“We are listening, milady,” said McClellan as she changed the blood-soaked pads and resumed putting pressure on the wound.
A flutter of lashes. The lady winced and narrowed her eyes. “You—you look familiar. Do I know you?”
“Yes, I was once mistress of the female servants at Taviot Castle,” replied the maid.
“The one who disappeared the night of my half-brother’s death?”
McClellan nodded.
“We all assumed you killed him. The wound to his head could not have been caused by the fall.”
“I did, milady.”
Silence. And then a sigh. “With good reason. I am not unaware of his depravity.” She swallowed hard. “Indeed, it lies at the root of all the ensuing evil. If I had not been so proud of our family reputation . . .”
Lady Kirkwall gave a weak wave. “My younger brother had run up enormous debts, and to save the family name from scandal, I embezzled money from my husband’s business interests—I am quite skilled in finance—to cover the debts. I intended to replace the money, but his partners became suspicious before I could do so. I made the mistake of telling Jarvis and my brother of it—”
“How did you come to be involved with Jarvis?” asked Charlotte.
“He and Fenwick—that is, Taviot—had become fast friends at one of those hideously sadistic boarding schools where the aristocracy sends its sons to make them men.” A cough. “It makes some of them monsters.”
McClellan took the lady’s hand and began to chafe some warmth into her flesh.
“With my brother’s aristocratic connections and Jarvis’s genius for scheming, they formed a lucrative partnership.” She made a face. “For a time, I became besotted with Jarvis. My marriage was loveless, and his aura of danger was seductive. We became . . .”
“Romantically involved?” suggested Charlotte.
A wry laugh. “That is putting it politely. But yes, and so I confided my predicament to him and my brother. Jarvis said he would solve it.” The memory seemed to send a spasm of pain through her body. “He murdered my husband and contrived to make it look like suicide. It saved me and the Taviot name from ruin.” A grimace. “Oh, but at what a cost!”
Tears beaded on Lady Kirkwall’s lashes. “You see, he had the evidence of my wrongdoing. And from then on, my brother and I were in thrall to all his evil plans.” A pause. “Not that my brother needed much coercion. He loved money more than honor.”
Wanting very much to learn the truth for Wrexford, Charlotte seized the opportunity to press for answers. “We have discovered that your brother and Jarvis saw an opportunity to make a fortune betraying Britain when Taviot was appointed to a diplomatic delegation tasked with assessing our country’s military situation in the Peninsula,” she explained. “Though our sources say the plan was Jarvis’s alone, and that he duped your brother into sending coded messages containing British military information.”
“I wish that were so,” responded Lady Kirkwall, her voice growing fainter. “But no, Jarvis and Fenwick were clever enough to create enough smoke screens, as it were, to obscure their evil doings. They were both equally guilty.”
Charlotte felt both relief and disgust at finally knowing the truth about the past. As for the present . . .
“I’m going to fetch Maitland,” she said. “I know Wrexford has some questions concerning recent events, so I would like to ask the two of you about the consortium. However, as I don’t wish to reveal my real identity to him, I shall disguise my voice—”
“Your secret is safe with me,” assured Lady Kirkwall. Charlotte fetched the inventor, and Hawk moved a barrel from the shadows to serve as a seat for him.
“Wrexford wishes to know the details of how the consortium’s sophisticated plan for defrauding investors of their money came into being,” she announced in a low, raspy voice.
“The irony is . . .” A rattling cough cut short Lady Kirkwall’s reply.
McClellan’s gaze turned grim. Time appeared to be fast slipping away.
But, rallying her strength, Taviot’s sister managed to continue. “The irony is, this scheme was actually started as a legitimate venture. Jarvis had some training in steam engine technology and had been following the development of steamboats in America. When he heard that Maitland—a leading innovator in the field—had returned to England, he saw the opportunity to make a fortune by developing an oceangoing propulsion system and selling it to the government for its navy.”
As the lady gasped for breath, Maitland ventured to speak up. “I—I never intended there to be any fraud. I truly believed I had made great innovations with a propeller design and could build a workable system. When Jarvis and Taviot came to me and offered to fund my research, as well as give me shares in the company that would make me a very rich man, I jumped at the chance.”
“So what happened?” asked McClellan.
“The propeller prototype works,” answered Maitland. “But I haven’t yet figured out the optimum size and precise curves needed to propel a large ship through rough ocean waters.” A sigh. “And I still haven’t hit upon the right design for a steam engine capable of crossing vast oceans. Firstly, it had to be powerful enough to propel a ship through bad weather. And even more importantly, it needed to be efficient enough for a ship to be able to carry enough fuel for long voyages.”
Maitland made a face. “I kept telling myself that the answer was there, just out of reach, and that I simply needed to think harder—and be given more time and money—in order to grab it.” He fisted his hands in his lap. “And so I let myself be seduced by Jarvis’s suggestion that we keep pretending that we were making great progress. I—I suppose that I came to believe my own lies.”
“Jarvis can be very seductive,” rasped Lady Kirkwall.
