Page 84 of Mischief at Marsden Manor
“And how would she have managed that, do you suppose?”
“I’m sure I have no idea,” I said. I wouldn’t have had the first inkling how to go about it, but then I wasn’t engaged to Crispin, nor had I ever been intimate with him. “Perhaps she invoked Uncle Harold?”
Christopher snorted. “His Grace might want this marriage to work, certainly above and beyond anyone Crispin wants to marry, but I can’t imagine him condoning attempted murder. Can you?”
“I suspected Uncle Harold of Abigail’s murder two months ago,” I said, “so I suppose I can. Besides, it’s me, isn’t it? We both know that he doesn’t like me. Aunt Charlotte didn’t, either.”
Christopher murmured something indistinguishable that nonetheless wasn’t a denial, and I added, “Although as far as Abigail is concerned, she was obviously much more of a threat to Uncle Harold’s plans for Crispin than I am.”
Christopher gave me a look, one that lasted a second or two too long, before he told me, “She was no threat to Uncle Harold’s plans for Crispin at all. Elizabeth wasn’t Crispin’s child.”
“Of course. But we didn’t know that at the time. And for as long as we didn’t, Uncle Harold had reason to want her dead. You must admit that little Bess looked enough like both of you to be yours.”
Christopher shrugged, but before he could say anything to confirm or deny my assertion—and there was no way he could have denied it: the baby had been a perfect Astley, from her fair hair to her blue eyes and that little cupid’s bow mouth—a choked cry came from the other side of the room and stopped all our conversations dead. I looked up in time to see Lady Violet Cummings stumble to her feet, with enough force to knock her chair over backwards.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
My first thought,if indeed I had the time to think any thoughts at all, was that Geoffrey must have been objectionable. Four months ago, he had had me backed into the corner of a sofa at the Dower House, and had proceeded to shove his hand up under the hem of my skirt. I wouldn’t have been surprised at all, had he decided to use the same technique on Violet under the tablecloth.
But then Violet’s eyes rolled back in her head and she crumpled into a heap, incidentally knocking the back of her head against the overturned chair on the way down, and possibly giving herself a concussion on top of whatever else was wrong.
For a second, we all sat frozen, wide-eyed and staring. Then Francis jumped up from his seat, and so did Bilge, from opposite sides of the room. As they came together over the body, Crispin too murmured an excuse, and went to join them.
As if those movements had pulled the plug from the dam, chatter started up around the room. I turned to Christopher. “What on earth do you suppose happened?”
“Something in the tea?” Christopher suggested.
I squinted at him. “My first thought was that Geoffrey had molested her under the table.”
Christopher’s face twisted in distaste, and so did Wolfgang’s. “Lord Geoffrey is in the habit of molesting women?” he asked.
“He tried to stick his hand under my hem once,” I answered. “I thought he might have done the same thing to Violet.”
“That doesn’t explain why she fainted,” Christopher said.
I turned back to him. “Perhaps she’s simply too fine-minded to be able to handle that sort of thing.”
He snorted. “Unlike you, do you mean? You didn’t exactly handle it well when it happened to you.”
No, admittedly I hadn’t. I had neither squealed nor fainted—the Dower House sat on Marsden property, and I didn’t know Geoffrey well enough then to know that this was his usual modus operandi, and that trying to be polite about it wouldn’t work. But I had been out of sorts for the rest of the evening. Christopher had had to lock me in my bedchamber, as a matter of fact, until Constance could come upstairs so I’d have company.
“Besides,” Christopher added, “considering her history with Crispin, she’s hardly what you’d call maidenly, is she?”
Wolfgang looked shocked. I shook my head. “I suppose she’s not, now you mention it. And she spent the evening yesterday with him. Geoffrey, I mean. I can’t imagine that there wasn’t some kind of hanky-panky going on.”
Over on the floor, Francis and Bilge were kneeling on either side of Violet’s prone body. One of them had her wrist in a grip, no doubt fumbling for her pulse, while the other was peeling her eyelid back and checking whether her pupil was responding to light. I had seen Francis do both before, both with Cecily earlier this morning and with Christopher back in May, so it must be standard procedure.
When he put his hand under her head and pulled it away again, his fingers came back stained with red. He made a face and reached towards his pocket, but Crispin got there first, dangling a handkerchief in front of Francis’s face. “How is she?”
The room was quiet enough, even with the whispers, that the question was easily heard.
“Alive,” Bilge said shortly. He let go of Violet’s hand and brushed his own fingers against the fabric of his trousers. “Not well.”
“Clearly not.” Crispin’s voice was as dry as the Sahara, or a particularly good gin and tonic. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Something in her tea,” Francis said, as he finished wiping his fingers clean. He looked at the handkerchief as if he contemplated handing it back for a moment before he shoved it into his own pocket instead. “Pupils are dilated. Most likely it’s more of the same thing.”
I shuddered. I couldn’t help it. Cecily’s eyes had been dilated as well, fixed and staring, and then she had died. I cleared my throat. “The doctor should be upstairs, for the—um…”
