Chapter 16: : Chapter 15

Mélanie was halfway across the first-floor corridor when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She turned to see her husband step onto the landing. The corridor was lit only by the candles they carried, but she’d know the lean angles of Charles’s body and the graceful set of his shoulders anywhere. ‘Everyone on this floor is safely accounted for,’ she said.

Charles nodded. He was leaning against the grisaille-painted stair wall. His candle tilted precariously in one hand, leaving his face in shadow. ‘Did you tell them what happened?’

‘No, I fell back on the oldest trick to avoid panic—I lied. I tapped on the doors and said we’d heard a disturbance outside, that we thought it was just the dogs, but I was checking to make sure everyone was all right.’

‘That’s my Mel.’ An effortful ghost of a smile sounded in his voice. ‘The servants are all safely accounted for as well, and the house is secure.’

‘That’s a relief, although—’ She shifted her candle and got a good look at him for the first time. His face and shirt were smeared with dirt, and dried blood crusted a scrape on his cheek. ‘Good God, darling.’ She reached out to smooth his hair back from his forehead and check for further damage. ‘What have you been doing?’

‘Securing the house.’

Her fingers froze against his temple. ‘There was an intruder?’

‘Was being the operative word.’ He caught her hand and drew away it from his face. ‘He escaped down the secret passage.’

Her mind went to the panel with the Fraser crest he had shown her on her visit to Dunmykel three years earlier. ‘He was in the library?’

‘Waiting for someone.’

‘Waiting—?’

‘When I first came into the room, he said I was late. He thought I was whomever he’d come to meet. The fact that he was waiting calmly for whomever that was makes me question whether he killed Honoria.’ Charles passed a hand over his face. ‘We should wake David and Glenister. They deserve to hear about Honoria as soon as possible.’

Mélanie rapped at David’s door and asked him to come to Kenneth Fraser’s dressing room, while Charles did the same with Glenister. She and Charles met back in the corridor and reached Kenneth’s dressing room ahead of Honoria’s two guardians.

The silence in the dressing room pressed against the Beauvais tapestry wall hangings and the mahogany fittings. Kenneth was slumped on the ivory satin settee, with the same vacant expression that he had worn earlier.

‘We’ve asked Glenister and David to join us,’ Charles said without preamble. ‘They’ll be here in a minute.’

Kenneth glanced up. His gaze focused and his brows snapped together. ‘You—’

‘They’re Honoria’s guardians.’

Father and son regarded each other for a moment. Kenneth inclined his head a quarter-inch.

‘Do you want me to talk to them?’ Charles asked.

‘Thank you, but I think I’m sufficiently recovered to be master in my own house.’ Kenneth pushed himself to his feet, staggered for a moment, and strode to the fireplace. He stood with one arm on the mantel and one foot on the fender, as though to establish control of the room and the situation.

He seemed quite oblivious to the damage to Charles’s face and person.

After less than a minute a rap sounded at the door, and Glenister and David stepped into the room. ‘What in God’s name is so important it couldn’t wait until morning?’ Glenister demanded.

Kenneth was silent for a fraction of a second. Then he stepped away from the fireplace. He moved with decision now, and though his voice was hoarse, it had regained the familiar note of command. ‘You’d better sit down, Glenister. David. It’s hard to see how the news could be any worse.’

Neither man made any move to sit. David shot a look of inquiry at Charles, but Charles was letting his father do the talking. Glenister frowned at Kenneth. ‘What?’

Kenneth didn’t shrink from his gaze, but again it was a moment before he spoke. ‘It’s Honoria.’

‘What?’ Glenister said again.

‘Frederick—’ Kenneth said.

Glenister paid him no need. Before anyone else could move, he strode across the room and jerked open the door to the bedroom. He took a half-dozen steps into the room, then went still.

Mélanie almost expected Glenister to catch his niece in his arms and deny that she could be dead. Instead he spun round, hurled himself at Kenneth, and slammed his fist into Kenneth’s face. ‘My God, you bastard, what have you done?’

Kenneth grabbed Glenister to keep from falling. The two men crashed into an ormolu table and sent a Meissen chocolate service shattering to the floor in a cascade of cream and gold. Glenister drew back his arm to strike another blow.

Charles seized Glenister by the shoulders. David ran to the open door to the bedroom and let out a cry at the sight beyond. The connecting door on the opposite side of the dressing room was jerked open. Lady Frances Dacre-Hammond, Charles’s aunt, stood on the threshold and surveyed the scene. ‘What in God’s name is going on?’

No one answered her. Glenister jerked against Charles’s hold. Charles tightened his grip. ‘That won’t bring her back, sir.’

Mélanie went to David and put her arm round him. From this angle, the damage to Honoria’s person was all too clear. Lady Frances came up behind Mélanie and David and drew a sharp breath, but when she spoke her voice was crisp. ‘Close the door, Mélanie. David, you should sit down.’

Lady Frances had five children, and though few would consider her the maternal type, at times her mothering instincts were surprisingly keen. She took David by the arm and steered him to a chair. Mélanie closed the door to the bedroom.

Glenister was breathing hard, still in Charles’s grip. Kenneth held a handkerchief to his nose, which was streaming blood. ‘Thank you, Charles,’ Kenneth said, ‘but I believe I’m still capable of fighting my own battles.’

‘You coldhearted monster.’ Glenister’s gaze raked Kenneth’s face.

‘My dear Glenister,’ Kenneth said, his voice muffled by the folds of the handkerchief, ‘if you imagine I had anything to do with—if you imagine I had anything to do with what happened to Honoria, you don’t know me.’

The two men stared at each other, locked in a silent duel.

‘What was Honoria doing in your bed?’ Glenister demanded.

‘I know no more than you.’

‘You didn’t invite her there?’

Kenneth removed the handkerchief from his face. ‘I was going to marry her, Frederick.’

‘Damn it, Kenneth, that’s no answer. How the hell can you—’

Lady Frances ran her hands down the front of her lilac satin dressing gown. ‘Glenister, you know Kenneth and I haven’t seen eye to eye since the day he married my sister. But if you think about it for a moment you’ll realize that whatever else he’s capable of, he wouldn’t touch his virginal fiancee before the wedding night.’

Glenister slowly inclined his head. Typical of their code. A code that allowed them to indulge their carnal appetites to the fullest extent of their imaginations but held their unmarried daughters inviolate.

David had leaned his head into his hands. Now he looked up at Charles. ‘What happened?’

‘We aren’t sure yet.’ Charles kept one eye on Glenister as he spoke. ‘Father found her less than an hour ago.’

‘The others?’ David asked.

‘Everyone’s all right. But there was an intruder in the library.’

‘What?’ Kenneth’s gaze snapped in his son’s direction. For the first time, he seemed to notice the state of Charles’s clothes and face.

Charles told the story of the man he had happened upon in the library and the subsequent chase and struggle, in more detail than he had told it to Mélanie on the stairs. His voice was measured and precise, but he had his hands locked behind his back, a sure sign that he couldn’t stop them from shaking.

‘Are you telling us you let Honoria’s killer go?’ Kenneth said.

‘No, sir, I’m telling you I was soundly beaten by a man with a gun. But I’m not sure he was Honoria’s killer.’

‘Damn it, if someone broke into the house—’

‘He didn’t break in. He came through the secret passageway. And if he was the killer, apparently he strangled Honoria, then went downstairs—somehow managing to miss encountering you in the library—and waited about for an hour or so. Bizarre behavior for a murderer.’

‘How do you know—’

‘He was in the library to meet someone. He thought I was that person when I walked into the room.’

‘Who?’ David asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Charles’s gaze swept the room. ‘Do any of you?’

‘What the devil are you implying?’ Kenneth demanded.

‘Exactly what I said. The man was in the library to meet someone. Someone in this house. I suppose it could be one of the servants, but it’s far more likely it was one of the family or one of our guests. His visit may have had nothing to do with the murder.’

Lady Frances tugged at the lace collar of her dressing gown. ‘When I make an assignation with a gentleman in the middle of the night, I don’t choose the library.’

‘This is absurd,’ Kenneth said. ‘Of course it wasn’t any of us.’

‘Whatever the intruder was doing in the house, surely his business was dangerous,’ David said. ‘He had a gun.’

‘Which he could have used to kill me, but didn’t,’ Charles said. ‘That doesn’t prove he didn’t kill Honoria, but it does make me question whether he’s the murderer.’

‘Besides,’ Mélanie added, ‘some time before Miss Talbot was killed, she was drugged with an opiate.’

David’s gaze hardened. ‘So it was premeditated.’

‘Unless she was in the habit of taking large amounts of laudanum to help her sleep,’ Charles said. ‘Do you know, Glenister?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’ He passed a hand over his face. ‘No, of course not. Why should she?’

‘The young have an infernally easy time sleeping.’ Lady Frances put a well-tended hand to her mouth. ‘Oh dear. Oh, good heavens. I can’t quite believe she’s actually—’ Her angular face went pale. ‘That poor child.’

‘Could she have been drugged somewhere else and then put into Mr. Fraser’s room after she lost consciousness?’ David asked.

‘Perhaps,’ Charles said. ‘We did only a cursory examination of the body.’

‘She died between one and four hours ago,’ Mélanie said. ‘The weapon was a bellpull cut from the wall in Mr. Fraser’s room. As Charles said, she’d taken or been given a considerable amount of an opiate, probably laudanum.’ She looked from Glenister to David. ‘She doesn’t seem to have recovered consciousness. She wouldn’t have suffered.’

David nodded, though his gaze said he wasn’t yet ready to seize on such a shred of comfort.

‘My God. I can’t believe—’ Glenister dropped down on the settee and covered his face with his hands. ‘I knew it was a mistake to come here. This damned house is cursed.’

Mélanie sat beside him and put her arm round him.

Glenister looked up at her. His face, normally set in lines of bored dissipation, was streaked with tears. ‘She was such a pretty child. So clever. My God, who could have done this?’

David was staring at the mirrored panels of the door to Kenneth’s bedroom. In the lamplight, the glass had the cold, merciless glitter of diamonds. ‘Even if the intruder killed her, he’d have to be working with someone in the house, wouldn’t he?’

‘If she was drugged, almost certainly,’ Charles said. ‘Besides, it’s been raining since before midnight. The intruder left footprints on the library carpet, but none beyond.’

Lady Frances put a hand to her head. She managed to look regal, despite the fact that her feet were bare and her buttery blonde hair was stiff with curl papers. ‘As my late husband would have said, what a bloody mess.’

Kenneth raised his gaze from the stained handkerchief in his hand. ‘Quite.’

Glenister leaned forward, hands balled into fists. ‘We have to move her.’

Mélanie stared at him and felt everyone else in the room do the same.

‘We have to move her back to her room before the rest of the household wake up,’ Glenister persisted, as though they were being very slow. ‘We can’t have it get out that she was found in Kenneth’s bed. Good God, can you imagine what people will say?’

Charles dropped down on the carpet in front of him. ‘Sir, a murder’s been committed. We have to send for a bailie at first light. There will have to be an investigation.’

Glenister’s eyes sparked. ‘Damn it, Charles, I’m not going to have my niece’s name dragged through the mud.’

‘He’s right, sir,’ David said. ‘We have to find out who did this. We owe it to Honoria. We owe it to the law.’

‘Who the devil do you think you are—’

‘One of Honoria’s guardians. As my father’s representative. My father is just as much her uncle as you are, sir, and he’d insist we investigate. But we don’t necessarily have to send for a bailie.’

‘David.’ Charles got to his feet.

David stood to face him. ‘Think about it, Charles. It isn’t as though we have Bow Street Runners at our disposal.’

‘A good point,’ said Lady Frances. ‘What sort of investigation could the local bailie organize?’

‘Your faith in me is touching as usual, Frances.’ Kenneth had returned to the fireplace and was staring into the cold grate. ‘I’m the local bailie.’

‘I assumed you’d turn it over to someone else,’ Charles said.

‘The only other bailie within a day’s ride is Gilbert McKenzie. Not a man noted for his brilliance, and I fear a bit inclined to toady to me.’

David raised his brows at Charles as though to say, You see?

‘What do you suggest we do instead?’ Charles asked. The question sounded genuine, though Mélanie was quite certain her husband knew where David was headed. She suspected he had steered him that way.

‘You investigate,’ David said.

Kenneth’s eyes narrowed. Lady Frances smoothed the lace on her sleeve, her gaze thoughtful.

Glenister stared from David to Charles as though he wasn’t sure he had heard aright. ‘See here, David, Charles was a diplomat and now he’s a Member of Parliament. He’s scarcely qualified—’

‘He was more than a diplomat during the war,’ David said.

Charles returned his friend’s gaze. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘This is no time for modesty, lad,’ Kenneth said. ‘What your friend is trying tactfully to point out is that presumably someone with your skills at intelligence work would have a talent for investigation. In fact, I believe you were involved in investigating at least one murder on the Continent. Don’t look so shocked, Charles. You aren’t the only one with good sources of information.’

It was, Mélanie thought, perhaps more interest than Charles had ever seen his father display in him. Charles looked at Kenneth for a moment, as though he wondered what his father wanted from him. Then he addressed the company in general, his voice as cool as the mirrored glass on the wall opposite. ‘Be that as it may, you’re overlooking the fact that I have an excellent motive myself.’

He had been playing the scene just as Mélanie expected, but this was a departure from the script. She stared at him. Beside her on the settee, Glenister had gone still.

Charles’s jaw was clenched hard and his hands, still clasped behind his back, had gone white-knuckled. He turned back to his father. ‘Will you tell them, sir, or shall I?’

Kenneth returned Charles’s gaze for a moment. ‘I assume Charles is referring to the fact that a few days ago I asked him to agree to break the entail on Dunmykel. I wanted to settle it on Honoria’s and my first son.’

Mélanie heard herself gasp. For all her husband and his family baffled her, she knew Charles’s love of this house, this piece of land, went bone deep. She could guess what the loss of it would mean to him. And yet he’d said nothing to her of it. Even though only that afternoon they’d spoken about him one day inheriting Dunmykel.

‘Kenneth, that’s monstrous,’ Lady Frances said.

‘He agreed readily enough.’ Kenneth glanced at Charles, as though daring him to deny it. ‘He’ll get his grandfather’s Irish estates and his mother’s property in Bedfordshire. Not to mention the London house and the Italian villa.’

‘True,’ Charles said. ‘But everyone knows I’ve always been fond of Dunmykel. Perhaps I resented losing it. Perhaps I wanted to keep the estate for my own son. Perhaps I thought that if I got rid of Honoria you’d change your mind.’

‘You’d have been wiser to kill me,’ Kenneth observed.

‘Besides,’ said David, ‘everyone knows you wouldn’t—’

‘But that’s just it,’ Charles said in a gentle voice. ‘Someone did.’

Lady Frances looked at Mélanie. ‘Did he leave his room during the night, my dear?’

Mélanie ignored her husband’s gaze. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m quite sure I’d have known if he had.’

Glenister frowned. ‘You might not have woken—’

‘I suspect she would have,’ said Lady Frances.

‘Yes,’ said Mélanie.

Glenister stared at her. ‘But—’

‘Charles was holding me.’

Glenister, a roue of more than thirty years’ standing, coughed in embarrassment. Mélanie didn’t add that Charles had been holding her because she’d woken, gasping and sweat-drenched, from one of the nightmares that still troubled her sleep far too often.

‘You see,’ David said. His determination had overcome his usual tendency toward prudishness.

Lady Frances pressed her hands over her silken lap. ‘Obviously the only solution is to turn the matter over to Charles. We need to discover the truth, and Charles is the best equipped to do so.’

‘Don’t look to me for argument,’ Kenneth said. ‘I think it’s the wisest course of action.’

Charles stared at his father. Kenneth looked back at him. His own gaze gave away nothing.

Glenister nodded. ‘I agree. Good God, we can’t have strangers—’

‘Airing our dirty linen,’ Lady Frances finished for him.

‘Whatever we learn,’ Charles said, ‘there’ll be no covering up the truth, no private vengeance. We turn the evidence over to the proper authorities.’

An uneasy silence hung in the air. Neither Kenneth nor Glenister was used to acknowledging any authority but themselves. David, for all his good nature, was an earl’s son, bred up to lead. Lady Frances was a duke’s daughter, used to having her own way at the snap of her fingers.

‘Agreed,’ David said at last. No one argued with him, which gave the illusion of consensus.

‘How do we tell the others?’ David asked.

Charles glanced at the mantel clock. It was just past three. ‘First thing in the morning, we’ll gather everyone in the Gold Saloon and tell them all at once.’

Kenneth moved to the door. ‘I see little more to be done until then. It’s foolish to think of sleep, but I’m going to one of the guest rooms.’

Lady Frances got to her feet. ‘Kenneth—’

He looked at her over his shoulder. ‘Fanny, you of all people should know I’m the last man on earth who needs to be coddled. I think I’ve spent sufficient time in a state of maudlin breakdown for one night. You needn’t fear a repeat performance.’

Glenister stared at the door as it closed behind Kenneth. ‘I always knew Kenneth was cold-blooded, but by God—’

‘He was in shock when he found her, Lord Glenister,’ Mélanie said. ‘I suspect irony is Mr. Fraser’s way of controlling his feelings.’

‘I sometimes wonder if Kenneth has feelings,’ Glenister muttered.

‘So do I,’ said Lady Frances. ‘But I’ll vouch for the fact that he was feeling something tonight, though I can’t for the life of me tell you what it was.’

Glenister glanced round the dressing room, as though looking for answers he could not find in the mirrored glass and Chippendale furnishings. His gaze went to the door to the bedroom. The reality of what had happened to his niece slammed home in his eyes. His face crumpled. He gave a sob, desperate and awkward, as though he had forgotten how to do so.

Lady Frances put her arm round him. ‘Life can be the very devil, Frederick. Come with me, you shouldn’t be alone.’

Glenister clutched her arm like a drowning man clutching a spar and allowed her to lead him from the room.

David looked after his uncle by marriage. ‘I should cry. I can’t—I don’t think I can really believe it’s happened.’

Charles drew a raw breath. ‘I told you we had time to get to the bottom of this. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s hardly—oh, Christ. You aren’t blaming yourself, are you, Charles?’

‘Not to such an extent that I won’t be able to function.’ Charles crossed to the door to the bedroom and turned the handle. ‘We need to examine Honoria further. Why don’t you wait in here, David.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

Charles nodded. ‘Mel, would you mind holding the lamp?’

Mélanie held the Italian bronzed lamp while Charles pulled back the sheet carefully so he could check for any threads or hairs caught against the linen. He undid the tiny row of buttons and peeled back Miss Talbot’s nightdress. If her cool, naked flesh held any memories, he schooled himself not to reveal them. His face betrayed nothing as he lifted her arms, pushed aside her hair, looked inside her mouth.

It was Mélanie who noticed the slight swell of Miss Talbot’s abdomen first. Not surprising, perhaps, in a woman who claimed to have a weakness for sweets. And yet—Mélanie reached out to touch the curve of flesh. ‘Charles.’

He followed the direction of her gaze. His face froze, as though for a moment he would not acknowledge the reality of what lay before him. He laid his hand over Miss Talbot’s stomach, the way Mélanie remembered him feeling for the stirring of their children within her womb.

‘What?’ David said from across the room. ‘What is it?’

Charles looked up at his friend. ‘Honoria was about two months pregnant.’