Page 38 of Mischief at Marsden Manor

Crispin nodded. “That’s fairly normal for someoneenceinte, of course.”

I nodded. “That’s why I didn’t think anything of it. But when she didn’t come down to breakfast this morning, Constance and I went up to her room to check on her.”

“And she was dead?”

“Not yet,” I said, and he winced. “She was unconscious, however?—”

“Comatose,” Francis shot in, with a swallow of brandy.

“Constance ran downstairs to ring the doctor and let her aunt know what was going on. Your future mother-in-law.”

Crispin winced again. Under different circumstances I would have tweaked him about it, but at the moment it seemed better to let it go.

“Miss Fletcher died while Christopher, Pippa, and I were with her,” Francis said. “She never woke up.”

“She didn’t say anything?”

I shook my head. “She was in no condition to do that.”

After a second I added, “Out of curiosity, what did you think she might say?”

She had already assured him he wasn’t the father of her baby, so it couldn’t be that.

He eyed me. “The thing dead people in books always say. The name of the murderer.”

CHAPTER NINE

“Murderer?”Christopher echoed.

Crispin nodded. And turned to me. “Isn’t that right, Darling? People in books say the name of the murderer with their last breath? And write it in the dust with their fingertip and such?”

“In books,” I said. “But she wasn’t in any kind of condition to communicate. Besides, what makes you think anyone murdered her?”

He looked nonplussed. “Well, she certainly didn’t kill herself.”

I exchanged a look with Francis and one with Christopher. “We assumed this was accidental, as a result of taking steps to deal with her…” I hesitated, “problem.”

He looked at me. “You mean, she took an abortifacient.”

I nodded.

“Not on purpose,” Crispin said.

“How do you know? The tea—what was left of it—smelled of spearmint, so we thought…”

“Pennyroyal.” He nodded. “She wouldn’t.”

“Did she tell you that?”

It was Christopher who asked this time, not me. Crispin turned to him and shook his head. “But if she wanted to, don’tyou think she would have done it before now? She was several months along. And don’t you think she would have done it somewhere else? Not here, during my engagement party?”

“Unless she was making a statement,” Francis said, and Crispin’s eyebrows arched.

“What is that supposed to mean? What sort of statement would that be?”

Francis arched his own brow back. “There’s one reason why she might want to do it here, in front of you and your new fiancée, isn’t there?”

If the baby had been Crispin’s, I assumed he meant.