I made a face. “Of course, Constable.”
I headed for the door to the house, leaving him squatting there on the grass like a gnome, handkerchief in hand.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It feltas if I had been away from the dining room for a long time. However, when I came back through the door, everything was as it had been. Francis was whispering to Constance, Laetitia was hissing into Crispin’s ear, and Lady Violet and the Honorable Olivia had their heads together in a low-voiced and tense conversation. Crispin’s expression was one of resigned suffering. The chair between Christopher and Wolfgang was still empty, and I pulled it out. “Your turn.”
“Excuse me?”
They both turned startled blue eyes on me, one pair of cornflower and the other a dark shade of navy.
“Not you,” I told Wolfgang with a smile. To Christopher I added, “Constable Collins wants to see you. He’s outside with the bullet.”
Christopher’s brow wrinkled. “What am I supposed to tell him that you haven’t already?”
“Nothing. He wants you to confirm what I told him.” I took my seat and shook out the napkin I had placed on the table earlier. “I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.”
I picked up my knife and fork as Christopher muttered an apology and walked away. Crispin shot a look at his back andthen one at me, question in his eyes. I shook my head and he rolled his eyes and turned back to Laetitia. I directed my attention, and a warm smile, Wolfgang’s way. “Did anything happen while I was away?”
“Most of the guests wondered what you might be sharing with the police,” Wolfgang said. He had finished his luncheon in my absence, and now he was fiddling with his napkin ring, turning it over in his fingers.
I arched my brows. “What secrets did they think I was sharing?”
“They don’t know,” Wolfgang said. “Although someone mentioned that the person who finds the body is always a suspect.”
Yes, of course someone had mentioned that. I shook my head. “Not this time, I’m afraid. None of us even knew Cecily Fletcher before this weekend. We certainly didn’t know that she was expecting. Whoever procured the pennyroyal and did away with her would have had to have known that ahead of time.”
I let my eyes linger of Dominic Rivers for a moment. If he noticed, he gave no sign of it. He was either so deeply into his own thoughts that he didn’t notice—and hardly surprising, if he had brought the pennyroyal here—or he knew, but refused to give me the satisfaction of showing me a reaction.
“No one did away with her, Miss Darling,” Laetitia said coldly. “It was an unfortunate accident, that’s all.”
I smirked. “Of course, Lady Laetitia. If you say so.”
“I do say so.” She was sitting down, and it’s hard to stomp your foot under those circumstances, but she appeared as if she wanted to.
“Darling,” Crispin said.
I turned my attention to him. “Yes, St George?”
“Let’s not speak of it, if you don’t mind. It’s inappropriate conversation for the luncheon table, and frankly, it’s making me feel quite ill.”
“I’ve never known you to care about something like that before,” I said. He certainly doesn’t have a weak stomach, and it wasn’t as if he had been the one to watch Cecily breathe her last.
“I know, Darling. But believe it or not, I rather liked her.”
Laetitia twitched in her seat, and he shot her a look before turning back to me. “She was a nice girl, and she didn’t deserve this.”
Violet shook her head aggressively. “No, she didn’t.”
No, of course not. No one deserves to be foully murdered, or to die from an accidental overdose of pennyroyal, even. I eyed Violet. “You were friends.”
She nodded. “The best.”
“She must have confided in you, then.”
“Oh.” She blinked, and her eyes flickered for a second back to… was it Crispin? Or the Honorable Reggie, or perhaps Dominic Rivers?
“No,” Violet said finally, turning her eyes—and attention—back to me. “She didn’t tell me anything.”
