Robyn DeHart - [Dangerous Liaisons 01] Read online

  Alex stirred the cream into his tea, then took a sip. He retrieved the notes he’d taken during his meeting with Mia and set them in front of him. A moment later a man entered the study and the door was closed behind him. A very familiar man.

  Alex came to his feet. “Simon?” He shook his head. “I thought . . . I was expecting an inspector from the Scotland Yard.” He and Simon had grown up together, been friends all through school. When Alex had joined the army, Simon had stayed behind to become a professor. He’d always been disarmingly intelligent.

  “Hello, Alex, it’s been a while. So long, in fact, that you didn’t know I was, in fact, an inspector.”

  “Ah, now Inspector Jacobs makes perfect sense,” Alex said.

  “I’ve been with the Yard now for nearly three years.” Simon moved forward and took a seat in one of the chairs opposite Alex’s desk.

  “I suppose being out of the country would limit my knowledge of your whereabouts. Last I heard you were at university, teaching,” Alex said.

  “My position with the Metropolitan Police is not particularly public knowledge,” Simon said. “It’s not so much that I hide it, but being from my family, it is not a widely supported decision.”

  Alex offered his friend tea, but Simon declined. “No doubt being a viscount presents a problem considering you have a paying position. Then again, you always wanted an occupation of sorts.”

  “I see no point in sitting around doing nothing while hoards of servants see to your every need. No offense.”

  “None taken. I’m rather new to this sitting-around bit. Though I do find myself busier than I might have expected. But I don’t suppose you came here to visit with me about my recently acquired title.”

  Simon chuckled. “I did not. I presume you called me here about the girl who was murdered on your property,” Simon said. “Well, you sent for the lead investigator and that’s me. I understand she was a servant in your employ.”

  “She was. My mother has handled all of the hiring and firing of our servants for the past several years. I’ve been taking a greater interest in that lately, but my mother hired Sally and her sister.”

  “I might need to speak with her, but I don’t think that’s necessary at this point,” Simon said.

  “The men that were here the other day said Sally’s death appeared to be a lovers’ quarrel gone too far,” Alex said. “I don’t suppose you are subscribing to that theory.”

  “I am not. And neither are they. Especially after last night. The entire Yard was in disarray during the Ripper’s killing rampage. I don’t think anyone wants to believe he could be back,” Simon said.

  “And is that what you believe?”

  “I’m reserving judgment until I further investigate these two deaths. I didn’t get to see the scene from the murder here at Danbridge. But I do have the other inspector’s notes.”

  “And I have additional information for you,” Alex said. Now was as good a time as any to broach that subject. Besides, Alex trusted Simon, and now that he knew he was on the case, Alex felt certain the murder would be solved.

  For the moment, he too would reserve judgment on whether or not this killer was one and the same with Jack the Ripper. Alex didn’t want to consider the fact that Mia might have been a few breaths away from such a villain.

  “You have discovered new information after questioning your staff?” Simon asked.

  “Not precisely, but we’ll say that’s the source of my information for the time being.” There was no need to include Mia’s name in the investigation documents. Alex would tell Simon the truth later if it proved necessary to do so. “For now, this is what I can tell you.” And Alex proceeded to give Simon all the pertinent details of what Mia had witnessed. The whistling, the sound of his boots, the fact that this had not been a lovers’ quarrel—perhaps the most important bit of information to share.

  “It certainly sounds as if we have an eyewitness. Alex, that could be huge in solving this case.” Simon looked up from the notes he’d taken. “That’s all quite specific information, but it does strike me as being unusual.”

  “In what way?” Alex asked.

  “There are no visual details. What did this alleged witness see?” Simon asked.

  “Nothing. They were hidden, hiding in the shrubbery, afraid of being seen,” Alex said. It wasn’t an untruth, though clearly it wasn’t the entire truth, either.

  Simon eyed him warily. “You are rather protective of this witness. Is it someone close to you?”

  “I am merely being as protective as the situation warrants. This is a rather dangerous scenario,” Alex said. He would do the same for anyone who’d witnessed such a crime.

  “How did you come to learn about these details?” Simon asked. “You know I must ask.”

  “I cannot disclose that right now. Suffice it to say, I believe it to be a reliable source,” Alex said.

  “Can you arrange for me to speak to this person?” Simon asked. “I will be unable to use any of this if I cannot get the details firsthand from the witness.”

  Mia had already offered to speak to the police, but Alex had held her off. He wasn’t expecting her to make a very reliable witness, but he knew her information could potentially be helpful. Though now that he knew the lead investigator was Simon, perhaps he could arrange for Mia to speak to him. Still, in doing so she could feasibly bring herself into the spotlight in London, which was probably not something she’d even considered. Not to mention having to go over the details again and again had to be trying.

  “I’ll consider it,” Alex finally said. “But I am hoping it will not come to that, that you can simply use this information to apprehend the perpetrator. Certainly this information combined with what you must have from the most recent murder will be enough,” Alex said.

  “Today I will grant you this concession, but I am going to want to speak to this witness. Very soon,” Simon said.

  Chapter Six

  Mia closed her eyes and ran her hands against the cold clay. This piece was moving slower than she would have liked, but she was having difficulty imaging the vision she wanted to create. Several months ago, she had sold a piece to a woman in town, a bust of Aphrodite, and recently the woman had commissioned another bust. This time she wanted Diana, the goddess of hunters.

  Mia knew she must have seen a drawing of the goddess in her early education, but it had been so long. And while most images in her memory were quite sharp and clear, some were beginning to fade around the edges. How she longed to gaze upon a book or sit and watch the river flow, instead of simply listening to it bubble and gurgle along. Something with movement and color, anything to rid herself of the horrible illustrations her mind had conjured about the murder. Now every time she lay down at night to sleep, she could see him.

  He didn’t have a face, at least not one with discernible features, but he had a shape and a presence, and darkness covered him like a heavy woolen cloak. And she saw red. She remembered colors and knew red, still aware of its vibrancy. It was the color of blood, the symbol of life. And there had to have been so much blood on that poor girl, and mixing with the chilled rain. Mia shook her head to remove the offensive image and again focused on the clay beneath her hands.

  She’d gotten the goddess’s hair completed, intricately carved curls, and the shape of her head, the gentle slope of her neck. What remained were the actual facial features. The elements that would make her different from any other woman, the precise shape of her eyes and angle of her eyebrows, the arch of her nose and curve of her lip.

  Mia tried to remember, in that moment, what her own face looked like. It had been so long since she’d seen her own reflection and she’d been but a girl then. She wondered if she’d grown into beauty. Her mother had been a rather handsome woman and both her sisters had been very pretty. But Mia’s figure had been more similar to their father’s. As an adolescent, she’d been tall and thin and angular. Perhaps it was best she could not see her own reflection.
/>   She had carved a bust in her own likeness. At least how she imagined herself. It was the first piece she’d created when she’d decided to try her hand at a different medium of art. She’d never shared it with anyone save Rachel. It simply sat in her own bedchamber, a constant reminder to her of what she was capable of, despite her own family’s disbelief in her worth.

  With her carving knife, she gently shaved off clay near the jawline, using her fingers to smooth the lines, softening the face as she progressed. She knew Diana was the goddess of the hunt so in most pictures she was depicted carrying a bow and arrow, often with an animal. But with only a bust to work with, that would be more difficult, to add in those elements without the full-scale image.

  It was more challenging to sculpt women than men, but they were also in far more demand as best she could tell. And mistakes were expensive; she couldn’t afford to carve off too much. She dipped her hand in the water and dampened the clay.

  “What are you doing out here in the chill?” a voice asked from behind her.

  Startled, she grabbed the tool with her other hand to prevent it from digging into the clay. “Lord Carrington,” she said.

  His footsteps moved from behind her to stand in front of her. She didn’t rise from her seat at the table, and she made no move to set down her sculpture. But she also didn’t intend to keep working while he stood there and watched her. His presence was distracting, not that she wanted him to know that, so she held tight to the clay in one hand and her carving knife in the other.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” she asked.

  “What are you doing?” he repeated.

  “Sculpting.” She frowned at him. “I had hoped it was obvious. Perhaps I’m not as talented as I’ve been led to believe.” She set down the knife, then wiped her hand on the towel she kept draped across her lap.

  “No, that’s not it. I didn’t know, that is, I simply didn’t realize,” he continued to fumble over his words and she had to admit that in that moment there was a sort of boyish charm about him, lurking just beneath the exterior gruff. She could almost imagine him standing there shifting his weight from one foot to the next, trying not to say the wrong thing. “I mean how can you? . . .”

  “How can I sculpt when I cannot see?” she finished for him.

  “Yes,” he said, not backing away from his inquiry. She imagined then he would round his proud shoulders as he uttered the word with boldness.

  “It is a legitimate question,” she said. “I was an artist before. Before I lost my sight.” She smiled. “Well, as much as a girl of fifteen can be an artist. I loved art and I was quite talented, with both pencil drawings and watercolor painting. But obviously paper will not work for me any longer. Now I have to feel it.” She moved her hand over the clay. “See here, here is where I’ll put her eyes, then her nose, her cheeks, mouth. It took me several days to get her hair, these curls, just so.” She set the bust down and stood. Again she wiped her hands, this time more thoroughly, removing any residue of clay. For her it made no difference, but she knew that for others it mattered if it appeared that she was paying attention, looking at them.

  “You’ve done this before?” he asked, something akin to wonder edged his voice. “Sculpted other busts?”

  “Indeed. Many times. I have been sculpting for nearly four years now. Though I have only begun recently to sell some pieces. Most of my completed pieces are available for sale in a small shop in Piccadilly.”

  “Her hair is rather nice,” he said. “Looks quite lifelike, well, if you account for the grayness of her.” He moved closer. She caught his scent on the chilly breeze. Outside of the earthy sandalwood of his shaving lotion, there was something uniquely him. It wasn’t hair tonic the way some men favored, nor was it alcohol or cigars, but rather something clean and woodsy. Perhaps his soap, simple, yet powerfully effective as it shot awareness through every fiber of her being and made her take note that he was pure male and they were standing here very much alone. Rachel had gone into town earlier that morning to pick up a few supplies.

  Mia felt herself smiling, whether to try to reassure herself or him, she wasn’t certain. “That is good to know. It was difficult when I decided to give her curls.”

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “Diana, or Artemis, if you prefer. At least that is who it is supposed to be though I don’t guess any of us truly knows what she looked like, and I suppose since she is nothing more than a myth it doesn’t really matter. So my vision might as well be the right one.” Still she longed to get the image just so, precisely the way people imagined her.

  “She is the goddess of virgins, is she not?” he asked.

  “I believe there are those who give her that duty as well, though to most she is the goddess of the hunt and wild animals,” she said, rattling off what the patron had told her. She was an eccentric older woman who was utterly entranced with mythological goddesses.

  He was quiet for several moments, so she finally came out and asked, “Lord Carrington, why are you here?”

  “There was another killing,” he said abruptly.

  Mia’s blood turned to ice. Though the weather was not as cold today as it had been in previous days, a chill chased up and down her extremities, making her wool dress feel like nothing more than a flimsy night rail. One moment they’d been discussing the benign and now another poor girl was dead. Mia’s hands fisted and she realized how badly they’d been shaking, though not from the cold. She was instantly quite thankful she’d already set down her sculpture and tools so that she did not break anything. She wrapped her arms around herself. “Another? Here, at Danbridge?”

  “No, not here, but not far from here. At another estate. I want you,” he coughed, stepped closer, “I want you to speak with someone from the police.”

  A cold breeze ruffled by, stirring her wool skirts and chilling her legs. She reached for the cloak she’d earlier discarded upon her chair when she’d been sculpting. But before her fingers touched the fabric, Alex had it wrapped around her shoulders, his hand brushing against her own. For a moment the world stopped moving around her, the earth fell silent and she could only feel the warmth of his gloved fingers against her own uncovered ones. They lingered there for far longer than was appropriate before he must have come to his senses and stepped away from her.

  “Thank you.” She finished pulling the cloak around her body, fastened it beneath her neck. “I thought you said that I wasn’t a credible witness. That no one would believe what I said.”

  “I was unaware of who the lead inspector was. As it turns out, I have a friend at Scotland Yard,” he said.

  He’d stepped further away from her now, she could hear the distance in his voice. She couldn’t help but wonder if that small touch had radiated awareness through him as it had her. Odd that, as she wouldn’t have expected to find him so intriguing, both in body and mind.

  “He’s intelligent enough,” he continued, “to know that you could have useful information despite your affliction.”

  Injury. Misfortune. Affliction. People always had a word to describe her blindness as if pity softened it in their minds. The truth of the matter was she wished she could see, of course she did. She would never have chosen blindness, but she’d been in the darkness for so long now that she’d gotten used to the world in this way. And the rest of her worked perfectly.

  She turned to move back to her sculpture, not knowing what else to say to him.

  “How do you do it?” he asked.

  “Do what, precisely?”

  “All of this. I don’t suppose I could carve a toy from wood even being able to see,” he said.

  “It’s not easy, and it took many missteps to reach a finished product that actually looked as it should.” In that moment she longed to go inside the cottage and fetch the bust she’d created of herself, to show him her first completed piece. But she thought better of it. “As for not being able to see what I’m working on, sculpture is more about texture and s
ensation than anything. Here, I’ll show you.”

  She stepped over to him, knowing precisely where he stood by the warmth coming off his body. She came close enough to touch him. His breath sharpened, but he did not move away from her.

  At first she simply put one hand against his chest. He was athletic, she knew instantly. The hard sinewy structure beneath her palm was all man, as if carved himself by the master’s hand. His heart thrummed steadily beneath her palm. As much as she wanted to explore the rest of his torso, appeasing her own curiosity was not her intention at the moment. Though, she supposed, she needn’t separate her own desire from the exercise as she very much wanted to know what he looked like. She moved her hand to his face.

  For a moment he stiffened and she felt him move a fraction away from her, then he relaxed as she began her examination of his features.

  “You shaved this morning,” she said. “Though I could smell your shaving lotion when you walked up. But here your cheek is smoothed, though beginning to scratch with the prickle of whiskers.”

  “Indeed,” was all he said.

  She felt around his cheek to his jawline. “Here I can determine that you have quite the firm jaw, it is unwavering in its strength.” The muscle ticked in response beneath her fingers. She continued her exploration by tracing his face from his jaw to his chin. “This speaks of your stubbornness,” she said, “ah, and a cleft.” She chuckled. “I believe there is an old Gaelic proverb about a dimple on the chin means that a devil lies within, what say you to that?”

  “That is a ridiculous proverb,” he said. His chin tensed as he swallowed.

  “Your lips—”

  “You’re not going to quote another proverb, are you?” he interrupted.

  Frankly, she was thankful he’d stopped her from talking. What could she say about his lips? That they were incredibly soft? That they were impossibly smooth and with just the right amount of fullness and curve? “Very well, no more proverbs,” she said teasingly, hoping he wouldn’t notice that she’d quite thoroughly rattled herself.