Murder Most Malicious

by Alyssa Maxwell

  “Connie?” She spoke in a stage whisper, hoping her voice wouldn’t carry into the house. She went to the delivery gates, but the lane to the main road appeared deserted as well. There was no telling for certain which way the girl might have gone, for too many comings and goings earlier had churned the snow to an icy, nondescript slush.

  At the snippet of a giggle she whirled about and crossed the courtyard to the garden gate. She peered down the dormant rows of the kitchen garden and caught a flash of movement over near the greenhouses. She set off at a brisk stride around the garden. More giggles, louder now, drew her along.

  She reached the rear of the first glass-encased structure, fogged by the heaters blazing inside. She leaned as far as she dared around the corner, to see without being seen. There was Connie, near the greenhouse entrance, cradling a basket in her arms, and a bevy of children surrounding her, each holding out hands garbed in ragged mittens. Into each Connie placed a bundle, whereupon the child would either curtsy or bow and with a delighted giggle secret the bundle inside a coat Eva deemed far too thin. Connie repeated the little ritual with more than a half-dozen children that she could count, and she wondered how many had already wandered off back home.

  Soon the basket was empty and the last of the children gone, having trotted off through the woods, presumably down to the main road. Connie stood watching a moment longer. Then, with a wistful smile, she swung the basket in one hand and started in Eva’s direction.

  Eva stepped out from her hiding place, and Connie jerked to stillness, her features frozen in alarm.

  “I saw,” Eva said simply.

  Connie slowly closed the distance between them. She wore the missing cloak. A scarf covered her head and was tied beneath her chin. “And . . . you’ll tell?”

  “I don’t see that we have much choice. Have you any idea of the time? Mrs. Sanders is on a rampage searching for you.”

  “I hadn’t realized . . . I thought I had time to get back inside before anyone came down.”

  “Connie, have you forgotten everyone is rising earlier because we’re shorthanded?”

  “I . . . I guess I didn’t think of that. Can’t we say . . .” She trailed off, staring down into her empty basket. “I’ll be sacked. Again.”

  “You were sacked from your last position?”

  Connie nodded, loose hairs falling in her face.

  “For the same infraction?”

  Another nod.

  “What was in those bundles? I’m assuming food, but from where?”

  Her head came up, her eyes glazed with self-righteousness. “I didn’t steal it! It was leftover and would have been tossed in the bins.”

  “Leftovers from above stairs?”

  The maid retreated beneath those loose tendrils and tucked her chin into her scarf. She nodded again.

  “Connie, why didn’t you simply ask? I’m sure Mrs. Ellison and Mrs. Sanders would have been agreeable. You’re feeding children, after all.”

  “But what if they weren’t agreeable? They weren’t at the last house I served in. They said it wasn’t their business to feed every ragtag child who came begging. So I did it anyway. I took a chance.” A sob entered her voice. “I had to, Miss Huntford. I know what it’s like to be hungry.”

  Eva’s eyes misted and she blinked to clear them. It was no use becoming emotional; she had to find a way to avoid Connie being sacked. Would Mrs. Sanders understand? If only they could get inside the greenhouse, they might fill Connie’s basket with the herbs Mrs. Ellison needed and claim Connie had only been trying to help. Dora usually came out for that, but only when Mrs. Ellison sent her with the key. The doors would be locked now.

  “Come on, Connie. We’ll face Mrs. Sanders and Mrs. Ellison together.”

  Connie dropped her head again and started walking, a slow, dragging stride as if she were a condemned criminal being led to the gallows. “It’s not my first brush with trouble, Miss Huntford. I’ll be sacked for sure this time.”

  Eva’s first thought was to ask Connie why, all things considered, she would take such a risk. But as Connie said, she knew what it was to be hungry, and Eva’s heart went out to her. And then a thought came to her. It was due to Lady Phoebe that Connie had been spared dismissal when her romance with Vernon came to light. Could Phoebe work her magic again?

  The three women occupying Mrs. Sanders’s office jumped up from their seats as Phoebe entered. She wished to tell them to sit, but she knew Mrs. Sanders would have none of it until she herself was seated. Mrs. Sanders stood before her desk chair. Two chairs from the servants’ hall appeared to have been brought in for Eva and Connie, while Mrs. Sanders’s overstuffed chair seemed to have been reserved to Phoebe. She wasted no time in crossing the room to it.

  Still, the others remained standing, Mrs. Sanders with her hands clasped at her waist and a pained expression drawing her aging features tight. Connie’s shoulders shook with her visible effort to stem the tide of tears and muffle her sniffles. Eva alone faced Phoebe with a modicum of confidence that Phoebe hoped not to disappoint.

  “My lady,” Mrs. Sanders began in the gravest of tones, “I do hope you can forgive this interruption of your morning. As you know I abhor bothering the family with staff trivialities, but Miss Huntford insisted.” Nostrils flared, she tossed a recriminating glance at Eva.

  “She was quite right, Mrs. Sanders,” Phoebe was quick to say. “I do appreciate being included. Now, then, from what I already understand, Connie has been taking leftovers and doling them out to some of our more unfortunate children here in Little Barlow.”

  “Indeed, she has, Lady Phoebe, quite without permission. I apologize for not having caught her in her pilfering sooner.”

  “Pilfering, Mrs. Sanders?” Phoebe crossed one leg over the other beneath her skirts, a habit Grams termed unladylike but which Phoebe seemed unable to break. Leaning forward in her chair, she said, “Please, all of you, sit down and let us discuss this.”

  Mrs. Sanders’s frown deepened, especially as she regarded Connie lowering herself into the hard-backed dining chair. No doubt in the housekeeper’s view, the accused should remain standing while the evidence was reviewed.

  “Now, then, my question to you, Mrs. Sanders, is what is usually done with the leftovers from the family meals?”

  The woman seemed taken aback by the question, as if Phoebe was accusing her in turn. “As my lady very well knows, the edible leftovers are sent each week to St. Margaret’s Workhouse for Indigent Women.”

  “And the inedible leftovers?” Phoebe caught Eva’s twitch of a smile.

  “Why, they are thrown out, of course. What else would we do with them, my lady?”

  “And in your opinion, Mrs. Sanders, what constitutes edible and inedible leftovers?” This Phoebe asked gently. Mrs. Sanders had served her family almost as long as Mr. Giles. She took great pride in her work and put all her energy into it. Phoebe had no desire to belittle her efforts.

  “Anything left on the serving trays is edible, my lady.” Mrs. Sanders sent a puzzled glance at each of them in turn, even Connie.

  Phoebe turned to Connie. “What do you consider edible leftovers?”

  “Oh, I . . .” She pulled herself up taller and fidgeted with a fold in her skirt. Her bottom lip disappeared for a moment between her teeth, and Phoebe saw the hint of new tears forming.

  Thankfully, Eva leaned across the space between them and patted her hand. “Go ahead, dear. It’s all right.”

  “Edible is anything not eaten, my lady,” she said in a whisper so low that Phoebe, too, found herself leaning closer to hear her.

  “But that’s ridiculous!” Mrs. Sanders came to her feet. “I don’t believe you were handing out half-eaten food. Who would deign to eat it?”

  “It’s better than starving, ma’am.” Connie’s voice picked up volume and, along with it, a note of defiance Phoebe couldn’t help but applaud.

  “You’ve been stealing from the larder, haven’t you?”

  “M
rs. Sanders,” Phoebe said calmly, “please sit down. Now, Connie, are we to understand you’ve been scraping plates to feed these children?”

  “M-mostly, my lady.”

  “Mostly,” Mrs. Sanders repeated with emphasis. “Then what about the rest?”

  “I save some of my own share of the meals for them.”

  Mrs. Sanders’s scowl proclaimed her less than convinced, but Phoebe stood, prompting the others to surge to their feet again as well. “There, then. No harm done. What Connie has been doing doesn’t hurt anyone, and in fact helps some of our local families. Mrs. Sanders, I shall clear it with my grandparents, but I’d like you to plan on setting food aside for the children, especially during these winter months when the fields lay dormant. Meanwhile, Connie stays on, but”—she broke off and moved to stand directly before the maid—“no more secrets. No more actions on the sly, no matter how well intended. Is that very clear?”

  “Very, my lady. Th-thank you, my lady. I cannot say it enough.”

  “Once is sufficient.” Phoebe smiled. “Now that that’s settled, I’ll let you all get back to work.” But as the others filed to the door, she remembered something Eva had told her, something Connie had let slip out by the greenhouse. “Connie, one more moment, please. Mrs. Sanders, do you mind if Connie and I stay behind here?”

  The woman’s curiosity was glaringly apparent, but she merely said, “Of course not, my lady.”

  Phoebe closed the door behind them and turned to face the girl, her face red and swollen from crying. “Do sit down again, Connie.”

  Connie visibly tensed. She sat rod straight, hands clasped tightly.

  Phoebe took the seat Eva had vacated, rather than return to Mrs. Sanders’s overstuffed chair. “Connie, this isn’t the first time you’ve faced this sort of thing, is it? Your last position. . . Were you sacked?”

  “Did Miss Huntford . . . ?”

  “Yes, Miss Huntford did. But you mustn’t blame her. She’s devoted to this house and wants the best for everyone in it. Including you, Connie. Now tell me, what happened at your last place of employment? You came to us with a letter of recommendation. Was that letter true?”

  The girl dropped her chin and shook her head. “Not exactly, my lady. I was sacked for sneaking food out to hungry children, but then someone intervened on my behalf.”

  “Who? It’s all right, you won’t get yourself into trouble again.”

  “Lord Allerton, my lady.”

  Phoebe’s hand flew to her mouth, but she recovered and just as quickly lowered it. “Lord Allerton? How was he involved?”

  “He was a guest there, my lady.”

  “At Stonebridge Park, where you worked in Yorkshire?”

  Connie shook her head. “No, my lady, I never worked there. I worked for Sir Michael and Lady Helen Smythe, in London. It was them who sent me packing. Lord Allerton was their guest for several days last summer. And he persuaded his friend, Lord Bellington of Stonebridge Park, to have the reference written for me.”

  Phoebe shook her head as she tried to make sense of the convoluted story. “Why on earth would Lord Allerton, a marquess and a colonel in His Majesty’s service, go to so much trouble to see you gainfully employed after being dismissed?”

  The girl shrank even further into herself, if that were possible. Her voice, when it emerged from her half-bitten lips, was shaky and filled with fear. “He wanted me where he could find me again, my lady, should he wish to.”

  For several moments Connie’s words buzzed round and round Phoebe’s head like a swarm of bees. Yet one by one, the implications fell into their logical order, and Phoebe understood. “Dear merciful heavens. Lord Allerton . . . he’d been . . . forcing himself on you all along . . .”

  Connie only nodded, and Phoebe felt ill.

  Eva wasn’t at all surprised when Phoebe appeared in the service room some five minutes later. Without a word she came in, slid onto a stool at the table, and sat with her chin in her hand.

  Eva set aside the blouse Julia had given her last night with the request that the mother-of-pearl buttons be replaced with ones sporting real pearls in solid gold settings. “You look troubled, my lady.”

  “I am.” She reached for one of the plainer buttons, held it in her palm a moment, then fisted her fingers around it. “Lord Allerton deserved what happened to him, Eva.”

  “My lady, don’t—”

  “I’m sorry, Eva. I don’t like saying such things. It’s wicked, I know. But in this case . . .”

  “Connie had more than that one run-in with him, I’m guessing?”

  “At the place of her last employment, in London.”

  Eva pulled another stool to the table and perched on it. “But I thought she last worked in Yorkshire, at an estate called Stonebridge, I believe.”

  “No, she worked for a family called the Smythes, in London. When they caught her slipping food out the back door they dismissed her, but one of their guests at the time arranged to have false references written up for her. He engaged his friend, Lord Bellington, who owns Stonebridge.”

  “But why . . . ?” The dismay on Phoebe’s young face supplied Eva with her answer, or at least enough of one. She didn’t wish to know more. “I see.”

  “He sent her here, to us, for convenience sake. I suppose he thought after the war, he could have his dalliances without his mother catching on, which she might have if he’d have carried on at home.”

  “Oh, my lady . . .” Immeasurably sad, Eva trailed off. What could she say to her young mistress? That she didn’t want Phoebe so much as thinking such thoughts? That it pained her dreadfully that sweet Phoebe should not only know about such things, but must suffer them to occur here, in her own home?

  It was too late for any of that. Too late to draw a curtain of innocence across a window that had been thrown wide. She could only be what she was to Phoebe: her maid, her friend, and if needed, her protector. “My lady, shall I make you tea?”

  “Thank you, Eva, but no. I don’t need tea. I need answers.” Rising, she went to the door and closed it. When she returned to the table, she pointed to Julia’s blouse. “I’m sure my sister will be wanting that. You sew, and we’ll talk.”

  Eva picked up her needle, already threaded with a length of the fine silk thread she had purchased at Henderson’s haberdashery. She positioned one of the precious pearl buttons, not gotten from Henderson’s but on Julia’s trip to London last summer. “In your mind, has Connie incriminated herself in regards to Lord Allerton? She certainly had motive.”

  “I don’t believe so,” Phoebe replied, “at least I don’t wish to. Someone willing to risk her own employment not once but twice in order to feed hungry children? That’s not a likely candidate for murder, is it?”

  Eva experienced another painful twinge to hear the word murder from Phoebe’s lips, yet one more concept she should never have to think about.

  “But there’s something else I wished to tell you, Eva. It happened last night.”

  Eva looked up from her task, her needle poised in midair. She narrowed her eyes, taking in what she hadn’t previously noticed in Mrs. Sanders’s office: the dark smudges beneath Phoebe’s eyes. “You were up late, my lady.”

  “Yes, I waited until everyone was in bed, or so I thought, before going to Lord Allerton’s bedroom.”

  “My lady, you didn’t. What if someone had seen you?”

  “Someone almost did,” she replied so calmly Eva was possessed of an urge to tug her own hair. “When I opened the door—luckily without a sound—I discovered . . .” She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door, then continued lower, “I found Lord Owen Seabright inside, going through Lord Allerton’s travel desk. He removed something from among the documents.”

  Eva set her work aside. “You must go to your grandparents. They should know about this.”

  “I’m not so sure of that. Lord Owen might have been doing the same as you and me—searching for the truth.”

  “But, my lady, yo
u don’t know that. A guest traipsing about the house at night, searching through a man’s possessions. This doesn’t set Lord Owen in a positive light—not a positive light at all.”

  “Again, it’s nothing I hadn’t intended doing myself. I did find something just over the threshold, and managed to snatch it up before I retreated from the room. It was one of the shirt studs Lord Allerton wore on Christmas.”

  “Do you think that means something significant?”

  “On its own, perhaps not. But it might prove there was a struggle in Henry’s room. It’s what I need to find out.”

  “Take it to the inspector, then. You’re becoming too involved, my lady. You’ve done enough.”

  “The inspector will likely declare that Lord Allerton was untidy with his possessions.”

  “Which might be the truth.”

  Phoebe sighed. “Really, Eva, sometimes you seem to be taking Inspector Perkins’s side in not wishing to ruffle feathers. Someone has to dig at the truth.”

  “It’s not that I agree with the inspector, my lady. It’s that I do not wish you to be the person doing all the digging. Will you at least consider speaking with Constable Brannock?”

  “Possibly, except there are some extenuating circumstances that occurred last night. On my way out of the guest wing, I ran straight into Julia. Now, where do you suppose she was going?”

  “Oh, my. You all might have had quite a gathering in Lord Allerton’s room. Please don’t do that again, my lady. It could be dangerous.”

  “Don’t worry, Eva, for now I’ll leave Lord Allerton’s room alone. It’s Lord Owen’s room I’d like to explore next.”

  “My lady—” Eva heard her own voice becoming shrill. She drew a breath and whispered no less fiercely, “Don’t you dare!” A ghost of a smile from Phoebe made her want to shake the girl. “I fail to see anything amusing in this.”

  The maddening smile persisted. “I’m sorry. I was just wondering if you ever speak to Julia this way. Or Amelia, for that matter.”