Family Plot Page 17

  “It cannot be comfortable for you, being the only woman in the house at such a time,” she said, reclaiming her bonnet from the butler and tying its black ribbons under her chin. “Shall I come and stay with you, at least until after the funeral?”

  “You are too kind, my lady, but I can’t take you from your young nephews at such a time.”

  “Nonsense! Harold is very nearly grown, and there is always the innkeeper’s daughter, whose assistance has been invaluable to me throughout our stay. I am sure she would be only too glad to help in looking after the younger boys. If you have need of my company, you have only to say the word.”

  “I shall bear it in mind,” promised Mrs. Church with such a dismissive air that Lady Fieldhurst was quite certain the offer would be forgotten before the door was closed behind her. “Now, I beg you will excuse me, Mrs. Pickett, but I should like to lie down for a bit before meeting with the vicar about the funeral service. I’ve sent the groom in the trap to fetch him, and they should be returning very shortly.”

  And that, Lady Fieldhurst reflected, was that. Seeing that nothing she might say would change Mrs. Church’s mind, she allowed herself to be ushered out of the house, then turned and started down the cliff path toward the beach.

  The farther she walked, however, the less satisfied she became. It appeared that the Kirkbride cousins had closed ranks. Against outsiders, she wondered, or against each other? Perhaps both. In any case, it was clear she would get little information from any of them. But there was another, in the family yet not of it, who might be more forthcoming. She resolved to have a word with Neil, the bastard Kirkbride once employed in the family’s stables. Mr. Pickett had not mentioned where Neil might be found, but the head groom might know where he was currently employed.

  She turned and trudged back up the path. When she reached the top, she skirted the house and made for the stables. All was quiet; apparently the groom had not yet returned with the vicar, and Gavin had not yet come back from his ride.

  “Hello?” she called, expecting someone, anyone, to emerge from the large wooden structure.

  Receiving no response, she grasped the heavy iron door handle and pulled. Sunlight slanted through the increasingly widening gap, revealing rows of recently mucked-out stalls and filling the air with the sharp tang of fresh hay. Lady Fieldhurst stepped inside, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dark interior. Within the stalls, horses stamped and snorted nervously as they regarded her with rolling eyes.

  “Hello?” she called again. “Is anyone there?”

  She spotted a roughly dressed figure in the dimness ahead, but even as she moved toward it, she realized something was terribly wrong. At that moment a gust of wind pushed the stable door open wide and the sunlight spilled in, revealing the body of Neil dangling by a rope from an overhead rafter.

  CHAPTER 16

  WHICH REVEALS THE

  SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT

  MRS. ELIZABETH CHURCH

  * * *

  Pickett was awakened all too soon from his slumbers by the arrival of Mr. Colquhoun, who sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and began removing his boots.

  “Arise, slugabed, and greet the dawn,” said the magistrate with a cheerfulness Pickett found disgusting. “Or the afternoon rather, for the morning is all but gone. I nabbed a couple of fine trout, which our host’s wife has kindly agreed to cook for our dinner.”

  Pickett rolled over with a groan. “I am pleased to hear it, sir, but I should be happier to nab a murderer.”

  “Perhaps you should try wetting a hook,” suggested Mr. Colquhoun. “I find that many times it calms the mind and clears the head. But as I was saying, this morning I had the good fortune to meet up with a fellow angler on holiday, an Oxford don by the name of Basingame, who told me of a prime fishing spot on the burn beyond the kirk—”

  Pickett massaged his temples to clear his sleep-deprived brain. He knew by Mr. Colquhoun’s own admission that that worthy had left his native land at the age of sixteen to seek his fortune abroad. But now that Mr. Colquhoun had returned to the land of his birth, he seemed to grow more Scottish by the day. Pickett feared that if he did not solve the Kirkbride mystery soon, he would not be able to understand a word that issued from his magistrate’s mouth.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but the ‘what’ beyond the ‘what’?”

  “Damned sassenach,” the magistrate muttered, although the twinkle in his eye robbed the words of the insult Pickett suspected lay hidden there. “The brook beyond the church, my boy.”

  Pickett dragged the counterpane over his head, grumbling under his breath. “Well, why didn’t you—?” He suddenly bolted upright in bed, all vestiges of sleep vanished as the significance of Mr. Colquhoun’s words sank in. “Do you mean to tell me that ‘kirk’ is the Scottish word for ‘church’?”

  “Aye, didn’t I just say so?”

  “And,” Pickett continued with growing certainty, “I would wager ‘Elspeth’ is the Scottish form of ‘Elizabeth.’ ”

  Mr. Colquhoun nodded. “You would win that wager, if you could find anyone foolish enough to accept it. I should have thought it was obvious.”

  “Then she is exactly who she says she is,” Pickett marveled.

  The magistrate’s eyebrows rose. “I trust you are going to enlighten me?”

  “Tell me, Mr. Colquhoun, are you familiar with the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane?”

  The magistrate’s bushy white eyebrows drew together in bewilderment at this seeming non sequitur. “I know where it is, of course, but when I go to the theatre—which is not often, I confess—I prefer to see Grimaldi at Covent Garden.”

  Pickett flung himself off the mattress and began to pace the room, the bare feet that had so cut up Lady Fieldhurst’s peace now slapping against the scrubbed wooden floor with every step he took. “When I first saw the supposed Miss Kirkbride last night, I was convinced she had to be a fraud. In fact, I recognized the lady as Elizabeth Church, the actress who treads the boards at Drury Lane. I made the mistaken assumption that she must be either Miss Kirkbride or Mrs. Church. It never crossed my mind that the two women might be one and the same.”

  Mr. Colquhoun nodded. “It is my understanding that those in the theatre often assume a stage name.”

  “Yes, and in the case of Miss Kirkbride, she simply took the English equivalent of the name she’d been called by ever since her mother married Angus Kirkbride.”

  “I take it, then, that Miss Kirkbride did not drown fifteen years ago,” observed Mr. Colquhoun.

  “Precisely. She somehow found her way to London, where she has made a name for herself on the stage. Although,” Pickett added, “why she chose this particular time and manner of staging a homecoming, I should like to know.”

  “I wish you luck in prevailing upon her to tell you,” was the magistrate’s dour reflection.

  “Oh, I doubt she would tell me anything worthy of mention.” Pickett stopped pacing and stared fixedly at the far wall, as if he could see through it and the several rooms beyond into Lady Fieldhurst’s chamber further down the corridor. “I wonder if Lady Fieldhurst might have more success with her? Miss Kirk-bride might be more forthcoming with a member of her own sex.”

  “An excellent notion,” seconded Mr. Colquhoun with exaggerated approval. “And it has the added benefit of necessitating yet another tête-à-tête between her ladyship and yourself.”

  Pickett refused to take the bait. “It is unfortunate that I should be obliged to impose on her ladyship yet again, sir,” he remarked with an innocence that deceived no one, “but needs must when the devil drives.”

  Here, however, he was to be disappointed. He rapped on her ladyship’s door (a bit sheepishly, as the hotel management supposed him to be sharing this chamber with his “wife”), but there was no response. He rapped a second time, debating the wisdom of opening the door and entering unannounced, when a door opened further down the corridor and young Edward Bertram’s head appeared in the crack.
>
  “Hullo,” he called. “If you’re looking for Aunt Julia, she’s not here.”

  “Where is she?”

  Edward shrugged. “She’s gone to visit that ‘bride’ lady.”

  “Miss Kirkbride?”

  “That’s the one,” said Edward, idly swinging back and forth on the door.

  “Did she say when she would return?”

  Another shrug. “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember if she said, or you don’t remember what time she said she would be back?”

  “I don’t remember,” Edward said again. “Harold said old Mr. Kirkbride is dead. Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  His interest piqued, Edward abandoned the door and joined Pickett in the corridor. “Did somebody kill him? Can I help you catch the fellow that did it?”

  “You can help me by telling me about your Aunt Julia—what time did she leave? Has she been gone long?”

  A third shrug, and a fourth, were his only answers. “When you catch him, are you going to shoot him?” Edward asked eagerly. “Can I watch?”

  Giving up a lost cause, Pickett thanked the boy (for what, precisely, he wasn’t sure) and made his way down the stairs. If Lady Fieldhurst had only recently set out, he might be able to overtake her. At the foot of the stairs, however, he paused. Angry voices issued from behind the door of the private parlor—and one of the voices was female. His chivalrous instincts aroused, Pickett flung open the door, ready to rescue Lady Fieldhurst from whoever might be harassing her.

  But the lady in question was not Lady Fieldhurst, nor did she appear to have any need of his assistance. Elspeth Kirkbride struggled in the ardent embrace of Harold Bertram, but even as Pickett moved forward to her aid, she delivered a ringing slap to her youthful swain’s face.

  “Harold! Release Miss Kirkbride at once!” Pickett commanded unnecessarily, for Miss Kirkbride’s violent reaction had the effect of cooling Harold’s passion to such an extent that he dropped his arms from his inamorata so that he might press one hand to his stinging cheek. “You owe the lady an apology.”

  “ ‘Lady?’ ” Harold echoed a bit breathlessly. “But Aunt Julia told me you said she was an actress!”

  “As it turns out, she is both. But even if she were a scullery maid, her position would not entitle you to force unwanted attentions upon her.”

  “But I wasn’t—I didn’t mean—I love her!” Harold turned to face the unwilling object of his affections. “When you danced with me, I thought—I thought you liked me!”

  “I like you very well, Harold, but I cannot say I like being mauled,” replied Miss Kirkbride with spirit. “If granting a dance also entitled one to take liberties, well, it would make for some very interesting balls,” she added with a hint of a smile.

  Thus chastened, Harold hung his head. “I beg your pardon, Miss Kirkbride. I only thought, if you were indeed an actress—well, one hears things about actresses, and I thought perhaps you and I could—I know you are older than I, so perhaps you might—might teach me—” He broke off, flushing crimson.

  “I know what you are saying, Harold, and while I daresay you meant your overtures as a compliment, your assumptions are not true of all actresses, and even those who are open to such arrangements as you suggest are not generally in the habit of corrupting schoolboys.”

  “But—well, how is one to—that is, I seem to be the only one at Oxford who isn’t—who hasn’t—” Lapsing once more into incoherence, Harold at last fell into an embarrassed silence.

  “I believe I understand your dilemma,” Miss Kirkbride said. “Let me assure you, I have some knowledge of gentlemen, and of one thing you may be certain: those with the most talk generally have the least action, if you take my meaning.”

  Although Miss Kirkbride’s words were not intended for himself, they called to mind some previously overlooked thread of evidence that flitted through Pickett’s brain only to vanish before he could catch hold of it.

  “Then the stories the lads tell at school,” Harold said with dawning comprehension, “they’re not true?”

  “Oh, there might be a grain of truth to some, but I would wager most are exaggerations, if not outright lies,” Miss Kirk-bride assured him.

  “I meant no insult, Miss Kirkbride, but you must—” Harold gave Pickett a glance that clearly wished him at the devil. “You must know how I feel about you,” he continued, his voice scarcely above a whisper.

  “I think I do,” she said gently. “Tell me, Harold, how old are you?”

  “Eighteen. But it is only a matter of a few months before I shall be nineteen,” he added hastily.

  Miss Kirkbride nodded wisely. “I thought as much. It may not seem so now, but somewhere in England at this very minute, there is a young lady in the schoolroom who is stitching samplers and practicing the pianoforte and nursing a grand passion for her dancing master. She is preparing herself for you, Harold, and when the time is right you will meet her.”

  “Much good it will do me,” Harold muttered. “I can never pay court to a lady who needs her father’s permission to marry, for he would shut the door in my face. I bear the stigma of illegitimacy, you know.”

  “Oh, better and better! As a matter of fact, I did not know, but I can assure you that nothing appeals to very young ladies quite so much as the prospect of a forbidden romance. You are clearly destined to break hearts.” She extended her hand to him. “Come now, let us cry friends, and when you return to school for the autumn term you may tell your cronies that you kissed the hand of the celebrated Mrs. Church.”

  Harold was quick to do so, and Pickett was pleased to note there was nothing but the deepest reverence in his demeanor.

  “Miss Kirkbride, I congratulate you,” Pickett observed, once the blissful Harold had left them alone. “That was well done.”

  She shrugged. “Ah well, first love can be painful. Perhaps if my own father had spoken so to me, instead of flying up into the boughs—” She shook her head. “But it is all water under the bridge now. In any case, I see you have penetrated my guilty secret. Tell me, Mr. Pickett, have you spoken to your wife this afternoon?”

  He shook his head, a bit taken aback as always to hear Lady Fieldhurst so described. “Edward tells me she has not yet returned from calling on you.”

  “Has she not? How very odd! She set out some minutes before I did, so I should have thought she would have arrived before me. I daresay she took the cliff path and stopped along the way to admire the prospect from the beach. Very wise of her, for this pleasant weather cannot last much longer.”

  Pickett’s eyebrows drew together in a thoughtful frown. Miss Kirkbride’s demeanor, so easy and natural with Harold only a moment ago, had undergone a sudden change. Now she seemed nervous and excessively talkative. Pickett was quite certain she had not come all the way from Ravenscroft Manor to make inane observations about the weather.

  “Miss Kirkbride, is there anything I can do for you? I’m sorry my, er, Mrs. Pickett is not here, but if you will accept my escort, perhaps we might meet her on the beach—”

  “No, no, that will not be necessary,” she assured him hastily. “In fact, it was to speak to you that I came. Mrs. Pickett assured me that I might safely confide in you.”

  At last, it seemed, Miss Kirkbride was ready to talk. As he led her to the settle before the fire, Pickett found himself in the unlikely position of hoping Lady Fieldhurst might linger on the beach a bit longer; it would not do if she were to interrupt just as the mysterious Elspeth Kirkbride decided to unburden herself.

  “Very well, Miss Kirkbride, what is it you wish to tell me?”

  She sank onto the settle, arranged her skirts, and clasped her hands tightly together in her lap. Then, taking a deep breath, she began. “It all started with my recent appearance as Ophelia in Hamlet, and an unexpected visitor to my dressing room following my performance one evening . . .”

  CHAPTER 17

  WHICH OFFERS MORE UNPLEASANT


  SURPRISES FOR LADY FIELDHURST

  * * *

  Lady Fieldhurst stood as if rooted to the floor, staring dumbly at the body turning gently with the slight air current, its eyes and tongue bulging hideously. She knew she should inform Mr. Pickett at once of the stable hand’s death, but she could not seem to force her feet to obey her mind’s commands. Then the roan mare in the nearest stall nickered as if seeking consolation, and the sound released her from her horrified trance. She turned and ran blindly from the stable, hardly knowing or caring where she went until, rounding the corner of the building, she ran full tilt into Gavin Kirkbride.

  She smothered a shriek as she recognized the hands bracing her shoulders. “Oh, thank heavens! Gavin—in the stable—it’s—it’s—”

  He gave her a little shake. “Yes? What is it?”

  Her breath came in great sobbing gasps, making coherent speech impossible. “The stable hand—Neil. He—he—”

  “Calmly, Mrs. Pickett. He what?”

  “He’s dead. He—he’s hanging from the rafters.” She covered her face with her hands as if she might somehow blot out the ghastly image.

  “Good God!”

  “We must—we must tell Mr. Pickett. He will want to examine the—the body,” she concluded, shuddering.

  “Of course Mr. Pickett must be informed at once,” Gavin nodded. “But you must allow me to escort you back to the inn. The cliff path will be quicker, but I dare not let you attempt it alone in your present agitated state.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Thank you.” She allowed him to tuck her hand into the crook of his elbow, and together they started down the narrow footpath skirting the sheer plunge to the beach.