An Invitation To Murder

by Leighann Dobbs

  Northbrook leaned closer, holding his hand between them. “Miss Young, I heartily assure you that it was. I’ve put it with the rest of my collection. A violet-banded elephant moth? I’ve only seen one once, and was rendered too sluggish with awe to capture it.”

  Katherine sank her teeth into her lower lip to stifle a groan. He liked the moth, and if Katherine had only left Annie’s note with the jar, then Annie would be the one Northbrook was thanking!

  For pity’s sake, do the right thing, Miss Young. Northbrook thought he sat with a fellow insect enthusiast, someone who understood his passions.

  Instead, he sat with a grasping girl who cared more for his wealth and title than she did his feelings. Miss Young ducked her head in false modesty and mumbled something too low for Katherine to hear.

  Northbrook slipped his finger under her chin and raised it. “It was not all too brazen, Miss Young. I’m very glad you made the effort, and I hope to learn much more about you during your stay at my estate.”

  “That little—”

  Emma lunged, yanking the leash from Katherine’s hand. She ran, barking happily, down the gravel walkway. Katherine swore under her breath as she chased after her pet. Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t dare call Emma’s name aloud. Doing so would alert all and sundry of her presence in the garden, where she ought not to have been eavesdropping.

  As she turned a corner, she found Emma sitting up, shamelessly begging for attention from a crouched figure in front of her. As the figure unfolded, Katherine’s breath caught.

  Wayland offered her a lazy smile. “Did you lose something?”

  What was he doing in the garden at this hour? Her answering smile was as wan as the slip of moonlight. “She got away from me.” Katherine accepted the leash from him. Without thinking, she blurted, “I thought everyone had retired for the evening.”

  “As did I.” His deep voice, laced with amusement, surrounded her like the shadows.

  Katherine amended, “Aside from couples sneaking off for a moment’s privacy, that is. If you have your heart set on Miss Young, I’m afraid I’ll have to dash your hopes.”

  “You met her during your wandering, did you?”

  “With Lord Northbrook.”

  Wayland clucked his tongue. “Lady Katherine, you’ve been remiss. If Miss Young has her hooks so deep in Northbrook, what hope do you have for poor Miss Pickering?”

  Katherine made a face. “You know why I’m at this party in truth, and it isn’t to orchestrate a match.” Though, knowing now what she did about the commonalities between Northbrook and Annie, it seemed a shame to let the opportunity for true happiness pass.

  When Emma danced at his feet, Wayland crouched once more to pat her. He seemed to genuinely like the dog, and she him. For a second, Katherine felt her heart thawing toward the man. “Yes, and how are you progressing with your true purpose?”

  “I’ve refused to share my knowledge more than once. What makes you think I’ve changed my mind?”

  “My charming personality?”

  Katherine crossed her arms.

  “I’ll take that to mean no.”

  She tugged on the leash, but Emma seemed reluctant to part from Wayland. Exasperated, Katherine knelt to retrieve her dog. Her hand brushed Wayland’s a moment before she tucked the pug into her side. She rubbed her hand on her skirt to quell the unwanted warm tingle that had started. “You still haven’t told me why you’re out walking in the gardens so late.”

  He smirked. “Perhaps I hope to meet with a lover, too.”

  Katherine stood. “By all means, don’t let me keep you.”

  When she started to turn, he straightened and caught her wrist. The moment he had her attention, he released her. “I have difficulty falling asleep,” he said, his voice low. “The night air clears my head. It’s peaceful.”

  She didn’t know what to make of his answer. Was he telling the truth, or was he out hunting down a clue he hadn’t revealed to her? Perhaps the Pink-Ribbon Killer didn’t attend this party at all, and Wayland hoped to use the man as a cover to quench appetites roused by the war.

  You’re being fanciful. You’re chasing ghosts.

  She stepped away, Emma in hand. “Good night, Captain Wayland.”

  As she strolled away, she thought she heard him murmur, “Sweet dreams, Lady Katherine.”

  Chapter Ten

  Katherine woke to a cold, wet nose thrust upon her eyelid. The moment she started, Emma thoroughly licked her cheek. There was no hope of falling asleep after that.

  Holding her dog at arm’s length, Katherine sighed and stared up at the ceiling. A thin, gray light seeped from the window, indicating that morning had arrived far too soon. “I miss Harriet.” She would have been able to sleep in a moment longer had her maid been in residence.

  With a sigh, Katherine slipped out of bed and set about dressing for the morning. Lacing her stays behind her back proved even more difficult than unlacing them had been the night before.

  After much swearing, with her hair hastily pinned to her head to keep it out of her face, Katherine found herself presentable enough for an early-morning walk for Emma to do her business in the garden. With luck, the guests would remain abed, where Katherine intended to return the moment Emma was sated.

  She was not prepared to encounter Mrs. Fairchild quite this early in the day. The matchmaker cornered her as she and Emma concluded their tour of the tree line and returned to the manor.

  Mrs. Fairchild, clad in a pristine brown sheath that made her resemble a log, with its high neckline and the severe knot of her auburn hair at her nape, must have noticed Katherine during a tour of the garden. As Katherine stepped past the entrance to the nearest gravel walkway, with Emma in the lead, the older woman planted herself in their path. She wore a dark expression.

  “Lady Katherine, a moment of your time?” She bit off the words as though they were poison.

  Although Katherine would rather eat her fist than spend time with the vicious other woman, she shortened Emma’s leash and inclined her head. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Fairchild?”

  The woman drew herself up to her full measure, though she couldn’t hope to compete with Katherine’s height. Distaste curled her upper lip. “To start, you can desist from threatening my client.”

  After stumbling upon Miss Young with Lord Northbrook last night, Katherine had hoped that the incident in the family quarters had been forgotten.

  “I did not mean to threaten—”

  Mrs. Fairchild stepped closer. “Then perhaps you should leave for your safety.”

  Katherine pinched the bridge of her nose. “There is a murderer—”

  The distasteful woman refused to hear her explanation. “Enough. I’ve heard enough of your fanciful ideas.”

  Katherine bristled. “Your refusal to see the truth will lead to the death of your client. Are you aware that she sneaks about under your nose?”

  Mrs. Fairchild’s mouth gaped in affront. Her face reddened. “Do not disparage my client. She is angelic, which is more than I can say for that clumsy excuse of a lady with whom you hope to match the Earl of Northbrook.”

  Raising her eyebrows, Katherine answered softly, “It seems she didn’t tell you the location where I allegedly threatened her. It was upstairs, in the Northbrook family quarters. And last night, after you retired to bed—”

  Her mouth twisting in a sneer, the matchmaker stepped back. “Shut your lying mouth. If a whisper of these unfounded accusations reaches the gossips here, I will spread such injurious rumors about you and Miss Pickering that neither of you will ever be accepted into polite society again.” Her eyes snapped, daring Katherine to say one word in contradiction.

  “You’ve made your point,” she bit off. Even though she would have dearly loved to put the matron in her place, Katherine feared for the potential damage to Annie’s reputation. As it was, the shy young woman stood on the fringes of society. As Mrs. Pickering had mentioned, it was Annie’s last chance t
o secure a match.

  Mrs. Fairchild, unperturbed by Katherine’s glare, smiled smugly. “Then perhaps I’ll make one more point before we part ways. If you approach my client again, I will ruin you.”

  Oh, what Katherine wouldn’t give to deliver a comeuppance to the woman. She held herself rigidly, breathing shallowly as Mrs. Fairchild stormed away. You are above her, Katherine reminded herself. And you have more important work to consider.

  Even if Mrs. Fairchild refused to consider that her client was in danger, Katherine had tasked herself with finding the Pink-Ribbon Killer. If Miss Young was so desperate to put herself in harm’s way, Katherine didn’t have a moment to lose.

  At her feet, Emma whined. Katherine smiled down at her. “You must be hungry, are you, darling? Let’s find you something to eat in the kitchen.”

  At the word hungry, the pug perked up. Her tail curled high above her behind as she trotted next to Katherine.

  Although Katherine hadn’t yet visited the kitchens, they weren’t hard to find. A small, neat herb garden rested in a patch of dirt near a door. When Katherine lifted the latch, she found the door unlocked and pushed it open to reveal a wide kitchen equipped with an oven, a pantry, a long table for preparing food, and a closed door, which presumably led to a cellar. The door to the corridor was open, and maids fluttered in and out as they fetched tea services and morning biscuits.

  After Katherine begged a bowl of chopped meat and a dish of water for Emma’s breakfast, she kneeled out of the way behind one of the tables in order for her dog to consume her meal. Two maids entered the room, deep in conversation.

  “No,” said the first. “I refuse. I will not take him his morning tea. Not after that. He revealed himself to me!”

  Katherine paused. She adjusted her position, still crouching next to Emma while she wolfed down her meal. Who was the subject of the maids’ tittering? She cocked her head to listen better.

  The second woman, a bit older, judging by the deep quality of her laugh, said, “He’s a duke. They’ll do that.”

  “It’s repulsive. Bad enough he pinches any woman’s bottom who stands near enough. I understand why those rich ninnies refuse to marry him.”

  The older woman sighed. “If I weren’t married, I’d join him in bed.”

  “Please. He’s old enough to be your father.”

  “Maybe so, but I hear he’s so desperate for a male heir that he’ll marry anyone he gets with child. Anyone.”

  The two women paused at the far end of the table, lingering over the items they were sent to fetch.

  “Anyone?” She paused. “Don’t be absurd. Dukes only marry maidservants in fairy tales.”

  “This duke has one foot in the grave and fears dying without an heir. Trust me, it might be worthwhile for you to go collect his dishes.”

  The first woman scoffed. “If he’s so desperate, why haven’t any of those rich misses encouraged his suit? Half the women here are on the brink of ruin.” She drew out the word, liberally laced with sarcasm. “Heaven forbid they might have to lift a hand to tend to their own well-being. Except for… what was her name, Miss Smythe? Not a penny to her name, and yet she bagged herself a future marquess, though isn’t a duke a better catch?”

  Once again, Katherine had to wonder if Lord Somerset had taken personal offense to being turned down, and whether it would make him angry enough to kill. Miss Rosehill had been in the same financial predicament as Miss Smythe, presumably as desperate to marry well.

  The older woman laughed. “A duke is a good catch for anyone here. All those empty-headed debutantes throwing themselves at Lord Mowbry and our lord ought to take a long moment to think of their future. Lord Somerset will be dead soon enough, and who would turn their nose up at a duchy? Certainly not me.”

  The pair collected their trays and moved toward the corridor. Katherine waddled forward along the length of the table to keep from drifting out of earshot of the conversation. Although three other servants remained in the kitchen, they seemed too preoccupied with their tasks to notice Katherine’s odd behavior.

  “If you ask me, I think he ought to ask Miss Pickering. She always has a smile and a word of thanks anytime I fetch her something or tidy up. She deserves a duke.”

  Katherine’s chest warmed. She didn’t think she’d ever heard so great a compliment from anyone.

  The older woman scoffed, her voice fading as the pair traversed the hall. “Her? Lawks, if I find one more insect in her room…”

  Katherine hesitated as they moved too far away to decipher their words, their voices muffled. If not for Emma, she might have followed. Although their conversation about Lord Somerset seemed to have concluded, thoughts of him jittered through her head, displacing Lord Mowbry as her primary suspect. Mowbry might have had motive to kill one young woman, but Somerset seemed to have enough motive to strangle them both. Judging by his enormous ego, he was just the type to take retribution if they had slighted him.

  According to what she’d heard, he had taken a fancy to both women. Then again, he took a fancy to most women. Rumor had it that Mowbry had asked for Miss Smythe’s hand. Maybe she had been stringing Somerset along prior to that and dumped him once Mowbry made his intentions known. Maybe her rejection pushed him over the edge.

  But that didn’t account for Miss Rosehill, unless he had still been bitter over the rejection from Miss Smythe and Miss Rosehill’s rejection pushed him to kill again. But Father always said that it was much easier to kill the second time.

  Chapter Eleven

  How could Katherine possibly hope to test her theories? The evidence from the previous murders was long gone. Not only were they in different locations, each cleaned prior to the investigators arriving, but the bodies had been buried. She had nothing upon which to base her assumptions except the secondhand recollections she gleaned from others. She needed more.

  Maybe Papa was right, and she would be unable to solve this case without another murder. She wanted her independence badly, but it wasn’t worth an innocent woman’s life. The advice Phil had given her at the society meeting ran through her head. Find some evidence, and use it to force a confession.

  She refused to give up. Her twenty-fifth birthday was only six short days away. She didn’t have time to start anew. This mystery had to be the one she solved. Katherine had been called many things in her life, including stubborn, which was her crowning jewel. Simply put, failure was not an option.

  Throughout the morning, as the other guests broke their fasts, mingled in the parlor, and took a collective tour of the grounds, she relegated herself to a position of observation, paying attention to who acted suspiciously and who could have motive.

  Why is Annie lagging behind everyone else? Oh dear. Katherine couldn’t see her young charge’s eyes, due to the unruly fall of hair behind which the young woman hid, but from her high color and slumped shoulders, she suspected Annie was close to tears. After searching the body language of the dozen or so guests gathered nearby to ensure that no one had noticed Annie’s distress, Katherine meandered over to her.

  Annie sniffled and turned her head away at Katherine’s approach. Katherine laid a hand on the shorter woman’s shoulder. “You seem out of sorts this morning. Is there a reason?”

  The young woman brushed the back of her hand under her cheeks and gestured to the front of the group. Lord Northbrook strolled in the lead, with Miss Young on his arm and her matchmaker preening mere steps behind them.

  “I know it was wrong of me to hope, but—”

  Blast that grasping, petty debutante! She was stealing Annie’s happiness. Not to mention that the smug set of Fairchild’s shoulders as she waddled along, protecting her perfectly made match, really irritated Katherine. Katherine didn’t want the coup of making the match with Northbrook, but she didn’t want Fairchild to get it, either.

  Had they been closer to the front of the group, Katherine would have been tempted to expose Miss Young for the fraud she was.

  Instead, s
he tightened her hold on Annie’s shoulder. “You have every right to hope. In fact, you shouldn’t give up now. Lord Northbrook is not yet engaged. He is escorting her in the middle of a throng of people, and that is hardly cause for celebration.” Katherine omitted the private moment she’d witnessed between the two the night before. It had been born of a lie. In her opinion, it didn’t count. Reaching for the young woman’s hand, she added, “Don’t despair. The game is not over.”

  Annie’s attention strayed to the woman on Lord Northbrook’s arm. “But she’s beautiful.”

  “So are you.”

  The vehemence in Katherine’s voice surprised her as much as it did her charge. However, given the way the young woman lifted her head with widened eyes, it was precisely what she needed to hear. The unshed tears in her eyes made them appear all the greener. “You think?”

  “I do.”

  Annie lifted her shoulders, standing a bit straighter. She brushed a hank of her hair out of her face.

  Katherine added, “Do you recall when I asked you to wait until the earl knew you better before you introduced him to your knowledge of insects?”

  “Yes.” She narrowed her eyes and drew the word out slowly.

  “I think he knows you well enough by now, don’t you?”

  Joy seemed to pour from Annie’s every pore at the thought of speaking about insects. How she could be so enthusiastic over the notion, Katherine didn’t know, but so long as she didn’t have to hold one of the repulsive creatures in her hand again, she wouldn’t complain. Her chest warmed to see her charge so happy again. She vowed that, one way or another, she would expose Annie’s passion and denounce Miss Young’s deceit.

  As the gathering paused on the edge of the garden, several women suggested returning indoors to escape the unseasonable nip in the air. The cloud-dappled sky shielded the warm sun, and in the shade, Katherine pulled her shawl tighter around her.

  When it looked as though Northbrook would capitulate to the ladies’ wishes, she spoke up. “My lord, is there nowhere else to explore outside? It seems a shame to waste a day without rain by spending the time indoors.”