“I’ll show you to the garden,” the countess answered steadily. “It’s just through here.”
“Imogen, no!” Isobel protested, tugging on her sister’s hand. “You shouldn’t have to look again, it’s too, too horrible.”
Lady Anstruther only kissed her sister’s cheek, distracting her while she pried the girl’s white-fingered grasp from her hand. “Isobel, darling, it would be polite to offer Chief Inspector Morley and Mr. Argent a cup of tea, would it not?” she asked gently.
“Tea?” The pale girl, who looked no older than seventeen, blinked as though she’d never heard the word before.
“I like mine brewed strong as Turkish coffee,” Argent said softly.
Unsurprisingly, her ploy worked, and the young woman seemed to return from whatever stupor fear and fatality had created. “We—we have coffee, if you prefer it to tea, Mr. Argent.” Her own smile was shy and watery as she smoothed the skirts of her rumpled peach ball gown that confirmed that she hadn’t been to bed yet.
“That would be grand.”
Lady Anstruther took immediate advantage of her sister’s distraction. “This way, Chief Inspector.”
He followed her out of the parlor and down a hall choked with art and antiques toward two French doors that presumably led to the terrace garden. A pair of constables in their blue uniforms stood vigil at the doors. Their eyes upon Lady Anstruther in her nightclothes, as modest as they were, still glittered with both intrigue and hunger.
It hadn’t escaped Morley’s notice that she was, indeed, an uncommonly lovely woman. Her hair a stunning gold, shaded with tones of red. Her eyes a gentle confusion of greens, golds, and darker hues. Her robe outlined a slight body with delicate curves.
His notice of her beauty was more a detection of it, than anything. He looked at her not like a man would a woman, but like an inspector would a suspect. Or a witness.
Nothing more.
This confirmed a dilemma he’d been contemplating for quite some time. Something was wrong with him. Something grave and serious.
But he hadn’t time to brood about it now.
“How long have you been acquainted with Lady Broadmore, the victim?” he queried, staring down the constables until they noticed, panicked, and found something on their boots worth very close inspection.
“I only became acquainted with her for the first time last night,” Lady Anstruther replied. “I realized immediately that further acquaintance would be undesired by either of us.”
“That’s a brave confession to make about the woman who was murdered in your garden.”
“I am not her murderer. What have I to fear?”
“She was found on your property. There are accounts of you quarreling with this woman. Lady Anstruther, as of right now you are first on our list of suspects.”
“While we didn’t quarrel, exactly, we certainly didn’t agree on anything.” Lady Anstruther picked her way carefully through a short path choked with wildflowers and swept to the side, soberly gesturing down at the deceased.
Something Morley thought long-dead flared inside of him. A memory, one he held locked in the dark vault where his heart had once been, transposed itself onto the murdered viscountess.
A golden-haired beauty prone in peaceful repose. Indeed, one could believe her sleeping, were it not for the unnatural stillness of her breast. For the blue tingeing her lips and the gray painting her skin the color of the slate sky.
Death used a rather obvious palette.
In his memory, the girl’s body was tainted with sludge and silt from the river Thames, discarded beneath a bridge in Southwark rather than swathed in sunlight next to a playful fountain. A coarse frock had barely covered the evidence of her brutal death instead of a ball gown of magenta silk.
But the woman on the shore of the Thames had bruises on her thighs … and blood.
Caroline. His beloved sister. His twin.
She’d also been strangled to death and discarded like so much rubbish.
A familiar white rage drowned out everything but the evidence. Tattered undergarments, shredded to ribbons, floated limply in the Anstruther fountain. The countess’s skirts were twisted above her knees, though her silk stockings and slippers remained intact.
All evidence pointed to rape … but he’d require the body examined before he could be certain. Once his suspicion was confirmed, he could mobilize.
He’d conduct his inquest, find the culprit, and make certain justice was meted out.
Justice. It wasn’t a new obsession. Only an intensifying one.
A gentle voice permeated the roaring in his ears. “Chief Inspector? Sir?” The past melted from his vision, and the concerned features of Lady Anstruther replaced them. “Are you all right? You’ve gone rather pale.” She placed a hand on his sleeve, observing him with steady, watchful eyes.
Needing an anchor for his fervent thoughts, he reached into his coat pocket, and smoothed his thumb across the perforations of the sealed letter he found there. Perhaps he’d consult with Dr. Francis Aubrey-Dencourt. The man was not only a medical genius, but specialized in forensic medicine. Their professional correspondence had become ambiguously personal of late. Dare he say, more than just friendly? And while he didn’t care to examine the sense of indulgence he felt over the good doctor’s letters, he didn’t feel that asking for a favor would be out of the question.
“Pardon me,” he said shortly, searching for a brief explanation. “I hurried here without breakfasting first.”
“Of course.” She released his arm, patting his sleeve. “Allow me to call for Cheever, and he’ll have Cook send up extra breakfast.”
“No need.” Narrowing his eyes, he stayed the woman by grasping her arm.
She stilled like a rabbit caught in a snare, and Morley deduced that she was no stranger to violence. “I must say, I find your composure remarkable, Lady Anstruther. Does the fact that a woman was found murdered and sexually assaulted in your garden not at all disturb you?”
At this, Lady Anstruther winced and wrapped her arms around her middle in an oddly childlike gesture. “Chief Inspector Morley, I assure you I’m not only disturbed by this, I’m horrified and revolted. But, I confess that this isn’t the most upsetting thing to have happened in the course of my life. And, as I’m sure you’ll find out upon further investigation, before my fortuitous marriage to the earl, I was employed as a nurse at St. Margaret’s Royal Hospital. So, you see, this is also not my first experience with death, even one so gruesome as this.”
Morley searched her eyes and found only sincerity and regret. Either the woman was in earnest, or she was a better actress than Argent’s wife, Millie LeCour.
He noted the capable delicacy of her hands, and silently compared it to the wide span and thickness of the finger marks marring the vicountess’s neck. Whether Lady Anstruther was involved or not, she certainly hadn’t assaulted and strangled the victim.
“I need to establish just when this occurred,” he stated. “Do you recall the last time you saw Lady Broadmore?”
“It would have been at dinner,” she recalled, wrinkling a troubled forehead. “So, perhaps half past nine o’clock. Since we didn’t get along, I assumed she’d left early.”