Page 38 of Death at a Highland Wedding (Rip Through Time #4)

THIRTY-EIGHT

I round up McCreadie and Gray and take them outside.

“I think we’ve been looking at the Violet and Ezra connection wrong,” I say as we walk. “I presumed they were secretly courting, but that doesn’t make sense. The secret part at least. Violet is adamant that their meeting was not romantic in nature, and I believe her.”

McCreadie passes me a dubious look. “I realize Violet is easy to believe. She is not the sort to dissemble. But you may be underestimating how severely she would be affected by a romantic scandal. Also, thanks to me, she has already experienced one. I would not blame her for hiding an affair.”

“Yes, but I believe she was being truthful. That she has not, in the recent past, been having an affair with Ezra.”

“In the recent past,” Gray murmurs.

I nod. “The way she said it—blushing but also firm—suggests there was an affair, but she can say, honestly, that isn’t why he wanted to speak to her.” I look from one of them to the other. “Is it possible that Ezra Sinclair was the father of her baby?”

Silence. Then, McCreadie says carefully, “Had you asked that yesterday, I would have said he would never treat her so shabbily.”

“But now?”

He exhales and stops in the shade of an oak. “There was always a closeness between them. I considered it fraternal in nature.”

“Her big brother’s best friend, who also treated her like a little sister.”

“Yes. Ezra was always very attentive. Violet could be shy, and when I noticed him seeking her out at social engagements, I would feel the sting of it—that he was doing what I should have done. Being kind and ensuring she was not alone.”

“While he seems to prefer maids, it might be more because they often fit a type he likes. Vulnerable.”

“Which Violet was. And she was often ignored by her supposed fiancé,” McCreadie says, his voice dropping. “Who did not even suspect that another man’s attention might be more than kindness.”

“ No one did. Otherwise, Ezra certainly wouldn’t still have been Archie’s best friend, treated kindly by their parents.” I turn to look at the house. “Maybe I’m wrong about the affair. She said they were friends, that he sought her counsel.”

“Because he did not treat her as he treated Lenore,” Gray says. “Lenore was…” He trails off.

“Disposable.”

Gray makes a moue of distaste but nods. “Yes. A relationship between Ezra and Violet could have felt like a romance, which ended when she became pregnant.”

“Which seems to have happened before Hugh ended the engagement,” I say. “So she chalks it up to a youthful indiscretion on both their parts, and they remain friendly.”

“Do we see her as a potential killer, then?” Gray says. “A jealous former lover?”

I look at McCreadie.

“I would prefer not to speculate on Violet as a suspect,” he says. “Knowing I ended my engagement to a future murderess would absolve me of a guilt I should not be absolved of.”

“But whoever struck Ezra didn’t necessarily mean to kill him,” I say. “Still, I can see what you mean. I don’t like jealousy as a motive. What if Violet found out what Ezra did to Lenore and hit him with the shillelagh? I asked Violet about Lenore and Ezra, and she seemed genuinely thrown. But her reaction was…” I shrug. “Surprised and yet not surprised. Dawning horror, even.”

“As if she did not know of this specific instance, but knew of—or suspected—others.”

“Yet Ezra and Violet seemed to get on,” Gray says. “Could that have been an act?”

“ Did they get on?” I ask. “They were polite, but any overtures were made by him.”

“As if she was tolerating him,” McCreadie says. “Unlike the relationship with me, no one knew about her past relationship with him, so she had to be polite.”

“There’s one other obvious murder suspect,” I say. “If it was Ezra who got Violet pregnant.”

“Archie,” Gray says.

“Is he, though?” McCreadie says. “The pregnancy seems to have been over a decade ago.”

“Fair point,” I say. “Also, does Archie strike you as someone who would murder his best friend for sleeping with his sister? For dishonoring his family?”

McCreadie snorts. “If that were the case, he would have killed me long ago for ending the engagement. He didn’t speak to me for years, but he eventually admitted that he would not have wished his sister to marry anyone who did not want her. A man concerned with family honor would have forced me to the altar at gunpoint.”

“Okay, so shifting the motive back to Lenore makes more sense. Yes, Ezra probably got Violet pregnant, but it seems to have arisen from an actual romance. He reserves his mistreatment for the maids. We’ve thrown Lenore’s brother into the suspect pool, but we also need to throw her father and her mother.”

“Mrs. Hall,” McCreadie murmurs. “What if she did know what happened to her daughter? She is a sturdy woman who knows her way around the estate grounds and also had access to the shillelaghs.”

“She’s been staying at the house,” I say. “While the guests are here, she hasn’t been going home to her family at night. She could have seen Ezra leaving to meet Violet that night, grabbed a shillelagh and followed.”

“Lenore will be here soon,” McCreadie says. “I believe we need to hear what she has to say.”

The rest of the morning passes quickly. Having Cranston back changes the tenor of the gathering. They are no longer guests at a canceled wedding, held captive by the investigation. Their host is free, the wedding plans will be renewed—if possible—and there is nothing to feel guilty about if they indulge in whimsical party games.

Cranston himself doesn’t participate in those games. He’s taking action to fix his mistakes, and Fiona insists on helping him through the social quagmire. Mr. Hall must be told that the gamekeeper position is his if he wishes it. The cottage must be thoroughly cleaned, as if to scour away any miasmic stain left by Müller. Cranston wishes to pay a visit to the Glasses, to personally extend his sympathies on the death of their daughter, and, on Fiona’s advice, he wishes to ask Mrs. Hall who they should contact in the village to negotiate a reopening of the grounds to locals.

I rest some more while Gray, Isla, and McCreadie play the party games. Or “resting” is my excuse. Yes, I’m sore and tired, but mostly I want time alone to think about the case.

I’m still missing something. I know I am.

Finally, Lenore and Gavin arrive. They slip in the staff entrance, but their mother brings them straight to McCreadie, who takes Gavin with Gray while Isla and I speak to Lenore.

This conversation requires absolute privacy, so Isla and I take Lenore to that bench by the lake. She seems to expect we’re going to walk and talk, but we only ask about her trip.

We’re prepared to walk slowly, given her clubfoot, but she clips along. I’m the one who slows us down, still achy. When we reach the bench, I motion for her to sit and she seems to consider standing, but lowers herself onto it. Isla sits beside her while I move closer to the water, gazing out at it before turning.

“We know you were having an affair with Ezra Sinclair,” I say.

Lenore flinches so hard it’s practically a convulsion, but she quickly smooths her features and fixes me with a stony gaze. “I don’t know what you mean, miss.”

“You had a romantic entanglement while he was here seeing to Mr. Cranston’s interests and you were working as a maid. That ended—badly, I suspect—shortly before you quit.”

“I don’t know what you mean, miss.”

“I believe it ended with Mr. Müller.” I lower my voice. “With something Mr. Sinclair coerced you into doing with him.”

She goes pale, the pulse at her throat trembling as hard as her hands. She tries to clench them into her lap, but even there, they shake.

“I don’t know what—”

“Were you coerced? If you weren’t, that’s fine. No one will judge you either way.”

Her gaze rises to mine, but it’s flat, calling me a liar.

“Let me rephrase that,” I say softly. “ We will not judge you.”

“We truly will not,” Isla says. “I have endured… treatment from a man that many would blame on me. At the time, I did not speak of it, though my family would not have judged me. I refused to tell them because I wanted to pretend it never happened.”

Tears spring to Lenore’s eyes.

“Now that they know,” Isla continues, “I wish I had confided in them sooner. As with you, the man who mistreated me is dead, but I still find solace knowing that those I care about realize what he was. No matter how highly others held him in their esteem, my family and my dearest friends know the truth and will never speak kindly of him in my company.”

“Or outside it,” I say firmly. I look at Lenore. “Mr. Sinclair cannot be punished, but if he is guilty of what we suspect, he should not go to his grave with his good name intact.”

Silence.

“As for Mr. Müller, he is being held in custody.”

Her head whips up. “Did he kill Ezra?”

“That is for a court to decide. But when he attacked me last night, he hinted at what they did to you.”

She shudders, her gaze dropping before coming back up. “He attacked you. Are you… all right?”

“He did not molest me,” I say. “He shot me, punched me, and gave me a head injury, but I was spared anything else.”

“I should have spoken,” she whispers. “I know that. I worried about other girls, the maids, and I feel sick for not saying anything, but I knew no one would believe me, not against Ezra. The sun shone on him, and he was adored.”

The bitterness in her voice slices through me. She continues, “He had returned to Edinburgh before I quit, and I thought the girls would be safe while others were here, but I was still deciding what to do when he died, and then I did not need to speak up.” Her gaze lifts to mine again. “ Were there others?”

“I do not believe so. Mr. Sinclair would not have acted with Mr. Cranston in residence.”

“My mother says he is a good employer. Mr. Cranston.” She sniffs. “I do not see it. He is a blustering boor who fired my father and brought in that… that man.” She looks out at the lake. “But it was Ezra who truly brought Mr. Müller, and Mr. Cranston has been kind to my mother. He told her that if any of his guests interfered with any of the maids, she was to tell him immediately. Perhaps he would have believed me, had I told him. Still, it was his dearest friend.”

“What matters is that we have no evidence that either Mr. Sinclair or Mr. Müller interfered with anyone else. So you had an affair, then. A romantic one? With Mr. Sinclair? Or Ezra, as you called him.”

Her lips twist. “That familiarity answered your question, I suppose. He seduced me with kindness. Men think it is flattery that will win a girl’s heart, but kindness works so much better. I thought I would not fall for that. Many people are kind to me, but…”

She inhales. “Outside my family, kindness can feel like pity. For this.” She lifts her leg. “To some, the fact I was not burned as a witch is kindness enough. Ezra didn’t see a lame girl. He only saw a girl. He talked to me as if I were his own age, his own class. An equal. He spoke of his situation, his parents’ deaths, the charity he endured as a child, the shame of that. He said one good thing came of it, though. His lack of family meant he could marry me.”

She looks at us. “You think me a fool, don’t you.”

Isla lays a hand, not on Lenore’s but beside it on the bench. “I married a man who claimed to love me and only loved my family’s money. I am as educated as a woman can be, raised to think for myself, and I still fell for him. Does that make me a fool? Most women almost have known some man who tricked them in that way.”

Lenore looks at me.

“Well, let’s see,” I say. “There was the fellow who courted me to make another woman jealous. The one who courted me whenever he visited town, and turned out to have a wife back home. And one or two who courted me only to get into my bed.”

Lenore’s brows knit. “You do not seem old enough for all that.”

“Mallory is older than she appears,” Isla says. “The point is that we do not think you a fool. We think you human. Women—and men—can be tricked. It is only a matter of finding the right bait for the trap. You are correct that kindness—and respect and consideration—can work far better than presents and flattery.”

“We do not think you foolish for falling for Ezra,” I say. “We also do not think anything if you were coerced—or even agreed—to what happened with Müller. When you’re in love, you agree to lots of things you later regret. As for any impropriety, Isla was only being polite. It’s not my age that explains my breadth of experience with men. It’s just me.”

Lenore sputters at that, even as her eyes glisten. Then she says, “As for what happened with Mr. Müller, I am not familiar with the word you used—coerced?—but I believe it means I was talked into it. There was no talking. I was not in a state to do that.” Bitterness sharpens her voice again, even as her hands tremble.

“You were forced into it,” I say.

“Can one be forced into something if one is not awake when it happens?”

“Oh!” Isla says.

“I am so sorry,” I say, my voice dropping. “You don’t need to tell me more if you don’t wish to, but I am here to listen if you want.”

“Ezra and I were drinking. He often helped himself to Mr. Cranston’s whisky, and he would share it with me. I knew how expensive it was, and I would feel fancy drinking it, but I did not care for the taste, so I never drank much. Yet even ‘not much’ always seemed to be too much, and I would fall asleep. Ezra teased me about that, how sweet I looked when I slept, how loath he was to wake me. I did sleep soundly, and when I woke, I felt…” She flushes. “Uncomfortable. Especially in my nether regions. I feared the pox, but Ezra wore something to prevent that and to prevent a child, which seemed to prove he was a good man.”

She goes quiet and then murmurs, “A good man. A man who let—” She breaks off. “I woke to find Müller on top of me and…”

“Having relations with you,” I say.

She nods. “I screamed, and as I was fighting him off, Ezra ran in, panting as if he had just arrived. He said he had stepped out. Only when I first woke, I saw him standing there. He was…” Her cheeks go bright red, and Isla squirms, as if wanting to tell Lenore she can stop there. I subtly shake my head. To stop Lenore implies we’re uncomfortable with where her story is going.

“Watching,” she whispers finally, her gaze down. “Ezra was watching. He quickly left and pretended to have come in. He even tried to blame me, outraged that I was so drunk with whisky that I… I allowed that.” She looks at us. “I did not. He must have put something into the whisky. I thought back to all the other times I fell asleep and I realized what must have—”

She stops and looks out over the lake, and Isla eases closer, her arm tentatively going around the younger woman. Lenore doesn’t lean into it, but she does relax.

After a moment, Lenore says, “I confronted Ezra. I told him that I saw him watching. He pretended I was mistaken, in shock, and he apologized for blaming me. He said Müller was a monstrous man who would never come near me again. He did not say, however, that he would see him sacked. I asked for that, testing him, and he blustered that he did not have that authority, and to even attempt it, he would need to tell Mr. Cranston what Mr. Müller had done to me, and I did not want that, did I?”

“Monster,” Isla mutters.

Lenore nods. “Ezra gave me money. He said it was because he blamed himself for not protecting me. I knew it was to keep my silence. I took it, and I tried to stay in my position, but I could not. Even when he had left the house, everything reminded me of him. The corners where he would pull me aside for a kiss. The spots in the garden where he would tell me he loved me. That old cottage where we…” Lenore shivers. “It was too much.”

Isla and Lenore sit in silence as I pace along the edge of the lake, trying to look as if I am calm and reflective… and not already leaping ahead to more questions. Normally, I’m the one sitting with the victim, comforting them, and this puts me at an odd remove, where all I can do is hold my tongue and give Lenore the time she needs.

Finally, I say, “Someone knew what happened. We received a note, in our coach, saying that Ezra deserved it for what he did to you.”

She tenses. “I know. I heard of the note and that you mistook the name for Nora, and I was not about to say otherwise. The note came from a dear friend. She is a few years younger than me, and suffers from palsy. I used to care for her as a child, and we came together over our shared infirmities. I told her what happened. I had to tell someone, and she would never share my secret. But when Ezra died, her anger got the better of her. She heard Dr. Gray was a famous detective and so she had a village boy put that note in your coach.” Her lips twitch. “I believe she was trying to tell you not to bother finding the killer, as Ezra deserved his death. She can be very young and very innocent sometimes. Had she ever thought her actions could lead to my secret being revealed, she would not have done it.”

“We may need to speak to her,” I say. “But for now, that is enough. I do need to ask about the night Ezra died. We found the stag. We know you were there. Probably Gavin, too, but definitely you, given the use of a bow and the marks of your walking stick.”

Her shoulders sag. “I know. We no longer hid the evidence of our poaching. After what Müller did to me, it felt good. I know that is petty, but I couldn’t help it.”

“You thwarted and humiliated him,” I say. “Which he well deserved.”

“I am only glad he did not catch you himself,” Isla murmurs.

“I was careful. I was always with Gavin, and I was always listening for Mr. Müller. That night, I heard something and went for a look while Gavin saw to the butchering. I saw Ezra, and my mind spun into a tizzy. If he found us, my reaction would tell Gavin something had happened. So I said it was Mr. Cranston himself, coming our way. We grabbed what meat we could carry and left.”

“You only saw Ezra,” I say.

She nods. “No one else. I know you will ask that, but Ezra was alone. He seemed to be heading for the road right up there.” She pointed. “He was walking most determinedly, which made me wonder whether he had heard us. All the more reason to move quickly.”

“You grabbed the deer haunches and left.”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear anything? See anything?”

She shakes her head. “My mind was in too much of a muddle to notice anything amiss, but later, when we heard Ezra had died, Gavin said he heard and saw nothing. He remembered me saying I’d seen Mr. Cranston but that was easy to explain because of the coat.”

“That Ezra was wearing Mr. Cranston’s coat.”

“Yes. But someone was still dead, and we had been out there and had not bothered to disguise that we were the ones who killed the deer. Butchered it a few hundred paces from where Ezra was killed. I was trying to decide what to do when I discovered that my friend had left that note… and realized that if you learned it was about me, I would be the obvious suspect.”

“So you left.”

“I told Gavin that we would be blamed once they realized who killed the stag. We decided to go visit our gran until the matter was sorted. Then I got my mother’s letter and knew I had to come back. It is one thing to quietly leave, but another to refuse to return.”

“It is.”

She looks at me. “I returned because I did not kill Ezra. There were times when I wished I had, and I am not sorry he is dead, but I did not do it.”