Page 52 of The Trouble With Titles
Halting, Trafford understood without him stating it. The lord removed his glove to feel for a pulse, glancing up at Simon with a shake of his head. It was at that moment that Simon noticed the odd detail that his companion’s moss-green eyes were marred by large brown spots, musing that it was strange how tragedy such as this could focus one’s attention on insignificant minutia.
“I should … take her back upstairs?”
“Agreed. There is no reason to upset the ladies with a corpse while your Miss Bigsby is so ill.”
“What did she mean … do you think? At the end? Did she imply she had taken steps to get rid of the heir from Italy?”
“I could not tell if she knew what she was saying, but we do have Roderick to find.”
Simon groaned. This day was turning out to be far worse than he had ever experienced.
“I suppose it is a mercy she is gone.”
Trafford licked his lips. “I know it sounds cruel, old chap, but I believe it is for the best. The duke and his family can rest assured that justice has been done, and your household can avoid much of the upheaval this would have caused so that your brother can recover his health in peace. Lady Blackwood’s final act is a kindness to all concerned.”
Simon turned around and began to climb the steps back to his mother’s rooms. “How bad will it be?”
“I think the duke can convince the authorities to settle Lord Filminster’s death without an inquest. Rumors may fly, but I see no cause to involve the public in something that is settled. Home Office might be amenable to allowing the matter to fade away. Perhaps we can have this declared … an accidental overdose?”
It would indeed be a boon to the Scotts if the duke would assist them to quiet the scandal sure to be unleashed. They continued their climb in silence, ascending much slower than their hasty descent as a sign of respect to the dead. He was not sure if his mother deserved it, but he was grateful that nothing more was said until they reached her drawing room to lay her out on the chaise lounge after Trafford had removed the journals. Simon took the time to pose her as she had been in the bedchamber, guessing she had taken pains to look her best for when her body was discovered.
Stepping back, he studied her for several moments with a numb sort of sadness before collecting a blanket from her room to cover her up. He would need to make arrangements, but first—first they must find the footman who had assisted her in her deadly mission to secure the title on Simon’s behalf.
It made him ill to think about it. They had not known each other very well. Isla Scott had risked everything, murdered a man, tried to murder his brother and Madeline, to ensure Simon inherited, while he had long wished for another life without duty to a title and entailments to take care of. He would choose Madeline over inheritance under any circumstances, and it was his dearest hope that she would be all right, his fears for her health persisting despite Lady Trafford’s assurances. She had consumed a considerable quantity of arsenic.
“So where would a crazed, infatuated footman hide after he has poisoned an innocent woman?”
Trafford pointed. “Well … should that window be open?”
CHAPTER 14
“Venus sought to test not only Psyche but her own son, forcing them both to endure the consequences of disobedience.”
Lucius Apuleius, Metamorphoses
Isla’s drawing room was on the corner of the house, with a bank of windows facing the garden where the servants had gathered earlier and two more windows on the side of the house. The same direction as Simon’s bedchamber faced, which meant there was a trellis of creeping ivy. Considering the coolness of the day, and the stiff draught blowing in, there was no logical reason for the window to have been opened. He believed it had been open when they had first entered in search of his mother, but he had not paid it any mind at the time.
Simon crossed over, leaning through to look about. It took a moment, but when he swung his head to the right, he foundRoderick clinging to the trellis like a man caught in a terrible storm. The footman was trembling something fierce, and his face was as white as a sheet against his brown hair.
Peering down, Simon surmised his mother had ordered the footman to climb down to John’s bedroom below to end his life. So she must have known about John’s collapse in the study, but had not come to discover his condition, which was rather telling that she had been expecting it. He was still having trouble reconciling that his mother had been trying to kill his older brother to force a path to Simon inheriting the title. Was she disregarding the heir and spare who would be arriving from Italy?
Considering she had proved herself to be a madwoman, perhaps in her macabre fantasy of grand legacy, she had elected to forget their existence.
Staring into the chasm of lunacy, Simon was disturbed by the knowledge his own mother had been conspiring death and mayhem these past two years. And intercepting mail between his father and Peter for almost as long as she had been married, to prevent reconciliation.
Fortunately for John and Molly in the rooms below, Isla must have been unaware that Roderick was deathly afraid of heights.
“Do you need assistance to come back inside?” It was not the time to interrogate the petrified manservant, despite the horrifying revelations of the past couple of hours.
Roderick shook his head with vehemence, his grip so tight around the bars of the trellis that his knuckles shone white even through the pallor of his skin.
Simon cocked his head, struggling to decide his next move. They were at a stalemate, Roderick frozen just a few feet away, their gazes locked in an uncomfortable challenge.
The footman finally spoke in a tremulous voice. “Where’s Isla?”
Trafford chose that moment to lean out beside Simon, jostling him in his impatience to see what was going on. “You seem the right height and size. Are you the one who stabbed me outside my home?”
Roderick grimaced without responding. Trafford took it as an assent.
