Page 48 of The Duke
They found Imogen Millburn, Countess Anstruther, and Isobel clinging to each other for support in a parlor the color of spring mint leaves and marigolds.
They stood when the butler, a rather rotund man named Cheever, announced him.
Identical pairs of round hazel eyes stared over at him. From what Morley surmised, the sisters resembled each other in everything but affect. Though both were fair-haired and delicately structured, the elder sister, Lady Anstruther, looked at him with the weary gaze of a woman who had seen much. Including, if he was not mistaken, death.
How unexpected.
Young Isobel held a handkerchief to her pale cheeks, catching the tears streaming from eyes rimmed red with woe.
“Chief Inspector.” Still clad in a voluminous lavender night robe decorated with violet flowers, Lady Anstruther stepped toward him with her hand outstretched. A remarkably casual gesture for a countess. “Thank you for coming.”
“My lady.” Morley bent over her hand, noting that the other was still a captive of Isobel’s desperate grasp. “I’m very sorry for this distressing situation. Who would you prefer to show me the body?”
“I’ll show you to the garden,” the countess answered steadily. “It’s just through here.”
“Imogen, no!” Isobel protested, tugging on her sister’s hand. “You shouldn’t have to look again, it’s too, too horrible.”
Lady Anstruther only kissed her sister’s cheek, distracting her while she pried the girl’s white-fingered grasp from her hand. “Isobel, darling, it would be polite to offer Chief Inspector Morley and Mr. Argent a cup of tea, would it not?” she asked gently.
“Tea?” The pale girl, who looked no older than seventeen, blinked as though she’d never heard the word before.
“I like mine brewed strong as Turkish coffee,” Argent said softly.
Unsurprisingly, her ploy worked, and the young woman seemed to return from whatever stupor fear and fatality had created. “We—we have coffee, if you prefer it to tea, Mr. Argent.” Her own smile was shy and watery as she smoothed the skirts of her rumpled peach ball gown that confirmed that she hadn’t been to bed yet.
“That would be grand.”
Lady Anstruther took immediate advantage of her sister’s distraction. “This way, Chief Inspector.”
He followed her out of the parlor and down a hall choked with art and antiques toward two French doors that presumably led to the terrace garden. A pair of constables in their blue uniforms stood vigil at the doors. Their eyes upon Lady Anstruther in her nightclothes, as modest as they were, still glittered with both intrigue and hunger.
It hadn’t escaped Morley’s notice that she was, indeed, an uncommonly lovely woman. Her hair a stunning gold, shaded with tones of red. Her eyes a gentle confusion of greens, golds, and darker hues. Her robe outlined a slight body with delicate curves.
His notice of her beauty was more a detection of it, than anything. He looked at her not like a man would a woman, but like an inspector would a suspect. Or a witness.
Nothing more.
This confirmed a dilemma he’d been contemplating for quite some time. Something was wrong with him. Something grave and serious.
But he hadn’t time to brood about it now.
“How long have you been acquainted with Lady Broadmore, the victim?” he queried, staring down the constables until they noticed, panicked, and found something on their boots worth very close inspection.
“I only became acquainted with her for the first time last night,” Lady Anstruther replied. “I realized immediately that further acquaintance would be undesired by either of us.”
“That’s a brave confession to make about the woman who was murdered in your garden.”
“I am not her murderer. What have I to fear?”
“She was found on your property. There are accounts of you quarreling with this woman. Lady Anstruther, as of right now you are first on our list of suspects.”
“While we didn’t quarrel, exactly, we certainly didn’t agree on anything.” Lady Anstruther picked her way carefully through a short path choked with wildflowers and swept to the side, soberly gesturing down at the deceased.
Something Morley thought long-dead flared inside of him. A memory, one he held locked in the dark vault where his heart had once been, transposed itself onto the murdered viscountess.
A golden-haired beauty prone in peaceful repose. Indeed, one could believe her sleeping, were it not for the unnatural stillness of her breast. For the blue tingeing her lips and the gray painting her skin the color of the slate sky.
Death used a rather obvious palette.
