by Emily Claire
Lydia searched his face, though it was difficult in the gloom. “Why did it trouble you so?”
“That, I cannot explain. Not now.” He glanced back at the street toward the thin sunlight. “Now, we had better move on before someone notices us here and begins to wonder. You ought to leave first, Miss Shrewsbury. I’ll follow behind until you’re safely on your way. And Miss Shrewsbury?”
He hesitated, his lips trembling slightly but not releasing the words.
“Yes?” she prodded.
“Be careful,” he said. “Whoever did commit these atrocities won’t be glad to learn you’re investigating.”
Mr. Pemberton’s face flickered in Lydia’s mind, and a shiver ran up her spine. “Surely no one would take my suspicions seriously.”
“I do,” he said simply. “Always look over your shoulder, Miss Shrewsbury, and I’ll do my best to watch your back. Someone must.”
19
“Would you pass me your scissors?” Caroline twisted around in her wine-purple chair and poked at the edges of the cushions. “I’ve lost mine again, and I don’t think I’m sitting on them this time.”
“I’m going to give you a new set for Easter,” Isabella said from the corner of the morning room, passing her shuttle through the brilliant pink warp on her loom. “Then another for your birthday, and another for…” She snapped her fingers rapidly, as if trying to summon a memory. “Lydia, what’s in July?”
“The feast day of Thomas the Apostle,” Lydia suggested, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Or Mary Magdalene. Hers is the twenty-second.”
“Yes, Mary Magdalene’s,” Isabella said. “I always liked her. At that rate, you shouldn’t need a fresh pair until All Saints Day at least, and by then I’ll have managed to obtain another to gift to you at Christmas.”
“If you’re giving out gifts so wildly, I might trouble you for a new box to store my needlework patterns,” Justina said, wincing. She sucked on her finger. “This one has given me two splinters already, and refinishing the thing seems like more trouble than it’s worth.”
“Why didn’t you say?” Isabella said. “I have a box that’s just the right size in my room, and I don’t use it for anything but storing pots of lip color, which Mama can’t stand to see me wear anyway. You shall have it before you leave today.”
“I was teasing,” Justina protested.
“Fortunately for you, I haven’t got a sense of humor,” Isabella said, eyes twinkling. “The box is yours. Lydia, since I’m feeling bountiful, what do you want?”
Lydia wound a strand of white thread around her slender new knitting needle. The lace she was making for her brother was coming along nicely, but the act of knitting still unsettled her. The knowledge that the tools in her hand could be turned to evil purpose in an instant poked at her conscience, but she was determined not to let wickedness win. No, love would triumph instead, and Freddie would feel a great deal of her love whenever he arrived home and saw his extravagant little Valentine.
“I’d like answers,” she said. “I’d like to know who tried to poison Mr. Pemberton.”
Isabella pursed her lips, disappointed. “Same person as killed Mr. Stewart, I suspect.”
Whatever fear Isabella had experienced after Mr. Pemberton’s collapse seemed gone now, replaced by her usual sardonic coolness.
The other ladies seemed to be taking more time to make peace with the recent horrors. Justina glanced behind her. “I keep thinking I hear footsteps behind me,” she admitted. “I can’t imagine anyone would have ill will toward me, but anybody who could murder a curate would find me no trouble if they were so inclined.”
“Do you think it was the same person, Lydia?” Caroline squinted as she threaded a tiny needle. “Who committed both crimes, I mean?”
Lydia pursed her lips. “I don’t know.”
Isabella waved a hand. The dog sitting at the foot of her loom raised its head, keenly tuned to its mistress’s every move, then, deciding there were no treats or adventures to be had, laid back down with a heavy sigh.
“Of course it was,” Isabella said. “The most dastardly thing to happen in Lanceton before this was the time Papa’s steward caught a poacher. For two such dramatic incidents to follow on each other’s heels cannot be random. There’s pattern and purpose in all things; we must simply find the threads connecting these two instances.”
“Every thread I’ve tugged on so far has only worsened the knot,” Lydia said. “Almost everyone in the house is accounted for. You and your father couldn’t have done it, as you were together in the Rose Room together. Diana and I were still dressing for dinner with the help of your lady’s maid. Your mother and Mr. Buxton were in the library together, and Mrs. Morton and most of the servants happened to be either in each other’s view or sick in bed at the time.”
“Were they really sick?” Justina asked. “If I were to commit a murder, I might feign illness to escape detection.”
Lydia almost laughed at the thought of gentle Justina trying to plan a murder. She had the intellect for such an endeavor, certainly, but not the disposition. Lydia had been acquainted with Justina nearly all her life, though they had only become real friends in the past few years, and she’d never so much as heard the woman raise her voice. In Lydia’s observations, most members of sprawling families either responded to their lot in life by becoming exceedingly self-asserting or exceedingly forbearing, and Justina had taken to the second path with her whole being.
“Two servants fell ill,” Lydia said. “Both kitchen maids, and Mrs. Morton saw them to bed herself. I asked Mr. Cooper about them when he showed me the kitchens, and he was certain that neither girl was tall enough to have stabbed Mr. Stewart’s neck and chest like that.” She shuddered.
“What of Cooper himself?” Caroline glanced at Isabella. “I don’t mean to speak ill of him, of course. I’ve known him almost as long as you.”
Lydia nodded. “None of us wants to see Mr. Cooper as a murderer. The other suspects are hardly more palatable.”
“Whom are you still considering?” Isabella asked.
Lydia frowned at her lace, then unpicked several stitches. “The only three unaccounted for are Mr. Pemberton, who was himself poisoned; Lady Huntington, whose guilt is almost unimaginable; and Mr. Cooper, who admitted to striking Mr. Stewart but swears he never killed him.”
Isabella stopped weaving and stared. “Cooper did what?”
She hadn’t meant to say anything, not yet. Lydia winced. Isabella gaped at her, Caroline’s eyebrows shot halfway up her forehead, and Justina set her pen down with her needlework pattern forgotten in front of her. At least Diana wasn’t in the room. Lydia couldn’t bear the thought of troubling the girl further with tales of the curate’s treachery.
“He struck Mr. Stewart with his fist and gave him a bloody nose,” Lydia said with a grimace.
“How long have you been sitting on that?” Isabella demanded. “I thought you were keeping me apprised!”
“He only told me yesterday, and I probably oughtn’t have told anyone,” Lydia said. “He had learned that Mr. Stewart had done something terrible and was angry about it.”
Isabella set her shuttle to the side and twisted to face Lydia fully. “That’s hardly enough information. Spill it all, at once.”
Lydia rested her knitting on her lap. The others stared, their work forgotten on their laps. A log in the fireplace popped, and a tiny shower of embers glittered in the corner of Lydia’s eye.
“He’d just learned that the curate had been stealing money from the girl’s asylum,” she said, letting it all out in a rush. “He hinted the asylum director had told him about it under the effect of strong spirits, but wouldn’t say more than that.”
“I can’t believe that,” Caroline said. “Mr. Stewart would never have done such a thing.”
“The brute could and would,” Isabella said darkly.
Caroline stared. Lydia cleared her throat and exchanged glances with Isabella, wh
o pursed her lips and gave her a tight nod.
“What I’m about to tell you can’t leave this room,” Lydia said. “Diana doesn’t want word to spread.”
Caroline tucked her needle into her embroidery and Justina set her work down entirely so they could give her their full attention. Quickly, wasting no words but sparing no details, Lydia related everything Diana had told them about the curate’s behavior. Caroline’s shock was palpable, but Justina only listened with her lips set into a grim line. When Lydia finished, the room was silent for a long moment.
“If that’s true, then I shall consider us lucky if you uncover nothing worse than theft in the man’s history,” Justina said at last. “Mr. Audley always said that men who prey on women and servants are the worst sort.”
“Why didn’t Diana say something?” Caroline asked. “That poor girl, suffering in silence.”
“Who would have believed her beyond us four?” Lydia asked. “There’s no purpose to spreading the word now, not if Diana doesn’t wish it, but this new understanding of him makes me more inclined to believe Mr. Cooper’s claims. What I’m left to puzzle over is whether Lady Huntington knew about the embezzlement.”
“She must have, much as I dislike saying it,” Justina said. “They saw each other almost daily, from what I understand.”
“That’s to say nothing of your theory that Mr. Pemberton may have poisoned himself in order to escape suspicion,” Isabella said.
Lydia brushed a loose strand of hair from her forehead. She had lost a hairpin sometime over the course of the morning and could feel the knot of hair at the crown of her head slipping. “Mr. Buxton posited the same idea to me yesterday. The strange convenience of Mr. Pemberton falling ill but not dying, when a second murder seems more likely than a crime of a whole new stripe, stood out to him.”
Caroline pulled her needle from her fancy work and resumed embroidering. “I’m not confident Mr. Pemberton would have the skills to arrange such a thing. Far more likely whoever poisoned the chocolate simply didn’t calculate their ratios well enough.”
“Wouldn’t the instructions on a bottle of poison be clear enough?” Justina asked. “Two drops for a woman, three drops for a tall man?”
Isabella burst out laughing. “Do you suppose poison is procured at a shop?”
Justina reddened. “I don’t know the nuances of procuring toxins. In Romeo and Juliet, didn’t Romeo go to an apothecary for his potion?”
“Yes, but that was in the Shakespeare days of yore,” Isabella said, still laughing. “It’s not as if one could march to the Lanceton apothecary and say, ‘One bottle of death, please.’ Mr. Bartlett would report you to the constable straight away.”
“That’s not entirely fair,” Lydia said. “What if it were rat poison? Or procured outside of Lanceton?”
“Or obtained not from a shop but one’s own food stores?” Caroline suggested.
“Mr. Pemberton said you suspected it to be from fruit pits,” Lydia said.
“Just a handful of crushed cherry pits can kill a man,” Caroline said with a decisive nod. “Determining the correct number would be a matter of knowledge and a degree of chance, as not all cherries are equal.”
Isabella went back to weaving. “If you’re suggesting Mr. Pemberton may have poisoned himself using nothing but cherries, I’ve heard everything under the sun.”
“What a shame for you, darling,” Justina said with a wry smile. “You have nothing left to discover.”
“That’s why I need you three about me to provide entertainment,” Isabella said with a smile. “Will you all stay for dinner tonight? We still have guests, so we’re doomed to formality, but I can lend you gowns for the evening.”
Justina picked her pen back up. “I’d be glad to stay. You know I enjoy everything your cook has to offer, and I wouldn’t mind observing this Mr. Pemberton more.”
“I have high hopes he’ll join us at dinner tonight,” Isabella said. “He’s been making a point of roaming the halls like a ghost for the sake of his health. Indeed, he mentioned that he might try to take some fresh air in the gardens today, so he’s likely out right now attempting to march himself back to full vigor. Caroline?”
“I can stay, provided I can send a note home to my father to let him know not to expect me,” Caroline said. “Your footmen are still tasting everything before you eat? I had better include that in the note or Father will ride up here himself to rescue me. I’m afraid the Wycliffe table is developing something of a reputation among the cautious in our set.”
Isabella fixed Lydia with her hopeful gaze, and Lydia resisted only a moment before giving in with a sigh and a nod. At least her other friends would be there during the meal. She couldn’t have otherwise tolerated another awkward dinner with Lady Huntington on one side praising the curate and Mr. Pemberton on the other making teasing remarks.
“I suppose I ought to stay,” Lydia said, setting her knitting aside. “But as that’s hours from now and my hair is determined to escape its confines, I’m going to your room to borrow some hairpins, Izzy. I may use them all.”
“I look forward to seeing you styled as a hedgehog,” Isabella said brightly. “Mind you don’t get murdered on the way up.”
20
Hollybrook House was laid out sensibly, with the family quarters on one side of the third floor and guest quarters on the other, the two sides of the house divided just past the stairs by a double pair of large archways.
Lydia knew she ought to turn right to Isabella’s room, but the left tempted her. Mr. Pemberton’s room was there, and Lady Huntington’s. There could be any number of clues among their things. Lady Huntington’s rooms offered a particular temptation. The lady herself was unlikely to let anything slip—whether she had known about the curate’s crimes, participated in them, or been entirely ignorant, it would make no difference to a woman of her composure—but rooms were not as clever as people when it came to hiding what they knew.
Lydia glanced over her shoulder, but no one had followed her up. Quickly, before she could think better of it, she darted to the left.
The first guest room was Mr. Pemberton’s. She may as well start there, close enough to the rest of the house that she could slip away if she heard footsteps. She knocked softly, heart pounding.
No answer.
A voice in her head chided her, but she ignored it and all its remarks on etiquette and respect and the proper behavior of a guest. These were special circumstances; with two crimes so vivid in the recent past, her ox was thoroughly in the mire. It would be irresponsible not to investigate.
As silently as she could, she opened the door and darted into the room. The heavy, closed curtains kept the room dark and warm. Light from a dying fire sparkled on a half-full glass of some amber spirit that sat abandoned on the dressing table. Opulent gold and crimson curtains hung heavily from the bed’s polished frame, their decadence an echo of past generations, and similar material skirted the dressing table and the chest at the foot of the bed. The canopied bed itself spilled over with shadows.
A shiver ran up her spine. She wouldn’t look between his mattresses just yet, not unless the rest of the room turned up nothing.
There was no writing table, so she headed for the mahogany dressing table instead, with its gleaming surface and matching upholstered chair. Mr. Pemberton—or at least his valet—seemed a reasonably tidy sort; aside from the neglected glass, the grooming materials on the table were simple and neatly arranged.
“If you’d like a close shave, my valet will be glad to oblige you.”
Lydia tripped backwards over the chair. She landed hard on the seat; the chair rocked back on two legs, then landed back on all four with a thump. She clapped a hand to her mouth to keep from screaming.
A low chuckle sounded from deep within the bed’s curtained shadows. “My apologies, Miss Shrewsbury, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
She clutched the spindly arms of the chair. “For an unintentional scare, you’ve don
e admirably well.” Her words rode on gasps she couldn’t control. “My heart is doing its best to leap clear from my chest.”
The brocade curtains parted, and Mr. Pemberton’s pale face looked out at her.
“I knocked,” she said, accusation coloring her voice. “You didn’t answer.”
“I was asleep,” he said. “Or very nearly.”
“What were you doing asleep?” Heat rushed to her face, lingering fright or perhaps fresh embarrassment. “It’s past noon. Isabella said you were out walking.”
“I’m recovering from a brush with death,” he said mildly. “The physician prescribed as much rest as I can tolerate.”
“I rather think you might have locked your door.”
His lips twitched. “I didn’t realize I’d need to prevent stray ladies from wandering in.”
Her heart pounded painfully. “There may well be a murderer in this house,” she said severely, sitting up straighter on the chair. “For a man who insists you are not him, your lack of caution displays remarkable confidence.”
This time, he laughed aloud.
Lydia stared at the door. She couldn’t be caught here, not with him and certainly not with him in what looked like a state of distinct undress. He was wearing a shirt, she could tell that much, but no waistcoat, and he was unquestionably not attired for company.
“You’re like one of my dogs when they get their teeth on a bone.”
“You ought not refer to ladies as dogs,” she retorted. “They might get offended.”
“It was intended as a compliment. Your tenacity delights me. Did you come here to look through my things?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. He was teasing her, but he couldn’t possibly mock her any more than she had mocked herself just by thinking she could sneak in here without being caught. Some churchmouse she had turned out to be.
“Yes, I did,” she said. “And yes, I am here to investigate you as a potential murderer, and yes, I do fancy myself a constable. I assume that was your next question.”
