Page 67 of Lies in Little Sutherland
His face closed.“I won’t.Go on, now.Don’t dawdle.”
He flapped a hand in my direction, clearly desirous of having me take myself off as quickly as possible.I wondered if I ought to apologize—the reminder had been like a cold bucket of water, probably for both of us—but in the end there was no point.He was engaged, and reminding him of that fact wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know.It was, in fact, telling him something he ought to have remembered before he started saying romantic things to me.
So I simply nodded, and walked away.When I flicked a glance over my shoulder, just before I turned the corner of the conservatory into the courtyard, he was still standing there, but facing the carriage house.He hadn’t cared enough to watch me walk away, it seemed.
Inside the boot room,I stepped out of Crispin’s Wellingtons and into my own shoes, and then thought about what I wanted to do next.
Christopher, Crispin, and Tom already knew what had happened.So did Uncle Harold and the Earl and Countess of Marsden, according to Tom.And Tidwell had been instructed to phone the constabulary, so Tidwell knew.That surely meant that the rest of the staff was in the process of being told, as well.Crispin had found out somehow, so Laetitia must already know, or if she didn’t, surely her mother would inform her.That left Geoffrey—who would probably be told, as well, but I had no plans to inform him—and Francis and Constance.
They had been upstairs in Francis’s room when we left them earlier.Assuming that such was still the case, I headed in that direction: along the rest of the west wing to the servants’ stairs, and up to the first floor.And because I was still a bit chilled from standing outside—and I suppose from the murder—I stopped in my room to wrap a shawl around my shoulders before going back into the hallway to find my cousin and his fiancée.
And that was when the door to Laetitia’s room opened, and the future bride stepped out.
I stopped.So did she, and her eyes narrowed.“What are you doing here?”
“I live here,” I said.“Or rather, I’m visiting.My room is just there.”
I pointed to it.
Her eyes narrowed further, to where they were just two pale blue slits.“Why aren’t you with your little cousin?”
My ‘little’ cousin?
“You mean Christopher?”That was rich, given that he was precisely as big as Crispin, and several months older.Laetitia had practically robbed the cradle when she got herself engaged to St George.She’s at least two years older than he is, if not more.“He’s outside, with Tom and Crispin.”
Her lips tightened.
“Crispin didn’t want me standing outside in the cold,” I added, sweetly, “so he volunteered to wait for the constables in my stead.He was standing outside the carriage house the last time I saw him.”
Unless the constables had arrived by now, and then Tom wouldn’t need Christopher or Crispin to stick around any longer.Tom might not be allowed to stay, either.Scotland Yard cannot simply invite itself into the middle of a local investigation.They have to be invited in by the Chief Constable, and so far that hadn’t happened.I doubted the Chief Constable knew that Tom was even here.
“I heard that the two of you spent some time in the garden maze this morning,” I added.
Laetitia squinted at me.“And what if we did do?”
“It must have been cold.How long did you stay outside?”
“Not long enough for it to be a problem,” Laetitia said with a smirk.“We kept one another warm.”
I smirked back.“He’s good at that, I hear.”
Her face turned stony, and I added, “Did you happen to see anyone else while you were out there?”
“In the garden maze?Of course not.”
“Somewhere else?”
“You and your cousin were on your way into the village,” Laetitia said with a toss of her head.The glossy black wing of her Dutch Boy haircut swung against her jaw.“Two of the grooms were saddling the horses.One of the footmen was talking to them.”
That sounded as if Alfie had been alive when Christopher and I walked to the village.Unless she was referring to Hugh, of course, although as far as I knew, he had had no reason to be outside by the stables.
I asked for a description, but Laetitia gave me an elegant shrug of a single shoulder.“How should I know?All I saw was the uniform.”
Of course.“What happened after you came inside?”
She blinked.“What do you mean?Nothing happened.”
“What did you do?Did you and Crispin go somewhere else together?”
