Dorchester Terrace (29 page)

“Miss Tucker, I have heard from Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould that Mrs. Montserrat was losing her ability to remember exactly where she was, and to whom she was speaking. Did you know that she was afraid of letting secrets slip that might affect other people very adversely?”

She sighed and looked at him carefully. “Of course I was aware. If you had asked me five years ago, I’d never have believed such a thing could happen to a lady like Mrs. Montserrat.” She had difficulty controlling her grief, and her eyes blazed at him through tears.

“Someone killed her, Miss Tucker. I am thinking it less and less likely that it was someone already in this house.”

She blinked and said nothing.

“Who has visited Mrs. Montserrat in the last three or four months?”

She looked down. “Not many. People like to feel comfortable, to be entertained or amused. If you are of a certain age yourself, seeing a living example of what can happen, or what may yet happen to you, is unpleasant.”

Narraway winced internally. He had many years before he reached Serafina’s age, but it would come soon enough. Would he bear it with grace?

Then he realized with a chill like ice that perhaps he too would be terrified of what he might say, and might even be murdered to ensure his silence. Suddenly Serafina became of intense importance to him, almost an image of himself in a future to come.

“Miss Tucker, someone killed her,” he said with a catch in his voice. “I intend to find out who it was, and to see to it that they answer
to the law. The fact that Mrs. Montserrat was old and had very little family is irrelevant. Whoever she was, she had the right to be cared for, to be treated with dignity, and to be allowed to live out the whole of her life.”

Miss Tucker now let the tears roll down her thin cheeks, which were almost colorless in the late winter light.

“No one here would hurt her, my lord,” she said in barely more than a whisper. “But there were others who came into the house, some to visit her, some to visit Miss Freemarsh.”

He nodded again. “Of course. Who were they?”

She pursed her lips slightly in concentration. “Well, there was Lady Burwood, who came twice, as I recall, but that was some time ago.”

“To visit whom?”

“Oh, Mrs. Montserrat, although of course she was very civil to Miss Freemarsh.”

Narraway could imagine it: Lady Burwood, whoever she was, being polite and indefinably condescending; and Nerissa hungering for recognition, and receiving none, except secondhand through her relationship to Serafina.

“Who is Lady Burwood?” he asked.

Miss Tucker smiled. “Middle-aged, married rather beneath her, but happily enough, I think. She has a sister with a title and more money, but fewer children. She found Mrs. Montserrat more interesting than most of her other friends did.”

Narraway nodded. “You are very observant as to the details that matter, Miss Tucker,” he said sincerely. “Why did she stop coming?” It was a cruel question, and he knew it, but the answer might be important.

Tucker’s face flushed with amusement. “Not what you assume, my lord. She fell and broke her leg.”

“I stand corrected,” he said wryly. “Who else?”

She mentioned two or three others, and a fourth and fifth who had come solely to visit Nerissa. None of them seemed to have the remotest connection with Austria, or past intrigues anywhere at all.

“No gentlemen?” he inquired.

She looked at him very steadily. She had kept decades of secrets, and many of them were probably of a romantic or purely lustful nature. A good lady’s maid was a mixture of servant, artist, and priest, and Tucker had been superb at her job. A maid to Serafina Montserrat would have had to be.

“Please?” he said gravely. “Someone murdered her, Miss Tucker. I shall repeat nothing that is not relevant to the case. I am good at keeping secrets; until a few months ago, I was head of Special Branch.” It was still painful to say that.

Perhaps she saw it in his face. “I see.” She nodded very slightly. “You are too young to retire.” She did not ask the question that lay between them.

“One of my own secrets came back and caught me,” he told her.

“Oh, dear.” There was sympathy and the very faintest possible humor in her eyes.

“Who visited the house, Miss Tucker?” he asked.

“Lord Tregarron came to see Mrs. Montserrat, twice I think. He did not stay very long,” she replied. “Mrs. Montserrat was not very well on either occasion. I did not hear their conversation, but I believe it was not … not amicable.”

“How do you know that, Miss Tucker? Did Mrs. Montserrat tell you?”

“Mrs. Montserrat knew the first Lord Tregarron, in Vienna, a long time ago.”

“Tregarron’s father?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the circumstances of their acquaintance?”

“I surmise them, but I do not know for sure. Nor will I imagine them for you.”

“Did Tregarron speak with Miss Freemarsh?”

“Yes, at some length, but it was downstairs in the withdrawing room, and I have no idea what was said. I know it was some time only because Sissy the housemaid told me.”

“I see. Anyone else?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Blantyre both came, separately. Several times.”

“To see Mrs. Montserrat?”

“And Miss Freemarsh. I imagine to discuss Mrs. Montserrat’s health, and what might be done to make her happier and more comfortable. I think Mrs. Blantyre was very fond of her. She seemed to be.”

“Mr. Blantyre also?”

“He is very fond of his wife, and very concerned for her health. Apparently she is delicate, or at least he is of that opinion.”

“And you are not?” he asked quickly.

She smiled. “I think she is far stronger than he appreciates. He likes to think she is delicate. Some men are pleased to believe themselves protectors of the weak, caring for some beautiful woman like a tropical flower that needs to be defended from every chill draft.”

Narraway had never thought of such a thing, but it seemed obvious after hearing Tucker say it.

“So you believe Blantyre came in order to ensure that Adriana was not distressed by her visits to Mrs. Montserrat?”

“I think that is how he wished it to appear,” she said carefully.

He noted the difference. “I see. And Miss Freemarsh?” he asked. “Would she say the same?”

“Most certainly.” A tiny flicker of amusement touched her mouth.

“Miss Tucker, I think there is something of importance that you are deliberately not telling me.”

“Observations,” she said quickly. “Not facts, my lord. I think you do not know women very well.”

He was now realizing this for himself.

“I am learning,” he said ruefully. “A difficult question, Miss Tucker, and I ask you not from personal curiosity, but because I need to know. Does Miss Freemarsh have an admirer?”

Tucker’s face remained completely impassive. “You mean a lover, my lord?”

Narraway watched her intently, and still could not read the emotion behind the words.

“Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean.”

“Yes, she does. But I know that because I have been a lady’s maid all my life, and I know when a woman is in love: how she walks, how she smiles, the tiny alterations she will make to her appearance, even when she is forced to keep the matter secret.”

He nodded slowly. It made perfect sense. Tucker would know everything; those who had grown up with servants in the house came to look at them as furniture: familiar, useful, to be looked after with care, and treated as if they had neither eyes nor ears.

“Who is it, Miss Tucker?”

She hesitated.

“Miss Tucker, whoever it is may, knowingly or not, be behind the death of Mrs. Montserrat.”

Tucker winced.

“Please?”

“It is either Lord Tregarron or Mr. Blantyre,” she said, in little above a whisper.

Narraway was stunned. His disbelief must have shown on his face, because Tucker looked at him with a disappointment that verged on a kind of hurt. She started to speak again, then changed her mind.

“You surprise me,” he admitted. “I considered both men to be very happily married, and I gather Miss Freemarsh is … not …”

“Attractive to men,” Tucker finished for him.

“Quite,” he agreed.

Tucker smiled patiently. “I have known of perfectly respectable middle-aged men who have been uncontrollably attracted to the strangest women,” she answered. “Sometimes very rough women, laborers with their hands not even clean, and most certainly ignorant. I have no idea what it is that appeals, but it is true. With Mrs. Montserrat, men loved her courage, her passion, and her hunger for adventure. And she could make them laugh.”

Narraway believed it. Briefly, for a swift, perfect moment, he thought of Charlotte, and knew why he found her in his own thoughts far too often. She had courage and passion too, and she made him laugh, but he also loved her so much because of her fierce loyalty, and the fact that she would never betray Pitt, would never even wish to.

Then he thought of Vespasia and what made her so appealing. Curiously enough, it was not her beauty. Even in her youth it had not been her beauty, dazzling though she was. It was the fire in her, the intelligence and the spirit; and, more recently, a vulnerability he would never have perceived in her, even a year ago.

“Thank you, Miss Tucker. You have been extraordinarily helpful,” he said. “I promise you I will do everything I can to see that the truth of Mrs. Montserrat’s death is discovered, and that whoever is responsible is dealt with justly.” He did not say “according to the law.” In this case, he was not certain that the two were one and the same.

W
HEN NARRAWAY FINALLY SAW
Nerissa, he had already been at Dorchester Terrace for three hours. He had eaten a luncheon of cold game pie and pickles, with a dessert of suet pudding and hot treacle sauce, the same as had been eaten in the servants’ dining room.

Nerissa came in and closed the door behind her. She was wearing black, with a brooch of jet. Her face was bleached of even the faintest color, and she looked tired. The skin around her eyes was shadowed. Narraway felt a moment of pity for her. He tried to imagine what her daily life had been like, and the picture he conjured up was monotonous, without light or laughter, without thoughts to provoke the mind or a sense of purpose. Had she been desperate to escape that prison? Wouldn’t anyone, but especially a woman in love?

“Please sit down, Miss Freemarsh. I am sorry to have to disturb you, but there is no alternative.”

She obeyed, but remained stiff-backed in the chair, her hands folded in her lap.

“I assume you would not do so if you did not have to, my lord,” she said with a sigh. “I find it very difficult to believe that any of the staff here would have contributed to my aunt’s death, even negligently. And I … I cannot think of anyone else who might have done so. But since you seem convinced that it was neither an accident, nor suicide, then there must be some other explanation. It is … distressing.”

“I have to ask you about visitors, Miss Freemarsh,” he began. “Since the laudanum was given directly to your aunt and had an almost immediate effect, it must have been given by someone who came to the house that evening.” He looked down and saw that Nerissa’s hands were gripping each other so tightly that the knuckles were white. “Who could that have been, Miss Freemarsh?”

Nerissa opened her mouth, gulped air, and said nothing. He could see that her mind was frantically racing as she searched for the right words; if she denied that anyone came, then the only conclusion to be drawn was that it was someone already in the house: either herself, or one of the servants. He knew from the servants themselves that after dinner had been eaten and cleared away, they had taken their own meal and retired for the day. Unless at least two of them were in collusion with each other, their time was accounted for.

Nerissa had been alone. He imagined the long, solitary evenings, one after the other, every week, every month, stretching ahead into every year, waiting for a lover who could come only rarely. If he had called, then Nerissa herself would have let him in, possibly at a prearranged time. It might well have been their intent that the servants would be gone, so as not to know of it.

“Mrs. Blantyre came,” Nerissa said softly. “Aunt Serafina was fond of her, and she enjoyed her visits. But I can’t …” She left the rest unsaid.

“And she was alone with Mrs. Montserrat?”

“Yes. I had some domestic business to deal with … a slight problem with the menu for the following day. I’m … so sorry.”

Narraway could scarcely believe it. If Tucker was not mistaken, and either Blantyre or Tregarron was Nerissa’s lover, was it even conceivable that Adriana Blantyre knew this?

How could any man prefer Nerissa Freemarsh—plain, humorless, desperate Nerissa—over the beautiful, elegant Adriana? Perhaps Blantyre was weary of Adriana’s delicate health, which might deny him the marital privileges he wished, and felt that that was a good enough reason to stray. But why on earth with a plain, respectable woman like Nerissa? Perhaps because she loved him, and love was what he craved? And perhaps because no one would imagine it? What could be safer?

How had Adriana learned of it? Had it been through some careless word from Serafina? Could Adriana really be jealous to the degree that she would murder an old woman in her bed? Why? So Blantyre would have no more excuse to come to Dorchester Terrace? That was absurd.

But Adriana was Croatian; and Serafina had lived and worked in Vienna, northern Italy, and the Balkans, including Croatia. He must look more closely into their pasts before he leaped to any conclusions.

“Thank you, Miss Freemarsh,” he said quietly. “I am grateful for your candor. I don’t suppose you could offer any reason Mrs. Blantyre should wish your aunt any harm?”

Nerissa lowered her eyes. “I know very little, except what Aunt Serafina said, and she was rambling a lot of the time. I am really not sure what was real and what was just her confused imagination. She was very … muddled.”

“What did she say, Miss Freemarsh? If you can remember any of it, it may help explain what has happened, especially if she also mentioned it in someone else’s hearing.”