Page 66

FIFTY-SEVEN

U rsula stood suddenly and gathered up the letters from Paladin.

She put them back in the safe and then went toward the door of the study.

So much for her determination not to call on Slater until he came to his senses.

She had to see him immediately to tell him that she had discovered the identity of Anne’s killer.

Not that there would be any proof, she thought.

Valerie would very likely get away with murder.

She heard the kitchen door open just as she emerged from the study. She stopped and looked back down the hall.

“Mrs. Dunstan?” she said. “You’re home early. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow morning.”

Valerie, dressed in mourning with a black veil that dripped from a stylish hat, walked out of the kitchen. There was a small gun clutched in one elegantly gloved hand.

“I, on the other hand, have been waiting for you,” she said.

“You were the one who murdered Anne,” Ursula said.

She retreated slowly back toward the doorway of the study.

“That was not Cobb’s doing, nor was it the work of his assassin.

You killed her because you discovered that she was attempting to seduce the man you wanted—the hero who was supposed to rescue you and sweep you away into a fairy-tale life. ”

“For months I assumed that Anne was involved in an affair with my husband. Fulbrook was using her as a courier so it was logical to think she might be sleeping with him,” Valerie said.

“I did not care. She was welcome to him. I did try to warn her that she was just one more whore as far as he was concerned but she paid no attention.”

“You and your husband were operating quite an extensive business enterprise.”

“I didn’t give a damn about the business, although I don’t mind telling you that it was my idea from the beginning. I was the one who understood the implications of controlling such a powerful drug.”

“Was it your idea to blackmail those members of the Olympus Club?” Ursula asked.

“Yes, it was. Fulbrook already had money. But I thought that if I showed him a way to exercise real power at the highest levels of Society and inside the government, he would be forced to treat me with respect. Instead, I became more of a prisoner than ever.”

“He feared losing you because you were the source of his newfound power,” Ursula said. “I know this will sound like a strange question under the circumstances, but why didn’t you simply poison him? You obviously have the botanical knowledge to do that. You poisoned Anne.”

“I thought about killing Fulbrook often back at the start of my marriage. But I feared being arrested for murder. Furthermore, I knew the entire household staff would testify against me. Just as I began to despair, my bastard husband informed me that we were going to New York to meet with a certain businessman.”

“You met Damian Cobb and you convinced yourself that he would save you.”

“Damian loved me.” The gun trembled in Valerie’s hand.

“I know he did. We had an affair in New York right beneath my husband’s nose.

He never guessed. It was such an exhilarating sensation.

Fulbrook despised having to treat Damian as an equal.

It never even occurred to him that I might find Damian attractive. It was all quite delicious.”

“When you returned to London you hired a professional secretary and dictated your love letters to her. Anne sent the poems to Cobb, who posed as Paladin.”

Valerie smiled a wistful smile. “When Damian wrote back to me, he was very careful to pretend that he was an editor who was enthusiastic about my poems.”

“When did Anne realize that you were carrying on a secret correspondence with a lover?”

“Very early on, actually. Our Anne was quite bright and vivacious and I was so lonely. I made the mistake of trusting her. She was my only friend and she was so eager to bring me the latest letter from New York—so excited to be part of the secret. I’m the one who suggested to Fulbrook that she would make a useful courier, by the way.

I thought she would be loyal to me. But I was wrong.

She betrayed me, just as Damian betrayed me. ”

“You saw Damian Cobb as heroic but in truth he was manipulating you.”

“I was a fool but I will never play that role again,” Valerie said.

“It was the chatelaine, wasn’t it? When Anne started wearing it you realized somehow that Cobb had sent it to her.”

“She wore the chatelaine to my house.” Valerie’s voice rose. “She pretended that a grateful client had given it to her but I knew the truth.”

“How?”

“I recognized the maker’s mark.” Tears of rage glittered in Valerie’s eyes. The gun in her hand shook violently. “Damian bought it at the same New York jewelry store where he purchased the brooch that he gave me.”

“Cobb gave you a gift of jewelry?”

Valerie reached into the pocket of her cloak and took out a small blue velvet pouch. She hurled it onto the desk.

“He told me to think of him whenever I wore it beneath my gowns,” she hissed. “I pinned it to my petticoats every day. Look at the mark on the back. Look at it. ”

Ursula took the opportunity to move behind her desk, putting it between herself and Valerie. It wasn’t much in the way of a fortress but it was all that was available.

She picked up the velvet bag and turned it upside down. An exquisite little brooch tumbled out. She remembered the day that Valerie had come running toward her in the conservatory, skirts raised to her knees. There had been something small and glittery pinned to her petticoats.

Ursula examined the markings on the back of the brooch.

“You are correct,” she said. “It appears both items came from the same store. However, if it’s any consolation, I think we can safely say that your brooch cost considerably more than Anne’s chatelaine.

But, then, Cobb would have known that if Anne showed up at the office wearing a fabulously expensive piece of jewelry, her colleagues as well as her clients would have asked a great many awkward questions. ”

“I did not need to ask any questions,” Valerie spit out.

“She flaunted that damned chatelaine in front of me. When I asked to take a closer look, she was only too happy to allow me to examine it. She gave me the same story she gave you—told me it was a gift from a grateful client. But when I saw the markings I knew for certain that she had betrayed me.”

“Did she know about your brooch?”

“No. I did not dare to wear it openly for fear that one of the servants would tell Fulbrook. He would know that he had not given me the brooch. But I wore it every day in secret.”

“How did you murder Anne?” Ursula asked. “You were never allowed to leave the house. You said the servants were always watching.”

“During the past few months I have become very expert with the drug. In some formulations, it can kill. I spent hours testing the poisonous version on mice and rats. I knew that Anne enjoyed the ambrosia and that she kept her supply in a perfume bottle that Rosemont gave her. She was a bit of an addict, I’m afraid.

I instructed her to bring the bottle to me so that I could give her a sample of the latest version of the drug.

I knew she would not be able to resist trying it. ”

“You told yourself that with Anne dead, things would go back to the way they had been between you and Cobb.”

“He would realize that he needed me,” Valerie wailed. “I was the only one left who could give him the secrets of the ambrosia. And then you showed up, insisting on taking Anne’s place as my secretary.”

“Why did you let me do that?”

“Because I realized that you might have ulterior motives. Anne had often talked about how smart you were, how you had reinvented yourself after a great scandal. She said she had left everything to you. I started to wonder if she had left the secrets of the ambrosia to you, as well.”

“I made you nervous so you decided to contact the reporter who ruined my reputation two years ago.”

“Anne told me about him and his newspaper. I explained to Fulbrook that you might be dangerous. He agreed we had to be cautious when it came to getting rid of you because if you turned up dead, Slater Roxton was bound to cause trouble. I gave my husband the idea of exposing you to the journalist, Otford. I was certain that he would smear your name in the gutter press. I thought that would be the end of you—that Roxton would not want anything to do with you after he found out that you were involved in a great scandal. Then you could quietly drown yourself in the river.”

“Why did you come here to kill me? I had nothing to do with Anne’s connection to Damian Cobb.”

“You had everything to do with it.” Valerie used both hands to grip the gun. “You are the one who sent that whore into my home.”

“Anne and Cobb did not have a romantic connection. Anne wanted to become his business partner.”

“I don’t believe that, not for a moment. And even if it’s true, it doesn’t matter. They betrayed me. If it had not been for you, things would have ended the way they were supposed to end. I would be on my way to New York with Damian.”

“Cobb wanted you, not Anne,” Ursula said. “And I can prove it.”

The lie came with astonishing ease. Perhaps that was because she had gotten rather good at the business in the wake of the Picton divorce scandal, she thought. Or perhaps the words came quickly because she was desperate to distract Valerie.

Whatever the case, it worked. Valerie was visibly stunned.

“What are you talking about?” she whispered.

“Anne held back his last letters to you. She never delivered them because she was still trying to convince Cobb to take her on as his partner. She wanted to destroy your relationship. She knew that if he had you, he wouldn’t need her.”

Valerie stared, transfixed with shock.

“No,” she whispered.

“I stored his last letters in my safe. Would you care to see them? They are all addressed to you.”

“I don’t believe you. Show them to me.”

“Certainly.”

Ursula crouched in front of the safe, unlocked it with trembling fingers and reached into the dark interior for the gun. With her other hand she picked up the envelope that held the copy of the penny dreadful.

She rose slowly to her feet, holding the gun out of sight in the folds of her skirts.

“Perhaps it would be better for all concerned if we burned these letters,” she said. “It could be embarrassing if the press were to get hold of them.”

“No!” Valerie shrieked.

Ursula tossed the letters into the flames.

Valerie screamed and rushed across the room to the fireplace. In her desperation to save the letters she dropped the gun on the carpet so that she could grab a poker.

Ursula moved out from behind the desk. Very quietly she picked up the gun. Valerie seemed unaware of what was happening. She sobbed hysterically and stabbed at the flames with the poker.

A shadow moved in the doorway. Startled, Ursula turned quickly and saw Slater. He, too, had a gun in his hand.

He took in the situation in a glance and made his weapon vanish inside his greatcoat. He looked at Ursula.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

His voice was ice cold. His eyes burned.

“Yes,” she said. She tried to sound just as cool and just as controlled as he did but she could hear the shaky edge in her own voice. “She’s the one who murdered Anne.”

“I know.”

Valerie collapsed onto the carpet, distraught and hysterical.

Slater put one arm around Ursula and pulled her close. Together they watched Valerie cry herself into exhaustion.