Home > The Madness Of Lord Ian MacKenzie(66)

The Madness Of Lord Ian MacKenzie(66)
Author: Jennifer Ashley

“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.

“Do you think I will?”

“Who are you talking about?” Beth began, and then a knife flashed in the light from the house. Before Beth could twist away, it came down.

Ian, irritated, learned that Katie had screamed because she’d seen Cameron charge out of a room upstairs. It was dark, Cameron was a giant of a man with a gashed face, and Katie was easily alarmed. There was lot of shouting from the girls upstairs, more screaming from Katie, and bellowing from Cameron, until the din echoed through the house. Hart and Cameron finally helped him silence them all, and by then, Ian’s head was throbbing.

“We’re all here now,” Inspector Fellows said testily to the three Mackenzies staring back at him. “Your good wife has a theory that Mrs. Palmer killed Lily Martin and Sally Tate, to save the hide of the duke, here.”

“Angelina?” Hart asked in derision. “Where did Beth get that idea?”

Fellows answered. “Lady Ian talked to some tarts, ones she knew from her days in the slums. You really should be careful who your wife has truck with, my lord.” “Beth is an egalitarian,” Hart said in a dry voice. “What did they say?” Ian interrupted. If Beth was right—no, if they could convince Fellows that Beth was right—

Fellows might turn his focus from Hart.

“They went on about how devoted Angelina Palmer is to Hart Mackenzie. How she’d do anything for him, even commit murder.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Hart snapped. “She would have had ample opportunity to kill Sally when no one was in the house. She didn’t have to do it when Ian could be accused of it.”

“No?” Cameron broke in, his face stern. “She loves you, Hart. Why not push the blame onto Ian, and comfort you when you lose him?”

“Then why would she help me with .. .” He shot Fellows a sharp gaze.

Fellows rocked back on his heels. “Oh, I know damn well what you did, sir. You bustled your brother off to Scotland so I couldn’t interrogate him. He might tell me a few too many things, wouldn’t he?”

“Why don’t we get Mrs. Palmer down here and ask her?” Cameron said. “If anyone knows the truth of what goes on in this house, it’s her.”

“She’s a hard one to crack,” Fellows returned. “I’ve tried. Just as I’ve tried to break through the damned facade of your two brothers, Hart and Ian, cohorts in crime.” Cameron advanced on him. “You have trouble with respect, don’t you?”

“Stop!” Ian balled his fists and stepped between them. “Cameron is right. Hart, get Mrs. Palmer. If you didn’t kill Sally Tate, then she did.”

“Or you did, my lord,” Fellows told him, eyes glinting. “I didn’t want Sally dead. I had to leave her, she made me so furious, but I was ready to pay her off, send her to Australia or somewhere.” Ian glared at Hart. “If the Palmer woman did it, she needs to admit it. She’s caused us enough pain.”

Hart’s voice dripped with coldness. “Angelina isn’t here.” “Isn’t that convenient?” Fellows said. “What is she doing at this time of night? Shopping?”

Hart shrugged, and Ian’s black rage rose. All these years he’d feared Hart had committed the murder, his beloved brother who’d released Ian from his prison. Ian had done his best to throw Fellows off the scent, to keep him from speaking to the one witness who could harm Hart. And all these years. Hart had believed Ian was still a madman, mad enough to stab Sally in one of his muddles. Mrs. Palmer was the one person who could clear Hart and Ian both, and now Hart protected her.

Hart was a liar. Mrs. Palmer was still in the house somewhere.

And Beth was outside....

Beth twisted, trying to throw Mrs. Palmer away from her at the same time. The knife skirted Beth’s corset and dug its way deep into her side, just above her hip. Beth grunted. The pain was sharp, swift, and robbed her of breath. She dug her fingers into Mrs. Palmer’s wrists and hung on.

“Let go of me, bitch. I’ll gut you.”

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