Three Nights of Sin (17 page)

“Your beneficence will surely be rewarded.”

“Benton will be declaring for me any day now, so I’m sure it shall be,” she said blithely, flicking the edge of her bonnet.

Unless things had changed drastically in the past few weeks, Marietta doubted it. “Lord Benton will hardly choose you. He could have a diamond, and you are anything but.”

Felicity’s eyes narrowed but she continued to smile. “As if you’d know a diamond from paste. How many offers have you had, Marietta? Oh, and how many invitations have graced your door of late?”

“None,” Marietta said with a calm she didn’t feel. “As you are well aware.”

“I am,” she purred. “Have you read the papers lately? They say you’ve turned to whoring.” She looked her over. “I will be happy to confirm it.”

“Such a nasty word for a
lady
to use.”

Marietta jumped. She had temporarily forgotten Gabriel. He had been steps ahead of her when she’d been grabbed. Felicity startled as well, turning her bonneted head to see who had addressed her.

Felicity’s mouth dropped an inch and Marietta watched the cogs turn as her lips pulled into a brilliant smile. Gabriel was the most…well, just the
most
man she’d ever met. She had little doubt the same was true for Felicity. “Goodness. My apologies, sir. You are most
correct. My acquaintance here does tend to bring out the worst in me.”

“Do you always blame your actions on others?”

Felicity’s mouth dropped again, but this time from a different kind of shock. “I beg your pardon?”

“You just said that you behaved poorly because your acquaintance brings out the worst in you.” He leaned toward her, and Marietta saw her cheeks redden, both from his proximity and words. “Hardly taking responsibility for your own actions, are you, miss? It sounds to me like perhaps you just behave badly in general, and then make excuses for it.”

“I do not behave badly! I am a high ranking member of society, sir.” She smoothed her hands along her skirt and looked up with a new smile. “I assure you my manners are perfectly acceptable.”

“To whom?”

Her smile dropped and her eyes widened. “Miss Winters, cousin, if you’d be so kind as to introduce us?” She’d never seen Felicity so flustered.

Marietta shrugged. “I can’t help you there, Miss Tercake. I don’t know him.”

“Weren’t you walking with a man?” She looked Gabriel over. “Oh. Must have been a different man.”

“Are you calling her a whore again? Are you sure you are a lady?”

“My father’s Baron Kilden!”

“I’m not familiar with the name. Foreign?”

“Irish!”

Gabriel rocked back on his heels, saying nothing.

“Why am I bothering to talk to you! You are nothing.” She seemed to have gotten past his face and
looked at his clothes, his longshoreman apparel. Unfortunately, her cheeks were still bright and she’d made a fool of herself over him already. “And you.” She pointed at Marietta. “Don’t show your face at our door asking for help.”

She marched away. Gabriel watched her go. Marietta watched Gabriel.

“I see why you would have picked a stranger to help you first.” He looked back to her, his eyes unreadable. “Come. Let’s go home.”

S
he flipped through the
Times
again. There were plenty of articles and opinions on the Winters brothers working together on their murder spree. Mostly ugly ones like Felicity had crowed about, but a few articles were creeping in, scattered throughout, proclaiming doubt in their culpability. Describing a few instances where they were at a party or another function and couldn’t have been off murdering women. Nathaniel Upholt was the journalist responsible for writing most of the positive ones.

In the end, it would all come down to the sway of the tide. And there were only a few more days until the trial would begin. Not much time.

Marietta sneaked a look around the kitchen to make sure Gabriel hadn’t popped in, silent as usual. She’d heard cats that were louder when they pawed across a floor. She pulled the journal from beneath a pile of the papers. She had fetched it from his room again. This time from behind the door. She’d almost missed it after a thorough search. Clever man.

Marietta twirled a lock of hair around her finger as she continued to read. It was all so deliciously awful. That these were the actual thoughts of someone.

The back door opened. She swung forward in her seat and spilled her cup of water over the right end of the table. She hastily shoved the book beneath a pile of papers and looked forward, mimicking the most innocent look she could dredge up.

“Marietta, you look as if you have been caught with your fingers in the cook’s pie.”

Relief sunk her elbows onto the table. “Oh, thank goodness. Jeremy, what are you doing here?”

“Dropped by to see how my favorite brother and my favorite client of his are doing.” He smiled winningly and sat across from her.

She arched a brow. “I’m sure. He is your only brother, is he not?”

He threw his head to the side, his smile growing. “Small quibbles, small quibbles.”

Marietta drew the newspaper back. She desperately wanted to keep reading the journal. The only times she was able to were when Gabriel was out of the house, and this time he’d only stepped out for a moment. He would always invariably find the journal—how, she didn’t know—and hide it once more. She was surprised he hadn’t burned it, but he seemed to take perverse pleasure in hiding it from her.

“How is the search going?” He leaned back in his chair, reminiscent of his brother but with a younger, cockier air.

She needed to figure out how to hide the journal now that Jeremy appeared to be in for a long visit. It lay perilously close to his position. “We found a man who seems suspicious.”

“Really? Who?”

She examined the papers around him. Perhaps if she moved that one…

“A servant. From the Dentry estate.”

His chair whacked against the floor, also reminiscent of his brother. “What?”

She looked up at the bang. “Why, are you familiar with the servants there? Oh, that’s right. You are from that area, yes?”

Jeremy’s mouth pulled up, but the grin was strained. “Yes.”

She frowned. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I thought Gabriel discussed the case with you.”

He waved a hand. “I’ve been out and about the last
week. Why don’t you catch me up? How did a Dentry servant get involved?”

A faint hint of uncertainty spread through her. She liked Jeremy. But he was acting oddly. But then so too was Gabriel. The whole case was making her think strange thoughts.

“He was stalking the last victim.”

His leg started bumping up and down. “You know who the last victim was? They haven’t said a thing in the papers.”

“Gabriel found out through a fence. Something about the woman’s—” Marietta could hardly call her a lady. “—necklace.”

“Her necklace?” He swallowed. “Interesting. How like Gabriel to put the pieces together so quickly.”

She frowned. “Are you well, Jeremy?”

“I’m feeling a bit under the weather, now that you mention it. Do you know the victim’s name?”

She chewed her lip, her uncertainty turning into flat discomfort. “I’m not sure I should be discussing it with you, if Gabriel hasn’t said anything.”

He leaned forward on his elbows, his eyes round and earnest, desperation lining his face. He reminded her so much of Kenny, though a slightly wiser and more handsome version. “Please, Marietta. Gabriel tries to protect me, and he needs to stop. He doesn’t—”

One of his elbows slipped on a bulge in the papers. He looked down, pushing them to the side and unearthing the journal. “What’s this?”

“Oh, nothing.” She nervously tried to take it from him.

He opened the cover before she could. She watched his face darken. “Who was the servant you were chasing and why?”

“Jeremy—”

“Marietta, please.”

“Jacob Worley.”

He stared at her. “And you think him responsible?”

She fiddled with the paper under her fingers. “I think someone is responsible, and it’s neither of my brothers. This Jacob Worley had constructed an altar to the murdered victims.”

“A what?”

“Some sort of shrine with pictures and notes. Like a madman who has fallen in love with the people he kills.”

Disgust curled his face. “A shrine? To them? That is disgusting.”

Again there was an undercurrent flowing through the room that she couldn’t comprehend. “I know. What goes through the mind of someone when they kill another person and then set up a shrine?”

He blinked, as if that hadn’t been what he was saying.

“Where did you get this?” He hefted the journal.

“From the woman’s house. It’s horrible. She was horrible.” She held out her hand. He didn’t move. “Jeremy?”

“You shouldn’t read something like this.”

She made an impatient motion with her hand. “Yes, yes, I’ve heard that before. Give it here.”

He didn’t move, so she reached over and pulled it from his hands.

The sound of the front door opening made her jump, and she shoved the journal right back under the stack of papers. Jeremy raised a brow.

Gabriel walked into the kitchen and stopped dead. “What are you doing here?”

“Good afternoon to you too, dear brother.”

“I thought you were back at school.”

“I took a leave.”

“You what?” Gabriel’s voice was forbidding.

“I will go back next term, if everything works out.”

“Explain yourself. If what works out?”

“My project. I have something I’ve been meaning to take care of for a long time.”

“What type of project?” she asked.

“No.” It was the first time she’d ever seen Gabriel look even remotely frightened. His features changed, and there was something terrifying in his expression. “Go back to school. I will have the carriage take you and I will talk to the dean.”

“No.” Jeremy stood. “I’m staying in London. You can’t control me, Gabriel.”

“I can. You
will
go back to school.”

“Next term.”

“This
term.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Marietta stood to leave.

Gabriel pointed at her. “Sit.”

She sat. She immediately stood again, irritated with herself for following the command. “Why don’t you listen to what Jeremy has to say?”

“Because I don’t care what he has to say. He is going back to school
today
.”

Jeremy’s face was a picture of hurt and determination. “No, Gabriel. If you force the issue, I will cut off contact.”

Marietta caught the devastation on Gabriel’s face before it disappeared behind a mask of iron. “I’ll cut off your allowance.”

Jeremy opened his mouth. Whatever came out next from either of them was going to be unforgivable, she could feel it in the way their eyes flashed and their stances both turned into a mirror of aggressiveness. She cut Jeremy off and turned to Gabriel. “Why are you doing this? Just ask him what his project is.”

“I don’t
want to know
what his project is.” She wasn’t sure which was worse, the pain in Gabriel’s eyes or the pain in Jeremy’s.

“That’s right,” Jeremy said. “It’s only your pain, Gabriel. Your way to ignore everything and maybe it will just
go away
.” He swept his hand over the papers on the table, scattering them to the floor. A corner of the journal peeked from beneath the mess still on the scarred oak.

Marietta heard a trickle of water somewhere. They all stared at the journal. It just sat there staring back.

“Goddammit, Marietta!” Gabriel jerked the journal from the pile, spraying papers further. He stormed from the room and upstairs. There was a loud whack as he threw it against something.

Jeremy’s eyes met hers. “Good-bye, Marietta.”

“Jeremy, wait.”

But he had already opened the door and slammed it behind him.

Marietta sank into her chair and looked at the papers before her.

Gabriel walked back in and clanged a pot on the high table. Then a spoon into the pot, then a container on the table. He started throwing things into the pot, and she stared numbly at his back.

He stirred the pot, his elbow making a small circuit. “We are going over to the East End tonight.” His voice was completely calm, as if nothing untoward had occurred, as if the spoon wasn’t scraping the sides and battering the metal.

“What?”

“Jacob Worley was spotted there. We are going to see if we can find him.”

“What about Jeremy?”

His shoulders tensed. “What about him?”

“Aren’t you going to do anything?”

“Yes, I’m going to find Jacob Worley.”

“No! Aren’t you going to do anything about Jeremy?”

“That is none of your concern.”

“You made it my concern when you argued in front of me. When you told me to
sit
.”

He continued stirring.

“You hurt Jeremy.”

“Marietta…” His voice was forbidding.

She argued with Mark all the time, but Mark had always been slightly apart from Kenny and her. This was more as if she’d argued with Kenny. To see his face like Jeremy’s had been.

“But—”

The spoon hit the bottom of the pot. “No!” His shoulders bowed forward. “You don’t understand. Please leave it.”

Her mouth parted. He had never said please to her before.

“Very well,” she said softly.

She moved to his side, picked up an onion and began peeling the skin. His shoulders relaxed a fraction and she said nothing more.

The tavern was dim and filled with less savory types. The Clerkenwell area taverns, though raucous and bawdy, at least had none of this overt sense of menace. The patrons’ shifty eyes and disappearing hands. Marietta touched the pistol in her pocket. Her lessons so long ago might finally be needed.

Gabriel threw a coin onto the table, and before she knew it two ales were in front of them. She worked up a smile. This ale looked about the same way the tavern did. Shady. There was something floating in the liquid that she didn’t want to identify.

The man who had delivered the mugs stood before the table, a towel over his shoulder. Gabriel held out his hand, and when the man shook it, a glint of metal passed between them.

“We’re looking for a man. About your height. Brown hair, blue eyes, with a scar running beneath his chin.”

“I might know who you’re talking about. What you want with him?”

“This is his sister. He hasn’t been home in a fortnight. Family is worried sick.”

Marietta read the look in the man’s eye. He didn’t believe a word, but then he didn’t look as if he cared either.

“Bad business making family worry. Bloke fitting that description was in here yesterday. Talked to Denise.” He pointed at a girl in a tight dress. “Moved off in a hurry.”

Gabriel handed the man another coin. The man walked over and said something to Denise.

Gabriel leaned into her. “What do my eyes say, Marietta?”

She jerked to look at him. His eyes were smoky and bright green. “They say you are intrigued.”

“Tut tut, Marietta. You are losing your touch.” A bit of challenge entered his gaze.

She swallowed. “They say you are about to kiss me.”

A slow smile worked over his lips. “Much better.”

“But we don’t need—”

His mouth swept hers. His tongue teased hers. His hands pulled her to him. Gabriel was never awkward or hasty. Always dominating. Always sure of himself.

He pulled away and she felt a quiver in her limbs. With one maneuver he could reduce her to jelly. No. Fire fueled her determination. She grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him forward. Doing everything he had taught her. Pulling him into her and sending herself back.

She released him, breathing heavily. He stared at her, eyes wide, shock in the green depths.

“You still need me over here? Roger said you wanted to talk, but methinks you might be wanting something else,” a voice said to her right.

Gabriel ignored the voice and continued to look at her, eyes back to regular size but unreadable.

Marietta gripped her mug and stared back.

Gabriel ripped his gaze away and motioned the woman to a seat. Denise sat. “Be needing a taste of another woman too? I can give you that.” She cackled.

“It was said you talked to a man with a scar last night,” Gabriel said, his voice clipped.

She took his measure. “Yeah, he was here. Took him home with me.”

“You took him back to your room?”

She shrugged. “Seemed nice enough. Average tumble, but most days are like that, aren’t they?” She gave him a once-over. “Other days promise a little more. Wouldn’t mind being between the both of ya if you promise more of that display.”