Murder At Rudhall Manor (6 page)

The morning sun cascaded in through the window.

Lucy blinked awake and stretched her hands, neck and toes
leisurely.

The words 'The governess did it' bobbed by in her mind's eye
and she froze mid-stretch as the memory of the previous day's events came
careening back to her.

The budding smile withered and collapsed upon her lips, and
her stomach twisted itself into a thousand colourful knots.

As if enjoying her misery, the sunlight brightened and raced
into the room and proceeded to attack the small mirror lying on her dressing table.

The reflective surface made the light ricochet in joy, and a
particularly sharp beam smacked Lucy in the eye and dragged her out of her
gloomy thoughts.

She flung aside the sheets and frowned. The light streaming
in through the window seemed different today. Was it brighter?

Her toes curled in protest as she padded barefoot on the
cold stone floor towards the window and peeked out. It was as if a white carpet
had unrolled while she had slept and covered the whole of Blackwell.

She breathed in sharply and flung open the window. It was
still snowing, and with childish glee, she thrust her arm out letting the tiny
white flakes melt on her skin. Happiness surged through her.

If Blackwell could look pretty, then anything in the world
was possible.

She felt as if the snow melting on her arm was seeping into
her veins restoring her good humour.

She lifted her chin vowing to fight with all her might.

They thought she had killed the old man did they? She would
prove them all wrong. Aunt Sedley in that strangely vivid dream had been right.
She must investigate….

"I told you she has gone daft."

Lucy yanked her hand back and turned to face the speaker.

A young boy of ten with a mop of shocking red hair stood
eyeing her warily from the door. An angelic nine year old girl with the same
red hair stood by his side.

"Pat, Hepsy," Lucy greeted in surprise.

The two children quickly stepped back, their expressions
akin to a pair of frightened geese.

"Only someone daft would have killed him," Pat
breathed into Hepsy's ear.

Hepsy cocked her head to the side considering Lucy.
"Batty," she finally agreed. "She was sticking her head out of
the window in this weather."

"Wants to catch her death," Pat replied grimly.

Lucy slammed the window closed and turned back to the
children. "My dears, I can hear you. I may be daft, but I am certainly not
deaf."

Hepsy skittered back with a squeak. Pat bravely stood his
ground.

They both regarded Lucy like she was a curiosity in the
British Museum.

Pat finally broke the silence. "Will they take you
away, Miss Trotter?"

At Lucy's raised eyebrow, he clarified. "People who
punish murderers."

Lucy edged her way carefully around the room so as not to
frighten the children and sat on her bed. "I did not kill him," she
said directing a bright open look at them.

"But if they do take you away," Pat insisted,
"they will imprison you in a dark cold place, won’t they?"

Lucy nodded uncomfortably. "They shouldn't, but they
might."

"That dark place will have rats that bite," Hepsy
whispered.

Lucy tugged at the high neck of her nightgown. "Rats
and mice," she agreed. She could feel the brightness in her dimming a
little.

"Then they will take you to a place much like our
square here and put a noose around your neck and tighten it," Pat
continued.

A bead of sweat formed on Lucy's forehead.

"Will it hurt?" Hepsy asked.

Lucy gulped wondering how to change the topic. The two
children seemed to be enjoying this morbid talk. They were eyeing her in
fascination. "Would you like a present?" she desperately blurted out.

At once tiny feet scuttled into the room. Prospective
presents, Lucy noted, was an excellent way of banishing fears.

Two hopeful faces looked at her.

"A gift each in return for the beautiful brooch that
you presented to me last night," She held out her hands and they leapt
back a foot. She dropped her hands but kept the smile. "I wanted to thank
you. I loved your gift. It was thoughtful." She paused, her eyes narrowed
to slits. "Does Lady Sedley know you are here?"

"No, she is still asleep," Pat said sitting down
at the end of her bed.

Lucy frowned. Surely Lady Sedley would not allow the
children to visit her, not if she thought Lucy had killed her husband. She
turned to Hepsy who was still standing a few feet away from her and gazing at
her with wide, unblinking eyes. "Why are you staring at me, Miss
Gardiner?"

"Will you kill us too, Miss Trotter?" Hepsy asked,
more curious than frightened.

"Perhaps, Miss Gardiner," Lucy said sombrely.

Pat quickly scuttled off the bed.

Hepsy tilted her head and eyed her like a bird. "I
didn't want to come but Pat insisted. He said he wanted to take a good look at
a murderer. We may never see one again."

Lucy felt a little hurt by that. One of the servants must
have warned the children this morning. She kept her face neutral and said,
"Would you like a souvenir from a murderess? You can show it to your
children when you are older."

Pat grinned and snatched the old blue ribbon dangling
between Lucy's fingers. “I am not going to have any children."

Hepsy took the red ribbon from Lucy's other hand. "I
will have ten of them. I can cut this up into tiny, tiny pieces and put it in
decorative boxes for all of them."

"Would you like me to sign them for you?" Lucy
asked.

Hepsy brightened. "Oooh, then I can show it to Rosy.
She got a new doll from her father last week, but I wager she hasn't anything
from a killer."

Lucy felt another pang in her heart. She wasn't particularly
keen on the little monsters, but times like this reminded her of how they were
orphans just like her. In a flash of abandon, she pulled out a second green
ribbon and shoved it at Hepsy. "Here, keep this as well. Think of it as a
gift this time … from your governess."

Hepsy clutched the ribbon to her chest, her eyes large.
"We won't be able to see you again, Miss Trotter."

"We will sneak up here though," Pat objected,
"and see her all the time."

"She will be hanging to her death soon," Hepsy
said shaking her head.

Pat's eyes brimmed, but before the tears could fall, Lucy
pounced on him and started tickling him.

Hepsy forgot her fear and raced over to join in the fun.

***

Sometime later when they had gone Lucy leaned back on the
single, hard backed chair in the room and closed her eyes. Her heart was still
beating rapidly from playing catch with the children. It took her a few moments
of breathing slowly to calm herself and once again plunge into a world of
grownups.

Things were looking grim.

She glanced towards the orange she had left at the grate for
the scullery maid. It remained untouched, and after last evening, she wasn't surprised.

The servants had rolled together to form a tightly wound up
ball of yarn. Oh, the butler may toss her a couple of affectionate words now
and then, grateful that she had apparently knifed the old man, but he was no
fool. He would never go out of his way to help her. He would remain loyal to
the servants.

She shook her head in disgust.

It was fruitless trying to unravel the downstairs syndicate.

Now, upstairs was a different story. The Sedley family
comprised of independent minded creatures who were as indifferent to each other
as a rooster is to a squirrel, unless, of course, the rooster decided to steal
the squirrel's nuts or the squirrel the rooster's grain.

Nuts, grains and roosters, Lucy mused, distracted.

She was hungry.

Abandoning her meditations for a later time, she decided to
go get some breakfast. After that, she promised herself, she would sit down in
the library and form a decisive plan.

For breakfast she was presented with two limp eggs, a bowl
of unhappy porridge and no tea. Lucy squared her shoulders, picked up her fork,
and like a soldier readying for battle who knows to take nourishment when they
can, she attacked the food.

It was a lonely meal, and she had no reason to linger
considering the taste of it. Earthworms, she decided, would have tasted better
sliding down her throat. With a shudder, she rose from the table and carried
the plate back to the kitchen.

She retreated quickly from the kitchen. The way the servants
had looked at her had given her a sudden insight into what the French must have
felt when faced with a large English army during Waterloo.

She paused in the damp hallway undecided as to where to go.
Normally she would be teaching the children in the nursery at this time, but
now with all the free time she had, she felt a little lost.

The library, she decided. It somehow felt like the right
place to plan her next move. Accordingly, she headed down the hallway.

A glass cabinet displaying an array of stuffed dead animals
distracted her momentarily. She paused to inspect what looked like a beaver in
a bonnet when someone bumped into her.

"Pardon," Peter said. "I didn’t see
you."

"Clearly," Lucy snapped and then softened her
tone, "I am sorry, it has been a—"

"Difficult two days," Peter finished for her.

She smiled wryly.

He did not return the smile. Instead, he swooped down to
play with the two pugs who had come bounding behind him. A faint blush tinged
his cheeks. Before he could straighten, Lucy joined him.

"You should name them," she said, giggling as one
of the pugs caught hold of her sleeve between its teeth and tugged with all its
might.

Peter reluctantly smiled and nodded as he gently extracted
the pug from the cloth. "I am afraid you have a rip in your sleeve."

"One of many," Lucy started to say when a screech
startled her to her feet.

Peter, too, sprang up, his reed thin body tensing as he
spotted the source of the screech.

Lucy followed his terrified gaze …

A vision of horror had manifested itself on top of the
stairs. It appeared to be a creature whose soul was greatly agitated.

An unhappy soul enrobed in a glowing white robe that swirled
about its feet.

It glared down upon them like a supreme demon staring at its
supper of two biscuits and a baby teapot.

It had hair— lots of hair, sprouting in great masses from
its conical shaped head.

Its eyes … oh, horror. The eyes were bright, red and moist
looking. The dark shadows underneath these frightening orbs were deep and dark
as a moonless night.

"The ghost of Aunt Sedley," Peter gasped.

"Your mother," Lucy corrected in disbelief. After
a charged moment, she asked, "Did she have one too many last night?"

"It looks like she somersaulted into a pool of
brandy," Peter whispered back.

"Undoubtedly," Lucy replied in shock.

Lady Sedley took a step down towards them. "Get the
animals out of this house," she screamed.

Peter and Lucy shot a few feet into the air and sped
backwards. A moment later Peter said in a tone used for children or very, very
old people, "It is cold outside, Mother."

"I don't care if it is freezing. Take them out of the
house right this minute. I don’t want to ever see them again."

"But it is freezing," Peter wheedled.

"I don't care a farthing you hideous, puss filled
mistake of my loins," Lady Sedley roared.

Lucy's eyebrows shot up to the ceiling. She had never considered
Lady Sedley to be unreasonable. In fact, a few times she had caught her feeding
the pugs under the tea table.

Peter wilted, his expression helpless.

"Perhaps you better do as she says. The death of her
husband has propelled her into an abyss of despair. Lady Sedley, it now seems,
is unhinged," Lucy whispered watching Lady Sedley charge down the stairs
looking wild eyed.

"Unhinged? What like a door?"

"Yes, and you are the knob," Lucy snapped.
"Hurry," she urged impatiently.

Peter grabbed the pups and hurtled towards the main door.
Lucy, too, slipped into the library and shut the door.

She closed her eyes and rested her back against the door.

Her ears quivered, and she waited with baited breath until
Lady Sedley's footsteps raced past.

She breathed a sigh of relief and opened her eyes.

Flames crackled in the fireplace.

She cast a look around. A smiled tugged at the corners of
her mouth.

She was all alone in a large warm room filled with the scent
of hundreds of books, ink and leather.

This was perfect. She could now make her plan on how to trap
the murderer in peace.

She sat down in front of the dark rosewood writing table and
pulled a crisp, clean sheet of paper towards herself. Dipping a quill in ink,
she began to write ….

Lord Robert Archibald Sedley, Lucy recalled, had been a
belligerent fellow. A rotten creature who had been bottle headed, substantially
cracked and had possessed a voice that seemed to emerge from deep within his
intestines to break through his cruel lips in a bellowing, reverberating sound.

A sound that had shaken the very air surrounding him and had
held strength enough to send a weak willed creature shooting a few feet into
the air in absolute terror.

Along with his commanding voice he had also possessed a
lusty temperament, a lineage that could be traced back a hundred years, and
blood so blue that one was amazed to see his red cheeks.

He also happened to have been four feet, eleven inches tall.

Lucy chewed the back of her quill, her finger tapping his
name on the sheet before her. The ink was still wet and a blob formed where
Archi had been. She did not notice but continued to drum the sheet with her
fingertips.

Lord Sedley had, owing to his bottle head, squandered a good
deal of the Sedley family wealth on what he termed as 'good investments'. They
had turned out to be very bad investments.

His pennies would have been better spent buying rotten eggs
or mud.

Perhaps it was his short stature, she mused, that had turned
him into an evil little goblin.

He had been like a greedy little squirrel hoarding his nuts,
refusing to let slip a single one into anyone else's hand, even if the hand had
belonged to a member of his family.

She shook her head sadly. He wouldn't need those nuts
anymore ….

She threw the quill down on the table and started pacing the
room. Her hand absently skimmed over the dusty books lining the shelves. A
layer of thick grey dust settled on her fingertips.

She sneezed.

Lady Sedley was a terrible wife. She was like that bird Lucy
had read about once in a book; the beautiful bird who snuck her eggs into
another bird's nest and then abandoned her unborn chicks to their fate.

Lady Sedley, with her mulligrubs, was also a swooner. An
artistic swooner who swooned only in the presence of handsome men irrespective
of their marital status. Her slim figure collapsed on demand in a dignified
heap and draped itself on the nearest fainting couch or chair, but never ever
the floor.

She had been ten years younger than Lord Sedley when they
had married. They said she had been beautiful—still was, Lucy supposed— in an
ethereal, incompetent and bleating sort of way.

Lucy returned to the desk and circled Lady Sedley's name.

Lady Sedley could have done it. After all, she had plenty of
reasons to off the old dried up shrimp. She had despised her tight-fisted,
stiff rumped oleaginous husband, and she was having an affair with the valet.
His death now allowed her to sell this ugly manor and retire to the more
sociable Bath and live the rest of her life in comfort.

Lucy's forehead creased as she recalled the cook telling her
once that Ian had been thrown into debtor’s prison some years ago. Lord Sedley
had refused to help his son, and since that day Lady Sedley had eyed her
husband with simmering, ill-concealed hatred.

Lucy slipped the list into a pocket of her skirt and went
and stood in front of the fire. She held out her hands letting the warmth soak
into her skin. She wished she could store this heat somewhere and use it when
she needed it again.

With a sigh, she once again dipped her fingers into her
skirt pockets and extracted a tiny flask of brandy. After a sly look to the
left and right to assure no one else was in the room with her, she took a swig
of the contents.

The effect was immediate.

 Warmth coursed through her limbs as the brandy slid
down her throat.

"The blasted Sedley family," she muttered to
herself. "May maggots fill their brains and poison ivy adhere to their
behinds forever."

Family … Her heart clenched in pain and she pushed away the
sudden longing like she had done countless times before and rapidly blinked her
eyes.

This would not do. Her sudden gloomy mood, she convinced
herself, was the library's fault. It was a depressing sort of room, and any
mentally stable creature was bound to feel affected by its lonely weeping
walls.

With a last finger waggle towards the sparking flames, she
spun on her heels and headed towards the door. She stopped long enough to grab
her thin woollen coat and stepped into the white winter landscape.

She breathed the crisp air scented with cow dung and horse
manure in pleasure.

Dark, fluffy clouds rolled forth and efficiently covered the
sky. An icy wind fresh from the north followed and wriggled a naughty finger
down the back of her neck.

She pulled the coat closer around her neck.

The cold wind snickered and blew a powerful gust in her
direction making her lurch forward in alarm. It pushed her along until she had
no choice but to go where the wind blew.

Spotting her favourite wooden bench a few feet away, she
hurried over to it and sat down.

The wind changed direction and went to flirt with the
Blackwell milkmaids instead.

Lucy wriggled about and got comfortable on the bench. She
adored this particular spot for two reasons. Firstly, it faced Peter's animal
house which was an old orangery made up of grey stones, wood and partly
coloured glass that twinkled enchantingly in the sunlight. And secondly, the
sun, when it shone, warmed up the bench making it mighty comfortable to sit on.

She pulled out the folded piece of paper from her pocket and
resumed brooding over the list of names.

Peter Sedley was second on her suspect list. He was the
eldest, the heir and the one who would have gained the most from Lord Sedley's
death.

Somehow Lucy could not see the shy, gentle and funny
smelling Peter lifting a snickersnee and stabbing Lord Sedley in the chest.

But human nature, she knew, was unpredictable and
changeable. One day one may adore the taste of lemons and the next day despise
the very sight of them. She doubted kittens grew to dislike the taste of milk
or dogs turned up their wet noses when presented with a juicy bone simply
because their taste buds had suddenly become refined.

An image of a sparkling white poodle narrowing its eyes at a
plate of chicken in Robert Sauce flitted by in her mind’s eye.

She frowned and forced her mind back on the matter at
hand—the murder.

Who else could have done it?

Elizabeth and Ian. They both needed the money. Ian to fuel
his gambling habit and Elizabeth for a season in London.

She shook her head in annoyance. Even the servants were none
too fond of the master. Lord Sedley had been rude, often accosting the maids
and lashing out at the butler. And the valet was having an affair with Lady
Sedley. It could have been a crime of passion ….

Everyone, it seemed, had a reason to kill the vulgar old
beast.

Lucy sprang up with a hiss of frustration. Her head was
starting to pound.

She couldn't do this alone.

She needed help, at least in the beginning. She needed
someone who would tell her the basic facts of the murder without sneering or
growling at her.

A flash of red and black caught her eye. Squinting, she
recognized the figure—Lord Adair.

This was her chance to ask him some questions. If he truly
intended to find out the truth, then he wouldn't hesitate in guiding her in the
right direction.

She steeled her fluttering stomach and before she could lose
her nerve made her way towards him.