"I said I shouldn't mind," Fiona corrected gently. "I assure you I am not so demented as to actively seek revenge on a dead man. He poisoned everything he touched—and died of his favorite poison. Poetic justice, don't you think? I'm satisfied with that. His afterlife I am content to leave in the hands of Providence." Releasing Leila's hand, she rose. "Likewise, I should be content to see you in proper hands. Because you're right about one thing: from the moment I clapped eyes on Esmond, I was positive he was the one for you. I can't explain. It just looked like, felt like...Fate."
Chapter 13
That night, Leila left Mrs. Stockwell-Hume's card party early, claiming a headache. While the carriage maneuvered through the evening traffic, she was recalling Esmond's sarcastic comments the first night they'd met privately: a cold trail...a host of suspects to be dealt with cautiously...a case that could occupy the rest of his life. She wished now that she'd heeded the warning.
She certainly wished she had never left Norbury House that fatal day in January. She wished she'd stayed and minded her own damned business.
As Francis' killer had expected her to do.
As Fiona had cajoled and begged her to do.
"Damn," Leila muttered to the empty carriage. "And damn again."
Between callers and dressmaker appointments, it had not been very difficult to keep the nagging suspicion at the back of her mind. But now there was no distraction, only the chilling recollection of the venomous hatred glittering in Fiona's eyes when she'd spoken of Francis and poetic justice.
Fiona certainly had a motive, every bit as powerful as Sherburne's or David's. She had, moreover, the character, brains, and guts to avenge her sister's honor.
The evidence was circumstantial, but damning.
Plenty of people had known of Leila's plans to spend at least a week at Norbury House with Fiona and her family. The arrangements had been made well in advance—a few weeks after the Fatal Ball, as it happened. Any of Francis' enemies—and their name was legion—could have known and taken advantage of Leila's absence from home.
It might have been anyone.
But it was Fiona who'd arranged for Leila's absence. It was Fiona who'd been delayed at the last minute and bundled Leila off to Surrey with a cousin. It was Fiona who'd arrived, very late, on the night someone had put poison in Francis' laudanum.
Fiona, who'd never had a headache in her life, had blamed her tardiness on a headache. She'd had to take laudanum and lie down. The ailment having cleared by mid-evening, she'd left London and raced to Norbury House. That was her story. Her alibi, Leila amended.
It didn't matter, she told herself. If one meant to excuse David for murder, one had bloody well better be prepared to excuse Fiona—to excuse everybody, in fact, because Francis was a swine who should have been hanged long since. It didn't matter who killed him or why. Justice had already been done.
So much for English justice, she thought bleakly as the carriage turned into the square. So much for her morals. So much for Andrew's efforts to make a decent human being of her. All she'd learned was how to pretend to be decent. Under the skin, she was Jonas Bridgeburton's daughter. The instant morality inconvenienced her, she knocked it down and ground it under her heel.
She doubted, in fact, that she'd truly wanted to solve the murder in the first place. It wasn't her conscience that had driven her to Quentin, but Esmond. She'd confessed the smaller crime so that he'd believe she hadn't committed the greater one. Very likely her intuition had told her Quentin would send for Esmond.
At any rate, common sense surely must have told her that Esmond could solve the murder without her help. She could have refused to become involved, or at least, so deeply involved. Instead, for every inch Esmond had offered her, she'd demanded a mile. From helping to partnership...to possession.
Because it was Esmond she was obsessed with solving. It was his heart she'd been trying to unlock with her clumsy pick.
Last night she'd actually begged. What next? she wondered, turning away from the carriage window and the steady drizzle outside.
Groveling, she answered herself. Sinking lower and lower. That was all that could happen. Esmond knew what she was doing and he'd told her loud and clear last night that she was doomed to failure. She'd begged, nearly wept—and he had turned his back and walked out.
She clenched her hands.
She would never, never humiliate herself so again. She would rather be hanged, shot, burned at the stake.
He'd only broken her heart. She'd recover. She had merely to shut the door on him, then pick up the pieces, put them back together, and get on with her life. She'd done it before. She'd shut Francis out, even though she was bound to him. This would be simpler.
Quentin hadn't been enthusiastic about the inquiry in the first place. She was the one who'd browbeaten him into taking it up. She could certainly persuade him to drop it—and dismiss the chief investigator. If Providence would be merciful for once, she wouldn't even have to say a word to Esmond about it. He would simply...vanish. To wherever he'd come from. Wherever that was.
The carriage rumbled to a halt, ending her gloomy reflections. She disembarked and hurried through the drizzle to her front door. Gaspard opened it with a welcoming smile.
She would miss her temporary servants, of course. But life would go on after they left. She'd do well enough. Her house was comfortable, the studio large and well lit, and she had ample funds to live on. Furthermore—
"Monsieur is in the studio," Gaspard said, taking her cloak and bonnet.
So much for counting on Providence to be merciful.
Setting her jaw, Leila marched down the hall and up the stairs, hastily composing her farewell speech as she went. Short, simple, to the point.
You win, Esmond. You didn't want to do this in the first place. You warned me and I wouldn't listen. Very well. You were right and I was wrong. I certainly don't possess the necessary patience for sleuthing. I most certainly do not want to spend the rest of my life on this case. I do not want to spend another minute on it. I'm not cut out to be your partner, and the last thing in the world I want is to be the equal of such a man. You win. I give up. Now go away and leave me in peace.
She swept through the study door. "Very well," she said. "You win, Esmond. You didn't want—"
The rest of her speech tumbled away to some distant nothingness.
There was no speech, no thought, nothing else in all the world but the picture before her.
Esmond sat cross-legged upon the carpet before the fire. He had made a nest of cushions and pillows about hi
m. Her sketchbook lay open on his knee. A small pan of coffee stood in a warmer at his elbow. A plate of pastries lay beside it.
He was draped in shimmering silks. He wore a loose, buttonless gold shirt, like a short robe, with a sash of sapphire blue. The trousers were the same jewel blue—the color of his eyes, she saw, as he lifted them to hers.
A golden prince.
Out of a fairy tale. Or a dream.
She wanted to rub her eyes. She was afraid he'd vanish if she did. She took a cautious step closer. He didn't vanish, didn't move, only watched her. She dared another step, to the edge of the carpet.
"You wanted to know who I am," he said. "This is who I am—as you sensed, as you drew."
Even his voice was different, the slight French accent gone. In its place were the unmistakable accents of the English privileged classes...and a trace of something else, unidentifiable.
She couldn't find her voice. He didn't seem to notice. She must be dreaming.
"You were not altogether correct," he said, glancing down at the sketchbook. "I never wore the turban. It makes too tempting a nest for vermin. Cleanliness is a problem in my country, you see. A bath requires several hours' hard work—and the time is not easily spared when one is constantly battling enemies."
If she wasn't dreaming, she must be drunk. He hadn't come. He wasn't there, speaking so casually of turbans and baths. It was wishful thinking, delirium.
She took another step nearer.
"But I was spoiled," he went on, his eyes still on the sketchbook. "I was treated to luxuries my poorer countrymen could scarcely imagine. I would not wear the turban, and I dressed in my own way. Yet no one dared mock or chide me, because I was born strange and my mother was believed to be a sorceress. My cousin, Ali Pasha, believed it. He even believed her prediction that I would become another Alexander, destined to lead my countrymen out of bondage and restore Illyria to greatness."
Mesmerized, even while disbelieving her own eyes and ears, Leila had been creeping ever closer while he spoke. Now she sank onto the carpet opposite him.