The Governess (Sisters of Woodside Mysteries Book 1)

by Mary Kingswood

  “Exactly!” the dowager countess said, speaking loudly across the table. “This is what I’ve been telling you all along. No one wanted Eloise dead. No one had a reason to murder her.”

  “Except me,” Allan said. “Is it not so, Willerton-Forbes? Who had a better reason to wish his wife dead than her husband, who has no son? If you are looking for someone with a reason to murder my late wife, I must be at the top of your list.”

  “That is true,” the lawyer said easily, laying down his soup spoon. “But yours is not the only name on the list, my lord. The dowager countess also has a reason to wish that you might have a son. Mr Skelton has helpfully provided us with a reason why he might have wished her ladyship dead. There was also her lady’s maid, who had been discovered stealing and was about to be turned off without a reference. And Mr Penicuik had quarrelled with her—”

  The chaplain dropped his spoon into his soup with a squeak of alarm.

  “Then there are the Ladies Dorothea, Florence and Frederica,” the lawyer continued relentlessly. “Lady Brackenwood’s regime for their education was harsh, and they may have resented it.”

  “My daughters!” Allan said, horrified. “You cannot seriously imagine that any of them would murder their own mother just because she kept them at their desks for longer than they liked? They are children!”

  “We must consider every possibility,” Willerton-Forbes said seriously. “It would be fatal to assume anything.”

  “Ridiculous!” the dowager countess said loudly, in a tone which brooked no argument, rendering the room silent again.

  Allan had Marisa on his right hand, so he introduced the subject of Devonshire, her husband’s county of birth, where she had lived for the past several years. Captain Edgerton had visited the county and was quite willing to do his part in describing its delights, and by this means, aided by the freely flowing claret, the company was brought back to some semblance of good humour. But there was a tension underlying their polite conversation now. Someone in Charlsby, perhaps even one of those gathered around the dinner table, might very well be a murderer.

  ~~~~~

  Annabelle was unsettled by Mr Willerton-Forbes’ frank expression of his thoughts. The stark admission that Lady Brackenwood might have died from poison, and his list of those suspected of murder had chilled her to the bone. None of those listed seemed likely to Annabelle. Allan — no, she could not believe him capable of it, nor the dowager countess. George Skelton — again, no, however much he might appear to benefit from such a crime. As for the three girls, the very idea was ludicrous, and Mr Penicuik was the gentlest, most timid man imaginable. The lady’s maid, now, that was possible, although murdering one’s mistress to prevent her giving a bad reference seemed a little extreme. Besides, her thieving had been widely known, and she could not be certain of receiving any reference if her mistress were dead.

  It was the first time Annabelle had thought seriously about the possibility of murder and her dreams that night were filled with amorphous fears. She woke not long after dawn, and as soon as she heard the kitchen door opened three floors below, she got up and dressed herself and went out for a walk through the woods. The cool morning air and brisk exercise could not remove her fears entirely, but it gave an opening for her rational mind, and she remembered that Mr Willerton-Forbes and his colleagues were bent on finding the murderer, if indeed such a person existed. Furthermore, Allan had invited them to Charlsby, which he would hardly do if he had himself poisoned his wife. No suspicion could be sustained against him.

  This thought cheered her more than any other. It was very bad to have the possibility of murder in their midst, but so long as Allan was innocent, there was nothing that need concern her in the matter. Then she wondered at herself for such thoughts. Was it possible that she was developing a fondness for him? He was a very likable man, there was no denying it. He had not Charles’s looks or stylish air of fashion, but he was such an amiable man, with a charm all his own, and there was no doubt he had driven Charles from her mind to a degree. She was still unhappy, but not as unhappy as she had been before she had met the earl. Had he not shown a certain partiality for her, she doubted she would have taken much notice of him. But now… she considered once again what it might be like to kiss him.

  How foolish she was! Even thinking about the earl in such a light was a good way to lead her to another disappointment. She would not be fooled again! Giving herself a mental shake, she returned to the house determined not to give way to any further romantic thoughts about Allan… Lord Brackenwood. Her employer, she reminded herself.

  As she reached the landing to return to her room, she caught sight of a wisp of skirt disappearing into the schoolroom, the door closing soundlessly behind the intruder. It was not the hour for the maids to clean, and her pupils were incapable of doing anything silently, so who could it be?

  Sudden anger gripped her. It could only be one of the maids, bent on some mischief. Quickly she crossed the landing and followed the mysterious visitor into the schoolroom. The room was empty but the door to the small room stood open, and sounds could be heard from within. Annabelle paused on the threshold in astonishment.

  “Mrs Pargeter? Are you looking for something?”

  Wearing only a nightgown and wrap, she was engaged in rifling through the chest of drawers, but at Annabelle’s words, she jumped, and turned round. “Oh, Miss Winterton! How you did creep up on me! I had no notion you would be up and about so early or I should have asked for your help.”

  “I am perfectly happy to help now, if you wish it,” Annabelle said, calmer now that she knew her visitor was a guest. “Do you want something of the late Lady Brackenwood’s? The drawers are full of her things — gloves and stockings and so on. There are gowns in the wardrobe.”

  “Yes, I see that. The truth is, Miss Winterton, that I could not sleep a wink last night for thinking of all Mr Willerton-Forbes said, of poison, and that it could not have been in the food or drink, and so it must have been one of her medicines. There was nothing out of the ordinary in her usual bedroom, where I sleep, but then I discovered that she sometimes slept up here and I could not rest until I had looked for myself. Just imagine if the very poison that had killed my poor sister were still lurking here, undetected.”

  Annabelle was not sure that she should be discussing what had been found in the room, for Mrs Pargeter did not strike her as the most discreet person in the world. She might mention it in the strictest confidence to her maid and within an hour every servant in the house would know of it. She contented herself, therefore, with saying only, “You may be easy in your mind, ma’am, for there are no medicines in this room.”

  “Ah.” Mrs Pargeter gazed at Annabelle, as if assessing her trustworthiness. “Well, that is a relief. I have been worrying myself unnecessarily, it seems.”

  “We are all prey to these sudden fears,” Annabelle said. “I doubt anyone slept well last night, after all that Mr Willerton-Forbes said. The sooner this matter is resolved the better.”

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” Mrs Pargeter said. “Well, I had better go back to my room. Perhaps my breakfast tray will have arrived by now.”

  So saying, she glided out of the room.

  When Annabelle heard Mr Willerton-Forbes, Captain Edgerton and Mr Neate come up the stairs to their office, she met them on the landing, and told them what had occurred.

  “I did not feel it was wise to disclose every detail,” she said.

  “You were quite right, Miss Winterton,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said. “The less said the better.”

  “Although… it makes me uneasy to withhold information from Mrs Pargeter, for she is not under suspicion, is she?”

  Mr Willerton-Forbes smiled. “I am naturally suspicious of everyone, but in this case I cannot see how Mrs Pargeter might have poisoned her sister when she was at the other end of the country, nor why she might wish to do so.”

  Annabelle nodded. “Exactly. I am sure that Lady Brackenwood’s death was an
accident, but if anyone murdered her, it must have been someone who was here. Her maid, for instance.”

  “Indeed. The maid has been traced, and invited to come here to tell what she knows,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said.

  “If she does not come, we will have our murderer,” Captain Edgerton said grimly.

  ~~~~~

  ‘Dear Annabelle Aunt Letty has died Margaret’

  ~~~~~

  JULY

  Annabelle was wrestling with some number work with Dorothea, while Florence and Frederica flew through their own sums. They had such a great facility with mathematics, but struggled with reading and writing, whereas Dorothea was very much the opposite. Since Annabelle had similar affinities, she was far more inclined to sympathise with poor Dorothea’s sufferings and dismiss the younger girls’ struggles. It was hard to remember that not everyone felt that books were the answer to every problem ever conceived of, and most of those yet to be imagined. Dorothea, Annabelle had discovered, wrote poetry and prose to a commendable degree, and might one day aspire to be a published author, while her two sisters had yet to grasp the point of writing at all, except as a means to torture innocent girls.

  While they were thus engaged, the schoolroom door opened with a subdued snick, as if the person entering were trying to avoid notice. Annabelle assumed, therefore, that it was one of the maids, and ignored the newcomer. It was Dorothea who looked up and squealed in delight.

  “Papa! You have come to see us! Please will you help me, for I cannot manage this work at all.”

  “Another time, perhaps, Dody. I am come to take the three of you out for a walk. Go and get your bonnets and gloves on.”

  “Oooh, yes!” Florence cried. “Three times round the lakes—”

  “No running or dawdling!” Frederica said, laughing. With a whisk of muslin skirts, the three bounded off to the nursery.

  Annabelle had the greatest foreboding. The girls saw only an unexpected treat, but she could read Allan’s face rather well now. His expression was filled with… sadness, perhaps. Sympathy. It was bad news, she knew it.

  He laid the London newspaper on the table in front of her. “Page two. Take the rest of the day off, Miss Winterton.” Then he left as quietly as he had arrived. A few minutes later, she heard the girls go chattering out to the landing and down the stairs, Allan’s low rumble mingling with their high voices.

  Terrified, she fumbled with the pages. A death — it must be a death. One of her sisters, surely. It could not be about Aunt Letty, for the notice for that had already appeared. Rosamund, perhaps. Or Robin — oh God, no!

  She spread the page open and scanned the columns as fast as she could. Then she caught her breath.

  ‘The engagement is announced between Mr Charles Keeling, eldest son of Mr Thomas Keeling of Littlemarsh, Brinshire to Miss Cynthia Lorrimer, eldest daughter of Mr David Lorrimer of Chester.’

  Not a death, then, or at least, not that kind of death. Only the death of all her hopes and dreams.

  16: Of Kisses

  Annabelle could not say how long she sat, staring at the notice in the paper. For three years she had been in expectation of this news, yet it was still a shock to discover that Charles was betrothed. And to Miss Lorrimer, who was the shyest young lady in England, and had the most protective parents. How had it been managed? With Charles’s boundless charm, she supposed, and persistence and determination, and an inexperienced young lady who could not help responding to his wooing. That at least she understood, and perhaps there came a point where even the most hard-hearted father might crumble, in seeing his daughter swept up in the throes of love. Charles was not, after all, a fortune hunter, merely a man who must marry prudently, and perhaps Miss Lorrimer, her family only recently established among the gentry, was glad to have so eligible a husband. She would—

  “Miss Winterton?”

  She jumped, not having heard him come in. “Back already? That was a short walk.”

  The earl smiled in his gentle way. “We were gone for two hours at least. Five circuits round the lakes, no running or dawdling, and then up to the woods to see the wild strawberries. May I get you anything? Some brandy?”

  “Thank you, but no. I am perfectly well. This is not unexpected after all.”

  “No, but…” He hesitated, one hand on the back of a chair. “May I sit?” She assented, and he carefully lifted the chair so that the legs did not scrape against the wooden floor, and sat down. “Miss Winterton, if it is of any comfort to you, I believe he will come to regret you. Miss Lorrimer may be a charming young lady, but she is far from your equal in quickness or temperament.”

  She managed a small smile. “Yet she is far beyond me in wealth, and the marriage is not as mismatched as many, in terms of rank and family. And in temper, for she is amiable and he has no bad habits that I ever discovered. They will deal together admirably.”

  “Perhaps. I thought her father very much opposed to the match, if only for the disparity in wealth, but perhaps he feels that Mr Keeling’s expectations justify the risk.”

  “Twelve hundred a year?” she said, puzzled.

  “There is a cousin, a sickly child of five, who holds the family fortune presently. If he should die, then Mr Keeling will stand to inherit a great deal more. Another two thousand a year, eventually, according to the industrious researches of Mr Cross. With Miss Lorrimer’s dowry, that will give Mr Keeling an income approaching four thousand a year, a very comfortable sum.”

  “He mentioned something of the matter, although I had forgotten it until now,” she said thoughtfully.

  “You may be sure that Mr Keeling has not, however,” the earl said. “He is a man who is very mindful of monetary matters. Forgive me… I do not mean to disparage a man you hold in high esteem. In his position, such mindfulness is no more than good sense.”

  She nodded, but said nothing. What was there to say? His interest in money had shocked her, but she understood it.

  The earl cleared his throat. “It pleases me to find you so composed. I hope you will be able to put him out of your mind, in time.”

  “If this had happened two or three years ago, I would have been distraught,” she said quietly. “Now… it is a shock, of course. Nothing quite prepares one… but at least I have the comfort of knowing that he did not, in the end, regard me with dishonourable eyes. It remains only to regret my foolishness in falling in love with him in the first place.”

  “But that is perfectly understandable,” the earl said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table between them. “He is handsome, well-dressed, with excellent manners and an open, trustworthy demeanour — how could any young lady help falling in love with such a man?”

  She laughed at that. “But I know fifty such men, at least. One meets them all the time. You yourself fall under the same description, Lord Brackenwood. One does not fall in love with a man solely on account of his good manners.”

  He cleared his throat again. “You mean, I suppose, that it is his underlying goodness that makes the difference?”

  “Ultimately, perhaps. One grows to know a man and thus learns whether he be worthy of one’s love. But falling in love is not about looks or manners, it is far more unconscious than that. I liked Charles well enough, and his attentions flattered me, but it was not until Willowbye that I fell in love. Willowbye, my lord, is one of those old houses that looks to be thrown together by some mischievous spirit. Wings here, wings there, tossed out whenever the owner had a little money to spare, and at the heart of it, the medieval great hall, with bare walls and arched wooden roof, just as it must have looked four hundred years ago. There was a ball there, three years ago next month. I danced with Charles, and then with several others, and finally with Charles again, and somehow, on our way to the supper room, we found ourselves in a little ante-room, quite abandoned and dark. There in the shadows he kissed me and poured his ardour into my ears. No man had ever kissed me before, or held me that way, as if he would never let me go, warming me right to
my toes. I felt as if I were drowning in his love. For perhaps half an hour we were quite alone, and at the end of it I was so deep in love that I could not tell the difference between up and down. And the reason was passion — what we felt in that room was passion, and his was just as great as mine. That is why I have never quite been able to forget him. Or to forgive him for abandoning me in the way he did, not instantly, but by means of a slow withdrawal, a gradual fading away. It was months before I understood what he was about, months of agony. If he had only told me, openly and honestly, that he could not marry me… It would still have hurt, but at least I would have known. There would not have been the endless waiting and hoping… That is what women do, all we can do. We wait and hope.”

  He nodded, saying nothing. Once or twice as she talked, his hand moved across the table towards her, as if he wanted to touch her but dared not. She was struck by the impropriety of talking so to her employer.

  “Good gracious, I am treating you very much as a friend, Lord Brackenwood. Forgive me, I should not talk so.”

  “I shall always be your friend,” he said, with such simplicity that her breath caught in her throat. “I am honoured by your confidence, Miss Winterton. You may tell me anything you wish, and to show you that I mean what I say, I shall share a confidence with you, if you will hear it.”

  “Of course.”

  “Mine is also about a kiss. When I first came into my honours, my mother wished me to marry at once. George was at the time an unpromising twelve-year-old whom I had barely met above twice, so it seemed sensible. Mother hauled me off to Wales to meet her distant kin, including two sisters, Eloise and Marisa. Like you with Mr Keeling, I was not in love, but there was a strong attraction, on both sides. Even with my lack of experience, I was aware of the way she looked at me, the little signs. And then one evening she drew me into an empty room and… and kissed me. Very thoroughly. Very expertly, I now realise. And I was lost.”