Chapter 11 #2
“You would have to ask him,” Tidwell said blandly. “Although I’m certain you understand, Miss Darling, that the bin wouldn’t be the proper place for love notes from the future Viscountess.”
Yes, of course I understood. I wasn’t stupid. Or at least I don’t like to think that I am, all evidence to the (sometimes) contrary. If Laetitia wrote her betrothed love notes, and he consigned them to the rubbish, it wouldn’t bode well for future marital bliss. So of course he couldn’t do that.
The notes I had sent in the past, including the one that had exhorted him to propose to Laetitia, were another matter, of course.
They weren’t the sort of thing a man would keep, no matter how besotted he might be.
But hopefully he had disposed of them in the fire, and not anywhere where the servants had access to them, because that would be beyond embarrassing.
I eyed Tidwell and Mrs. Mason, to see whether either of them betrayed any sort of knowledge of the kind of correspondence that might have put Crispin in his place and made him propose to the bane of my existence.
They both looked perfectly bland, like they would have had no idea what I would be thinking about.
I cleared my throat. “Anyone else?”
“Lord Geoffrey needed a refill this morning,” Mrs. Mason said. “So did his mother, but she sent a letter to Marsden Manor. It went out in the mail bag.”
“But Geoffrey had an unaccounted-for letter?”
“That doesn’t mean anything, Miss Darling,” Tidwell advised me. “He might have been taking notes from a book or doodling or working out the clues for a cryptic crossword. Or he might have put a letter in the mailbag when no one was looking.”
Yes, of course he might have done. And Geoffrey, of everyone here, would have had the least motive to murder the local doctor, it seemed.
He had visited Sutherland Hall only once or twice before, and it wasn’t likely that he would have run across Doctor Meadows on any of those occasions.
No one had died, nor, to my knowledge, been ill or grievously injured.
On the other hand, Geoffrey wasn’t an enormous fan of my humble self, so if I had to pick someone in the household as the most likely to frame me for murder…
well, it mightn’t be Geoffrey, actually.
I would put his sister above him on the list, along with, possibly, her mother, and certainly her future father-in-law.
But Geoffrey did have motive of a sort, not just because I had rejected his advances before, but also because he might possibly hold me at least partially responsible for the month or so he had just spent in jail.
And accusing me of murder when he had just been acquitted of it himself, did have a certain poetic justice.
Tidwell cleared his throat, and I came back to myself with a rush. “I’m sorry. I should go join the others. Thank you for the help.”
I avoided looking at them both as I backed out of the servants’ sitting room and then turned tail and scurried back to the front part of the house.
I did not go back to the foyer, however.
I couldn’t hear anyone’s voices that I knew—not from there—so instead, I made my way down to the end of the west wing, past the study, the boot room, and the gunroom—where Aunt Charlotte had found the rifle that she had used to take that potshot at me back in April—all the way to the servants’ staircase.
From there, I climbed to the first floor and came out practically in front of my own bedchamber.
The corridor was empty, and I ducked inside my room and dropped on the bed with a heartfelt groan.
It had been a terribly long day, and it wasn’t even teatime yet.
I knew very well that I wouldn’t be allowed very much time to myself, of course. If Christopher didn’t come and find me soon, Constance would do. We were probably all in our rooms getting settled back in. Unless the others had stayed downstairs, and I was the only one up here.
I was still wearing the skirt, jacket, and brogues I had put on for the walk down to the village this morning—the same skirt, jacket, and brogues I had decided would be fine for the trip back to Beckwith Place in the Crossley.
They were decidedly not fine for tea at Sutherland Hall, so after allowing myself two minutes to moan into the counterpane, I got back to my feet and began to systematically divest myself of my current garments.
My weekender bag had been unpacked again (by one of the maids, I assumed) and the clothes hung back up in the armoire.
I slipped my favorite blue-and-white afternoon frock off a hanger and pulled it over my head, smoothing the fabric over my hips.
After slipping my feet into a pair of appropriate T-strap shoes and checking my face in the mirror—I needed more lipstick—I called it good and turned towards the door.
The hallway outside was still as desolate as when I had arrived. I put my ear to the door of the room next to mine—Constance’s, or it had been before we tried to move out before luncheon. There was no murmur of voices from within, so I moved on, alone.
Sutherland Hall is built in a U-shape, with an east wing, a west wing, and a central wing.
This last was where the Duke’s and Duchess’s Chambers were located, across from the main staircase down to the foyer.
The Duchess’s Chamber has been sitting empty for years.
The late Duke Henry’s wife died before him, and of course the same was true for the current duke and Aunt Charlotte.
After his father’s death in April, Uncle Harold moved out of his room in the corner of the east wing and into the vacated Duke’s Chamber. I would have personally waited a bit longer before I occupied the bedroom, and bed, where my father was murdered, but to each their own.
That left the old heir’s chambers empty, and Crispin should have moved in, after his father left, but for one reason or another he must have decided to stay in his existing suite.
I’m sure he was comfortable there. And I could well imagine why he wouldn’t want to occupy the chamber next to his father’s.
Sutherland Hall is solidly built, but there are secret passages honeycombing the place, and Crispin likes his privacy.
Not that I was headed towards Crispin’s chambers, of course. No, I was aiming for the room across from his, namely Christopher’s. The others may all be downstairs, but Christopher might be up here.
There were no sounds emanating from the Earl’s and Countess’s suite, nor were there any voices from behind Francis’s door.
I wasn’t surprised. My cousin wasn’t the type to drag his fiancée off for a tumble between luncheon and tea.
That was more Geoffrey’s speed, I thought.
And perhaps Crispin’s, or more likely, Laetitia’s.
Not that Francis was the type to engage in a slap and tickle in public either, of course. That wasn’t what I meant. No, Francis and Constance were undoubtedly downstairs, behaving like the properly courting adults that they were.
Besides, if Francis wanted to engage in impropriety with his fiancée, he could do that in the privacy of Beckwith Place.
I didn’t bother to put my ear to Christopher’s door. If he were there at all, he’d be alone, and probably not talking to himself. Nor did I bother with a knock. Instead, I wrapped my hand around the handle and turned it. The door opened, into an empty room.
“Christopher?”
I looked around. Christopher’s weekender bag had also been emptied and the clothes hung in the wardrobe.
And like me, Christopher must have taken the time to change out of his plus-fours and into proper trousers, because the outfit from this morning was thrown haphazardly across the bed.
He would either tidy it away when he came up to change for supper, I assumed, or perhaps one of the maids would do it.
“Christopher?”
There was no answer the second time either, not that I had expected one. I pulled the door closed behind me and turned towards the servants’ staircase. (There is one at the end of each wing; this one came out beside the conservatory on the ground floor.)
And then I hesitated.
The upstairs was deserted. There was no indication that anyone was up here.
No voices, no sounds. No sign of any of the guests or for that matter the maids.
The footman who had carried the bags back upstairs was gone now.
The rest of the guests were probably gathered downstairs in the sitting room or parlor—or library or garden maze—waiting for tea to be served.
I would never get a better chance to search Crispin’s quarters.
Did I think it was likely that he had penned the note accusing me of murder?
Not at all. There was a time—April—where I would have been delighted to believe so. I had been convinced back then that he had not only murdered Grimsby the valet, but his own grandfather as well. I had believed that he was capable of practically anything, including shooting at me.
I no longer believed that. I certainly didn’t think that he wanted to hurt me in any way.
What I wanted, not to be too precious about it—was an excuse to look at the notes in his bedside table.
I’d check the blotter in his sitting room too, of course—there was bound to be a writing desk there—but I doubted very much that I would find an inky mirror imprint of the spiky accusation from the note.
It would serve as an excuse if anyone saw me, however.
I glanced down the hallway one final time—still empty—before I squared my shoulders and reached for the door handle.