by Dean James
Adele needed no prompting. “Oh, you mean what he said about Totsye being so jealous over poor Luke?” She laughed. “Well, there is a certain amount of truth in that I must admit.”
“Oh, really?” I said leadingly.
“Oh, my, yes,” Adele said, laughing again. “I do adore Totsye, I assure you. She’s an amazing woman, and I have learned from her example as a professional businesswoman in a male-dominated world. Nevertheless, she has behaved very foolishly over my brother. She’s a very bright woman, yet she has a blind spot where Luke was concerned.”
“Did she not understand that he had no romantic or sexual interest in women?” I said. “As you say, she appears to be a bright woman, and surely she would realize she was wasting her time if she was hoping he would suddenly change.”
Adele shrugged. “I can’t quite fathom it myself. They appeared simply to be good friends until the past few months, and then suddenly Totsye came all over like a giddy schoolgirl. Giggling, blushing, you name it. It was all too, too Barbara Cartland for words.”
“That does seem rather odd,” I said.
“Perhaps she has begun menopause,” Adele said. “Some women become completely imbalanced, and maybe that’s what has happened to poor old Tots.” She sniggered in a most unladylike fashion. “I mean, getting a pash for a gay man when you’re over fifty and he’s fifteen years younger is a bit unbalanced, don’t you think?”
“It is perhaps not the most sensible thing one could do,” I said, a tad pompously. “But when was love ever sensible?”
“ ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’ ” Giles quoted, smiling.
“I don’t believe in love myself,” Adele said. “There is little point in expending that much emotion on something that is more the stuff of make-believe than of real life. Life is too short to spend it all with one person. Variety is most definitely the spice of my life.” She giggled in what she no doubt considered to be a completely captivating manner. Apparently she had forgotten, at least for the moment, that Giles and I were of her brother’s persuasion.
“That’s absolute rubbish,” Giles said, almost coming up out of his chair in his anger. “Life is too short not to spend it with the right person, once you have found him. Anything else is unthinkable.”
Ah, how romantic the young can be! I hid my smile from him, though I must admit that I was rather touched. He was trying so hard not to look at me while he so hotly defended his notion of romantic love to a laughingly skeptical Adele.
She stopped short of complete and contemptuous rudeness, however. “I see we must agree to differ on that issue, young sir! I’ll not dissuade you from your feelings, and you’ll not dissuade me from mine. But let us not part on ill feelings?” Very prettily, Adele held out a hand to Giles, and, ever the gentleman, he took it and did the mannerly thing.
Adele stood. “Now, gentlemen, if you will excuse me, I have ever so much to do today. I must get in touch with various members of my board of directors and attend to some rather pressing matters of business. I’m sure you understand.”
“Certainly, Adele,” I said, as I too stood. “And if there is anything either Giles or I might do to assist you, please ask. This is a very difficult time for you, and we wanted to be sure to offer you our condolences and our assistance. We knew your brother for only a very brief time, and we deeply regret what has happened.” Giles had come to stand beside me, and he nodded in agreement.
“Again, thank you, gentlemen,” Adele said. “Your sympathies are most gratefully noted.” Her eyes told me, however, that she had not been in the least taken in by my words. I was being nosey, and she knew it.
After bowing slightly, Giles and I left the tent and began wandering back toward the main part of the encampment.
“A very interesting woman, don’t you think?” Giles said.
“That’s a rather tactful way of putting it” I replied. “She seems completely different from the woman we met yesterday. Much more forceful, certainly more outspoken and even aggressive, in some ways.”
“A bit of a barracuda,” Giles said. “I don’t know that I would care to spend any more time with her.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, I would agree with you, Giles,” I said. “But Adele bears further scrutiny. Just now she was trying very hard not to tell us something, yet she ended up telling me something entirely different, without knowing it.”
“And what’s that Simon?”
“If that was the real Adele we saw just now,” I said, “then she too had a motive for murdering her brother.”
“I believe I see what you mean, Simon,” Giles said. “She isn’t quite the shrinking-violet empty-headed type I first thought her to be.”
“No, indeed.” I laughed. “I’m beginning to think ‘Voracious Violet’ might be more appropriate. The rumors we have heard about the lady’s dispensing of her favors perhaps have not been exaggerated.”
“Using sex as a weapon, you mean,” Giles said.
“Yes, exactly,” I replied. “I also have begun to think that the pair of them, the d’Amboise siblings, were equally skilled at the game.”
“I presume you noticed that there was something unusual, shall we say, going on between Luke and Professor Lovelace?”
I stopped dead in my tracks (and please pardon the unintentional pun). “What do you mean?” Giles came to an abrupt halt beside me. “Come now, Simon, you must have been aware of it.”
“I knew that they had once been involved,” I said, wincing inwardly at the euphemism. “But I do not believe that they had resumed their relationship.”
“No, I don’t believe they had either,” Giles said. “In fact, quite the reverse. Professor Lovelace positively hated Luke, and, well…” His voice trailed off.
“Yes, Giles, what is it? Go ahead and say whatever it is.”
He breathed deeply and expelled the air before replying. “I think you cannot overlook the fact that Professor Lovelace could have killed Luke.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Thinking we had better have this discussion with a bit more privacy, I led Giles a short distance away from the encampment to a line of trees that bordered the eastern side of the meadow. There we would be protected from the early morning sun. An apprehensive look on his face, Giles followed me. He leaned against one tree, and I positioned myself against the one next to it, a bare three feet away.
“Now back to what you said,” I said slowly, drawing out the syllables and sounding very Southern. “I’m willing to entertain that thought.” I had to tiptoe lightly through this little minefield.
“Good,” Giles said, appearing vastly relieved. “And none of this has anything to do with our, well, the contest over you, Simon.” He looked away from me.
“Yes, Giles,” I said. “I understand that. Go on.” All this time my mind was racing as I tried to figure out when, and where, Giles could have overheard something dangerous.
“Remember yesterday, when we had gone back to Laurel Cottage, and I was sleeping on the sofa?”
At my nod, Giles continued. “At some point I woke up, and I was very thirsty. You were in your office, tapping away at the keyboard. I stumbled into the kitchen to get some water, and once I had some, I decided a bit of fresh air might help clear my head.” He grinned weakly. “I opened the back door and stepped out into the garden, and a moment later I heard a loud voice.”
“Yes,” I said, when he fell silent. “Go on.”
“I didn’t intend to eavesdrop,” Giles said, shifting uneasily against his tree, “but I was still a bit groggy. The loud voice I heard belonged to Professor Lovelace. He had his back to me, and I suppose he was so intent upon his conversation that he hadn’t heard me come outside.”
“With whom was he having this conversation?” I asked. “Was there someone else in the garden with him?”
Giles shook his head. “No, he was talking on a mobile phone. I could hear only his side of the conversation, but I knew immediately who the other party was.�
��
I had a sinking feeling. “What exactly did you hear?”
“Ordinarily I would have left immediately, Simon,” Giles said with an earnest gaze. “But I’m afraid my reactions were rather dulled by the hangover.”
“Yes, we’ve established that, Giles,” I said, fear making me the tiniest bit testy with him. “What was it you heard?”
“The first thing I heard was Professor Lovelace saying, ‘I know very well what you want, Luke, but no matter what you say, I shan’t change my mind.’ ”
“Was that all?” I asked, hoping desperately that Tris had not been more explicit.
“No,” Giles said. “There was a pause, while I suppose Luke responded to that at some length. Then Professor Lovelace spoke again. ‘Don’t try to threaten me, Luke,’ he said. ‘I could easily arrange to give you half of what you want.’ Then he laughed, and I felt very cold, suddenly. ‘You’d be dead, but without all the fringe benefits.’ That was the last thing I heard, because I decided I didn’t want Professor Lovelace to catch me listening. I slipped back into the cottage and back to the sofa.” Giles broke off, shuddering. “What on earth did he mean by that, Simon? What fringe benefits could there be to being dead?”
Oh, dear, I thought. How do I dodge this bullet?
I assumed a very puzzled look, which I made sure Giles noticed. “That is a facer, Giles, I must admit. Yes, it does definitely sound like Tris was threatening to kill Luke, but as to what he meant by ‘fringe benefits,’ I’m not quite sure.”
“Maybe it has something to do with whatever Luke was trying to blackmail the professor over,” Giles said. “Do you have any idea what that might be? What could Luke have wanted from the professor?”
“That’s a reasonable assumption,” I said airily, “but I’m afraid I haven’t a clue. Maybe it was something to do with the time when the two of them were involved, as you called it Some peccadillo of Tris’s that Luke was threatening to make public.” That sounded good. “Something that might embarrass Tris. Yes, that must have been it. But whatever it was, I haven’t the foggiest.”
“I don’t know, Simon,” Giles replied, patently skeptical. “I should think it would take more than a peccadillo to warrant a death threat. That would be quite an overreaction, and Professor Lovelace doesn’t strike me as the type to indulge in such histrionics.”
Giles was too shrewd by half. My attempt to weasel out of this was going nowhere fast.
“Then it must have been something more serious,” I said. “But what it could be, I just haven’t a clue.”
“The whole thing seems absurd,” Giles said, “and I might have thought it a joke. But the tone of Professor Lovelace’s voice as he said that last bit, ‘You’d be dead,’ was anything but amusing.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” I asked.
Giles’s face reddened. “Truth be told, Simon,” he said, “after I woke up the second time, I thought for a while that I had simply dreamed it. Rather a bizarre dream, I grant you, but at first I was inclined to dismiss it as nothing more than that.”
“Then what made you think it really happened? Could it have been a dream after all?” I found myself in a quandary. I had no doubt that Giles really had heard the conversation as he reported it, but it would be to my advantage, temporarily, at least, to persuade him otherwise. I was simply not ready to tell him the truth about what Luke wanted from Tris, and thus about Tris’s very real motive in wanting Luke dead.
Giles’s eyes scanned my face. “Don’t you believe me, Simon? It wasn’t a dream, I’m certain of that.”
“Of course I believe you, Giles,” I said. How could I, in all conscience, respond otherwise? “But why are you now so certain you didn’t dream it?”
“Because I remember it far too clearly,” Giles said. “I hardly ever remember my dreams, Simon.”
“I suppose so, Giles,” I said, though I must have sounded skeptical.
“And if that isn’t enough for you, Simon,” Giles said, his voice turning frosty, “I found grass stains on the bottom of my feet. I had gone outside in my bare feet, and that’s when I overheard Professor Lovelace. Satisfied?”
“Certainly, Giles,” I said, “but I never really doubted you.” I invested as much sincerity as I could into those words, and evidently it worked.
“Thank you, Simon,” Giles said, thawing noticeably. “Now that we’ve finally settled that, what are you going to do about what I told you?”
“For the moment, nothing. I will keep my eye on Tris, and if I suspect that he did indeed have something to do with Luke’s death, I shall take appropriate action. In the meantime, I think it’s best to keep this between ourselves.”
“Very well, Simon,” Giles said. “I suppose you know best.”
I thought he had forgotten about what Tris had threatened, but my relief was short lived.
“But what did Professor Lovelace mean about Luke being dead without the fringe benefits?”
“I really can’t say, Giles.” And that was the truth, because the complete truth would have complicated matters far too much at this stage.
“Can’t, or won’t,” Giles said, sighing. “I suppose I shall just have to trust that you know what you’re doing, Simon. Shall we leave it at that?”
“Yes, thank you, Giles,” I said. “It’s for the best, for now.”
He pushed away from the tree, and I followed him as he headed back toward the encampment, away from the shade and shelter of the trees. “What next, Simon?”
“I really should go back and talk to Adele again,” I said. “That is, if she’ll take time to speak to me, and I am a bit doubtful that she will.”
“Why do you need to talk to her again?”
To find out what she knows about her brother’s movements yesterday. Whom he saw, what he ate, and when. That kind of thing.”
“She might balk at telling you such things, Simon.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me in the least, Giles,” I said. “Adele has turned out to be far more shrewd than I had anticipated. Around her brother she was rather a nonentity, but now that he’s gone, she seems quite formidable, in her way.”
By this time we had reached the encampment again, and I paused, looking back toward the de Montfort pavilion. Should I try to tackle Adele again? Or should I wait and bide my time until a more appropriate moment?
Making a quick decision, I said, “Come along, Giles. Let’s see if we can winkle anything more out of Adele.” I turned back toward her tent.
“As you wish, Simon,” Giles said, falling into step beside me. “I must say, however, I rather doubt you will find the lady very forthcoming.”
“Perhaps not,” I said, “but that, too, will tell us something, won’t it?”
“You mean, if she has nothing to hide, she’ll speak freely to you? And if she’s covering up something, she’ll be evasive.”
“More or less,” I said.
As we approached the tent, I could hear a lovely, lilting soprano at a low volume singing the hauntingly familiar “Greensleeves.”
“Can you hear that, Giles?”
He shook his head. I forgot sometimes that his hearing was not as acute as mine. We moved a few steps closer, and the singing became clearer. “A beautiful voice. Surely that can’t be Adele,” Giles whispered as we stood and listened for a few minutes more.
The song ended on a sigh, and after a moment of silence, Giles and I moved forward again. “Hello,” I called out. “Adele, are you there?”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but my lady is not here just now,” said the owner of the beautiful singing voice as she stepped into view in the opening of the tent.
The speaking voice had the same lilt and lovely timbre. Its owner, however, was rather on the plain side, with a pale face and watery eyes. She curtsied. “Is there aught I could do to assist you, gentle sirs?”
“Perhaps,” I said, quickly revising my plan. Maybe this young woman, clearly a servant in the de Montfort menage,
had the information I wanted, and I wouldn’t have to try to get it out of Adele after all. “Was that you we heard singing just now?”
She nodded shyly.
“You have a very beautiful voice,” Giles said, and she turned adoring eyes upon him.
“Thank you, sir,” she said. But then a troubled frown appeared. “But I should not be singing when His Grace has died so sadly and horribly.”
“I’m sure he would not mind,” I said kindly. “With a voice like that, who could object?”
She blushed. “Thank you, sir,” she said again.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“I am called Etheldreda, sir.”
“A good Saxon name,” I responded heartily.
She smiled.
“Perhaps we could wait inside the tent until your mistress returns?” I asked.
“Certainly, sir,” Etheldreda replied, stepping back and allowing us to enter the tent.
“It is very tragic, though, Etheldreda, about the duke,” I said as Giles and I sat down. I caught Giles’s eye, and he understood my signal.
“Yes, terribly tragic,” Giles said, looking up earnestly at Etheldreda, still standing before us. “I’m sure this must be very distressing for you, and for everyone in the late duke’s service.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “He was a good and generous master, and we shall miss him. Not like some I could name,” she muttered. She sat down in a chair across from us after I had gestured for her to do so.
“And it’s all very puzzling, too, don’t you think?” Giles said in a tone that indicated he, too, was very puzzled by the whole thing. “Who could have done such a thing?”
Etheldreda shrugged. “It is a great mystery indeed. His Grace did hold strong opinions sometimes that angered some among us. But he was a good man for all that.”
“I’m sure he was,” I said. “You must have had plenty of opportunity to witness that, Etheldreda. How long have you been in service to the duke?”
“For three years now,” she said proudly. “I hadn’t the money to join the society on my own, but His Grace paid me well enough for serving his household at these gatherings that I could afford to.”