“I do not know. What possible motive would he have? He seems to have no ties to Lucy, no reason to bear a grudge against Snow. He may have the temperament to do murder, even a murder of this variety, but whether he did or not, I cannot say. There is simply no motive, though God knows I have looked for one.”
I shook my head. “I wonder at you. How can you be so determined to lay this crime at the feet of a young man who has given you no cause to think ill of him, save one impulsive moment that was completely provoked?”
“And I wonder you cannot see it for yourself,” he said softly.
I paused. Surely Brisbane could not wish Alessandro to be guilty simply because of his affection for me. That would demonstrate a possessiveness, an attachment to me on Brisbane’s behalf that I could scarcely credit. It was astonishing. I felt my breath catch in my throat. My lips trembled as I parted them.
“Brisbane,” I murmured.
“It is quite simple,” he said, smiling slowly, triumphantly. “If Alessandro is the murderer, then no member of your family is implicated, Lucy will go free, and I can return to London and put this case behind me.”
If there had been a vase at hand I would have thrown it at his head. Instead I summoned a smile of my own. “How succinctly you put it. If you will excuse me now, it is time for tea, and I have things to attend to.”
I took my leave, remembering only when I reached the gallery I had forgotten to tell him about Henry Ludlow. I shrugged and dismissed the thought. Brisbane was stalking his own game. I would give chase myself and see what the hunt turned up.
I hurried down to tea, nearly colliding with Portia on the staircase.
“Heavens, Julia, have a care. You nearly upset Puggy,” she chided. She was carrying her loathsome pet in her arms. He snuffled wetly at me and I curled a lip at him in return.
“It would be no very great crime to upset Puggy,” I remarked peevishly.
Portia gave me a dark look. “Do not think of joking with me. I have had a vile afternoon, and my head is throbbing again.”
“I am sorry, dearest. What is the trouble?”
She adjusted Puggy in her arms and we started slowly down the stairs. “Another one of the cats has delivered a litter, this one in the fireplace in the dining room, so we cannot light the fire.”
“Which cat?”
“Peter Simple.”
I paused on the stairs. “A moment, Portia. You mean to say both of Father’s toms have thrown litters this week?”
Her lips thinned in annoyance. “I do. And in the most inconvenient places. None of us has had clean linen on our beds because Christopher Sly scratches anyone who comes near her babies, and now we shall have to dress like Esquimaux at dinner or risk slowly freezing to death over the pheasant.”
“Oooh, I do love a nice pheasant. Normandy sauce, I hope?”
“Puggy, darling, do try not to drool on Mama. What? Yes, of course Normandy sauce. You know it is Father’s favourite. But when I ordered the pheasant for dinner, Cook nearly had an apoplexy and I had to spend almost an hour soothing her.”
“I thought Cook prided herself on her pheasant,” I put in. I was trying to pay attention for Portia’s sake, but the domestic dramas were all a bit tedious to me. Aquinas had ordered my household in London, and since the fire I had been without a home of my own. I felt a little adrift without a proper home. If nothing else, it would be lovely to have a place to keep Aquinas. I had never enjoyed the home-keeping aspects of marriage, but now I was on my own, I thought I might rather like to set up a little household. Whatever mess I made of it, Aquinas would soon sort out.
Portia, on the other hand, was alarmingly competent at that sort of thing. She had organised her husband’s household in a matter of days, overthrowing a century’s worth of poor management and turning the country house into something of a showplace. Her house in London was equally fabulous, and she was renowned for her elegant dinners.
“She does an excellent pheasant,” Portia said patiently, “but she did not want to cook these birds because they were in the game larder when Lucian Snow was brought in.”
My stomach lurched a little. “Oh, dear.”
“Indeed. They were cleared out quickly enough, and it isn’t as though they touched him, but she still kicked up a tremendous fuss. And then of course she was quite bitter about the laudanum.”
We had reached the bottom of the stairs and I knew I had but a moment to extract the rest of the story from Portia. I laid a hand on her arm.
“What laudanum?”
Puggy leaned over and sniffed at my hand, then gave a great sneeze. “Julia, honestly. You haven’t been into any lavender, have you? Puggy suffers so from lavender.”
I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and wiped at the moistness on my hand, feeling slightly queasy. “No. Now tell me, what laudanum?”
“Cook keeps a bottle in the water closet belowstairs, for medicinal purposes,” she said, raising a brow significantly.
“That is ludicrous. Why, any one of the scullery maids or bootboys could have at it. What possible reason could she have for keeping laudanum so near at hand?”
Portia raised the brow even higher and said nothing.
“Oh. You mean she doses herself, and quite often I imagine if she must needs keep it so close.”
“Precisely. She claims it helps the rheumatism in her knees, and who am I to contradict her? She said there was but a drop left in the bottle. But the fact remains it is gone, and it took me another quarter of an hour to settle her feathers about that.” I thought feverishly. A drop would never have been sufficient to account for the poisoning of the brandy bottle. But it might be just enough to put a small dog entirely unconscious.
I patted Portia’s arm. “Poor dear. No wonder you have a headache. Have you had something for it?”
“I would have done, but the laudanum is missing,” she replied sourly.
As we started toward the drawing room, my mind was working rapidly. The water closet belowstairs was actually located in a back passage, quite removed from the kitchens and sculleries of the Abbey, and readily accessible from the back stairs. It would have been an easy matter for anyone to have slipped down that way and helped themselves.
Just as we reached the door of the drawing room, I glanced at Puggy and noticed an embellishment.
“Portia, is Puggy wearing a ruff of black crêpe?”
She paused and looked down at Puggy, then up at me, her eyes wide. “Yes. I thought it proper in light of the events of late.”
“You put mourning on a dog.”
“The fact that Mr. Pugglesworth is a dog is no reason for him to fail to pay his respects, Julia. I saw Morag leading that creature of yours out earlier in an orange taffeta coat. Most inappropriate.”
She gave me a severe look and left me standing in the corridor, mouth agape. Just then Henry Ludlow appeared, hurrying a little.
“Ah, Lady Julia. If you are still lingering in the corridor, I must not be as late as I feared,” he said, favouring me with a smile.
“Mr. Ludlow, do you think it peculiar to dress a dog in mourning?”
He considered the matter, or at least gave the appearance of considering it. “I do not,” he said finally. “The dog would not choose to dress itself in mourning, so we must look to the motives of its master or mistress. And it exhibits a very fine feeling of respect to the deceased.”
I smiled at him, suddenly terribly glad that he could not be our murderer. “Well spoken, Mr. Ludlow. But we must not dally here. I have it on very good authority that Cook has sent up violet faery cakes for tea today, and I for one should be very sorry to miss them.”
With a gallant inclination of his head, he offered me his arm and we proceeded into the drawing room. The tea things and most of the company had already been assembled. Brisbane remained absent, no doubt choosing to drown his sorrows in hookah smoke rather than a nice cup of tea, and Emma and Lucy were still recuperating in their room. The rest of the party had
gathered, and if one had not known of the corpse lying in the game larder, one might have thought it a very pleasant interlude.
A very pleasant interlude on the surface, at least. But underneath dangerous currents swirled, threatening at any moment to drown the lot of us. Sir Cedric sat next to Portia, saying almost nothing but helping himself liberally to the plates of cakes and sandwiches Cook had prepared. Charlotte and Plum were engaged in a tête-à-tête, much to Father’s interest. More than once I noted his attention resting on the pair, and from his expression, it was apparent he was not pleased.
Hortense, freed from the constraints of dancing attendance on Aunt Dorcas, exerted herself to charm Sir Cedric, chatting amiably with him in spite of his gruff, monosyllabic replies. Lysander and Violante were speaking in low tones, but I caught a few snatches of their conversation and it was not a happy one. They were carping again, about what I could not determine. Alessandro was seated on Portia’s other side, and my sister did a masterful job of diverting him from his sulky mood. Once or twice I heard him laugh aloud, and I was able to savour my tea without fretting over him.
For my part, I nibbled at a scone and dripped butter on my skirts and sipped a scalding cup of tea. Ludlow had taken a chair next to mine and we talked in a desultory fashion, neither of us caring very much about the subjects, but both of us enjoying it thoroughly, I believe. We had just moved from the relative merits of Bach versus Haydn when I happened to look across the tea table. I do not know why the scene should have caught my attention, but it did, and for the merest moment everything froze as if in tableau.
Portia was pouring another cup for Alessandro, giving him an excellent view of her décolletage as she reached for his cup. Hortense was facing Sir Cedric, regaling him with some merry tale as he buttered his scone. And Sir Cedric was deftly wielding a butter knife, in his left hand.
Instantly I turned to Henry Ludlow. “Do you know, something has just struck me. Is your cousin left-handed?”
Ludlow finished chewing his faery cake and swallowed, nodding. “Yes. As am I. It does tend to run in families, you know. The mighty Kerr clan of Scotland boasts a great number of left-handed members. That is why the staircases in their castles are built to spiral counter-clockwise, so that a swordsman who carries his weapon in his left hand may fight unimpeded.”
He reached for another faery cake, making the appropriate noises of delight, but I scarcely heard him. I had been so certain of Sir Cedric’s villainy. It seemed a pity to discard him now, but it was impossible to reconcile his guilt with the evidence. If there was one thing I had learned under Brisbane’s tuition, it was that the evidence, however improbable, does not lie.
Blast, I thought irritably. It seemed a terrible waste to have such a lovely villain right in front of me and not be able to connect him to the murder. I could not think of a man in the Abbey more suited to murderous pursuits than Sir Cedric.
But as I sipped at my tea and made polite faces at Ludlow, I realised it was much more than a pity. If Ludlow and Sir Cedric must be eliminated, then that left only the members of my own family as suspects. Members of my own family, I thought, lifting my gaze to the man at Portia’s side, and Alessandro.
Just then he raised his head and returned my stare. I gave him a tentative smile, but he simply looked at me in return with the same detachment one might offer any stranger in the street. It was oddly chilling, and after a moment I dropped my eyes.
“My lady,” Ludlow asked suddenly. “Is everything quite all right?”
I rallied and gave him what I hoped was a convincing smile. “Perfectly, thank you. I was merely woolgathering.”
Ludlow smiled in return. “I think I have bored you with my talk of music. We must speak of something else, something that interests you.”
“Not at all. I am very fond of music. Tell me more of the recital at Covent Garden,” I encouraged, grateful I had collected at least that little snippet from his conversation.
He obliged, and with a few artful questions I was able to pass the rest of the tea hour peacefully, my thoughts running away with themselves while Ludlow talked on, his voice a gentle monotone in the background.
When the teapots were emptied at last and all that remained on the plates were buttery crumbs and puddles of cream, the party slowly broke up. We left to follow our own pursuits, some to rest, others to read. I had correspondence to answer, some of it long overdue, but I knew my letters would have to wait another day. I had laid plans for later that night, and a nap was just the thing to ensure I remained wakeful.
As I left the drawing room, Charlotte fell into step beside me, and if it was intentional it was skillfully done. She seemed pleased to have me alone and wasted not a moment in speaking her piece.
“Lady Julia, forgive my presumption, but I must wonder if you are angry with me?”
I kept walking but turned to look at her, taking in her widely innocent eyes, the powdered freshness of her complexion. “Whyever should I be?”
She spread her hands and looked demurely away. “I know you are friends with Lord Wargrave. And I believe you must know by now our betrothal is at an end.”
“Oh, that.” I waved a hand in dismissal. “Think nothing of it, my dear. I assure you I have not.”
“But I would not have you think ill of me for breaking our engagement,” she persisted. “Particularly in light of recent developments.”
“You mean your flirtation with my brother?”
She gasped. “My lady, such a common term! I would never have thought to phrase it thus. Mr. Eglamour is a good friend, an amiable gentleman whose many kindnesses have been a balm to my wounded spirit in these dark hours.”
I snorted and coughed behind my hand to cover it. “Yes, Plum is famous in the family for his balmlike qualities. We have often told him so.”
Charlotte lowered her chin, looking at me from beneath a fringe of dark lashes, her lower lip thrust ever so delicately outward. “You mock me, my lady. And I cannot even fault you for it. I know my own conduct has been grossly unladylike. My dearest mama would spin in her grave could she but see what a mockery I have made of the womanly virtues she tried so desperately to instill within me.”
I paused and turned to her. “My dear Charlotte, I have very little interest in virtues, particularly those of the womanly variety. Marry Brisbane, do not marry him, it is of no consequence to me. But since you pay me the compliment of your confidence, I will offer you this piece of advice—do not look to my brother to play Galahad to your distressed damsel. He has told a hundred ladies he loved them, and never once did he mean it. Plum is a lovely boy, and I am delighted he is my brother. But do not put your hope in him. He is altogether too fragile a vessel.”
With that I left her gaping after me. I was perfectly aware my words would be of no consequence to her if she really harboured a tendresse for him. But the chance that a bit of plain speaking might dampen her ardour was not to be missed. I knew Plum well enough to know when he was merely playing at being a lover. His romantic imagination had been roused by Charlotte’s plight, and her chocolate-box prettiness had only heightened the effect. Plum, however, was not the sort of man to be captured for long by a pretty face with a penchant for ruffles and bonbons. He craved exoticism, mystery, the unknown. Charlotte was a departure for him simply because he had travelled so long abroad, sating his appetite for dusky signorinas. He would tire of her as soon as he realised she was uneducated and uninteresting, precisely the sort of bland Englishwoman he had scorned for so long. I only hoped he realised his mistake before they married and I was made an aunt again.
Morag was out when I reached my bedchamber, but Florence was fully awake, inspecting the room and wreaking destruction. She had savaged a cushion and a book, eaten the better part of a candle, and was trotting about with a slipper clamped firmly between her tiny jaws when I found her.
“You are a vile little monster,” I told her, wrestling the slipper out of her mouth. She growled and retreated to her basket to
sulk. I looked at the ruined slipper in my hand, not entirely surprised to find its mate, damp and missing half its embroidery, already tucked in her basket.
“Go on then,” I told her. “Keep them both. But no more or I will give you to the cats for a plaything.”
She turned her back to me and settled down with her new slippers. I lay on my bed, fully dressed, and read for a while. At some point I must have slept, for I know I dreamed. I was moving through the hidden passages of the Abbey, up the winding stair to the lumber rooms. But they were not lumber rooms. They were scriptoria again, as they had been so long ago. Robed and sandaled monks sat at their small desks, dipping their quills into bottles of ink, frozen with the cold. They blew clouds of breath at me, breath that smelled of hashish until I fled to the darkened priory vault and down into the stone-strewn passage to the churchyard. I was running as fast as I could, one hand holding a candle aloft. By the inexplicable alchemy of dreams, it did not gutter but shone brightly, lighting the way ahead.
And as I ran I heard the echo of my own footsteps, and those of another. I turned, many times, raising the candle to peer behind me. But I saw nothing and still I ran, the passageways much longer than I remembered, and narrower, twisting and tightening until I became stuck fast and screamed for help. I heard a deep metallic sound, like the striking of the sanctuary bell. Then, horrified, I heard the second set of footsteps approaching and a quick, sharp exhalation of breath as someone blew out my candle.
I woke trembling then, to find my limbs twisted in the bedclothes. I must not have cried out, for Florence still slept peacefully in her basket. I heard the bell strike again, and I realised then it was the signal to dress for dinner. I looked at the clock, surprised to find how long I had slept.
Slowly, I untangled myself from the bedclothes and rose. I rang for Morag, and for once was glad of her idle chatter as she dressed me. I wore black again out of respect for Mr. Snow—if Portia’s dog must wear mourning, so must we all, I decided sourly—and left off my jewels, except for the pendant Brisbane had given me. I had not expected to wear it again, but the dream had left me badly shaken. It seemed almost a presentiment of something frightening to come, and though I did not stop to think of it then, the little silver coin struck with the head of Medusa had become something of an amulet. I would admit it to no one, but I believed firmly and unaccountably that so long as I wore it, no harm would befall me.
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