Page 42 of A Duchess of Mystery

Richard frowned. Someone was lying here and it wasn’t Mr. Evers. A more upright young man he had yet to meet. And a thorough one with all his observations and careful note taking.

“Did you tell all this to your Mr. Barker?”

Mr. Evers pulled a disgusted face. “He is not ‘my Mr. Barker,’ Your Grace. Far from it. If I never see that scoundrel again, I shall be a happy man.” He paused. “I did tell him most of that though, before he tried offering me money. I am a servant of justice, Your Grace, not someone who can be bought. I was deeply offended that he thought I might be.”

Richard nodded. “Most commendable. But what was it he wanted you to say?”

Mr. Evers frowned. “I would really rather not divulge that.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to need you to.”

“Putting it into words offends my sensibilities.”

“It won’t offend me. Just tell me.”

Mr. Evers swallowed. “He wanted me to say that I thought His Grace had been murdered. That he could not have killed himself.”

Richard regarded the young man for a long moment. So Barker had wanted Mr. Evers to tell what he assumed to be a lie. The only problem was, Richard knew without a doubt that it would not have been a lie at all. Given the evidence he’d seen today, Marcus could definitely not have killed himself. Someone, and there were very few suspects, had murdered him. Granted, it might have been some kind of accident, and he hoped it was, but there was no way Marcus had done this himself. Thanks to the evidence he’d seen, Richard knew that without any doubt. The question was, who had done it?

He kept his face expressionless and nodded to Mr. Evers. “Thank you very much for your assistance. If this Mr. Barker returns, you have it on my authority to have him kicked out of the colonel’s property, or better still, arrested. Do the same to anyone else who wants information, as they will only turn out to be scandalmongers. You were very wise to send him off like that.” He held out his hand.

After a tiny pause, as Mr. Evers accustomed himself to shaking the hand of a duke, the young man took the offered hand. “I hope I was of some use to you, Your Grace.”

Richard nodded. “You were indeed.”

Isabella peered into the drawing room but was disappointed. No sign of Dora. Was she still in bed? It was most annoying that both she and Richard were not about. He’d had about him a furtive manner when she’d encountered him in the hallway, on his way out. Business in town. Poppycock. There was definitely something afoot with him. Dora might know more than she did.

The clock on the drawing room mantlepiece declared it to be nearly midday. Surely Dora couldn’t still be asleep, even after her late night. She’d have to go upstairs and find her.

Hitching her skirt up a little so as not to trip, she mounted the stairs and headed towards Dora’s bedroom, which wasn’t far from her own.

She’d maligned Dora. She was not in bed but sitting on her cushioned window seat gazing out at the rainy landscape. She still wore her nightgown, and over it a delicate silk peignoir. Her mousey hair hung down her back in a long plait. How a man as striking in appearance as Marcus had once been had managed to have such a plain sister was beyond Isabella. But whatever Dora looked like, she was Isabella’s dearest friend, and she loved her.

Dora turned her head as Isabella entered, eyes wide with fear, face pale and drawn. Her lower lip trembled as though she might be about to burst into tears. That would never do. She really had to hold herself together or all would be lost.

Isabella fixed a determined smile onto her face and marched across the room to join her. “There you are. I was getting quite lonely downstairs. Richard had already taken breakfast by the time I returned from my ride, and now he’s gone out on some sort of business. Most tiresome of him when I wanted some company. Why aren’t you up and dressed yet?”

Dora drew in a deep, steadying breath. Yes, ignoring her potential fit of the vapors was the best way of dealing with it. She had past experience with Dora and her nerves. Good heavens, as if living with Marcus all her life would not have rendered her a gibbering wreck. She could hardly blame the poor girl for her tendency to allow her nerves to get the better of her. Although with Isabella’s encouragement and support, she’d done her best to overcome it while Marcus was alive. It was only now, with him safely in his grave, that her nerves seemed to be resurfacing. Little wonder, really.

“What are you going to wear?” Isabella gave her a perfunctory pat on the hand, instinct warning her that to show any sympathy was a sure way to reduce Dora to tears, and went to her large armoire. She flung open the door. On one side hung Dora’s pre-Marcus’s-death gowns, none of them particularly cheerful, despite Isabella’s influence, and on the other hung the one black mourning dress Isabella had not managed to remove, mainly because Dora had been wearing it at the time of her raid on her wardrobe. She lifted out the least dreary of the gowns and held it up. “What about this one?”

Dora seemed to have herself back under control, for the moment. “I can’t wear anything as colorful as that. I think I’d like to wear the black still, if that’s all right with you.” She sounded apologetic.

Isabella looked down at the gown she was holding up to herself and shook her head in despair. It was a rather dull green. “I don’t think you can go back to black now you’ve been seen out of it.” She tried to sound as sure as she could, although she wasn’t herself certain of the technicalities of mourning. She’d worn black for papa for six months, but that had been because she’d wanted to.

Dora’s brows met in a worried frown. “I wasn’t at all happy last night with wearing the gown you chose for me, you know. I felt like a terrible hypocrite all evening, and I’m sure our guests thought the same. They kept staring at me.”

“Wearing black would make you an even bigger hypocrite,” Isabella rejoined, with some asperity. “Don’t you think?”

Guilt swept over Dora’s face and her lip trembled again. Isabella frowned. Had she gone too far? Keeping Dora calm involved walking a veritable tightrope. It was far too easy to say the wrong thing to her, especially as she herself was given to speaking her mind.

“I didn’t mean that,” Isabella said in a hurry, before Dora could dissolve into the ever-threatening tears. “You aren’t a hypocrite at all. I’m sorry. My tongue runs away with itself sometimes. You know it does. But I really think you should wear something other than black, which is so ageing.”

Dora sniffed. “But I am a hypocrite,” she whispered. “And I’m a liar. And I’m an old maid, so I might as well wear black and look like one. And every time I have to lie to Diccon, I feel myself creeping closer to the mouth of hell.” Her eyes brimmed with anguish as well as the unshed tears.

A little over dramatic. But then, Isabella didn’t believe in heaven or hell herself so didn’t fear the latter. Perhaps she should. For if Dora was right, she was surely headed there.

She threw the offending gown onto Dora’s bed and came over to the window seat. Sitting beside Dora, she took both her bony hands in her own. They were icy cold. “We’ve talked about this before, dearest Dora. We are not being hypocrites. Neither of us. We could have done nothing else. You know we couldn’t have. You have to put it behind you and try not to think of it, or it will eat you away to nothing.”