CHAPTER TWENTY

The world was warm and hazy when I floated toward consciousness the next morning, and I lingered there, pulling at the threads of a dream I could not remember, yet I did not want to leave. It was cozy and happy and streamed with sunlight, and it billowed away from me like a kite whose owner has lost hold of its string. It bobbed and drifted, letting the wind carry it far away.

I rolled to my side and instantly regretted it. Muscles in my back and neck wrenched in pain and something clattered to the floor. I blinked open my eyes to find myself staring at the cold hearth. I groaned. I had fallen asleep in my chair again. Which explained the kink in my neck and the numbness in my right arm where it was trapped beneath my body. I shook it, trying to force some blood back into the prickling extremity, and pushed myself up into a seated position with my left hand.

A glance at the clock on the mantel told me it was barely seven. I could still climb into bed for a few more hours of sleep and no one would think it odd, but my sluggish mind was slowly catching up to me. The confrontation with Lady Westlock. The discovery of the baby’s grave. The bloody apron in my studio.

I leaned forward to cradle my head in my hands and emitted another groan, though this one was far more despondent. There was still a murderer to be caught—one who was far too devious and clever. I had a sick feeling in my stomach that our investigation was not going to get any easier, or be any less emotionally fraught. There had been no suspicious letter slid under my door the night before, something I was both relieved and curious about. Had the sender decided to stop trying to frighten me, or had they simply lacked the opportunity? I wanted to believe they had ceased to worry about my threat to them, but I understood that to do so would be the height of foolishness. If anything, the lack of a letter made me even more anxious.

I scrubbed my hands over my face and sat up. My sketchbook lay at my feet, and I realized I must have fallen asleep while drawing. Which explained the stripe of charcoal smeared across the mauve skirts of my gown. I sighed and bent to pick up the book. It flipped open to a picture of a woman and child seated in a garden, my imagining of the viscountess and her unborn daughter. Lady Godwin grinned at the child with a far more gentle and maternal smile than I’d ever seen her use in real life. The baby cooed back, lifting her pudgy arms toward her mother. It made me sad to think that this was the only meeting the pair would have, short of heaven.

I sank back into my seat, studying the beautiful woman and her child. What had Lady Godwin planned to do with the baby? It sounded as if she intended to hide away at the home of Lady Stratford’s great-aunt until the birth, but what then? I had a hard time believing she intended to keep the little girl. Her husband’s return from India would have made that difficult. It seemed more likely the child would be given up for adoption, but to whom? Had the arrangements already been made?

And what of the infant’s real father? Did he know about the child? We assumed so, since that was our best lead on a killer with motive to both kill Lady Godwin and destroy any evidence of the baby. But could we be on the wrong track? Perhaps someone else had reason to wish both Lady Godwin and her child dead. I didn’t know what that reason could be, but that made it no less a possibility. One that we had overlooked in favor of searching for the father.

Too troubled to continue staring at my rendering of the deceased mother and child, I flipped the page only to gaze into Gage’s laughing eyes. I wanted to pretend that I had not spent half the night sketching images of him, but unfortunately I couldn’t. The proof rested in my hands. Four pages had been devoted to him—one of him sitting in the chair across the hearth from me, another of him at dinner, dressed in full evening kit, a third of him gazing out the skylight in my art studio, and the last of him shoveling dirt. His muscles seemed to ripple before my eyes under the fine lawn of his shirt as he lifted another heavy load of earth. I felt my cheeks heat at the evidence of the detail I had put into this last picture—the curve of his bottom as he bent, the flex of his upper arms. When had I had time to notice such things while my emotions were so jumbled with fear over what we would find?

I slammed the sketchbook closed and tossed it on the table before rising. My back and ribs ached from too many hours constrained by a corset. I hobbled across the room to tug the bellpull, and then stripped myself of all my clothes except my chemise. My bones and muscles thanked me as I released them. I wrapped a blanket around me, flopped back on the counterpane, and massaged the skin that had been rubbed painfully by the boning of my corset.

Lucy appeared not long after with my normal breakfast fare of chocolate and toast. My stomach growled loudly, reminding me I had forgone dinner the previous evening. I devoured the meal while I waited for my bath to be prepared. When I finally slid into the tub of warm water, it felt so good I thought I might decide to stay there the entire day. I scrubbed the charcoal from my fingers and the splotches I had smeared on my face and settled back in the water to relax.

It was while I was contemplating the stains left behind on the washcloth and that last picture I had drawn of Gage shoveling dirt, which I could not seem to stop thinking about, that I realized I had seen something of importance in the maze the night we discovered Lady Godwin’s body. I had missed any facial expressions, but I had noticed the mud splattering the back of Mr. Fitzpatrick’s trousers.

I sat up sharply.

Mr. Fitzpatrick had given Gage an alibi, but was it completely sound? He could have murdered Lady Godwin, ditched the baby in the woods nearby, as we suspected, and then joined the men’s conversation about horses. Later he could have gone back to retrieve the child and bury her on the hill next to the creek.

But what was his motive in doing such a thing if he was not the father?

I frowned. Maybe Fitzpatrick had lied. Maybe he was the father. Or maybe he was jealous of the father.

I began to scrub my body quickly. I didn’t know whether Mr. Fitzpatrick was capable of such a thing or not. But I definitely wanted to hear his explanation for how he managed to splatter mud halfway up the back of his leg in a dry, well-manicured garden.

•   •   •

“I’m not certain that’s much to go on, but it is a reason to question him again,” Gage told me after I relayed the information I remembered about Mr. Fitzpatrick. “And to actually check his alibi with Sir David and Mr. Abingdon.”

I frowned at his unenthusiastic reaction. “Well, I didn’t say it was the key to the investigation,” I remarked crossly. “Did you speak with Mrs. MacLean?”

He nodded and slouched deeper into the red chair he occupied in my brother-in-law’s study. “She’s going to ask the staff to see if anyone is missing an apron. Without any adornment, she thought it likely belonged to a servant.”

I glanced at Philip where he sat behind his desk. Some pained emotion tightened his features.

“We have another problem,” Gage said.

I looked back and forth between the men as my heartbeat sped up. “What?”

Gage nodded toward Philip, telling him to relay the news.

“Alana knows about the baby,” he told me in a flat voice.

“How?” I asked.

“She saw me carrying the child to the chapel and demanded to know what was going on.”

I pressed a hand to my mouth in thought. I could well imagine my sister demanding such information, but I was surprised he had given it to her. She must have pressured him hard to make him tell her. “Where is she now?”

Philip turned to the side to look out the window. “She won’t come out of the nursery.”

That seemed a natural response, and, overall, a fairly harmless one. Of course, she would want to be close to her children—to keep them safe. “I’ll try to talk to her,” I assured him. “But I don’t know that it will do much good. At least, not until this murderer is caught.”

He nodded and continued to stare out at the courtyard beyond.

My heart ached for his distress. He loved my sister so much. To see her so upset and not be able to do anything about it must be tearing him up inside. I rounded his desk to kneel by his chair.

“She will be all right,” I murmured as I grabbed hold of his hand. He gazed back at me blankly. “She’s just frightened and needs to be with your children now. She knows they are all safe and secure together in the nursery because you made it so.” His eyes warmed a bit. “Once the killer is caught . . . And they will be caught, Philip. I promised her that, and I promise you. Then she will come out of this. She will.” I squeezed his hand determinedly.

He stretched out his other hand to center a page on his desk. “Of course. You’re right,” he said quietly and then repeated it more confidently. “You’re right.” He lifted my hand to place a kiss on the back of it, and then helped me to my feet, already looking more like the self-assured man I was used to. He took a deep breath and moved around his desk toward the door. “I’ll send a servant to locate Mr. Fitzpatrick and have him meet you here,” he told Gage. “It will give you some privacy and a greater image of authority.”

“Thank you, Cromarty.”

He waved it off with a flick of his wrist and quit the room, closing the door behind him.

Gage turned to look at me, his blue eyes brightened by the midnight hue of his jacket. I spoke before he could say something I did not wish to hear. “You should sit here,” I instructed him, touching the back of Philip’s large chair. “It will give your appearance more weight.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Yes. I’d already planned on that.” He crossed behind the desk to the right while I went in the opposite direction. “And just where do you propose to sit?” It was a leading question.

“Why, right here,” I proclaimed, settling back into the red wingback chair farthest from the door and straightening the pansy-purple skirts of my morning dress.

He sighed heavily. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to sit out on this one?” He sounded so hopeful.

I smiled. “Sorry.”

“Somehow, I don’t think you are.” He gazed at me for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to make any further effort to remove me. “All right,” he relented. “But I’ll ask the questions.”

I nodded, not caring who interrogated the man, so long as I was present.

“You know,” he said after a minute longer of staring at me, in which I was beginning to feel quite uncomfortable. “You shouldn’t have promised them you would catch the killer.”

“Why not? I certainly plan to.”

“Not every investigation gets solved, no matter how diligently it is pursued.” His words were slow and precise.

“Well,” I faltered for words, thrown off by the pity in his eyes. “This one is going to be.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “So stop trying to discourage me.”

“I just wanted to make certain you . . .”

“I understand,” I stated firmly. I glared at him, telling him to change the subject.

He sighed and lifted his hands as if to ward off my evil eye. The chair squeaked as he leaned back. “So . . . did you remember anything else you saw in the maze, or just Mr. Fitzpatrick’s trousers?” The end of his question was heavy with insinuation, as if I’d been intentionally examining the man’s lower extremities, and I resented it. The door opened before I could respond.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Gage, but I was finishing my breakfast,” Mr. Fitzpatrick exclaimed jovially as he entered. “Footman said you wanted to see me.”

Gage rose and reached across the desk to shake his hand. “No problem. The Cromartys offer quite a spread, don’t they?”

“That they do. The cook must know we men need a hearty break to our fast before we start the day.”

“You know Lady Darby.” Gage gestured my way, and Mr. Fitzpatrick stiffened.

“Oh. Yes. Yes, of course.” He recovered quickly from his shock and offered me a shallow bow. “How do you do, my lady?”

“I am well,” I replied, deciding to be cordial. “Thank you for asking. And yourself?”

“Oh, wonderful, wonderful.”

I wondered if he planned to keep repeating his words through our entire conversation.

“Have a seat, sir,” Gage said, settling back into his own chair. “I just have a few additional questions for you.”

Mr. Fitzpatrick glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and shifted uncomfortably. “Of course, of course.”

“It has come to my attention that you had mud splattered all over the back of your trousers when you appeared in the maze after the discovery of Lady Godwin’s body. Can you explain how it got there?”

“Oh, well,” he stammered, flicking his gaze to me once again. He leaned toward Gage and whispered. “Is this really an appropriate conversation to be having while she is present?” As if I couldn’t hear him.

“She is here for a reason,” Gage replied with a hard glint in his eye. “Now, ignore her and answer the question.”

Mr. Fitzpatrick huffed and fidgeted. “Well, if you really must know . . .” His gaze shifted to me again. “I was . . . chasing Lady Lewis.”

I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from rising.

“Chasing?” Gage queried, keeping his voice and face carefully neutral.

“Yes,” he grumbled. “She promised me a kiss if I could catch her.”

A twinkle lit Gage’s eyes, and I could tell he was trying not to laugh. “I see. And the mud?”

“I slipped in a flower patch and almost fell. It was damn embarrassing. She saw the whole thing.” He glanced at me. “That’s when I gave up and joined Sir David and Mr. Abingdon.”

“So you didn’t traipse into the forest?”

Mr. Fitzpatrick’s face crinkled in confusion. “Why would I do that?”

“Oh, there’s a great many reasons, but never mind.” Gage studied him closely, and I could tell he was trying to make a decision about something. I didn’t think it had to do with whether to believe his explanation for the mud, which even I found convincing.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick,” he began seriously. “I need your word that whatever is revealed in this office will not be spoken of to anyone who is not present.”

Mr. Fitzpatrick turned to look at me more directly.

“Do I have it?”

He nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

I scrutinized Gage and wondered where he was leading this conversation.

“The reason Lady Godwin’s figure had begun to change was not because she was getting fat. She was with child.”

Mr. Fitzpatrick’s eyes opened so wide I thought they might pop out of their sockets. “I . . . well . . . are you sure?” he spluttered.

Gage exchanged a glance with me. “Yes, Mr. Fitzpatrick. Very sure,” he replied dryly.

“Well . . .” He pressed his hand to his forehead. “Thank heavens Godwin was in India. If he knew I had been sticking my . . . uh . . .” He flicked a panicked look at me. ”Bedding his wife while she was in such a state, he would have chopped my . . . uh . . . hurt me badly.”

Gage arched an eyebrow rather eloquently. “Well, Lord Godwin is not here. And he’s not the father.”

“He’s not? Well, I’ll be.”

I almost sighed aloud at the man’s idiocy.

“Then who is?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Gage replied with much more patience than I could have mustered. “So far we know that Lord Marsdale bedded her in February, about a month before she would have gotten with child, and Mr. Calvin in . . .”

“Mr. Calvin bedded Lady Godwin?” Mr. Fitzpatrick interrupted. “Well, I’ll be damned. There’s more to the prig than I thought.”

Gage ignored him. “And Mr. Calvin in May or June, which is too late. You said you never bedded her until the end of June.”

“That’s the truth.”

“So we’re left wondering who lay between her sheets in March. Do you have any idea?”

Mr. Fitzpatrick leaned back in his chair and tapped his chin. “Hmmm . . . Let me think . . .”

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at this display of mental acuity, thinking this entire conversation was a waste. Gage’s eyes smiled at me.

Mr. Fitzpatrick shrugged. “Don’t think I can help you. Lord Stratford was her lover at one point, but I couldn’t tell you whether that was in March.”

I jerked my gaze back to Gage and sat forward in my chair.

“Did you say Lord Stratford was one of her lovers?” he asked for clarification.

“Well, yes,” Mr. Fitzpatrick replied. “But like I said, I don’t know if that was in March.”

I watched as Gage shifted in his seat, trying to contain his excitement much the way I was. “Anyone else here in attendance who has been linked to Lady Godwin?” he asked the man.

He tapped his chin again and shook his head. “No. Not that I can think of.”

Gage nodded and rose from his seat. “Thank you for your assistance, Fitzpatrick.” He shook the man’s hand. “And remember what I told you about keeping this quiet.”

“Of course, of course,” he said with a bob of his head.

The door closed behind him with a solid thud, and I leaned toward Gage. “Do you think Lady Stratford didn’t know?”

He shook his head sharply from side to side and narrowed his eyes. “Not for a second.”

“So she lied to us?”

“A lie of omission is still a lie,” he stated.

My muscles tightened in anticipation. “Perhaps we need to have another conversation with her as well.”

Gage nodded. “This time unannounced.”