Mistress (26 page)

“This is Number Eleven.” Marcus frowned at the darkened windows of the Wycherley Agency. “The agency appears to be closed for the day.”

“How odd.” Iphiginia studied the drawn curtains that blanked both windows and the door. “It is not yet four in the afternoon.”

“Perhaps Mrs. Wycherley was forced to close the premises early for some personal reason.”

“One would think that she would have staff to keep the office open.”

“True.” Marcus walked to the door and twisted the knob experimentally. “Locked.”

Iphiginia looked up. The two stories above the agency premises were also dark. “I wonder if Mrs. Wycherley lives above her place of business.”

“Very likely.” Marcus stepped back to survey the upper stories. “But if she is at home, she is definitely not receiving visitors.”

“She may be ill.”

“Manwaring told you that he spoke with her yesterday. Did he mention that she appeared to be ailing?”

“No. But that doesn’t mean she did not fall ill during the night,” Iphiginia said. “Perhaps she left for a visit to the country.”

“In which case,” Marcus said with a speculative expression, “the shop and the rooms above are very likely empty.”

Iphiginia gave him a sharp glance. “Are you about to suggest what I think you are about to suggest?”

“You know me so well, Iphiginia.” Marcus took her hand. He glanced both ways up and down the street to be certain that no one was paying any attention to them. “Come. There is no harm in our taking a quick look ’round back.”

Iphiginia did not protest as he led her to the end of the short street and around the corner into the alley. “But what do you hope to find?”

“Who knows? One of the first rules of scientific inquiry is to ask a great many questions.”

“What questions are you asking right now?”

“Why a successful, long-established business would close so early in the day.”

Iphiginia got a distinctly uneasy sensation. “Especially the day after my man of affairs interviewed the owner and asked her about one of her former clients?”

“Precisely.”

Marcus led the way down the alley behind the row of
shopfronts. He stopped in front of the back door of Number Eleven and knocked softly.

There was no response. He reached for the doorknob and tried it carefully. “This door is locked also.”

Iphiginia looked at the small-paned windows that flanked the door and saw that the one on the right was ajar. “Look, Marcus.”

He followed her gaze. “It appears as though someone left in a great hurry and forgot to secure all the windows.”

“Yes, it does.”

Marcus eased open the unlocked window, moved the curtain aside, and peered into the interior of the shop.

Iphiginia crowded close behind him. “Can you see anything?”

“Not much. The room is rather dark. The curtains are drawn shut. Hold on a minute.” He opened the window all the way and then stepped back to study the situation. “Damn. I do not think that I will be able to fit through that opening.”

Iphiginia studied the situation. “I can fit through it.”

Marcus looked at her. “If you think that I am going to allow you to go through that window—”

“Marcus, be reasonable. I shall simply slip through the opening and immediately unlock the door for you. You will be inside with me in no time.”

“Hmm.” He hesitated, clearly torn. “Very well. But don’t waste a moment once you’re inside. Go right to the door.”

“I will.” Iphiginia went to stand in front of the open window. It was too far off the ground for her to be able to simply step through it. “You’ll have to help me.”

“I can see that.” Marcus fitted his hands to her waist and lifted her effortlessly off the ground.

Iphiginia shivered, remembering the feel of his hands on her bare skin two nights ago. He was so strong and yet she felt so safe when she was in his embrace.

“Hurry, Iphiginia.”

“Yes, of course.” She shook off the hot memories and concentrated on the matter at hand.

Scrambling through the window proved unexpectedly awkward. Iphiginia was hampered by the long, ruffled skirts of her white muslin walking dress and matching spencer.

“Good God,” Marcus muttered somewhere behind her. “How many petticoats do you have on under your gown? I am about to drown in them.”

“It was rather chilly today.” Iphiginia was intensely aware of his hand on the calf of her leg.

A few seconds later she landed on her feet inside the shadowed room. She reached out to steady herself. Her fingers brushed against a sheaf of papers that were lying on a nearby table. Several sheets of foolscap drifted to the floor at her feet.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured.

“What’s wrong?” Marcus demanded instantly.

“Nothing serious. I knocked some papers to the floor.” Iphiginia stooped to retrieve them. She stared in amazement as her eyes began to adjust to the gloom. “Good grief. Marcus, there are papers and ledgers and such scattered about everywhere. The place looks as though a whirlwind went through it.”

“Open the door. Quickly.”

Iphiginia straightened and went to the back door. She unlocked it. Marcus strode into the shop and shut the door behind himself. He stood still for a moment, gazing into the shadows.

“Bloody hell,” he said softly. “The place has been ransacked.”

Iphiginia stared at the chaos around them. “What do you think happened here?”

“I don’t know.” Marcus moved toward the narrow staircase that led to the private rooms above the shop. “Wait here. I want to take a quick look around upstairs.”

Iphiginia ignored him. She followed him up the stairs
and came to a halt beside him in a doorway that opened onto a tiny parlor.

Here everything was in order. The folding table of the secretary desk was neatly closed. The furnishings were not tumbled about. The carpet was not littered with papers.

“This room does not appear to have been disturbed,” Iphiginia said.

“No.” Marcus turned and walked down the hall.

Iphiginia followed.

Together they looked into one small, comfortably furnished room after another and then they climbed the stairs to the top floor.

It was not until Marcus put his hand on the knob of the bedchamber door that Iphiginia was suddenly struck by a deep sense of dread.

“Marcus?”

“I’ll go in first.”

He opened the door of the last bedchamber and stood very still in the opening.

Iphiginia tried to peer around Marcus’s broad shoulders. She could see what appeared to be gray skirts and a pair of high laced shoes lying on the floor. “Oh, my God. Is that …?”

“No doubt. Stay right here.”

This time Iphiginia obeyed. She watched Marcus walk toward the body. He came to a halt beside the dead woman and knelt down to examine her.

“She was shot,” Marcus said. He touched one of the fingers of a limp hand.

“She’s …?”

“Dead. Yes.” Marcus got to his feet. “I would estimate that she has been dead for several hours.”

Iphiginia’s stomach clenched. She backed hurriedly out of the doorway, gasping for air.

Marcus walked out of the room. He looked at her with concern. “Are you all right?”

Iphiginia nodded hastily. “Yes. I think so.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here. The last thing we
want is to be discovered hanging about a dead woman’s rooms.”

Marcus took her arm and whisked her down the staircase.

“Do you think Mrs. Wycherley was robbed?” Iphiginia asked.

“No,” Marcus said. He came to a halt on the first landing and glanced into the parlor again. “If that were the case, the thief would have taken those silver candlesticks and a few other items.”

“Then what happened here?”

“I’m not positive, but I can create a hypothesis which would explain what we see.”

“What is your hypothesis?”

“I suspect that Mrs. Wycherley was the blackmailer and that your aunt and my friend were not her only victims. Nor were we the only people who managed to make the connection to the Wycherley Agency.”

“You believe that someone else came here after Mr. Manwaring talked to her yesterday?”

“Yes. It’s entirely reasonable to assume that Mrs. Wycherley was murdered by one of her victims.”

“And after he killed her the victim went through her files searching for the evidence she had used to blackmail him?”

“Yes,” Marcus said.

“Marcus, that is brilliant. It would explain everything.” Iphiginia frowned. “It also means that the crisis is over.”

“It appears that way.”

She tried to feel a sense of relief. After all, Aunt Zoe’s secret was safe once more.

But the blackmail problem was not the only thing that had disappeared, she realized. Along with it had gone her excuse for continuing her masquerade as Marcus’s mistress.

A
T SEVEN O’CLOCK THAT EVENING
M
ARCUS SAT AT THE
worktable in his laboratory and pondered the dilemma of how to turn a mistress into a wife.

It was a problem he had never thought to encounter. By comparison, the construction of clockwork mechanisms, telescopes, and hydraulic reservoir pens seemed quite simple.

He pushed aside the leather-bound notebook he had opened a few minutes earlier, leaned back in his chair, and propped his booted feet on the cluttered table.

Glumly he contemplated the clockwork butler which he had constructed last year. It stood silent and still, a silver salver in one wooden hand. On a whim, Marcus had painted a proper black coat and a white shirt on the automaton. He had even made an attempt to capture Lovelace’s air of aristocratic disdain in the cold eyes and unsmiling mouth.

Life had seemed so simple until Iphiginia had appeared in his carefully regulated universe, Marcus thought.

As though she were a shooting star flashing through the dark night, she had lit up the sky. But if he did not
find a way to catch hold of her, she would either disintegrate in a shower of sparks or fall to earth with a devastating thud.

A knock on the door of the laboratory brought Marcus out of his reverie. “Enter.”

“Marcus?” Bennet stuck his head around the door. “Thought you might be in here. Are you working?”

“No. Come in.”

Bennet walked into the room with his new languid, world-weary stride, closed the door, and approached the worktable. Marcus glanced at him and winced. His brother was very much the stormy-eyed poet again today.

Bennet’s dark hair was carefully brushed into a careless, windswept tangle. His shirt was open at his throat and he was not wearing a neckcloth or a waistcoat.

“I trust you intend to put on a cravat before you go out,” Marcus muttered. “You’ll not be allowed into any ball or soiree tonight if you show up looking as though you just got out of bed.”

“I have not yet dressed for the evening.” Bennet went to the window and slouched against the frame, ennui personified. He stood gazing out into the garden with a moody expression.

“Was there something you wanted?” Marcus finally prompted.

Bennet looked at him with hooded eyes. “I came here to tell you that I have made a decision.”

“You’re going on a tour of the Continent?” Marcus asked without much hope.

“I am going to ask Dorchester for Juliana’s hand in marriage.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Marcus, I have got to do it now. For God’s sake, don’t you understand? If I wait until I return from a tour of the Continent, Dorchester will have married her off to someone else.”

“Only if you are extremely fortunate.”

“Damn it to hell.” Bennet swung around, his expression
passionate. “I know that you do not care for Dorchester, but why must you also condemn his daughter? She’s not at all like him.”

“You think not?”

“She’s a true lady. An innocent beauty whose spirit is as pure and untarnished as … as—”

“New-fallen snow, perhaps?”

“I warn you, I will not tolerate any of your poor jests about her, Marcus.” Bennet clenched his fist. “I intend to ask for her hand, do you comprehend?”

“God save us.”

“Do you know what your problem is?”

“I have no doubt but what you will tell me.”

“You’re a bloody cynic, that’s what you are. Just because you choose to indulge yourself with outrageous little adventuresses such as Mrs. Bright, don’t presume to judge a genuine innocent.”

Marcus was out of his chair before Bennet even realized what was happening.

He vaulted over the table and crossed the room in two strides. He caught hold of Bennet’s shoulder, shoved him hard against the wall, and pinned him there.

“Don’t call her an adventuress,” Marcus said softly.

“What the hell?” Bennet’s eyes widened in stunned amazement. “She’s merely another one of your paramours, for God’s sake. Everyone knows that.”

“She is my very good friend,” Marcus said. “An insult to her is an insult to me. Do you comprehend my meaning, brother?”

“Hell and damnation, yes.” Bennet eyed him warily. “Yes, of course I comprehend you. I had no notion you were so touchy on the subject.”

Marcus held Bennet against the wall for a moment longer and then released him abruptly. “Perhaps you had better leave. I have work to do and you obviously have plans of your own.”

Bennet straightened his rumpled lapels and adjusted the cuffs of his coat. “I apologize for any offense.”

“Apology accepted. Now kindly take your leave.”

“You cannot blame me for mistaking the situation. Your sentiments concerning Mrs. Bright appear to be far stronger than the ones you generally entertain toward your lady friends,” Bennet observed.

“You would do well to remove yourself from this chamber before I lose my patience entirely.”

Bennet angled his chin. “I’m going to do it, you know. I am going to seek Juliana’s hand in marriage.”

Marcus shrugged. “You have made it plain that nothing I say will dissuade you.”

“Will you wish me luck?” There was a tentative note in Bennet’s voice.

“I regret that I cannot do so.” Marcus stood looking down at the mechanical butler. “I do not believe that you will find any lasting happiness with Juliana Dorchester.”