Axel, page 24
part #3 of Jaded Gentlemen Series
Medicinal Uses of Common Garden Spices by Axel Belmont.
Exotic Medicinals for the English Garden by Axel Belmont.
Intoxicant and Poison Plants Common to England and Their Antidotes by Axel Belmont.
Axel Belmont was an intoxicant.
“Because I enjoy this library,” Abby said, “I see the volume of correspondence that comes in here. The professor communicates with learned minds all over the world, in several languages. He could manage Kew if he were so inclined, but I doubt he’ll move that far from his own acres.”
Abby hadn’t been snooping, she’d simply observed what was in plain sight.
“Axel thinks academic life will make him happy,” Mr. Belmont said, abandoning the piano bench.
“Academic life will make him feel useful,” Abby said. “Studies such as the ones he’s completed will save lives, and he’s working on a woman’s herbal now. That matters, Mr. Belmont. The medical men can’t be bothered with such a topic, and the medical women, such as anybody still acknowledges that term, couldn’t get widely published.”
Mr. Belmont had come closer, so he and Abby were nearly nose to nose.
“Caroline never once defended Axel’s work,” Mr. Belmont said. “She was jealous of the glass houses and referred to them as his little hobby. She could not grasp the importance of being able to tell a poison dose from a medicinal one. She knew only that her husband grew distracted at company meals, because somebody made a casual observation about never being troubled by mosquitoes when weeding their lemon verbena.”
Mr. Belmont’s eyes were a lighter blue than Axel’s, his voice was more cultured, and for that reason, when he turned up fierce, the effect was more surprising.
“I am only recently widowed, sir. I have grieving to do, a hunting lodge to make into a home, an estate to manage. I haven’t seen London since my father took me more than ten years ago. I haven’t even been to the sea coast, when every self-respecting widow is allowed a few weeks of staring pensively at the roiling surf. While the professor’s botany is of great significance, I barely have the energy for my own concerns, and I am in no condition to—”
From the corner of her eye, Abby detected movement.
Axel, looking resplendent in country gentleman’s attire, stood just inside the library door. His smile was slight, and dear.
“Apparently, your energy is sufficient unto the challenge of putting a presuming brother in his place. Don’t let me stop you. That was a fine lecture in the making. Has anybody offered you a drink, Abigail, or is my brother too busy demonstrating a lack of manners?”
Axel prowled over to the sideboard, and Abby did not allow her gaze to linger on how lovingly his doeskin breeches clung to his… anatomy.
“I’ll have a brandy if you’re pouring,” Matthew said. “Can we inspire you to get out your violin after dinner? I suspect Mrs. Stoneleigh would be a fine accompanist.”
Mr. Belmont knew when to stop meddling—or pretend to stop.
Axel poured a half inch of spirits and passed Abby the glass. Her digestion was improving, but she wasn’t in the mood for spirits. The brush of Axel’s fingers, however, settled her nerves nicely.
Though how much of her tirade had he heard, and in what light had he taken it?
Axel served his brother a larger portion, then took his own drink to the desk and began flipping through the fresh stack of mail on the blotter.
Abby resumed her place at the end of the sofa and picked up her embroidery, while Matthew Belmont returned to the keyboard and began a soft, lilting melody at variance with his earlier pounding and stumbling.
“Will Nicholas join us for dinner?” he asked.
“Nicholas rarely misses meals,” Axel said, separating the mail into two piles. “Abigail, some of these letters have been sent over from Stoneleigh Manor. Condolences, I suppose, and this one is from the Earl of Westhaven.”
Abigail knew no earls, though Gregory’s military connections had been voluminous. She rose to retrieve her portion of the mail, but remained by the sofa rather than cross the library.
Axel was regarding a piece of correspondence, and what a handsome picture he made. He’d probably written most of his learned treatises at that desk, with his publications marching along their shelves behind him, his rebellious crystal at his elbow, his erotica benevolently hiding two shelves up. He’d look much the same as he aged, though his eyebrows might grow more fierce.
“Oxford has a fellowship for me,” he said, staring at a creased sheet of vellum. “I may have my choice of two, assuming I can make my bow before a handy bishop, and recall enough Scripture to appease academic protocol. My duties would begin in the autumn, if that will allow sufficient time for me to conclude my present projects, please advise, et cetera.”
The moment took on a painful significance. This was the day Abby’s dreams had been born, and the day they’d died. The luscious, ripe, longed-for fruit of academic legitimacy hung mere months away from Axel’s grasp, after years of striving and patience. His thornless rose was about to bloom.
While the true nature of widowhood loomed clearly at last: all the freedom in the world, freedom to be lonely, irrelevant, forgotten, and eccentric.
“I’m happy for you,” Abby said, saluting with her drink. “The position has been well earned, and they will be lucky to have you. You’ll make botanical scholarship a jewel in Oxford’s crown, and students from all over the world will study with you.”
He stared at the letter, while his brother brought the little song to a close.
“Sometimes,” Matthew said, gesturing with his drink as Abby had, “we get the recognition we deserve. I’m proud of you.”
Matthew Belmont’s pride was also obviously sincere. The look he shot Abby was harder to read.
Axel set the letter in the middle of the desk, his gaze going to the white rose. “That blossom has held up well, but I detect a bit of a droop about the outer petals.” He left the desk—and the letter that assured his future—and lifted the vase from the end table, bringing the blossom to his nose. “The scent’s fading, and nothing smells sadder than a blown rose. By tomorrow, this specimen will have wilted past recognition.”
“Fortunately, you have others,” Matthew said, peering at the letter on the desk. “Many others.”
“Few like that,” Axel said. “Its blossoms are rare and precious this time of year, at least on the stock I’ve cultivated thus far.” He passed Abby the rose, water dripping from its stem onto the carpet. “Perhaps you’d like to press this one, Abigail. Most blossoms are best preserved before they begin to fade.”
Abby hadn’t yet decided if that last pronouncement was a lover’s farewell, when Nicholas joined them, his demeanor fatigued rather than flirtatious for once.
“We’re celebrating,” Matthew said. “The fellowship Axel has sought for years has been offered to him. He’s to choose between two different positions, and study his Scripture in anticipation of the requisite clerical folderol.”
“Speaking of protocol, everybody has a drink but for my dear little self. I will rectify this oversight, and toast the professor’s success.”
Axel remained before Abby, holding the rose out to her while Nick busied himself at the sideboard.
“It won’t last another day?” Abby asked, accepting the rose.
“By morning, the fragrance will be gone, the petals falling. Best to take it now and press it between the leaves of a stout book.”
Abby inhaled the fragrance, and detected a faint, stagnant odor beneath the beautiful scent.
“Mr. Darcy remains above stairs,” she said. “I’ll put him to use and be down in time for dinner.”
All three gentlemen bowed her on her way, and she curtseyed in return, the rose clutched in her hand. The first tear fell before she’d reached her bedroom door, though by then, she was also clutching her rose so tightly, she’d drawn a drop of blood from her palm too.
Chapter Sixteen
Everything in Axel wanted to chase after the woman who’d left her embroidery discarded on his sofa, though a man who thrived on solitude had to accept that a woman could occasionally want privacy herself.
“I’ll be removing to London in the morning,” Nick said, gaze on the closed library door. “If you’re about to break the heart of a lovely woman, merely for the privilege of playing nanny to a lot of university boys, I don’t want to be around to see it.”
“The weather might prevent your departure, Nicholas,” Matthew said from the piano bench. He had the knack of looking musically talented, of applying his fingers to the keyboard with great authority, and breezing past the wrong notes as if they were all in dashing good fun.
“Hang the weather,” Nick muttered, downing his drink at once. “Axel, you cannot become an Oxford monk.”
“Scholar, please,” Matthew corrected, in the merry key of F major. “My brother is a world-renowned botanical scholar and an expert on the propagation of roses.”
This was not teasing, but rather, the fraternal version of a smack to the back of the head. Part affection, part challenge, part gratuitous violence, because between loving brothers, gratuitous violence was a form of endearment.
“We can discuss my illustrious scientific undertakings some other time,” Axel said, resuming his place behind the desk. “Abigail is contemplating a remove to Stoneleigh Manor while the murderer yet goes free. I find that situation untenable.”
Matthew brought his lullaby—he’d been playing a damned lullaby—to a close. Nicholas topped up his drink, and they both took chairs facing the desk.
“One wondered if the gleaming spires of Oxford had so dazzled you that you’d forgotten about murder on the neighboring property,” Matthew said.
Had a ton of oak not separated them, Axel would have kicked his brother for that taunt.
“Abby needs to go back to the scene of the crimes,” Nicholas said, studying the condolences piled on Axel’s left. “Needs to exorcise Stoneleigh’s ghost from her heart, and she’ll do that by airing out the house, so to speak.”
Literally airing it out. “I noticed when I was a casual caller, that after a visit to Stoneleigh Manor, one came away reeking of pipe smoke, if the visit involved time spent in Gregory’s domain. The study, the library, his apartment… they will bear the scent of his tobacco for some time.”
Axel thought of Caroline’s dresses, lovingly wrapped in tissue in the attic, a bottle of the fragrance he’d made only for her stored with them. How different, if the very scent of his entire house had brought on foul memories and fear rather than comfort and good associations.
“So Abby plans to redecorate Stoneleigh Manor?” Matthew asked. “New curtains, fresh wallpaper, out with the old, in with new?”
“She needs to,” Nick said, picking up the franked epistle Abby had left on the corner of the desk. “Expensive, but she can apparently afford it. The property is attractive enough…. Why is my Abby corresponding with a duke’s heir?”
Axel leaned over the desk to snatch the letter from Nick’s grasp. “She’s not your—what do you mean?”
“That’s from the household of the Earl of Westhaven, heir to the Duke of Moreland,” Nick said. “Decent sort, though somewhat lacking in humor. His countess is lovely, even if her taste in men leaves one puzzled.”
Diverse scraps of information floated into a pattern in Axel’s head, like a series of crosses sometimes assembled themselves when he sought to create a particular sort of rose.
“Abby mentioned distant cousins, whom she visited once in childhood. One of them has apparently married the earl.” And wasn’t that just grand? Abigail now included titles among her family, and a fortune that dwarfed Axel’s not inconsiderable resources.
“The bachelors will swarm about her as soon as she puts off her widow’s weeds,” Nick said. “Fortunately, that won’t be for some time.”
Why did common parlance liken mourning attire to weeds? What was a weed, anyway, but a plant nobody had discovered a use for? Doubtless, to a hungry stag, roses were weeds.
“All of Abigail’s wealth,” Nicholas said, “her family connections, her determination, will not keep her safe if a killer is determined to do her harm. You could arrest her.”
No, Axel could not. “I would not so abuse the trust placed in me by virtue of my position,” he said, adding the London letter to the pile of condolences. His academic correspondence was nearly the same height. Botanists turned to correspondence in the colder months. In summer, they tended to haunt their gardens.
“Sir Dewey would object if you arrested Abby without cause,” Matthew muttered. “Why don’t you simply propose to her, for God’s sake? She’s a garden-variety widow in the eyes of the law. Nobody’s succession is beclouded if she remarries shortly after her husband’s death, and among us common folk, such remarriages are the norm.”
Men remarried hastily. Some men.
“Ambers has given notice,” Axel said. “In Abigail’s mind, either he or Shreve are the most likely killers.” Or possibly, the two working in concert.
“No motive,” Matthew said, slouching. “Who the hell had both motive and opportunity?”
“And how the hell to keep Abby safe until we can solve that puzzle?” Nick mused.
“We know the killer gained access to the premises at least once,” Axel said, “and might have been intimately acquainted with the schedules and routines of its occupants. Stoneleigh could have admitted the murderer to the study voluntarily, might have even given the scoundrel a key, though I’m having the locks changed. We know Stoneleigh had a hidden fortune, some of it stolen from Abby’s family, some of it from importing erotica.”
Axel’s last, desperate theory of the case was that the money would lead to the answers.
Nick snorted. “Erotica? Was that what Sir Dewey told you? Why import erotica when so much is available domestically? Half of the bookshops in Bloomsbury are supported by what’s sold in the back rooms and gentlemen’s reading rooms. A great deal passes for foreign art, of course, but it’s no more foreign than Southwark or Cambridge, and no more art than what I could sketch with my left hand.”
Axel scowled at his academic correspondence, which he’d lately been neglecting.
“Nick’s observation bothers you,” Matthew said. “Why?”
Everything bothered Axel. Abigail’s hasty departure from the room, her planned departure to Stoneleigh Manor, and if that weren’t enough, Axel’s own indifference to the news from the committee at Oxford.
He could choose between two fellowships, and end the year as an Oxford don… The invitation had the feel of a rose from which the thorns had been peeled, one by one. A rose rendered harmless by virtue of myriad small wounds and disfigurements. A beautiful specimen, easier to handle… but not as definitively a rose.
“Abigail is in possession of a dangerously large fortune,” Axel said, tidying both stacks of mail. “More money than her family might have made from even shrewd management of a few commercial establishments in Oxford. Stoneleigh was notably lacking discipline regarding business matters, at least to appearances, and we cannot interview the late Herr Brandenburg, who might have provided insights into why the import business thrived.”
“So where did the money come from?” Matthew asked. “Back to that.”
“I’d thought importing erotica might explain the mystery,” Axel replied. “Nicholas intimates otherwise.”
“I don’t intimate. I’m telling you, as a man with dear friends in low, scandalous places, that nobody gets rich off salacious pictures alone, and those are certainly to be had on home shores in quantity without resorting to imports. Coin might accrue from association with naughty ladies, naughty men, the vices of excess, gambling, the smuggling trade, though less so than before the Corsican’s defeat… ”
“Blackmail?” Matthew suggested. “Naughty ladies and people who ought not to be in their company?”
A good suggestion. “Which means Abby is not safe, not if those people suspect she inherited whatever evidence Stoneleigh had amassed. I’ve questioned the staff as delicately as I can, and tapped on walls when I had the privacy to do so, but I wish we knew where the damned second safe was.”
The final dinner bell sounded. Nobody moved.
“What will you do?” Matthew asked. “I confess I don’t feel as if I’ve been of much help to you. The case is difficult, for many reasons.”
Getting drunk appealed strongly.
“I have delayed Abigail’s return to Stoneleigh Manor on the pretext that I need to interview Ambers again and look for that second safe. When I can no longer put her off, I will offer her the assistance of six of my stoutest footmen, who can move furniture, store paintings, beat rugs, and otherwise spy on my behalf. Nicholas, you will decamp for London to investigate the import business, most especially the particulars of Brandenburg’s demise. You’re not to be obvious about your tasks either.”
“Who is Brandenburg?” Matthew asked.
“Gregory’s late business factor in London,” Axel said. “An older fellow who became involved in the business when Abby’s grandfather still had a hand in matters.”
“I shall be Viscount Discretion, as usual,” Nick said.
“You’ll do better than that,” Axel said. “You will send me items gathered from Gregory’s inventory of goods. I want a sample of whatever he trafficked in, from fans to shawls to feathers to bad art.”
Nick crossed one ankle over his knee. “Thinking to add to your collection, Professor?”
“No, Nicholas. I’m thinking to solve a murder. Racketing about the shire, interviewing all and sundry, and reviewing records by the hour hasn’t accomplished that objective. All else having failed, I’ll do what a botanist does, and examine what specimens I can collect from the field.”
“The footmen are a good idea,” Matthew said, the comment clearly a sop to a frustrated investigator’s dignity.
