Chapter Nine
Beth stared at Inspector Fellows until she realized this wasn’t a joke. “I beg your pardon?”
“Marry me, Mrs. Ackerley,” Fellows repeated. “I am a respectable man with a job and income, although I know you no longer need to worry about money. But you’re in deep waters, too deep for your own good.”
“And you fear that I’ll drown?”
Fellows grasped her elbow. His fingers were strong, like Ian’s. “The Mackenzies will pull you under. Look what they did to Lady Isabella. She was an innocent debutante, and now she’s not received by her own family. You have even less social position than she does, and once you’ve lost public regard, you will have nothing. Doesn’t matter about all your money.” Fellows’s words rang with sincerity. But there was something behind the sincerity, a watchfulness that she couldn’t quite place.
“It is the best offer you’ll have,” he said. “I’ve seen the gigolos here running after you, panting after your fortune. They’ll ruin you. I care nothing for your money—I am happy being a detective, and I will continue to forge ahead at Scotland Yard.”
Beth clutched her parasol’s handle until her knuckles hurt. “You amaze me. Why should you worry so much about my reputation?”
True anger blazed from his hazel eyes. “Because the Mackenzies destroy everything they touch. Any lady who goes nigh that family comes to grief. I’d like to save one, at least.”
“One?” she asked sharply. “There have been others?”
“Do you not know the stories?”
Fellows’s eyes glittered. It was obvious he wanted to tell her, and Beth was cursed with wanting to know. She studied the sad ruin of-the palace, which the Parisians had already started to knock down. Clearing out the past, ridding itself of its ghosts.
“Please tell me, Inspector,” she said. “You are going to anyway.”
“I am talking about the wives of Hart and Cameron Mackenzie. Hart married a slip of a girl, a marquess’s daughter. This was after another young woman jilted him—came to her senses in time, most like. But the poor thing His Grace married was terrified of him by all accounts. He shut her up in that great house in Scotland and never let her out. She died trying to give him the heir he wanted. It’s said he took five minutes out to bury her in the family mausoleum, then went back to his houseful of fancy women.” “You’re very certain of this information.” “I have my sources. The duke now won’t talk about his wife and refuses to have her name mentioned.” “Perhaps he is grief-stricken.”
Fellows snorted. “Unlikely. Did you forbid all and sundry to speak your husband’s name when he passed, Mrs. Ackerley?”
“No.” She remembered the emptiness of her life after Thomas had gone. “You’re right. I didn’t want people to forget him. I wanted his name mentioned everywhere. Thomas Ackerley was a good man.”
“You see? Lord Cameron’s wife died equally as tragically, though she was a much more spirited woman. She was a firebrand her own family couldn’t handle. Then after she had her son, she went crazy with a knife, tried to kill the baby and Lord Cameron both. No one knows quite what happened in that room, but when Lord Cameron came out, his face was cut up, and his wife lay dead on the floor.”
Beth blenched. “How dreadful.” She’d seen the scar on Cameron’s face, a deep gash on his cheekbone. “Yes,” Fellows agreed. “If they’d left those ladies alone, they’d be alive today.”
“Were either of them friends of yours?” Beth asked him.
“Are you persecuting the family to avenge their deaths?” Fellows looked surprised. “No, I never knew them. The ladies in question were well above my class.” “But someone you cared about was hurt by the Mackenzies.” His look told her she was right. “They’ve hurt so many, I doubt they’d even remember.”
“And because of this slight, whatever it is, you want to blame Ian for the High Holborn murder.”
Fellows reached out and clutched Beth’s elbow. “Ian killed her, Mrs. Ackerley. You mark my words. He never should have been let out into the worlds—he’s completely mad, and I intend to prove it. I will do anything to prove he murdered Sally Tate and Lily Martin, and I’ll lock him away forever. He deserves it.”
His face was red with fury, his mouth shaking. The anger went deep, nursed for years, and Beth was suddenly consumed with curiosity. What on earth could the Mackenzie family have done to a police inspector to make him so determined to destroy diem?
She heard shouting and looked behind her to see the tall bulk of Ian Mackenzie running toward them. He had a walking stick in his hands and rage in every step. The wind carried lan’s hat to the ground at die same time he dropped the stick and jerked Fellows away from Beth.
“I told you to stay away from her.”
“Ian, no.”
Last time, Ian had shaken the man and pushed him off. This time, lan’s strong hands closed on his throat and didn’t let go. “Leave her alone, or I’ll kill you.”
“I’m trying to save her from you, you filth.”
Ian roared, his rage so bright that Beth backed up a step. “Ian.” Mac Mackenzie sprinted across the grass and grabbed his brother’s arms. “Curry, help me, damn you.” A lean, wiry man wrapped his hands around lan’s huge arm, but it was like a small dog trying to drag down a tree. Mac was shouting in lan’s ear, but Ian ignored him. A crowd began to gather. Upper-class Parisians out for their morning stroll, nannies with their children, and beggars alike moved closer to get a look at the mad Englishmen brawling in the middle of the park.