A Dangerous Madness Read online

  “How was killing Mr. Perceval administering justice, Mr. Bellingham?”

  Bellingham shook his head as if there was a bee buzzing about his ears. “It is simple. They would not compensate me for the most terrible dereliction of their duties, sir. The most terrible…” His finger moved faster and faster over the desk. “I have a family, I have to support them, and how could I when my business was ruined, and the government to blame for that?”

  “So you received no help when you made known your troubles?”

  “No help from anyone who held authority! Some sympathetic ears from a few quarters these last few months, sir, but they could only give advice, no real help.”

  James leaned back in the uncomfortable wooden chair. “Sympathetic ears?”

  Bellingham looked up and held his gaze for the first time. James suppressed a shiver at the dead calm in his eyes. “Just so. Sympathetic ears. That’s all.”

  It didn’t sound rehearsed, so much as learned.

  Someone had repeated this to him, over and over again.

  “Who did these sympathetic ears belong to?”

  Bellingham slid his gaze away, and folded his hands over his stomach. “No one of import. Men in the coffee houses and taverns, is all. Men who know how hard it is for a man to make his way with the government against him.”

  “Mr. Bellingham, I need to ask you directly. Did you receive any help in carrying out the murder of Mr. Perceval?”

  Bellingham stood suddenly, shaking with emotion. “It was not murder, sir! It was justice. Justice with no malice aforethought.”

  “My apologies, I misspoke.” James kept his voice even.

  Bellingham looked across at him, and seemed to be convinced. He sat again, relaxing back against the chair.

  “There was no one. I have pursued this since I returned from Russia, with no help, no help at all.”

  There was no guile about him. Bellingham was telling the truth as he knew it.

  James rose and gave a bow. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Bellingham. I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  It should have been a ridiculous thing to say, but Bellingham gave a genuine smile and bowed back. “I’m sure I will, sir. Thank you for your company.”

  He was let out, and Newman led him through an office, his step light and cheerful, almost incongruous in the fetid, gloomy surroundings.

  James fingered the guinea again. “Mr. Newman, what can you tell me about your prisoner?”

  “Cool customer, Your Grace. Very cool. Calm as you please, he is, when you’d think he’d be pacing up and down and wringing his hands. But none of that.” He smoothed a hand over his almost bald head and then rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Who’s been to see him?”

  “Plenty, but only a few’ve been allowed in. Some what come had interesting tales to tell.”

  “Oh?”

  “Chap round here today, name of Hokkirk, said Bellingham’s father was mad. Committed to St. Luke’s. For the barmy ones that go violent, St. Luke’s is. Said the son has taken after the father.” Newman leaned a little closer, and James caught the whiff of porter and beef stew on his breath. “That British Press journalist, Jerdan, he were right pleased to hear what the man had to say ’n all, seeing he believes the prisoner is mad as they come.” He rocked back on his heels and tugged the grey wool of his waistcoat over his pot belly. “Be in the paper tomorrow, no doubt.”

  “No doubt.” James wondered what effect an article like that would have on the current mood of the country.

  From the few minutes he’d spent in Bellingham’s company, he had the sense of someone desperately trying to control himself and his situation. He had felt no hint of violence, except that one moment when he’d spoken the word ‘murder’ and Bellingham had stood.

  Then again, Bellingham had killed a man—the ultimate violence.

  It could well be he had inherited his father’s madness.

  “Do you agree with Jerdan, Mr. Newman?”

  “Rubbish, is what I think. Never seen anyone so ordered and calm. He’s not mad.”

  But mad didn’t mean frantic. There was a disturbing earnestness to Bellingham, an inflexibility under the good manners and the good clothes.

  “Why does Jerdan believe him to be mad?” It was curious that Jerdan was so convinced of his insanity he was visibly pleased to find evidence of it, when everyone else seemed to be looking for reasons to pronounce Bellingham sane.

  “Jerdan were there. When it happened. He were standing right behind the prime minister when he were shot.” Newman shrugged. “Suppose that affects the way he sees things.”

  James gave a nod in agreement. “Anyone else come to see him?”

  Newman shrugged again. “Plenty. The magistrates, the Treasury solicitor, journalists.” He smiled, a thin, wicked drawing up of his lips. “I only let the officials in, though.”

  James pulled the guinea from his pocket and held it out to Newman, who took it in a smooth, practised move.

  He gave another bow and James made his way to the entrance and stepped out, standing on the top step and looking out into the street.

  Jerdan would be a good person to speak to next. Someone who’d witnessed what had happened.

  He was trying to remember the address of the offices of the British Press when he caught a furtive movement from the corner of his eye.

  He turned, and found himself staring, once more, into the dark blue eyes of Miss Hillier.

  Chapter Seven

  She hadn’t seen him go in.

  Phoebe wondered if it had happened when the crowds had gotten a little rowdy, and she had turned her attention to them for a time, or if he’d been inside already when she arrived.

  It didn’t matter.

  He had seen her, and she knew that nothing but at least some of the truth would appease him now.

  He strode toward her, his face stark and guarded, and she was surprised again to see none of the dissolution and decay she would have expected from someone with his reputation.

  “Miss Hillier.” He stopped in front of her, and his brows rose in question.

  “Your Grace.” She gave a flawless curtsy and as she rose again she caught his grimace as her actions attracted the attention of the crowds around them.

  “This is a surprise. To see you here.” His voice was low, neutral, but his eyes were anything but.

  “Likewise.” Phoebe matched his tone.

  He stared at her, surprised, and then gave a short laugh. “Touché.”

  She couldn’t help the smile his sudden humour brought to her own lips. She schooled her face to blank neutrality again, but the damage had been done.

  “We will talk.” It was not a request.

  “Not here,” she said, lifting a hand as the wind tugged at the hood of her cloak, threatening exposure.

  “No.” He looked around. “Where is your carriage?”

  She pointed down the street and he offered his arm and walked her to it.

  “You will go to the park, and I will meet you there.” He gave her a smile that had enough steel behind it to cover a barn door.

  “And then?” Surely he didn’t mean to walk with her without a chaperone? Nothing would get the tongues of Mayfair wagging faster, cloak or no cloak.

  “Then we’ll ride in my phaeton, and we will talk.”

  “That will be a little unusual. As we are neither betrothed nor even acquaintances.”

  “I consider you an acquaintance, Miss Hillier. If that makes you feel better.”

  She gave a half-laugh. “When it is discovered that I am no longer betrothed to Sheldrake, and a few days later am out alone with the Duke of Wittaker, I can promise you, nothing will make me feel better. I will be ruined.”

  It was true. Completely true. But a lie, as well.

  She ached to break the rules, to heave off the yoke of polite manners that kept her small and cowed and unable to follow her inclinations. But the cruel joke was she did not want to be alo
ne, either. Did not want to be a social pariah.

  So a half-truth, perhaps.

  He considered her words carefully, watching her with those sharp gray eyes. “Very well. I’ll meet you in your garden in ten minutes.” He helped her into her carriage, and paused before closing the door, and she saw, for the first time, the hard, cold heart of him. “Be there, Miss Hillier. No games.”

  She opened her mouth to give him a hot retort, then thought better of it and gave a curt nod instead.

  “Ten minutes,” he repeated as he closed the door.

  Phoebe glared at him, and tapped the roof of the carriage. As they pulled into the traffic she looked back and found him watching her.

  They stared at each other until her carriage turned the corner.

  Neither looked away.

  * * *

  Damned if he wasn’t intrigued, when he should have been suspicious. Hot on the scent.

  Or perhaps he was too hot on the scent, and it wasn’t for a potential assassin.

  James stood in the lane behind Miss Hillier’s house, and tried the garden door.

  Locked.

  He’d said no games, but to be honest, he hadn’t made it clear he would be coming in the back way, to completely shield her from any speculation.

  With nothing for it, he made sure he was alone, and then pulled himself up the stone wall.

  When he reached the top, he could see Miss Hillier standing with her back to him, talking to someone within the house, her full concentration on the conversation.

  “I feel like sitting in the garden, that’s all. I was shopping and have a headache. I’ll come in for tea in a little while.”

  He couldn’t hear the response, but it clearly frustrated her. She gave a sigh.

  He dropped lightly into her lush, colorful garden.

  She turned at that moment, and gave a small squeak of surprise to find him standing in a flower bed.

  “I tried the door,” he said, brushing the dust of the wall off his knees. “It was locked.”

  “I wondered if you’d come in the back. I’ve only just managed to get into the garden myself.” Her gaze moved beyond him to the wall. “That’s quite an impressive climb.”

  She was stalling for time. Hoping the tea would come out, no doubt, and he would have to hide or go away.

  He smiled as he tugged down his jacket sleeves. “What were you doing waiting outside Newgate Prison today?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry if this sounds ungracious, Your…Grace…but what were you doing there?”

  He stepped out of the flowerbed, wiped his boots on the perfectly green, springy lawn. “Why are you so loathe to tell me?”

  She took a step back from him, turned and walked away, toward a filigree arch sent in a yew hedge.

  “Miss Hillier.” He could be harsh when he wanted to be. In fact, many people would swear that was his usual demeanor.

  She didn’t turn, didn’t even acknowledge him. She stepped through the arch and disappeared from his sight.

  She was forcing him to follow her. He didn’t know if it was a deliberate move in what was becoming a battle of wills, or her way of avoiding his questions.

  Avoiding him.

  He grit his teeth and took the same path she had, stepped through the arch and into a small herb garden, enclosed on all sides, either by the garden wall or the hedge.

  She was standing just within, on the narrow paving that ran around the outside of the garden.

  “If my aunt comes out with the tea, she’ll call me out to her, she won’t come in here, and you can stay hidden,” she said. She was looking at him without challenge, and he saw he’d misunderstood her. She’d only wanted them out of sight of the main house.

  He didn’t know if he was pleased about that or not. The notion of her complete disregard for his title and station was as refreshing as the cool green of her hidden garden.

  He turned to look at it properly, and found it a wild, thick riot of parsley, fennel, rosemary, mint, thyme and many other herbs he didn’t know the names of. There was an order to it, but the human touch on this place was light, guiding rather than regimented, free but not out of control.

  He had a sudden, deep sense it reflected its creator. He turned to look at her, and saw she was watching him carefully. There was a defiance in the way she stood now, and his frustration at her attitude gripped him.

  “Miss Hillier. One more time. What were you doing outside Newgate Prison?”

  “I don’t want to tell you.” She jerked her gaze from his face, leant down and snapped off a fennel stalk, twirled it in her fingers.

  “I am well aware of that.” He crowded her on the path. “But you will tell me anyway.”

  “Why should I?” The aniseed flavour of the fennel scented the air as she crushed the stalk and looked up at him.

  She wasn’t being coquettish. She wasn’t being petulant, either. She was deadly serious.

  He forced himself to consider her question. “You have no reason to, beyond that I am asking you.” Usually, simply being a duke did it. Or his money. Or his influence.

  None of those things seemed to motivate Miss Hillier.

  And if he told her the real reason, the carefully built fiction of the dissolute nobleman with a grudge against the government would come unravelled.

  He tried to ignore the temptation of that. Of finally heaving off the chains of what had started as a lark, and had ended up defining his life and his relationship with everyone around him.

  He’d started taking the first tantalizing steps of setting himself free over the last month, but now was not the time for his secret to come out. Not with the prime minister dead and no answers.

  “You aren’t asking, you’re demanding.” She threw the now shredded fennel stalk into the garden and picked another one. “If you were to explain yourself to me, I would consider explaining myself to you.”

  “How about the other way around?”

  She gave an indelicate snort. “You’re the one who wants information from me. While I’ll admit you’ve made me curious about you, I’m not as desperate for your story as you seem to be for mine.”

  She picked up a basket that lay near her feet, and began to work her way down the row, snipping sprigs of herbs.

  Serene. Completely at ease while she waited for him to decide if he would explain to her or not.

  He didn’t have time for this.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Miss Hillier.”

  She shook her head. “I just really don’t want to tell you.”

  He choked back a laugh, and made his decision.

  “Coo-ee. Phoebe, my dear. Tea’s ready.”

  Miss Hillier looked toward the house, then slanted him a look. “You took too long to make up your mind. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.” She started walking back down the path.

  “Tomorrow is too late.” He reached out and clamped a hand around her arm, and she stopped. “What are you doing tonight?”

  “I was going to a ball, but I think it’s been turned into a sort of memorial to the prime minister.”

  “The Edgeware thing?”

  She gave a nod.

  “I’ll see you there.”

  “Phoebe, do hurry, the tea’s getting cold.”

  “I can’t go off with you,” she whispered. “The same rules apply at the ball as would have done in the park.”

  “Well, then.” James gave her a quick grin, relief at missing the Edgeware ball, no matter what the reason, a sweet fizz in his blood. “You’ll have to keep having that headache, cry off, and meet me in this garden at nine o’clock tonight.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. “You assume a lot.”

  He huffed out a quiet laugh. “Miss Hillier, nothing about you so far has been in any way the normal run of things. It is far too late to pretend outrage now.” He moved to the wall, reaching out with his hands to find the holds he needed to climb it, and looked over his shoulder. “I’ll expect you tonight. Right here.
Nine o’clock.”

  Chapter Eight

  He could still smell the fragrance of Miss Hillier’s garden on him. He must have crushed some lavender underfoot when he had been tramping through her flowerbeds, because the scent of it rose up as he navigated the traffic on Fleet Street.

  Fortunately, the lady herself was not as fragile as her plants.

  She had not wilted or even bent under his demands, and he couldn’t understand why he did not feel frustrated by that. Instead, he was charmed. Intrigued.

  An idiot.

  He smiled at himself, and pushed open the door to the coffee house Jerdan’s colleagues at the British Press told him the journalist would be.

  He asked one of the servers, and she pointed out a large man sitting on his own, staring into a mug of coffee beneath the window facing out onto the street.

  “William Jerdan?” James stood beside the table and Jerdan looked up, blinked, and then rose, lifting his bulky frame up with surprising dignity.

  “Good afternoon, Your Grace.”

  James made a gesture with his hand for Jerdan to sit, and slid onto the bench opposite him. He’d hoped not be recognized, but Jerdan was a political correspondent, after all. He shouldn’t be surprised the man knew who he was.

  He hoped Jerdan wouldn’t question his interest in Perceval’s death. And if he did think it suspicious, he would not publish any speculation about a duke in his newspaper lightly.

  There were also usually more interesting things to write about James in the papers than his interest in political assassination.

  Like whose fortune he had won in a game of Hazard.

  “I have some questions for you about the death of Mr Perceval.” He watched Jerdan think about that, and take a long sip of his coffee.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Your impressions. I understand that you were there, that it happened in front of you.”

  Jerdan gave a tight nod. “I didn’t hear the shot. I know it’s incredible, but I didn’t hear it. Been wondering ever since if there is something wrong with my hearing, although I’ve never had a problem before.”