Chapter Ten
“What happened to you?”Fosterson asked, as Piers strolled into the dining room.
The young doctor had made his appearance only a couple of minutes earlier, looking to April his usual, amiable self.He was clearly wide awake and observant once more, for he immediately noticed the cut on Piers’s chin.
“A brave tussle with a flying chamber pot, which now lies dead on the battlefield,” Piers replied.“And thereby hangs a very odd tale which solves a few of our mysteries.”
Luncheon had been set out as a buffet on the sideboard, and everyone was helping themselves from the light but appetizing spread.It meant there were no servants in the room, but April, hanging back a little, noticed the several sharp glances cast at Piers from various points in the room.
These were Piers’s friends, and she didn’t want any of them to be guilty.On the other hand, they were little more than strangers to her, and she didn’t have anything like the same trust in them that he did.
“Such as who attacked the poor footman?”Claudia asked, a hint of challenge in her voice, though April couldn’t tell at whom it was aimed.
“Sadly, not yet,” Piers said, passing a plate to April, and drawing her gently toward the sideboard before him.“But we now know what happened to your reticule on its brief parting from you, Mrs.Hubb.”
“It eloped with the candlesticks?”Hale suggested.
“In the same company, certainly.We’ll tell you all about it when we sit down.”
April, whose stomach was rumbling so loudly she was sure everyone must hear it, filled her plate as quickly as she could.The professor himself held her chair for her, and Piers followed at the final place setting.
As though by some magical timing, a manservant entered with two wine bottles on a silver tray.April, absorbed in her own thoughts about their guests and how they would react to the latest news, barely noticed him until he poured wine into her glass.
“Stewart,” she said, pleased.
Too late, she recognized her mistake.She should not have acknowledged a servant, whether her own or anyone else’s.She should certainly not have greeted him like an old friend, even if he was.
Stewart inclined his head.“My lady.”He moved on to the professor.
Heat singed April’s cheeks.She did not look at anyone, although she imagined Claudia’s eyes upon her, amused because April’s crime was worse than a mere glance one could pretend not to have noticed.
Piers began to speak while Stewart was still in the room.With humour, he told the tale of their unexpected hostess in the locked wing of the house, her brief midnight raid and the explanation of the noises which somehow reached April’s bedchamber.Astonished, the others listened, agog.
“That’s a bit inhuman, isn’t it?”Mal said.
“I think so,” Piers replied.“The question is what we do about it.”
“Can we send her to her family in London?”Professor Algernon asked.
“The same people who abandoned her here?”Claudia said, and April immediately thought more of her.
“How would you feel about inviting her to join us when she wishes to?”Piers said.“We could unlock the doors on this floor to give her the freedom of the house, though I suspect for her own safety, we might have to keep doors to the outside locked when there’s no one with her.”
“What if she throws the crockery at us?”Hubb asked, not entirely seriously.
“Not our crockery,” Mal said, and won a round of laughter.
“Perhaps,” the professor suggested, “Fosterson should have a look at her?”
“If she’ll let me,” Fosterson said dubiously, “but I understand there is a family doctor on whose toes I am already stepping.”
