“When we were talking, Jeremy said something provocative.”
That got her attention enough that she raised her head. “An odd word, provocative. Are you saying he made you angry?”
“Not at all. He said he didn’t understand why we don’t share a business, if we are going to share workers.”
She turned her body so she faced him. “How was that provocative?”
“It provoked thought.”
“Are you saying you would want to do this?”
“I am only saying that it makes some sense. You have abilities I don’t have. I have some you don’t have.”
“I can hire a man with your abilities. You can hire a woman with mine. We could even hire each other.”
“True. Clumsy, but true.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You are not suggesting that I become a regular employee, are you? With wages and such?”
It was a topic he had not considered much. While being provoked to thought, he had not really done much thinking.
“You tried that at Melton Park, calling me your employee even though I wasn’t one. I found the deception useful there, but I don’t care for the notion.”
“I had no intention of suggesting such a thing.” The look in her eyes made that the right thing to say, no matter what he might one day think, when he thought.
That mollified her. “Whose business would this be then?”
Mine, of course. There was no alternative that would pass muster in the world. Men would never engage them if she were the owner. Women would engage him if he owned a service in which a woman supplied some of the services.
It certainly couldn’t be hers. That would make him the employee. A gentleman who conducts inquiries was one thing, a man who works for wages was another.
Her mind must have been traveling the same paths, because she shook her head. “I don’t think it would be a good idea.”
“Probably not.” He eased her back into his arms. He could not avoid the next topic any longer. “I need to tell you something. A Mr. Monroe called on me.”
Her eyes opened, wide. She sat up and turned to him. “What did he want?”
“He saw you at the concert. He came to tell me about you. He thought I should know about your history.”
“That nuisance of a man. He was always there, following me, poking his nose into my life, watching my home.”
“He was hired to find evidence of a lover.”
She lowered her eyelids. “How like Algernon. First he accuses me of being cold and less than a woman, then he decides I am engaging in orgies with another man. There was no lover, of course. Monroe was wasting his time and, as I said, being a nuisance.”
“He said Finley was shot while out riding. That it was not a normal death. He said the magistrate speculated on your involvement.” He said you carried a pistol. He said it was a pistol ball to the heart, which is an unlikely accident. He swallowed the new revelations while he looked at her. Did the army officer doubt her? Did the man who conducted private inquiries? If not, there was no reason to insult her with questions about those details.
He wished he could say he did not think she could ever kill. There were those who couldn’t. Even the army had some, and they died on the field fast. Minerva was not such a person. Given the right circumstances, to protect herself or her own, he could see her doing it. Was her danger from that husband of hers reason enough?
She was eyeing him sharply now, watching him while his mind worked. “I was wondering why you had not found a way to see me the last few days. I think you have decided to end this liaison.”
“I have decided nothing of the sort.”
“I would decide it for you, if I were brave enough. If this becomes known—when it becomes known—any friendship with me would compromise you in several ways. Mr. Monroe told you that I was suspected in Algernon’s death. That alone would make me suspected again in the duke’s. You know I am right.”
“I will only tell the solicitor what is necessary to establish your history as Margaret Finley. The rest does not signify to his duties as executor. With any luck, no one will learn the rest of it.”
She caressed his jaw, then his mouth. “I had no reason to kill him, if you are wondering. I had my freedom. The separation probably saved his life, until someone else did the deed, that is.”
Damnation, she had just admitted she might well have killed her husband but for the separation.
“You may not be able to protect me, if you are thinking that way,” she said.
“That remains to be seen.” He thought he could, though. These revelations had altered his view of many things. Like seeing a battlefield from high ground suddenly, he had realigned certain evidence like so many troops. The path to victory would require some inquiries she would not like, however, and a retreat of sorts, for now.
She leaned closer, and gazed right into his eyes. “Chase, you once told me that you knew I had not killed your uncle. You just knew. Are you that sure that I did not harm Algernon?”
He took her hand in his. “Minerva, I don’t think you did this, but I do not know it the way you speak of a better sense knowing. The devil of the truth is this—I have realized that I don’t care if you killed that rogue. In fact, a part of me hopes that you did.”
Chapter Twenty
Chase left Minerva’s house at dawn and rode to Park Lane. He went up the stairs of Whiteford House and entered the duke’s apartment. He strode over to the sitting room windows and drew the drapes.
A silvery mist hung over London, obscuring most of the rooftops. A few lamps still glowed, not yet extinguished. Down below the gardens and mews showed as little more than blotches of grays. While he watched, however, the sun’s slow rise began defining the forms more, etching trees and houses. The mist slowly thinned.
He gazed to the northeast. The broad swath of Oxford Street ran nearby. A few streets beyond it an opening in the buildings’ rooftops showed Portman Square’s location. A little to the southeast the much larger opening of Grosvenor Square loomed, and beyond it Berkeley Square.
“What in hell are you doing here?”
He turned his head to see Nicholas squinting at him while he tied a banyan around his body.
“I am thinking about Uncle Frederick.”
Nicholas came over and looked out while he yawned. “Town looks peaceful at this hour. Almost beautiful.”
Chase opened the window. “It is coming alive, but the sounds are still distinct. At night there are moments of silence. He liked that silence. He liked the world at night.”
“It might have been better if he had not.”
Chase was not thinking about the duke’s death now, but about his life. “He walked at night here. Did you know that? Just as he walked along that parapet at Melton Park. His valet made a comment about it, and he had mentioned those walks to me himself.”
“I can see him haunting the shadows.”
“At night, if lamps are lit inside houses, you can see inside when you pass. Even those with drapes drawn, often you can see. One wonders what he saw, or if he even noticed.”
Nicholas raked his hair. “Listen, I said nothing last night because it was not the time, but since you are waxing nostalgic about Uncle now—I am concerned about Kevin.”