The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie

Chapter Twenty-one

Beth cried out as Mrs. Palmer shoved her onto the hard wood of a pew. No one was there, not a sextant sweeping a floor or the rather doddering vicar who’d taken Thomas’s place nine years before.

Beth grabbed Mrs. Palmer’s wrist. “No, don’t leave me.”

“Don’t be foolish. Someone will find you.”

Beth hung on with all the strength she could muster. “Please don’t leave me here alone. Wait for the vicar with me. Please. I don’t want to die alone.”

Her tears were genuine. The pain had increased, waves of it rolling over her. Would Ian understand where she’d gone? Would he find her? For all his obsessions with minutiae, he wasn’t stupid and had a brain that could reason complex mathematical problems and memorize the intricate language of treaties. But could he fit the pieces together and come up with an answer to the puzzle?

Mrs. Palmer made a noise of exasperation but sat down in a rustle of skirts. Beth slumped against her, unable to support herself.

“Did you kill Lily Martin?” Beth asked in a whisper, too numb now to fear. If Mrs. Palmer had simply wanted to kill Beth, she would have done it by now. The woman was afraid, and Beth had the sudden feeling she was now more afraid of Hart than of being caught by Inspector Fellows. If Mrs. Palmer let Beth, the wife of Hart’s beloved brother, die, Hart would never forgive her.

“Of course I killed Lily,” Mrs. Palmer said viciously.

“She was a witness to Sally’s murder.”

“Then you think Hart really did kill Sally.” “Hart was so angry with Sally. The little bitch was blackmailing him to get money so she could run off and leave me. Hart told me he would fix her, make her regret trying to play her games.”

“You were angry at Sally, too.”

“If Sally wanted money so much, she could have asked Hart for it. But she wanted power over him. As though she ever could control someone like Hart. He has the will to command. I saw that when I first met him, when he was all of twenty years old.” Her voice dropped to fond tones. “He was a bonny lad then. All handsome and charming, before so many people hurt him.”

Beth found herself with her head on Mrs. Palmer’s plaid broadcloth lap, staring up at the older woman’s face. Mackenzie plaid, Beth realized, blue and green with white and red thread.

“I’m sorry,” Beth whispered. “You must love him so much.”

“I’ve made no secret of that.”

“It must have been hard for you to watch him marry, to start shutting you out of his life.”

Not the most diplomatic thing to say, Beth thought, but she’d lost control of her words.

“I knew he’d have to marry,” Mrs. Palmer said calmly. “I’m thirteen years older than he is and hardly one of his class. He needed to marry some peer’s daughter to host balls and fetes and charm his colleagues. He’d never become prime minister of England tied to a woman like me.” “But plenty of lofty gentlemen have mistresses. Mrs. Barrington liked to rail about it.”

“Who the hell is Mrs. Barrington?” Beth was too weary to answer, and Mrs. Palmer rambled on. “No one would mind so much Hart having a mistress, no. But it’s more than that.”

“Because he was your lord and master?” She remembered Ian’s words, and curiosity drifted through her pain. “What exactly did he do?”

“If you know nothing of that life, you would not understand.” “I suppose not.” Her attention drifted again. “I don’t believe Hart killed her,” Beth said, alarmed at how faint her voice had grown. “He would have waited until Ian was elsewhere. But someone else might have panicked and shoved a knife into Sally.”

“Someone like me,” Mrs. Palmer said. “Perhaps I killed her.”

To protect Hart. Beth’s eyes drifted closed. She tried to imagine the scene, Ian peering through the half-open door, Hart looming over Sally with a knife in his hand, Lily Martin in the hall outside. Something was wrong with that. If only Beth could stay awake long enough to decide w h a t . . . Mrs. Palmer stood up abruptly , as though she heard something, but no one came into the chapel. Beth’s head bumped the hard bench, and she closed her teeth around a groan. “You’ll be fine here,” Mrs. Palmer said. “Someone will find you.”

“No,” Beth whispered in genuine fear. She reached for the woman’s hand. “Don’t let me die here alone.” If Beth could make Mrs. Palmer stay long enough for Ian to figure out where they were and bring the inspector along, Ian could be cleared and safe from Inspector Fellows forever. Mrs. Palmer looked around the chapel, shivering as though a cool breeze touched her. “Why should 1 stay to be caught?”

“Because you didn’t mean to. You thought Lily would betray Hart, and you were scared.”

Mrs. Palmer bit her lip. “You’re right. I went to her to find out what she knew, and she started raving that the money Ian was giving her wasn’t enough anymore. The scissors were right in her basket. I picked them up . . . .”

She stared at her hand, flexing it in wonder.

“Hart will help you,” Beth said.

“No, he won’t. I ruined everything. Lily’s death put Inspector Fellows back on the scent. Hart will never forgive me.”

Beth grasped the edge of the pew, trying to stay conscious. Sleep beckoned her, sweet sleep where there was no pain. “Did you really kill Sally?”

“It doesn’t matter, does it? I’ll go to the gallows for Hart, and he’ll understand how much I love him.”

“Lily and Sally were lovers,” Beth whispered. Her mind reached for something, but lights flickered on the edges of her vision.

Mrs. Palmer snorted. “Lily had a photograph of Sally in her sitting room, can you believe it? Sally had thrown her over all those years ago. I took it away with me. I didn’t want to give the police any hints, but they made the connection anyway.”

“Sally and Lily,” Beth whispered. She closed her eyes, and the scene played again in her head. Lily staring into the room while Hart was with Sally, watching Hart leave her. Perhaps thinking that Hart had already given Sally money. Lily furious because Sally had given her the push, and she wouldn’t have Sally or the money. A knife lying on the table next to the bed and Lily snatching it up. Ian watching from the parlor as Hart stormed out of the house, Ian seeing Lily in the hall, a witness, he thought, to a crime committed by his brother.

“I have to get away.” Mrs. Palmer shoved her hands into the pockets of Beth’s gown, snatching the drawstring bag that held Beth’s coins. She grabbed Beth’s hand and started working the silver ring with the diamond chip from her little finger. “I’ll take this, too. I can flog it when I get to the Continent. And the earrings.”

“No.” Beth tried to close her fist, but her hand was ice cold and so weak. “My first husband gave it to me.” “A small price to pay for me not killing you.” Mrs. Palmer snatched the earrings out of Beth’s ears, the tiny pain sharp. Isabella had given Beth the earrings in Paris when Beth had admired them. Keep them, darling, she’d said, careless and generous. They suit you better than they do me.

Mrs. Palmer stood up. She looked old in this light, a Woman who’d kept herself young with paint and perseverance. Now she looked tired, weary, a woman who’d tried too hard for too long.

“I love Hart Mackenzie,” she said, her voice fierce. “I have always loved him. I will make certain that little woman loving whore Sally won’t ruin him even after all these years. I made sure Lily wouldn’t.”

“Stay and explain to them,” Beth gasped out.

In sudden rage, Mrs. Palmer hauled Beth up by the hair.

Beth cried out, her side like fire.

“You had no right to go digging everything up, bringing the inspector to my house. You’re as much to blame as I am.” Spittle flecked her lips.

Beth couldn’t fight anymore. Her whole body wanted simply to stop. She’d die here in Thomas’s little church, not ten yards from the churchyard where Thomas lay. She thought she heard the lectern door squeak, and she saw Thomas standing by it in the white cassock she’d darned so often. His dark hair was gray at the temples, his kind eyes so blue.

Be brave, my Beth, she thought he said. It’s almost over.

“Ian.”

Mrs. Palmer scanned the chapel, her fingers still gripping Beth’s hair. “Who are you talking to?”

Shouting interrupted her, deep male voices, one of them Ian’s. Mrs. Palmer screamed, hauling Beth in front of her like a shield. Beth groaned in agony.

Ian, his face white, eyes wild, barreled into Mrs. Palmer. He was shouting something, but Beth couldn’t hear him, couldn’t understand his words. Mrs. Palmer stumbled, shrieking, and Ian caught Beth as she fell.

He was beside her, warm, solid, and real. Beth tried to reach for him, but her arms wouldn’t work. He lifted her and cradled her against him on the pew. His golden eyes were wide as he looked straight into hers.

“Ian.” Beth smiled and touched his face. She was the one who couldn’t hold the gaze, as her eyes drifted sideways. In her peripheral vision, she saw Hart rush in, followed by Cameron and Inspector Fellows. Mrs. Palmer stood tall against the wall.

“I’ll not hang for that slut,” she said in a loud, clear voice. Her knife gleamed in her hands, and she plunged it straight between her breasts.

Beth heard Hart’s cry, saw Mrs. Palmer’s knees give and her body slide down the wall. Hart caught her in his arms. Mrs. Palmer looked up at Hart. “I love you.”

“Don’t speak,” Hart said, his voice incredibly gentle.

“I’ll get a doctor.”

She shook her head, her smile weak. “It’s all dark now. I can’t see your face.” She groped blindly for him. “Hart, hold me.”

“I’m here.” Hart gathered her against him, pressing a kiss to her hair. “I’m here, love. I won’t leave you.” Ian didn’t even look at them. He had his eyes closed now, rocking Beth. Beth tried to say, “I knew you’d find me,” but darkness closed on her, and her lips would no longer move. She slid into unconsciousness just as Mrs. Palmer’s last breath rattled through her throat.

Ian used Hart’s opulent carriage to take Beth home to the ducal mansion on Grosvenor Square. Hart’s house was always staffed, always at the “ready for any business the duke might want to conduct in town. Ian carried Beth inside, and the well-trained servants scrambled to obey his frantic commands.

Ian carried Beth to the bedchamber set aside for his use. A doctor came to clean Beth’s wound and sew it closed, but Beth wouldn’t wake up.

Cameron had stayed with Hart and Inspector Fellows at the church while Fellows fetched who he needed to fetch and tried to make sense of what happened. Ian didn’t care what had happened. It was over, Mrs. Palmer was dead, and Beth had nearly died herself trying to put everything right. Fellows could do as he liked.

Beth lay in a stupor, feverish and sweating. No matter how much Ian bathed the cut in her side, it swelled and reddened, and fever set in.

Ian stayed by her all night. He heard the others return, Cameron’s gruff voice and Hart’s quiet replies, the deferential voices of the servants. He pressed a cool cloth to Beth’s forehead, wishing he could bring the fever down by force of will.

He heard the door open behind him and Hart’s heavy tread, but Ian wouldn’t look up.

“How is she?” his brother asked in a low voice.

“Dying.”

Hart came around the bed and looked down at Beth, unmoving on the sheets. His face was white, strained. Beth was so hot. She groaned with it, tossing her head from side to side. She whimpered when her wound touched the bed, as if trying to find release from haunting pain. Ian glared at Hart. “You and your fucking women. You made them your tame animals, and now they’ve killed Beth.”

Hart flinched. “Damnation, Ian.”

“You thought Beth wanted my money, our name. Why should she?”

“I did at first. I don’t any longer.”

“Too bloody late. She never wanted anything for herself, never demanded anything from us. You don’t know what to do with people like that.”

“I don’t want to see her die, either.”

Hart put his hand on Ian’s shoulder, but Ian jerked away. “You took me to that house to be your damned spy. You used me, like you’ve use me for every other scheme in your life. You released me from the asylum so I could help you, but you’ve never believed I wasn’t mad. You just needed what I could do.”

“That’s not entirely accurate,” Hart said, tight-lipped. “It’s close enough. You thought I was insane enough to kill Sally. I did what you said because I was grateful to you, and I wanted to protect you. I admired you and worshiped you just like your tame sluts.”

Ian was breathing hard, but he gentled his hand to brush back Beth’s hair.

“For God’s sake, Ian.”

“I’m finished obeying your commands. Your bloody high-handedness has killed my Beth.”

Hart remained still, his eyes fixed. “I know. Let me help her.”

“You can’t help. She’s beyond help.” Ian met Hart’s gaze for a fleeting moment, and for the first time in Ian’s life, Hart couldn’t look back at him.

“Get out,” Ian said. “I don’t want you here if I have to say good-bye to her.”

Hart remained rigid and unmoving for a few moments,’ then turned around and quietly walked from the room.

Over the next week, Ian left the bedroom only to shout for Curry if the man was too slow answering the bell. Beth tossed in the bed, her face pink and sweating, groaning when anything touched her side. Ian slept on the bed next to her, or on the chair beside it when Beth became too restless. Curry tried to get Ian to sleep in the next room, to let a maid or Katie or himself nurse Beth while he rested, but Ian refused. Ian had read every book in Hart’s vast library and plenty of tomes at the private asylum, filing away every modern view of medicine in his head. He put into practice methods of nursing festering wounds, methods of bringing down fever, methods of keeping the patient quiet and fed. The doctor brought leeches, which did help with the swelling a little, but Ian didn’t like his oils and ointments and syringes of suspicious-looking liquids. He wouldn’t let the doctor near Beth with them, which led to the doctor’s loud-voiced complaints to an unsympathetic Hart. Ian washed Beth’s wound every day, wiping away any evils that seeped from it. He bathed her face in cool water, fed her spoonfuls of broth, forcing them into her when she tried to turn her face away. He had Curry bring in ice, which he pressed against the cut to stop the swelling, and used more ice to cool down the water with which he bathed her forehead. Ian wished he could move Beth from London, where coal smoke and soot seeped through every window, but he feared jarring the wound open again. He braided her hair to take the heat off her neck, fearing he’d have to cut off her beautiful tresses if the fever didn’t break.

The doctor clucked his tongue and proposed experimental treatments that involved serum from monkey glands and other such wonders. He was developing them in conjunction with specialists in Switzerland, and if he could save the sister-in-law of the Duke of Kilmorgan, he said, it would make his name.

Ian ran him off with threats of violence.

By the sixth day, the fever still had not come down. Ian sat by Beth’s side, his hand loosely clasping hers, and tasted fear. He was going to lose her.

“Is this what love feels like?” he whispered to her. “I don’t like it, my Beth. It hurts too much.”

Beth didn’t respond. Her eyes were cracked open under swollen lids, a blue glitter that saw nothing. He hadn’t been able to feed her today.

Ian felt sick, his stomach roiling, and he had to leave the room to vomit bile. When he returned, there was no change. Her breathing was hoarse and a struggle, her skin painfully hot.

She’d come into his life so suddenly, only a few short weeks ago, and just as suddenly, she was departing it. The sense of loss terrified him. He’d never felt it before, not even with all the loneliness and fear he’d experienced at the asylum. That fear had been self-preservation; this was an emptiness that hollowed him out from the inside. Sitting in this dark room facing the worst brought memories back to him. Ian’s perfect recall played them all clearly, little dimmed by the seven years between now and his years at the asylum. He remembered early morning baths in cold water, taking supervised walks in the garden, where a man with a long walking stick followed him about. The sheepherder, Ian had always called him, ready to beat patients back indoors if necessary.

When other physicians or distinguished guests visited, Dr.

Edwards would give grand lectures, while Ian was made to sit on a chair next to the podium. Dr. Edwards would have Ian learn the name of every member of the audience and recite them back, have him listen to a conversation between two volunteers and repeat it perfectly. A blackboard would be brought out, and Ian would solve complex mathematical problems in seconds. Doctor Edwards’s trained seal, Ian called himself.

His is a typical case of haughty resentment which is festering his brain. Notice how he avoids your eyes, which shows declined trust and lack of truthfulness. Note how his attention wanders when he is spoken to, how he interrupts with an inappropriate comment or question that has nothing to do with the topic at It and. This is arrogance taken to the point of hysteria—the patient can no longer connect with people he deems beneath him. Treatment: austere surroundings, cold baths, exercise, electric shock to stimulate healing. Regular beatings to suppress his rages. The treatment is effective, gentlemen. He has calmed considerably since he first came to me.

If Ian had “calmed,” it was because he’d realized that if he suppressed his rages and abrupt speeches, he’d be left alone. He’d learned to become an automaton, a clockwork boy that moved and talked in a certain way. To violate the pattern meant hours locked in a small room, electric shocks through the body, beatings every night. When Ian became the clockwork young man again, his tormentors left him alone. They at least let him read books and take lessons with a tutor. Ian’s mind was restless, absorbing everything put in front of it. He mastered languages in a matter of days. He progressed from simple arithmetic to higher calculus within a year. He read a book every day and could recite huge passages from each one. He found some refuge in music and learned pieces he heard played, but never how to read music. The notes and staffs were so much black-and-white mess to him.

Ian also couldn’t master subjects like logic, ethics, and philosophy. He could mouth the phrases from Aristode, Socrates, Plato, but not understand or interpret them.

The arrogance of his class coupled with his resentment toward his

family has created a blockage in his brain, Dr. Edwards would explain to his enthusiastic audiences. He can read and remember but not understand. He also shows no interest in his father, never asks after him or writes to him even when it is suggested to him. He also makes no sign that he misses his dear, departed mother.

Dr. Edwards never saw the boy Ian sob into his pillow at night, alone, afraid, hating the dark. Knowing that if his father came for him, it would be to kill him for what Ian had seen.

Ian’s only friends were the asylum’s servants, maids who smuggled him sweetmeats from the kitchen and wine from the servants’ hall. They helped him hide the cheroots Mac brought him and the naughty books Cameron gave him when he came to call.

You read these, Cameron would whisper, with a wink. You need to know which end of a woman is what, and what each is for.

Ian had learned that at seventeen at the hands of the plump, golden-haired maid who cleaned his hearth every morning. She’d kept their secret liaison for two years, then married the coachman and moved off to a better life. Ian told Hart to make her a wedding present of several hundred guineas, but would never say why.

That was a long time ago. Ian swam back to the present, but the present was stark and terrifying. He sat in darkness, curtains cloaking the windows, while Beth struggled to live. If she died, he might as well take himself back to the asylum and lock himself in, because he’d go mad if he had to live without her.

Isabella arrived not long later. She entered the room in a faint rustle of silk, her eyes filling as she took in Beth on the bed.

“Ian, I’m so sorry.”

Ian couldn’t answer. Isabella looked exhausted. She caressed Beth’s hand and lifted it to her lips.

“I saw the doctor downstairs,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “He told me there wasn’t much hope.”

“The doctor is an idiot.”

“She’s burning up.”

“I won’t let her die.”

Isabella sank down on the bed, still holding Beth’s hand. “It happens, usually to the best people. They’re taken away to teach us humility.” Tears streaked down her cheeks. “Balls.”

Isabella looked up at him, her smile wan. “You’re stubborn, like a Mackenzie.”

“I am a Mackenzie.” What a damn fool thing to say. “I won’t let her die. I can’t.” Beth moved listlessly on the bed, soft sounds coming from her mouth.

“She’s delirious,” Isabella whispered.

Ian wet a cloth and dabbed it to Beth’s tongue as she tried to talk, her voice a croak. She lapped the droplets that fell from it, whimpering.

Isabella wiped away tears as she rose from the bed and blindly made her way out.

Mac came in not long later, his face haggard.

“Any change?” he asked.

“No.” Ian didn’t look up from pressing a cloth filled with ice to Beth’s forehead. “Did you come with Isabella?” Mac gave a soft snort. “Hardly. Different trains, different boats, and she changed her hotel as soon as she found out I’d booked in there, too.”

’You’re both fools. You can’t let her go.”

Mac raised his brows. “It’s been three years, and she isn’t exactly racing back to me.”

“You aren’t trying hard enough to get her back,” Ian said, angry. “I never thought you were this bloody stupid.” Mac looked surprised, then thoughtful. “You might have a point.”

Ian returned his attention to Beth. How anyone could find love and throw it away so carelessly was beyond him.

Mac rubbed his forehead. “Speaking of bloody fools, Hart sacked that quack of a doctor. Good thing, too. I was ready to throttle him.”

“Good.”

Mac put his hand on Ian’s shoulder, fingers squeezing. “I’m sorry. This isn’t right. You of all of us deserve to be happy.”

Ian didn’t answer. It had nothing to do with being happy.

It had everything to do with saving Beth.

Mac remained for a while, watching Beth moodily, then drifted away. He was replaced by other visitors throughout the day and into the night: Cameron, Daniel, Katie. Curry, Isabella again. They all asked the same question. “Is there any change?” Ian had to shake his head, and they went away. In the small hours of the morning, when the house was deathly still, the gilt clock on the mantelpiece apologetically chimed twice. Beth sat straight up in bed.

“Ian!”

Her skin was bright red, her eyes glittering, pupils wide.

Ian came to the bed. “I’m here.”

“Ian, I’m going to die.”

Ian wrapped his arms around her, held her close. “I won’t let you.”

She pulled away. “Ian, tell me you forgive me.” She caught Ian’s gaze, and he couldn’t turn away.

Beth’s eyes were hot blue, swimming with tears. He could look at them for hours, mesmerized by the color. He’d read that eyes were the windows to the soul, and Beth’s soul was pure and sweet.

She was safe, but a monster lurked inside Ian, the same one that had lurked inside his father. He could so easily hurt her, forget himself in a rage. He couldn’t let that happen—ever. “There is nothing to forgive, love.”

“For going to Inspector Fellows. For raking it all up again. For killing Mrs. Palmer. She’s dead, isn’t she?” “Yes.”

“But if I hadn’t come back to London, she’d still be alive.”

“And Fellows would still believe me guilty. Or Hart. There’s no forgiveness needed for finding out the truth, my Beth.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, her voice tight with fever. She put her hand on his chest and buried her face in his shoulder.

Ian held her close, his heart thumping. When he lifted her gently to kiss her, he saw that her eyes had closed again and she’d fallen back into her stupor. Ian laid her down on the pillows, tears sliding from his eyes to scatter across her hot skin.