An Heir of Uncertainty

by Everett, Alyssa

  Apparently sensing she had walked into a trap, she nodded slowly.

  “The boy told people he saw a wolf when it wasn’t true, didn’t he? And then when it was true, and he needed help, no one believed him.” Win gave her a grave look. “I was worried when I heard your stomach hurt. I thought you might be sick. But it doesn’t really hurt, does it?”

  She looked down at her plate. “Not very much.”

  “I thought not. I won’t make you eat your Brussels sprouts if you dislike them that much, but I do expect you to tell the truth.” He spoke in a low, serious voice. “Even for grown-ups, it’s not always easy to tell what to believe, or whom. Make sure people can always count on your word.”

  She hung her head. “Yes, Papa.”

  Win sat and talked with her a few minutes longer, mostly to show her he was more disappointed than angry, then kissed her and left her to finish her dinner.

  He slipped out of the nursery with his heart even heavier than before. If he expected Julia to be true to her word, shouldn’t he be as well? He’d told Lina on the night Mr. Niven was killed that he would get to the bottom of the mystery. Now he had to keep that promise, no matter how painful it might be.

  Determined, Win strode to the drawing room to confront his brother.

  Freddie was waiting for him, dressed in his evening clothes and shifting from foot to foot in agitation. “There you are,” he said as soon as he caught sight of Win. “Where’ve you been? You’re more than half an hour late for dinner, and I need to talk to you.”

  Win’s mood was grim. “I need to talk to you, too, and it’s not going to be a very pleasant conversation.”

  Freddie blanched. “You know what I did, then?”

  Win had been hoping he was wrong, and Freddie wasn’t to blame for the poisonings after all. At the guilty look on his brother’s face, that hope withered and died. He nodded and said solemnly, “Yes, I know.”

  Freddie’s face screwed into an anxious expression. “I realize it was wrong, but I didn’t get hurt, and I have something important to tell you.”

  Win stared at his brother in disbelief. “You didn’t get hurt?” He couldn’t keep the anger from his tone. “What about Mr. Niven and Beauty, to say nothing of the terror poor Lady Radbourne has been living in?”

  Freddie blinked rapidly. “I don’t know, what about them?”

  “Freddie, I want to believe you didn’t realize that what you were doing was wrong, but this is a hanging offense.” Win punctuated the last two words with a slash of his hand. “We’ve no choice now but to go back to Hamble Grange and hope to God no one else ever realizes the truth.”

  Freddie’s eyes went wide. “Climbing the dovecote wall is a hanging offense?”

  “No, I mean—” Win stopped himself. “Wait. Is that what you wanted to confess—that you climbed the dovecote wall again?”

  “Yes. I know you told me not to, but that was the inside wall, and I thought perhaps the outside wall would be all right. I wasn’t sure you’d agree, so I wasn’t going to, but then I mixed a bucket of Naples yellow paint and I thought it only right that the window frame should match the door and—”

  Win had been holding his breath. “What about the poison?”

  Freddie squinted in perplexity. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Win frowned. “Come with me.”

  But as they left the drawing room, the footman from the entrance hall—looking cold and wet, and carrying a note on a tray—intercepted them. “Excuse me, sir, but I have Lady Radbourne’s reply to your message.”

  Impatient, Win took up the note and unfolded the page.

  You know the identity of the killer? Now I shan’t rest until I hear what you have to say.

  Dr. Strickland is dining here this evening, so if we must meet privately, I cannot see you until after he has taken his leave and my sister has retired for the night. It is sleeting outside, but I will leave the back entrance unlocked. Come at midnight, let yourself in, and go directly up to my room, the first door on the right at the top of the stairs. Take care not to give your presence away. I will be waiting anxiously.

  Lina

  Win studied the closely written script with a frown. Her bedchamber? It seemed a strange and unnecessarily risky plan, especially for cautious, sensible Lina. What if Miss Douglass saw him, or one of the servants did?

  Then again, she’d visited his bedchamber once and gone away undetected. He’d just have to trust she had her reasons. Certainly he had no wish for a servant or her sister to hear what he had to tell her. He folded the message again and slipped it into his breast pocket. “You’d better go and change into some dry clothes,” he told the footman.

  Win turned back to Freddie. “This way,” he said, gesturing with a jerk of his head.

  He led Freddie to the empty front hall. Win took up a candle and drew his brother into the cloakroom, closing the door behind them in case the footman returned to his post.

  “All right, Freddie.” Win reached into the pocket of Freddie’s greatcoat, still hanging on its peg, and pulled out the bottle of hydrocyanic acid. “What about this?” He held the bottle to the candlelight for Freddie to see, a mute accusation on his outstretched palm.

  Freddie peered at it, the look on his face mingling confusion and dismay. “Is that your poison, Win?”

  A fresh spark of hope flickered in Win’s chest. “It isn’t yours?”

  “No, I’ve never seen it before.” Freddie looked up. “What was it doing in my pocket?”

  “I thought you put it there.”

  “What would I be doing with a bottle of poison? I didn’t even wear my greatcoat today. I didn’t want to get paint on it.” Freddie’s eyes widened. “Do you think that’s what she was doing in the house?”

  Now it was Win’s turn to look confused. “What who was doing in the house?”

  “Miss Douglass. That was the important thing I was going to tell you. When I climbed the dovecote wall today, I was up near the eaves and I had a clear view of the abbey through the bare trees. She came to the house, only she didn’t knock on the front door. She didn’t use the servants’ entrance, either, but let herself in through that square room behind the servants’ hall.”

  “The stillroom?” Lina had a key to the stillroom. She’d mentioned using it to let herself in, that night she’d visited him in his bedroom.

  Freddie nodded. “I thought she was looking for me, because she went away so soon afterward. She was inside for scarcely two minutes. Do you think she could have put that bottle in my pocket?”

  “I don’t know.” Could Cassandra Douglass be the poisoner? She’d had access to the tea caddy in the dower house. She’d been beside her sister in Malton when someone had pushed Lina into the path of the mail coach. With the stillroom key, she could have entered the house and poisoned the brandy in the study. She could have killed Beauty too, to make it easier for her to come and go without being noticed.

  But why would she want to harm her own sister, or poison him? And what about the dower house door—on the day he’d first met Lina and Miss Douglass, the door had been forced open, the wood around the strike plate splintered. Could a woman as small and slight as Cassandra Douglass really manage to break down a door? Win couldn’t see how—unless perhaps she’d been working with a confederate. Mr. Niven had hinted he’d had an accomplice in the embezzlement scheme. And if Miss Douglass was that accomplice... Had she heard him mention the account books to Lina, that evening when he and Freddie had dined at the dower house?

  But that still didn’t explain the bottle in Freddie’s greatcoat. “Why would she want to put the poison in your pocket?” Win said. “I was under the impression she’d set her cap for you.”

  Freddie brightened. “What if she thought it was your greatcoat? Mine looks a good deal like yours, especially wh
en they’re hanging side by side.”

  “And when she slipped into the cloakroom, she couldn’t know that you weren’t wearing your greatcoat today, so she dropped the bottle in the first such pocket she saw.” Win’s thoughts were in a whirl. He jerked open the cloakroom door. “Come with me, Freddie, and hurry.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the dower house, to see what Miss Douglass has to say for herself.”

  There was no time to waste. Lina could be in danger.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sleep is a death; oh, make me try

  By sleeping what it is to die,

  And as gently lay my head

  On my grave as now my bed!

  —Sir Thomas Browne

  Jem had no sooner closed the front door behind Dr. Strickland than Cassie yawned. “Goodness, this dreary weather is making me sleepy. I know it’s still early, but I think I’ll have a cup of tea to warm me, and then go up to bed to read.”

  Lina was relieved Cassie had apparently said all she meant to say about the evils of associating with Win. “That’s a happy notion.”

  “Isn’t it? There’s nothing more pleasant than a warm cup of tea on a stormy night, and then reading under the covers.”

  Lina followed her back to the drawing room and took a seat. “I do wish you hadn’t persuaded Dr. Strickland to come all the way out here, especially to discuss something we might better have kept between us.”

  Cassie poured their tea. “But I tried to keep it between us, and you wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “And I’m not going to listen to Dr. Strickland either, not in this case, which means you embarrassed the poor man and made him walk home in the sleet for nothing.” Lina watched her sister with a frown. “Cassie, I don’t take nearly that much sugar in my tea.”

  Cassie looked up in surprise. “Did I put too much in? Sorry, I was wool-gathering.”

  Lina sighed. Cassie hadn’t even been attending. “I might just as easily have aired your dirty laundry in front of Dr. Strickland, you know. I ran into Frederick Vaughan today. He tells me you’ve been following him about.”

  “Following him?” Handing Lina her teacup, Cassie choked on a laugh. “Goodness, he makes me sound shameless. I shared the path with him when I was coming home from the vicarage a few days ago, that’s all.”

  Lina sipped her tea. “He mentioned two occasions.”

  “I shouldn’t place too much dependence on anything he says if I were you. You know how peculiar he is.”

  “Earlier this evening, you were insisting he was the soul of honesty. Besides, I thought you liked him.”

  “I do, and he is honest, but that doesn’t mean every one of his opinions should be taken for gospel.”

  Lina gave her a severe look. “So did you follow him to the dovecote or not?”

  “Not. I may have passed through the area while he was there, but if I did, it was so insignificant I’ve forgotten all about it.”

  Lina sighed. “He seems to be under a different impression. Perhaps you should keep your distance until he and Colonel Vaughan leave for Hampshire.”

  “Oh, Lina, why must you be such a dog in the manger?” Despite the words, Cassie’s tone was light and teasing. “You had Edward. When am I to have a gentleman of my own?”

  “Don’t you think the gentleman should have some say in the matter?”

  Cassie made no reply, instead watching as Lina took another swallow of her tea. “Is it too sweet?”

  Lina considered the taste. “Not really. I thought it would be, but it’s fine. I must have been mistaken about the amount of sugar you put in.”

  “I thought I’d got it right.”

  Lina took another sip and set her cup down in its saucer. A pronounced feeling of calm was creeping over her. It was nice to be inside, and warm. Poor Dr. Strickland, walking home in such wretched weather...although even that prospect didn’t seem as worrying as it had a few minutes before.

  “You know,” Cassie said, “Edward was six months closer to my age than he was to yours.”

  “I know.”

  “Mr. Niven used to say it surprised him Edward chose you over me.”

  Lina peered doubtfully at Cassie. “When did he say that?”

  Cassie waved a dismissive hand. “Lots of times. It isn’t important.”

  Cassie didn’t sound bitter or resentful, just reflective. Did she really wonder if she might have ended up with Edward? She’d been scarcely sixteen when he’d asked Lina to marry him, and he’d never shown any interest in Cassie beyond a brotherly affection. It wasn’t as if Lina had stolen her sister’s beau...

  Lina blinked and snapped upright. She’d been nodding off.

  “You look sleepy,” Cassie said.

  Lina nodded. “I am.” It was all she could do to keep her eyes open.

  Cassie set her own tea aside, then rose and took her by the arm. “Come along, then. We’d better get you up to bed.”

  Lina stood, and was grateful for Cassie’s support when her balance proved less than steady. From somewhere beneath the calm and the sleepiness, a faint stir of alarm ran through her. “What’s wrong with me?”

  Cassie collected the candle to light their way. “Nothing, dear. You’re just tired.”

  She was definitely tired, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to fight to keep her eyes open. The feeling had come on powerfully despite the early hour. “Are you certain?”

  “Positive. I had the same tea you did, remember? You’ll feel right as rain once you lie down.” Cassie walked her to the stairs and then up to her room, a loving hand on her elbow.

  Once in Lina’s bedroom, she closed the door behind them and set the candle atop the dresser. “Here, let me help you off with that dress.”

  Lina allowed Cassie to unbutton her gown, holding up her arms like an obedient child as Cassie lifted the rustling black silk off over her head. She tried to stand still as Cassie unlaced her stays, too, but she was weaving on her feet. “I feel so strange.”

  “Perhaps you’re coming down with the grippe.” Cassie drew her toward the bed. “Now have a seat, and I’ll take care of your slippers and stockings.”

  Lina didn’t just have a seat, she flopped down on the mattress and fell back dizzily against the pillow. Her arms and legs felt heavy. “What’s happening to me?” she asked again, her voice sounding far away, her words more mumble than real speech. It reminded her of the way Win had sounded, that night at the abbey just before she’d kissed him...

  “You’re tired.” Wearing a gentle smile, Cassie picked up the second of Lina’s two pillows and plumped it into a more comfortable shape. “You’re going to sleep, Lina dear.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re not going to wake up any time soon.” Still smiling, Cassie pushed the pillow she was holding down over Lina’s face.

  * * *

  “I don’t understand. Why would Miss Douglass want to harm her sister?” Freddie asked as they hurried through the woods, the sleet falling on their shoulders. “Isn’t she living in the dower house only because Lady Radbourne has the use of it?”

  “Yes, but with Lina and her baby out of the way, I’d be the new earl. Can you really see me casting Lina’s grief-stricken younger sister out into the street?”

  It was seven o’clock. God, he hoped all was well at the dower house, and that Dr. Strickland was still dining with the ladies, chatting pleasantly. If he was right, Miss Douglass was dangerously unstable, and Lina wasn’t safe with her. It all seemed so clear to him now. Why hadn’t he realized it sooner?

  “I still don’t see how it would benefit her if the title went to you, instead of to Lady Radbourne’s baby,” Freddie said.

  “Which is better, to have an infant earl as a nephew or
to be the new Countess of Radbourne?”

  “To be the new countess. But you’re not interested in marrying Miss Douglass.”

  “I’m not, but after me, you’re next in line to inherit. And she’s been particularly friendly to you, hasn’t she, Freddie?”

  “To me?” Freddie’s mouth dropped open. “So that’s why she poisoned your brandy. Do you really think—”

  A scream, brief and distant but still unmistakable, carried on the night air.

  Win froze. “Did you hear that?”

  “It came from the dower house,” Freddie said, staring back at him.

  Without another word, Win took off at a run.

  * * *

  Lina wrenched her head to one side and managed to give a single strangled scream before the feather pillow closed down on her mouth and nostrils.

  Panic gripped her. What was happening? Why would Cassie want to hurt her?

  She fought with all her might to push the suffocating pillow free, and when that didn’t work, to reach beyond the pillow and shove Cassie away. It wasn’t just the drugged tea that put her at a disadvantage. Cassie had gravity and leverage on her side, leaning all her weight into the pillow as she pressed it down tightly against Lina’s face.

  “Stop fighting, Lina. Just go to sleep.”

  She hardly recognized Cassie’s voice. It sounded so cold, so determined. She tried to scream again, but the pillow muffled the sound.

  If only the drug Cassie had slipped into her tea hadn’t left her so weak! Starved for air, Lina struggled to draw a breath, but it was no use. Desperate, she balled her hand into a fist and struck out with all the strength she could muster.

  Her swing connected with something solid, and the pillow loosened for a moment. Lina gasped in a lungful of air.

  The pillow closed down hard over her face again. Lina kicked and flailed. The more she struggled, the more her lungs burned.

  Then everything went dark, and she couldn’t struggle anymore.

  * * *

  Win raced to the dower house, sprinting at top speed, Freddie close on his heels. When he reached the front door, he pounded. Though it was still early, the windows on the ground floor were dark.