Page 78 of Lies in Little Sutherland
“I think I’ll see how Christopher’s getting on,” I said, and cut across the hallway to the opposite door.It felt somewhat like I was running away, but it was also moderately obvious that Uncle Harold wasn’t going to leave me standing here, in the hallway outside his son’s room, while his son was inside.“I’ll see you at supper, Your Grace.”
“Miss Darling,” His Grace nodded, and watched as I ducked into Christopher’s room.
I shut the door behind me and put my back against it before directing a bright, “How are you not finished yet, Christopher?You’re taking forever!”to the empty room.
I couldn’t replicate Christopher’s voice, of course, so I had to keep talking to myself instead.Which I did by walking away from the door towards the window while I uttered the sort of inanities one might utter when talking to an invisible man in the middle of changing his clothes.
I kept it up for what felt like another eternity—offering to tie his tie for him, brushing imaginary lint off imaginary lapels; the whole thing took probably less than a minute, but felt longer—and then I turned back towards the door.“I’ll just see you later,” I told the empty air as I wrapped my hand around the handle and turned it.“I simply don’t have the patience for this.”
I pulled the door open and stepped into the hallway.Uncle Harold must have believed the subterfuge, because he was gone.I scurried across the hall and pushed Crispin’s door open without knocking.They must still be in there, I figured, because surely I would have heard them yelling at one another had they emerged into the hallway while I’d been inside Christopher’s room.
But perhaps I was wrong.I had expected to find them face to face, brandishing index fingers at one another.Instead, the suite of rooms was quiet.I stopped halfway into the sitting room and listened.
Could they have left without making any noise so I hadn’t heard them?
But if so, why hadn’t Christopher come into his own room?Surely he would have guessed that I would be there, if I wasn’t in the hallway?
Or had they, perhaps, gone down to the parlor for a drink?But no, Crispin kept a drink cart in his sitting room—I was looking straight at it—so if bonding over alcohol was what they’d wanted, they wouldn’t have had to leave for that.
Or—the back of my neck prickled—was Christopher right and I was wrong, and Crispin had caught him snooping and had killed him?
That would explain the silence.
My head lifted as I heard a muffled sound from the bedroom.Was someone crying?Had Crispin attacked Christopher and now he was mourning?Or had Christopher defended himself, and hurt Crispin, and now he was upset over it?
I strode in that direction and reached for the door.
It didn’t occur to me to knock first, or to announce that I was there.As a result, when I walked in on Crispin, bare-chested and halfway out of his trousers, all I could do was stare.
For a second or two, until I swung on my heel and faced the sitting room, my cheeks burning.“Gah!”
“If you insist on arriving without notice,” Crispin told me, not bothered in the least from the sound of his voice, “I’m afraid you’ll get what you get.”
After a moment he added, “It’s not as if you haven’t seen it all before.”
I addressed the empty sitting room, even as I listened to the rustling of cloth behind me.“You know very well that I haven’t.Just because you look like Christopher, doesn’t mean youareChristopher.”
And just because I had seen Christopher in the altogether—or as near as made no difference—didn’t mean that this was at all the same thing.
I looked around the sitting room and saw no one.And while I had only gotten a glimpse of the bedroom before Crispin’s semi-nudity had sent me running, I hadn’t seen Christopher there, either.He wasn’t in the logical place, on the edge of the bed.So where was he?Was he hiding, or had Crispin truly whacked him over the head and stowed him under the bed, preparatory to getting rid of him?Was that why he was changing his clothes, because he had gotten Christopher’s blood on them?
Or, I realized as I looked at the little ormolu clock ticking away on the mantel, perhaps he was simply changing because it was getting close to cocktail time.Although that didn’t explain where Christopher was.
“You can turn around now,” Crispin informed me.“I’m decent.”
I snorted.“I doubt that.”
“I can’t imagine what you might mean.”He was tightening the belt of a rather nice dressing gown around his waist.The trousers were back on, or perhaps this was another pair, but the V of skin where he hadn’t drawn the lapels of the gown close enough, was bare.
I averted my eyes and looked around the bedroom, as surreptitiously as I could manage.There was no sign of Christopher, dead or alive.For a moment I thought about asking about him, but then I decided against it.If Crispin didn’t know that he had been here, if Christopher had heard him coming and had tucked himself away somewhere, I didn’t want to give him away.
“Looking for something?”Crispin inquired solicitously, and I pulled my attention away from the rest of the room and back to him.He was still fiddling with the green brocade belt that belonged to his dressing gown.
“Of course not.Who would I be looking for?”
He smirked.“I thought perhaps you were wondering whether Laetitia was present.”
It hadn’t even crossed my mind, and I said so.“I suppose you got cold and wet standing outside.”
