Page 61 of A Matter of Murder

“Interesting,” Lizzie said, unsure why this was noteworthy.

“Keep reading,” Charlotte instructed.

“Daughter of Amy Burton,” Darcy said. He frowned. “No father?”

“None mentioned,” Charlotte said.

Now that was... intriguing. “Did he die?” Lizzie asked. “But he must have, if Dr. Fellowes didn’t make any record of him at the baptism.”

“There’s no record of burying any Burton,” Charlotte said. “I would have remembered the name.”

“No,” Lizzie said, feeling faint with excitement. “But I read about a Burton!”

She flipped through her own book, trying to remember where she had seen it—somewhere around the middle? She found the page she was looking for. It was before all the awful records of the war in America, around the same time her father had been born, but only a few years after the first mention of Honoria Bingley coming from across the sea as a new bride.There.

Amy Elizabeth Burton, born the second of September to Allan and Susannah Burton.

“I’m a fool,” Lizzie said, showing Charlotte and Darcy. “She’sa Burton not by her father’s line, but her mother’s. Of course she is! How could I have overlooked this?”

“Do you think this means her mother... never married?” Charlotte whispered the last part.

Darcy let out a low whistle. “That had to be quite the scandal.”

“You don’t recall anything about Amy ever marrying?” Lizzie asked Charlotte.

She shook her head. “No. And if Sally was christened Burton...”

“Foolish,” Lizzie repeated. “I’m not asking the right questions. I keep looking around and assuming things are as I see them, and not thinking about what is missing.”

“Do you think our dead man could be...” Darcy almost looked afraid to say it.

“Well, that would certainly explain why Sally and her grandparents are so tight-lipped,” Charlotte said. “But it doesn’t explain why he ended up in the flue in the first place.”

“I could think of more than a few reasons.” Lizzie didn’t voice them—she knew that Darcy and Charlotte, having worked in the law, were all too aware of the various ways husbands or lovers could mistreat those they professed to love. Perhaps Sally’s father ended up in the flue because he was a bad man.

“It’s as good a theory as any,” Darcy said. “But not one we can prove exactly.”

“What are you going to do next?” Charlotte asked Lizzie. “It’s not quite the irrefutable proof we were hoping for.”

“No, but it is something,” Lizzie said, thinking. Sally Burtonwas all stoic expressions and withering looks. Lizzie could not simply approach her and chip away at her reticence to reveal the truth with cleverly placed questions. No, if Sally had been hiding something as big as a dead body for years, something that could potentially be the murder of her ownfather, then she would not fold quite so easily.

Just then, a gong sounded, interrupting her stream of thought. She sighed. “Let’s pick this up after tea—Charlotte, I think we ought to go over the register again. Say, two years prior to Sally’s birth to the time that Amy passed away. Perhaps there is something that didn’t seem significant the first time around that will stand out once more.”

They all agreed and headed for the dining room, where they were the last to arrive. Lizzie took a seat next to Kitty, right across from Caroline, and Charlotte sat on her other side. Lydia was speaking as they arrived, so caught up in what she was saying that she paid them no mind. “Mr. Chatsworth was really very charming. Wouldn’t you agree, Mama?”

“Very charming,” their mother said, nodding vigorously. “Courteous, and very handsome.”

“And he said he’d love to introduce us to his companions, a Mr. Dalton and a Mr. Hartman,” Lydia continued. “Jane, can you please, please, please invite them to the ball?”

“We ought to be calling it a party, not a ball,” Caroline groused.

“Jane is opening the ballroom. Therefore, it is a ball!” Lydia protested.

“I don’t know, Lydia,” Jane said. “I’ve not met these gentlemen and—”

“But I have! And they know Bingley—Bingley, can’t you invite them for propriety’s sake?”

“I’m sorry, who are we talking about?” Lizzie asked.