Manachan’s eyes searched his; his grip on Thomas’s sleeve tightened. “Will you stay until this is sorted out?”
Thomas couldn’t recall Manachan ever asking him for help; a laird did not ask for help—a laird gave it. “Yes, of course.” He closed his hand over Manachan’s and briefly squeezed.
“Good. Excellent.” Relaxing against the pillows, Manachan released him. “Come and tell me what you learn.”
An order. “I will.” Raising his gaze from Manachan’s increasingly pallid face, Thomas exchanged a meaningful glance with Edgar. “Meanwhile, just rest.”
After quitting Manachan’s room, Thomas paused in the gallery, then went in search of Lucilla.
He eventually tracked her to the library. She was seated behind Manachan’s huge desk, writing a letter.
Thomas inwardly sighed. He closed the door; she glanced up at the snick of the latch but immediately returned to her task.
He started down the long room. “It was one thing for you to stay in this house when the only dead body we had on our hands died in a farmhouse miles away.”
She didn’t even glance up. “I’m not leaving. Your uncle needs help, and so does your clan.”
“Your family will come down on Manachan’s head like avenging angels if anything happens to you while you are, however nominally, in our care.” His words were clipped. He halted before the desk. “That concerns Manachan and the clan, too.”
She waved at the letter. “I’m explaining the situation to Marcus. He’ll appreciate the need for me to remain here.” She wrote another line. “I’m asking him to send some clothes for a few days’ stay.”
Thomas leaned his fists on the edge of the desk.
She glanced briefly up at him but continued calmly writing. “I can assure you Marcus won’t create a fuss.”
Thomas had no doubt that her twin had been conditioned from an early age to stay out of his sister’s way. “Lucilla.” His gaze on her face, he waited until she looked up at him. “It’s too dangerous for you to stay.”
She had, he realized, already signed her letter. She held his gaze and, without looking away, set the pen aside and picked up the blotter. Emerald eyes, intensely green, the vibrant hue highlighted by tiny flecks of gold, never wavered. “Thomas,” she said, “I’m staying.”
And you have neither the right nor the power to gainsay me.
Lucilla held back those words, but she was prepared to utter them if he drove her to it. His amber eyes narrowed; they searched her eyes almost as if he could read that unuttered sentence inscribed therein.
His lips tightened even more; at the edge of her vision, she saw the ripple of his sleeves as muscles bunched beneath.
Eye to eye, metaphorical toe to toe, she waited.
She wondered how long she could manage without breathing.
Just when she was starting to feel a touch light-headed, the tension holding him eased. His muscles unknotted, then he straightened. “Very well.”
His tone was beyond clipped. She might have won that round, but he was not happy with the outcome and had in no way conceded the game.
His gaze lowered to her letter. He nodded curtly at it. “Let me have that, and I’ll get Fred to ride over and deliver it.”
Blotter in hand, she glanced down at her missive. There was nothing more she needed to tell her twin; Marcus was exceptionally talented at reading between her lines. Then she remembered; she looked at Thomas and arched a brow. “Would you like me to ask Marcus about the seed supply?”
He considered it; she could see him silently evaluating the pros and cons. But at last, he shook his head. “No.” He met her gaze. “Nigel is supposedly managing the estate. I should ask him first.” His brows rose cynically. “Again.”
She was growing used to reading between his lines, too. “So you don’t step on his toes?”
His lips thinned, but he nodded. “Precisely.”
When he said nothing more, she blotted the letter, folded it, and inscribed Marcus’s name on the front. There was no reason she could see to seal it. Rising, she held out the folded sheet.
Thomas closed his fingers on the paper just as the deep bong of the luncheon gong reverberated through the house.
For a second, he held Lucilla’s green gaze, then she released the letter. Sliding it into his pocket, he waved her to the door. “As you’re determined to stay, I’ll show you the way to the dining room. I’ll get this sent off before I join you.”
Smiling with a satisfaction that carried a definite hint of approval, she started up the room.
Patently thrilled at getting her own way.
Inwardly shaking his head—at her, at himself, at his unexpected predicament—he followed her to the door.
* * *
Luncheon was served in the formal dining room, although they were using only one end of the long table. The room was lined with wood paneling to head height; the higher reaches of the walls were plastered and painted, and played host to ornately framed landscapes interspersed with mounted stag and boar heads. The windows were lead paned and relatively small; even though the dark brown curtains were open, the illumination in the room was softly dim, as if shadows hovered about its edges.
Four places had been set, two on either side of the table, at the end closer to the door. Norris and Niniver were already seated opposite each other; Lucilla went to the place beside Norris, who stood and drew the chair out for her.
As she sat and settled the heavy skirts of her riding habit, she glanced across the table and saw Niniver watching her. The younger girl had caught her lower lip between her teeth. The expression in her cornflower-blue eyes was uncertain.
Norris resumed his seat.
Sensing his impatience, Lucilla said, “Thomas will be here shortly.”
Norris met her gaze, studied her for an instant, then nodded.
A moment later, Thomas appeared. Ferguson followed at his heels, bearing a soup tureen.
Once Thomas had taken the chair opposite Lucilla and they’d all been served and had started to eat, Norris glanced at Thomas. “I didn’t know you were coming down.”
Answering Norris’s unvoiced question, Thomas explained about the letter from Bradshaw, his meeting with Nigel and Nolan, and the subsequent letter from Forrester, which had brought him back to the estate.
Lucilla quietly ate her soup and listened as Thomas described what he had discovered at the Bradshaws’ and his ride to the Vale to ask for her aid. She detected no animosity between Thomas, Niniver, and Norris; if anything, both Niniver and Norris appeared to view Thomas’s arrival with a species of wary relief. Lucilla could sense the link between Niniver and Norris, the two youngest children, but their emotional ties to Thomas were significantly less, no doubt due to his recent absences compounded by the difference in age.
“Are the Bradshaws all right?”
Lucilla looked up at Niniver’s question and realized it was directed at her. “Yes. We discovered their well was tainted. Thomas fetched fresh water from the Forresters, and once we had that, I treated the Bradshaws. By the time we left, they were on the road to complete recovery.”
“The Forresters are there, looking after them.” Thomas set down his soup spoon.
A footman removed their soup plates while Ferguson laid platters containing a simple cold collation before them. They served themselves. As they settled to eat, Norris said, “So now we have both the Burns sisters unexpectedly dead, and if I have it correctly, both died on the same night.”
Thomas studied Norris. “Do you know anything pertinent about either death?”
Norris shook his head. “No—nothing. It wasn’t as if I knew them that well. Not as people.”
Lucilla placed Norris as being somewhere around twenty years old. He reminded her of several of her younger male cousins; he had the same unfortunate way with words. Despite how his last statement had sounded, she was certain he’d intended it merely as a statement of fact, rather than any reflection on the relative stan
ding of young master of the house and the staff.
Bearing out her reading of Norris, Thomas accepted Norris’s comment with a noncommittal grunt.
A moment later, Norris ventured, “The one thing I don’t understand is why Faith went into the disused wing. No one’s been in there for years.”
Lucilla glanced at Thomas, then Niniver, but it seemed Norris’s puzzlement was shared by all.
When no one said anything further, she returned her gaze to Niniver. “How long was Joy Burns the clan’s healer?” She arched her brows. “Do you know?”
Niniver grimaced. “I can remember the healer before her, old Mrs. Edge.” Niniver glanced at Thomas. “You must remember her, too.” Looking back at Lucilla, Niniver went on, “Mrs. Edge retired and Joy took over as our main healer about fifteen years ago.”
“Was Joy Mrs. Edge’s apprentice?” Lucilla asked.
Niniver shrugged lightly. “She might have been, but Joy wasn’t an apprentice—not for as far back as I can recall.”
Chewing, Thomas nodded. He swallowed, then said, “Joy was a recognized healer from long before Mrs. Edge left.” He frowned as if trying to bring something into focus, but then shook his head. “When Norris was born and things didn’t go well with my aunt, I remember Joy being called in to spell Mrs. Edge, so she’s been—she was—a recognized healer at least from that time.”
So for twenty years at least. “And she was from a local family?” Lucilla asked.
Niniver answered. “The Burnses have been on the estate, a part of the clan, for generations, but only the two of them—Faith and Joy—were left.” Niniver’s expression sobered. “And now they’re all gone.”
Lucilla focused on Thomas. Accepting his implied assessment that neither Niniver nor Norris was involved in any way with whatever was going on, she stated, “The one thing I cannot readily accept is that Joy Burns was a competent and experienced healer, one who grew up and lived all her life on the estate, yet our only explanation for her death—at least to this point—is that she mistook some fungus or herb and ate something that killed her.”
Thomas grimaced. “I agree that’s not a very likely thesis.” He met Lucilla’s emerald eyes. “But until we uncover a more plausible option, that’s the only possibility we have.”
Which proves we need to investigate further.
He could all but hear the words, even though neither he nor Lucilla gave voice to them. Her determination to get to the bottom of who had killed Joy Burns, how, and why was all but palpable. She wasn’t going to let the matter rest; aside from all else, Joy Burns had been a peer of sorts.
The plundered platters were replaced with a bowl of trifle.
While they consumed servings of the sweet treat, Thomas examined his motives and Lucilla’s. Despite not wanting her to involve herself in learning what was behind the recent deaths, he felt forced to acknowledge that, were he in her shoes, he would do…exactly what he knew she intended to.
He also could not argue that, when it came to investigating the mysterious death by poison of a healer, she was better qualified than he.
By the end of the meal, when they rose from the table, he’d achieved a degree of acceptance. Following her out of the dining room, he asked, “What are you planning on doing next?”
She glanced at him, briefly searched his eyes as if registering his resignation. “I’m going to speak with the housekeeper and the cook.” They’d reached the front hall; she halted and looked around.
“I’ll take you and introduce you.” Niniver had followed them from the dining room. “If you’d like.”
Seeing the shy diffidence in his cousin’s fair features, Thomas—reluctantly—kept his lips shut.
“Thank you.” Lucilla smiled at Niniver.
Norris, who had trailed them from the dining room, stepped past them, strode for the main stairs, and went quickly up.
Lucilla pointed in the same direction. “That way?”
Niniver nodded, and the two women walked toward the stair hall and the corridor to the kitchens that ran off that.
“Do you know Alice Watts, Joy’s apprentice?” Lucilla asked.
“Not really,” Niniver returned. “We…have never been encouraged to associate with the staff.” She hesitated, then added, “Or, in my case at least, with the wider clan.”
Thomas stood looking after the pair as their voices faded. Niniver’s words rang in his mind, sparking memories. Reminding him of why Norris in particular showed no interest whatsoever in the clan, in the people or the estate. Returning to the household after a full two years’ absence, he was seeing it anew, through clearer eyes.
Faintly frowning, he considered, then trailed after the two ladies as far as the bottom of the stairs. There, he paused. Lucilla would be safe with the housekeeper and cook in the kitchen, which left him free to pursue his own line of investigation.
As she and Niniver passed out of his sight, he turned and climbed the stairs.
CHAPTER 5
[Lucilla sat at the well-scrubbed deal table in the servants’ hall, a mug of tea cradled between her hands. As she had assumed, the lull after luncheon was the perfect time to interview Mrs. Kennedy and the cook, a surprisingly thin woman named Gwen. Although several maids were clattering and chatting in the scullery, washing and drying the luncheon dishes, all the rest of the staff were out and about their duties elsewhere; the servants’ hall, off the kitchen, was warm, comfortable, and relatively private—the right sort of place to encourage confidences.
Niniver had introduced Lucilla to the two women and had added a request that they freely answer whatever questions Lucilla posed. For a moment, Niniver had hesitated, dithering, but then had retreated. For which Lucilla was grateful; both Mrs. Kennedy and Gwen had relaxed and had proved amenable to sitting with her and telling her all they knew of the Burns family, and of Faith and Joy.
Both women knew who Lucilla was; they saw nothing odd in her sitting with them and sharing a pot of tea. They sat opposite her, mugs in their hands, their thoughts revolving about the dead women.
“I still can’t believe it.” Mrs. Kennedy’s eyes were red-rimmed. “Both gone—just like that. On the same night. And them the last two of the Burnses.”
Gwen snorted softly. “Can’t believe it is right.” She looked at Lucilla. “Well, you’re a powerful healer, too, so you’d know. However could Joy have picked the wrong sort of thing and eaten something that poisoned her?”
“Exactly.” Mrs. Kennedy’s lips pinched. “As for Faith going into the disused wing and falling headfirst down the stairs—why would she have done any such thing? She’d worked in this house since she was a girl—she knew the place, even what’s now the disused wing, like the back of her hand. She could have walked the whole place blindfolded. Falling down the stairs?” Mrs. Kennedy made a disgustedly dismissive sound. “Nonsense!”
“Aye—and they were both hale and hearty when they sat down to dinner with us all that last night,” Gwen offered.
“Indeed they were,” Mrs. Kennedy said. “And then…they were dead.”
Both women looked confounded, as if they were still having difficulty believing that was truly the case.
Lucilla let a moment pass, then asked, “I take it you know of no one who wished the sisters, or the family, ill?”
Both women regarded her, then, slowly, they shook their heads.
“Well liked, they were—the pair of them,” Gwen said.
Reviewing all she knew, and all that she didn’t, Lucilla asked, “That last night they were here. What do you think they—each of them—did after you all parted for the night?”
“Well, Faith remained up for a time.” Gwen pointed to an old tapestry bag set on the top of a big dresser. “She used to knit every night while she waited for the bell to make the laird’s nightcap and take it up to him.”
“Nowadays, that’s often very late,” Mrs. Kennedy said. “Because he sleeps such odd hours, I suppose.”
Gwen nodded. “It w
as sometimes midnight or later before Edgar—he’s the master’s manservant—would ring.”
“So did Faith take the laird’s nightcap up to him that night?” Lucilla asked.
Mrs. Kennedy exchanged a look with Gwen. “Aye. She must have.”
“Else we’d’ve heard about it, no question,” Gwen said. “And, now I think of it, Edgar brought down the empty pot and cup the next morning on the tray, just like he always does. He didn’t know Faith was missing—we’d only just realized that ourselves.”
“So,” Lucilla said, “Faith made up a pot of tea and took a tray up to the laird’s room—I assume that’s on the first floor?”
“Aye,” Mrs. Kennedy replied. “It is. Not far from the head of the main stairs.”
“Which stairs would Faith have used?” Lucilla asked.
“The staff stairs that go up close by the main stairs,” Mrs. Kennedy replied.
Lucilla nodded. “All right. So we know that Faith made the tea and took the tray up, presumably by her usual route.” She paused, then asked, “What would she normally have done next? Come back here?”
Both women shook their heads.
“She would have come straight up to bed,” Mrs. Kennedy said. “All of us have rooms in the attics on the third floor. She would have taken the same stairs to come up.”
“That’s why Edgar always kept the tray and brought it down the next morning,” Gwen said. “So Faith could go straight up and not have to wait and take the tray down again.”
Lucilla decided she would need to look at exactly where Faith’s body had been found. “All right—that accounts for Faith. She behaved normally until after she parted from Edgar at the laird’s door. She should have gone up to her room, but, for some reason, she went into the disused wing and ended up falling down the stairs. Let’s turn to Joy. She lived here, in the manor, didn’t she?”
Both women nodded.
“Her room was next to Faith’s,” Gwen offered.
“Very well. So tell me what you know of what Joy did that night. When did the summons to aid the Bradshaws arrive?”