Murder at Beechwood (27 page)

Fox made a grinding sound in his throat and Phoebe whispered to him, “When are you going to grow up?”

“When are you going to stop being so boring?”

“Terribly sorry to be late for luncheon, everyone. I had some letters to write. Do forgive me.” Clad in country tweeds, Lord Owen Seabright strode into the room. He bowed ruefully and took the vacant seat beside Julia. His gaze met Phoebe's, and she raised her water goblet to her lips to hide the inevitable and appalling heat that always crept into her cheeks whenever the man so much as glanced her way.

Lord Owen Seabright was an earl's younger son who had taken a small, maternal inheritance and turned it into a respectable fortune. His woolen mills had supplied English soldiers with uniforms and blankets during the war. He himself had served as well, a major commanding a battalion. Unlike Teddy Leighton, Lord Owen had returned home mercifully whole.

If only Papa had been so fortunate....

She dismissed the thought before melancholy had a chance to set in. Of course, that left her once more contemplating Owen Seabright, a wealthy, fit man in the prime of his life and as yet unattached. After years of war, such men were a rarity. He'd been invited to spend Christmas because his grandfather and Phoebe's had been great friends, because Lord Owen had had a falling-out with his own family, and because Fox had insisted he come, with Grams's blessing.

If an engagement between Julia and Henry didn't work out, Owen Seabright was to be next in line to seek Julia's hand. Phoebe wondered if Owen—or Julia, for that matter—had been privy to that information. She herself only knew because Fox had told her, his way of informing her he'd soon have Julia married off and Phoebe's turn would be next.

Or so he believed. What Phoebe believed was that Fox needed to be taken down a peg or two.

“Henry isn't with you?” Lady Allerton asked.

Lord Owen looked surprised. “With me? No. Haven't seen him today.”

“No one has, apparently.” With a perplexed look, Lady Lucille helped herself to another medallion of beef Bordelaise. “I do hope Henry hasn't gotten lost somewhere.”

“Odd, him going out on foot alone like that.” Grampapa's great chest rose and fell, giving Phoebe the impression of a bear just waking up from a long winter's rest. “Ah, but he can hardly lose his way. He knows our roads and trails as well as any of us. Spent enough time at Foxwood as a boy, didn't he?”

“Yes, but Archibald,” Grams said sharply, “things look different in the snow. He easily could have taken a wrong fork and ended up who knows where. Or he might have slipped and twisted his ankle.”

“Good heavens,” Lady Allerton exclaimed. “Is that supposed to reassure me?”

“Should we form a search party?” Amelia appeared genuinely worried. Phoebe sent her a reassuring smile and shook her head.

“Oh, Grams, don't be silly.” Fox flourished his fork, earning him a sharp throat-clearing and a stern look from Grampapa. The youngest Renshaw put his fork down with a terse “Sorry, sir” and shoved a lock of sandy hair off his forehead. “But even if he
was
lost, he'd either end up in the village, the school, or the river. He's not about to jump in the river in this weather, is he?” The boy shrugged. “He'll be back.”

He sent Julia a meaningful look. She ignored him, turning her head to gaze out the bay window at the wide expanse of snowy lawn rolling away to a skeletal copse of birch trees and the pine forest beyond that. Far in the distance, the rolling Cotswold Hills embraced the horizon, with patches of white interspersed with bare ground where the wind had whipped the snow away.

Phoebe brought her gaze closer and noticed a trail of footprints leading through the garden and back again. Henry? But if he'd gone out that way, he had apparently returned to the house.

Grams narrowed her eyes shrewdly on Julia. “I do hope there is no particular reason for Henry to have made a sudden departure.”

This, too, Julia ignored.

“As Lawrence Winslow did last summer,” Grams muttered under her breath. Although everyone must have heard the comment—Phoebe certainly had—all went on eating as if they hadn't. Grams seethed in Julia's direction another moment, then returned her attention to her meal.

Apparently, not everyone was willing to pretend Grams hadn't spoken. “Julia, you and Henry get on splendidly, don't you?” Fox snapped his fingers when she didn't reply. “Julia?”

She turned back around. “What?”

Phoebe was gripped by a sudden urge to pinch her. Though last night had obviously left her shaken, this sort of indifference was nothing new. It began three years ago, the day the news about Papa reached them from France, and rather than fading over time, her disinterest had become more pronounced throughout the war years. By turns her sister's apathy angered or saddened Phoebe, depending on the circumstances, but always left her frustrated.

“Stop it,” Amelia hissed in her brother's ear, another comment heard and ignored around the table. “Leave it alone.”

Phoebe observed her little sister. Had Amelia been privy to last night's argument, or had she merely grown accustomed to Julia's fickleness when it came to men?

“My, my, yes, he'll be back.” Lady Cecily spoke to no one in particular. She had been intent on cutting the contents of her plate into tiny pieces, even her deviled crab sandwich. She didn't look up as she spoke, but next attacked an olive. Her blade hit the pit and sent the green sphere spinning off the plate and onto the tablecloth with a plop. She giggled as she tried without success to retrieve it with her fork, saying, “He must return soon, for isn't there an announcement Henry and Julia wish to make today?”

Lady Allerton leaned in close and plucked up the olive. With an efficiency born of habit, she deposited it back onto the elder woman's plate. “You asked that this morning, Aunt Cecily. And, no, there is no announcement just yet. Why don't you eat something now?”

“No engagement yet?” Lady Cecily looked crestfallen. She held her knife in midair. “Why is that? Julia, dear, didn't Henry ask you a very pertinent question last night?”

Julia finally looked away from the window as if startled from sleep. She blinked. “I'm sorry. Did you say something?”

“We were all very tired last night, what with all the Christmas revelry.” Grams's attempt to sound cheerful fell flat. The Leightons might be second cousins, but they would not have been invited to spend the holiday at Foxwood Hall if Grams hadn't held out hope that Father Christmas would deliver a husband for Julia. The war had left so few men from whom to choose. “Henry and Julia shall have plenty of time to talk now that things have calmed down. Won't you, Julia?”

“Yes, Grams. Of course.”

Phoebe doubted her sister knew what she had just agreed to. Fox sniggered.

“If you don't stop being so snide,” she whispered to him behind her hand, “I'll suggest Grampapa send you up to the schoolroom, where you belong.”

Fox cupped a hand over his mouth and stuck out his tongue. “Then you should stop impersonating a beet every time Lord Owen enters a room,” he whispered back.

“I do no such thing.” But good gracious, if Fox had noticed, was she so obvious? She sucked air between her teeth. But no, Lord Owen was paying her no mind now, instead helping himself to thick slices of cold roast venison and responding to some question Grams had just asked him. She relaxed against her chair. Lord Owen was a passing fancy, nothing more. He was . . . too tall for her. Too muscular. Approaching thirty, he was too old as well. And much too . . .

Handsome, with his strong features and steely eyes and inky black hair that made such a striking contrast next to Julia's blond.

Yes, just a silly, passing fancy . . .

“Well now, my girls.” Grampapa grinned broadly and lightly clapped his hands. “I believe it's time to hand out the Christmas boxes, is it not? The staff will want to be on their way.”

“Yes, you're quite right, Grampapa.” With a sense of relief at this excuse to escape the table, Phoebe dabbed at her lips and placed her napkin beside her plate. “Girls, shall we?”

Amelia was on her feet in an instant. “I've so been looking forward to this. It's my favorite part of Christmas.”

Julia stood with a good deal less enthusiasm. “Not mine, but come. Let's get it over with.”

 

Eva could finally feel her fingers and toes again after slogging through snow and slush across the village to her parents' farm. Mum had put the kettle on before she arrived, and she was just now enjoying her second cup of strong tea and biting into another heavenly, still-warm apricot scone.

Holly and evergreen boughs draped the mantel above a cheerful fire, and beside the hearth a small stack of gifts waited to be opened. Eva eyed the beribboned box from the Renshaws. She wondered what little treasure Phoebe and Amelia had tucked inside.

Mum huffed her way into the room with yet another pot of tea, which she set on a trivet on the sofa table. “Can't have enough on a day like today,” she said, as if there had been a need to explain. “As soon as your father comes in from checking the animals, we'll open the presents.”

“I think they're lovely right where they are,” Eva said. “It's just good to be home.”

“It's a shame your sister couldn't be here this year.”

“Alice would, if she could have, Mum, but Suffolk is far, especially in this weather.”

“Yes, I suppose . . .” With another huff, Mum sat down beside her, weighting the down cushion so that the springs beneath creaked and Eva felt herself slide a little toward the center of the old sofa.

A name hovered in the air between them, loud and clear, though neither of them spoke it. Danny, the youngest of the family. Eva's chest tightened, and Mum pretended to sweep back a strand of hair, when in actuality she brushed at a tear.

Danny had gone to France in the second year of the war, just after his eighteenth birthday. Not quite a year later, the telegram came.

“Ah, yes, well.” Mum patted Eva's hand and pulled in a fortifying breath. “It's good to have you home for an entire day, or almost so. I'd have thought we'd see more of you, working so close by.”

“Tending to three young ladies keeps me busy, Mum.”

“Yes, and bless them for it, I suppose. It's a good position you've got, so we shan't be complaining, shall we?”

“Indeed not. Especially not today. But . . . I hear you huffing a bit, Mum. Are your lungs still achy?”

“No, no. Better now.”

The door of the cottage opened on a burst of wind, and a booted foot crossed the threshold. Eva sprang up to catch the door and keep it from swinging back in on her father, who stamped snow off his boots onto the braided rug and unwrapped the wool muffler from around his neck.

“Everyone all right out there, Vincent?” Mum asked. She leaned forward to pour tea into her father's mug.

“Right as rain.” He shrugged off his coat and ran a hand over a graying beard that reached his chest. “Or as snow, I should say.”

“Come sit and have a cuppa, dear. Eva wants to open her gifts.”

“Oh, Mum.”

They spent the next minutes opening and admiring. Eva was pleased to see the delighted blush in her mother's cheeks when she unwrapped the shawl Eva had purchased in Bristol when she'd accompanied Lady Julia there in October. There was also a pie crimper and a wax sealer with her mother's initial, B for Betty. For her father, Eva had found a tooled leather bookmark and had knitted him a new muffler to replace his old ragged one.

From them Eva received a velvet-covered notebook for keeping track of her duties and appointments, a linen blouse Mum had made and embroidered herself, and a hat with little silk flowers for which they must have sacrificed far too much of their meager income. But how could she scold them for their extravagance when their eyes shone so brightly as she opened the box?

Mum gripped the arm of the sofa and pulled to her feet with another of those huffs that so concerned Eva. “I'll just check on the roast. Should be ready soon. Oh, Eva, you've forgotten your box from the Renshaws.”

So she had. “There's something inside for you, too, Mum.”

“You have a look-see, dear. I mustn't burn the roast.”

“All right, I'll peek inside and then I'll come and help you put dinner on, Mum.”

She picked up the box and returned to the sofa. Her father grinned. “So what do you suppose is in there this year?”

“We'll just have to see, won't we?” She tugged at the ribbons, then pulled off the cover and set it aside. The topmost gift was wrapped in gold foil tissue paper. The card on top read
To Eva with fondness and appreciation, from Phoebe and Amelia
. She carefully unrolled the little package, and out tumbled a set of airy linen handkerchiefs edged in doily lace, each adorned with its own color of petit-point roses. A pink, a yellow, a violet, and a blue. Eva didn't think there were such things as blue or violet roses, but her heart swelled and her eyes misted as she pictured the two girls bent over their efforts, quickly whisking away their gifts-in-the-making whenever Eva entered their rooms.

“Oh, look, Dad. See what the girls have for me. Aren't they perfection? And here's a fifth, with a tag that says it's for Mum.”

He craned his neck to see. “Look a mite too fine for the use they're meant for.”

“Oh, Dad.” Eva chuckled and glanced again into her box. “And here's a card . . .” She took out a simple piece of white paper, folded in half. She unfolded it. “It reads, ‘For the Hunt-fords, for their pains.' Odd, there's no signature.”