Page 35 of A Devil in Silk (Tales from The Burnished Jade #3)
Chapter Nineteen
Lord Tarrington’s drawing room was a mausoleum to his beloved wife.
Heavy curtains kept out the daylight. Fresh flowers crowded every surface, the sweet scent of roses almost cloying in the refined space.
Clara studied the portraits on the walls, the same woman captured at different ages and angles, her dark eyes following them no matter where they stood.
“Lady Tarrington was beautiful,” Clara murmured, though the repeated image unsettled her rather than stirred admiration.
Bentley stood, hands clasped behind his back, gazing up at one gilt-framed painting. “And well-loved, if appearances are to be believed.”
Loved or possessed. Clara could not decide.
Her gaze lingered on Bentley rather than the gallery of images, tracing the breadth of his shoulders beneath the dark cut of his coat.
She remembered the beauty of his strong body as he rose above her in bed.
The desire to touch him bordered on obsession, a need she scarcely understood.
Even now, her mind betrayed her, conjuring a scene in a discreet coaching inn near Cheltenham, his hand between her thighs, his mouth claiming hers, his?—
“Have you noticed the sprigs of dried rowan tucked among the flowers?” Bentley said, drawing her from her romantic musings. “An old superstition. Said to keep evil spirits at bay.”
Clara studied the room again. On the mantel, she spied a small silver charm shaped like a crescent moon. At the base of one portrait was a tiny pouch of red cloth tied with twine. Protective tokens, if she wasn’t mistaken.
“Perhaps Lord Tarrington is guarding against a curse.”
“Or he failed to protect his wife when she was alive, and now seeks to make amends in death.” Bentley glanced at her. “My mother keeps lavender sprigs for a similar reason.”
It was the first time he’d mentioned his mother since breakfast. Clara didn’t need the wisdom of the ancients to know why.
The matron had not sought Clara out to say goodbye.
Why would she lower herself by acknowledging her son’s lover?
Actions such as Clara’s saw women relegated to the whispered titles of courtesan or Cyprian.
It might not trouble Bentley now, but his mother’s disapproval would rub like a stone in one’s boot, tolerable at first, until it wore the skin raw.
“I’m sorry if my being there caused her more pain.” She’d never intended to make life difficult for him.
His gaze softened. “You didn’t cause her pain. She carries it with her the way some people carry heirlooms, passed down, polished, and never put away.”
She hesitated, but had to tell the truth. “No one but Miss Woodall will ever be good enough for you.” She wondered how she would bear his mother’s rejection, the sly digs, the gnawing sense of inadequacy.
When he spoke, his voice rang with certainty. “I decide who is good enough for me, no one else.”
She wanted to believe him and tuck the words away, like a charm against the doubts that had plagued her for years. But hope was more dangerous than fear.
“Good,” she said, smoothing her tone into something playful. “You still owe me a race in your new curricle, and I mean to hold you to that vow.”
His smile curved slowly, playing havoc with her heart. “I’d mention what you owe me, but it’s fit for your ears alone … and I hear the distinctive clip of Tarrington’s boots on the parquet.”
Clara straightened as the lord entered the drawing room, his gaze sweeping over them with cool recognition. He carried himself with the same polished authority she remembered, though the faintly theatrical tilt of his head made her wonder if he ever moved without an audience in mind.
“I’d ask what the devil you want now, but Margaret would insist I hold my temper.” He glanced at his wife’s portrait, brushing an invisible speck of dust from his black coat as if keen to impress her. “She had the patience of a saint.”
An uncomfortable stillness settled over the room.
The lord’s gaze lingered on a painting of his wife wearing a Grecian-style gown, and he sighed. “Margaret always looked exceptional in red.”
“I can only imagine how painful it is to lose someone you love deeply.” Clara looked at Bentley, the ache in her chest sharper than she expected.
“Grief makes people uncomfortable,” Lord Tarrington said. “They want you to bury the memories along with the casket and pretend love never existed.”
Clara let the comment settle before steering the conversation to their reason for calling. “Is that why you became Miss Nightshade’s patron? To speak to Margaret? To keep her close?”
“If a man is offered the chance to hear the voice he loves most, he takes it. Whether the words are truth or trickery hardly matters.”
He turned from the mantel and gestured to a pair of chairs near the fireplace. “Please sit. We may as well speak plainly, since you’re intent on finding answers. I have half an hour before I must leave to catalogue a new shipment.”
They sat, and Lord Tarrington eased himself into the wingback chair opposite. His dark gaze remained steady, yet Clara sensed the strain behind it—as if his frank words were a curtain hiding secrets he meant never to reveal.
“Tell me, have you come with new information, or to accuse me of murder again?”
Bentley came straight to the point. “We have Murray in custody. He broke into Miss Nightshade’s home to steal her treasure box, assaulted the landlord, and now claims self-defence.”
The lord gripped the arms of his chair, his fingers biting into the leather. “I knew that devil had something to do with her death. He must have followed Lavinia home. She was an extremely private person and never gave clients her address.”
“Murray claims he’s her brother. He went to her apartment seeking his inheritance, the horde of jewels and gold coins she kept hidden.”
The lord’s composure wavered, though Clara couldn’t tell if it was a tremor of surprise or the first crack of panic. “Brother? That reprobate said nothing about being related. It’s probably a lie to get his hands on the money Lavinia saved.”
Clara almost laughed. Surely he meant stole, not saved. “So she never mentioned her connection to Mr Murray?” The man had wept like a child at the crime scene, yet lied to the constable and claimed he was nothing more than a witness.
“No. He told me he was a family friend.”
“Did you suspect him of being her lover?”
The peer all but spluttered. “Madam, that eye patch may afford you a little leniency, but I’ll not hear talk like that in my drawing room.”
Yet Clara was undeterred. “For the purpose of this enquiry, I am an agent of the Order. And you will answer the question, my lord.”
Lord Tarrington’s gaze lifted to his wife’s portrait, his expression unreadable. “No, Miss Dalton. I had no reason to believe they were lovers.”
“Someone bought her a mantel clock and went to the trouble of engraving it with a rather poignant quote. Life is fleeting . Live while the hour allows .”
She thought of Bentley’s note at the theatre. How, in that instant, she had never felt more alive. It had urged her to throw caution to the wind, and by God, she was not sorry.
The lord shifted in his chair, reverence for his wife in his expression. “I wouldn’t know. I have never been in Lavinia’s apartment. But I’ll not disagree with the sentiment.”
Suspecting it was a lie, Clara invented her own. “She told her landlord the clock was a gift from you.” She slipped a hand into her reticule as if searching for her notebook. “I have his statement?—”
“I would never buy another woman a gift.”
“Of course. It’s of no consequence.” She closed her reticule. “It was purchased from Masons in Bloomsbury. We will check the records there. It may help us find her murderer.”
The lord scoffed. “Perhaps she bought the brass clock herself and had it engraved. It was certainly an ethos she lived by.”
His eagerness to explain Lavinia’s ownership struck Clara as odd. “I didn’t say the clock was brass.”
The lord’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “I—I’m quite sure you did.”
“No, she didn’t,” Bentley said, his tone firm. “Perhaps we should continue this interview in Daventry’s office, or at the Vine Street station-house. It’s clear you’re not being entirely honest.”
A flush crept up his neck, the rigid set of his jaw betraying his discomfort. His gaze flicked to his wife’s portrait, as if the painted eyes condemned his betrayal. “Lavinia bought me the clock. A thank-you for my patronage. Naturally, I refused the gift.”
Mr Murray was right. Lord Tarrington was a hypocrite.
In Clara’s experience, a woman only went to the trouble of buying gifts for a man she loved. The quote was a means of urging him to bury the past.
“It must be flattering to inspire such generosity,” she said. “Particularly from a woman who made her living taking other people’s valuables in exchange for invented tales.”
“I know what you’re trying to imply.”
“You do?”
“Yes. That I was somehow involved with Lavinia.”
“Were you?”
“Of course not.” Anger flared as the lord swallowed hard.
It was a lie. Men rarely admitted to such lapses, yet their eyes often betrayed them.
“How did it happen?” She already knew how.
One moment she had been admiring the view of London from the tower, the next she was kissing Bentley, unable to get close enough to ease the ache.
“Was it that first rush of excitement, the sudden quickening of a heart you thought dead? Was it the relief of knowing grief and elation cannot exist in the same breath? That for a second you could forget your wife?”
“Forget her!” He shot to his feet. “Forget how she lit up a room when she smiled? Forget our first dance, our first kiss, the feeling that consumes you until it’s impossible to breathe?”
Clara stilled, caught by the raw edge in his voice. She knew that breathless yearning—had felt it in Bentley’s arms, when the world narrowed to the heat of his gaze and the press of his lips.
“You must feel like you betrayed Margaret’s memory.”