The door to the breakfast room was flung open just then, and Lord Darkefell and Lord John entered, intent on some conversation.
“… insist she receive a proper burial in the servants’ cemetery,” the marquess rumbled, his handsome mouth pulled down in a scowl. “I’ll not hear of any nonsense from Lydia about it.”
“But Lydia’s concerned about what the others will say, for with Cecilia being…” Lord John broke off when he realized they were not alone.
Anne watched the two brothers, but then focused her attention on the elder, the marquess. His eyes were on Mr. Grover, and his expression was not friendly. Grover, for his part, appeared completely at ease until Mr. Osei Boatin entered a few moments later. He then got up, pulled out a pocket watch on a too-short chain, examined it closely, then dabbed at his lips and bowed to the gathering. He took Lady Darkefell’s hand, kissed the air above it, and murmured a farewell.
With a fulminating look, Darkefell watched him go.
“What is all of this nonsense?” Lady Darkefell demanded, glancing between her sons.
“It will keep until later,” Darkefell said, grabbing a plate from the sideboard, filling it randomly with eggs, ham, and bacon until it was heaped high, and taking a seat by Anne. “How do you fare this morning, my lady?” he asked, casting her a sideways glance. He eyed her hairstyle with an awed expression and suppressed a quick smile. “You seem in excellent good looks this morning, none the worse for your awful experience.”
“Your enthusiasm for my appearance is a paean to the lack of my lady’s maid, Mary, who will arrive tomorrow, I hope,” Anne said, her tone as dry as his was humorous. “Though if you think this style suits me,” she continued, patting her snaky locks, “I’ll be sure to have Mary copy its intricacies.”
“I’m humbled by your reliance on my opinion of the mysteries of feminine hairstyling.”
“What’s going on, Tony?” Lady Darkefell pressed, impatient in the face of her eldest son’s absorption in their guest. “Why were you and John arguing about where Cecilia will be buried?”
“I’d rather not go into it right now,” the marquess said, then wolfed down a rasher of streaky bacon. His secretary, Mr. Boatin, was taking a plate from the sideboard and slowly adding a piece of toast to it. His expression was solemn. He didn’t appear hungry but seemed to Anne to be focusing on the sideboard as a way of avoiding the others. That he ate with the family was no surprise, for though a secretary was a kind of servant in some households, he was also a valuable member of the household and privy to matters of the most intimate nature. No man kept secrets from his valet or his secretary.
“Mother, Lydia just doesn’t think it’s right for Cecilia to be buried in the castle graveyard with the other servants,” Lord John said primly, sitting down at the table without taking any breakfast.
“Whyever not?”
“There’s no need to answer that, John!” Darkefell said, mumbling around a mouthful of food.
“I’ll answer if I want to!” the younger man said indignantly.
Darkefell glanced over at Boatin, who had paused, ham-laden serving fork in hand. The marquess swallowed and hastily said in a loud voice, “Shut your mouth, John, if you please!”
But he was overridden by his younger brother, who angrily said, “Why should I? All will know eventually, to the shame of our household. She is not fit to bury with the others, for she was carrying a bastard child.”
There was a crash behind them, and Anne started from her chair and whirled. It was Mr. Boatin; he had tumbled to the floor, unconscious, spilling eggs and ham over his spotless waistcoat and frock coat.
Four
Mr. Boatin was revived and led away by the marquess, so Anne was unable to find out anything more of interest. Lady Darkefell and Lord John, too, melted away after the commotion. Left alone in the breakfast room, Anne finished eating as the maids, supervised by Andrew, the head footman, cleaned up the food and broken china spilled by the secretary. She pondered the events of the last twelve hours, but decided ultimately that the murder was unlikely to have any connection to what she had journeyed to Yorkshire to investigate on Lydia’s behalf, the werewolf sightings.
But there was no way to be sure; Cecilia’s murder did strike far too close to her friend. And there was a further mystery there—who was the father of Cecilia’s unborn child? Did her pregnancy have anything to do with her tragic death? Anne could not rest easy and let other minds attempt to untangle it. If she was to find out anything, though, she would need to get each family member alone. That would take time and subtlety, difficult for an impatient and direct woman like herself.
It took Anne only an hour after the unpleasantness at breakfast to master the layout of Ivy Lodge. Curiosity demanded that she uncover the secrets of a place: its layout, how the family lived, where the private apartments were. Though her ankle was still aching from turning it the previous evening, she ignored the throbbing.
Ivy Lodge was modest in size, a three-floor, red-brick residence built in the early years of the previous century, she knew. The entry was the centerpiece of a marble faux-pillared front, carved deeply with ornamental scrollwork and lozenges. All three floors were glazed with innumerable mullioned windows, and the whole was topped by a roofline made interesting by openwork parapets.
She would have known nothing about the exterior yet, having arrived so late the night before, but there was a detailed painting of Ivy Lodge hanging in the upstairs gallery hallway, above the entrance, along with a portrait of several Earls of Staunby and the first marquess. There was also an enormous painting of the dowager marchioness, her late husband, and their children. The current marquess, as the heir apparent, was holding the family bible open on his lap, with his left index finger pointing to his name inscribed. She frowned up at it. There was Lord John, the younger brother, just an infant in the portrait, but also another boy who looked exactly like the young marquess. Something teased at her memory but was not yet ready to come to the surface.
After her exploration, satisfied that she would not get lost again, she marched up to Lydia’s chamber and stood before the door for a moment, thinking. She didn’t want to knock, only to be ignored. Much better to simply slip in. She eased the door open, and there, on a Jacobean monstrosity of a bed—four heavily carved posts, a headboard that was deeply engraved with armorial patterns, and a ceiling that loomed over the poor girl like a coffin lid—was Lydia, sleeping, the dishevelment of the bedclothes a testament to the truth of Mrs. Hailey’s assertion that the young woman had slept poorly before a draught had been administered.
But she had slept enough by now. Anne approached the bed, pulled a chair close, and sat down. She watched Lydia for a moment, observing the same jumping nerve in the neck as she witnessed during the previous night’s swoon.
“Lydia, dear, it’s me. I shan’t leave until we talk, you know. I don’t know why you invited me here if you’re going to ignore me.”
Anne’s young friend stirred and yawned. She prettily “awoke,” holding the back of one soft hand to her pale cheek. She really was a beauty, Anne thought, sitting back to watch the performance. Her chestnut curls tumbled about her bare shoulder, the white nightgown having slipped off one and draped her round arm. Her skin was pale as milk, her eyes dazzling blue, and her lips twin buds of cerise. Not being one herself, Anne had always admired beautiful women as one might admire a work of art one could never own.
“Oh, Anne, dear!” Lydia held out one fine-boned hand in a beseeching gesture. “How kind of you to travel all this way to visit me!”
“All very well,” Anne said dryly, “but why, if you consider my visit such a kindness, did you warn no one I was coming?”
“It slipped my mind.”
Anne sighed. Her hands folded on her lap, she said, “Now this is a pretty dance you’ve led me, Lydia, but last night was not entertaining. That poor girl!”
Tears welled in Lydia’s blue eyes and dripped down her cheeks. Somehow she manage
d, even when sobbing openly, to appear lovely. She covered her eyes with both hands. “Don’t be cruel, please, for I’m truly heartbroken. Cecilia was all I have here at this awful place. Everyone else hates me.”
“Oh, come. You have John, and he loves you very much.”
Lydia dropped her hands to her lap and brought her knees up to her chin, her tears drying. “No, he regrets marrying me—I’m too silly and stupid. The moment we came here, his awful mother and brother began to pick away at me.”
This was not the topic that Anne wished to pursue, and she knew her friend well enough to understand that, once focused on her suffering, it required firmness to redirect Lydia’s thoughts. “Who wanted to harm poor Cecilia? I remember her a little—she always seemed a nicely behaved girl to me. Had she gotten in trouble?” Anne asked, thinking of the shocking condition she apparently was in at death.
According to Lord John, Lydia knew all about it, but her expression was now veiled. “Trouble? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Lydia,” Anne said, standing. “I’ll just go home if you don’t intend to confide in me.”
“No! Don’t go!” Lydia slipped from bed, donned a wrapper that was draped over the foot, and tiptoed to the door; she closed it tightly, then raced back across the room and jumped in bed, shivering. “I hate this place.”
“Don’t be childish,” Anne replied, stern in the face of such a petulant statement.
“You don’t know what it’s been like.” She pulled the covers up over her legs.
Cecilia’s murder was a topic Lydia was clearly not prepared to tackle. All right, then. “I’ve heard stories of your werewolf from the maid who helped me this morning,” Anne said. “But why don’t you tell me about it?”
She took a long, trembling breath and began; at first she thought it a joke, one she and John laughed about. She blushed a little when she said that, and Anne suspected some husband and wife tomfoolery was involved, but she directed her imagination away from such a topic as the intimate details of a married couple.
“But then Therese, Lady Sophie’s abigail, saw it in the flesh, too. And it ripped some sheep to shreds, up in the hills and down at Mr. Grover’s. It’s so terrible!” Lydia began to breathe quickly and paled.
“Lydia, calm yourself. There is no point in making yourself hysterical.”
“That’s so like you, Anne. As if I choose to become hysterical!”
“You do choose it,” Anne said. “I see the signs and know the patterns. Women use hysteria as a retreat from difficulties. While you’re indulging in hysteria, you need not handle anything and will be looked after by men and serving women.”
Lydia, distracted from her mounting frenzy, eyed her with a pout. “You are so very unfeminine, Anne. No wonder you have not found another beau. Men would not like so unwomanly a woman.”
Disregarding the insult, Anne went on, “I find it interesting that fainting spells and hysteria are the sole province of women of the upper classes. Farmers’ wives, serving girls, dairymaids… you’ll never see one of them swoon from hysteria.”
“That’s because they’re less delicate. Really, Anne, that you would class us among such creatures!” Lydia fanned herself with one hand.
“Now, see, you’re working yourself up this moment, and yet if I change the topic to, say, shoes, you would become quite calm again.”
Lydia stared at her and shook her head. “I have never understood you.”
“I note that you did not call any other woman to your rescue, not your sister nor even your mother.”
“Why would I call upon them? They would be no help to me at all!”
“Exactly.”
Lydia eyed her, brow furrowed in pretty confusion. “I don’t think I understand.”
Anne sighed. “No, of course you don’t.” Satisfied that Lydia showed no signs of lapsing back into a swoon, she said, “Now, about this werewolf nonsense—”
“But it’s not nonsense, for even the marquess has not denied there could be one.”
Anne thought of the man, bold as a pirate, dark and masculine, hardier by far than his pallid younger brother. “That interests me. I will have to engage him on the topic.”
They spoke for a while longer, and Lydia told her all that had occurred in the last two months, the gutted sheep, the frightened village girls who had been chased by the animal back to Hornethwaite, the market town nearby.
“And does this latest attack upon poor Cecilia not prove the presence of a werewolf?” Lydia asked with a shudder. “No human would kill a simple maidservant!”
“There is no such thing as werewolves. The agent of that girl’s destruction must have been either animal or human, not some frantic amalgam of the two.” Anne paused but then approached a delicate topic. “I’m interested in Lord Darkefell’s secretary, Mr. Boatin. Where is he from?”
“Don’t be afraid of him, Anne. I was at first, you know—afraid of him, that is, because he’s so dark and different—but he’s very genteel and speaks just like any normal person.”
Anne restrained a sigh. Sometimes she thought that Lydia needed to be shaken, with the hope that her brains would settle in a more sensible pattern than the one with which God had seen fit to gift her. “I have observed him and heard him speak and don’t expect any wild behavior from him.” She calmed the sarcastic edge to her voice—sarcasm was too sharp a weapon to wield against silly Lydia, like picking up a carving knife to cut butter—and went on with a gentler humor: “The marquess, I think, is much more likely to alarm me with wild fits, for he seems… hmm, hotheaded. But have you ever observed Mr. Boatin with Cecilia?”
Lydia shook her head.
“Did Cecilia have any beaux among the footmen or grooms?”
“Maids are not allowed flirtations!” Lydia said, eyes wide. “You should know better than that, Anne. Mother says in any well-regulated household, the behavior of the maidservants is a reflection on the propriety of the ladies of the house.”
“I have always thought it unfair that maids, being young women, are not allowed their share of flirtations, for how can a female sustain life without them?” Anne smiled at Lydia, whose eyes were widening again. How could the girl continue to be so naïve, even after marriage? And given that Cecilia was with child, how could Lydia continue in the blithe assumption that the girl had no flirtations? It was not immaculate conception, and the alternative was that Cecilia became pregnant from a liaison with the marquess or Lord John. “The plain reality is, there would not be so many former maidservants hastily married to publicans and grooms, and bearing robust seven-month babies, if they did not engage in flirtation and something beyond.”
Lydia blushed; Anne watched her with interest. Judging from the conversation between the marquess and his brother at the breakfast table, Lydia knew about Cecilia’s state. She must have some notion with whom her maid was intimate.
Lydia, putting her hands to her flaming cheeks, asked, “Do you think she and Mr. Boatin… is that why you ask about him?”
“Please don’t assume or insinuate until we know more, and do not share my speculation with anyone. I just don’t know, but the young man was deeply distraught at her death. Perhaps they had merely established a particularly close friendship.” Anne paused then said slowly, watching her younger friend’s face, “My dear, I know that you’re aware of Cecilia’s pregnancy.”
Her lower lip trembled, and tears welled in her eyes. She turned her face away.
Anne sighed. “Do you know who the father was?”
“How can you ask me such a vulgar question?”
“It would help the magistrate if you did know and could tell.”
“The magistrate?”
“Well, yes. Whoever the father is, if he had reason not to let anyone know, he could have killed her to keep her silent. After all, her condition would have soon become obvious.”
Lydia paled and grasped the covers to her bosom. “I h-hadn’t thought of that. No, she didn’t confide in me.”
“Is that the truth?”
She turned her face away and mumbled, “Of course.”
“Are you sure?”
“Anne, please!”
From long acquaintance, recognizing that her friend would say nothing more, Anne let it go and stood, patting Lydia’s soft hands fisted around handfuls of snowy bedcover. “You look a little peaked. Rest some more, my dear. I have much to find out.”
“Please,” she whispered brokenly, meeting her friend’s steady gaze, “find out what killed poor Cecilia!”
“That’s not what I’m here for, Lydia. You asked me to uncover the truth behind the werewolf story.”
One lone tear trembled on Lydia’s lush lashes then dropped onto her cheek and ran down, dripping off her chin. “I’m so frightened. Please, Anne, you’re so brave and clever. Try. Perhaps it was the werewolf. It must be the werewolf. You can track it down.”
Anne sighed. “I’m neither a magistrate nor a hunter.”
“Just try!”
Anne descended, considering Lydia’s sudden certainty that the “werewolf” killed Cecilia. Were the werewolf sightings and the murder tied together? It was possible. She set out to find Mrs. Hailey to apprise her of the imminent arrival of her maid, Mary Agnes MacDougall, and her tiger, Wee Robbie. They traveled north in her carriage driven by Sanderson, Anne’s coachman. Though Anne didn’t wish to put the household out by having to find room for them all, having her own carriage and driver there would offer her the best chance at quickly leaving, should she become weary of the place or if her presence was no longer needed. Having experienced the rude rapidity of the Royal Mail Coach, she was relieved she wouldn’t need to travel that way again and could go at a more civilized pace on her return.
Following the delicious smells of roasting goose and venison haunch down narrowing passages toward the utilitarian back offices and kitchen, to the dismay of startled staff, who scurried out of her path, Anne peeked into various chambers: the buttery, the wet larder, and the dry provision room. She passed the butler’s room, though since Ivy Lodge seemed to make do without a butler, it was more properly the head footman’s room, where he would polish silver and decant the wine. Anne knew that she should have sent a message to the housekeeper by that footman, Andrew, saying she wished to speak with the housekeeper, but impatience was her second-worst failing, after curiosity. And she had ulterior motives in making this foray into the nether regions of Ivy Lodge.
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