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He'd gently explained that her father was a man of strong passions, which overcame his better nature because he let them rule him. When the baser passions ruled, the path from innocent pleasure to vice became treacherously steep, and it was all too easy to slip.
She had wept with shame, because she had slipped so easily, and because he was so very disappointed.
He had told her, then, that she wasn't altogether to blame, being young, with no one to protect and guide her. Francis Beaumont should not have taken advantage, but men generally did, given the smallest encouragement or opportunity.
Leila had wept the more then, aware that somehow she must have encouraged, provided the opportunity. Certainly she hadn't avoided Francis. She'd been infatuated with the handsome, sophisticated man who devoted so much time to a lonely young girl.
"Perhaps it's all for the best," Andrew had consoled her. "At least you'll have a husband to look after you. And now you've discovered how easy it is to slip, you'll be alert in the future, and take greater care."
Leila had tearfully promised she would. She knew she might have been abandoned to the streets, as other ruined girls were. Instead, Francis would wed her and Andrew had forgiven her. But she must never err again. She must prove she wouldn't follow her father's path, but would rule the wicked nature she'd inherited.
And she had.
Until now.
"It was all long ago," Andrew said, as though he saw the memory reflected in her eyes. "We shouldn't dwell upon that now—but death has a way of stirring up the past." He rose. "What we want is a piping hot pot of tea and a dose of Lady Carroll's lively conversation to lift our spirits. I shall give you proper legal advice, and she'll doubtless suggest a host of ways to shock the coroner out of his wits."
The inquiry into the death of Francis Beaumont was one of the most splendidly orchestrated in recent British history, thanks to Ismal.
He had personally selected the medical experts, analyzed their postmortem reports, reviewed the numerous depositions, and decided the order in which witnesses would be called. Though the coroner and jurors didn't know it, the inquest was over as soon as the first witness, the Comte d'Esmond, had given his testimony.
Aware that not an iota of prussic acid had been found in the corpse, Ismal had only to demolish Mrs. Dempton's credibility to set events moving inexorably to a verdict of accidental death.
That was easy enough. He'd discovered her weaknesses when he'd listened to Quentin question her. All Ismal had to do was drop a few intriguing hints during his own testimony to guide the coroner's subsequent questioning of Mrs. Dempton.
Ismal exited immediately after testifying, to return soon thereafter disguised as a shabby country constable. He was in time to hear Mrs. Dempton characterize her late master as a saint and the mistress as a tool of Satan. Closely questioned, the servant tearfully and obstinately denied what all the world—including the coroner—knew to be true: that Beaumont spent most of his hours, waking and sleeping, intoxicated; that he was a habitual user of opiates, both in raw and laudanum form; and spent most of his time in brothels, gambling hells, and opium dens.
Mr. Dempton came next, with nothing significant to add but the fact that Mrs. Beaumont had sent for her solicitor as well as the physician.
Quentin, who came next, took care of the lawyer issue by mildly remarking that Mr. Herriard having been Mrs. Beaumont's guardian, she would naturally seek his assistance in her time of trouble.
The neighbors had seen and heard nothing.
Then the doctors—six of them—testified, one by one. They hadn't found prussic acid, Ismal knew, because it was nearly impossible to detect after the fact, even in the best of circumstances. In Beaumont's case, only a minute dose had been needed: both prussic acid and opiates produced similar cynanotic symptoms, and his internal organs were already irreparably damaged by years of abuse. It was this damage, and Beaumont's frequent headaches, that the medical experts used to explain the uncharacteristic dilation of the pupils. Two doctors even went so far as to assert that he'd died of natural causes; the laudanum dosage would not have proved fatal, they said, but for the degenerate state of the digestive organs.
Indeed, Madame had chosen her poison wisely. What Ismal couldn't understand was why she hadn't chosen her time wisely as well. He'd assumed she'd acted in the heat of the moment. Yet poisoning, especially this one, wanted forethought.
Beaumont had been dead for hours when he was found, which meant she must have poisoned the laudanum shortly after the quarrel. But how had she found the prussic acid so quickly? Had she kept it in the studio? Yet that would indicate planning, and surely she'd plan a safer time than right after a loud, bitter quarrel. The trouble was the timing. Tom Dempton, one floor below, had heard a noise from the master bedroom at the same time Madame claimed to have heard it: moments after Beaumont had reentered his room and shut the door.
How the devil had she done it?
Had she done it?
But she must have. There was the ink.
Yet nothing else fit.
The problem had plagued Ismal these last seven days. It had wanted all his will and pride to keep from going back to her and questioning, manipulating, using all of his vast store of tricks to extract the secret from her. But that would be as good as admitting he was stymied. Which he wasn't, he assured himself. Never in ten years had he encountered a problem he couldn't solve. He remained at this inquest, whose outcome was already decided, solely to study her and find, in a gesture, a turn of phrase, the clue he wanted. Her turn was coming soon. Then he'd have his answer.
He'd scarcely thought it when he became aware of a pulsing change in the atmosphere. He looked to the door just as Leila Beaumont entered, shrouded in black, like the night.
She strode down the narrow aisle between the benches, her gown rustling in the stunned silence. When she reached her place, she threw back her veil, swept the assembled onlookers one insolent glance, then fixed the coroner with a look that should have incinerated him.
About Ismal, males of assorted degrees, high and low, began to breathe again. Even he had been struck breathless for a moment. By Allah, but she was magnificent. Fire and ice at once.
Mine, the savage within him growled.
In time, his civilized self soothed. Patience.
Leila's entrance into the inquiry room caused a bit of a stir, which she had not only expected, but dressed for. Scorning to elicit pity, she had attired herself as dashingly as the unrelieved black of deep mourning allowed.
She wore an immense velvet bonnet, tilted back on her head at a fashionable angle, and trimmed with wide satin ribbons. Her black bombazine dress boasted wide shoulders and enormous sleeves, its high hem trimmed with two deep flounces that ended precisely at her ankles. Her elegant fur-lined boots proved a wise choice for a bitter cold day and this draughty chamber.
Since she had been kept out of the room while the coroner examined the other witnesses, she had no idea what had been said. Judging by Andrew's expression, however, matters mustn't be going very badly for her. He looked annoyed, but not worried.
Esmond wasn't here. She hadn't seen him since the day Francis had died. She didn't know for certain whether he believed her innocent or guilty, but his absence made her suspect the latter. He didn't want his noble name soiled by association with a murderess, no doubt. For all she knew, he hadn't testified at all, but had used his influence to get out of it.
No one, of course, had told her who would be called to testify. Despite the fact that one was, according to law, considered innocent until proven guilty and this was merely an inquest, not a trial, Leila had been treated as suspects generally were, i.e., kept utterly in the dark.
No one had given even Andrew information—because her own lawyer might be so audacious as to use it to help her, God forbid.
Secretive bastards.
She lifted her chin as she met the coroner's weary gaze.
In response to his questions, Leila gave him all the
redundant information he sought: her name, place of residence, length of residence, et cetera.
His clerk industriously wrote it all down, just as though no one in the world knew who she was until this moment.
After that, she was obliged to describe where she had been the night before her husband's death, the mode of transportation which had brought her home, and more et ceteras—all, in short, that she'd told Lord Quentin and the magistrate, repeatedly.
Only when the coroner asked why she'd cut short her stay at Norbury House did Leila allow a note of irritation to creep into her voice. "With all due respect, the information you seek is in my signed deposition," she said.
The coroner glanced down at a paper before him. "You said only that you had changed your mind. Would you care to elucidate for the jurors?"
"I had gone to the country to rest," she said, looking straight at the jurors. "The visit was not restful. There were many more houseguests than I had anticipated."
"And so you returned home and immediately went to work?" The coroner lifted an eyebrow. "Is this not odd in one who desired rest?"
"Since I wasn't going to get any, I thought I might as well try to be productive."
