Captives of the Night (Scoundrels 2)

"Indeed. Were you—er—productive?"

Given at least half a dozen persons' description of the state of her studio—which the coroner had in writing in front of him—she wasn't surprised at the question.

Leila met his piercing gaze defiantly. "Not at first. As you have doubtless already learned, I had a quarrel with myself, and consequently took out my vexation on the objects in my studio. As you have also already learned, the disturbance woke my husband. Whereupon we argued."

"Would you describe the disagreement, Madam?"

"Certainly," she said. The onlookers promptly came to attention, as one might expect. Until today, she had consistently refused to describe the quarrel, regardless of how much she'd been coaxed, prodded, and bullied. They were expecting revelations.

"Mr. Beaumont made several disagreeable remarks," she said. "I responded by bidding him to perdition."

Audience expectations sank several degrees.

"If you would be more specific, Mrs. Beaumont," the coroner said patiently.

"I would not," she said.

This elicited a low buzz of speculation. The coroner bestowed a cold stare upon the onlookers. The buzzing ceased.

Then, somewhat less patiently, he asked if she would do the jurors the courtesy of explaining why she chose to withhold vital information.

"My husband was evidently suffering the aftereffects of a night of entertainment," she said. "He was irate at being wakened and had a thundering headache besides. Had he not been in this state, he should not have been so disagreeable. Had I not already been vexed before he entered, I should not have even listened, let alone responded, to bad-tempered comments. To attempt to repeat the ill-chosen remarks of the moment is to give them an appearance of veracity and a permanence they do not merit. Even had we meant a fraction of what we said, I should not repeat it. I do not wash my linen in public."

Scattered whispers among the onlookers.

"I sympathize with the principle, Mrs. Beaumont," said the coroner. "However, you must be aware that your servant understood the exchange to be of a threatening nature."

"So far as I am aware, the servant you refer to was incapable of understanding," Leila said coldly. "She was of no assistance to me when I discovered Mr. Beaumont's body. On the contrary, she launched into an hysterical fit from which she did not recover until she had consumed a sizable portion of my late husband's best sherry."

There was a louder buzz and some laughter. The coroner uttered a sharp rebuke, and the room instantly hushed.

He turned back to her. "May I remind you, Madam, that Mrs. Dempton overheard the quarrel hours before this—er—hysteria you diagnose."

"Then I cannot account for her attributing to me threats which I did not make," Leila replied. " 'Go to perdition,' is not, so far as I understand the English language, a threat, regardless how vulgar the specific terminology used. My own terminology was most unladylike, admittedly. I did not, however, threaten violence. I most certainly did not commit violence, except upon inanimate objects—my own belongings in my own studio."

"You have indicated that you were vexed," the coroner persisted. "To bid your husband to—er—

perdition indicates a considerable anger."

"If I had been angry enough to do him injury," she said, "which I presume is what you are getting at, I should very much like to know why I didn't commit violence on the spot, while I was in this enraged state. Yet Mrs. Dempton saw him shortly after he left the studio. I'm sure she's told you he bore no marks of ill-usage."

There was more laughter and another reprimand from the coroner.

"We are inquiring, Madam—as the law obliges us—into a death whose cause is questionable," he said quellingly. "Surely it must have appeared so to you, since you agreed to summon the authorities."

Surely it must be plain to him that a guilty person wouldn't have agreed so readily or cooperated so fully. Leila had done both, as the coroner must be aware, for all his frowns.

"The cause did not appear questionable to me," she said. "I agreed because others appeared to have doubts, and I did not wish to stand in the way of their putting these doubts to rest in the way they thought proper. I thought then and still do, however, that the inquiry would prove a great waste of the government's resources."

"It would seem then that, at the time, you were the only one not in doubt regarding your husband's demise."

At the time. That was significant. Apparently, the autopsy had produced no clear evidence of foul play.

"It was not precisely unexpected," she said, her confidence soaring. "Mr. Beaumont took too much laudanum, despite warnings from his physician of the risk of overdose. It is called opiate poisoning, I understand. It was obvious to me that my husband had—as his physician had warned—accidentally poisoned himself."

That wasn't strictly perjury, she told her conscience. Francis certainly hadn't taken the poison on purpose.

"I see." The coroner looked down again at his notes. "According to Mrs. Dempton, you mentioned poison during the quarrel. You are telling us that the poison you referred to was the laudanum?"

"I referred to drink as well as opiates. I certainly was not expressing an intention of poisoning him myself—if that is what troubles you about Mrs. Dempton's statement."

"Yet you can understand, Madam, how the words might be construed by another?"

"No, I cannot," she said firmly, "unless that other took me for an idiot. Had I threatened murder, I hope I would not be such a fool as to commit the act immediately thereafter, especially when it was more than likely the servants had overheard the alleged threat. To do so, I should have to be either an imbecile or a madwoman."

Leila paused to allow this to sink in while she swept the room a haughty glance, daring these men to believe her mad or imbecilic. There wasn't one woman here. Only men. Andrew was nodding sympathetically. Near him sat David's father, the Duke of Langford, his countenance a stony blank. There were the jurors, watching her avidly...Lord Quentin, his expression unreadable…several Bow Street officers she recognized…other representatives of authority…some appearing suspicious, some doubtful. Some had the grace to look abashed. They had thought she was stupid, every last one of...

Her glance shot back to a corner of the dingy room, where a particularly unkempt constable leaned against the wall. His greasy brown hair streaked with grey, he looked to be close to fifty. His grubby coat and stained waistcoat stretched over an unsightly paunch. He was studying the floor while absently scratching his head.

It was impossible, Leila told herself. She must have imagined that glint of unearthly blue. Even if the man had looked up, she couldn't have discerned the color of his eyes at this distance. Yet she was certain she'd felt their searing penetration.

She wrenched herself back to the moment.

Whatever she'd felt or imagined, she could not afford to be distracted.

"Your sanity and intelligence are not being called into question, Mrs. Beaumont," the coroner was saying. "We are simply attempting to reconstruct a clear picture of the events preceding your husband's death."

"I have described them," she said. "After my husband left my studio, I did not see him alive again. I did not leave my studio at any time between his departure and my discovery of his body, when Mrs. Dempton was close behind me. I had remained in the studio, working—with the door open—until after teatime. I could not have done otherwise, as the painting must clearly demonstrate."

This time, the coroner didn't trouble to conceal his puzzled dismay. "I beg your pardon, Madam. What painting? And what has it to say to anything?"

"Surely the Crown's officers observed the still-wet painting I had completed during those hours in the studio," she said. "Any artist could tell you that it had not been done in a state of agitation or haste. Had I interrupted my work to do away with my husband, I could not have produced that sort of technical study. It wants total concentration."

The coroner stared at her for a long moment, while the whispering rose to a low roar. He turned to his clerk. "We had better call in an artistic expert," he said.

Several jurors groaned. The coroner glared at them.

The glare moved to Leila. "I only wish, Madam," he said, "that you had been more forthcoming previously regarding these matters. Surely you understood their importance. You might have spared the Crown precisely the waste of resources you mentioned earlier."

"I thought they were important," she said haughtily. "But no one else must have done, since I was never asked the relevant questions. While I am no expert in inquiries of this sort, I was puzzled why the focus of concern appeared to be my quarrel with Mr. Beaumont and Mrs. Dempton's hysteria. Though I did not understand why matters of hearsay took precedence over material facts, it was not my place to tell professionals how to do their business. I should not have taken the liberty of mentioning these matters today had it not appeared that they were likely to be overlooked altogether."