rambles.

The old earl had been embarrassingly grateful when Nathaniel found him and guided him out in time to save the decrepit peer from an unexpected engagement. And
Nathaniel had collected his wager and considered the entire affair a good night’s work.

In contrast, Lady Alice had not been so pleased. She had to find her own way out of the maze since the remaining men found it too perilous to volunteer as her guide. Sadly, the redoubtable Peter Harnet had not been in attendance.

“Yes, but everyone knows a duke would not commit murder,” Harnet remarked. “And come to think on it, I would not mind being compromised. Too bad Lady Alice does not seem interested in younger sons.”

Nathaniel laughed. “Not yet. Give her time
, or hang about a few mazes during costume balls.”

If any of the ladies would chance it in the future.

“Say, about that ward of your uncle’s,” Harnet said in a deceptively offhanded manner. “What about an introduction to her? I hear she is rich as a Prince of Persia.”

“No.” Natha
niel eyed him. The idea of Harnet chasing Miss Haywood was so revolting that Nathaniel had a hard time restraining the urge to break his best friend’s jaw. “She’s not interested in men.”

Harnet
laughed. “Oh—ho, not that hoary old tale. A girl like her—”

“What do you mean,
‘a girl like her?’” Nathaniel asked, his hands forming tight fists.

“Why, did you
not notice her bosom? You know what they say about women with small, high breasts—they are the most ardent lovers. I would not mind—”

Nathaniel’s
fist connected soundly with Peter Harnet’s jaw, knocking him halfway across the street. Shaking his head and feeling his chin gingerly, Harnet stumbled to his feet. After a moment, he staggered over to the sidewalk.