The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie

Chapter Eighteen

Proper ladies did not go to the East End. Proper ladies pulled the curtains closed in their carriages and did not look out when their route took them through Shoreditch and Bethnal Green. Mrs. Barrington would turn in her grave, but Thomas. . . Thomas would have approved. Beth’s heart squeezed as her hired coach rolled past the little parish church that had been Thomas Ackerley’s. The tiny building was squashed between dull brick edifices but managed to retain its dignity. Behind it, in the cramped churchyard, Thomas’s body lay. A tiny square stone, all the parish and Beth could afford, marked the place. Behind the church lay the vicarage where Beth had spent one hopeful year. Two doors past that was the hall Thomas had set up, where those forced to live on the streets could get a hot meal and a place out of the weather for a little while. The parish had not approved it, so Thomas had funded it out of his own pocket, and a philanthropic gentleman had taken it over on Thomas’s death.

Beth entered the rickety building that smelled of old meals and unwashed bodies, hoping to find her answers there. Daniel Mackenzie came behind her, towering over Katie and Beth, the lanky young man die most nervous of the three. “Should you be here?” Daniel hissed. “My dad would tan my hide if he knew I let you come near a game girl, and God knows what Uncle Ian will do.”

A tired-looking young woman sat on a hard chair with her legs stretched out, skirts hiked to her knees. As Beth rustled in, she looked up, blinked, and jumped to her feet. “Blimey, it’s the missus.”

Beth went to the young woman and took her hands.

“Hello, Molly.”

Molly grinned in delight. She had brown hair, a snub nose, freckles, and a warm smile. She smelled like tobacco and alcohol, as usual, and the faint odor of a man’s cologne lingered in her clothes.

“What’cha doing ‘ere, Mrs. A? I ‘ear you married a right nob and live in a palace now.”

“News travels fast.”

“What d’you expect? An interesting bit of gab like that goes ‘round.” She winked at Daniel. “Did ye bring ‘im so I could make a man of ‘im?”

Daniel went beet red. “You watch your tongue.”

“Ooh, ye scare me, little boy, ye truly do.”

Beth stepped between them. “Daniel, hush. He’s protecting me, Molly. The streets are dangerous.”^ “Are they now? I’m all amazed. So why’d ye come?” “To ask you something.”

Beth drew Molly a little way away from Daniel and Katie. She pressed a few coins into Molly’s palm and asked her questions.

“I don’t know much,” Molly said. “Too la-di-da for me. But I have a pal I can ask. She married one of her flats and is rich and cushy now. She’s a bit la-di-da, herself, but not a bad sort.”

Beth brought out more coins and told Molly what she needed to know. Molly listened, then winked. “Right you are, missus.” She tucked the money firmly into her corset. “You leave it to me.”

The train down to London took far too long. Ian paced the length of it, unable to sit. Cameron hunkered into a corner of their train carriage, read sporting newspapers, and smoked cigars. Ian found the smoke cloying and spent considerable time on the back platform with one of the conductors. He watched the track unfold behind them, but the evenness of the ties and the smooth curve of the rail didn’t soothe his mood.

When the train at last pulled into Euston Station, Ian leapt off and shouldered his way through the crowd and whistled for a hansom cab. He waited inside it for Cameron and Curry, closing the curtains against eyes that watched him. He directed the coach to Belgrave Square, knowing Beth would have returned there. Mrs. Barrington’s house had been a haven for her once, and Beth liked havens. Fog swirled into the city as they reached the elegant square, dirty fog that brought darkness early. Ian had grown used to the light days of the Scottish summer, and the fog felt oily and heavy.

He pounded on the front door with gloved fists, not waiting for Curry to ring the bell. He pounded until an ancient specimen of a butler opened the door a crack and creakily asked his business.

Ian shoved the door open and strode inside. “Where is she?”

The butler shrank back. “Out. May I inquire who is calling?” Cameron caught the door before the butler could shut it, and Curry followed with the bags.

“This is her husband,” Cameron said. “Where is she out?” The old man had to crank his head back to gaze up at them. “I heard her say the East End. There’s thieves and murderers there, my lord, and she only took the lad with her.” “Daniel?” Cameron barked a laugh. “Poor woman. We’d best find her.”

Ian had already left the house. Another hansom pulled up behind the one that had brought him, and before it stopped, Daniel’s long body slid out of it. His narrow face took on a look of dismay when he saw Ian.

Ian pushed past him and reached into the cab for Beth. He heard her words, saying something about paying the fare, but Curry could do that. He lifted Beth out, not liking how the fog tried to snake its way around her. “Ian,” she began. “What will the neighbors say?” Ian didn’t give a damn what the neighbors said. He clamped one arm around her waist and took her inside. Mrs. Barrington’s house smelled old and musty and airless. The close odors tried to swallow Beth’s lavender like scent, as though the house wanted to squeeze her back into the drudgery from which she’d come.

“If you are dragging me off to my bedroom,” Beth said as they reached the top of the stairs, “perhaps you should ask me which one it is.”

Ian didn’t care which was hers, but he let her lead him. The bedchamber she took him to was small and papered in a hideous print of gigantic pansies. It had a large four-poster bed, a dresser near the window, and a wooden chair.. The drapes hid any light the London day might produce. The hiss of gas lamps and their fusty odor completed the drab picture. “This is a servant’s room,” Ian growled.

“I was a servant. A companion occupies a gray area, like a governess. Not quite a menial, not quite one of the family.” Ian lost the thread of her words. He turned the key beneath the porcelain doorknob and came to her. “The butler said you went to the East End.”

“I did. I was making inquiries.”

“About what?”

“About what do you think, my dear Ian?” Beth unwound the silk scarf she’d worn against the fog and stripped off her gloves.

“You sent a telegram to Fellows.”

Her color rose. “Yes, I—“

“I told you to leave it. He can’t be trusted.”

“I wanted to know everything he knew. Perhaps he’d found something out you hadn’t.”

Ian’s rage tasted like dust. “So you saw him. You met him.”

“Yes, he came here.”

“He came here.”

“You refused to tell me anything. What could I do?” “Don’t you understand? If you find out too much, I can’t protect you. You could be transported, or hanged, if you know too much.”

“Why on earth would I be transported because your brother’s friend Stephenson or his mistress Mrs. Palmer murdered a . . . “ She trailed off, her face going still.

Ian never knew what went on behind people’s expressions. Everyone else instinctively knew the signs of rage and - fear, happiness or sadness in others. Ian had no idea why people burst into laughter or into tears. He had to watch, to learn to do as they did.

He seized Beth by the shoulders and shook her. “What are you thinking? Tell me. I don’t know.”

She looked up at him with wide blue eyes. “Oh, Ian.” Instead of fearing his strength, she rested her hands gently on his arms. “You think Hart did this, don’t you?” Ian shook his head. He closed his eyes and kept shaking his head, but he held on to Beth as though he’d be torn away if he didn’t. “No.” The word echoed through the room, and he said it again. And again. And again.

“Ian.”

With effort, Ian stopped, but he kept his eyes shut tight. “Why do you think so?” Beth’s voice wrapped around him like eiderdown. “Tell me.”

Ian opened his eyes, the anguish of five years trying to drown him. Sally had boasted that she knew secrets that would ruin Hart, cut him out of politics altogether. Hart loved politics, God knew why. In the middle of coitus with Sally, she’d enraged Ian so much, going on and on how she’d blackmail Hart, that Ian had withdrawn, snatched up his clothes, and left the room. He’d felt the rage coming on, knew he had to go.

He’d walked the house, searching for whiskey, searching for Hart and not finding him, trying to calm down. Once he could think coherently again, he’d returned to Sally’s room. “I opened the door and saw Hart in the bedroom. I saw him with Sally on the sofa at the end of the bed.” The images rose before Ian could stop them, every single one as coldly clear as it had been that day. Hart with Sally, her naked limbs wrapped around him. Her soft cry of joy turning to fear.

“Hart took a knife away from her—I don’t know why she had it. She swore at him. He tossed the knife away. Then he pressed her throat until she quieted, and she laughed. I don’t want you to know these things.”

“But. . .” Beth frowned. “Sally wasn’t strangled, too, was she? No one has mentioned bruises on her throat.” Ian shook his head. “Hart, he used to be . . . You wouldn’t understand the terms. He owned the house. Mrs. Palmer and her women belonged to him.”

“He can’t own women. This is England.”

For some reason, Ian wanted to laugh. “They obeyed him. They wanted to. He was everything to them, their lord and master.”

Beth frowned a little longer, and then her brow cleared.

“Oh.” The syllable was short, pregnant with meaning. “He did it before he married, then stopped. After his wife died he started again. He was very discreet, but we knew. He was grieving. He needed them.”

“Goodness, most people make do with crepe and mourning brooches,” Beth said faintly. “But why would he try to strangle Sally Tate?”

Ian placed his hand at the base of Beth’s windpipe.

“When you cut off the air, the climax is deeper, more intense. That is why he had his hands on her throat.”

Beth’s eyes widened. “How very . .. interesting.”

“And dangerous.” Ian removed his hand from her neck.

“Hart knows how to do it, exactly when to stop.” “You saw that,” Beth said slowly. “But you didn’t actually see him kill her?”

“When I saw them together, I left them to it. I knew if anyone could talk Sally out of blackmail it would be Hart. I thought to go home, but I’d left my watch on her bedside table, and I wanted it. I found a decanter of whiskey in the parlor downstairs and helped myself while I waited. Later I heard Hart rush out the front door and saw him leap into his coach. I went back upstairs for the watch and found Sally. Dead.”

“Oh—“ Beth broke off and bit her lip. “What does Hart say happened?”

The fact that she was still standing in front of him, talking in her cool and puzzling way, was a miracle to Ian. Beth hadn’t left him in disgust, hadn’t fainted in shock at all he’d revealed. She remained, still the anchor in the vast, bewildering river that was his life.

“He told me that he’d left the room once he’d got Sally bent to his will again and had his valet help him clean up and dress in another room. When he returned, he found Sally dead and ran downstairs and out of the house. He didn’t see me in the parlor, he said, or he’d have insisted I come with him. He said he couldn’t risk being there when the police came, because of his career.” Ian shook his head. “I don’t believe him. Hart wouldn’t run away if he hadn’t killed her. He’d have taken the house apart until he found the culprit.”

“Possibly,” Beth said in her slow, sure voice. “If I hadn’t met Hart, I might believe he killed her and bolted. But I did meet him, and I’m confident that, if he had decided to kill her, he’d have made certain you were far away before he did the dreadful deed. He’d have avoided involving you, no matter what. Therefore, it couldn’t have been Hart who did it.”

“I know what I saw.”

“Yes.” Beth turned and walked away from him, but thinking, not hysterical. “And the police would believe as you did, and a jury, and a judge. But they don’t know Hart. He’d never put you in jeopardy of arrest or returning to the asylum. He never wants you locked away again.”

“Because he needs me and my bloody inconvenient memory.”

“No. Because he loves you.”

The woman was incredibly innocent. She’d seen what she’d seen in London’s slums, she’d been destitute and desperate, and yet she still looked for good in the Mackenzies. Unbelievable.

“Hart is ruthless,” Ian said. “I told you I don’t have the capacity for love. Neither does he, but he doesn’t wonder about it as I do. He will do what he needs to, even if it’s deadly, even if one of his brothers has to pay the price.” Beth shook her head, her dark hair glistening under the light. “You have to be wrong.”

Ian laughed sharply. “We’re all very bad at love, Beth. I told you we break whatever we touch.”

“Ian, in five years, have you never put aside what you saw, thought of the thing clearly, without Hart in it? Can you pretend Hart wasn’t there and decide who else might have done it?”

“Of course I have,” Ian said irritably. He ran a hand through his hair. “I have run through every scenario, every possibility from beginning to end. I thought of the other men there, of Mrs. Palmer, of the other ladies in the house, an intruder breaking in. I’ve even worried that it was me, and I simply can’t remember doing it.”

“What about Lily Martin? Why did you hide her at Covent Garden?”

“She was looking into the room, watching Hart with Sally. She swore to me she never saw Hart stab her, but I couldn’t tell whether she lied. I couldn’t risk what she’d tell the police, so I sent Curry back to get her out of the way before the constable came. But I didn’t hide her well enough.” “You think Hart found her a few weeks ago and killed her?”

“Yes.”

Beth paced away from him again. “Goodness, what a mess.”

“It doesn’t have to be. If Fellows keeps his nose out of it, we could go on.”

“No, you can’t.” Beth came back to him. “It’s tearing you apart. It’s tearing Hart apart, too, and the rest of the family. Everything you say makes perfect sense, but there’s another explanation. Hart thinks you did it. That’s why he ran out of the house, looking for you, to make sure you were gone and hadn’t done it. It must have been a dreadful shock for him when he realized you were still in the house when Sally died.”

Ian blinked, and for a second he met her gaze. He loved her eyes, so blue. He could drown in her. He looked away. “Because he believes I’m mad? He does believe I’m mad, but you’re wrong.”

“Why are the Mackenzies so bloody stubborn? The killer must have come in and stabbed Sally while Hart was with his valet. No matter how ruthless Hart is, someone else was even more ruthless.”

Memories flooded him thick and fast, memories Ian had tried to push away for two decades. The image of Hart with his hands around Sally’s neck became superimposed on an other man and woman. “I think it was Hart, because. Beth, he looked so much like my father.”

“Your very hairy father? Hart resembles him a bit, but...” He didn’t hear her. The terror of the nine-year-old Ian rose up in him, memories of crouching behind the desk in his father’s study when he heard his parents come in. They’d been shouting at each other, as they always did, and Ian would have been punished.

He’d watched his mother rush at his father, claws ready, and his father catch her around the neck. The duke had squeezed, then shake, shake, and she’d gone limp. Ian’s beautiful mother had crumpled to the floor in an unmoving heap, while his father stood over her, hands open, his face gray with shock.

Then had come the terrible moment when his father had looked around the desk and seen Ian. The watery terror in Ian’s limbs when his father had rushed at Ian and picked him up, shaking him as he’d shaken Ian’s mother.

You tell no one. Do you understand me? She slipped and fell; that is what happened. You have to lie. Do you understand?

More shaking, harder, harder. Damn you, why won’t you look at me when I’m talking to you?

Ian had been locked away in his room, and the next morning jostled into a carriage that had taken him to London and the courtroom that had condemned him as a lunatic. He’d been in the private asylum two weeks before he finally understood he’d not be allowed to go home. Ever.

Beth’s palms touched his face. “Ian?”

“He killed her,” Ian said. “He didn’t mean to. But he had the rages, like I do.”

“You mean Hart?”

Ian shook his head. “My father. He killed my mother, broke her neck with his own two hands. He told everyone she’d slipped on the rug, fell, died. My brothers didn’t believe it, but they couldn’t ask me, could they? I was declared mad, shut away, so no one would believe me if I told what I saw my father do.”

Beth laced her arms around his waist and rested her head against his chest. “Oh, Ian, I’m so sorry.” Ian held her there a moment, taking comfort from her warmth. He had a fear inside him that one day he’d lose his mind like his father had, put his hands around the neck of the woman he loved, and kill her before he could stop himself. Beth trusted him, and Ian would die if he hurt her. Beth lifted her head, tears wetting her lashes, and he kissed her forehead. “Hart is as ruthless as my father ever was. He doesn’t rage, but he is so cold.”

“I still think you’re wrong. Hart sent you to Scotland after Sally’s death to protect you, not keep you quiet.” Ian gave the ceiling a brief exasperated glance before he took Beth by the shoulders and pushed her against the high bed “I can protect you from Hart, but only if you stop. Forget about High Holborn, and never speak to Inspector Fellows again. He’ll crush you to get what he wants, and so will Hart.”

She looked at him in anguish. “You want me to go the rest of my life watching you in so much pain? Believing your brother murdered a woman? Isn’t it better to find out what really happened?”

“No.”

Tears swam in her eyes, and she turned her head to avoid his gaze. “I want to help you.”

“You can help best by never speaking to Fellows again.

And stop trying to find out what happened. Promise me.” She went silent a moment, then sighed. “Mrs. Barrington always told me curiosity was my besetting sin.” “I’ll keep you safe, I promise you, my Beth.”

“Very well,” she whispered. “I’ll stop.”

Relief relaxed his body. He pulled Beth into his arms, held her tight against him. “Thank you.” He kissed her hair. “Thank you.”

She reached up to kiss him. As he slid his lips over hers it didn’t occur to him that she’d given up a shade too easily.