The whole while they had been engaged—no, not engaged, simply bound by an understanding—he had never kissed her any more romantically than a farewell kiss on the cheek. And in all that time, she had never felt the lack. But now, after the fires of desire had been blown hotter by the bellows of jealousy, she knew that she wanted nothing more than for his lips to meet hers.
He had wanted to kiss her today, but the murder of Arabella Hastings lay between them, a putrid fly in the heady perfume of requited love. She could not kiss him until that impediment was gone.
She flung her head back against the bed. What secrets did Mademoiselle Mathilde know? Was there a hushed-up story in Arabella Hastings’ past that would shed light on the identity of the strangler? Or were the secrets merely concerning Arabella’s father, nefarious business dealings he was keen to hide from the public eye?
She sat up suddenly. It was all well and good to let the mind wander, but it would be far more useful to Haro to ferret out the truth. She must go and find Mademoiselle Mathilde before she departed and wring from her the secrets of the Hastings household.
***
Pevensey did not often leave an interview feeling dissatisfied, but in the case of Mrs. Rollo, he felt extremely vexed that his store of essential information had not increased one jot during the course of their conversation. He stood outside the library door for one minute, and then another.
It had been impossible to press the Countess of Anglesford when she told him her taradiddles about her niece being present in the drawing room. Had he questioned her further, her rank and her delicate constitution would have made Pevensey seem a boor at best or a scoundrel at worst. But the possibility of pressing Mrs. Rollo seemed a far more promising matter. She had neither rank nor connections. Who was to object if he applied a little force to the shell of this nut, just enough to crack it and get at the meat that lay inside?
Perhaps such sentiments were reprehensible, but Pevensey had to admit they were also responsible for his success in his chosen profession. The magistrates knew he would not rest until he had obtained the answers they needed.
Pevensey reopened the door of the library and re-entered the sanctum of tastefully arranged books and dark mahogany panels. This time he made no effort to disguise his footsteps.
Mrs. Rollo was enjoying the same chair that he had left her in not three minutes since, her feet once more propped up like an ancient laborer’s after a long day swinging his scythe in the field.
“Did you like Arabella Hastings?” Pevensey demanded, his opening assault far less politic, or polite, than his previous questions.
The Countess of Anglesford would have twittered in outrage—and reached for her hartshorn—but Mrs. Rollo’s inscrutably set face became demonstrably less set and decidedly less inscrutable. “No, young man. I did not.”
Pevensey breathed a sigh of inward exultation. The forthright approach had worked. She was opening up to him like a flower, albeit a very drab and unattractive one.
“Why is that?”
“She was lazy, sharp-tongued, untruthful, unkind, and irreligious.”
Obviously the old biddy had thought about this subject at some length.
“Did she have any good qualities?”
“She was content with seeming to have them…when on display for potential suitors.”
“But she made no such pretense at home?”
“No, and certainly not for the benefit of the servants.”
She said that last word bitterly. Pevensey knew that the life of a governess was a sad one—as gray as the faded dress Mrs. Rollo wore. She was not quite a member of the family and not quite a member of the hired help. Many governesses could at least take comfort in the joy of imparting knowledge, the affection of their students, or the respect of their employers—but for Mrs. Rollo, it seemed, none of these solaces were available. A debutante not interested in schoolroom instruction or societal guidance would undoubtedly treat her governess-turned-companion no better than a cook, a washerwoman, or a scullery maid. Mrs. Rollo was, to all the parties that mattered, a servant in the Hastings household, a servant disgruntled at the estimation of her own worth.
“Shortly before Miss Hastings’ death”—Pevensey did not feel the need to use a euphemism in front of Mrs. Rollo—“there was an altercation between her and Miss Swanycke. I understand you were present for that.”
“Yes.”
“Did Miss Hastings say something to provoke Miss Swanycke into slapping her?”
“I imagine she must have,” said Mrs. Rollo, her lips pulling back distastefully and revealing her large teeth. Pevensey was already imagining how often Miss Hastings must have provoked this woman, and how often Mrs. Rollo must have wished she could repay her in the same coin that Miss Swanycke had displayed.
“But you did not hear the exchange between the two of them?”
She hesitated. Pevensey held his breath—she was on the cusp of answering him, he could sense it.
“It was only a whisper, but I did hear it. Miss Hastings was assuring Miss Swanycke that she could drop a word in the ear of one of her gentlemen friends and obtain a carte blanche and a snug hunting bungalow for her, if she would only vacate the premises and release the earl from the net she held him in.”
Pevensey whistled in astonishment. No wonder the black-haired beauty had taken offense. “You seem to be an astute observer of your surroundings, Mrs. Rollo. In your observation of the family and household here at Woldwick, who would you say had the deepest resentment towards Miss Hastings?”
Her lip curled. “Other than myself, you mean?”
Pevensey raised an eyebrow. So, this broad-shouldered woman nursed a sense of humor as well as an implacable grievance. He looked down at the thick knuckles of her hands. When he first heard that the crime had involved strangling, he had assumed that the suspect would be a man, but could this woman—this bear of a woman—have been baited enough to react with a masculine strength?
She turned silent again, and Pevensey saw that she was refusing to speculate on others’ resentments.
“Where were you on the morning of the murder?”
“Breaking my fast with Mrs. Alfred, the housekeeper.”
“Thank you for being so forthcoming.” This detail should be easy enough to verify, and if it were true, then Mrs. Rollo—large knuckles and all—was not the strangler he was looking for.
***
Haro was tired of sitting with himself. Eda was nowhere to be found. Torin insisted on burying his nose in Terrence, or Plautus, or some other tedious Roman tome. And Haro had given his word not to leave the house, making a brisk gallop through the cold woods an enticing idea but utterly forbidden to him. He discarded the idea of going to sit with his mother, and—well, one could only handle so much of that pickled Frenchman, Bayeux.
The earl wandered into his father’s study—his study now—leaving the door open behind him. Sitting at the desk still seemed as foreign as putting on another man’s waistcoat. Haro remembered his father hunched in that chair, burning the candle far into the night at that desk during the few weeks of the year he was at his country home. His mother had always remarked how thorough her husband was with the accounting. Little did she know that his thoroughness was merely to conceal or mitigate the damage that a deck of cards had done to the Emison estate.
Haro sat down at the desk and opened the largest drawer. There was a locked wood case inside, the one that held his father’s pistols. Haro opened another drawer and fished out the key that would open the lock. There they were, the two silver pistols he had always coveted when he was a boy. He fingered the filigreed hilt of the polished firearm. His father would ride out with the hounds on occasion, but he had never been one for dueling or target practice—and yet the pistol was as clean and bright as if it had been the late earl’s most prized possession.
Haro fingered the trigger. He wondered what Edward Emison would have done if he had not lost his life to illness, if he had lived to face the
financial ruin that now beset his family. Would he have taken the coward’s way out—a bullet through the temple? Or would he have braved the storm with them, retrenched, reformed, and resided in genteel poverty in a house in Russell Square?
“Ahem! Pardon me!” A freckled face peeked in through the open door. “If you are intending to shoot yourself, you will take the time to leave a note, won’t you?”
Haro looked up in surprise. “A note?”
“Of course! Saying that you strangled Miss Hastings. Everyone will assume that was the case, anyway, but it would make my job much easier if it were in writing.”
Haro leaned back in his chair. He resisted the urge to point the pistol at the Bow Street Runner. “What the devil is that supposed to mean? You’ve made up your mind against me?”
“Certainly not, my lord. But you do admit things look suspicious, do you not? A pistol in hand, finger poised to shoot, alone and indoors in one’s study—if those are not signs of a guilty conscience, I don’t know what is!”
Haro stopped leaning back, and the legs of the chair swung forward with a thump. He let go of the pistol, placing it carefully on the desk. “Mr. Pevensey, nothing could be further from my mind than committing suicide. I am, in fact, very much looking forward to putting these false accusations to rest and living the long life that lies before me.” He cleared his throat. “I hope that your interviews over the past two days have produced some information that warrants my optimism…?”
Pevensey said nothing to fill the space that Haro had left.
Haro frowned. His hands balled into fists, and he placed them on the desk in front of him. He hated to ask the question so directly, but after all, it was his family’s reputation, his future with Eda, and his neck on the line. “Have you a suspect other than me?”
The corner of Pevensey’s mouth turned up into a wry smile. “I wish I could oblige you with a yes, your lordship. I’ve found more than a few who had reason to wish Miss Hastings ill…but opportunity? Aye, there’s the rub. I still have more questions to ask, but so far, the only person I can place at the bridge at the necessary time is you.”
25
Eda hesitated briefly before tapping on the door of the room that Mrs. Alfred had told her belonged to the French maid. She was not generally a shy person, but she did feel some slight discomfort at initiating a conversation with an unknown foreigner on a topic overheard from a linen closet.
The door opened. “Qu’est que c’est? Can I help you?” The disdainful curve of the Frenchwoman’s thin eyebrows belied the sincerity of this last question.
“Oh, yes, hallo,” said Eda. She had not meant to knock yet. Her nervous fingers must have brushed against the wood by accident. “May I talk to you? Now? Inside?” she blurted out. Lady Anglesford aside, she had always found it easier talking to men than women.
The Frenchwoman’s eyes radiated confusion, but she did not protest Eda’s unconventional entrance.
“I overheard you arguing with Mr. Hastings earlier.”
Mademoiselle Mathilde’s eyebrows arched superciliously, but she offered no comment.
Eda thanked the good Lord that she had turned down Lady Anglesford’s offer for a French maid of her own.
“I think I heard you say that there were some…secrets that Mr. Hastings would not want you to reveal….”
“I do not think you heard me correctly.” The Frenchwoman’s words were clipped.
“Oh, but I did!” said Eda, suddenly panicking that the maid meant to dismiss her. “What did you mean? Please tell me!” She did not know why this woman had the power to fluster her so.
Mademoiselle Mathilde’s eyes narrowed. She looked Eda up and down. “You have money? Yes?”
Eda breathed in sharply. “Of course! Whatever you need.” She winced as soon as she said it. Her worldly-wise captain of a father would have known better than to offer an unlimited sum to a mercenary lady’s maid. “That is…I mean to say…I will pay you handsomely for any secrets that shed light on Miss Hastings’ death. Is there anything you can tell me about her past that will help?”
“What sort of thing?”
Eda floundered, not sure what to suggest. “Secret admirers, clandestine meetings….”
Mademoiselle Mathilde laughed in a way that was not at all good-natured. “You want to know about affairs of the heart? I am sorry to disappoint you, but Mademoiselle Hastings was more circumspect than you give her credit for.”
Eda’s hopes fell.
The maid, however, sensed her chances of remuneration were receding and dredged up one item of scandalous import to dangle before her buyer’s nose.
“I suppose I could tell you, though, that she was engaged to be married.”
“To Har—Lord Anglesford, you mean?”
“Non. To someone else.”
“Did he jilt her too?” asked Eda, a little too pleased at the prospect. The idea of more men than Haro having abandoned matrimony to Miss Hastings held a strange appeal for her.
Mademoiselle Mathilde turned her head away. “Zut alors! I don’t remember.”
Eda clenched her teeth in annoyance. She should have thought to bring some half-crowns with her tied up in a handkerchief, but as things were, it looked like Mademoiselle Mathilde would talk no more until her palm was plied with coin.
***
Pevensey pulled his muffler up around his ears. Egad! But it was cold in these parts! He had been hoping that a brisk walk around the exterior of the house would clear his head and give a new direction in which to turn his thoughts. But it seemed more likely that his toes would freeze than that his thoughts would crystallize.
Who were the principal suspects in this case? He had his hands in his pockets, and he was not about to take them out in order to pull out his sketchbook. He excused himself for the omission, reminding himself that he could make pictures in his mind’s eye just as easily.
First, there was the Earl of Anglesford. As tempting as it was to put on Revolutionary spectacles and look at every aristocrat with a jaundiced eye, Pevensey had to admit that he liked the earl. He seemed fond of his family. A blundering idiot where women were concerned and a babe in the woods when it came to managing Mr. Hastings, but a decent chap nonetheless. It would surprise Pevensey if the earl had had any hand in the murder. No, he was too difficult to provoke and chivalrous to a fault. Even if backed into a corner or taunted beyond endurance, was it possible that he could have lashed out by throttling a woman?
The earl’s nature was in his favor, but circumstances were not. He was the only person—so far—that Pevensey could place with certainty near the pond during the fatal window of time when Miss Hastings must have met her demise. But was this enough to damn him?
The second suspect that materialized in Pevensey’s mind was Philippe Bayeux, the enigmatic architect. There was no good explanation for his presence at Woldwick. The projected renovations seemed a thin excuse at best, and Pevensey was willing to lay money at poor odds that the man had arrived without any invitation whatsoever, not even one from Miss Hastings. Why the pretense on her part then? And on her father’s, he had to wonder? What was Bayeux himself trying to achieve? More than one interview had hinted at a romantic entanglement between Bayeux and Miss Hastings—although those in a position to confirm the rumor absolutely refused to do so.
Was Bayeux the murderer he was looking for? It was clear that his character was a brooding and a moody one. Jealous that his amore was affianced to another man, had his passions gotten the better of him on the bridge? Pevensey exhaled and watched his breath freeze in front of his face. It was well known that Frenchmen were volatile, especially when it came to affairs of the heart. Pevensey could far easier imagine the architect’s thumbs purpling Arabella’s neck than he could the earl’s.
And yet, was it even possible for Bayeux to have been present at the pond given the time Miss Hastings left the house? He stamped his feet, attempting to regain some of the feeling in them. There were times that must be verif
ied—Bayeux’s visit to the village inn for breakfast and his appointment with the stone mason following. An adjunct to the magistrates’ office was supposed to be as impartial as the law itself, but Pevensey could not help but admit that it would give him far more satisfaction for the brooding Frenchman to swing for this crime than for the well-mannered Englishman.
Of course, these two were not the only suspects in the case. Pevensey found his mind being inexorably drawn back to his recent conversation in the library and to Mrs. Rollo’s large, bony hands. That grim-faced governess had hated Arabella Hastings—he had no illusions that it could be otherwise—and her quiet hatred had not dissipated even at the death of its object. During his career at Bow Street, Pevensey had met no female stranglers, but experience taught him that crimes could always surprise one. The housekeeper Mrs. Alfred had hesitated when asked whether she had breakfasted with Mrs. Rollo on the fateful morning—hesitated and then affirmed it. Was the hesitation because she was about to tell an untruth or was it because she knew that the friendship between a lady’s companion and a housekeeper was irregular?
And then there was Eda Swanycke, the earl’s black-haired, voluptuous cousin. Hers were not the hands of a strangler—Pevensey refused to allow a possibility that farfetched—but she was hiding something, and he very much wanted to know why. Was she casting red herrings into the trail on purpose? Was she striving to protect the person who had killed Arabella Hastings?
A movement in the trees caught Pevensey’s eye. There, where the naked branches met the edge of the carriage drive, he saw a tall figure, clad in an old-fashioned frock coat. Pevensey squinted trying to make out who it was. The tallest man he had met at Woldwick had been the young earl himself. This fellow looked like he would top Lord Anglesford by a hand’s breadth, and his gait, though not unsure, was that of a far older man.
“Hallo there!” called Pevensey, waving a hand in greeting.
To Wed an Heiress Page 18
