Chapter 13
“W hat are we doing here?” Dominick asked.
Alfie sat down heavily on one of the tombstones. “I don’t know. I thought, ‘Where might a dead man be?’ I suppose it’s silly.”
The stones of the chapel ruins were as grey as the skies above, and the wind held a definite bite. Alfie wrapped his coat tighter around himself and stared at the overgrown graves of generations of earls before him.
“I suppose I should have this restored next, after the gardens. Gil will have to find another architect for the folly. Do you think they’ll be able to work from the captain’s plans or have to start again?”
Dominick leaned against the chapel wall beside him. “I don’t think you need to be worrying about that now, love.”
“At least those are problems that make sense. All this?” Alfie waved a hand before dropping it dejectedly. There was still no sign of Captain McConnell. The search had moved indoors, in case he’d collapsed in some back hall, but Alfie couldn’t stand to be trapped inside another minute with everyone looking to him for answers and him finding none.
If what Mrs. Hirkins said was true, there was nothing for any of them to find. But dead men just didn’t go off on their own. So where was he?
“You don’t think she made it up, do you?” he asked at last. “Or not made it up but… got confused?”
Dominick hummed and Alfie wasn’t sure whether to be comforted or concerned that he didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand. But there hadn’t been a corpse, hadn’t been any blood. If not for the unconscious Mrs. McConnell, Alfie might have believed Mrs. Hirkins’ mind had betrayed her. As it was, he still wasn’t sure.
“She was there when you were first taken in, wasn’t she?” Dominick said slowly. “That’s been how long?”
Alfie scrubbed a hand over his face. “Fourteen years? Give or take. And she wasn’t young then.”
“She still seems sharp enough to me. Her tongue still is, at any rate. But I suppose you never know. There was an old man I knew in Spitalfields who seemed perfectly sane and could carry on any conversation just so long as you called him Lord Nelson. Was absolutely convinced he was the admiral himself. He could talk all about the tactics he used in every battle and was happy to tell you how he survived his wounds at Trafalgar. Never been to sea at all, as far as I ever knew, but as long as you indulged him in that, he was as sane a man as any other.”
Alfie kicked a rock at his feet. “You think Mrs. Hirkins had a delusion?”
“I might if it was just her word,” said Dominick, frowning and picking at a bit of flaking mortar. “But we both saw Mrs. McConnell.”
“And there had to have been something in that room that caused her to faint. Her husband’s dead body would certainly make sense. And if he really looked as horrible as Mrs. Hirkins described with the rope around his neck, that suggests he wasn’t just dead, but murdered.”
“You’re thinking about the headless sheep, aren’t you?”
Alfie had been trying very hard not to think about the headless sheep. Because if he did, he’d have to think about the fact that if they were indeed a warning meant for Dominick and him, then Captain McConnell might not have been the killer’s intended victim.
“The sheep. The cut from the farmer. Hell, even Madam Carnbee’s ghostly face at the window.”
“You think that was more than just an attempt to get into your trousers?”
Alfie gave Dominick a flat look. “I don’t know what to think. All I know is that someone doesn’t like us—worse, I think it’s safe to assume they hate us—and the night after we open our home to guests, one of them ends up dead.”
Dominick swore. “You’re right. So either the captain was killed as another threat to us—”
“—Or it was meant to be one of us and they killed the wrong man. But if he’s dead, then where is he?”
“I don’t know.” Dominick held out a hand, palm up, and gazed up at the sky. As he did so, Alfie felt the first heavy drops of rain land on his shoulders. “And I don’t know about any of the rest of it either. But I do think we should go back and see how things are going with the others searching inside.”
Alfie sighed. “I suppose so.” He kicked out at one last rock, but to his surprise, it gave under the toe of his boot. He leaned over and picked it up.
“What have you got there?”
“Just a crust of bread.” Alfie tossed it into the woods. “A rat must have dragged it up. We need to tell Janie to stop leaving out bread and milk for the broonies or we’ll be overrun.”
“The cats must like it though,” said Dominick as they made their way out of the chapel’s clearing. “Bit of meat with their milk. Do you think it was the broonies that carried the captain away?”
“Don’t even jest about that. You don’t think he brought it up here, do you? Could he be nearby? Although why would a man who was near-dead stop to pick up a piece of bread that’d been left out all night? None of it makes any sense!”
“Here now,” Dominick stopped him with a hand on his arm, then looked around. Content with their privacy, Dominick leaned in and kissed him. When he tried to pull away, Alfie reeled him back in, kissing him again before letting out a sigh and resting his forehead against Dominick’s. The rain was falling heavily now, but he didn’t want to move.
“You’re all right,” Dominick whispered. “Don’t get yourself all tied up in knots about things we don’t have enough pieces to puzzle out just yet. This will all be sorted soon enough and the answer won’t be broonies, or giant rats, or even Lord Nelson, I promise.”
“Why do you always have to be so reasonable?” Alfie asked. Going in for a final kiss, he could feel Dominick grin against his lips.
“I’ll remember you said that the next time you complain about me stealing the blankets. It’s reasonable that I need more of them because I’m bigger. Now come on, we’ll be soaked to the skin if we don’t head back now. With any luck, Captain McConnell will be waiting for us to return, full of apologies for the misunderstanding and with a bottle of port for our troubles.”
Captain McConnell was not waiting for them to return, but Mrs. McConnell was.
She was sitting up on the settee in the drawing room, a blanket pulled over her lap and Doctor Mills’ fingers on her wrist, timing her pulse against his pocket watch.
“Are you feeling better?” asked Alfie.
“I am,” she said softly. “Or at least, somewhat. Doctor Mills has informed me of what happened, but I’m afraid I can’t quite believe it.”
Dominick raised an eyebrow at this. Doctor Mills finished his counting, and apparently satisfied with the results, put his watch away.
“I’m afraid Mrs. McConnell is a wee bit confused about this morning’s events,” said the doctor. “It’s quite common for ladies of refinement following a great shock. Now that she’s regained consciousness, bed rest is the best thing for her.”
“You don’t remember anything?” Alfie asked incredulously.
She shook her head, then winced at the movement. “I remember following Mrs. Hirkins to the drawing room and her opening the door, then seeing… Oh, but it’s too awful! I can’t have seen that, could I? Doctor Mills says you can’t find my husband, but I saw him on the floor.”
She took a deep breath. “My husband was dead. I saw him. But that’s all I remember and now I’m told you can’t find hi-his body. What’s going on?”
Doctor Mills tutted. “There now, don’t get over-excited.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” said Alfie. The pained confusion on Mrs. McConnell’s face was heartbreaking. “But I promise you we’re going to find out. You’re welcome to stay here until you’re better, of course.”
“I’ll be staying longer than that.”
Alfie was taken aback by the strength in her voice. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well, I’ll have to stay, won’t I? To finish the work on the gardens and the folly. Unless you’d prefer I return to the inn.”
“N-no, of course not,” Alfie stuttered. The inn might be safer, but he didn’t like the idea of her taking that journey through the woods every day if she was determined to return to Balcarres. “But I assumed—that is, if the worst turns out to be the case—that another architect from your husband’s firm would be taking over.”
She waved a hand. “Nonsense. All the technical planning is done, and I can read his blueprints as well as any man—better, I would say, when it comes to his handwriting. I won’t leave his finest work to anyone else. And if Clyde is still here, one way or the other, I can’t leave him.”
Her voice waived on the last sentence, and Alfie didn’t have the heart to argue. “Very well.”
Dominick spoke up. “We can offer you a maid while you’re here alone. For, um, pro, prop?”
He looked at Alfie for help.
“Propriety.” Alfie should have thought about that, given the other rumours Dominick had mentioned about him corrupting young kitchen maids from London. A freshly widowed woman staying by herself at the bachelor earl’s manor would hardly put those rumours to rest. Especially since it was his manor where she’d been widowed.
If half the county already thought Balcarres was a den of murderers, surely the other half would once they heard about that.
“There’s a girl employed here named Janie,” he offered. “A bit excitable, but I have no doubt she will make an excellent companion for you. Although, of course, I hope Captain McConnell will be found alive and well soon enough.”
She smiled gratefully. “Thank you, that would be very kind.”
They left the doctor to explain his instructions to Mrs. McConnell. As soon as they were in the hall with the door closed behind them, Dominick punched him in the arm.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“Janie? Don’t you think Mrs. McConnell has suffered enough?”
“I don’t know any of the new girls’ names!” Alfie protested. “So unless you wanted me to offer Agnes and have Janie go back to the kitchen, it was the best I could think of.”
Dominick's silence made clear how much he absolutely did not want that to happen.
“Besides,” Alfie added. “Perhaps being around a grounded, sensible woman will benefit Janie as well. They might each help each other.”
That time, Dominick’s silence had quite a bit more to say, but Alfie ignored him. A flighty maid was the least of his worries.
“Come along,” he said. “Let's see if all the hidden passages have been searched yet. Knowing our luck, he’ll be trapped between our bedrooms and won’t that be fun to explain.”