The Counterfeit Lady (21 page)

He never got the chance. I moved forward and pressed my lips against his in a rush of desire. I held the back of his head so I could get that last fraction of an inch closer to him. I might never get another chance to kiss him, and I wanted to know what his skin felt like against mine.

And then Blackford took charge. The kiss softened and gained electricity that shot down my spine and made my toes curl. For a moment, we were a pirate-raider and a princess, and the world stood still.

Then he pulled away and said, “I’ve wanted to kiss you for a very long time. Now I’ve discovered this might become habit-forming.”

I smiled as if he had just given me the queen’s jewels. “Some habits are good for you.”

He released a long breath and swept one hand toward the door. “We need to catch Snelling. After you.”

Sticking my head out of the doorway, I saw the hall was empty. Blackford left behind me and shut the door. I hurried toward the draperies over the window at the end of the hall. The hall seemed long enough to stretch across the width of London, but finally I reached the end and climbed behind the draperies without anyone catching me. Luckily, the maids did a good job cleaning and I didn’t have to sneeze from the dust.

I peeked out from my hiding spot. The duke had already disappeared around the corner and I felt more alone than ever.

The window ledge was wide enough to sit on and draw my feet up, hiding me entirely from anyone who might see me in the weak light from the night lanterns. The glass windowpanes were cool to the touch from the night air. It was dark and quiet where I sat, and I soon felt my head nodding.

A noise woke me, bringing my head and back away from where I had leaned on the side of the window opening. I looked out through the gap between the draperies in time to see a woman’s skirt and foot disappear around the turn toward the main stairs.

I listened for a moment, but no one else appeared to be stirring. I climbed out of my hiding place and dashed in my dancing slippers to the top of the stairs. Looking down, I glimpsed the hem of a skirt glide down the far hallway.

Rushing along the staircase and foyer, I skidded to a stop when I reached the far hall. No one was in sight. I stopped in front of the door that led to the study. Taking a deep breath to calm my racing heart, I opened the door. A quick check showed there was no one inside and there was no way out.

The next door led to a parlor with a connecting door to another parlor. I continued through the empty rooms, trying each locked, bolted door to the terrace in turn before reaching the door that brought me to the library.

The library’s exit leading into the back garden was unlocked and unbolted. Could Snelling be meeting his buyer on the terrace at this moment? I opened the door, stepped outside, and tripped. I waved my arms and stumbled, landing heavily on my hands and knees. Groaning, I pulled myself up using the half wall that encircled part of the terrace.

Rubbing my knees, I swung around to see what was in my path. A body lay on the ground with its arms and legs sprawled. The moonlight was bright enough that I could make out Mick Snelling’s features and the odd angle his head lay from his body.

I glanced around. No package. No blueprints. His attacker had beaten me to it. I was about to run back in and go upstairs to get Blackford when the door opened. Baron von Steubfeld blocked my path. His furious expression was nearly as intimidating as the pistol he aimed at me. A pistol I couldn’t fail to see glittering in the moonlight.

I stared at the gun rather than his face as I said, “Baron von Steubfeld.” I kept my shaking knees from carrying me back a step. There was no way I’d show fear to the top German spy in England, even if he planned to kill me. If? The pistol left me in no doubt as to his intensions.

“You killed him.”

“No, I—” Surprise jerked my gaze up to look at the baron’s face. “You think I killed him?”

“What have you done with the blueprints?” His voice ground out the unmistakable note of threat.

“Nothing. I found things just as you see them.”

“Do you want the money I would pay him? Because I assure you, there are other ways of making you tell me where the drawings are.” The moonlight showed the cruel smile beneath his mustache.

“She doesn’t have them.”

I made out the solid shadow of the Duke of Blackford behind him. The duke reached out his hand in front of von Steubfeld’s face. The German grimaced and gave him his pistol. “How can you be sure? She might have killed him and taken the plans for herself.”

“I am certain.” The duke must have pocketed the gun, because it was no longer in his hand when he stepped around the baron and knelt by Snelling. “He’s had his neck broken.”

“Professionally done?” the baron asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I apologize, Mrs. Monthalf. You are not a professional killer.”

I pressed my lips together to hide my smile. This was not the time to admit I was a professional, but one who lacked knowledge of breaking necks. “Sumner?” I asked Blackford.

“Possibly, but he would have waited here guarding the ship plans until help arrived. And he’s in London.” The duke rose. “What about your valet?”

A deep sigh rumbled through von Steubfeld’s chest. “Not him. I told him I would handle the transaction, after he botched the transfer last night.”

“Why wouldn’t Snelling deal with your valet?” Blackford had probably learned more from Sumner last night than he’d told me.

“He’d always dealt directly with me before. I suppose he didn’t trust an unknown intermediary.”

“Snelling had already been visited by Sir Henry Stanford with an offer for the blueprints. Perhaps he thought your valet worked for someone other than you,” I suggested.

“Perhaps,” the baron agreed. “And it cost Snelling his life. Meanwhile, my valet waits in my room to carry the drawings into the village. By morning he would have been well on his way to London to catch a boat across the North Sea.”

“After the first handoff, during the ball, failed. Our people were the ones who blocked the first attempt, Baron.” I was ready to give credit to the work the Archivist Society had done.

“You are to be congratulated, Miss Fenchurch.”

I looked at the baron in surprise. “You were the one who sent the notes?”

“Yes. One of my agents is a porter. Very handy when I want to find out what is being moved around London. He was puzzled by the number of sea trunks moved from a dressmaker’s to a house in Mayfair. I had you followed from the house to your bookshop. A few discreet questions gave me your name. When I began to ask around, I learned about your connection to the Archivist Society.” The baron gave me a considering look. “No one else figured out your true mission or your identity. You are to be congratulated.”

I nodded to him graciously. I wasn’t ready to finish playing the well-brought-up lady. “Those notes. Would you have killed me?”

“If I couldn’t find a better solution.”

I shivered.

“I think it’s time to wake our host and have him call the police,” Blackford said, an edge to his voice.

“Does my interest in this man need to be made public?” the baron asked.

“Not if you give me your word as a gentleman that you don’t know where the drawings are currently, don’t have them in your possession, and won’t try to retrieve them.” The duke stared at the baron.

The baron held his gaze. “I neither have them nor know where they are. If they should fall in my lap, I will of course attempt to send them to Germany. That is how the game is played.”

“It’s not a game. A man is dead,” I said.

“Unfortunately, Snelling is the only man who could have testified to Gattenger’s innocence in his wife’s death,” the duke told me.

“Surely all this will be enough to free him from prison.” I sounded slightly desperate to my own ears.

“All what, Georgina? We have a dead man miles from the Gattenger home with no apparent connection to either the husband or the wife. No, finding the drawings on Snelling might have been sufficient. The testimony of a live Snelling certainly would have helped. Finding a dead man without the plans does nothing to prove Gattenger didn’t kill his wife or commit treason.” The duke prowled the area around the body, no doubt looking for the blueprints.

The baron leaned against the door frame, watching him.

“Do you have any other operatives in the area, von Steubfeld?”

“No.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.” His grumble told me he now saw that as a mistake.

“How do we know he didn’t kill Snelling instead of paying him, then hide the blueprints and come back here to move the body, only to find I arrived first?” I asked the duke.

“Snelling was a skilled thief. I needed him alive. And I’ve never minded paying him his fee,” the baron said. “I will take an oath as a gentleman to that effect.”

“Your word is sufficient,” the duke said.

Baron von Steubfeld gave a sharp military bow in reply.

“He’s telling you the truth,” the duke added. “I showed the drawing Gattenger did of Snelling to some friends at Whitehall, who showed it to a witness in another case where the baron was suspected. He’s used Snelling before.”

“And so you are indirectly responsible for Clara Gattenger’s death,” I pointed out. “You sent Snelling to her house to steal from them and he killed her.”

The baron crossed his arms over his chest. “I am not responsible for Snelling’s foolish mistake. And I have diplomatic immunity as a member of the German embassy staff.”

I glared at him, knowing he was right. There would be no charges filed against him, and nothing that would clear Gattenger’s name. Clara’s killer, Snelling, was dead. But who killed him? And where were the blueprints? This was going to be a very long night.

I
rubbed my gloves along my chilled arms. “Do you want me to tell Lord and Lady Harwin they have a dead body in their garden?”

“Yes. Von Steubfeld and I will wait here for reinforcements.” Blackford smiled. “That will assure both of us of our mutual honesty.”

I went back in through the door I’d exited, knowing whoever had killed Snelling couldn’t have come this way. I’d have seen him. And he’d have to be a hulking brute to snap a man’s neck. At least the criminals I knew with that talent were.

Hurrying up the stairs, I hesitated for a moment, trying to remember what door I’d seen Lord Harwin enter. Mercifully, one of the footmen appeared from down the hall. “Are you coming from Sir Henry’s room?”

“Yes,” the footman said with a yawn.

“How is he?”

“Still unconscious. He’s breathing. One of the maids is with him now.” He took a step to move on, his eyelids drooping.

“Could you wake Lord Harwin? We have a body in the garden.”

The footman stared at me for a moment, groaned, and then hurried over to a door and tapped on it. When that didn’t bring a response, he tapped harder. A sleepy grumble could be heard.

The footman walked in and I followed as Lord Harwin sat up in bed. Seeing me, he quickly threw a robe over his striped pajamas. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a dead body in the garden,” I said.

Lord Harwin gawked at me as if I’d grown a second head.

“Baron von Steubfeld and the Duke of Blackford are guarding it until the police are summoned.”

“You’d think these people would have better manners than to kill each other off in my garden. I’ll be right there.” His lordship stuffed his feet into slippers and rose, belting his robe as he crossed the room.

I ran downstairs again, planning to go out to the two men. Instead, I began to move around, checking room by room, looking for anything out of place. Anything that might tell me where the drawings were.

There were too many hiding places. Chests, bookshelves, drawers in the servers. I’d have to turn on the lights and start searching room by room. Or get the duke or Lord Harwin to order it.

I went out onto the terrace and began to try the other doors into the house, watched by the duke and von Steubfeld. The doors to the ladies’ parlor and the red parlor were still locked. I went the other direction past the two men and tried the first door on the other side. It opened easily. I stuck my head inside and didn’t recognize the room.

“What is this?”

“The smoking room.”

I’d check this as the most likely room in which to hide the plans as soon as Lord Harwin or the police took over watching the crime scene. The killer I’d followed hadn’t had much time to snap Snelling’s neck and get back into the house before I came out.

I walked back to Blackford and told him my suspicions. “If he hasn’t run into the village instead,” was his reply.

“Then someone will be missing from the house, and that will be easy to discover.”

“Could it be Lady Bennett, Baron?”

He looked at me and laughed. “Good heavens, no. I don’t trust her, but I’m sure she is only out for the pleasure of being seen at the best parties. And I only use her for—social occasions and gossip.”

“Was she out for pleasure in breaking Clara Gattenger’s heart by telling her another woman’s secret?” I asked. “You did ask Lady Bennett to tell Mrs. Gattenger, didn’t you?”

The baron frowned but did not reply.

Blackford said, “What is this?”

“The reason there was a fire in the Gattenger study the day Clara was killed. The baron told Lady Bennett of Gattenger’s secret the same day Gattenger took the new warship plans out of the Admiralty. It turns out that both times their engagement was called off, Ken Gattenger had an affair. Lady Bennett immediately told Clara Gattenger what the baron told her. Clara insisted on facing the woman and demanding any love letters or trinkets her husband had given the woman. She took them home and burned them.” I stared angrily at the baron.

“Von Steubfeld, is this true?” The duke employed his most commanding tone.

“Yes. I thought it would keep the Gattengers out of the study that evening, allowing Snelling to get in and take the blueprints. Regretfully, it didn’t work.” He shrugged.

I wanted to punch him for being so callous. “The baron told Lady Bennett that delivering bad news was her payment for dancing with the devil.”

Blackford winced.

“What’s more, Your Grace, I’ve been told Lady Bennett was trying to get her hands on the blueprints Snelling possessed.” I glared at the baron.

“Lady Bennett was trying to get the ship blueprints for herself? That’s impossible.” The baron laughed. “Lady Bennett understands clothes and manners and decorating. She wouldn’t know what a blueprint looked like.”

“We’re going to need to search every inch of this house to find the blueprints. You can refuse on diplomatic grounds, von Steubfeld, for your luggage and wardrobe to be searched, but I ask that you agree. It will make it difficult for anyone else to object,” Blackford said.

“And therefore easier to find the person who cheated me.” The baron smiled with a look that made me shiver. He was already planning revenge. “Very well. I agree.”

Lord Harwin arrived accompanied by the footman I’d spoken to earlier. The weary footman was ordered to send someone into town to carry a message to the police station and to bring back the doctor. He shuffled off, head bowed. Then Harwin went inside to wake his staff and his wife.

The baron, Blackford, and I went into the house when a second footman came to stand watch over the body. I glanced back to see the young man gaze nervously over his shoulder and then look longingly at the house. The baron went upstairs, presumably to tell his valet the bad news. After a few minutes, sleepy-eyed members of the staff were fanning out throughout the main floor with their morning duties, lighting gas lamps as they plumped cushions and dusted and swept. The dining room was prepared for an early breakfast.

I guessed Lord Harwin had warned his servants that the police would soon arrive and some of the guests would either be disturbed out of their rest or would come downstairs out of curiosity.

“I think we should check the smoking room. It’s the most likely place for someone to have reentered the house.” I started in that direction.

“Why not the ladies’ parlor? It’s as close to the entrance where the body was found as the smoking parlor.”

“Because, Your Grace, Lady Bennett could have known what the baron was up to and wanted to get there first. She could name her own price for those blueprints with half a dozen countries, including ours. And she would know, like I do, that the parlor door to the terrace was locked and bolted tonight by the butler when everyone went to bed. Lord Harwin had given specific instructions in front of everyone after Sir Henry was attacked in the garden. That door is still bolted, and I found the smoking parlor door unlocked.”

“Your Grace,” Lady Harwin called from the foot of the stairs.

He walked over to talk to her, and I went into the smoking room. The gaslights were now lit, and I could easily see there was no bolt on this door. The key was on a table a few feet from the door.

“Does my lady require anything?” The man’s voice made me jump.

I swung around to find myself facing the butler. “Was this door locked last night?”

“I’m sure it was. I asked the gentlemen still in here when the rest of the guests had retired to lock this door.”

“Who were these gentlemen?”

“Baron von Steubfeld and the Bishop of Wellston.”

I immediately eliminated the Anglican bishop from espionage. The baron could have pretended to lock up, leaving it open for a meeting with Snelling. A meeting someone disrupted.

“Thank you.” I gave a gracious nod and turned back to my study of the room.

His footsteps barely made a sound as he walked away.

There was a small chest against the side of the room. I carefully opened the dry leather clasps of the old trunk. Empty. There was a server with several drawers. The only thing I managed to do was wrinkle the linens stored there and shuffle the paper and ink bottles. I looked under chairs and tables. Nothing lurked between the furniture legs.

I was about to give up in disgust when I looked at the top of the server and a table that ran behind the sofa in the direct path from the terrace to the hallway. Various boxes of cigars were scattered around. Boxes large enough to hold the papers we sought.

One after another, I reached into the painted wooden boxes to make certain they contained only cigars. Finally, I put my hand in one and hit something that was too bulky to be cigars under a single layer of Havana’s finest. I dumped the cigars on the tabletop and found blueprint paper underneath.

Laughing with relief, I unfolded the papers. While I couldn’t understand them, I could make out the outline of a ship on the top sheet. I swung around, the papers in one hand, and froze where I stood.

Rosamond Peters stood before me, a pistol in her hand and her bag tucked under her arm. Her gun was smaller than the baron’s, but it looked just as lethal.

“Lady Peters. This isn’t what this appears to be.”

“On the contrary, it is. This appears to be the second time you’ve taken something that belongs to me.”

My expression would have been comical in a cheerier situation. “You? Why would you want this?”

“Not for myself, you understand. For France.”

At Lord Fleetwhite’s dinner party, I had heard that no one knew who the French spy was. “You’re the French spy. A woman. How clever. Of course none of those men would realize you were a spy.”

“You didn’t, either.”

“Because I thought you were my friend.” And then I remembered another incident. “The hatbox the thief wanted was yours. That’s how you pass messages.”

“That’s one way.” She smiled, but it was a colder, less friendly smile than I’d seen on her face before.

“Why did the thief take Lady Phyllida’s hatbox instead of yours?”

“He was hired by my contact—”

“The jeweler Henry at Fortier’s.”

She smiled but didn’t admit it. “—to take my hatbox, but he didn’t know what I looked like. He grabbed the first box from Gautier’s that he saw.”

“You knew that Baron von Steubfeld planned the theft of the drawings? And you decided to take them instead while everyone was looking in another direction?”

“Everyone was busy making arrangements to come here, so there had to have been something valuable attracting all this attention. I came along to find out what it was.” She walked toward me.

For once I obeyed my cowardly feet and took three steps back, frantically refolding the blueprints. Then I began to edge around the end table and the sofa.

“Please, Georgina. I don’t want to shoot you. But I will to get those drawings back.”

“Back? You were the one to put them in the cigar box?”

“Of course. I came down to retrieve them while the police searched my room. Unfortunately, you got here first.”

“Then who broke Snelling’s neck?”

“I did.”

“You know how to do that? I’m impressed.” I stopped, stunned to be in the presence of a woman who was deadlier than Emma. What I wouldn’t give for Emma’s knife at that moment. And the knowledge of how to use it.

She chose that moment to lunge toward me to grab the blueprints.

I jumped back, clutching them to my chest. “Did you strike down Sir Henry?”

“He told me he’d figured out my secret.”

“Which one?” I took two more steps away from her, backing up toward the door onto the terrace. The door was unlocked. If I could open the door fast enough and get outside, it would buy me time. Open the door faster than a bullet?

“That I spy for France.” She matched me, step for step.

“You won’t shoot me, Lady Peters. There are too many people around.”

“But none to see who fired the pistol. I shoot you, grab the drawings, drop the gun, and slip outside. I’ll come in another way and join the group who comes running to see what has happened. I’ll of course lament the loss of my friend Georgina.”

I swung around a chair and backed along the far side of the room toward the door standing open into the hallway. “There’s a footman standing guard on Snelling’s body on the terrace. He would hear the gunshot and see you leaving.”

“Then I shall have to open the door and call to him that a madman is shooting at us and to help. You won’t be in any position to disagree with me.”

Her plan would work. The only thing I could do was try to reach the hallway before she fired. Once there, I’d certainly be in sight of someone. I kept backing up.

She raised her pistol.

I covered my chest with the blueprints, hoping Rosamond Peters didn’t want a bullet hole damaging the warship drawings.

“Stop right there.”

I’d never been so glad to hear Blackford’s voice.

“You’re unarmed, Duke.” Lady Peters glanced from Blackford to me, calculating her chances, which had suddenly turned against her.

“But the man standing behind you isn’t.”

The gaslights wavered in the breeze from the open door to the garden. I looked past Rosamond to see Fogarty in the doorway.