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“Sometimes?”

“Don’t push it.” For half a second, Hanna risked a smile. “You can make do with sometimes for now.”

“And you,” Liza replied, “are sometimes sweet, and sometimes kind, and usually infuriating. But you’re always gorgeous, and sexy, and I will always love you and want you and need you, and no… no platinum blonde murder siren is going to change that.”

Still looking small and folded-in, Hanna let herself curl into Liza’s arms. “I’m sorry I had a … a moment.”

“It’s okay.” Liza stroked her wife’s hair in what she hoped was a reassuring pattern. “It’s sort of flattering that you get jealous. I just wish you’d do it without being so down on yourself.”

Wriggling under the covers, Hanna settled down into bed. Then she stopped, sat up, and threw the offending pillow across the room. “True,” she said, “I am pretty great.”

“You’re the best,” said Liza, curling up beside her, letting herself mould to the lines of her wife’s body as she held her.

“You’re the best too. I should probably tell you that more often.”

The weight of the day was beginning to catch up with Liza, and she yawned. “Same. And I will. We will. When we get out of here, we’ll do better.”

“Yeah,” Hanna agreed. “Or we’ll be dead. And I suppose that’s one way to save on marriage counselling.”

It had been a long enough day that they didn’t really change for bed; they just kicked off their shoes, Liza tied back her hair, and they let fatigue and near-death experiences do the rest. Somewhere in the dark of the hotel, pipes began making weird groaning noises, suggesting somebody was taking a late-night shower and the nineteenth-century plumbing wasn’t happy about it. And it was … Wasn’t it kind of a weird time to be having a shower? Then again, it was a weird situation all round. Holding Hanna as tightly as she could without disturbing her or getting an elbow in the ribs, Liza dropped a single kiss onto her wife’s shoulder and then let herself drift to sleep.

Chapter Twenty-One

Sir Richard, in the Dining Room, with a Question

Monday morning

Breakfast the next morning was better in some ways, worse in others. The hotel was running low on sausages and was down to its last few bowls of cornflakes, but on the plus side, there were no announcements about people getting horribly murdered overnight. Sir Richard stumbled down a little late and sat in his usual seat, saving the chair beside him for his aunt, but several rounds of toast passed, and the old lady didn’t show.

“Isn’t the dowager normally down by now?” asked the colonel, staring forlornly at his under-baconed plate.

“Oh, rather.” Sir Richard nodded vigorously. “Normally sitting right there”—he fork-pointed at the seat beside him—”glaring sternly up at me in silent rebuke for my tardiness.”

“Fuck.” Hanna flopped back in her chair and made a noise halfway between a sigh and a scream. “Just when we’d gone one morning without a murder.”

Sir Richard’s eyes widened. “You don’t think? Surely she’s just a little—I’ll go and fetch her.” He bolted from the room with such speed that people were still glancing around trying to work out if it made sense to send somebody with him when the question became entirely academic.

Liza picked at her cereal and waited for the bad news.

As it happened, good news came first. Or at least good-ish news. Mr Burgh arrived just after Sir Richard left to inform everybody that it seemed to have stopped snowing, which meant that the roads would likely be clear in a couple of days.

Of course, that did put them on a clock. Once the roads were clear there was nothing stopping the killer just vanishing into the night. And yes, technically that wasn’t Liza’s problem. She was trying to work out who the murderer was to keep herself from freaking out, but there wasn’t anything really at stake if she didn’t. That said, she didn’t like the idea of an escaped killer hanging over her for the rest of her life, especially one who might at some point have a reason for coming after her and her wife.

Not that she had much time to contemplate the nuances of this, because shortly after the manager had finished speaking, Sir Richard returned to the dining room looking flustered. “She’s not answering. I say, Burgh, you couldn’t just pop up and check if Aunt Tabitha is tickety-boo, could you?”

From his corner of the table, Reverend Lincoln made an if I might interject gesture. “What if we all go? If there has been another murder, it’s probably best if we stick together.”

The consensus in the room was that this made sense, and so now the whole—worryingly small—group of them put down their spoons and followed Sir Richard back up to his aunt’s bedroom. Mr Burgh opened the door, and the guests all crowded around with what felt to Liza ever so slightly like ghoulish curiosity.

The room—elegant and antique, rather like Liza and Hanna’s—was empty. The bed hadn’t been slept in.

The legendary stiff upper lip of the British ruling classes served Sir Richard well. “This is beginning to look rather bad, isn’t it?”

“Afraid so.” Professor Worth patted him comfortingly on the shoulder.

Mr Burgh suggested, and the guests agreed, that it would be best to search the hotel. There weren’t quite enough of them, this time, to split into three groups of three, so they went for two groups of four: Liza, Hanna, Mr Burgh, and Reverend Lincoln in one; the rest in the other. They set off in opposite directions, and since they’d last seen Lady Tabitha in the library, Liza and Hanna took their group there first.

Which made it, in the end, a very short search.