A Hanging at Lotus Hall

by Corrina Lawson

  “What else did he say last night?”

  Phyllis curled her hands against her chest. “He asked if I was sure of him. I was.” A deep sigh. “We talked about…the future…”

  More tears threatened. Joan needed to keep the girl talking. “Did he mention anything about the Isca School? Or his work with the Metaphysical Society? At any time?”

  A deep breath. Phyllis looked at Vai, for some unspoken permission. Vai nodded. “Sam taught me more of how to use my mage gift. You see, we began corresponding when I needed advice on teaching Lady Anne. His Grace said the young dean at Isca—Sam—might be a fine resource.” Her breath caught again. “But Sam never indicated anything dangerous in his work.”

  “Anything about the school or the society might be relevant.”

  “Do you think that if I knew something, I would keep it to myself?” She slapped the table, rattling the teacups. “I want who did this to pay.”

  “I’m not suggesting that,” Joan said carefully. “But any information in how he viewed the school or society would be relevant.” It would be best to see them in Cooper’s own hand too, if she could. “Do you have any of his letters still?”

  “No,” Phyllis snapped. “We corresponded with enspelled ink. The ink only lasted the time it took to read them.” She looked to Vai. “It was a trick you taught me, Your Grace.” Her composure collapsed again. “And now I’ll never see his handwriting again.”

  This time, the crying turned into keening as Phyllis curled in on herself. If keening could wake the dead, Cooper would surely have returned.

  Instead, Phyllis’s world had been shattered.

  “I think that’s it for now, Miss Krieger,” Vai said quietly.

  “I understand.” Joan rose. “Do you know if Anne finished her written account?”

  Vai drew out a lined journal from beside her chair, still keeping one hand on the grieving girl.

  Joan hardened her heart to the grief. She would do Phyllis’s beloved no good by dissolving into similar tears. Life was too cruel, sometimes. Joan hoped she could prevent it from being crueler still. Because the killer would likely kill again.

  “Anne set to her account immediately when she came in. Barely said a word as the pencil scraped over paper,” Vai said. “Then she collapsed in her bed. Please don’t disturb her.”

  “I won’t,” Joan promised.

  She took the journal from Vai and beat a retreat to the nursery, giving Phyllis some privacy.

  Joan sat in the window seat and focused on the journal, attempting to close herself off to the grief in the next room.

  The girl’s account was exactly as Anne had given earlier that morning, save for an added description about how much she loved the underwater ballroom. “Like being in a secret room under the ocean!!!!” was written in childish script. Anne also wrote about how glad she was about the magic that heated the floor on the first floor because she’d forgotten her slippers.

  The words grew terser as she spoke of using her mage light in the darkened hallway that led to the library on the east side.

  I know Miss Krieger said to write down everything I remembered, but I was trying so hard to keep my mage light bright that I didn’t notice anything!!! But I remember the library door was open and I thought that Uncle Nick must be there and that made me happy, then I pushed open the other door…

  The journal was blank for a few lines. Ink blotted the page.

  Miss Krieger said I didn’t have to remember this part, so I won’t, but I think I screamed and I ran out and that’s when I ran into Uncle Nick. I told him there was something horrible and I tugged on his hand for him to come see, but he sent me to bed, which was unfair! I deserved to know what happened, even if it was awful.

  But I couldn’t sleep and went back to my Uncle Nick. The lights were all on this time and my father was there and Uncle Nick and Uncle Gregor and Mr. Moriarty and Miss Krieger. Mr. Moriarty pulled a coin out of my ear, but I know that’s not real magic. Then my father brought me to my bed again but I refused to go to sleep. Miss Phyllis took out my journal and I did what Miss Krieger said but I don’t think it helped because I don’t remember anything new! I’m sorry, Miss Krieger!

  Joan’s throat closed up. The girl should not have to deal with a murder.

  A P.S. was written on the next page.

  Miss Krieger! Miss Phyllis helped me with this but she seemed strange about it. I think she’s upset! Could you help her if I’m asleep? I want her to feel better. But I have to sleep because my head really hurts. Grandmother says it’s because I’m overtired.

  A single tear slipped down Joan’s cheek. She blotted it away with a handkerchief. A death just didn’t end one life, its effects reverberated outward into other lives, changing them forever.

  Phyllis was without her love.

  Anne would be haunted by the sight of the body for a long time.

  “Joan?”

  She blinked. Vai stood before her. “I’m sorry, I never heard you come in.”

  “I can move softly when I wish, and you were engrossed in the journal.”

  “How is Phyllis?” she asked.

  “Resting now, I think. I convinced her to take to her bed.” Vai sighed. “I hope she fell asleep. I might have enforced that hope with a little magical intervention. It won’t assuage her grief, but her body needs the rest.”

  “That was kind.” Joan nodded. “Vai, Anne mentions a headache in her journal entries. Did you help her sleep too?”

  “No, she started to nod off at her desk. I thought that creating the mage light had probably drained her, so I tucked her into bed, as Phyllis was trying so hard to hold it in, poor soul. Anne fell asleep instantly.”

  “Her headache came on suddenly?”

  “Yes. Is it important?”

  “You tell me,” Joan countered.

  “Exhaustion happens when children are learning how to use their gift. It taxes their bodies.” Vai grimaced. “Which is why I forbade her to use the mage light on her own.”

  “It is not your fault Lady Anne has seemingly boundless energy. And it’s not your fault she found a dead man, either. Unless you know something you’re not telling me?”

  Vai snorted. “I imagine I do, but not about the murder, no. And while her headache was not usual for Anne, neither was last night.”

  “Terror and trauma can certainly produce physical symptoms, like a headache. Lady Anne is lucky to have compassionate people in charge of her welfare,” Joan said. “And so is Phyllis.”

  “She’s family.”

  Joan closed the journal and rose. “Is she? Then why is her father not here to comfort her? Surely, she’d want his company at this time.”

  “A pointed question. Did you learn that from Gregor?”

  “No,” Joan countered. “And you didn’t answer the question.”

  Vai sighed. “Edward and his daughter are uneasy with each other.”

  “You have to give me more than that, Your Grace.”

  “It’s like that, is it?” Vai picked up the journal and placed it under her arm.

  “Yes, it’s like that. An investigation demands I find the truth.”

  “Phyllis is not a killer, that’s the truth.” Vai walked toward Anne’s bedroom and peered through the half-open door. “Still asleep, the sprite.”

  “Given that Phyllis isn’t the killer, and she and her father quarreled, it could have been about Mr. Cooper. And that would make Mr. Dale a suspect. So, Vai, yes, I need to know about the quarrel.”

  Vai turned, her face free of any emotion. “Phyllis planned a grand tour, then instruction from a great artist, if she could find one. Edward worried someone would take advantage of her on such a tour. He wanted her to promise to remain in the home for at least a few more years.”

  “If he was worried about someone taking advantage of his daughter, he might have perceived that Mr. Cooper had done that already.”

  “None of us knew about Mr. Cooper,” Vai said with gritted teeth. “T
hough, in retrospect, I’m sure Phyllis planned her Grand Tour with him as company.”

  “So her father didn’t trust Phyllis to take care of herself, then?”

  Vai shrugged. “That seems to be the way of some fathers. I can’t say about mine. But Edward was always full of worry about his girl, especially after her mother died. He wanted her protected, which is why she lived at Lotus Hall.” Vai’s face softened.

  “Protective enough to hurt someone who might take advantage of his daughter?”

  “No,” Vai said again.

  “But protective enough for this to cause a rift.” Joan walked about the room and found a sketchbook lying on top of several textbooks. It seemed so out of place that she picked it up.

  “That,” Vai said, “is proof that you accuse Mr. Dale unfairly. He may have been arguing with his daughter about her future, but he was also trying to mend their rift, with his art.”

  “This is Mr. Dale’s work?” Interesting that it would be out here in the main nursery and not in Phyllis’s sitting room.

  Joan flipped it open. She was no judge of art, and this was a rough pencil sketch, but it seemed to be a credible drawing of the outer portion dome of the underwater ballroom as it appeared from a height—likely the fifth-floor rooms of the west wing.

  “It seems a different style than the mountains,” Joan noted.

  “He’s had some nerve damage to his hand,” Vai said.

  Frozen in the mountains, Joan wondered? “I see.”

  Words caught in her throat as she studied the signature at the bottom.

  Edward Dale, it read.

  And it was in the same handwriting as the list she’d found in Cooper’s room.

  Chapter 14

  Why was it always mothers?

  Joan corrected herself. Dale’s handwriting proved he was involved in the mystery surrounding Cooper’s murder. It did not prove Gregor’s mother was involved.

  But, as Gregor was fond of saying, it was highly suggestive, especially since Vai was Edward Dale’s keeper. Even more suggestive was that dark look that had crossed Gregor’s face when he first read the list.

  Oh.

  Enlightenment dawned.

  Gregor had recognized Dale’s handwriting. And he had kept that fact from her.

  Blast you, Gregor. And you want me to marry you when you won’t confide in me about an investigation?

  He’d claim he wanted an unbiased opinion. Yet, likely, he simply wanted to keep his fears about his mother to himself. A human reaction. But not the reaction of someone who trusted and relied on their lover.

  Damn, no time for that now. Pushing down her anger at Gregor’s deception, Joan made the proper comments out loud about the quality of the sketch to Vai. How did one go about interrogating her, Joan wondered?

  One dove in and hoped not to sink.

  “Your Grace,” Joan said carefully.

  Vai noticed the change in tone. “Yes?”

  “Lady Anne mentioned using the ‘backstairs that Grandma uses’ when she talked to me last night.”

  “And you want to know what that meant?” Vai speared her with a look.

  The Sherringfords did love to intimidate. “I need to know what that meant. There’s been a murder and there could still be a killer among us. Everyone’s movements must be accounted for.”

  “Are you accusing me?” Vai said.

  Joan set her hand flat on the drawing table, unaccountably full of rage. She’d quite had enough of imperturbable Sherringfords. “I’m accusing you of keeping secrets, Your Grace. From me and from your family, especially concerning Mr. Dale. You may not be a suspect, but he’s a mage and he definitely is suspect.”

  And he wrote my mother’s name on a list.

  “Anger becomes you, Joan, but don’t direct it at me,” Vai snapped. “I’m not your killer. Neither is Mr. Dale.”

  “But you are part of a mystery that must be unraveled. You asked Gregor and me here for a reason and yet not enlightened us. What was it?”

  Joan kept her voice low so Phyllis and Lady Anne would not hear, but Joan had not been in such a rage since she’d discovered her mother had stolen her father’s soul.

  That realization cooled her. Joan was furious at her mother, not at Vai. Or, not only at Vai.

  “You tell me what you know and I’ll tell you what I know,” Vai said, her surface placid and calm.

  If Gregor’s mother had murdered Cooper, they were undone. It would be an even bigger scandal than if the duke were the killer. The headlines would read “Evil foreign witch protected by the nobility’s most powerful family.” To say nothing of what it would do to Gregor.

  Joan walked to the nursery’s window, letting the sun warm her and dissipate her fury. “We know Cooper was killed by a mage and his hanging staged to throw suspicion on the duke.”

  “So Gregor said, in his brief remarks to me.”

  “Did he also tell you that Cooper likely knew his killer well and that Lord Nicholas and Reginald Benedict alibied each other?”

  “He mentioned having mages in the family was complicating things.”

  “Did he ask you or Mr. Dale for an alibi?”

  Vai narrowed her eyes. “Why isn’t he with you, asking me these things?”

  “He’s gone on an errand to investigate a lead.”

  “He would leave now?” Vai’s calm broke. “Of all the irresponsible, impulsive things he could have done, that—”

  “I cannot argue with that assessment,” Joan said.

  Vai cleared her throat. “It was unwise for him to leave Lotus Hall at this time.”

  “He also took Nick with him.” Joan offered the information to watch Vai’s reaction. Seeing the demigoddess war with human anger was fascinating. And revealing.

  Vai said something in Hindi. An oath, perhaps, or a curse. Not one Joan could translate.

  “There’s much here you don’t know, Joan, as yet, and so much is uncertain. I wanted to reveal all to Gregor today. I admit, it could have been done last night but…” She twisted an emerald ring around her ring finger. “It must be done properly and carefully. The walls have eyes and—”

  A small voice, full of fear called out for “Grandmother.”

  “Anne! I must go. Blast it, this is horrible timing.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Joan said.

  “No, not if Anne’s awake. I can’t endanger her.” Vai held up a hand. “We will talk later. Meet me in Victoria’s sewing room this afternoon. I’ll explain it all to you privately once I’m assured she and the baby are well.”

  “Grandmother!” Anne called again.

  “Coming!”

  Vai grimaced. “Blast Gregor for disappearing now.”

  On that, we are agreed, Joan thought.

  The dowager duchess rushed off, skirts rustling, to Lady Anne’s bedroom. Joan was tempted to follow her anyway but whatever Vai wanted to say, it wouldn’t be in front of the child.

  No, it wouldn’t be safe in front of her granddaughter. That’s what Vai had said. Strange phrasing.

  So many blasted secrets. Joan drew the list out from her pocket quickly and set it next to Edward Dale’s signature in the sketchbook to confirm the match.

  The same.

  She should confront Edward Dale, and now. Except, he was an unknown and possibly hostile.

  Better to have all the facts she could at her fingertips before confronting anyone. She’d learned that from blundering into her parents’ deadly secrets. She needed to identify all the names on Cooper’s list, if she could. Then she’d know the right questions to ask.

  There must be a peerage record somewhere in this massive place.

  After that? Go after Reg and demand his full truth. He’d lost his protector temporarily. He wasn’t a mage. She had more power than he did. She had plenty of power to handle him.

  She hoped.

  Chapter 15

  Joan wandered Lotus Hall on her own, in no mood for company.

  She found the main li
brary faster than expected, occupying a great corner room on the first floor at the garden-side of the home. Indeed, she could see the dome of the underwater ballroom outside the great windows in the library.

  Some of the shelves in this massive library—which put the guest library in the shade—ran over twenty feet high, from floor to ceiling, while other sections had books stacked over seven shelves high, with small windows placed above them. Joan concluded that this room had been created to make the most use of natural light, necessary for reading before the installation of gas lamps.

  She took a deep breath. The smell of paper and ink. No mold or mildew. Hardly a speck of dust in the room either. Like everything else at Lotus Hall, it was perfect, at least on the surface.

  Joan set her hands on her hips and sighed. A few years ago, another life, and she could have lived in this room. Now she knew that surface appearances mattered little. Lotus Hall seemed to have brought misery to its inhabitants.

  She browsed the bookshelves until she found a peerage book, set out Cooper’s list, obtained paper and pencil from a desk, and went to work.

  It was painstaking, tedious research. The list was made up of family names, not titles, which meant she had to remember their titles to find them in this particular book. It left her research frustratingly incomplete.

  But what she had was enough. Not only was the list comprised of at least one other duke, and three marquises, but those she’d identified had all been mage-gifted. Not surprising, given that Jasper Sherringford and Rachel Krieger were on the list.

  In conclusion, this list compromised the best of the best of noble mages and her mother, a highly gifted, though untrained, mage.

  Except everyone, so far, was dead.

  A chill took hold of Joan as she slipped the list and her notes back inside her pocket.

  The first death she’d found was over a decade ago, a young count who’d died during a wild hunt, just a few months before Jasper Sherringford had been lost on Everest. The last? Last year, when a marquis had flipped over his steam carriage and been pinned under its weight.

  In between were at least two heart attacks that had killed without warning. Heart attacks that mirrored Cooper’s death. None of the deaths had been investigated as murder, despite some suspicious circumstances. Still, everyone had died young, either through misadventure or an unsuspected or undetermined “health condition.”