Crispin nodded.
“And you decided to come along?”
There was something sort of suggestive about the way he phrased it, and I felt my cheeks heat. “There wasn’t really a question of anything else. I mean, we didn’t discuss it. It was taken for granted, I guess, that we’d both go. We…”
I trailed off, not quite sure how to phrase it.
“They come as a set,” Crispin muttered. I made a face, but didn’t argue.
“Engaged?” Pendennis suggested.
Christopher and I exchanged a glance. “No.”
“Things looked like they were headed that way last night,” Crispin added, “but then my mother started screaming about dead bodies, so nothing was finalized.”
Pendennis’s bushy brows arched. “Dead bodies?”
“Just one dead body, I’m afraid,” Aunt Charlotte said, with a quelling glance at her only son. “Crispin likes his little jokes.”
Nobody seemed to find this one the least bit funny, and after a moment, Charlotte continued. “I took the duke—the late duke—his tea in his room yesterday afternoon, while everyone else gathered down here. That was when I discovered that he had passed.”
“So you’re the one who found the body?” Pendennis clarified.
Aunt Charlotte nodded. “When I went to take him his tea. He took most of his meals in bed these days.”
“And what happened then? After you found him?”
“We called for the local doctor,” Aunt Roz cut in. “Doctor Meadows, down in the village. He said it was most likely poor Henry’s heart.”
“He was an old man,” Aunt Charlotte added, “and after the excitement of the afternoon…”
She trailed off while the rest of us did a sort of collective wince at the unfortunate choice of words. I can’t imagine that anyone wanted to rehash the various conversations that had taken place in the Duke’s Chamber yesterday, and with Scotland Yard of all people, but with those few words, Aunt Charlotte had opened the conversation up for just that.
And Pendennis wasn’t the man to let it go unchallenged. “Excitement?”
Christopher was the one who took the bulldog by the… ears, I guess.
“He spent the afternoon yelling at some of us for various real and imagined peccadillos. In my case, it was that he wanted me to propose to Pippa, because I’d been stringing her along for a long time.”
“I see.” Pendennis glanced at me. “How long has it been, Miss Darling?”
“I’ve lived with the Astleys since I was eleven,” I said. “But I don’t know where the duke got the idea that I wanted to marry Christopher.”
“You didn’t? Don’t?”
“Not particularly, no.” I grinned at Christopher. “We’re fine as we are. Aren’t we, Kit?”
“Very much so,” Christopher said.
Pendennis looked from him to me and back, with the helpless look of someone older who realizes he doesn’t understand the younger generation. He even shot a look at Crispin, as if that would help. “So yesterday afternoon…?”
Christopher smiled, looking his best version of boyish and charming. “I figured it couldn’t hurt to pretend for a bit. The old boy wasn’t going to live much longer, given his age and the way he carried on, and I knew Pippa wouldn’t be fussed. So…”
He shrugged. “I thought I’d propose and make him happy. We could make it a long engagement that ultimately didn’t go anywhere. But then my aunt came down the stairs and said that my grandfather was dead, and there was no point in going on with the charade.”
“Interesting,” Pendennis said. After a moment he added, “With that out of the way, who would like to go next?”
TEN
