Mac had his mouth open. On a big man wearing a kerchief, the expression was comical. “Aimee . . .”

“Perfectly all right, Mac,” Louisa broke in. “We shouldn’t hide things from her. Aimee, sweetie.” Louisa took Aimee’s hands. “It is true that some people will say I killed the Bishop of Hargate, but that is untrue.”

Aimee still looked troubled. “The ladies said you hated him for what happened with your father. And one said you’d been his lover. What does that mean, exactly?”

Mac’s Highland Scots became pronounced. “Lass, never listen to the likes of women such as they. I’ll tell Morton not to allow them into the house again. And don’t repeat such things to your mother.”

“I wouldn’t,” Aimee said. “That’s why I’m asking you and Louisa.”

“God save me,” Mac muttered, and went to find his palette again.

Louisa squeezed Aimee’s hands. “What they said is untrue as well. The bishop and I were acquaintances only, and I was not angry with him. I did nothing to hurt him.”

Aimee nodded, her eyes round. “I know you didn’t.”

Relief touched her. Louisa knew Aimee didn’t entirely understand the implications of the situation, but the girl trusted her, and Louisa wanted to do nothing to violate that trust.

“And Aimee, lass, you’re not to talk of it anymore, with anyone,” Mac said sternly. “Not even within the family.”

Eileen, who was nearly three, watched them, her fingers in her mouth. Her little brother Robert slept on a pile of clean drop cloths, on his tummy, his fists curled beside him. His hair stuck up in little spikes, his Scots fair skin a stark contrast to the brilliant red of his hair. The boy could sleep anywhere, at any time, no matter what fireworks were going off around him. Louisa found that adorable; Mac only growled that he was another stubborn Mackenzie.

“Don’t scold her, Mac,” Louisa said. “She wasn’t to know. You may talk of it with me all you like, Aimee.” She smoothed the girl’s wiry red hair. “No secrets inside the family. Those outside might not understand, which is why we’re not speaking of it to them.”

Aimee nodded. “All right, Aunt Louisa. Why do people think you poisoned him?”

“Because I was nearest him at the time. But I give you my word, I did not.”

“I believe you.” Aimee climbed up onto Louisa’s lap and gave her a warm kiss and a hug. “Don’t be afraid, Aunt Louisa. You’re safe here.”

Louisa felt anything but safe, but her eyes grew moist at the sentiment. Now, if only Lloyd Fellows would believe her. Not to mention put his arms around her and reassure her that she was all right.

Mac turned back to his canvas. He was working on a picture of a group of horses. He’d done the preliminary drawings in Berkshire at Cameron Mackenzie’s training stables, and was now painting it. The horses galloped across a pasture, manes and tails flying, muscles gleaming. Because Mac painted in the new style, the lines weren’t solid, but the wildness of the beasts came through—even more than if he’d made every line exact. Louisa could almost hear the hooves pounding, the snorts and whinnies, and smell the grass, dust, and sweat.

“Tell Isabella to take you out,” Mac repeated. He yanked his brush from the jar and rubbed it clean on a rag. “A good ride in the park or something. Our grooms don’t need to be hanging about like loose ends. Give them something to do.”

In other words, go away and let me work.

“Isabella is busy,” Louisa said. “She’s frantically finishing preparations for the supper ball, as you know. I ought to be helping her.” She fixed Mac a look. “So should you.”

“I am helping her. I’m minding the children. A good husband knows when to stay out of the way of the whirling household.”

“A fine excuse,” Louisa said, feeling the first amusement she’d had in days.

“Papa likes to hide up here,” Aimee said. “Morton and Mama bully him if he goes downstairs.”

Mac grinned. “She’s not wrong. Driven away by my wife and my butler. What is a man to do?”

Enjoy himself with his art and his children. Louisa envied him, and Isabella. They were so happy together, exactly matching each other in spirit, love, and vigor. Louisa knew Isabella would prefer to be up here with him, watching her handsome husband paint, playing with the children she loved so well.

But Isabella was a hostess at heart as well, leading the ladies of the Season. She was also keeping up her social schedule, Louisa knew, to dare anyone to say that anything was wrong. Louisa would be at the supper ball tonight, by Isabella’s side, helping to greet guests, engage shy young ladies in conversation, or smooth ruffled feathers of older ladies. This gathering would be utterly respectable, for debutantes up to the most redoubtable matrons, and Louisa would be in the middle of it.

She’d go mad. Louisa gently set Aimee on her feet and sprang up. “You’re right, Mac. Staying in will only make me more irritable.” She went to him, lightly kissed his paint-streaked cheek, and left the room, not missing Mac’s grin or his look of relief.

It also did not help her that Mac looked much like the man she could not banish from her thoughts. The near-kiss she’d shared with Fellows in Mrs. Leigh-Waters’ drawing room burned her almost as much as the true kisses had. She kept feeling the heat of his body against her, his hard fingers on her cheek.

Out.

A young lady couldn’t simply walk outside in London and charge alone down the street. It wasn’t done. Louisa had to play by every rule she possibly could until the true culprit was found. All eyes were on her, she knew.

She asked Morton to fetch Isabella’s carriage, convinced the housekeeper to release a maid to accompany her, and made her way to visit Eleanor, the Duchess of Kilmorgan.

* * *

Fellows’ investigations didn’t take him often to Mayfair. Murders in London were most likely to happen at the docks or in slums where gin and desperation overrode sense, and knives came out. Mayfair was for the polite crimes of embezzlement and fraud and, long ago now, dueling.

The death of the Bishop of Hargate was a crime of Mayfair. Though the event itself had taken place in Richmond, every single person at that garden party had a London residence for the Season, all of them in Mayfair.

Fellows knew Mayfair as well as he did the rest of London, because he was thorough. The people who walked these streets, though, were not the ladies and gentlemen who lived there, but the tradesmen and domestics who worked it. Those who reposed in the houses wouldn’t consider strolling more than three doors down without a carriage.

For the past three and a half years, Fellows had made use of a new base of operation in Mayfair, the Duke of Kilmorgan’s mansion on Grosvenor Square. Once Hart, the duke in question, had officially acknowledged Fellows as part of the family, he’d made it known that Fellows could walk into and out of the Grosvenor Square house anytime he chose.

Fellows mostly didn’t choose, but he’d relaxed enough in the last few years to realize that taking Hart up on his hospitality could be convenient. Since Hart’s marriage to Lady Eleanor Ramsay last April, it had become even more convenient.

Eleanor knew everyone. She not only knew them but knew everything about them. If anyone could tell Fellows about the people at the Richmond party, it was Eleanor.

Fellows took an omnibus to Hyde Park, then walked through the park to Park Lane and north. This took time, but Fellows liked to think as he walked, and he enjoyed the open green spaces of the park. For Fellows the boy, London’s city parks had been his idea of pristine countryside. He’d sneak away from home and play in Hyde Park, St. James’s Park, Green Park, or Holland Park, until someone reported an urchin in their garden spaces, and a constable chased him away.

On Park Lane, whose giant houses grew more ostentatious by the year, he noted a moving van outside the mansion formerly belonging to Sir Lyndon Mather. It must have been sold yet again—that made three times in the last three years. Unlucky, that house must be. Fellows had never liked Mather, though Mather had inadvertently guided Fellows to the right path to solving the High Holborn murders. Nothing about that case had ended up as Fellows had ever dreamed it would. It had led, indirectly, to him meeting Lady Louisa Scranton.

Fellows turned onto Upper Brook Street and walked to Grosvenor Square and Hart’s house. Hart’s first footman had the door open for Fellows before he reached it.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the footman said, reaching to relieve Fellows of his coat and hat as Fellows stepped into the wide front hall. A staircase wound up through the middle of the house, spring sunshine lighting it from windows at each landing. The balustrade was elegance itself, the airy space quiet, beautiful, and at peace.

Fellows’ father had lived here. The old duke had walked up and down these stairs, no doubt growling at his footmen and butler to jump to do whatever he commanded. Hart had traversed the stairs as well, as the boy Fellows remembered from that day on the street when Fellows had pummeled the duke, the duke had beaten him, and Hart had given Fellows a coin. Hart didn’t remember the encounter—at least he’d never mentioned it. Fellows had never mentioned it either.

Fellows wondered briefly if the stern-faced Hart had ever slid down the banisters as a boy. Hart had been wild in his youth, so perhaps he had. Then again, he’d always maintained strict control over himself, so maybe he’d forgone the pleasure.

“Her Grace is in the morning room upstairs,” the stately butler who stood at the bottom of the stairs said.