“Did any of them come back into favour?”
“Only the bully Quaife. He’d battle with her once too often and be dismissed. But the months would pass and she’d forget and take him back again.”
Gently, Ottilia probed, hoping the woman was too lost in reminiscence to be aware of being questioned. “There were others, you said?”
“I knew them only as shadows.”
“You did not know who they were?”
“She’d greet them by name when I took them up, but I paid no mind. Do you think I wanted to know?”
“Memory is a wayward thing,” Ottilia said. “We do not always realise how much we remember.”
The maid looked at her, the eyes sharp and urgent. “You’d like to think one of them killed her and not his lordship. I’ve not been next or nigh my lady for six years. How do I know who came and went?”
“Who would know? Mary Huntshaw perhaps? Do you suppose she performed the same offices for her ladyship?”
A scornful snort came from Venner’s mouth. “What, that mouse? If my lady had dared trust her!”
“Then how could she entertain if she had not means of introducing the gentlemen?”
“Gentlemen! I’ve a word better than that—even for them as had legitimate title to it.”
“But how could they enter, Miss Venner?” Ottilia persisted.
A sullen expression entered the woman’s features. “She’d keys enough. I know. She made me go to the locksmith for’em. I told her it was a danger, but I wouldn’t put it past her to give one over.”
“Keys to which door? And how many?”
“There’s only one door safe enough in the night hours. She used it herself to go out in secret, that’s why she wanted the key.”
“You said there was more than one.”
“Two, in case she lost one. She was never tidy.”
Ottilia was about to ask for the specific door again when the maid suddenly grasped her arm.
“If you’re wise, you’ll leave this. They’ll not hang his lordship. What does it matter who killed her? It won’t bring her back.”
“No, but I’m afraid you are too sanguine. If Lord Polbrook is tried by his peers in the House of Lords, as things stand there is little doubt he will be found guilty.”
Venner’s stare became intent and her grip tightened. But she said nothing. Ottilia held her gaze.
“I need your help. I need names. You have mentioned Quaife. But the others? Please think, Miss Venner.”
The lady’s maid released her arm and sat back. She gave another dismissive shake of her shoulders. “I don’t know. Theo, I think. Another may have been a Jeremy. But you’ll not find the man you look for among these, not if I know it.”
“Why not?”
A peal of laughter broke from Venner’s mouth, a mirthless sound akin to the screech of a madwoman. Ottilia flinched a little, setting her teeth against a surge of revulsion.
The noise stopped as suddenly as it had begun and the maid rose smartly from the bed and headed for the door.
“I’ve to fetch the milk and send up a maid with the warming pan.”
Her manner had reverted to the normal sour reserve. She opened the door and pointedly stood back from it, looking towards Ottilia.
Ottilia got up, feeling as if she had been granted an interview that was now at an end. There seemed nothing for it but to take her departure. When the two of them were outside the door and Venner had closed it, she turned.
“I must thank you, Miss Venner—”
“Don’t.” The fire was back in the creature’s eyes. “Do you think it gives pleasure to me to revile her? She’s been punished. That is enough. It is not for me to judge if she came by her deserts.”
With which the woman thrust her head down between hunched shoulders and went on her way with rapid gait. Ottilia was left wondering how in the world Sybilla bore with the creature.
Lurid dreams disturbed Ottilia’s repose, peopled by unnamed shadows, flittering candle flames, and sensual groans arising from a tangled panorama of shifting shapes within a curtained interior from which the ghastly bulging features of Emily, Lady Polbrook, rose in disembodied form.
Ottilia strained awake and lay panting in the dark, her heart pounding, her body sluggish and heavy. The contorted visage of the woman Venner, mouth open in maniacal laughter, hung like a pall in her mind’s eye as Ottilia slowly came out of the torpor of sleep. Common sense tapped on the walls, and even as she recognised the origin of the unquiet dreams, the image began to fade. A clink outside her immediate environment sharpened her senses, and a memory leapt into her head.
Keys! Venner had spoken of keys.
Emily had two keys to a convenient door. Ottilia cursed inwardly as she remembered she had forgotten to ask which door. But there was a key. She must test for a fit, but which door?
A horrid thought threw her into near panic. In the commotion over discovering the theft of the jewel box, she had forgotten to ask Sybilla to leave the drawer of the night table intact. Heaven send the key had not been thrown away!
The clink sounded again and Ottilia realised she had woken once more to the chambermaid’s dawn wanderings. Recalling the last time, she took care to advertise her wakened state with a gentle cough or two before calling out.
“Is that you, Sukey?”
There was a brief cessation of sound. Then the girl answered.
“Yes, miss.”
Ottilia rose onto her elbow, groping for the break in the curtains. By the time she threw them open enough to let in the welcome light of day, albeit grey and dim, Sukey had risen to her feet and moved towards the bed.
“Fire’s going nicely, miss,” volunteered the girl, bobbing a curtsy.
“So I see. Thank you. How are you faring, Sukey? Is all well?”
“Well as can be expected, miss, though we ain’t none of us as bad as poor Miss Candy. Sick as a cat she is, though that ain’t no surprise.”
“No, indeed,” agreed Ottilia, pulling herself out of bed.
“Mrs. Thriplow is that cross, miss, as she’d like to poison him as done it, she says, to be giving our poor Miss Candy such a heartache.”
Ottilia reached for her dressing robe and tugged it on. “I take it Lady Candia is a favourite in the household?”
“Oh yes, miss. There ain’t no one don’t dote on our Miss Candy. She ain’t toffee-nosed, she ain’t. Knows us all by name, does our Miss Candy, and she never forgets to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Nor she don’t like giving no trouble to anyone.”
“With the result,” smiled Ottilia, “that everyone takes the greatest trouble about her.”
Sukey nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes, miss. Why, even yesterday when I went in to make up the fire in her chamber, for she come unexpected like and I hadn’t done it afore, and our Miss Candy were crying fit to bust herself, but she ups and greets me and says to me straight off, ‘Sukey, have you a cold?’ I said as it were nearly done now, but our Miss Candy says as how I should take care of myself, but I told her not to worry herself none over me for she’d enough trouble of her own, and she thanked me pretty like and you could see the poor dear were trying not to cry no more only she couldn’t help it.”
The rush of words were delivered with the passionate effusion typical of the chambermaid, but the encomium impressed Ottilia. She replied suitably but could not help the sneaking thought that the demise of the marchioness might not prove uniformly disastrous.
Meanwhile, she was itching to be up and doing. “Sukey, how long do you think it might take to have my hot water sent up today?”
The chambermaid exhibited consternation. “Ooh, miss, I’m that sorry it took so long that day. Things is getting more like normal, for Mrs. Thriplow ain’t best pleased as the household is going all to pieces and she’s been a-chivvying like a regular lion she has.”
“Ah, has she? Well then, may I hope to have hot water within, shall we say, the hour?”
Sukey looked affronte
d. “The hour, miss? I should think Jane’d do better nor that.”
“Half an hour then.”
The girl nodded. “I’ll tell her meself, miss.” Then her eyes grew round again. “That is, if she ain’t still hollering about that there jewel box and crying out as we’ll all be taken for thieves and transported.”
Ottilia’s mind jumped. Her instant thought was that Mary, despite her warning, had let the cat out of the bag. But it did not ring true, for she had formed a good opinion of Huntshaw’s reliability. Which meant someone had been listening at doors. The theft had been discussed both in the marchioness’s bedchamber and in the parlour. She gave the chambermaid a sharp look.
“Who told Jane about the jewel box, Sukey?”
The girl looked scared suddenly. “I don’t know, miss. I couldn’t say as anyone did, for it’s all as any is talking of this morning.”
Smothering a spurt of annoyance, Ottilia let it go. Small chance of discovering who had begun such a tale, she knew well. Tongues wagged so readily in domestic circles, she doubted even the redoubtable Mrs. Thriplow could trace it down. But the notion revolving in her head was disquieting. Suppose it was the thief who had set the story going in a bid to divert attention? If so, the finger pointed inevitably to one of the staff, for the news could not have come from outside the house.
Dismissing the chambermaid, she moved to warm herself by the fire. Sukey’s final revelation did not encourage her to suppose that the hot water would indeed make its appearance in under an hour, and in the meanwhile she was wasting precious time. She must get that key—if it was still there. There might be a few servants about, but the family would be abed for an hour or two yet. Besides, her mission was too important to be set aside for mere convention, Ottilia reasoned.
The decision made, it was not long before she stood in front of the late marchioness’s chamber door with the key turning in the lock.
Daylight spilled into the room from the unshuttered windows and the blinds were up. The chaise longue had been moved out of the way and several open trunks were set in a row along the wall to one side. Ottilia gave each a cursory glance, enough to see that Sybilla’s orderly hand was behind the organisation. Although she and Lady Dalesford had, with Mary’s help, made an excellent start on the disposal of Emily’s effects, there was still a great deal to do.
The bed had been stripped, and the bare mattress had a poignancy that threw the loss of its former occupant into high relief. Ottilia was relieved she had insisted upon the doors remaining secured and the key in her possession. There was no chance Lady Candia might wander in to be ripped apart by this distressing scene.
The bed-curtains were securely tied at each post, and as Ottilia came around, heading for the night table, she was struck by an oddity that had gone unnoticed when the curtains had been drawn about the bed. The back drapes behind the headboard had also been pulled back and tied, and Ottilia could clearly see that the four-poster was not flush against the back wall. Moving up to the head, she looked behind the near post. There was a gap of several inches.
Distracted from her mission, she stared at it for several moments, a picture forming in her startled mind and filling it with question. If the possibility had any substance, it put a vastly different complexion on the whole premise.
“Ottilia?”
She looked swiftly across the bed. Lord Francis stood by the door, attired as she was in his nightclothes, a dressing gown over all. He had spoken softly and his look was questioning. It came to her belatedly that he had used her given name, and a cascade of warmth rushed into her bosom, throwing her off-balance.
“Oh, it’s you.”
She knew she must sound foolish, but her wits seemed to have deserted her and she could think of nothing sensible to say.
“What in the world are you doing in here at this hour?”
A laugh escaped her at that, and her tongue leapt into action. “I might ask you the same question.”
The smile lit his face and Ottilia’s breath vanished.
“Touché!” He came into the room, casting a look over the trunks. “I was in my brother’s room and heard the lock turning.”
“And thought I might be the murderer returning to the scene of the crime?”
Lord Francis eyed her, his expression unreadable. “Something of the sort.” He glanced back at the open door. “Let us hope none of the servants takes it into his head to look in on us.”
“Indeed,” she managed, breathlessness returning. “A highly improper encounter.”
He cast a rueful glance down at his night clothing, and gave a sudden grin, which affected her not a little.
“Then we had best keep the matter strictly between ourselves. But I am yet in the dark. Why are you in here?”
Instead of answering, Ottilia gestured towards the back of the bed. “Do you suppose a man might conceivably conceal himself behind the back drapes?”
An arrested look replaced the humour in Lord Francis’s face as his glance moved to the back wall. He did not speak, but moved to the head of the bed on his side and in his turn looked behind it.
“Shall we essay it?”
“By all means.”
Ottilia watched as he inserted himself, not without some difficulty, into the space behind the headboard.
“It’s not particularly comfortable,” he commented, bracing his back against the wall.
“I doubt comfort was the first consideration.” Ottilia moved to the bottom of the bed and turned to look again. “I cannot see if you create a bulge or not.”
“That is easily remedied.”
He pushed his way out again and began untying the bands holding the folds of the drape together. Ottilia immediately moved up the other side of the bed again and performed the same office. She was obliged to get onto the bed to pull the drapes fully across. Then she sat back on her heels and inspected the result.
“Try now.”
Lord Francis’s dark eyes raked her in a fashion oddly disturbing. Ottilia became doubly conscious of her unconventional attire and her hair lying unkempt and loose about her shoulders. Heat stole into her cheeks.
His eyebrow quirked. “Are you going to stay there? You are bound to see me if you are on the bed.”
“Very true,” Ottilia agreed, conscious of an inexplicable feeling of disappointment. She banished it, concentrating on the task in hand. “Also, I imagine the bed’s occupant would already know that you were there.”
By the time she had managed to drag herself off the bed and resume her position at the foot, Lord Francis had inserted himself into the place of potential concealment. His voice came to her muffled.
“Well? Can you detect my presence?”
She surveyed the drapes, a pulse beginning to thrum as excitement mounted. “If I stare intently, I think there is a bulge. But I doubt I would notice anything at all if I was not expecting to see something.”
“And some of the other curtains might well be drawn,” came the indistinct response, “which would—”
“—undoubtedly make you far less easy to detect.”
Lord Francis’s head reappeared around the side. “Have you seen enough? Can I come out now?”
“Pray do.” She watched him force an exit. “You realise what this means?”
He was busying himself with pulling the drape on his side open again and retying it, but he looked up at that. “I can hazard a reasonable guess.”
“I had not before considered the notion that a lover might already have been in the chamber when your brother and his wife quarrelled.”
Lord Francis finished his task and looked at her with a gathering frown. “Without witnesses, how the devil could we prove it, Mrs. Draycott?”
The resumption of her title caused Ottilia’s spirits to slump, but she answered with composure. “We can’t prove it, not without discovering who it might have been.”
He let out a groan. “Impossible.”
Ottilia clicked her tongue. “Must you give
up before we have even made the attempt?”
He stiffened. “I am hardly likely to give up with my brother’s life at stake!”
Ottilia instantly backtracked. “Of course not. I spoke without thinking.”
The spark in his eye lessened. “It makes no matter.”
Feeling awkward and self-conscious, Ottilia tried for a softer approach. “There is hope, my lord. I have already three names.”
The effect was immediate. He looked at once alert and incredulous. “Three names? How in the world did you come by them?”
Ottilia could not resist. “Did not your mother stigmatise me a genius?”
To her delight, his lips twitched. “Don’t tease, Ottilia.”
Her heart swelled, and she felt heat rise to her cheeks. To cover it, she broke into rapid explanation. “I had them from Miss Venner last night. The only one of real use is Quaife. The other two are merely Christian names, and uncertain at that.”
But Lord Francis’s brows had drawn sharply together. “Quaife? Then rumour does not lie.”
Ottilia lost all shyness in immediate interest. “His name has been coupled with Emily’s?”
He nodded. “Frequently. I know he was at one time her most assiduous cicisbeo, but it was never certain whether it had gone further than that.”
“According to Venner, he came in and out of favour over time. She called him a bully.”
The dark eyes burned. “Did she so?”
Ottilia put up a warning finger. “Do not let us leap to conclusions. What sort of a man is he?”
“The Baron Quaife? I am barely acquainted with him. He is years older than I.” Lord Francis shrugged. “He is a heavyset fellow, not a bonhomous type, but courteous enough.”
“A large man?”
He eyed her with question, and then glanced to the shallow place behind the bed he had lately occupied. “You are thinking he would not fit the hiding place? It is a consideration.” He sighed in a disappointed fashion. “Who were the others?”
“She mentioned Theo and Jeremy.”
Lord Francis cast up his eyes. “That is no help at all. Unless you choose to pore your way through the peerage.”
The Gilded Shroud Page 18
