Page 7 of The Meriwell Legacy
He looked at the body, then drew in a breath, one that shuddered slightly. He glanced at Constance, then waved toward the woods. “I live in the neighboring manor house. I just rode in—this is the shortcut I always take to the house.”
His gaze returned to the body. “I found her like this.”
Mrs. Macomber’s wail had devolved into ugly gulping, racking sobs.
“Of course you did.” The dapper gentleman Constance had been introduced to and who’d volunteered to come with her to search for Glynis—Montague Radleigh—was chalk white and having difficulty catching a decent breath, but he waved at the other gentleman and gabbled, “He’s Carradale. Lord Carradale. M’cousin, you know.”
The name meant nothing to Constance, but the evidence of her eyes did. Despite his current pallor, despite his evident shock, Carradale was instantly recognizable as a dangerous sort. He doubtless possessed a languid façade, but the circumstances had stripped that away, revealing the unforgivingly hard angles of his face and the innate power beneath his surface.
A hedonistic rake he might be, yet by all the signs—his dry and pristine attire, the dampness of Glynis’s gown and the sheen that dewed her skin, plus his shock and total lack of guilt—she’d been wrong to imagine he had any hand in Glynis’s death.
Glynis is dead.
The realization was difficult to assimilate, even with the dead body before her. As for her emotions—the stunned shock, pending sorrow, and the underlying anger—she would deal with them as she always did, by giving vent to them through action.
She dragged in a breath, then looked directly at the gentleman—at Carradale; his gaze had returned to Glynis’s body. “I apologize for leaping to an unjustified conclusion.”
He glanced at her, then faintly frowned and waved one hand dismissively before his gaze again fell to the body.
Oh yes, the languid hauteur was there, albeit currently largely in abeyance.
She followed his gaze, forcing herself to catalog the horror that had been visited on her innocent relative. From the way Glynis was lying, with her knees and legs together, wrapped in the tangle of her skirts, which still covered her calves, it seemed unlikely she’d been ravished; at least, she’d been spared that.
But death at a man’s hands should not be for the likes of Glynis, who had always been a sunny, unthreatening soul.
After a moment of dwelling on that—and the urge for vengeance that was steadily building—she cleared her throat. “How long ago do you think she was…killed?”
He didn’t look up, just drew breath and said, “Sometime in the small hours.” He nodded at the body. “That’s the gown she wore for the soirée yesterday evening.”
Constance frowned. “I thought you lived next door?”
Alaric finally looked up and met the Amazon’s green eyes. “I do, but I’m an old friend of Mandeville’s and always attend his house party. This year, I elected to ride back and forth.” He paused, then added, “My people and Mandeville’s can confirm I wasn’t here through the night, and when I left, Miss Johnson was very much alive and the soirée was still going.”
“S’right.” Monty tugged at his collar as if it was the reason he couldn’t breathe properly. “As far as I recall, she was there to the end. And that was an hour or so after you left.”
Alaric focused on the Amazon; he couldn’t go on labeling her that. “Having established my bona fides, who are you?”
She blinked, and faint color returned to cheeks that shock had rendered over-pale. Her face was striking, not pretty. Dramatically winged brows lay otherwise straight, angled over her large, well-set eyes—possibly her best feature. Her nose was too strong for feminine beauty, and her chin gave clear warning of her stalwart character. Her mouth was too wide, but combined with lips rosy and firm was of the sort to make men fantasize.
As he stared, those fascinating lips thinned, then parted on “My name is Miss Constance Whittaker. I’m Glynis’s distant cousin.” Miss Whittaker looked down at the body—and again, she swayed fractionally. Immediately, she stiffened her spine, then she drew in another breath and, in an uninflected tone, declared, “Glynis’s mother sent me to fetch her home.”
That information seemed to penetrate Mrs. Macomber’s awareness. She stopped sobbing, stared at Miss Whittaker in something close to horror, then Mrs. Macomber gulped and gulped and dissolved into a fresh bout of racking sobs that sounded halfway to outright hysteria.
Apparently, Miss Whittaker thought similarly. She swung to Monty. “Mr. Radleigh, could I ask you to take Mrs. Macomber back to the house and place her in the care of the housekeeper?”
“Yes. Of course.” Monty tugged down his waistcoat, advanced gently on Mrs. Macomber, and solicitously took the older woman by the arm.
“And if you would also inform Mr. Mandeville that we’ve found…my cousin?” Miss Whittaker’s voice wavered, spurring Monty to shoot a helpless look at Alaric.
“Miss Whittaker arrived as we were finishing breakfast,” Monty rushed to say. “When she asked after Glynis, we realized that she—Glynis—hadn’t come down. We’d assumed she was sleeping in—some of the other ladies had—but when we checked, it seemed Glynis had vanished, and Percy organized a search.” His voice higher than usual, Monty waved. “There are groups of us searching all over. I offered to go with Miss Whittaker, and we came this way…”
Curtly, Alaric nodded. “Tell Carnaby what’s happened and ask him to send footmen with a stretcher—a ladder, door, or a gate will do. We need to carry Miss Johnson inside.”
“Will do.” Monty backed away, drawing the copiously weeping Mrs. Macomber with him.
Alaric transferred his gaze to Miss Constance Whittaker. She’d straightened and reassembled her composure, although to his mind, in the circumstances, a momentary weakness was hardly to be wondered at.
Nevertheless, she watched Monty and the chaperon depart, and when Monty glanced back, Miss Whittaker inclined her head in regally gracious thanks.
