Mistress - Amanda Quick [86]
“She was shot,” Marcus said. He touched one of the fingers of a limp hand.
“She’s …?”
“Dead. Yes.” Marcus got to his feet. “I would estimate that she has been dead for several hours.”
Iphiginia’s stomach clenched. She backed hurriedly out of the doorway, gasping for air.
Marcus walked out of the room. He looked at her with concern. “Are you all right?”
Iphiginia nodded hastily. “Yes. I think so.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here. The last thing we want is to be discovered hanging about a dead woman’s rooms.”
Marcus took her arm and whisked her down the staircase.
“Do you think Mrs. Wycherley was robbed?” Iphiginia asked.
“No,” Marcus said. He came to a halt on the first landing and glanced into the parlor again. “If that were the case, the thief would have taken those silver candlesticks and a few other items.”
“Then what happened here?”
“I’m not positive, but I can create a hypothesis which would explain what we see.”
“What is your hypothesis?”
“I suspect that Mrs. Wycherley was the blackmailer and that your aunt and my friend were not her only victims. Nor were we the only people who managed to make the connection to the Wycherley Agency.”
“You believe that someone else came here after Mr. Manwaring talked to her yesterday?”
“Yes. It’s entirely reasonable to assume that Mrs. Wycherley was murdered by one of her victims.”
“And after he killed her the victim went through her files searching for the evidence she had used to blackmail him?”
“Yes,” Marcus said.
“Marcus, that is brilliant. It would explain everything.” Iphiginia frowned. “It also means that the crisis is over.”
“It appears that way.”
She tried to feel a sense of relief. After all, Aunt Zoe’s secret was safe once more.
But the blackmail problem was not the only thing that had disappeared, she realized. Along with it had gone her excuse for continuing her masquerade as Marcus’s mistress.
THIRTEEN
AT SEVEN O’CLOCK THAT EVENING MARCUS SAT AT THE worktable in his laboratory and pondered the dilemma of how to turn a mistress into a wife.
It was a problem he had never thought to encounter. By comparison, the construction of clockwork mechanisms, telescopes, and hydraulic reservoir pens seemed quite simple.
He pushed aside the leather-bound notebook he had opened a few minutes earlier, leaned back in his chair, and propped his booted feet on the cluttered table.
Glumly he contemplated the clockwork butler which he had constructed last year. It stood silent and still, a silver salver in one wooden hand. On a whim, Marcus had painted a proper black coat and a white shirt on the automaton. He had even made an attempt to capture Lovelace’s air of aristocratic disdain in the cold eyes and unsmiling mouth.
Life had seemed so simple until Iphiginia had appeared in his carefully regulated universe, Marcus thought.
As though she were a shooting star flashing through the dark night, she had lit up the sky. But if he did not find a way to catch hold of her, she would either disintegrate in a shower of sparks or fall to earth with a devastating thud.
A knock on the door of the laboratory brought Marcus out of his reverie. “Enter.”
“Marcus?” Bennet stuck his head around the door. “Thought you might be in here. Are you working?”
“No. Come in.”
Bennet walked into the room with his new languid, world-weary stride, closed the door, and approached the worktable. Marcus glanced at him and winced. His brother was very much the stormy-eyed poet again today.
Bennet’s dark hair was carefully brushed into a careless, windswept tangle. His shirt was open at his throat and he was not wearing a neckcloth or a waistcoat.
“I trust you intend to put on a cravat before you go out,” Marcus muttered. “You’ll not be allowed into any ball or soiree tonight if you show up looking as though you just got out of bed.”
“I have not yet dressed for the evening.” Bennet went to the window and slouched against the frame, ennui personified. He stood gazing out into the garden with a moody expression.