Chapter 23

Unfortunately, my respite would prove all too brief.

Once Mery and Bree had been roused from their places, dozing in the kitchen and parlor, we'd clambered back into the cart and set off toward Roscarrock House. Mery had thought to clean the back of the cart, and so Bree had urged me to sit with her wrapped in a warm blanket, lest I tumble from the perch in my fatigue. She'd assured me she'd keep a sharp eye on the rogue handling the ribbons, and so I allowed myself to be persuaded, soon nodding off with my head cushioned against Bree's shoulder.

I blinked open my bleary eyes again after just a quarter hour's rest as we reached the manor. The sun had yet to pierce the horizon, and what predawn light there was was obscured by the fog. However, the windows along the lower floor, as well as some above, still blazed with candlelight. I gazed up at them in confusion, still struggling to alertness as Bree led me along the path toward the door. Having handed the reins to a groomsman, Mery followed us in equally wary silence. Everyone should have been abed.

At the threshold, we discovered why they were not. No one could have slept through the row currently taking place in the drawing room. A swift peek at the railing above revealed Amelia, Joan, and Dolly holding her youngest child—all in their nightclothes—staring down at the entrance to the drawing room. There was no sign of Mrs. Mackay or Emma, but if my daughter was still slumbering through this racket, it was nothing short of a miracle.

Her grandfather and Bevil were shouting at the top of their lungs, while Gage and Tristram once again tried to separate them. From the state of the room and the blood dripping from a cut next to Bevil's eye, some sort of physical altercation had also ensued. A continuation of the confrontation in the garden, I presumed.

None of the men appeared to have yet retired, though their coats had been discarded and their cravats loosened. Cut glasses littered several of the surfaces, half-filled with an amber liquid, and I could smell the malty aroma of either Irish whiskey or Holland genever. This had undoubtedly only added fuel to the fire blazing between the cousins. Fuel that I would have thought my husband would have been astute enough not to let them pour down their throats.

"You've been wanderin' the estate ever since ye arrived. Lookin' for somethin'," Bevil charged, his speech slurred. "Even afore Tamsyn told ye she'd seen Branok."

"You followed me?" Lord Gage retorted and then scoffed. "But of course you did. Had to make sure I didn't stumble onto your deceit."

"What were ye lookin' for? Did ye think to keep it for yerself, ye selfish bastard?" Bevil's eyes were wild, making his statements all the more confusing.

But Lord Gage seemed to all but ignore his allegations, caught up in his own agenda. "I was checking Grandfather's hidey holes," he spat back.

Bevil swayed on his feet, either from too much drink or his cousin's assertion.

Lord Gage plainly believed the latter, for his eyes glittered vengefully. "Didn't realize I knew where those were, did you? Or you didn't think I'd remember. Well, I do! And I found your bribe for Cuttance. Or rather, Branok's bribe, isn't it? Since it's all his money."

Bevil appeared momentarily at a loss for words. Long enough for me to exchange a surprised glance with my husband. By all appearances, he seemed as startled by this revelation as I was.

"I…I don't know what you're talkin' 'bout," Bevil finally stammered unconvincingly.

Even his son glowered at his denial. "There's no need to lie for 'im anymore, Father."

Bevil turned his glare on Tristram.

"He's right," Mery said, having followed me into the room. His gaze met Tristram's and held. "There's nothin' Granfer can do to us now."

What exactly this meant, I didn't know, but there appeared to be some sort of silent communication occurring between the two younger men. Something that went far beyond the surface meaning of their words.

"No, but there is something we can do if you don't cooperate," Lord Gage threatened.

Bevil's eyes narrowed to slits beneath his bushy brows. "I see 'ow it's gonna be. Yer gonna blame us for all your faults and mistakes. Just like always."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" he snarled back.

Bevil pointed an accusing finger at Lord Gage, staggering backward as he did. "You killed Branok."

"Gentlemen," Gage declared, raising his voice and stepping between them. "Why don't we cease the finger-pointing." He arched his eyebrows at Bevil, whose arm remained extended. "Until we have all the facts. Such as…" he swiveled toward me "…time of death?"

"Between four and six o'clock in the afternoon." I shook my head apologetically. "We couldn't narrow it down any further than that."

"Then he was killed before dinner?" Gage clarified.

"Yes."

"So I couldn't have done it," Lord Gage pronounced, arching his chin. "Not while I was at Pasca Grenville's."

Except, he could have. I'd already calculated he would have just barely had enough time. He'd certainly been agitated enough. But I didn't state any of this out loud. I didn't need to.

"Ye returned nearly an hour afore dinner," Bevil replied. "And took off toward the cliffs. If that's not suspicious, I don't know what is." He turned to scrutinize me mistrustfully. "And how do we know your daughter-in-law isn't obscurin' the facts for ye?"

"Because Dr. Wolcott and I examined the body together," I answered crisply, having already expected one of them to challenge my findings. "You're free to consult him if you believe I'm lying. After all, he's one of you, isn't he? He was part of the deception." It was all I could do not to storm from the room. "Though I'm starting to wonder why I bothered. Obviously, you all lured us here under false pretenses. So why should we stay to investigate now that you have a real mess on your hands?" I rubbed my hand over my forehead, feeling the weight of all the hours of sleep I'd missed during the night, and turned to look at Lord Gage. "Maybe we should simply leave today, as we planned."

"Nay! Please."

I pivoted to face Great-Aunt Amelia standing in the doorway leaning on Joan's arm.

"Please," she continued to plead. "I know ye have every right to be angry. We…we did lie to ye. But that was all Branok's doin'! And now that he's murdered…" Her eyes flickered over my features. "It was murder?"

"Yes." There was no doubt about that. He certainly hadn't stabbed himself in the back.

She exhaled, closing her eyes, and then nodded. "Now that he's been murdered, we truly do need your 'elp to find out who did this."

I was fully cognizant of why she was directing her appeal to me and not my husband or father-in-law. She'd not even glanced at them since entering the room. She thought that, of all three of us, I, as a woman and a mother, would be most easily persuaded. However, I found the tactic only made me more angry and more desirous to wash my hands of them, in spite of—or perhaps because of—the softening toward her I felt in my heart.

In her dressing gown with her wispy gray hair trailing down her back, she seemed to have aged before my eyes. The pluckiness I'd admired had all but vanished, leaving behind a worn and worried woman. But I steeled myself, knowing from personal experience that age was no barrier to duplicity.

"You may not like what we uncover," I reminded her, crossing my arms. After all, the majority of our suspects were standing in this very room.

Joan's hands briefly tightened where they gripped her mother-in-law's arm and her opposite shoulder. An involuntary reaction, I suspected, and perhaps a telling one.

"Aye," Amelia replied. "But we need the truth anyway." Her eyes drifted from person to person. "Or else we're liable to tear ourselves apart tryin' to uncover it."

This was an astute observation. One that told me she was not as confident as I'd expected that one of the people here had not done it. Which made my own suspicions all the greater.

"Then perhaps you might begin by confirming something for us. Who knew that Branok had feigned his death?" It was a challenge of sorts, to see if they would lie. "Everyone currently present? What of Joan?"

Joan began to shake her head, but then checked herself before nodding resignedly.

"What of Dolly?"

Everyone looked at Tristram.

"I didn't tell her." He scowled at his father. "You instructed me not to."

"Anyone else besides Dr. Wolcott?" I turned to include everyone in this request.

"What of Mr. Cuttance?" Gage asked.

I shared a look of solidarity with him, glad he'd already considered the constable.

"Care to amend your earlier statement?" Gage directed this question at Bevil.

"Nay," he bit back. "Cuttance is a fool. A greedy fool, but a fool all the same. Branok set aside money to bribe him, but in the end 'twasn't necessary. Cuttance was too lazy to investigate. Took us at our word." He grunted. "I think he was just 'appy to see the end of Branok."

The last had undoubtedly been added to point our suspicions in Mr. Cuttance's direction, but it was also probably true. I doubted there was much love lost between the man who served as constable and preventive officer and Branok, despite any bribes Branok had evidently been paying him.

It was clear that my husband had more information he'd gathered from these people, questioning them while I was examining Branok's corpse. I would be better off consulting with him before I pressed further. However, there was one question I wanted an answer to before we proceeded another step.

"Why did Branok feign his death?" I demanded. "Why were we lured here?"

My queries were met with silence, their gazes either dropping to the floor or silently darting to one another. Only Mery dared to meet my eye, but his face was carefully devoid of all emotion save a watchfulness that I'd begun to realize was almost habitual.

When a muted cry suddenly pierced the air—one that I immediately recognized as my daughter's—I knew I was not going to get the answer I wanted.

"We…we don't know," Amelia stammered.

I narrowed my eyes.

"Branok didn't tell us," Joan added.

But I didn't believe this for an instant, and I let them know it. I shook my head and made a sound of disgust as I strode from the room. Had I been in any state to travel, I would have taken Emma into our carriage and ordered our coachman to head toward Liftondown House. Only the fatigue that dragged at my every step as I climbed the stairs kept me from giving way to the impulse.

Somehow, I made it to Emma's nursery, settling into the chair to cradle and nurse her. As always, the act of caring for my sweet girl soothed me, and I found myself unable to keep my eyes open or even to lift my head. How I managed not to drop her or to eventually make it into my own bed, I'm not certain, but I suspected it was some combination of Gage, Bree, and Mrs. Mackay that maneuvered me there. The next time I woke, it was to find that five hours had passed, and that the nanny was bringing Emma to me because she needed me again.

I rolled to my side, tending to her while I struggled to clear the cobwebs from my mind. While I would have liked nothing more than to sleep for five more hours, I knew that was a luxury I couldn't afford. There was too much to do, and too many things to be confronted for me to simply lie about. In any case, now that my mind was churning again, it would never let me rest. Not when there were answers to be uncovered.

Though the morning must have been far advanced, the light piercing through the curtains was muted. Rain pattered against the roof, and I could just make out the faint rumble of thunder in the distance. I sighed. Not the most auspicious day to be out and about, but such things had never stopped us before.

However, I lingered under the covers, listening to Emma chatter and watching her explore the bedding. It wouldn't be long before she was crawling and pulling herself up. When Gage entered a short time later, it was to hear Emma squealing with laughter as I tickled her and pressed kisses to her chubby cheeks.

He stood at the end of the bed, smiling at us. "I have to say, I much prefer the sounds in here to those in the rest of this house."

I turned to look up at him, seeing the lines of fatigue pulling at the corners of his eyes and mouth. "Is everyone still arguing?"

"When they're even speaking to each other."

I offered him a grimace of commiseration before pushing up on my elbow to arrange my pillows so that I could lean back against them.

"Don't you want to go back to sleep?" he asked me.

"I want to," I admitted, settling into place and lifting Emma up into the vee formed by my bent legs and torso so that she could face me. "But I won't. Did you get any rest?"

He rounded the bed to sit next to us. "A few hours." He took hold of Emma's hand, pretending to nibble her fingers.

"Are they still claiming that luring us here was Branok's plan and they have no idea why?"

He offered me a cynical glance that said it all.

I thought back over all of the times I'd thought Tristram or Amelia or Mery were grieving or worried because Branok had been murdered and they didn't know who to suspect or what the future held. Yet now we knew all of that anxiety was directed toward something different. Toward their fear of being caught out. I wished I'd taken more time earlier to question the motivations behind their emotions.

But how could we possibly have known they were playing such a dirty trick? The very notion sounded beyond ludicrous, particularly with so many people involved. Even so, it had been carried out, and successfully. But we still didn't know why. Why concoct such an elaborate scheme? There had to be a reason—and an important one—to exert such an effort. And I didn't believe for one second that they were all blind to its purpose.

I huffed in aggravation. "I feel like refusing to investigate unless they fully cooperate. Except, your father is a suspect, one they'd probably most like to pin the matter on. And I don't trust Mr. Cuttance or whoever the magistrate is to be impartial." I brushed a stray curl from Emma's forehead, trailing my fingers over her cheek. "There's also Dolly and Imogen, and the other women to consider, as well as the children. I hate leaving them without answers." It would worry them. It must.

"What else were you and Dr. Wolcott able to discover other than when Branok was killed?" Gage asked.

I told him what little we'd learned from the body, and also relayed what Dr. Wolcott had told me about Branok's ploy, as well as the physician's alleged alibi. "We should verify it, but I don't think he's the killer."

"I agree," Gage admitted, absently rubbing his jaw as he contemplated all I'd told him. "And I think you're right about such a weapon being an odd choice for my father. He wouldn't choose a fisherman's knife."

"Not unless he took it from Branok, but then there should have been evidence of a struggle, and there wasn't. Whoever did this was either able to sneak up on him unawares or stabbed him after he'd turned his back on them."

"Which means they'd have to be someone he trusted."

I arched my eyebrows. "Someone he trusted, but discounted."

He paused to scrutinize my features. "You're thinking of Mery."

"Or Tristram." I tilted my head in thought. "Or Tamsyn. But I can't see him turning his back on your father or Bevil. Or Cuttance."

Emma began to protest our ignoring her, so I laid her on the bed between us to wiggle and roll.

"If Tamsyn, then why not also Amelia or Joan?" Gage posited. "Though a knife is usually a man's weapon."

"Usually," I repeated dryly.

He lifted his gaze to meet mine and I could tell the moment he recalled the knife-throwing woman I'd faced in Argyll.

"But you're right," I conceded. "I was initially thinking of Mery. He seems to have the most to gain from his grandfather's death. That hasn't changed. Plus, his whereabouts during the window when Branok was killed are rather ambiguous. He claims he last saw his grandfather leaving his cottage about the time we departed for Pasca Grenville's, and soon after he went to the Golden Lion in Port Isaac."

"We did meet him returning from there, reeking of smoke and spirits," Gage confirmed.

"Yes, but it's the work of ten minutes for him to accompany his grandfather out to that headland, kill him, and then carry on to Port Isaac. And we've only Mery's word as to when Branok actually left his cottage." I watched as Emma rolled over to her stomach and began sucking on her fist, still working on her tooth. "Unless someone else saw Branok after that?"

"No one claimed to have seen him yesterday," Gage said. "And only Bevil admitted to speaking to him the day before."

I began to pleat the hem of my shift. Whoever had helped me undress this morning had evidently decided not to bother having me swap the undergarment for a night rail. "Then Mery was likely the last to see him alive. Unless he's not the killer." I frowned, thinking back over our conversation in the cart the previous evening and his expression before I'd left the drawing room. "But he definitely knows something." I narrowed my eyes. "And he doesn't trust his relatives."

"What makes you say that?" Gage asked.

"He's guarded, watchful. Like he doesn't know precisely where or when the next blow is going to fall, but he knows it's coming."

I could see that Gage knew I was speaking from experience. That I, too, had learned to be guarded and watchful when I'd lived under Sir Anthony's roof, and it had taken some time for me to relax my vigilance.

"Not that his relatives actually resort to physical violence," I qualified.

"But the premise still stands," he finished for me, reaching for my hand.

"Yes."

Gage's expression was taut, so I squeezed his fingers hoping to reassure him and bring him firmly back to our present rather than worrying about my past. "Perhaps he expects them to accuse him."

"They did before, when it was only a faked death."

Though now I had to question why. Why had they pointed the finger so firmly at him? Had that been part of the plan? Or had the Killigrews been improvising? I supposed it must have occurred to them that we would see Mery as an obvious suspect, so perhaps they'd elected to play to what they believed would be our preconceived notions.

Whatever the truth, we would never have the full picture until we also understood why Branok had feigned his death and persuaded us to come here. If any of them were to tell us, I suspected it was Mery, and the others knew it. Or, at least, Bevil did.

Emma flopped over onto her back, kicking her legs and drawing a smile to my lips. I watched as Gage leaned over to blow kisses against her cheeks. He pulled one of her ragdolls from somewhere concealed on his person, and I couldn't help but feel my heart brim over with warmth at the picture they made.

Which made the ache I felt recalling what Mery's childhood had been like all the more pronounced. Lord Gage might not have been the kindest and most attentive of fathers, but he had loved his son. If I'd ever doubted it, everything he'd revealed to me the evening before had made that abundantly clear. And Gage's mother had adored him. Mery, on the other hand, had lost his father in a drunken brawl and been abandoned by his mother, leaving him to the dubious care of his grandfather and assorted other relatives.

"You know, Mery might be the rightful heir of Roscarrock, but he's far from in control."

Gage looked up, seeming to be struck by this thought as much as I was.

"And I'm not sure he'll have an easy time wresting it away from those who are."

He frowned. "For all the disparaging things they've had to say about him, one thing's clear. He's not ruthless enough."

I nodded. Which rather turned things on its head. "We need to find a way to speak to him when the others can't interfere. And I think I know how." I sat up. "But I need to speak to Bree."

"I'll find her for you," Gage said, planting one last kiss to Emma's cheek. "I imagine she's waiting for your summons." He lightly grasped hold of my chestnut brown hair trailing over my shoulder, urging me closer so that he could kiss me as well. "Though I wish we could delay the day a little longer. With Emma giggling and you dressed only in your shift." His gaze took on a rakish gleam at this last remark, which drew a blush to my cheeks. Then his face fell as he sighed wearily. "But I know we have a murderer to catch."

I drew him back to me, planting another kiss on his lips. "With any luck, this will all be over soon."

His expression was resigned. "And I'll never ask my father to introduce me to any of his long-lost relatives ever again."