Kate hid her face. She knew her aunt was baiting them.
Byon said, “Shall I tell you how we met her?”
“I’d love to hear.”
He looked at Nadine. “You had only recently joined Nicky and me.”
“I was there,” Clive said pointedly.
“Yes, of course,” Byon said. “But then you were a part of Nicky.”
“Like his valet?” There was anger in Clive’s voice.
“More like his second-best pair of shoes,” Byon snapped. “Shall I continue or would you like more time to suffer?”
Clive gave Kate a look of See what I have to put up with?
“As I was saying,” Byon continued, “we were together and at a grocery. We’d been up all night and we were tired and hungry and broke.”
“I remember that we were trying to piece together five pounds,” Nadine said. “My allowance wouldn’t come in for another three days.”
“Willa was ahead of us in the queue,” Clive said. “But only Nicky noticed her.”
“He was like that.” Byon’s tone was reverent. “He saw what others didn’t.”
“Describe her,” Kate said.
“Plain,” Clive said, and Nadine and Byon nodded. “In all the years I knew her I never saw anything to distinguish her. Not in looks or talent of any kind.”
Byon looked at him in wonder. “I had no idea you were so perceptive.”
Before Clive could retaliate, Sara said to Byon in annoyance, “Do try to subdue your venom. Clive appears to have been successful in spite of your belittlement of him. Get on with the story.”
Clive looked like he was going to kiss Sara, and Nadine was wide-eyed.
Byon laughed. “Oh how Nicky would have loved you! Anyway, Willa secretly paid for the groceries of a woman with three children. Nicky saw what she’d done, but the woman didn’t.”
“She thanked some man,” Clive said.
“And he told her she was welcome,” Nadine added.
“What did Willa say?” Jack asked.
“Nothing,” Byon answered. “She just stood there, unnoticed by anyone, and let the woman thank the wrong person.”
“What did Nicky do?” Kate asked.
The three smiled and Byon leaned forward. “You never wanted to get on Nicky’s bad side. That day, he tore them apart. Woman, man, cashier. All of them. Then he pulled Willa into our group.”
“And that was it,” Nadine said.
“And the lot of you got an adoring audience and an open checkbook.” Sara got up and began taking photos of them.
“We did!” Byon said in delight.
Nadine didn’t laugh. “We took care of her. Protected her. Her family was horrible.”
“Or great,” Clive said. “Depends on how you look at it. Her sister, Beatrice, certainly was beautiful.”
“And talented,” Nadine said.
“She could do anything,” Clive said. “And she was tall and lithe. Utterly splendid.”
“There was nothing about the sister that wasn’t perfect.” Byon smiled, but it was so malicious he looked like the devil.
Sara lowered her camera. “Tell me every word of it.”
“Willa never said much about her childhood,” Nadine began.
“She did tell me that she was the third of four kids,” Clive said. “This was back when I was part of the group.” He put up his hand to ward off Byon’s comment. “I felt sorry for Willa.”
Nadine continued the story. “One night, when we’d all had too much to drink, she told us that when she was a child, three different times, her family left her behind. Forgot about her. Once was when they were on holiday in France. She was nine years old and she found herself alone, but she managed to find a police station. She knew the name of the hotel where they were staying and the police called. Her family said they would pick her up when they finished dinner. She waited for hours.”
“A forgotten person,” Sara said. “No wonder she worshipped the lot of you. Did she invite her sister to meet you?”
“No,” Byon said. “The sister invited herself. She told us that none of the siblings could believe that Willa actually had friends. They were curious about us, so the youngest sister was sent by the siblings to see what we were like.”
“She took the bed and Willa slept on the little sofa in her own bedroom.” Nadine’s eyes glittered.
“And how did she fit in?” Jack asked.
The three of them smiled.
“She was charming,” Clive said. “And so very helpful. Even then I was doing the Oxley accounts and she caught an error.”
“She showed me some makeup tricks that I still use today,” Nadine said.
“She gave Mrs. Aiken a recipe for piecrust that was easier and tasted better than any she’d made before,” Byon said. “And she sang rather well.”
“And she rode a horse like a wood sprite,” Nadine added.
“She called someone about the roof, and it was repaired. For free,” Clive said.
When they finished, they sat in silence, looking at Sara.
“I’m surprised you didn’t murder her,” Sara said. “I bet she was as welcome to you as a dinner with a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist would be to me.”
“Less,” Byon said.
“What did you do to her?” Kate asked.
“We released Nicky onto her,” Nadine said. “On Sunday morning, Puck packed the sister’s bags and set them outside. Mrs. Aiken called a cab. We stood by while Nicky told her that her jealousy made him sick. He said she couldn’t bear for Willa to have anything so she’d come there to take away what little Willa did have.”
Clive nodded. “Nicky said Willa was a better person than she could ever be.”
“Did Willa hear this?” Kate asked.
“She was standing right there,” Nadine said. “Her sister said, ‘Are you going to let them treat me like this?’”
“And what was her reply?” Sara sat back on the cloth.
“Willa opened the cab door for her sister. Never spoke a word,” Byon said.
“Then she walked back to the house.” Nadine was smiling. “I’d never seen her stand up so straight.”
They were looking at Sara as though waiting for praise for what they’d done.
Sara glanced at Jack and Kate, letting them know she’d speak her mind later. For now, she was keeping her true opinions to herself. “No wonder Willa loved all of you,” Sara said. “So what happened after that night when the others...left?”
“Willa also disappeared,” Clive said.
Nadine shot him a nasty look. “Only after you dropped her. What was it you told her? ‘I’m not going to marry you.’ No sentiment from you! Then you held out your hand for the return of the ring. Which, I might add, wasn’t even a diamond.”
Clive seemed unperturbed. “Ah, the cruelty and poverty of youth. I do hope she hasn’t spent her fortune on...on cats. My bank and I could help her.” He looked at Sara. “We don’t know where she went or what happened to her. Wasn’t she invited here?”
“Yes,” Sara said. “She said she’d be here but she didn’t say when.”
Nadine was leaning back on her arms. “I wonder how she’s made it through life. She had no defenses, no self-protection. And she was the most socially awkward person I’d ever met. What else could she do but go home? After the way Nicky treated the sister, I’m sure they butchered her. We were the only real family she had.” She cut a look at Clive but he ignored her.
“Cried,” Byon said. “My guess is that she cried for years. She was truly heartbroken. She’d lost her friends and her engagement. It would have been a marriage in hell but—”
“Maybe not,” Clive snapped. “We could have—”
Byon sneered at him. “You think if she’d bought you some country estate you w
ould have been kind to her? Treated her like a human being? Or would you have blamed her for...?” He waved his hand. “For all the misery you think other people have given you?”
“I was treated like dirt,” Clive said loudly. “You threw me out of the Pack.”
“Darling,” Byon said, “you were never in the Pack.”
Clive moved as though he was going to hit Byon. Jack looked like he was ready to get between them.
Nadine’s laughter calmed them down. “Oh how I’ve missed this! What a dull life I’ve had. Cutting the ribbons at the village fête. So boring.” She looked at Sara. “We weren’t perfect but we did the best we knew how. And yes, Willa was our audience. She applauded Byon’s plays, she professed love for a man none of us liked—sorry Clive—and championed lazy Nicky against his father.”
“And don’t forget that she looked at you like you were Venus come to earth,” Byon said.
“There was that.” Nadine was smiling in memory.
“What about Diana?” Kate asked.
“And Sean?” Jack asked.
No one responded.
“Anyone for a tart?” Byon’s tone made it clear the conversation was over.
Ten
As soon as lunch was finished, the Americans escaped to Sara’s room. It was the first time Jack and Kate had been in it and it was impressive. It was enormous, with a four-poster bed draped in cream-colored silk trimmed in blue. The walls were upholstered in blue silk. All the furniture was antique and exquisite.
There was a sitting area of a plump couch and chairs covered in blue-and-green chintz.
Sara took the couch, picked up her laptop, inserted the SD disk from her Sony a9 camera and began to look at her photos. “Well?” she asked.
Kate and Jack were in chairs across from each other.
“What did you think of how they met Willa?” Jack asked.
“I think you mean ‘Poor Willa,’” Kate said. “Maybe it should be one word—Poorwilla.”
Jack gave a one-sided smile. “It’s a wonder they didn’t nickname her PW.”
“They used her,” Sara said, “but it was better than she’d had. I know all about families that choose one child over another.” She glanced at Kate. “Sorry.” It was Kate’s father, Sara’s younger brother, who had been the favored child.
“That’s okay,” Kate said. “My dad probably deserved it.”
Sara laughed. “Easy to get along with, charming but devious. Maybe you’re right.” She looked at them. “So who’s on first?” She was playing on the old joke to ask who would tell first.
“I think Jack’s had the most interesting morning,” Kate said. “Singing with a superstar, stripping off half-naked for some woman. He should tell us all.”
Sara raised her eyebrows. “Yes, do tell.”
“It was nothing, really,” Jack said with fake modesty. “Maybe I saved her life but...” He shrugged. “All in a normal day’s work.”
Sara and Kate groaned in unison.
“Okay, okay. I was climbing through the loft of the stables. That’s where our victim worked so I thought maybe there could be something there. Then I saw this beautiful woman walk in and—”
“Old woman,” Kate said, then looked at Sara.
“Age is relative,” she said. “In this context, forty-six-year-old Nadine is very old.”
Jack rolled his eyes. He knew when he was outnumbered. “Anyway, she was looking for something and—”
“Oh?” Kate and Sara said.
He smiled at having their attention. “I have no idea what she was looking for. Didn’t find out.” He went on to tell his story.
“How sad,” Sara said when he’d finished. “I’m glad I can support myself. Nadine has to find a man to give her a home.”
“Interesting that her husband didn’t leave her taken care of,” Kate said. “You’d assume that a viscount would have some inherited property.”
“Nicky would have owned this place but he had no money.” Jack looked at Kate. “So what about your banker boy? From what I’ve seen, I can’t understand why he wanted to stay with people who put him down, belittled him, despised him.”
“You adapt to your life,” Kate said. They knew she was speaking of her mother’s bouts of depression. She told them of all she and Clive had talked about. She waited for Jack’s snide remarks but he was quiet.
“Another poor, unwanted person,” Sara said. “This seems to have been misfit heaven. I read that if there’s one male abuser in a stadium of eight thousand people and there’s one woman who thinks she deserves it, they will damned well find each other.”
“In this case, they all found one another,” Jack said. “But one night two of them disappeared, then they all ran away separately.”
“Four years of being afraid of the world disappeared,” Kate said. “I think Clive was right when he said that the outside world was less scary than the little group at Oxley Manor.”
“Every group has its hierarchy,” Sara said. “And everyone has a place. They don’t take turns being the leader.”
“Sure as hell no one was going to take their turn at being a punching bag,” Jack said.
“‘Today is my turn to be on the bottom,’” Kate mocked. “‘Rip me apart.’”
“‘No! No! Let me get kicked around,’” Jack parodied. “Said no one.”
Sara was grimacing. “I bet if Poorwilla had tried to do something different, they would have stamped her down.”
“For all that Clive said he hated his job,” Jack said, “he was terrified of losing it.”
“Until Sean’s and Diana’s disappearance forced him to leave,” Kate said.
“I think they all know much, much more than they’re letting on,” Sara said. “Actually, I believe they’re putting on a show for us.”
“And getting truckloads of sympathy,” Jack said. “Poor Clive with his tossed-around childhood.”
“Nadine,” Kate said, “so beautiful, so well-dressed, but oh so lonely. The martyred maiden who must sell herself to the highest bidder.”
They looked at Sara.
“I agree. I think we’re being played. One of them is a murderer.”
“Or all of them,” Jack said. “For all that they seem to clash, I think they’re strongly bonded. I could see that Sean and Diana were about to interrupt their bond and they got rid of them.”
“We don’t know what happened to Diana,” Sara said. “She could have killed Sean, then run away. Maybe the ones left behind hid Sean’s body.”
Kate nodded. “That’s plausible. They wouldn’t want the press and the police here. The publicity would ruin them.”
“True,” Sara said. “For the rest of their lives, they’d have a murder hanging over their heads. Byon’s fledgling career would forever be tainted. Nadine might lose her viscount.”
“Poorwilla would be ridiculed even more by her beautiful, talented family,” Jack said. “She’d have to hear ‘I told you so’ for the rest of her life.”
“Hide the body, then separate,” Sara said. “Bookwise, this works. A plot always needs secrets. But are these the right secrets?”
“I think we need to ask more about Diana,” Jack said. “Every time we mention her, everyone gets quiet. Let’s—” He broke off as a loud crash came from outside.
“Somebody knocked over something,” Sara said.
Jack was up before she finished. “I’ll go look. From what I’ve seen of Bella, she’ll have someone’s hide.” He left the room.
Kate turned to her aunt. “He’s right. Bella really runs this place. There must be fifty people out there.”
“She has help for the other eleven months, but she takes over for the yearly cleanup. She’s a great believer in ‘If you want it done right, do it yourself.’”
For a moment, Kate was quiet. “I
didn’t realize how good Jack’s singing was. I’ve heard him with a bar band and at a funeral, but today was extraordinary.”
“When he was eighteen I offered to pay for him to go to Juilliard, but he refused. He had to take care of his family.”
Kate sighed. “Family.” She knew all about the enormous pressure family put on a person. “His singing with someone of Byon Lizmere’s caliber, meeting Lady Nadine—it’s been quite a day for him.”
Sara was watching her niece with the intensity of a hawk. “I think we both need to face the fact that someday Jack will discover how talented he is. The world will open up to him and he’ll become famous. I have no doubt that, someday, he’ll fall in love, marry and have kids. You and I will be left on our own.”
Kate didn’t like the visions that conjured. Jack on Broadway receiving a standing ovation. Holding roses and blowing kisses to his wife, Lady Fiona something. His beautiful little daughter would walk onto the stage and—
She looked at her aunt. Sara’s eyes were sparkling. “Are you being a bitch?”
“Oh yes,” Sara said. “I’m being so bitchy that I’m giving off red and orange flames. I’m sure I can be seen by satellite.”
“Well, stop it. Save it for Byon.”
Sara laughed. “He tires me out. I have to be on guard every second. It’s almost as bad as being at a Romance Conference. Although, Byon is much sweeter.”
“Jack’s the one who has to be on guard. Byon looks at him like he’s a two-hundred-dollar steak.”
“Bet he looked at Sean just like that.”
They looked at each other, eyes wide.
“If Sean didn’t love him back...” Kate said.
“No wrath like a woman scorned,” Sara whispered.
“Could he hide a body? He looks flabby.”
“But twenty years ago? Sure he could.”
Kate was thoughtful. “If Byon killed Sean, he had the rest of the night and all the next day to hide the body. The others were asleep and hung over. They wouldn’t notice.”
Sara nodded. “Even if they looked out the window and saw him, they’d probably yawn and say, ‘Looks like Byon is hiding a dead body.’”
Kate laughed. “That would be Nadine. Clive would worry that the murder would affect his job.”
A Forgotten Murder Page 13
