Page 87 of Mischief at Marsden Manor
Christopher sighed, but he pushed his chair back and took my arm. “Come along, Pippa.”
“He didn’t ask for me,” I pointed out, even as I allowed myself to be hauled to my feet.
“Father won’t mind,” Christopher said.
Uncle Harold certainly would, but before I could say so, Christopher had carried on. “Unless you really want to sit at this table by yourself until Tom comes back?”
I didn’t, of course, so I let him propel me across the floor by my elbow. “Father.” He inclined his head politely. “Uncle Harold.”
“Your Grace.” I did a barely-there curtsey. I knew that Uncle Harold was peeved at my presence, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to show a bit of respect for the title, if for nothing else. “Uncle Herbert.”
Him, I gave a warm smile.
“Kit, Pippa.” Uncle Herbert smiled back, while Uncle Harold gave us a cool nod.
“Sit,” Uncle Herbert added. He gestured to the vacated chairs on the other side of the table. He was in Laetitia’s seat, and I let Christopher take Crispin’s, after he had seated me in the empty chair where Aunt Charlotte might have sat, had Crispin’s mother been alive. “Roz told me that she’d talked to you earlier.”
I nodded, as I arranged my skirt across my knees and my hands in my lap, like a proper young woman. “She had a conversation with the two young ladies upstairs while I eavesdropped. Then we discussed it.”
Uncle Herbert grinned, but merely asked, “Was anything interesting said?”
“Nothing that would explain what happened earlier.” I glanced over at the spot on the floor where Lady Violet Cummings had lain. The chair was still there, overturned, waiting for the local constabulary to get around to processing what I assumed would turn out to be a crime scene. “Olivia Barnsley seems to be enamored with Reggie Fish. Violet was lying about something, or so Aunt Roz thinks.”
“Violet is the young lady who had the medical incident?”
I nodded. “It’s open season on St George’s old flames this weekend, it seems.”
Uncle Harold inhaled sharply enough that his nostrils flared, but he didn’t speak.
“Surely you’re not insinuating that Crispin is involved, Pippa,” Uncle Herbert said, while Christopher rolled his eyes expressively.
“Of course not.” I smirked. “I just find it interesting that they’ve both enjoyed St George’s favors in the past, and now one is dead and the other unconscious.”
Christopher muttered something, and his father cast him a look. “What was that, son?”
“Someone shot at Pippa this morning,” Christopher repeated, in what had to be anon sequitur, because if it wasn’t?—
“I’m hardly what you’d call one of St George’s old flames, Christopher.”
By then, Uncle Herbert was talking over me. “I know, Kit. Francis told me. Although he didn’t seem convinced that Pippa was the intended target.”
“Of course I wasn’t,” I said irritably. “If anyone was aiming at me, it wasn’t because I’m me. It was most likely because I look a bit like Cecily Fletcher.”
All three men looked at me. Uncle Harold looked hostile, Uncle Herbert thoughtful, and Christopher amused.
“It’s much more likely that it was simply a stray shot,” I added. “No one has admitted to aiming in the direction of the house, and I assume they were told not to, so whoever it was, is probably just trying to hide that they made a mistake.”
“Or they won’t admit it because it was on purpose,” Christopher said.
I shook my head. “You’re being silly, Christopher. Even if someone is trying to eliminate all of St George’s old girlfriends—and if that’s the case, my money is on Laetitia—there’d be no reason to eliminate me. I’m not an old girlfriend, and everyone knows it.”
And what would be the purpose in eliminating Crispin’s old girlfriends, anyway? He was engaged to her now—assuming Laetitia was the culprit—and even if she wasn’t and someone else was, he was still engaged to her. Laetitia had no reason to want to get rid of people from Crispin’s past, and anyone else would be more likely to eliminate Laetitia herself than any of the past dalliances, I assumed.
Unless she was next?
“Someone should tell her to watch out,” I said, and all three of the men looked at me.
“Who?”
