Page 94 of Death at the Dower House
“That it was your brother who…?”
“Killed Mother and Johanna,” Constance said.
“But…” I said, “why?”
She shot me a look, one that veered off, back to her lap, before it connected. “I think it was Johanna’s fault. Or because of Johanna.”
She had her hands in her lap, and was twisting them together, over and over again. Until Francis reached over and gently untwisted them, and then took one between both of his own and kept it there.
“I don’t understand,” I said, although of course I did. Or was beginning to, anyway. “Did Gilbert… was he in love with her?”
“I think he must have been,” Constance said, and her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “She was so beautiful, you know? I think every man who ever saw her fell in love with her.”
Francis cleared his throat, and I smiled.
“Oh, you,” Constance said, and swatted him, but her cheeks were pink and pleased. “You know what I mean. Even your cousin Christopher lost his breath for a second or two.”
He had. And Crispin, who was certainly used to pretty women, had lost his mind for longer than that. “And your brother fell in love with her?”
“I think so,” Constance said. “And I think she might even have considered marrying him. Except Mother wouldn’t have stood for it. She expected all her children to make advantageous marriages. Me and Gilbert and especially Johanna. She was so pretty that she could be expected to turn the head of a duke or an earl, at least.”
“Just out of curiosity,” I said, “was there a reason Johanna didn’t want to marry Lord Geoffrey? He comes with a title and an estate, or he will come into both at some point, I assume. Surely your mother must have thought of it. Her own nephew…?”
“Geoffrey’s a cad,” Constance said. “You think your cousin is bad? Geoffrey is all hands, and he’ll bed anything that moves. The Manor has a problem keeping female staff for longer than a month, because of the way Geoffrey moves through them.”
I made a face. That sort of behavior is just unsavory, and at least Crispin, for all his faults, doesn’t seduce the staff at either the Hall or Sutherland House in London.
“So Johanna wasn’t interested in Geoffrey, in spite of his title and money. But your brother wanted to marry her—”
“No title,” Constance nodded, “but a small fortune, and she knew he’d never cheat on her. She’d have had to share Lord Geoffrey with any woman who took his fancy, and most of them do.”
“And yet she seemed perfectly willing to marry St George, whose reputation isn’t exactly lily-white, either.”
Nobody answered, and I added, “I told her, you know, what he’s like, that first afternoon at Sutherland Hal. She called it—” I made quotation marks in the air with my fingers, “boyish exuberance.”
Francis snorted.
“Well, before your cousin came along,” Constance said primly, “Gilbert showered her with attention and gifts, and she knew he would never, ever stray. So yes, I think she thought about marrying him.”
“You said he gave you both lockets for Christmas last year?”
She nodded, with a shy look at Francis. Thinking about his picture opposite hers, I assumed.
“What did you give him?”
“I gave him cufflinks,” Constance said, “and Johanna gave him the matching shirt studs.”
“Onyx, by any chance?”
She nodded. “Why?”
“Just curious,” I said. “So Gilbert wanted to marry her, and she might have wanted to marry him back, but your mother wouldn’t hear of it?”
Constance shook her head. “When Lady Charlotte died, she took us all to Sutherland Hall. Gilbert didn’t want to go, and Mother told him he could stay home, but she was insistent that Johanna and I come. She probably thought she’d make a play for the duke herself, although she would have given him up to Johanna if he’d shown the slightest interest.”
“But he didn’t.”
“He’d been widowed for all of two weeks,” Constance said. “I don’t know what she was thinking.”
