“She was your best friend, but she didn’t tell you who she had been sharing her bed with?”
Violet shook her head.
Well, that was interesting, wasn’t it? “Perhaps you weren’t as close as you thought?”
“What a horrible thing to say,” Olivia Barnsley uttered, scowling at me down the length of the table.
I smiled sweetly back. “I’m so sorry you feel that way. Did she confide in you, perhaps?”
“No,” Olivia said mulishly. “It was none of my affair.”
I looked up and down the table. “So no one here knows whose child she was carrying?”
No one answered. Until— “Do you?” Laetitia asked.
I shook my head. “Of course not.” She’d been in no condition to tell me much of anything last night, although I suppose I might have asked. It hadn’t crossed my mind, honestly. And I refrained from saying any of it out loud. Someone would likely blame me for not realizing how bad things had been, and then I’d be told how I might have saved her if I’d done something other than put her to bed and hope for the best, and I already blamed myself enough that I didn’t want to hear that from anyone else.
“I don’t really know any of her boyfriends,” I added. “With the exception of St George, of course.”
Laetitia glanced at Crispin. He sighed. “Thanks ever so, Darling. And on that note, I think I’ve had enough.” He tossed his napkin on the table and got to his feet. “Please excuse me.”
I think he was probably addressing Laetitia, or perhaps more generally the rest of the table. Certainly not me. But no one said anything as he walked away from the table, so I took it upon myself to issue a final warning. “Be careful out there, St George. You never know who might be gunning for you.”
He shot me a look. “I know exactly who’s gunning for me, Darling. And I wish you’d stop.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer, just stalked out of the room. The corner of my mouth turned up and I had to hold back a snort. As parting shots go, it had been a good one, and one has to admire that.
I had meant the warning more literally, of course—someone had been out there with a rifle this morning, and we didn’t know whether I, Francis, or Christopher had been the one in the crosshairs. If it had been Christopher, then Crispin was in danger, too. It wouldn’t have been the first time someone had mistaken one of them for the other, especially at a distance.
Or more likely, Crispin had been the one in the crosshairs to begin with, and someone had mistaken Christopher for him, which made a lot more sense. Crispin is much more shootable than Christopher is. For instance, I have never been gripped by an overwhelming need to punch Christopher in the nose, and I deal with that feeling quite regularly as relates to Crispin.
“Was that really necessary, Pipsqueak?” Francis wanted to know when Crispin’s footsteps had faded down the hallway.
I turned to him. “Was what necessary? I wasn’t trying to give him a hard time. He already has enough on his mind, poor bloke.”
Francis’s lips twitched, but he didn’t take the bait. “That’s my point exactly, Pippa.”
Laetitia sniffed indignantly, but she didn’t say anything, either.
“He’ll be fine,” I said. “It sounded as if he was headed outside. Constable Collins is there, and he will talk to him. St George will explain that the last time he had relations with Cecily Fletcher was in February, and that’ll be that. They’re both capable of basic maths.”
Nobody said anything to that, although Laetitia made a face. She had only herself to thank, however. When you accept the proposal of a known philanderer, reminders of his philandering are going to crop up whether you like it or not.
I pushed my chair back. “Mr. Rivers?—”
Dominic looked up in startlement.
“—would you walk with me?”
He looked like he wanted to refuse, but after a moment, and a glance at Francis and then at Laetitia, he nodded. “Of course, Miss Darling.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at Wolfgang. “I’ll see you later.”
He nodded, halfway between agreement and a polite bow. “Of course.”
“Mr. Rivers?” The latter presented his arm, and I tucked mine through it. We walked out of the dining room in polite silence. Once outside in the hallway he wasted no time twitching his sleeve out of my grip.
“What’s this all about?”
