Page 70 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place

“Really, St George,” I told him as I crossed the floor and dropped down next to Christopher on the Chesterfield, cheeks hot, “if you wanted to be rid of me, you could have just said.”

“I said I was sorry, Darling. It was an accident, I assure you.”

And I was a monkey’s uncle. It had one hundred percent been deliberate. He wasn’t even pretending to match his expression to the words he was saying.

Although, since I assumed he had done it to prevent me from saying something stupid, and not simply because he didn’t want me sitting next to him, I couldn’t really indulge in the hissy fit that was threatening. I took a deep breath instead, and told him, “You could have done the gentlemanly thing and helped me to my feet, you know.”

“You must have me confused with someone else,” Crispin answered. After a moment he added, blandly, “That color is quite becoming to you.”

I hoped he was talking about my cheeks, which were bright pink, and that I hadn’t flashed him (and everyone else in the sitting room) a glimpse of my unmentionables while I was kicking around on the floor, but I wasn’t about to ask.

Sammy cleared his throat. “Has anyone present met the victim before yesterday?”

I thought about lying, but what good would it do? “She came to our flat in London last week.”

Sammy’s brows arched. “Came to see you, did she?”

“She came to see Christopher,” I said.

“And what did she want?”

“We don’t know. Christopher was out. When I told her so, she left.”

“And she didn’t come back?”

I shook my head. Sammy looked around the room. “Anyone else?”

Crispin raised a languid hand. “She came to Sutherland House a few months ago.”

“What’s a few months, Lord St George? February? March? April?”

“Not February,” Crispin said. “The babe was at least a couple of months old. Maybe March or April.”

“And what did she want?”

“To speak to the Duke’s grandson,” Crispin said with a smirk. “Rogers dragged me out of bed to meet her. I told him I’d never seen her before. She ran away. I went back to my guest.”

“Who was your guest?”

He eyed me, and he eyed Laetitia, and then he had the nerve to eye Constance. She flushed. Francis growled.

“Lady Violet Cummings,” Crispin said.

Sammy wrote it down. “And that’s the only time you saw the girl?”

“Until she walked onto the lawn yesterday, yes.”

“And you can prove that, I suppose?”

“Of course I can’t,” Crispin said, irritated, and both Lady Euphemia and Uncle Harold drew in a breath. “You won’t be able to find anyone who’s seen us together, because I didn’t know her, but that doesn’t mean that I can prove I didn’t know her.”

“St George…” his father rumbled, and Crispin shot him a look.

“Sorry, Father. But there’s just no way to prove something like that.”

“So you have no alibi for the murder?”

“Of course I do.” Crispin glanced at Christopher. “Kit and I shared a room. We were together from midnight until Darling knocked us up this morning to tell us about the body.”