The Truth About Love (54 page)

The three of them chatted, tossing ideas back and forth about the ball. Considering all that had to be done. Mitchel was subdued. After cleaning his plate, he rose and bid them a good day. Barnaby asked if he would be around later, in case they needed assistance with arrangements for the ball.

Mitchel shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’ll be out for most of the day—we’ve the rotation of crops to organize.”

Nodding, Barnaby raised a hand in acknowledgment. Jacqueline smiled; Mitchel bowed and left.

She, Gerrard and Barnaby fell to organizing with a vengeance, expecting Millicent to join them any minute.

But Millicent didn’t appear.

Jacqueline had just registered that her aunt was unusually late when Millicent’s maid peeked into the parlor. Jacqueline saw her. “Gemma?” The maid looked shaken. Jacqueline pushed back her chair. “Is anything wrong?”

Gemma edged into the room, bobbing a curtsy. “It’s Miss Tregonning, miss. I don’t rightly know where she is.” Gemma’s eyes were wide. “Have you seen her?”

A chill touched Jacqueline’s heart, then spread. She rose. Chairs scraped as Gerrard and Barnaby rose, too.

It was Barnaby who spoke, calmly, evenly. “She must be somewhere. We’ll come and help look.”

I
t didn’t take long to find her.

Gemma and another maid had already searched upstairs. Gerrard asked Treadle to gather the footmen, then went with Jacqueline and Barnaby out onto the terrace, to look, and then to plan.

They walked to the main steps leading down to the gardens, searching the various areas they could see. Jacqueline called; Gerrard filled his lungs and shouted, “Millicent!” but there was no answering wave, no reply.

Beside Jacqueline, he halted at the top of the steps. Glancing down, he saw marks, dirt streaked across the pale marble.

There’d been a light shower during the night. He looked down the steps, confirming that the well-worn patch of path at the bottom was damp. There were similar, small, telltale streaks all the way up the steps.

“Barnaby.” He wasn’t sure if it was his artist’s imagination running amok, but…when Barnaby looked at him he pointed to the streaks.

Barnaby crouched down, with his eyes followed the trail up the steps, then swiveled and looked along the terrace. The faint streaks led on, smudged here and there, but then ended—where the balustrade overlooked the Garden of Night.

Gerrard felt his face harden; Barnaby’s was grim as he rose.

“What is it?” Jacqueline asked, looking from one to the other.

Gerrard pressed her arm. “Wait here.”

Quickly, he went down the steps, and turned into the Garden of Night. Barnaby was on his heels.

Jacqueline froze. In her head, a voice screamed,
No!
It was a battle to get her limbs to work, to move. Gripping the balustrade, she forced herself forward; step by step, she followed the men down.

Her gaze locked on the entrance to the Garden of Night, not the one Gerrard had painted, but the upper one. The entrance she’d stood at over a year ago, and seen her mother lying dead, flung like a broken bird, her legs trailing in the pool, her back broken on the stone coping.

The archway drew nearer. Nearer. Then she was standing in it, within the cool touch of the garden’s shadows.

Gerrard and Barnaby were bending over the body of her aunt. As with her mother, her aunt lay half across the coping. White as death. One hand trailed, fingers lax, on the gravel.

A choked sound escaped her. She wanted to scream, to call for help, but she couldn’t get her throat to work. Her lungs felt as if they were caving in.

Gerrard heard; he turned and saw her. He said something to Barnaby, then rose and swiftly came to her.

She pressed both hands to her lips. Couldn’t form the words to ask. Asked with her eyes instead.

“She’s alive.” Gerrard gathered her to him, hugged her reassuringly. “Unconscious, but alive.” He lifted his head, yelled, “Treadle!”

An instant later, the butler appeared at the top of the steps. “Sir? Miss? What…?”

“Send for the doctor, then send some footmen down here with a door.”

Alive. Millicent was alive. Jacqueline’s legs gave way.

Gerrard swore, and tightened his arms about her.

She rested her head against his chest, forced her lungs to work, dragged in a huge breath. Gulped. “I’m sorry.” She hauled in another breath, then locked her legs and lifted her head. “Go back and stay with her. She’s badly hurt. I’ll wait here.” She sensed his hesitation. “I’ll be all right. Truly. The best help you can give me is to help her—I can’t. I can’t go in there.”

He understood; she saw it in his eyes. He steadied her against the end of the balustrade. “Stay there—don’t move.”

She nodded. He turned and plunged back into the Garden of Night.

M
illicent was carried up to her room and laid on her bed.

Lord Tregonning was informed; Sir Godfrey was summoned.

The doctor arrived. He was taken straight up to Millicent. When he entered the drawing room half an hour later, he looked grave.

“She’s unconscious, but she was lucky. A branch broke her fall. It broke off beneath her and prevented her spine or skull from cracking. Her arm’s broken, but will mend well enough. However, she did hit her head. How long she’ll be unconscious I can’t say.”

“But she’ll live?” Jacqueline leaned forward, hands clasped in her lap.

“God willing, I believe so. But we can’t take that for granted, I’m afraid. She’s still with us, but we’ll need to take one day at a time—she’s not young, and the fall was—”

“Horrific.” Lord Tregonning was pale, stunned; his knuckles showed white as he gripped his cane.

“I’ve made her as comfortable as I can. Mrs. Carpenter knows what to do. I’ll call again this afternoon to see if there’s any change, but it may well be a day or more before she regains consciousness.”

Barnaby shifted; he spoke in an undertone to Lord Tregonning. His lordship nodded, then focused on the doctor. “I’d appreciate it, Manning, if you kept this entire episode under your hat. At least until we know more.”

The doctor hesitated, then nodded; his gaze flicked to Jacqueline for the briefest of moments, then he bowed and left.

Barnaby stared, all but openmouthed, after him; the instant the door shut, he flatly stated, “I don’t believe it.”

Gerrard forced his hands to relax from the fists they’d curled into. “Believe it.” His growl sounded feral. “But this time, that’s not how things are going to be.”

He turned to Jacqueline; he didn’t like the empty look in her eyes. “When she regains consciousness, Millicent will tell us who flung her over the balustrade, but we can’t sit and wait until then.” He looked at Lord Tregonning. “The murderer thinks Millicent’s dead—if he realizes she isn’t, but is unconscious, he’ll be desperate to silence her. We need to keep her safe.”

Lord Tregonning’s eyes widened. He had Barnaby summon Treadle, and they quickly conferred. Footmen would guard Millicent night and day. Barnaby suggested and all agreed that the most useful way forward was to behave as if nothing untoward had occurred. Treadle assured them the staff would keep mum; he withdrew to ensure it.

“It’ll confuse the blackguard, and the portrait is bait enough.” Barnaby looked at Gerrard.

Who nodded. “Indeed. But nevertheless, we need to piece together what happened.”

Barnaby met Gerrard’s eyes, then turned to Lord Tregonning. “With your permission, sir, I’d like to interview the staff before Sir Godfrey arrives.”

Lord Tregonning met his gaze, then nodded. His jaw setting, he looked at Jacqueline. “Whatever permission you need, consider it given.” He moved to sit beside Jacqueline, awkwardly taking her hand and patting it. “My dear, do you think we might go up and sit with Millicent? When she wakes, I think she’d like us to be there.”

To Gerrard’s relief, Jacqueline focused on her father, then nodded. They both rose. He escorted them to Millicent’s room, saw them settled, then returned to Barnaby, still standing in the drawing room, a determined frown on his face.

Barnaby glanced up as he shut the door. “We are
not
going to allow this incident to be obscured by people trying to protect others.”

“My thoughts precisely. What do you suggest?”

“That we take charge. That we gather all the facts, then present them to Sir Godfrey so there’s no chance of him sidestepping logic.”

Gerrard nodded. “What’s first?”

Barnaby raised a brow at him. “Establishing when Millicent went outside, and if we can, why, and then making sure we can, if need be, prove Jacqueline was elsewhere between that time and dawn.”

Gerrard held his friend’s gaze, then said, “She was with me.”

Barnaby grinned. “I know. I met her leaving your room this morning—I heard the door and thought it was you, so I came out…but it was her. And she must have been seen by others. So—when did she arrive?”

“About half past eleven.”

“Good—so we have that fixed. Now let’s see what that maid can tell us.”

Shocked, but now growing angry on her mistress’s behalf, Gemma was very ready to tell them all she knew. “She always fussed over getting ready for bed—creams, potions, and I had to put her hair in curling rags every night. It was after midnight that I left her room, and she wasn’t in bed even then. She was restless—old ladies often are, you know. They don’t settle easy, so they often walk about. If it was clear, she’d go down to the terrace—since we’ve been back here anyways—I’ve seen her walking there in the moonlight.”

Gemma was very clear on all the details; she could list the various duties she performed every night for Millicent.

“It’s obvious Millicent couldn’t have left her room under an hour after she retired,” Barnaby concluded, “and at eleven, she was going up the stairs with the rest of us.”

Next they spoke with Treadle; expression bland, he confirmed that he and two maids had seen Jacqueline on her way to her room at close to seven o’clock that morning. He added, staring at the wall, that Jacqueline’s maid could also confirm that Jacqueline’s bed hadn’t been slept in.

When Treadle departed, Barnaby glanced at Gerrard. “I didn’t think to ask, but you are intending to marry her, aren’t you?”

Gerrard stared at him as if he’d grown two heads. “Of course!” Then he waved. “No, no, I understand why you asked. Yes, I’ve asked her to marry me, but she wanted to put off any formal acceptance until after this matter was resolved, and she was free of suspicion and the murderer caught.”

Barnaby nodded. “Entirely understandable. Now, let’s take another look at those marks on the terrace.”

They were hunkered down, studying the streaks where they ended by the balustrade, when Treadle escorted Sir Godfrey out.

The man looked thoroughly shaken. “What’s this?
Millicent
pushed over the edge, too?” His color was high; he was almost gabbling. “Well, I—”

Rising, Barnaby held up a hand. “No, wait. Just listen to what we can prove so far.” Concisely, Barnaby outlined Millicent’s movements from the time she went upstairs until she was walking on the terrace. “Then, for some reason, she went down the steps and into the Garden of Night. How far in we don’t know, but at least as far as the archway. That’s where she got mud on her slippers.

“But then”—dramatically Barnaby pointed to the streaks—“some man grabbed her, and while keeping her from screaming, dragged her back up the steps, and flung her—not pushed, but
flung
her—down into the Garden of Night. There was a branch beneath her when we found her; the doctor confirmed it had broken off beneath her and saved her from death. If you go into the garden and look up, you can see where the branch broke off—it’s plain as daylight Millicent wasn’t pushed, but flung.
By some man.
”

Sir Godfrey had paled, but he’d followed all Barnaby had said. “Man?” he asked.

“Indubitably,” Barnaby replied. “No woman could possibly have done it.”

A
t Gerrard’s suggestion, they retired to Lord Tregonning’s study and poured Sir Godfrey a brandy. He’d been deeply shocked, but now rallied.

Gerrard, watching him, picked his moment. “Sir Godfrey, you’re a man of the world—I know we can rely on your discretion. Miss Tregonning and I intend to wed once this affair is settled. Consequently, she was with me throughout the night, from before Millicent’s maid left her in her room, until seven o’clock this morning. Quite aside from my word on the matter, there are a number of staff who can verify that.”

Sir Godfrey blinked at him, then waved his hand. “Complete discretion, I assure you. Anyway…” His tone hardened, his grip tightened on the brandy glass and he drained it. “This wasn’t Jacqueline, but some man—some bounder, some blackguard who’s been leading us a merry dance through murder after murder, and laughing up his sleeve because we’ve been afraid it was Jacqueline. That’s not going to happen this time—
this time,
we’re going to catch the devil.”