Chapter 29
It might not be the “done thing” to call upon a lady of quality at the uncouth hour of ten in the morning, but Hero had no intention of waiting until three o’clock that afternoon to confront Mrs. Veronica Goodlakes.
The wealthy widow was settling down to a breakfast of tea and toast in her morning room when Hero arrived at the late shipbuilder’s magnificent town house on St. James’s Square. “I do apologize for imposing on you at such an early hour,” said Hero airily when Veronica’s butler ushered her into the room. “But I wanted to be certain to catch you before you went out.”
“Of course, Lady Devlin,” said Veronica with a wide smile. “Do please have a seat. May I offer you some tea?”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Hero, easing off her gloves as she settled into one of the chairs. “Thank you.”
The widow reached for the nearby teapot and kept her eyes on her task as she began to pour. “Has something come up?”
“It has, actually. I’ve been told Laura was concerned about your plans to marry Basil Rhodes, and I was wondering if you knew what that was about.”
“Sugar?” said the other woman, still not looking up.
“No, thank you.”
Veronica set the teapot aside with a thump and handed Hero the cup. “It’s quite simple. Laura disliked Basil because he owns plantations in Jamaica. She was passionately opposed to both the slave trade and the institution of slavery itself, and even though everyone knows that Basil is the most benevolent, indulgent owner imaginable, Laura still held it against him.”
“Personally, I’ve never been convinced there is such a thing as a ‘benevolent’ slave owner.”
“Oh?” Veronica reached for her own teacup and took a sip. “Have you been to the West Indies?”
“I have not.”
“Nor have I, which of course makes it so difficult for one to form an educated opinion, wouldn’t you say?”
“I wouldn’t, no, but I have heard that argument. As I understand it, Laura was concerned about reports that not only does Rhodes make a habit of forcing himself on the young girls on his plantations, but he also raped and impregnated one of his housemaids here in London.”
Veronica gave a brittle laugh. “Good heavens, wherever did you hear such a sordid, nonsensical tale? Laura disliked Basil because he’s a plantation owner, pure and simple. She never said anything to me about him raping girls in Jamaica, and I don’t believe a word of it—not a word. As for that sly, scheming little housemaid who seduced him and then tried to hoax him into thinking some common footman’s baby was his, what did Laura expect him to do? Raise the lowborn brat as his own? What a ridiculous notion.”
Hero studied the other woman’s tight, determinedly smiling face. “You knew Rhodes handed the child over to a farmer’s wife named Prudence Blackadder?”
“I knew, yes. Why do you ask?”
“It doesn’t bother you that the man you’re planning to marry abandoned his own child to a woman who in all likelihood smothered the babe five minutes after he drove away?”
Veronica was no longer even pretending to smile. She sat rigid in her chair, her chest rising and falling with her rapid, angry breathing. “He only had the lying little hussy’s word for it that the child was his; why should he care what happened to it? Under the circumstances, I’d say his offer to pay someone to look after the brat was rather magnanimous. Wouldn’t you?”
“Magnanimous,” repeated Hero. “I suppose that’s one word for it.”
Veronica picked up her teacup and took a slow, deliberate sip. “I don’t understand why you’re here asking all these questions about Basil anyway. Did Lord Devlin not look into that horrid chimney sweep I told you about?”
“Hiram Dobbs? He has, yes. Thank you so much for telling us about him. Have you by chance thought of anyone else who might have wished Laura harm?”
Setting aside her cup, the widow began crumbling between two fingers a piece of crust left on her plate. “No, although I have recalled the name of that lieutenant Laura once planned to marry: Finch. Lieutenant Zacchary Finch—although I see he’s a major now. He was mentioned in the dispatches from Waterloo.”
Hero took a slow sip of her tea. “Did Laura tell you she’d seen Finch again? That he’s back in London?”
“No,” said the widow with an innocent widening of her eyes. “Was she seeing him again? Are you certain? I can’t believe she didn’t tell me something like that.”
“It is hard to believe, is it not?” said Hero dryly. “I hadn’t realized until yesterday that he was still alive. I was under the impression he’d been killed long ago.”
“Oh, no; only captured. He was a prisoner of war for years, poor man, under the most wretched conditions. One wonders how any man survives such an ordeal with his sanity intact.”
The implications were blatantly obvious. Hero said, “Are you suggesting Finch might be mad? That he’s the one who killed Laura?”
“I wouldn’t want to think so, no,” said Veronica, still all wide-eyed, earnest innocence. “But one can’t help but wonder. . . .”
“Yes, I can see that,” said Hero, and caught the gleam of triumph that flashed in the other woman’s eyes before being quickly hidden by strategically lowered lashes.
“Beastly woman,” said Hero, untying the ribbons of her hat as she walked into the library on Brook Street some time later. “I can’t believe I once felt sorry for her, for being forced to marry the rich Mr. Nathan Goodlakes.” She tore off the hat and cast it aside. “Now I’m wondering if she didn’t smother the poor old fool in his sleep.”
Sebastian looked up from where he sat behind his desk, cleaning his small double-barreled flintlock pistol. “Did she deny that she quarreled with Laura over Rhodes?”
“Not precisely. She admits Laura disliked him for owning sugar plantations but denies the stories of rape. Oh, and she thinks it magnanimous of him to have found someone to care for the footman’s brat his scheming little hussy of a housemaid tried to foist onto him.”
“She said that?”
“She did. She then contrived—ever so innocently, of course—to suggest that Major Zacchary Finch should be considered a suspect because he must surely have been driven mad by his years as a prisoner of war.”
“So she knows we have good reason to suspect Basil Rhodes of murder and is trying to direct our attention elsewhere.”
“Oh, she knows, all right.”
“Do you think she suspects him herself?”
Hero met his gaze, her eyes narrowing as she thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know. But I wouldn’t put it beyond her to protect him even if she did think him guilty of murder.”