Chapter Eight
Selena shivered as she strode down an unfamiliar corridor, her candle providing the only illumination in the inky darkness.
A scream rang out. Selena lurched to a halt. Before her, Jack Clarke lay on the carpet in a pool of blood, his dead eyes open and staring. “Oh, no!” Selena cried. “What happened to you, Mr. Clarke?”
Diana appeared out of the shadows. Her dark hair was pulled back from her lovely face in a simple chignon.
Selena’s heart swelled with a fierce ache of recognition.
Oh, how good it was to see Diana! It had been far too long.
Selena had missed her so. She started to run to her, but Diana’s words stopped Selena in her tracks.
“This was no accident,” Diana declared.
Selena stared at her sister. “What do you mean?”
Athena stepped into view, the flickering candlelight bringing out the red highlights in her auburn curls. “Open your eyes, Selena.”
With a determined nod, Diana added, “The man was clearly murdered.”
Selena awakened with a gasp. Her heart raced as she gripped the covers to her throat.
What had prompted such a dream? That feeling of inadequacy reared its ugly head again.
Even in her dreams, her sisters were admonishing her, insinuating that she was missing something—that a murder had taken place when there was no evidence of one.
She had briefly wondered, the morning that Mr. Clarke’s injured body had been found, if he might have been pushed down those stairs.
Dr. Scott had posed a similar question. At the time, they had both accepted that Clarke’s fall had been an accident.
But what if their first instinct had been correct?
If so, why would anyone have wished to do away with Mr. Clarke?
A new thought suddenly occurred to Selena.
She and the doctor believed that Mr. Clarke had stashed a huge sum of money at Darkmoor Park.
Was it possible that someone had murdered him to get their hands on that hidden money?
But no—that made no sense. It would have been foolish to kill Mr. Clarke, for his secret had apparently died with him.
Hadn’t it? As far as Selena knew, she was the only person who had heard his dying words—as cryptic as they had been.
Selena shook off the errant dream. No. It was just her mind playing tricks on her.
Mr. Clarke’s death had been an unfortunate accident, and that was that.
She rose, shivering as her feet touched the frigid floor.
A low fire burned in the grate, evidence that Gladys had come and gone.
Selena gave a silent thanks to the new chambermaid, who performed this early morning duty.
As she parted the bedroom curtains, Selena took in the view of the rear grounds. The wind had eased somewhat, but it was still snowing hard. The ruined abbey rose majestically from a landscape that was blanketed in deep drifts of snow and the trees and hedgerows were frosted like a wedding cake.
Selena wrapped her arms around herself, being gentle with her bandaged left forearm, which now only stung slightly.
Her thoughts drifted back to the previous night, and another shiver ran through her—this time from anticipation rather than from the cold.
She couldn’t forget the heartfelt look in Dr. Scott’s eyes before he had said goodnight.
The sensation of his fingertips as they had touched her cheek with his parting indirect “kiss” had kept her awake for hours and still lingered.
It seemed impossible to believe that at this time the day before, they had not even met.
And now, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
She couldn’t remember when she had ever felt such a dramatic attraction to a man.
Not even Jerome Withers, the cad she’d fallen for when she’d been twenty years old.
She had been living at home at the time in between governess jobs, with no one in the house but her father.
Mr. Withers had been an acrobat and equestrian in a traveling circus, and he had singled her out in the crowd after the show.
Selena had been mesmerized and had attended every performance during the four days that the circus had remained on the village green, sharing stolen kisses with Mr. Withers behind the tent.
He’d told her he’d loved her, and—she could hardly believe this now—she had been seriously considering his invitation to run away and join the circus.
But when she’d brought a freshly baked apple pie to his caravan, to her shock and mortification, he had answered the door in flagrante delicto—and in an amorous embrace with another young woman.
Selena had fled as fast as her feet could carry her, wishing she’d had the presence of mind to throw the pie in his face.
That, however, had been ten years ago. Selena hoped that she had grown and learned a thing or two since then.
She was no longer that na?ve girl and Dr. Scott was no circus performer.
Yes, he was handsome and charming, but he was also an intelligent, well-educated doctor who wanted as much as she did to find Mr. Clarke’s hidden money so that a new hospital could be built in London.
She believed she could trust him. The idea that they would be investigating a mystery together was incredibly exciting. She didn’t know what thrilled her more, the notion that she was about to embark on a treasure hunt that was all for a good cause—or the fact that she would be doing so with him.
Selena glanced at the clock on the mantel.
It was nearly half-past seven. She had an hour and a half before breakfast was served.
She could use that time to start phase one of the quest ahead—by discreetly questioning some of the servants, to see if they recalled Mr. Clarke’s movements on the afternoon and evening of December 23rd.
As if in response to Selena’s thoughts, there came a low knock on the door and Gladys entered, carrying a cloth-covered pitcher. “Happy Christmas, miss,” the maid said politely.
Selena had almost forgotten that it was Christmas Day. She returned the greeting, adding, “Gladys, you’re just the person I was hoping to see.”
“Am I, miss?” Gladys replaced the old pitcher on the dresser with the fresh one, which Selena knew would hold hot water for her morning ablutions.
“Yes. I know you’re relatively new here, and I’ve been meaning to thank you for your exemplary work. It is always a treat to rise to a warm fire in my room.”
Gladys curtsied. “Just doing my job, miss.”
“There is also something I wanted to ask you. It’s about Mr. Clarke.”
The maid’s face fell. “Oh, miss.” She averted her eyes. “Everybody is talking about that downstairs. What happened, it were ever so sad.”
“Yes, and I’m sorry you were the one who came upon him like that. It must have been very distressing for you.”
“It was, miss.”
Selena launched into the speech she had mentally prepared.
“It pains me to think that the last day of Mr. Clarke’s life was here at Darkmoor Park.
I hope it was a good day. I can’t help but wonder how he spent it.
That afternoon, after our guests arrived, and everyone went up to their rooms to nap or change for dinner—did you see Mr. Clarke anywhere else about the house? ”
“No, miss. I were busy helping out in the kitchen at the time.” Gladys twisted her hands. “Mrs. Nash needs all hands on deck these days to help prepare the meals.”
Their cook, Mrs. Nash, had managed with a trained kitchen staff while school was in session, but many of those young women had gone home for the holidays. “What about later in the evening?” Selena asked. “Did you notice Mr. Clarke going anywhere other than straight back to his room?”
“No, miss,” Gladys said again. “By that time, I were fast asleep myself. I’m one of the first to rise, so Mrs. Middleton gives me leave to retire at nine o’clock.”
“I see.” Another question came to Selena’s mind. “The morning that we’re discussing, did you see or hear Mr. Clarke talking to anyone before you found him on the half-landing?”
A flush crept up Gladys’s neck and face, and she hesitated before answering.
“No. Like I said before, I were just coming up the stairs with the firewood. I’m so sorry, miss.
I know I shouldn’t have been using the main stairwell, and I’ll never do it again, but—but I did that morning and—and I just found him there. ”
“Understood. Thank you, Gladys.”
The maid dipped another curtsey and hastily left the room. Selena watched her go, wondering why she had seemed so nervous. Was she hiding something? In any case, she hadn’t furnished a single clue.
Selena splashed warm water on her face, careful not to get the bandage on her forearm wet as she thought about the day ahead.
She knew that Mrs. Hillman, even though she had told her guests not to bring gifts, had presents to distribute.
Selena, not wishing to attend the Christmas gathering empty-handed, had been working for months making gifts of her own for the guests.
It occurred to her, with a pang, that Mr. Clarke was no longer here to receive his gift. Dr. Scott had arrived unexpectedly, and she was glad that she’d had the presence of mind to make a few extra presents, just in case.
Meanwhile, the clock was ticking. She must get dressed.
Selena had earmarked her new red velvet gown to wear this evening to Christmas dinner.
For Christmas day, she selected a tried-and-true favorite: a frock made of dark-green taffeta that featured vertical ruffles in the same fabric on the front-buttoning bodice, which rose to form a high collar.
The dress was trimmed with black braiding and its long, bell-shaped sleeves nicely covered the bandage on her forearm without being too tight.