The Ashford Affair Read online

  “That’s all right.” The superintendent made a note with his pencil.

  Addie was beginning to hate those notes. She had been in and out of this tent for days now, for seemingly random inquiries, scratch, scratch, scratching with that abominable pencil in that absurd little notebook. In the meantime, Bea was still out there somewhere, lost, confused, possibly hurt.…

  “No,” said Addie forcefully, startling the superintendent into snapping his pencil point, “it’s not all right. What are you doing to find my cousin?”

  The superintendent looked up, surprised. “Miss Gillecote—”

  “She’s been missing for four days now. That’s four days in which she might have been found. We have no idea where she is, and as far as I can tell we aren’t any closer to having any idea. She might have hit her head. She might be wandering, confused.”

  Addie could picture her, thin, dirty, scratched by thorns, wandering in the bush, drinking from streams, disoriented and alone.

  Fear made Addie imperious. She stood, leaning both hands on the superintendant’s makeshift desk. “Instead of being out there, looking for her, you’re sitting in here, asking the same questions over and over. Frankly, I just don’t see how this is any use at all.” The superintendent opened his mouth to speak, but Addie swept on. “I fully appreciate the need for a full and complete record, but shouldn’t you attend to the ministerial duties after you’ve found my cousin?”

  The superintendent put down his pencil. “Miss Gillecote—” He broke off, massaging the muscles of his right hand with his left. “At this point, the odds of recovering your cousin are … slim. If she were to be found, we would have found her.”

  In the complete silence of the tent, Addie could hear the monotonous drone of a fly. Outside a bird chirped. A drop of sweat worked its way slowly down her spine, under the band of her brassiere. She could feel the itch of the stitching on the straps against her skin.

  The idea that Bea wasn’t to be found, that Bea might be … gone. It was unthinkable. Nine lives, Val Vaughn had said.

  Yes, but how many had she used up?

  Addie sat bolt upright in her chair. “That makes no sense at all,” she said with a sniff worthy of Aunt Vera. “If my cousin were … were dead, shouldn’t we have recovered a body?”

  The superintendent looked at her with something very like pity. “Not necessarily. In fact, it would be highly unlikely. The animals—”

  “Take care of their own.” Addie’s voice came out strangely high-pitched. The superintendent looked at her strangely. Addie shook her head. “Sorry. Just something someone said.”

  “Whoever it was, he was right. The animals make short work of bodies out here.” Something in her face must have caught him. He set down his pencil and said apologetically, “I am sorry, Miss Gillecote. I had thought you knew.”

  Addie shook her head wordlessly. He was wrong; he had to be. Not Bea, Bea who was always so full of life, so resourceful.

  So careless.

  “What was your cousin’s relationship like with her husband?”

  The use of the past tense stung her. Her head snapped up. “What has that to do with anything?”

  The superintendent tapped the blunt end of his pencil against the table. “We need to examine every aspect of the situation.” Leaning back in his chair, he subjected her to a long, assessing stare. “We can’t rule out the possibility of foul play.”

  “Foul play?” echoed Addie. “You mean— Murder?” She could hardly bring herself to say it. It was too absurd.

  The superintendent neither confirmed nor denied it. “We would be remiss if we did not examine every possibility.”

  Then what about the possibility that Bea was still alive? Addie couldn’t, though. She could see the pity in his eyes and resented it. He’d dismiss her as hysterical. He’d already made up his mind. Bea had been murdered.

  Murder. It was something that happened to other people, in penny thrillers or in newsreels, not real people, not people one knew. It was all a horrible, horrible mistake. It had to be.

  Tight-lipped, she said, “I see.” She sat back down, taking care rearranging her skirt, smoothing it down so that it didn’t bunch up beneath her.

  The superintendent shuffled a pile of papers. “I know this is difficult, Miss Gillecote—”

  Difficult? No. Difficult was a jigger under one’s toenail or a broken belt on the coffee dryer. That was difficult.

  “—but the evidence all points to the possibility of … unpleasantness. We have a missing woman and we have a scarf and a shoe, both with blood on them. You seem like a sensible woman, Miss Gillecote. If you had come into this from the outside, what conclusions would you draw?”

  She knew he was deliberately manipulating her, attempting to play her with that patronizing nod to her common sense, but the question ate at her all the same. From the outside, it all looked rather damning, and even more damning if one factored in the bits he didn’t know about: Raoul’s jealous outbursts, Vaughn’s odd behavior. Frederick.

  She could hear his voice that last night, the strange expression on his face as she left him by the fire. The sound of raised voices and glass shattering.

  “Did your cousin have anyone who might wish to harm her?”

  The question cut too close to Addie’s own train of thought for comfort. “Everyone loved Bea.” Except when they didn’t. “She was always much in demand.”

  The superintendent’s eyes narrowed. He said deliberately, “Monsieur de Fontaine tells us that Mrs. Desborough planned to run away with him. He said they were planning their departure that night.”

  “That’s nonsense!” Addie’s surprise was unfeigned. “It can’t be. She would have—”

  Told me, she almost said. But would Bea? She had been so distant towards the end, hinting at secrets, veering oddly between cool reserve and strange rushes of affection, mocking one moment, embarking on a round of do you remember? the next.

  “I merely repeat what Monsieur de Fontaine told us.” The superintendent’s voice was neutral, but his eyes watched Addie keenly. “She never said anything to you?”

  Addie gathered her scrambled wits together. “Monsieur de Fontaine did fancy himself in love with my cousin—but she would never just run off like that. She has two daughters,” she added by way of explanation.

  Oh, Lord. If Bea was gone, how were they going to break it to Marjorie and Anna? How could she tell them that their mother was never coming home? It wasn’t going to happen, she tried to tell herself, but her faith was wearing thinner and thinner. In her imagination, she could hear the hyenas howling.

  “Was Mr. Desborough aware of Monsieur de Fontaine’s feelings for his wife?”

  Addie didn’t like the way this was going. “We all were,” she said flatly. “It would have been hard to ignore it. But we all assumed it was, oh, a certain amount of Gallic excess. There was nothing the least bit serious about it.”

  The superintendent made a note.

  Addie drew herself up. “My cousin was a woman of the world, Superintendent. She had admirers and she had flirtations, but there was certainly nothing the least bit suspect or clandestine about it! It would have been odd if she hadn’t.” She looked him straight in the eye. “Everyone knew the rules.”

  They weren’t her rules, but they had been Bea’s and those of Bea’s set and that was what counted.

  The superintendent’s gaze strayed to the bloodstained shoe. “Unless someone was playing by a different set of rules.” He gave her a moment to allow that to sink in and then said briskly, “Thank you, Miss Gillecote. You’ve been very helpful.”

  It was clearly a dismissal. Addie wasn’t ready to be dismissed. She had a hundred questions she wanted to ask—but she couldn’t, not without giving away information that the superintendent might twist or bend to fit whatever theories he was forming. He had a theory, she was quite sure of it, and equally sure she wouldn’t like it.

  She stood, smoothing her gloves over her wri
sts. “Do keep me apprised of developments, Superintendent. If there’s anything I can do…”

  “Thank you, Miss Gillecote. Wait,” he added with studied casualness. “There is one last thing.”

  “Yes?” Addie’s nerves were stretched to the breaking point, but she did her best to keep her face expressionless.

  The superintendent consulted his notes. “Mr. Desborough informed us that you intended to return to England after the safari.”

  “Yes,” said Addie slowly. That seemed like a million years ago. She’d meant to go away to keep from hurting Bea. Bea … Bea couldn’t be dead; it was absurd. “I was going to make the arrangements as soon as we returned. I had—I have commitments in England.”

  The superintendent chose his words carefully. “We would appreciate if you would stay. Just until we finish our inquiries. A formality, you understand.”

  They couldn’t think that she—no. “Yes,” said Addie. “Certainly. But it won’t be necessary. I’m sure Bea will—will turn up.”

  “Let us hope so, Miss Gillecote.” The superintendent courteously held open the flap of the tent for her. “But, in the meantime, do keep us apprised of your plans.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  New York, 2000

  Out of his natural habitat, the marquess looked even more like Hugh Grant.

  Not the marquess. Tony, Clemmie reminded herself. When she’d met him at the Oak Room, he’d told her to call him Tony, as his friends did. It was very strange thinking of him by his first name rather than his title. Paul would be appalled.

  Clemmie reminded herself that she didn’t have to care what Paul thought anymore. Not since yesterday.

  They’d managed to secure a small round table all to themselves, near the window, beating out a couple of Russian businessmen and their dates.

  “Is this all right?” Tony asked. He needed a haircut. His hair flopped endearingly over his forehead, giving him a misleadingly boyish air, at odds with the formality of his dark blue suit and the inherent courtliness of his manner. His eyes were as warm and brown as she remembered. Kind. She could use a little kindness right now.

  “It’s great.” Maybe it was like whistling a happy tune: If she feigned enthusiasm, she would eventually feel it. Right now, all she felt was numb.

  She hadn’t gone into work until well past noon today. She’d slept in instead, ignoring her alarm, ignoring the light creeping through her unshaded windows, pulling the pillow over her head as she lingered in that gray realm between sleep and waking, not so much because she was tired, but because there was no impetus to get out of bed, nothing she wanted to get out of bed for.

  She wasn’t speaking to her mother, she hadn’t returned Jon’s calls, she didn’t have a grandmother anymore, and the firm had just made clear that she wasn’t one of their own. Sure, they were still paying her. If she disappeared for long enough, they might send someone from HR to track her down, but it would take them awhile. She’d only mattered while she was partner track.

  Once in the office, she’d closed the door firmly behind her, pulling a solid layer of wood between her secretary’s condolences and the curious, pitying stares of her fellow associates. She could hear the whispers following her in the hallways, the news spreading, office to office. She’d collapsed into her chair, staring unseeing at the monitor of her computer, watching the messages pop up on e-mail, like the moles in Whac-A-Mole, just waiting to be knocked down so another could pop up. She couldn’t muster the energy to deal with any of them, not the administrative ones, not the client ones, not the ones flagged with those annoying red exclamation marks. Who gave a flying fuck whether the firm wanted her to help host a summer associate reception in April? What did they expect her to tell them? Come to CPM, work like a dog, and then get kicked to the curb! Woo-hoo!

  Harold wanted help with a memo; the scared fourth-year associate wanted reassurance on a brief. Well, screw it. Let them go to Paul.

  All of the things she believed gave her meaning—her job, her family—had dissolved, like a dream, like a hypnotist’s illusion. She’d always felt so buffered from the world, in the high walls of Worldwide Plaza in her claustrophobic office or in Granny’s living room. There was always somewhere she was meant to be, people who needed her. Slumped in her desk chair, in the office that was no longer really hers, she felt stripped bare, nothing left but the bare physical reality of her, a tallish woman in a cheap suit with coffee stains on the sleeves, an impractical pair of high-heeled black pumps, and stockings with a run in them.

  She’d unclipped the BlackBerry from her belt. She’d put on her coat and her scarf and gone back home, leaving the angry beeping of the BlackBerry behind her. She’d taken a long, hot shower, standing under the spray long enough to scrub every last trace of Cromwell, Polk & Moore from her skin, as if she could wash away the last seven years with a little bit of Pantene and Irish Spring. After some rummaging, she’d finally dug an old dress out of the back of her closet, black, knit, clingy. It had been so long since she’d worn anything other than a suit that she’d forgotten what it felt like. She’d forgotten what it felt like to dress for a date, to take time with her makeup.

  It took her a moment to recognize herself in the mirrored wall of the lobby as she’d hurried downstairs. She’d looked once, then again, trying to reconcile the woman in the mirror with the Clemmie she knew. The black dress clung in all the right places, emphasizing curves she’d forgotten she had. The high-heeled black boots didn’t hurt either; they clung to her calves, adding a strut to her walk. It felt very different from her usual hurried hunch, head down, shoulders braced against the wind.

  Clemmie found herself slowing down a bit. Sauntering, even. Her hair had started to grow out. It swished pleasingly just shy of her shoulders, fashion-model blond against the black knit. Clemmie wasn’t quite sure who this woman in the mirror was, but whoever she was, she looked sexy. Sophisticated.

  She could tell the marquess—Tony—appreciated her efforts. He was surveying her with frank appreciation. She could tell by the way he quickly dropped his eyes and pretended to be studying the menu.

  How long had it been since someone had looked at her like that? Clemmie tried to remember. Her suits had become a sort of armor; she’d all but forgotten how to flirt. With Jon—well, with Jon it hadn’t been an issue; he’d seen her in everything and nothing over the past twenty-odd years. The last time she’d dressed up for him had been in Rome, that cheap sundress that had been her favorite that year and a pair of perilously high sandals. The memory made her feel hollow and more than a little bit sad.

  Or maybe that was just the not having eaten all day.

  She crossed one booted leg over the other and watched as Tony looked and pretended not to be looking. It was a rather heady sensation, playing the game again—especially after seeing Jon with Caitlin. Not that Jon and Caitlin had anything to do with anything, she hastily told herself, taking a sip of water. She was just out for drinks with an interesting acquaintance, that was all.

  Jon would be green if he knew she was having drinks with the descendant of his research subjects.

  “I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you were able to make the time for a drink,” Tony said, doing an admirable, if not entirely successful, job of trying to look at her face, rather than her Wonderbra. He cleared his throat. “I’d have thought you’d be chained to your desk.”

  “Not anymore,” said Clemmie. “I’m clipping my shackles. I’m thinking of leaving the firm,” she translated.

  “From what I saw of Mr. Dietrich, I can’t say I blame you,” said Tony, and just as quickly caught himself. “Sorry. None of my lookout.”

  “Not at all.” Clemmie leaned forward, making her dress stretch, and smiled her most seductive smile. “You were absolutely right. Mr. Dietrich is a raging asshole.”

  Tony blinked. She wasn’t sure whether it was the cleavage or the language. “Well, then,” he said, recovering himself with remarkable aplomb. “You’re best out of it.”


  Clemmie nodded briskly. “I couldn’t agree more. What are we drinking?”

  It felt incredibly decadent to be contemplating booze at five o’clock in the evening. Vodka from an airplane miniature in one’s desk drawer didn’t count. She frowned at the drinks menu, consulted gravely with Tony on the relative merits of gin versus vodka martinis, contemplated various interesting concoctions made with Godiva liqueur, and settled on a plain old gin and tonic.

  Once the issue of drinks was dealt with, and the proper polite questions about Tony’s stay in New York, his business meetings, and his accommodation, she leaned her elbows on the table and said, “The real problem is what to do next.”

  “Will you, er, find another job?” It sounded a bit like he was translating from a foreign language, trying to speak American. It was rather endearing.

  “Maybe,” said Clemmie. Inevitably, yes. She didn’t have the wherewithal to be unemployed for any length of time. She’d only just paid off her law-school loans, and the unlovely apartment on 52nd Street drained away an ungodly amount of cash per month. But she couldn’t tell that to the Marquess of Rivesdale. “At the moment, I’m just enjoying my newfound freedom.”

  Tony set his drinks menu aside, that one lock of brown hair flopping over his eye. “There’s always room for you at Rivesdale House.”

  Clemmie grinned at him. “That sounds like an advertising slogan. You could post it up on the Tube with a picture of all the happy house staff.”

  “It’s not meant to be advertising.” Clemmie felt her cheeks warming as Tony’s eyes met hers, frankly admiring. “We’d love to have you—as a guest. A proper guest.”

  Clemmie wondered who the other part of the “we” was. A business partner? A non-business partner? “Thanks,” she said, playing it cool. “If I find myself back in London, I’ll let you know.”

  “Please do,” he said warmly. “It’s not every day I find an almost cousin.”