Family Plot Page 16

  For a moment it appeared Harold might protest this dismissal, but something in Pickett’s expression must have made him think better of it, for he swallowed whatever protest he might have made and trotted down the beach after his brothers.

  “What is it, Mr. Pickett?” Lady Fieldhurst asked once they were alone. “What has happened?”

  “It’s old Mr. Kirkbride. He died in the night.”

  One black-gloved hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, how dreadful!”

  “It gets worse. The doctor who attended him believes he was murdered, and after hearing his reasons, I am forced to agree. A bottle of medicine which he took for his heart should have been almost full, but it was two-thirds gone, and Mr. Reid says Mr. Kirkbride’s symptoms were consistent with an overdose of that same medicine. And Duncan Kirkbride,” he concluded, “is missing.”

  “Missing?” echoed Lady Fieldhurst.

  “His bed hadn’t been slept in, and no one can recall seeing him since he left the house following the betrothal announcement.” He frowned thoughtfully. “At first glance, Duncan seems to be the most likely suspect, for he stood to lose everything once old Angus changed his will. And yet something doesn’t seem to fit, although I can’t think what it might be.”

  “Perhaps you will think of it once you’ve had a little sleep,” she suggested. “But in the meantime, who else does that leave? Who else do we know who might have a grudge against Mr. Kirkbride? The real Elspeth might have been nursing resentment over her father’s treatment of her so many years ago, but we know our Elspeth is a fraud.”

  “There’s always Neil, the stable hand. By the valet’s account, he was a hothead who took umbrage at the fact that a mere accident of birth was all that separated him from a fortune. Apparently he tried to extort money from Mr. Kirkbride after the business with Elspeth, and we know he’s shown up at the manor twice trying to see her. But I don’t really see him as the murderer. For one thing, I can’t imagine how he could gain access to Mr. Kirkbride’s room, let alone persuade a man who disliked him to take medicine from his hand, overdose or no.”

  “Which leads us back to the obvious choice,” Lady Fieldhurst concluded. “Elspeth Kirkbride, also known as Mrs. Elizabeth Church.”

  Pickett prodded at the pebbles on the beach with the toe of his boot. “As easy a target as she makes, I’m afraid we may have to eliminate Mrs. Church as a suspect,” he said. “She may be a fraud, but she would have no reason to kill the old man, so far as I can see. In fact, no one would have a better reason to want him alive, at least until he’d had a chance to change his will in her favor. But whether or not she is guilty of murder, she is certainly being less than honest with me, for Mr. Kirkbride’s valet mentioned hearing the sound of quarreling voices coming from her room, and she made no mention of any visitor to her room at all, much less a quarrel taking place there.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Kirkbride finally recognized her as a fraud,” suggested her ladyship. “Might she not kill him to prevent being exposed?”

  “I suppose she might, but I should think it much simpler to merely return to London with all due haste,” Pickett pointed out. “If he had indeed recognized her as a fraud, it must have surely put paid to Mr. Kirkbride’s plan to change his will. Having failed in that scheme, I can’t imagine what reason she would have had for staying on.”

  “Marriage to Mr. Gavin, perhaps?” suggested her ladyship.

  “If her only ambition was making an advantageous marriage, she might have done far better for herself in London, and under her own name. It seems to me there is never any shortage of gentlemen searching for paramours amongst the actresses. With her reputation, Mrs. Church might have reserved her favors for a man willing to put a ring on her finger.” Pickett frowned. “Now that I think of it, much has been made of Mr. Gavin’s fondness for London. It is surprising that he never came across her while he was in Town. Surely he must have taken in a performance or two, at the least.”

  “Perhaps he chose to patronize Covent Garden Theatre instead, or the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Or,” she added with a mischievous gleam in her eye, “as you yourself have noted on more than one occasion, perhaps his oversight was due to that deplorable tendency of my class to frequent the theatre for mere social purposes, rather than a true appreciation for the dramatic arts.”

  Pickett’s cheeks assumed a rosy glow that owed nothing to the crisp sea breeze. “I meant no disrespect, my lady—”

  “Or perhaps Gavin knew exactly who she was, and knew his uncle would never countenance so unequal a match,” continued her ladyship, her eyes growing round as she expounded upon this theme. “Depend upon it, Gavin knew Uncle Angus would leave his entire fortune to Duncan if he—Gavin, that is—were to take a bride off the London stage. Therefore the lovers hatched a scheme, not only to gain Angus’s blessings on the marriage, but to snatch Duncan’s share of the inheritance as well. Poor Duncan! I have never liked him above half, but now I feel quite sorry for him. He has been shamefully used!”

  “My lady—”

  “I can see a condolence call is in order. Shall I pump the illicit lovers for information?”

  “I can’t deny you have a way of ferreting out information that I should be hard-pressed to duplicate, but as for their being illicit lovers—”

  Lady Fieldhurst abandoned her theory with a shrug. “No, theirs does seem to be a rather bloodless attachment, does it not? I fear the truth, whatever it is, will prove to be something far more mundane, and probably far less interesting. But it cannot hurt, can it, for me to ask a few discreet questions? All wrapped in the warmest sympathy, of course!”

  “No, it certainly cannot hurt, and it might help a great deal. But unless the lady chooses to confide in you, do not let Mrs. Church suspect that you know she is not whom she appears to be! Remember, our murderer has already killed once, and he—or she—may not hesitate to kill again, should it become necessary. I would not want you to put yourself at risk.”

  “Nor should I, I assure you! And now, if you will excuse me, I had best see to Robert and Edward before they drown themselves or one another. And you, I think, should seek your bed.”

  Pickett cleared his throat. “One more thing, my lady.” He laid a hand on her arm to detain her, but having achieved this modest goal, struggled to know where to begin. The wind tugged at his shallow-crowned hat, and he released the viscountess’s arm in order to snatch the hat before it was whisked away down the beach. He did not put it back on his head, but clutched the brim with both hands until his knuckles turned white. “About last night—I sincerely regret—I was out of line. It was unpardonable of me.”

  He flushed crimson, giving Lady Fieldhurst to understand that his embarrassment sprang not from any circumstances surrounding Angus Kirkbride’s death, but rather the little scene they had played out on the terrace several hours earlier.

  “ ‘Unpardonable,’ Mr. Pickett? Surely not! Indiscreet, certainly, and possibly ill-advised, but as I recall, you were hardly alone in your indiscretion. I was an active participant, and must be equally culpable.”

  “You are too kind, my lady.” Pickett looked down at his modest headgear with apparent fascination. “I assure you, I will not—that is, you need not fear—” He looked her squarely in the eye and set his jaw. “I beg your pardon, my lady. It will not happen again.”

  She inclined her head and responded with the same stiff formality. “Very well, Mr. Pickett. Your apology is accepted.”

  He executed an awkward bow, then turned up the path toward the inn.

  “Oh, Mr. Pickett—”

  He paused and turned back. “Yes, my lady?”

  “Do you, in all honesty? Regret it, I mean.”

  He hesitated only a moment before giving her a rather uncertain smile. “In all honesty, it was the high point of my existence.”

  He bowed once more and continued up the path. She did not call to him again, but stood on the beach and watched him go.

  It was the high point of my existe
nce. Good heavens, thought Lady Fieldhurst, what sort of life must he have led, if a stolen kiss on the terrace earned such a tribute? If one kiss (well, more than one, if one were inclined to keep count) held a place of such high regard, she could only imagine what his reaction might have been had they—

  She slammed the door of her mind on a line of reasoning far too improper to pursue. And yet the thought, once admitted, would not be so easily dismissed.

  CHAPTER 15

  IN WHICH LADY FIELDHURST MAKES

  A MOST UNPLEASANT DISCOVERY

  * * *

  As she followed her young relations down toward the beach, Lady Fieldhurst tugged at Harold’s sleeve.

  “There is bad news from Ravenscroft Manor,” she told him once his younger brothers were safely out of earshot at the water’s edge. “Old Mr. Kirkbride died in the night, and Mr. Pickett has reason to believe his death was not from natural causes. Once we return to the inn, I must change my clothes and pay a condolence call on Miss Kirkbride.”

  Harold brightened at once. “I’ll go with you,” he volunteered with an eagerness far out of proportion to what the sober task demanded.

  “No, no, you must not!” Noting the mulish set of Harold’s mouth, she realized the necessity of acquainting that young man with certain unpleasant facts. “I understand how much you admire Miss Kirkbride,” she continued gently, “and I had hoped to spare you this, but you must know that Miss Kirk-bride is not whom she appears to be. In fact, she is Mrs. Elizabeth Church, a fixture of the London stage.”

  “An—an actress?” Harold stumbled as the pebbles shifted beneath his feet. “Are you certain?”

  “Mr. Pickett recognized her at once. He assures me there can be no mistake.”

  “An actress,” Harold murmured, pondering the significance of this revelation.

  “Mr. Pickett is not ready to confront the woman with his knowledge, so you must understand the need for the utmost discretion,” she added.

  After extracting a promise from Harold that he would prevent his younger brothers from inflicting bodily harm on themselves or each other in her absence, Lady Fieldhurst excused herself from the beach excursion as soon as she might reasonably do so. She then left the trio to examine the various specimens of flotsam and jetsam deposited on the shore by the ebbing tide, and made her solitary way back up the path to the inn.

  The low murmur of conversation in the taproom told her the death of Angus Kirkbride was now public knowledge, the hushed voices of the villagers their only concession to the tragic nature of the latest gossip. Of John Pickett there was no sign; Lady Fieldhurst could only suppose that he was asleep in his bed—an unfortunate assumption, as it called to mind images of tangled sheets and unclothed limbs.

  With a little huff of annoyance at her wayward imagination, she climbed the stairs to her own room and inspected her meager wardrobe for a gown suitable for making a condolence call. There was no shortage of these, thanks to her own status as a mourning widow; everything she had brought with her from London was dyed in shades of black, black, and yet more black.

  It had not been this way during the summer just past, when she had travelled to Yorkshire with her trunks filled with new gowns in subdued but less funereal hues of half-mourning, including greys, lavenders, and even the occasional muted striped pattern. If such garments had been suitable in Yorkshire, she wondered, why had she deemed them inappropriate for Scotland?

  The unwelcome answer came unbidden to her mind. She had not worn half-mourning in Scotland because she feared the Bertram boys might tell their father, who would lose no time in passing the news of her indiscretion on to the dowager viscountess, her late husband’s mother. Good heavens! Aside from the unlikely chance that three schoolboys on holiday should care the snap of their fingers for a lady’s wardrobe, was she truly such a coward? One might have supposed that with her husband’s death, she would finally have the freedom to do as she pleased without the cloud of his disapproval hanging over her head. Instead, was she to spend the rest of her life trying to appease his family? When was she to have the freedom to live according to her own desires?

  She looked at the black bombazine in her hands, then held it up to her shoulders and turned to regard her reflection in the looking-glass. As she cast a critical eye over the effect of flat black fabric on fair hair and skin, she thought longingly of certain gowns in her wardrobe in London. There was a particular satin of celestial blue, she recalled, which was said to match her eyes, and an ethereal white silk, which had so flattered her figure that two gentlemen had very nearly come to blows over the privilege of leading her in to dinner. What would Mr. Pickett think if he could see her in them? Would he find her attractive, or would the rich fabrics merely serve to emphasize the social gulf between them?

  Shoving aside the questions that there seemed to be little point in asking, she turned away from the mirror. However much her husband’s family might disapprove, it appeared she possessed a certain talent for investigations. At least for now, she would concentrate on that. And if a small voice in her head asked if she would be quite so eager to assist Mr. Pickett if he were, say, of the same age as Mr. Colquhoun, or senile like Sir Henry MacDougall, this voice was easily silenced by her insistence that it was surely the duty of all good English citizens to see that the laws of the land were upheld, no matter how winsome the instrument of that law might be.

  She arrived at Ravenscroft Manor to find the house displaying all the trappings of mourning. The hatchment had been mounted over the door, a wooden panel displaying the black shield and silver cross of the Kirkbride coat of arms, and the door knocker had been swathed in black crape as if the sound of the knocker might somehow disturb the dead. The footman who opened the door to her wore a black armband over the sleeve of his livery. When she asked to see Miss Kirkbride, the footman glanced upward—toward heaven or the deathbed upstairs, Lady Fieldhurst could not begin to guess.

  “Miss Kirkbride is not seeing visitors,” he said in hushed tones, “as she is occupied at the moment.”

  “Mr. Gavin, then?” her ladyship persisted, disappointed but not defeated.

  “Mr. Gavin is out riding.”

  “How long will he be gone?”

  “He did not say.” Seeing that the visitor did not intend to be turned away, the footman opened the door wide to admit her. “If you will allow me to show you into the drawing room, I shall inform Miss Kirkbride of your arrival.”

  With this Lady Fieldhurst was forced to be content. As she waited in the drawing room, she reflected that, whatever Mrs. Church had hoped to gain by her charade, the actress had undoubtedly got herself into far more than she had bargained for. These thoughts were confirmed when her hostess appeared ten minutes later, looking so haggard that she could hardly be recognized as the reigning beauty of the Drury Lane stage. Lady Fieldhurst imagined this was how Mrs. Church might have appeared on stage as Lady Macbeth, whose own ambitious schemes had also ended in tragedy.

  “My dear Miss Kirkbride,” she said, rising and extending her hands in greeting. “I came as soon as I heard the news. Allow me to express my condolences on the loss of your father.”

  Miss Kirkbride’s hands seized hers and gripped like talons. “Pray forgive me for keeping you waiting. I was obliged to meet with the village woman who will—who will lay out Father’s body.”

  “A sad task, indeed,” observed Lady Fieldhurst. She wondered if she should mention Mr. Pickett’s suspicions concerning Angus’s death, and when the lady raised the subject herself, she hardly knew whether to be sorry or glad.

  “A sad task, as you say, and according to Mr. Pickett, a task which should not have been necessary,” the actress answered bitterly. “He will have told you, I suppose, that my father was very likely murdered.”

  “He did, and I am sorrier than I can say. To lose your father so suddenly, and in such a way . . .” She let the sentence trail off, hoping the faux Miss Kirkbride would feel compelled to fill the silence.

  S
he was not disappointed. “In such a way, indeed! You cannot know what it is like, living in this house, not knowing—” The actress broke off and collapsed onto the sofa, raising one trembling hand to her eyes.

  Not knowing—what? Not knowing who did it? Not knowing whether I shall be arrested? Or, perhaps, not knowing if or when I shall die next? With startling clarity, Lady Fieldhurst realized that Miss Kirkbride’s distress was in fact stark terror. She should have known it at once; she had known such fear herself not so long ago, following the murder of her husband. She, too, had feared for her own life, albeit at the hands of an avenging Law. Quite against her will, the viscountess found herself feeling a certain kinship with Mrs. Church in spite of the woman’s duplicity. However wicked it might be, fraud was surely undeserving of death. She sank onto the sofa next to the actress and covered Mrs. Church’s hand with her own.

  “Miss Kirkbride, you may rest assured that Mr. Pickett will do all he can to discover the truth about your father’s death. In the meantime, if there is anything you can do to assist him, I urge you to confide in him. I can assure you of his competence and his discretion.”

  Mrs. Church shook her head. “You are a loyal wife, I am sure, but I have nothing to confide.”

  Lady Fieldhurst was somewhat taken aback by this unexpected reference to the late Lord Fieldhurst, until she realized Mrs. Church referred to her hasty “marriage” to Mr. Pickett. So much had happened in the twelve hours since they were discovered on the terrace that she had quite forgotten her own charade.

  “I suspect all who have had professional dealings with Mr. Pickett will share my confidence in his abilities,” she insisted. “Believe me when I say that in spite of his youth, he is not without experience in such cases.”

  “I shall remember it, if I should recall anything that might have a bearing on the case,” promised Mrs. Church, gently but firmly closing the subject.

  The conversation progressed to the more innocuous topics common to bereavement: earlier, happier memories of the deceased, the arrangements being made for laying him to rest, and his daughter’s sense of gratitude that they had reconciled before his passing. And yet the actress’s fear was like a living presence in the room, shading even the most commonplace observations with sinister meaning. When she rose to take her leave, Lady Fieldhurst felt obliged to try one more time.