He fixed me with a stare so intent, I felt the room falling away, blackness creeping along the edges of my vision. I swallowed hard, sliding my gaze away from his. "Goodness, Brisbane, if Mesmer had had a stare like that he mightn't have needed a pocket watch. Very well, you do not mean to tell me. I can guess for myself. You hoped to find the Grey Pearls in her room."
His lids dropped and he reached a lazy hand to pet the dog. "And what led you to that conclusion?"
"A clever jewel thief would never have hidden the jewels in his own room. They might easily be discovered by a diligent servant. Now, anyone would realise there is no point to searching the Abbey—it is far too large and there are nooks and crannies and secret passages God Himself does not know of. Any of them might serve as a hiding place, but how much better to put the pearls in Charlotte King's room and throw suspicion on her? If they were discovered among her things, she would have a difficult time explaining how she came by them. Jewels found in the public rooms of the Abbey carry a mystery with them, jewels found in Charlotte's room breed a scapegoat. She might well be arrested and bound over for trial, and no one else would be under the slightest cloud of suspicion."
"An interesting theory," Brisbane said slowly. His fingers twitched, and I wondered if he was longing for his pipe. "Now, back to the matter of Snow's room."
My fingers went then to the small bundle still nestled in my pocket. I debated fiercely with myself about whether or not to disclose it. Finding it had been rather gratifying. I still did not know what it signified, but I did trust Brisbane to do what was best for my family. I did not believe Aunt Hermia had given the trinkets to Snow herself. Indeed, if I believed that I would have kept them and confronted her with the collection myself. But determined as I was to solve these little mysteries myself, there were few things I could refuse Brisbane.
I drew out the bundle and handed it to him. He turned it over, peering at the monogram worked in silk thread, the tiny design of flowers twining through the letters. After he had committed every detail of the handkerchief to memory, he untied it and took out the pieces one by one, turning them over and marking them carefully. When they had all been considered, he handed them back. I wrapped them and knotted the handkerchief, pocketing the little bundle.
"And you actually found these in Snow's room?"
I nodded and said nothing.
"The handkerchief is, I suppose, Lady Hermia's? And the jewels as well?"
"Yes. I asked Portia about them. She said Aunt Hermia kept them in a little pasteboard box on her night table." Brisbane had begun to glower, so I hastened to reassure him. "You needn't look so murderous. I did not tell her where I found them."
His expression was thoughtful. "Snow did not arrive as a houseguest until yesterday, well after Lady Hermia departed the Abbey for London. A box of trinkets on her night table would be easy enough for anyone to pilfer. Snow, or another, had only to make certain the corridor was empty, creep inside and pocket the jewels. It is interesting to note that nothing of real value was taken."
"The important pieces are all locked in Father's safe or in the vault in the bank in London. Aunt Hermia keeps out only the things she wears often, those little baubles, a ruby brooch, a few rings, and her chains of sapphires. I am quite certain she would have taken those with her to London."
"So we have here a crime of opportunity."
"Tied to Snow's murder?" I asked. Brisbane shook his head slowly.
"It would be premature to say. He seemed perpetually short of money, if his sisters' letters are to be believed. Perhaps it was simply too easy for him, a few trinkets that could be pawned in the city. By the time Lady Hermia missed them, it would be far too late to lay the blame at his door. Perhaps one of the maids would be blamed, perhaps even dismissed over it. In the meanwhile, Snow has a little money and no suspicion falls on him."
"That is reprehensible," I told him, "and yet entirely plausible." There was another possibility that was plausible as well: Aunt Dorcas. Father and Plum, as well as Emma, had mentioned her penchant for taking things that did not belong to her, usually of the sparkly variety. What if she had nipped into Aunt Hermia's room and helped herself to a few of the prettier trinkets? But why hide them among Snow's things? From the stories I had heard, she had seldom troubled to hide her crimes in the past. Usually the odd little jewel had actually been found on her person. If nothing else, the jewels would be difficult for her to retrieve from Snow's room. It seemed the little bundle had raised more questions than it had answered.
We were silent a moment, locked in our thoughts. Florence had settled back into her basket and was snoring peacefully. I thought of what Brisbane had suggested, that someone had crept into my room and drugged the poor little thing to keep her quiet while they took my pearls. The very idea made me shatteringly angry. I did not actually like the animal, but she was helpless, a baby really. I made a note to tell Morag to give her more beef tea for her supper.
I turned to find Brisbane regarding me. I had not realised he was staring, and his scrutiny flustered me. I smoothed my skirts again. It was becoming something of a nervous habit.
"I think you had better keep a shorter rein on your fiancée," I said lightly. "She seems overfond of my brother's company. Perhaps you ought to have a word."
Brisbane reached into his coat pocket and withdrew something. He opened his hand to show me a diamond ring sparkling on his palm.
"Charlotte broke our betrothal before breakfast this morning. I have no fiancée."
He held the ring up to the firelight, watching the light bend and shatter into a tiny rainbow as it played over his hand. "Pity. It is a lovely ring."
"Very well done of her to return it since she has no intention of marrying you," I said, my voice husky with pent emotion.
He watched the play of light a moment more, then dropped the ring back into his pocket.
"I am rather relieved to be rid of the charade, truth be told," he said finally. "I tired of playing the intended bridegroom."
"I knew you could not mean to marry her!" I cried, triumphant. "I cannot believe anyone would think you a couple."
"Well, when I embarked upon this sham betrothal, I never expected to have to convince you of my sincerity," he admitted. "But I am glad to be done with it. I have no wish to be betrothed, in pretense or otherwise."
I wagged a finger at him playfully. "Now, Brisbane, you mustn't talk like that. You will lead people to believe you have no mind to marry at all."
"I do not," he said. He turned to the fire, and I had the most curious conviction he was doing so because he could not speak the next words directly to me. "I could never marry a woman like Charlotte."
"You mean a silly woman?" I asked teasingly.
"No, a wealthy one," he returned quietly.
It is astonishing how words can cut one to the quick and yet leave no outward trace. One would have expected a lash like that to leave a mark.
But pride, though deplorable as a vice, can be a worthy ally at such times. It was pride that lifted my chin and lent a note of lightness to my voice.
"Ah, a confirmed bachelor, like the noble Duke of Aberdour," I said.
"I am nothing like my great-uncle," he replied, his voice laced with bitterness. There was no pragmatic reason I could imagine for his opposition to marriage. His business was a profitable one, his lineage—though spotted with less than elevated blood—was illustrious enough for all but the most fastidious of brides, and now his achievements were to be crowned with title and an estate. He could even retire from his work as an inquiry agent if he wished and live a life of leisure. People would whisper about his having been in trade of course, but it had been my experience that with sufficient time and a healthy fortune, such a shortcoming could be deliberately overlooked.
But opposed he was, and from the set of his jaw, I did not imagine his position was one he had taken lightly or would relinquish easily. Pride was an expensive commodity, and his was easily wounded. It was a very great i
rony that the fortune my husband had left me should prove such an impediment to my happiness.
"Well, you needn't marry," I said finally. I was determined to be reasonable, as coolly logical as he. "You have your work to divert you, the excellent Monk to assist you, and Mrs. Lawson to manage your domestic affairs. What more may a man need?"
"What more indeed?" He looked at me then, a look I knew I should never forget, and a thousand things lay unsaid between us.
"I do not mean to marry again myself," I said suddenly and with conviction.
"Do you not?" he asked softly, and I wondered if he were thinking of Alessandro. Ah, Alessandro. Such a delightful companion, and yet when I thought of him I felt a hundred years old.
"I made a mistake the last time I married. I should not like to do so again."
"Then you and I understand each other perfectly," he said, his demeanour suddenly brisk. "And we cannot sit idly by gossiping like old maids. We have a murder to solve."
It was a testament to his distraction that he included me in that last statement. Or perhaps he was so eager to leave off the subject of marriage he did not mind returning to the safer ground of murder. In either event, it did not matter to me. As we rose and made our way downstairs, I realised that some small, cherished hope within me had gone very still. It was not entirely lost, but I reminded myself sternly Brisbane was a partner in detection and nothing more. If only I could make myself believe it.
* * *
We met Father in his study for a little council of war. I fussed over Grim, smoothing his feathers and feeding him from the box of sugared plums, while Brisbane and Father exchanged information. There was little to say. Brisbane had already informed him Aunt Dorcas was safe, but from the cool touch of frost in Father's manner, I could only deduce he was not pleased with Brisbane's role in the affair, nor in his refusal to send for Father when Emma and Lucy had fallen ill. The pearls were missing, and no clue had been discovered in the murder of Mr. Snow, save my little cache of jewels.
Father turned them over in his hand, his face stony as he touched a finger to the trinkets. Suddenly, he shot Brisbane a piercing glance. "Do you believe these are related to your other matter?"
Brisbane did not look at me, but he shifted in his seat, averting his profile as if to exclude me from the conversation.
"I do not," he said, his voice pitched so low I very nearly did not hear him at all. Instantly I left Grim to his sweets and took the chair next to Brisbane, looking with interest from him to my father.
Brisbane's cheek twitched a little, and I knew he was thoroughly annoyed, but with Father or me, I could not decide.
Father gave the bundle a searching look and placed it on the desk. "In that case, I do not think we need concern ourselves with this. I will see to it that it is returned to Lady Hermia's room."
"My lord, I would rather keep the evidence myself," Brisbane began. Father waved him off with a peremptory hand.
"I see no need. You know what was found and where. Surely keeping it in your possession is not necessary."
Brisbane did not argue, but I could feel the irritation emanating from him. He was a man seldom thwarted, but then so was my father. What had begun as a small territorial skirmish between them was rapidly deteriorating into a formidable battle of wills.
Father exerted his command over the situation by changing the subject. As it would have been a breach of etiquette to return to a topic once he had abandoned it, this was a gambit he used when it suited him. I always found it illogical that a family so willing to throw off society's greater constraints would abide by the lesser, but we were nothing if not inconsistent.
"Where are we then, with this business of Snow? Lucy is resting, claiming she knows nothing of it, and we have no clue save the bruises, which tell us a man must have been involved? And someone wishes to put her and her sister out of the way."
"Succinct, and correct," Brisbane replied. "We have discovered no reason for Miss Lucy to have wished Mr. Snow ill, nor have we discovered a reason for her to have been willing to take an accomplice's guilt on her own shoulders."
Father considered for a moment, running his hands through his silver-white hair. "I think she must have told Julia the truth. She is innocent in every possible way of this atrocity and remembers nothing. Someone is preying on her now, gambling everything on her inability to remember what she has seen."
Brisbane's eyes narrowed. "It does explain the attack on Miss Lucy and her sister. Were I the villain, I should not like to stake my chances on escaping the gallows on the slender hopes that a young and healthy girl will not recover her memory. If I were cold-blooded enough to murder once, I should do so again, very soon and without compunction."
"And the attack on Emma as well?" I asked.
Brisbane shrugged. "They are close as two sisters can be. If Miss Lucy took anyone into her confidence, it would be her elder sister. Whoever poisoned Miss Lucy either did not care if Miss Emma died as well, or hoped that she would."
Father nodded. "We will keep a footman on watch, for their protection."
"Agreed," I said. "But we must consider the possibility that Lucy is in league with the murderer as well. Father, I know you wanted us to find some proof, some shred of evidence to speak in her favour and keep her from the hangman's noose, but I cannot be persuaded she is entirely innocent."
Father reached for the snuffbox on his desk and began to fidget with it. It was a nervous habit of long standing. He flicked the lid open with a thumbnail, then snapped it closed. It was a practice that annoyed Aunt Hermia to no end. If he indulged the habit in front of her, she usually snatched it out of his hand or snapped it closed on his finger.
Now he opened and closed it, rhythmically, like a metronome keeping time. I suspected it helped him to think. He finally snapped it closed and sat up in his chair, rather more energetic than I had seen him since Snow's broken body had been discovered the night before.
"I know you suspect Cedric, Julia. But I wonder, a girl like that, on the verge of marriage to a man so much her elder. She has seen nothing of the world, had no experience. I must wonder if she decided to indulge in a liaison before she married."
"I did wonder," I admitted, "but it seemed so diabolical. Suppose she did decide to take a younger lover. Could it have been Snow? Cedric might have murdered him in revenge," I mused.
"I think his lordship is thinking more abstractly," Brisbane put in. Father regarded him coldly, doubtless resenting Brisbane for speaking on his behalf. I smothered a sigh. There were enough currents and eddies of tension within the household without the two of them at each other's throats. Brisbane continued, oblivious to Father's annoyance. "Cedric is the obvious choice for the murderer if Snow was her lover. But what if Snow discovered her affair with another and demanded a price for his silence? That would make him a blackmailer, and there is already evidence he was."
I blinked at him in wonder. "Aunt Hermia's jewels?"
He nodded. "It seems possible, but not likely to me he would have stolen them himself. It would have been dangerous for a gentleman guest to be discovered in the ladies' wing. Far safer for him to have pilfered something from another gentleman or from the public rooms. But if a lady were to try to lay hands on something small and valuable to meet the demands of a blackmailer, what better place to look than the bedchamber of an absent hostess?"
I sat back, marvelling at the twisted little tangle of ideas he had just presented. "And if Lucy were engaging in an affaire du coeur, she might well cover the crimes of her lover by claiming sanctuary for a murder done by his hand."
"In which case she is in no danger, but still ought to be kept under watch so as to keep her near at hand," Brisbane put in.
"But she has been attacked, with malice prepense," I pointed out.
"Has she? What did the footman see but a sheet-draped figure drifting through the hall? You yourself pointed out the proximity of the vestry to the chapel. What if the footman nodded off and Miss Lucy or Miss Em
ma played the ghost? The footman went haring off after it, just as the miscreant planned. When he returned to his post, the brandy was there, supposedly by the hand of the phantom. The idiot footman passes it to them and they drink. It does not take much medical knowledge to know how much laudanum is fatal. And they might both have been pretending to be sicker than they were. We must keep them under guard for their possible culpability as well as their safety."
I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. It was a fantastic story, and the most fantastic part of all was that it might very possibly be true.
"Surely you do not think they would try to escape? To begin with, it would be impossible. The Abbey is entirely cut off from the outside," I argued.
"Not entirely." His tone was bland, but Father took his meaning at once.
"The passage from the priory vault to the family crypt in the churchyard," Father murmured, shaking his head. "So that is how you got the old fright out of here last night, is it not?"
Brisbane picked an imaginary bit of fluff from his sling. "It is, and though the mechanism was coming over rather thickly with ice by the time I returned, I imagine it would still function with a little persuasion."
I cursed my own stupidity. I had thought enough about hidden passageways in the last few days. I ought to have remembered that one. As children we had never been permitted to play there, but we had heard it spoken of from time to time. Originally built to provide dry, easy passage to the village for the monks, it had been just as useful as a means of egress for mischief-minded Marches for centuries. My grandfather had locked the passage during Father's boyhood, claiming it was unsafe for the children. But Aunt Dorcas would remember it well from her own youth; doubtless she even recalled that the key had been thrown into a great Chinese pot on the mantel of the dining room. It would have been a child's trick to find it. Why she had left the Abbey, and why Brisbane had seen to her passage were puzzles I burned to solve. But the murder of Lucian Snow was more pressing.
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