Mistress - Amanda Quick [55]
Zoe looked aghast. “Murder. Dear heaven. I thought we’d at least established that the villain is not a murderer.”
“A poor choice of words,” Iphiginia said quickly. “What I meant to say was that there is no reason the blackmailer would want to hurt me.”
“I’ll come with you,” Amelia said.
Otis’s brows jiggled up and down. “So will I.”
“I must come, too,” Zoe said.
“No, no, no.” Iphiginia shook her head impatiently. “Impossible. The blackmailer might see the three of you and decide to make good on his threat to increase the demands. No, we must obey his instructions to the letter.”
Amelia frowned. “Why are you so determined to make the delivery this time, Iphiginia?”
“I am hoping to learn something useful,” Iphiginia admitted.
Zoe’s eyes widened. “Never tell me that you are going to try to observe the blackmailer as he picks up the money. I cannot possibly allow you to take such a risk.”
“No, of course not,” Iphiginia said. “I would not do anything so rash.”
But that was precisely what she intended.
Tonight’s visit to Reeding Cemetery might well be an opportunity to discover a useful clue to the villain’s identity.
At ten minutes to midnight the hackney carriage clattered to a halt at the fog-shrouded gates of Reeding Cemetery.
Iphiginia, dressed in an old nondescript gray gown and a long gray cloak, peered out into the darkness.
Tendrils of cold mist coiled around the tombstones and monuments that dotted the small cemetery. The pale glow from the hackney’s lamps penetrated only a snort distance into the fog. Iphiginia shivered as she collected the canvas bag full of banknotes and a lantern and prepared to descend from the carriage.
The blackmailer could not have chosen a more unnerving setting than this, she thought as she opened the door. It had clearly been a deliberate ploy to frighten his victim. She wondered if he had even been clever enough to predict the fog.
She stepped down from the carriage, hoisted the lantern, and looked up at the coachman.
“I shall return very shortly.”
The coachman’s face was heavily shadowed by the broad brim of his hat. “Ye certain ye want to pay yer respects to the dear departed at this unholy hour, ma’am?”
“I promised,” Iphiginia said. “It meant a great deal to the poor woman to know that I would carry out her last request.”
“She’s long past knowin’ if ye fulfill her bloody stupid request, if ye ask me. Well, go on, then. I’ll wait ‘ere for ye.”
“Thank you.”
Iphiginia walked to the gates of the cemetery. She was not certain what she would do if they were locked.
But the heavy iron gates swung slowly inward when she pushed against them.
Iphiginia stepped into the graveyard. She held the lantern aloft and tried to peer through the mist. The light illuminated the first row of tombstones.
Iphiginia pressed on deeper into the cemetery. She read the names on the stones as she went past.
JOHN GEORGE BRINDLE, AGED THREE YEARS, ONE MONTH.
MARY ALICE HARVEY, BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER.
EDWARD SHIPLEY, B. 1785, D. 1815. A BRAVE SOLDIER.
A GOOD FRIEND.
An oppressive weight settled on Iphiginia. It sent an icy shudder through her soul.
Amelia had been right. This was a considerably different experience than a tour of the ruins of Pompeii.
But there had been no choice. Iphiginia knew that Zoe would not have lasted two minutes in this ghostly place. Her dramatic imagination would have been overcome by the atmosphere. She would not have been able to make the delivery and the result would have no doubt meant steeper demands from the blackmailer.
The yawning entrance of a large stone grotto loomed in the fog directly in front of Iphiginia. The twin halves of an elaborately designed iron gate stood open. The dark, shadowed interior beckoned.
Iphiginia caught her breath and held the lantern higher. She had never thought of herself as possessing melodramatic sensibilities or an impressionable temperament, but this was very nearly too much, even for her.
The flaring lantern light picked out the name that had been carved