Chapter Five

No. 10 Orchard Street

Portman Square

Marylebone, London

The carriage ride back to their townhouse in Mayfair was a silent affair.

It probably didn't need to be, but after seeing that dead body and knowing that her past had been entwined and entrenched so heavily with the other woman's, Mary didn't feel like talking. All the joy from the evening had fled, and now guilt had crept in to mar the night.

For his part, Gabriel occupied the bench opposite in the closed carriage, which was not what he'd done since they'd gotten engaged. Usually, he sat next to her on the same bench, so it spoke to the state of his mind that he'd unconsciously put that space between them. He hadn't said much in the way of the case during the trip, and she didn't blame him, for while he considered her a suspect, he would keep things close to his chest. He kept his head turned, staring out the window at the darkened world the whole of the trip with the dead woman's reticule on his lap. He'd not discussed what he'd found inside and neither had he talked about anything else. In profile, his silhouette was the height of handsome, and only just two hours they had been so happy.

And it nearly broke her heart, for the closeness they'd previously enjoyed had been shoved to the side. Where they both grew and accepted the challenges of working a case together and would feed off each other's energy therein, that was suddenly was gone, and she felt a bit lost because of it.

To say nothing of the fact that they were to get married tomorrow.

As soon as the carriage rocked to a halt in front of the townhouse, the driver hopped down. He opened the door and put down the steps. Gabriel immediately exited the vehicle, but he was a consummate gentleman and offered a hand to assist her out.

The brief touch of her fingers on his had a wash of tears rushing to her eyes, for she missed the closeness and intimacy she'd had with him hours before when they'd gone out to Covent Garden. When she glanced up into his face, he met her eyes but then looked away before anything meaningful was exchanged. Yes, it was his way of compartmentalizing what had happened tonight in the event that she might be a murderer, and in doing so, he thought to mitigate that emotional bond, but it was almost as if he'd slapped her.

The loss of that connection left her chest aching and her heart trembling.

"Please proceed to the drawing room," he said to her as they navigated the short walkway to the front door. "I shall join you there as soon as I'm able. I would like to put everything I found on the body in a safe place as well as to gather my thoughts."

"Of course." Oh, why did it feel more wretched this time around than it had last December? Then she knew and her heart squeezed. She was in love with him now, they had sought to build a life together, and though she didn't know if that was in jeopardy, it certainly felt as if the whole of their relationship would crumble at the foundation.

The door opened seconds later, and the butler greeted them.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Tomlinson. Inspector," he said as they came into the entry hall. "Shall I take your outer things? I trust you didn't stay for the second play?"

While she appreciated the man's interest, she wasn't in the mood to make small talk. Before she could answer, Gabriel did that for her.

"For the moment, I'll see to my greatcoat, Davies. We, have, uh, stumbled upon a case tonight, and after examining the body and waiting for the coroner, there are a few things I must do just now."

"Of course, Inspector." He looked at Mary. "Shall I ring for your maid to meet you abovestairs?"

"No thank you, Davies. I will, um, go up in a bit and then ring for her at that time." With a glance at Bright's impassive face, she steeled her spine as she handed the butler her cape. "Though I would appreciate some tea and some cold cuts on a tray sent to my room as soon as you can manage. Then you can retire for the night."

"It will be my pleasure, Mrs. Tomlinson." After bouncing his gaze between her and Gabriel, concern wrinkled his brow. "Is all well?"

"That remains to be seen," Bright said, and with a curt nod, he strode down the corridor toward the staircase.

"More or less," she managed in a broken whisper then moved at a much slower pace toward those same stairs. Ordinarily, when they came in from an evening out, he would tease and flirt with her as they went up together, but not tonight.

All of that had evaporated like dew before the morning sun.

By the time she stepped into the drawing room, the longcase clock in the corridor outside chimed the midnight hour. Though circumstances weren't ideal and all she wanted to do was go upstairs to her room and cry her eyes out, she would see the interrogation through because she knew she wasn't guilty, and she realized Bright was only doing his job.

That didn't make it any easier to swallow.

Neither did the room that had been transformed and decorated for the nuptial ceremony on the morrow—or rather later today. Vases full of hothouse flowers—sunflowers, roses, lilies, lilies of the valley, and various varieties of greenery to set off the flowers—had been strategically placed about the room. The mantel over the fireplace had a floral swag resting upon it. Everywhere she glanced, there were either containers of flowers or bows made out of white and pastel-colored ribbons. On one of the smaller tables that would serve as the place where they would sign the registry, a white lace tablecloth had been placed with a crystal bowl filled with roses. The scent of the flowers permeated the entire space, and ordinarily the whole aesthetic would have filled her with excitement and joy.

Her gaze went to one of the maids still working in the room. Why hadn't the girls not yet sought their own beds? "How did you know to decorate in here?"

Surprise went through the girl's expression. "Inspector Bright wished to have this room transformed into a bower for the ceremony tomorrow." She smiled. "Mr. Davies shared with us sketches of where we should put things. Shortly before guests arrive in the morning, we're to sprinkle rose petals on the floor."

"Oh." Her heart skipped a beat. He was just so romantic and thoughtful. The juxtaposition of the happiness that they were supposed to experience together in a mere ten hours compared to the wretchedness of the present moment had her fighting back tears. "Well, it's lovely, but it's also quite late. You two get to bed. There is so much to do before the ceremony." Unexpectedly, her voice broke on the last word, for would he still wish to marry her after all was said and done?

I am afraid to know the answer to that.

No sooner had the maids exited the drawing room and Mary settled on a low sofa than Gabriel came into the room. There was none of his customary greetings and neither did he immediately come to her location to kiss her. The lack of that nicety worked to further separate her from him.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me," he said as he dropped into the chair closest to where she was on the sofa.

"For the love of God, Bright, please stop." She couldn't quite keep the irritation from her voice. "After all we have been through together, after all we are together, we are hardly strangers. I don't appreciate being treated as a suspect on your list."

"I apologize." With a sigh, he took his leatherbound notebook from the interior pocket of his tailcoat as well as the small pencil he always used. Finally, he met her gaze. "This is an uncomfortable place to be, as we both know." He opened the notebook and found a clear page. "When I'm faced with this sort of thing, my mind immediately shuts down any emotional connection in order to concentrate on the task at hand."

"To protect yourself, because you have been hurt by a woman before." She knew all about his last wife, and it broke her heart to think that he might assume she would betray him as well.

A couple of heartbeats passed before he spoke again. "Perhaps."

"I don't need the inspector in this moment; I need my fiancé," she said in a barely audible voice as she stared at him. "Please, Gabriel."

Emotions flitted over his face as duty warred with his personal involvement, finally settling on resignation. "Let us suffer through this first. Then we can hopefully put it behind us, and I can return to the man you need." As he pressed his lips together, he rested his gaze on her with speculation as well as love.

It humbled her, gave her hope that they would still be all right.

"Walk me through your history with Theresa Kessler."

Just hearing the name spoken aloud gave her both feelings of dread and anger. They collided within her chest to make her almost physically ill. After a few moments of wrestling with those emotions, Mary blew out a breath. "I have told you bits and pieces since we've been together." She hated that once again he had his notebook out and was questioning her about a murder. That wasn't how she'd envisioned this night ending; memories of their intimacy from earlier this evening seemed a lifetime ago.

"I know." Kindness reflected in his eyes. "Sweeting, you know why I must do this."

The fact he'd used an endearment worked to further return her confidence. "I don't want to talk about her."

"No one ever wants the skeletons of their past to come out, but I must insist."

"All right." Tears welled in her eyes, and she nodded. When he gave her a handkerchief—obviously he'd secured another one before he'd come into the room—she accepted it and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. "A few years into my marriage with Benjamin, it was obvious his attentions were beginning to stray."

"Due to your inability to conceive." It wasn't a question .

"Yes." She nodded, and though a stab of pain went through her heart, she had long ago made peace with that. "However, I'd wager that even if I could conceive, he would have strayed. Ben had a roving eye, and I didn't have much to recommend me." Silence reigned between them for a few moments before she spoke again. "I'd already told you that to his flawed way of thinking, because I enjoyed congenial relations, he figured that was the reason for my barren state. After that, he decided to punish me by bringing courtesans home and forcing me to watch him bed them. He said lightskirts didn't enjoy coitus and yet they were always finding themselves with child."

"I'm sorry to have to drag you back through that history," he said in a low voice, and when he gave her that special grin he only reserved for her, another round of tears fell to her cheeks.

"About halfway through my marriage, Theresa came into my life. Ben had grown tired of courtesans and had taken her as a mistress." She frowned and trained her attention on the handkerchief in her hand, pleating it in her lap. "My husband was shameless. At one point, he installed Theresa in the house as a live-in mistress. He made no secret that he was bedding her every chance he got. I think he considered it a game or punishment for me to have her underfoot, to take dinner with her, and sometimes to let her wear my clothing when he wanted to take her out into Town."

"I'll wager that made you angry," Gabriel said as he jotted down a few notes.

"Of course it did!" In some pique, Mary glared at him. "What kind of woman did you think I was? What sort of woman would even allow that in her own house?" Those had been horrible days, humiliating days. Each one broke her heart and killed a little bit of her dream of being a wife, a mother, and having a doting husband.

"Were you ever rude or aggressive toward Miss Kessler during the times she was in your home?"

"Not at first. I was still too stunned at Ben's effrontery and audacity." She dabbed at the corners of her eyes with the handkerchief again. The fabric smelled of Gabriel, and that sandalwood and orange had her far too emotional once more. "It might sound odd, but after having her in the house for months, I was both ambivalent toward her, but I also hated her presence. When I wasn't keeping accounts for my father, I spent time at home."

"Was your husband there at those times?"

"Not during the day. He was busy with his own business, but Theresa was there, and she attempted to strike up a friendship. At first, I was dead set against that, wanted nothing to do with the woman who'd stolen my husband. However, she persisted, and I was lonely, so I began to warm toward her." Perhaps that had been a mistake, but there was nothing to do about it. "I was desperate for human interaction, for a friend, for assurances that it wasn't me who had failed in every aspect of life."

"Did the friendship continue?" He continued to scribble a few notes while she talked.

"Despite my initial protests regarding it, yes. We got on well enough, for a married woman with her husband's mistress. It seemed Ben didn't treat her any better than he'd treated me, and he bedded her nearly every night." Mary shrugged. It was the last horrid layer of her past she'd not yet told Gabriel about, and it was embarrassing. "Did I still resent her and the attention he lavished on her? Of course; I was only human. But during those months, I came to realize she hadn't truly stolen Ben from me. We had problems in our relationship, and they had been there from the first. I just hadn't wanted to see them, was blinded by being a new wife and hoping to be a mother."

The scratch of Gabriel's pencil stopped. He gazed at her with a slight frown and compassion shadowing his eyes. "I am so sorry, Mary. What you survived… What you were subjected to at the hands of that buffoon…" With the shake of his head, he sighed. "No one should ever need to do that."

"That was my life at the time. Frankly, it kept Ben's attention from me, and as the months and years went by, that was most welcome."

"You said Miss Kessler had stolen your things? Can you elaborate?"

She nodded. "After that first year, Theresa started putting on airs the more Ben spent time with her over me. It was as if our domestic roles had reversed, somehow. Borrowing clothes was no longer good enough for her; she started taking them, adding them to her own collection. She took possession of my shoes and fripperies, she stole my traveling case that contained my stationery as well as my letter opener." As she spoke, she withdrew the wrapped murder weapon from her reticule and set it on the table in front of her. "Little by little, I was being erased from life."

"Did you ever wish to kill Miss Kessler during that time? Perhaps even with that same letter opener?"

She blew out a breath. "I wouldn't have been human if I didn't, yet I kept myself shut away hoping something would change. By the time Ben had tired of Theresa as a mistress, half of all the things I'd owned had been stolen. After that, I was numb to life. I had no more emotions to give. Thankfully, Ben expired about a year following."

"Who ended the relationship between your husband and Miss Kessler? "

"I honestly couldn't say. One morning, I woke up to find her gone and Ben in a horrid mood. He accused me of being a bad influence on her, that she'd left him and had taken whatever would fit into her trunk."

"And you never heard from her after that?"

"No." Mary shook her head. "I often wondered what happened to her but figured she'd found another, wealthier and more benevolent protector."

"No doubt she did. Women like Miss Kessler wouldn't be without coin for long." Heavy silence brewed between them for a bit as Gabriel finished writing up his notes. "I have no further questions regarding her."

"Oh, thank God." She nearly crumpled with relief but kept holding onto the handkerchief. When she looked at him, saw the relief in his own expression, she wanted to cry all over again. "You have every right not to trust me or even believe my story. I understand that, and interrogation is part of your job. However, what I told you was the truth. There was no love lost between me and her, but that didn't mean I wanted her dead—seriously. In an odd way, I felt sorry for her, because she was merely a younger version of me, and we were used by the same man." It had been a powerful revelation at the time. "There was no future there for either of us."

"Well, the future you do have is considerably brighter than that." Long moments of silence stretched between them while the long case clock struck the one o'clock hour.

"Where were you in the brief time I fell asleep during the play?"

She shot him a look brimming with annoyance. "Stopping your sorry arse from toppling out of your chair. If I'd gone out to kill Theresa, you would have embarrassed yourself by sprawling on the floor."

"Fair enough." At least she hadn't lost her spark or her tart mouthed responses. He tamped the urge to chuckle, for he adored when she was ruffled. "Every day when I work cases, I see people at their worst. I talk with people who have lost everything. I am forced to sit with people who are either hiding their true reactions because they're guilty or because they don't know how to act with their grief. It is a rather grim task most of the time." He held her gaze as he tucked his notebook and pencil into his pocket. "However, with you, though this may be your worst moment, it doesn't mean you're defeated. There is still a spark of fight in your eyes. You wish for me to know the truth as much as I want to find it. That alone sets you apart from many of the people I interview."

They were wise, logical words, but they managed to set her at ease. "Then you realize I did not kill this woman. "

"I do." He nodded and a faint grin curved his life. "I knew midway into questioning you."

She frowned. "Then why go through the farce?"

Gabriel shrugged, and his tailcoat briefly pulled taut across his shoulders. "I had to do my due diligence as an inspector. I owe it to the dead woman." When she would have protested, he held up a hand. "Horrible person or not, she died violently and not of her own devices. Surely someone somewhere mourns her loss."

"I couldn't say." The story was far too pathetic when forced to look at it like that. But there was another thought sitting uppermost in her mind that she couldn't be rid of.

"I intend to work this case."

"Why?"

"Because no one else will care about a prostitute and a thief." Shadows filled his eyes. "Everyone deserves justice."

"You are a good man, Bright." Perhaps it was gauche to ask, but she couldn't help it. The invisible divide suddenly between them had shaken her to the cor. "Do you still wish to marry me?"

"Ah, Mary." Gabriel stood up from his chair, took a step toward her, and offered her a hand. "Nothing will prevent me from wedding you, from speaking vows to you in the morning. Not even this."

As if a huge weight had been released from her shoulders, Mary stared up at him as she slipped her fingers into his palm. When he tugged her to her feet, she tamped down on a sigh. "Why?"

The grin he flashed caused her heartbeat to accelerate. "Because I know in my heart you didn't kill this woman; you aren't that sort. And I also know in my soul that I love you no matter what." Raising her hand to his lips, he kissed the back. "We are all human and make mistakes; we all have a past. Some of those branches of the past extend far and snag many people. That is life, but I'm still supporting you. Nothing will change that. Nothing will ever change that, and we will puzzle our way through this together. As we always do."

"As partners," she managed to choke out as tears welled in her eyes.

"Absolutely."

Then she was in his arms, and he held her tight against him for many long moments. She melted into the solid support of him, reveled in the strength of his arms around her and the safety he represented. Eventually, she pulled a bit away and looked up to meet his gaze. Gabriel lowered his head and claimed her lips in a gentle kiss that was much like receiving a benediction from God himself.

After a few moments, he broke the embrace and stepped away while she mourned the loss of his warmth and connection. "It is late. You should retire."

"Will you, uh, join me tonight?" Not that she wanted bedsport but because she hoped for his calming presence.

"I will not, for I'm going to my rooms at the Albany." His expression was far too grim, which caused her heart to plummet. "Fear not. It is not due to what transpired at the opera tonight. I merely need to pack the remainder of my belongings, plus my suit for tomorrow is there. My valet was supposed to have it pressed tonight. Besides," he winked, "I don't wish to see you ahead of the ceremony."

At least it was a believable explanation. "You are far too romantic." And she didn't deserve him. He needed someone far better than her.

Once more, he tugged her into his arms. "Hush, love." He held her. "I can hear you thinking."

"Oh?"

"You are my equal in every way, and we are perfectly matched for each other." He pressed his lips to her forehead before staring into her eyes. "Stop diminishing yourself because of what your first husband did to you or made you believe. You deserve every good thing, and if I need to spend the rest of my life convincing you, I will."

She didn't answer, for she couldn't. A tear fell to her cheek. "It has been quite an emotional day."

"Agreed." After a quick kiss to her lips, he set her away. "Go upstairs. I will see you in the morning."

"Bright?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you." Every action, every word of his spoke volumes and widened the contrast between him and her first husband.

"I love you too. Nothing will change that."

"You should probably keep the letter opener."

"Why? As evidence of murder?"

"No, because it belongs to your family."

For a few moments, he stared at her. " You are my family, Mary. Objects from the Stanwick estate don't matter to me."

"Oh!" Then she fled to her rooms, for there was only so much one woman could bear in the span of a handful of hours. Once she closed the door behind her, she dissolved into a torrent of tears.

Not long after, her maid came in, no doubt to help her change. "Oh, Mrs. Tomlinson, it's adorable you're a watering pot on the eve of your marriage." Clearly, she misunderstood the reason for the emotion. "It gives me hope for my own prospects." When she reached Mary's position, she drew her away from the door. "Come. Let's make you comfortable. I brought up a tray for you…"