“I’m happy to come with you, my dear,” Ivy told Sophia the next morning as they finished up breakfast.
Greaves had just informed the assembled ladies of the house that Squire Northman, the magistrate for this county, had arrived to question Sophia about the murder of Mr. Framingham.
Not long after she told Ben about the cache of forged paintings they’d found in the studio, he’d taken his leave with the promise to come back this morning. He hadn’t yet arrived, however.
Even so, Sophia was prepared to answer the man’s questions as thoroughly as she could. The memory of the dead man was still fresh in her mind, and she’d even awoken twice in the night in a cold sweat thanks to it.
“I believe I can manage,” she told Ivy with a smile. “Though I appreciate the offer. I know both you and Daphne have had your own moments with the Squire.”
“I was a suspect at one point,” Daphne pointed out, as she buttered her toast. “Northman is not the most pleasant of men, but he is persuadable when the truth is there to lay out before him. I believe he is a bit frightened of Maitland, though. It’s a shame he isn’t here to go into the interview with you. He was most useful during mine.”
Sophia rather thought Maitland had been so fierce with Northman because he was in love with Daphne, but she didn’t point that out to her friend.
Instead, she rose, with the aid of her walking stick. “I’m sure it will be routine. I barely knew the man and from all appearances he was already dead while I was in the gallery. So, there’s nothing to be concerned about.”
She wasn’t sure if she was reassuring her friends or herself.
Just as she neared the door of the breakfast room, Gemma came barreling up. “I overslept,” she said, slightly breathless and looking as if she’d dressed hastily. It was unusual for the always punctual Gemma to be late for anything. “I haven’t missed breakfast, have I?”
“You haven’t,” Sophia said, hiding her smile at her sister’s unusual state. “But I’m off to meet with the magistrate. I’ll see you later in the morning.”
At the mention of Northman, Gemma’s eyes snapped to attention. “Do you wish me to go with you?”
Sophia gave a lusty sigh. “Why is it that everyone thinks I need a keeper with me so that I might answer a few questions from the magistrate? I’m hardly infirm or lacking intellect.”
“Of course you aren’t, dearest,” said Gemma putting a hand on her arm. “But you were overset last night. And the Squire has a tendency to be a bit unscrupulous when he asks his questions. You’re the most, well, tender of us. I simply don’t wish him to cause you discomfort.”
Did they really see her that way? Sophia wondered. It was true perhaps that of the four heiresses she was the most soft-hearted. But she wasn’t one to weep at the drop of a hat, or to become tearful at the least provocation. She saw herself as rather practical and unemotional. It was rather jarring to think that her sister and friends saw her any differently.
She was saved from further speculation on the matter by the arrival of Greaves followed by Ben, who despite the late hour of his departure the evening before looked well rested and handsome in his form-fitting trousers and pristine cravat.
“Lord Benedick has arrived, Miss Hastings,” said Greaves rather needlessly, given that Sophia could see the man with her own eyes.
“Yes, thank you, Greaves,” she told the butler nevertheless. One thing she could count on, at the very least, was Greaves’ scrupulous attention to protocol.
“I believe Squire Northman is here to question you?” Ben asked, only a fleeting intensity in his gaze indicating that he remembered as vividly as Sophia did their encounter in the studio the evening before. But the next instance he was all politeness and manners. “May I sit in with you? It will perhaps be easier for him to question us both at the same time. And I can offer you some support.”
Sophia purposely ignored the look of smugness on her sister’s face, then let Ben take her arm.
In a low voice as they made their way to the drawing room, he asked, “Are you well this morning? Yesterday was quite exhausting and I know your ankle was paining you last night.”
Sophia made a noise of impatience. “I wish everyone would stop treating me as if I am made of cotton floss. I am perfectly capable of enduring a trying day. And while my injury still aches a bit, it is nothing I cannot handle.”
Her voice rose as she spoke, and to her embarrassment she realized she’d nearly been shouting by the end.
If she was afraid he’d be offended, however, she was mistaken.
Ben laughed and pulled her arm closer to him. “I can see I’ll need to have more respect for your strong will, Sophia. I forgot for a moment that you were unlike any other lady of my acquaintance. Forgive me?”
The apology was said so sweetly she couldn’t reject it without seeming churlish. “Yes, I forgive you,” she said crossly. “And I suppose I’m sorry for ripping up at you. It’s just that everyone seems to think I’m some simpering artist who wears her every emotion on her sleeve.”
“I don’t think that,” he said sincerely. “And I daresay your sister and your friends don’t think that either. They’re just concerned for you after yesterday’s ordeal. And they wish to help you. It’s what we do for the people we love.”
She supposed he was right. Then, realizing what he’d said, she asked, with a sideways look, “Am I unlike the other ladies of your acquaintance?”
“Most certainly,” he said without hesitation. Then, in a lower voice, he added, “I don’t wish to kiss them until they make the little greedy noises you made last night.”
At the reminder of her response to him the night before, and his to her, Sophia felt her entire body suffuse with heat.
Then, as luck would have it, they were at the door to the drawing room.
He gave her a knowing grin, the wretch, before opening the door and ushering her inside.
Squire Northman, a gruff, no-nonsense leader of the local gentry, at whose home Sophia and the other heiresses had dined on a number of occasions, was today in his magistrate guise. That is to say, he was his usual self only more intimidating. He’d been accompanied by his secretary, who, Sophia knew from past experience, took notes during these interviews.
“It’s about time, Miss Hastings,” he said without preamble as Sophia, followed by Ben, entered the room. “I’ve been cooling my heels for a quarter of an hour or more. I know you ladies take your time dressing, but this is serious business.”
‘Good morning to you, too, Mr. Northman,” Sophia said without referring to his complaint. “I hope you won’t mind, but I’ve a twisted ankle and will need to sit for this interview.”
It was both a way of putting him in the position of behaving like a gentleman rather than a lawman, and also a way for her to get off her ankle, which had begun to throb.
Looking somewhat chastened, the older man nodded. “I didn’t mean to be so harsh. M’wife tells me I’m rag-mannered at times. Please sit, Miss Hastings.”
As she took a seat in the large wingback chair near the window overlooking the garden, the magistrate turned to Ben, who had been silent thus far.
“Vicar,” Northman said with a slight bow. “I’m pleased to see you’re here as well. I can question you both about this business and maybe get to the bottom of things.”
To Sophia he said as he began to pace before the fire, “I don’t mind telling you, Miss Hastings, that I believe there must be something in the water at Beauchamp House, for now it’s three of you involved in this sort of thing. I don’t hold with ladies getting mixed up in murder. It would be a sight better if the four of you would keep yourselves to yourselves and stay at home with your needlework.”
* * *
There was so much to object to in the statement, Sophia wasn’t even sure where to begin. She was saved from doing so by Ben, who’d come to stand beside her chair, his hand warm on her shoulder.
“Perhaps you should get to the questions about Framingham rather than giving commentary on the behavior of the Beauchamp House heiresses, Squire,” he said with a raised brow. “We all wish to see whoever killed the man caught and punished, do we not?”
Looking frustrated, but resigned, the magistrate gave a slight shrug, then turned to his secretary, who’d been silent throughout the proceedings so far. “Be sure to write all of this down. This is important business.”
Not waiting for a response, he turned back to Sophia. “I believe the vicar told me last night, Miss Hastings, that you were in the gallery for some time before you heard the shouts of Mr. Ryder from the storage room?”
Sophia gave him the details of her visit to the gallery—minus the kissing once Ben appeared on the scene—and concluded with finding Ryder standing over the body of Framingham. When she was finished, the magistrate looked, if anything, more grave.
“And you heard nothing before Ryder came upon you alone? No shouts, no crashing around?” Northman asked, his bushy brows lowered with intensity.
She’d gone over the scene again and again in her mind last night, but she could recall no unusual noises or sounds coming from any part of the gallery. “Nothing, Mr. Northman. And if Mr. Ryder had been stabbing Mr. Framingham before he accosted me, then wouldn’t he have been bloody?”
The magistrate looked taken aback that she’d mention something so graphic, but reluctantly nodded. “It’s unlikely that the person who killed Framingham could have done so and not become … messy in the process.”
“Do you remember if Ryder came through the front door as you did, Miss Hastings?” Ben asked, turning to look at her. “Is it possible he came from the direction of the storage room and the rear entrance of the gallery?”
Northman looked as if he would object to Ben usurping his duties as questioner, but seemed to think the question was a good one, because he indicated with a wave of his hand that she should answer.
“I can’t be sure,” Sophia answered truthfully. She’d spent at least an hour last night before finally falling asleep trying to remember the exact details leading up to the discovery of Framingham’s body. “I don’t recall hearing the front door, but I was also in a bit of a … a daze, I suppose you’d call it. I get that way sometimes when I’m engrossed in a painting. I’m still there, my physical presence is still there, but my mind is … elsewhere.”
Northman gave a grunt, as if this was the sort of nonsense he’d expect from a lady artist.
But Ben gave her shoulder a squeeze. “It’s that way with me and reading sometimes. My tutor used to say that he could have shot a pistol in the room and I’d not hear it.”
“So you can’t know for sure if Ryder was in the back, having words with Framingham before he came upon you, or if he breezed in from the street none the wiser?” Northman demanded. “I can’t say as I’m surprised, since it seems to me that the fellow is a bit slippery.”
Since Sophia’s opinion of the other artist was not much better, she didn’t argue. Though she did wonder if they should inform the magistrate about the forgeries. “Perhaps you know already since you’re in contact with the authorities, Squire—” she began, only to be interrupted by Ben.
“—but Ryder is a protégé of Mr. Peter Morgan and both men had dealings with Framingham in relation to the upcoming art exhibition in the village,” the vicar finished, his hand on her shoulder squeezing to indicate she should go along. “You should perhaps speak with Mr. Morgan.”
It was difficult not to gape at Ben as he spoke, but Sophia managed it.
Just.