She did not respond to this, just watched him warily, as if waiting for the hatchet to drop.
“Are you, by chance, missing a pair of embroidery scissors?”
She glanced down at the basket at her feet. “I . . . I don’t know.” She sounded genuinely befuddled and frightened. “When I arrived here at Gairloch, I was missing my normal pair of shears, but I thought I must have left them at home. I always carry a second pair.” She leaned over to pick up the scissors sticking up out of the basket to show them to us. “So I never thought much of it.”
Her explanation sounded credible; however, even the most foolish of criminals could have concocted such an excuse.
“Are these your scissors?” Gage asked, once again pulling the shears from his pocket.
Lady Stratford leaned forward to take them from Gage, but her husband snatched them out of his grasp before she could reach them. He flipped them over in his hands before handing them to her with a scowl. I could tell the earl wanted to say something, but he held his counsel, waiting to see what else Gage revealed.
“I . . .” Lady Stratford stammered. Her hands shook as she examined the scissors. “They look like mine.”
The breath in my chest tightened.
Gage’s eyes hardened. “We found them in the maze, near the place where Lady Godwin was butchered.” I jerked at his gruesome choice of words. “They were coated with her blood.”
Lady Stratford flung the scissors to the ground, cringing away from them. “But . . . but . . . that can’t be.” Her face was ghastly white. “Someone must have stolen them. I swear to you, I did not . . . could not . . .” She seemed to choke on the words.
Gage reached into the box and extracted the shawl. He unfolded it and held it up for all of us to see. “My lady, is this your shawl?”
Lady Stratford gasped and covered her face with shaking hands. “Yes,” she admitted between shallow, quick breaths. “But . . . that . . . I didn’t . . . I don’t know how that blood got on it.”
“We found it wrapped around Lady Godwin’s child and buried in a grave by the stream at the far north end of Cromarty’s property,” Gage said harshly, speaking more to Lord Stratford than his wife.
“Her child?” Lady Stratford gasped. “But Lady Godwin wasn’t due for another four months?” Her eyes flew around the room, as if looking for answers from one of us. “I don’t understand. Did she begin her labor early?”
“No, Lady Stratford,” Gage answered coldly, clearly not taken in by this display. For myself, I was not so sure she was faking. I had seen my fair share of theatrics at the Bow Street Magistrate’s Court in London, and the hysteria shining in Lady Stratford’s eyes was far too real for my comfort.
The implications of Gage’s words must have finally penetrated her mind, for she keeled forward and began to sob uncontrollably. “Oh, no! Oh, that poor child. That poor little girl.”
Gage perked up at her words.
“I told her it was a girl,” I explained before he could assume otherwise.
He glanced back at me and nodded.
“What will happen to my wife?” Lord Stratford asked in a hard voice, drawing our attention away from the weeping woman.
Gage gestured toward Philip. “Cromarty says there is a set of bachelor quarters at the back of the carriage house. They’re being cleaned as we speak. For her own safety and those of the other guests, we think it might be best if she and her maid were removed to there until the procurator fiscal from Inverness arrives.”
“She should be perfectly comfortable,” Philip added in a tight voice.
Lord Stratford nodded stiffly.
“My God,” Lady Stratford gasped. “You all actually believe I did it. You truly believe I . . . murdered Helena.” Her voice broke, and she pressed her handkerchief to her mouth. “I didn’t do it! I swear to you, I . . . I never touched her. I couldn’t have.”
“Why couldn’t you have?” Gage demanded, giving her no leniency, even in her outpouring of emotion.
“Because . . .” Her eyes met mine desperately. “Because of the baby.” She shook her head wildly. “I could never have hurt that child. No matter what Helena did.”
The men were all silent, and I wondered how they could remain so stoic in the face of her pleas. Emotion burned the back of my eyes and my throat. It took considerable effort not to let the tears fall.
Lady Stratford glanced wildly up at her husband, whose warm chocolate eyes had gone cold. “Please, Derek!” she whispered brokenly. “You must believe me. I did not kill Lady Godwin.”
“That will be for the official from Inverness to decide,” he replied and turned away from her.
I could almost feel the blow that Lord Stratford’s words caused his wife. They ricocheted through her frame like an icy blast from the North Sea. She cowered from him like a whipped dog, seeming to crumple into herself.
I turned away from them, unable to face either of the Stratfords. The earl angered me with his callous treatment and his swift abandonment of his wife, and Lady Stratford’s desperate tears and shuddering frame unnerved me. Her emotion seemed all too genuine, and I was suddenly having a very difficult time believing she was the murderer. Either her acting skills were so great that they rivaled even the most celebrated actresses of the stage, or we had just made a serious mistake.
If only I knew for certain which she was—fiend or innocent. For if Lady Stratford was wrongly accused, it placed her in a situation with which I was all too familiar. The thought burned a hole in my stomach.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Alana was asleep when I slipped into the nursery a short while later. She sat in a Windsor rocking chair, cradling a slumbering Greer on her shoulder.
“Aunt Kiera,” Malcolm exclaimed. I shushed him. “Come play with my soldiers,” he whispered in the exaggerated way children do. “I’m going to pretend it’s the Battle of Waterloo.” I crossed the room to peer down at his elaborate setup. “I’ll even let you be Napoleon.”
I couldn’t help but grin at my nephew’s magnanimous spirit. The puckish little boy never wanted to play on the side of France, and well I knew it. “Thank you, but . . .”
“No, Aunt Kiera,” Philipa cried, racing across the room with one of her dolls. “I wanted you to play with me.”
I sighed and glanced at Alana, hoping her older children’s voices had not woken her. “Aren’t you two supposed to be having lessons?”
“Mother gave our governess the day off,” Malcolm replied, smiling happily.
I shook my head at my silly sister. I suspected she dismissed the nursery maids for the day as well. “Your mother and sister are asleep.” I leaned down to tell the children as they began to argue. “We need to play quietly.”
“We can play soldiers quietly.”
I arched an eyebrow. “So none of your cannonballs are going to explode?” He grinned sheepishly. “And your tea parties are not any quieter,” I turned to tell Philipa as she whimpered and tugged on my hand. “Go pick out a book, and I’ll read to you until your mother wakes.”
They scampered off to the corner where two short bookcases stood, bickering over which story to choose. I only hoped it wasn’t “Hansel and Gretel” yet again. I really was in no mood to read about lost children.
Pulling a blanket from one of the children’s beds, I laid it over Alana and Greer, careful not to wake them. My sister looked exhausted. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her complexion seemed paler than normal. I pressed my wrist to her forehead to feel for a fever and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Greer’s pudgy cheeks were red from rubbing, and her breathing sounded a bit congested, but she was sleeping peacefully. I picked up her twisted teething rag from where it had tumbled to the floor. The knot had begun to slip. I tightened it so that the sugar would not fa
ll out and set it on the table.
Philipa crawled into my lap, and Malcolm squeezed in next to me in a large armchair. “This one.” My nephew flipped open the book of the Brothers Grimm’s Children’s and Household Tales to the story of “Rumpelstiltskin” and I breathed a sigh of relief. Philipa snuggled close, and I pressed my cheek against her soft hair as I began to read.
Halfway through the tale, I glanced up to find Alana watching me. A gentle smile curled her lips. She shared my amusement when the children shifted in their seats, squirming with excitement as the queen told the imp his name.
“Can you spin straw into gold?” Philipa asked me as I closed the book.
“No, you ninny,” Malcolm cried as he hopped off the chair.
“Malcolm, don’t call your sister a ninny,” Alana scolded.
“How do you know?” Philipa dashed after him. “Have you ever tried it?”
“Because it’s impossible . . .”
I shook my finger at my sister in mock earnestness as she began to rock her youngest. “You were supposed to stay asleep.”
Alana offered me a weary smile and then shifted Greer from one shoulder to the other. The baby grunted and then settled.
“Do you want me to take her?”
She shook her head and tucked the blanket tighter around the child. “Do I have you to thank for this?” she asked, tugging on the quilt.
“I thought you might be cold. Besides, it gave me an excuse to check you for a fever.” She looked up at me in surprise. “Alana, are you feeling all right?” I asked in a gentler tone.
She sighed in frustration. “I’m fine.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did Philip send you up here?”
“No. But he did tell me that you refuse to leave the nursery.”
She brushed her hand over the golden dusting of hair on Greer’s head, avoiding my gaze. I glanced at Malcolm and Philipa, who were engaged in some sort of secret conference, presumably about their plans to spin straw into gold.
“Lady Stratford and her maid have been removed to the bachelor quarters in the carriage house.” Alana’s eyes widened. “Mr. Gage believes they murdered Lady Godwin. And her baby,” I added as an afterthought now that my sister knew about the child.
Alana was silent for a moment, watching me as I worried my hands in my lap. “But you don’t?”
I started, realizing what I had said. “I don’t know,” I admitted hesitantly, disturbed by my inability to wholeheartedly accept Lady Stratford’s guilt.
“Mr. Gage must have good reason to suspect her,” she reasoned. “And I know Philip would not have allowed him to lock Lady Stratford in the carriage house without sufficient proof.”
“I know.”
“Has Lord Stratford been informed?”
I nodded. “He didn’t even put up a fight against it.”
Alana’s rocking slowed. “Well, then, you must have obtained some pretty convincing evidence.”
I leaned against the arm of the chair and cradled my forehead in my hand. “I suppose.” I knew I sounded as sulky as a child, and hated myself for it. Alana did not need to deal with me when she already had three little scamps of her own to worry her.
“So what’s troubling you?”
I looked up at my sister, seeing the dark shadows under her eyes again. “Do you really want to know?”
She stopped rocking to glare at me. “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”
I glanced at Philipa and Malcolm to be certain they weren’t listening, and then leaned toward her. “The evidence is compelling enough, and all linked to the same person, but I can’t help but notice that they’re also items that could have easily been stolen. They could have been used for the express purpose of throwing blame on Lady Stratford.”
Alana arched an eyebrow doubtfully.
“There are also matters of common sense to consider,” I hastened to add. “Does Lady Stratford really have the height and strength to inflict those wounds? Could she have crossed the garden, slipped into the maze to kill Lady Godwin, and returned to the house, all without being seen? Could she and her maid have moved that rock and dug the baby’s grave?”
“Well?” she asked, knowing me well enough to realize I would have contemplated the answers to these questions before ever bringing them up.
I sighed and sank back in the chair. “Gage believes anger and madness can both give a person more strength than we realize.”
“But you don’t.”
I plucked at the fraying hunter-green upholstery of the chair. “I don’t know. And that’s the problem. I’m forced to admit that it is possible, if not likely, that she could have done all those things. Just as I’m forced to admit that the murder weapon we found could have made those cuts, even though I have serious doubts. I don’t have enough experience with this to assert my opinion strongly.” Not even when it came to the remnants of charred cloth Gage had found in Lady Stratford’s cold hearth, believing the lady and her servant had burned their bloody clothes from the night of the murder.
The rocking chair creaked as Alana shifted and Greer murmured something in her sleep. “Well, you trust Mr. Gage, don’t you?”
I nodded and turned to watch Philipa wrestle one of her dolls out of Malcolm’s hands.
“Then if he thinks there is enough evidence to prove Lady Stratford is the murderer, I think we should believe him.”
I only wished it was so simple. I did trust Gage, but I also had a deep-seated suspicion of people outside my family, particularly men, and that made it difficult not to continually second-guess my feelings and reactions toward him. The fact that I had found myself in Lady Stratford’s position not so very long ago only complicated matters, driving me to find definitive proof rather than trust in the hackneyed legal system that could have so easily failed me.
“So why are you having trouble believing Lady Stratford guilty?” my sister asked, cutting to the heart of the matter. “Is it because she’s a noblewoman? Surely you realize the aristocracy are just as capable of committing murder as the lower classes.”
“Of course.”
“Then what? What is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s just . . .” I hesitated, trying to put a finger on the reason for my hesitation. “She wants a child so badly. Did you know she was having trouble conceiving?”
“I had my suspicions.”
I pressed a hand against my stomach. “When I confronted her about it, when I asked her about the child . . .” My breath caught. “Alana, you should have seen the look in her eyes. To struggle for seven years to get with child and then discover that your greatest fears have been realized. That you are, in fact, barren.” I shook my head, unable to find the words to express the heartache.
Nevertheless, I could see in my sister’s eyes that she understood. She hugged Greer tighter and pressed a kiss to her downy head.
“Despite the fact that Lord Stratford was the father of Lady Godwin’s baby . . .”
Alana gasped. “Lord Stratford was the father?”
I nodded. “And despite the fact that Lady Godwin, who was supposed to be Lady Stratford’s friend, not only slept with her husband but also proved her to be the one who could not conceive and threw it in her face. I just do not believe Lady Stratford was capable of harming that child. Of removing it from . . .” Remembering my audience, I stopped myself, glancing up to find my sister watching me with horrified eyes. I cleared my throat. “I can imagine her harming Lady Godwin, but not that baby.”
She looked toward the hearth, seeming to consider my words. I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the terrible images, the darkness of the last few days. I breathed in deeply the scent of camphor and talcum powder, listening to the soft rocking of Alana’s chair against the heavy rug and the merry chatter of my niece’s a
nd nephew’s voices. The nursery seemed like a cozy little cocoon when compared to the vast echoing corridors of Gairloch Castle. It was no wonder my sister had shut herself up here with her three children.
“Maybe she went mad,” she offered.
I blinked open my eyes to stare at the exposed-timber ceiling. “That’s what Gage suggested.”
“But you don’t believe it.”
I lowered my gaze to find Alana studying me. I suddenly realized that by expressing all of these doubts, I only gave her more reason to remain closeted in the nursery with her children. Pressing my hand to my forehead, I groaned. “I don’t know what I believe, Alana. Mr. Gage is undoubtedly right. I’m probably just jumping at ghosts, remembering when I was accused of those heinous crimes in London.”
“Yes, but Kiera, you were innocent,” she pointed out.
I nodded, biting back the urge to express my worry that Lady Stratford might also be. “So,” I proclaimed, a feeble segue into a different topic. “Are you going to return to sleeping in your own bed tonight? You can’t have gotten much rest here. You look exhausted.”
Unfortunately, my sister knew me only too well. “Kiera,” she scolded gently. “Have you expressed your doubts to Mr. Gage?”
I plucked at the upholstery again. “No.”
“Then perhaps you should.”
“And if he doesn’t listen to me?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light. I already suspected he was not going to accept my doubts easily. To his mind, we had caught the real culprit and proved my innocence. What more could I want?
“Then I think you should do whatever it takes to set your mind at ease.” She shook her head at me fondly. “You spend far too much time in your head, dear. And sometimes I worry where it takes you. Especially in this case.”
I gave her a grateful smile, thankful that she supported me, even if she didn’t understand me. Maybe I was being ridiculous. Maybe I should just let it go. But I couldn’t get rid of the terrible feeling in my gut that somehow we got it wrong. I kept seeing Lady Stratford’s eyes—the pain and fear and desperation written there—and I worried it wasn’t feigned. I wanted to be certain that the real murderer had been caught, not just someone to take my place as the sacrificial lamb. I wanted the truth. And if that truth pointed to Lady Stratford, then so be it. But until I had been convinced, I knew I would never be able to rest.
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