Chapter 5 #3
I peered over at Gage, uncertain what to do with him.
Birnam was stunned and in distress. His body trembled as if chilled.
I pressed a hand to his shoulder, offering him what comfort I could.
If he wasn’t the murderer, he deserved all our sympathy for what he’d witnessed and the agony he was feeling, but even if he was, he was suffering for it, and I could not turn away.
However, Lord Gage plainly didn’t believe Birnam should be handled with such kid gloves. “What happened?” he demanded of him, and when that didn’t earn a response, he leaned into Birnam’s face. “What happened?!”
Birnam blinked up at him for several seconds before attempting a fumbled response. “Portia, she…I got a note. Asked me tae meet her. She said…” He swallowed loudly. “She said ’twas important.”
“She left you a note, asking you to meet her here about something important,” I clarified in a gentle voice. If he was telling the truth, Miss Whitlock must have had a reason for requesting he join us. One she’d not chosen to share with me.
He turned to me, seeming relieved I understood. “Aye.”
“Did she regularly request such assignations?” Lord Gage asked.
I noted the snide tone of voice, though Birnam seemed to miss the unsavory implication.
“Nay. ’Twas no’ like her. But then I remembered she’d no’ been in the drawin’ room after dinner, and I thought…
” He broke off, shaking his head. “So I came.” He exhaled a long breath, and I wondered what he’d stopped himself from saying and whether it was relevant.
But before I could speak, he shuddered. “And found her.” He flicked one of his raw and ravaged hands still held before him toward Miss Whitlock. “Like that.”
Gage opened his mouth to ask a question, but Lord Gage spoke over him. “Are you sure it wasn’t the other way around? That you didn’t lure her to this clandestine tête-à-tête. One with an entirely different purpose.”
Birnam blinked back at Lord Gage as if he was struggling to comprehend, but then his brow crinkled in outrage. “Nay! She summoned me. I have the note…”
“And where is it?”
He scowled. “I put it in my pocket.” He began to reach into his coat but halted abruptly upon recalling his injuries.
“May I?” I asked.
He nodded, a puzzled frown settling over his features as I lifted aside each flap of his frock coat to search the pockets inside, careful not to cause him further pain. I found a pocket watch and several other bobs and bits, but no paper.
“Then I must have left it in my room,” he supplied, his voice turning barbed. “Didna ken I’d be facin’ an inquisition.”
“Did you see anyone while you were making your way here? Did you hear anyone?” Gage queried, attempting to soothe his ruffled feathers.
He considered this. “Passed Foley upstairs outside his chamber, but I dinna think that’s what ye mean.” He squinted one eye. “There might o’ been a footman in the dinin’ room, but other than that…” he shrugged “nay one.”
I presumed he was speaking of the room we’d dined in earlier that evening but sought clarification. “Then you came down the north staircase?”
“Aye.”
Remembering something, I turned toward the door set into the wall paneling across the room. I pointed. “Not through there?”
“Where?”
“That door.”
“Nay.”
Gage’s gaze met mine, recognizing what I had.
There was a stairway just behind that door, and a matching one on the opposite side of the house.
They were utilized mostly by the staff, but I couldn’t help but think what a convenient escape route it would have made for the assailant.
Philip and Alana’s suite was situated in the pavilion at this corner of the house above.
We would have to ask them if they or their personal servants had seen anyone.
I looked up as Bowcott appeared in the door to the south corridor.
“Dr. Clarke is being summoned,” he informed us, carefully keeping his eyes averted from the gruesome sight on the other side of the room.
I straightened. “Thank you. Would you escort Mr. Birnam to his bedchamber and help make him as comfortable as possible until the good doctor arrives?”
Gage gently clasped Birnam’s elbow, helping him to his feet as Bowcott stepped to the side, waiting for the tradesman to proceed him.
I watched as they disappeared down the corridor out of earshot before turning back to face the calamity at hand.
Instead, I found myself under the scrutiny of two unhappy gentlemen.
Standing side by side, the resemblance between father and son was easy to see.
They both possessed the same cleft chin, the same strong jawline and sculpted cheekbones, and the same twist of curls at the forehead, though Lord Gage’s hair was now gray, while his son’s was golden blond.
Their eye shape was also similar, but Lord Gage’s irises were granite gray, while Gage’s were the pale blue of a winter sky the morning after a snowstorm and almost as piercing in clarity.
Their skin was bronzed—my husband’s recently from his frequent rides about the estate, while his father’s was perpetually so from the years he’d spent on the quarterdeck of a ship as a captain in the Royal Navy.
I suspected the iron stare he fastened on me now had also been perfected in the same capacity.
“And just what were you doing here?”