She smiled a crooked, wry smile. “Yes, he is,” she acknowledged. “But he has been fair, I really have no complaints other than he did not want me to bring the family to London for Aileen’s come out. He certainly didn’t agree due to any argument I presented! Aileen and Sorcha worked to wear him down until he laughingly agreed.”
“And he knew all along that Malcolm lived?” James asked.
She nodded. “Three weeks ago, I received a long letter from him, full of apologies for the deception, as he admitted Malcolm was alive. He said the faked death was Malcolm’s idea. He said for a while he feared Malcolm would take his own life, but once he’d faked his death, he seemed to relax and no longer talked of death, so his cousin took that to be a good thing.”
“Did anyone else know Malcolm Montgomery was not dead?” James asked.
“In his letter, Boyd said only Malcolm’s father, himself, the vicar, and my father knew. I am highly distraught to know my father and the vicar were knowledgeable and condoned the lies.”
“I think it the height of impertinence for them not to consider you might wish to remarry,” Cecilia said. “Typical male blindness.”
James raised an eyebrow at her summation.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that, you know what I mean,” Cecilia said with a mild laugh.
“How is it that Alastair came to be arrested for his death?” James asked.
She shook her head. “When we discovered Malcolm was alive, Alastair decided to go see Malcolm. He said he would discuss paperwork for a divorce. He promised he would convince Malcolm it would be for the best. From what I gathered from Alastair’s brief note, he must have been there when Malcolm died or had just left. I don’t know,” she said helplessly.
“Do you know Mr. Montgomery’s cause of death?” Cecilia asked.
“No! It has not appeared in any of the correspondence I’ve received. Not even from Alastair!”
Cecilia frowned and turned her head to her husband. He returned her regard and shook his head. “It’s late June; most likely, the quarterly assizes for that county are past, which is toour advantage,” he said. “I don’t know what the schedule would be before the next assizes in that area. We need to find out how he died, and we need to investigate before the trial.”
“Yes,” Cecilia agreed. “There would be too many who would love to see a peer found guilty. Best if we could absolve himbeforethis goes to trial.”
“My thought as well. Mrs. Montgomery, thank you for contacting us. Soothcoor is a great friend. We will do all we can to establish his innocence.” James rose to his feet. Cecilia rose as well.
“Don’t worry so,” Cecilia said gently. “I know it is not in Soothcoor’s nature to kill someone. We just need to find who did.”
“Thank you, thank you so much,” Mrs. Montgomery said as she stood and rang for her butler. “Can I get you any refreshments to take with you?”
“No, we prepared for this journey, and I know our cook will have more for us at our townhouse. Our servants made sure we were prepared!” Cecilia told her with a small laugh.
As the butler saw them out, Cecilia clung tightly to James’s arm. “I have never been so shocked by a tale. Have you heard of such an illness before?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not directly, but if there are those who suffer from voices talking to them in their heads and others who see things that are not there, I fear there is much that those who study medicine today do not know about the mind, and these medicine scientists are only now beginning to learn.”
“Poor man. I wonder if there was a cause of his affliction?”
“It would be hard to say. After seeing the types of illness of the mind that some of our veterans returned from the wars with, I would venture a guess that it was trauma related. Most likely—considering the early stages of perceptions of him as different—it was childhood related.”
She nodded. “And how he must have loved his family if he concluded he needed to separate from them for their sake,” she said. “Poor man. Poor, poor man.”
James nodded and reached across his body to pat her arm.
CHAPTER 3
VISITORS WEIGH-IN
Mathers, their new London butler, met them in the entrance hall when they arrived at their London townhouse. “You have visitors. The Honorable Mr. and Mrs. Charles Sedgewick. They arrived not long ago and asked if they could wait. I have shown them into the parlor.”
“Thank you, Mathers,” James said with gravitas.
Mr. Sedgewick and Miss Rangeswamy met at their home near the end of their last adventure. Though Cecilia had thought to encourage a match between the boisterous Miss Rangeswamy and the Bow Street agent, Lewis Martin, the young Indian woman caught the eye and heart of a younger half-brother of the Earl of Soothcoor. After their wedding in April, they were to take a ship to India to settle the estate of another brother, Owen, Christopher’s father. Cecilia was surprised Mr. And Mrs. Sedgewick yet remained in England.
“Well,” Cecilia said with a laugh, “I had not expected we would be here long and not thought I’d remove my bonnet, instead I shall have to curb my impatience to be off,” she declared as she removed her gloves and untied her bonnet ribbons.
