Page 72 of Blackmail at Beckwith Place
“And you are?”
Geoffrey opened his mouth, probably to reiterate their names. He’s extremely literal and not very bright. Laetitia got in first. (There’s nothing wrong with her head, much as it pains me to admit it.) “Cousins of the bride-to-be.”
Sammy flicked a glance at Constance before turning his attention back on Laetitia. “And you spent the night alone.”
Laetitia nodded. “I was supposed to share Constance’s room, but she ended up in the library with Mr. Astley. Lord St George had made other plans.”
She lowered her lashes demurely. She’s an extremely lovely woman, in case I’ve neglected to mention that. A couple of years older than Crispin (and the rest of us), with big, crystal-clear, blue eyes, perfect porcelain skin, and shiny black hair. Her thick, dark lashes barely needed the coating of mascara she had given them, and the look she slanted Crispin from underneath would have made Sarah Bernhardt proud.
The Countess sucked in a breath, but Crispin just gave Laetitia an apologetic look. “Sorry, Laetitia. But I’m not using my cousin’s engagement party and my aunt’s house to misbehave.”
“And quite right, too,” I said. “We should all misbehave on our own time and in our own houses. Good for you, St George.”
He shot me a look. “Thank you, Darling.”
Uncle Harold cleared his throat. “I also slept alone. Although I’m sure you’re not insinuating that I would murder this unfortunate waif, Constable?”
Sammy hesitated. There was clearly a correct answer here—“Of course not, Your Grace,”—but I suppose he didn’t think that being a duke absolved Uncle Harold of suspicion. (Nor should it.) And in justice to him—Sammy—I guess he didn’t want to say that it did when it didn’t.
“I assume we’re all suspects until we can prove otherwise, Harold,” Aunt Roz said, and took Sammy off the hook. He looked relieved. “Herbert and I spent the night together, Constable, as we always do. He didn’t stir, and I didn’t either. Although we did have a window onto the croquet lawn, so it’s possible we might have seen her arrive, had we looked out that window. At that point, however, I’m afraid we were probably asleep.”
Sammy nodded. “You didn’t hear anything through the window at any point? An argument? Any…” He hesitated delicately, “…noises?”
My mind supplied the sound a croquet mallet might make when it made contact with the back of a skull—the closest my imagination could come was thethwackof a spoon against a soft-boiled egg, magnified several times—and I winced.
“I’m afraid not, Constable,” Aunt Roz said composedly, and Uncle Herbert shook his head. “We slept through the night with no interruptions. Except for the baby, of course.”
Of course.
“We, as well,” Laetitia’s mother hurried to say. “I’m Euphemia, Countess Marsden, and this is my husband, Lord Maurice. We had no window onto the lawn, and didn’t know this unfortunate girl existed until she collapsed in front of us yesterday afternoon.”
She divided a displeased look between myself and Aunt Roz, as if she blamed us for it. I have no idea why, since I’d not had anything to do with that, nor had Aunt Roz. It was her house, I suppose, and her son who had proposed to Lady Euphemia’s niece, thus forcing the Marsden family to be here—although between you and me, I think we would have all been better pleased if they had just stayed home.
At any rate, it wasn’t as if Aunt Roz could have foreseen this happening, nor as if she would have wanted it to, if she had.
“Lord Geoffrey?” Sammy turned to him.
“Slept alone,” Geoffrey grunted. “Saw no one.”
“Didn’t know the girl?”
“Never saw her before in my life,” Geoffrey said.
And that was that. Sammy looked around the room. His eyes lingered for a second on Constance and Francis, and on Crispin and Laetitia, and then on me. I arched my brows at him—surely he didn’t seriously suspect me?—and he pursed his lips, but didn’t do me the courtesy of looking abashed.
I suppose he thought the five of us were the most likely suspects. Francis and Crispin because they might be little Bess’s father, Laetitia and Constance because they were afraid of losing Crispin and Francis, respectively, and me… God only knew what Sammy thought my motive was. While there were people here I would kill for, at least in the heat of the moment, there was nobody for whom I would commit coldblooded murder. Certainly not the coldblooded murder of a poor waif whose only crime was to have gotten herself in the family way by some smooth-talking bloke who told her he was a Sutherland.
If she had threatened Christopher with bodily harm, I would have squashed her like a bug. I wouldn’t have snuck downstairs in the middle of the night and hit her over the head with a croquet mallet, however. And more to the point, she hadn’t threatened Christopher. As far as I knew, she hadn’t had the chance to threaten Francis, either. Crispin… well. Him, she might have threatened. And while I knew I wouldn’t have murdered her for it, even if the baby had been Crispin’s, I suppose I couldn’t expect Sammy to know that. Crispin’s insistence on calling me Darling, which made sense to the two of us, may not make sense to Sammy. He might think it meant something it didn’t.
But Crispin had an alibi for last night and couldn’t have committed the crime. Nor could Francis and Christopher.
Unless someone was lying, of course. Christopher had suggested telling a fib to give me an alibi, so he might have been willing to fib for Crispin, as well. And Constance would certainly have lied for Francis, although he truly hadn’t been in any condition to commit murder last night, so I was fairly certain it hadn’t been him.
That left Laetitia, last of the group Sammy had been eyeing. In my opinion, Sammy ought also to consider Uncle Harold and Geoffrey, both of whom had also spent the night alone.
The case for Geoffrey was simple. He might have seen her, might have made a play for her, and might have lost his temper when she wouldn’t play along. If it was Geoffrey, it had been a crime of passion, heat of the moment, and nothing more.
Uncle Harold was a grandson of a Duke of Sutherland, albeit a long-dead one, and could have passed down the Sutherland hair and eyes to Bess. On the other hand, it was difficult to imagine him being interested in someone like Abigail Dole—difficult to imagine him interested in sex at all, really—and just as difficult to imagine Abigail letting herself be swept off her feet by Uncle Harold. Surely her beau must have been someone younger and better-looking?
