Becky’s breath caught audibly.“I couldn’t say, my lady.”
“Then you were not meeting him?”
The girl’s paling face burned up all over again.“Of course not, my lady.”
“But he had been...pursuing you?”
Becky’s eyes closed, as though she were trying to block out a wealth of hurt and humiliation.Or just stop April from reading the misery in her eyes.“He was only flirting.He don’t mean anything by it.”
“Did you?”
Becky shook her head determinedly, but at least she opened her eyes again.
“But he was also flirting with Peggy, was he not?”April said.
Something very like satisfaction showed in the maid’s expression.“No, ma’am.Peggy give him his marching orders.She’d had enough.”
“Why?”April pounced.“What had he done?”
Becky’s face and posture turned wooden.“Couldn’t say, my lady.You’d have to ask Peg.”
“Do you have a young man, Becky?A follower?”
“No, my lady,” came the stiff reply.
“Last question—who do you think might have struck Edward such a blow?”
A tear trickled down the girl’s face.“God knows, my lady.I hate to think.”
She probably did.She was a respectable local girl, had grown up among most of these people.Violence of this degree must have been appalling to contemplate, let alone when it happened to someone she knew and, presumably, liked.
April nodded.“Thank you.You can make the bed now.”
She got up and left the room.The newly recruited girl was standing well back from the door, for all the world as if she hadn’t just dashed there as April approached.She carried a brush and a cloth over her arm.
“Janet, isn’t it?”April said to her.“What time did you go home last night?”
The girl looked startled.“About nine, my lady.We went together, me and Fran and Harold.Right glad he was with us, too, considering what happened to poor Edward.”
“You all live in the village?”
“Yes, my lady.”
April nodded and gestured that she could go into the room.
She discovered Peggy dusting in the drawing room.There was no sign of the other guests.
“Shall I come back later, my lady?”Peggy asked as April entered.
“No, I was looking for you, actually.When did you go to bed last night, Peggy?”
Peggy met her gaze, deliberately wide-eyed.“Ten, my lady, when Mrs.Riley sent us.”
“I didn’t ask you when you went upstairs, but when you went to bed.None of the staff here appears to sleep much.Edward was out at two o’clock in the morning.”
“I wasn’t, my lady,” Peggy said firmly.
“Then you didn’t go to meet him at the summer house?”
