After the Scandal (42 page)

“Tell me why you killed Maisy Carter,” she said again.

“I didn’t, I swear. I didn’t. I didn’t mean to. She was alive.”

Tanner leaned down even closer, looming over the stricken man. “But you did rape her, didn’t you? Her cross—the cross you strangled her with while you raped her—is right there in your valise, in your wardrobe.”

“I swear, she was alive,” the puling bastard croaked.

“For that alone, you deserve to die.” The vehement whisper came from Claire’s lips. “So you can never do it again. Never shove another girl up against a brick wall.”

Tanner stood and looked at her. “We both wished we had killed him when we had the chance. Well, now’s your chance, Claire.” He pulled that long, wicked blade from his boot, and nimbly reversed it in his hand in front of Rosing’s wide, glassy eyes, holding it out to Claire hilt first. “Kill him now.”

She looked at the knife for such a very long time, Tanner was afraid that he had overplayed it, and that she might not understand that if she truly wanted the man dead, he would do it for her.

“Or if you like, I’ll kill him for you. I’ll do it right this time. I’ll just stand on his leg, and while he’s convulsing and writhing in pain the way he made you, and made all those girls, girl after girl, writhe in pain, then I’ll slide my blade right through his ribs, and turn it until he’s bled dead and dry.”

Tanner didn’t know who was more shocked, Claire or Rosing. But the color came back to Claire’s cheeks—two high spots of ardent color. She rallied, his brave, avenging girl. “I’ll do, Tanner. If you’d be so kind as to stomp on his leg again, I’ll—”

“No. No, I swear I didn’t kill her,” Rosing gasped, tears of fright seeping from his eyes. “Please.”

“Why did you rape her?” Tanner pressed. “Why didn’t you just leave Lady Claire’s room, and let her go?” He had asked himself this question over and over. And he had thought he knew the answer—that Rosing raped her because he could. Because he liked it.

“She would have told Lady Claire.”

The rage was a ravenous thing that was consuming Tanner from the inside out. But he could not let it. He had to think. He had to use his brain and ask the next question. The question he hadn’t liked to ask himself.

“Why did you go to Lady Claire’s room in the first place? Why didn’t you just wait for her at the ball, and do as you did then? And steal her outside, and down the lawn?” What had been the impetus? Why had Rosings picked his Lady Claire Jellicoe and not another?

Rosing’s admission was a desperate whisper. “I was supposed to ruin her.”

Ah. The tumblers in Tanner’s brain aligned, and the bolt fell free. Rosing meant to rape Claire instead of Maisy Carter up there in that bedroom. He was supposed to. Someone wanted him to.

Someone else—someone with a heavy ring on his left hand, and an ancient Roman coin fob, and the cold-blooded conscience of a snake had crushed Maisy Carter’s windpipe.

Somebody with a reason to keep Maisy Carter from naming Rosing, so he could go on to ruin Lady Claire Jellicoe as he was supposed to. Someone who wanted an alliance with the House of Sanderson.

“Hadleigh.” Tanner looked at Claire. “Hadleigh killed her, and then took her body out, and dumped her into the river, just as you supposed.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

There was only one place left to look for the evidence to support their answers.

“I’m going to search Hadleigh’s chamber.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Before he could object, Claire shook her head, silently telling him she couldn’t be brought to stay with Rosing for any reason.

Tanner’s gaze went to the bottles on the table. “Pour out some laudanum. That’ll keep him quiet.”

Tanner forced the dose past Rosing’s crying mouth, and waited for the opiate to take effect. Once the man had slipped under the influence of the drug, Tanner took up the candle, and he and Claire slipped down the corridor to the opposite side of the house, to the room that would adjoin Lady Westmoreland’s sitting room. Light blazed from under her door, but the adjoining room, facing the back of the house and the water, and which would most likely be Hadleigh’s, was dark.

Tanner snuffed out the sconces as he went—relit candles would be a clear indication of movement in the house—and paused for a long, careful moment outside the door, listening, making sure there was no sound of Hadleigh’s valet within. There was only the faint sound of movement below, the low, droning summer sounds of insects in the night, and the occasional shuffling of paper from next door, as if Lady Westmoreland were amusing herself by reading the scandal sheets.

Within the room it was dark and quiet. The windows were closed, the curtains drawn, and the bed turned back—all in preparation for Hadleigh’s return.

Tanner wasted no time. Claire went to one side of the room while he went directly to the small dressing room. Hadleigh kept a larger portion of his clothing at Lady Westmoreland’s house than did his son—clearly he was very much at home there. There were many different coats and shirts and cravats. And many different waistcoats.

But Tanner thought, as he ran his hands across the fabric, he sensed a connection—old-fashioned, twilled silk fabrics, and fine metallic threads woven through.

But no sign of a ripped waistcoat of white and gold metallic threads. Not unless—

Tanner’s eyes fell to the small valise stored on the bottom shelf of the wardrobe. A valise such as a valet would pack, if he meant to take an article of clothing back— He stopped thinking and simply looked.

Ah. “Claire.”

There would be no need to canvas London’s tailors now. At the bottom of the bag was the torn waistcoat, no doubt waiting for the valet to take back to London for repair.

Hadleigh.

Hadleigh had been the one. Rosing must have told him what he’d done, and Hadleigh had gone to the closet where his son had left Maisy Carter concussed perhaps, or half-dead from the effects of the rape and semi-strangulation and the broken nose.

Hadleigh had gone there, and either taken the barely conscious girl somewhere else, or more likely strangled her there, on the spot, hidden from view in the closet. And then he moved her body, wrapped up in his mistress’s distinctive white cloak.

A chill, like a cold breeze from an open window, coursed through Tanner.

It must have been—right from the beginning—a ploy to see a marriage made. To cement an alliance between the House of Hadleigh and the House of Sanderson. That was why Hadleigh and Rosing had come uninvited to the ball in the first place. Because his father had not been able to interest the Earl Sanderson in a previous alliance—in joining his scheme.

Lord Peter Rosing had gone upstairs to Claire’s chamber to find her before the ball had even started. He had meant to compromise her then and there, while the rest of them waited below in the drawing room. While Tanner propped up the wall.

And Claire had foiled him by rushing downstairs to be on time. And Maisy had come back to the chamber and paid the consequences.

Tanner could see it all now, the deadly sequence of events. The greedy error compounding upon greedy error. And there was more greed still. There was the fob.

He could hear his sister’s voice now—
it always comes down to the money.

Tanner needed more evidence. He needed those counterfeit coins. Or better yet those cylinders that had been cast to stamp the blanks.

Would Hadleigh keep such a valuable but incriminating possession with him?

Tanner began systematically turning out the wardrobe, shelf after shelf. He rifled through the valise again, searching for a false bottom, running his hands around the edges of the wardrobe’s wooden frame, feeling and searching for a hidden catch.

Nothing.

But Claire was already ahead of him. “Tanner.”

She was standing next to the writing table, upon which sat a large rectangular carrying case of burnished York tan leather, the kind important papers, or jewelry, were carried in. A locked carrying case. Just waiting for him.

“Can you open it?” she asked. And then asked, “
Should
we open it?”

“Yes.” A case like that he could have open in a few seconds. He wasted no time on explaining his moral failings but moved the candle closer to the keyhole, fished his picks out of his pockets, and set to work.

Hadleigh was a smart man and had chosen a well-made case, with interior hardware—hinges and clasps on the inside where they couldn’t be pried apart with force. And there were two brass-plated keyholes—Tanner would have to pick each lock individually.

Tanner’s encyclopedic mind was already sorting through the catalogue of locks in his mind, remembering successful approaches, reminding him of failures, warning him of possibilities like a sequential lock, where one side might have to be half-set and then the other follow before both sides would release. Or the need to have two keys, and the locks to be turned simultaneously.

He set to it gingerly, feeling his way carefully with the pick, counting the tumblers, sorting out if they were equal to a side, before he attempted to rake the first set. And he was glad he had gone gently when the first lock clicked to half-set.

He repeated the pick on the left side and then thumbed the latches to half-set. Then he raked them both again, until the tumblers fell with a satisfying click.

“Ah.” He positioned his thumbs on opposite sides of the latches, and simultaneously pushed the brass buttons outward.

The latches snapped open.

Claire crowded close and held the candle up so they could see into the interior as he lifted the lid.

At first there didn’t appear to be anything within but a neatly organized leather tray with some writing utensils—metal pens, an old penknife, and a bottle of ink.

But beneath the tray were a small collection of flannel pouches. Tanner plunged his hand in, and felt through them until he found the shapes he was searching for. He pulled open the drawstring and spilled the objects into his palm.

He felt Claire’s sharp intake of breath beside him. “Oh, my God.”

And there they were—the cylinders. One for each side of the counterfeit coin. Brass and steel gleaming in the candlelight.

“Should we take them with us, or the whole case?” Claire was looking at him with a clear mixture of excitement and relief chasing across her face.

“No.” He had left the evidence—the tokens and Maisy’s cross—in Rosing’s wardrobe as well. He needed them found here. He needed them found by somebody else. By the law. “We’ll leave them for—”

He heard it then, the jangling sound of coach harness, followed by the telltale crunch and clatter of gravel that meant Hadleigh was returning.

Tanner felt his face curve into a nasty smile. Right on time.

He snubbed out the candle with his fingers, and waited for their eyes to adjust to the dark. Next door, Lady Westmoreland stirred, and made her swishing silken way out of her room, and then paused at Rosing’s room—presumably to check for Claire—before she went to the stairs, to greet Hadleigh.

As soon as she was past, Tanner set the cylinders back in their flannel pouches, replaced the leather writing tray, and flipped the latches shut. “Put it back exactly where you found it.”

“Here. It was here, on the desk.” Claire positioned the case just so.

Below, voices sounded from the entry hall. “Why isn’t there any light?” Hadleigh sounded irritated and even angry.

“Hadleigh.” Lady Westmoreland’s voice from the stairwell, snide and soothing. “You’ll never guess who came to call.”

“Who?”

But outside there was another sound—the jangling din of a second carriage running up Lady Westmoreland’s semi-circular drive. With any luck, it was the law, come to call. Just as Hadleigh had likely desired.

The urge to run from the law was nearly as strong as the urge to confront Hadleigh. But Tanner disliked postponing justice. He disliked having to hold himself back and wait for the slow legs of the law to catch up. His own brand of justice had always been more sure and more swift.

But he knew to free himself—to free him to marry Lady Claire Jellicoe—the Duke of Fenmore had to publicly and legally discredit the Marquess of Hadleigh, and expose his schemes before justice could follow.

But Claire was feeling the urge to run as well. Especially when Hadleigh’s voice, incredulous and demanding, roared up from below, “Who? Where is she?”

“Tanner!”

Tanner drew Claire to the window, flipped over the latch, and shoved the silent sash open. “You’ll have to go out the window. The roof to the conservatory is right there; you can walk right onto it. But stay low. Don’t try to get down until you hear that everyone is inside, and the coachmen have gone to the stable.”

“How will I get down?”

“You’ll have to jump.”

*   *   *

A sort of frenzied excitement gripped her. Her heart was pounding in her ears, but she felt no panic. Tanner was with her.

But he meant her to go on alone. And she couldn’t do it without him. “What about you?”

“I need to cause a diversion to make sure you get away safely. But I’ll be right behind you. Just the way I was coming in. Now go.” He put his big hand on the top of her head, and propelled her over the sash and onto the roof. “You can do it,” he assured her. “I know you can. Just like the wall in Chelsea. You’re clever and resourceful. Just get yourself well away, and promise me you’ll wait for me to come out.”

But a diversion made no sense when they could get away clean now. “But what if—”

“Do you promise?” He reached through the open window, and gripped her shoulders, and gave her a hard little shake, pressing his vehemence into her.

“I promise.”

And then his big hand snaked around the back of her head, and he pulled her to him for a kiss that was as thorough as it was fast. Heat and devastating emotion in under a heartbeat.

And then he set her away. “Good girl. I love you. Now go.” And he shut the window behind her.

With no other choice, Claire did just as he’d told her she could. She slinked her way across the conservatory’s painted metal roof, and slid down the steeply pitched side of the mansard roof until she could find the lowest point.