Page 19 of The Meriwell Legacy
“In the shrubbery?”
Dead body or no, his lips lifted. “That was my intention.”
With care and due reverence, she did up the buttons he’d undone, resettled the nightgown’s collar, then drew the sheet once more over her cousin’s face.
Then with a last, lingering glance at her cousin’s shrouded body, she rounded the table.
When she looked at him, he waved her to the door. “We have at least half an hour before it’ll be time to dress for dinner.”
Keen not to waste any of those minutes and therefore wishing to avoid the other guests, he directed her to the nearest exterior door—the one at the base of the west wing stairs. They quit the house and strode swiftly toward the forecourt to circle around to the shrubbery.
The instant they were out of the house, Constance glanced sidelong at Carradale; with his long legs, he was easily keeping pace with her, not something all men could do. It was her habit to plot and plan ahead, to thoroughly assess all options in advance for any scenario where she might be called on to make a quick decision. They crunched across the forecourt, and she fixed her gaze forward, looking across the lawn to the shrubbery entrance, still some way off. “Earlier, when Stonewall was here, you suggested that Scotland Yard should be called in. Based on all the protests voiced by the others and all I’ve heard elsewhere, I wouldn’t have thought bringing in Peel’s men would be something you would support.”
He cast her a quick, rather cynical glance. “I understand the protests, and I can imagine what you’ve heard. But the days of heavy-footed Runners creating havoc for no good reason are very much in the past. The Metropolitan Police Force of today is a very different beast to its origins. It’s evolved into an authority to be reckoned with, a weapon of law and order that isn’t to be sneezed at—not at all.”
She studied him as he looked down at the grass before his feet.
“I’ve seen them in action,” he went on, “albeit from a distance, and there’s a particular inspector who specializes in cases such as this—cases of murder within the ton.” He looked up and caught her eye. “If this case is reported to Scotland Yard, then unless there’s something more socially pressing on his plate—like the murder of a nobleman—the case will be assigned to an Inspector Stokes. And whenever he works on cases within the ton, Stokes calls on two…colleagues, I suppose one would call them. The Honorable Barnaby Adair—the Earl of Cothelstone’s son—and Adair’s wife, Penelope, who is connected to more of the haut ton than I can enumerate.”
She frowned. “So this Inspector Stokes works hand in glove with two members of the haut ton?”
He nodded. “I don’t know how the association started, but it’s been in existence for a good many years and is accepted by the powers that be in the police force.” They neared the entrance to the shrubbery. “For what it’s worth, my experience of Stokes and Adair, brief though it was, suggests that they will be relentless and thorough, but also sensitive to the nuances those not accustomed to the ways of the ton might not comprehend.”
“I see.” They passed under the cool shade of the archway cut into the high hedge that bordered the shrubbery. As they turned and approached the spot where Glynis had lain, she added, “You speak highly of them—I’ll put my trust in that.” A very strange decision for her; she rarely trusted anything men said. “If nothing comes of Sir Godfrey’s investigation, I—or rather, my grandfather through me—will press for Scotland Yard to be called in.”
His gaze already quartering the ground around the spot where he’d found Glynis’s body, Carradale inclined his head. “Do. I’ll press with you, and I suspect Percy will, too. He’s not as spineless as his recent behavior has painted him, and as he is the owner of the house in which the crime took place, his voice will carry additional weight.”
She accepted that with a nod and settled to search alongside him. “The chain was gold?”
“Yes. Rose-gold and not that thick. The usual weight of chain on which young ladies wear small pendants.”
They searched through the thick grass, then poked and peered into the hedges on either side of the short passageway that led from one of the shrubbery gardens to the entrance.
After several silent minutes of parting leaves and pushing aside branches, he observed, “We won all the concessions from Sir Godfrey that, to this point, we needed to secure. Yet you seem…dissatisfied. Not satisfied, at any rate.”
She glanced sharply at him, but he was busy searching and wasn’t looking at her. After several seconds—feeling almost as if she couldn’t help it—she opened her lips and said, “I mentioned that I was sent to fetch Glynis—to fetch her safely home. I arrived in the village on Monday evening. I could have come straight here and demanded that Glynis leave with me immediately. If I had, she wouldn’t be dead. Instead, I allowed social niceties to guide me—I thought it would create too much of a scene for both her and me if I barged in during dinner. So I did what I thought was the right thing and waited until the next morning…and by then, she was dead.” She paused, then went on, “I will always regret my decision to wait. I know her murder is not my fault, yet regardless…I feel that I’ve failed. Failed the trust the family put in me to rescue her from whatever she’d got herself into and bring her safely home.”
His “Ah yes. The weight of familial responsibility,” uttered in a matter-of-fact tone that suggested he truly understood, was the last reply she’d expected.
Instead of making her feel silly for her thoughts—her persistent and irrational emotion—his words suggested that her reaction, at least for her and possibly for him were he in the same straits, was natural and understandable.
Feeling insensibly better, she said, “As things stand, the only appropriate response I can think of is to ensure that Glynis gets justice.”
“Indeed. And as I mentioned earlier, you’re not alone in pursuing that goal.”
They continued to search—high, low, and everywhere between.
Alaric was far too wise to say anything more regarding the emotions he could sense behind her dramatically arresting features. Her eyes were particularly fine—a clear green, like a fern-shadowed woodland pool—but she wouldn’t like knowing just how easy he was finding it to read the vicissitudes of her thoughts in their depths.
Eventually, Constance straightened and looked around one last time. “Not even a piece of the chain. If it was ripped away by main force, a chain of that thickness might well have broken into more than one section.”
“True.” He straightened. “But we haven’t found anything.” He glanced around, then pointed to the spot where Glynis had lain; the grass was still crushed enough to show. “She was there.” He took two steps back toward the entrance, then mimed having his hands around a throat and flinging the body away… He shook his head. “Even if he flung her rather than just opening his hands and letting her fall, he couldn’t have been standing farther away than this.”
“And we’ve searched that far and beyond.” She scanned the area and grimaced. “It isn’t here.”
She turned back to see him resettling his coat. Sober, he met her eyes. “It’s not here—which suggests the murderer took it. Judging by the marks on your cousin’s neck, it seems whoever he is tore it from her.”
“Which,” she concluded, “leaves us to wonder what it was that Glynis wore so secretively on the chain.”
