Suzanne Robinson (10 page)

“I had an appointment with him tomorrow morning,” Balfour said, his expression solemn. “It appears you guessed right.”

“I have several sources whose chief delight in life is keeping abreast of the latest gossip.” Cheyne looked at the body. “Hell.”

Sir Archibald had been a bushy-browed man with skin the color of vellum. He’d also recently become a connoisseur of music-hall singers. An unremarkable habit among society men that wouldn’t have interested Cheyne ordinarily. Until he learned that the once prudish Sir Archibald was rumored to have indulged in assignations with several women at one time. Even this tidbit hadn’t alarmed him enough to tell Balfour that contacting Sir Archibald was urgent. Evidently at some time during his excursions in the music halls Thurgood had left incriminating evidence of his activities, something that could be held over him.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Balfour said, regarding
Cheyne with severity. “Believe me, there’s no way to know if a man will break under this kind of pressure.”

A man who had been talking to one of the detectives picked up a leather bag and came over to them.

“I’m finished, Balfour.”

“Very well, Doctor. It’s suicide, then.”

“Well, the poor man drank an entire bottle of cognac in the space of a few minutes. He poisoned himself, Superintendent. That much alcohol would kill anyone, but I don’t know if he was aware of it. Unless I can prove otherwise, I shall have to record it as an accident.”

“Very well,” said Balfour. “Thank you and good evening, Doctor.”

Cheyne looked at the body again. He could see a bald spot on the top of Preston’s head. Somehow it made the man seem too human, too real to be dead. A muscle twitched in Cheyne’s jaw as he recalled what he’d been doing while this man drank himself to death.

“You’ll find a series of large withdrawals from his bank account,” Cheyne said.

“Probably.” Balfour glanced at him. “Sorry to drag you into this, old man, but I’ve little choice, as you see.”

“I’ve done you little good so far.”

“You’ve just begun. If there’s any good to come out of this, it’s that we can chalk the death up to accidental overdose of alcohol. No suicide to attract the attention of the papers.”

Cheyne nodded and glanced around the room. It was a man’s study, full of leather furniture and books on history, the military, and science. These books had been used; they were not kept for show. Sir Archibald had been a complicated man, who had left behind a grieving family.

After a few more words with Balfour, Cheyne went home. Striding into his entry hall, he whipped off his coat and threw it at Mutton. His hat followed as he headed for the brandy decanter in the drawing room. Pouring himself a large drink, he gulped down half of it. Then he looked at the crystal glass in his hand and hurled it at the fireplace. The glass shattered, and Cheyne had already picked up another to pitch after it when Mutton walked in with the air of an alert bloodhound.

“Here, here, here, wot’s all this?”

The second glass splintered against the grate, and the coals hissed. “Bloody hell and damnation!” Cheyne cursed.

Mutton hurried to the table and picked up the tray of crystal. “No, you don’t, gov’nor. You leave that Waterford be.”

Cheyne slumped down on the couch in front of the fireplace and buried his face in his hands.

“Go away.”

Mutton set the tray down, found an antique Minton dish and began picking up shards of glass. “Wot’s got into you?”

“A man died tonight, in case you failed to grasp the message.”

“Nah, I got it first time around,” Mutton said companionably.

Lifting his head, Cheyne glared at his valet. “He drank a whole bottle of cognac, and it killed him. I knew he was in trouble, but I couldn’t stop him.”

“Cor blimey, squire.” Mutton laid his dish of shards aside. “Don’t see as how you could’ve helped, ’less you was one of them mind readers.”

Cheyne lay back on the couch and laughed. It was a distraught sound, so he stopped. He smiled painfully at Mutton.

“Do you know what I was doing while Archibald Preston drank himself to death? I was chasing Miss Matilda Bright all over Lutterworth House like some demented colt, and when I caught her—” Cheyne realized he was breathless and talking too loudly.

He thrust himself to his feet and walked away. He paused by a sideboard over which hung a painting he’d bought last year. It was a landscape by Turner. Cheyne gazed at the hills covered with grass and wildflowers and wished he could somehow dive into that scene and stay there forever. He closed his eyes.

“What’d she do to you this time?”

He turned swiftly. “That’s hardly important now. What’s important is that I allowed myself to be distracted. It won’t happen again, no matter what the temptation.”

Mutton’s brows climbed his high forehead. “Temptation?”

“Damn you, leave me alone.” Cheyne went back
to the side table and poured himself another brandy. This time he sipped it.

Mutton picked up his dish and started collecting glass shards again. Silence reigned for a while.

“You’re barmy if you think I can’t see what’s happened.”

Looking up from his study of the brandy in his glass, Cheyne snapped, “What? What do you see?”

“She’s took your fancy. More’n that. You’re bleeding sick with it. Got her alone, you did, and found out what I knew all along.”

“I am not sick with it, as you so eloquently put it,” said Cheyne with deliberate calm. “I intend to have nothing to do with Miss Bright in the future. I’ve no time to waste on her. She’s a title-hunting colonial witch, and she deserves the misery she’ll get by marrying one of our self-important worthless English heirs. My only regret is that she seems to have little experience to see her through the coming ordeal, but that’s hardly my affair.”

Cheyne made a show of placing his glass on the tray quietly and marched out of the drawing room. Mutton followed him into the entry hall and to the foot of the stairs.

“Not your affair?” Mutton asked.

“No,” Cheyne said as he climbed the stairs.

Mutton watched him go up. “Right, gov’nor.” He paused. “Only thing is, if she means nothing to you, how come you know she has little experience? Unless you’ve give her some yourself.”

Cheyne almost stumbled. Twisting around, he
gave his valet a look that would have frightened Jack the Ripper.

“Leave it, damn you. I’ll hear no more!”

He went into his room and slammed the door. Too bad he couldn’t shut out the thoughts that came in with him.

 
7
 

A week after the Lutterworth ball Mattie slipped out of Spencer House and went to the mews carrying a basket. Once in the stable, she switched on the gaslights and greeted the horses. She gave each a carrot and a pat on the nose before finding her box of polish and dust cloths. Cleaning her motorcars always made her feel better, and right now she was about as happy as a saloon owner at a temperance meeting. The Panhard-Levassor already gleamed, so she turned her attentions to the older Benton Harbor.

The Benton looked more like a carriage, with its curved sides and black roof. It had far less power and dependability than the newer, more elegant model, but it had been one of her first motorcars. Taking a clean cloth from her box, Mattie began to dust the body of the motorcar. It was yellow with black leather seats. As she dusted, she talked to it.

“Well, Bennie, it’s true. I’ve conceived some kind
of horrifying fascination for that skunk Cheyne Tennant. It’s humiliating, seeing as how he’s treated me worse than dirt.” She ran the cloth along a fender and shook her head. “It’s ’cause he looks so good. Can’t be his character, because that’s rotten.”

She stepped on the running board to dust the front seat. Her campaign to reform herself was failing in the grand manner of Napoleon’s march to Russia, all on account of Mr. Cheyne Tennant. No matter how firm her resolve, she couldn’t seem to control herself around him. He just made her too angry. The experience was beginning to worry her. What if she couldn’t change? Maybe she was just too full of meanness and shortcomings. The idea shamed and frightened her. She never should have given in to that impulse to retaliate against his high-and-mighty lordship. And now it looked as if she’d never reform as long as he was near.

She’d never expected Tennant to come after her at the ball, and once he caught her, his behavior had been incomprehensible. Until he’d said those last words.
If you value your honor, Miss Bright, you’ll do as I ask. Otherwise, it’s quite likely I shall throw you on the floor
.

Then she’d understood, and something in her responded. In that second while he gripped the curtains and tried to master himself, she’d experienced a strange compulsion. Had she given in to it, she would have gone to him. And ended up on the floor.

Mattie had lived on a ranch. She understood what happened between males and females; she’d just
never felt the kind of urgency that seemed to go along with relations between men and women. She’d met some likable gentlemen at home, but none had evoked this craving in her. And she couldn’t get rid of it.

Since the ball she had taken care not to go near Cheyne Tennant. If she had, no doubt he’d have made her mad with his highfalutin ways and his waspy tongue. Besides, he was just too blamed pretty to ignore.

Unlike many men, Tennant had the height to carry off long frock coats or evening coats. His lean face bore no disfiguring mustache that so many gentlemen sported these days, and he moved with confidence and grace. She’d seen that kind of confidence in men who survived weeks on the range dealing with rattlesnakes and rustlers. Few men in Society possessed it. Oh, they acted as if the world had been designed for their enjoyment, but Mattie knew that, faced with real danger, most of them would have no idea how to face it and come through sitting straight in the saddle.

She sighed and moved to dust the back seat of the Benton Harbor. She was tired after having awakened from a dream about Tennant. It was galling to admit, but she couldn’t forget the sight of him clutching that curtain, his entire body rigid. His hand, tangled in the velvet, had been elegant, the long fingers white with the strength of his grip. The sight of that hand had brought back the memory of it against her flesh when he held her. No gentleman had ever
touched her so intimately. Oh, at first he’d intended something far less friendly, but something had happened to him once he touched her.

“I don’t understand it, Bennie,” she said as she stepped out of the motorcar and went around to the rear to run the cloth along the back end. “It’s not like I’m irresistible. There’s plenty of ladies prettier’n me. Look at Consuelo Marlborough, or Daisy Warwick.”

So, she was in a quandarv. She was losing her fight to become more admirable and ladylike, and she had a weakness for the very man who was helping her destroy Papa’s dream.

Mattie shook her head in disgust. She stepped back and admired her cleaning job, then glanced at the horses. “What do you think, fellas?” One of the carriage horses snorted.

“A lot you know,” Mattie replied.

She gave the Panhard under its dust sheet a look of longing and put her cloth back in the polishing box. No drive in the park today. She had a fitting this morning and then she’d promised Narcissa and Mama she’d go look for art and antiques. It was to make up for refusing to go to a dance last night, to Mama’s great frustration. The Marquess of Stainfield was showing interest, and he was the heir to a dukedom. Stainfield was all right. He couldn’t help it if he was a snob, Mattie supposed. But she was too upset with herself to go.

No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t keep herself from wanting to go back to America, where she could talk to people about photographic cameras
and electric lights and how telephones worked, and what these new things called X rays were. And better yet, if she went home, she wouldn’t have to look at Cheyne Tennant and wonder if his hands felt as good as she remembered, or if she’d imagined them being so gentle and yet strong.

At home she wouldn’t spend nights tossing like she had a scorpion in her bedroll just because she was afraid to dream about that skunk Cheyne Tennant. It was humiliating to be at the mercy of cravings for such an ornery man. The longer she was unable to master this attraction, the worse she felt. Narcissa had remarked upon her absentmindedness. Mattie longed to confide in her, but she was too ashamed of her weakness.

She had to talk to someone, though. The thought of the marquess touching her the way Cheyne had, revolted her. If she continued to feel this way, she would find it impossible to marry a nobleman, and everyone would be disappointed in her. Seeing her at the top of Society had been Papa’s final wish. He’d wanted the best for her, and she was letting him down. All because Cheyne Tennant had threatened to toss her on the floor.

“Dang.”