For Elise (26 page)

Without lifting her head from its position buried against his blanket, Elise held up a folded piece of parchment, the handwriting on the front horribly familiar. Miles muttered a curse, staring.

“On my pillow, Miles! He was in my room. In there while I was sleeping. Standing right there. Watching me!”

Miles set Anne on his pillow, then slid out of his bed. Elise climbed up on the instant, crawling to where her daughter slept. She pulled Anne into her arms, stroking the girl’s hair.

Miles lit the bedside candle and unfolded the paper. “Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home,” he read aloud.

Elise watched him with fear-filled eyes. “It’s a nursery rhyme. You remember it. ‘Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children are gone.”

He did remember. “‘All except one and—’” His heart dropped to his toes as the next line of the poem came to him. “‘And her name is Anne.’”

Tears welled in Elise’s eyes. “I ran to the nursery, and she wasn’t there.”

“She came in here,” he said. “She seemed scared. I couldn’t manage to ask a question she could understand, but I assumed she’d had a nightmare.”

Elise turned an unearthly shade of pale. “What if it wasn’t a nightmare? What if she was afraid because she saw someone who frightened her? Someone in her room?”

Saints above!

“Stay here.” He would rouse the staff. He trusted them. Langley. Anyone available to search.

“He might still be in the house,” she said. “We’d be safest if we’re not alone.”

Even in her distress, Elise was thinking more clearly than he was. Miles lifted Anne into his arms, then grabbed Elise’s hand. They rushed down the corridor. The jarring movement woke Anne, who looked about in confusion. Neither Miles nor Elise paused to explain.

He pounded on the door of Beth and Langley’s bedchamber. Anne rubbed at her sleepy eyes. Elise trembled beside him. Fear sat deep in her shaky breaths.

He pounded again. What was taking so long?

The door opened. “Yes?” Langley asked, only a slight crease in his brow indicating the situation was at all unusual.

“I need your help.”

“What is going on?” Beth’s voice came from inside the bedchamber.

Miles jumped directly into the explanation, not wanting to waste a moment. “Someone has been sending Elise extremely threatening letters—the man who murdered her father and mine, we suspect.”

Langley’s eyes grew wide.

“This one”—Miles held up the letter Elise had relinquished to him—“she found a moment ago on her pillow.”

“Laws,” Langley muttered. Miles was taken aback at the sound of the usually very proper Langley issuing a decidedly lower class bit of cant. “What does the note say?”

“The Ladybird nursery rhyme,” Elise whispered. She still shook, though her voice was steadier than it had been in his bedchamber. “The one that mentions a child named Anne.”

“Beth,” Langley called over his shoulder. “Tug the bell pull. Several times. We need as much of the staff roused as possible.” He looked back at Miles expectantly.

Miles pulled Elise up to his side, holding her and Anne as near to him as he could manage.
In his mind, he could see a menacing silhouette looming over Elise as she’d slept, the same one creeping into Anne’s nursery. They might have been killed, murdered in their beds!

“Anything you can tell us,
Mrs. Jones,” Squire Beaumont pressed. “Anything at all to help us form an idea of the man we are attempting to find.”

“It was long ago.” Elise fidgeted. Not long
enough
ago. “It was very dark, and he wore a mask.”

“You must remember something about him,” Squire Beaumont insisted, scratching at his hairline. “How tall was he?”

“Taller than my father. But not as tall as Mr. Linwood.”

“I knew neither man.” Squire Beaumont looked to Miles and Mr. Langley with a helpless expression.

“That would make him somewhere between my height and Mr. Langley’s,” Miles explained.

“What about hair color?” Squire Beaumont asked.

She felt like she was gasping for air. None of these memories were welcome. And sitting heavy on her mind and heart was the knowledge that this man had been inches from her only the night before. He might have actually touched her.

“I don’t know . . . darker hair. Brown or black.”

“Eyes?”

“I couldn’t see his eyes well. He wore a mask. They were shadowed.”

“If you had to guess?”

Elise swallowed. She forced out several quick breaths. “I would . . . guess . . . brown. Dark.”

“He used pistols, correct?”

Elise nodded. She paced away from the gentlemen, who were watching her too closely. Would the questions never end? Would she never be free of this burden she’d carried for four years?

“What do you remember about the pistols?”

“They killed three men,” Elise snapped. “I remember
that.
”

Complete silence descended on the room behind her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered and dropped onto the window seat.

The pain in her head pulsated with each heartbeat. Her neck and shoulders hurt from the tension she’d carried with her since the night before. Anne had insisted she’d fled to Miles’s room over a nightmare, but Elise couldn’t be entirely calm. The letter was too pointed to be misunderstood. Anne was being threatened.

She leaned her head against the window, trying to stay calm. If she could remember something crucial, they might have some idea what to do next.

“I really saw only one of them in detail,” she said. “It had a handle of dark wood. And there were ivory flowers inlaid in the handle. They looked like . . . not daisies, precisely.” She could still see that gun in her mind, never having been able to forget, no matter how she’d tried.

“Crocus, perhaps?” Miles asked.

Crocus?
“Yes. I think it might have been.”

Miles muttered what sounded like a curse.

“Grenton?” Mr. Langley asked, obviously curious.

“I am absolutely certain those were my father’s Mantons,” Miles said. “Ivory inlay in a crocus pattern. They were custom made.”

“Your father was killed with his own pistols?” Mr. Langley sounded shocked.

“We’ve estimated the murderer carried four,” Miles said. “At least one of those pistols, it would seem, belonged to my father—his duelers.”

“And the others?” Squire Beaumont asked.

Elise didn’t look back at the gentlemen. She clenched and unclenched her fingers, trying to keep herself calm.

“Part of me suspects both of Mr. Linwood’s weapons were used and that the remaining two pistols were Mr. Furlong’s,” Mr. Langley answered.

“My thoughts as well,” Miles said. “Which means this bounder had access to both homes and knowledge of where the pistols were kept.”

“And the ability to return them after the crime,” Mr. Langley added. “Both sets were auctioned when the estates were settled.”

“He showed Mr. Linwood the pistol before he shot him,” Elise said. “He made certain he saw it.”

That sobered the mood further.

The squire shook his head in obvious disgust. “What kind of hideous villain would kill a man with his own weapon and actually pause long enough to make that fact known to his victim?”

“The kind who would send letters threatening to kill the recipient rather than simply doing it,” Mr. Langley said. “It seems to me he enjoys tormenting his victims.”

“Or,” Miles added, “is simply so proud of how easily he avoids detection that he makes a game of it.”

A breeze outside rustled the heavily leafed branches of the oak tree growing along the banks of the River Trent. The scene was so deceptively calm and peaceful. Elise wrapped her arms around her waist.

“You believe he will follow through with his threats?” Squire Beaumont asked. “Or does he simply mean to cause her endless misery?”

“I believe we must proceed under the assumption he will make good on his threats,” Miles said. “Including those aimed at Anne.”

“And he would stoop to hurting a child?” Squire Beaumont sounded nervous.

“There is nothing he would not stoop to,” Elise answered without looking away from the tree. “I do not think this is a man with a conscience, with any basic human compassion. And I would further wager he is quite expert at hiding underneath everyone’s noses.”

“Do you believe the neighborhood is in danger?”

“It is a possibility we would be well advised to prepare against.” Miles really did sound like a marquess when he chose to.

“The men and gentlemen in the area will, of course, be warned,” Squire Beaumont assured the room at large.

“Squire Beaumont?” Elise rose from the seat and turned to face him. She fought against a sudden trembling in her legs.

“Yes, Mrs. Jones?”

Her nerve nearly failed her. Her pounding heartbeat echoed through her from head to toe. She must give him the added warning. How could she live with herself if she did not and something unthinkable happened? “Please warn the men to . . . to be particularly protective of their daughters and their wives.”

“You think this man poses a threat to women in particular?” Squire Beaumont paled considerably.

“He is capable of terrible things,” Elise said. Her stomach tied in painful knots. The eyes of all three gentleman were on her, questions obvious on their faces. “Now, if I am no longer needed, I would like to go visit Anne. I want to make certain this has not unduly upset her.”

No one objected. As calmly as she could force herself to move, Elise slid from the library. In her mind, she could hear that long-ago laughter that had accompanied cold-blooded murders and the haunting refrain of a children’s rhyme.
Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home.

* * *

“Miles Linwood.” Only Mama Jones called him by his full name in that matter-of-fact tone she seemed to have perfected.

“Mama Jones.” He rose from his seat in the library, where he had remained after Squire Beaumont and Langley had both taken their leave. He offered her a bow, something that always made her shake her head at him, as if he had completely taken leave of his senses.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Of course.” He would very much like to talk to her as well. “Please have a seat.”

“That I will.” She hobbled across the room, leaning on her cane. Her life had obviously been difficult. She was young yet to be as physically worn down as she was. Miles had learned early in their acquaintance that she did not appreciate him offering his arm to assist her. She considered accepting it to be “getting above herself.”

Mama Jones slowly lowered herself into a high-backed armchair near the fire, sighing as she settled in more comfortably. Miles chose the chair opposite her. Mama Jones set the bag she’d come with on her lap.

“Heard there was trouble here last night.” Mama Jones jumped into the heart of the matter as she always did.

“Lands,
was
there!” Miles sighed. He leaned against the back of his chair, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “We were lucky, Mama Jones.” He shook his head, his worry over the previous night’s events still heavy. “We were very lucky.”

“The man who tried to kill her before my Jim found her,” Mama Jones said, “he is here?”

“He is. Somewhere.”

“And he has been threatening m’ Ella and Anne?”

“He has.”

“And last night he was in Ella’s room?”

“Yes.”

“She escaped unharmed?” Mama Jones looked more intently at him.

“She did.”

“Are you certain?”

“She appeared perfectly well.”

Mama Jones’s lips pursed, her eyes drifting away for a moment. A look of determination crossed her cragged features, and she began rummaging through her bag. She pulled from it the awkward wooden box that usually resided on her mantel.

“M’ Jim told me some things.” Mama Jones lifted the box’s lid. “An’ I can’t tell you directly. I gave m’ word, I did, not to tell a soul.”

“About Elise?” Even as he asked, Miles knew the answer was yes.

“You need to know.” She nodded slowly. “Though I can’t say it right out, you’re bright. You’ll see it for yourself.”

Mama Jones handed him the sketch Elise had done of Jim Jones.

“Keep it till you understand what I’m showin’ you for,” Mama Jones instructed.

Miles knew she treasured the drawing, probably the only likeness she had of her son. “I promise to treat it with utmost care.”

“I know you will,” Mama Jones said. “But look at it. See if you can understand. I worry for Ella.” She slowly rose.

At the door, she stopped and looked up at Miles. “Jim knew he would not come home from the war.” A tear hung in the corner of her eye. “But he promised Ella he’d look after her, from above, you know? Promised to until you came and found her.”

“Until
I
came?”

“She spoke of you often enough. ’Twere apparent to Jim and to me that she loved you and missed you fiercely. Jim was certain you hadn’t forgotten her.”

Miles joined her in the doorway. “I never forgot. I simply couldn’t find her.”

“She did not wish to be found,” Mama Jones answered. “Though I think she wanted you to.”

“To find her?”

“Aye. She was confused and very frightened.” Mama Jones patted Miles’s cheek. “Study the picture. You need to know what tore her away from you and what Ella is afraid of now.”

Mama Jones left the library, and Miles settled back at his desk, staring into the eyes of a man he had been trying for weeks not to dislike. Jim Jones was revered by all who knew him. He was the shining knight Miles had failed to be, the sainted war hero.

“Be fair,” Miles muttered to himself. He pushed out a puff of air before settling back in and taking another look.

Jim Jones had been a boy. He had died the youth Miles saw on the paper before him. He’d left behind a wife, a child he would never even see.

“I have been envying him that? A life cut tragically short?” Miles shook his head at his own folly. Had his pride not permitted even a glimmer of gratitude? This boy had saved Elise. She’d said herself that Jim had saved her life.

Miles treasured little Anne. He had introduced her to the idea of having “tea” with Heloise and the new doll he had bought for her, whose name he hadn’t yet deciphered. Anne had come alive as she’d learned to play. She was loving and sweet.

Her smile, like so much of the rest of her, was the exact copy of Elise’s. Miles melted at the sight of it. That same smile had convinced him to go along with any number of schemes when he was a boy.

He glanced back at the sketch once more. Anne’s resemblance to her mother was obvious. But in what ways did she look like her father?

Then Miles saw what he was certain Mama Jones had been hoping he would: Jim Jones’s light eyes.

He thought back on every couple he knew, thought of their children. He could not think of a single couple who were both blue eyed and had produced a dark-eyed child. It likely
could
happen but was rare enough that Miles had never known it to occur. Miles’s brown eyes were the reason some had begun to speculate on his role in Elise’s life. A brown-eyed girl with a blue-eyed mother almost certainly meant there had been a dark-eyed father.

He stared at the sketch of Jim Jones, focused on the obviously light eyes. He knew in an instant this was what Mama Jones wished him to see, the only way she could think of to tell him this important piece of Elise’s puzzle without breaking her word to her son.

Jim Jones was not Anne’s father.