“I just had a talk with Dominic Rivers,” I said. “He said you’re the one who invited him here this weekend.”
Crispin glanced up at the top floor of the manor. I wondered whether he could see Rivers up there—my first instinct would have been to check the window, had I been Rivers and been told about the gathering on the lawn—but if he did, he didn’t react in any way. After a moment, he turned his attention back to me. “Only in the sense that he rang up to congratulate me after the engagement notice ran in theTimes, and I said something along the lines of ‘the more, the merrier.’”
“So it wasn’t a formal invitation?”
“Not from me. Laetitia may have followed up with something written.”
“You told her that you had invited him?”
“Of course I did.” He sounded surprised that I’d ask. “It’s more than my life is worth to get on the wrong side of my intended, Darling. You know that.”
I made a face. “Of course.”
Constable Collins had followed this exchange back and forth impassively, but now he asked, “So Mr. Rivers did receive an invitation?”
“If he says he did, I’m sure he did,” Crispin said. “I wouldn’t have invited him if he hadn’t phoned me—we’re not close; more associates than friends—but perhaps Laetitia wanted to round out the numbers. Cecily was a friend. So are Violet, Olivia, andSerena. And of course there’s Constance and Philippa who had to be invited.”
“You could have told me to stay home,” I said, stung.
He flicked me a glance. “I didn’t mean it that way, Darling.”
“How did you mean it, then?” Because he certainly made it sound as if my presence here, and Constance’s as well, was a necessarily evil.
And in Constance’s case, maybe that was true. She was Laetitia’s cousin as well as Francis’s fiancée; it would have been impossible to leave her out. Not that anyone would have wanted to. Constance is supremely unobjectionable. But for myself, I would have been happy to stay home had he indicated that I wasn’t welcome.
“Don’t be a prat, Crispin,” Christopher said, and put an arm around my shoulders. “You know it wouldn’t be the same without her.”
Crispin looked at me down the length of his nose. It wasn’t a fond look, and he managed to make it quite condescending in spite of being just a few inches taller than me. “I know my life would be a lot simpler if she didn’t always stick her nose into it.”
“For the last time,” I said, “I am not taking responsibility for your bad decisions. Just because I told you that you deserved her, didn’t mean that you had to propose. You could have sulked in silence for a day and gotten over it without doing something that has the potential to ruin the rest of your life.”
He sniffed airily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Darling.”
“Of course you don’t.” I turned back to Constable Collins. “Rivers said he was invited. He didn’t say by whom, nor whether it was a written invitation. But he’s here as a guest and not merely to do business. At least according to himself.”
Collins nodded. “Did he say anything else I ought to know?”
“He said that he had not given Cecily Fletcher pennyroyal tea. Nor pennyroyal on its own.”
“So if she took pennyroyal,” Collins said, “she got it from somewhere else.”
“Or someone else. For all I know, it grows wild around here.” I gazed around the admittedly pristine lawn. There wasn’t a weed in sight.
“I wouldn’t know what to look for,” Crispin muttered, and I shook my head.
“Nor would I. Nor would Cecily, I expect. She’s a city girl, isn’t she?”
“Clan Fletcher is from the Scottish Highlands,” Christopher said, and Crispin nodded.
“I think Ceci’s family is from somewhere up north. Yorkshire or somewhere like that.”
“Pennyroyal does grow around here,” Constable Collins said. “Miss Constance and Miss Laetitia would both recognize it. So would Master Geoffrey, I assume.”
And the Marsden parents and all of the Marsden servants, no doubt. Although anyone but that small group would have had a hard time distilling it into anything drinkable. It wasn’t as if the guests could wander into and out of the kitchen at will.
Nor that the family would have a habit of doing so—this wasn’t Beckwith Place, where Aunt Roz likes to spend time in the kitchen.
“What does it look like?” A walk in the pleasant afternoon sun sounded good. And if I were walking, I might as well look around at the same time.
