Beneath a Silent Moon (23 page)

The silence in the dressing room pressed against the Beauvais tapestry wall hangings and the mahogany fittings. Kenneth was slumped on the ivory satin settee, with the same vacant expression that he had worn earlier.

"We've asked Glenister and David to join us," Charles said without preamble. "They'll be here in a minute."

Kenneth glanced up. His gaze focused and his brows snapped together. "You—"

"They're Honoria's guardians."

Father and son regarded each other for a moment. Kenneth inclined his head a quarter-inch.

"Do you want me to talk to them?" Charles asked.

"Thank you, but I think I'm sufficiently recovered to be master in my own house." Kenneth pushed himself to his feet, staggered for a moment, and strode to the fireplace. He stood with one arm on the mantel and one foot on the fender, as though to establish control of the room and the situation.

He seemed quite oblivious to the damage to Charles's face and person.

After less than a minute a rap sounded at the door, and Glenister and David stepped into the room. "What in God's name is so important it couldn't wait until morning?" Glenister demanded.

Kenneth was silent for a fraction of a second. Then he stepped away from the fireplace. He moved with decision now, and though his voice was hoarse, it had regained the familiar note of command. "You'd better sit down, Glenister. David. It's hard to see how the news could be any worse."

Neither man made any move to sit. David shot a look of inquiry at Charles, but Charles was letting his father do the talking. Glenister frowned at Kenneth. "What?"

Kenneth didn't shrink from his gaze, but again it was a moment before he spoke. "It's Honoria."

"
What
?" Glenister said again.

"Frederick—" Kenneth said.

Glenister paid him no need. Before anyone else could move, he strode across the room and jerked open the door to the bedroom. He took a half-dozen steps into the room, then went still.

Mélanie almost expected Glenister to catch his niece in his arms and deny that she could be dead. Instead he spun round, hurled himself at Kenneth, and slammed his fist into Kenneth's face. "My God, you bastard, what have you done?"

Kenneth grabbed Glenister to keep from falling. The two men crashed into an ormolu table and sent a Meissen chocolate service shattering to the floor in a cascade of cream and gold. Glenister drew back his arm to strike another blow.

Charles seized Glenister by the shoulders. David ran to the open door to the bedroom and let out a cry at the sight beyond. The connecting door on the opposite side of the dressing room was jerked open. Lady Frances Dacre-Hammond, Charles's aunt, stood on the threshold and surveyed the scene. "What in God's name is going on?"

No one answered her. Glenister jerked against Charles's hold. Charles tightened his grip. "That won't bring her back, sir."

Mélanie went to David and put her arm round him. From this angle, the damage to Honoria's person was all too clear. Lady Frances came up behind Mélanie and David and drew a sharp breath, but when she spoke her voice was crisp. "Close the door, Mélanie. David, you should sit down."

Lady Frances had five children, and though few would consider her the maternal type, at times her mothering instincts were surprisingly keen. She took David by the arm and steered him to a chair. Mélanie closed the door to the bedroom.

Glenister was breathing hard, still in Charles's grip. Kenneth held a handkerchief to his nose, which was streaming blood. "Thank you, Charles," Kenneth said, "but I believe I'm still capable of fighting my own battles."

"You coldhearted monster." Glenister's gaze raked Kenneth's face.

"My dear Glenister," Kenneth said, his voice muffled by the folds of the handkerchief, "if you imagine I had anything to do with—if you imagine I had anything to do with what happened to Honoria, you don't know me."

The two men stared at each other, locked in a silent duel.

"What was Honoria doing in your bed?" Glenister demanded.

"I know no more than you."

"You didn't invite her there?"

Kenneth removed the handkerchief from his face. "I was going to marry her, Frederick."

"Damn it, Kenneth, that's no answer. How the hell can you—"

Lady Frances ran her hands down the front of her lilac satin dressing gown. "Glenister, you know Kenneth and I haven't seen eye to eye since the day he married my sister. But if you think about it for a moment you'll realize that whatever else he's capable of, he wouldn't touch his virginal fiancee before the wedding night."

Glenister slowly inclined his head. Typical of their code. A code that allowed them to indulge their carnal appetites to the fullest extent of their imaginations but held their unmarried daughters inviolate.

David had leaned his head into his hands. Now he looked up at Charles. "What happened?"

"We aren't sure yet." Charles kept one eye on Glenister as he spoke. "Father found her less than an hour ago."

"The others?" David asked.

"Everyone's all right. But there was an intruder in the library."

"What?" Kenneth's gaze snapped in his son's direction. For the first time, he seemed to notice the state of Charles's clothes and face.

Charles told the story of the man he had happened upon in the library and the subsequent chase and struggle, in more detail than he had told it to Mélanie on the stairs. His voice was measured and precise, but he had his hands locked behind his back, a sure sign that he couldn't stop them from shaking.

"Are you telling us you let Honoria's killer go?" Kenneth said.

"No, sir, I'm telling you I was soundly beaten by a man with a gun. But I'm not sure he was Honoria's killer."

"Damn it, if someone broke into the house—"

"He didn't break in. He came through the secret passageway. And if he was the killer, apparently he strangled Honoria, then went downstairs—somehow managing to miss encountering you in the library—and waited about for an hour or so. Bizarre behavior for a murderer."

"How do you know—"

"He was in the library to meet someone. He thought I was that person when I walked into the room."

"Who?" David asked.

"I don't know." Charles's gaze swept the room. "Do any of you?"

"What the devil are you implying?" Kenneth demanded.

"Exactly what I said. The man was in the library to meet someone. Someone in this house. I suppose it could be one of the servants, but it's far more likely it was one of the family or one of our guests. His visit may have had nothing to do with the murder."

Lady Frances tugged at the lace collar of her dressing gown. "When I make an assignation with a gentleman in the middle of the night, I don't choose the library."

"This is absurd," Kenneth said. "Of course it wasn't any of us."

"Whatever the intruder was doing in the house, surely his business was dangerous," David said. "He had a gun."

"Which he could have used to kill me, but didn't," Charles said. "That doesn't prove he didn't kill Honoria, but it does make me question whether he's the murderer."

"Besides," Mélanie added, "some time before Miss Talbot was killed, she was drugged with an opiate."

David's gaze hardened. "So it was premeditated."

"Unless she was in the habit of taking large amounts of laudanum to help her sleep," Charles said. "Do you know, Glenister?"

"No, I don't think so." He passed a hand over his face. "No, of course not. Why should she?"

"The young have an infernally easy time sleeping." Lady Frances put a well-tended hand to her mouth. "Oh dear. Oh, good heavens. I can't quite believe she's actually—" Her angular face went pale. "That poor child."

"Could she have been drugged somewhere else and then put into Mr. Fraser's room after she lost consciousness?" David asked.

"Perhaps," Charles said. "We did only a cursory examination of the body."

"She died between one and four hours ago," Mélanie said. "The weapon was a bellpull cut from the wall in Mr. Fraser's room. As Charles said, she'd taken or been given a considerable amount of an opiate, probably laudanum." She looked from Glenister to David. "She doesn't seem to have recovered consciousness. She wouldn't have suffered."

David nodded, though his gaze said he wasn't yet ready to seize on such a shred of comfort.

"My God. I can't believe—" Glenister dropped down on the settee and covered his face with his hands. "I knew it was a mistake to come here. This damned house is cursed."

Mélanie sat beside him and put her arm round him.

Glenister looked up at her. His face, normally set in lines of bored dissipation, was streaked with tears. "She was such a pretty child. So clever. My God, who could have done this?"

David was staring at the mirrored panels of the door to Kenneth's bedroom. In the lamplight, the glass had the cold, merciless glitter of diamonds. "Even if the intruder killed her, he'd have to be working with someone in the house, wouldn't he?"

"If she was drugged, almost certainly," Charles said. "Besides, it's been raining since before midnight. The intruder left footprints on the library carpet, but none beyond."

Lady Frances put a hand to her head. She managed to look regal, despite the fact that her feet were bare and her buttery blonde hair was stiff with curl papers. "As my late husband would have said, what a bloody mess."

Kenneth raised his gaze from the stained handkerchief in his hand. "Quite."

Glenister leaned forward, hands balled into fists. "We have to move her."

Mélanie stared at him and felt everyone else in the room do the same.

"We have to move her back to her room before the rest of the household wake up," Glenister persisted, as though they were being very slow. "We can't have it get out that she was found in Kenneth's bed. Good God, can you imagine what people will say?"

Charles dropped down on the carpet in front of him. "Sir, a murder's been committed. We have to send for a bailie at first light. There will have to be an investigation."

Glenister's eyes sparked. "Damn it, Charles, I'm not going to have my niece's name dragged through the mud."

"He's right, sir," David said. "We have to find out who did this. We owe it to Honoria. We owe it to the law."

"Who the devil do you think you are—"

"One of Honoria's guardians. As my father's representative. My father is just as much her uncle as you are, sir, and he'd insist we investigate. But we don't necessarily have to send for a bailie."

"David." Charles got to his feet.

David stood to face him. "Think about it, Charles. It isn't as though we have Bow Street Runners at our disposal."

"A good point," said Lady Frances. "What sort of investigation could the local bailie organize?"

"Your faith in me is touching as usual, Frances." Kenneth had returned to the fireplace and was staring into the cold grate. "I'm the local bailie."

"I assumed you'd turn it over to someone else," Charles said.

"The only other bailie within a day's ride is Gilbert McKenzie. Not a man noted for his brilliance, and I fear a bit inclined to toady to me."

David raised his brows at Charles as though to say,
You see
?

"What do you suggest we do instead?" Charles asked. The question sounded genuine, though Mélanie was quite certain her husband knew where David was headed. She suspected he had steered him that way.

"You investigate," David said.

Kenneth's eyes narrowed. Lady Frances smoothed the lace on her sleeve, her gaze thoughtful.

Glenister stared from David to Charles as though he wasn't sure he had heard aright. "See here, David, Charles was a diplomat and now he's a Member of Parliament. He's scarcely qualified—"

"He was more than a diplomat during the war," David said.

Charles returned his friend's gaze. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"This is no time for modesty, lad," Kenneth said. "What your friend is trying tactfully to point out is that presumably someone with your skills at intelligence work would have a talent for investigation. In fact, I believe you were involved in investigating at least one murder on the Continent. Don't look so shocked, Charles. You aren't the only one with good sources of information."

It was, Mélanie thought, perhaps more interest than Charles had ever seen his father display in him. Charles looked at Kenneth for a moment, as though he wondered what his father wanted from him. Then he addressed the company in general, his voice as cool as the mirrored glass on the wall opposite. "Be that as it may, you're overlooking the fact that I have an excellent motive myself."

He had been playing the scene just as Mélanie expected, but this was a departure from the script. She stared at him. Beside her on the settee, Glenister had gone still.

Charles's jaw was clenched hard and his hands, still clasped behind his back, had gone white-knuckled. He turned back to his father. "Will you tell them, sir, or shall I?"

Kenneth returned Charles's gaze for a moment. "I assume Charles is referring to the fact that a few days ago I asked him to agree to break the entail on Dunmykel. I wanted to settle it on Honoria's and my first son."

Mélanie heard herself gasp. For all her husband and his family baffled her, she knew Charles's love of this house, this piece of land, went bone deep. She could guess what the loss of it would mean to him. And yet he'd said nothing to her of it. Even though only that afternoon they'd spoken about him one day inheriting Dunmykel.

"Kenneth, that's monstrous," Lady Frances said.

"He agreed readily enough." Kenneth glanced at Charles, as though daring him to deny it. "He'll get his grandfather's Irish estates and his mother's property in Bedfordshire. Not to mention the London house and the Italian villa."

"True," Charles said. "But everyone knows I've always been fond of Dunmykel. Perhaps I resented losing it. Perhaps I wanted to keep the estate for my own son. Perhaps I thought that if I got rid of Honoria you'd change your mind."

"You'd have been wiser to kill me," Kenneth observed.

"Besides," said David, "everyone knows you wouldn't—"