“They truly don’t know, Inspector,” Beth interrupted. She wrapped up the false beard and handed the package to a smug-looking Katie. “Men often can’t see what’s beyond the tips of their noses.”
“I’m an artist,” Mac interjected. “I am supposed to be a brilliant observer, and I never saw it.”
“But you paint women,” Beth said. “I’ve seen your paintings, and if a man is in them, they’re vague and in the background.”
Mac conceded. “The fairer sex is much more interesting.” “When I saw the portrait of your father at Kilmorgan, the resemblance struck me.” She smiled. “Inspector Fellows is your half brother.”Hart’s sitting room filled with Mackenzies. Curry bustled in with them, and the other three manservants hovered in the doorway, looking worried and curious at the same time. Beth was breathing hard, shaky from her trip down the stairs, and Ian made her sit next to him on the sofa. Why he believed he could keep Beth out of trouble, he didn’t know. She was headstrong and had a will of steel. His own mother had been a victim of his father, terrified of him. Beth’s mother had been a victim as well, but Beth had somehow managed to transcend the horrors of her childhood. Her troubles had made her courageous and unflinching, characteristics that had been lost on the idiotic Mather. Beth was worth saving, worth protecting, like the rarest of porcelains. Hart entered last, his eagle gaze taking in his brothers, Beth, and Fellows. Fellows was on his feet, facing them all under the room’s high ceiling.
“Who is your mother?” Hart asked him in his cool ducal voice.
Beth answered for the inspector. “Her name is Catherine Fellows, and they take rooms in a house near St. Paul’s Churchyard.”
Hart transferred his gaze to Fellows, looking the man up and down as though seeing him for the first time. “She’ll have to be moved to better accommodation.” Fellows blustered. “Why the devil should she? Because you couldn’t abide the shame if someone found out?”
“No,” Hart answered. “Because she deserves better. If my father used her and abandoned her, she deserves to live in a palace.”
“We should have all of it. Your houses, your carriages, your damned Kilmorgan Castle. She worked her fingers raw to keep me fed while you licked gold plates.”
“No gold plates in our nursery,” Cameron interrupted in a mild voice. “There was a china mug I was fond of, but it was chipped.”
“You know what I mean,” Fellows snarled. “You had everything we should have had.”
“And if I’d known that my father had left a woman to starve and raise his child, I’d have done something much sooner,” Hart said. “You should have told me.” “And come crawling to a Mackenzie?”
“It would have saved us all so much trouble.” “I had my own job, earned by my hard work, which you did your best to destroy. I’m older than you by two years, Hart Mackenzie. The dukedom should be mine.” Hart moved to the table behind a sofa and opened a humidor. “I’d give you the joy of it, but the laws of England don’t work that way. My father was married to my mother legally four years before I was born. Illegitimate children can be left money, but they can’t inherit the peerage.” “You wouldn’t want it,” Cameron put in. “More trouble than it’s worth. And for God’s sake, don’t murder Hart or I’m next.”
Fellows clenched his hands. He moved his gaze around the room, taking in the fifteen-foot-high ceiling, the portraits of Mackenzies, and Mac’s painting of the five Mackenzie dogs. Mac had painted them so lifelike that Ian expected them to come loping out of the painting and start drooling on Mac’s boots.
“I am not one of you,” Fellows began.
“You are,” Ian said. Beth smelled so good, her hair snaking over her shoulders in dark brown waves, making patterns on her gold dressing gown. “You don’t want to be, because that means you’re just as mad as the rest of us.” “I am not a madman,” Fellows returned. “There is only one madman in this room, my lord.”
“All of us are mad in some way,” Ian said. “I have a memory that won’t let go of details. Hart is obsessed with politics and money. Cameron is a genius with horses, and Mac paints like a god. You find out details on your cases that others miss. You are obsessed with justice and getting everything you think is coming to you. We all have our madness. Mine is just the most obvious.”
Everyone in the room stared at Ian, including Beth. Their scrutiny made him uncomfortable, so he buried his face in Beth’s hair.