Faintly puzzled but willing—anything to ease the oppressive tension in the room—Crawford hurriedly consulted his notes. “It seems clear that her ladyship was killed in the hours after she retired. She summoned her maid at about half past ten o’clock, and the maid left her mistress sitting at her dressing table at eleven o’clock—the clocks were striking the hour as the maid left. The doctor has declared that her ladyship was murdered sometime in the following three hours.”
“So between eleven o’clock and two o’clock in the morning.” Antonia arched her brows. “In that case—”
“Antonia…” Sebastian’s warning growl, gritted out through clenched teeth, held overtones of disbelief.
Unperturbed, she continued, “Earith couldn’t possibly have murdered her ladyship. Throughout those hours, he was with me—or rather, I was with him, in his room, and I would definitely have noticed if he’d left.”
Silence greeted her pronouncement—as if all three men couldn’t quite believe she’d said what she had. Crawford stared at her. Sir Humphrey blinked several times and looked increasingly uncomfortable and unable to decide where to look—at her or Sebastian or the desk.
As for Sebastian, she could feel his gaze locked on the side of her face. She was about to glance his way when he gripped the back of the chair in front of him, straightened to his full height, and faced the other two men. “Lady Antonia and I are unofficially betrothed.”
She managed to stop her reaction from showing—her eyebrows from flying upward.
When Antonia glanced at him, Sebastian met her gaze levelly. He felt curiously calm—as if stating the truth aloud had been somehow freeing. Settling.
It had certainly given his inner self an unanticipated degree of satisfaction.
He held her gray gaze, daring her to attempt any contradiction; she briefly searched his face, his eyes, then her fine brows faintly arched, and she turned back to the inspector and Sir Humphrey and let the statement lie unchallenged.
Thank God. Given the cauldron of emotions the current situation had stirred inside him, he wasn’t sure how he might react if she attempted to argue.
He refocused his attention on the inspector and Sir Humphrey. “To have two murders committed in the same household in the space of little more than twenty-four hours…it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the murders are connected. It’s possible whoever murdered Ennis feared he had shared something with his wife, enough for her to prove a potential threat. And so her ladyship was silenced, too.”
Crawford was happy to move on. “I agree—that is, indeed, the most likely scenario.”
“As to that,” Antonia said, “when the company was going up the stairs last night, Cecilia seemed…anxious, even nervous, over something. We all heard her.” Antonia glanced up at Sebastian.
He met her gaze and nodded. To the inspector and Sir Humphrey, he said, “She spoke of escaping this place. She claimed it was the atmosphere, but…” He shrugged. “I felt she was bothered over something, but also playing some sort of role.”
Antonia added, “I thought she seemed frightened, but it was an amorphous fear—as if she suspected one of the company of murdering Ennis, but didn’t know who—which one—it was.”
Sir Humphrey tugged at his ear lobe. “That she was frightened suggests she had reason to imagine the murderer might come after her.”
“True.” Sebastian let go of the chair, rounded it, and sat. “It’s possible she didn’t know who the killer was but had guessed what motive lay behind Ennis’s murder, and knew, therefore, that the murderer might suspect she knew enough of the plot to also pose a threat to him. Regardless, she didn’t suspect the man who murdered her. There was no sign of any struggle. She was taken entirely unawares.” He paused, then arched his brows. “Much as with Ennis. Neither he nor Cecilia felt threatened by the murderer until he struck.”
“Very well.” Crawford looked down at his jottings. “The murderer is a man—no woman could have strangled her ladyship, not with their bare hands, as was done. So who among the male guests remain on our list of suspects?” The inspector looked at Sebastian, then at Antonia. “Could any of the other men have been…involved with her ladyship?”
Antonia glanced at Sebastian. “I saw nothing that made me think so.”
Sebastian looked at Sir Humphrey. “It’s possible, but I wasn’t specifically watching for signs of it.”
“You might try asking the older ladies—Mrs. Parrish and Mrs. McGibbin,” Antonia said. “If Lady Ennis had had a lover among the guests, they are more likely to have noticed. However, those ladies’ husbands would have to go on your list of possibles—with the Ennises, the Parrishes, and the McGibbins, husbands and wives have separate rooms.” She paused, then added, “The only men you can strike from your list are Earith and Mr. Featherstonehaugh. Hadley and Georgia are newlyweds, and Georgia would certainly know if Hadley crept out, quite aside from him not being that way inclined.”
Sir Humphrey cleared his throat. “Just so.” He glanced at the list the inspector had compiled. “That leaves us with rather a lot of possibles for the positions of murderer and her ladyship’s lover.”
“And,” Sebastian added dryly, “the murderer and her lover could be one and the same.”
Antonia blinked. “Actually, there’s something we’ve forgotten to mention.” She glanced at Sebastian. “In the conservatory yesterday evening, we overheard Filbury and Wilson speaking with Cecilia—we were out of sight, and they assumed they were speaking in private. This was a little before we all retired.”
Crawford looked keen; he leaned forward. “What was said?”
Antonia frowned, clearly trying to recall.
Sebastian couldn’t help her; his recollection of those moments had been largely overwritten by more vivid memories of the taste of her lips, the feel of her in his arms.
“They—the two men—were asking about the Irish estate.” Antonia glanced at him; he met her gaze and fractionally shook his head. Apparently realizing he couldn’t remember, she looked at Crawford and went on, “They couched their queries in terms of being friends of the family and friends of Connell. In essence, they wanted to know if there was anything going on there—on the estate—to cause concern. Cecilia didn’t seem to know of anything amiss.”
“So…” Sir Humphrey narrowed his eyes. “Filbury and Wilson could simply have been asking as concerned friends, as they claimed, or they might have been sounding out her ladyship to see what she knew of…whatever this is that’s going on, which seems somehow connected with Ireland.”
“Exactly.” Antonia nodded.
After a moment, Crawford sighed and closed his notebook. “If only Lady Ennis had told us what she’d suspected, she might still be alive.”
Sebastian stared at the inspector for a moment, then grimaced. “In defense of her ladyship, there might not have been time. I think her suspicions evolved through the day—the longer she thought about her husband’s murder.”
Crawford grunted, but acknowledged the point with a nod. “We’re going to be busy all day here, interviewing everyone again—all of the guests and then all of the staff, one by one. If luck comes our way, we might find one of the staff—either those of the household or those visiting—who glimpsed one of the male guests slipping through the corridors. That said, the way these cases tend to go, I won’t be holding my breath. No one ever seems to witness the murderers moving back and forth.”
Sir Humphrey looked questioningly at Sebastian. “Any luck with your search for this gunpowder?”
“No.” He glanced at the magistrate. “But we did find four very old casks, most likely of brandy, hidden in the crypt of the old ruined chapel.”
“Did you, by Jove!” Sir Humphrey looked enthused. “Any good?”
Sebastian suppressed a wry grin. “I’ve yet to tell Blanchard. No doubt he’ll send a couple of footmen to retrieve the casks. However, the find made me wonder if there might be other hidden places—or perhaps a secret tunnel connecting the hou
se to caves or even to the shore. Pressingstoke Hall isn’t that far from the sea, and this has been a smuggler’s coast for centuries.” He fixed Sir Humphrey with an inquiring look. “I’ve heard that was often the way with old houses in this area in times past, but I checked this morning, and there was no hidden place or tunnel marked on the house plans, even on the older iterations.”
“Ah.” Sir Humphrey tapped the side of his nose. “But there wouldn’t be anything marked on the plans—wouldn’t be a secret then, what? But indeed, you’re right. While what’s around us”—with one hand, he waved at the walls surrounding them—“is relatively new, it’s built on a much older base, one dating from an age when having a secret tunnel into a cave system at least, if not directly to the shore, was the norm.”
The inspector looked intrigued. “Wouldn’t the finding of casks in this crypt suggest there wasn’t such a tunnel?”
“Not necessarily,” Sir Humphrey said. “Two different routes for two different levels of involvement. If the master of the house was dealing directly with the smugglers, the secret tunnel and the caves it accessed would be used. But if the master wasn’t involved, then the casks left in the crypt are the smugglers’ payment for him looking the other way. That’s how the system worked in these parts.”
Sebastian pulled a face and uncrossed his legs. “Regardless, we’ve found no hint or trace of anything resembling barrels of gunpowder inside the house or in the grounds. We’ll need to expand our search to the rest of the estate.”
He rose, and Antonia smoothly came to her feet.
Crawford and Sir Humphrey rose as well.
Sebastian nodded to them both. “If you need us, we’ll be riding over the fields, quartering the estate from the western edge to the coast.”
Crawford glanced at Sir Humphrey. “We’d better get on interviewing the rest. One of the men has to be our murderer—we just have to find clues enough to point to him.”
“We’ll leave you to it.” Sebastian took Antonia’s elbow.
“Gentlemen.” With a nod to Sir Humphrey and the inspector, she let him escort her to the door.
* * *
Antonia changed into her riding habit, then joined Sebastian at the side door; he’d already been wearing buckskin breeches and riding boots, topped with a soft linen shirt and a hacking jacket. A plain cravat completed the outfit; he might have been the model for what the fashionable marquess was wearing this year for riding about the countryside.
“So where are we heading first?” She stepped through the door he held for her, then, tugging on her gloves, walked briskly down the path toward the stable.
He fell in at her side, striding with long-legged ease; it occurred to her that the shock of Cecilia’s murder had leapfrogged them—her and Sebastian—over the awkwardness she’d assumed would attend their first meeting after being intimate.
They’d been plunged into dealing with the ramifications of the murder and, of course, instantly—without the slightest hesitation on either of their parts—had banded together to face the situation.
“Before we get to that”—his voice was a deep murmur, but his tone was definite enough to be one step away from invincible—“I should make clear that, as far as I’m concerned, all that I told Sir Humphrey and Crawford about us—you and me—is the simple, unvarnished, and inviolable truth.”
She considered that—considered how she wished to respond—then briskly nodded. “Duly noted.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw his expression fleetingly register complete bafflement, then his features hardened, and he shot a glance brimming with suspicion her way. She pretended not to notice; only her excellent training allowed her to keep her grin from her face.
They reached the stable yard, and he asked for their mounts of yesterday to be saddled. Had it been only yesterday? It seemed longer; so much had happened in such a short time.
She’d appropriated the map of the estate they’d found and had made a rough copy on a smaller sheet; she drew it from her pocket and unfolded it. Studying it, she tried to estimate the area they had to cover. “Where to first?”
He came to look over her shoulder. After a moment, he grunted. “North or south. We can’t effectively do both in what’s left of today.”
It was already late morning.
She turned as he fished a coin from his breeches pocket.
He tossed the coin, caught it, slapped it onto his wrist, and covered it with his palm. “Heads, we search north. Tails, we look to the south.”
He lifted his hand.
She leaned nearer to peer at the coin. “Tails.” She straightened and looked southward.
“I meant search the southern half of the estate.” He turned as, with hooves clopping, the horses were brought out. “We’ll go west to the road, then zigzag over the southern half of the estate and return via the coastal path, stopping at all possible hiding places we come upon.”
She steeled herself to weather the sensual jolt as he grasped her waist and hoisted her to her saddle—as if she weighed very little, which she knew was not the case. She was pleased to discover that, although the thrill to her senses was still there, the discombobulation had faded; her wits remained hers to command.
The instant he’d swung up to his saddle, she shook the chestnut’s reins and led the way out of the yard—but then had to wait for him to set their course, which he did by taking the lead on the large, raw-boned gray. She urged her mare up to keep pace, riding to the side and half a length behind—sufficiently to the rear to respond to any change in direction he made. Although she suspected her map-reading skills were superior to his, he had a landowner’s sense of north, south, east, and west; he led them unerringly west, toward the road linking Deal with Dover that formed the estate’s western boundary.
But as they rode, they zigged and zagged, stopping at barns and sheds to search.
At the third such stop, when they emerged from a shed having found no sign of any barrels, she halted and glanced up at the sky—at the sun moving steadily west behind the scudding clouds. “I wonder what the others will think of us being allowed to ride out freely even after Cecilia’s murder.” She glanced at Sebastian as he halted beside her. “You don’t think it’ll mark us as working with the authorities—especially to the murderer?”
His gaze scanning the fields before them, he considered, then shook his head. “Even now, I think their first assumption will be that I—and you, too—are pulling rank, purely to get out of the house. After all, if we insisted on riding, what could Sir Humphrey or Crawford do to stop us? The others know we haven’t left, and as for the murderer, although he has no doubt guessed that I was the one Ennis intended to speak with, as apparently Ennis was dead before I found him, there’s no sense in the murderer risking showing his hand by attempting to silence me.” He met her gaze. “As I learned nothing from Ennis, I can’t be a threat. Unlike poor Cecilia, who Ennis might have confided in.”
She humphed and tried to stifle a persistent sense of unease—not on her account but on his.
He gestured to their horses, and she walked beside him to where they’d tethered their mounts to the branches of a stunted tree.
“Still,” she persevered, “I can’t help feeling that the company at large might start to question your purpose in being here. Our excuse—that you’re here as my father-decreed escort—while acceptable, is hardly unshakably convincing.”
He lifted her to her saddle. As he swung up to his, he slanted an amused glance her way. “After the events of yesterday evening and this morning, I believe my presence here will have been adequately explained to all. Far from imagining I’m here pursuing some intrigue, I’d wager the question exercising Mrs. Parrish’s and Mrs. McGibbin’s minds will be whether your father knows I’m here with you at all.”
She humphed and turned the chestnut’s head once more to the west. “Our relationship—our connection—is not that obvious, and I’m sure Wilson and Filbury are gentlemen enough to be discreet.
”
His expression stated he thought she was indulging in fantasy, but he said nothing more, just nudged the gray into the lead again.
But when next they stopped—at a hayshed—and he lifted her down, he said, “You need to remember that all those remaining at Pressingstoke Hall know me only by repute. Not even Cecilia knew I know Drake beyond a nodding acquaintance. You know otherwise. You also know Drake. But for most of the haut ton, let alone wider society, there’s no reason for anyone to suspect that the Marquess of Earith might occasionally undertake missions for Winchelsea and his Home Office masters.”
She considered that as they circled the hayshed, then checked inside. And some of her nebulous anxiety faded.
After concluding that there was nothing concealed among the bales of hay, they walked back to the horses.
She halted by the mare’s side and faced him. “How occasionally do you work for Drake?”
He lifted her to her saddle, then shrugged as he turned and gathered the gray’s reins. “A few times a year.” He mounted, then widened his eyes at her. “But of course, the sons of dukes can’t ever be even vaguely associated with anything like work.”
She grinned at his tone. Then he wheeled the gray, and she followed him on.
They reached the Deal-Dover road at the village of Ringwould and stopped at the inn, the Five Bells, for lunch. While seated at a table in the corner of the tap and consuming portions of an excellent rabbit pie, they debated the wisdom of asking the locals about any recent smuggler-like activity and decided against it.
Sebastian grimaced and concluded, “It’s too difficult to clarify exactly what we’re asking about.”
To Antonia’s mind, it was simply too risky; people asking about smugglers on this coast…she’d heard too many tales. “Besides, we aren’t really concerned with the mechanism by which the gunpowder got here but rather with the stuff itself.”
His eyes on his plate, Sebastian nodded. “True.” He swallowed. “And even if they know something, they won’t tell us—neither of us are locals.”