Evidence of Evil (Murder in Moonlight #2)

Chapter Sixteen

S ince John had locked the window to Frances’s bedroom, they had decided Constance should pick the lock on the kitchen door, a feat she wasn’t quite sure she could accomplish, though locked doors on the inside should give her less trouble.

Most of the house was already in darkness, but a light still came from the servants’ hall, so Constance and Solomon waited with what patience they could muster behind the herb garden wall. The kitchen door looked bright and jaunty to Constance, a lantern of a particularly fat, bulbous shape unlit beside it. She recalled seeing several that shape during her previous visits.

Despite her doubts about being able to pick the lock of the kitchen door—and the fact that even if she could, the large old bolts she remembered could be shot too—Constance felt good about the evening’s chances. She didn’t know why, but a sense of lighthearted excitement had seeped through her during their walk from The Willows. Although she didn’t like the Grange, there was nowhere she would rather be than here in the silent company of Solomon Grey.

She liked his silence. She liked it more when his eyes spoke, and for a while tonight, they had. He had come from his talk with Elizabeth looking slightly dazed, almost bewildered, and yet he had focused on her with a glow in his eyes that made her heart beat and caused everything to seem worthwhile. Like the morning he had kissed her goodbye in Norfolk and she had known she would see him again. Tonight seemed to hold some equal significance, and the knowledge made her recklessly happy.

Crouching close to her, not quite touching, Solomon remained still and watchful. Sometimes, she was sure he was watching her, and then that he was merely listening for movement. She wanted to lean against him and make him fall over, just to laugh. Just for the excuse to put her arms around him…

The opening of the kitchen door took her by surprise. Peering over the wall, she saw Worcester step outside and gaze up at the sky. He was quite alone. After a few moments, he strolled up the path that led through the herb garden, parallel to the wall and several yards away from it. He seemed to need only the light spilling from the kitchen through the open door, for he left the unlit lantern where it was.

Constance caught her breath. This was their chance. Rising, she pulled herself up and over the wall. She thought Solomon might have grabbed at her skirt, but he was too late. She ran swiftly and silently to the kitchen door and bolted inside, narrowly avoiding kicking the lantern on her way.

The rest of the kitchen, and the servants’ hall beyond, seemed to be deserted. Fortunately so, for when Solomon skidded inside and hid behind the door, he crashed into her and she let out a breathless giggle.

He glared at her. She patted his arm. He didn’t move away, but she supposed he couldn’t for fear Worcester would come back in and see them. His lips twitched and she smiled at him.

An instant later, Worcester stepped back inside and pulled the covering door away from them. Constance forgot to breathe while the butler closed and locked the door—he did bolt it, too—and walked away without seeing them. He didn’t look back.

He lit a candle from the branch on the kitchen table, then blew the others out and carried his solitary light up toward the baize door.

Constance could not believe their luck. Neither, she suspected, could Solomon, who gazed at her with a sardonic twist of his lips. They waited in silence. Constance didn’t mind. She was quite warm now, and Solomon’s arm was pressed to her shoulder, his leg against hers. They had no need to stand so close anymore, but for a long time, neither of them moved.

At last, when she could discern no movement in the house, Solomon stepped away from her. Well, it was why they had come.

With her old drawings and Elizabeth’s description of the house still in her head, Constance led the way. But they could not blunder silently about a strange house with no light whatsoever. Solomon lit a candle and followed her, shading the light with his hand.

As they crept along the main hallway, she saw the lantern by the side door, and another by the front door. She felt sure Frances had placed them there, inside and out, to ease her clandestine departures and arrivals. Or to make people think that was what they were for, when in reality she was in some secret room in the house.

The main public rooms would have been too difficult to use. Likewise the bedrooms on the second floor, which her family could have entered at any time, however she ordered the servants.

Creeping up the stairs, Constance heard what sounded like an animal snarling, and almost grasped Solomon’s hand in terror. Then she realized it was snoring and had to swallow down another surge of laughter. The room it came from was the first they passed, probably Colonel Niall’s.

No light shone under the door of the room she knew to be Frances’s. Nor the one next to it, which must have been John’s, for it had been open when he showed them out. At least he did not appear to be up and about tonight. He could be asleep, or out at the inn, perhaps, if the innkeeper had not thrown him out at this time of night.

There was another door opposite. She tried to peer through the keyhole, and when Solomon lowered the candle, she saw that it was a linen cupboard with no space for trysts. Moving forward to the last door, she realized it was slightly ajar. Solomon pushed it open, and she tensed in case the hinges squeaked.

They didn’t. It was a guest bedchamber, which had possibilities, for the bed was fully made up. They crept inside, closing the door again. Constance sniffed. She could smell the faintest scent of lavender, but it was slightly musty, as though it had been there a long time, as if the room had not been aired out for months.

Would Frances tolerate that? Or the very real risk of discovery that had seemed to so excite Darby? It would have been very different for her in her own home. Why would she do it? It wasn’t even love.

Without exchanging so much as a whisper, she and Solomon moved around the room, opening drawers and cupboards as silently as they could. All were empty, apart from one or two old lace lavender sachets. Constance felt beneath the pillows on the bed, ran her hands over the sheet. Clean.

She looked up and met Solomon’s gaze. She shook her head, and they moved toward the door. While Solomon closed it, placing it in exactly the same position as before, Constance ignored the way to the back stairs used by the servants—they would have little or no cause to be in their attic rooms during the day, but several of Frances’s apparent assignations had been at night, when the servants might well have heard her in their territory. She was looking for a part of the attic more accessible to the family, like a storage area.

Her heart was beating fast. This was surely the likeliest of areas for a love nest. They were about to discover something of massive importance, something that would solve the mystery, clear Elizabeth’s name, and identify the true culprit…

It was certainly a storage area. Moonlight gleamed through two skylights, bathing the large, crowded room in an eerie silver glow. Furniture smothered in Holland covers, piles of ancient boxes, dust dancing before her eyes. Her blood chilled and she realized she had unconsciously moved closer to Solomon.

He walked away at once, quite rightly, for there was no point in them both searching the same area. But Constance, sensitive to atmosphere, liked this place even less than the rest of the house. Generations of Nialls had abandoned their possessions here. It felt as if some part of those long-dead people clung to their things, to this place. The kind and the angry and the malicious… Even Frances herself.

She shivered as she crept reluctantly to the far side of the attic. Her lightheartedness had long since vanished into discomfort, a nameless dread of the presence …

Some movement caught the corner of her eye, and she swung toward it, gasping. Her heart lurched and froze at sight of the ghostly figure before her—an insubstantial being, tall and thin yet gauzy and transparent like a spider’s web, only moving, fluttering toward her.

She could not move, though some strange, inarticulate sound spilled from her lips.

“What is it?” Solomon closed his fingers around her wrist before she dropped the candle.

And immediately she saw the ghost for what it was—a very thin bedsheet with moth holes, draped over a tall, Grecian-style lamp as a makeshift dust sheet.

“Nothing,” she said shakily. At least she could keep her voice as low as his.

“Nothing over there either.” He moved on, keeping with her now, as though he sensed her reasonless dread.

Or perhaps he felt it too. Would one ever know with Solomon?

Steadied, she realized now that every surface was covered with the dust of years. They were probably leaving footprints on the floor. Nothing seemed to have been moved or added since before the family went to India. And there was certainly no comfortable, cozy love nest like the one they had found in Greenforth Manor this summer.

“Nothing,” she murmured. “Why is there nothing? Are we wrong?”

“Wrong about the Grange, I think. Unless you want to search the coal cellar.”

“The wine cellar is a possibility. Darby would like that.”

“But would Frances have liked Darby?”

“I don’t think she liked any of them. Except perhaps Humphrey. She was lost.”

He nodded as though he understood, which he probably did. In his own way, he had been lost too since his twin brother vanished.

She shuddered. “Let’s get out of here.”

Obediently, he led the way back to the staircase. As soon as she closed the door on the attic, a weight seemed to fall from her shoulders. Even the small click of the latch only made her smile. They had been lucky this far. Why should that change?

From John’s bedchamber came the sound of movement, perhaps of him turning over in bed. Hopefully. How embarrassing to be caught by him for the second time, creeping uninvited about his home.

Perhaps that should have made her feel guilty. She was too eager to get out and move on. Though to where?

It came to her quite suddenly.

Sarah Phelps .

If her animals were not sick or giving birth, why would she sleep in the cold barn?

Without meaning to, Constance increased her pace, hurrying on to the main staircase and all but running down.

Above, a bedchamber door opened, and she glanced back instinctively. She missed her footing on the next step, coming down too heavily and going over on her ankle. Pain shot through her, and she bit her lip in an effort to muffle her involuntary gasp.

“Papa?” came John’s voice from above. “Is that you?”

Solomon swept an arm around her waist, lifting her entirely off the ground. She felt herself fly through the air, heard rather than felt the thud of his landing. Apparently they were favoring speed over silence now.

She felt like a sack of potatoes under his arm, and it made her want to laugh, even past the pain that screamed through her ankle. Solomon bolted across the hall, through the baize door to the kitchen, almost in a blur. He had to let her go to pull back the bolts and unlock the door at the same time.

She hobbled after him in agony, but this time, as soon as the door was closed behind them, he picked her up like a baby in both arms and ran. He jumped the herb garden wall like a horse, and she reached down and grabbed the unlit lantern they had left there.

His breath of laughter vibrated through her, and she couldn’t prevent her own responsive giggle. Hastily, she muffled it in his shoulder. He ran until they reached the cover of the trees, then paused to glance back at the house.

No lights were obvious. She hoped they had not been seen, although surely John would realize there had been an intruder. Even if he assumed it was his father and went back to bed, the servants would see in the morning that the back door was unlocked and unbolted.

“Oh well,” she murmured philosophically. “You can put me down now, though I might have to hop.”

“Wait.” He carried her farther through the trees, probably until he could be sure there was no pursuit. His arms felt too good around her, strong and firm, though his grip was unexpectedly gentle. She hated feeling helpless as a rule, but she didn’t hate this at all. She inhaled his familiar, distinctive scent of spice and sandalwood, soaked up his warmth, his nearness, his sheer masculinity.

You poor, silly fool of a woman. Pull yourself together.

He halted and bent, depositing her gently on the ground. Her breath caught and she grasped her bottom lip between her teeth.

Without a word, he took the lantern from her and set about lighting it from the flint and tinder box in his coat pocket. “We’ll have to take the boot off before your foot swells—if it hasn’t done so already. I’ll cut it off if necessary.”

She tensed and had to concentrate on not yelping, which at least distracted her from the shock of his quick, deft fingers untying the laces of her boot, holding her calf just above the ankle while he eased off the boot.

Well, it might have been easy for him. It wasn’t for her. He touched the hem of her gown with clear intent. She hoped he didn’t feel her jump. Hastily and discreetly, she reached under her own skirts and pulled down her stocking. He brushed her fingers aside, rolling the stocking gently off her foot, which he inspected closely.

“Can you move it?” he asked.

She did so, side to side, and arched her foot. “It isn’t broken. I think I’ve sprained it.”

“I think you have. We should get one of the doctors to look at it. Either that or borrow Sarah Phelps’s wheelbarrow.”

“Bad taste, Solomon. But about Sarah, we need to go and see her.” She met his frowning gaze with a resurgence of excitement. “Sol, if she slept in the barn, who slept in her house ?”

*

Solomon stared at her, almost forgetting her injury and the inappropriately tempting feel of her slender foot in his hand. “Of course… Frances had an arrangement with her. Most likely a forced one of blackmail. What on earth could she have known that Sarah would care about?”

“I don’t know, and I’m not sure it matters.” Constance snatched her stocking from his fingers, shook it out, and, gritting her teeth, pulled it over her foot. She left it folded around her ankle and tried to rise.

At once, he helped her up to her one good foot and reached around her back.

“I can walk,” she said quickly. “If you just let me lean on your arm.”

“Just let me help you.” He spoke more curtly than he’d intended, probably because her desire for distance hurt him in some way he wasn’t ready to examine. Elizabeth’s revelations about Constance, leading to his own about himself, were still too new and confusing.

Without waiting for permission, he picked her up again, one arm at her back, the other beneath her knees as though she were a small child. If only he could think of her that way. She was light enough, but her curves and her scent were all woman, all Constance.

He marched along in silence, which she did not break either. Turning onto the road, he changed his grip slightly. She was no longer laughing into his coat, but nor was she rigid with outrage.

“It needs a bandage,” he said abruptly, “at the very least.”

“I can see to that myself at The Willows. I expect it will be fine in the morning.”

He found himself smiling because she was always so positive.

“I thought we would solve it all tonight,” she said with a sigh. “That was overoptimistic.”

“If you’re right about Sarah, then we are very close.”

“If we can persuade her to tell us who Frances met there.”

“If she knows. Unless… Frances was petty enough to exert her power just because she could. Would she have thrown Sarah out of her own house, for no real reason but punishment for some slight? Would she substitute her home comforts for Sarah’s hovel for no real gain?”

“You think Sarah did it after all?” Constance said, raising her head to peer into his face. She brought the lantern up for a closer look. “Because she’d had enough of the blackmail?”

His lips twitched. “She has a wheelbarrow.”

“But would she have dumped the body in Sir Humphrey’s lake? He seems to be one of the few people she tolerates.”

“He is. Elizabeth isn’t.”

She fell back into silence.

Disappointingly, Dr. Laing’s cottage appeared to be in darkness.

“We shouldn’t disturb them,” she said, “not for something so trivial.”

Reluctantly, Solomon walked on past the gate. Which was when he caught a glimmer of light at the side of the house. It seemed to be coming from the back, probably the kitchen. On impulse, he swung back, changing his grip of her to one arm so that he could open the gate, then walked up the path that led around the house to the back garden.

The kitchen curtains were not closed, and a lamp burned within.

“It’s probably the housekeeper,” Constance hissed.

“Perhaps. Knock on the door.”

She scowled, and for a moment he thought she would refuse. Instead, she wriggled against him to draw her squashed arm free, while he endured the exquisite torture. Reaching beyond him, she scratched quietly at the door. He opened his mouth to demand greater effort, but already, he heard the scraping of a chair on the floor. The door opened and Dr. Murray was revealed in his shirt sleeves, his throat bare and his waistcoat unfastened.

His eyebrows flew up and he threw the door wide. “Good grief, what has happened? Bring her inside.”

“I’m fine,” Constance said crossly. “We shouldn’t be disturbing you for something so trivial. I’m afraid I went over on my ankle, but I’m sure it will be fine in the morning.”

“You had better let me judge,” Murray said. “Since you are here.”

Solomon lowered her to one of the four kitchen chairs at the well-scrubbed table. Murray went to the sink and washed his hands with soap. After drying his hands on a clean towel he took from a drawer, he dropped to his knees before Constance and gently placed her foot on his lap. Without fuss, he removed the stocking.

Her ankle was more swollen now, and a dark bruise was forming there and along the roots of her toes. He passed the towel to Solomon. “Soak that for me, would you? And wring it out.”

While Solomon obeyed, Murray felt around the ankle and foot. Constance gritted her teeth but didn’t otherwise complain, even when the doctor manipulated her foot, then, with a grunt of satisfaction, wrapped the cloth around it. Dragging forward another chair, he placed her foot upon it.

“A sprain, as you thought,” he pronounced. “It will be painful for several days and will require rest. Let me fetch a bandage.”

As he stood and went to the cupboard at the other side of the room, Solomon examined her face. Her pain made him anxious, uncomfortable in ways he was not used to. But her gaze was beyond him, fixed on the little table by the back door, where he had dumped their lantern. Beside it sat a flint and tinder box, a tiny candle, and another fat, bulbous lantern of the type he had seen…where?

Fairfield Grange.

Constance lifted her gaze to Solomon’s face. A blaze of triumph lit her eyes as she glanced quickly, significantly, at Murray.

Murray!