In which a discrepancy hints at villainy
Truth can be layered over a lie.
- from Lady Avely’s Guide to Lies and Charms
“Well, then,” murmured Dacian in her ear, as he led her back to the inn, his arm warm and firm beneath her cold fingers. “Biscuit certainly cannot have traipsed out to Garvey House to murder Faske, if he has been here all night.”
Numbly, she agreed. Her own wits were beginning to fray at the edges. The effort of expending her Gift was exhausting, and she felt battered by the night’s events. “What of Isobel’s lie then? She said she was alone in her room.”
Dacian frowned and did not reply. Yet as they trod up the stairs to their parlour, the question was answered for them. Isobel’s young, blond footman was sneaking down the corridor, his golden locks in disarray.
With an amused grunt, Dacian stood aside for the footman, grinning at Judith. It was clear he believed that the young man was the reason for Isobel’s lie. Judith was not so certain. And if it were true, she felt sorry for Lord Triskett, whose reason for drowning his sorrows was now apparent.
Everyone, it seemed, could evade her questions. She was no closer to finding out who had killed Faske, Harriet, and Garvey. And the spectre of Dacian’s fallen form hovered at the edges of her consciousness, frightening her.
“Bedtime, marchioness,” said Dacian firmly. He took her arm. “We can do no more tonight.”
“What about Robert?” The thought surfaced with a pang of worry. “Has he returned yet?”
“Let us see.”
When they made their way wearily into their parlour, Robert was there, pacing anxiously. When he saw them, he let out an exclamation of relief and demanded an account of their evening.
Dully, Judith obliged. After expressing his horror, Robert told his part. He had gone, as instructed, round the front of the house with Marigold. The vampiri had insisted that she investigate inside, gaining access through the loose window pane on the second floor, to see how Lady Garvey and Georgina fared, and espy the movements of Mrs Froode. She had vanished and Robert had waited patiently for her return.
Only, she had not come back.
Time had stretched out, and Robert could not say how long he had waited. He heard distant crashing from the back gardens - Dacian’s violent passage through the hedges - and he had been torn between coming to Judith’s aid or staying at his post. Deciding that they would never forgive him if their quarry escaped round the front, he stayed, in an agony of suspense. Yet the noise had quietened to silence, and neither ghost nor Marigold had appeared.
Eventually, he had seen a horse led out of the stables and heard Dacian’s yell. Relieved, he watched them ride down the ash-lined driveway. He had followed on foot, hopeful that Marigold was with Judith.
“She is not!” Sharp worry twisted through Judith as she stared at Robert. “I have not seen her since she left with you!”
Dacian held up a hand. “Wooten? Are you here?”
A black creature emerged from the curtains: Wooten, still in his bat form.
“Have you seen Marigold?” demanded Dacian.
Wooten shook his head mournfully.
“Oh, God,” cried Judith. “What if she is captured? Killed? I should not have let her go anywhere near that house!”
“It’s my fault.” Robert looked pale. “I’ll go back for her.”
“Let’s not panic,” said Dacian. “It is quite possible that Marigold has flown off with Yvette. She might yet return.” He frowned at Wooten again. “Become human, for God’s sake, Wooten, and tell us what you saw.”
Wooten just stared back, his black eyes twin pools of despair.
Dacian heaved a sigh and fumbled in his pocket. He withdrew a pile of miniature clothes, sadly creased, and threw them down along with a large linen handkerchief. The vampiri glared at his crumpled coat, then twitched the handkerchief to hide himself. A moment later, his human head emerged.
“Well?” demanded Dacian. “Where did you go?”
“I shadowed Yvette,” said Wooten bleakly, “and she led me a merry dance. We flew round the glasshouse and across many fields, until I lost her in a copse of trees.” He gave a gloomy sigh. “It is my belief that she was well aware of my pursuit.”
Robert frowned. “Or you simply lost her.”
Wooten drew himself up. “Or she wished to be rid of me so she could pursue her own villainy.”
“Or perhaps she pursued Marigold, as I asked her to do,” said Judith tentatively. “She did help nurse Marigold when she was fallen, remember.”
Dacian raised his brows. “You think she might be courting Miss Cultor?” He glanced over to Judith.
She shrugged helplessly. “Yvette has shown herself to be on our side at least once. We must hope that the two of them are together now.”
Dacian grinned. “No doubt they are cosily ensconced in the belfry.”
Judith tried to smile, and take some solace from this possibility. A part of her wished urgently to ride back to Garvey House and search for Marigold on the instant, but her limbs and mind ached with tiredness. “Wooten,” she begged, “please, can you look for her again?”
“No, I thank you,” said Wooten. “ I don’t want to interrupt any tryst. Marigold will bite my head off.”
Judith frowned, but she did not press the matter. After all, if there was danger, she could scarcely send Wooten off to face it alone.
“I’ll go,” said Robert.
“No,” said Judith. “Definitely not.” Robert would be a much larger target than Wooten. And there was every chance that Marigold would insouciantly flap through the window before dawn, looking very pleased with herself.
Robert looked mutinous but Dacian shook his head at him. “We can give Miss Cultor until dawn to return, and worry then.” He took Judith’s hand again. “Now it is time to change out of those awful clothes and go to bed.”
Robert’s eyes fell with interest on their clasped hands, but this time Judith was numb to the sensation of Dacian’s fingers.
Vaguely, she registered that he had ordered her to bed, but if she nurtured any hope that his words hinted at seduction, she was to be disappointed. Dacian called for Phyllis and ordered a hot bath to be poured, and left Judith to the maid’s ministrations. Only when she was dried, dressed, and settled in her bed with a large cup of chocolate did Dacian reappear.
He, too, had changed out of his evening wear, into loose breeches and a white shirt, and without the disguise of Mr Fortnew. He looked down at her and smiled. “You look rather spent, my dear.”
Her mind was still fuddled with Bemusement, fatigued and scattered. But Phyllis had put a hot brick between the sheets, and the warmth soothed some her tension.
“I am weary,” she admitted, and took a long sip of chocolate, eying Dacian. He looked very beautiful in the candlelight, like an oil painting of a king at ease. The top of his shirt was open, showing the planes of his collarbones.
“I intend to sleep in your room tonight,” he announced.
Judith’s eyes widened. “Oh?”
“Not like that, you hussy. I will sleep on the floor. It is simply that I refuse to leave you alone, with a killer prowling about.”
She opened her mouth to object, and then remembered the ghastly vision she had seen of Dacian dead. She nodded instead.
He raised his brows. “You don’t mind?”
“I can keep an eye on you too,” she pointed out. “Though, really, you could share the bed. The ground is far too hard and cold.”
He laughed, even as his eyes darkened. “I’ve had plenty of practice with hard beds in Spain. And you are still Bemused, my dear.” He paused. “It is beyond irksome that every time I find you alone, I cannot take advantage of you.”
She batted her eyelashes at him. “I won’t mind.”
“Hm. Perhaps I should send for Wooten, so he can play chaperone.”
“Please don’t.” She snuggled deeper into her blankets, wriggling her toes against the warm brick. “I’ll be good.”
Dacian took a step closer, then turned away to busy himself with doubling the rugs and pulling woollen blankets out from the cupboard. Judith admired the heft of his shoulders, and took another slurp of chocolate.
“Do you want some?” she asked, holding out the cup.
He finished laying a blanket out, and looked across. “Why not? I’ll need all the help I can to put me to sleep.”
He came to sit on her bed, and she handed him the cup. His eyes did not leave her face as he took a long, slow sip.
She sighed dreamily. “You are very handsome, you know.”
His lips quirked. “I do know.”
“Have I ever told you?”
“Not in words.” He handed her the cup. “Though I like the way you look at me sometimes.”
She blinked. “How is that?”
“Like I am the first cup of chocolate you’ve seen in a year.”
She chuckled and took a sip. “I’m not the only one. Even Lady Garvey said you were handsome. Though she did remark that you were too old to be a footman.”
Dacian pulled his shoulders back, mock affronted. “I make a fine footman!”
“I agree.” Her hand crept out across the covers, and he took it. The warmth of his grasp was far more satisfying than any cup of chocolate, and she closed her eyes with bliss.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, “for trying to seduce you.”
His laugh was wry. “That is my line, I believe.”
She smiled at him, then her lids closed again, involuntarily. Dacian sighed and withdrew his hand, taking the empty cup from her lax fingers. She heard him moving away and lying down, and within minutes she was asleep.
When she awoke, daylight was filtering round the edges of the curtains. Turning her head, she could see that Dacian still lay on the piled rugs, his tall figure obscured by blankets.
Dreamily, Judith stared at him. In the dim light, and asleep, he looked younger again, like he had when she first met him. The strong jaw, the thick hair, and the sharp cheekbones softened into youthfulness; it was as if she had travelled back in time to an earlier version of his vitality.
Yet she did not want to travel back in time, she realised. They had both been so blind and arrogant then, and not yet fully themselves. It had taken years to teach them both humility and awareness. Only now did she see the world and herself more clearly. Growing older seemed to have widened and deepened her perception, and it made a stronger foundation on which to build.
And he was still extraordinarily handsome. Perhaps that was why he was still recognisable after all these years, even by Mrs Froode, a servant who had only seen him briefly at the house party.
She idly traced the planes of his face, then her eyes suddenly widened.
It was the misaligned piece of the puzzle, the nagging thing out of place. The small fact that Lady Garvey had mentioned to Judith in the greenhouse.
“Mrs Froode,” she uttered. “Mrs Froode used to be Harriet’s lady’s maid.”
“Hm?” Dacian blinked awake. “What?”
Judith struggled to sit up, her heart beating wildly. “I’ve just realised something. Mrs Froode used to be a lady’s maid, and yet she said she recognised you!”
He rubbed his brow, still blurry with sleep, and gave a soft huff of amusement. “No need to rub it in.” He paused, yawning. “Didn’t she also say how handsome I was?”
Judith rolled her eyes, even though he echoed her own thoughts from a minute ago. “She shouldn’t have known you well enough to make either observation. Mrs Froode would have only tended to her mistress upstairs. When would she have laid eyes upon you?”
All traces of sleep vanished, in the harsh light of her realisation.
“Perhaps she spied on us from the landing?” said Dacian blearily.
“She would scarcely know your face well enough to see through your moustache!”
“True.” Dacian rubbed his fingers over his upper lip, as if to caress his beloved moustache. “I have always cut a rather dashing figure, but it may simply be my title that made her pay attention to me.”
“She might have noticed you, indeed, but enough to recognise you now?” Judith’s brows shot up with a sudden, startling thought. “Perhaps she was at Garvey House nine years ago as a guest, not a maid.”
Dacian sat up at last, now scraping a hand over his jaw. He frowned. “Are you suggesting that Mrs Froode…is not Mrs Froode?”
“Exactly.” Judith blinked, overwhelmed. “Her Illusion charm is probably in one of those huge keys she wears at her chatelaine!”
“If she is an Illusion,” he said slowly, “then who is hiding beneath the mask?”
Her mind tumbled through the possibilities. Suddenly, she caught her breath, the truth springing up before her. “I think I know.”
Dacian raised his brows.
“Harriet Bollopher.” She clenched her hands into fists.
It was the only explanation that made sense.
Harriet would be an elderly lady now, like Mrs Froode, so she did not need to disguise her hands and figure to pass as the housekeeper. Just her face, hiding her plain features under Mrs Froode’s watery blue eyes and thick, curling grey hair, helped by the concealing mobcap. If Harriet was a powerful Illusor, it would be simple enough to cast the Illusion into a charm each night, into one of those heavy iron keys in her chatelaine.
“Harriet?” said Dacian, his tone incredulous. “Do you mean to say that Mrs Froode is the one who died a few years ago? But why would Harriet Bollopher take the place of her housekeeper? And why would she want Kenneth dead?”
Judith frowned. “Harriet was already treated as little more than a servant, yet she stood to lose her position in the house when Kenneth remarried. She was the mother of Charles’ first wife, and she wouldn’t be assured of a home anymore. As an upper servant she could stay on at Garvey House, close to her granddaughter.”
Dacian nodded slowly. “And close to the Galenia flower.”
Judith agreed. “She must have ensured that Mrs Froode was promoted to housekeeper before she died, to entrench her position. Lady Garvey would have allowed it - she let Harriet run the house.” She shook her head in amazement. “For her to take the position of housekeeper has a certain ironic justice to it.”
Dacian leaned on his elbow and stared at Judith. “It is a crazy theory. How can you be sure you are right?”
She gnawed on her lip. “We will have to prove it somehow. Search the house for evidence if we must.” Belatedly, her eyes swung to the dresser with a pang of fear.
The oak door still hung slightly open. Her heart sank. Marigold had not yet returned.
Dacian saw the direction of her gaze. “We will get her back,” he said quietly. “For now, we must tidy ourselves up, before Phyllis arrives with breakfast.”
He stood, and Judith saw he was still clad only in his white shirt and loose trousers. Quickly, she averted her gaze, remembering with embarrassment how she had burbled on last night. Dacian seemed disinclined to talk, however, and set about putting the rugs and pillows away.
Once he had pulled his coat and shoes on, he put his hand on the door knob. “I’ll fetch Robert and Wooten, and we can make a plan.”