One Touch of Scandal by Liz Carlyle

assistant commissioner exhaled slowly. “There was a housemaid who once fancied herself Holding’s favorite,” he said quietly. “Like his mistress, she pretended her nose was not out of joint, but…”
    â€œWhat about the dead wife’s family?”
    Napier shrugged dismissively. “Just a sister,” he said, “but she and the deceased were on cordial good terms. They had occasional words, I collect, about what was best for the children—the dead wife’s daughters—but it never amounted to much.”
    â€œSo you still suspect the governess. Why? What is your theory?”
    Napier’s expression shuttered. “I have no theory. And I suspect everyone.”
    â€œLiar,” said Ruthveyn softly.
    The assistant commissioner’s eyes glittered dangerously. “I may have to tell you what I know, Ruthveyn,” he returned, “for I don’t fancy being jerked up to the Home Office and run through with the blade of Sir George’s tongue again. But my thoughts are my own. Even the Queen herself does not own those. Not yet, at any rate.”
    At that, a bitter smile twisted Ruthveyn’s mouth. “Then account yourself fortunate, old chap. They used to own mine.”
    But Napier scarcely paused for breath. “As to what I know, ” he went on, “I know the Frenchwoman was thelast to see him alive. I know she ran from the room spattered with his blood. And I know she was half-incoherent a good two hours afterward.”
    Ruthveyn merely lifted one brow. “Well, I daresay finding one’s betrothed covered in blood and breathing his last would send any of us—”
    Just then, the door squeaked again. One of the black-coated clerks slid silently into the room to drop a paper on Napier’s desk, disappearing as wordlessly as he’d come. Ruthveyn glanced at the page, which appeared to be some sort of list.
    Napier uttered a soft curse, then lifted his eyes from the paper to Ruthveyn. “Devil take it,” he gritted. “You called upon Holding’s sister ?”
    Ruthveyn simply shrugged.
    â€œWhy?” Napier demanded. “It’s interference, and you bloody well know it.”
    Ruthveyn said nothing. He was not perfectly sure why he had done it. He knew only that he had wanted to see the place in which Mademoiselle Gauthier had lived and worked; that he had hoped something within the house might somehow speak to him. He supposed it had.
    Tossing the paper aside, Napier jerked to his feet. “Do not overestimate, Ruthveyn, the power of your influence in this case,” he growled, planting both hands to lean across the desk. “I know you have the Queen’s ear—the tongue-lashing I got in the Welham case made that much rather plain—but do not dare to interfere with this investigation. Do you hear me? It has nothing to do with you, or with your Fraternitas or whatever you call your damned coven. And I bloody well will not have it. Now get out —before I decide to go digging around to find out precisely what it is you people are doing in St. James’s and put a stop to it.”
    Ruthveyn jerked to his feet. “You are a fool, Napier.” He, too, leaned over the desk, snatching up his hat. “I did not go to Belgrave Square to interfere with anything you are doing.”
    â€œThen why?” he demanded again.
    Ruthveyn turned away and set his hand to the doorknob. “Not that it is any of your business,” he said tightly, “but I went…to see.”
    â€œAh, yes! Mad Ruthveyn!” Napier’s voice was laced with disdain. “Then tell me, what did you spae for us this time, eh? Wee folk? Goblins? The Ghost of Christmas Past? Fraternitas, my arse!”
    His hat still clutched in his hand, Ruthveyn turned to look at him. In all his arrogance and contempt, Napier could not even grasp his own naïveté. Could not wonder for even one infinitesimal