Chapter 27

R upert was running late for his meeting with Claire.

It was on account of Lady Helmsley, who had cornered him outside the breakfast room, requesting a word. In her personal sitting room, she fixed him with the sort of disappointed look you might give a spaniel puppy who’s piddled on the floor. “If you have been telling yourself that Miss Weatherby’s and your disappearance last night went unremarked upon, allow me to disabuse you of that notion.”

Rupert didn’t have it in him to lie to Lady H, but he attempted to prevaricate a bit. “Oh? Did Miss Weatherby leave the ball around the same time I did?”

Judging by the look Lady Helmsley gave him, she wasn’t buying it. At all. “Don’t play coy with me, Rupert. I am expecting an announcement. And I would prefer you make it today.”

An announcement, as in, a betrothal announcement. Rupert’s body sagged. There was the rub, all right. He would like nothing better than to announce that Claire was going to be his bride.

There was just the pesky detail that she would never agree to such a thing. She’d just been looking for a bit of a dalliance last night. She’d mentioned his reputation for making things good for the lady. But she’d given him no indication that she was after anything permanent.

Still, he had already resolved that he would put the question to her that morning. It was the only decent thing to do, considering he’d taken her maidenhead, not that proposing was any great chore. To be married to Claire was everything he’d ever wanted.

He knew full well she was going to say no. Hearing her say the words and seeing the pity in her eyes as she turned him down were going to rip a hole in his heart the approximate size of Siberia.

But he was determined to ask her, all the same.

Lady Helmsley was awaiting his answer. He selected a version of the truth. “If there isn’t an announcement made today, it won’t be on my account.”

She clasped her hands. “Excellent! Now, go and find Miss Weatherby and work out the final particulars. Go on, now. Go. Go!”

Rupert allowed her to shoo him out of the room. He hurried toward the back door, his pocket watch revealing that he was five minutes late.

As he passed the hedge maze, he saw that the Baxters were having a row, but what else was new? He pretended not to notice as Rosalind gave a cry of frustration and stalked off into the hedge maze, doubtlessly as sick of her husband’s company as Rupert was.

In the orangery, he found Claire in something of an anxious state. Rupert wasn’t doing much better, truth be told, between the fact that he was about to make the woman he was head over heels for an offer of marriage and the fact that he was all but certain she was going to say no, but it had to be done, now didn’t it?

He wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers, then took her hand. “Claire, there’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask you.” He started to lower himself down onto one knee. “Would you—”

Claire seized his hand in a surprisingly strong grip and hauled him back to his feet. “We haven’t got time for that! I figured something out this morning.”

Rupert was trying to deduce if this was Claire’s way of stopping him from issuing a proposal she had no wish to hear. It seemed sadly likely. But what if he was wrong about that? He wanted to make sure she understood that she had options, but he didn’t want to go making a bother of himself, and now he didn’t know what to do, and—

She tapped the back of his hand. “Rupert, are you paying attention? Oliver Baxter is not the one the assassin is after. It’s his wife, Rosalind!”

“ What ?” That certainly snapped him out of his muddled haze.

She proceeded to explain about the crawfish soup and the fact that the shot had been made toward Rosalind’s writing desk and how the whole business with the curricle didn’t make any sense on account of what a shit driver he was.

“You’re right.” Rupert shook his head. “Of course, you’re right.”

“And that means we’ve been asking the wrong question,” Claire said, eyes wild. “We’ve been asking who wants to kill Oliver Baxter. But what we really need to find out is who wants to kill Rosalind .”

For once in his life, Rupert had the answer in an instant. “That would move Phyllis Cuthbert to the top of the suspect list.” Claire gave him a blank look, so he continued, “Remember? I told you in the library— Phyllis was the one everyone thought Oliver was going to marry. But then, her brother lost her dowry at the gaming tables, so he married Rosalind instead.” Something else occurred to Rupert. “And the footprints! The ones up on the roof, after the stone was pushed. They were small. Almost certainly made by a woman or a boy.”

“I agree, it’s very suspicious,” Claire agreed. “We should definitely keep an eye on her. Can you think of anyone else who might…”

She trailed off, striding toward one of the tall glass windows that overlooked the gardens.

“Claire?” Rupert asked, trailing after her. “What’s—”

She seized his hand in another of those vice-like grips you wouldn’t think she would have, on account of her being such a lissome young thing. “ Look !”

Striding purposefully across the snow-covered grass was none other than their new primary suspect, Phyllis Cuthbert.

At the entrance to the hedge maze, she paused and looked around, as if checking to see if anyone was watching.

Beside him, Claire gasped, and Rupert’s heart sank into his boots.

“I think Phyllis just made a dizzying ascent up the list of suspects,” Claire whispered.

Rupert wasn’t about to disagree. Because clutched in Phyllis’s hand was a pistol, glinting in the crisp December sunlight.