Beneath a Silent Moon (31 page)

"What about Val?" Charles said. "How did he feel about Honoria?"

"Honoria drove Val mad, but not in the way you're implying. He called her Princess Icicle. Besides, Honoria wouldn't have gone beyond mild flirtation with anyone until she was married."

Charles's face didn't betray by so much as a flicker of an eyelid that they knew this not to be the truth. "Because she took her virtue too seriously?"

"Because she was too determined to remain in control." Lord Quentin's gaze moved over the mountains in the distance. "Father always indulged her in anything. Evie found it easier to play along with her. Val and I were off at school. I've sometimes wondered if I'd been there more—are we finished?"

"Just one more question," Charles said. "Were you alone last night?"

"Aside from a bottle of brandy. Pity. If I'd had the sense to take one of the housemaids to bed, I'd have an alibi." He turned to go. Then he looked back and fixed Charles with a hard stare. "Aspasia could lose her job. You won't—"

"Believe it or not, it's not my aim to ruin anyone's life. If for some reason this proves relevant to the investigation and the story gets out, I'll talk to Aunt Frances. She's not the sort to be put off by scandal and I know how she values Miss Newland. If worse comes to worst, I'll find Miss Newland a new position myself."

Lord Quentin gave a curt nod. "Thank you."

Charles watched him walk off, his own gaze as bleak as salt-scoured granite. Mélanie rubbed her arms. She was cold, and not because the sky was darkening. Her quarrel with her husband stirred between them, like the quickening buffets of wind that sent the clouds scuttering overhead.

"Charles, I like what I've seen of Miss Newland, and Chloe seems to adore her. But if Miss Talbot knew about Miss Newland's affair with Lord Quentin, Miss Newland has an excellent murder motive. Miss Talbot had the power to ruin her with a well-placed word."

"And Quen knew it." Charles started walking along the path toward the house. "Despite Quen's words, I suspect he'd do a great deal for Miss Newland."

Mélanie pulled her shawl about her shoulders. Nothing was to be gained from shying away from the hard questions. They had to play this out to the end game, even if that meant pressing against bruises and ripping the scabs from old wounds. "Lord Quentin said Miss Talbot wouldn't take a lover because she liked control. I think he was right in part. If she wanted to stay in control, she could only safely risk taking a lover who had more to lose from the affair becoming public than she did."

Charles started to speak, then bit back the words, his gaze going across the lawn. Blanca, Mélanie's maid, was hurrying toward them in a tumble of muslin and curly black hair come free of its pins.

"Mélanie. Sir." Blanca's urgent tone betrayed her excitement, as did her use of Mélanie's given name. "I hoped I'd find you."

"What is it?" Mélanie asked.

"It's not at all what I expected, but I suppose—
Dios
, I'd better start at the beginning. Addison would never forgive me for making a muddle of it. I spent a quarter-hour with Miss Talbot's maid, Mary Fitton. The poor girl is quite
desconsolada
about Miss Talbot's death, though I must say she sounds a much more exacting mistress than—"

"Blanca," Mélanie said.

"
Lo siento
. Mary had only been in the employ of Miss Talbot for two months. Miss Talbot dismissed her previous maid."

"Why?" Charles asked.

"I don't know, sir. I asked Mary three different ways. I'd swear she knows no more of the truth of it than I do. She doesn't seem to know a great deal else about Miss Talbot, beyond the type of face powder she wore and her favorite way of arranging her hair, which is actually quite—" Blanca drew a breath. "At all events, as Addison would say, I spoke then with Morag, the girl who fainted. You were right,
Mel—Mrs. Fraser. She does know something. She was out walking last night with Joseph, one of the grooms. She's not supposed to be out after ten, so she was afraid to speak of it. I promised to keep it from Mrs. Johnstone," Blanca added, with a gaze that threatened defiance if her promise was countermanded.

"Naturally," Charles said. "Go on."

"Morag slipped back into the house through one of the library windows. It was just past one thirty this morning, as near as I could tell. She's sure she saw a panel by the fireplace ajar."

"That's hardly surprising," Mélanie said. "We know the intruder used the secret passage."

"Yes. But Morag also caught a glimpse of a man in the library. Not the intruder you spoke of. A man she recognized. The estate agent. Mr. Andrew Thirle."

Mélanie's words of a few minutes before played through Charles's head with the clear precision of notes struck on a harpsichord.
If she wanted to stay in control, she could only safely risk taking a lover who had more to lose from the affair becoming public than she did
. And who would have had more to risk than Andrew, dependent on Honoria's fiance for his employment and the house that was home not just to him but to his widowed mother? If Kenneth Fraser had so much as suspected Andrew was Honoria's lover, he'd have dismissed him without a reference.

Charles drew a breath. He felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach.

"It doesn't prove anything," Mélanie said.

"No. But we should talk to Andrew. Did Morag notice anything else, Blanca? Was Andrew alone? Did she notice anything out of place in the library?"

Blanca shook his head. "Mostly her worry was to get back to her room without being seen herself. She didn't put together the pieces until this morning when she heard about Miss Talbot."

"A quick-thinking young woman."

They started back for the house. Mélanie glanced at the watch pinned to her bodice. "I should go to the nursery," she said in a voice that was just a bit too brisk. "Jessica will be hungry. And I think you'll do better with Andrew on your own."

Charles nodded. He could see the embers of their quarrel in her eyes and taste the bitter ashes in his own mouth. He wanted to tell her he was sorry. He wanted to shake her and tell her that she couldn't understand events at Dunmykel the way she understood Continental politics. Above all, he was aware of a craven relief at escaping her relentless gaze.

Alec was still on duty in the hall. As a bright-eyed boy of ten, he had always known the doings of Dunmykel village and the other tenant families. At nineteen, two feet taller and garbed in green Fraser livery and a powdered wig, he was still an excellent source of information. Mr. Thirle, he said, had left the house half an hour since and gone to the gardener's bothy.

Charles descended the steps to the gardens once again, turned away from the formal gardens, and made his way along a primrose-bordered path to the stone bothy. As boys, he and Andrew had often gone to the bothy in search of Andrew's father, who had frequently conferred with the head gardener. It took a staff of twelve to look after Elizabeth Fraser's gardens, as well as the herb and kitchen gardens, the orchards, the orange and lemon houses, and the pinery.

The griffin-and-dragon crest was etched in the stone door of the bothy, along with the family motto.
Veritas est Alicubi
. It would have helped, Charles thought as he pushed open the door, if his ancestors could have been a bit more specific.

He stepped into a room filled with cool shadows and damp, loamy air. Andrew and Leith, the head gardener, were bent over a table spread with plans of the grounds. "Master Charles." Leith straightened up, hair a trifle whiter and face a trifle more lined than in Charles's boyhood memories. "We've heard about Miss Talbot. I'm so sorry."

"Thank you." Charles closed the door. "I'm afraid I need a word with Andrew."

"Stay here," Leith said. "I have to check on the lads in the orangery." He paused a moment, tugging at his rolled-up linen sleeves. "Your pardon, but I'm afraid work can't stop in the face of tragedy."

The door closed behind him. Andrew and Charles regarded each other across the stone room. The walls were painted blue to drive out the flies. Perhaps the color accounted for why Andrew's face looked so shadowed and drawn.

"Dear God, Charles," Andrew said. "I just heard an hour ago. Your father sent for me to discuss the funeral arrangements."

"They've decided about the funeral?"

"Tomorrow. David convinced Lord Glenister to have her buried here beside her father. At first he wanted to take her home, but David said there could be no question of leaving until—"

"We know who killed her," Charles said.

"Yes. Christ, I can't believe—have you discovered anything?"

"Nothing conclusive." Charles advanced into the room. Spades and trowels hung from wooden hooks all round. Hoes and rakes leaned against the walls. Harmless garden implements that were also tools of destruction. "Did you use the secret passage last night?"

"Did I what?" Andrew said.

"One of the housemaids caught a glimpse of you in the library."

Andrew let out a sigh. "Damnation."

"Did you use the secret passage?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You're not going to believe this."

"Try me."

"To get a book from the library."

Charles stared at the face of the man whose word he had relied on since they were children. "You're right. I don't believe you."

"It's not the first time I've done it. My parents had a decent enough collection of books, but nothing to compare to your father's library."

"You're at Dunmykel every day."

"You know what your father's like about his first editions."

"That never stopped you when we were boys."

"I've learned prudence."

Charles folded his arms. "For Christ's sake, Andrew, couldn't you come up with a more convincing story than this?"

Andrew aligned the blue-inked plans of the grounds on the table before him. "I daresay I could have done if it were a story."

Charles studied his friend's hands. "You always fidget when you're lying. That time your father caught us in the wine cellar, you tore a handkerchief to shreds before he got the truth out of us."

Andrew glanced down at the plans. The edges of the paper were frayed and smudged. "You've always been good at seeing into dark corners, Charles, but sometimes there's nothing in the shadows but shadows."

Charles rested his hands on the water-stained wood of the table. "Whatever it is, I'll do my damndest to keep it quiet. Better you tell me than that I stumble on it in some other way."

"I've told you."

"You weren't meeting with the smugglers by any chance, were you?"

"The
what
?"

"There are smuggled goods being stored in the cave at the end of the passage. You didn't know?"

"If I'd known there was smuggling on the estate, don't you think I'd have gone to your father?"

"No, I think you'd have done your best to turn a blind eye to the business. Especially given conditions since Father began the Clearances."

"But surely you don't think I'd have been working with them."

Charles surveyed his partner in fishing expeditions and cricket games, whisky drinking, exploring tide pools, and arguing the finer points of Adam Smith and David Hume.