Miss Hastings' Excellent London Adventure (Brazen Brides Book 4)(34)

 

"Oh, I do very much.

 

"Then?"

 

Her pale brown eyebrows lowered, she looked deep in contemplation. She exhaled. "You said we were to share everything."

 

"Yes."

 

"I think my uncle may have been murdered."

 

Murder was such a vile thing. He'd never personally known a person who had been murdered, never even thought of such a thing touching him personally. It had never crossed his mind that Simon Hastings could have been murdered, but now that she had put voice to it, he realized her suspicion had merit.

 

Those who knew Hastings kept commenting on how the man had been in his prime. And five-and-fifty wasn't that old. No one had heard of Hastings having been sick. One didn't just suddenly become ill and die immediately. Even those gravely ill, in his experience, lingered for a good while before dying.

 

How in the blazes was it that his wife, so young and so innocent in the ways of the world, could have possibly come to such a realization? He slowly turned to her, once more seeing her with new eyes. He no longer thought of her as a lost puppy dog. She was most definitely a woman. A very lovely woman now that her French maid was arranging her hair so elegantly. And she was clever, far more clever than he'd originally thought. "Why do you say that?"

 

"I believe Uncle Simon was poisoned, and I believe the person who changed the will is the one responsible for his death."

 

"What makes you believe he was poisoned?"

 

"Several things. First, the fact that he'd not been sick. The fact he . . . vomited. I've read about persons who are poisoned. They always lose the contents of their stomach before keeling over, dead."

 

He nodded. "That's true. Any other reason?"

 

"Yes, actually. That day when you found the name of Uncle's solicitor in his library, I was poking about the room, looking for things that would tell me about my uncle. I never for a moment imagined he'd been murdered. I thought at the time it was perfectly natural that one of his age could just die, but I was being immature. I now realize that he must have been in good physical condition."

 

"I agree, from what I've been told."

 

"In his library I was able, I think, to ascertain the chair where my uncle always sat. The cushion on it was worn almost flat. The table beside it had rings from glasses that had been set there over the years, but no glass sat there.

 

"However, there was a glass at the chair opposite, the one a guest would have sat in. I believe that's where the murderer, having come as a friend, sat. I believe he somehow put poison in Uncle's glass, watched him die, then cleaned up the poison glass before leaving."

 

"And the murderer made sure to come on a night when all the servants were off."

 

"That was vital for his success. He made the single mistake of forgetting to remove his own glass. Were it not for that glass—so far away from Uncle's chair that I knew it couldn't be his—I never would have known there was a visitor, never would have grown suspicious."

 

"So what is our next step?" He shocked himself. He was deferring to his youthful bride.

 

"First, I should like to speak to his housekeeper."

 

"Then we'll go back home, and I'll get her address from where I put it in my library."

 

"No need. I remember. Mrs. Thornton. She's now employed at 151 Camden Street."

 

"Ah, beauty and brains. How fortunate am I."

 

She blushed. He'd never been with a woman who blushed. Certainly Maria, with her dark skin, did not blush. But then he realized a woman of Maria's ilk would not likely blush, even if she had been as fair as Emma.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 11

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Thornton had come down in the world. The street where the late Simon Hastings lived in the heart of Mayfair was one of the most fashionable in London. Camden Street was a proper upper middle-class neighborhood. It was the kind of place where Emmott or Wycliff would live. Perhaps a physician. More typically, men who earned their living would live here. As opposed to Mayfair where the majority of the landowners were aristocrats or those with very hefty purses.

 

Anyone here in Camden Town would leap at the prospect of hiring a housekeeper who'd recently been engaged in Mayfair.

 

Well aware of his own cultured voice, Adam told the butler at 151 Camden Street they needed a few moments of Mrs. Thornton's time regarding her last employer. Eyeing how well dressed Emma was (and Adam thought she looked exceptionally pretty), the butler asked that they step into the morning room.

 

They passed through a dark corridor that featured a narrow wooden staircase and came to the neatly kept morning room where the opened draperies allowed sun into the chamber. Adam and his wife sat next to each other on a dark green settee that was perfectly serviceable but modest and bit dreary.