Axel, page 20
part #3 of Jaded Gentlemen Series
If Gregory went on horseback, Ambers would go to attend the horses, presumably.
“Why would Ambers go alone?”
Shreve looked as if he’d prefer to hurl himself down the staircase. “Perhaps to pay for the other party’s time?”
A mistress, then—may heaven keep the woman, whoever she was—but why hire a mistress when a young, all-too-accommodating wife resided on the premises?
“Anything else?”
“No, madam. If I do think of something, might I presume to write to you?”
The look in his faded blue eyes was a shock. Hopeful, worshipful even. Abby was abruptly glad he’d be removing to East Anglia, for such devotion might, indeed, have motivated murder.
“You’re better off writing to Mr. Belmont regarding particulars of the colonel’s death, though I hope you’ll send along a note at the holidays and assure me of your continued happy retirement.”
Shreve brightened. “Certainly, madam. Yuletide greetings by post are a fine old English custom.”
Well no, they were not, not that Abby knew of.
He followed her down the stairs, rather like one of the hounds Abby had evicted from the manor the day after Gregory’s death. To her great relief, Axel was coming up from the kitchen as she would have gone below stairs to chat with Mrs. Jensen.
“Shreve, if you’d have Mrs. Jensen meet me in my office, please?” Abby asked. “And safe journey. My thanks for your years of service to the colonel… and to me.”
Shreve bowed so low as to expose the very top of his shining, pink head, then took himself off.
“Damned if he isn’t smitten with you,” Axel muttered. “Matthew warned me there’s no predicting the course of an investigation.”
“Shreve can be smitten in East Anglia,” Abby said, mentally stripping the walls of Gregory’s blasted hunt scenes. “We’ll manage without a butler henceforth, or I can promote Jeffries to the position. While you interview Ambers, I’ll speak with Mrs. Jensen. The house is falling into a state, which will not do. Before one embarks on a redecoration, a house must be at least clean.”
Something she’d said had Axel smiling with his eyes, while his mouth remained a solemn, straight line.
“Don’t you want to know what was in the safe, Abigail?”
“I’m sure you have that all in hand, Mr. Belmont, though please ask Ambers where the colonel went the first Wednesday of every month without fail. If the colonel could not attend this errand, Ambers went in his stead. Shreve’s guess is Ambers went to pay for ‘the other party’s time.’”
Axel took her by the arm and escorted her—rather hurriedly—into the second parlor. The room was Abby’s favorite of the public chambers, all green and cream, soft velvets and framed cutwork, though today it was also chilly.
“What’s different about this room?” Axel asked, closing the door.
“The air doesn’t stink, for one thing. I redecorated it, for another. I asked Gregory’s permission, and he refused me. By then I’d been married well over a year, and I’d realized my husband had little patience for details. I presented him my monthly ledgers, which always balanced to the penny, and Gregory had no idea that instead of potatoes, I’d bought a few pounds’ worth of fabric.”
“Resourceful,” Axel said. “Resilient, and talented with a needle. Is that your cutwork?”
“I did that the first time Gregory went shooting in Yorkshire with Sir Dewey.”
Axel studied the frame, one of the many treasures Abby claimed to have “found in the attics.”
“Chestnut wood has a beautiful grain,” he said, “but Abigail, when did you plan to tell me that Gregory was poisoning you?”
Chapter Thirteen
Abigail sank like dropped fruit onto an elegant little green chair by the cold hearth.
“Poisoning me?” The words came out in a whisper while her right hand went to her middle. Her left gripped the side of the chair, as if her seat might slide out from under her otherwise.
“You had no suspicion?” Axel asked. “Not the least inkling?”
She shook her head, while Axel wanted to kick something.
“I might be wrong, Abigail.” Except he wasn’t. He’d questioned Mrs. Jensen, who as housekeeper was also the first defense at Stoneleigh Manor against illness.
She’d confirmed Shreve’s assertion that Abby had suffered bouts of severe bowel trouble, along with a waning appetite, lack of energy, increasing pallor, and occasional faintness. Peppermint tea had become Abby’s choice unless the colonel would be served from the same pot.
“He had no opportunity to poison me,” Abby said. “We took breakfast and dinner together, usually. Sometimes luncheon as well. We ate the same foods, more or less, though of course not from the same plates.”
“Those meals were his opportunities, Abigail. Shreve said the colonel often fixed your tea.”
She wrinkled her nose. “And never got it right. A dash of sugar, I told him, over and over, and invariably, he’d heap sugar into each cup, then stand over me, smiling, until I had no choice but to—”
“But to consume poison. Your health doubtless improved when he went off shooting. Did the colonel ever suggest you use arsenic to maintain a pale complexion?”
She jerked to her feet, the movement putting Axel in mind of the night of the murder.
“No, he did not. Cosmetics were for vain women, in his estimation. I’d enjoyed good health until this past year. My spirits always improved when Gregory traveled, and when he came back from Melton last spring, I was predictably… dispirited. Over the summer, my mood did not improve. I began to have problems.”
Not arsenic then, or not undiluted arsenic, thank God. Gregory had chosen a slow poison, and those were the least effective. Had Abby’s symptoms comported with known botanical toxins Axel might have suspected something sooner, but lethal plants tended to kill quickly and with dramatic effect.
“How do you feel now?” For what mattered to Axel most—even more than finding Stoneleigh’s killer—was that Abby live to enjoy her widowhood, that she be well and happy and whole.
She looked around the room, her first successful rebellion against her husband’s tyranny.
“I feel tired much of the time, and as if I’m observing myself live a life I’d never planned. Foggy, forgetful, little appetite, though my outlook and my health seem to be improving the longer I’m widowed.”
Normal grief there—Axel hoped—and an indication that whatever poison had been attempted, Abby was recovering rapidly.
“Any other physical symptoms?”
She took down the cutwork and used a corner of the draperies to dust the glass and frame.
“My appetite is coming back. I’d attributed that to your scolding and your cook’s skill, but my own cook has no lack of ability. I was simply… not well.”
Cutwork required using a tiny pair of scissors to nibble and snip away at folded paper, until what resulted was more light and air than paper. Axel wanted to pitch Abby’s little creation against the hearthstones and wrap her in his arms for the next year. The colonel had been snipping away at Abby, at her health, her spirits, her very life, and the contents of the safe had revealed his motive for doing so.
Axel took the seat she’d vacated, a ridiculous little perch for a man his size.
“When was the last time Gregory spent the entirety of a hunt season here at Stoneleigh Manor?”
“Not until this year, not as long as we’d been married. I’d hoped he’d go north for the shooting as August approached, but no luck. I assumed Sir Dewey had refused to accompany him, or perhaps Gregory had tired of all that haring about. Gregory made a few trips to London, but he was never gone for more than a fortnight.”
During which brief intervals, Abby’s abused body would have struggled to recover from weeks of poison.
She rehung her cutwork, adjusting the frame exactly plumb.
Axel wanted to thank the person who’d killed Gregory Stoneleigh, also to break something. He fell back instead on his classroom skills.
“I’ve a few suggestions, Abigail, if you will tolerate a small lecture?”
“Very small. Violent hysterics have become an attractive possibility, Mr. Belmont.”
Axel rose and studied the painting over the mantel, when he wanted instead to take Abby in his arms.
“I’ve found that in matters of plant toxicity, the body often knows what antidotes are most appropriate. Though your health does appear to be improving, if you crave peppermint, swill peppermint tea without limit. If an odd preference for ginger marmalade befalls you, have it at every meal. Trust your gustatory instincts, and you might come right very quickly.”
Abby wrapped her arms around him, which helped… a little. “I’ve been sleeping much more at Candlewick than I ever did here. Sleeping better too.”
Dreaming even. Axel took comfort from that. “Our investigation has grown more complicated, Abigail. Matthew says that’s an encouraging sign.”
“You’re not encouraged. You miss your roses.” She withdrew and took a seat on the green velvet sofa, though her black velvet skirts against the green sofa was a jarring combination. “I’m sorry, Axel. I wish Shreve had presented you with a signed confession, and you could leave me here, tossing Gregory’s effects and ripping his damned hunt scenes from the walls.”
She was sorry; Axel was damned glad she was alive, but those words would not aid her to regain her composure.
“You chose the art in here?” Over the sideboard hung a still life of polished red apples in a green crockery bowl with a sheaf of yellow chrysanthemums in the foreground. Above the fireplace in a simple wood frame, a cat napped on a hearthrug near a wicker knitting basket, a fire blazing in the background.
“I conspired with Lavinia. I chose the art in Oxford, had the paintings sent to her from the shops, then had her send them here as examples of her work. Gregory could not deny me the right to display them. He even took one of my selections to hang in the alcove outside his apartments—another portrait of a napping cat, of all things. I’m very fond of the hydrangeas that hang in my office. I cannot believe my own husband…”
She trailed off, her gaze going to the cat above the mantel. Abby’s choice of art had been prosaic, comforting, and well-executed. As rebellions went, the paintings were a brilliant place to start, though the parlor was as yet dusty, cold, and unused.
And Axel needed to be away from this place where yet more of Gregory Stoneleigh’s evil had come to light.
“You have a conservatory,” he said. “Suppose you show it to me.”
“Hadn’t we better spend the time questioning Ambers? I’d like to know where Gregory went on those regular appointments.”
She’d probably like to establish a pension for any woman who’d spared her Gregory’s attentions, and doubtless Ambers was waiting at that moment in the servants’ hall for Axel’s summons.
But Matthew had said that haste was the enemy of a successful investigation, and Axel needed to consider what he’d learned over the past two hours.
Questioning Ambers again could wait one more day. “A conservatory can take years to put to rights, Abigail. Best let me have a look now. We haven’t much more light.”
And Axel didn’t want to put her through another upsetting interview with a servant. Let Ambers leave the shire or worry himself into a confession, if a confession there was to make.
Which Axel doubted. Again, Ambers had no obvious motive, and years upon years of much better opportunity than late one January night in the colonel’s own home, drat the luck.
The conservatory was a cavernous waste of cold, damp, and poorly sealed glass, an altogether dreary place at the back of the house. Most estates would fill their conservatories over the winter months—conserving delicate species in cold weather being the intended use of same. Save for a few potted ferns and an anemic banyan tree, the Stoneleigh conservatory was empty.
Not a rose, not a damned pansy, to be seen.
“I’ll make you some sketches,” Axel said. “A deal of work is needed to set this place to rights.”
In the gathering gloom of an advancing winter afternoon, a shadow passed through Abigail’s eyes. Axel had said something amiss, or she’d recalled the latest of the revelations resulting from Stoneleigh’s murder.
Axel paced away from her, lest he wrap her in his arms and never let go. “You think somebody killed the colonel to protect you?”
“Shreve was smitten, you said as much.”
“Shreve did not kill Stoneleigh.” Axel was not quite as confident of this conclusion as made himself sound. “Shreve had years to end the colonel’s life. He could have slipped a sleeping powder into the colonel’s brandy then held a pillow over his employer’s face, nobody the wiser. He could have added a fast poison to his hunting flask. I’ve heard of poisons from the Amazonian jungles that will drop a man in his tracks with a single dose. Shreve spent years in India, where he would have been exposed to all manner of exotic violence and strange potions.”
Abby gently untangled fern fronds, creating a mess of disintegrating leaves on the conservatory floor.
“You acquit Shreve not on the basis of motive, but because he had too much opportunity and did not avail himself of it, but I became unwell only in the past half year.”
Axel turned her by the shoulders. “I vow I will solve these puzzles. I will not rest until I find you the answers you need to feel safe in your own home. I promise you this, Abigail.”
She slipped her arms around his waist and leaned into him, and while she felt lovely and warm in Axel’s embrace, her silence suggested he’d yet again said something wrong.
* * *
Was it wrong to wish Axel Belmont’s version of solving a lady’s problems did not also involve a vow to return her to her own property? Not simply assurances, or casual promises, but a vow?
Abby pondered that question as her mare plodded back to Candlewick, side by side with Ivan.
“You’re quiet, Abigail,” Axel said. “Shall I tell you what was in the safe?”
Bother the safe, which had appeared to hold nothing more than a gun, papers, and ledgers. Abby wanted to push Professor Magistrate out of the saddle and into the snow, there to commence kissing him witless until spring.
She was upset of course, to have learned that Gregory had been trying to kill her—kill her—but she was also confident that her health was returning. Like one of the professor’s roses, proper attention was putting her quickly to rights.
Axel Belmont missed his roses; Abby would miss Axel Belmont. “What was in the safe?”
“Some answers, and more questions.”
“The usual, then.”
“I’ve wondered where the colonel’s funds came from. Traveling in comfort is not cheap, purchasing a stable full of prime hunters, maintaining a large kennel, kitting oneself out in London finery season after season… Stoneleigh treated himself to a very gentlemanly lifestyle, and yet, the import business, from what Gervaise has written, showed only a modest profit. Brandenburg kept scrupulous records, and as long as that fellow was extant, the import records were all maintained in order.”
“Have you found my family’s fortune?”
“I found accountings from three different Oxford banks, Abigail. Your cash reserves have increased… enormously.” Axel named a figure that, like much in recent days, Abby could not entirely comprehend.
“I’m back to being an heiress.”
“You are an independent woman of substantial means, one of the rarest blooms in the English garden.”
Not necessarily one of the happiest, considering how she’d come by her wealth.
“Could this money be proceeds from the import business?” Gervaise was due the entire sum, if so.
“The import business accounts are in London, and Gregory’s will included a ‘rest, residue, and remainder’ clause, meaning anything not specifically bequeathed to another party was left to you. The sum documented in that safe is too great to have been accumulated importing peacock feathers and jade paperweights.”
The horses turned up the Candlewick drive. The manor house sat a quarter mile away, a lamp already burning on a post near the mounting block. No black crepe, no knocker swathed in black… No tainted memories of a marriage based on evil and greed.
“Next,” Abby said, “you will tell me of a labyrinth of darkened passages beneath Stoneleigh Manor leading to a smuggler’s cave or pirate treasure.”
“I dare not answer that, despite Oxfordshire’s landlocked position, when we have no idea where the second safe is nor what its contents might be. What we’ve learned today is that you’ve had a near miss, assuming your health continues to improve.”
He would speak of this, for which Abby was both grateful and… not.
“A person using slow poison has to be willing to watch their victim die by inches,” she said, because Axel would not put that into words. “But what if we’re wrong? What if I was simply enduring a bout of ill health?”
Her question was met with silence, broken only by the sound of the horses crunching along the drive in the direction of the stables. The sun was all but gone, the world had turned to the frigid blue-gray twilight found only in deepest, snowy winter.
When they reached the stable yard, Abby nearly slid off her horse straight into the snow, so great was her fatigue. Axel caught her in his arms and held her in the space between the horses.
“I’ll find the truth,” he said, kissing her cheek.
Abby rested her forehead on his shoulder. “You can find every answer there is, Axel, and nothing you discover will make me want to set foot on that property again. I nearly died there. I was… growing more ill by the week, bleeding from the wrong places, unable to sleep, losing flesh. Gregory said I mustn’t seek attention for common female ailments or overindulge a nervous tendency. These little indispositions pass…”
She was beyond tears, beyond even hatred, though not beyond fear. Axel’s scent soothed her. His scent and his simple, generous embrace.
