“Ginny?” Cole pressed desperately. “Could her name have been Ginny?”
Morley’s eyes sharpened, and Cole wondered if his entire world might be sliced to shreds by the man’s next words. “That name does sound familiar. In fact, I believe it was brought up that evening. I’ll have to consult the case file and it’s in a different borough, over at the records office at number Four Whitehall Place, Scotland Yard.”
“I want that file,” Cole growled.
Morley attempted to shrug him off, but Cole’s grip was ironclad.
Argent moved behind Morley, his shoulders bunched in readiness. “Careful, Trenwyth,” he warned.
“I will see it,” Cole gritted through his teeth. “Try to keep it from me.”
“Why would you want to?” Argent queried, studying him as he would a newly discovered species of man, with interest and a bit of hesitation.
Realizing he was getting nowhere, Cole released the chief inspector and turned toward the fountain, glad to see its gruesome contents had been removed. “I visited the Bare Kitten before…” He held up his left arm. “There was a … woman, Ginny, with whom I spent the night. I … took something of hers all that time ago, and I wanted to…” Christ, this was difficult.
“What did you take?” Morley queried.
Her virtue. It wasn’t like he could return it to her, but he could somehow make amends. He might even do what he could to make an honest woman out of her. A prostitute duchess, wouldn’t that beat all?
“That is my business. But if she’s … dead I…” God. Had he been searching for her ghost all this time? Had his tragedy become hers, as well? The very thought slammed into him with the weight of a blacksmith hammer, threatening to break him at the core. His knees weakened as grief and fear washed over his skin and filled his mouth with the taste of bitter gall.
“Tell you what, Trenwyth. I’ll request the file from wherever it’s been archived, and when it’s in my hands I’ll invite you down to my office to peruse its contents.”
Cole forced himself to turn back to the man and speak to him, even though all he wanted to do was break something. “I’d very much appreciate it.”
“You are owed, for your sacrifice in the field, if nothing else.” Morley’s gaze flicked to his hand.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” Cole pressed.
“I’ll contact you the day after next.”
“Until then.” He nodded to both men before making his way back toward the tree. He knew he should take his leave of Lady Anstruther, but it somehow seemed wrong to do so, because of his body’s rather aggressive reaction to her nearness.
He’d never promised any kind of fidelity to Ginny, that he knew. But if he had, whatever happened to him in the presence of Imogen would have been nothing short of a sin.
Please, God, he prayed for the first time since his faith had bled out of him in a pit of hell in Constantinople. Don’t let her be dead. Not like this. If Ginny had been the victim of a crime similar to the one he’d witnessed today, Cole knew it would be the end of him.
For his last vestige of hope would die just as violently. And there would truly be nothing left.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
To Imogen, sleep was as elusive as the stars behind storm clouds these days. She knew it was there, where it had always been, but her exhausted mind remained restless and churning. A factory of predictions and anxieties.
Once upon a time, she would have wandered her garden in search of peace, refuge, and a bit of bracing fresh air. Now it had become something else. The stage of a murder. A murder that was perhaps meant for her.
She’d think it imprudent to be wandering through the garden now were two policemen not stationed at her home, one within and one patrolling the grounds outside. Chief Inspector Morley promised her the best Scotland Yard had to offer, leaving her with a blithe and burly Irishman named Sean O’Mara, and also a rather dashing North African gentleman, Roman Rathbone, whose marble-dark eyes gleamed in a way that suggested he’d spent more of his years misbehaving than enforcing the law. Imogen had warily sensed a spark of significant attraction from both men in regard to Isobel.
She’d have to watch for that, as her sister was obviously too young and tender for either of their attentions.
The full summer moon hung low and heavy in the clear night sky, and Imogen pulled her wrapper close against a moist chill that chased away the heat of the day. On nights such as this, torches and lanterns were not needed, as the moon provided enough illumination once the eyes adjusted to the silver-white gleam.
Though Lady Broadmore’s body had been taken to the morgue, and no blood was spilled, the base of the satyr fountain still seemed tainted. Stained by something more gory than blood, more sinister than even death.
Imogen skirted the fountain altogether, padding down a path that wound through wildflowers as she measured the many possible sources of threats to her life and family.
Not Trenwyth, she thought with relief. He’d become many unfamiliar and dangerous things in their time apart, but not a rapist. Not a murderer of the innocent and helpless.
“So who, then?” she asked the moon in a soft whisper. And why? Supposing Lady Broadmore’s death truly had anything to do with her, the question became all about motivation, didn’t it? Had the murder been meant to protect her? Or in some sort of morbid effigy of her?
Imogen thought of her beloved childhood cat, Icarus. He’d adored her, and to demonstrate that high regard, he’d often leave the corpses of little birds or mice at the foot of her bed. He’d sit next to them, amber eyes gleaming with pride and satisfaction, awaiting her prompt and expected adulation.
Was this the message the killer had intended? Lady Broadmore had seemed bent on making an enemy of Imogen. Had one of the men in her employ or—dare she think it?—a guest left her a gruesome gift in the form of her adversary’s corpse?
The other more frightening possibility was that the killer had, indeed, mistaken Lady Broadmore for Imogen in the dark. Once he’d gotten his hands on her and discovered his mistake, he had still carried out his dastardly crime upon the wrong woman.
This seemed most likely the case. Imogen chewed on her lip as she contemplated the next question very carefully.
Who wanted her dead?
Barton was always a possibility. Though she’d been certain at the time that she’d stabbed him in the artery, perhaps she’d been mistaken. He’d never been found. What if he’d been stalking the shadows all this time, waiting to finish what he’d started in that terrifying alley behind the Bare Kitten? If he’d let his anger fester nearly two years to an obsessive point, it made perfect sense that he should return for her with the intention of carrying out his rape and mortal revenge.
She really should have notified the inspectors of him. They had the list of former criminals in their possession, and the chance remained that it could be one of them. However, she’d unfairly left out a significant piece of the puzzle.
Because Trenwyth had been there. Because she still wasn’t certain that she was safe from a charge of murder.
And because if she made it known, even to the police, that she’d once been a Kitten of St. James’s Street, everything she had worked for would be ruined. Her charity disgraced. Poor Isobel would be a pariah. She might lose the patronage and friendship of Millie, Farah, and Mena. Indeed, though she’d made a brittle truce with Cole this very afternoon, he still might carry through with his threat to bring into question the validity of her marriage to Lord Anstruther.