Page 29 of Murder in Moonlight
“You don’t believe her,” Grey observed after only a very short pause.
“Do you?”
“I think she’s much too curious by nature to go tamely to sleep when other people are still wandering about the house and grounds. People such as you and I, Randolph, Winsom…”
“And whoever killed him.” Constance, tranquil once more, replaced her pen in the stand.
“And whoever isn’t telling us the truth,” Grey added. “Which is probably all of them.”
“And we still need to talk to Mrs. Winsom. And the servants.”
“The servants won’t talk to strangers like us—not about the family, at any rate. They’ll have seen nothing, heard nothing, and know nothing. We might be better leaving them to the police.”
“Perhaps,” Constance said noncommittally.
*
It was difficult,Solomon thought with rueful amusement, to win any encounter with Constance Silver. Just when he thought he had found a chink in her armor, she saw through his own. His other suspicion, that she had been hurt, should not have surprised him. Many women lived with abuse, and prostitutes were in more danger of it than most. Constance had taught herself ladylike refinement, but she had dragged herself out of the stews—she would not otherwise have admitted to having been born there, the illegitimate child, presumably, of another prostitute and, possibly Thomas Winsom. Or someone considerably less savory.
He did not want to think of what had happened to her, then or now. It angered him, hurt him, even. Worse, somehow, was the idea that she could be hurt in less physical ways.Hard as nails… He doubted his previous assumption now.
The woman who had sat so silently beside him in the Tizsa house had not been hard but overwhelmed. The woman searching naïvely for her father was not hard either, whether or not she had been looking for financial gain from the fact.
But she was damnably perceptive, and he must never forget that she could read him like a book. Or at least like any other man.
“Mr. Grey, sir.” He turned to face a red-eyed maid in a plain dress without an apron.
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Winsom is asking for you. If you could spare the time.”
From second nature, he hid his excitement. “Of course.”
“Please follow me, sir.”
She led him upstairs to the large bedroom he had glimpsed last night through the open door. Although it was dominated by the large, velvet-curtained bed, Mrs. Winsom was not recliningthere. This afternoon, she sat in an armchair beside the fire, which made the room uncomfortably warm, a shawl about her shoulders as though her very bones were chilled. She looked ten years older than yesterday, and indescribably frail.
“Mr. Grey!” Her face lit at the sight of him as he followed the maid inside, and then immediately, tears started in her eyes. “Oh, Mr. Grey, forgive me.”
“Forgive you?” he repeated, startled. He moved toward her, and the maid closed the door softly. “For what, dear lady?” He took her outstretched hand.
“I have brought this suspicion upon you,” she said brokenly.
He kept the same gentle expression on his face. At least, he hoped he did. “How did you do such a thing, ma’am?”
“By bringing you here! And now Wilson—my maid—has heard gossip among the servants that my other guests are blaming you for Walter’s death. I would not have had this happen for the world.”
“They are merely shocked, ma’am, and latching on to the next best thing to a stranger.”
She looked unconvinced, so he smiled, releasing her hand, and sat in the chair close to hers.
“What possible reason,” he asked lightly, “could I have for so attacking a man I had known only a few hours?”
“Me,” she said tragically. “To be rid of my husband and marry me yourself.”
It certainly took his breath away. “No one could truly think such a thing,” he said, and then, seeing the added hurt in her eyes, he added hastily, “The world knows you as a virtuous lady and a loyal wife. How could anyone mistake your kindness to a stranger for that kind of encouragement? Besides, a man with such designs upon you would hardly accept an invitation to meet your husband, especially not one issued in public at ahospital board meeting. Seriously, you have enough to distress you without imagining you owe me any apologies.”
“And so I told her, sir,” the maid said roundly from her place by the door.
