I sat taller. “What was it?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me.” Her mouth flattened. “But she seemed confident about it.”
I glowered back at her, considering this new information. The fact that Lady Helmswick wished to leave her husband potentially gave her, as well as Marsdale, motive to kill Helmswick. But if this claim about her possessing knowledge she could use to blackmail him was also true, then he also held some secret that might have gotten him killed.
“I wish you had told me this sooner,” I said. “Such as when you promised to fully cooperate with us.”
“I didn’t think it pertinent,” she retorted, but we both knew that was a lie. The sheen of defiance and fear that glittered in her eyes as she glared back at me made that evident. But what precisely did she fear? That her daughter had actually done it? Or that I might prove it?
* * *
* * *
I found Lady Helmswick perched on a bench with rolled arms in her cottage-inspired sitting room, gazing out the window. She was turned away from me, so that I could only see her profile as her maid admitted me to her chamber. Dressed in a simple gown of burnt rose with a more moderate sleeve and an unfashionably high waistline, she had never looked lovelier to my eyes. It certainly complemented her skin, for it practically glowed. Or perhaps that was the reflection of the sun on the snow. As I moved closer, she glanced back at me, her blue eyes reflecting that same brightness and drowning in worry.
“Lady Darby,” she gasped. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
I waved her down as she began to rise to her feet, instead sitting on the bench beside her, all the better to spy what had absorbed her attention outside the window. Below us, the three youngest of her brothers were picking their way across the lawn that stretched away from the castle in the direction of the abbey. In the distance, I could see the tallest of the snow-topped ruins piercing the sky, the only speck on the landscape in that direction, but for a hazy hilltop far in the distance beyond the moor. Two dogs frolicked alongside the men, bounding off through the snow from time to time when one of the brothers—I thought it was Henry—bent to pick up whatever they’d dropped at his feet and then hurled it away again. At least I could be certain none of them would interrupt us in an attempt to shield their sister this time.
Her hand anxiously clutched my left arm. “I-I heard what happened, and I’m so relieved your injuries weren’t more serious.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve had my own share of precarious moments on those stairs. In truth, I avoid them whenever I can.”
I smiled tightly, wondering if she seemed overeager to share her own near accidents, or if I was being excessively suspicious. I’d certainly felt a moment’s disquiet when Trevor and I passed by the ballroom staircase on our way to this chamber. My brother had wisely chosen to take another set of stairs, but we had not been able to avoid passing by them. Even now, he sat on a bench outside, waiting for me, so I wouldn’t have to traverse past them alone.
Lady Helmswick shook her head in bafflement. “I don’t know why they weren’t refurbished long ago when Mother fell.”
I frowned. “When was that?”
“Oh, years ago. Before I was born. Before Ned, even.” Her eyes widened as if she’d had a sudden thought. “She was expecting poor George at the time.” She bit her lip uncertainly.
“The child she lost when he was only three weeks old?” I replied, recalling what Lord Edward had told me.
She nodded. “The fall didn’t cause her to go into labor, but she . . .”
“But she worried that it might have contributed to his early death,” I finished for her, trying to squash my own concerns about the lasting effects of my near tumble. It was true, I hadn’t actually fallen, but my collision with the banister had been rather forceful.
Lady Helmswick’s face constricted. “I suppose that’s why she still avoids using it to this day.”
I turned to gaze out the window again, pondering Lord Edward’s decision to mention his deceased brother. Pondering whether it had given him inspiration on how to get rid of a troublesome thorn in his side. Of course, all the Kerr brothers must also know about it, just as their sister did. So in truth, it could have inspired any of them, as well as a number of others. The very idea brought a sick feeling to my stomach.
Pushing the disquieting thought away, I focused again on the countess’s face. “I have a few more questions for you.”
“Oh? I thought you’d settled on my husband’s valet being the most viable suspect?”
I struggled against the urge to scowl. “He is certainly a person we’re interested in speaking to. But I thought you weren’t sure the body was Helmswick?”
“I-I’m not,” she stammered, color rising to her cheeks. “But if it is . . .”
She couldn’t seem to finish that sentence, and I chose to ignore it. “How great a drinker was Helmswick?” I asked, choosing my simplest question first.
But this only served to bewilder her. “How great a drinker?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I suppose I don’t know what you mean.” Her brow crinkled in confusion. “No greater than average, I should say.”
“Then he didn’t drink more at home than he did in public, say, at a dinner or soiree?” I’d already heard from Gage that he wasn’t known to be a Borachio.
“No.”
Now it was my turn to be puzzled, for the victim’s body had shown liver damage. Of course, heavy drinking wasn’t the only cause of such symptoms, simply one of the most common. Perhaps his had been caused by a different condition.
“Does that mean something?” she prodded, when I didn’t follow up with another question.
“Just confirming something,” I deflected, before switching tactics. “Can you think back on the days, and weeks, and even months leading up to your husband’s departure on December seventh? Can you recall anything odd or unexpected? Anything that seemed uncharacteristic of him?”
I knew this was a broad and almost misleading question, but I wanted to hear what she might say. Would she share with me whatever she’d uncovered that she intended to use for her blackmail? Would she remember another incident? Or would she claim to know nothing at all? Each possibility was telling in and of itself.
Two deep furrows appeared between her eyes as she gave the question serious consideration. Or at least wanted me to think she was doing so. “I don’t think so.” Her back straightened. “No, wait. There was one thing. He attended the funeral of a local woman. I remember it because he wasn’t due back to Haddington for another week, and I . . .” She faltered, her voice breaking with strain. “I wasn’t ready for his return.”
I was curious what that meant, and whether her not being ready for his return had anything to do with Marsdale.
“Who was this local woman?”
“I don’t recollect her name. But I thought it strange that he should return early for her funeral.”
“You didn’t ask him about it?”
“I did, but he brushed my question aside. He seemed annoyed I’d even asked.” She shrugged. “I assumed she was someone who’d worked on the estate when he was a child. Perhaps a nursemaid, or a housekeeper. Someone he was embarrassed to be seen showing any affection toward.”
How sad if that were the case. But it was not the countess’s only theory.
Her lips twisted into a moue of sardonic displeasure. “That, or she was his mistress.”
That was the first thought that had crossed my mind, but I wasn’t about to say so. Whoever she was, she’d obviously been important to Helmswick in some way. As such, it was something to have Gage write to Anderley about and instruct him to look into.
I studied her even features, curious if she would say more, but she gazed back at me solemnly, and I knew not another word would pass her lips unless I pressed her.
“I know about you and Marsdale.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
It’s silly really that the two of you would think we wouldn’t learn of it.” I tilted my head, glaring at her in exasperation. “It only makes you look guilty.”
“Don’t you mean ‘more guilty’?” Lady Helmswick’s eyes flashed in challenge. She huffed, turning aside. “Of course we knew you would find out. And we knew exactly what you would think when you did. If the body you found in the crypt is my husband, then Marsdale and I must be suspected of putting him there.”
“Would we be very good investigators if we did not question whether you could be the culprits?” I countered. “You do both have strong motives to have killed him.”
Although then stashing his body in the crypt made less sense. But perhaps they’d intended to move him, to take his body far from here to a place where it might be found, but not connected to them or Sunlaws Castle. The castle had been bursting with visitors since early December. Maybe they’d been waiting for the right time.
Whatever the case, they were definitely suspects.
“But we didn’t,” she insisted. “And just because I despise my husband and would be only too happy never to see his arrogant, heartless, deceitful face again, does not mean I wish him dead.”
I noted her emphasis on the word “deceitful,” wondering if it was somehow telling. But she wasn’t finished.
“And neither does Marsdale!”
This was too much. For if Gage had met and fallen in love with me while I was still wed to Sir Anthony, I knew he would have wished my husband dead. That didn’t mean he would have helped him to such a state, but he certainly would have wished it. “Marsdale didn’t wish him dead?” I repeated doubtfully.
“Well . . .” She flushed. “Maybe. But he didn’t kill him!”
I tilted my head, studying her heaving breast, her frantic gaze. She was desperate to convince me of this. But was she desperate to convince herself as well?
“I understand you and Marsdale were close when you were younger. So close that it was expected you would marry.”
She swallowed, her eyes dipping.
“What happened?”
Her brow creased in remembered pain. “Does that really matter?”
“It might.”
She began to pluck at a loose string on her gown and then, as if realizing what she was doing, forced herself to stop. “There was an expectation we would marry, though we never discussed it. Whenever I tried, he changed the subject. So I . . . decided to tell him I was with child.” Her gaze lifted to mine briefly, as if to gauge my reaction. “We had been intimate. Numerous times.” Her mouth twisted. “Expectations.” She muttered the single word to explain her decision to lie with him before their wedding night. They wouldn’t have been the first engaged couple to do so. Many a supposedly seven- or eight-month-old, fully developed baby had been born into the nobility.
“But you weren’t truly expecting?” I guessed.
She shook her head. “And he figured that out rather quickly.” She sighed. “I can’t blame him for being angry at my deception.” She scowled. “But I can blame him for tupping the barmaid, and arranging for me to find him doing so.”
My eyes flared wide in shock, as I had suspected Marsdale had done something stupid, if not quite so awful as that. The perfect idiot.
Her troubled gaze strayed toward the window, though I didn’t think she was seeing anything but the past. “I told him I hated him and that I never wanted to see him again.”
“And let me guess? That’s when you met Helmswick.”
She nodded. “He seemed so gentlemanly, so polite. Two things that Wesley has never been.” She fell silent. “I didn’t pause to consider whether Helmswick was feigning it.”
“When did you realize you were still in love with Marsdale?”
She didn’t try to deny it. “He came to see me, actually. About six months ago. He confessed he was nervous I might turn him away, but I didn’t even consider it. I suppose I was curious to hear why he was calling. Helmswick was off on another of his trips with another of his doxies, and I didn’t really care if Wesley’s visit led to rumors.”
I found the timing of Marsdale’s visit to be interesting, for it must have been soon after his return from Ireland. Soon after the death of a cousin he’d been particularly fond of. Soon after I’d noted a change in him.
“He asked after me and my children, and then he came straight out and apologized. He didn’t hem or haw, didn’t make any excuses. Except to say that, though he was ashamed to admit it now, he’d been a bit terrified of marriage, and afraid I’d been trying to control him like his father controlled his mother. That the only marriages he’d ever witnessed had made both parties miserable.” Her eyes were round, as if still finding it all nearly incomprehensible. “But he’d since realized that needn’t be true. That marriage could be a wonderful thing when the two people involved wanted it to be so. And that his cruel actions toward me had probably been the most foolish thing he’d ever done in his entire life. They were certainly the ones he most regretted. That there hadn’t been a day in the past nine years when he hadn’t thought of me and what he’d done, and cursed himself roundly for a fool.”
She shook her head, smiling softly. “He intended to leave then, after offering his regrets. But how could I withstand that? Especially when I’d spent the past nine years doing the same.”
I couldn’t withhold my own gentle smile, finding I wasn’t immune to this tale of love lost and found, despite all the complications involved. “And so you became lovers?”
She nodded, some of the happiness fading from her eyes. “I knew what I was doing was wrong. That even my mother wouldn’t condone it, for I hadn’t given Helmswick his spare.” Her gaze hardened. “It’s all quite galling, isn’t it? That we should amount to no more than brood mares to most men.”
“But not all,” I countered.
Her anger faded. “No, not all.”
I shifted, trying to find a comfortable position for my shoulder. The throb deep in the joint told me it would be time for more laudanum soon. Seeing my discomfort, Lady Helmswick pushed to her feet, urging me toward the settee, where I could prop a pillow under my arm.
“I’m afraid I know about your argument with Helmswick,” I told her as she helped me adjust the pale green bolster. “I forced your mother to tell me.”
She dropped down onto the cushion beside me. “Then, you know I told her I wished to leave him.”
I nodded. “She said you claimed you had information that you could use to force Helmswick to allow you to live separately.”
She sat stiffly, her hands clasped between her legs, staring at the rug on the floor. “I didn’t know you knew that,” she murmured, almost to herself.
“Yes,” I replied, not understanding her reaction to this knowledge. “What is it?”
She gazed at me blankly.
“The information you know?” I clarified. “Could it have been the reason he was killed?”
“No, I . . .” She inhaled a swift breath, seeming to gather herself. “It was a lie.”
I sank back in shock. “What do you mean?”
“There is no secret, no leverage. I simply . . .” she lifted her hands in a helpless gesture “. . . made it up.”
I frowned at her in confusion.
Her gaze dropped to her lap. “I wanted Mother to stop berating me, so I lied.”
Except if that were true, then why did I feel so certain she was lying now?
It didn’t make any sense. If she’d wanted the duchess to stop berating her, she could have simply left the room. There was no need for such a lie.
But then why not admit to it if there were such a secret? It could potentially be the motive for Helmswick’s murder. By denying its existence, she only made herself and Marsdale look guiltier.
&nb
sp; Unless the secret would somehow make things worse for them? But how?
I was still scratching my head over the matter when I left her chamber a short time later, only to find Marsdale speaking to my brother in the vestibule outside. I glanced at the other door leading off the landing at the top of this set of spiral stairs. The one I’d puzzled over two days before. I supposed this answered my question about who had been assigned to that room.
The two men appeared rather displeased with each other. In truth, I wondered if they were about to come to blows.
At the sight of me, Marsdale turned away from whatever Trevor had been snarling at him in a low voice to stride toward me. “Finished interrogating Nell?” he demanded angrily.
I held up a staying hand when Trevor hastened forward as if to block the marquess, before answering calmly, “I did not interrogate Lady Helmswick.”
His eyes, as dark as molasses, dipped to my arm in a sling, his brow furrowing slightly before smoothing. “I heard about the accident. The duchess said you would recover, but are you . . . ? Is the . . . ?”
“Yes, the baby and I will both be fine,” I replied, taking pity on him. That he was flustered trying to find the appropriate words was oddly touching, given how flippant and irreverent he was about most matters.
He nodded. “Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Actually, Gage and I were hoping to have a word with you. So if you could—”
“I have nothing more to say to either of you.”
He made to move past me, but I pressed a hand to his arm to stop him. “Marsdale, don’t be a fool. You’ll only make yourself look guilty.”
“Then so be it.”
“And what good will that do Nell?” I snapped, growing angry. “Your silence only makes her look guilty, too.”
“Leave her out of it,” he growled. “She had nothing to do with Helmswick’s death. If that’s even who the fellow is.”
But I had seen the panic leap in his eyes, the muscles flex in his jaw. “Then talk to us. Tell us what you know.”
A Stroke of Malice Page 24