by Lauren Royal
And they were both looking at Vincent.
“We brought this up for your own good,” Vincent said now, his gaze steadfast. He had too much dignity to shrivel under their scrutiny. “We worry for you. If you would quit—”
“I cannot,” she interrupted firmly. “You’re all dears to worry for my safety, but I will not stop asking questions until every avenue has been exhausted.”
The three of them exchanged glances and subtle sighs.
“Do please be careful, then,” Hastings finally said.
“I will, I assure you. Thank you for coming to me with your concerns. I consider myself very lucky to be surrounded by such caring people.”
She watched them walk off, praying that she was right and they were wrong. She felt a little shaky. The thought of Tris attacking her was one thing—it was too ludicrous to believe. But the thought of someone else…
She didn’t believe that, either, she decided firmly.
And if it turned out to be true…well, that possibility had its advantages.
FIFTY-ONE
THE QUIET RIDE with Ernest had done little to calm Alexandra’s nerves.
She was still shaking when she dismounted in front of Lizzy’s small cottage. For the second day in a row, Hawkridge’s villagers had stared at her as she rode through. Between that, defying Tris, and learning she might be the target of a murder plot, she felt like a wreck.
Walking up Lizzy’s pretty flower-lined path, she half hoped this interview would lead nowhere, because that would mean this would all be over. No, she thought with an inward sigh…she didn’t really hope that.
Though perhaps she felt she should.
The woman who answered the door had soft white hair, kind blue eyes, and a pronounced stoop. “Yes, dear?”
“Might you be Lizzy?” Alexandra knew that, unlike the others, Lizzy had retired rather than leaving for a new position. Still, she hadn’t expected someone quite so old. Lizzy looked ninety if she were a day. “I’m Lady Hawkridge.”
“A new Lady Hawkridge!” Lizzy’s weathered face crinkled with delight. “Come in, my lady, come in.”
Alexandra waved to Ernest where he was patiently waiting with their horses, then stepped inside. The cottage was a single room with a living area on one side and a bed on the other. “Would you care for a sugar cake?” she asked Lizzy, pulling one from her silver basket.
“Why, thank you.” The woman pulled a chair out from the simple oak table and gestured for Alexandra to sit. “I will have one, if I may.”
“I’ve been told you were employed at Hawkridge Hall when the last marquess died.”
“And for sixty-two years before that.” She munched on the cake, seating herself across from Alexandra.
“My husband, the current marquess—”
“I remember your husband, dear.” Lizzy licked crumbs off her fingers. “Bless you. It’s long past time that poor boy’s innocence was proven.”
For what must have been the dozenth time, Alexandra’s hopes soared. “Did you see anything that night or morning? Anyone suspicious? Have you reason to believe anyone at Hawkridge Hall may have wanted the marquess dead?”
“Alas, no.” Lizzy’s hand inched toward the basket. “But someone must know something. Whom have you talked to so far?”
“Everyone,” Alexandra said with a sigh, handing her another sugar cake.
“Names, my lady. I want names.”
Lizzy devoured two more sugar cakes while Alexandra recited the list.
“How about Maude?” Lizzy asked when she was done.
“Maude?”
“The marquess’s old nurse—after his wife and children passed on, she was the closest person to him. If anyone saw anything that night, it’d have been she. She left very soon after he passed…I wonder if she’s still alive.” She reached for yet another sugar cake, her face wrinkling so much in contemplation that her eyes all but disappeared. “Maude was old as dirt even then.”
Alexandra felt an urge to laugh, from some mixture of elation at her lucky break and amusement at hearing this wrinkled old woman call someone else old as dirt. “Do you know where Maude went, by any chance?”
“When she left, she was headed for Nutgrove. Maude was born there, and she said that there she’d die.”
Alexandra could only hope she hadn’t already.
She gave the rest of the sugar cakes to Lizzy as a thank-you and hurried back outside, marveling at her good fortune. Not only was Maude her most promising lead yet, but she’d passed through Nutgrove on the way here. In mere minutes, she might be with Maude, learning the answers that would cure all her ills…
Giddy, she slanted Ernest a glance. “Are you up for a good gallop?”
“If my lady pleases,” he said stoically.
She mounted, shoved the basket handle over her arm, and lifted the reins.
Tris had an excellent stable, and she had borrowed a fine mare. She flew over the countryside, the horse’s hooves pounding the dirt road at a measured, rhythmic clip. Her hat tumbled back, held on only by its ribbons. She laughed, enjoying the fresh air, the light wind, the renewed hope.
She didn’t hear a snap. There was nothing to warn her. Her saddle just slid sideways and off—and she screamed as she went with it.
FIFTY-TWO
CLUCKING HER tongue, Peggy placed a glass of water by Alexandra’s bedside. “Whatever did you learn from old Lizzy that made you ride off so recklessly?”
“I don’t wish to speak of it now. My head hurts.”
“Hmmph.” Peggy leaned to plump her pillows, which Tristan suspected only made Alexandra’s pain worse. “Serves you right for going off without me there to watch out for you. If you ask me, you should go home until all these dangerous happenings cease. I vow and swear, if you ask me—“
“No one asked you,” Tristan interrupted, rising from one of the striped chairs. He’d be vowing and swearing if he had to listen to her a single moment longer. “Leave us. Lady Hawkridge needs her rest.”
“Well!” Peggy said and took herself out the door, closing it more forcefully than necessary.
Alexandra winced at the resulting bang. “You could be a bit kinder to her.”
“Why in blazes do you put up with her?”
“She has her moods, but she’s nice and helpful most of the time.” She threw off her covers. “I’ll have a talk—”
“Stay in bed!”
“I’m fine, Tris.” As though to prove it, she sat up and swung her legs off the side. “A little bumped and bruised, is all—”
“You’re not fine.” He walked closer and slid his hands into her hair, probing gently. His fingers met a hard, raised lump. “No wonder your head hurts.”
His heart had nearly stopped when Ernest rode up with Alexandra, scraped and bleeding, the two of them sharing the same horse with her mare tied behind. Thankfully, most of her wounds were superficial and had cleaned up nicely, but he cringed to see the multitude of bruises just beginning to color.
And that was only on the parts of her he could see—the rest was concealed beneath Juliana’s hideous nightgown.
He stepped back. “You took several years off my life. You’re going to be the death of me, Alexandra, if you don’t manage to kill yourself first. Or if I don’t manage to kill you,” he added in a tone of disgust.
“Don’t start that again. You were miles away when this happened.”
“Leather straps don’t simply split all by themselves. Someone must have sabotaged the saddle sometime before you left.” He paced over to the fireplace and leaned on the mantel, feeling drained. “Like me, last night, when I climbed out that window.”
“Leather can weaken over time,” she argued. “And you didn’t climb out a window. The room felt overwarm in the night, so you got up, opened the window, and went back to bed.” A thread of exasperation—or perhaps desperation—tinged her voice. “Must you make everything more complicated than it has to be?”
But it couldn’t be as
simple as she was claiming. This incident fit the pattern perfectly. The window had been wide open in the morning, and he had no memory of opening it. And, once again, his wife had been injured by an accident he’d had clear opportunity to arrange.
“Come sit by me,” she said after a tense moment of silence. She patted the mattress beside her.
He crossed the room and sat, but not too close.
He felt too guilty to touch her.
“You would never do anything to hurt me, Tris,” she said quietly. “If I believe that, why can’t you?”
Because his nights were voids in his memory. Because too many coincidences were impossible to ignore. Because someone else had died on a night when he knew he’d wandered.
He sighed. “This has to stop.”
“I can’t stop. That would mean dooming my sisters to dreary spinsterhood and ourselves to a troubled marriage.”
“You must stop. Hastings came to me after you left, along with Mrs. Oliver and Vincent. They said they speak for the entire staff and are concerned that someone may be after you.”
“They’re just being overcautious,” she insisted stubbornly.
“What if they’re right, Alexandra? Our own servants are worried for your safety. Have you any idea how panicked that made me while I waited for your return?” He was surprised he had any hair left, he’d run his hands through it so many times. “And then you rode up, all battered and bloody—”
He cut himself off and lurched to his feet, moving away from her. He needed to calm down. She was injured, and her heart was in the right place. He didn’t want to yell at her, he just wanted to make her understand.
Leaning on the mantel, he took several deep breaths before continuing as calmly as he knew how. “Someone could be after you in order to stop this investigation, or it could be me during my stressful, sleepwalking nights. Either way, you must cease.”
“I won’t,” she said stubbornly.
It seemed she said everything stubbornly. He’d never met anyone quite as stubborn as Alexandra. That made it very hard to maintain his hard-won calm.
“They’re looking at Vincent,” he said, turning around to watch her reaction. “He’s the only one who was new at the time, and his skin is darker than theirs, and they’re looking at him.”
“I’m sorry for that.” She truly did look sorry. “Is he overwrought?”
He shook his head. “I’m overwrought.”
“I’m sorry for that, too. But can’t you see, Tris? If these three incidents were accidents, there’s no reason for me to discontinue my efforts. And if they weren’t accidents, that’s even more reason for me to persevere. Because if someone is after me, that would mean your uncle was, in fact, murdered—and if there’s a killer, that means we can find him and clear your name.”
Tristan stared at her, mute, unable to believe his own ears. He was stunned by her convoluted logic.
Was he supposed to be grateful she was putting her life on the line in order to prove his innocence?
Well, he wasn’t.
He finally found his voice. “Am I to understand you actually think it’s good news that someone might be trying to kill you?”
“Precisely.”
He hadn’t really been expecting a different answer, but he flinched just the same. He wasn’t sure which would be worse: to have Alexandra’s investigation prove he’d committed the murder himself, or to have some other murderer cut short her search by cutting short her life. Either possibility was too appalling to contemplate.
And that wasn’t even taking Vincent into account. If this continued, people would be looking for a scapegoat. The man could be prosecuted and convicted regardless of the truth—a Jamaican ex-slave was unlikely to find justice in this world.
But she was hurt, he reminded himself. And so he said very calmly, but firmly, ”You must stop.” And then it occurred to him: ”Why are we even arguing about this? Wasn’t Lizzy your final witness? You interviewed Lizzy, and now you’re finished.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and she really did look sorry again. “But Lizzy gave me another name. I’m not going to stop until I’ve talked to Maude.”
“Maude.” A vivid picture of a sweet old lady flooded his mind. How odd. He hadn’t thought of the woman in years. Not at all. It was as though she’d evaporated from his memory.
“You knew her?” Alexandra asked.
“Uncle Harold’s old nurse. His nanny, actually, when he was a child. She was kind.” Talking about her was making him uneasy, though he couldn’t think why. He’d liked Maude. “She was his children’s nanny after that. And when he lost heart and fell ill, she nursed him all over again.”
She shifted on the bed to face him. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
“I didn’t remember her.” Strangely enough, it was true. Not that he’d have volunteered the information if he had remembered. All he wanted was for her to stop.
Maybe if he told her several hundred more times, she might start listening.
Probably not.
“Evidently nobody else remembered Maude, either,” she said. “I find it very odd that she wasn’t on Peggy’s list.”
“She was a little bird of a woman, quite elderly. I wonder if she’s even still alive.”
“Lizzy wondered that as well, but I’m hoping she is. As she was closest to your uncle, she’s my best hope for information. Ernest and I were on our way to see her when I took my little tumble.”
”Little tumble?” he scoffed. Leave it to Alexandra to trivialize such a thing. “For pity’s sake, you could have broken your neck!” Remembering something, he dug a small bottle out of his pocket. “I fetched this for you.”
“What is it?“
“Laudanum.” He handed it over. “I thought it might help you. Dull the pain and help you to sleep.”
“How old is this?” She popped the cork and sniffed.
He shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“There’s hardly any in here.”
“You’ll want to take only a little, anyway. You can overdose on laudanum.”
“I don’t hold with taking medicine. Not unless I have to, and I’ve told you, I’m fine.” She replaced the cork and handed back the bottle.
“Lie down at least,” he said with a sigh. “Your head will feel better if you rest.”
For once, she listened, which made him suspect she felt worse than she’d admit. “It’s dented,” she said mournfully when she was once again settled on the pillow.
“Your head?”
“My beautiful basket.” She gestured to where someone had set it on a table. “It took the tumble with me.”
He rose and went to examine it in the light from the window. “It’s not too bad. I don’t expect anyone would ever notice, although I’m certain we can have it fixed.”
“No.” She gave him a shaky smile. “I believe I shall think of it as a battle scar.”
“I only hope your own battle scars end up being so minimal.” He set down the basket. “Maybe Peggy was right. Maybe you should go home until everything here settles down.”
“This is my home,” she said quietly.
The simple statement moved him. Despite all his worry, all his dread, all the anger beneath the surface of his calm, he felt a rush of warmth and gratitude. It lifted him.
“I’m not sleepy,” she said. “I’m sore, but I’m not tired.”
That was why he’d brought the laudanum, but he wouldn’t force it on her. He should have guessed she’d be too stubborn to take it.
Her family’s cookbook and the blank book he’d given her were stacked together on the bedside table. “Here,” he said, handing them to her. “You can copy the recipes you wanted.” He shifted on his feet, and then, unable to help himself, added, “And think about whether continuing this investigation is really wise.”
Her eyes flashed, as he’d known they would. “If Maude knows nothing, there will be nothing left to investigate. But I’d be a fool not to quest
ion her.”
He’d known she would say that, too. “It isn’t foolish to protect yourself, nor to abide by your husband’s wishes.”
She kept quiet for a moment, but something in her expression hardened.
“This is beautiful,” she finally said conversationally, turning the blue leather book over in her hands. After another moment, she looked up at him. “But I hope you haven’t been trying to buy my cooperation with these gifts, because my convictions aren’t for sale.”
He hadn’t known she would think him so calculating. The warmth inside him went cold as he left her in peace.
FIFTY-THREE
LEMON PUFFS
Beat the whites of four eggs till they rise to a high froth. Then add as much sugar as will make it thick; then rub it round for half an hour, put in a spoon of lemon peel gratings and two spoons of the juice. Take a sheet of paper and lay it on as broad as a sixpence and as high as you can. Put them into a moderately heated oven half a quarter of an hour, and they will look as white as snow.
Give these sweet-and-sour biscuits to a sour person you wish to turn sweet. My husband has never proved immune.
—Elizabeth, Countess of Greystone, 1747
ALL THAT LONG afternoon and evening, Alexandra had a lot of time to think.
After a short nap, her head felt better. The rest of her was achy, but not intolerably so. She copied some of her favorite recipes as Tris had suggested, then called for Peggy to help her dress for dinner. The maid was still in a snit, so for once she didn’t babble, which suited Alexandra just fine. When she was ready, she waited for Tris to come escort her to the dining room.
A tray arrived for her instead.
She ate little, the food sticking in her throat. She knew she had hurt Tris terribly. I hope you haven’t been trying to buy my cooperation…even as she’d said it, part of her had been shocked to hear the words come out of her mouth. She wondered what had happened to traditional, ladylike Alexandra. This crusade for truth and justice had turned her into a girl she scarcely recognized, and turned her fairytale romance into an ugly cycle of hurt, anger, and guilt.
