Page 56 of Death at Fournier Downs
Relieved, Audrey rode into the clearing, her mind racing, and her pulse trembling.
“I think I might have figured something out,” she announced, though her brain still felt stuffed and jumbled. “I think I might know who the father is.”
She brought her horse to a stop and dismounted. As she was coming down onto the ground, her horse blocking her view of Philip, a female voice said, “That is entirely too bad.” Audrey paused, startled, and during that moment of confusion, she heard a loudthunkand then a grunt.
Audrey hurried around her mount and found Philip crumpled on the ground. Standing behind him, wielding a gardening hoe, was a young woman.
“Philip!” Audrey started toward him, but the woman swung the hoe toward her, and Audrey scuttled back. She stared at the woman. “What have you done?”
“You aren’t supposed to be here!” the woman cried. “You should have stayed out of it!”
Recognition flared. This was the maid from Haverfield. The one Audrey’s mother had chastised for dropping the tea tray. “Annie? What are you doing?”
A trickle of blood seeped down Philip’s temple. He wasn’t moving. Panic clawed at her.
“Where is Cassie?” Audrey asked. “The duke’s sister—where is she?What have you done to her?”
The maid sneered. “She isn’t here. I didn’t summonher.”
But clearly, shehadsummoned someone. She’d been waiting. Waiting to attack. Another look at her husband and her stomach lurched. It was so like the way Ida Smith had been found. In an instant, Audrey knew… The short and slight man in the coat and hat from her vision; Ida, reporting that she’d seen him entering the gardening shed at Haverfield; the hoe, now in Annie’s hand.
“You…” She gaped at Annie. “You killed Ida Smith. You struck her on the back of the head.”
And Charlotte…she’d pushed Charlotte off the quarry ledge.
“Shut up! He’ll be here any moment,” Annie said, agitated and nearly frothing with indecision. “You’ve ruined everything!”
He.She had summoned a man here. “Who? Lord Renfry?”
Annie twisted her face into something like revulsion. “No. Why would I want him here? My brother. Thefinedoctor.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. But then she went still and pointed the garden hoe at her. “You said you knew who the father was.”
It came together then. All of it, all at once, and Audrey nearly lost the strength in her legs. The jumbled, muddled theories in her mind ironed out flat, and in doing so, a strange sense of calm quieted her trembling nerves.
“It seems I was wrong,” Audrey said.
Annie laughed bitterly, her forehead and cheeks streaked with sweat. “You and everyone else. I shouldn’t have trusted him when he promised to change.”
“Your brother disappointed you?” she said as evenly as possible, latching onto what Annie had revealed a moment ago. Brother. Notfather.
“He ruined my life once. I cannot allow him to do it again.” She held the garden tool so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Dorothy had saidAnniehad been Mary’s maid—an enviable position among the serving class. And yet now, she was an under maid, serving tea and cleaning grates. And somehow, Dr. Ryder was to blame.
“He and Mary had an affair. It was his child, wasn’t it?” With the sensation of a fist pummeling her stomach, Audrey nearly lost her breath. “My God.”
Had Annie killed her?
Asleep in her own bed, the maid could have easily entered Mary’s room and pressed the small muff pistol to her temple. Then after, just as quickly arrange the weapon loosely in the countess’s limp fingers before dashing out of the room. Perhaps even pretend to be the first to come running at the sound.
“Mary didn’t shoot herself. Did she?”
Annie’s nostrils flared, and she jutted her chin, but her eyes grew cold and detached. She did not deny it.
The rattle of wheels and tack reached them then, and a few moments later, a phaeton came into view. Doctor Ryder signaled to his horse and stood before the conveyance had come to a full stop. He stumbled and nearly lost his balance.
“Andrea, what in the world…what is the meaning of this?”
Andrea?So,not Annie then.
