Page 19

“Have you been to the shop?” Leo asked, curious as to how the woman had never realized the truth.

“I nearly went once.” Augusta frowned at the memory. “We were set upon by ruffians as soon as we stepped out of the carriage. Sebastian ushered me back in, and we got away unharmed, but he forbade me from ever visiting again. He worried for my safety, you see.”

Leo thought it more likely that Sebastian Lawlor had arranged for the ruffians to attack, though not before his wife saw the shingle bearing his last name—all the evidence Augusta would require to believe he owned the shop. The event would certainly frighten her enough for her to stay away in future.

“Mrs. Lawlor,” Jasper began slowly. “I visited the shop yesterday after leaving here. I met a man named Roger Lawlor. He owns the shop, and I’m sorry to say, he does not know anyone by the name of Sebastian Lawlor.”

For several seconds, Augusta merely stared at Jasper with incredulity. She scoffed, then laughed tersely. “That is impossible, Inspector. You must have visited the wrong shop.”

“I was at the correct address on Redmead Lane, near Wapping Basin,” he insisted.

She blinked rapidly, her incredulity transforming into consternation. “I don’t know what to think.”

“It appears,” Leo said, as gently as she could, “that your husband told you a falsehood about his business.”

Augusta kept shaking her head and again lifted her handkerchief to her nose.

“Did any of your husband’s family or friends attend the wedding?” Jasper asked, changing the topic. It seemed to relieve her. At least for the moment.

“No. His parents are deceased, and he has no brothers or sisters. As he hails from Leeds, there was no one nearby to stand up with him. We had a small ceremony here, in this very room.” She looked about it, fighting back tears.

Leo imagined his lack of family had reminded Augusta of her own deficit, and it had united them in a way.

“I know what you are thinking,” Augusta said. “I know it because I thought it myself when we were first courting. That a man as handsome as he could not possibly want a woman of my age and appearance for anything more than her money.”

Leo sat forward, suddenly furious on Augusta’s behalf. “Please do not disparage yourself, Mrs. Lawlor.”

She shook her head. “I am no beauty; I have always known that. But I believe we cannot help who we love. That it sometimes makes no sense.”

Leo couldn’t dispute that. If people could choose whom they loved, life would be simpler. She peered at Jasper and thought of Constance Hayes, the pretty and wealthy cousin of his good friend, Viscount Oliver Hayes. Jasper had courted Constance for several months. Had he loved her, he would have asked for her hand in marriage. But because of his irrepressible feelings for Leo, as he’d once admitted, he’d been unable to. Certainly, it would have been far more beneficial for him at the Yard to have a woman of Constance’s ilk and refinement on his arm. But as Augusta seemed to believe, the heart wanted what it wanted.

“I know my acquaintances and my staff were suspicious of his intentions. I do not blame them, of course. There have been duplicitous suitors in the past,” Augusta remarked.

“Your housekeeper mentioned that your mother once hired a private agency to look into one such suitor,” Leo said. “When was this?”

“About four years ago. My mother had a bad feeling about a man who’d taken an interest,” Augusta explained, looking slightly humiliated. “She hired Mr. Castelan to investigate him—quietly. He found that the man was steeped in debt and that he’d attempted to court other heiresses, albeit unsuccessfully.”

Leo sat up taller. “Castelan, you say?” It was the same agency her good friend, Nivedita Brooks, now worked for.

“Yes, and I suppose if my mother was still alive, she would have hired Mr. Castelan again to look into Sebastian.” She fiddled with her handkerchief. “I admit, his actions yesterday do appear to be reprehensible. I cannot explain why he would lie about his shop. Perhaps he was ashamed that he had no business at all. But I am certain there is a reason—a good, logical reason—for his behavior.”

It didn’t surprise Leo that Augusta did not believe or even want to suspect that her husband had lied to her. To face that truth would mean facing another: that her husband might be guilty of something far more nefarious.

Jasper got to his feet and withdrew a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket.

“Last evening, your housekeeper sat with an artist who works for the police. Mrs. Vincent described your husband in detail. This is what the artist produced.” He handed her the paper, and Leo craned her neck to try and view the rendered portrait.

Augusta’s chin crumpled. Then, as if the picture pained her, she held the paper away from her. Leo took it before Jasper could.

Sebastian Lawlor was, as his wife claimed, a handsome man. He had a strong, square-shaped chin, a generous bottom lip, the top obscured by a well-trimmed mustache. His eyes, though drawn and shaded with graphite pencil, exuded vibrancy. The only flaw in his facial features was the crooked line of his nose. It bent ever so slightly to the left, as if it had been broken at some point in his life.

“It looks very much like him,” Augusta confirmed once she’d recovered from the brink of another sob. She dabbed the corner of her eye with her knuckle. “Disappearing like this. Taking money and our wedding photographs… I just don’t understand why.”

Leo returned the sketch to Jasper, her chest tight with pity. Sebastian Lawlor—if that was even his real name—had manipulated Augusta, and he’d done a good job of it.

Jasper tucked the sketch into his pocket and cleared his throat. “Is it true that you began feeling ill while in France, on your wedding trip?”

When speaking of her mysterious illness, Augusta became less despondent and more animated. She spoke of how bewildering it was that she’d suddenly taken so ill. Her constitution, she claimed, had always been robust. With ladylike blushes and avoiding Jasper’s eyes, she recounted in the vaguest terms the gastric attacks she had suffered while in Paris.