Murder Most Malicious

by Alyssa Maxwell

  “Lady Wroxly,” he said finally, “who has access to this cabinet?”

  “I do, of course. My husband, and Mr. Giles. Our butler has keys to all the important doors and cupboards in the house. But we trust him implicitly, don’t we, Archibald?”

  “We most certainly do.”

  Phoebe sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. Should she say something about the way Mr. Giles had been acting recently? His confusion? Perhaps he had mislaid his keys somewhere and someone picked them up. She only half listened while the constable asked Grams and Grampapa a few more questions and scribbled notes in his tablet. She should tell him, at least mention Mr. Giles’s recent befuddlement, while stressing his many years of unwavering loyalty and service to the family. Yet she couldn’t persuade her tongue to move or her lips to open.

  “That will be all for now,” the constable said. “Thank you, Lady Wroxly, and I hope you’ll accept my apologies if this has upset you.”

  Grampapa moved to Grams and offered his arm to her. She leaned heavily on it and rose unsteadily to her feet. But like Julia, she raised her chin in a show of bravado and once again waved a dismissive hand at the policeman’s words. “I realize you are only performing your job, young man.”

  They left the room and Julia moved to follow. Phoebe hesitated. She had decided to explain to the constable about Mr. Giles. It was a form of evidence and she would be wrong to hide it.

  “Constable Brannock—”

  “Lady Julia,” he called at the same time. Phoebe bit back the words she’d been about to say as he continued, “Another word, if you please. You, too, Lady Phoebe.”

  Eva grabbed a tray piled with dirty luncheon dishes off the counter in the butler’s pantry and headed down the back staircase. Dora followed her, while Douglas waited at the bottom for them to pass so he could go up for another tray.

  Eva didn’t much mind the extra work. She had done it all before, years ago when she first entered into service. True, she had the benefit of an education thanks to a local scholarship that enabled her to attend classes at nearby Haverleigh’s School for Young Ladies, and yes, she had improved her diction and widened her reading tastes, but she wasn’t so arrogant as to believe that made her better than any other servant. More than anything, it had been sheer chance that brought her to her present position, when the lady’s maid engaged for Julia suddenly became engaged herself—to be married. Mrs. Sanders had been about to place a new advertisement in the local papers when she happened upon Eva in town shopping for her former mistress.

  Eva brought the tray into the scullery, and when she turned to exit, a figure filling the doorway caused her to stop short with a yelp. “Nick! Good heavens.” She pressed a hand to her chest and laughed. “I didn’t realize you were there.”

  “Sorry, Evie. I’ve been looking for you. I have a small piece of news.”

  Eva’s breath caught. She stepped across the threshold and out of Dora’s hearing. “About Lord Owen?”

  Nick cast a glance over his shoulder. Mrs. Sanders walked briskly out of her office, seemed about to say something to them, but continued down the corridor to one of the storerooms. Nick took Eva’s hand and whisked her into the valet’s service room.

  “I did as you asked. I made small talk with Lord Owen while I helped him prepare for luncheon, which was remarkably easy as he’s rather an amiable chap, for a toff. Our both having served in the war opened up a common avenue of conversation. In fact, it was he who initiated it. From there I deftly steered him into civilian matters by commenting on how much I hoped his interests didn’t suffer during the war, as so many did.”

  “And?” Eva’s impatience grew as she waited for Nick to state his point.

  “And it turns out he and my former employer did in fact share some financial interests. Lord Owen owns several woolen mills, and I remember Lord Allerton planning to invest in English textiles. Once Lord Owen revealed the locations of his mills, I knew for certain these were among the very same Lord Allerton expressed an interest in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Evie, I was the man’s valet. He often discussed such matters with me, not for my opinions, of course, but simply to voice his thoughts aloud. Not to mention I collected his post, both outgoing and incoming.”

  Eva eased around the table and pulled out a stool. Once seated, she leaned her chin on her hands and considered. “Could their business dealings have gone awry?”

  “It’s possible, although my money is still on Lord Theodore and I’ll tell you why. A business dealing gone awry stands no chance of being remedied if one of the interested parties is dead.”

  “There could be circumstances we don’t yet understand.”

  “Could be, but consider this. Lord Theodore had everything to gain by his brother’s death. Title, status, fortune, and my word, Eva, the man returned from the war as cold as a stone. It isn’t all that difficult to imagine, is it?”

  A shiver went through her. “I don’t suppose it is. But dear me, Nick, I feel no closer to knowing who harmed Lord Allerton than before.”

  “I’m sorry, Evie.” Nick straightened his coat with a tug. “I tried my best.”

  Eva slid off her stool and went to him. “Of course you did. You’ve brought another clue to light and it could prove important. Thank you, Nick, from Lady Phoebe and me both.”

  His grin filled her view, and she saw little else as he leaned down closer. Suddenly his lips touched hers. Eva ran hot and cold and hot again as her lips sank into his. The sensation was startling, and lovely, and . . .

  With a start she pulled back, shocked and aghast—at him, at herself, at the fact that she had allowed such a thing to happen. To happen for several long seconds before she ended it.

  What did that mean? What did that make her? What kind of example could she be to Phoebe and her sisters?

  “Evie, I’m sorry. Please look at me. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  She hesitated, staring at the floor, and then slowly glanced up, half-afraid at what she’d see lurking in his eyes. Did he hold her in slight regard? Or was he truly sorry?

  Yes, perhaps he was, for his brows were knotted, his face pained. He looked every inch a man waiting to hear his sentence for a crime he couldn’t deny having committed.

  “Forgive me, Evie.”

  She nodded. “Yes, yes, of course. Let us speak no more of it, shall we.” She moved past him, feeling his stare hot on her back as she hurried into the corridor. She practically ran up the backstairs to the second floor and into Amelia’s bedroom. She had clothing to prepare for tonight’s dinner and . . .

  Blast. Why had Nick done such a thing?

  “Yes?” Phoebe was more curious than anything else about why the constable had called her and Julia back. Julia, on the other hand, sat imperiously back down on the settee and appeared not the slightest bit interested.

  He regarded them in silence for several moments, his focus shifting back and forth between them until uneasiness settled in Phoebe’s stomach. Then he said, “Is there something I should know? Something concerning the two of you?”

  “Whatever are you alluding to?” With a bored air Julia looked down at her meticulously manicured fingernails.

  “I am alluding to what transpired between the two of you minutes ago, when we spoke of exonerating your footman. Would either of you care to tell me what that was all about?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest notion what you mean.” Julia switched her attention to the view outside the window.

  “Don’t you, Lady Julia? What about you, Lady Phoebe? You’ve a look on your face I’ve seen before, and it tells me you’re being reticent by design.”

  Phoebe said nothing as Julia wrinkled her nose. “What on earth is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means your sister is hiding something,” Constable Brannock retorted, all pretense of deference abandoned. “I’ve about had it with the lot of you. A man was murdered—”

  “Or so we believe,” Julia put in
.

  He rounded on her, moving startlingly close and leaning to bring his face level with hers. “I assure you, Lady Julia, all things considered, the marquess is quite dead. Inspector Perkins might be content to gloss over the details, but I am not. Nor am I inclined to continue treating all of you as though you’re made of glass. Not when a man’s life is at stake.”

  “Where is Inspector Perkins?” Julia continued to behave with her typical hubris, as if none of this concerned her at all. “Why has he left the investigation entirely in your hands?”

  Constable Brannock straightened. “Inspector Perkins is at this moment preparing his case to present to the district magistrate, so that trial proceedings against your footman may begin.”

  Phoebe could endure no more. “Julia, say something!”

  Her sister paled, and the constable pressed thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose as Grams often did when attempting to ward off an approaching headache. But when she expected him to entreat Julia once more, he instead switched his attention to her.

  “Lady Phoebe, you say something or I’ll bring both of you into the village for questioning in more official surroundings.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  He turned back to Julia. “On the contrary, my lady. Indeed I would.”

  “My grandfather would see you on the streets—”

  “Julia, stop it. Just stop it.” Phoebe threw her hands up, then hugged them about her middle. “Constable, Julia and Henry were expected to become engaged, but—”

  “Phoebe.” With a threatening look, Julia came to her feet, but Phoebe pressed on.

  “Julia broke it off Christmas night and they argued.”

  He considered this a long moment. “That’s all? They argued? Did you think I’d suspect your sister because she argued with her beau?”

  “Henry was not my beau,” Julia said adamantly.

  The constable acknowledged this with a backward wave of his hand. “If that were the case, Lady Phoebe, virtually every female in the whole of England would be sitting in a jail cell.”

  A knock at the door silenced them all, and in the next instant Eva entered the room. “Lady Wroxly sent me,” she said in explanation.

  Phoebe might have known Grams had heard the constable’s request that she and Julia remain behind, and that she would send in reinforcements.

  Eva narrowed her eyes in that assessing way of hers. “Have you been upsetting my ladies, sir?”

  “I’ve been asking them some simple questions, Miss Huntford.”

  Her lips flattened and her nose flared. “And have you received your answers? Because if so . . .”

  She didn’t complete the sentence, but her meaning was clear, so clear the constable’s eyes sparked with anger at this obvious affront to his authority. Dear Eva, so valiant and unafraid when it came to her duties. Phoebe couldn’t help smiling, albeit weakly. Feeling suddenly drained, she sank into the chair Grampapa had vacated earlier. She wanted this over, wanted justice done so they could carry on with their lives, Julia and her reticence be damned.

  “There’s more to this story than a mere argument,” she said bluntly. “There is the reason Henry and Julia argued in the first place.”

  “Very well.” Julia blew out a breath and collapsed back onto the sofa. “Henry—Lord Allerton—was a swindler. He’d been playing with Victory Bonds and war news, convincing people to keep investing due to fake reports of the war continuing indefinitely.”

  “How did you discover this?” Constable Brannock put aside his derision and gave Julia the whole of his attention.

  “I overheard things while in his company last summer, things he probably thought I neither understood nor deigned to concern myself with.”

  “Did you alert anyone?”

  “You mean the authorities?” She raised her eyebrows in a show of naïveté that might have deceived the constable but didn’t fool Phoebe one bit. “No, I feared what might happen to me if I did. He frightened me, you see.”

  Phoebe traded a glance with Eva and pursed her lips.

  “Yes, I do see.” Constable Brannock nodded. “Then what gave you the courage to break off your courtship with the man?”

  “Being here, surrounded by my family, of course.”

  Phoebe wanted to wretch, and even Eva looked doubtful. There was so much more to this, yet she couldn’t deny Julia’s skills in making herself out a victim deserving of sympathy.

  “It would have been better all around if you had been honest from the start, Lady Julia,” the constable said in a mildly scolding tone. “These facts might be important to the case.”

  Julia opened her eyes wide. “How so?”

  “For one thing, we might be able to learn which of Henry Leighton’s acquaintances fell victim to his investment scheme.”

  “Hmm. Clever. Well, we should leave you to it, then. May we go now?” Julia came to her feet gracefully. She didn’t wait for permission, but swept from the room, her head held high.

  “Oh, Julia.” Muttering, Phoebe pulled herself out of the chair. With a start she realized they had neglected yet another part of the story. How had she allowed Julia to so sidetrack her she forgot all about Henry’s threats of revealing her own secret? Would Constable Brannock dismiss Julia’s argument with Henry if he knew the entire truth?

  CHAPTER 14

  Eva closed the sitting-room door after Julia and Miles Brannock left, effectively preventing Lady Phoebe from following. She had news to tell her.

  “You’ve learned something,” Phoebe correctly guessed, her voice a low murmur. She sat back down, this time on the settee.

  Eva took the liberty of sitting beside her on the hundred-year-old Regency piece, her serviceable black dress making a dreary contrast with the fine silk. “Mr. Hensley managed to speak with Lord Owen, and he’s been able to piece together that Lord Allerton had invested in the Seabright woolen mills.”

  Phoebe’s eyes went wide, then narrowed. “Oh, Eva, the nail is being driven farther and farther into Lord Owen’s coffin.” Her brow furrowed.

  “And that grieves you, my lady?”

  Lady Phoebe nodded, her cheeks turning pink, but then she quickly said, “But no more so than with any other occupant of this house. It certainly makes a decision for me.”

  Eva didn’t like the sound of that, or the seriousness of Phoebe’s tone. “What decision, my lady?”

  “I need access to Lord Owen’s room.”

  “Absolutely not.” Eva had been saying that a lot lately, usually to no avail. “Look what almost happened when you tried to search Lord Allerton’s room.”

  “Yes, I caught Lord Owen removing a document or something from Lord Allerton’s travel desk. Now your Mr. Hensley has discovered a connection between the two men that Lord Owen lied about when I asked him how well he knew Lord Allerton.”

  “My lady—”

  “Don’t tell me to go to Constable Brannock, at least not until I find something definite. All I need is a good plan. . . .”

  “My lady, I could ask Mr. Hensley to search Lord Owen’s room. It would be much easier to explain his presence there than yours, since he is serving as his lordship’s valet.”

  To Eva’s frustration, the obstinate girl shook her head. “No, I won’t have Mr. Hensley risk his future. Were he caught, and Lord Owen proved innocent, the consequences could be dire. As for me, at worst I would suffer from acute embarrassment and a scolding from my grandparents. Nothing I couldn’t recover from.”

  “At least let me stand guard somewhere, so that if Lord Owen were to return to his room, I could warn you somehow.”

  Phoebe grinned. “Now that is a very good idea. But not you. You would run the same risk as your Mr. Hensley.”

  It didn’t escape Eva’s notice that Phoebe had termed Nick Hensley hers not once but twice. Could she somehow know what occurred in the service room this morning? No, that wasn’t possible. The door had been closed. Phoebe would have to have been crouching on the ground o
utside and peering through the ice-glazed windows.

  “He is not my Mr. Hensley, my lady. We knew each other a long time ago, and then not very well.”

  “Then why are you blushing?” Phoebe crossed her arms and waited for a response. But pointing out Eva’s blush only sent another rush of prickling heat to her cheeks.

  “My lady, I . . .”

  “Eva, don’t be silly.” She laughed, a sound filled with delight. “It’s perfectly all right with me if you’ve taken a fancy to Mr. Hensley, and he to you. I promise not to breathe a word of it in Mrs. Sanders’s hearing.”

  “Please don’t tease me, my lady.” Eva had yet to decide how she felt about Nick’s overture. If only she could be certain of his motives and his regard for her. But a man who steals kisses without warning must be viewed with some measure of suspicion, mustn’t he? It could very well mean he didn’t hold her in high esteem or believe her worth the time and effort of proper courting.

  Was she reading too much into this? And wanting too much from him, more than she herself had suspected?

  “Eva.” Phoebe came to sit beside her and took her hand. “Mr. Hensley seems like a good man. Why, he might have gone straight to the inspector once he learned you and I were attempting a search of our own, but he didn’t. Or he might have washed his hands of the whole affair, but again, he did not, but insisted on accompanying us, and then questioning Lord Owen.”

  Eva nodded, her spine rigid. “He has been most accommodating.”

  Phoebe released her hand. “All right, have it your way. Be mysterious. Just know I’m on your side, come what may.”

  Eva was about to thank her wholeheartedly, but the door abruptly opened. Lady Amelia regarded them both from the threshold and fisted her hands on her hips.

  “Were you looking for me?” Phoebe asked her.

  “Yes, I’m looking for you,” Amelia said with no small amount of sarcasm. “I’m tired of being shoved in the background. I want to know what is going on.”