Chapter Thirty
Lady Mary
I hadn’t slept well, and I let the cause of my insomnia know it was her fault. “You said you’d come back to speak with me. I waited up half the night but you never showed.”
Jane ran a brush down my ivory locks, pulling a bit harder than necessary at a knot. “I said if I learned anything I’d return. I didn’t, so I didn’t.”
I glared at her wrinkled face reflected in the sitting room mirror. It looked to be the start of a glorious day. Birds chirruped outside my window. The rising sun glinted off the pond. The color of the sky was almost an exact match to my eyes.
I appreciated none of it. “You knew I’d wait. What happened? Was there another card game you felt too important to miss?” My tone was snappish. I didn’t like it, but couldn’t quite find it in myself to moderate it. I needed a large cup of chocolate this morning if my mood was to turn about.
“You’d be surprised at how much I can learn at those card games.
” Jane laid down the brush and twisted my hair.
Years may have bent her fingers, but even rheumatism couldn’t stop the expert way she handled my ivory locks.
I’d worn my hair in the same style for thirty years. She’d had a lot of experience.
“And?” I tapped my foot against the floor. “Did you learn something useful?”
Jane stepped back and blew out a breath. “Something strange is going on here. I asked about Marie like you wanted me to, and it was like I’d let Southey do his business on the eating table. No one would tell me anything, only that she’s left.”
“Left?” I drew my shoulders back, a bad feeling spiraling in my stomach. “She wouldn’t have just left. Not when she wanted to speak with me.” And not when I needed to speak with her. I didn’t need any more barricades in my path. It wasn’t fair.
I patted my hair and stood. “Someone must know something. The girl couldn’t have just disappeared.”
“There’s something else.” Jane peered about the room, as though expecting the butler to pop up around the corner of the bed. “Another girl is missing, too. Mary, one of the washing maids.”
“Two maids gone.” I tapped my thumb against my lips. What could it mean? Did it have any connection to the murders? It was hard to see how, but then, what were the odds that two women would go missing in a house with a killer and it wasn’t connected?
I went to the wall and plucked my walking stick from its position in the corner. I’d only brought the one with me on this journey, a lovely mahogany stick, with a head made of solid onyx. I brought the round knob down on my palm and nodded approvingly at the sting.
I turned to Jane. “Why wouldn’t they talk to you, do you think?”
Jane snorted as she fluffed a pillow. “You think one servant is the same as another? That just because we eat our meals downstairs we’re all one family?” She shook her head. “They are a family. I might not be as much an outsider as you, but I’m still an outsider. And sometimes family closes ranks.”
Indeed. I rubbed my breastbone. My own family had secrets that would burn the ears off the devil.
One of them had escaped the family, however.
I looked at my trunk. The letters that Henry had found in Perrin’s study had been tucked away under some used underthings.
Perrin hadn’t had it quite right, but he’d known enough.
Enough to let me know that Cavindish hadn’t kept our secrets just between the two of us.
That perhaps one night when he’d had a bit too much to drink, he’d let slip the most private agreement of our life together.
The betrayal burned. Perrin had been his brother, his family, too, but there were some things that happened between husband and wife that should never be known outside the marriage.
I exhaled a long breath. My betrayal had been bigger. Perhaps it was what I deserved.
“Mary…”
I held up a hand. “I’m fine.”
Jane gave me a sad smile. “He loved you. Never forget that.”
My husband had. I knew it. I also knew that sometimes…
sometimes love wasn’t enough. I hadn’t explained the letters to Henry.
I trusted in his discretion. But all of Perrin’s cutting remarks, his hatred toward me, they made sense now.
He’d thought the worst of me, that I’d betrayed his brother and had an affair. Of course, he’d hated me.
I shook off the sickening feeling like it was a poorly tied cloak. “Best not to dwell on what can’t be changed.”
Jane nodded agreement.
“There remains a killer to be caught.” I strode for the door, ignoring Jane’s grumble. Action always cheered my disposition. Dwelling on the maudlin wasn’t a habit I tended to engage in. Setting my shoulders, I swung open the door—
—and stumbled over a furry lump.
Southey hopped to his feet and shook. He gave an excited woof and danced about my feet.
I will not kick a dog, I repeated to myself as I made my way down to breakfast, the path made more circuitous by the dodging and circling necessary to avoid the terrier.
I was one of the first down. Mr. Ryder was in quiet conversation by the far door with the butler.
The Havenstones sat at the table, soft-boiled eggs cracked open before them.
I made my way to the sideboard and poured myself a cup of chocolate. I drank half of it where I stood, then refilled the mug. I wandered to the window for a better view as I enjoyed my sweetened brew.
Bertram was in the garden. He stood by the central fountain, his hands in his pockets. He looked somehow like a lost little boy. Who could blame him? With Perrin’s and Mr. Taylor’s murders, we were all feeling a bit lost.
I stepped over the dog to reach the casement doors, juggled my cup and walking stick while trying to depress the handle.
I gave Mr. Ryder a nod of thanks when he hurried over to assist me.
I managed to block Southey’s egress with my cane and shove the door closed with my hip before he could escape. I smiled at his indignant yip.
A warm breeze greeted me, the day promising some heat. I gave a quick thought to Perrin’s body in the ice house, now joined by Mr. Taylor’s. The magistrate would need to arrive soon, or the bodies removed to an undertaker in the village. They couldn’t remain where they were much longer.
Betram dipped his fingers in the fountain, then brought them to his mouth.
And neither could we. I wanted to discover the killer, but we would all go slowly mad if we stayed here much longer.
“Bertram.” I held up my mug in greeting as I made my way about the path to join him. “If you are thirsty, there is drink just in there.” I jerked my head toward the dining room with a laugh.
He blinked at me before giving his head a slight shake. “Good morning. How are you?”
“As well as anyone.” I leaned on my walking stick. “What are you doing out here?”
“Talking to Miranda.”
A shiver slid down my back. Talking to dead sisters wasn’t something I usually approved of with my morning chocolate. I paused before trying to make light of the comment. “As long as she doesn’t talk back, I suppose there can be no harm.”
He strolled to a reedy plant on the side of the path. “Do you never talk to Cavindish? With an empty house, I find myself talking to my wife and sister more and more.”
I ran my thumb over the onyx head of my stick.
I missed Cavindish something fierce at times, but my house never felt empty.
Not with Jane and the other servants there with me.
But servants weren’t also the friends of most people of my acquaintance.
I suppose if they were just anonymous faces who made sure my bed was made and my meals cooked instead of people full of humor and conversation, my house would feel empty, too.
“I don’t speak to Cavindish,” I said lightly, “but there is one particular fern in my sitting room I sometimes have words with. It always seems to catch at my skirts when I walk past.”
Betram chuckled. “I miss having a woman about to speak with.”
A heaviness settled on my chest. “We shouldn’t have let so many years pass without at least corresponding.” After all our spouses had died, the ones connecting us, it had seemed easier to ignore Perrin and Bertram. To not make the effort to stay in touch. I regretted my neglect.
“I have been lonely.” He ran his fingers up the shafts of some decorative grass. “I’ve been thinking of late to remedy that situation.”
I squeezed the knob of my walking stick.
A dog made a fine companion. Something Bertram could talk to in his empty house.
And Southey did need a new master. “Oh? And how would you do that?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t sound too eager.
If Bertram wanted the dog, he could start keeping the beast in his rooms now, a way to get better acquainted.
And keep the animal from being underfoot.
“By remarrying, of course.”
A moment of dread seized me. My heart thudded in my chest. “Any potential candidates in mind?” He couldn’t mean me. Betram had always seemed a lovely man, but we didn’t know each other all that well, and what I did know wasn’t of someone for whom I had any particular inclination.
I buried my face in my drink, hoping the mug would hide my expression of horror when he said my name.
“I’d thought I might try to get to know Miss Walker better.” He plucked a flower from a plant and brought the blossom to his nose. He inhaled deeply.
Relief was quickly followed by embarrassment. How highly I must regard myself to think that he would want me for a wife. I couldn’t stop my own burst of laughter.
Bertram narrowed his eyes.
“Oh, I’m not laughing at you but at myself. So, Miss Walker has caught your eye, has she? That is to her good fortune.”
His shoulders lowered an inch. “She isn’t some mindless chit. I couldn’t stand the idea of pursuing someone just out in society. And she seems most eager to leave her father’s household. Being a caretaker has been hard on her.”
I hadn’t realized Betram and Miss Walker had spoken in any depth, but there had been many hours trapped inside from the rain where two people might cozy up by a fire for a private chat.
“I’d thought her feelings lay in a different direction.
” And feelings didn’t disappear the moment the object of one’s affection died.
Unless she’d caused that death. Unless she was one of those people devoid of natural affections, a person who could show tenderness to a person one moment and loathing the next.
I’d met a few people like that in my life. Thankfully, they had been few, but I’d learned never to turn my back on them.
Moral insanity, I believe was the terminology for such a person.
I finished my chocolate, but even the heat streaming down my throat couldn’t warm the rest of my body.
A physician had once given a lecture at The Minerva Club about the research of Phillipe Pinel.
How he’d described some individuals as suffering from a type of insanity without the symptoms of delusion.
That a person could appear ordinary and rational but suffer from a madness consisting of the perversion of natural feelings, impulses, and affections.
How a mother could feed and care for her child and then hold its head under the bath water if the child’s crying became too irritating.
Could Miss Walker be one of those lost individuals? In her mind, could it seem just and reasonable to kill the man who’d spurned her once too often?
I pressed my lips together and considered Bertram.
I didn’t want him to entwine his life with her if that were the case.
If Miss Walker was the killer, I needed to discover that, and soon.
“Don’t be in a hurry to make any big decisions.
Miss Walker had some attachment to Perrin.
I’m sure she needs some time to properly mourn. ”
Bertram pulled the blossom from its stalk. “He didn’t deserve any attachment. Just as he didn’t deserve my sister.”
The heat in his voice had me falling back a step. I knew Bertram, felt some natural sympathy for him.
And I’d forgotten that he, too, was a suspect in Perrin’s murder.
“Your sister seemed happy in her marriage in my eyes,” I said carefully.
Betram tossed the remnants of his flower to the ground and plucked another. “I bought her so many of these plants. Miranda loved to spend her time out here in the sun.”
Rather than indoors with her husband, I suppose. “I was looking for you on Friday before lunch. I’d hoped to ask if you wanted to include a note in the letters I’m planning on sending to our nephews. Where were you?”
To anyone with a devious mind, my unsubtle question would have been recognized for the attempt at ascertaining an alibi for Taylor’s death that it was.
Bertram merely smiled. “Those dear boys. Without any parent now. We shall have to be there for them, of course. Give them any guidance and assistance they might need.”
“Of course.” I shifted my weight. “And Friday? You were….?”
“Practicing my corner shot in the billiards room. I find I play better when there is no one about to distract me.”
My shoulders drooped. Practicing alone. Not an alibi. I’d ask some of the others if they’d seen or heard him playing but I didn’t hold out much hope. I turned for the house. “I think I’ve gotten enough sun. Let’s eat some breakfast.”
He tucked the blossom into his jacket’s lapel. “You go ahead. I’m going to wander a bit more.”
Nodding, I made my way along the gravel path, my stride not as sure as when I’d come out.
Bits of crushed shell interspersed with the stones beneath my feet, reflecting the sun’s rays and making me wince.
I didn’t believe Bertram was a killer. He didn’t try to hide his dislike for Perrin.
He would have been a liar if he’d said he thought Perrin was a good man.
But not liking your sister’s husband was hardly grounds for murder.
Southey greeted me at the door, his little behind wriggling. For once I didn’t mind when he jumped at me, resting his paws on my leg.
One thought weighed on my heart. Was I putting little account into the possibility that Bertram was the killer because the evidence wasn’t there?
Or was I letting my natural affection for the man cloud my judgment?