Deadly Engagement: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (14 page)

To the Duchess’s great surprise, Emily nodded and came over to take her arm. “Come, Grandmamma. We don’t want Peeble fussing at us, do we?”

“No… No, I couldn’t bear that; not tonight,” answered the Duchess, choking back tears. “My dear boy, will you…will you take care of—of everything?”

“Of course,” he said quietly, herding them both to the door that lead on to the passageway. “Tam has gone to fetch something to help you sleep; you are both to take whatever concoction he gives you without question. Understand?”

At that Emily turned in her grandmother’s embrace to look at Alec. “Please thank him for me. I—I don’t think I can… not yet. He–he found me and was very kind to stay with me until Grandmamma came.”

The Duchess and Alec exchanged a significant look, and Alec kissed Emily’s hand. “Tam will turn pink with pleasure to hear you say so.”

At the breakfast table the next morning all anyone could talk about was the accidental death of Emily’s maid; how the poor girl could break her neck on a servant stair she must have run up and down a hundred times a day? And of all the nights to have taken a tumble! Of course it was to be expected the engagement celebrations would continue but one wondered how the bride-to-be would bear up under the strain of losing her personal maid in such tragic circumstances.

Into these ramblings about unthinking servant behavior and preparations for the Fireworks Ball, Alec arrived, very late for breakfast and the last of the house guests to do so. The majority had already tossed aside their napkins but still stood about discussing whether to ride out or spend the time before dinner in a game of cards in the Long Gallery. A footman set clean cutlery before the latecomer and poured him out a dish of coffee but Alec barely noticed. Nor did he acknowledge the several people who lingered over their coffee dishes. His thoughts were preoccupied with the late-night visit of the village doctor.

Though not a great and knighted physician like Sir John Oliphant, Henry Oakes was nevertheless nobody’s fool, and Alec did not treat him as one. Oakes gave it as his opinion that Jenny had suffered a heavy blow to the head that had been sufficient to kill her. He had discovered pinkish red fluid leaking from her ear that he suspected meant her brain had been injured but there was no wound to be found and her skull was not smashed in. Oakes was honest enough to admit that it was beyond him to know whether murder had been the intruder’s intention. Perhaps the intruder had just wanted to shut the girl up and had been too heavy-handed with her; witness the bruising about her throat and jaw, as if a strong hand had grabbed and held her there before throwing her away, like a rag doll, intentionally hitting her head up against the poster or carelessly in that direction so that the outcome was the same.

Oakes signed the death certificate, writing as cause of death a broken neck. He doubted the authorities in London would think it worth their while to make inquiries into the suspicious death of a lady’s maid, so he wrote in the word ‘accidental’ for good measure; far better for the poor girl to be buried peacefully.

He didn’t ask Alec for any explanations but Alec told him all he knew without giving him an ounce of his own thoughts. The man simply nodded. He was all for leaving the matter in Alec’s, or more specifically, in the hands of the Duchess of Romney-St. Neots. He wanted no part in an investigation for murder, intentional or otherwise, and opinioned that it was unlikely the villain would be caught, saying that in such domestic matters involving the nobility the pack stuck together closer than a bee to pollen.

Alec was inclined to agree. Yet he wondered if the man would have been so complacent had the victim been one of the Duchess’s guests rather than one of her servants. But Alec did not argue with him, although he knew his Uncle Plant would have taken the physician to task whatever the hour or circumstance. He was just grateful for the man’s time. And he was right. The authorities in London would think it a waste of time to look into the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a lady’s maid.

Alec covered a yawn, wishing he’d had a few more hours of sleep, and sipped at his coffee. He was so deep in thought that it was not until Lady Charlotte’s nasal voice carried the length of the table that he realized he was not eating alone. He went to the sideboard hoping to fill his empty stomach with food but the sight of Lord Andrew Macara dishing up a large helping of deviled kidneys and kippers ruined his appetite. He settled for hot rolls and more strong black coffee, unaware all eyes were focused in his direction.

“As I said to Sybilla earlier,” Lady Charlotte intoned in a clear, loud voice, “Mamma has always spoiled that child. She did the same with Madeleine and look where that got her.”

“Florence, isn’t it?” Macara asked innocently and was glared at by his wife.

“Venice. If you must know. Venice and an impoverished Italian count. Hardly a fitting end for the daughter of an English Duke, is it, Sybilla?”

“Hardly fitting at all,” murmured Lady Sybilla.

“Impoverished, Italian and dashingly handsome,” added Selina Jamison-Lewis with a conspiratorial twinkle across the table at her friend. “Don’t you agree, Sybilla?”

“Oh, yes,” breathed Lady Sybilla and giggled into her napkin.

Lady Charlotte sat up very straight. “Nonsense! He’s an Italian. Thank God Madeleine had the good sense not to give him children. No one was more appalled than I when she had the bad manners to give birth to Emily. Not that Emily isn’t a darling girl. She is. But she lacks something. Call it breeding for want of a better word. Not that one can blame her. It’s all Mamma’s fault. But the fact the maid broke her silly neck hardly necessitates Emily spending the night with Mamma.” She gave a forced brittle laugh bordering on the hysterical. “Next she will expect us all to go into mourning for the wretched maid!”

“Not all of us, but Emily certainly,” Selina answered tersely. “The poor girl has just lost someone very dear to her and in tragic circumstances. She has every right to her grief.”

“It is only the tragedy of your circumstances which makes you defend Emily’s absurd behavior, Mrs. Jamison-Lewis,” Lady Charlotte responded with acid sweetness.

Selina put her dish on its saucer. “You think I gain any pleasure from wearing these hypocritical garments?”

“Very fetching hypocritical garments,” murmured Macara, with the eye of a jaded connoisseur. He admired Selina’s dark velvet low cut gown and the fichu of thin silver tissue pinned into place over her deep bosom with a pearl and diamond circle brooch. “Black suits you, madam.”

“Thank you, sir,” Selina said sweetly and to annoy her admirer’s fuming wife leaned in to whisper loudly in his lordship’s ear, “It’s Prussian Blue, but that will be our little secret.”

“Prussian Blue?” inquired Lady Sybilla with a sigh. “How lovely.”

“What I think—” began Lady Charlotte and was rudely cut short.

“Pardon me, Madam, but what we think hardly matters,” Alec stated as he poured himself out a dish of coffee. “Mrs. Jamison-Lewis is in the right: Emily has lost someone very dear to her. Such a tragedy requires tolerance and understanding from us all.”

“Hear! Hear!” agreed Macara, little realizing he had just crossed over into the enemy’s camp. A glare from his wife sent him back behind the pages of an outstretched newssheet.

“I’m not disputing the tragedy of it, Mr. Halsey,” Lady Charlotte said freezingly. “But perhaps it is you who do not understand, unaccustomed as you are to polite society, that there are certain occasions, certain topics, that one does not bare to all the world. Of course it is hardly your fault you were disowned by your own mother and brought up by a pagan uncle who holds to barbaric beliefs.”

“Are you telling me, my lady,” Alec said with extreme politeness, “that because St. Neots House is full of guests Emily has no right to her grief?”

“Precisely. It is the height of bad manners for her to refuse to do her duty. She can leave her grieving for private moments.”

At this Selina couldn’t stifle a laugh of disbelief. “Isn’t it also the height of bad manners and very un-Christian of us to be discussing this topic at all, and especially at the breakfast table?”

Lady Charlotte ignored her, adding one last barb. “Had I the governing of her she would be at this table now. She has even refused the solicitations of her betrothed! It defies reasoning.”

“My sympathy is with your children, madam,” Selina said curtly, pushing back her chair, a liveried footman quick to catch it before it crashed to the parquetry.

“Wouldn’t waste my sympathies there,” was Lord Andrew Macara’s opinion of his own children from behind the newssheet. “Hen-hearted, the lot of ’em.”

Selina bestowed a smile upon his lordship as she shook out her petticoats. She needed fresh air and Alec’s presence at the table, the fact he deliberately avoided looking her way, was the last straw to an altogether tedious breakfast. Besides, the Duchess had requested she meet with her privately in the Rose Gardens. She excused herself saying to Macara as she swept to the French doors, “Don’t forget our croquet match, my lord…”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Madam!” he replied with a tobacco-stained smile as he tossed aside the folded newssheet and stood up. “Damn shame about the maid. Nice girl as I recall.”

“But, Macara, you must see that Emily can’t allow the death of a domestic to overshadow her engagement celebrations,” Lady Charlotte explained coolly. “What would Lord Delvin think?”

“Think less of her for not having feelings, I’d say,” was her husband’s blunt opinion. He drew out an engraved gold slim-line box that contained his precious cheroots. “I just don’t understand it. Girl lived here all her life. Was always running about the place.”

“Most probably tripped over her petticoats,” Lady Charlotte grumbled. “Ungrateful wench.”

Macara suddenly addressed himself to Alec as he put an unlit cheroot to the corner of his mouth. “My man said it was your man who found the maid.”

Alec returned his open look. “Yes.”

“Bit of a shock for the lad?” Macara persisted. “He’s new, isn’t he? Your valet. Was an under-footman here. Quite young.”

Alec agreed but did not elaborate. He wondered if his lordship was trying to unsettle him or was merely airing his curiosity.

“My man said the rumor is Neave ain’t telling the whole story. And a lackey who works in the kitchens told my man it was your man who found little Emily’s maid with her neck broken.

“Tam found Jenny’s body, yes.”

“The boots says your man was too fond of little Emily’s maid. My man—”

“Your man ever thought of becoming a Bow Street Runner, my lord?”

Macara gave a bark of laughter. “Fact is, his brother’s one. Ha! I know it’s a lot of dishwater but I thought you’d want to know what’s being bandied about below stairs.”

“Thank you,” Alec answered evenly and collected the coffee pot from the sideboard. “Anyone for another dish?”

Macara declined, finally giving in to his craving, and stepped onto the terrace to smoke his cheroot, leaving Alec alone with the two sisters. He brought the silver coffee pot over to Lady Sybilla, amused that when he picked up her dish she managed a shy thank you but could not make eye contact. “Her petticoats were all torn and she had bruises, y’know.”

“Good God, Sybilla! You saw the body?” Lady Charlotte was horrified.

Lady Sybilla blinked. “Body? Whose body? Emily’s petticoats were torn. I saw them draped over a chair in Mamma’s dressing room. Peeble gathered them up as if she didn’t want me to see them. But I saw the bruises on her legs—”

“Bruises?” demanded Lady Charlotte, glancing at Alec to find him staring fixedly at her sister. “What are you blathering about, Sybilla? It’s the maid who broke her silly neck. Show some sense!”

“I know what I saw,” Lady Sybilla said with a trembling lip. She looked across at Alec, this time bravely meeting his gaze. “I know it was the maid who broke her neck. Mamma told me. But Emily had the most shocking bruises on her legs. I saw them when Peeble was helping her to dress. I know what I saw. You believe me, don’t you, Mr. Halsey?”

“Of course.”

Lady Sybilla was unable to hold his gaze. “I only wish…We…Selina and I were only saying the other day how we wished Emily had chosen more wisely. To be sure Lord Delvin is an earl and he cuts a fine figure but I—but we-we would’ve preferred
you
to have offered for her.”

“Sybilla! You-you
simpleton
. How dare you express such an outrageous opinion!” demanded Lady Charlotte, who had shot to her feet so fast and in such anger that her chair fell to the floor with a clatter. “Preferred?
Preferred
a foreign office flunky to a peer of the realm? Emily has chosen very wisely, very wisely indeed. Delvin’s an earl of unimpeachable character while his younger brother has few prospects, no title and is a sad rake. You talk nonsense because you are so morosely infatuated with his libertine good looks that you would prostitute yourself to him at the expense of your family and your husband. What about the dear Admiral, Sybilla? Have you no thought for dearest Charles who is somewhere far out to sea? Sybilla! Come back here! How dare you run off in that manner!
Sybilla
.”