I certainly did.“What are the chances that Uncle Harold killed his father and Grimsby and framed his wife, do you suppose?”If he had just discovered that she had cheated on him with his brother, it might have seemed like poetic justice.“He wasn’t above using Crispin’s H6 to go to the village.I’m sure he hoped not to be seen at all, but if he was seen, at least it would be Crispin on the hook and not himself.”
And if he had been willing to sacrifice his heir, why not his wife, too?
“I suppose it isn’t impossible,” Christopher allowed, “and perhaps more likely than not, but I don’t think we ought to worry about it.That’s all over and done with.Aunt Charlotte confessed.There’s nothing to be gained by dredging it up again now.We’ve got plenty to be going on with without resurrecting all that.”
Indeed.“I spoke to him last night, you know.”
He glanced at me.“Uncle Harold?”
I shook my head.“Crispin.He showed up at the carriage house a few minutes after the attack.I’m still not certain whether it was him who threw the bicycle pump at me or not.”
“Didn’t you ask him?”
“Of course I did,” I said, “but he wasn’t going to admit it, was he?”
Christopher nodded.“What happened?”
“Not much.We had a conversation.He walked me back to my room.I bussed his cheek because I thought it was the last opportunity I might get.”
Christopher’s brows arched.“And how did he respond to that?”
“I don’t know,” I said.“I shut the door without looking at him.”
“And did he try to get inside?”
I shook my head.“But it did take longer than it should have done for him to walk away.”
Christopher’s lips twitched.“I’m not surprised.I assume you told him that you suspected him?”
“Not in so many words.But I suppose I might have given him that idea.”
Or perhaps the idea I had given him was that his father was guilty.Perhaps he had seen Uncle Harold run away from the carriage house when he came out of the conservatory last night, and recognized him.Just because he had told me that he hadn’t seen anyone, didn’t mean he hadn’t done.Uncle Harold was someone Crispin might want to protect.And perhaps he had gone to confront his father from my door, and that was what had precipitated this morning’s events.Crispin clearly hadn’t gone to the village to give himself up, so it must have been for Uncle Harold, and if Uncle Harold knew it was coming, he might have taken steps to avoid it.
“It can’t have been a natural death,” Christopher agreed when I said as much.“There was nothing wrong with him yesterday.”
“I think there was quite a lot wrong with him yesterday,” I pointed out.“Just as there has been a lot wrong with him for a long time.Although I take your point.”
We sat in silence a moment.The mizzle had turned to drizzle, which was rapidly turning into actual rain.The drops hit the sodden grass like small, squashy bullets.
“Would it please you to go back inside?”Christopher inquired politely.
I shook myself like a wet cat.“I suppose we should do.There’s nothing useful we can do out here.”
“Nothing useful we can do in there, either,” Christopher said, “although at least we won’t be courting pneumonia.”
He got to his feet and extended a hand to me.
“We can be moral support,” I said as I let him pull me to my feet.
“I think Laetitia has that well in hand,” Christopher answered cynically.“She’s not likely to allow you within six feet of Crispin at this point.”
Likely not.
“I’m afraid that this has been the death knell to any plan we may have had to force her to relinquish her hold on him.She was dug in deep before, but now that he’s actually Duke of Sutherland instead of merely the Viscount St George, it would take something drastic to unlock her claws.”
“I can think of two ways,” Christopher said as he began walking out of the maze.“Neither is likely to happen.”
I fell into step beside him and glanced up at his face.“What are they?”We should consider every possibility.Having to face Laetitia over the Christmas goose for decades to come was a fate too horrible to contemplate.
