Barbara Metzger - Truly Yours

"Very well, they are not suspects or witnesses. Why do you not start in the beginning."

"But I have told my story over and over again. Surely you have heard all the details from the newspaper and the servants and town gossip."

Daniel was nodding, but Rexford did not pay attention, making notations on his pad. "I need to hear it from your own mouth because proving innocence in this case is going to be far harder than proving guilt."

"But I did not commit the crime!"

"I know." He touched her hand, then jerked his away, as if he had not meant to touch her. "But think on this. What, say, if your pearls were in question? You can prove you have a set by the necklace itself, or a bill of sale."

"They were my mother's."

"A will, then, or a houseful of servants recalling them. Easy proof. But what if someone said you had a diamond necklace?"

"I do not. Sir Frederick sold it and my mother's other jewelry, to pay for her doctors, he claimed."

"Ah, but you could have sold the necklace, or tossed it in the dustbin. Then it would be your word against the prosecutor's case."

Amanda fingered the pearls at her throat. "I see."

He nodded. "The negative is far harder to prove, but it is not impossible. Now start at the beginning of the unfortunate events. No, start with your life with Sir Frederick and his household."

So Amanda told him about her mother's marriage, her fading away, and Sir Frederick's anger. She told about his misappropriating of her inheritance and stealing her dowry, and how she was relegated to a poor companion in the house.

Daniel asked, "Why did you not leave? My aunt would have taken you in."

"And left little Elaine to face her father's rages, his skimping on her clothes and education and even simple entertainments? I could not abandon her when she was so young."

"Admirable, I am sure," Lord Rexford said, "but then she grew up enough to enter the Marriage Mart."

"Yes, her father wanted her to marry a title. She liked the idea of becoming a marchioness or a duchess."

"Not likely, a filly coming from that stable."

Rex frowned at his cousin's interruption. "Go on."

"With Elaine grown and her father attending to her future, I hoped to marry myself. Sir Frederick swore none of my suitors was good enough. In fact, that very afternoon he admitted that he would never part with my dowry. I was not of age yet, and he would see it diminished to nothing by my twenty-fifth birthday. My inheritance was already gone, he said, for my upkeep." She ignored Daniel Stamfield's angry mutterings and watched Lord Rexford add another note to his list. When he looked up, she continued. "I thought a particular gentleman of my acquaintance would not care about the money. He was well-off, and had expressed his interest."

"Did you speak with him that night at Almack's? Was that why you left so precipitously?"

"Yes, and yes." Amanda bit her lip while the two gentlemen waited. She told them about Mr. Charles Ashway and her expectations. Her voice trembled when she spoke of receiving the cut direct from him.

Amanda swore the floorboards shivered when Mr. Stamfield jumped to his feet. "That cad. I shall call him out for you, Miss Carville. No gentleman leads a lady to await an offer, and then treats her so abysmally."

"He had his reasons. I demanded an explanation, you see." She blushed and stared at her hands, but she managed to whisper the slander Sir Frederick had told Charles.

"And he believed your stepfather's lies? Anyone can tell you are a lady, not any barque of frailty. I will not bother challenging the mawworm, then, I shall just pound him into the ground. Dueling is illegal anyway."

Amanda had to smile. "I thank you for the thought, Mr. Stamfield. I wished to hit him myself."

Rex wanted to wring the dastard's neck, but that was for another time. "You must have been furious."

"Oh, I was worse than angry. I wanted to shout and stamp my foot and throw that insipid orgeat they serve right at him. But there was Elaine to consider. Besides, I knew Mr. Ashway was not the culprit. He simply did not trust me, and he cared more for his family name than he did for me."

Daniel sat back down. "That whole family is a bunch of bobbing blocks. You are better off without him."

Rex thought so, too. "Go on."

In firmer tones, Amanda told them, "My stepfather was entirely to blame. So I went home, alone, to confront him once and for all. I was going to go to the solicitor's in the morning, and the bank. And I intended to write to Lady Royce in Bath, asking her advice and assistance. I hated Sir Frederick more than I thought possible at that moment, and I did wish him dead."

"Perhaps you ought to keep that thought to yourself from now on," Rex warned. "Not that wishes equate to deeds, but it looks bad." He asked the name of her bank and which solicitor handled the family's affairs, then brought her attention back to Sir Frederick. "He must have been upset when you said you were going to expose his thievery. That would not have helped his daughter make an advantageous match."

"I did not get the chance to threaten him. He was already dead."

"So there was no struggle, no physical violence on his part?"

"No." In a voice as thin as a thread, she repeated, "He was already dead."

"Then how did you happen to have the gun in your hand?"

"I thought he was in his cups and had dropped it. I wanted to protect the rest of the household." She paused. "Then I saw him."

Rex saw her shudder and exchanged a glance with his cousin. "There is no need to tell us more. We can speak to the coroner for the rest. You had cause to shoot the dastard but you did not."

Now Amanda started crying again. "You truly believe me?"

"Of course. True-blue, like I said."

"No one else did."

"Well, we shall have to change their minds. Let us start with the gun. Was it Sir Frederick's?"

"I have no idea. I know he owned a brace of pistols because he mentioned shooting at Manton's Gallery a few times, but I never saw them."

"Can you describe the murder weapon at all?"

"It was cold and gray and heavy."

"No pearl handles or carvings? Some pistols have fancy work on them."

"I did not notice. I was too angry, and then…"

"Yes." Rex made a note on his paper to examine the gun, and to check at Manton's. "Sometimes they can be identified by their markings. A gunsmith will recognize his own work and recall who bought it. A weapons dealer might have records of the purchase. We'll start there. Now, who else would have been at the house that evening?"

He wrote down the servants she mentioned, noting that they had been given an evening off, with the ladies at the assembly rooms. "Sir Frederick did not sound like the type to be generous to his staff."

"I was surprised, but glad for them."

"It might be that Hawley was expecting company he wished to keep private."

"A whore?" Daniel asked, then blushed and begged Amanda's pardon.

"Or a partner in more shady dealings. We can easily find the men he drank with and gamed with at his clubs. We'll need the names of his friends, his investment advisors, his tailor." Rex turned the page and added more avenues to pursue.

"What the deuce do you want to know his tailor for? I can give you the name of mine if you want to cut a dash."

Rex raised his eyebrow at his cousin's ensemble. "I want to know if the baronet paid his debts. A man's tailor can tell a lot, if he wishes. So can his valet. Where was his man that evening?"

"I do not know. I think I saw him in all the confusion, after." She gave him Brusseau's name.

"Another French valet? Hmm."

"Do not make too much of it, coz. French servants are all the thing; the Quality think it gives them style."

"Did Sir Frederick dress in the latest fashions?"

Amanda and Daniel both shook their heads.

"What of Sir Frederick's son?"

"I do not know Edwin Hawley's mode of dress or if he has a valet. Edwin and his father were estranged. He moved out several years ago and I have not seen him since. I believe him to be residing at Hawk Hill, the Hawley seat in Hampshire. Sir Frederick hated the country and bled the estate to finance his investments. He could not sell the entailed property, or cast Edwin out of the succession to the baronetcy, of course, although the servants hinted that Sir Frederick borrowed heavily against the income. I thought they must have argued over the rents and mortgages but I never knew."

"He had motive to get rid of the drain on the estate, then, and claim it for his own?"

"Oh, not Edwin. He is such a nice young man."

They all knew nice men did awful things when forced to it. Watching one's fields go fallow and one's tenants go hungry could make a fellow desperate.

"I would have known if he was in Town. Elaine would have told me."

Rex would send a man to Hampshire to check. "Very well, one last question. Who was the gentleman you were seeing?"

"I told you, Mr. Charles Ashway, of the Derby Ashways. The family holds a distinguished barony."

"No, not that man, the other one."

"I had no other suitors. Sir Frederick discouraged them all."

Rex studied his notes. "They said you went out at night on occasion."

Now Amanda looked at the fire burning in the hearth. "That has nothing to do with the murder."

"Of course it does. The talk leaves you looking no better than you ought to be. Did you meet a man outside your house?"

"I shall not speak of it."

"But you will not deny it, in words?"

She did not say anything.

He cursed under his breath. "Do you own a blue cape?"

"You must know I do."

"Is it with your belongings sent over from your former home?"

"I do not know. I did not unpack. Nanny did."

Rex made a note to look into that, too. "The blue cape was how you were identified in the park across the street from Sir Frederick's house on several nights."

Again she said nothing, just rubbed at her forehead and the headache forming there.

The interview was over.

Everything she'd said was true. Everything she had not said was damning. It appeared Miss Carville was guilty of something, after all.

More secrets, damn it.

"What do you think?" Rex asked his cousin after Nanny helped the woman back to her own bedchamber, wrapped in the blanket. He was ready to carry her, but Nanny glowered at him, as if the shady female's exhausted, teary condition and pained expression were his fault. He stepped aside, holding the door.

"I think she is a diamond of the first water. Those golden curls look soft as silk, and that little nose has an enchanting tilt. She has the sweetest brown eyes, when they aren't filled with tears, and as for her shape…" Daniel held his hands in front of his chest instead of discussing a lady's bosom in his lady aunt's sitting room. "Of course I prefer my women on a larger scale. Why, I'd be afraid of breaking that little china doll."

Rex knew Miss Carville was soft, not at all brittle like a porcelain figurine. "I meant what do you think about her avoiding questions about the man she was meeting?" Rex was prowling the sitting room, picking up this book, that ormolu clock on the mantel. He was thinking more about the woman who had just left than the woman who resided here, though. He had stopped wondering about Lady Royce years ago, or so he told himself…

"She refused to discuss why she was going out alone at night, breaking every rule for an unmarried miss. At the same time she was chasing after Ashway for his ring." He could not decide which was worst-Miss Carville's lack of candor, her lack of morals, or her lack of honor.

"Perhaps the chap is unsuitable, a servant, say, and she knew her stepfather would never give his permission. Or he could be a married man. She could be keeping his identity hidden so his wife doesn't find out."

"Or she is protecting her lover from the law." He checked his notes. "Yet she said she did not know who killed Hawley. It was a clear blue, with no muddied maybes."

"Well, then, she does not know and does not suspect the fellow in the park. And you are damning her for a light skirt without knowing the facts of the matter. She might have a fine reason for going out, not to meet a lover at all."

"Name one."

Daniel lowered his brows in concentration, without coming up with a single possibility. "Why don't you ask her?"

"I did and she refused to answer."

"No, ask her if she has a lover, not who he is. That's what has your ballocks in a bind."