Page 98 of A Whisper at Midnight

Joanna snapped her attention to Tilda, her eyes sparking with agitation. “They were mistaken.”

“I don’t think so,” Tilda said blithely. “They said Martha mentioned her friend Joanna who was opening a drapery store on Oxford Street. I understand that you wore a veil, so perhaps you thought they didn’t know who you were. Whydidyou wear a veil?”

Returning her attention to the wooden figure, Joanna’s hand appeared to shake as she gripped its waist. It was then that Tilda noticed the ring on her finger—garnets. The woman Hadrian had seen in the vision with Martha Farrow in Louis Chambers’ bedroom.

Suddenly, the wooden figure came toward Tilda. She moved to avoid it, her body hitting the railing. Gasping, Tilda recalled the railing at the lodging house when it gave way and the terrorthat had streaked through her. Until Hadrian had grabbed her close to him.

What she wouldn’t give for that sense of security right now.

“Tilda!” Hadrian’s voice carried up the stairs as Tilda clung to the railing, which—thankfully—hadn’t moved.

Joanna pushed at the figure again, but Tilda shoved it back. With an angry cry, Joanna came around the wobbling figure. She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a long pair of scissors.

Before Joanna could lunge forward as Tilda entirely expected her to do, Hadrian leapt at her, tackling her to the floor. Tilda gasped again whilst her pulse sped impossibly fast. Heart pounding, she heard Joanna’s cries. The end of the scissors nicked Hadrian’s neck, drawing blood.

“Joanna!”

That had to be Mr. Pollard, but Tilda didn’t hesitate. She dropped to her knees and clasped at Joanna’s wrist, enclosing it in her grip and squeezing as she wrested the woman’s arm away from Hadrian.

“Joanna, stop!” Mr. Pollard pleaded.

Tilda glanced up to see him standing near his wife’s head. “Joanna, please listen to your husband. You don’t want to kill anyone else.”

“I didn’t killanyone!” Joanna shrieked.

“Kill?” Mr. Pollard sounded horrified.

Hadrian’s hand wrapped around Joanna’s wrist next to Tilda’s. His gaze met hers, and in the blue depths she saw safety—and promise. “You can let go,” he said softly. “I’ve got her.”

Tilda released Joanna and exhaled, her heart still hammering. She noted that the cut on Hadrian’s neck had clotted quickly so that he only looked as if he’d been cut shaving. “We need to send for Teague.”

“Leach can do it,” Hadrian said.

“Get off me!” Joanna cried.

Hadrian moved his attention to her, his expression turning hard. “So that you can try to stab me again? Release the scissors and give them to Tilda.”

Grunting, Joanna loosened her hold on the would-be weapon. They fell to the floor, and Tilda scooped them up.

Pollard knelt next to his wife’s head. “You tried to stab the earl?”

“She did,” Tilda replied. She was not going to give Joanna the chance to lie. “And she tried to push me over the railing, just as she did to Martha, I presume.”

“Don’t bother lying,” Hadrian said, his gaze locked with Joanna’s. “You will already be charged with attempting to kill Miss Wren and me. Perhaps if you tell the truth about pushing Martha, you will avoid hanging.”

The woman’s face paled. “I couldn’t risk Martha telling anyone what happened to Louis Chambers. She killed him!”

Pollard looked on his wife in abject misery. “Oh, Joanna. Why didn’t you tell the police?”

“Because I was there,” she said quietly. “I met Martha the night of the dinner party. We commiserated about our hatred of Louis. We decided we would scare him into giving her money because she was carrying his child and me the money he’d promised for the store.”

That had to have been the conversation Hadrian had seen in Louis’s bedchamber. Joanna, with her garnet ring, had been speaking to Martha.

“How did you plan to scare him?” Pollard asked, aghast.

“Martha said we could steal into his bedchamber the next night that his valet was gone. We planned to threaten him with a knife. But then Martha stabbed him. I don’t know what came over her.”

“Did you help her in any way?” Hadrian asked darkly, his features set into grim lines.