Murder by Midnight

by Blythe Baker

  More than me, it seemed Alastair was set on wooing my mother. He spoke to her often, leaning around me to see her, and I let him, even though I knew with every word, he was increasing her expectations of me. When the week ended, and I refused to see Alastair any further, she would tell me what a kind young man he was, what a good husband he would make. And she might even be right, but that didn’t change my position on the matter. I knew I could not experience the world with a man like Alastair Drummond by my side. I also knew I could not blame my mother for not understanding my resistance. She was only doing what she thought was best. It was just that her plans did not align with mine.

  After dinner, the eclectic group of guests and hosts made their way into the sitting room. A roaring fire burned in the fireplace, making the room noticeably warmer than the rest of the house.

  “There are extra blankets in each of your rooms,” Lady Drummond said. “The castle is cold, but we will do our best to see to it that none of you freeze.”

  “This chill is why people no longer live in castles,” Charles Barry whispered to his sister. She smiled, but shook her head at him, encouraging him to be quiet so they wouldn’t offend our gracious hosts.

  “People have survived in this castle for centuries,” Sherborne Sharp said. “I’m sure we will survive a week.”

  “Too true,” Samuel Rigby said, drawing the room’s attention. “Druiminn Castle has been in this very spot for nearly four-hundred years.”

  “Was it in another spot before this one?” Charles Barry asked.

  “Charles,” Vivian chastised, elbowing her brother. Then, she turned to the author. “Ignore him, Mr. Rigby. He enjoys teasing others far too much.”

  Samuel smiled, undisturbed. “The castle was built by Clan Druiminn in the early 16th century. It was intended to be the home of James Druiminn and his wife. James’s father, an illustrious nobleman, intended to arrange his son’s marriage to a young woman of distant royal blood, hoping to advance the prestige of his own family name. At the last moment, however, the young woman wed a foreigner, a Frenchman, dashing the family’s hopes.”

  “Those blasted French,” Lord Drummond said, a fist raised in the air, though his smile was as wide as ever.

  “Young James Drummond, however, had never been interested in the lady or her power anyway,” Samuel continued. “He did not want royal connections, and he married a common woman under his father’s nose, shaming the entire family.”

  Gordon was sitting near the open window, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and he cleared his throat. I thought I saw Alastair glare at him, but I certainly saw Gordon’s face split in a smile almost as wide as his father’s.

  “What happened to James’s father?” Lady Drummond asked.

  “Exiled,” Samuel said simply. “He could not bear that his son’s intended had passed him over in favor of another man, and he plotted to kill her to avenge the slight against his family. He didn’t make it very far, of course. His plan was caught out immediately and the lady’s royal relations exacted a harsh revenge. Only in old age was he finally permitted to return to Scotland and to this castle, where he lived until he died.”

  “His grandchildren took it over after that, I believe,” Lord Drummond said.

  “They did.” Samuel grinned, clearly excited to have willing participants in his history lesson. “It was never a castle of large political importance, but it was a safe haven for members of Clan Druiminn and protected them during times of unrest.”

  “Are you a historian, Mr. Rigby?” my mother asked.

  “Hardly, Lady Ashton. I am simply a man who loves a good story, and there are many surrounding this particular castle. Probably the best known would be the tale of The Weeping Woman, if you would care to hear that one.”

  “The Weeping Woman?” I asked, sitting forward in my seat. The fire raged, but it did little to ease the chill in the room. The temperature seemed suddenly to have dropped by a few degrees. “Who is that? Was she a real woman?”

  “Some believe so,” Samuel Rigby said. “Me? I believe she is nothing more than a story. That is why I looked deeper into the castle’s history. A lot of the time, tales of that nature have a foot in truth.”

  “And did this one?” I asked.

  Samuel Rigby smiled mischievously. “Would you care to hear the historical version or the fictional tale?”

  “The tale,” Vivian said quickly. She flushed when all eyes turned to her, but quickly straightened her shoulders. “I, too, prefer a good story.”

  “Then, I will not leave a lady disappointed,” Samuel said.

  Gordon chuckled to himself in the back of the room, but it didn’t seem anyone but me paid him any mind. Everyone else was focused on the author. He was sitting just to the right of the fireplace, the side of his face covered in a thin sheen of sweat from the fire, with the rest of us circled around him, bundled up on the large sofa and chairs. Charles Barry sat on a footstool, Sherborne Sharp in an armchair behind him.

  Lord and Lady Drummond had invited an unusual cast of characters into their home, but for the first time, I could see how we all might fit together for the week. Evenings spent gathered around a fire telling tales didn’t seem so bad.

  Samuel Rigby launched into his story. “The tale begins with a certain young woman of high birth who once inhabited this castle, a lady distantly related to the current Drummonds living here today. This lady’s parents were killed when she was young, leaving her the ward of a cruel uncle, who acted as her guardian. Suitors were presented to her—handsome, strong men who came from good families—but she would not have any of them. Her uncle was determined she should marry well but she would settle for nothing less than true love.”

  “So, she waited forever and died alone. The end,” Sherborne interrupted, his tone bored.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be so cynical?” I asked, annoyed at him for interrupting the story.

  He shrugged, showing no sign of any remorse. Gordon turned from his spot at the window to shake his head at all of us, though he winked when his eye landed on me.

  “Keep going,” Vivian urged, clapping her hands over her knees. “Did she find true love?”

  “She did,” Samuel said, grinning at his captive audience. “A local young man came to the castle on behalf of his village, petitioning the lady’s uncle to spare the poorest families their due taxes. The master of the castle was not moved by his plea, but the master’s niece found the young man enchanting.”

  “It was love?” my mother asked, her eyes alight with the story.

  “True love,” Samuel confirmed. “There was opposition of course, but it was eventually overcome. The cruel uncle was persuaded to overlook the low birth of the young man and even took him in as a guest at the castle, as plans proceeded for the lady to marry him.”

  “I feel inclined to remind our guests,” Lord Drummond said, gesturing to Vivian and my mother, who were both sitting with contented smiles on their faces, “that this tale is called The Weeping Woman.”

  Vivian blinked as though she had been in a trance. “I’d almost forgotten.”

  “Looks like you could all do with a bit more cynicism,” Sherborne said. He was sitting further away from the group now, having slipped away to the back of the room near the doors to rest against the wall. The firelight hardly reached him, so he was half-hidden in shadow.

  “Unfortunately,” Samuel continued, “the wedding never came to be.”

  “Did the intended groom die?” Vivian asked, trying to guess the ending. “Was he murdered by the uncle, who was only pretending to accept him?”

  “He was not.” Samuel paused, leaving us in suspense.

  I looked around the room and saw that even the household staff had been attracted by the storytelling. A few servants lingered inconspicuously outside the slightly open door, young housemaids in crisp aprons whispering among themselves and peeking in on the gathering. I supposed they did not often get the opportunity for such entertainment.


  I turned my attention back to Samuel, curious about the conclusion. His lips pinched together and then he continued. “The wedding did not occur, because shortly before the wedding, the young lady found her intended with another woman and realized that he had been betraying her all along. Not only that, but he had been stealing from her uncle, as well.”

  Lady Drummond gasped, as though she had never heard the story before, though I suspected she had, and Sherborne laughed.

  “What did she do?” Vivian asked.

  “Upon realizing he had never loved her, but had only used her loneliness for his own gain, she grew enraged. She put on the white dress she’d intended to wear at their wedding, and then she laid in wait, finally attacking the young man and planting a blade through his heart. Once he was dead, the woman in white, bloodstained and inconsolable, walked to the highest tower in the castle and stepped through a window, falling to her death. Legend says she can still be seen wandering the hallways in her white dress, weeping and lashing out at anyone who might be considered unfaithful.”

  The room was silent, the only sound that of the wood crackling in the fire and the wind rattling the windows. It was not storming outside, but the afternoon breeze had certainly grown into something more, and it perfectly complemented the eerie tone of the author’s story.

  “And that happened in this very castle?” Vivian asked Samuel.

  The author reached across the space between them and laid a comforting hand on Vivian’s shoulder. She appeared to melt at his touch, color spreading into her cheeks. “No, Miss Barry. That was the fictionalized version. I’m afraid the historical version is less interesting. The young woman did exist, but there was no documented romance to speak of. She simply died of illness while out on a walk and was not found for several days due to a snowstorm.”

  “That tale is not nearly as dramatic,” Lady Drummond said, piercing through the somber mood left behind by the story.

  “The truth rarely is,” Lord Drummond said. “That is why the stories are invented in the first place.”

  “Hear, hear,” Samuel Rigby agreed, raising his empty hand in a toast.

  Slowly, the conversation shifted back to the history of the castle, and despite his insistence that he was simply a writer, Samuel Rigby seemed to have an answer for every question that was posed. He knew more about the castle than either of the Drummonds, and on several occasions, they looked to him for an answer.

  The evening only grew colder as the night wore on. I found myself shivering from the chill.

  “I have a shawl in my room,” my mother said when she noticed how cold I was. “If you run up to fetch it, I’ll let you borrow it.”

  “Bribery?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow.

  She smiled and nudged me out of my seat. Alastair was too busy engaging in a riotous discussion with Vivian Barry and Samuel Rigby to notice me leaving. Whatever they were discussing, it had Vivian Barry in a fit of giggles that, for reasons I didn’t understand, left her brother looking more sullen than usual.

  I picked my way through the room carefully, walking around the sofa and past where Gordon Drummond sat staring out the window. I would have assumed he’d get up and leave as soon as possible, but he seemed content to stare out into the night and cast the occasional reproachful glance at the party. Maybe his parents were forcing him to keep company with the guests, though I couldn’t imagine them having any sway on his actions. As he’d made perfectly clear in the stable earlier, he would do as he pleased regardless of their wishes. A thought in the far back of my mind flared to life, and I tried to brush it aside, but I couldn’t. What if he was staying close by because of me?

  He didn’t look up as I passed behind his chair, and when I made it to the hallway, I shook my head at myself, embarrassed that I’d considered the possibility for a moment. Not only was it common knowledge that Gordon had no interest in marrying, but I had claimed the same thing to him. So why was I now contemplating his feelings for me? A foolish habit, I decided. One I would break soon enough.

  With everyone gathered in the sitting room, the rest of the house was quiet. And since the house did not run on electricity, the Drummonds seemed to only keep certain wings of the castle illuminated at a time. The stairway to the second floor was dimly lit with flickering lamps, but the upstairs hallway was almost entirely dark except for the barely passable light of the moon coming through a single window at the end of the corridor.

  I was startled by the stealthy approach of a gently glowing figure coming down the hall, but relaxed as I recognized the starched uniform of a footman, a dark haired young man who was moving about the corridor lighting lamps that began to illuminate the dimness. Relieved to encounter another human on the silent upper floor, I enquired about the situation of my own room and that of my mother.

  After the footman gave me directions to the rooms assigned us, I left him behind and continued down the hall, running my hand along the wall to count the doors as I passed them. When I reached the fourth door on the right, I stopped and turned the handle.

  It swung open easily, and I took several steps inside before I saw the dark shadow in the center of the room. The window behind the person was open, the night sky framing the intruder in dark blue, and I saw their silhouette shift as they turned to face me. Before I could even muster a scream, a hand wrapped around my arm, pulled me into the room, and slammed the door closed behind me. It latched with a heavy thud.

  6

  “Don’t scream.”

  The voice stopped my thrashing, but not the pounding of my heart. A warm hand was tight around my wrist, and I wanted to be free. I wanted to run. Still, I recognized that voice.

  “Sherborne?”

  The man holding me stepped forward and revealed himself to be Alastair’s old school friend. My mind worked backwards, and I suddenly realized I didn’t remember seeing him in the sitting room as I’d left. I’d been so distracted with thoughts of Gordon that I hadn’t noticed. How long had he been in my mother’s room? And why?

  “Give me a good reason not to scream,” I spat. “What are you doing here?”

  He had the nerve to chuckle.

  I wrenched my arm out of his grip, stumbling backwards.

  He closed the distance between us, ensuring it would be difficult for me to escape, but did not grab me again. “Probably exactly what you think I was doing.”

  “Are you a thief?” My eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and I could see something glimmering in his other hand. “Were you going through my mother’s jewelry?”

  “How very observant of you to notice.”

  “And why shouldn’t I alert the whole house?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Because it would bring unnecessary trouble for the both of us. Allow me to return what I’ve taken, and we won’t speak of this again.”

  I took another step backwards. The door was just behind me. One quick flick of my arm, and I could have my hand on the doorknob. It would only be a matter of opening it and slipping out before Sherborne could grab me. He was a thief, but would he also prove to be a violent man? Maybe even a murderer? Would he rather kill me than face the consequences of his thievery?

  “You have failed to explain why that solution benefits me,” I said. “You are in my mother’s room, touching her belongings. I have done nothing wrong, so it makes no difference to me whether anyone knows what transpired here.”

  He nodded. “That is the benefit of being above reproach, Miss Alice. I suppose my offer doesn’t benefit you at all. Though, it would be incredibly gracious of you to let me go.”

  “You don’t deserve my grace.”

  “How can you be so sure of that when you don’t truly know me?” he asked.

  “You have given me good reason not to know you,” I said. “I do not associate with thieves.”

  I had not seen much of Sherborne since first meeting him earlier in the day, but my mother did mention the possibility of his presence at the castle prior to our arrival. Whe
n she first met Lady Drummond in London, Sherborne came up as a topic of conversation in regards to his friendship with Alastair. It was not a relationship Lady Drummond encouraged. Rumors swirled around Alastair—the nature of them exactly, my mother wouldn’t say—and Lady Drummond believed her son should keep better company. Having seen Sherborne Sharp at work, I couldn’t help but agree.

  He took a step away from me, his hands falling to his sides. “I am not surprised a young lady of your fortunate circumstances would think me unworthy of association. Perhaps I am not as polished as the company you are accustomed to. Certainly my life has not been as easy as it would have been, were I born a Beckingham or a Drummond. My family has… struggled. And now, at last, despite the education and the connections others have sacrificed to provide for me, I find myself in difficulties that offer few honorable paths of escape. You may find that a weak excuse, but it is the only one I can offer for why you have found me driven to this position. Believe me, I am humiliated beyond comprehension.”

  He did not look humiliated. From the moment I’d met Sherborne Sharp, he had looked perfectly at ease with himself, just as he did now.

  “Yes, you seem very upset,” I said sarcastically.

  “The fact that I am not given to overwrought shows of emotion does not mean I am insincere,” he said. “I doubt such matters are within your experience or comprehension, but the truth is that I’ve found myself in trouble with some debt collectors. They are very unpleasant men, and I’m not sure I will survive an altercation with them.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked. “That I would not understand your predicament? Do you think I know nothing of debt collectors?”