The weight of Gentry’s hand on his arm was a calming force. “Give her a moment. There are two hundred rooms. And she hasn’t slept since Olivia was taken.”
“We have a Peacock Room,” Gabriel said. The thought of Olivia weeping there pierced something vital. “Do we have a room of swallows?”
“Your grandmother was fond of birds,” Mrs Boswell muttered. “And there was an aviary in the garden when you were a boy.”
“I recall the aviary.”
God help him. Time was running out. There had been no contact, no demands. He could only pray Mrs Hodge was right. That while the evidence remained within their grasp, Olivia might still be alive.
“Wait. I locked the sample in the desk drawer.” He crossed to the desk, vowing to curse her father if it led to another clue. “Perhaps it might jog your memory.”
He was out of options. Mrs Hodge was dead. Reverend Clay had been no help. The man had been visibly shaken when Gabriel roused him from bed to search the rectory, under the guise of hunting her killer.
He dug into his waistcoat pocket for the key—but paused at a sudden sound.
A woman’s voice.
Faint, but unmistakable.
She was calling his name.
“Quiet for a moment.” He motioned to his friends, who were devising a plan to search every room. “Do you hear that? A woman speaking?”
They all cocked their heads and listened.
Dalton shook his. “Sounds like the wind.”
“It could be a maid,” Mrs Boswell offered.
Was he so steeped in grief he’d taken to hearing voices?
While his housekeeper opened the study door and peered into the corridor, he turned to the window. Rain blurred the glass, the garden beyond slick and shifting in the early light. He strained to see, certain he’d heard it again, somewhere beyond the manicured topiary, near the fountain.
Then he saw it. A flutter of grey. Perhaps the hood of a cloak.
He blinked hard.
Was it the laudanum? Or the brandy still thick in his blood?
Or not the drink at all, but a vision born of longing.
A desperate, aching hope playing tricks on his eyes.
“Excuse me for a moment.” He was at the door before they could question him. “When I return, we’ll begin searching the house.”
Gentry stood. “I’ll accompany you.”
Gabriel smirked. “To use the pot?”
And then he was gone, picking up the pace once out of earshot, racing through the corridors and bursting out the servants’ door into the herb garden.
He stopped. Rain soaked him in seconds.
Cold water ran down his collar, sharp as pins.
They’d think he’d lost his mind.
And he had.
