The Hidden Heart (25 page)

Richard shrugged. “It’s all a tangle. I am not even sure that Mrs. Woods didn’t simply fall, as everyone would obviously like to believe. It is just that cut on her cheek, and the lateness of the hour…”

The door opened to admit Lady Westhampton. The interview was brief, as she had gone to bed early, nursing her head cold, and had neither seen nor heard anything until Mrs. Woods’ scream awakened her. Gabriela’s interview was much the same, and Richard sent the girl and Lady Westhampton back to their rooms to seek whatever rest they could. Next came Miss Pargety, who was eager to talk. Indeed, they soon discovered that she was difficult to stop.

“I knew that woman was trouble,” she said, bobbing her head to emphasize the point. “Right from the beginning. Foreign looking. Up to no good, I’ll warrant. Popping in and out of her room at all hours of the night.”

“Did you see Mrs. Woods leave her room?” Richard asked, leaning forward interestedly.

“I didn’t see any of them. But I could hear them. It was hard for a decent body to get a wink of sleep, the ways doors were opening and closing.”

“But you did not specifically see or hear Mrs. Woods.”

“No,” Miss Pargety admitted reluctantly.

“What about anyone else? Did you see anyone else leave his or her room? Or hear a voice you recognized?”

“I heard that Lady Vesey,” she said, primming her mouth. “I heard her giggling, but I didn’t see where she went.”

They finished the interviews of the female guests with Lady Vesey. She came in and sat down, looking for once somewhat subdued.

“I am sure I cannot tell you anything important, Cleybourne,” she said, sighing. “I did not see the woman fall. I came running out when I heard the scream.”

“And where did you run out from?” Richard asked pointedly.

She cast a quick glance at him, then looked down at her hands. “I don’t see how that is any of your business.”

“If you were with anyone else, it would prove that you were not the one who shoved Mrs. Woods down the stairs,” Richard said.

Leona gasped with outrage. “As if I would have had anything to do with that!”

“I don’t see how it would have benefited you,” Richard said agreeably, “otherwise I would be more suspicious of you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “There is no need for you to be insulting, Cleybourne. You know I didn’t shove her down the stairs. Why would I?” She tossed her hair back, looking at him with a certain defiance. “Well, I
was
with someone. But it would be a scandal. I cannot tell you.”

“I think I have a pretty good idea,” Richard replied.

“I doubt it.”

“The Reverend Radfield?”

Leona stared at him, bug-eyed. “How did you—”

“What I want to know is whether the two of you were still together when Mrs. Woods met her death.”

“You must promise you will not tell,” Leona said, making a show of reluctance, then shrugged and said, “Yes, we were in his room together when she screamed. So you know it was not he, and it was not I. Personally, I doubt the woman was even killed. It was an accident, and you just enjoy being officious.” She paused and added what to her must have been the killing blow. “I cannot imagine what I ever saw in you.”

“Mmm. Nor I, Lady Vesey.”

Leona flounced out of the room, and Mr. Cobb turned to look at Cleybourne with a new respect.

“Well, aren’t you the downy one, Your Grace. How did you know she and the good minister were…” He hesitated, cutting his eyes toward Jessica, and added, “Beg pardon, miss.”

“Because I was keeping watch tonight. After all that has happened, I thought it would be a good idea.” His mouth tightened. “Unfortunately, I was no longer looking when Mrs. Woods met her demise.” He kept his gaze on the Runner, careful not to glance in Jessica’s direction.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Cobb mused. “That one’s the sort that could make any man forget his collar.”

They began to interview the men after that, but their questioning met with little more success. Mr. Goodrich, eyes blinking, shifting in his seat, told them that he had been in bed, sound asleep, and had seen and heard nothing. Lord Vesey explained that he had been downstairs in Cleybourne’s study the whole time, drinking a bit of port, and since Richard had seen that fact for himself, there was little he could say to dispute it.

Reverend Radfield, too, professed no knowledge of what had happened. Pale and distracted, he sat lifelessly in his seat, staring most of the time at the floor a few feet in front of him.

“Where were you when you heard the scream?” Richard prodded.

“Um, in my chamber. Um, reading.” He shifted.

“Was there anyone else with you?”

The man’s eyes flew up to Richard’s face, and he looked at him for a long moment, then turned his gaze away. “Why—why do you ask?”

“It is rather important that you tell the truth now, sir,” Richard said, his gaze not leaving the other man.

“I—well, that is—” He cleared his throat and glanced over at Jessica, who was busy scribbling down his words. He turned back to Richard. “Yes,” he said finally in a low voice. “There was someone with me. I—you must understand, I cannot say who it was. A lady…her name…I cannot damage her reputation.”

“I see. Well, it is obvious that you do not know her well if you think that you could damage her reputation.”

Radfield opened his eyes wider and gave Cleybourne a startled look. “Your Grace!” Their gazes held for a moment, and it was Radfield who gave in. With a groan, he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and sinking his head to his upraised hands. “What is the use? Of course you’re right—there is nothing there to damage.” He clenched his hands in his hair. “To think that I was with that trollop while
she
was falling to her death!”

The young man broke off, drawing a ragged breath.

“When did Lady Vesey leave your room?”

Radfield shook his head, not looking at anyone in the room. “After the scream. We heard it, and then we ran out into the hall like everyone else.” He did at last raise his head then, looking at Cleybourne with a tortured expression. “I shall regret this night all my life.”

Lord Kestwick was next, and he strode into the room in a temper. “I say, Cleybourne, what do you mean, keeping me waiting all this time while you conversed with every—” He stopped as his gaze fell on Jessica. He swung back toward the door and saw that Cobb had followed him into the room and shut the door and was now settling down on a chair, leaning back in it and tilting its front legs off the floor. “What the devil! What is the meaning of this? Don’t tell me you expect me to talk to you with—with these people in the room.”

The expression on his face was that of a person who had been asked to share his space with rats. He turned to Richard imperiously. “See here, it is one thing to discuss this matter with you. You are a peer. But a governess? A Bow Street Runner?”

“Miss Maitland is here to take notes, Lord Kestwick. It seems she has had some experience with that. And I would think that a Runner would be a particularly appropriate person to have at this interview. There is, after all, the possibility of foul play.”

Kestwick rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what maggot’s gotten into your head. I mean, really, Cleybourne, don’t you think you are being a trifle dramatic about the whole thing?”

“I usually find that death is a dramatic event,” Richard responded coolly.

“But I mean, all this questioning and suspicion. My God, the woman just took a tumble.”

“How do you know that?” Richard asked quietly. “Did you see her?”

“Of course not! I was in my bed asleep—as I wish I were right now.”

“You seem uncommonly cool about this whole thing, Kestwick,” Richard said casually, “for a man who just had the recently deceased in his bedroom.”

“The devil!” Kestwick exclaimed, and across the room, Mr. Cobb’s chair came back down on its front legs with a crash. Kestwick stared at Cleybourne for a long moment, then said bitingly, “So you have been spying on your guests?”

“I have been somewhat cautious since I found an intruder in this room the other night.” Richard paused, then went on. “Now, would you like to tell us about Mrs. Woods?”

“I most certaintly would not!” the other man shot back, his face settling into its most aristocratic lines. “It is scarcely any of your business. And a woman’s reputation is concerned.”

“Since that woman is dead, I doubt that her reputation really matters now. And when someone dies in my house, then it is most definitely my business. Are you refusing to explain? Is that what I shall have to tell the magistrate—that only Lord Kestwick concealed information?”

Kestwick sneered, but he said, “All right, then,
yes.
I had an…interlude with the woman. We are both adults. And she is—was—an attractive woman, a widow. It isn’t as if I seduced an innocent. Besides, since you were spying on me, I assume that you also saw Mrs. Woods
leave
my room. I went to sleep after that. I never saw her again until you found her lying at the bottom of the stairs.”

He looked at the duke for a moment, his expression cool, even challenging. “You know, Cleybourne, one is tempted to ask where you were when all this was happening. It strikes me that you were the first one to reach the foot of the stairs.”

Richard said nothing, merely nodded toward Cobb, who immediately rose to his feet and opened the door to usher Lord Kestwick out.

“Damme!” Cobb said, stepping back into the room after Kestwick had gone. “That one’s a cold fish. When I think I was standing right next to him when he was looking down at that poor woman. I never would have guessed he’d even spoken to her, and him having just—” He broke off, shaking his head. “I’ll never understand the gentry.”

“Unfair, Mr. Cobb,” Richard said with a faint smile, “to paint all of us with the same brush as Lord Kestwick. It is not his degree of birth that makes him cold, it is his heart. Unfortunately, he’s right. She did leave his room and go back to her own. I saw her.” Richard cursed softly, pushing himself away from his desk. “If only I had continued watching!”

Cobb shrugged. “Well, we all have to sleep, Your Grace. No sin in that.”

“No. Of course not.” Richard glanced over at Jessica and just as quickly looked away. “Still, it seems the devil’s own luck…”

“There’s just one of them left to question, Your Grace,” Cobb said. “Shall I bring him in?”

“Yes. Although I doubt Mr. Talbot will have anything pertinent to offer,” Richard said.

He was right in that. Darius came in, and except for one initial glance at Richard, he spent the rest of the time looking anywhere but at his interregator. He had, predictably, seen and heard nothing, and disclaimed all knowledge of Mrs. Woods or her whereabouts that evening.

“Useless,” Richard said disgustedly as soon as Darius was out the door. “Well, I would say the only thing that’s left to us now is to search the woman’s room.”

Jessica was pleased to note that he made no attempt to exclude her from this activity but seemed to assume that she would join him and Mr. Cobb. She thought that Mr. Cobb viewed at her with some curiosity, but he obviously did not dare to question a duke.

The three of them went up the stairs to Mrs. Woods’ room, where one of the footmen was sitting beside the door, keeping watch. Richard opened the door, and they stepped inside, lighting the old lamp that lay on her dresser.

For a moment they stood hesitantly in the middle of the room, looking around. It seemed macabre, a violation of the woman, to be searching through her things after she was dead. Finally Richard sighed and said, “Well, it can’t be helped. However little we might want to, we have to search the room. We don’t even know where she came from or where she was going, or whom to notify about her death.”

Jessica nodded and went to the wardrobe, opening it. There were only a few dresses hanging in it. She had not bothered to take out more than just a few things, Jessica supposed. The trunk at the foot of the bed yielded more clothes.

“Look at these,” Jessica said, pulling out one rose satin dress.

Cleybourne looked at it. “Yes. Very pretty.”

“No, I mean look at how different it is from the dresses we saw on Mrs. Woods. She wore dark colors—navy, dark green—and they were very plain. These are beautiful dresses, rich fabrics, bright colors, plenty of lace and decorations. It is odd that she has such different types of clothing. And another thing…”

She shut the trunk lid and stood up, struck by a thought. “I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before. These clothes, and even the ones she wore every day, plain and dark though they are, are of nice materials and well-made. They were expensive.”

“And what was someone who could afford expensive gowns doing traveling by mail coach?” Richard asked, finishing her thought.

“Exactly.” Jessica moved to the dresser, pointing to the silver-backed toiletry set that sat there. “These are expensive, too.”

“Almost anyone can fall on hard times,” Richard said. “She could once have had money and lost it but still have the things she owned back then.”

“That’s true,” Jessica conceded. For a time, after the scandal, she had still had some trinkets and gowns that were much too expensive for her circumstances. “One sells the jewelry and furniture and such, but no one wants to give you money for ball gowns already worn.”