Secrets of the Heart (26 page)

Michael saw her thinking over his words, and he pressed his advantage. “I never intended to tell you that story. Lilith made it up on the spur of the moment, and I—I didn't know what to do.”

“So you continued to act out the lie?” Rachel asked scornfully.

“Well…yes. All right, obviously it was an idiotic thing to do. She should never have made it up, but she was only trying to help me, to keep you from being angry with me. And I did not deny it. I didn't know what to do, and once she had said that, it would have seemed even more idiotic if I had denied her words. I took the coward's way out. I said nothing. I thought it would not matter, that I would never see you again.”

“And what about when you did?” Rachel asked, crossing her arms over her chest and raising her brows at him. “What stopped you then?”

“I—oh, bloody hell!” He swung away, smashing his hand into the wall. “I was a bloody fool! There! I have no other explanation! I…wanted to be with you.”

“You are my husband! You could have been with me at any time,” Rachel pointed out.

“Not in the same way.”

“No, clearly not. Then you would not have had the fun of deceiving me, of wooing me—of making me sick with guilt and remorse, thinking that I was breaking my marriage vows, when all the time…ohhh!” She ground out the last word, swinging around and stalking away. “When I think of the things I did. The things I said. And all the time you were laughing up your sleeve at me!”

“I never laughed at you! My God, do you think I enjoyed deceiving you?”

“It certainly appears so,” Rachel retorted. “You obviously thrive on deception. You have deceived me from the moment we got married. You have had an entire life that I knew absolutely nothing about. You had a sister whom you kept secret from me. You had all these investigations, which you also kept secret from me. Even when that man stopped my carriage to warn you about the danger you were in, you lied to me. You pretended that you did not know who he was or what he was talking about. I was your wife, yet clearly that highwayman knew you better than I did!”

Michael let out a groan, plunging his hands into his hair and tugging at it. “I did not mean any wrong! I never intended to hurt you. I didn't set out to deceive you. I—it seemed foolish. I would have felt like a braggart, a crowing, swaggering cock o' the walk trying to impress a girl.”

“So you thought it was better to be a liar, instead?”

“I did not lie to you!” He paused, then added fairly, “Well, not until the highwayman stopped you.”

“Oh, so you didn't lie to me. You just neglected to tell me anything of importance about your life.”

“I—it never came up. We were rarely around one another. It was part of the life I lived at Westhampton. I—we were not close.”

“No. How could we be, when I did not know you at all?” Rachel shot back.

“You lived the life you wanted in London,” Michael retorted, old anger and resentment roughening his voice. “You did not care to be a part of my life.”

“Are you saying that your deception was my fault?”

“No, of course not. But, dammit! It isn't as if we shared a life. It isn't as if you were truly my wife or cared anything for me. And since we are speaking of deception, you are not entirely blameless, now, are you? You have been seeing Anthony Birkshaw! You swore to me that you would not, but you—”

“Twice! I saw him only twice! Just a week ago, when he came to me, begging me to let him talk to me, saying it was urgent. So I spoke with him. I did not turn him away. I listened to his problem and told him I would speak to you about it. And had you been here, I would have told you immediately. And then once more to find out more about his case. I did not try to hide anything from you. I have never tried to hide anything from you. I made one foolish mistake, and I have spent the last seven years trying to atone for it. But obviously you will never forgive me.”

“Forgive you? What do you mean? I forgave you long ago.'

“No. You tolerated me.” Rachel turned and walked back to the bed, beginning again to fill the bag with her garments. She felt suddenly weary to the bone, and so sad that she was afraid she would begin to weep.

Behind her, Michael groaned and said, “Oh, God! I've made a mess of everything.”

“We both have,” Rachel responded listlessly. “I—I am going to leave tomorrow morning. I am too tired tonight, after all.”

“Where will you go?” he asked in a voice as dead as hers.

“To Darkwater, I think. It is home, after all, and Miranda will need me before too much longer.”

“I see.”

“Please…if you don't mind, I am rather tired. I would like to go to sleep now.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Rachel did not turn around as Michael walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

 

Even as tired as she was, Rachel had trouble going to sleep, and once she finally did, she spent a restless night, waking often and lying in the dark staring up at the tester of her bed.

The next morning, when she awoke, the prospect of journeying to Darkwater filled her with little joy. Her life, she thought, would be as empty there as it was here. The impetus for her anger had dried up. She felt tired, bored and sad, and none of those conditions seemed as if they would improve with a long journey.

She put off ringing her maid to start packing her trunks and went downstairs to breakfast. Michael was there waiting for her, and only the presence of one of the footmen kept her from turning around and beating a hasty retreat.

“Good morning, Rachel,” Michael said levelly. He was as neatly and soberly dressed as ever, but the blue shadows beneath his eyes and the drawn quality of his face bespoke a night as unfulfilling as Rachel's own.

“Michael.” Rachel sat down in her chair, and the footman poured her a cup of coffee.

“That will be all, Deavers,” Michael told the footman. “Lady Westhampton and I will serve ourselves.” He nodded toward the sideboard loaded with dishes.

The footman left and Rachel set down her cup. “I—I think I will go back up to my room. I am not very hungry, I find.”

“No, please, don't go. I have something I want to talk to you about.”

Rachel remained, her eyes fixed on her plate.

“I realize that you are very angry with me right now,” Michael went on. “And you have every right to be. I—I will not be so impertinent as to ask you to give me another chance. But I would point out to you that Mr. Birkshaw is relying on you.”

“What?” Rachel was so startled that she raised her eyes to Michael's face. His statement was the last thing she would have expected him to say.

“There is the unresolved matter of his wife's death. I have been continuing to investigate it. I spent two or three evenings talking to some of the male servants in a tavern, but none of them offered anything particularly interesting, other than an indication that few people liked that chap Hargreaves and that he had not worked for the Birkshaws long before Mrs. Birkshaw was taken ill.”

“I see. What will you do next?” Rachel asked, interested despite herself.

“Well, you and I had discussed visiting Anthony Birkshaw. I thought perhaps we might do that today…if you were still in town, that is.”

Rachel looked at him for a long moment. “Are you saying that you and I should continue to work together on this investigation?”

He shrugged. “I see no reason why we cannot. I would think that you would have an interest in seeing that the truth is found out about Mrs. Birkshaw's death. You have in the past expressed a belief that I would not be entirely fair to Mr. Birkshaw. I presume your presence during the investigation and your influence upon it would ensure that he received fair treatment.”

“Are you bribing me to stay here by offering me a chance to work with you on this investigation?”

“Yes.”

A startled laugh escaped Rachel. “Well, you are very blunt this morning.”

“I am trying to be completely truthful with you,” Michael responded, and his gray eyes warmed a little with humor. “I found it much more enjoyable working with you than by myself, and our discussions were…not only pleasant but enlightening.”

He looked down at the table, seemingly finding something engrossing in the pattern of the cloth. “Please stay. Give me a chance to redeem myself.”

Rachel ignored the little flutter in her stomach. “All right,” she agreed. “I will stay to help Mr. Birkshaw.”

“Of course.” Michael raised his head and smiled at her.

Rachel stood up and went to the sideboard to fill her plate. Her appetite, she discovered, had returned.

R
achel and Michael walked to Anthony Birkshaw's house. They said little, the awkwardness that was so common to them even more pronounced than usual. Rachel glanced over at him as they walked. She wished that she could still feel the burning anger at him that she had felt last night. Then she had felt powerful. Righteous. Now all that was left of that fire was a sad ache.

At Michael's request, Rachel had not sent a note to Anthony to say that they would be calling on him. He wanted to surprise the man, Michael had explained, feeling that they would get the most honest response from him in that manner. It was clear from Anthony's expression as he came forward to greet them that they had indeed succeeded in surprising him.

“Lord Westhampton. Lady Westhampton. I—it is very good of you to visit me. Please, sit down.” He gestured vaguely toward a grouping of chairs. Would you care for some refreshment?”

At their negative response, Anthony closed the doors of the drawing room and came back to sit across from them. “Does this mean that you have learned something? Have you found out if Doreen was…?” He hesitated.

Michael shook his head. “We have learned a little. But not enough to know whether her death was by misadventure. Everyone involved at the time seems to think that it was illness.”

“Yes. So did I,” Anthony agreed.

“Then why did you approach my wife about it?” Michael asked coolly.

“Oh. I, ah…well, I just began to wonder about it. It—it seemed odd in retrospect, her dying like that. And so young.” Birkshaw broke off, glancing at Michael.

Michael gazed back at him without saying anything, his disbelief clear. Anthony looked toward Rachel as if for help, but she simply watched him, too. Anthony shifted in his chair, appearing very much as if he wanted to be elsewhere.

Finally he said, “Very well. I see I must tell it. It…is so odd, I could not bring myself to say anything before. But I—well, a few weeks ago, I received a letter, and inside it was a piece of metal.”

“Metal?” Rachel repeated, surprised.

Birkshaw nodded. “Yes, obviously snipped from a tin of rat poison. It had enough writing that I could tell as much. Arsenic, you see. Well, I had no idea what to make of that. It was disturbing. I—Was someone threatening me? Why? But then, later, I got a second letter. It had printing inside, large and awkward-looking, like a child's writing. It said, ‘Favor for favor.”'

“What?” Rachel asked. “What does that mean?”

Michael said nothing, merely watched Anthony.

“I don't know!” Anthony cried, lifting his hands. “I couldn't understand. But…but it also said, ‘Arsenic remains in the body after death.”'

He turned to Michael, his face pale and sick-looking. “I think they were talking about Doreen.”

“Why do you think so?”

“What else could it mean? I racked my brain trying to think of something. But, I mean, obviously Doreen had died of the sort of illness that could have been poison. Couldn't it?”

Michael nodded, his eyes never leaving Anthony's face. “Some poisons, certainly. Arsenic, for instance, builds up in the body. Given in small doses, it makes the person sick but doesn't kill until enough of it has built up to do so. And it does remain in the body after death—in the hair and nails.”

“It was as if they were threatening me,” Anthony said, fear in his eyes. “As though they were telling me that they could make everyone believe that
I
had killed my wife. It's absurd! But then I began to think—how can one prove that one did
not
do something?”

“Why would someone want to do that?” Michael asked. “Make it appear that you killed Mrs. Birkshaw?”

“I think—I think it must be that they want me to do something for them. This ‘favor for favor' bit. All I can think is that they are going to ask me to do something I wouldn't want to or—or, I don't know, pay them money or something, with the threat that if I do not, they will tell everyone I did it.”

Michael gave him a long look. “So you are saying that someone whom you don't know decided to kill your wife in the hopes that a few months later they could blackmail you into doing them a favor?”

“I know it sounds bizarre,” Anthony protested stiffly.

“That is something of an understatement,” Michael replied.

“But what else could it be?” Anthony's expression was frantic. “Why are they plaguing me with these things? Won't you please find out what happened? I know I have no right to ask anything of you—”

“You are correct in that.”

“But I am a desperate man. I cannot imagine what I will do if—”

“Of course we are going to help you, Mr. Birkshaw,” Rachel put in. “Why, we—he, I mean, is already working on it. Aren't you, Michael?”

“I am looking into it,” Michael agreed shortly. “My dear, I think it is time we left. Birkshaw.” He rose, nodding toward Anthony, and held out his hand to Rachel.

She took his hand and walked with him out of the room, leaving Anthony looking after them. They had barely gotten out the front door when Michael whipped around to look at her, exploding, “It's an idiot's tale! Surely he cannot expect me to believe that!”

“It is exceedingly odd,” Rachel admitted. “But does it not make you wonder why he would make up something so silly?”

“Because he has cotton batting for brains, that's why.”

Rachel could not suppress a giggle. “Perhaps. But let us look at this logically.”

“I'm not sure that is possible,” Michael retorted.

“Try,” Rachel replied firmly. She felt much better suddenly, and she realized that the reason was that the constraint between her and Michael had vanished. It was like being with James again, words flowing between them freely.

“There are only two possibilities,” she went on. “Anthony either killed his wife or he did not.”

“Agreed.”

“Now, if he killed his wife and everyone assumed she died of an illness, if even Bow Street had investigated it and come up with nothing to show that she was murdered—then why, six months later, would he start the whole thing up again by asking you to investigate her death? What could he possibly hope to accomplish by setting a man known to be superior at investigating things on his own trail? And if, for some reason we cannot fathom, he did do this, why would he then make up an idiotic story as some sort of…I'm not sure what. Alibi, I suppose? A note and a bit of a tin of rat poison are scarcely proof of innocence,” Rachel pointed out.

“I agree. It makes no sense.”

“But if he did not murder his wife, you have the same questions. Why ask you to investigate? Why give this foolish story as the reason? I cannot see why anyone would…unless it was the truth.”

Michael cast her a caustic glance. “Killing her in the hope that Mr. Birkshaw would do them a favor?”

Rachel shrugged. “I admit that it does seem a rather iffy proposition. But perhaps there is something more to it. Something we simply don't see.” She paused, then went on. “The other thing that struck me was that the fear on Anthony's face was quite real. I don't think he is pretending.”

Michael sighed. “No. I saw that, too. But perhaps the fear is that he will be caught. It is a given, you know, that it is commonly the person who benefits who is the murderer,” Michael stated firmly.

“But surely there are times when it is not so,” Rachel argued. In the heat of her argument, she unconsciously laid her hand on Michael's arm. “When someone else murders them.”

“Yes, of course.” Michael wanted to clamp his hand over hers and hold it there. It took all his willpower to continue walking and talking as if nothing had happened. “I have been working on a case where the most obvious suspects are all clearly not involved in the crime. It's been bloody hard to solve, too.” He told her the story of the Earl of Setworth's stolen illuminated manuscript, adding, “I assume that case is the one which Red Geordie went to such great lengths to warn me off from. But I cannot imagine why anyone would have been concerned about my getting too close to the truth. I was not close to anything. It was an utter failure, just like another case about a year ago. My last few cases have been rife with failure.”

“What was that one concerning?” Rachel asked. “The one a year ago.”

“A wealthy goldsmith was attacked one night after he left his shop,” Michael told her. They had reached the park across the street from their house, and he walked into it, leading her to a bench and sitting down to finish his story.

“The man was knocked over the head and killed. The assailant took his gold pocket watch and the coins that were in his pockets. Straightforward enough, one would think. Killed by a thief. Now, in those same pockets was a key that opened the door to his shop, yet the thief, who robbed him right outside the store, did not take the key and open the store and steal a great deal of very valuable gold items and money.”

“That seems very careless of him,” Rachel commented. It was so pleasant to sit there, watching Michael talk, his face animated. How was it, she wondered, that she had never before noticed how very handsome her husband was?

“The store belonged to the man who died and to his partner, a less talented fellow and one, moreover, who lived beyond his means,” Michael went on. “The partner inherited the dead man's half of the store, for he had no family, and such was their agreement. It aroused my suspicions immediately. How handy for his partner that the thief had happened to kill him in the course of stealing a few pounds worth of things. But I could find nothing to connect the partner to the death. He was at a dinner party at the time it happened. The man's watch never turned up at a pawn shop. None of the usual thieves' dives yielded any tales of a thief in his cups confessing.”

“Then how can you say that a murder done by someone other than the person who benefits is not common? You have had three like that, counting Mr. Birkshaw's case.”

“Yes, but, you see, it is normally rare. When I consider all the other investigations I have had where—” He stopped and frowned thoughtfully. “That
is
odd. They
are
rather alike.”

“What are you thinking?” Rachel asked, excitement rising in her. “I can see that you are putting something together.”

“I'm not sure. But it is a pattern of sorts. One always looks for patterns in crimes. Thieves who follow a certain method. Killers who use the same instrument. Normally the pattern is that murders are done by the person who would benefit from the crime. But here, there is a pattern that the person who benefits could
not
have done it. So when I see a pattern that is very much unlike the normal pattern—well, it makes me wonder.”

“If the the three cases are connected somehow…?”

“It seems unlikely. And yet…it would be odd if they were random, don't you think?”

“Could the same person have done all three?”

“That, too, seems unlikely. One crime took a very accomplished thief, one a poisoner who must have gotten inside the house—or paid someone to do it for him—and the other a killer who caved in someone's skull. They were in separate parts of the country. The house party was in Dorset, the goldsmith in London, Mrs. Birkshaw in York. Still…I think it might be of benefit to pay a visit to Bow Street.”

 

In point of fact, they did not go to Bow Street, where the presence of a lady would have caused great consternation. Instead they met John Cooper, the Runner with whom Michael often worked, at an inn not far from headquarters. If Cooper, a large, slow-moving man with sleepy brown eyes, found it odd to be meeting Michael with an aristocratic woman along, he gave no evidence of it, merely tipped his hat to Rachel gravely.

“Now, what's this that's so important, guv'nor?” he asked. “You found out anything for me?”

“I'm not sure. All I have at the moment are questions,” Michael replied.

“Well, that's typical, ain't it?” Cooper responded good-naturedly. “Now, what would you be wantin'?”

“I am interested in unsolved cases,” Michael began.

“Well, we've got a might of them,” Cooper said. “Seems like more than ever, these days.”

“Does it?”

“Aye, there's allus a lot of things you can't find no one to blame for, or, leastways, no proof of it. Well, you know that well enough. It's why I come to you so often. But the last couple of years seems like much more.”

“What I am interested in particularly are ones in which the person who would benefit the most could not have committed the crime.”

Cooper's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You
are
on to something, aren't you?”

“I may be. But I need a lot of information first. Can you get that for me?”

“Aye, I 'spect I can do that. Long as you'll let me know what you figure out.”