But they’d been over the timelines too many times. She’d been there when he’d spoken to their servants, and they had all confirmed her mother was home at the times of the murders. He couldn’t still suspect her. Rolling her shoulders, Eleanor shook off her lingering doubts and tried to engage her neighbor.
“How is the bill for the national hospital faring, Lord Anglia? Do you think the full House will approve it?”
He tapped his spoon against the rim of the bowl before setting it down. “I believe it has a good chance. Are such public interest bills of particular concern to you?” he asked, his voice condescending.
“A fortnight ago I would have said no.” Eleanor patted her lips with her napkin. “Now I find them endlessly fascinating. I never considered the power such a bill contained. The ability to reward numerous guilds and construction corporations, based not on their worth but their political alliances. And of course the funds that those guilds might return to some voting members as thanks.”
Lady Mary snorted. “It is most unfair. Mr. Rollins subjected me to a lecture just this night on the wisdom of speaking delicately to best achieve one’s ends. I have been biting my tongue for nigh on an hour.” She gave Frederick a reproachful look. “He lectured the wrong woman.” With a wave of her hand, two footmen stepped forward and began collecting the soupbowls. Plates of roast lamb and buttered carrots quickly replaced them.
Miss Abbott held up her wine glass for a refill. “Then this charade is over? We can all stop pretending we don’t know why we’re here?”
“Pretense has a time and place.” Mr. Massey cut into his meat, his motions sharp. “I, for one, am happy to eat this good food, make pointless conversation, and return home early.”
“Did the duke even know his name was on your invitation?” Anglia asked. He looked down at the other end of the table, presumably where Lady Mary’s nephew would have sat. “When next I see him, I will tell him this was done in very poor form.”
Laughter burbled out of Lady Mary. “I would very much like to be there when you do. Montague couldn’t care less aboutform.” She ran a finger under her eye. “If you must know, his daughter has a hint of fever. He and the duchess decided to remain at home with her instead of attending.”
The party was supposed to have one more guest, too. They’d sent an invitation to Mr. Edric Cooke, hoping that by putting him and Lord Anglia together they might learn something new about the connection between the two. Lady Mary had said that seeing Anglia’s reaction to the man could be instructive in itself.
But the crime lord had sent back a message that he was unable to attend, giving his thanks at such anunusualinvitation. Lady Mary had been disappointed. She’d tried to hide it, but apparently her hopes that Cooke’s appearance would loosen Anglia’s tongue had been greater than Eleanor had thought.
“I can see why.” Anglia leaned back, crossing one smartly tailored leg over the other. His cream pantaloons were snug across his thighs, and Eleanor suspected a bit of padding had been added to his calves. “I’d prefer the sickroom to this, as well.”
Frederick’s intent eyes had been observing everyone’s interactions. He finally spoke up. “No need to be rude.” His gaze toward the earl was decidedly unfriendly. “This is a night for dinner and conversation. Let’s keep it pleasant.”
“Yes, but why arewehere?” Mrs. Massey pushed her plate away. “You have to admit we are a queer group.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Miss Abbott took a large swallow of wine. “Each of us is a suspect. The Runner and his lackeys wanted to stir the pot.”
Eleanor’s mother paled.
Eleanor fumed at being called a lackey.
“Each of you is connected in some way to Lady Richford’s and her son’s death, yes.” Frederick leaned forward, planting his palms on the table. “It doesn’t necessarily follow that you are a suspect. I thought if we gathered all the players involved together, we might learn something new. Something that will help me catch the killer. That is what everyone wants, is it not?”
Anglia lifted his hands and clapped slowly. Obnoxiously. “You are quite the wordsmith. You should write fiction instead of work on Bow Street. If you are gathering us together in this desperate attempt, you are clearly unqualified to be a Runner.”
“An officer of the Bow Street magistrate,” Frederick gritted out.
“Are we truly suspects?” Eleanor’s mother blotted her upper lip with her napkin. “I was sleeping. I couldn’t have done it.”
Eleanor frowned at Frederick. This was all his fault for inviting her. “Of course, you aren’t a suspect, Mother. We just thought it would be nice for you to spend some time out of the house. Talk with friends.”
Although there weren’t many at the table who qualified as such. This had been a bad idea. All of it. Eleanor couldn’t believe that Lady Mary had been able to convince her and Frederick to go along with this confounded suggestion. How trite to thinkthat by gathering everyone together they might learn something new. And to invite her mother, of all things. In public, her mother seemed to keep her bearings more easily, not losing control of her emotions as she did in private with Eleanor. But every day brought new heartaches. If her mother lost control at a public function, she would never live down the shame, Eleanor knew.
Her mother shook her head, not seeming to hear Eleanor. “She deserved it, but that poor boy….”
The table went quiet. It was broken by Anglia’s bark of laughter. “I take it back. This is most entertaining. My dear Missus…Lynton, was it? Why don’t you tell us how you really feel about the departed Lady Richford?”
“She feels sorrow over any tragic death,” Eleanor snapped. She gripped her fork tightly, her hand shaking from the effort it took not to stab the man with it.
“Was it tragic?” Mrs. Massey waited for the footman to refill her own glass of wine. It was her third, Eleanor thought. Or perhaps her fourth. “Or was it deserved?”
Her husband tried to draw the glass away from her, but she jerked from his grip, wine sloshing onto the white tablecloth.
Miss Abbott tossed her napkin onto her plate. “How dare you? Susan was a wonderful woman. She didn’t deserve anything she got in life.”
Eleanor pursed her lips. That was an odd turn of phrase. Did Miss Abbott mean that Lady Richford had hidden hardships that she didn’t deserve or that she hadn’t deserved the riches and status being a viscountess brought?
