Page 38 of Murder at the Debutante Ballby

“Shouldn’t a footman do that?” I asked. “They still have one.”

“They may have let him go, too.”

The coach drove off and the butler returned to the house. I headed behind the row of townhouses to the mews. I found the rear door to the Bunburys’ and, with a fortifying breath, opened it. As we suspected, it wasn’t locked. Servants came and went between the house and the mews, so it wouldn’t be locked until nighttime.

I slipped inside and listened. Harry’s deep voice came from within. He’d managed to get through the front door, but had he gathered all the servants? There weren’t many, but if just one was roaming the house, I could be discovered.

I had to trust him.

I tip-toed up the service stairs and emerged onto the fourth floor where I assumed the main bedrooms were located. I found Lord Bunbury’s first. After giving it a cursory search, I headed down the corridor and entered the next bedroom. It was Lady Bunbury’s with a dressing room attached.

I quickly searched all of the most obvious places, including the dressing table and writing desk, but didn’t expect to find evidence of an affair with another man. Lady Bunbury wasn’t a fool. She wouldn’t leave correspondence or photographs lying around for her servants to find. There’d been no signs that she shared her husband’s bed, and no sign of masculine things in her rooms, so I assumed their marital relations were non-existent. That didn’t mean he would accept her affair, but it might mean she wasn’t too concerned if he discovered she was with Mr. McDonald. The servants were another matter. They gossiped.

There were no loose floorboards or tiles around the fireplace. Nothing was stored under the bed except a few dusty cobwebs that the overworked maid had left. I checked inside coat pockets and empty boots, and between the folded clothes on the cupboard shelves, even though Lady Bunbury’s maid would most likely see something hidden there. I checked the pillows and ran my hand along the mattress, both above and under it, looking for split seams or lumps. Finding nothing, I remade the bed to the maid’s standard, which was as good as Harmony’s bedmaking skills.

I stood in the middle of the room and blew out a frustrated breath. Where would I hide something I didn’t want the servants to find? They touched almost everything. They didn’t lift heavy furniture, but I couldn’t imagine Lady Bunbury choosing a hiding place beneath something she couldn’t easily move.

Then it struck me. A single painting hung on the wall. It showed a lake bathed in moonlight, the shadows on its banks looming like creatures from a nightmare. It wasn’t something I’d want hanging near my bed as I tried to sleep. On closer inspection, it wasn’t particularly well done. The strokes were lazy, the colors too dark. It was probably a copy of an original.

It was neither large nor heavy and I easily took it off the wall. I turned it around and my heart leapt. Tucked into the frame at the back were three letters.

I removed them and quickly read each one. I could have kissed the painting when I finished. It was just the evidence we’d hoped to find. All of the letters were from Mr. McDonald. Addressed to “My dearest Ruth”, they were signed, “Your loving Ambrose”. They were filled with tender words of love and sprinkled with references to their trysts. They were brief but sensual. Luckily, I was alone and could blush in private.

The final letter was dated three months earlier—a mere two days before the first payment from the Bunburys’ as recorded in Ambrose McDonald’s coded blackmail register.

I was about to return the letters to the painting when I noticed something else common to all of them. They were crumpled. Although I’d found them folded in half, they all showed signs of having been scrunched up then flattened out. Had Lady Bunbury thrown them away after he blackmailed her, only to have second thoughts?

I returned the painting to the wall. How ironic that she’d hidden the private love letters from the man who’d known her paintings were fakes behind one of those fake paintings.

The door handle rattled as it turned.

My heart scudded to a halt. Someone was coming.

Chapter8

Iacted without thinking and flattened myself to the floor, sliding under the bed. My corset made the action uncomfortable and awkward. The walrus I’d once seen lumbering about on land in its enclosure at the zoo had more grace. If Harry had been here, he would have laughed. The dust and cobwebs under the bed added to my discomfort. I tried not to breathe too deeply.

A woman wearing sensible black shoes entered the room. She went through to the dressing room and emerged a few moments later. She left the bedroom, closing the door behind her. I waited a few minutes, listening, but the house fell quiet.

I dragged myself out from under the bed by my forearms and dusted myself off as best as I could before slipping out of the room. I tip-toed along the corridor and down the stairs to the service area. Harry was still speaking, but I couldn’t hear what he said.

I exited the house via the mews and waited for him on Upper Brooke Street, a few doors down from the Bunburys’ townhouse. He joined me five minutes later.

“I see you managed to hide,” he said with a nod at my dusty skirt. “Sorry I couldn’t keep Lady Bunbury’s maid away. Her mistress returned and requested a shawl.”

“It’s all right. I found something, as it happens.”

“I can tell by the look on your face. Don’t keep me in suspense any longer.”

I told him about the letters behind the painting. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that his last letter was sent two days before the blackmail started. The question is, did he genuinely care for her when he wrote those letters? Did he only blackmail her aftersheended their relationship?”

“Without knowing her final response to him, we can’t be sure, but I doubt there was any deep regard on his part. According to multiple sources, he had other lovers. My guess is, he was reeling her in with the letters then decided to end it when he had enough evidence to blackmail her.”

“Evidence in the form of her letters to him,” I added. But it didn’t quite make sense. “Where are those letters? We looked through his flat and found nothing. If he needed them to blackmail her, he would have kept them.”

“Perhaps he hid them. One thing I’m sure is, the feelings were one-sided. He didn’t care for her. He was using her.”

It gave her a compelling motive for murder.

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