Page 34 of One Last Whisper

Now it’s his turn to hesitate and my turn to catch him in a lie. “His mother was ill during her pregnancy, and it left Oliver underdeveloped.” He takes a deep drag on the cigarette. “He’d be fine, though, if they just let him receive proper care.”

He takes another drag, then turns to me. “How are you? Feeling ready to move on yet?”

I purse my lips. “I’m concerned, Inspector. I heard that you found Sarah’s body.”

“What’s left of it, yes.”

My stomach turns, and I pull his coat closer over my shoulders. “I don’t believe her death was an accident.”

“It wasn’t. I’m certain of it.” He meets my eyes. “But you take care, Mary. Lord Edmund is powerful. He is not the sort of man you take on lightly. I’ve been doing my job for twenty years and more, and I don’t mind sticking my neck out. But Oliver needs you. Keep your eyes and ears open, but keep your wits about you. He can’t lose anyone else. Do you understand?”

I shiver again, not from the cold this time. “Yes, I understand.”

“Good.” He looks out at the road. “There’s my car.”

He finishes his cigarette, tosses it on the floor and stamps it out. I hand him his coat and he tips his hat to me. “Have a good day, ma’am.”

I can’t conceive of any way I can have a good day after the morning’s events, so I only repeat his sentiment and watch him descend the porch steps to the waiting sedan.

He is right. I must think of Oliver first. But in thinking of Oliver, I must root out the murderer in his house. Oliver is a bright boy, intuitive and shrewd. One day, he will learn the truth. When he does, his life will be in danger. I must ensure that the danger is past before its black fingers wrap around Oliver.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Another coughing fit afflicts Oliver when I return to the school room. This one is as bad as the one from the day before. I cancel the rest of school and once more declare that he shall spend the day resting and drinking tea and broth. I can’t keep pushing his schoolwork back, but his health is more important right now, and it seems his medicine isn’t enough to address his illness.

Lady Cordelia joins us in his room, and Theresa brings lunch and tea for all four of us. We talk with Oliver for a while, assuring him by our presence that he is loved and cared for. He drinks and eats heartily, and when he is able to rest, he looks far better than he does an hour ago.

Theresa leaves to manage the chores. I stand to allow Lady Cordelia some time alone with her nephew, but before I can leave, she says, “May I talk to you alone, Mary?”

“Of course, Lady Cordelia,” I say.

She stands and once more seems to float across the room. She looks so thin, so wasted. There’s nothing to her. My father used to remark when Annie was younger that a stiff breeze could have blown her away. That is the thought that occurs to me now.

She leads me into her bedroom, and I get my first good look at it. The last time I was here, I was only in the room long enough to see Lady Cordelia in hysterics and pull Oliver out so he didn’t have to witness the same thing.

The room is large, but smaller than I expected for a lord’s bedroom. It is smaller than the bedrooms of all of my previous employers save my most recent, an artist named Victor Holloway who lived in a spacious but hardly palatial oceanfront home on the California coast.

The décor here is at least somewhat more sensible than elsewhere in that it covers up the cold gray stone. The walls are hung with silk tapestries, and a thick Persian rug dominates the floor. The bed has a plush mattress and thick quilted comforters with down pillows. The furniture is all of dark mahogany and polished to an incredible shine, and a large, ornately carved mirror stands atop the dresser. The bathroom beyond is only barely visible through a crack in the door, but a large office is visible through another door on the right side. The room is thoroughly modern, with late-model computers, a television, a stainless-steel refrigerator and chairs that would look right at home in any office building.

“That’s Edmund’s study,” Lady Cordelia informs me. "Though between you and me, it's more of a man cave than a study. He uses it to watch the Manchester City matches."

I raise an eyebrow. “I didn’t figure his Lordship for a football fan.”

“Can you be English without being a football fan?” she asks, smiling slightly. That smile vanishes an instant later. “I fear you have received a very poor impression of us, Mary.”

It hurts to know that I am lying to her when I say, “Oh, no, my lady. That’s not true at all.”

She smiles again, a knowing smirk that tells me she’s caught the lie. She sighs and crosses her arms. “Edmund hasn’t always been like this. It’s only recently that he’s…” She bites her lip. “Well, he’s been under so much pressure. The Conservatives in the House of Lords are relying on him to stir up support from the Labour Party moderates in the House of Commons. I’m not sure how familiar you are with British politics, but getting those two parties to work together is like asking a starving lion to pull a cart with an ox.”

“It's much the same in America, my lady.”

She hugs her chest more tightly. “And Oliver… He loves Oliver, I swear he does. But… I think seeing him reminds him of Alivia.”

“Did the two of them not get along?”

“Edmund and Alivia? Hardly. Alivia was a drug addict. Edmund has no patience for addicts.”

“I see.”

---