Chapter 1 #3
Sinking into a spare armchair close by the door, Richard noted that most of the men of the company were there.
The sole exception was Vincent Underhill, whom Richard had glimpsed supporting his distraught sister upstairs.
Vincent’s friends—Patterson and Fentiman—had joined the company at some point.
Richard wondered if they’d been abed or somewhere else on the estate.
“Dreadful business,” the Earl of Leith quietly stated.
Lord Morland, standing with Leith a few feet away from the chair Richard occupied, took a healthy swig of brandy. “I gather there’s nothing much we can do until the magistrate gets here.”
Lord Wincombe walked up to the group. “Gearing said the local magistrate, Sir Henry Coutts, lives quite close, so hopefully, he’ll be able to get here soon.”
Richard noted that while it was plain every man there heartily wished Underhill had not had his head bashed in, as yet, none had voiced any opinion as to who had done the deed, much less why.
That, he had to admit, was hardly surprising. While without much thought, Richard could name any number of ton gentlemen that no one would be all that surprised to learn had been violently murdered by persons unknown, Monty Underhill definitely didn’t belong in that category.
Apparently, Morland was thinking along the same lines. His brow deeply furrowed, he ventured, “Can’t for the life of me imagine who would want to do that to Monty. Gentle soul, always helpful. Never a malicious bone in his body.”
Frowning, Wincombe nodded. “It’s certainly perplexing.”
“And potentially worrying,” Leith put in.
When the others, Richard included, looked questioningly at Leith, he shrugged. “It would be worrying indeed if the killing was some random act and Monty being the victim was simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Morland tipped his head in acknowledgment. “Possible, I suppose.”
Richard bit back the observation that murder victims were rarely so conveniently unconnected to their killers. Leith and Morland were merely putting words to the thoughts of most in the room. Indeed, possibly most in the house.
Gradually, the quiet conversations drifted to more normal subjects, such as the outcomes of recent race meets and sales at Tattersalls and the latest prize fight.
Time seemed to crawl as all there tried to distract themselves from the image of their host bludgeoned to death in his own orchard on a bright summer day.
Eventually, to everyone’s unvoiced relief, Gearing, the butler, appeared.
Glancing around, Gearing spotted Leith and Richard and headed their way.
He stopped beside Richard’s chair and bowed.
“My lords. Mr. Percival. Lady Pamela has retired to her rooms, but she suggests the company should carry on with normal activities, at least until the authorities arrive. To that end, I am here to inquire whether the gentlemen wish to partake of luncheon. The ladies have announced they will do so and have gathered in the drawing room. Lady Campbell-Carstairs dispatched me to alert you and invite you to join them.”
Richard and Leith exchanged glances, then looked at Morland and Wincombe. It was an awkward situation, but starving themselves wouldn’t help, and perhaps acting normally for the time being might help people find their mental feet.
Correctly divining the general consensus, Leith said, “Thank you, Gearing. We’ll join the ladies.”
The rest of the gentlemen had drawn nearer. Richard and those seated rose, and as a group, they followed Gearing out of the library and across the hall to the drawing room.
Richard was among the first of the gentlemen to enter the long room.
Spotting Rosalind standing by a window halfway down the room, he made his way to her, noting, as he did, the hushed voices and wide eyes of the female contingent.
As husbands joined their spouses and the younger gentlemen approached the younger ladies, in the quick, quiet questions and the murmured answers, Richard sensed welling curiosity over what, exactly, had happened.
Over who had killed Monty Underhill and why.
Given Monty’s character and personality, the general feeling of complete bewilderment, of being unable to reconcile that such a thing had happened, wasn’t surprising. Quite literally, no one could conceive of what might have moved anyone to such an act.
Rosalind was standing a little apart from the other guests. She registered Richard’s approach and acknowledged his presence with a vague nod, but her attention remained fixed across the room.
Richard halted beside her and tracked her gaze to the group of younger ladies and, now, younger gentlemen. Rosalind’s expression carried a frowning quality as she stared at her younger sister, Regina.
Richard looked back and forth. He sensed Regina was aware of Rosalind’s regard but was pretending to be oblivious. Returning his gaze to Rosalind, he quietly asked, “Are you all right?”
She glanced his way, considered him for an instant, then replied, “Well enough.” Then she grimaced faintly and added, “I’m not the swooning sort.”
Richard nodded. “Duly noted.” With a certain relief, what’s more.
From the doorway, Gearing announced, “My lords, ladies, and gentlemen. Luncheon is served.”
With Pamela and her family absent—including her sister, Susan—Richard’s aunt Agatha, Lady Campbell-Carstairs, was the senior lady present. She rose from an armchair by the hearth and waved her cane at Leith—the senior nobleman—and he obediently crossed to offer his arm.
Together, Agatha and Leith led the company forth. While some of the elders present made an effort to observe precedence, most simply fell into line with whomever they’d been standing beside.
Meeting Rosalind’s soft blue gaze, Richard offered his arm. “Shall we make our relatives happy?”
Her lips lifted a fraction, then she laid her hand on his sleeve and raised her head. “Why not?”
Rosalind walked with Percival out of the drawing room and fought not to let her awareness slide sideways, yet her senses seemed irresistibly drawn to the gentleman pacing with easy grace beside her.
Percival was proving to be something of a conundrum. While on the one hand, fully half her mind was focused on her sister and what was going on in Regina’s head, Percival was proving to be an effective distraction.
And if she wished to be seen as behaving normally, then it was unquestionably he to whom she should be paying attention.
Over six feet tall, broad shouldered, lean, and powerful, he exuded an air of effortless control somewhat at odds with his undeniably rakish handsomeness.
Sable-brown hair, slightly wavy locks in fashionably rumpled disarray, combined with unusually dark-blue eyes set beneath black eyebrows, well-defined cheekbones, and the spare angular planes of a face that veritably screamed his aristocratic antecedents to create an image of male beauty that any female with eyes would notice.
She’d noticed, but she’d told herself that beauty was as beauty did, and Percival’s reputation as a hedonistic rakehell was of far more weight in the matrimonial scales.
And yet…
She’d expected to instantly take against him—on meeting him, to immediately have any number of sound arguments with which to quash the suggestion that he and she might suit. Instead…
The gentleman she’d met the previous evening had been…something other than what she’d imagined he would be.
He’d been—and still was—attentive without being pushy, supportive and willing to step in and assist her as she wished, not as he deemed he should.
Certainly, he was far more intelligent and capable than she and, she suspected, wider society had assumed.
He was incisive, decisive, and rational in a way that appealed to her.
She preferred stability, and with his innate understanding of their world and his straightforward way of dealing with it and, it seemed, her, he was—entirely unexpectedly—shaping up as an excellent prospect, possibly her best prospect, for achieving all she wished for in life.
As they passed into the dining room, she slanted a faintly puzzled, distinctly curious glance his way.
He seemed to feel her gaze. Briefly, he met her eyes, then they reached the table, and he drew out a chair for her almost midway down the board.
She owned to feeling pleased when he claimed the chair beside her and sat.
For some incalculable reason, she felt safer with him near.
She told herself it was because, with him beside her, she didn’t need to make conversation with anyone else, and he seemed amenable to eating and observing the company without needing to chat all the time.
She used the moment when everyone was shuffling about and sorting themselves into a semblance of appropriate seating to locate her sister.
To Rosalind’s eyes, Regina appeared unusually pale, and as she sat between two of the younger gentlemen—Patterson and Fentiman—farther down the table on the opposite side of the board with the other younger ladies and gentlemen, Regina seemed notably subdued.
With typical youthful resilience, the rest of the younger crew had largely rebounded from the shock and uncertainty their host’s murder had evoked.
Judging by their expressions and the comments traded back and forth, a sense of curiosity and readiness to be intrigued and, indeed, entertained had taken hold.
Percival offered a platter, and Rosalind was forced to pull her mind and her gaze from her sister.
But once the wider company settled to consume the cold collation the staff had put out, as, understandably, most felt weighed down by the unexpected and inexplicable murder, conversation grew sporadic, allowing Rosalind to continue to ponder Regina’s strange behavior.
She and Regina were sharing a room, and from the moment they’d risen from their beds, the tension gripping Regina had been obvious.
At least to Rosalind. She’d asked if anything was wrong.
Far from easing her mind, Regina’s brittle assurance that all was perfect had only increased Rosalind’s concern.
She’d kept a watchful eye on Regina through breakfast, but after they’d left the table and Regina had stated her intention of joining the bevy of younger ladies making for the conservatory, Rosalind had elected to go upstairs and quietly read in their room.
It had been pure chance that she’d glanced through a window and seen Regina hurrying across the rear lawn, apparently set on being somewhere.
Concern flaring, Rosalind had rushed downstairs and started out in pursuit.
Of course, not wanting to attract attention, she’d had to pretend to be merely strolling the grounds.
Then, she’d realized Regina was making for the orchard.
With thoughts of her impressionable and inexperienced younger sister rushing to keep some clandestine meeting circling insistently in her head, Rosalind had strolled as fast as she’d dared toward the orchard.
On reaching the archway, she’d looked in but hadn’t seen anyone. Puzzled, she walked down the row of trees…
The shock of finding Monty Underhill’s body had thrust all thoughts of Regina from Rosalind’s mind.
However, half an hour ago, when Rosalind had gone upstairs to wash before luncheon, she’d found her maid, Cilly, in the room she and Regina shared.
Cilly had been grumbling under her breath as she’d scrubbed at the hem of the gown Regina had worn to breakfast—and to rush around the gardens and, possibly, into the orchard.
When Rosalind asked Cilly what was amiss, Cilly had shown her the thin line of blood staining a short section of the hem.
Cilly had groused, “Why she had to get so close to a dead body as to get blood on her hem, I have no notion!”
Rosalind hadn’t corrected the maid’s assumption.
But Rosalind knew beyond question that Regina hadn’t approached Monty Underhill’s body at any time after Rosalind had come upon it.
She’d thought Regina had gone into the orchard. Now, she knew she had. So where had Regina gone? Had she found the body, panicked, and fled through the orchard into the wood beyond?
Why hadn’t Regina raised the alarm?
Consumed by that question, with her gaze fixed on Regina, Rosalind realized that Percival was watching her. She glanced his way and met his eyes. The shrewd, assessing look she found there had her drawing in a breath. He was far too observant for her peace of mind.
Casting about for distraction, she looked toward Regina again. While the rest of the younger crew were growing more animated, Regina remained subdued.
Of course, Percival had followed her gaze. In a faintly questioning tone, he said, “At their age, a dead body is more cause for excitement than concern.”
“Hmm. Apparently.” But not so for Regina. Determinedly, Rosalind asked about Percival’s estate, which she’d heard was in Lincolnshire.
He held her gaze for an instant more, then smoothly, obligingly, followed her lead and replied.