Jennifer Ashley - The Untamed Mackenzie

“Because I’m not always the good policeman,” Fellows said. “Never mind what the Mackenzies tell you about me—sometimes I’m just a man.”

Just a man who remembered every brush of her lips, every touch, their impulsive kisses, the stolen moments. I shouldn’t have done that, she’d whispered after the first time. But I’ve been wanting to kiss you. Fellows’ world had changed that day and hadn’t righted itself yet.

“I want to trust you,” Louisa said.

“I want to trust you.”

Louisa looked away, head turned, but not bowed. She was courageous, elegant, beautiful. Fellows wanted her with the intensity of a small sun. Somewhere not this overly large sitting room where she could walk so far away from him, somewhere he could close her in his arms, lay her head on his shoulder, and simply be with her.

“Very well, I’ll tell you,” Louisa said. She looked back at Fellows, her green eyes luminous with unshed tears. “Mrs. Leigh-Waters encouraged me to go alone to the tea tent with the Bishop of Hargate, because she knew he would propose to me there.”

Isabella’s maid had laced Louisa’s stays too tightly. She could not draw a proper breath, couldn’t keep her voice from sounding scratched.

She hated the way Inspector Fellows was looking at her—Chief Inspector now; he’d won his long sought-after promotion. His hazel eyes were steady but behind them were questions, skepticism.

This man, this half-Mackenzie, always unnerved her. He was as tall and strong as his brothers, and possessed their air of confidence so acute it was almost arrogance. His hair, a dark shade of auburn, had been cut short, now rumpled as though the wind had caught it. Unshaved whiskers were dark on his bruised and battered face, and his eyes were red-rimmed.

But the hazel eyes that looked out at her showed anything but exhaustion. Fellows watched her with the keenness of a hawk, one waiting for the right moment to strike its prey.

The abrasions on his face had stunned Louisa almost as much as seeing him again. She wanted to touch him, ask in concern what had happened to him, try to make his hurts better, as though she had a right to.

The wild streak in the rest of the Mackenzies had been honed in Fellows into a ruthless need to pursue whatever criminals he believed needed to be pursued. He was just as single-minded as the rest of the family, but not as scandalous, because he kept a very tight rein on his emotions.

Fellows waited, not saying a word. The hawk would let his prey come to him.

Louisa drew another breath, or tried to, silently cursing her tight corset. “And yes, he did propose.”

“And you said . . . ?”

“I never had the chance to answer. As I tried to think of a way to let him down politely, he took ill.”

Fellows’ expression didn’t change. “You were going to refuse him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I thought of you, and I couldn’t. “Why?” She wanted to laugh again. “Because I did not want to marry him. I knew we wouldn’t suit.”

Fellows’ expression didn’t change. “Because your father defrauded him?”

Louisa flinched but had to nod. “I was surprised Hargate wanted to propose to me, in light of that.”

“Curious.”

“Yes, it was.” Humiliating too. Something she did not want to discuss with Mr. Fellows.

Fellows looked her up and down, and when he spoke again, his voice was mild and even. “I’ve spent years listening to people lie to me, Louisa. I’ve learned what exactly it sounds like. Up until this moment, you’ve been telling me the truth. Now you are lying. Why?”

With any other man, Louisa might hold her head up and demand him to cease badgering her, but with Fellows, she couldn’t. He knew too much about her. He knew she liked kissing him, liked the smoothness of his lips, the taste of his tongue.

Her face burned. “You are presumptuous.”

“It isn’t presumption,” Fellows said, keeping the mildness. “Or assumption. Why did you refuse the Bishop of Hargate? He’s rich, has plenty of titles in his family, and a lofty position. He should have been a good match for you.”

His indifferent tone made Louisa’s heart sting. “I should have married him for his wealth and position?” She gave him a mirthless smile. “Is that what you’re asking?”

“It is why people of your class marry, isn’t it? A business arrangement. Marriage is for connections and money; love is sought with mistresses.”

In spite of the uncaring words, the look in Fellows’ eyes was bitter. Louisa knew his history—the now-deceased Duke of Kilmorgan had dallied with a tavern maid, got her with child, then deserted her. When Fellows’ mother sought the duke to tell him about the baby and ask him for help, he’d denied Fellows was his.

Fellows’ Mackenzie blood was obvious, however. At one time he’d worn a thick moustache to hide some of his features, but now that he went about clean-shaven, the resemblance to the old duke and to Hart Mackenzie was clear. Fellows had never spoken of his parentage to Louisa, but she knew the duke’s denial of him had hurt him deeply and driven him most of his life.

“My reasons for refusing the bishop have nothing to do with this,” Louisa said. “I promise you. I didn’t poison him, and I’d like to go home now.”

Fellows took a step toward her, his carelessness gone, menace returning. “I will determine what has to do with Hargate’s death and what doesn’t. You need to tell me everything, or else you’ll be stammering it in front of a magistrate. He will also know when you are lying, and unlike me, he’ll turn everything against you. Because you’re an earl’s daughter, instead of being hanged or sent to prison, you might be put into a home for genteel ladies who have gone insane, but then again, you might find yourself up before a judge who wants to make an example of you.” Another step, the light in his hazel eyes sharp. “Or, you can tell me everything, and you won’t have to face a magistrate at all.”

He was unnervingly close. Louisa smelled the outdoors on him, the fresh April wind mixed with the scent of coal smoke that clung to the wool of his coat. His words terrified her, because she knew he was right. She knew how it looked—she alone with the bishop, she serving him tea, he dropping dead at her feet. Louisa was a young woman from a scandalous family, and who knew what she might do?

His deep voice rumbled around her, stern and harsh, but Louisa wanted to cling to it, to let the sound comfort her. While he meant to frighten her, he was asking her to trust him with the truth, and with her life. He was right that she had no one else to help her.

She clenched her hands and said the words in a rush. “The Bishop of Hargate told me he would release my family from any obligation to repay him if I married him. Repay him what he’d lost because of my father, I mean. He’d relieve us of that debt and the shame of it, but only if I consented to be his wife.”

Fellows’ eyes became even more focused, frighteningly so. “He told you this in no uncertain terms?”

Louisa nodded. “Oh, he made it very clear.”

Fellows went silent for a few moments. Clouds slid across the sun, thick enough to erase the happy spring sunshine and plunge the sitting room into gloom.

When Fellows spoke again, his voice was quiet. “You know you have just outlined a perfect motive for killing him.”

“Yes, I do realize that.” Louisa swallowed on dryness. “It is one reason I was trying very hard not to tell you.”

“One reason? What is another?”

“The other reason is because it is so very embarrassing.”

Fellows studied her, his eyes still. His left cheekbone bore a deep cut, the blood dried. Black bruises surrounded the cut, the bruises moving up to his temple. The right side of his mouth had taken another cut, and scrapes decorated his cheek. Again, Louisa wanted to reach up and touch his face, to ask if he was all right. She curled her fingers into her palms.

“Did anyone else know the terms of this proposal?” Fellows asked abruptly.

“I have no idea. Mrs. Leigh-Waters knew, or guessed, the bishop would propose to me, but whether she had any hint he would try to blackmail me into accepting, I do not know.”

“Even if she didn’t know, the story will come out sooner or later,” Fellows went on in his matter-of-fact voice. No false comfort for Louisa, just unvarnished truth. “Hargate might have confided in his valet that he planned to coerce you into marrying him, or his solicitor. Or he might have boasted of it loudly at his club or a meeting of his vestry, who knows?”

“Well, I didn’t know until he sprang it on me in the tea tent,” Louisa said. “That’s a point in my favor, is it not? If I’d decided to poison him, I would have had to prepare beforehand. But I had no reason to prepare, because I had no idea what he meant to ask me. Surely that proves my innocence. I would have had to bring the poison with me to the garden party, and I assure you, Inspector, I have no vials of poison about my person.”

“Proves nothing. You might have known about Hargate’s proposal in advance. Servants gossip. Solicitors and vestrymen gossip too. You might have seen yourself pushed into accepting him and decided the only way out of marrying a man who demanded your body in exchange for forgiving your father’s debt was killing him. You could have brought the vial in your pocket or a reticule. Afterward you could have dropped the bottle in the tea tent, or surreptitiously tossed it into the garden as you walked through it, or even hidden it in this room while you waited for me. Or you might have it in your pocket now.”