Chapter 17 #2
I kept it up for what felt like another eternity—offering to tie his tie for him, brushing imaginary lint off imaginary lapels; the whole thing took probably less than a minute, but felt longer—and then I turned back towards the door.
“I’ll just see you later,” I told the empty air as I wrapped my hand around the handle and turned it.
“I simply don’t have the patience for this. ”
I pulled the door open and stepped into the hallway.
Uncle Harold must have believed the subterfuge, because he was gone.
I scurried across the hall and pushed Crispin’s door open without knocking.
They must still be in there, I figured, because surely I would have heard them yelling at one another had they emerged into the hallway while I’d been inside Christopher’s room.
But perhaps I was wrong. I had expected to find them face to face, brandishing index fingers at one another. Instead, the suite of rooms was quiet. I stopped halfway into the sitting room and listened.
Could they have left without making any noise so I hadn’t heard them?
But if so, why hadn’t Christopher come into his own room? Surely he would have guessed that I would be there, if I wasn’t in the hallway?
Or had they, perhaps, gone down to the parlor for a drink? But no, Crispin kept a drink cart in his sitting room—I was looking straight at it—so if bonding over alcohol was what they’d wanted, they wouldn’t have had to leave for that.
Or—the back of my neck prickled—was Christopher right and I was wrong, and Crispin had caught him snooping and had killed him?
That would explain the silence.
My head lifted as I heard a muffled sound from the bedroom. Was someone crying? Had Crispin attacked Christopher and now he was mourning? Or had Christopher defended himself, and hurt Crispin, and now he was upset over it?
I strode in that direction and reached for the door.
It didn’t occur to me to knock first, or to announce that I was there. As a result, when I walked in on Crispin, bare-chested and halfway out of his trousers, all I could do was stare.
For a second or two, until I swung on my heel and faced the sitting room, my cheeks burning. “Gah!”
“If you insist on arriving without notice,” Crispin told me, not bothered in the least from the sound of his voice, “I’m afraid you’ll get what you get.”
After a moment he added, “It’s not as if you haven’t seen it all before.”
I addressed the empty sitting room, even as I listened to the rustling of cloth behind me. “You know very well that I haven’t. Just because you look like Christopher, doesn’t mean you are Christopher.”
And just because I had seen Christopher in the altogether—or as near as made no difference—didn’t mean that this was at all the same thing.
I looked around the sitting room and saw no one.
And while I had only gotten a glimpse of the bedroom before Crispin’s semi-nudity had sent me running, I hadn’t seen Christopher there, either.
He wasn’t in the logical place, on the edge of the bed.
So where was he? Was he hiding, or had Crispin truly whacked him over the head and stowed him under the bed, preparatory to getting rid of him?
Was that why he was changing his clothes, because he had gotten Christopher’s blood on them?
Or, I realized as I looked at the little ormolu clock ticking away on the mantel, perhaps he was simply changing because it was getting close to cocktail time. Although that didn’t explain where Christopher was.
“You can turn around now,” Crispin informed me. “I’m decent.”
I snorted. “I doubt that.”
“I can’t imagine what you might mean.” He was tightening the belt of a rather nice dressing gown around his waist. The trousers were back on, or perhaps this was another pair, but the V of skin where he hadn’t drawn the lapels of the gown close enough, was bare.
I averted my eyes and looked around the bedroom, as surreptitiously as I could manage.
There was no sign of Christopher, dead or alive.
For a moment I thought about asking about him, but then I decided against it.
If Crispin didn’t know that he had been here, if Christopher had heard him coming and had tucked himself away somewhere, I didn’t want to give him away.
“Looking for something?” Crispin inquired solicitously, and I pulled my attention away from the rest of the room and back to him. He was still fiddling with the green brocade belt that belonged to his dressing gown.
“Of course not. Who would I be looking for?”
He smirked. “I thought perhaps you were wondering whether Laetitia was present.”
It hadn’t even crossed my mind, and I said so. “I suppose you got cold and wet standing outside.”
“A bit of it, yes. Nothing a change of clothes and a nip of brandy won’t cure. Can I interest you in a glass?”
He came towards me. I stepped out of the way and got a sardonic eyebrow for my trouble.
He didn’t say anything, just brushed past me, through the doorway and into the sitting room.
Before I followed, I gave the bedroom one more comprehensive look.
There was still no sign of Christopher, and no indication that he had been here.
“Don’t mind if I do,” I said and followed him into the sitting room.
“What’s that?” He shot me a look over his shoulder from where he was standing in front of the bar cart. “Oh… brandy? Or something else?”
“Whatever’s convenient,” I said as I made my way over to one of the armchairs and took a seat. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.” He filled two glasses, crossed the floor to give me mine, and then took his own over to the other armchair and seated himself on it.
After a sip of the honey-colored liquid and a pleased hum, he fixed me with a stare.
“Do you plan to tell me what you’re doing here, or just pretend that my finding you outside was a coincidence? ”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him staunchly, and took a sip of my brandy.
He nodded, albeit not as if he believed me. “I’m sure. Where’s Kit?”
“In his room,” I said. “As I told you.”
“And you left him there to follow me in here?” He arched a brow. “What will he say when he comes out and finds you gone, do you suppose?”
“I don’t imagine he’ll say much,” I said. “He’ll assume I’ve gotten tired of waiting and gone back to my own room, I daresay. Or perhaps downstairs.”
Crispin nodded pleasantly. “Not likely to look for you here, then?”
“I imagine that this would be the last place he’d think to look for me,” I agreed breezily, even as I wondered where this line of questioning was headed and whether I just imagined that it had a slight threatening quality to it.
But no. Surely Christopher wasn’t right, and Crispin wasn’t thinking about strangling me and hiding me in his dressing room until he could get rid of my body?
My fingers tightened around the glass until I worried that I would accidentally break it.
And then I forced myself to relax while telling myself that I was being silly.
If Crispin attempted to do anything to me, I would brain him with the brandy glass.
That would give Christopher time to intervene.
I wasn’t alone, I reminded myself. Christopher was still here somewhere.
There was only one way into and out of Crispin’s quarters, and it was the door in the sitting room.
Christopher couldn’t have left without me seeing him. He had to be hiding, biding his time.
“You know, Darling,” Crispin said, watching me spiral, “if you were to tell me what’s going on, I might be able to help.”
“Nothing’s going on,” I said, a bit too fast. And then, to hide it, I took another swallow of brandy. It burned going down, and I coughed. I don’t think I could have looked more guilty had I tried.
Crispin rolled his eyes. “Of course not. Where’s Kit, really?”
I was still catching my breath. But my eyes flicked—entirely involuntarily, I swear—to the door to the bedroom.
“Truly?” He eyed the door speculatively for a moment before turning back to me. “Are you certain? We were both in there just a few minutes ago, and I didn’t see him. Unless he was hiding under the bed…?”
I didn’t answer. For all I knew, Christopher might have been hiding under the bed.
All the old seventeenth-century beds are high off the ground; the better to keep the mice out, you know.
And Christopher is slender, so there’d be plenty of room for him underneath the frame.
Although it was far more likely that he would have taken refuge in the dressing room, I thought.
Crispin surged to his feet. I watched as he stalked towards the door to the bedroom, contemplating whether it would be better or worse for me to call out.
While I was still contemplating, Crispin raised his voice. “Come out, Kit. I know you’re there.”
There was a moment during which nothing happened, and during which I wondered whether I was wrong and Christopher had, somehow, made it out of Crispin’s rooms without me seeing him.
It was also a moment during which I kicked myself for having come in here for no reason, when Christopher wasn’t even here.
And then there was the sound of footsteps from the other room, and the sulky appearance of my cousin—and Crispin’s cousin—in the door to the bedroom.
“You just couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you?” he asked me.
I sniffed. “He’s not stupid, you know. When I showed up here for no reason, he could tell that something was going on.”
“Much obliged,” Crispin said dryly as he returned to his chair. “Have a seat, Kit. Tell me what’s going on. Feel free to get yourself a drink if it’ll make the confession come out easier.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” We sat in silence while Christopher splashed a finger of brandy into a glass before coming over to perch on the arm of my chair. I surmised I might have been forgiven, at least a little bit.