The black satin eye mask the countess found essential for sleep had slipped out of place on one side, exposing a puffed bluish lid and the ever-deepening series of lines at the corner of her closed eye. Hers had been an elegant face once and even now with the right application of powder and rouge it was enough to turn a head. Her figure, once the talk of Paris salons, had grown rounded and overripe to the point that even the tightest cinching of corset could not restore the wasplike waist she had once proudly displayed. But with characteristic good nature she dismissed her added girth and was known to chirp, “the more to hold, cher ami,” to her young men.
Rhys cast a glance at the slumbering countess as a thump outside the door awakened him. He saw that in spite of the displacement of her mask, the countess slept deeply, snoring softly as he quietly stirred from the bed, pushing layer upon layer of silk covers off him as he swung his long legs to the floor and reached for his linen dressing gown. Raking a disarray of black curls from his forehead, he hastened—barefooted—to the door to answer the unmistakable knock of Lucien Bourget.
“Hurry,” came Lucien’s agitated whisper. “I’ve brought her inside. Hurry! She’s calling for you.”
To see Lucien ruffled was enough to jolt him completely awake. “Who?” he demanded. “Why?”
“There’ll be trouble from this,” Lucien babbled as he broke into a shuffling run toward the drawing room. “She’ll not last I think.”
Totally baffled, Rhys also ran for the drawing room. Muffled moans, and the soft mouthing of his name, drew his chilled feet toward the room. He was unprepared for what awaited him, the crumpled figure, the cries of pain, the smell of blood.
“Jenny!” he cried. “Jenny!”
Jenny lay upon the couch. Her face was tormented, her eyes glazed with pain. Rhys hastened to her and knelt at her side, cuddling her in his arms, finding the front of her black woolen cloak wet through with warm blood.
“Jenny, what has happened to you?”
The woman trembled and gasped a breath as she clung to him. “Done you a bad turn,” she whispered. “Should have come to you first...Took it upon myself to right things...For Mariette...”
“Get a physician!” Rhys shouted to Lucien. “And be fast about it!”
Lucien fled the room. His uneven gait beat a loud retreat on the marble tiles of hallway. In the moments since he had found Jenny and brought her inside, he had completely forgotten the well-dressed man he had seen across the street. The red-haired man had tucked a scrap of something white in his pockets and walked swiftly away, as Lucien swept Jenny into his arms.
Rhys bent his head to Jenny’s face and kissed her cool cheeks, her forehead.
“Get away, lad” she whispered. “Not safe. Leave now. He’ll do you the harm he’s done me.” Her voice faded so that Rhys could scarcely hear it. “Get away from—”
“Who, Jenny? Who hurt you?” Rhys demanded, too distraught to note Jenny’s warning of a danger to him. He held her closer, felt her cringe with added pain, and wishing to spare her more, lowered her gently to the couch’s soft cushions. “Tell me.”
Jenny breathed a gurgling breath as a blood-streaked hand clutched a length of gold chain circling her neck. “Mariette’s,” she said pulling the chain and locket free and pressing it into his hand.
Rhys knew the locket. His mother had worn it through all the time that filled his memory of her. He thought she wore it still, in death. But there it was, stained scarlet with Jenny’s blood. Silently, he took it from the trembling hand and held it in his open palm, feeling the warmth of Jenny’s body fade from the intricately filigreed gold even as the strength faded from the woman beside him. He supposed his mother had given Jenny the locket before she died. Jenny had been as close as a sister to his mother, her dearest friend.
“Letter,” she mumbled. “Alain has—”
“Alain should be here with his mother,” he said gently cradling her in his arms once more. “I’ll send Lucien for him when he brings the physician.”
Jenny gave a tiny cry. “Alain,” she whispered. “Tell Alain I love...”
He felt a shock run through her, a frisson of movement gathering all that remained of life in Jenny Perrault. He felt the fluttering of it leaving her, like a bird taking flight in the dark of a still night. He felt helpless and small as he witnessed that transition, as he felt the endless emptiness of her body when life was gone from it.
Rhys slumped to his knees and stared at the shell of Jenny Perrault. What had brought her here? What had brought dear Jenny all the way from the south of France? She’d never left her homeland before, he was certain of that. Not even to see Alain. Why now? Had she been trying to warn him of something? Or had she been babbling in delirium? Rhys was so heavy-hearted he could barely move. But he explored the pockets of Jenny’s cloak. She’d spoken of a letter. He wanted to find it and deliver it to Alain. It seemed so little to do for one who had meant so much to him and his mother. The letter must have been of tremendous importance for Jenny to have spoken of it in her dying words.
His search went unrewarded. If Jenny had carried a letter for Alain it was not with her now. Rhys rocked back on his heels, squeezed his eyes shut and said a prayer of peace for Jenny’s soul.
Poor dear Jenny. Dead. What had happened to her? Reason returning, he probed beneath her cloak to discover that the wound which had robbed her of life had been made by a knife. Whose? And why? Who would harm a gentle old woman like Jenny Perrault? No thief would have imagined she carried more than a ha’penny in her pockets.
Hands trembling, questions racking his mind, Rhys smoothed the bloodlessly transparent eyelids over her fixed gray orbs. He turned a fold of her dark, worn cloak over her blanched, lifeless face and left her.
He’d loved Jenny almost as much as he’d loved his mother. Jenny’s devoted care had sustained Mariette Delmar through long years of illness and suffering. The last year would have been unbearable but for Jenny. She’d seen that the money he sent obtained the best doctors and treatment for his mother, though finally her weak heart had simply given in to the illness. She’d died less than two months before. The burial cost had taken the last of his resources. He’d left for London shortly afterwards, wanting a change of scene, hoping to find peace in a new place.
What was he to tell Alain? Then the next disturbance came. He was dressed by then, or as close as he would get that day. The countess’s plump bare arm was thrown above her head on the down-filled pillow. She continued her soft snoring, in deep sleep, until the insistent, angry rapping at the bedroom door awakened her, abruptly. Confused, she clumsily tore the satin mask from her eyes and unwillingly greeted the morning.
“That man of yours, cher ami!” she cried to her young lover. “Stop him before he cracks my head with his pounding!”
Rhys hurried to the door. What had brought about Lucien’s insistent pounding he could not guess. The physician must already have discovered he had arrived too late to be of help to Jenny.
“Lucien, what...” he started to say, as he flung open the heavy door.
Lucien was accompanied by a pair of constables who stood ready to apply their shoulders to the door. With them was a stranger, an agitated wreck of a man. Rhys had never before seen him.
“ ’E’s the one!” The man aimed a filthy finger at Rhys. “Put ’is blade in the wench then climbed in ’at window ’ere!”
Screeching his accusation he pushed past Rhys and pointed at the bank of Japanese orange velvet draperies covering the bedroom window which overlooked the street. “ ’E killed ’er! No doubt about it!”
Rhys, temper flaring, grabbed the stranger by the collar and thrust him hard against the hallway’s paneled wall. “Tell the truth!” he shouted. “I’ve never seen you and you’ve never seen me.”
The constables, each grabbing hold of an arm, voiced warnings as they forcefully pulled Rhys clear of the man. “Your name, sir?” one of them queried.
“Rhys Delmar,” he answered, shaking himself loose of their combined grasps. “Marc André Rhys Delmar. Jenny was dear to me. I’d never have hurt her.”
“ ’E did it!” the stranger repeated.
Rhys had never thought himself capable of taking a life, but as he looked at the man who had invaded his apartment, the man who accused him of murdering the last person he loved, he reconsidered what he might do, if pushed further.
“Be certain, man,” one of the constables warned.
“ ’E’s the one!” the man hissed through the gap of missing teeth. “ ’Im!”
Fighting his rage, Rhys looked at the lying beggar and was gratified to see the bloke shudder.
“Who is this man?” he asked of the constables. “Who is he to accuse me? He must have done it himself.”
“And then run lookin’ fer a constable?” The stranger laughed warily. “Ye’r full of it,” he said.
Rhys turned his back on the man lest he worsen his cause by attacking him again. “I was in my bed when my man brought Jenny in. I was sleeping,” he explained to the constables. “Ask him.”
“Was he in his bed man?” the constable demanded of Lucien. “Did you see him there?”
Lucien Bourget had seen no such thing. But he was as sure of the master’s innocence as he was of his own. Besides that, he owed Rhys Delmar his very life if the truth be told. “Sound asleep. I woke him, sir,” Lucien insisted.
“ ’E’s lyin’! ’E’s in it too!”
The constables looked uncertainly at the stranger, then at Rhys. Just as Rhys thought he’d weighted the case to his favor, one of the constables spotted the countess peering through the bedroom door. Tangled yellow hair swinging to her shoulders, quivering inside her russet silk robe, she’d heard enough to feel the damaging sting of a scandal.
Face reddening, the oldest of the constables approached the countess. “Madam, can you account for this man? ’As he been out this morning? Think hard.”
The countess looked apologetically at her lover. He was the handsomest of the young men she had befriended and the most adept at lovemaking. There was aristocratic blood in those veins—even if it had been fostered on the wrong side of the blanket. She had an eye for good breeding. Even now, her heart fluttered at the sight of the virile Rhys Delmar. She had held those broad muscled shoulders, felt the power in the lean hips, admired the line of the fine high-bridged nose, and looked with wonder into those lazy blue eyes. A hand went to her breast as she recalled the smoke and fire she had seen in those eyes.
A pity. She had begun to grow fond of him, but not so fond that she would willingly jeopardize herself. “I-I can’t say where he was,” she stammered. “I’ve only just awakened myself.”
She might as well have put a noose around his neck, he thought. The constable’s countenance changed. The stranger’s nervous, toothless grin became a satisfied smirk. Rhys took a long pensive breath. He was as good as hanged. He had not a clue why, nor did he care to stay around and find one. As if he’d burst forth from a cannon’s barrel he gave a shout and sped into the countess’s bedroom, gave her a mighty shove which sent her tumbling atop the bed she had so recently left. Before the constables could follow he barred the door.
The countess, tangled in the twisted bed coverings, screamed, far louder than she had when he’d pleasured her a few short hours earlier.
“Stay put!” he shouted at her as he made a dash for the window. He reached it half a step ahead of the shattering water pitcher the countess had flung at him. A glance back caught her crouching on the bed, mouth agape, eyes straining, beginning to believe she’d been bedded by a murderer. He had half a mind to go to her and commit such a crime as she’d as good as convicted him of, but there was no time.
Instead he blew her a kiss as he ripped apart the silk draperies, tore the window latch from its anchoring hook, and recklessly flung the sashes open.
He was a street away by the time the constables broke into the bedroom and assured themselves that the hysterical countess had not been murderously assaulted like poor Jenny. He was another street away before he broke his run and cautiously looked back the way he’d come to confirm that he was not yet discovered.
For an hour Rhys Delmar wandered about trying to decide the best way to get himself out of the predicament he was in. At the end of that hour he was no closer to a solution. Long past noon, none had occurred to him, not until the cry of a news vendor on the street called out his name.
“ ’Orrible murder!” the thin grimy waif shouted, waving his papers high so that no passerby would be tempted to overlook him. “Frenchman sought!”
Rhys grabbed a paper, paying the boy with the only coin in his pocket. He read the account of what had befallen him that morning, including his accuser’s damning statement, and the countess’s contradiction of Lucien’s confirmation that he had been asleep at the time Jenny was stabbed outside the countess’s house. He was alleged to have fooled the servant, stabbed the woman, climbed in the window, slipped into the bed and pretended to be asleep when the servant had come for him.
Swearing, he flung the paper to the paving stones. No one had bothered to question the absurdity of his wanting Jenny dead. Sweet, loving Jenny who had been his mother’s companion since the day he’d been born. Alone, afraid to lift his head lest he be recognized he slunk into the space between two buildings.
He wanted to find Alain and explain to him what had happened. He wanted to find the person who had killed Jenny. But not now. Now he had to leave England or he’d find nothing but the certainly of the gallows. He could do neither Jenny nor Alain any good by swinging from a rope.
He would come back, once he’d made some sense of what had happened, once he had the means to defend himself. He’d write to Alain as soon as it seemed safe to do so.
In the meantime, still confounded by it all, Rhys shoved his hands into his pockets, empty except for the worn leather sheath and Zack Gamble’s marks from the night before. What a time to find himself short of funds. Every constable in the city would be out scouring the streets for him. He had to get away soon. For an escape he needed money.
Lost in his troubled thoughts he had changed his direction without being aware of it. When he glanced up and saw where his steps had taken him, a dim ray of hope shone in his mind. Getting money might prove the least of his worries.
***
Lemuel Snead, the landlord who discovered the cold body of Zachary Gamble, also found the locked cash-box beneath a letter addressed to one Rhys Delmar. The letter he tossed aside; Snead neither read nor wrote. The cashbox caught his eyes. He was an honest man but a curious one. As it was to be his place to see to the disposal of his guest’s remains, his conscience took no offense at prying the lock off the box belonging to Zack Gamble.
His good character did not withstand the force of what he found within, money, gold and notes, enough to equal what he profited in a decade, maybe two, operating a tavern and letting out rooms to travelers.
He glanced about, then gave his sudden decision no more thought. He deserved it, he told himself, just compensation for the shock of coming unsuspecting upon a dead man. The American’s bill had been paid in full but there were expenses yet to come. He would order a suitable box for the burial, even a headstone. No—a wooden cross would do. He scarcely knew the man after all.
But the money, he deserved it, no doubt of that, he reiterated as he stuffed his pockets with the loot. Door open behind him, Snead cast open a window and tossed the splintered cashbox onto the pile of refuse festering behind the tavern. He had not yet covered the departed Zachary Gamble when he was surprised at his work of sorting through the American’s clothing.
“Dieu m’en garde! Monsieur Gamble!” Rhys swore as he saw the stiff, lifeless body of Zachary Gamble stretched upon the narrow bed in his room.
Rhys was only marginally conscious of Snead, who in his shock at being discovered dropped the woolen frock coat he’d been holding.
“I found him so just now,” Snead explained, a trace of his conscience exerting itself. “Died in his sleep, it seems.”
But Rhys did not hear what the man said. He was thinking that he was surrounded by death this day, Jenny’s, the American’s, the inevitably of his own if he did not get away from London. He turned to Snead face drawn, voice rasping as he spoke. “He was to have something for me,” he ventured.
“Your name, sir?”
“Delmar,” Rhys offered cautiously, hoping the man had not had time to read the day’s news. “Rhys Delmar.”
Snead was too nervous to be suspicious of anyone but himself. He remembered the letter that had been with the cashbox and quickly handed it to the Frenchman. “This be it?” he asked.
Seeing his name scrawled upon the paper, Rhys hurriedly broke the sealing wax loose and tore into it, hoping it contained the name of the agent Zack had mentioned. It did not. Instead he found documents of passage inside, confirmation that a cabin aboard the vessel Lady Jane awaited Zachary Gamble at tomorrow’s sailing. The rest was a note, cryptic, badly written, a suggestion that Rhys Delmar sail aboard the Lady Jane, journey to Arizona and look up Theodor Gamble if he wished to redeem the shares he held. It was Zachary Gamble’s last act of defiance to a brother he both loved and hated.
“Mon Dieu!” Rhys swore softly as he added the documents to those already in his pocket. Snead recoiled, thinking he heard a threat from the Frenchman. “He owed me money,” he said to Snead.
It was not to Snead’s credit that he adapted quickly to dishonesty. “He owes me, too,” the landlord lied boldly. “If you be a friend of his perhaps you’ll be assuming his burial costs.”
“That I will not,” Rhys said, seeing his best means of escape from hostile London as dead as Zachary Gamble. Regretting the offering of his name to Snead he spun on his heels, not noticing in his retreat the scrap of paper that floated from his pocket.
He approached the street with care, looking left and right, pulling the brim of his hat low on his forehead. He was aware that much of his apprehension to cross the street stemmed from fear. It was unlikely that any of the constables on duty at those streets would recognize him. Surely none would purposely look for him at the tavern where Monsieur Gamble had taken rooms.
With that thought at the forefront of his mind he was stopped in midstride by the unanticipated low-voiced calling of his name.
“Monsieur Rhys.” The voice came from behind him. “Walk on,” the man said. “Only listen.”
“Lucien,” Rhys whispered. “Do you know me so well?”
“Oui,” Lucien admitted and in fact he did. Rhys Delmar was as much friend as master. Guessing the thoughts of a friend in trouble was not so difficult. “It was a clear deduction that you would claim your money from Monsieur Gamble, as you left the countess’s apartment without a farthing.”
“He cheated me,” Rhys told him. “He managed to die before he paid his marks.”
“Tant pis!” Lucien exclaimed. “The countess has claimed the sum you left in her house. And she has cast me out. What more can befall us?”
“I cannot ask you to share this, Lucien,” Rhys told his servant as they found a deserted spot behind a shop. “If the authorities have released you go your own way.”
“You might have done that when you came upon me robbed and beaten nigh to death in Paris. You did not,” Lucien reminded as he faced the young man who had befriended and cared for him when he was at his worst, the man who had given him work when his previous master had said he had no use for a crippled servant. “And now,” Lucien said, brooking no refusal. “Where we go, we go together.”
“Have you any money?”
“Enough to buy our way out of London,” Lucien replied. “And I have your belongings. The countess was anxious to be rid of them.”
“And I am anxious to forget the countess,” Rhys said abruptly. Her betrayal had been salt in a fresh wound. “Be discreet,” he said. “Book a passage, for yourself only, on the Lady Jane. She sails tomorrow.”
“And you?”
“Taken care of. I will be on board.”
“Until then luck be with you,” Lucien said as he took his leave.
Rhys watched Lucien limp away, wishing the man had said good luck. He’d had his fill of the other kind.