What is frustrating you, Helena? Am I not measuring up? Good.
For someone who had always striven to exceed expectations, it felt wildly freeing to flout them this once.
‘Why is Miss Blair here?’ Cynthia looked at Superintendent MacDougal, who stood stiffly, his discomfort on full display. The poor man had never been at ease in her home. The one time he accepted her many invitations to dinner, her husband had made it clear he did not enjoy entertaining someone as lowly as a Scottish soldier. Even as he ascended the ranks from bobby to constable all the way to the heights of Superintendent of Scotland Yard, MacDougal couldn’t attain the title of Lord, and Hubert refused to acknowledge anyone without pedigree.
Superintendent MacDougal didn’t answer Cynthia. Instead, he looked to Clio with his brows raised in an unspoken question.
Clio shook her head in tight movements.
Cynthia had attended enough balls to know when things were being said with nary a word spoken. Whatever Clio and the superintendent were communicating was doubtless linked to her husband, and she was not in the mood for subterfuge. ‘What is going on?’
Thomas came and sat on the other side of Cynthia, his gaze also fixed on Clio. ‘Nothing remains?’ he asked his wife, completely ignoring Cynthia’s question.
‘Not even a hint.’ Clio spoke cryptically.
‘Will someone tell me what in blazes you are talking about?’
Magic.
Cynthia swung her gaze, trying to track the mystery voice. She stalled on Helena’s fox, who sat primly, wrapping his fluffy tail around his body like a stole. He really was a most unusual pet. Quite wild, and unaccountably beautiful. Much like the annoying woman reaching down to pet between his large, pointed ears.
Helena glanced down at Hamlet before spearing Cynthia with another one of her piercing looks.
‘Nothing remains!’ Sir Robin fluffed his feathers and bobbed his head up and down in what seemed to be an affirmation. Cynthia could hardly guess what he was affirming. Or perhaps she was too terrified to try.
‘I think Helena is right. This calls for brandy.’ Clio gripped Cynthia’s cold hand with her warm one and squeezed.
The butler opened the door and entered. Hodges had recovered admirably from his initial shock and kept his face impassive as he looked to her for instructions.
‘We’ll need brandy, good sir,’ Helena spoke to him with quiet authority. Seeing someone else order her staff about snapped the tenuous hold Cynthia had on her temper.
This was Cynthia’s house.Herbutler.Herdead husband, and by God,herbrandy. If anyone was going to be ordering people about, it was going to be Cynthia!
‘Hodges, have Cook make a tray of sandwiches.’ She looked at Superintendent MacDougal, then her brother. ‘Something substantial, I think. Tea would not go amiss, lemonade, and some of the seedcake, please.’
‘Of course, madame. And the, err, brandy?’
Cynthia rolled her eyes. ‘Yes. Fine. Brandy as well, if you must. Thank you.’
The butler bowed, his cheeks flushing slightly as he shut the door behind him.
‘Now, will someone please tell me what the bloody hell is going on here?’ Her language was hardly proper, but then, neither was finding her husband in a pool of his own blood. Or hearing voices. Or drinking brandy before dinner, so it should hardly signify if she used a few words better suited to labourers than ladies.
‘Before we answer that question, perhaps you can answer one for me.’ Helena’s grey eyes were disconcertingly vivid for a colour that should have been nondescript. Neither blue nor green, they hovered somewhere in between, a swirling sea with silver-tipped waves.
Cynthia was tempted to refuse, but her rebellion only went so far. After all, she was still a lady, raised to conduct herself with the utmost comportment in every situation. Even this one. Though she doubted the teachers at her finishing school ever imagined Cynthia navigating hostess duties for a murder investigation.
‘Fine. What would you like to know? Whether there will be watercress sandwiches? If I have cream and sugar for the tea? Please, ask away. I’m breathless with anticipation.’
Helena pulled something out of a clever pocket sewn into her silk skirts. The cut of her day dress was the same as every other Cynthia had seen Helena wear, yet it set off her trim waist, high breasts, and long limbs. Which was neither here nor there and not something Cynthia cared about. It was just habit to notice other women’s style choices, that was all.
Critiquing fashion at a murder scene. Highly improper.
‘I was wondering if you might know who this belongs to.’ Helena held a golden locket swinging on a delicate chain. As she stepped closer, she averted her gaze, keeping her eyes on the sparkling jewel.
Fear clutched Cynthia once more. She didn’t need a looking glass to know her skin had paled. She knew very well who owned that necklace.
She did.
