“Dalton, you and Rutland take the rear. Force your way in if you must.Caesaris the code word. So I know it’s you if I encounter a figure in the dark.”
“You think we’ll need it?” Dalton asked.
“I think we won’t get a second chance to wonder.”
Dalton nodded brusquely. He and Rutland moved off without a word, skirting the house and vanishing into the gloom.
While Gabriel contemplated which windowpane to break, Gentry shifted beside him, face grim. “Something isn’t right. Maybe Miss Bourne wished to draw you away from Studland Park. Assuming she’s the one responsible.”
He had thought the same and dismissed it. “She’s responsible. Everything about her return to Islington feels wrong. Besides, she had Molière drug my brandy. Miss Bourne could have searched every room without my knowledge.”
“But why join a band of revolutionaries? What is she hoping to gain? Certainly not wealth. She’s about to inherit this estate.”
“Is she? Perhaps her aunt had other ideas.” He refused to waste time grasping for answers. “We’ll discuss it during the journey to World’s End. There’s a chance Olivia has been taken there.”
He pictured her, defiant, trying to hide her fear. She wouldn’t have left willingly. The thought of someone hurting her was a slow, sick twist in his gut, and he forced the image away.
The scrape of bolts snapped his attention to the door. He reached for the blade in his boot as it creaked open.
A figure appeared, his candle held high. “Can I help you?” The butler squinted into the dark, hair mussed, his waistcoat unbuttoned.
Gabriel stepped forward. “I know the hour, but this can’t wait. I need to speak with Mrs Culpepper.”
The butler’s mouth thinned. “I’m sorry, milord. Mrs Culpepper passed two days ago. Mere hours after you left. A dreadful coughing fit led to her heart giving out. I thought you’d have heard.”
Gabriel didn’t quite believe it. Not that she’d succumbed to illness, but that the timing was so convenient.
“Then I’d like to see her. I assume she’s been laid out in the drawing room.” He’d have Gentry check the body and look for anything out of place.
A muscle in the butler’s cheek twitched. “No, milord. She was laid to rest in the family plot by the west wall this afternoon. The physician was certain of the cause, and Miss Bourne saw no reason to delay.”
Already six feet under. Why was he not surprised?
“Is Miss Bourne at home?”
“She left after the funeral and hasn’t returned.”
“Then you’ll step aside. I need to search this house.”
Gabriel barged past the butler, took the stairs two at a time, and threw open every door along the corridor. He scanned the armoires, looked beneath the beds, into every damn shadow.
Miss Bourne wasn’t upstairs. Neither was his wife.
He did the same on the ground floor and in the cellar. Nearly demanded they dig up the grave, afraid of what he’d find beneath the earth.
He stormed from the house with Gentry in tow, heading for the west wall. His stomach churned as they neared the garden and its cluster of old headstones. As God was his witness, he’d never read another graveyard poem again.
He stood before the mound of freshly turned earth and the homemade wreath of lavender, rosemary, and sprigs of bay, bound with torn muslin and thrown together in haste.
Reading his mind, Gentry crouched and pressed his hand to the soil. “It would take an hour to reach the coffin. And if what you say is true, the fraternity needs something from her.” He stood, brushing the dirt from his palms. “Olivia’s not here. I’d stake my life on it.”
“I know.”
He felt it in the marrow of his bones.
They returned to the house. He had one last question before they left for World’s End. A thought that came from nowhere but took root fast.
He found the flustered butler in the front hall. “Fetch Carrow. He was the coachman here when my father was alive, and I believe he still serves you now.”
