Secret Admirer Read online

  The room would have been blanketed by an uncomfortable silence then if a woman who Lawrence had not even noticed stretched out on a settee at the end of the room had not chosen that moment to open her eyes, look at him, cry “Oooh!” and faint again.

  The interruption brought Tuesday back to her senses. “Pay no attention to CeCe, Mr. Pickering. What was it you wanted to see me about?”

  No one had ever called Lawrence “Mr. Pickering.” Even before he had been made an earl, everyone who valued their head addressed him as “My lord.” But it was not worth it to correct her, he decided, and settled for frowning. “I am afraid I am here on official business. I have some bad news for you, Lady Arlington. Something has happened—”

  “To Howard,” Tuesday supplied, the words official business ringing in her ears. She reached a hand behind her for support and caught the edge of a table. Her older brother Howard, her father’s joy, had joined a merchant packet to sail for the new world three months earlier as a way to evade the friendly gentlemen to whom he owed several thousand pounds. Tuesday had arranged the whole thing, had stayed up for weeks painting portraits to earn enough to pay his embarkation fees, and insisted on his going despite his protests that he could put the money to better use gambling. If he had met with some trouble it was her fault, and her father, who had no idea that Howard was anywhere but in London too busy to visit, would never, ever forgive her. She should have known this would happen, since she arranged it. She bit her lip, blinked back tears, and demanded, “Where is he? Is he alive?”

  “This is not about Howard. This is about your husband. Sir Curtis Arlington. When was the last time you saw him?”

  It took Tuesday a moment to recover. “Not about Howard,” she repeated with visible relief, then recalled the man’s question. “The last time I saw Curtis? I don’t know the exact date but it was, ah, recently.” There was a hint of defiance in her eyes. “He said he had business in the countryside so he went away, but it could not be more than a few weeks.”

  “Are you on good terms with him?”

  “Of course. He is my husband.”

  “Then I am sorry to tell you, Lady Arlington, that he is dead.”

  “Dead? Curtis, dead?” Instead of sinking more deeply against the table she had been leaning on, she came up off of it like a shot. She had a flash memory of Curtis standing before her, his shirt open at the neck, his lips parted in a cocky smile under the thin line of his perfectly trimmed mustache, hands on his hips, virile, alive. So alive. Could he really be dead?

  “How long were you married?” she heard herself being asked as if from a great distance.

  She tried to shake away the image of Curtis. “Two years.”

  “Can you think of anyone who would have wanted to kill him? Anyone who would benefit from his death?”

  “No.”

  “Did he have any enemies?”

  “Not that I knew of.”

  “What about his business associates?”

  “I did not know any of his friends.”

  “Yet you were on good terms?”

  Tuesday leveled her storm cloud eyes at him. She was not going to share her failure as a wife with this man. “I cannot see how—”

  “Did you know he was in London?”

  Her eyes skidded nervously around the walls of the room, then came back to him. “No.”

  Lawrence did not like being lied to. “I should tell you, Lady Arlington, we know that your husband was involved in illegal activities. I’ve had a man watching him on and off for a few months.” More off than on, Lawrence had to admit. According to Tom’s reports, Curtis Arlington had been immensely slippery, but no one needed to know that. “The more forthcoming you are with me now, the better off you will be. It is in your best interests to tell me everything.”

  “Illegal activities?” Tuesday repeated. Lawrence raised an eyebrow at her tone and Tuesday felt her face flush. She did not know that skill was something he had practiced for months as a boy, and it probably would not have made her feel any better if she had. “I don’t know anything about illegal activities,” she protested against the eyebrow.

  “Lady Arlington. You have clearly lied to me at least twice in the—” Lawrence consulted a small clock he carried in his cloak, “—four minutes I have been here. That is approximately one lie every two minutes. Why do you think I would believe you now?” There was the eyebrow again.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Tuesday replied, unintimidated. She wanted to be alone, to think about what it meant that Curtis was dead. “Nor do I care. If you have a specific charge to level at me, or a specific question to ask, then ask it. Otherwise, you can go.”

  “Happily. But first I would like to search your husband’s possessions and the rooms he occupied.”

  “You want to search Curtis’s chambers?”

  Lawrence had expected indignation. He had not expected her to look like she was going to laugh again. “Yes,” he confirmed. “And any papers or clothes you may have.”

  She sounded absolutely apologetic when she said, “I am afraid that will not be possible, my lord.”

  “Lady Arlington, I do not think you understand. Your husband was murdered. Left lying at the end of a deserted corridor in a puddle of blood. Whoever did that was determined to—”

  Lawrence stopped talking because the color had drained from her face.

  She asked, in a voice not more than a whisper, “A corridor?”

  “Yes. In one of the old houses along—”

  “An unpainted corridor?”

  “Yes.” A pause. “Do you know something about this, Lady Arlington?”

  “Take me there.”

  What Lawrence said next was, “If you have any information about your husband’s death, you would do well to tell me at once.”

  But in her head Tuesday heard:

  You just keep your whore mouth shut or I’ll do the same to you as I did to him. Do you understand, bitch? Answer me!

  Chapter 5

  “Take me there,” Tuesday repeated. There were goosebumps on her arms. “Take me. Now.”

  “You cannot evade my questions that easily, Lady Arlington.”

  “Please.” She was almost begging. “I need to see it. I need to see the place. If you take me there, afterward, I promise, I’ll answer all your questions.”

  Lawrence weighed the wisdom of taking her deal. He could give orders to his men to make sure nothing left Worthington Hall while they were gone, and he needed her pliant. Plus, the body had already been moved. There was no reason she should not see the place where her husband had died. There was nothing horrible about the place.

  Her reaction, when they got there, would have suggested otherwise. She stood in the middle of the long, wood-paneled hallway looking down toward the corner where Curtis’s body had been found, and began to tremble.

  Come here right now, bitch.

  Tuesday shrugged off the hands that reached out to support her and walked slowly down the corridor. She collected details as she passed, like she did when she was painting a portrait, details to keep the voices away.

  The hallway was dustier than she remembered from her dream. She paused to push open the doors on either side, to make sure there were no eyes there. One of the doors would not open at first and her heart began to pound, but her second attempt succeeded. She walked inside.

  Get out here you stupid whore bitch and show yourself.

  The room was empty, the dust undisturbed, but she closed the door behind her as she left. With slow steps she made her way toward the place where the floor was sticky from Curtis’s blood. There was a dark line on the floor next to the wall, about halfway there. She bent and found that it was a strip of fabric as wide as her hand and knotted. The edges smelled like the lilac hair pomade Curtis always wore and the center, stiff with blood, bore three indentations. Two eyes and a nose, she thought mechanically. The killer must have blindfolded Curtis.r />
  She absently ran her fingers over the knot, her eyes still on the floor.

  Something was missing.

  “The rose petals,” she said aloud, as if musing to herself. “Someone took away the rose petals.”

  The corridor got very quiet. “What did you say?” the man named Lawrence Pickering asked.

  Tuesday, still scowling at the floor, ignored him. “How many men have you let come down here?”

  “Two, my assistant and myself,” Lawrence replied. “But what do you—”

  “Does the other one also have blonde hair?”

  “What?”

  Tuesday waved the question away. She knew she was delaying on purpose, stalling. She felt the end of the corridor tugging at her inexorably. Instead of running there as she had in her dream, she was being pulled toward it, dragged there, against her will. She knew what waited for her at the end of the hallway—I told you I would get you, whore—but she could not stop herself from moving forward. It was as if she were under someone else’s power, as if she were someone else’s creature. Somewhere behind her Lawrence Pickering was talking but she could no longer hear his voice. She let the blindfold fall from her hand and walked toward the corner, each step hard and heavy, until she was standing in front of the place where Curtis was killed.

  She reached out her fingertips to touch the knot in the wood paneling that could almost be a death’s head. Just below it was a smudge of dirt. She bent to examine it and saw that it was a handprint, as if Curtis had fallen and put out his hand to stop himself. No, the angle was wrong for that. She let her right hand hover over the print and felt the hair on the nape of her neck stand up. It wasn’t Curtis’s. It was the killer’s. He had stood exactly where she was now standing, exactly as she was now standing. Slightly bent, leaning over her victim. His victim. His.

  She was about to straighten when she caught something out of the corner of her eye. Don’t look, her mind screamed. Whatever it is, you don’t want to see it. You don’t want to be involved. You don’t want to—

  Her head turned to the left. On the side of the wall, a hint of rust-colored paint—or blood, she realized now, that is what it was, blood—had been splattered. Exactly as it was in her painting.

  Tuesday’s coolness evaporated. She had not done that on purpose, it had happened by accident, by accident, when her wrist cramped and the brush slipped from her fingers and slid across her palette and onto the canvas.

  And then she had the terrifying thought that there were no accidents. That she had not been in control of her brush. Or, perhaps, worse, that she had. That somehow she was bound to the killer. She remembered the feeling of the cramp, like someone grabbing her wrist, jerking it. It was as though somehow she and the killer acted together. As though she was just as responsible for the murder as he was. That every gesture she made, he also made. That her wrist had cramped, her brush had fallen, because Curtis’s throat was slit.

  Or had Curtis’s throat been slit because her brush had fallen?

  Lawrence saw her shudder and reach out to the wall for support. Her eyes stayed glued on the corner where her husband’s body had been found, but her free hand now covered her lips, like a portrait of unspeakable horror.

  You are mine now, bitch. Mine.

  “No,” she said aloud, shaking her head. “You can’t do this.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Lawrence Pickering called from behind her.

  Turn around, Tuesday told herself. Turn around and tell him everything. Tell him about the dream and (You just keep) about the painting (your whore mouth shut) and about Curtis (or I’ll do the same to you as I did to him).

  Her eyes rested on the handprint against the wall. What could the killer have been doing to leave it? Heartless she heard the killer saying. Ha ha ha.

  Tuesday whirled to face Lawrence. “Did he—did he cut Curtis’s heart out?”

  Lawrence hesitated for a moment, then said, “Yes.”

  Do you understand, bitch?

  “Lady Arlington, you seem strangely familiar with this crime scene. Do you know something? Something that would help us catch your husband’s killer?”

  Answer me!

  “No.” Tuesday moved her eyes from Lawrence. “I don’t know anything. I just saw the handprint on the wall and figured …” her voice trailed off. She felt as if her body were made of lead, the weight of her self-loathing pulling at her. She wanted to go home and wash herself, endlessly, wash off the horror of having a killer inside of her, of her husband possibly dying because of her, but she knew it would not work. Nothing was going to purge the killer from her head but catching him. (Keep your whore mouth shut!) And she was going to have to do that alone.

  She made a decision. She would sneak away and leave London. Perhaps if he did not know where she was, he could not use her to kill. Or perhaps he would follow her. Either way, she would put an end to this. She took a deep breath and, her eyes stuck on Lawrence’s nose, said, “I think I need to go home now. I don’t feel very well and I must—my father must hear about this. I know I promised to answer your questions, and I will, but not right now. I don’t think I have anything useful to tell you anyway.” She was a terrible liar, she knew, but she hoped the apparent strain of what she was going through would cover for the tightness in her voice and the way she was blushing.

  Lawrence frowned at her. She was being evasive, no question. And she had not held up her portion of their bargain. But he could use more time to decide how to handle her.

  Plus she did, suddenly, look very ill.

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “That is very kind of you but I would rather walk. Good—”

  “I am driving you,” Lawrence repeated, a command now, and steered her forcibly into his coach.

  They made the trip in silence, each sunk in their own thoughts as they inched through the crowded streets.

  How could a killer be in her head, Tuesday wondered. How could he control her? And, most frightening, what was he going to do, going to make her do, next?

  She knew too much about the murder scene, Lawrence thought. She’d tried to cover up mentioning the rose petals; that must have slipped out because of the shock, but he’d heard it. There was too much she wasn’t telling him—too many inconsistencies. Too many lies for an innocent woman. She was smart and clever and, he realized, he had to press her now before she had time to arrange a story that could take his men weeks to penetrate.

  Lawrence trailed her, uninvited, up the steps of her house.

  “Thank you,” she said as she opened the door and stepped into the entry hall. “For taking me there. And for the ride.” She turned to face him and their eyes accidentally met and Tuesday saw again—

  Dark night, a man silhouetted against the sky, it’s so cold, so cold.

  —emptiness. She had never seen such empty eyes. “I am sorry about before,” she stammered, abruptly ill at ease. “About how I behaved. Sometimes I—”

  Of the three things Lawrence hated most in the world, the second one was gratitude. “I do not want your thanks, Lady Arlington. Or your pity. I want answers to my questions and I am not leaving until I get them.”

  That was too much. Her husband was dead, her life was in ruins, there was a killer in her head telling her not to speak to anyone, and now an imperious earl who smelled like he’d been sleeping in alleys and didn’t give a thought to anyone beyond himself was frowning at her and threatening to camp at her house. Something in Tuesday’s head snapped. “My goodness, Mr. Pickering. You do not need to waste all that charm on me.”

  Lawrence goggled at her. “The title is Lord Pickering.”

  “No. It is Lord Arden. At least, that is what everyone said earlier, although I still think—”

  “Tuesday!” a voice shouted from above them. “Tuesday, damn you girl, get up here this instant.”

  “Father,” she said in a half whisper, then turned and made for the staircase, sarcasm gone. She dashe
d up to the first landing and was slightly breathless when she entered the large, sumptuously furnished chamber her father occupied. The old man glared at her from a chair near the window. “Where the devil have you been all day, girl? I’ve been calling you for hours.”

  “I am sorry father. I had to go out.”

  Sir Dennis Worthington looked at his daughter from the corner of his eye, pretending to be looking elsewhere. It was an old habit, and a good one. Caught things people didn’t want you to see. But Tuesday’s face was impassive, like always, contrary girl. “Out? I suppose you had something more important to do than care for your poor father?”

  “Actually, father, there is—”

  “Don’t interrupt me! Do you know what that scoundrel Morse did? He brought me the same meat pie for lunch today I had yesterday. And you were not here to stop him. Impudent swine. Do you know, Tuesday, what the neighbors will be saying when they hear?”

  “Why would the neighbors hear?”

  “Can’t you ever think of anyone besides yourself, girl? Of course they will hear. And they will say poor Denny Worthington, even his kin don’t pay enough attention to him to remember what he ate the day before and see that he gets some variety. Poor old Denny, they’ll say, neglected by those who should be most dutiful to him. Poor, poor Sir Dennis—” he was quite wound up now and appeared almost ready to rise in the style of great orators—“whom nobody thinks of, nobody cares for, nobody waits on.”

  Nobody bit her lip. Sir Dennis, having collapsed back into his chair, was not too busy mopping the corner of his eye with the lawn cuff of his shirt to notice.

  “You know I don’t usually give in to my condition this way, Tuesday,” he resumed with a sad glance in her direction. “But this time of year, the time of year of your beloved mother’s death, is always hard for me. And then, the same pie twice. Really, it is too much. Too too much.”

  “I am sorry, father. I will see that Morse doesn’t do it again.”

  “I’ve already seen to that. I fired him.”