Page 16 of Mischief at Marsden Manor (Pippa Darling Mysteries #6)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“You dirty little sneak,” Aunt Roz said, with no heat whatsoever, as she sat down on my bed and watched me peel out of my skirt and blouse. (Aunt Roz raised me, at least from the time I was eleven years old, so dressing and undressing in front of her is old hat.)

“I wanted to change anyway,” I answered, and let the skirt drop so I could step out of it. “I’ve worn these clothes all day.”

“It’s a bit early for an evening gown, isn’t it?”

“I thought I’d put on an afternoon frock for a few hours. Just to wear something different.”

Aunt Roz shrugged. “So how much did you hear while you were pressing your ear to the door?”

“The first thing I heard was Violet saying she couldn’t believe it. That Cecily would kill herself, I suppose. Or that she would take an overdose of pennyroyal on purpose.”

I dropped the peachy-pink frock over my head and yanked it down around my hips. It settled with a final shimmy. The current fashions are quite easy to manage. Nothing at all like the laced corsets and elaborate hairstyles of a few decades ago.

Aunt Roz nodded. “They both agreed on that. She wasn’t the type to take her own life. Nor did they get the impression that she planned to do anything drastic.”

I shot her a look. “She must have had some form of plan, then. If she couldn’t, for whatever reason, marry the baby’s father.”

“Or she simply planned to brazen it out,” Aunt Roz said. “The problem, of course, is that it’s difficult to know who to believe.”

“Of the two of them, do you mean?” I leaned towards the mirror to fluff my hair. “Do you think one of them lied?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they both did,” Aunt Roz said. “Olivia seems sweet on young Reggie Fish, and determined to hide it from Lady Violet. She believes that he wasn’t responsible for Miss Fletcher’s predicament, but that could be untrue. She might not be willing to believe it of him, or she might know better, but refuse to admit it. And if he was responsible, that would give both of them a reason to want Miss Fletcher gone.”

“Unless he wanted her and the baby,” I said, “and then it would be Olivia who had the motive.”

Aunt Roz nodded. “Or perhaps young Mr. Fish wasn’t responsible, but he was in love with Miss Fletcher, and when she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—marry whoever the baby’s father was, Mr. Fish offered to step up instead.”

That was something Christopher might have suggested doing for me, had I gotten myself in the family way by some cad who wouldn’t marry me. Not because he’s in love with me, of course, but because we’re best friends, and the next thing to siblings, and he won’t ever be able to marry someone he loves anyway, so the situation would benefit him, too. He’d end up with an heir he wasn’t likely to get any other way, and a wife who would be happy to let him live his life the way he wanted.

Reggie hadn’t struck me as being queer, or for that matter in love with Cecily, but I knew better than to discount any possible explanation.

“What about Violet?” I inquired.

“I don’t trust Lady Violet,” Aunt Roz said. “Olivia at least seemed sincere in her appreciation for young Reggie. Violet seems to me more of a dark horse.”

“She spent the evening with Geoffrey Marsden,” I said as I sat down on the bed next to her and folded my hands in my lap, “and he’s about as dark as they come. Although he’s a catch, of course. Wealthy and titled and handsome.”

Aunt Roz nodded. “Awful reputation, though.”

Indubitably. “And when Cecily said that she couldn’t marry the baby’s father—if indeed she said it, and it wasn’t just something Olivia made up—she could have referred to that. If I had—” I shuddered, “ugh, what an awful thought, but if I had got myself in the family way by Geoffrey Marsden, I wouldn’t feel like I could marry him, either. Shackling myself to someone like that would be the utmost in stupidity. It would amount to a lifetime of watching my husband poking other women.”

Aunt Roz nodded. “So if it was between marriage to Geoffrey Marsden and a dose of pennyroyal, you might choose the latter.”

“I…” I hesitated. It wasn’t a choice I ever wanted to be in a position to have to make, frankly. “If the dose of pennyroyal was to fix the problem of the pregnancy, then perhaps. I wouldn’t choose to take enough of it to kill myself.”

Marrying Christopher as well as raising the baby on my own would both be preferable solutions. I could brazen out an illegitimate baby. Besides, I could always marry Geoffrey and then divorce him again if I didn’t like what he was doing. Being a divorced woman with a child—especially when your husband is a known bastard—is marginally better than being an unmarried woman with one. At least it shows that someone was willing to marry you.

“But you don’t think she did that,” Aunt Roz said, yanking the conversation back on course.

I shook my head. “I don’t think she set out to kill herself on purpose, no. When I saw her last night, she didn’t seem suicidal. Miserably sick, yes, but not resigned, like it was something she had done to herself. And I can’t imagine why, if she wanted to get rid of the baby, she would have chosen someone else’s home and engagement party to do it.”

Aunt Roz pursed her lips. “You’re absolutely certain that this isn’t Crispin’s doing?”

“He said it wasn’t,” I said. “He could have been lying, of course. Although I don’t see why it would make much of a difference to him whether he marries Laetitia or Cecily. Neither of them is who he wants.”

“No,” Aunt Roz agreed. “But it would explain why she might decide to do it here this weekend. The event of the season. The home of the woman he chose instead of her.”

I supposed it might. And although it pained me to admit, I added, reluctantly, “It would also explain why he looked so shaken when he came out of her room last night. If she had told him about the pregnancy, and then informed him that she had taken steps to deal with it and that it was too late for him to do anything to stop it, of course he would be upset.”

But Aunt Roz shook her head. “He wouldn’t have left her alone if that were the case, Pippa. He isn’t the type to shirk responsibility in that way. If he were responsible, he would have insisted on staying with her until it was over.”

“Laetitia might have been waiting for him,” I said, “and he didn’t want to make waves.”

“No,” Aunt Roz said firmly. “Stop playing devil’s advocate, Pippa. Cecily may have told him what she was going to do, and ordered him out, but if he went, it was because the baby wasn’t his. If it had been, he would have stayed. And at the very least, he would have phoned for the doctor.”

Fine. “Geoffrey, then. If she did it herself, and there was a reason to do it here, it had to be because of Geoffrey.”

Aunt Roz tilted her head consideringly. “Did she speak to Geoffrey yesterday?”

“They danced once, I think. Although I can’t imagine a pregnancy being something that she’d announce in the middle of the ballroom. And he spent the rest of the evening with Violet. In the garden, according to Nellie. Cecily received visitors in her room.”

“Visitors, plural?”

“Nellie mentioned Dominic Rivers,” I said, “and of course you know about St George. I don’t know if there was anyone else.”

“But there might have been?”

“I was with Constance in her room,” I said. “One floor down. Cecily could have entertained multitudes up here for what I know about it. Rivers and the Honorable Reggie shared the room across the hall. We know she spoke to Rivers, but there is no reason why Reggie couldn’t have stopped by her bedchamber, as well. I know Olivia said he didn’t, but she might be wrong.”

Aunt Roz nodded.

“Or Geoffrey might have done, for that matter. He might have walked Violet to her door, and then popped in next door. And of course Wolfgang was directly across the hall for all of it.”

“I’m sure you’re not suggesting that the Graf von Natterdorff is involved, Pippa.”

I shook my head. “No, of course not. He doesn’t know any of these people. Of all the men here, he’s surely the least likely to be responsible for Cecily’s baby.”

Or perhaps not strictly the least likely. Christopher was at the top of that list. He doesn’t like women in general. Francis was in second place, because he wouldn’t cheat on Constance, and this must have happened in the time since he met her.

I supposed Bilge Fortescue might be in third place, seeing as he was married. Then again, marriage isn’t necessarily an impediment to dallying, so perhaps Crispin was in third place and Bilge in fourth. Dominic Rivers in fifth, seeing as he was dead. Although he hadn’t been dead when Cecily became with child, so perhaps I shouldn’t discount him…

“Tea should be ready soon,” Aunt Roz said, derailing my train of thought. “Shall we?”

She pushed to her feet and headed for the door. I slid off the edge of the bed and followed. “We might as well. I had no appetite for lunch—not after everything that happened this morning, and… Oh, hello, Nellie.”

“Good afternoon, Miss Darling.”

We had reached the landing, and Nellie was on her way across the carpet with a vase of peacock feathers between her hands, obviously a replacement for the one that had been broken over Dominic Rivers’s head.

“That looks nice,” I said, and Nellie bobbed.

“Thank you, Miss Darling.”

“It was good of you to replace the vase for the feathers. The alcove looked a bit bare without anything on the plinth.”

“Yes, Miss Darling.” She moved past us, and we both pivoted to keep her in sight.

“This is my aunt, Lady Herbert Astley,” I said. “This is Nellie, Aunt Roz. She might be the one to take care of your room.”

Nellie did a quick dip at the knees. “Lady Herbert.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Nellie,” Aunt Roz said kindly. “Lord Herbert—my husband—and the Duke of Sutherland have also arrived downstairs.”

“Yes, Lady Herbert.” Nellie ducked into the alcove, still clutching the new vase in both hands.

“A minute of your time, Nellie?” Constable Collins’s voice said from the other side of the hallway, and we all turned back in the other direction to look at him. He had opened the door to Dominic Rivers’s room soundlessly, and now he was standing in the open doorway watching as Nellie placed the vase carefully on the plinth, then reached out to adjust it minutely. Behind Collins, I could catch a glimpse of the sole of one of Dom’s shoes.

“Yes, Constable?” Nellie gave him a look from under her lashes. They were long and curled, and her face was lovely, and I didn’t blame Collins at all for the flush that stained his cheekbones.

He cleared his throat self-consciously. “Is it your job to take care of the rooms up here, Nellie?”

“The bedchambers,” Nellie said, “yes. The hallway is properly Jenny’s job—she’s the parlor maid—but I often end up doing it, since I’m the one who works up here. Edna takes care of the family’s bedchambers on the first floor.”

“That’s a lot of work for one maid,” I said, “isn’t it?”

Nellie flicked a look at me. “It’s only a problem when there are a lot of guests, Miss. Usually, when it’s only the family and perhaps Lord St George visiting, Edna does Lord Maurice’s and Lady Euphemia’s suite, along with Miss Laetitia’s bedchamber, and I take over the two gentlemen’s rooms. It makes it a bit easier. Up here, there’s just some light dusting to do when no one’s staying over.”

That made me feel a little bit better, at any rate. I will admit that I had to hide a smirk at the assertion that she took over the care of Geoffrey’s and Crispin’s rooms from the missing Edna, though. No doubt this pretty young girl enjoyed taking care of the titled young gentlemen, both of whom no doubt appreciated both her attention and her good looks.

“So you’re familiar with the vase that was in the alcove,” Collins said, breaking into my cogitation.

Nellie nodded. “Of course I am. Dust it every week, don’t I?”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do. I dust the feathers, and then I dust the vase, and then I pick up the vase and dust the pedestal, and then I put the vase back.”

Collins nodded. There was a trace of something I wanted to call disappointment on his face, although it didn’t come across in his voice. “Thank you, Nellie. That was all I needed.”

Nellie nodded and turned on her heel with a flick of her apron. The white bow on the back of her gray dress bounced as she walked away. I expected Constable Collins to withdraw back into Dominic Rivers’s room now that he had had his question answered, but he stood where he was and watched until Nellie had disappeared through the baize door at the end of the hall before he seemed to wake up.

“What was that about?” I wanted to know.

The tips of his ears turned hot, and he made an apologetic sort of face. But before he could say anything—because that part of it was simple to guess; he thought Nellie was attractive, and had gotten caught up in looking at her—I added, “Not that. I know what that was. Why did you want to know about the rooms and the dusting?”

“Oh.” His face cleared. “Fingerprints on the vase. Small ones, likely from a woman. I found them on other things in Mr. Rivers’s room, too. But if they’re Nellie’s, that explains it. They likely don’t have anything to do with his murder.”

“Not if she picks up the vase every week,” I agreed. “Her fingerprints would be all over it. It’s not as if she’d wear gloves to do the dusting.”

Collins shook his head. “Another dead end. Pardon the pun.”

“No problem.” I have a tendency to make dead puns myself, if it comes to that. “You should probably get Nellie’s fingerprints anyway, just to compare. But whoever picked up the vase and whacked Rivers with it must have been wearing gloves, don’t you think? If you didn’t find any fingerprints other than Nellie’s.”

“I don’t know that they’re Nellie’s yet,” Collins said. “They might be Jenny’s or Edna’s. I’ll have to get them all, I suppose.”

He sighed.

“All of ours, too,” I said, “I suppose?”

He made a face and I added, “There was just the one set of prints on the vase?”

He nodded. “Nothing on the door knob, either. But gloves aren’t hard to come by. Several people are still wearing what they wore to ride out this morning.”

Yes, indeed. There were gloves in quite a few pockets throughout the house, I imagined. And gloves weren’t the only option for keeping fingerprints off surfaces, either. Collins had used a handkerchief, and most men carry one of those. Nellie was wearing a handy apron. I could have used a fold of my skirt, and so could any of the other women in the house—at least the ones who had changed out of their jodhpurs, and that was most of them by now.

While I cogitated, Collins had turned his attention to Aunt Roz.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “this is my aunt, Lady Herbert Astley. Constable Collins, Aunt Roz, from the Marsden-on-Crane constabulary. We’re old friends. He helped Tom with that unfortunate affair at the Dower House in May.”

“Of course.” Aunt Roz smiled, a friendly smile, and stuck out a friendly hand. To shake, not to kiss. Collins looked a bit nonplussed—perhaps he had expected Lady Herbert to behave more like Lady Euphemia or Lady Peckham, Constance’s late mother—but he took it and shook.

“A pleasure, Lady Herbert. Detective Sergeant Gardiner was a standup chap.”

“We’ve always thought so,” Aunt Roz murmured. “He was my son Robbie’s best friend, you know.”

“Is that so?” It looked like Collins was having a think, before he added, carefully, “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure, ma’am.”

“Cousin Robbie died in France,” I said. “It’s just Francis and Christopher left now.”

“I’m sure you wish he were here,” Aunt Roz told Collins. “Thomas, I mean. Two murders in a single day must be a lot to handle.”

The constable nodded. “Yes, ma’am, Lady Herbert. But I’ve got reinforcements coming from the village. We’ll get through it.”

“We’ll let you get back to it,” Aunt Roz said graciously. She headed for the end of the hallway and the staircase. I took the time to give Constable Collins a reassuring smile before I followed.

“Thank you, Constable. Let us know when you want those fingerprints.”

“You’ll be the first,” Collins said, and withdrew back into Dominic Rivers’s room.

As I followed Aunt Roz down the hallway to the top of the stairs, I reflected that as au revoirs go, it was a rather ominous one.

Downstairs in the drawing room, Uncle Herbert had pulled Francis back inside after their talk, and Constance had joined them. Francis looked a bit better, or at least he looked a bit less likely to go off half-cocked than the last time I had seen him. He held Constance’s hand and was talking to her, whilst Uncle Herbert was watching his wife cross the floor towards him.

I waved in their direction, but elected not to add myself to the group. Aunt Roz could tell them what we had talked about, and Wolfgang had been joined by Christopher, who must have taken pity on our beleaguered German friend. I headed that way instead, and took a seat on the opposite side of the small table. “Good afternoon.”

Wolfgang ran an experienced eye over me. His mouth curved up, so I assumed he approved of my new outfit. Christopher, on the other hand?—

“You horrible chit. How dare you go upstairs and change while I’ve had to spend all day in these clothes?”

“You were outside with Francis and your father,” I said. “You could have chosen to go upstairs instead, to change.”

“How would that have looked, if I prioritized my own comfort over my brother’s mental stability?” He didn’t wait for me to answer, just added, “Tea?”

“If you don’t mind.”

We don’t stand on ceremony in our household: Christopher pours as often as I do. “What’s wrong?” he added, as he handed me the cup. “You look perturbed.”

“Thank you.” I set it down on the table. “I’m not perturbed. Or rather, of course I am. Two people are dead. Three if you count Cecily’s baby, although I suppose it might have been a bit early to do so.”

Christopher made a face, and I added, “But in case you were worried, no. Nothing else has happened, other than that Constable Collins gave me a rather ominous goodbye upstairs earlier.”

“What did he say?”

I told him what Collins had said, and watched the curve of his mouth relax. “I’m sure he meant nothing by it. You’re not a suspect.”

“I might be a suspect. I was the last one to see her alive, and?—”

“We were all there when she died,” Christopher interrupted.

“Yes, of course. But I meant last night. I was the last one to see her last night. To someone who doesn’t know me and love me, I might have been the one to give her whatever killed her. And I was also the last one to speak to Dominic Rivers this afternoon.”

“I would think that that makes you a likely victim rather than a murderess,” Christopher said, and then seemed to realize what he was saying, because he added, “No, of course not. There’s no reason for anyone to murder you.”

“Someone shot at me earlier,” I pointed out.

“Coincidence,” Christopher said airily.

I shrugged. “I had no reason to want Cecily dead. It wasn’t your baby. Crispin says it wasn’t his. I know it wasn’t Francis’s. I don’t care about anyone else.”

Christopher cleared his throat delicately, and I added, with a bright smile, “Of course that doesn’t include you, Wolfgang. But you’d never even met Cecily Fletcher, had you? So there’s no reason to think you were involved.”

“I didn’t know the girl,” Wolfgang agreed. “Although it was very sad, what happened to her.”

Yes, it had been. And nothing much either Christopher or I could say in response to a statement like that.

“What did Uncle Herbert have to say for himself?” I asked Christopher instead.

He shook his head. “Nothing to the point. What about Aunt Roz?”

“Nothing to the point, either. She had a talk with Lady Violet and Olivia upstairs. I listened outside the door.”

Christopher’s lips twitched and I remembered, yet again, that Wolfgang was sitting next to me. I probably wasn’t making a very good impression on him at this point.

“They don’t know what happened,” I added, ignoring it. “They didn’t know who Cecily had been sharing her bed with, but Olivia said it was someone Cecily had claimed that she couldn’t marry. I don’t know whether that was because he was married, engaged, or simply a cad.”

“Could be any of the above,” Christopher agreed. “I wouldn’t want to marry most of the people here.”

I wouldn’t, either. Whether that was actually a possibility or not. In Christopher’s, it mostly wasn’t.

“Your mother thinks that Olivia is sweet on the Hon Reggie,” I said. “I had suspected that anyway, from watching them yesterday. But the way she talked about him seemed to confirm it.”

Christopher nodded. “He seems like a decent enough chap. Not as handsy as Geoffrey, nor as belligerent as Bilge, nor as immoral as Rivers.”

I flicked him a glance. “Don’t you mean that he’s not as immoral as your cousin?”

“No,” Christopher said. “I said what I meant, and I meant what I said.”

“Rivers is dead,” I pointed out. “You shouldn’t speak about him that way.”

“Dead, schmed,” Christopher said. “He was a dope dealer. He got Ronnie Blanton hooked on cocaine, and I hold him at least partially responsible for that mess we found ourselves in during Crispin’s birthday in June. The fact that he’s dead now too, doesn’t change what he was.”

I supposed it didn’t. “Nice company we keep.”

He snorted. “Isn’t it just?”

“Have you spoken to St George? His father was chewing him out earlier, and I can’t imagine that this day has been particularly easy for him, with two of his friends dead.”

“I haven’t.” He flicked me a look. “He’s over there, with Laetitia and her parents and Uncle Harold. He looks intact from here, although you could go over and inquire as to his health. I would pay money to see that.”

I made a face. “No, thank you. He made that bed. Better let him get used to lying in it.”

“Cold,” Christopher opined.

I shrugged. “That’s going to be his family for the rest of his life. I can’t spend the rest of mine trying to rescue him from himself.”

Wolfgang had been looking from one to the other of us during this exchange. Now he said, “You spend a lot of time worrying about your cousin.”

“He’s not my cousin,” I said, at the same time as Christopher said, “With good reason.”

“Can the young man not take care of himself?”

“Of course he can. But that doesn’t mean we don’t worry.”

“What’s to worry about?” Wolfgang wanted to know, eyes on the table where Crispin sat, looking cross, surrounded by his father, his fiancée, and his future parents-in-law. Laetitia was gesticulating with the hand that sported the obscenely opulent Sutherland ring, and it caught the light and flashed it around the room.

“He’s engaged to a beautiful woman with a wealthy, titled family,” Wolfgang added, “one who is young enough to give him many children and lovely enough to assure that they are attractive…”

Christopher made a face. I did, too, but probably not for the same reason. “We’re more concerned with his future happiness than his progeny,” Christopher explained.

Wolfgang looked nonplussed. Perhaps he didn’t understand why a beautiful wife and lots of pretty children wouldn’t be enough for any man to be happy, and if he couldn’t, I didn’t think I could explain it to him.

But it didn’t matter anyway, because before I could say anything further, there was the sound of a motor outside, and a moment later, the long, sleek silhouette of the black mortuary car moved past the windows. It came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, followed a moment later by a standard police issue Crossley Tender.