Murder at the Ice Ball

by Leighann Dobbs

  It looked as though Pru had gotten an evening of excitement and investigation after all.

  Chapter Two

  Her heart in her throat, Katherine wedged her hip into the gap between the glass doors, throwing her weight into the movement. The doors grated against the packed snow and ice on the ground as they opened farther. Katherine stumbled, slipping on the slick winter coating as she approached the body. She stopped out of arm’s reach.

  “Oh my word,” Pru gasped. “Is she...”

  “Out of the way!” An unfamiliar woman’s harsh words were loud in the sudden hush of the room behind them. Katherine could all but hear the guests crane their necks to see the commotion.

  The slight woman, who was of neat appearance and had hair that appeared at once dark and golden in the mix of shadow and light sifting from the ballroom, elbowed between Katherine and Pru. Fear crossed her face for a moment, her eyes widening as she beheld the woman’s dead body. She glanced upward. “She must have slipped on the balcony.”

  Katherine followed her gaze. A balcony hung ominously above them. If it was covered with snow and ice, it could be very slippery, but...

  A gasp rent the air behind Katherine, and she turned to see another woman had joined them in the outdoor air. It was Lady Dalhousie, the hostess of the ice ball and the most notorious gossip that Katherine knew. If ever there was someone who would exaggerate an accident into a malicious tragedy, it was her.

  “Oh my.” The back of Lady Dalhousie’s hand flew to her forehead dramatically, and Katherine waited for her to start wailing.

  The stranger remained undaunted in the face of the old woman’s dramatics. She turned, her eyes hard in an expression schooled into indifference. “She must have slipped,” she said, stressing the word. “What a dreadful accident.”

  She tapped Katherine on the arm as she passed. Seemingly calm in the face of calamity, she said, “Hurry. She might have survived the fall. We must help her.”

  Of course. Katherine had to stop seeing murder around every corner. There were more innocent explanations, especially during such a frigid winter. But why would someone seek refuge on an upstairs balcony to begin with? Aside from the danger, it was abominably cold. The balcony, unlike the garden, didn’t hold the lure of viewing the magnificent ice sculptures, either.

  The woman in the snow lay still, facedown, with her blond hair spilling in an ominous halo from the coiffure on the back of her head. Where the strands ended, tendrils and splatters of sickly bright-red blood radiated. She’s dead. She must be.

  Her legs were splayed at odd angles, along with her arms to either side as if she’d tried to stop her fall.

  The stranger knelt next to the victim’s far side. Despite the cold, she removed her gloves and stuffed them into the reticule hanging from her wrist, which she set out of the way behind her in the snow. Katherine followed her lead and knelt on the victim’s near side, close to her shoulder but far from the blood drenching the snow. The cold permeated her thin gown, and her knees felt the chill.

  Head wounds bled profusely; that didn’t mean that the woman was dead. Jolted to the present, Katherine tried to dredge up what meager knowledge she held of medicine and anatomy. “Should we turn her over to assess her wounds?”

  Frowning, the stranger answered, “There is a frightening amount of blood. We might do more harm than good if we tried. We should check her pulse and breathing first.”

  Katherine was astonished by how calm and authoritative this young woman acted. “Are you a physician?” She looked much too young, not to mention an unusual gender for the role—although Katherine, as a female detective, knew how unnecessarily restrictive gender roles could be.

  “Me?” Surprised, the woman brushed an errant strand of hair out of her eyes. On the whole, she was a bit forgettable. Not pretty or plain enough to be remarked upon, hair not brown or gold but somewhere in between, wearing a long-sleeved dress similar to Katherine’s in cut and color. She was the sort of person apt to be overlooked but for her brazen attitude in a moment of chaos. “No, though my father is a physician. I’m Elizabeth. Elizabeth Verne.”

  “Katherine Irvine.” Given that the woman had dispensed with formality to offer her given name, Katherine saw no need to announce her title. She’d rather be judged by her actions than by her pedigree.

  Nodding once in affirmation, the woman reached to press her fingers to the victim’s wrist. Katherine noticed the victim wore no gloves. Odd... if she’d planned to be out on the balcony, wouldn’t she have brought her gloves? And another thing—one of her fingers was scraped, a smidgen of fresh blood on the knuckle. Had that happened on impact or during a struggle?

  “I can’t feel a pulse,” Elizabeth announced. She looked grim but no closer to hysterics than when she’d urged Katherine to help. “Can you?”

  Katherine, impressed by Elizabeth’s pragmatism and her unflappable demeanor, sought to follow her lead, but the victim had landed on her other arm. Instead, she held her finger to the woman’s neck. Still warm, but for how long? “I can’t find a pulse. She doesn’t look to be breathing, either.” Gingerly, Katherine inserted her fingers beneath the woman’s chin and tilted her head to see her face.

  Her expression was slack with death, her eyes wide. The front of her head was concave from the impact. She pulled her hand away with alacrity. Her stomach threatened to overturn itself. She breathed in shallowly through her nose, trying to ignore the coppery scent of blood mixing with the crisp air. Her hands shook as she fished a handkerchief out of her bodice and wiped away any residue that might have lingered.

  “She’s dead.” Of that, Katherine held no doubt.

  “Dead,” Lady Dalhousie wailed.

  Elizabeth launched to her feet immediately, her expression set as though she meant to take the hostess in hand next. She would have made an admirable schoolteacher, undaunted by any calamity or dramatics.

  More people spilled out of the ballroom, among them Grandma Bath. She wore only a thin dress, like everyone else gathered, and looked as pale as the snow. Where was her grandson? Usually, when she was out, no one could pry him away. He was constantly assuring himself of her good health.

  At the moment, the elderly woman looked ready to faint dead away. “God help her… Lady Rochford!”

  The name Rochford rippled through the crowd.

  Could it be? Katherine’s ears rang as she stared at the back of the corpse’s head, the memory of the front altogether too prominent. Lady Rochford was a dear friend of Katherine’s stepmother.

  “Katherine. Katherine!”

  She returned to the present, to the bone-deep chill numbing her cheeks, nose, ears, and fingertips. Pru jostled her again.

  “Are you all right? You look as though you might swoon.”

  Katherine drew herself up, trying to hide the way her knees trembled. “I will not swoon.”

  “Did you know her? Lady Rochford.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Katherine murmured, “I didn’t. Not well. Susanna… She was a friend of my stepmother’s.”

  “Celia?” A man’s voice cracked on the name. “No, it can’t be. Celia!”

  The gray-haired man shoved aside the women in his path, Katherine included, as he fell to his knees next to the deceased. She recognized Baron Rochford the moment she saw him. Nearing sixty, he seemed to age by twenty years the moment he beheld his wife. He reached for her hand, wailing over it, before he extended his arm toward her face.

  “No!” Katherine pulled herself away from Pru, catching hold of him before he turned the woman over. She squeezed between him and his wife, forcing him to look at her. “You don’t want to see. I’m sorry.”

  She’d never seen a man fall to pieces so completely in front of her eyes. For a moment, it seemed to her as though he might simply fade away.

  Grandma Bath took him in hand, urging him away from his wife’s body and encouraging him to return inside. Elizabeth, having calmed Lady Dalhousie well enough that she wouldn’t dev
olve into hysterics, even if she didn’t seem capable of marshaling her common sense and ending the evening’s festivities, accompanied the grieving man. Katherine stared after them, half wondering if she should go as well.

  When a wife was murdered, the culprit was almost always her husband. Could Lord Rochford have done this? He seemed unraveled in his grief. So much so that even if Katherine attempted to question him, she doubted she would receive a coherent answer.

  It might be remorse. Perhaps he pushed his wife in a heated moment and…

  Then again, she wasn’t sure the woman had been murdered. She could have simply slipped. Katherine shouldn’t let her investigative inclinations carry her away. But what was she doing out on the balcony in the first place? And the railing was waist high, so how could she have fallen over?

  Stepping up next to her, Pru seemed to read her thoughts. She craned her neck back to look at the balcony overhead. “Do you think she fell or was pushed?”

  Katherine let out a long breath, one that fogged in front of her face in a stream. “That is something we need to discover.”

  She strode briskly toward the glass doors, which were still ajar, her slippers crunching in the snow. When she reached it, she turned to see Pru looking at her, confused.

  “Whatever are you doing?” Pru asked.

  “I’m measuring Lady Rochford’s position from the house. For Lyle.” Katherine carefully lifted her foot again and placed it heel to toe in front of the last, counting in her head. “He was working on a mathematical technique to ascertain the odds of whether someone was pushed, jumped, or fell from a certain height based on how far they are from the edge of the place they fell from. I don’t know if he’s used the formula in an investigation yet, but we might need it.”

  She walked four steps before the colder shadow of the balcony washed over her. Could that be right? She glanced back, but she hadn’t miscalculated. She continued on until she reached the doors, just in case Lyle needed that number as well.

  “I have a letter you can use to write down the figures if you have a pencil.”

  Katherine paused and glanced up. “A letter?”

  Pru colored up. “From Annandale. I was reading it as you pulled up in the carriage.”

  “I have a pencil in my reticule. Give me a moment.”

  By the time Katherine reached the wall, ten more steps away, Pru had fished out the letter. Katherine scribbled down the numbers in the margin, but unfortunately the letter was written on both sides of the page. Although she tried her best to lightly sketch the position of the body in case it was needed, she doubted she did the best rendition, as she tried to leave the words largely untouched.

  When she finished, she offered the letter back to Pru. “Keep this safe until I’m able to copy it onto a clean page.”

  Still blushing, Pru nodded and tucked the letter out of sight. “Shall we hurry to the balcony? There’s no telling when someone will have the presence of mind to send everyone home.”

  Katherine nodded. Fearing that there was still a footman stationed on the other door to the garden, she and Pru entered by means of the glass doors. The majority of the guests were clustered around the hostess, who seemed to be recounting something. Could she have regained her senses so soon? She did love to be the center of attention. Katherine urged Pru down the nearest corridor.

  Although the manor was unfamiliar to them, it was painfully easy to find the balcony over the ballroom. The nearest staircase led to the third floor, and the first door on the right opened into a small sitting room facing more glass doors. These were ajar, gaining Katherine and Pru entrance to the balcony.

  “There’s nothing here,” Pru announced. She sounded disappointed.

  Indeed, there was nothing on the balcony. No clue that might point to who had pushed Lady Rochford. But there was also no ice or snow. It must have been cleared in preparation for the party. Katherine strode to the railing. It was sturdy, nothing broken. Given the height and the fact there was no ice present, Katherine had no doubt.

  “You’re right, Pru. There’s no reason why Lady Rochford might have slipped. It looks as though we’ll have a murder to investigate after all.”

  Chapter Three

  Katherine inwardly cringed as she crept inside the townhouse she currently shared with her father, stepmother, and two younger sisters. Her stepmother, ten years older than Katherine, was often occupied in keeping her sisters, more than ten years younger, in line. Although the oldest, Connie, was nearing fourteen and developing an interest in investigation, Katherine still very much felt like she should be out on her own.

  She had felt that way ever since her two older sisters had married and left the stately house in order to start families of their own. It was one of many reasons why she sought out independent living arrangements. The married adults left in Dorchester House hadn’t diminished their eagerness to continue their family, either. Since it was past midnight, Katherine couldn’t predict what she might find her parents doing.

  And she had to seek them out. Lady Rochford was a friend of Susanna’s. Katherine didn’t want her stepmother to learn of the death of her friend from the morning news rag. She had to deliver the terrible news herself.

  She mustered her courage and stepped into the dark house. A footman had remained awake to accept her outerwear and store it away for the night. She thanked him and asked after her parents and learned they were in the upstairs parlor.

  She wiped her clammy palms on her cold skirt as she neared the open door. Papa’s voice spilled into the corridor, content. “What do you think of Arthur? There’s some strong mythology behind the name.”

  “I don’t want to consider it just—”

  When Katherine knocked on the door, pushing it farther open, Susanna abruptly stopped and turned to look at her. A wide smile overtook her face. “Katherine, you’re home! How was the ice ball?” It was that smile, betrayed by her twinkling brown eyes, that had swayed Katherine into trusting her when she was young and grieving the loss of her mother. Susanna had a way of making the people around her feel welcome and loved. It was no mystery why the marriage, which had started as one of convenience, had deepened to love. Susanna was impossible not to fall in love with.

  Which was what made the news Katherine had to deliver all the more devastating.

  Papa, seated next to his wife on the loveseat with his arm around her shoulders and an open book on his lap, studied Katherine with the ease of an expert investigator. He noticed the gravity in her expression immediately and shut the book.

  “Katherine, is something amiss?”

  Susanna’s lips parted, and she unfolded her lithe legs to place both feet firmly on the floor. She fiddled with a strand of her black hair, a nervous habit.

  Papa squeezed her shoulders, looking suddenly older than his sixty-one years. His blue-gray eyes narrowed as he waited.

  Katherine swallowed hard. Her knees trembled, but she forced herself to remain standing. “I’m terribly sorry,” she confessed, her voice hoarse. “Lady Rochford… I’m afraid Lady Rochford fell from a balcony this evening. She didn’t survive.”

  Susanna gasped, and her hands flew to her mouth, her face turning white. “No. No, you must be mistaken. At the ice ball?”

  Katherine opened her mouth, but her stepmother didn’t appear to be paying her any mind. Katherine hadn’t realized they were such close friends, but given the way her stepmother was reacting, this was hitting her very hard.

  “I saw her earlier today. It cannot be. William?” She turned her gaze toward her husband, beseeching.

  Papa’s expression was hard. He held his wife closer as he looked at Katherine. “Are you certain it was her?”

  “Yes.”

  Susanna wailed. She buried her face in Papa’s collar, her shoulders shaking with her sobs. “It can’t be. Not Celia, not now…” Fisting her hand in his waistcoat, she raised her head. “William, you must investigate this. Find out who did this to her!”

  “My dea
r, this may not be a murder…” He looked at Katherine as if for confirmation.

  She swallowed hard before she admitted, “The family is accepting it as a terrible accident. There were no witnesses.” But I think it was murder.

  “Simply because no one admitted to seeing anything doesn’t mean it didn’t happen! Celia wouldn’t jump to her death—”

  Papa rubbed his hand along his wife’s slim shoulders. “No one is suggesting she has, my dear. But I wasn’t there. I cannot tell you the truth. Perhaps Katherine…”

  Susanna sobbed again as Papa held her tight. His eyes hard, he said, “Perhaps you’d best leave us.”

  Katherine nodded and backed out of the room in turmoil. Should she have said nothing? Should she not investigate? What if she did a bad job? Perhaps this one was best left to her father. She’d never investigated anything that affected a member of her family before.

  Shakily, she sought out her own room. Because she had told her maid not to wait for her, the only creature to greet her when she opened the door was her pug, Emma. Katherine dropped to her knees and hugged her tight as the weight of the responsibility of discovering what had really happened to Lady Rochford settled on her shoulders.

  “I’ve never seen a woman killed in front of me before,” Katherine confessed to her maid and confidante, Harriet.

  The maid’s dark, curly hair fell into her face as she wrestled to tie a new ribbon around Emma’s collar. The pug wiggled happily, wagging her tightly coiled tail.

  Katherine continued, “I’ve seen corpses before, but never one so…fresh. It was—”

  “Horrifying?” Harriet suggested, looking up. Her eyebrows pulled together in sympathy.

  Katherine sighed, leaning back against the pillows on her bed. Although morning had dawned, she wasn’t the earliest of risers by choice and had yet to muster the desire to leave the warm bed. The reheated bed warmer, stuffed with hot coal from the kitchen and tucked beneath the mattress at Katherine’s feet, provided little incentive to rise when the floorboards would still be cold. In half an hour, perhaps the warmth of the kitchen below would chase away the chill.