“She wants to find the killer,” Frederick said. “Our goals are aligned.”
“You can’t be that naïve.” He pulled a snuffbox from his pocket and pulled out a pinch. “She’s a canny woman, I’ll give you that, but it isn’t our policy to partner with civilians.”
“Partner, no.” Frederick shifted. This was delicate territory. Regardless if Frederick cooperated with Lady Mary and Eleanor or not, they would investigate. He didn’t want them to have a go at it defenseless, but he also couldn’t disregard a direct order from his superior. “The lady has been useful, giving me information and access to thetonI didn’t have. That doesn’t mean I provide her with information.”
Stauncey gave him an approving look. “Youaren’tthat naïve. That’s good to know.”
His good opinion made something inside Frederick wither. His self-respect, most like. He didn’t normally approve of deception, but this misdirection seemed the only way to keep control of the investigation. Keep control of Lady Mary and Eleanor. And without that control, disaster could ensue.
“I’ve asked Briley and Quinton to watch Lady Mary’s house during the party, just in case force becomes necessary.”
The magistrate sniffed another bit of tobacco. “You sound confident this silly party will pay fruit.”
“I don’t know that it will; I don’t know that it won’t.” Frederick ground his jaw. “I want to be prepared just in case.”
Stauncey leaned back. “Understood.”
As he remained quiet after that, Frederick stood to take his leave, thinking the interview over. His employer’s voice stopped him at the door. “Just how prepared are you, Rollins?”
He turned. “Sir?”
“For the consequences?” The magistrate’s dark eyes stared at him, unreadable. “You’re determined to follow where the evidence leads, but have you thought about what will happen when you make an arrest? The killer isn’t likely to be an unknown from the streets. The killer may well be someone with influence.”
And with that influence came connections. Those connections would be embarrassed by the results of the investigation. Those in power would be happier if Frederick arrested a nobody, regardless of guilt or innocence. It would make them feel better, safer, to pretend that it hadn’t been one of their peers who’d strangled a woman, shot her son to his death. It would be easier to stay wrapped in their cocoons, content in their ignorance.
Frederick’s arrest would likely tear that sense of safety from them.
And they wouldn’t thank him for it. If someone in power took particular exception, it could end his career.
He knew those were the consequences his magistrate hinted at. Knew that the offices at Bow Street were Stauncey’s top concern. He weighed the justice in this one case against the future harm if this office lost its funds.
But Frederick’s thoughts were of other consequences. Of someone else’s sense of safety being ripped apart.
Of the pain he could cause Eleanor if the person he arrested was the woman he feared had committed these crimes.
As he left the magistrate’s office, he swallowed down the lump in his throat. Simmons would get back to him in the next day or two with an analysis of the writings he’d submitted. Perhaps he would show that the paper in Bannister’s apartment wasn’t written by Mrs. Lynton.
But Frederick didn’t hold out much hope.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Eleanor
As dinner partieswent, this one was a disaster. Eleanor took a sip of her cream of watercress soup, the sounds of everyone’s spoons against their bowls loud in the dining room. With their limited guest list, everyone had soon realized this party for the ploy it was.
And they were not amused.
Lord Anglia was on her left, his cravat fussily knotted, his sighs expressing his extreme displeasure that he had been bothered to attend. Next to him was Mrs. Massey, then her husband, who kept his eyes pinned to the bowl in front of him, not even raising them when Lady Mary spoke next to him.
She was at the head of the table, trying her best to make innocent conversation, her jaw clenching tighter and tighter with each rebuff. Lady Mary should know by now that innocent conversation wasn’t her forte.
Frederick sat at Lady Mary’s left, his hair slicked neatly back, making her fingers twitch to ruffle those auburn locks. He was always handsome, but never so much as when he looked like he’d come straight from her bed.
Miss Abbott was to his left. Eleanor didn’t know if watercress soup wasn’t to her liking or if the company had soured her appetite, but the woman leant back in her chair, thin arms crossed, and glared at each member of the party in turn.
The last member of the party was the one who knotted up Eleanor’s insides. She shouldn’t have spoken of the party in frontof her mother, at least not while Frederick had been sitting with them at their own dinner table. In an act of unfailing politeness, when the subject of the party had arisen, he had invited her mother to join them.
Eleanor pushed away the errant thought that Frederick’s action might not have been born from politeness. That he’d wanted her mother at the party of suspects because that’s where he thought she belonged.
