Page 57 of Silence of Deceit
“Keep an eye on the house and if you see or hear anything untoward, holler for a street patrol.” He jumped to the curb and took the short front walk to the front door. Just as he was about the reach for the brass knocker, he noticed the inch-wide gap between the door and the jamb. It was already open.
Hugh pushed the door open a little wider, and when no sound met him, peered in.
A woman lay on the floor just inside the entrance, crumpled around the legs of a credenza table. Hugh rushed inside and drew his flintlock. Crouching next to the woman, he felt her neck for a pulse. She was alive, but the blood on her brow looked to have come from a deep gash at her hairline. A mobcap hung askew off her plaited bun, and based on her plain dress and pinafore, he assumed this was a maid.
He stood and listened for any indication that the attacker was still in the house. For several moments, there was nothing but his own thumping pulse. And then, a muffled grunt, like a man being pummeled in the gut. Hugh’s eyes darted toward the staircase and the first landing. He crept up the steps, hoping the carpeted boards would absorb his footfalls. There were no more errant sounds, though his instinct knew that he was approaching a confrontation.
At the landing, rooms stretched left and right, with several doors closed. Only one was open. Cautiously, Hugh moved toward it. With this flintlock ahead of him, he entered, tensed muscles ready for whatever met him.
But no foe leaped at him. Instead, he found a man seated across the room, on the floor, his back lined up against the wall. He pressed his palm to his chest attempting to staunch the flow of blood. It wasn’t working. Blood soaked his shirt and hand, and more viscous crimson liquid spluttered from his lips.
“Starborough,” Hugh said. Dimly, the man registered that he was not alone. He peered up at Hugh with a blank look of confusion.
“Where is Delia?” Hugh asked.
A whisper of movement behind him, and a rush of premonition racing up his back, were his only warnings. Hugh spun on his heel and took aim at a woman who stood too close. At the same time, hot pain pierced his forearm. A shot fired off before the muscles in his hand went utterly slack. His flintlock clattered onto the floor, and the woman swiped her leg out, sending his dropped weapon spinning away, out of reach. In another shock of pain, she ripped free the blade she’d plunged into his arm, and then slashed at his face. Hugh leaped away, avoiding all but a nick across his cheek.
The woman brandished her blood-stained blade, a wild grin stretching her lips.
“Delia Montgomery,” Hugh said as he clutched at his quickly numbing arm.
“Audrey’s dear Runner.” She grinned inanely. Her dress, far too elaborate for anything other than a ballroom, was stained with speckles of blood. Tendrils of blonde hair had escaped her pins and hung in her eyes.
“Why have you done this?” he asked as sharp bolts of pain began to tear through his arm.
Delia twittered a laugh. “Which part? Gutting Estelle’s husband here? Well, it was me or him. He came at me with his cane, the same way he went at Estelle. But I’m faster.” She jiggled the long, thin blade that she gripped with ease.
“You didn’t kill Mary Simpson in self-defense.” A surge of nausea cramped his stomach and beads of sweat dotted his brow and between his shoulders. His arm was wounded seriously, much worse than a mere stab. Had she cut an artery? He needed to subdue her and get the knife from her hand before Audrey or Carrigan came running; they had surely heard the report of the pistol. But his right arm, his dominant arm, wasn’t cooperating. He could barely flex his fingers.
“Bad luck for Mary that she saw me at Varney’s. Couldn’t have her telling anyone, not when I was supposed to be that bloated corpse.”
When she smirked at the state of Esther’s dead body, Hugh comprehended that this woman was vacant of any feeling, any morals. There would be no reasoning with her.
“I suppose it wasbad luckwhen Winnie saw you too.” His pulse pumped harder at the memory of Sir’s near death, which only made his arm ache more.
Delia shrugged and said nothing. It wasn’t worth anything to her, it seemed. Hugh attempted another approach.
“Esther wrote the letters.”
At the mention of her, Delia grew amused again. “She was more than willing, after I saw her at Bedlam and learned she’d marriedwicked, wicked Warwick,” she said, singing the name as the older woman at Shadewell had.
Warwick had known what former patients Delia could blackmail. He had shared the names with his wife, who had, in turn, shared them with Delia—because Delia had been blackmailing Esther too.
“But Esther changed her mind,” he led as blood continued to weep from his arm. His vision fuzzed, then sharpened again. One show of weakness, and this viper would strike. He backed up slowly, closer to Starborough, whose walking stick lay upon the floor beside him.
“Got cold feet. She didn’t believe I’d tell her poor sod of a husband the truth about where she was.” Delia pinned her lips like some maniacal imp.
“Cheating innocent people didn’t sit well with her conscience. Imagine that.”
“She’sthe one who cheated! Got herself a new life. Why couldn’t I do the same?”
“Esther didn’t kill anyone in the process.” Hugh’s heel knocked against the dropped walking stick. Delia didn’t notice. Her earlier humor had flashed over to anger.
“Only because she had it easy. Had everything handed to her. She went from one wealthy husband to another.”
“Her baby died, and she went mad. In what way is that easy?” Hugh argued, if only to keep Delia agitated, to hinge her attention on anything but his foot, nudging the walking stick up onto the toe of his boot.
“Oh, poor Esther, as if dead babies don’t happen every day.” Delia rolled her eyes. Hugh used the moment to hitch his knee up, propelling the walking stick into the air. He caught it, but black dots flooded his vision, and before they cleared, the walking stick was ripped from his hand. Delia tossed it behind her.
