childlike under the bed, and pretend not to be here died stillborn. “Lady Telmaine Hearne?” said the superintendent, though he well knew who she was. They had exchanged words when he arrested Ishmael. “Is this an inconvenient time?”
“I was just going to my sister’s to visit my children,” Telmaine said, coolly. “But I suppose this will not take particularly long.” She stepped back and let the two men in, the long-boned man with the distinctive Plantageter nose—which he came by quite legitimately, if through the distaff line—and the small rotund lawyer.
“I understand your husband is out of the city,” the superintendent said. “Would you prefer that one of your brothers or your brother-in-l aw were present?”
She couldn’t imagine which would be worse, to have her rigid eldest brother, Duke Stott, either of her two smart and mocking younger brothers, or her sister’s husband, Lord Judiciar Erskane. Merivan’s husband would be her best ally against the law, but if anyone found the missed stitches in her lace of lies, it would be he. She shook her head.
“The archduke said he thought you would prefer to have your own legal representation,” Malachi Plantageter continued. She sonned the lawyer, noting his shrewd face with mixed relief and apprehension. Di Brennan was not her family’s usual lawyer, but he represented the same firm, and he and Balthasar had spoken about Ishmael’s arrest; he knew at least part of the story—one of the stories.
“Thank you,” she said meekly. “What would you like to speak to me about?”
Without a word, without a theatrical flourish, the superintendent held out both hands. In one was a lady’s reticule; from the other dangled a silver love knot.
She knew her hands would tremble, but she had no choice but to accept both. She laid her hands down atop the reticule, the love knot held in her closed fist.
“Is there anything you would like to tell me, Lady Telmaine?” he said quietly.
“I thought I had lost them,” she said.
“How much money was in the reticule?”
“Sixty, sixty-five.” She ventured a small shrug of the shoulder, the insouciance of a lady to whom money comes easily.
“Perhaps,” di Brennan said to the superintendent, “you might explain.”
Plantageter leaned back with a sigh that she felt in her own weary bones. “Yesterday evening young Guillaume di Maurier was found seriously wounded—he had been shot in the abdomen.” The lawyer’s brow drew briefly in sympathy. “I sent one of my agents to take a statement. Di Maurier said he had been searching for a lost child—you may know he acts in an irregular capacity for Lord Vladimer—and had traced her to a warehouse in the Lower Docks. It was while he was there he was shot. He had given this information to the child’s mother with the expectation that she and”—a slight emphasis on the contested title—“Baron Strumheller would act to free the child. As the young man seemed in extremis, the agent did not tell him of Strumheller’s arrest. A kindness, you understand, if he were to die.” Telmaine made a small sound in her throat; Plantageter paused, awaiting her question, but both sonned di Brennan’s warning headshake. Breathing shallowly, gripping Bal’s love knot, she held her peace.
“That was around one fifteen of the clock. A little after half past, a coachman delivered a lady matching Lady Telmaine’s description to the Upper Docks. Further reports had the lady walking in the direction of the Lower Docks. At around two of the clock, fire broke out in a warehouse in the Lower Docks. An extremely fierce, hot fire. One or two witnesses claim they sonned a woman carrying something from the direction of the fire, but in such conditions such testimony could be challenged. Somewhat later, the lady returned to the waiting coach, smelling strongly of smoke and with a sick child in her arms. She asked to be driven to the archducal palace, claiming to have lost
Robin Lee Hatcher
Chuck Palahniuk
Lexy Timms
Jonathan Grant
Charlotte Brontë
RALPH COMPTON
Sean Campbell, Daniel Campbell
Kerry Greenwood
Janet Lee Carey
L.C. Lockwood