Page 69 of Mischief at Marsden Manor
And I probably ought to get over my propensity to see Laetitia in the role of any murderer in our vicinity. She hadn’tbeen guilty either of the other times I had suspected her, so she probably wasn’t guilty this time, either.
“Who else?” I asked.
Wolfgang made a show of thinking about it. “The married couple left next. Up to their room for some time alone, I suspect. They’ve been attached at the hip ever since they got here.”
“Did you see them in the woods this morning? Bilge mentioned how good a shot his wife is.”
“I saw them,” Wolfgang said, “occasionally. But there were trees, and we were, none of us, in sight of the others at all times.”
No, of course not. And if he had seen either of them shoot in the direction of the house, surely he would have mentioned it after hearing about what had happened earlier.
“The two young ladies left the dining room together,” Wolfgang continued. “They looked very shaken. Lord Geoffrey suggested that those of us who were left have a brandy in the drawing room, but your cousin and his fiancée withdrew. So did the unattached young man. I suspect he ran after the two young ladies. He spent most of last night with one of them.”
The Honorable Reggie, of course. He had spent the evening with Olivia Barnsley, I thought.
“And you and Geoffrey came in here,” I said.
Wolfgang nodded. “We had a pleasant conversation about estate management. Although his father seems to be in good health, so he doesn’t have to worry about taking the reins anytime soon.”
He sounded wistful.
“And you do?” I asked.
He looked at me for a moment. “My father is gone. I’m my grandfather’s heir, and he’s an old man. The time will come, most likely sooner than I’d like, when I will have to stop living the bachelor life and do my duty.”
“Of course.” By duty, he no doubt meant what Uncle Harold had been pushing Crispin towards all this time: stop playing the field and find a wife. Beget an heir (and a spare) and settle down to married life. Titled landowners were the same in every country, it seemed.
Aunt Roz cleared her throat. “I would like to see Constance, Pippa. Would you help me find her?”
“Of course.” I gave Wolfgang an apologetic smile. “Excuse me, please.”
He clicked his heels together and bowed, to Aunt Roz first, and then me. “Will I see you later?”
“I imagine I’ll be back down again before too long,” I told him, and flicked another glance across the room. “Go say hello to your uncle, Christopher. St George looks like he could use an intervention.”
Christopher nodded. “Be careful wandering around, you two. There’s a murderer about.”
“Nobody is interested in murderingme,” Aunt Roz said stoutly and tucked her hand through my arm. “Come along, Pippa. Good afternoon,Grafvon Natterdorff.”
She gave Wolfgang a nicely calculated inclination of her head before drawing me away. I directed a last apologetic smile across my shoulder at him before allowing myself to be drawn.
I assumedI was in for a talking to, of course, and I wasn’t surprised at the direction it took. Aunt Roz waited until we were outside the drawing room, and in the relative privacy of the hallway, but then she said blandly, “Your German friend is charming, Pippa.”
“Thank you,” was the automatic rejoinder, but I didn’t feel quite comfortable using it—it wasn’t as if I could take anyof the credit for it, after all—so I merely muttered something noncommittal.
“It might have been nice if you had mentioned his existence before now, however,” my aunt continued pointedly. “Let alone the fact that he would be here this weekend.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, as humbly as I could manage. “Part of me thought you knew. Crispin certainly did, and I thought he might have mentioned something. Or Christopher, of course.”
“No,” Aunt Roz said ominously, and I felt rather bad for having thrown them both under the bus this way. They were in for a talking to of their own, I reckoned.
“I actually didn’t plan to go,” I said apologetically. “The last thing I want, is to watch Laetitia Marsden swanning about with the Sutherland diamond ring on her finger.”
Aunt Roz nodded, with a bit more sympathy than was strictly necessary. It wasn’t as if I wasthatput out.
“But then Wolfgang said he had been invited, and I didn’t want him to have to be here on his own, and Christopher was going, and wanted me to go, and so I changed my mind and came along after all.”
“And that’s all understandable,” Aunt Roz said, as we reached the bottom of the main staircase and started up, “but what I want to know, Pippa, is why we’re the last to know of his existence?”
