The Untamed Mackenzie

Chapter Six

Louisa, still ensnared by the kiss that hadn’t happened, stared at the bottle uncomprehendingly. “What is that?”

“That is what I am asking you.” Fellows’ voice was harsh.

“I don’t know.” Louisa held up her hands. “It isn’t mine.”

“It was in your pocket.” His gaze grew even colder.

“You must have put it there then. I certainly didn’t.”

“Louisa.” Fellows lifted the small bottle in front of her face. “I need you to explain this to me.”

“I didn’t put it there,” Louisa repeated in desperation. “I cannot help it if you don’t believe me. I don’t even know what it is.”

“It’s a perfume bottle,” Fellows said. “But this is not perfume.”

“I can see that it’s a perfume bottle. How do you know it’s not perfume inside it?”

“Wrong consistency.”

Hysterical laughter tried to bubble up again. “And you’re an expert at what ladies carry in their perfume bottles?”

“I am an expert in the many ways people kill other people and try to cover it up.”

Louisa’s eyes widened. “I’ve told you. I didn’t kill him.”

“Someone is going to a lot of trouble to make it look as though you did. Why?”

“Well, I don’t know,” Louisa nearly shouted. “Perhaps someone did not want Hargate to marry me. Perhaps the poison was meant for me, or it was in the teapot, for us both. Only I didn’t drink it.”

Fellows’ eyes flickered, but he went on remorselessly. “Bit of a gamble, wasn’t it, to pour the poison into the correct cup of tea then put the bottle into your pocket? Who did you see when you went into the tea tent?”

“No one. It was empty. Hargate was already inside by the time I arrived, but no one else. I noticed no one leave—the rest of the guests were outside waiting for the croquet match.”

Fellows shoved the perfume bottle into his pocket. He gazed down at Louisa a moment longer, his brows coming together, then he turned abruptly and walked away from her. He made his way to the window and looked out, every line of his body tight.

His broad back, covered in black, showed his strength. If life had been different, if Fellows’ father had married his mother and the birth had been legitimate, this man would now be a duke.

Fellows turned back. When he spoke, his voice was stern and solid, worthy of any duke’s. “You entered the tea tent and saw someone crawling out the other side.”

Louisa shook her head. “No. I told you. The tent was empty, except for the bishop.”

Fellows walked to her again. “You saw someone—maybe only a glimpse of them—ducking out under the back of the tent. They must have pulled up a stake to loosen the canvas.”

“I . . . ” Louisa trailed off, her mouth drying.

Fellows wanted her to say this, was handing her the script. All she had to do was repeat the words, and he’d write them down.

“I can’t lie,” Louisa said weakly.

“Better to say it to me now than to a judge and jury, after you take the oath. Tell me what you saw, Louisa.”

Louisa bit back a cough. “I thought . . . Yes, I thought I saw someone scrambling out under the other side of the tent.”

“Man or woman?”

“It was too quick. I couldn’t see.”

“Color of their clothing?”

“Dark, I think. But as I say, I couldn’t see.”

Louisa closed her mouth, not wanting to embellish. Keep a lie very simple, her brother-in-law Mac had once told her. The more you invent, the more you have to remember. It’s tricky, lying. That’s why I never do it, myself.

“I couldn’t see,” Louisa finished.

Fellows’ hazel eyes glinted in the room’s dim light. Then he nodded, picked up his notebook from the table, moved back to her, and wrote down the words while she stood a foot away from him.

His fingers were inches from her, his eyes quietly fixed on the paper. His sleeve moved to show the cuff of his shirt, enclosing a strong wrist and forearm. His hands were tanned from the sunshine, the liquid color going back under the linen of the shirt, as though he had the habit of rolling up his sleeves outdoors. His knuckles were scratched, from whatever fight had given his face its cuts and bruises.

Louisa felt his stare. She looked up from her study of his hand to find his gaze on her. Never taking his eyes from Louisa, Fellows closed the notebook and slid it and his pencil into his pocket.

She expected him to say something, anything, to break the tension between them. Or to touch her. They’d shared two kisses, both of them intimate. Louisa could still feel the doorframe at her back from the kiss at Christmas, Fellows’ body the length of hers, his hand on her neck as he scooped her to him.

The silence stretched. Louisa was dismayed by how much she wanted to kiss him again, even after he’d interrogated her. He was the only man she’d ever kissed, the only man she’d ever wanted to.

If she touched his cheek, she’d feel the bristles of his whiskers, the heat of his skin. She could lean to him and indulge herself in another taste of him. The Mackenzie who was not a Mackenzie so fascinated Louisa that she could barely keep her thoughts together when he was in a room with her.

“Louisa.”

Louisa realized she had started to rise to him, and thumped back on her heels. “That’s all I remember.”

“It’s enough. Are you staying in London with Isabella?”

Louisa nodded, feeling giddy. “Yes, for the Season. My mother is in Berkshire with Cameron and Ainsley.” Why she felt she needed to report that, she didn’t know.

“Good. Stay in tonight. And for the next few nights. Cancel your engagements and pretend you’re sorry Hargate is dead.”

“But I am sorry . . .”

“No, you’re stunned and shocked, but you’re not grieved. This man wanted to marry you, for whatever his reasons, and everyone at this party saw you go into the tent alone with him. You need to behave as though you had interest in him, a friendliness toward him, and no contempt. If anyone knows Hargate planned to coerce you into marrying him, and they say so to you, you must have no idea what they mean. Hargate never mentioned your father, or your father’s debt to him. You thought Hargate loved you, and you were at the very least flattered by his interest in you. Understand?”

Louisa nodded numbly. “I must lie and say I liked him, because otherwise no one will believe the truth that I didn’t kill him.”

“You had the best opportunity. Easy for you to slip poison into his teacup while you poured out for him, then slide the bottle into your pocket so deeply a cursory examination wouldn’t reveal it. Most policemen would balk at putting their hands very far into an earl’s daughter’s pocket.”

“But not you.”

Louisa saw him draw one quick breath, but his reply was as hard as ever. “This is life-and-death, Louisa. Behave as though you liked him, and spare yourself the noose.”

Louisa looked at him for a long time, Fellows staring back at her. Finally, she nodded.

“Good,” he said. She saw the smallest flicker of relief in his eyes, but nothing more. “Stay here. I’ll tell Isabella to come to you.”

Louisa nodded again, tears burning. Through the blur she saw Fellows’ face soften, then he lifted his hand and brushed her cheek.

Louisa thought he’d say something to her, maybe go so far as to apologize for upsetting her, giving her a gentle word to make her feel better. But no. Fellows caressed her cheek with callused fingers, the sensation sending heat through her body. Then he withdrew his touch and walked stiffly past her and out the door. The sound of it closing behind him was as hollow as the pain in Louisa’s heart.

Fellows made Sergeant Pierce clear everyone out of the tea tent. Too many people had trampled in here after he’d gone, the grass and dirt even more of a mess than it had been before. Someone had knocked over a small table, spilling yet another set of teacups to the ground.

Once he and Pierce had convinced them all to go, including Mrs. Leigh-Waters, who wanted to linger, Fellows went over every bit of the tent on his own.

He ended up on his hands and knees on the far side of the tent, looking for signs that someone actually had crawled in the other side. But the stakes that held the tent were driven firmly into the ground, and the dirt here hadn’t been disturbed.

Fellows disturbed it. He tugged up one stake and gouged the area with his boot.

He was aware of the magnitude of his actions. Misleading the police or covering up a crime could have him arrested, possibly convicted and sent to Dartmoor to break rocks alongside the men he’d helped put there.

He didn’t care. Louisa was innocent, and he wouldn’t let her go down for this crime. Fellows had been a detective long enough to know when a person was guilty and when he or she was not. His instincts were never wrong. The only time he’d been wrong had been in a case involving Ian and Hart, and in that instance he’d let his hatred for the Mackenzie family override his instincts.

Wasn’t he letting his emotions do the same now? some niggling part of him asked.

No.

He’d made an error of judgment when he’d thought Hart and Ian Mackenzie had committed a few murders, but at the same time, Fellows had known those men to be capable of it, Hart especially. Fellows himself was capable of murder as well.

Not Louisa.

Few truly good people existed in this world, and Louisa Scranton was one of them. She had a fiery temper—he’d seen that a time or two—but she also possessed a vast kindness and generosity that made her beautiful. She was like a firefly, bright and energetic, lighting up those around her.

Fellows would do everything in his power to keep her safe.

He finished arranging the scene of the crime as he wanted it, took a few more samples from the smashed tea things, and departed the tent.

The Bishop of Hargate’s funeral two days later was well attended. Louisa went with Isabella and Mac, the three of them standing a few feet behind Hargate’s family and friends.

Rain trickled down, spotting the black umbrellas, which had opened like dark flowers as soon as sprinkles began. The tiny drumming on the canvas made Louisa’s already tight nerves stretch tighter.

Mac held an umbrella over Isabella, his arm around his wife’s waist. He was never embarrassed at displaying that he’d married for love, which Louisa had always found rather sweet. The Mackenzies were volatile, emotional men. She didn’t think they knew how to hide their feelings.

The other Mackenzie who stood at the very edge of the crowd was volatile and emotional too, but he kept a tight rein on himself. Lloyd Fellows wore severe black today, his hat in his hand as he bowed his head for the prayers. Rain darkened his hair—no umbrella for Chief Inspector Fellows.

Three days had passed since the bishop’s death. Louisa had followed Fellows’ dictate that she remain inside and away from the Season’s social whirl. She understood why, but the confinement chafed. Though Isabella’s house was cheerful and full of children, Louisa had been happy even for the excuse of the funeral to come out into open air, as chilly and dank as it was.

The churchyard contained many prominent people—both above and below ground—Hargate being no less prominent. Hargate’s father was an earl, and marriages had made him cousin to a marquis, another bishop, and a few baronets. The crowd at the burial ground today must encompass several pages of Debrett’s.

The two Scotland Yard detectives stayed well back, being respectful of the family’s grief. But Louisa knew Fellows was watching, looking for signs of feigned sorrow among the guests, a betrayal of glee that Hargate was gone.

The bishop who conducted the service finished with the usual prayers about man being dust and his life on earth nothing. The casket was lowered, and Hargate’s family sadly bade him farewell.

As the crowd dispersed, Louisa moved next to Hargate’s mother and offered her condolences. She was rewarded with a cold stare. Hargate’s father gave Louisa a look of open viciousness before he and his wife turned their backs and walked away from her.

Louisa moved back to Isabella as though nothing untoward had happened, but her heart was hammering, and she felt ill. Hargate’s parents had just cut her dead, and the entire gathering had witnessed it.

Isabella closed her fingers around Louisa’s arm. “Never mind, darling. They’re upset. Only natural.”

“They think I killed him,” Louisa said numbly. “Don’t they?”

“Please don’t think about it, dearest. We’ll go home and have lots of hot tea and stuff ourselves with cakes. You know this will blow over when Inspector Fellows clears it all up.”

Inspector Fellows had resumed his hat, but he remained on the edge of the crowd, watching every person walk by. He wasn’t part of them, and his stance said that he didn’t want to be.

He saw Louisa. Their gazes met, held for a heartbeat, two. Louisa grew hot in spite of the chill rain.

Finally Fellows gave her a nod and lifted his hat. Louisa nodded back as politeness dictated, but her head and heart ached.

Louisa usually found it soothing to sit in Mac’s studio and watch him paint. But the day after the bishop’s funeral, she paced restlessly in the wide upper room while her brother-in-law slapped paint onto canvas.

His children were there—Aimee, Eileen, and Robert—Aimee and Eileen playing together, baby Robert fast asleep. Mac Mackenzie, clad in his kilt, old boots, and loose shirt, his hair protected by a gypsy scarf, painted in a kind of frenzy, never looking away from his canvas or palette.

When Louisa paced past him for about the twentieth time, however, Mac dropped his palette with a clatter and thrust his brush into oil of turpentine.

“Louisa, lass, for God’s sake, sit down. I can’t concentrate with you rushing past a dozen times a minute.”

Louisa bit back snappish words and sat down with a thump on the threadbare sofa. The sofa was old and thoroughly worn from children playing and napping on it. Louisa knew Isabella modeled for Mac on it, and not for modest pictures. Little Robert had been conceived on it, Louisa believed. A very family-situated sofa.

“I beg your pardon, Mac. I am tired of being confined to the house.” Hearing nothing, knowing nothing. Fellows had sent no word and had not called himself. “It’s a bit frustrating.” An understatement, but Louisa had been bred to be so very polite on every occasion.

Mac softened. “Aye, I know. I’m sorry. Forgive my temper.”

“You’re an artist,” Louisa said lightly. “You can’t help yourself.”

Mac burst out laughing, a big, booming Mackenzie laugh. “A good excuse. Ashamed of myself for employing it. Why don’t you tell Isabella to take you out? No reason you should sit here day after day. If anything had happened . . . was wrong . . . the good Fellows would tell us, yes?”

Mac’s stammering around the subject did not give Louisa heart. He meant that if policemen were about to swoop down and arrest Louisa, Fellows would warn them.

“Be kind to her, Papa,” Aimee said. “She’s afraid people will accuse her of poisoning the bishop.”

Aimee was five years old, nearly six. Mac and Isabella’s adopted daughter had red hair a similar shade to Isabella’s, steady brown eyes, and a burgeoning intelligence. Unkind people made out that Mac was Aimee’s father in truth, her mother one of Mac’s models, and Isabella a fool to take Aimee into her home.

The truth was harsher—her father had been a man who’d tried to kill Mac, her mother a Parisian woman who’d died of illness and neglect. Mac’s and Isabella’s compassion had saved this little girl. Aimee was turning into a sweet, amiable, and clever child. She knew she was adopted, but the only parents she remembered were Mac and Isabella.

Mac stared at Aimee now in surprise. “Where did you hear talk like that, wee girl?”

Aimee returned his look without blinking. “You and Mama. And a few ladies who came to visit Mama yesterday. I hid in the second drawing room and listened to them talk. I like to look at the ladies in their dresses. Some of them are beautiful, though Mama’s dresses are the prettiest.”

Mac had his mouth open. On a big man wearing a kerchief, the expression was comical. “Aimee . . .”

“Perfectly all right, Mac,” Louisa broke in. “We shouldn’t hide things from her. Aimee, sweetie.” Louisa took Aimee’s hands. “It is true that some people will say I killed the Bishop of Hargate, but that is untrue.”

Aimee still looked troubled. “The ladies said you hated him for what happened with your father. And one said you’d been his lover. What does that mean, exactly?”

Mac’s Highland Scots became pronounced. “Lass, never listen to the likes of women such as they. I’ll tell Morton not to allow them into the house again. And don’t repeat such things to your mother.”

“I wouldn’t,” Aimee said. “That’s why I’m asking you and Louisa.”

“God save me,” Mac muttered, and went to find his palette again.

Louisa squeezed Aimee’s hands. “What they said is untrue as well. The bishop and I were acquaintances only, and I was not angry with him. I did nothing to hurt him.”

Aimee nodded, her eyes round. “I know you didn’t.”

Relief touched her. Louisa knew Aimee didn’t entirely understand the implications of the situation, but the girl trusted her, and Louisa wanted to do nothing to violate that trust.

“And Aimee, lass, you’re not to talk of it anymore, with anyone,” Mac said sternly. “Not even within the family.”

Eileen, who was nearly three, watched them, her fingers in her mouth. Her little brother Robert slept on a pile of clean drop cloths, on his tummy, his fists curled beside him. His hair stuck up in little spikes, his Scots fair skin a stark contrast to the brilliant red of his hair. The boy could sleep anywhere, at any time, no matter what fireworks were going off around him. Louisa found that adorable; Mac only growled that he was another stubborn Mackenzie.

“Don’t scold her, Mac,” Louisa said. “She wasn’t to know. You may talk of it with me all you like, Aimee.” She smoothed the girl’s wiry red hair. “No secrets inside the family. Those outside might not understand, which is why we’re not speaking of it to them.”

Aimee nodded. “All right, Aunt Louisa. Why do people think you poisoned him?”

“Because I was nearest him at the time. But I give you my word, I did not.”

“I believe you.” Aimee climbed up onto Louisa’s lap and gave her a warm kiss and a hug. “Don’t be afraid, Aunt Louisa. You’re safe here.”

Louisa felt anything but safe, but her eyes grew moist at the sentiment. Now, if only Lloyd Fellows would believe her. Not to mention put his arms around her and reassure her that she was all right.

Mac turned back to his canvas. He was working on a picture of a group of horses. He’d done the preliminary drawings in Berkshire at Cameron Mackenzie’s training stables, and was now painting it. The horses galloped across a pasture, manes and tails flying, muscles gleaming. Because Mac painted in the new style, the lines weren’t solid, but the wildness of the beasts came through—even more than if he’d made every line exact. Louisa could almost hear the hooves pounding, the snorts and whinnies, and smell the grass, dust, and sweat.

“Tell Isabella to take you out,” Mac repeated. He yanked his brush from the jar and rubbed it clean on a rag. “A good ride in the park or something. Our grooms don’t need to be hanging about like loose ends. Give them something to do.”

In other words, go away and let me work.

“Isabella is busy,” Louisa said. “She’s frantically finishing preparations for the supper ball, as you know. I ought to be helping her.” She fixed Mac a look. “So should you.”

“I am helping her. I’m minding the children. A good husband knows when to stay out of the way of the whirling household.”

“A fine excuse,” Louisa said, feeling the first amusement she’d had in days.

“Papa likes to hide up here,” Aimee said. “Morton and Mama bully him if he goes downstairs.”

Mac grinned. “She’s not wrong. Driven away by my wife and my butler. What is a man to do?”

Enjoy himself with his art and his children. Louisa envied him, and Isabella. They were so happy together, exactly matching each other in spirit, love, and vigor. Louisa knew Isabella would prefer to be up here with him, watching her handsome husband paint, playing with the children she loved so well.

But Isabella was a hostess at heart as well, leading the ladies of the Season. She was also keeping up her social schedule, Louisa knew, to dare anyone to say that anything was wrong. Louisa would be at the supper ball tonight, by Isabella’s side, helping to greet guests, engage shy young ladies in conversation, or smooth ruffled feathers of older ladies. This gathering would be utterly respectable, for debutantes up to the most redoubtable matrons, and Louisa would be in the middle of it.

She’d go mad. Louisa gently set Aimee on her feet and sprang up. “You’re right, Mac. Staying in will only make me more irritable.” She went to him, lightly kissed his paint-streaked cheek, and left the room, not missing Mac’s grin or his look of relief.

It also did not help her that Mac looked much like the man she could not banish from her thoughts. The near-kiss she’d shared with Fellows in Mrs. Leigh-Waters’ drawing room burned her almost as much as the true kisses had. She kept feeling the heat of his body against her, his hard fingers on her cheek.

Out.

A young lady couldn’t simply walk outside in London and charge alone down the street. It wasn’t done. Louisa had to play by every rule she possibly could until the true culprit was found. All eyes were on her, she knew.

She asked Morton to fetch Isabella’s carriage, convinced the housekeeper to release a maid to accompany her, and made her way to visit Eleanor, the Duchess of Kilmorgan.

Fellows’ investigations didn’t take him often to Mayfair. Murders in London were most likely to happen at the docks or in slums where gin and desperation overrode sense, and knives came out. Mayfair was for the polite crimes of embezzlement and fraud and, long ago now, dueling.

The death of the Bishop of Hargate was a crime of Mayfair. Though the event itself had taken place in Richmond, every single person at that garden party had a London residence for the Season, all of them in Mayfair.

Fellows knew Mayfair as well as he did the rest of London, because he was thorough. The people who walked these streets, though, were not the ladies and gentlemen who lived there, but the tradesmen and domestics who worked it. Those who reposed in the houses wouldn’t consider strolling more than three doors down without a carriage.

For the past three and a half years, Fellows had made use of a new base of operation in Mayfair, the Duke of Kilmorgan’s mansion on Grosvenor Square. Once Hart, the duke in question, had officially acknowledged Fellows as part of the family, he’d made it known that Fellows could walk into and out of the Grosvenor Square house anytime he chose.

Fellows mostly didn’t choose, but he’d relaxed enough in the last few years to realize that taking Hart up on his hospitality could be convenient. Since Hart’s marriage to Lady Eleanor Ramsay last April, it had become even more convenient.

Eleanor knew everyone. She not only knew them but knew everything about them. If anyone could tell Fellows about the people at the Richmond party, it was Eleanor.

Fellows took an omnibus to Hyde Park, then walked through the park to Park Lane and north. This took time, but Fellows liked to think as he walked, and he enjoyed the open green spaces of the park. For Fellows the boy, London’s city parks had been his idea of pristine countryside. He’d sneak away from home and play in Hyde Park, St. James’s Park, Green Park, or Holland Park, until someone reported an urchin in their garden spaces, and a constable chased him away.

On Park Lane, whose giant houses grew more ostentatious by the year, he noted a moving van outside the mansion formerly belonging to Sir Lyndon Mather. It must have been sold yet again—that made three times in the last three years. Unlucky, that house must be. Fellows had never liked Mather, though Mather had inadvertently guided Fellows to the right path to solving the High Holborn murders. Nothing about that case had ended up as Fellows had ever dreamed it would. It had led, indirectly, to him meeting Lady Louisa Scranton.

Fellows turned onto Upper Brook Street and walked to Grosvenor Square and Hart’s house. Hart’s first footman had the door open for Fellows before he reached it.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the footman said, reaching to relieve Fellows of his coat and hat as Fellows stepped into the wide front hall. A staircase wound up through the middle of the house, spring sunshine lighting it from windows at each landing. The balustrade was elegance itself, the airy space quiet, beautiful, and at peace.

Fellows’ father had lived here. The old duke had walked up and down these stairs, no doubt growling at his footmen and butler to jump to do whatever he commanded. Hart had traversed the stairs as well, as the boy Fellows remembered from that day on the street when Fellows had pummeled the duke, the duke had beaten him, and Hart had given Fellows a coin. Hart didn’t remember the encounter—at least he’d never mentioned it. Fellows had never mentioned it either.

Fellows wondered briefly if the stern-faced Hart had ever slid down the banisters as a boy. Hart had been wild in his youth, so perhaps he had. Then again, he’d always maintained strict control over himself, so maybe he’d forgone the pleasure.

“Her Grace is in the morning room upstairs,” the stately butler who stood at the bottom of the stairs said.

Fellows shook himself out of his woolgathering and returned to the task at hand. He thanked the butler, mounted two flights of stairs, and made for the sunny sitting room at the rear of the house.

He knew the way, because whenever Fellows visited, Eleanor insisted they have tea in her sitting room. Eleanor had redecorated this room after she’d married Hart, filling it with peach and cream colors, comfortable furniture, soft carpets, and Mac’s paintings. A cozy retreat, filled with feminine grace. One of the Mackenzie dogs, Old Ben, was generally in residence. The hound liked to curl up near the fire in the winter, or lie on his back in a sunbeam in the warmer months.

Old Ben was there now, his soft doggy snore sounding between the words of the women sitting together, April sunshine touching them both. One lady was the duchess—Eleanor. The other was Louisa.