Devil in My Arms (25 page)

“Don’t have to tell you lot everything,” Wiley blustered. “Man’s got to have his little adventures, doesn’t he?” He walked quickly to the door. “Good day, ma’am,” he said to Eleanor, and then glared at the rest of the room before leaving.

“I never thought I’d admit this, but you’ve completely changed the boy for the better,” Alasdair said in amazement. “I didn’t think you could take the gutter out of him.”

“What a horrible thing to say,” Eleanor said angrily. “A man’s worth is what’s inside him.”

“You didn’t know him before,” Alasdair told her grimly. “He was more criminal
than hero. I’m just glad the boy’s turned around.”

“I think everyone has the ability to change, if given the opportunity,” she said, looking at Hil with a secret little smile. She faced Alasdair again. “Just look at me. I used to be a timid little mouse. Now I’m an accused murderess.”

“That is not the sort of transformation I’d hoped for,” Roger said ruefully.

* * *

They spent about an hour making a list of possible suspects from Hil’s cases. He’d been doing amateur investigations for several years now, and the list was extensive. Everyone from murderers and thieves to their sweethearts and relatives wished him dead. Not to mention the individuals for whom he had not been able to satisfactorily resolve their issue. They decided to start with those inquiries that had ended in a conviction and execution. Hil knew from experience it was best to start with the dead bodies. He’d forgotten that when it came to Eleanor. Good thing Wiley hadn’t.

Eleanor wanted to walk to the first client, an accountant on Fleet Street. It was quite a ways from Saville Street, and quite impossible for her to walk the entire way, but he indulged her. His carriage followed them at a sedate pace; should she grow tired, they could take it the rest of the way. They had drawn several stares, and hastily whispered conversations followed in their wake. Two ladies had pulled their skirts aside and turned their backs as Eleanor walked by, but she ignored them. Hil turned his head back to give them a cutting glance and they gasped and hurried down the sidewalk.

Eleanor’s gown was getting dirty. The streets were dusty. She wore sturdy black half boots and a gray pelisse, and the hem of her gown nearly matched the two. He couldn’t stand for one speck of dust to touch her. Nothing unclean should taint her. He resolved to clear her name completely. There would be no doubts in anyone’s mind that she was the innocent here.

“How was he killed?” she asked. Her question was casual, but Hil noticed she wouldn’t look at him. Instead she was adjusting the fingers of her glove.

“He fell down the stairs.”

Eleanor turned an astonished gaze on him. “But, it could have been an accident!”
she exclaimed. “How do they know it was murder?”

“The knife in his back,” Hil said drily. “The stab wound was superficial. He would not have died from it, unless infection took him. The fall, however, broke his neck.”

“Dear God,” she whispered. “How horrible.” She shook her head and bit her lip. “I wish I could say I felt an ounce of pity for him, but I don’t. He deserved such an ignominious end.”

“Yes, well, don’t say that in court,” Hil advised.

She gave him an exasperated look. “Really? Do you think it would give the jury the wrong impression?”

He laughed, hardly able to believe they could joke about it. “No doubt.”

By then they had reached a busy intersection at the corner of Leicester Street. Hil didn’t care for the crowd and stepped away from Eleanor to hail his carriage. As he was waving at the coachman, trying to get his attention, he heard shouting and then strong hands pushed him from behind. He tumbled into the street in front of an oncoming coach-and-four. As he rolled toward the sidewalk in an effort to avoid the horses’ hooves, he looked up. Through the choking dust he saw Eleanor struggling with a young man. She was standing in the street, her reticule on the ground, and it appeared as if he was trying to push her under the hooves of the rearing horses. The coachman was yanking on the reins, and the horses where rearing right over Eleanor’s head, or so it seemed to Hil. Coughing, his eyes watering from the dust in the gutter, he rose to his feet and dashed back to Eleanor.

Before he could get there, the young man had disentangled himself from her and run off, leaving Eleanor struggling to get back on the sidewalk while dodging the horses’ hooves. Hil ran over and waved his beaver hat in front of the horses. “Hey now!” he shouted. The horses were frightened more and jerked in the reins, trying to pull the carriage around Hil and away from Eleanor. One hoof struck her shoulder and she went down. “Hilary!” she screamed.

Several gentlemen on the street ran over and tried to grab the now-loose reins of the coach to settle the horses. Hil stumbled over to Eleanor and lifted her up off the street, carrying her in a crouch to the sidewalk, where he fell to his knees, coughing still, his
eyes stinging.

“Are you all right?” he gasped.

She was crying, great gulping sobs. “No! I lost ten years of my life imagining your skull crushed beneath those hooves. And that blasted horse caught my shoulder.” She was rocking back and forth in his arms and he could see she was clutching her tattered, bloodstained gown to her shoulder. “It hurts like the devil.”

He laughed, which turned into another coughing fit, as he fumbled in his coat for his handkerchief. “You lost ten years of your life?” he managed to say. “Imagine the decades that I have lost over your recent predicament. And might I point out you had more of a chance of getting your skull crushed than I did. Which I was imagining in vivid detail.”

She grabbed his handkerchief and tried to blow her nose one-handed. “Can’t move the other arm,” she mumbled.

“Christ, Eleanor,” he said, immediately repentant. “I’m sorry. Is it broken?”

“Here, sir,” a woman said, handing him another handkerchief. “For your eyes.”

Hilary realized then he was still holding Eleanor in his lap. He gently set her down on the sidewalk and took the proffered handkerchief. “Thank you, miss,” he said. He wiped his bleary, watery eyes only to discover a crowd had gathered around them.

“Sir Hilary,” he overheard someone whispering.

“The lady they say murdered her husband,” a scandalized voice said in hushed tones.

Eleanor was still rocking to and fro, clutching her shoulder again. “I’m sorry, Hilary,” she said, her voice shaking, “but I must go home. I think I’m bleeding.”

Hilary reached over to press the handkerchief to her wound, but stopped, turning to the woman to ask her permission. Before he could say anything, another cloth was pressed into his hand by someone else. “Here you are,” the unfamiliar man said. “You’d best get the lady some help. She was clipped a bit hard by the horse.”

The crowd was murmuring around them, but Hil was too shaken to determine if they were dangerous. “Thank you,” he said again. He stood up, and several hands reached out to help.

“We know you’ll find the real killer,” the lady who had given him her
handkerchief said. “Your lady wouldn’t have done it, I’m sure.”

“Yes, yes,” several voices said.

“Three cheers for Sir Hilary!” another voice cried out, and the crowd cheered.

By then Hil’s carriage had arrived. He picked Eleanor up again and she laid her head upon his shoulder. She looked ashen. John the coachman opened the door and Hil set Eleanor inside and then followed.

“Good luck, sir!” rang out from several voices. He waved absently at them before pulling the door shut.

“They seem to be on our side,” Eleanor commented weakly, her head resting on the back of the seat, her eyes closed. “Do you suppose we could get them on the jury?”

“Madam, your ability to jest at times like these is one of your finer qualities,” Hil observed as he sat down beside her and gingerly pulled her into his arms. “That and your heroic tendencies. Were you or were you not attempting to apprehend the miscreant who shoved me into the street?”

“I was,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. “Alas, I was not strong enough to detain him.”

“If you were not injured right now, I would take you over my knee,” Hil said, sounding far calmer than he felt. “Apprehending criminals is my job.”

“I shall try to remember that in future,” she said with a slight smile, her eyes still closed. “Don’t you want to know what I saw?”

He sighed, his heartbeat finally beginning to slow down. “Yes, if you feel up to the telling.”

“I’ve nothing else to do at the moment,” she observed drily. “He was of average height, brown hair visible under a hat that had seen better days. His coat was dark blue, though it was thin and shiny on the shoulders. He had light eyes, though I could not see the color properly. When I was close enough, the dust obscured his features too much. He didn’t say a word, though I got the impression from the sounds of exertion he made as he tried to push me down that he was capable of it. Too bad. It would be easier to find a mute.”

Hilary laughed and shook his head. “Yes, it would.”

She opened her eyes, her forehead creased with concern. “He did it deliberately,
Hilary. He waited until you were near the edge of the street, waving, your balance impaired, and then he shoved with all his might. He turned to run and looked right at me with a grin. That’s when I dashed over and grabbed his arm. He was quite taken aback and tried to shake me off. Then he dragged me to the street and tried to push me down, too.”

“Unfortunately your description could fit a hundred, nay, a thousand men in London,” he said, frustrated. “And the truth is we have no proof this event was related to Enderby’s murder. He could have simply wanted to kill me.” She shivered in his arms, and for the first time he wondered if he was being fair to her. He didn’t live the sort of life that genteel ladies were used to. He consorted with criminals and police officers, and the hours he kept were hardly normal. And he had enemies, the sort of enemies that you kept an eye out for in the dark. Was that the kind of sordid life Eleanor deserved, after everything she’d been through? He’d meant it when he said he loved her. But what if he was the cause of her present misfortune? What if Wiley was right and this wasn’t about her or Enderby at all, but about him? He felt woefully inadequate at protecting her at the moment, as she sat beside him bleeding, wounded, and under arrest for murder.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop,” she said firmly. “I recognize that look.”

“What look?” he said, fussing with the handkerchief at her shoulder. The wound was a nasty, deep scrape, dirt embedded in it. He’d have to clean that out and it was going to hurt.

“The look that says you’re thinking of doing something I’m not going to like,” she answered. “So don’t do it.”

He made no promises. Because he’d do whatever it took to keep her safe, even if it meant leaving her when this was all over.

Chapter Twenty

Hil spent the next two days poring over lists of potential suspects. They were all family or friends of individuals convicted with Hil’s help, and they had all made threats against Hil in the past. He, Alasdair, Julianna, Wiley, and Townsend tracked down most of them. A few had gone missing or moved away, or just disappeared. Most of those were long shots, anyway—the son of an accountant who had been transported for theft after he’d been caught stealing from the company till; the wife of man still in prison for blowing up a factory; the daughter of a woman who had poisoned her second husband for his money. They were only looking at cases that revolved around London. Hil had drawers full of cases that involved people in the countryside, or on the continent. Some of which had been solved via correspondence. All of those were potential threats, as well. It was incredibly frustrating to realize he’d made enemies of people he’d never even met.

While they were searching for the real killer, Eleanor sat at Number Five Saville Street, impatiently waiting for her shoulder to heal. Harry fussed over her all day, and the children were running amok, much to Hil’s dismay. He’d found his favorite book by Defoe half chewed through by the baby, who’d thrown up after ingesting it, which Hil felt was only fair. But to come home and find Eleanor waiting for him in the light of day was the most amazing thing to ever happen to him, and he had no intention of giving it up. And so he toiled harder, wracking his brain for a clue as to the identity of the killer and their attacker. All to no avail.

Monday came, and he and Eleanor rose from their warm bed after the sweetest coupling he’d ever had. How did she manage to set him afire and soothe his soul at the same time? She had no quips this morning. They were both silent as they dressed and went downstairs. Before long their family and friends began arriving, but it was a subdued breakfast, only polite chatter allowed on a day they’d been dreading. Roger said not a word, but he looked like hell. Sick and sad and angry. He’d told Hil the day before they had nothing that would exonerate her. Their only hope was to play upon the jury’s sympathy. That meant dragging Eleanor’s past out in the open, but it couldn’t be helped.

There was no time to waste, but at 10:00
A.M.
, when the last knock came at the door, they still lingered. Hil sat holding Eleanor’s hand at the table, as she listened to Julianna tell a story about a boy at the foundling home she sponsored. Eleanor had her chin in her hand and she was smiling, letting a tinkling laugh escape now and then.

James entered. “Inspector Vickery is here, sir, to collect Mrs. Fairchild.”

Harry’s teacup clattered in the saucer as she dropped it in the suddenly silent room. She stood up with Eleanor and Hil, and the others followed. But it wasn’t Vickery that appeared in the doorway, it was Townsend. “Good morning, madam,” he said with a polite bow. He entered and came to stand behind Hil.

Before Hil could ask him what was going on, another Bow Street inspector appeared in the doorway, Mr. Taunton. “Good morning,” he said to the room in general. “Taunton here. Sir Hilary,” he said respectfully. He came and stood next to Townsend. Two more appeared, Lavender and Ruthven. They came in, said good morning, and stood with their comrades, behind Hil and Eleanor.