The French servants had tumbled in, clutching candles and babbling in fear as Ian rocked on the bed, his head in his hands as it throbbed with hideous pain. The pinpoints of light had stabbed in through his eyes, and he’d shouted at them to take the candles away.
He needed Curry and the concoctions he mixed to soothe the headaches and let Ian drift back to sleep. But Curry had been on a train heading through the night toward Paris, and Ian had lain back, sweating and nauseous and alone.
He’d heard what the French servants whispered about him: Sweet Mary, help us, he’s a madman. What if he murders us in our beds?
He’d got through the rest of last night by thinking erotic thoughts about Beth Ackerley. He thought some now as he closed his eyes and waited for Curry to recover himself. Beth at the opera, her lips under his. The flick of her tongue in his mouth, the press of her fingers against his cheek. The curve of her sweet bottom swaying as he’d helped her into Cameron’s coach.
Ian looked up at Curry, whose face was gray with exhaustion.
“Well? Did you find out who killed Lily?” “Oh, certainly, guv. The culprit gave himself up to me, and I dragged him off to the magistrate. And daisies arc growing in the streets and London will never see fog again.” Ian let Curry’s words go by, not bothering to understand them. “What did you find out?”
Curry heaved a sigh and hoisted himself out of the chair.
“You expect miracles, you know that? So do your bleeding brothers, begging your pardon. I know that when Lord Cameron sent me off to tend you in that joke of an asylum, he expected me to cure you and bring you home.” Ian waited, aware that Curry liked to run on before he got to the point.
Curry snatched up Ian’s frock coat from the back of a chair and started brushing it off. “Gawd, what will you have done to your suits while I was gone?”
“The hotel man looked after them,” Ian said, knowing Curry could wail about Ian’s clothes for hours. For a man born in the gutters of the East End, Curry was extremely snobbish about Ian’s state of dress.
“Well, I hope he hasn’t had you wandering the streets in lavender with spotted waistcoats. These frogs have no sense of taste.”
“What did you find out?” Ian prompted.
“I’m coming to it. I did just like you said and got into the house like I was common trash looking for a souvenir. There wasn’t nothing to find. All ordinary as could be.” “Lily was stabbed to death with her own scissors. That isn’t ordinary.”
“She didn’t fight. I got the constable on watch to tell me that. Looked surprised, not scared.”
Ian had thought the same thing. “She knew who it was. Let him in like a regular customer.”
“Exactly.” Curry rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a paper. “I drew the room like you asked and wrote down everything in it. It was quite a job, trying to do it with the Old Bill following me about.”
Ian glanced at Curry’s drawing and the lists. “Is this all?” “Is it all?” Curry demanded of the air. “I drag myself across the continent of Europe, traveling in trains and musty cabs to be his eyes and ears, and he says, ‘Is this all’?” “What else did you find out?”
“A little sympathy wouldn’t be amiss, guv. What I put up with, working for you. Any rate, I went all the way to Rome. He’s there, has been there for a month, never left.”
“He didn’t see you?” Ian asked sharply.
“No. I made sure of it. He almost did, but I managed to slip away. That wouldn’t have done, would it?” Ian gazed at the fire, rubbing his temple. Damn headache. He knew bloody well that a man could stay in the Italian states and pay someone to do things for him back in London, just as Ian had done with Curry.
Ian wanted to know the truth, but truth was so dangerous.
He rubbed his temple until the tight pain lessened.
Thinking of Beth’s eyes helped.
“Beth thought you were a detective,” Ian remembered.
“Beth?” Curry said sharply.
“Mrs. Ackerley.”
“Ah, yes, her. Fiancee of Sir Lyndon Mather. Former fiancee, I should say, after your timely intervention. You call her Beth, now, do you? What does she call you?” “I don’t know.”
“Ah.” Curry nodded sagely. “A bit of advice, guv. Stick with fancy ladies—Paris has dozens of ‘em, as you know. You always know where you are with tarts.”
Curry was right, and Ian knew it. Courtesans loved Ian, and he never had to worry about being without female companionship. But all the charms of Parisian courtesans couldn’t pull him away from his desire for Beth. He thought again of Beth’s lips under his, the soft sound she’d made in her throat when he’d kissed her. If he could feel Beth’s warmth beside him every night, he wouldn’t have the nightmares and the migraines. He was sure of it.
He’d have her in his bed if he had to recruit Curry, Isabella, Mac, and every other person in Paris to get her there.
Five mornings after Beth had agreed to share lodgings with Lady Isabella Mackenzie, she was writing letters in her bedchamber when she heard the strains of music below.
Isabella never rose before one—darling, it’s impossible to open one’s eyes before that hour. No one had come up to tell Beth that a visitor had arrived, but she couldn’t imagine a thief breaking in to belt out a Chopin sonata in the drawing room.
Beth slid her half-written letter into a drawer and made her way downstairs, liking how the shutters and curtains had been thrown open to let sunshine stream in. Mrs. Barrington had kept the drapes shut tight and the gaslights low, so Beth and the servants had groped their way through the dark, day and night alike.
The double doors to the drawing room stood ajar, and pure, sweet Chopin floated out through the crack. Beth pushed the doors open and paused on the threshold. Ian Mackenzie sat at Isabella’s polished piano, staring at the empty music stand in front of him. His wide shoulders moved as his hands found and played notes, and his booted foot flexed as he worked the damper pedal. Sunlight caught on his dark hair, burning it red.
I can play this piece note for note, he’d said at the opera house. But I cannot capture its soul. He might not think he could capture the soul of this piece either, but the music wove around Beth and drew her to him. She walked across the room to the piano as the notes floated around her, loud and sweet. She could bathe in them. The music made a little run high on the keyboard, then ended with a low chord that used all of Ian’s fingers. He let his hands stay in place, sinews stretching, as the last undulations died away.