“Don’t know.” He reached a hand to the back of his head and brought back fingers stained with blood. “Someone must have struck me.” He peered at the prostrate maid through narrowed eyes, wincing against the pain. “She all right?”
Mary’s eyelids fluttered open, much as Mr. George’s had done.
“Mary, it’s me, Miss Lane. I believe you fainted, poor dear. Lie still awhile.” Rebecca balled up her shawl and gently placed it under Mary’s head, heedless of her exposed shoulders.
A more pressing thought struck her. Why would anyone attack Mr. George unless it was to get at Ambrose Oliver?
Oh, John, tell me you did not ... Oh, God, please no.
She rose, went to the door, and knocked. No answer. She tried the latch but found it locked. Returning to Mary’s side, she fished the keys from the maid’s apron pocket.
Then she straightened and hesitated, looking inquiringly at Sir Frederick.
He grimly met her gaze. “I will go in.” He accepted the keys from her and inserted the one marked3into the lock.
Rebecca stepped near, afraid to go in, afraid not to.
Gently guiding her behind his back, he inched the door open.
She followed him across the threshold. To steel her nerves, she drew a fortifying breath, and the faint smell of garlic met her nose.
Inside the room, the fire had burned to embers, but morning light shone through a stained-glass window high on the wall—a reminder that the room had once been part of a religious house.
Its muted green-and-gold light revealed a tableau more horrid than the one they’d come upon in the corridor.
For there on the chaise longue lay Ambrose Oliver, eyes open and unseeing, his ink-stained mouth ajar.
Sir Frederick walked over and pressed fingers to the man’s neck. “Nothing.”
Ambrose Oliver was dead.
———
Frederick and Miss Lane stepped back into the corridor. Mr. Mayhew and the head housekeeper appeared, roused by the commotion.
“What is it? What’s happened?” the proprietor asked, expression harried.
Frederick replied, “Mr. Oliver is dead, I’m afraid.”
“What?” The man’s face elongated in horror. “How? It can’t be.”
“And yet it is so,” Frederick said. “We shall have to summon the constable.”
Mayhew nodded vaguely. “I can send a groom for Mr. Brixton.”
Frederick pointed to the man now seated in the chair, bloody handkerchief pressed to his head, and to the pale young woman on the floor. “First, please send someone to fetch Dr. Fox, who is a guest here. Room six, I believe. These two have been injured.”
The doctor and his wife had stayed on after the investors’ meeting, enjoying some time away together.
Miss Lane spoke up. “Mary just fainted, I think.”
“I must have,” the maid said, struggling to sit up. Rebecca hurried to assist her.
“I saw Mr. George lying there dead, or so I thought! And then I felt sick and everything went black.”
The housekeeper, Mrs. Somerton, shook her head in understanding. “And no wonder. What a shock!”
What a shock indeed.
