“I don’t want a husband,” she insisted.
“You don’t know what you’re saying. What about love and babies?”
“Love?” she exclaimed, staring at her brother, wondering how he could be so idealistic. “Do you truly believe I shall find my heart’s desire in a ballroom, dancing with a man who haphazardly scrawled his name upon my card? The chances are as slim as my happening upon a gold sovereign in the street.” She shook her head. “How has it worked for you?”
To her surprise, his cheeks reddened slightly.
Oh!“Have you found someone, Thomas?”
After a hesitation, he said, “No. In truth, I thought there was a lady in whom I might have been interested.” He shrugged. “But before I could have a first dance with her, it became impossible.”
“I don’t understand. Why impossible? Did she become engaged to another?”
He shook his head, his brown hair lifting and falling as he did. “She died.”
Adelia gasped. Very few deaths had occurred amongst thetonthis year. Lady Sarah Cantor had been struck by a carriage in the darkness after a ball the month prior, but she had already been engaged. And, luckily, there had been no severe outbreaks of cholera or influenza. That left only…
“Lady Sophia Burnley?”
Thomas nodded, making an expression of regret. “I barely had a chance to speak to her, and thought, next time, I would engage her in a longer discussion. But there shall be no next time. Terrible shame!” He shrugged. “At any rate, while I cannot be certain, dear sister, either one of us may find our heart engaged and at any time, too. It could happen for you at a ball. However, it unquestionably will not happen if you stay inside this house.”
He gestured at the pile on the table. “Let’s see what invitations and new opportunities have arrived for the lovely and charming Lady Adelia Smythe, shall we?”
Chapter Two
Owen slammed hishand down upon the detective’s desk, making everything on it rattle. “Not good enough!”
The policeman rose from his chair. Detective Sergeant William Garrard looked as if he was ready to throw the viscount out of his office, no matter the consequences.
“I will thank you to calm yourself, Lord Burnley, and to take a seat. Questioning people in the area of your sister’s death—”
“Her murder!”
The man stared a moment. “Questioning people to determine if anyone saw anything is the best way to go about this.”
“It does not seem to be efficient or particularly expeditious. I think your bobbies are stumbling around in the dark, hoping naively for someone to hand the answer to them on a silver platter. And the more days that pass since the crime, the less likely the murderer remains in the area or that anyone will recall anything useful.”
The detective paused. “Sadly, my lord, we do have a number of murders to deal with besides your sister’s. Stabbings and poisonings and other nefarious dealings happen almost daily.”
Owen felt the blood drain from his face. “Are you saying my sister is merely one of many victims to whom you are too incompetent to provide justice?”
“I am saying we are working on it, my lord. And, I assure you there is no more carefully selected and trained, well-conducted and efficient body of men than the Metropolitan and City of London Police forces.”
Owen could have put his fist through the wall so great was his frustration, but he restrained himself.
“My sister was not one of the East End whores, whom I assume are the usual victims of such sickening violence. She is…wasa lady. An earl’s daughter. Doesn’t that warrant some special treatment?”
“All victims were special to someone,” Garrard said. “Or nearly all, anyway. Be that as it may, in answer to your question, my lord, yes, the murder of Lady Sophia does, in fact, warrant special attention. For one, it has been kept from the newspapers. Secondly, I have two uniformed constables on the case. But there is no evidence left by the killer except for the rope, and it’s a rather ordinary one, to be sure. It was used, perhaps, so the murderer didn’t have to touch your sister. She probably couldn’t get close enough to scratch him even if she had taken off her gloves.”
“Which she had not!” Owen asserted, feeling as if, even after her death, he must defend her reputation.
He could not understand why Sophia had been in such a low and mean place to begin with and dressed in a regular day gown for visiting with friends or shopping. Indeed, that was how her day had started. But it was late when they found her, already dark, with a nasty damp in the air for which her lightweight mantle was insufficient if she’d intended to be out at night. Obviously, she hadn’t.
His friend, George Whitely, on his way to the Carlton Club, happened to stop by Burnley’s parents’ house on Berkeley Square. Owen’s habit of taking his Friday midday meal with his mother, father, and sister was well-known to his friends. Thus, George had hoped, if Owen had finished dining, they could go together to the club on Pall Mall.
In the street, however, Whitely had encountered the Burnley driver in a distraught state. The man had dropped Lady Sophia off at the Burlington Arcade in Piccadilly, watching her enter prior to driving away. She’d instructed him to meet her there in two hours.
“I went back and waited another hour more, my lord,” the driver had explained once he’d been brought inside. “Then I began to walk through the building, looking in the shops for Lady Sophia. It’s a very long arcade, as you know.”
