the possibility that your husband was murdered?”
I sat, still as a frightened rabbit. “You have a cruel sense of humour, Mr. Brisbane,” I said through stiff lips. I thought again of Aquinas lingering in the hall. I had only to call him and he would remove Mr. Brisbane from my house. He was no match for Mr. Brisbane’s inches, but he could enlist the footmen to throw him bodily out the door.
“It is no jest, my lady, I assure you. Sir Edward came to me, a fortnight or so before he died. He was anxious, fearful even.”
“Fearful of what?”
“Death. He was in mortal fear for his life. He believed that someone intended to murder him.”
I shook my head. “Impossible. Edward had no enemies.”
Brisbane’s cool expression did not waver. “He had at least one, my lady. An enemy who sent him threatening letters through the post.”
I swallowed thickly. “That is untrue. Edward would have told me.”
He remained silent, giving me the time to work it out for myself. I did finally, and it was horrible.
“You think that I sent them? Is that what I am to infer?”
He made a brief gesture of dismissal. “I considered the possibility, naturally. But Sir Edward assured me that it was unthinkable. And now, having met you …”
“I do not believe you, Mr. Brisbane. If Edward did receive such letters, where are they?”
His expression was pained. “I encouraged Sir Edward to leave them with me for safekeeping. He refused. I do not know what has become of them. Perhaps he locked them up or gave them to his solicitor. Perhaps he even destroyed them, although I implored him not to.”
“You expect me to believe this fairy story of yours when you can offer not the slightest particle of proof?”
He spoke slowly, as one does to a backward child. “Perhaps your ladyship will be good enough to consider the fact that I was present at Grey House when Sir Edward collapsed. I came at Sir Edward’s request. I suggested to him that if I had an opportunity to observe his closest acquaintances I could offer him some notion as to who might be responsible for the letters and for the threat implicit within them.”
“Your name was not on the list,” I remembered suddenly. “I sent you no invitation card. How did you gain entrance that night?”
“Sir Edward let me in himself.”
“Can you prove this?” I asked evenly.
There was the barest flush at his brow, probably of irritation. “I cannot. There was no one present except ourselves. We had arranged that I would come a few minutes early. He wanted to give me the lay of the land, so to speak.”
“And no one saw you with Edward? No one can corroborate your tale?”
His lips thinned and I realized that he was holding on to his temper with difficulty. “My lady, my clients come to me because my reputation for integrity and probity is completely unsullied. I had no reason to wish your husband ill, I can assure you.” For the first time I heard the faintest trace of an accent in his voice. Scottish perhaps, given his surname, but whatever it was he had clearly taken great pains to conceal it. I took it as a measure of his emotion that it crept out in his speech now.
“And yet, I am not assured, Mr. Brisbane. My husband is dead, of quite natural causes, according to the doctor who treated him all of his life. I have the certificate that states it plainly. But you would come in here, intruding upon the freshest grief, venting accusations so vile I cannot possibly credit them. You can offer me no proof except your good name, and you expect me to find that sufficient. Tell me, Mr. Brisbane, what was your true purpose in coming here?”
His flush had ebbed, leaving him paler than before. He had mastered his temper as well, and his manner was cool again.
“I sought only to right a wrong, my lady. If your husband was murdered, justice should be meted out to the guilty.”
“And you would be paid to find them, would you not? You present impeccable motives to me, Mr. Brisbane, but I think you play at a more lucrative game.”
His eyes narrowed sharply. “What do you mean, my lady?”
“I think you hope to profit, Mr. Brisbane. If I engage you to finish the task you claim my husband presented you, you will be handsomely paid, I have no doubt. And if I do not wish your allegations to appear in the newspapers, you will expect payment for that as well, I expect.”
That stung him. He rose, not quickly as I had expected, but with a slow, purposeful motion that was more frightening than a display of anger would have been. His eyes never left my face as he stood over me, drawing on his gloves and shooting his cuffs.
“If you were a man, your ladyship, I would cordially horsewhip you for that remark. As you are not, I will simply bid you farewell and leave you to your fresh and obviously debilitating grief.” He said this last with a contemptuous glance at the Italian books piled on my desk and strode from the room.
I heard the murmur of voices as Aquinas showed him out, and then the resounding thud of the door itself. I felt rather proud of myself for my spirited defense. Father was always claiming that I was too reticent, too easily cowed for his taste. Mr. Brisbane had confronted me with something too awful to contemplate, and I had met him squarely.
I returned to my verbs with a sense of vindication and triumph I had seldom felt. But I noted as I wrote out the words that my hand shook, and after that I was never able to think of that day without the creeping certainty that I had made a dangerous mistake.
THE FIFTH CHAPTER
This busy, puzzling stirrer-up of doubt, That frames deep mysteries, then finds ‘em out.
—John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
“A Satire Against Mankind”
“Of course you did the right thing, darling. Nicholas Brisbane is the sort of man one takes to bed, and since, clearly, that is not the sort of thing you would do …” Portia’s voice trailed off, but her meaning was explicit. I was not daring enough; I lacked the dash and the spirit to bed a man I barely knew.
“You would not take him to bed, either,” I reminded her sulkily.
“Yes, but for a very different reason. Jane would never forgive me if I went back with men. And I did promise her to remain faithful. You, on the other hand, do not engage in the Sapphic pleasures, so you would be perfectly free to avail yourself of Mr. Brisbane’s considerable charms and expertise.”
I glanced around furtively. The footpaths in Hyde Park, when deserted, provide excellent opportunities for privileged conversation. But Portia’s voice was carrying, and I feared eavesdroppers.
She slapped at my arm lightly, then looped hers through mine. “I was right to call you a little mouse. There is no one about for miles.”
That much was true. I had arranged our meeting for eleven o’clock in the morning,
