Page 92 of One Night with a Rake

But Mr. Humphrey didn’t make for the musicians as his mistress had ordered. Instead he crossed the marble foyer to Nathaniel. He didn’t offer to take his hat and coat.

“Lord Nathaniel, I’m most relieved to see you,” Humphrey began. “If you’d be so good as to come with me, there’s a matter of some urgency with which I feel certain you can lend assistance.”

May as well help Georgie with a little misdirection.

“If you want my opinion, I suggest you check the garret. It would be an unlikely place for Lady Georgette to hide, and that makes it all the more likely she’d hide there,” he said as he followed Humphrey down the servants’ staircase to the below-stairs portion of the great house.

“No, milord. It’s not about that,” Humphrey said. “I’m sure Lady Georgette will be found when she wishes to be. When she was a child, it wasn’t unheard of for her to hide for hours if there was a lesson she wished to avoid—oh! Not that she wishes to avoid His Highness, I’m sure.”

“I’m not,” Nathaniel muttered, then he raised his voice. “What is it that requires my assistance?”

“On this night of all nights, I didn’t wish to trouble the quality folk with—oh, I beg your pardon, milord, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“No offence taken, Humphrey,” Nathaniel said. Even servants recognized that his title was a mere courtesy. “So tell me. What will trouble the ‘quality folk’?”

“This.” Mr. Humphrey led him through the kitchen where Cook was screaming herself hoarse giving orders to the underlings who couldn’t move fast enough to suit her. From there, Nate was ushered into the cold larder off the kitchen. The stone-walled room was crammed with shelves that held wheels of cheese, burlap sacks of potatoes, and baskets of winter apples. A brace of pheasants hung in the corner.

A dead girl was stretched out on the rough plank table that ran down the center of the space.

“Who is it?” Nathaniel asked.

“Dora Underhill, the scullery maid. The bootblack boy found her.”

“Where?”

“In the scullery, still propped up on her stool. We laid her out here till we could discover what should be done. Oh, and I’d appreciate your discretion, milord,” Humphrey said. “If Cook learns there’s a dead body in her larder, well, in the state she’s in already, I fear for anyone within arms’ reach if she has a cleaver in her hands.”

Nate walked around the body, looking for the cause of death. There didn’t seem to be any obvious wound.

“She wasn’t ill?”

“No.”

A pinprick of dread stabbed between his shoulder blades as he undid the button at her collar and peeled back the fabric. A red weal circled the girl’s slender throat.

“When was she discovered?” he asked.

“Only a few minutes ago.”

The prickle of dread spread to Nathaniel’s spine. He fervently hoped someone would bolt down the servants’ stairs to announce that Georgette had been found and was now being presented to His Royal Highness. Even that was preferable to the awful alternative beginning to form in his mind.

“Did you find the body before or after Lady Georgette went missing?”

“After.”

“Show me where Dora was found.”

Humphrey led him to the nearby scullery and tried to direct his attention to the high stool in the corner, but Nate seized upon the fact that the scullery had a door that led directly out to the alley.

“The killer likely came in this way,” Nathaniel said.

Humphrey breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. Then you don’t think this horrible thing was done by someone in Yorkingham’s employ.”

“No.” With all the uproar in the kitchen, it would be a simple matter for someone to slip into the scullery, dispatch the maid, and then when there was another outburst from Cook, make their way up the back staircase.

Nate stepped through the door to the alley. Two sets of footprints, one heavy and masculine, the other slim and shallow, dimpled the snow leading away from the door. Wheel tracks from a light gig pulled by a single horse marked the snow, running down the alley and out into the street.

“Oh, God.” His gaze fell on a black-and-white-checked deerstalker that was partially covered by the falling snow. Lord Fishwick. Nathaniel’s gut had led him to suspect the man. Now the evidence confirmed it.