The Wicked Truth. Lyn Stone
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inspector drew out his ever present pipe and gripped it between his straight, white teeth. He drew on it once as though it were lighted, causing an irritating little sucking sound. “The service was rather nice, wasn’t it?”
Elizabeth stared at him, incredulous. She recalled the pious, beak-nosed vicar and his nauseating nonsense about Terry’s being the flower of England’s youth. Terry would have choked. And all that trash about his death being God’s will made her see red. Her thoughts spilled out. “God’s will, indeed! I wanted to smack the fellow in the teeth with my cane!” She huffed and shivered. “Bloody fool. Why couldn’t he just call down God’s vengeance on the bastard that shot Terry and be done with it?”
“Now, now, steady on, Betts. Man’s just doin’ what he can to keep his living here. Not his fault he’s no talent for the pulpit. You’re just-overset.”
Lindy ran a finger around the rim of his bowler as he changed the subject. “Didn’t happen to notice a familiar face or voice, did you?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “The man from the theater? No, I’m afraid not. Matter of fact, I didn’t see a soul I know personally.” She frowned at the thought. “Not many attended. Probably because of Terry’s relationship with me.”
“Quite possibly,” he agreed. The good inspector certainly wasn’t one to gloss things over, she thought
They fell silent for a while. MacLinden sucked on his pipe. Elizabeth glared at him until he wrinkled his nose in apology and tucked it back in its special pocket.
Not long after tea, Neil returned and curtly announced he was ready to leave. MacLinden bade them a perfunctory fare-well and took his own rig, intending to stop over in Charing Cross.
For Elizabeth and Neil, the three-hour ride back to the city was silent but for the creaking of the coach springs and the sound of hoofbeats. From under lowered lashes, she studied her companion from time to time. Encased in tense silence, he gripped his engraved gold watch in a bare, fisted hand as he stared out the window into the darkness. His thumb rubbed the watchcase in a hard, circular motion, as though the thing were a talisman to ward off pain.
They arrived at the town house well after nine. Elizabeth pulled her stifling cravat loose and sank down on the bed in the countess’s chamber of the master suite. Neil had finally agreed to allow her to sleep here, but not before locking her hall door so that the only way out was through his room. He was alone in the adjoining room now and the silence was deafening,
Was he crying for Terry? His eyes had looked bloodshot throughout the day’s ordeal, the irises so dark a blue they appeared black. She felt a new respect for men and their capacity to remain dry-eyed in situations such as this. Even though she’d wept copiously the night before, the funeral had nearly destroyed her composure all over again.
Because of the autopsy, Terry had not lain in state at the town house, but had been carried directly from the morgue to the mortician and then to the chapel at Gormsloft. Though she had braced herself for it, seeing his sweet face composed in death had come as a frightful shock. It had taken all her concentration to hold herself in check.
Divesting herself of her male attire, Elizabeth drew on one. of Terry’s dressing gowns. She hugged it about her as though she could draw some of the young earl’s former warmth. Then she cried again for the friend who was gone forever.
Later, she woke to a clinking sound from next door. She slid out of bed and was lighting the lamp as the door opened. Neil appeared, balancing a tray on one hand.
“I suspect you are little at tea. Are you hungry?” he asked. Elizabeth stepped away so that he could deposit his burden on the bedside table beside the lamp.
She wrinkled her nose at the smell of burnt toast. “You cooked?”
He shrugged his shoulders. His voice sounded constrained and hoarse. “Not very well, I’m afraid. There’s ham, compliments of Lindy’s mother, and I’ve done up some eggs. Bread’s a mite singed at the edge, but there you are. Tea’s good and hot.” Not once had he looked up.
They stood close enough to touch. Elizabeth reached out. She couldn’t seem to help herself. It was the first time in memory that anyone had given a thought to her comfort who hadn’t been paid to do so. Even her father had ignored her for the most part after her mother died. Now Neil, despite his suffering, worried that she might be hungry.
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