“Seems tome,” Edmund slurred, “you do a fair bit of bleeding yourself, old boy. Your handkerchief is fair covered in blood. Maybe you suffocated the selfish rotter last night and then coughed on him.”
Benedict froze.
“No.” Miss Pemberton shook her head. “The blood on his handkerchief is minimal compared to the pillowslip, and covered in mucus besides. There’s no mucus on the pillowslip.”
“Miss Pemberton, really.” Francine shoved a fist to her mouth, her narrow face looking more than a little wan beneath the layers of rouge.
Edmund swirled his goblet. “So we’re back to Lioncroft, then, are we?”
“No,” Miss Pemberton said again. “We’re back to ‘it could have been anyone.’”
“Although we did agree that Lioncroft seems the most likely,” the Stanton chit put in helpfully. “He had the motive to do so, the means to do so, and the opportunity to do so. We all saw the two of them argue at the supper table, and Lioncroft himself admitted being more than angry enough to—Ow! Bloody hell, Evangeline, did youstepon me?”
Miss Pemberton shot Gavin a nettled look. He could’ve kissed her.
Lady Stanton rapped her daughter’s shoulder with the closed fan. “Watch your mouth, young lady.”
“I’m just saying—”
“—what the rest of us are thinking,” Francine interrupted. “My apologies, Lioncroft, but you know it to be true. We might as well put it to words.”
Gavin’s jaw clenched. He did know it to be true—they’d all assumed his guilt from the moment Heatherbrook turned up dead. And from their current expressions, they’d never expected anything different from one such as him.
The only reason they descended onto his home in the first place was because of their relationship with Rose, and the only reason they continued to linger beneath his roof was because they were all selfish scandalmongers more interested in exploiting his pocket than quitting his company.
Were he poor and ill-connected, not a one of them would be present. But with the abundant food and endless drink and the generous solicitude of his servants at their disposal, the present company were more than willing to overlook so vexing an interruption as murder…for now.
However. Even they, fashionable parasites though they were, must have their limits.
“Well,” Edmund began, as though reading Gavin’s mind. “If we’re putting our suspicions into words, ought we also put them into action?”
“Action?” Gavin repeated, unrepentant that the danger in his voice caused even the drunken Edmund to recoil a few steps backward. “And what action might that be?”
“I’m sure he means the gallows,” the Stanton chit piped up. “In fact, I’d wager—Ow! Bloody hell, Evangeline, if you do that again, I’ll—Ow! All right, Mother. You don’t have to bruise my shoulder. I’ll mind my tongue.” She crossed her arms and glared at the company.
Gavin rose from his perch against the desk and stretched himself to his full height. “There can be no conviction without proof. And you have no proof.”
Lady Stanton cast a pointed glance toward Miss Pemberton. “We’ll unmask the murderer quite soon. I have no doubt.”
The Stanton chit edged closer to her mother. Francine and Benedict exchanged a knowing look. Edmund smirked behind his goblet. Which could only mean the party had long since decided upon the culprit, and now the only thing in want was evidence to hang him.
Gavin’s cravat felt suddenly too tight.
Chapter 22
After dining alone in his chamber—for he had no wish to renew conversation about the likelihood of his guilt in the late earl’s death—Gavin began to feel restless. Typically at such times, he would spend the evening in the library with a book, or while away the hours outside strolling the land behind the manor or perhaps riding to the nearest pugilism club. But any one of his skittish, suspicious guests might be within the library, no stars lit the night sky, much less his fields, and he had no wish to explain why he’d left a “party” to go fighting in a neighboring town.
When his desire for motion at last outweighed his desire for solitude, Gavin exited his bedchamber via the primary door instead of his hinged mirror, and strode into the hall.
Shadows teemed along the deserted corridor, but enough candlelight flickered within the sconces for even the most casual of observers to note the content of the oil paintings framed along the passageway.
Miss Pemberton was right. Not a smiling face among them. No faces at all.
Landscape after landscape swirled across the many canvases. Here, a dark river, frothing with rage beneath leafless trees twisting in the wind. There, a lifeless chasm, filled with dirt and rock and ice, smothered with a layer of murky fog. And, ah, this one, a torrent of sleet slashing across a desolate highway, snapping the fragile stem of a single frost-tipped flower protruding from the muck.
He was not, it seemed, overfond of portraiture. And why would he be? Of whom would he commission portraits?
As if appearing before him merely to spite his thoughts, one of his nieces stood at the crossroads between his wing and the guest wing. With both pale hands gripping the banister, Nancy stared dully over the ledge to the marble vestibule below. She leaned forward. Closer. Lower. Her pink ribbons and blond ringlets dangled precariously before her.
