“And you found out.”
“She was gleeful with it. She wanted to ruin you.” “I know,” Hart said dryly. “I wouldn’t let her, which made her very, very angry.”
“So you did what? Made sure the dirty secrets she knew about you stayed secret?”
Hart shook his head. “If Sally wanted to prattle about me owning the house and what I did in it years before, she was welcome. Everyone knew. It even gained me a certain respect among the more stolid members of the Cabinet, if you can credit it. I did what they always dreamed of doing and didn’t have the courage to do.”
“Sally told me she could ruin you.”
“She was dreaming.”
“And then she was dead.”
Hart stilled. Ian heard Cameron tramping in the rooms overhead. His gravelly baritone boomed out, then the light answers of the maid, another woman giggling. “Oh, God, Ian,” Hart said in a near whisper. “Is that why you did it?”
Chapter Twenty
The hansom Beth rode in drew to a halt before an incongruous house in High Holborn near Chancery Lane. The neighborhood looked respectable enough, the house in question neat and subdued.
Fellows unlatched the door of the carriage, but before he could open it, the door was ripped from his grasp and a pair of strong hands captured Beth. Beth found herself on the pavement, face-to-face with her husband. Ian’s eyes were dark with rage, and without a word, he began to drag her away.
Beth resisted. “Wait. We must go in.”
“No, you must go home.”
Another carriage waited in the lane, this one lavish. Its curtains were drawn, the coat of arms on the door muffled. “Whose coach is that?”
“Hart’s.” Ian pulled her along with him as he strode toward it. “His coachman will take you back to Belgrave Square, and you’ll stay there.”
“Like a good wife? Ian, listen.”
Ian yanked open the door to reveal a gold interior, as opulent as any prince’s sitting room. Beth put her hands on the side of the carriage. “If I go home, you must come with me.”Ian picked Beth up bodily and deposited her onto a soft seat. “Not with Inspector Fellows here.”
“He’s not here to arrest Hart.”
Ian slammed the carriage door, and Beth lunged for it. “He’s not here to arrest you, either. He’s here to investigate the scene of the crime again and to question Mrs. Palmer. I asked him to.”
Ian swung around. His tall bulk filled the carriage doorway, one huge hand resting on the door frame. The light was behind him, so she couldn’t see his face or the glint of his eyes.
“You asked him to?”
“Yes, there are plenty of other suspects, you know. Mrs. Palmer, especially. It’s her house; she’d have had the most opportunity.”
“Mrs. Palmer,” Ian repeated. His voice was flat, and she couldn’t say what he thought.
Beth opened the door and started to climb down. “We must go inside.”
She found herself against Ian’s chest and his big hands holding her arms. “I’m not taking you into a bawdy house.” “My dear Ian, I grew up surrounded by game girls and courtesans. I’m not afraid of them.”
“I don’t care.”
“Ian.” Beth tried to push him away, but she had more chance of moving a brick wall.
“Go home, Beth. You’ve done enough.” He shoved her back inside the carriage. “And stay there, for God’s sake.” A scream rang out, startling and shrill.
“That’s Katie.” Beth gasped.
Ian melted into the darkness. Cursing, Beth clambered down and ran after him. She heard the coachman shout, but he was busy steadying the horses and couldn’t run after her.
There was no lamp close to the house, and Beth hurried through the gloom toward the door Ian had left wide open. Beth rushed inside, trying to hear where the others had gone.
The vestibule was brightly lit, but empty. She ran through to the elegant paneled hall, in which a staircase rose to the upper floors of the house. Beth heard screams and shouting beyond the first landing and farther up the stairs—Katie, Ian, Inspector Fellows. She started up toward the noise. Someone rushed through the hall above, footsteps muffled on carpet, and then came a quiet thump of a door. Someone trying to get away, fleeing the inspector? Beth raced up the stairs and along the passage, finding a closed door at the end of it. She opened it to a staircase leading down, the servants’ stairs. Hurried footsteps sounded on it, the quarry getting away.
“Ian!” she shouted. “Inspector! Help me.” Her cries were drowned by renewed screams, male shouts, and female sobbing from above. Damn. She gathered her skirts and plunged down the stairs. The flight took her down past the main floor, past the kitchens. Beth felt a flood of night air as an outer door was flung open. She reached the foot of the stairs in time to see a dark-haired woman dash into the squalid yard beyond. Beth was hard on her heels. A gate led to the space between houses where the night soil men would come to collect the noisome slops. The woman fumbled at the latch, and Beth caught her.
Beth seized the woman’s wrists. Her strong hands were covered with rings. Beth stared up into the face of the woman who must be Mrs. Palmer, Hart’s former mistress and owner of the house. Sylvia had said Mrs. Palmer was near fifty, but she was still a beautiful woman, with dark hair and a slim body. Her brown eyes were lovely but hard as agates. “You little fool,” Mrs. Palmer hissed. “Why did you bring the inspector here? You’ve ruined everything.” “I’ll not let him pay for a murder he didn’t do,” Beth cried.