Family Plot Page 15

  “Might those inclinations lean toward stable hands?”

  Gavin’s hand checked, and his handkerchief fluttered to the carpet. “I see our family’s closets have been flung open to reveal their skeletons. My aunt Malcolm’s doing, I daresay.”

  “Not at all,” Pickett protested. “I had it from the lady herself. Your cousin told me of her youthful peccadilloes.”

  “I see. In truth, I was speaking of Duncan when I suggested that Elspeth might wish to wed another. They were once well on the way to having an understanding.”

  “Perhaps Duncan is reluctant to share his wife with the stable hands,” Pickett suggested. “I must say, it is remarkably broad-minded of you not to hold her past indiscretions against her.”

  Gavin dismissed these accolades with a wave of his hand. “Bah! Who among us has not committed youthful follies we would be reluctant to have made known? I have always thought it grossly unfair that the same behavior which in males is considered no more than a rite of passage is deemed ruination in females.” He sighed. “Poor Elspeth must find it a comfort to know that she and her father were reconciled before he died. It is appalling that, reconciliation notwithstanding, she must still be cut out of his will. For that reason, if no other, I will be glad to honor the betrothal so desired by my uncle or, if Elspeth prefers, yield my place to Duncan. She would be wise to choose one of us, for otherwise she must lose her inheritance completely.”

  “And so after fifteen years, nothing has changed,” Pickett observed. “Still, an entire roomful of people heard Mr. Kirk-bride state his intention of changing his will. I am no lawyer, but I should think she might have grounds for contesting the will, and stand some chance of success.”

  “Hmm, I wonder if she would do such a thing? Good God, what an awkward situation Uncle Angus has placed us all in! For one of us to gain a fortune, another must lose it. I should not mind so much for my own sake, but I do feel sorry for Duncan. It appears to me that he, as much as Elspeth, has been caught in the middle of all this.”

  “Speaking of Duncan, I should like to have a word with him. Have you any idea where he is?”

  Gavin shrugged. “I haven’t seen him since the ball last night—good God, was it only six hours ago? It seems an eternity! But to answer your question, I know Duncan left the house in a high dudgeon when my engagement to Elspeth was announced. Ramsay says he wasn’t in his room, and his bed hasn’t been slept in. But surely you don’t think Duncan killed Uncle Angus! Why, he was always my uncle’s favorite.”

  “I don’t know what I think yet,” Pickett said, “but it appears that Duncan certainly had the most to lose by your marriage to Elspeth.”

  “Yes,” Gavin said slowly, “I can see how it might appear that way. First by losing Elspeth a second time, and then by losing his share of Uncle Angus’s fortune when the will was changed. Shall I send out a party of servants to look for him?”

  “No, not yet. He can’t go far without being recognized, and I am still hopeful that he will turn up on his own. In the meantime I should like to have a word with your uncle’s valet—Ramsay, was it?”

  “Of course.” Gavin reached for the bell pull.

  “If you please,” Pickett put in, raising a hand to stay him, “I should prefer to speak to him in the servants’ quarters.” His own brief stint as a footman had been sufficient to inform him that the servants had their own particular society below stairs, and they were likely to be more forthcoming if interviewed in their own sphere, so to speak, than they would be if summoned to the more rarified heights above.

  “Certainly, certainly.” Gavin walked with Pickett as far as the door, then called to the footman in the foyer to direct Pickett to the servants’ quarters. “And if my cousin Duncan should perchance reappear,” he promised Pickett, “I shall send word to you at once.”

  CHAPTER 14

  THE FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS

  OF JOHN PICKETT

  * * *

  Pickett followed the footman down the stairs and through the green baize door to the servants’ quarters. The housekeeper had offered up her sitting room as a place where Pickett might interview the servants, and it was in this small but comfortably furnished chamber that he was introduced to Ramsay, Angus Kirkbride’s valet. Pickett was expecting a willowy, somewhat foppish fellow like those who so often served London gentlemen in that capacity; great, therefore, was his surprise to find himself confronted with a burly, broad-shouldered specimen who looked as if he would be more at home with a carriage horse than a curling iron.

  “I believe you served Mr. Angus Kirkbride as valet?” he asked this worthy, trying not to let his surprise show.

  “Aye.”

  “How long have you been employed in that capacity?”

  “Twenty years. Ere that, I worked in the Kirkbride stables.”

  Pickett paused in his scribbling and looked up. “Forgive me, but is it not unusual for gentlemen to hire their personal servants from the stables?”

  Far from being offended, Ramsay chuckled. “Aye, in London t’would be unheard of, but nae so much here. Mr. Kirkbride had no ambitions to cut a dash, as the saying goes. So long as his linen was clean and his boots shined, he was satisfied. Besides, there was a young lad just come to Mr. Kirkbride’s attention, apparently a by-blow of the old gentleman. Mr. Kirkbride—Mr. Angus Kirkbride, that is—wanted to give the boy a place in the stables, as a way of providing for him.”

  “Generous of him,” Pickett remarked, keeping to himself the observation that Mr. Angus Kirkbride’s generosity fell short of countenancing a match between the bastard stable boy and the daughter of the house.

  “Aye.” The valet nodded. “The Kirkbrides always take care of their own.”

  “You got along well with Mr. Kirkbride, then?”

  “Aye, and he wi’ me. He said he’d leave me twenty pounds in his will.” A shadow crossed the man’s ruddy countenance. “I was that grateful, mind you, but I never thought to collect it so soon.”

  “It came as a shock, then, Mr. Kirkbride’s death?”

  “His health had nae been so good for several years, but the doctor said there was no reason to suppose he might not live a good many years yet.”

  “Tell me about last night,” Pickett urged.

  “It was much later than usual when Mr. Kirkbride rang for me, on account of Miss Elspeth’s party,” Ramsay began. “Mr. Kirkbride should have been tired out—aye, he was tired out, but too agitated to rest easy. Agitated in a good way, mind you, on account of Miss Elspeth and Mr. Gavin marrying, but agitated nonetheless. I suggested to Mr. Kirkbride that he might benefit from a dose of the paregoric draught the doctor gave him to help him sleep, and Mr. Kirkbride agreed. Just as well, too, as he was so nigh asleep that he took no notice of the sounds from Miss Elspeth’s room.”

  “Sounds?” echoed Pickett, his attention fully engaged. He was quite certain Mrs. Church’s account of the evening’s events had contained no mention of such a thing. “What sort of sounds?”

  “Sharp, quarrelsome voices. I’d have said Miss Elspeth was merely cross with her maid, but it sounded like a deep voice, and Rosie, the lass what waits on Miss Elspeth, has a voice like a bird a-twittering. The housekeeper, Mrs. Brodie, has a deep, booming voice, mind you, but what reason she’d have to be in Miss Elspeth’s room at such an hour is beyond my ken.”

  “Could it have been a man’s voice?” Pickett suggested.

  “Are you suggesting that Miss Elspeth is the type of female that entertains men in her bedchamber?” demanded Ramsay, the personification of outraged propriety.

  Pickett resisted the urge to point out that the young Elspeth had seemingly been caught in a very similar situation. “I meant no slur upon Miss Kirkbride’s virtue,” he said, choosing his words with care. “But she and Mr. Gavin were newly betrothed and, well, betrothed couples have been known to anticipate their marriage vows.”

  “I’ll not argue with you there, but if they was that eager, why would they be quarreli
ng?”

  “Perhaps the lady was unwilling to submit to her fiancé’s, er, ardor,” Pickett suggested.

  “Aye, that’ll be it, no doubt.” Ramsay nodded, quick to seize upon any opportunity to acquit Miss Kirkbride of any wrongdoing. “Mind you, I never did hold with Mr. Gavin’s London ways.”

  “Or perhaps the visitor was not Mr. Gavin at all, but Mr. Duncan, hoping to persuade her to change her mind. I believe he had a lot to lose by Miss Kirkbride’s marriage to his cousin.”

  “I suppose it could have been,” Ramsay conceded begrudgingly. “Me, I think it’s a great pity Miss Elspeth and Mr. Duncan couldn’t reconcile their differences after so many years. To my mind, they’d be better suited than her and Mr. Gavin.”

  “Back to the events of last night,” said Pickett, curtailing a line of questioning that he could see would lead to nothing but idle speculation. “Was Mr. Kirkbride asleep when you left him?”

  “I’d have said so. Sleepy enough, as I said, that he took no notice of the voices next door. If he weren’t asleep, he was near enough as made no odds.”

  “And how much later was it when you were summoned to his room?”

  Ramsay’s brow puckered with concentration. “Fifteen minutes, perhaps twenty. I’d had time to seek my own bed, but wasn’t yet asleep.”

  “Less than half an hour, then?” Pickett asked, jotting down notes.

  “Oh, certainly nae so long as that.”

  “And what did you find when you reached Mr. Kirkbride’s room?”

  “Mr. Kirkbride was on the floor, retching, and Miss Kirk-bride was cradling him in her arms.” He grimaced at the memory. “Mr. Kirkbride had been ill, and she was trying to lift him out of the puddle, if you’ll forgive my plain speaking.”

  Pickett nodded. “Of course.”

  “Between the pair of us, Miss Elspeth and I were able to get him back into bed and into a clean nightshirt.”

  “What of Mr. Gavin and Mr. Duncan? Where were they during all this?”

  Ramsay shook his head. “They hadn’t arrived yet. Well, and they wouldn’t have, would they? Their rooms were too far to hear the commotion. I wouldn’t have heard it myself, but for Miss Elspeth ringing for me.”

  “I see. But I trust both his nephews were able to see their uncle before he died?”

  “Mr. Gavin did, but there was no sign of Mr. Duncan. I remember thinking how queer it was that he slept through all the hullabaloo, being as we were all at sixes and sevens. He could hardly have failed to be wakened by the noise, what with servants running to and fro with hot water, and Jem dispatched to fetch the doctor, and what all. And then when Miss Elspeth sent me to fetch him, there was Mr. Duncan’s room empty and his bed with nary a wrinkle on the sheets.” He paused and yawned widely behind one beefy hand. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Pickett, but it’s been a long night for us all.”

  “I’ll not argue with you there,” Pickett said, suddenly aware of the fact that he had never made it to bed at all. “One last question, and I’ll let you go. You mentioned a stable hand of Mr. Kirkbride’s, a distant relation born on the wrong side of the blanket.”

  Ramsay nodded. “That would be young Neil. I remember him well. A regular hothead he was, resentful of the family although Mr. Kirkbride tried to do right by him.”

  “I understand he has made a couple of attempts to see Miss Kirkbride, so I assume he still lives in the area.”

  “Aye, though not for lack of trying to get away.” Ramsay leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Between you and me and the lamppost, he thought to turn that affair with Miss Elspeth to his own advantage. Came to Mr. Kirkbride after she’d gone and offered to hold his tongue about the whole business—for a price, mind you.”

  Pickett’s eyebrows rose. “What did Mr. Kirkbride have to say about that?”

  “Dismissed Neil and threw him out on his, er, ear.”

  A former employee who had been nursing a grudge for fifteen years might prove to be a valuable source of information. “Can you tell me where I might find him?” Pickett asked.

  “You’d best try Sir Henry MacDougall, the justice of the peace,” Ramsay recommended. “For the last several years, Neil has worked in his stable. Failing that, he’s often to be found hoisting a pint at the Mermaid Tavern.”

  Pickett recalled seeing this establishment during his jaunt to the village with Harold. He made a notation of the name and then dismissed the valet. He next sent for Miss Kirkbride’s maid, Rosie, a pert young lass with classic Scottish features of flame red hair, sparkling green eyes, and an upturned little nose liberally sprinkled with freckles.

  “You served as Miss Kirkbride’s maid, is that correct?” he asked her.

  “Aye. Mind you, there was no lady’s maid on staff, there being no ladies in residence. I was a laundry maid until Mrs. Brodie called me up to do for Miss Kirkbride, me being that handy with a needle that I could alter some of her mother’s things to fit my mistress.”

  Pickett, with his recently acquired knowledge of the servants’ domain, recognized this as an elevation of no small degree. “Quite a step up for you, wasn’t it?” he remarked, letting his admiration show.

  She grinned back at him, revealing a bewitching pair of dimples. “Aye, that it was, sir, I’ll not deny it.”

  “And how do you find Miss Kirkbride as a mistress? Is she very demanding?”

  Rosie was quick to rise to her mistress’s defense. “Oh no, sir! She’s right grateful for every little thing what’s done for her. ’Tis a sad life she’s had, and no mistake. And now to come back home and lose her father that way—” She shook her head at the tragedy of it all. “It don’t bear thinkin’ on.”

  “At least she has the happy memories of her ball last night,” Pickett suggested. “Both she and her father seemed to enjoy that.”

  “Aye, it were a fine party! When she came upstairs, Miss Kirkbride told me she was quite worn out with dancing.”

  “I don’t doubt it, for she was much in demand as a partner. Very tired, was she?”

  “Aye, sir, but in a good way, if you take my meaning.”

  “I do, indeed.” He hesitated for a moment, then observed, “Mind you, I worked for a short time as a footman, and it’s been my experience that even the kindest of mistresses can be cross and ill-humored when she’s worn herself to the bone with gaiety.” He added a mental apology to Lady Fieldhurst for this blatant attack on her character.

  “Aye, so I’ve heard, but not Miss Kirkbride. When she dismissed me, she told me she had no desire to be awakened early, and that I might stay abed until six o’clock if I wished, which I thought was right kind of her.” A shadow crossed her cheerful countenance. “Mind you, things didn’t work out that way for neither one of us, now, did they?”

  Pickett agreed to this pithy observation and, having confirmed that no cross words had been uttered between mistress and maid, allowed Rosie to return to the somber task of dyeing blacks for her mistress. He then questioned each of the three footmen who had been in service at the ball on the previous evening. Two of the three remembered seeing Duncan leave the house following the announcement of the betrothal (the third, under further questioning, confessed that he had been indulging in a bit of slap and tickle with Rosie in the butler’s pantry), but not one recalled seeing Duncan at all after that point.

  At last he rose from the table, returned his notebook to the inside pocket of his coat, and thanked Mrs. Brodie for the use of her sitting room. He then returned to the library, where he found Elspeth exactly as he had left her, seated on the sofa with her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Gavin was there as well, prowling back and forth before the fireplace like a caged animal. From the sudden silence that descended upon the room as Pickett entered it, he had no difficulty in surmising the subject of their discussion.

  “I’ll take my leave of you now,” he told the pair, “although I may be obliged to return, if more questions should occur to me.” Of that, at least, he had no doubt; his sleepless condition
was hardly conducive to astute inquiries.

  He emerged from the house to find the sun well above the horizon, the morning now far advanced. Hoping the fresh sea air might clear the cobwebs from his brain, he took the cliff path down to the shore, focusing on each step lest in his sleep-deprived state he should pitch headlong over the edge. As he rounded the promontory, he discovered he was not the only one enjoying the bracing ocean breeze: farther down the beach, Robert and Edward Bertram raced one another to the water’s edge, followed at a more sedate pace by Harold and Lady Fieldhurst. As if of their own accord his feet moved faster, eager to intercept the viscountess before she reached her young charges.

  She called to him as he approached. “Good morning! Are you returning from your morning constitutional? You must have been out and about early.” Her smile faltered as he drew nearer. “Good heavens, you look dreadful! Have you been out all night?”

  She wore no bonnet, but sheltered her complexion with the aid of a black-ribboned parasol. The stiff breeze off the sea tugged at her golden curls. In fact, she looked so lovely and carefree that it came as a shock to Pickett to realize she did not yet know about Angus Kirkbride’s death.

  “Good morning, my lady. Yes, I’ve been at Ravenscroft Manor for most of the night. There has been an accident—” He glanced uncertainly at Harold.

  As he had hoped, Lady Fieldhurst caught that glance and understood it at once. “Harold, will you please run ahead and see that your brothers do not drown one another? I shall be there directly.”