Chapter 12

In the first moment,I was afraid Crispin would drop little Bess. I had visions of her hitting the floor and bouncing—and then hitting the floor and not bouncing, which was much worse. The situation—and the astonished expression on his face—would have been rather funny if not for my fear that she'd get hurt. But then he fumbled her into a more secure hold and dragged his eyes from the door where Aunt Roz had vanished to peer down at the baby.

She peered back: wide blue eyes against wide gray, and matching cupid's bow mouths slightly parted in shock at this turn of events.

You might have expected her to be upset at being unceremoniously dumped into the arms of a stranger, but no. She looked fascinated. So, rather remarkably, did Crispin.

Fascinated, but wary. He looked at her rather as if she were a shell that might go off at any moment.

And of course seeing them stare at one another, faces a foot apart, just emphasized the resemblance. I had known it was there, but seeing them together drove it home, and made something churn uncomfortably in my stomach. They looked like father and child. Knowing that that was a possibility was one thing, seeing it with my own eyes was another.

Christopher sniggered. "They make quite the pretty picture, don't they, Pippa?"

Crispin's brows lowered, and he flicked a glance at me before turning a scowl on Christopher. "You've no room to remark, Kit. If you were the one holding her, it'd look very much the same, you know."

"Mum didn't give her to me," Christopher pointed out, smugly. "She gave her to you."

"And I'm holding her, aren't I? I can't help it that she looks like me."

He turned his attention back to the baby, who was bouncing on his arm, trying to get his attention back on herself now that it had wandered. "Yes, I see you. You're lovely, aren't you? Such a pretty girl."

He made cooing noises, and Bess responded by cooing right back. When she reached out and wrapped a chubby fist around his tie, he winced, but didn't do anything to stop her.

I rolled my eyes but took pity on him. "Not the tie, Elizabeth. He'll wrinkle, and then Lady Laetitia will feel compelled to fix it for him, and if she does, I might gag."

I pried the baby's fingers from around it and smoothed it back down myself.

"It's a bit uncanny," Christopher said, in all seriousness now, looking from his cousin to the baby and back. "She really does look enough like you to be yours, Crispin. There's no denying that face."

"Or those eyes or that hair," I added.

"But not my eyes nor my hair," Crispin pointed out. "Abigail Dole is not my type, and I'm not as unrestrained in my affections as you seem to think I am. If I had bedded her, I would remember. And if this—" he glanced at the baby, "—was mine, I'd own up to it."

Christopher nodded. "Well, she isn't mine, either. I can count on the fingers of one hand the women I've had any kind of relations with, and none of it would have resulted in this."

Crispin nodded back, or would have, had Bess not hooked a finger in his mouth and pulled his bottom lip down. "Owch," he sputtered.

I rolled my eyes but grabbed her chubby little hand again, and pulled her wet fingers away. They let go of Crispin's lip with a pop, and I grimaced. "Handkerchief?"

Christopher held his in front of me.

"Thank you." I wiped my fingers, and Elizabeth's, and then I dabbed at Crispin's lip for good measure. And that, naturally, was when the door opened and Aunt Roz came back into the foyer.

"Dear me," she said, when she saw us, "what happened?"

Crispin flushed but glowered. "I know what you're doing, Aunt Roslyn. And I'll have you know I don't appreciate it."

"Of course not, dear boy." She grinned and reached out. "I'll take her now. There's milk heating on the stove."

She headed for the back of the house, baby in her arms. I tucked Christopher's handkerchief into my pocket—he wasn't likely to want it back after what had happened to it—and followed.

"Aunt Roz? What's going to happen to Bess now?"

Aunt Roz passed into the kitchen and sighed. "I don't know, Pippa. Tell me again what you know about her mother?"

"Me?" I began to busy myself with pouring the now gently steaming milk into a clear glass bottle with the name S. Maw Sons stamped on it. One of Christopher's baby bottles that had languished at the back of a cabinet for twenty-two years, I assumed. "I know very little. Just her name and the baby's name, plus the items on the list we found. That's all."

Aunt Roz took the bottle and squirted a drop of milk on the inside of her wrist. The temperature must have been acceptable, because she handed it to Bess with a distracted, "Yes, yes. There you are."

The baby grabbed the bottle in both hands and latched on, greedily.

"Christopher wasn't at home when she showed up at the Essex House," I said, watching as little Bess swallowed rhythmically, "so I went downstairs to greet her. It was Wednesday of last week, tea time. I tried to get her to come up to the flat with me but she wouldn't. If she had, I might have been able to find out more."

Aunt Roz nodded, watching the baby suck on the bottle. "And before that?"

"Rogers said that when she came to Sutherland House this spring, she asked for the old Duke's grandson. They showed her Crispin, and he denounced her?—"

"There's no need to put it that way, Darling," the scion of the Sutherlands drawled from where he was lounging in the doorway with a shoulder against the jamb. "We're not Victorians, you know."

Aunt Roz fixed him with a stare. "Anything to add, Crispin? Since you're the only other one of us who has actually met her?"

He shook his head. "No, Aunt Roslyn. The occasion wasn't auspicious. It had been a long night, and I wasn't myself."

"Hung over?" I inquired tartly. "Asleep? Still foxed?"

He eyed me. "All three, Darling. And also not alone."

Oh, ouch. "That must have gone over well. Dragged away from one woman only to be confronted with another and a baby that looks just like you."

"She looked less like me back then," Crispin said, with a glance at little Bess. "Just any old baby with blond hair, really. She looks more like a Sutherland now. Although—" he smirked, "I don't have to worry about Violet Cummings trying to drag me to the altar anymore."

"Oh dear," Aunt Roz said, although her eyes were dancing. "You got nothing out of her, I assume?"

He shook his head. "It's like Darling said. She took one look at me and ran. I was in no condition to follow. And it wasn't as if I could ask Rogers to tackle her in the street."

Aunt Roz nodded. "So we know nothing about her other than her name."

"We might have Bess's birth date," Christopher offered, "if the date on the blanket is correct. We—or someone—could check the London parish register. Not today, of course…"

"And," I added, "it seems she might have met this man at the Hammersmith Palais de Danse, probably sometime in April of last year. I assume it must have been a one-time thing, or she would have known more about him."

I glanced at Crispin for his thoughts, since I figured he was the one among all of us with the most experience in such matters.

He made a face, but nodded. "Likely, yes. Some bounder swept her off her feet and then left her to face the consequences on her own afterwards."

"A good thing you'd never do that," I said sarcastically, since I had certainly gotten the impression that he was quite experienced at the hit-and-run.

He fixed me with a look. "I wouldn't, Darling. Not that I haven't swept my share of young women off their feet, but I've made sure there are no consequences. If there had been, I would have dealt with them."

My eyes narrowed. "Dealt with them, how?"

He rolled his own. "Not by killing the messenger, for God's sake. I'm not a murderer. And these circumstances…"

He shook his head, eyes on little Bess who was still sucking lustily on the bottle. "Anyone who kills the mother of a baby just because he can't be bothered to take responsibility for his own actions deserves to hang."

There was a moment's silence, and then?—

"It's likely she's a Londoner, then," Aunt Roz said briskly, yanking the conversation back on track with ruthless efficiency. "You didn't notice an accent, I suppose?"

I shook my head. "She spoke perfectly properly, the little bit that she said. She was English. She wasn't posh, but she wasn't a Cockney, either. Just a perfectly average girl with a perfectly average voice."

Crispin nodded. "She was pleasant. Polite. Soft-spoken."

"We'll have to have the police try to track her down, I suppose. Christopher…"

"I called Tom," Christopher said. "He was going to talk to his superiors at Scotland Yard, but I don't think they can simply choose to come and take over the investigation just because we want them to. They have to be invited in, I believe."

"Like vampires," Aunt Roz said brightly.

I arched my brows. "Have you been reading Stoker again, Auntie?"

"Never mind, Pippa, dear." But she grinned. "The engagement party is off, of course. We can't celebrate such a happy occasion while the police is crawling all over the house and the crime scene on the lawn. It wouldn't set the right tone at all. Constance and Francis will have to uninvite all their friends, I suppose. It's a good thing most people are on the telephone these days…"

"I guess we're stuck with the Marsdens for the duration," I said, "even if it's unlikely that any of them had anything to do with this."

"I'm afraid so, Pippa." Aunt Roz sighed. "I wish we could cite a murder on the grounds and send them on their way, but I'm afraid the police would look askance at that."

Yes, I was afraid so, too. "We'll just have to do the best we can. And speaking of…"

There was the sound of footsteps in the front of the house. We could also hear, or at least I could, the sound of a motorcar outside. "Sounds like someone else is coming, as well."

"Probably the other police," Christopher said with a glance over his shoulder. "It's too soon for Tom, I think."

"Might be Wilkins," Crispin added. "Coming to spend the day in the carriage house just in case my father needs the motorcar for something."

That sounded like a horribly boring way to spend a day. "Perhaps you should go and head him off. Once he sees him, Sammy isn't likely to let him leave again. But there's also no chance that Uncle Harold will be allowed to leave Beckwith Place at any point today, so there's no reason for Wilkins to have to sit here."

"I can't imagine that Constable Entwistle will appreciate my telling anyone what to do," Crispin said, removing himself from the door jamb, "although I suppose someone should give him the news. I doubt Father will think of updating the chauffeur."

No, I didn't think he would, either. To Uncle Harold, Wilkins was the equivalent of furniture. He made the motorcar go, but other than that, he wasn't really a person to the Duke of Sutherland. Which was how Uncle Harold could rationalize having Wilkins sit around all day with nothing to do except wait for a summons that might never come.

But that begged the question of whether Abigail Dole had been a person to Uncle Harold, or if he had simply seen her as an obstacle to what he wanted for Crispin. And if he had, how easy or hard would it have been to swing that croquet mallet at her head?

Not that there was any reason to think he had, of course, any more than anyone else currently in the house. Just because he could have—just because he'd had a motive and the opportunity, and probably the means, too—didn't mean… well, anything, really. Those things were true for quite a few of us.

"Excuse me," I told Aunt Roz, and headed for the now-empty doorway. "I'll be right back."

She nodded, and turned her attention to her youngest son. "Would you like to hold the baby, Christopher?"

"No," Christopher said as I left the room, a noticeable shudder in his voice. "Not at all, if you don't mind, Mother."

And then I was through the door and into the hallway. Crispin had made his way to the boot room, and as I approached the door, I heard his half-raised voice from inside. "Wilkins! Over here!"

I stepped through the doorway and saw him with his head outside through the crack in the door, and the rest of his body inside the house.

There was the sound of Wilkins's footsteps on the gravel, and then his voice. "My lord?"

"Wilkins," Crispin hissed. "There's been a murder!"

There was a beat of silence. "A murder, my lord?"

"The girl from yesterday," Crispin said, "the one you drove to the infirmary. She's dead."

"Is that so, my lord? How did that happen?"

"We don't know," Crispin said, "do we? Miss Darling saw her through the window this morning." He huffed. "That's not important."

"Indeed, my lord?"

"Of course it's important, Wilkins. Someone's dead! But it's none of our concern, is it? My father isn't going to need the motorcar today—the police won't allow him to go anywhere—so there's no need for you to remain here. Get yourself back to the village before the constable sees you, and decides you have to stay, too."

"Yes, my lord," Wilkins said, and—I assumed—turned on his heel.

And had only walked a couple of steps by the time Sammy Entwistle's voice cut through the silence. "What's all this, then?"

Crispin sighed, and I imagined he rolled his eyes towards the heavens before he straightened and pulled the door open all the way and said, stuffily, "Wilkins is my father's chauffeur. I told him his services won't be needed today and that he could leave."

"Now that's for me to decide," Sammy said, "and not you. I'm in charge here. Isn't that right, my lord?"

His tone twisted the last two words from an honorific into an insult. I ducked under Crispin's arm and opened the door wider so I could look out.

He bit back an oath, even as he gave Sammy a look that ought to have curdled his blood. I could almost feel the hairs on the top of my head sizzle. "Of course," he said, "Constable."

"But Wilkins wasn't even here when it happened," I protested. "He stayed in the village last night."

Sammy looked at me, and his brows rose. "Is that so, miss? But he had the motorcar, didn't he? And even if he hadn't, the village is in walking distance. Someone could easily walk from there to here."

Of course someone could have. That must have been how Abigail had made it here, after all.

She must have woken up in the middle of the night and realized that she was alone. Perhaps the doctor or infirmary nurse had told her that the baby had remained behind at Beckwith Place.

Then again, perhaps not. If that had been the case, surely they would have talked her into staying in the infirmary until morning. Or if she had refused, at least they would have found someone to drive her up to Beckwith Place. Surely they wouldn't have simply let her walk off in the middle of the night on her own, in a strange place full of strangers.

No, it was far more likely that my initial thought had been correct: Abigail had woken up on her own and remembered that Beckwith Place was the last place she'd seen Bess. And then she had sneaked out of the infirmary and set out on foot to find her child.

While all this had been going through my mind, Sammy Entwistle had been addressing Wilkins. "—have to have a parley about what you know."

Wilkins shied like a spooked horse. "Know? I don't know anything. Why would you think I know something?"

Crispin rolled his eyes and slammed the door shut. "That was a waste of time."

"You couldn't know that Sammy would hear you and interrupt," I said, taking a step back. "You were trying to help."

His eyebrow rose. "Assigning me noble motives, Darling? Perhaps I just wanted to know what he knew."

"Why would he know anything? He's the chauffeur!"

And I was clearly no better than Uncle Harold. Furniture, indeed.

Crispin's lip twitched. "My, my, Darling. How very unenlightened of you."

"Oh, sod off, St George." I plunged out of the boot room and into the hallway, only to fetch up in front of Uncle Harold, who gave me and then his son a narrow look. "St George?"

"Good morning, Father," Crispin said politely. "I was trying to head off Wilkins, but the constable overheard, and now I'm afraid he's stuck here with the rest of us."

Uncle Harold gave him a look down the length of his nose. "Is there a reason he shouldn't be—" his tone made quotes around the words, "stuck here with the rest of us?"

"As Darling just reminded me," Crispin flicked me a look, "he's the chauffeur."

I wrinkled my nose, and he sniggered before telling his father, "We thought we'd spare him the ordeal of sitting here all day when there's no chance that the police will let you leave."

Uncle Harold's brows rose while his voice lowered. "And what do you mean by that, boy?"

"Nothing." Crispin sighed. "Absolutely nothing."

"What St George meant," I said, with a flicker of a look at him, "is that they aren't likely to let any of us leave. Not while they're investigating the murder. We simply thought there was no need to have Wilkins spend his day in the carriage house when he wouldn't be needed."

"Where else would he spend his time?" Uncle Harold wanted to know. He sounded sincerely baffled, as if he couldn't conceive of Wilkins possibly wanting to spend the day anywhere but Aunt Roz's and Uncle Herbert's carriage house.

"The village?" I suggested, in exactly the same baffled tone, as if I couldn't understand why he didn't understand something so obvious. Before I dropped the tone—I was being rude, after all, and fully aware of it—and added, "It's moot at this point, anyway. Sammy caught him, and now he's stuck."

Uncle Harold eyed me for a moment in silence before he moved past me towards the kitchen. "Come along, Crispin."

He didn't quite snap his fingers, but I got the impression he would have liked to.

"Yes, Father." Crispin slipped through the doorway and past me with a murmured, "Pardon me, Darling."

I turned to watch him go. "Head all right, St George?"

He glanced at me over his shoulder. "Yes, Darling. Should I be worried that you keep asking?"

"I don't see why," I said and flapped a hand at him. "As you were, St George."

He nodded and ducked into the kitchen after his father, who had started talking to Aunt Roz. "—cannot conceive of why, Roslyn?—"

I rolled my eyes and went in the other direction, back to the boot room door. After putting my ear to the crack, I could hear the continuation of the conversation outside.

"—nothing!" Wilkins's voice said belligerently. "I spent the night in the village, didn't I? Had a pint or two in the pub and went up to my room."

Sammy's voice said something, too softly for me to catch, and I eased the door open a centimeter, the better to hear.

"Full house up here," was Wilkins's answer. "Between His Grace and his young lordship coming from Sutherland Hall, and all the Marsdens visiting from down in Dorset, and Master Christopher and his bird down from London, Lord and Lady Herbert's got a houseful, don't they?"

I rolled my eyes. Not that it wasn't all true, of course, but did Wilkins really imagine that I was involved with Christopher? His ‘bird'? How deplorably low class.

"—girl?" Sammy asked. "Had you seen her before?"

"I haven't seen her now," Wilkins pointed out.

"She was here yesterday, the others said. Swooned on the lawn and was taken to the infirmary in the village."

"I don't know nothing about that," Wilkins said.

"So you hadn't seen her before?"

"Before…?"

"Before she ended up dead on the lawn," Sammy said, with rather strained patience.

Wilkins sounded reluctant, and it was hard to blame him. Nobody likes to admit to having seen dead people before they were dead. "I saw her yesterday. Drove her and the doctor back to the village after his lordship ran down in the H6 and fetched the doctor in the first place."

"Why didn't his lordship drive them back?"

"Got pulled into orbit by the other bird," Wilkins said, and I smirked at the description of the very elegant, highly-born Lady Laetitia Marsden.

Until Sammy asked, "The one that was here with him a minute ago?"

"That's Miss Darling," Wilkins said dismissively. "His Grace would never allow that."

"She's Lady Roslyn's ward, ain't she? Her niece or something? What's wrong with that?"

"German," Wilkins said grimly.

"Oho."

Neither of them said anything else for a few moments. Remembering the war, no doubt. They must have both taken part, given their ages.

I grimaced. It's never pleasant to come face to face—or ear to crack in door—with the prejudice. I know it's there, but most of the time I'm able to forget about it. Until something like this happens, or until someone like Euphemia Marsden expresses what a pity it is that my mother chose to leave England for Germany and my father, and then it all comes back.

Sammy cleared his throat. "What can you tell me about the dead woman?"

"Nothing," Wilkins said. "I don't know her, do I?"

"Don't you?"

"'Course I don't. She's here looking for one of the Astleys, ain't she?"

"Was she?"

I wondered whether Wilkins flinched at the change of tense. I did, a little.

"That's what I heard," Wilkins said.

"Which Astley was she looking for?"

"We don't know," Wilkins said, "do we? With the way that baby looks, it could be any of'em."

"Baby?" I could practically hear Sammy's ears prick up.

"Had a babe with her yesterday afternoon," Wilkins said, while I tried to figure out whether we'd truly forgotten to mention little Bess, or whether Sammy was just playing stupid to get Wilkins to talk. "Blond hair. Looks like the Sutherlands."

"Is that so?" Things went silent. When Sammy spoke again, there was a faint note of jubilation in his voice. "One of them got her up the duff, then?"

"Must have."

"But you don't know which?"

I assumed Wilkins must have shaken his head, because the next thing he said was, "Could have been any of them."

"Francis Astley?"

"Like as not," Wilkins said. "No way to know."

There was a moment's silence. Then?—

"Thank you, Mr. Wilkins," Sammy told the chauffeur. He tried to be professional about it, but I could tell that for him, Christmas had come early. He probably thought all his wishes were about to come true. "Don't go anywhere."

Wilkins muttered something. I eased the door shut before they could see me eavesdropping and vanished back into the hallway.