CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I peered through the open doorway of the master suite’s private parlor, glad to find my sister alone. We had not spoken privately since the previous morning, and I was curious how she was holding up under the strain of the past few days. She was seated at the end of a settee upholstered in cream-and-oatmeal-striped silk, her arm draped across the back of the seat and her face turned to the sun shining through the window. I paused, smiling at the pretty picture she made. Her hair, which was two shades lighter than my dark chestnut tresses, appeared tipped in a shade of caramel in the afternoon sunlight. She seemed peaceful, as I had not seen her in weeks since preparations for the house party began. I wondered if perhaps I should not interrupt her, and began to back out of the room.

But at that moment she turned and opened her eyes. A soft smile lit her face at the sight of me, and she reached out a hand. Unable to resist the pull of the affection in her gaze, I crossed the room and sat down next to her in front of the window.

“And where have you been all day?” she asked me. “When I went to your room this morning, you were already gone.”

“Mr. Gage took me with him to speak with Lord Marsdale.”

“Ah,” she breathed knowingly. She reached around to the back of my head to adjust my hair, pulling several pins out and replacing them. “Are you any closer to finding the killer?” she asked in a deceptively casual tone.

“I’m afraid not,” I told her. “But we have two and a half days left before the procurator fiscal from Inverness arrives, and I’m going to do everything in my power to catch the culprit before then,” I declared, determination ringing in my voice.

Alana smiled in gentle amusement. “That would be nice, dear. Believe me, I would like to know that my children are safe again and send all of these people on their way so that I can have my home back. But even if you haven’t caught him by then, I’m sure the procurator fiscal will be grateful for the work you and Mr. Gage have done.”

I feigned an interest in the pile of color swatches my sister had laid across the back of the settee. I didn’t have the heart to tell her my suspicions about where the blame would fall should we fail to expose the murderer soon. Perhaps tomorrow I would, or the day after, just before the procurator fiscal arrived so that she was prepared, but not now. Not while she was so serene.

“What are these for?” I asked, changing the subject.

She sighed. “The children need new clothes for autumn. But I’m having difficulty choosing colors for Philipa.” Her lips quirked wryly. “Especially since she has informed me she now despises pink and yellow.”

I smiled. That certainly sounded like my niece. Next year pink and yellow would be her favorite colors. “The cinnamon red and bottle green,” I told Alana, tapping the swatches in question.

“Really?” She reached across me for the stack. “I thought perhaps the cinnamon was too dark for her complexion.”

It tickled me that Alana was already so concerned with her five-year-old daughter’s wardrobe. “No. It will look lovely with her brown eyes.”

“All right,” she conceded as she tossed the swatches onto the table. “Well, since that is decided, you can join me for tea.” She stood and shook out her skirts. I stared up at her in confusion. “Well, come on then.”

“Aren’t we taking tea here?”

“Of course not. We shall join the other ladies in the drawing room.”

I nearly groaned. I knew that tone of voice. I knew it, and I hated it. It was the voice of the centuries of obstinate, crusading Scotsmen whose blood flowed through our veins. And it had been my great misfortune to be too often the supposed beneficiary of Alana’s own brand of stubborn valor.

When I was six, she boosted me onto the back of our father’s newest gelding in an effort to convince our sire I was ready to ride a horse like my older siblings instead of a pony. Her plan only succeeded in giving me a sore bottom; first from being thrown from the gelding, and later from the thrashing I received from Father for the stunt.

At fourteen, when I still felt gawky and uncomfortable with the changes to my body, Alana dressed me in one of her gowns and dragged me to the May Day fair in Kelso. She was determined to prove to our neighbors that I was not unattractive or strange. It seemed to work, until a baron’s son tried to kiss me and I sneezed in his face. Apparently, no one else thought he smelled too strongly of his cologne, and my protestations that it had tickled my nose fell on deaf ears.

At eighteen, it was a handful of gentlemen mocking my first private art exhibition at our family’s London residence. At twenty-one, a debutante who felt she should be allowed to purchase the blue dress I had chosen for my wedding gown because she claimed it made my eyes look possessed. At twenty-four, a mere month after Sir Anthony’s death and the accusations that followed, it was the lords and ladies who strolled in front of the shops on Bond Street, whispering about my crimes and unnatural tendencies as Alana and I purchased a few last-minute items in preparation for our journey to Gairloch. None of those situations had worked out well for me when Alana stepped in. The gentlemen had begun wagers in the betting books at the gentlemen’s clubs that no one would marry me for three years—they won, just barely. The wedding gown was spitefully ripped by the debutante, and I was still shunned and whispered about by the lords and ladies.

And now Alana wanted us to confront a drawing room filled with gossiping harpies who believed me capable of murder.

As much as I loved my sister and appreciated her righteous indignation on my behalf, there were times when I wished she would simply leave well enough alone.

“I would prefer to have tea here,” I told her, prepared to argue my point.

“I’m sure you would. And I can hardly blame you. However . . .” She adopted her lady-of-the-manor voice, the one she had been practicing since the age of seven, somehow knowing she would be a countess someday. “I am not going to let my guests dictate who sits in my drawing room and who does not. This is your home, too, Kiera. And if I want to drink tea with you, I can do so anywhere I please.”

“Alana,” I pleaded.

“No. My mind is firm on this. If Lady Westlock and her fellow harpies are not pleased by your presence, they can eat their biscuits in the dungeons for all I care.”

“Please, Alana.” I clasped my hands together to beg. “Now is not the time”

“If not now, then when?” My sister perched on the edge of the settee next to me and took hold of my hands. “It will not stop. It never will, unless we do something about it. Now.” She raised and lowered our joined hands in emphasis. “I’m tired of watching you fade into the shadows. You were always quiet and reserved around company, but you never ran away and hid. Not until you married Sir Anthony.”

I glanced away from her, not wanting to be reminded of the way I was before corpses became such central figures in my life. It had been so long now that sometimes I wasn’t sure if I had ever lived without their specters hanging over my head.

“At the time, it seemed for the best, but sometimes . . .” Alana sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if we did the right thing by allowing you to hide away here at Gairloch.”

I looked into Alana’s saddened eyes, worrying again that I had caused my sister and her family irreparable harm by staying here.

She smiled sadly. “The reason I haven’t mentioned this before was for purely selfish motives. I wanted you here. I had more trouble recovering after Greer was born than I had with the others, and I was floundering a bit.” She sucked in a deep breath, blinking her eyes to hold back the wetness shining there. She often got this way when she thought about that difficult time. I had to swallow back my answering emotion. “It was so good to have you here with me. And every time I contemplate your leaving, it feels like someone is cutting out a part of me.” She breathed in and exhaled sharply. “However, that time is coming.”

I felt a mild stirring of panic pull the air from my lungs.

Alana squeezed my hand. “Please don’t mistake me. You will always have a home here. But perhaps it’s time you rejoined the world beyond Gairloch’s vistas. Perhaps it’s time you defied those gossiping windbags instead of trying so hard not to overset the applecart.”

I did not reply immediately. I was too disturbed by the idea of leaving here, of facing the angry masses of London or Edinburgh. The ton would cut me dead, and my husband’s colleagues would eye me with disgust. I couldn’t imagine that my fellow artists would look upon me any more favorably. And then I remembered that none of these worries would matter if I did not find Lady Godwin’s murderer and keep Gage from implicating me.

“But those concerns are for another day,” Alana declared, not knowing how dark my thoughts had grown. “For now, you have only to join me for tea in the front parlor.”

That stubborn look was back in her eyes, and I suddenly felt every minute of all of the hours of sleep I had missed the last two nights. “Alana,” I began, barely summoning the strength to argue.

“No. No protests.” She pulled me to my feet with more force than I expected and tucked her arm through mine to drag me toward the door.

A sick feeling settled in my stomach. This could not go well.

•   •   •

It would have been comical how quickly the chatter in the drawing room silenced as soon as we stepped through the door if I hadn’t still been so preoccupied with trying to find a way to escape. Alana towed me heedlessly across the room, as if oblivious to the others’ reactions, even though there was no way she could have failed to notice the harsh stillness.

“Good afternoon,” she announced cheerily.

Several of the ladies murmured polite replies while the others continued to stare at me in disapproving shock. She ignored them, and my dragging heels, and pulled me toward the gold brocade settee at the center of the room, where Lady Stratford sat the previous evening before dinner. The countess sat by the window this afternoon, watching us with the same curiosity as the others, albeit with far more subtlety than the open appraisal of some of the other women.

“Is that the sampler you’ve been working on?” my sister asked Miss Darlington as we passed behind her chair.

She startled and dropped her gaze from where she had been staring at me. “Yes, my lady.”

“It’s lovely.”

She shifted in her seat. “Thank you.”

I wondered if her engagement to Mr. Abingdon had been announced yet. Was she happy with the arrangement? At the moment, she merely looked uncomfortable. Whether that was from worry over her recent conduct in regards to Mr. Abingdon or my presence, I could not tell.

As if on cue, several maids swept into the parlor, bearing heavily laden tea trays, as soon as Alana and I settled onto the settee. They set the tea services strategically throughout the room and then disappeared almost as quickly as they arrived. I knew my brother-in-law’s staff was loyal and efficient, but I had expected them to be out of practice after so long a period without guests at Gairloch. I was clearly mistaken. Every meal had been perfection, every room cleaned to a shine, and I had overheard no complaints from the guests, despite the added upheaval the murder had caused. I was impressed and proud of my sister’s ability to direct them. I had always known she was a gifted hostess, and this was just added proof.

Alana returned my tight smile with one more genuine, and slid forward to pour for the group of ladies surrounding the tea table before us. Her movements were graceful and her voice genteel as she asked each woman how she preferred her tea, and I wondered at her ability to remain so calm when there was so much tension in the air around us. It settled across my skin like a thousand tiny pinpricks. I had to clasp my hands together in my lap to keep from fidgeting and soothing the tingling sensation across my skin.

“Kiera.”

I took the cup of tea Alana poured for me, already prepared as I liked. She had also set a lemon biscuit on the saucer. “Thank you,” I replied, even though I wasn’t certain I could stomach any of it.

She smiled encouragingly at me and then turned to pour her own cup.

I forced the cup to my lips to take a sip and peered over the rim at the others. Some of them had returned to their conversations, though more quietly than before, and although I sensed that some of their attention was still focused on me, they at least made a good show of pretending it wasn’t. Then there were others, like Miss Darlington, who seemed to have great difficulty keeping their eyes off me, even though they knew it was impolite to stare. Miss Darlington’s gaze bounced up and down from the sampler in front of her to me so many times I was worried she would give herself a crick in the neck. I tried to smile at her, but she seemed horrified by my notice of her and lifted the sampler to hide her face.

Of course, there were also a few who just couldn’t be bothered to hide their disgust of me, namely Lady Westlock and Mrs. Smythe. I ignored their glares and the indignant pitch of their whispers as best as I could.

“The weather is lovely today after last night’s rain, is it not?” Alana said politely to the company surrounding us.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, which stretched my nerves, and then Philip’s cousin, Caroline, spoke into the gap. “Indeed. I forget how refreshing a Highland rain can be.” She smiled softly at me.

“Lady Cromarty, I have the most wonderful news,” Lady Darlington crowed from across the room. “Mr. Abingdon and my daughter are to be wed.”

Well, that answered my earlier question. I wondered if Lady Darlington was aware of the events surrounding her daughter’s precipitous engagement or if Miss Darlington and her brother had decided to keep those details to themselves.

I watched Caroline and her mother carefully as my sister offered her congratulations, and was relieved to see that Caroline did not appear the least bit upset by the news and, in fact, seemed pleased as she smiled into her teacup. Clearly, the girl had even more good sense than I’d given her credit for. Her mother, Lady Hollingsworth, on the other hand, looked as if she had just swallowed something very bitter. Her lips pursed and her eyes glared accusingly at her daughter. Perhaps for Caroline’s sake, I should encourage Philip to mention something of Mr. Abingdon’s unsavory character to his aunt.

“Congratulations,” I told Miss Darlington, and tried to sound sincere even though I thought the real congratulations went to Caroline for escaping marriage to the bounder.

Miss Darlington nodded in acknowledgment and shifted once more in her seat.

“When do you plan to have the wedding?” my sister innocently asked. “In the spring?”

Lady Darlington’s gaze darted anxiously toward her daughter. “Oh, Sarah has always dreamed of an autumn wedding,” she lied smoothly. She evidently knew something of her daughter’s conduct. “The colors suit her so well.”

I glanced at blonde-haired, blue-eyed Miss Darlington and nearly choked on a bite of biscuit. Anyone with a modicum of sense could see that autumn colors were absolutely the worst match for the girl.

Lady Darlington seemed to realize this and flushed before hurrying on. “So it is rather fortuitous Mr. Abingdon asked for her hand now instead of two months hence. We plan to have the bans called this Sunday, if we are allowed to return home by then.”

“So a mid-September wedding. You should have lovely weather, as long as the rain holds,” my sister said kindly.

“But they say rain is actually a good omen for a bride,” I said and then blushed when everyone turned collectively to look at me. I wasn’t entirely certain why I decided to open my mouth.

“That’s true,” Alana agreed, coming to my rescue. “I had forgotten that old adage.” She turned to smile at Miss Darlington. “So perhaps we should hope for rain.”

“As I recall, it did not rain on your wedding day, Lady Darby,” Lady Westlock couldn’t seem to resist commenting.

I met her gaze levelly. If she had hoped to disconcert me with such a statement, she was to be sorely disappointed. And I did not feel enough loyalty toward my deceased husband to even attempt to deny the truth. “No, it did not.”

“But it did rain on mine,” Alana declared much too cheerily. “What about you, Lady Westlock? Did it rain on your wedding day?”

She narrowed her eyes at my sister and clamped her lips together tightly.

“I remember there wasn’t even a cloud in the sky,” Lady Darlington supplied helpfully, darting a triumphant look at Lady Westlock. “It did, however, rain for mine.” I wondered what had transpired between the two friends to provoke Lady Darlington so.

Lady Westlock ignored her and focused on me again. “I’m curious whether Mr. Gage has had any luck with his investigation yet. Of course, we all know he is just searching for evidence. It’s quite clear who the killer is.”

I tightened my grip on my teacup.

“Really?” Alana said, brushing an imaginary crumb from her lap. She seemed so calm; I imagined I was the only one who could sense the anger behind her restrained movements. It fairly vibrated down the line of her back. “It is not clear to me. Perhaps you could enlighten me?”

Lady Westlock scowled fiercely.

“No?” My sister’s bright blue eyes dared her to say my name. The others leaned forward in their seats, absorbing every nuance of the silent standoff between the two ladies.

My stomach churned. I was so tired of these confrontations. So tired of being accused. And so tired of forcing my sister to defend me. I wanted to scream at them all, and I was afraid if I opened my mouth, I might do exactly that.

Lady Westlock’s eyes dropped to her lap, and Alana laid down the gauntlet. “Then I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself. None of us care to hear your nasty assertions.”

The air rang with the silence that followed. No one dared speak or move until my sister removed her glare from Lady Westlock. She swallowed the remnants of her fury and turned toward Lady Hollingsworth.

“Her sister has bewitched her. She can’t even see the truth for what it is,” Lady Westlock hissed loudly enough for it to carry across the entire room.

“That does it!” Alana slammed her cup down on the table, sloshing the liquid over the sides, and rose to her feet. “Pack your bags! You have fifteen minutes to be off my property before . . .”

“Alana!” I protested, rising to stop her.

“No! I don’t care what Philip said. I want . . .”

I gripped her arm and shook her. “Stop!”

She stared at me goggle-eyed.

“Now sit down before you say anything else foolish,” I ordered, feeling my blood pumping hard through my veins.

She blinked at me in shock. I couldn’t blame her. I was almost in shock myself, unable to believe what I was about to do. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to let Alana take the blame for anything I did or upset her husband because her temper got the better of her again. I gentled my hold on her upper arm and tried to look reassuring as I pushed her back down into her seat. Then I marshaled all of my courage and turned to stare down the other guests who were waiting in eager silence.

“See what I mean?” Lady Westlock jeered.

“You, shut your mouth,” I ordered.

The others gasped as the baroness’s mouth dropped open and she began to splutter.

“I’m not about to let you malign my sister. I’ve let you and your conspirators,” I turned my glare on Mrs. Smythe and Lady Darlington, “pour venom in everyone’s ears against me since the day you arrived. But I’m not about to let you speak of my sister in such a way. She is the Countess of Cromarty and your hostess, and above all else, a good woman. A better woman than any of you. And she deserves your respect.”

I paused, breathing hard as I struggled to control my own St. Mawr temper. Just because I did not often unleash it, did not mean it did not exist. I could be far worse than either of my siblings when a real rage came over me. Sir Anthony’s bedroom in London was proof of that. I left it in shambles after his friends promised to have me arrested for the anatomical sketches my husband forced me to draw.

The other ladies watched me with varying degrees of horror—eyes wide, bodies still, breaths held so as not to miss a single word I uttered. I scowled at the whole foolish lot of them.

“I’m well aware how very little the truth matters to you, but I’m going to speak it anyway.” I glanced around the room, pausing to stare into each and every one of their eyes as I continued. “I am not a murderer. Not now, not ever. And when Lady Godwin’s killer is caught, a great many of you shall have to eat your words. I shall enjoy every minute of discomfort you feel in my presence when that happens.”

Sick of looking at their shocked faces, I turned to my sister to take my leave.

Unfortunately, Lady Westlock had still not learned her lesson. I supposed it could have been her status that drove her to have the last word—after all, she was a baroness, and before that a marquess’s daughter. However, I suspected it was more likely a fault of her character.

She sniffed, sticking her nose into the air. “And we shall smile with glee when you are finally carted off to prison or the asylum, as you should have been a year ago.”

I clenched my hands into fists, struggling with an urge to march across the room and do her physical harm. I fear the only thing that may have stopped me from doing so was the realization that it would not help my case. Regardless, some of those around me sensed my extreme fury, for they shrank back in their seats.

“You really need to learn to hold your tongue, my lady.” My voice was laced with steel. “Your husband is already facing charges of assault. I should hate for you to make it worse for him by adding slander to his bill.”

Many of the ladies gasped, swiveling in their seats to look at Lady Westlock, whose eyes now bulged like a fish.

I did not wait to see what else happened, and instead murmured an excuse to my sister before marching out of the room. “Would you please excuse me, sister dear. I fear I’ve lost my appetite.” I could not stand to be in a room with Lady Westlock another moment longer.

“Of course,” Alana called after me, but I was already striding through the door.

“She lies,” Lady Westlock cried.

I ignored her. In my fit of temper, I’d already revealed more than I was supposed to. I only hoped Lord Westlock was too intimidated by Mr. Gage to expose my part in the events two nights past. If the others knew I was assisting Gage, they might be reluctant to even speak with him, which could jeopardize our entire investigation.

I turned left toward the back of the castle, hoping to make a clean escape, only to plow straight into someone.