Page 29 of Evidence of Evil
Elizabeth gave an unhappy little smile. “Well, she was pleasant to look at, and I daresay she seemed a bit of a trophy, so he paid her alittleattention. But the more he saw of her, the more he realized she had no interest in the children—and she doesn’t, whatever wiles she used to make them adore her.”
Constance frowned. “Did she do that? In what way?”
“I don’t really know. I wasn’t there before she went to India, but after she came home, they all goggle at her beauty, fall over themselves to make her smile, to do any little things she wants of them, and she does ask.” She drew in a breath. “Didask. ‘Bring me a flower. Go and fetch your papa. Go to the kitchen and beg a slice of cake.’ She especially liked if they were things I had forbidden them to do, like pull the head off a rose or eat more cake than was good for them…”
At last.“So she was not so perfect.” Jealous, surely, at the very least…
Elizabeth shook her head. “Humph had already drawn back from her when Colonel Niall swept them all off to India. Despite the gossip in the village, there was no understanding between them, let alone any formal betrothal. Humph was perfectly free to marry me.”
Constance sat down beside her. “Elizabeth. If you want my help, you cannot keep things like this from me. It’s as if you’re manipulating us to look in wrong directions, and if you do that, we may never be able to find out what happened to Frances. You may live under constant suspicion. Or that police inspector from London might decide it’s worth arresting you.”
Elizabeth’s pale face whitened further. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I have been so mixed up—at my wits’ end, to be honest—that I don’t know what to do or say for the best to anyone. Least of all to Humph. I am so afraid he takes all this as evidence of some evil within me…”
Constance grasped her hand. “There is no evil in you,” she said firmly. “None whatsoever. So tell me the truth. What did Frances really say to you when you walked around the lake?”
Elizabeth stared at her hands. Constance gazed at her face until her friend slowly raised her eyes to hers.
“What did Frances say to me? She told me she was carrying Humphrey’s child.”
*
Solomon had nourgent letters to write, but he thought he might use the time alone in his and Constance’s bedchamber to write to Jamaica, to make sure his agents there remembered to earn their fees, both on the plantation and in the ongoing, increasingly hopeless investigation into the disappearance of his brother David. Twenty years had passed since the last time he had seen David, ten since, in the wake of his own failure, he had given the investigation over to others—not just in Jamaica but in every port in which he had contacts.
However, it was not David that kept him from concentrating on plantation business. It was this case of Frances Niall, who had died from no apparent cause and for no obvious reason. He found himself gazing out the window, across the pretty countryside and not even seeing it.
An unexpected knock on the door drew him back to the present. “Yes?” he called.
To his surprise, Sir Humphrey entered, scowling direly.
Solomon rose to his feet. “Sir Humphrey.”
Maule halted in the middle of the room, glaring at Solomon. “Sorry to interrupt you.”
The unexpectedness made Solomon blink. “Not at all. Can I help?”
Maule sighed. “Need a word.”
“Then shall we sit and be comfortable?” Solomon indicated the two armchairs on either side of the fire, which was not yet lit.
Distractedly, Maule chose the nearest armchair. Solomon sat in the other and waited for him to speak.
“Dammit, I owe you an apology,” he said in a rush. “To be frank, I didn’t really believe in your skills of investigation. I only agreed to please Elizabeth, and because I thought she needed a friend to support her. Then, over at the Grange, it struck me I was sending you in blind, as it were, only giving you half the information and making everything you do for us doubly difficult. And in any case, I’m sure you’ll find out in far less discreet ways than a little honesty on my part would have achieved.” Maule paused for breath, eyeing Solomon with rather touching awkwardness. “Sorry.”
Solomon shook his head. “There is no need for apology. If you mean to tell me about your understanding with Miss Niall—”
“There was no understanding on my part,” Maule growled. “But it was a damned lucky escape. The more distance I put between us, the more she tried to cling. I kept running into her where she had no business to be—on my land, in the village inn, calling on me without her family. I tell you, I was mightily relieved when Niall hauled her off to India with him.”
“Was that why he took her to India?” Solomon asked. “Because she was importuning you?”
“I don’t imagine he knew she was. I certainly never told him. Awkward thing to say to a man about his daughter.”
“And when she came home again?”
“I hoped she’d be married,” Maule said. “She wasn’t, but she did seem to have grown up in India. She was the perfect hostess for her father, entertained us at Fairfield Grange and generally behaved just as she ought. And was charming with it.” He frowned again. “Elizabeth didn’t take to her, though she was always perfectly polite, even during their so-called argument—which was more an exchange of views, at least from Elizabeth’s understanding.”
“And from Miss Niall’s?”
“There was a flash of…venom in her eyes. Elizabeth says she muttered something under her breath, an insult ladies are not supposed to hear, let alone understand.” He shrugged. “Frances grew up among soldiers.”
