“I rarely write letters. Hadn’t you noticed? I’m a recluse. It would hardly do to be a recluse and then send letters all over the isle.” She drank the rest of the liquid in her teacup in one gulp and then swayed slightly in her chair.
“So Mr. Drake didn’t blackmail anyone in this house?” I must have sounded amazed, because the woman laughed at me.
“Not in this house.” She rang for her servants. One appeared immediately. “My teapot.”
“Do you think . . . ,” the footman began and quickly made his voice fade.
“My. Teapot.”
He disappeared and was replaced by a maid, who poured her mistress a cupful from a blue-flowered teapot and then left.
“Honoria, do you want us to leave?” Lady Westover asked.
Before I could glare at her, Lady Dutton-Cox said, “I don’t care. I haven’t cared since my beautiful Victoria died before she became a duchess. She should have been a duchess. It’s not fair. Nothing matters anymore.”
Lady Westover rose and crossed over to her friend. There was no place to sit near our hostess, since her chair was in a corner with tables standing sentinel on both sides of her. I pulled over a chair for Lady Westover to sit facing her friend. She was more likely to get the answers I needed. And I had failed twice today in being sympathetic. I was completely ashamed of my lack of tact. Not ashamed enough to stop this investigation, but embarrassed by my dearth of compassion.
“Honoria, look at me,” Lady Westover said. “You have other children. You have grandchildren. Don’t they matter to you?”
“My son has taken his family to the country and refuses to see me or let me see my grandchildren until I behave the way he wants. He says I have no shame.” She gulped from her teacup.
Lady Westover patted her free hand. “I don’t expect you to put away the pain of Victoria’s death. That’s impossible. I know. But Victoria wouldn’t want you to quit living. She was happy and carefree and would want you to enjoy life.”
Lady Dutton-Cox looked away, but she set down the teacup with a clatter.
I was only trying to be helpful when I said, “Your husband is beside himself with sorrow over Victoria’s death, with the blackmail and your melancholy. Talk to him. Share your grief.”
The lady took a quick drink, nearly spilling the liquid in her hurry to pick up the teacup again. Lady Westover looked daggers at me.
“Oh, he’s beside himself all right. Elizabeth always was his favorite. He had to pay a pretty penny to Drake to keep him quiet about her letters until we married her off to the viscount. Not our problem anymore.” She wagged a finger at me and then rang for the servants. “Bloody Drake. Bloody Elizabeth. Bloody servants.” Her voice raised in pitch with every word.
A footman entered and she yelled, “My teapot!”
“Milady . . .”
“My teapot, you fool!”
A maid returned with it a moment later and poured. She hadn’t left the room before Lady Dutton-Cox took a gulp.
“And you might get her lady’s maid,” Lady Westover said to the servant’s retreating back.
I knew I only had moments to learn anything else. “Who did Lady Elizabeth write?”
“Bloody Drake. Bloody shisters fighting over the same man. Elizabeth, the little fool, wrote compromising letters to Drake. Victoria would have won. She was the prettier. But then Blackford ruined it all. Ruined it all. And Blackford’s bloody sister, Margaret, killed my baby.” Tears ran down the woman’s pudgy face.
Lady Westover ran a gloved hand over Lady Dutton-Cox’s brow and murmured comforting sounds.
I had to ask. “Does Elizabeth’s husband know?”
“’Coursh he does. He’s a swine. Refused to meet Drake privately. Jush what Elizabeth deserves. And Drake, too.” She gulped down the rest of the contents of her teacup before it slipped from her hand. Then she started mumbling as her lady’s maid dashed in.
I tried one last time. “Lady Dutton-Cox, talk to your husband. He’s in mourning, too, for Victoria. Let him share your grief.”
She looked in my general direction with unfocused eyes and said, “Go to hell.”
Lady Westover marched past me on her way to the door. For an old lady, she moved fast. I didn’t catch up with her until we were outside the house.
“Lady Westover . . .”
“Good day, Miss Fenchurch. I’d almost forgotten that you are not one of us.” Her nose in the air, she stormed off. I’d lost an ally, and it was my own clumsy fault.
I stood on the sidewalk, looking from the house to Lady Westover’s retreating back and feeling miserable. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, but I’d spent the day ripping people’s hearts from their chests and waltzing on them. Sadly, Nicholas Drake wasn’t the only victim of this abduction and murder.
Unfortunately, my day of treading on the feelings of others wasn’t finished. I still had to find out if there was any merit in what Jacob had said at our meeting the night before about the Earl of Waxpool. I couldn’t ignore the earl’s possible involvement. And the best way to learn the truth was to revisit Lady Julia, his granddaughter.
When I arrived at their home, I was shown into the same cheery morning room as before. Lady Julia set down a heavy history tome to greet me and took off her pince-nez spectacles, leaving her squinting and with a mark on the bridge of her nose. Standing to greet me, she said, “How can I help you, Miss Peabody?”
“It’s about your father—”
She braced herself so she wouldn’t back away from me. “He’s—he’s in the south of France.”
“I know. Your grandfather told me he sent him there. After the blackmailing started.”
“He shouldn’t have committed anything to paper. It was too dangerous.” She wrung her hands.
“It’s hard to keep track of the money otherwise, I would think.”
“Who cared how much he paid that odious Drake? That horrid man sold my father’s words to the highest bidder. That hurt.”
“Drake sold your father’s papers?”
“No, he bought them.” She froze in place. “What exactly did my grandfather tell you?”
“That your father stole from the family accounts.”
She smiled for an instant as she looked away. “Oh. Yes. That’s right.”
“Except your grandfather lied to me. Look, I don’t care if your father ran with the Prince of Wales’s crowd. Heaven knows there’s enough scandals there to keep several blackmailers busy. I need to know what your family was being blackmailed over so I can judge the likelihood that it would drive a respectable family to kidnapping and murder.”
She leaned forward as she faced me. “Oh, it wouldn’t. There’d be no reason for us to attack Mr. Drake.”
“Really? Why?”
“Why should I answer you?”
“Because I’m a member of the Archivist Society and we try to be careful of reputations.” And because I wanted to know who killed Mr. Drake.
Lady Julia paced in front of the fire. Finally, she stopped and said, “You’re a well-read woman. I expect it has made you broad-minded.”
“I hope I am. Unless the subject is murder. I will not condone killing another human being.”
“Oh, no. But my father has a secret. One that is considered illegal in this country. That’s why Grandpapa sent him to the south of France. They’re more forward-thinking there.”
“And this stopped Drake’s blackmail?”
“Yes. The scandal doesn’t affect the rest of us, you see. Once Drake was convinced Grandpapa wouldn’t pay to keep it secret, and my father was out of danger of being arrested, the letters no longer had any impact.”