Page 22 of A Devil in Silk
“Before Miss Nightshade died on stage, she told me I was destined to live a miserable existence if I didn’t act now.” The answer brought a sudden clarity, a way to free himself and spare his mother further pain. “She said I must marry for love or rue the day. A wise man would take her advice.”
Mrs Woodall nearly toppled from her chair in shock. She gaped at Bentley, then at her pretty daughter, who sat poised like a preened pet, confident his words changed nothing. Across the table, his own mother’s expression hardened, the same look she wore whenever she wielded Marcus’ memory like a blade, knowing it would cut him where he was weakest.
“Only a weak man would be swayed by the theatrics of a performer claiming to speak with the dead,” Miss Woodall said, too dismissively. “I’m certain his lordship will honour the promise our families made, regardless of these silly otherworldly whispers.”
His mother turned sharply. “You may mock what you do not understand, Sarah, but I will not have the line between worlds spoken about with such disdain.”
Keen to escape, Inspector Mercer cleared his throat. “We should leave for the station-house, my lord. Your statement will be required to support the claims made by the suspect.”
Anger flared. “She’s not a suspect.”
“She?” His mother’s voice quivered with poorly concealed alarm. “You went with a companion? Who is she? Perhaps you went in a group. Was it Mr Gentry and his wife?”
He ignored the barrage of questions and Miss Woodall’s flinty stare. Rising from his chair, he faced the inspector. “I trust you’ll release her this morning, Inspector, or there’ll be the devil to pay. I’ll not rest until her name is cleared and the real murderer is brought to justice.”
He saw his mother flinch at his words, but he couldn’t soften them. Miss Woodall’s glare burned into him, but he welcomed it. Better their discomfort than Clara’s ruin.
Vine Street Police Office
Piccadilly
Clara sat stiffly in Inspector Mercer’s office, flanked by the Marquess of Rothley and her friend Miss Olivia Woolf. The air was thick with the scent of damp clothes, stale pipe smoke, and an old meat pie abandoned on the desk.
The marquess checked his pocket watch and grumbled, “How much longer are we expected to wait here? It’s not like the man is searching for the Ark of the Covenant.”
Beyond the door, the station bustled with the tramp of heavy boots, the scrape of chairs on wood, and the occasional barked command. Then came the sounds of a scuffle: thudding blows, vile curses and drunken slurs, a surge of violence that made Clara flinch.
She stared at the inspector’s empty chair, willing herself to block out the noise, but it stirred unwanted memories. The argument outside her father’s study. The moment he burst in toreveal her mother had died in a fall. Thrown from her mare by the river near Cocklebury.
Everything changed that day.
She endured her father’s raging grief for six years before the flick of a riding crop left her blind in her left eye. And though she mourned her mother’s passing, she always believed it was a terrible accident until those dreadful words left Lavinia’s lips last night.
Agnes died with stained hands.
Stained by silence, not blood.
That’s why someone killed her.
It was nonsense. A means of scaring the audience.
Yet Clara spent sleepless hours imagining a fiend spooking the horse and grappling with the reins. Turning her mind to more pleasant memories brought little comfort. Although the viscount tried to delight her with a visit to the magical Lantern Ring, he’d left her yearning for something beyond her reach.
A pretty, titled lady might dare to hope. But a wise woman did not reach for the stars when her life was cast in shadow.
“Perhaps you should see what’s keeping the inspector,” Clara said, thankful the marquess happened to be leaving the bookshop in Clerkenwell just as Olivia entered the street, her note from Clara still in hand. What were the odds?
“I imagine the inspector is delayed in George Street.”
Clara straightened. “George Street? He left the police office?”
The inspector told her to wait while he fetched the incriminating document, the one that saw her hauled to the station-house and almost got her furious housekeeper arrested.
She glanced at the closed door. Signora Conti was ordered to wait in the entrance hall after calling the inspector an English donkey. Clara had no doubt the housekeeper was still there, cursing in Italian and praying to Saint Catherine for patience.
“I believe the inspector is visiting the other witness,” the marquess said with a wry expression. “Lord Rutland is your alibi, is he not? You were alone together until the early hours.”
Affronted at the implication they were anything more than friends, she snapped, “We were both at the seance if that’s your meaning.”
