Being a widow had unexpected aspects, to say the least, but the very informality of the moment gave Abby a sense of being esteemed and accepted—admitted to a secret society on the far side of strict decorum, a more sensible place, and less lonely.
“Say on, Professor,” Nick murmured. “Did Sir Dewey confess to murder most foul, and can he account for himself the night of the murder?”
“I don’t know,” Axel said. “His staff would lie for him, so I saw no point asking and enflaming his curiosity. Doubtless he’d say he was tucked up in his library, working at his ledgers as any nabob ought to be.”
Nothing in Sir Dewey’s interview came as any surprise to Abby, but she was disappointed nonetheless. She’d wanted him to have a solid alibi—darts at the Weasel, a short trip down to London, anything to put him beyond suspicion.
But then, she wanted everybody to be beyond suspicion and the murder to never have happened—though regaining the status of Gregory Stoneleigh’s wife in exchange for that of his widow also held no appeal.
No appeal at all.
Wasn’t this just lovely?
Nick had left Sussex intent on escaping the miasma of marital bliss afflicting his friends there, and now, in the household of the most confirmed bachelor Nick knew, in the dead of winter, romance was blossoming.
Coming in from the stable, Nick had had a stray dog’s view through the library window of Axel Belmont and Abby Stoneleigh kissing. The sheer wonder of their intimacies, the savoring and tenderness, had nearly turned Nick around for another slog to the Weasel.
Except he’d been to the Weasel and had news to report.
“You’ll talk to Sir Dewey again?” Nick asked.
“Very likely, and Shreve and Ambers and Mrs. Jensen, at least.”
Axel clearly didn’t want to. He wanted this investigation to be over—death by accident, as the preliminary reports had stated—but the woman sitting next to the professor would not have peace until Axel brought some fool to justice.
“I asked a few questions at the Weasel,” Nick said, as if nosing about the local watering hole had been his avowed purpose for riding two miles in bitter weather.
“You had a few pints too,” Axel replied. “And flirted with Polly Nairn.”
Polly, in truth, had made a good attempt to flirt with Nick. He’d barely been able to muster a wiggle of the eyebrows for the poor woman, though he’d left plenty of extra coin for her efforts.
“I had one pint. The publican’s winter ale is not the Weasel’s finest recommendation. You will be pleased to know that all the shire is relieved to have Mrs. Stoneleigh taken in hand by a responsible household.”
“This again,” Abby muttered, twitching at her shawl. “I am not some waif shivering in a church doorway.”
That would be a charitable assessment, compared to what Nick had heard. He exchanged a look with Axel, whose expression across the hassock was, Get on with it.
“You are high-strung, my dear,” Nick said. “Easily overset. Everybody knows this. You are delicate. The colonel had his hands full with you, which is why he never took you calling. The death of your grandfather and your parents in quick succession dealt a blow to your nerves from which you never recovered, hence your reclusive nature. Mrs. Turnbull and her minions are tasked with hauling you back from the brink of a complete breakdown.”
The twitching stopped. “I’m a witless wonder, while I ran that estate, even when my husband was larking around the grouse moors for weeks at a time? When he’d disappear to London, to do God knew what with God knew whom? I can’t tell you how often he claimed to be in London, though if I sent him a note care of Mr. Brandenburg, even my most urgent queries often went unheeded.”
“You needed solitude,” Nick went on, for Polly had been very sure of this point, “and the colonel needed respite from the demands of your company. The Stoneleigh staff was simply too loyal to admit the burden your care placed on them.”
Abby rose and set her drink on the end table. “Stoneleigh Manor has a full complement of servants, and yet I had no lady’s maid. What hysterical wreck manages without her lady’s maid? I had no nurse, I had no companion, I never drank to excess, never raised my voice. Why would people be so cruel?”
“Not cruel,” Axel said, staring at his slippers. “Misguided. I don’t get the sense anybody bears you ill will, Abigail. They are repeating a fancy woven long ago, embellished with convenient facts.”
She stood before the fire, a pillar of outraged consternation. “What facts? I ran my husband’s property. I kept ledgers, I tried to compensate for the worst of his follies without antagonizing him. I dealt with squabbling servants, directed the steward regarding eight tenant farms. I gave up my reading, I stopped sketching, I stopped playing the piano—”
“You became eccentric,” Nick offered, at least by the standard of country folk who expected the gentry to be… genteel.
“I became the wife Gregory Stoneleigh wanted,” Abby said. “He saved me from the poorhouse or worse, and I was determined to be a good wife to him.”
One could not be a good wife to a selfish idiot, though Nick hardly knew how to convey that sentiment respectfully.
“Sometimes,” Axel said, “when somebody has a shortcoming—an inability to express fine sentiments or appreciate art, for example—rather than admit that shortcoming, they attribute it to those around them. My nephew Christopher vociferously castigates his brother for being late, when in fact, Remington is generally punctual, but Christopher, the elder brother, loses track of time.”
In his example, the professor had apparently offered Abby a measure of comfort.
“My father was always losing his spectacles,” Abby said. “If my mother misplaced her reticule once every two years, she never heard the end of it from Papa. Gregory wasn’t eccentric, exactly.”
Nick could help with this, for the professor had seized on a telling point. “Stoneleigh had no friends, save Sir Dewey,” Nick observed. “He had odd tempers. He traveled frequently, though we’re not sure why and haven’t even confirmed his destinations. He never took you along, his finances are a mystery, he was not close to his children, and he supposedly ran an international import business, but couldn’t be bothered with his own acres. He was difficult, demanding, and eccentric.”
That Abby had to be convinced was sad, also a tribute to how determined she’d been to be Stoneleigh’s “good wife.”
“I’ve seen your quarters, Abigail,” Axel said, his tone ominously gentle. “You have no cheval mirror, only a small hand mirror in your bedroom. Gregory had two cheval mirrors, one in his bedroom, one in his dressing closet. He was never less than perfectly turned out, while I’d guess you haven’t had a new gown in two years.”
Abby’s expression said the new gown had likely been five years ago. “Gregory said an excessive interest in one’s own appearance led to vanity.”
“Gregory always went about in fashionable attire, and apparently visited London tailors from time to time,” Axel pointed out. “Gregory had a valet, you had no lady’s maid. How were you to manage?”
“I rang for a maid to deal with my laces when I wasn’t wearing jumps,” Abby said. “I wasn’t raised with a lady’s maid, so I thought little of it. Gregory said small economies were the basis of greater luxuries, and I do like my privacy.”
Gregory had said a bloody damned lot to his young, grieving bride. Somewhere in the midst of his dictates, Abby had misplaced the distinction between isolation and privacy.
“You are not eccentric, Abigail,” Axel said. “But the more I learn of your late husband, the more I believe he was hiding something from all and sundry, including you.”
A conclusion Nick could drink to—so he did.
“I’m investigating two murders,” Axel said to Nick.
Another day had been spent in a freezing saddle, haring about the shire. Another day when Axel had been warmed by the thought of Abigail Stoneleigh reading by the hour in his glass house, in his library
, in her sitting room.
He ought to move his collection of erotica to the estate office, but Abby would notice an abruptly empty shelf or two in the library. She was a bookseller’s daughter to her very bones, much to his surprise and delight.
“My bachelorhood is about to be murdered,” Nick said, lighting the branch of candles on the piano. “Get out your fiddle, Professor. My manners have grown ragged lately, and my spirit needs soothing.”
What Nick needed was an hour sampling the tender charms of Polly Nairn. Axel suspected half the reason his nephews frequented Candlewick was to ogle Polly’s bosom and practice their fledgling flirtation skills.
“Nicholas, you cannot be made to marry. Stop sulking and resign yourself to courting, or tell your papa you aren’t ready to take a bride.”
Though Nick was ready. The man was so lonely he’d intrude on any friend, brave any weather, to avoid the bridal search awaiting him in London.
Men could be such fools when it came to matters of the heart.
“Where do you keep your fiddle?” Nick asked, raising the cover over the piano keys. “One never sees you practice, and yet, your skill remains sharp.”
Like kissing apparently, some of the knack remained after the opportunity to flourish one’s expertise had passed.
“If Mrs. Stoneleigh is resting, your pounding and my scraping will disturb her.”
Nick sat at the piano while Axel poured two brandies. The consumption of spirits in his household had increased considerably, but then, so had the availability of interesting company.
“I do not pound, you do not scrape,” Nick said, leafing through a bound volume of Beethoven. “What are your intentions regarding the fair Abigail?”
The role of knight protector suited Nick, much as Axel resented the question. Like the good academic Axel aspired to be, he considered the query as dispassionately as one sip of brandy allowed.
“I intend to keep Abigail safe, and to aid her to regain health that was apparently slipping from her grasp.” Axel also intended to kiss her again—another surprise.
“Abby reminds me of a barn cat,” Nick said. “One promoted to pantry mouser in the depths of winter. All this ease and comfort appeal strongly, as does the warmth of the hearth, though she’s bewildered by it too, and cautious.”
Well, yes. Abigail’s kisses savored of bewilderment, also of wonder.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” said the lady herself, standing in the library’s doorway. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
Nick rose and bowed. “My dear, you could not possibly intrude, because you are ever present in my thoughts. Axel has news to report from his day’s labors, but after dinner, we must inspire him to find his violin. He will rise in your esteem beyond all bearing when you hear him play.”
Abby wrinkled her nose. “I esteem Mr. Belmont quite highly enough for his hospitality, his botanical accomplishments, his tireless efforts to find justice for my late spouse, and his unwillingness to bother a new widow with clumsy flirtation.”
Axel wanted to stick his tongue out at Nick, but settled for pouring a third brandy.
“Nick plays the piano well.” Not as well as he flirted, damn the luck.
Abby stared at her brandy. “As a young lady, I played the piano well. My grandfather insisted that everybody should be competent on a musical instrument. He said we couldn’t read all the time, or we’d ruin our eyes.”
“About your grandfather.”
Abby, rather than take the corner of the sofa Axel had mentally consigned to her keeping, took the place beside Nick on the piano bench.
“Grandpapa Pennington was a dear,” she said. “He understood people, as a good shopkeeper must. He knew what his customers would enjoy and delighted in providing it. I can’t tell you the number of times he lent a book to some elderly patron, asking her to read it for him so he’d know to whom to recommend it. He said he hadn’t the time to read, though that was a lie, for he read every night. He was engaged in shameless kindness.”
“Books are not intended to sit about on dusty shelves,” Axel said, opening the sideboard and extracting his violin case. Young wives with endless imagination and aching hearts were not intended to molder away on remote country estates either.
He set the case on the sideboard and opened it.
“Won’t you play for us?” Nick asked.
“Not now. The instrument will only go constantly out of tune until it’s physically warm. After supper, perhaps I’ll run through an air or two, but for now, I have something to give Abigail—from her grandfather, as it turns out.”
Axel left his violin breathing like wine on the sideboard and extracted a bound volume from the top right desk drawer.
“Cassius Pettiflower sends his warm regards,” Axel said. “When your family died, and the shops were sold, the staff came across this volume and asked him to give it to you. Pettiflower kept it, hoping to pass it to you in person. I suspect he held on to it for sentimental reasons.”
Abby took the volume cautiously, as if it had thorns or teeth to bite her. “What is it?”
“Your grandfather’s journal.” Axel wished he’d waited, wished he’d done something to prepare Abby for this moment. One didn’t simply tuck an instrument under one’s chin and start sawing away, after all.
She opened the book and did exactly what Axel so often did in his glass house, she sniffed.
“Sandalwood.” She ran a finger down the page, though the writing was fading. “Grandpapa said the scent made him feel dashing.”
She blinked and sniffed again, though not at the pages. Nick passed her a monogrammed handkerchief—white silk, based on how it caught the firelight.
“What did Pettiflower have to say, Professor?” Nick asked, as Abby dabbed at her eyes and clutched the journal to her heart.
Axel glowered at Nick, for what was the urgency about a few rude questions between strangers, when Abigail was in tears?
“Tell us,” Abby said, taking up her corner of the sofa. “Cass would never dissemble before the king’s man.”
Nick took the place at Abby’s side, which was just as well. Axel felt a towering need to hold the woman’s hand, put an arm around her, or perhaps smash his brandy glass—another specimen from his treasured Jacobite collection.
He took the wing chair instead.
“Pettiflower corroborated the vicar’s rendition of events.” How Axel wished that was all he had to report. “Pettiflower wrote to Abby, and his letters came back unopened. He sent flowers, those unacknowledged. He had to apply to his vicar to find Stoneleigh’s home parish and could thus write to Weekes.”
“I don’t under—” Abby set her grandfather’s journal on the end table. “I don’t understand why. Why would a good friend have been kept away from me when I’d lost both parents and my grandfather in a succession of weeks?”
Nick crossed his arms, muscles flexing. By firelight, the genial, blond viscount looked fleetingly capable of murder himself.
“What else did you learn, Professor?” Nick asked.
“Pettiflower had spoken with Abigail’s father, who’d given tentative approval of a match. Anthony Pennington asked that Pettiflower not propose for another six months, because Abby’s papa didn’t want Abby to feel as if she’d snapped up the first offer to come her way. She was not yet twenty, and she was an heiress.”
Nick rose. “Well, of course. Greed will out. What sort of heiress?”
The truth Axel had to convey was all thorns, no fragrance, no lovely bloom—also not entirely a surprise.
“Abby’s father had looked into the Pettiflower finances, and Pettiflower, being of a mercantile bent, did likewise with his prospective in-laws. Pettiflower was willing to support Abby’s parents in their old age, but what he found astounded him.”
“I’m astounded,” Abby said, her grip on the journal fierce.
Hours later, Axel was still, more furious than anything else. He sat forward, gently pried the journal from her grasp, and pa
ssed her his drink.
“Pettiflower’s mother is one of thirteen,” Axel said. “His father one of eight. He has relatives keeping shops all over Oxford, with their fingers in many different enterprises. His information is better than Bow Street and a team of solicitors could gather with unlimited time and funds. Your parents were well beyond comfortable, your grandfather was wealthy.”
“You were an heiress twice over,” Nick said, stalking back to the piano bench. “I could toss this piano through the window I’m so angry on your behalf, Abby. If Stoneleigh weren’t already dead—”
Precisely. “Here is a motive for murder, or the beginnings of one,” Axel said. “Stoneleigh committed a great theft, a swindle, at least, and if Pettiflower knew of that, he had a motive to take Stoneleigh’s life.”
“Because the colonel took my future, my fortune, my books,” Abby said.
Murdered them, more like. Murdered Abby’s innocence, the crime an ongoing violation of decency that cried out for an explanation—and for justice.
“Does Pettiflower have an alibi?” Nick asked, closing the lid over the piano keys.
“The night of the colonel’s demise, Pettiflower was with family, having dinner, guests at the table.” Then too, Pettiflower had had years to avenge his intended’s fate, but he’d instead written a single letter, minded his shop, and gone on with life.
As a gentleman ought when a lady has categorically dismissed him from the suitor’s lists.
Pettiflower’s alibi had been the company of his own family—his prospective wife, her parents, his parents. All of them enjoying a meal that by rights Abby might have planned with him, had Stoneleigh not worked his evil.
“I am angry,” Abby said. “I am furious, enraged. If I had learned what you’ve just told me—”
“Which is why Stoneleigh kept you locked in your tower, surrounded by false rumors of delicate nerves, and no less than eight tenant farms to keep you occupied,” Axel said. “If you had intimated that family wealth had gone missing, then your questions would have been dismissed as fanciful imaginings. This answers at least one question.”
It Happened One Night: Six Scandalous Novels Page 15