Page 30 of Lies in Little Sutherland
“Constable Collins dug it out,” I added, “later that afternoon.”
“And you think someone shot at you deliberately?”Lord Maury sported a concerned wrinkle between his brows.
“At the time,” I said, “we assumed that someone mistook me for Cecily Fletcher from a distance, and was aiming for her.”
Everyone’s face darkened at that, since no one wanted to be reminded of Geoffrey’s crimes.Geoffrey himself looked particularly wooden, but he assured me, “I would never, Miss Darling.”
“At this point,” Christopher added, “we suspect it was theGraf von und zuNatterdorff who fired the shot, and he was aiming for Pippa deliberately.”
“The German gentleman?Why would he do that?”
“Didn’t he propose at the end of the weekend?”
“As it turns out,” I said blithely, since Crispin apparently hadn’t shared this information with his future parents-in-law, nor perhaps even his future wife, “I’m theGräfin von und zuNatterdorff, and Wolfgang didn’t want to share his inheritance with me.”
There was utter silence following this announcement.My family—Aunt Roz and Uncle Herbert, Francis, Christopher, and Constance—had already heard all about it, of course.Christopher and I hadn’t wasted any time in letting everyone else know.But Crispin, who had also been there for the denouement, apparently hadn’t seen fit to let his father in on the secret, because Uncle Harold gaped at me in a way that indicated strong surprise.
I pretended that I couldn’t see it, because gloating would be impolite.“He tried to marry me to get his hands on my share of the money, but he also tried to kidnap me as well as murder me several times—along with Christopher, once or twice—so we think it quite likely that he saw an opportunity at Marsden Manor that weekend and took it.I didn’t have the chance to ask, so of course we may be wrong, but it makes sense.”
There was another pause, then?—
“You—” Uncle Harold cleared his throat.“You’re a German countess, Miss Darling?”
The way that he, very carefully, avoided looking at his son and heir indicated that this information might have made a difference earlier.Before Crispin proposed to Laetitia and got himself tied to wedding her, at the threat of a breach of promise suit.At a point when he could have made a different choice and pursued someone else.
And while I knew that there were other reasons for why he hadn’t pursued me—we hated each other, and I would have laughed myself sick had he gone down on one knee and pledged devotion, and he knew it—I also understood what his father’s reaction would do to Crispin, and presumably to Laetitia, who would undoubtedly give him grief about it.
So I went against my own first instinct, which was to rub the duke’s nose in it, after all the years he had believed me to be beneath him and his family.Instead, I said calmly, “Only on paper.The Weimar Republic did away with the German nobility in 1919.And that’s fine.I’m happy to be Pippa Darling.”
“But the estates,” the Countess of Marsden said, with a glance at her daughter.“The money and land…”
“The German government is welcome to it.I’m certainly not going back to Germany to claim my inheritance.”
What if they wouldn’t let me leave again?No, better to simply let them absorb it all.Germany could use all the help it could get, what with the post-War reparations and the poverty and the madness of Herr Hitler and all the rest of it.
“Yes,” Christopher said and put an arm around my waist.“Stay with us, Pippa.”
“Thank you, Christopher,” I told him, as I put my own arm around his shoulders and held on.
ChapterEight
Nothingof any note happened on our way down to the village the next morning.Part of me was braced for it, especially when we came out from behind the small copse of trees that had shaded us from the Hall, and we could see where the shot had come from back in April, but nothing actually happened.We made it down the hill and into the village without ending up in the ditch with dirt on our knees and blood on the palms of our hands this time.
Little Sutherland is a nice little hamlet, made up of a few narrow, cobblestoned streets lined by brick and stone cottages.It’s not quite as picturesque as Upper or Lower Slaughter, but not far removed, either.The stone is grayish rather than honey-colored, and the layout is a bit flatter and less rambling.But it’s a lovely place for all that.
The infirmary is located just off the town square, and we made our way there.
Déjà vu hit again as we pushed the door open and walked in.And not only because we had done the same thing seven months ago, with blood running down my arm from where the bullet had nicked me on its way past, but also because part of me was afraid that we would walk in on another dead body.
We had discussed driving to the Cotswolds to see Morrison, and Morrison had been dead when we arrived.
We had discussed walking to the village to talk to Doctor Meadows.What were the chances that Doctor Meadows would be alive when we got here?
The chances were good, as it happened.We walked in, and a few seconds later, the door to the surgery opened and Doctor Meadows stepped through.“Oh,” he said when he saw us.“It’s you two.Is everything all right?”
His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and he had a towel between his hands that he was using to dry them.Perhaps he truly had been in surgery, and we had interrupted him with his hands in someone’s intestines.
My stomach did a slow roll and I tore my eyes away from the towel and focused on the doctor’s face instead.
