A Murder in Time

by Julie McElwain

  Whoever had said that appearances were deceiving was only partially right; they could also be deadly.

  For a second, the image of Terry Landon blowing off Daniel Sheppard’s head flashed through her mind. She’d worked beside him for eight months and hadn’t realized he was a traitor, she reminded herself bitterly. And she hadn’t really even liked him. Dalton she liked, but damned if she was going to trust him.

  Despite the castle’s enormous size, Kendra felt stifled after returning. The overcast skies and cold temperature of the day brought everyone indoors. The ladies were in the drawing room, embroidering and gossiping. Kendra had no desire to join them, and suspected they had no desire for her company either. Rebecca was spending the afternoon painting in the conservatory. The men were in another room playing cards, with the exception of the Duke, who was in his laboratory.

  Kendra went to the study, but instead of reviewing her notes, she found herself pacing restlessly. She was in a weird no-man’s-land. Her promotion had catapulted her above the servants, so she was no longer allowed below stairs. They regarded her with varying degrees of distrust. Rose was the only one who hadn’t changed. Then again, it was hard to be distant with someone with whom you shared a chamber pot.

  Deciding some fresh air would clear her head, Kendra headed out of the castle. She forgot to grab the cape she’d worn earlier, and regretted that when the chilly wind speared right through the thin muslin of her walking dress. Still, she hurried on, up the hill and into the forest, which was even more mottled beneath the slate gray skies.

  She again walked the lake where the body had been found, then followed the river to where the stone hut stood. Smoke, slightly darker than the sky, curled out of the stone chimney, she noticed as she approached. The small patch of ground near the building resembled a junkyard. Wooden crates were stacked on top of each other, chest high. Glass jars, some broken, some just cracked, were tossed to the side. Earthenware bowls, jugs, and tin cans were jumbled in random piles. An iron tripod over a circle made out of stones, its interior covered with cold gray ash, indicated Thomas the Hermit cooked at least some of his meals outside. Clearly, Thomas wasn’t a neat freak.

  She’d encountered people who lived like this in her own time line. Some had fallen on hard times or gotten involved with drugs. Some liked living off the grid. Others had mental illnesses. But this guy was a professional—he got paid to live like this.

  From inside, she thought she heard a shuffling movement. It was either Thomas, or he had some really big rats. She couldn’t rule out the latter. She stepped up to the door and knocked. Sudden silence. Not a rat.

  “Thomas? It’s Kendra Donovan. I want to talk to you.” She waited and banged again on the door. “I know you’re in there!”

  It still took several more minutes before the door cracked open an inch. The smell hit her first, strong enough to knock her back a step. The hermit peered out from the gloom.

  “What’dya want?”

  “I told you. To talk.”

  She didn’t wait for an invitation, drawing in a deep breath and pushing her way into the small building. A stone fireplace took up one wall. A small fire was crackling in the hearth. There was a single cot, the wool blankets balled up on top of a straw mattress. Dozens of canvases were stacked against another wall, half covered by coarse blankets. A small table was littered with unlit candles and pots of dried paint and paintbrushes; a wooden cupboard held a dented, bronze teakettle, iron pots, and utensils. A trunk was wedged between the bed and the cupboard. A crude easel had been set up next to that. On it was a canvas that had been painted blue except for the beginnings of a featureless, ghostly shape lying horizontal in the center.

  The shape, though, was decidedly female.

  The single window was shuttered, leaving the interior in premature twilight. A lit oil lamp was in the middle of the dirt floor. Kendra’s gaze shifted to the tools next to the lamp, including the bamboo pipe that was fitted to a clay cup: a primitive bong. Well, that explained the glazed look to his eyes, and the sweetish scent that cruised above the primordial smells of earth, sweat, linseed oil, and grime. Opium.

  “Not your day to terrorize ladies, Thomas?” she asked casually, toeing aside the drug paraphernalia to stand before the easel.

  He frowned. “I do what I’m hired to do.”

  “You should ask for a raise.”

  “Eh?” Bafflement.

  “Never mind.” She turned to face him. “I wanted to ask you again about the girl who was killed. Did you see anybody or hear anything unusual Sunday night, early Monday morning?”

  Instead of answering, he dropped down in the middle of the floor, near the opium pipe. He regarded her sullenly. “I already told you—I don’t know nothin’.”

  There wasn’t much space in which to move around. Four steps to the cupboards. Two steps to the easel. She moved in the direction of the blue canvas. She studied it for a long moment, letting the silence pool, before glancing back at him. “You see, Thomas, there’s a problem with that. I don’t believe you.”

  Absently, she picked up a paintbrush. Like everything in this time line, it was homemade, just a thin stick of wood that had twine and wire wrapped around the base to keep the bristles in place. Thumbing the soft dark hairs, she glanced back at the hermit. “Nothing to say to that, Thomas? No denial?”

  He was staring at her as though mesmerized.

  Christ. Higher than a kite, she realized.

  “You get paid to be a hermit. To run around the forest. To watch for people. Like the other day when you saw me.”

  He was silent.

  Impatiently, she tossed the paintbrush on the counter, moved around the easel, and squatted down so she could look him in the eye. “You’re not in trouble, Thomas. I just want to know if you’ve ever seen anybody down by the river. One of the gentry.”

  “Nay.”

  “Maybe you want to think about that for oh, I don’t know, a second or two longer.”

  The glazed look became a glare. “I don’t know nothin’!”

  “I’m not asking you what you know. I’m asking if you saw anyone.”

  “Nay.”

  She still didn’t believe him, but she eased back, tried another tactic. “Okay, Thomas. I’d appreciate it if you kept an eye out, let me know if you see anyone hanging out by the river or the lake. Gentry. Do you understand?”

  He just stared at her.

  “The Duke will give you a coin or two for your help.” Kendra wasn’t entirely sure about that, but bribery, in her experience, usually worked with the indigent in the twenty-first century. She saw no reason that it wouldn’t work just as well here.

  She regarded him closely, and thought she saw a flicker of interest in his eyes. Or it might’ve been a trick of light inside the shadowy hut. She got to her feet. Thomas stayed exactly where he was.

  It had been impulse to approach the hermit. Her gut told her that he was hiding something, that he knew more than he was saying. Still, it couldn’t hurt to encourage him to keep a look out. It wouldn’t be the first time a murderer returned to the scene, even if it was to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind.

  She let herself out, grateful for the fresh air after the putrid stench of the hut. Surveying the ominous gray clouds gathering overheard, she began walking fast. And hoped she’d make it back to the castle before it began to rain.

  Alec stared out at the distorted view of the gardens and green hills as the rain struck the arched windows, rattling the glass and running down the panes in silvery streams. In contrast, the small drawing room he was standing in was warm, with a cheery fire crackling in the hearth. Candles had been lit, their glow playing over the Sheraton tables, tufted settees and sofa, the rosewood chimneypiece. A perfectly normal day in the English countryside.

  Except that morning he’d attended the funeral of an unidentified dead girl who’d most likely been a whore, who most likely had been murdered. And, if Kendra Donovan were to be believed, she’d
been murdered by somebody he knew. It was madness.

  He frowned, his mind shifting to the American. She was an enigma. She wasn’t a Lady, although her table manners, as he’d observed last night, were flawless. He’d made a point of observing. She’d known which spoon and fork to use for each dish. She’d known, as she’d told him pertly, not to drink from the finger bowl.

  Of course, that could mean she’d been around people of a higher station, knew how to ape their manners. He could almost convince himself that was the answer to the mystery of Kendra Donovan. Except her table manners had come so damn naturally to her. Not once had she hesitated, or surreptitiously studied her fellow diners in order to follow their lead.

  And her hands were that of a Lady—or, at the very least, someone not used to manual labor. Maybe she was the daughter of a wealthy American merchant or plantation owner. America was an odd place, where the mercantile class ruled. He’d visited Charleston briefly, five years before the war. Yet he couldn’t recollect any of the women he’d met behaving as brazenly as Kendra. In fact, the American ladies seemed to be remarkably like their British counterparts.

  And if she’d been high-born in America, how had she come to work as a servant in England? The Duke had said she’d been trapped by the war. It happened. But the war was over. Why didn’t she return home? Even if she’d been stranded with no money, surely she recognized that his uncle was charmed by her. Alec was certain he’d either loan or give her the blunt to book passage back to America.

  Yet she hadn’t approached the Duke. She evaded questions about her background. They didn’t even know how she’d made a living in England during the last four years, before she’d arrived at Aldridge Castle.

  It was damn perplexing. In a strange way, Kendra Donovan seemed to be an amalgam of all the classes. Educated and ladylike in certain areas, and yet she spoke in such a casual way that he didn’t think she was aware that she’d taken the Lord’s name in vain at least half a dozen times since he’d met her. And her knowledge of man’s baser instincts was startling, sometimes embarrassing, like her comment about the handcuffs. Becca had been quite rightly bewildered, innocent of such play. But Kendra Donovan’s knowledge had been obvious. What kind of a woman was she?

  The door opened behind him, interrupting his speculation. He turned as his brother stepped into the room. Gabriel stopped abruptly, and Alec saw his eyes spark with hot resentment, before hardening. It was, he knew, sheer, bloody-minded stubbornness that propelled Gabriel across the room, to the rosewood sideboard, which held a silver tray and a glittering assortment of decanters and glasses.

  “It’s a little early for that, isn’t it?” he remarked idly, as Gabriel poured two fingers of scotch into a glass.

  Gabriel’s lip curled. “For what?”

  “To become foxed.”

  Defiantly, Gabriel tossed back the drink, immediately pouring another. “But it’s so pleasurable.”

  Alec stared at him. When had his brother become a sodding drunk? They’d never been close, but when had they become enemies? “What the devil is wrong with you?”

  Gabriel laughed. It was an ugly sound. “Don’t pretend you finally care, Sutcliffe.”

  “You’re my brother—”

  “Half-brother,” Gabriel corrected. He stared at his empty glass blankly, as though uncertain how it had become that way. Then despite Alec’s disapproval—or maybe because of it—he poured more whiskey into the tumbler. “Don’t forget that. Don’t ever forget that. You’re the prince, Sutcliffe.”

  Alec lifted a brow at the sneering tone. “Jealous, Gabe? Seems petty of you, considering you receive a rather sizable allowance from me—not to mention the income you inherited from your mother and her family.”

  “Goddamn you, this isn’t about money!” Gabriel slammed down his glass on the sideboard with such force Alec was surprised it didn’t shatter.

  Alec’s own temper rose. “You’ll have to explain to me what it is about then. As I recall, you were the little prince. My father wasn’t even cold in his grave before your mother packed me off to boarding school. I didn’t even get a reprieve during the holidays. Not until the Duke began inviting me here. No doubt Emily wished I’d gotten the plague. Bitter disappointment for both of you when I did not.”

  “Don’t talk about my mother.”

  “Yes, she always did keep you on leading strings, if I recall.”

  “Silence!”

  “Come now, Gabe. Emily was—”

  “—a manipulative bitch!” Gabriel snapped, and didn’t know who was more stunned that he said it, himself or Alec. For just a moment, memories slammed into him. Then he forced them back. He didn’t need to remember, didn’t want to remember. She was dead. That was all that mattered.

  “Gabe—”

  “Let it alone.” Savagely, he shoved himself away from the sideboard, away from his brother. Half-brother. He swung toward the door and stopped abruptly, an unpleasant smile twisting his lips as his gaze fell on Kendra hovering in the doorway. His eyes burned as they took in the wet hair and damp dress. “Well, well, well. If it ain’t the little maid. Or companion now. You’re a saucy bit of baggage, aren’t you? Bettering yourself through Lady Rebecca. You should have come to me, Miss Donovan. I’m certain I would’ve found a position for you, one more enticing than being required to fetch a Lady’s handkerchief.”

  “Gabriel.” Alec’s tone was a low warning.

  “When you are finished with her, of course, Sutcliffe,” he tossed back viciously. “I daresay I couldn’t take anything away from you even if I tried.”

  Kendra took a small step to the side as Gabriel, his face flushed with anger and alcohol, brushed past her. Thoughtfully, she stared after him until he disappeared around the corner. Then she glanced back at Alec. Unlike the younger man, his face was set in hard, impassive lines. The only thing that suggested temper was the way he held himself, and the glittery light in his green eyes.

  “What was that about?”

  “You look like a drowned rat, Miss Donovan. Go change before you catch a chill.”

  “Your brother seems to have a problem.”

  “Apparently my brother’s problem is me.”

  Kendra frowned. “It seems more than that.”

  He glared at her. “My brother had nothing to do with that girl. He was here at the castle the night that she was murdered.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Stop. Stop stirring up trouble, Miss Donovan.” He shot her an angry look before he, too, brushed past her, following in his brother’s footsteps.

  Alone, Kendra shivered, becoming aware of the damp fabric clinging to her skin. Alec was right; she needed to change into dry clothes. But he was wrong about her making trouble.

  Trouble was already here.

  27

  No one wanted to think that one of his friends could be a murderer. That went double for relatives.

  Alec and Gabriel had a combative relationship. Even so, the marquis had made it clear that he wasn’t receptive to regarding his brother as a possible suspect. Too bad Kendra couldn’t accommodate him.

  She bided her time through another long dinner, and the even more tedious after-dinner small talk in the drawing room. When the men finally filed in, several ladies gathered at the harpsichord to show off their musical talent in an impromptu concert.

  Surveillance and patience, Kendra knew, went hand in glove. She was rewarded when she watched her quarry slip out the French doors. After a moment, she followed.

  He was slouched against the stone balustrade, his back to her, staring out into the dark gardens. As she watched, he lifted his arm and she caught the metallic glimmer in the moonlight as he lifted his flask to his lips.

  “It stopped raining,” she commented.

  Gabriel froze, and then he slowly lowered the flask. His eyes gleamed at her over his shoulder; his grin, a wicked slash of white in the darkness. “Ah . . . the little maid. No . . . the companion—pretty, improper Miss Donovan
.”

  “These dinners tend to go on, don’t they?”

  He gave her a mocking smile that reminded her of Alec. “Better to attend the dinner than clean up after, eh?”

  So much for being polite. “I’d like to ask you a couple of questions, Gabriel.”

  “The correct form of address is Lord Gabriel Morgan. Or Lord Gabriel. Or simply my Lord.”

  “Lord Gabriel, then.”

  “’Course if you’re really nice to me, I might let your familiarity stand.” He gave her an insolent once-over, lingering on her chest before slanting back up to meet her gaze.

  She ignored the innuendo. “Where were you last Sunday evening?”

  “Is this about the whore’s death?”

  “That whore was a person. A child, really.”

  Something dark and ugly flickered behind his eyes. “She was a woman who used her body to entice men, manipulate them for her own greed.”

  “That’s pretty harsh. Sounds like you don’t like women much.”

  “Oh, I like women. In their place.” He lifted his flask again to take another swallow. Kendra noticed his hands were shaking. “You don’t know your place, do you, Miss Donovan?”

  “You haven’t answered the question.”

  He glared at her. “Why the devil should I? What gives you the right to quiz me like I am a common criminal?”

  “Why don’t you just answer the question? Got something to hide?”

  “I have nothing to hide.” Yet he looked away.

  “Really? Because I had the strangest feeling that maybe you recognized the victim.” She watched him closely, and observed the slight jerk his body gave before he shot her a furious look.

  “That’s ridiculous! Why would I know the dead harlot?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I have nothing to tell.”

  “How about where you were last Sunday? Did you leave the castle?”

  He remained silent.

  “You know, it would be easy enough to find out, I suppose,” she mused. “I doubt if you walked. So someone from the stables must have seen you. Maybe even helped you.”