A Suspicious Affair (7 page)

*

“Marisol, have you met the Earl of Kimbrough?” Foster asked, eagerly drawing Carlinn closer to the little grouping.

“We’ve never been formally introduced,” Kimbrough said before she could reply. “How do you do, Your Grace? May I take this opportunity to express my deepest regrets?”

Foster looked at him in astonishment and even Aunt Tess wondered aloud, “What’s that? Did he say he was sorry Arvid was dead?”

He hadn’t. He’d correctly apologized for their last meeting, Marisol understood. She nodded her head. “Thank you. This is a difficult time for all of us.”

“Too kind,” he murmured. There was more he wished to say, but not in front of her family and the Bow Street Runner. Dimm must have some skill in detection, for he winked at the earl and drew Laughton to the side with a question about one of Boynton’s set.

“What’s that?” Aunt Tess asked. “I hope they bring back some of those grilled oysters.”

Speaking softly for once, and with a smile that quite transformed his face from passably attractive to positively stunning, he amazed Marisol further by apologizing more fully. Arvid had never apologized for anything, ever.

“I have no excuse for my actions,” Kimbrough was saying, “except that I am used to being in control, Your Grace—of my circumstances, of my tongue, of my temper. Mostly of my privacy. But everything had gone beyond my control that day. I was thrust willy-nilly into a public spectacle of the type I most deplore. Still, I should never have taken my frustrations out on you. I sincerely apologize.”

“And I am sure I would never have subjected you to such an ill-mannered, emotional display were I not suffering the same upset. So I believe we are even, my lord, unless, of course, you were the one who murdered my husband.”

“Witch,” he muttered even lower.

“What’s that? They’re playing whist? In a house of mourning? Why, I never!”

*

A proper twenty minutes later, the earl and the investigator took their leave.

While they waited for his curricle to be brought ’round Carlinn asked, “Did you discover anything new?”

Dimm pondered a moment. “Not much, less’n you count a partiality for lobster patties.”

Chapter Seven

His nibs at Bow Street wasn’t happy. No fresh scandal had rocked London, so the newspapers were still gnawing on the Denning case. With the principals out of town and no new facts coming to light, the editors were crying privileged treatment for the privileged class. Whitewash, they called it, with no one being brought to account. More like no vulgar headlines to sell more newspapers.

The reporters would lose interest soon enough, soon as there was some war news or a new sensation in the ton, some marchioness running off with her footman or something. Till then, his nibs wasn’t happy. And when the boss wasn’t happy, no one was happy, least of all Jeremiah Dimm, who was wearing out his shoe leather again, trying to dig up more evidence.

“But you can’t just make facts. They is like rocks; you can find them, you can uncover them, but only time and nature can make one of the confounded things.”

He went back over his notes. He retraced the paths on that fatal day of the brother, the neighbor, the wife’s brother. He carefully checked the background of all Denning’s associates, and he talked to the servants again at the duke’s house. Her Grace’s maid was staying with her mother, he learned, and the valet, Purvis, was helping to pack His Grace’s belongings between visits to the employment agencies.

Dimm saw for himself all the reports that said no one had come to Lord Armbruster’s love nest, not in a week of round-the-clock surveillance, so he went next door to Armbruster House, which was also draped in black, with its knocker off the door.

Lord Armbruster was still up north delivering his wife’s body to her people in Cumberland, where he might convince some prelate she’d taken an accidental overdose of laudanum. There had been no reason to hold him in London any more than there’d been reason to detain the duchess or any of the others, despite the scandal sheets crying leniency for the aristocracy. Blast, you’d think this were France or something, Dimm considered, crossing that bit of roadway between the houses where Denning had met his Maker. Or unmaker. Deuce take it, the crime happened in the middle of the afternoon. Someone should have seen something! Or heard the shot.

“Oh no,” Armbruster’s butler contradicted him. “Our walls are very thick. His lordship would not want to hear the sounds of traffic or street vendors, don’t you know. And then there was Lady Armbruster screaming. Of course that might have been after, but if before, we wouldn’t have heard the shot, during. No, no one here knows anything.”

But someone did. Lady Armbruster’s maid was just finishing packing all of the dead woman’s clothing into boxes when Dimm found her.

“You didn’t happen to come by any suicide note, did you?” he asked for the eighth or ninth time, having searched for one himself before traveling to Berkshire. He had found enough writing in Lady Armbruster’s hand to know she hadn’t sent the message to the duchess, unless she disguised her writing, of course, but a farewell note would have been Christmas and a promotion and lobster patties, all rolled into one. Especially if the lady had confessed to killing her lover before taking her own life.

“No, she were too sleepy to do any writing,” the maid told him. “Right from the first. I didn’t see her when she got up to take the rest of the bottle, but she couldn’t of been thinking right, now could she? And just look at this mess.” The maid waved her arms around the room. “And my lord intends to give it all to the poorhouse; he doesn’t want to see any of it again.”

“You mean he’s not letting you have her clothes?”

Dimm interpreted her petulance aright, for the maid replied, “No, the bastard blames me for leaving the bottle with her. As if that’s any of my job. And he’s not even going to give me a good reference, he says. So what am I supposed to do now, I ask you?” She crammed a satin gown into a glove-sized space in the box. “I don’t suppose you’re on terms with Her Grace next door to put in a good word for me, are you? I heard Tyson didn’t want to go to the country.”

“The duchess already hired a new maid when I saw her in Berkshire.” He didn’t say it was his own daughter. “But maybe they won’t suit. You never know.”

“Well, here,” she said, handing him a brightly colored shawl. “You take this, in case you hear of anything.”

“I’m not sure…” he began.

“Oh, go on, his lordship owes me something, he does. I mean, I did try to stop Lady Armbruster from taking that first dose, I did. I told her right off that it wasn’t good for the baby.”

Dimm knew what to do with the pretty shawl; his widowed sister Cora who kept house for him and all their relations would look a treat in it. He wasn’t so sure about this new bit of information. So he took his theories with him back to Berkshire, just about the time the will was going to be read.

“A baby? How sad.” Marisol could not find it in her heart to feel sorry for the woman who had thrown her life away over a tawdry affair. But the poor, innocent baby was another matter. “But why?” she asked the Runner, as if Mr. Dimm would have the answers.

He was the one asking the questions, though. “I was hoping you could tell me, Your Grace. Did she say anything to you? Did your husband mention anything?”

“Goodness, Mr. Dimm, surely you know the spouse is always the last to find out about these things. Besides, Arvid hardly told me when he was leaving town for house parties and such. He’d never discuss more personal matters with a mere wife. But are you so sure the child was Arvid’s? Did the maid say so?”

“No, twice. But why else would Lady Armbruster carry on about being ruined?”

“I wonder if Nessie were not simply mentally unbalanced. Why couldn’t she just have passed the child off as Armbruster’s? Ladies do it all the time. Ah, that is, I have heard such things happen.” Embarrassed to have blurted such a scandalous statement—her aunt would have the vapors if she heard—Marisol offered the Runner more tea. “And do have another macaroon, Mr. Dimm. I am going to and I hate to eat alone. It makes me feel like a glutton, but I am always hungry.”

Jeremiah was happy to humor a woman in such an interesting condition. As they nibbled away, though, he still pursued his line of inquiry. “Knowing Lady Armbruster was breeding, Your Grace, would you say she’d be more or less like to up and shoot the duke?”

“Killing Arvid wouldn’t make Nessie any more or less
enceinte.
Of course, Arvid might have been threatening to tell her husband. I wouldn’t put blackmail past him,” she confided over another slice of poppyseed cake. “But they did not seem to be arguing when I saw them in the carriage.”

“No, Your Grace, I didn’t suppose they was.” He took another gooseberry tart to help swallow the disappointment.

*

Lord Kimbrough was another disappointment. “I can’t stand all those sweet things,” he’d explained, but Dimm assured him the thick slices of bread and butter were more than adequate. The discouragement came when the earl said he did not believe either of the Armbrusters committed the crime.

“Nerissa Armbruster was your typically hysterical female. She would have fainted at the sight of all that blood. More so if she was in a delicate way.” Carlinn burned his tongue, thinking of what the duchess had said about that euphemism, instead of sipping the hot tea carefully.

“Then what about his lordship? He finds out his wife is presenting him with a token of another man’s affections, he’s like to be a tad overset.”

“But why should Armbruster kill Denning? He’d have done better to kill his whoring wife. Oh, I know you’ll hear how these indiscretions are politely accepted in the ton, but that’s after a man has his heir. Armbruster didn’t, after—what? Five, six years of marriage. He does have cousins and such, I know, and I am sure he’d rather they step into his shoes than Denning’s bastard. Besides, you said that maid had no way of knowing if Armbruster even knew his wife was breeding, much less who fathered the brat.”

“It’s a mess, all right,” Dimm lamented. “I suppose all the Quality has to fret about who inherits, like this Denning argle-bargle. At least poor folks don’t have that headache. By the way, my lord, who’s your heir?”

Kimbrough put his cup down with a thump. “I have a cousin in Bath.” A middle-aged, hypochondriac bachelor, but Dimm needn’t know that. “And I am only seven-and-twenty, after all. Plenty of time to worry about the succession.”

“Denning was only thirty-nine. Don’t suppose he meant to cock up his toes yet either.”

“By George, you’re full of cheer today, Dimm. But buck up, maybe something will come out of the reading of the will this afternoon. Best have another cup of tea and some more to eat; the dowager’s as cheeseparing as Arvid ever was.”

*

“What’s that man doing here?” the dowager demanded, banging her cane up and down on the Axminster carpet in the Castle’s library. No one knew whether she meant the earl or the Runner.

Marisol thought Lord Kimbrough must be at the reading in his capacity as local magistrate, but Mr. Stenross, the second Mr. Stenross of Stenross, Stenross, and Dinkerly, the family’s solicitors, announced that he had invited the earl on business pertaining to the will. The dowager’s scowl deepened, as did Lord Kimbrough’s. Mr. Dimm mumbled something about Crown investigation and took a position toward the rear wall, well out of the dowager’s way.

“Shall I send for the servants now?” Marisol asked.

Mr. Stenross cleared his throat and shuffled his papers on the desk. “That, ah, will not be necessary.”

By this everyone understood that Arvid had not provided for his long-term retainers, which boded ill for any lingering hopes that he might have had a generous moment while contemplating eternity. Aunt Tess reached for Marisol’s hand. Foster put a hand on her shoulder, from where he stood behind his sister’s chair.

Mr. Stenross seemed to feel elucidation was in order, as if anyone in the room needed a lesson in Arvid’s mean, clutchfisted character.

“His Grace felt that the servants were being well compensated for their labors,” Mr. Stenross explained uncomfortably. “Since none were due for retirement, he did not feel it necessary to provide pensions at this time.”

“Yes, yes, man, we know he didn’t intend to die just yet,” Boynton said, forgetting to drawl. “Get on with it.”

Mr. Stenross cleared his throat again and reshuffled his papers. “Getting on with it” was clearly beneath his dignity. Boynton moaned and Foster tightened his fingers on Marisol’s shoulder.

“I must advise you that His Grace was very careful of his will, revising his codicils regularly. This document was meant to be an interim will, created for the purpose of expressing His Grace’s wishes, should the sex of his progeny not be determined at the time of his demise.”

“You mean he wrote a new will when Marisol got pregnant?” Foster asked, then flushed at his own outburst.

“Exactly.” Mr. Stenross settled a pair of spectacles on his nose and began reading: “‘Being the last will and testament of Arvid Alexander Pendenning, Sixth Duke of Denning, Baron of Denton,’ et cetera, et cetera. I shall skip over the technical paragraphs, but a copy of the document will be left here for your perusal, that there be no doubts of its authenticity or legality.” He cleared his throat again. “‘To my mother who has been living at Denning Castle instead of the Dower House, conserving her own funds, I leave the annuity established under my father’s will.’”

The dowager slumped in her chair and groaned. Boynton tossed her a vinaigrette and leaned forward. “Go on, go on.”

“‘Likewise, my brother already receives a sufficient allowance. Had he higher income, he would game deeper.’”

“Bastard!” Boynton shouted.

Mr. Stenross looked up.

“I didn’t mean you. He can’t do that, can he, if I’m his heir?”

The solicitor frowned. “These terms are conditional on the outcome of Her Grace’s delivery, naturally.” He turned back to the papers. “To my wife, Marisol Laughton Pendenning, I leave the sum of ten thousand pounds, should she fail to carry the infant to term or have a stillbirth, leaving me without issue.’”

Marisol gritted her teeth. Trust Arvid to consider every horrifying possibility. But they could live on ten thousand pounds, with the sale of her jewelry. She patted Aunt Tess’s hand.

“Should my wife be delivered of a female child, I leave her ten thousand pounds a year until my daughter marries or reaches her majority, at which time the said daughter is to receive a dowry of fifty thousand pounds. The aforementioned annuity also terminates at my wife’s remarriage.’”

Aunt Tess let go of Marisol’s fingers in order to wipe her eyes. “I was so afraid he’d let us starve if you didn’t provide the heir.”

Mr. Stenross glared at her for the interruption. “Yes, the heir. Under both of the above conditions, His Grace’s brother would inherit by law the title and all entailed property, including but not limited to Denning House in London, Denning Castle, Berkshire, the hunting box in Leicester, holdings in Jamaica, their incomes and earnings.”

Boynton smiled, and even the dowager perked up, until Mr. Stenross went on. “I tried to advise His Grace concerning the disbursement of the unentailed property but the duke was adamant. The bank accounts, real estate investments, consols, et cetera, were his to do with as he wished.”

“Yes, but we all know that’s where the real wealth lies. Who gets it?” Boynton almost shredded the lace at his cuffs, in his excitement.

“‘If I die with no posthumous heir, neither my wife nor my brother is to have a farthing of the unentailed property,’” Mr. Stenross recited, disapproval evident in his voice, “‘which is to be used instead to establish a home for unwed mothers.’”

Boynton fainted dead away, falling off his chair at his mother’s feet. Mr. Stenross’s reading had to be suspended, which was a good thing since Marisol was tempted beyond reason to pick up the dowager’s cane and beat Lord Kimbrough about the head to stop him from laughing so hard.