The Lady By His Side

by Stephanie Laurens

  “As to that,” Antonia said, “another possibility we haven’t properly canvassed is whether the motive for these murders is something quite other.” She looked at Sebastian. “Something not in any way linked to Ennis’s message for Winchelsea.”

  Both Sebastian and the inspector stared at her impassively.

  Then Crawford heaved another sigh. “And that’s entirely possible, too.”

  Sebastian snorted. “If it comes to that, Blanchard could have done the deed. He—or any of the staff—had as much opportunity as any of the guests.”

  Crawford nodded. “I’ll be interviewing the staff again tomorrow. We’ll see where that gets us.”

  “We can discount the obvious other motive,” Sebastian said. “Ennis had at least one son, so his heir isn’t his brother, Connell, so the inheritance can’t be a motive in these murders.”

  “There are two sons,” Antonia put in. “Cecilia mentioned they were at boarding school.”

  “Poor tykes. They haven’t been told yet,” Crawford said. “Sir Humphrey is getting Ennis’s solicitor down tomorrow, and we’re hoping he can take on the estate for the moment. Until we free Connell Boyne of suspicion in his brother’s murder, no matter the motive, it isn’t appropriate for him to take up the reins.”

  Crawford looked at Sebastian, then at Antonia. “Sir Humphrey and I would appreciate it if you both could keep your eyes on our three prime suspects. It’s possible that our villain will let something slip when he’s in what he deems less threatening company.”

  Antonia added her agreement to Sebastian’s, then Crawford nodded politely, and they parted—the inspector heading back down to the stable while, arm in arm, she and Sebastian continued to the house.

  * * *

  Sebastian and Antonia entered the house with just enough time to bathe and dress for dinner.

  They met in the corridor outside their rooms and descended to the drawing room side by side. Once inside the room, they halted. Both surveyed the subdued company, then they met each other’s eyes and, in wordless accord, separated.

  Antonia strolled to join the ladies gathered on the sofas before the fireplace. A roaring blaze sent heat into the room, but seemed unable to lift the chill from the company’s collective spirits. Mrs. McGibbin and Mrs. Parrish looked much older tonight; they sat with their heads together, conversing in murmurs. Amelie Bilhurst, quiet but holding her own, sat beside Melinda Boyne and was patently attempting to keep Melinda’s spirits up, a task at which she wasn’t succeeding all that well; Melinda looked…spooked.

  Antonia wondered if Melinda—a Boyne, after all—knew anything about the murders. Or anything that might shed some light on who the murderer might be.

  But Claire, Melissa, and Georgia, all with somber expressions on their faces, were waiting to draw Antonia down to sit on the arm of the sofa the three shared.

  “Where did you get to today?” Georgia asked.

  Antonia hid a grimace. “I went with Sebastian to check on nearby farms for Sir Humphrey and the inspector, asking if they’d noticed any strangers about. Sebastian didn’t want to leave me here alone—well, without him.” A twist on the truth, perhaps, but essentially true.

  “Well, it’s been deadly here,” Melissa whispered. “They—Sir Humphrey and that inspector—questioned us all, one by one.”

  “Not that any of us have been able to tell them anything,” Georgia said.

  “Have you heard any word on when we might be allowed to leave?” Claire asked.

  “With two murders to solve, I don’t think Sir Humphrey and the inspector are yet ready to allow anyone to depart.” Antonia glanced across the room and saw that Sebastian was surrounded by the men—no doubt being questioned much as she was.

  Other than glum rumblings of discontent, nothing of note was said in her hearing before Blanchard appeared and announced that dinner was served.

  Sebastian came to give her his arm, a signal for others to adhere to the social habit and pair up, which they did. As a company of couples, they trooped into the dining room and claimed seats as they would.

  No one made any move to sit in the carvers at either end of the table.

  Blanchard surveyed the company, then proceeded to serve the meal with butlerish imperturbability, as if not having a master or mistress present was an irregularity he was determined to ignore.

  The meal was consumed largely in silence—a sober, even somber, and exceedingly weighty silence—broken only by occasional murmurs as people commented desultorily on this or that.

  At the end of the meal, Mrs. Parrish and Mrs. McGibbin exchanged a glance, then both rose—bringing the rest of the company to their feet. With nods, the ladies departed for the drawing room, clearly assuming the gentlemen would want their port.

  But after exchanging glances themselves, the gentlemen—led by the married men, who seemed to feel a need to remain within sight of their wives—fell in and trailed in the ladies’ wake into the drawing room.

  Sebastian was only too happy to stroll with Hadley to where the younger ladies had gathered at one side of the room. He gained Antonia’s side as Georgia Featherstonehaugh, looking longingly out of the window at the front drive, murmured, “I wonder how long we’ll be stuck here?”

  Hadley caught her hand and squeezed it. “I’m sure they won’t keep us much longer, not once they’ve gathered all the information they need.”

  Georgia summoned a weak smile and trained it on her husband.

  Sebastian exchanged a look with Antonia, but neither of them said anything. Informing the company that they might well be held there for days yet—or until the murderer was caught—wouldn’t raise anyone’s spirits.

  Claire Savage shook herself, then raised her head and somewhat bravely said, “I heard there’s a new play in production at the Theatre Royal. Has anyone heard more?”

  After an instant of something akin to shock, Melissa Wainwright leapt in to share what she’d heard.

  Gradually, minute by minute, although the atmosphere remained strained, it became clear that the general consensus was to carry on as best they could and ignore—as best they could—the pall the murders had cast. Difficult given the company was lacking both host and hostess, but they gamely soldiered on.

  But when Blanchard wheeled in the tea trolley, he was greeted with an undercurrent of relief. Mrs. Parrish and Mrs. McGibbin shared the honors, and all the gentlemen leapt to assist by ferrying the cups around.

  As soon as the tea had been consumed, the company—still moving as if with one mind—rose, and everyone stated their intention to retire. En masse, they moved out of the drawing room and started up the stairs.

  Following at Antonia’s heels, Sebastian detected a certain watchful wariness, arising, no doubt, from latent yet unspecific and undirected suspicion that seemed to have afflicted everyone.

  “Anyone for billiards?”

  Along with all the other men, Sebastian glanced down to see Connell Boyne hovering at the foot of the stairs.

  Boyne scanned the faces in a half-hearted way; his tone hadn’t suggested any real enthusiasm. More as if he thought he ought to offer the invitation.

  Murmurs in the negative came from all the other men. Sebastian briefly shook his head and continued climbing in Antonia’s wake.

  On gaining the gallery, he looked down into the hall and saw Connell, left alone on the tiles, vacillating—clearly debating whether to come upstairs or head for the billiards room. In the end, Connell thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and slouched slowly off—toward the library or the corridor to the billiards room, Sebastian couldn’t tell which.

  He turned and followed Antonia and the Featherstonehaughs into the east wing.

  * * *

  Sebastian dawdled in the corridor outside his room until Hadley and Georgia had gone into theirs, and the door had shut behind them. The instant it did, he turned and walked silently back along the corridor, scratched at Antonia’s door, then opened it and walked in.

&nb
sp; She was seated at the dressing table, her arms raised as she pulled a pin from her hair. She leveled a look he couldn’t quite read at him.

  He ignored it and quietly shut the door. “Have you rung for your maid?”

  “No—not yet.”

  “Good. Don’t.” He crossed to where a straight-backed chair stood against the wall, lifted it, turned it, and set it down behind and a little to one side of the dressing stool, so when he straddled it and sat, resting his forearms on the raised back, he could see Antonia’s face in the dressing table mirror.

  She arched a haughty brow at him. “You presume.”

  He snorted softly. “Did you really imagine I would allow my de facto affianced marchioness to sleep alone and unprotected under the same roof as a murderer?”

  She looked at him, then lightly shrugged. “Put like that…I suppose not.”

  He had the distinct impression that, despite her neutral expression, she was laughing at him. She was amused, at the very least.

  She returned her attention to freeing her long hair. “Did you hear anything useful?”

  “Nothing at all. You?”

  “Likewise. But while no one has actually said the words, and despite the ladies’ earlier talk of gypsies or an itinerant being responsible for killing Ennis, it’s clear the realization that there’s almost certainly a murderer among us has started to sink in and take hold.”

  “Ah. That was what was behind the men sticking by their wives’ sides, and the company as a whole acting like a herd.”

  “I daresay such behavior is natural in the circumstances.” She withdrew a last pin, and the mass of her hair tumbled free. A rippling wave of black silk, it reached down her back, almost to her hips.

  His palms itched; his gaze had already fixed on the black-as-deepest-night waterfall.

  She reached for her brush. He watched as she raised it and set the bristles to that silken mane and, slowly, drew the brush down.

  Hypnotized by the unbidden, innocent sensuality of the repetitive, rhythmic movement as she continued to brush the long tresses, his gaze remained transfixed, his senses flaring, even as he wondered. Pondered.

  Control.

  How effortlessly she tried his. How she challenged it—even unintentionally, as now.

  On a flash of insight, he realized why—why she and only she had always possessed the power to deflect and distract him.

  Because he couldn’t control how he felt about her, how he reacted and responded to her, over her, about her.

  When he was with her, not only in a bedchamber but wherever they happened to be, there was no such thing as control—as his customary absolute and inviolable mastery over himself and all he did.

  When he was with her, control faded and lost its hold; when he was with her, he was driven by instinct, by reactions and feelings.

  Feelings engendered by an emotion too powerful to deny…

  He blinked back to the present, to the faint shush as she plied her brush.

  And frowned.

  In the mirror, her gaze flicked to his face, then fastened on his eyes.

  To excuse the frown, he said the first words that slid into his mind—into the space vacated as that too-powerful emotion eased its hold on his wits. “Where the devil is Ennis’s gunpowder?” His frustration had bubbled up and infused the words. He crossed his forearms on the upper edge of the chair’s back and leaned his chin on them. “More—what’s the damned stuff for? Who organized for it to be here—wherever here is? And is it still here—wherever here is—or has it already been spirited away?”

  She switched her gaze forward. Staring into the mirror as if focusing on some distant point beyond her own reflection, she continued to steadily wield her brush. “It was only two nights ago that Ennis used his last words to tell you the gunpowder was here. There’s been no evidence of any relevant activity around the house and grounds, so taking the simplest interpretation of his words, presumably the gunpowder is still here—wherever here is.”

  He grunted. Grumbled, “If they—whoever they are—learned Ennis was about to betray their plot and were in a position to kill him before he could, then surely they would also have moved the gunpowder at the same time—on that night.”

  “Only if they could. If they could arrange to move it—and could risk moving it—immediately.” She paused in her brushing, head tilted as she thought, then she resumed the slow, evocative stroking. “And only if the gunpowder was already here. Ennis might have meant the gunpowder was on its way here. If it had already been moved on, he would have told you—or at least tried to tell you—where it was going.”

  He turned all the aspects—all the disconnected elements of the situation—over in his mind. “I keep coming back to the apparently inescapable truth that, in light of Ennis’s last words, the question of whether Ennis and Cecilia were killed because of this plot or for some other reason is entirely beside the point.”

  “It’s impossible to make sense of the motive for their murders—even to be sure that they’re connected—without knowing who the murderer is.”

  “True, but why they were murdered doesn’t change the fact that we came here with a specific goal in mind—to receive Ennis’s message for Drake. We have that message, such as it is. Gunpowder. Here. That’s all we have, and given the effort Ennis made to give me those words, it’s most likely those words are, in fact, the gist of what he wanted to communicate. So we’ve done what we came here to do.” In the mirror, he met her gaze. “We could leave tomorrow—Sir Humphrey and Crawford won’t try to stop us. We could return to London and put everything we’ve learned into Drake’s hands.” He grimaced. “Assuming he’s back, but even if he isn’t, we could place our information into the hands of his masters in Whitehall.”

  Antonia set down her brush, swiveled to face him, and rapidly searched his face. After a moment, she said, “We could…but we’re not going to, are we?”

  His gaze shifted from hers. All she got was a faint grimace in reply.

  She went on as if she hadn’t noticed, feeling her way through his thoughts, “You’ve already sent word to Whitehall. Wellington’s imprimatur would have ensured the message got delivered with all speed to the right people.” She studied Sebastian’s expression, what little of his feelings she could read from it. Frustration, disgruntlement, disappointment, yes—but not defeat. Never that. She made an educated guess. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but there aren’t that many of you, are there? Gentlemen like you who occasionally work for Drake—who step in when, for whatever reason, he can’t do something.”

  His gaze returned to her face. Several seconds elapsed, then he shrugged. “As far as I know, Drake relies on only a handful of…sons of the nobility.”

  “Exactly.” Knowing Drake, she hadn’t imagined anything else; high-handed selectiveness was entirely in keeping with the Marquess of Winchelsea’s character. “And Drake left for Ireland when?”

  He had to think back. “On the sixteenth or seventeenth.”

  “So five or six days ago. And I also assume that he isn’t swanning about Ireland as the Marquess of Winchelsea.”

  “I seriously doubt it.”

  “So even if he’d been able to travel rapidly on this side of the Irish Sea, even if he’s been able to complete his business over there in just a few days—which I take it is unlikely—then he wouldn’t return to London until tomorrow, or the next day, or more likely some days after that.”

  He held her gaze levelly. “There’s nothing in your assessment with which I disagree. However—”

  “Bear with me.” She tried to see what lay behind his pale green eyes. What was driving this—a wish to take her back to London, leave her there, and then return? That, she could believe. “Your letter to Whitehall would have been received this morning. As I understand matters, it’s highly unlikely they can or will send anyone else down to look for this gunpowder. Yet gunpowder is a word that conjures up destruction. And just attempting to convey that word to Drake was e
nough to get Ennis killed. As Wellington said, having received Ennis’s message, our goal now must be to locate the gunpowder.”

  She paused, continuing to hold Sebastian’s gaze. “Ennis died to get those two words to you—to Drake. To people who would care enough to do something about it—to stop whatever destruction is planned. You can’t turn aside.” Finally, she caught the flash of something she recognized in the back of his eyes—offended pride, which he immediately buried. Sure, at last, on what ground she stood, she let her lips curve, just slightly. “And you’re not going to convince me that you ever would. And I’m not about to sit meekly and let you wrap me in cotton batting and tuck me away somewhere safe while you continue to search for the damned gunpowder.”

  He sat up and uncrossed his arms.

  Before he could growl a word, she rose and caught one of his hands. “I’m now a part of this, too—you involved me, and so did Drake. You can hardly complain over the outcome. Now”—she tugged on his hand; she didn’t want him dwelling on that for too long—“stop being such a grump. We still have the northern half of the estate to search tomorrow. And yes, I will be searching it with you.”

  He looked disgusted, but at her insistent tugging, got to his feet. “It was worth a try.”

  She threw him a look—disapproving but resigned—as she drew him around, then, backing toward the bed, she allowed thoughts of a completely different nature to infuse her gaze. “We can’t do anything more until tomorrow.”

  The atmosphere between them changed in just a heartbeat to one of leaping senses and tightening nerves. She smiled, confidence and self-assurance rising. “Come to bed.” Her voice had grown sultry. “I guarantee you’ll see matters in a more positive light come morning.”

  His gaze remained locked with hers. His brows slowly rose.

  And he allowed her to tow him toward the bed.

  Mentally, Sebastian threw up his hands—surrendering, even if he wasn’t entirely sure to what.