Page 7 of Not a Fine Gentleman

After fixing her face in his memory, Connor handed back the miniature.

Amesbury gestured. “Keep it if it will help you find her.”

Tucking the miniature safely into a pocket, Connor vowed, “I’ll find her and deliver her safely to you.”

Amesbury clasped his hand. “My thanks.”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Jackson,” Mrs. Amesbury echoed.

Connor inclined his head to them both and strode out to begin his hunt for Grant and Christian’s sister, who might be a murderess. Connor would use every means at his disposal to deliver her to them. He could only trust that the wheels of justice would turn on the upper crust as swiftly as it turned on the lower classes.

Before hunting down Lady Margaret—the Marchioness of Hennessy—he paid a visit to the scene where the murder had taken place. With a little luck, the servants hadn’t destroyed all clues that the killer may have left behind, and perhaps one of those clues would lead him to the fugitive’s whereabouts.

The butler, who’d introduced himself as Gibbs, eyed him suspiciously but led Connor to a library. The pale grey-green wallpaper brightened the dark wainscoting, and an arrangement of hothouse flowers in a crystal vase sitting on a table gave the room a feminine touch.

Gibbs indicated a large floor area behind a table in the center of the room. “My lord was lying there. We couldn’t get the bloodstains out, so we tore up the carpet and threw it away.”

Connor lifted the edge of the rug, finding a subtle discoloring on the bare wood floor despite signs of vigorous scrubbing. He stood and addressed the butler. “Was anything else broken or out of place or missing?”

Gibbs considered. “A table by the window had been overturned, and a figurine was broken.”

A struggle, then. But with whom?

“The only thing missing is a miniature of Lady Hennessy. She must have taken that with her.”

Gibbs added, “We found Lady Hennessy leaning over him with blood all over her hands and gown.”

A condemning image. “Why do you think she did it?”

Gibbs shrugged. “They were quarreling that night, as usual. Perhaps she simply snapped.”

“Quarreling as usual? Not a happy marriage, then?”

“No, sir. Not since the beginning.”

The description echoed Christian’s. Perhaps Lady Hennessy truly felt she could no longer endure her wedded state. “Any particular reason that you know of for their quarrel?”

The butler adopted a lofty air. “’Tisn’t my place to say.”

“Please, do elaborate. Anything you can tell me may help me find the killer—even if it doesn’t seem significant. Why the unhappiness? The quarreling?”

Gibbs curled his lip. “A shrew like that would be impossible to love.”

“Why is that?”

“She’s cold. Haughty. It is a woman’s job to turn a blind eye to her husband’s indiscretions.”

“Indiscretions? Your lord strayed, then?”

The butler shrugged. “A man has needs after all, and if the wife doesn’t meet then, one can hardly blame him for taking comfort elsewhere.”

Connor ground his teeth. Hennessy wasn’t the only one who had trifled with women and left them broken. Indiscretions were all too common among marriages—especially among the arrogant nobility—but it turned Connor’s stomach to think of how often innocent young girls believed pretty talk from rich men and then found themselves with child and abandoned, like his mother. How different Connor’s life would have been if his so-called noble father had been honorable.

Still, if Lady Hennessy had flown into a jealous rage and killed her husband, she must face justice. There were no good reasons for murder.

Connor examined the floor again and looked over the room. A faint trace of red smudged the windowsill. He moved closer and inspected it. No doubt about it—the smear had been made from blood, now dried.

“Was Lady Hennessy anywhere near the window?”