The Lady By His Side(65)
Melissa and Claire appeared on the path. “There you are,” Claire said. “Cecilia said she thought you were in here.”
Ignoring the large presence at her shoulder, Antonia airily waved down the path. “The view is quite pretty in the moonlight.”
Her friends were too well bred to stare suspiciously at Sebastian. Instead, they smiled as if they believed her story.
Melissa gestured toward the door. “We’re all going up.”
In a group, the four of them made for the front hall, where they found the rest of the company gathering at the foot of the stairs.
Over the heads, Sebastian glimpsed Worthington and Connell returning from the direction of the billiards room. A quick scan of the company showed everyone else was there.
Cecilia made a gesture toward the stairs, and the ladies started up, the older ladies and Cecilia in the lead. Melinda Boyne and Amelie Bilhurst followed, then Antonia and her friends. Sebastian started up beside Hadley, who was trailing his wife.
Sebastian threw Hadley a questioning look.
Hadley rolled his eyes. He lowered his voice and said, “The older ladies, and Miss Boyne and Miss Bilhurst, have talked themselves into a tizzy over some itinerant having broken into the house and killed Ennis. Ergo, said itinerant might come back—God knows why—and we’ll all be better off safely in our rooms upstairs.”
When Sebastian just looked at him, Hadley sighed. “Yes, I know. It makes no sense, but the rest of us decided we could do with an early—or at least earlier—night.”
Sebastian glanced at the long-case clock on the landing—just as it whirred and started to toll ten o’clock.
At the head of their small procession, Cecilia gained the top of the stairs and stepped into the gallery. She paused by the balustrade and glanced down at the rest of the company. “I’m hoping tomorrow will see us released. I’m sure we’ll all feel relieved to be able to escape this place.”
The comment—and her tone—struck Sebastian as odd. Still slowly climbing, he focused on her. “Will you be returning to London?”
She shrugged and didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s the atmosphere here.” She gestured vaguely. “The sense of being under the same roof beneath which violent murder took place so recently—especially as the victim was my husband…”
“Indeed!” Mrs. Parrish put a motherly arm around Cecilia. “Hardly surprising that you would want away from this place, my dear.”
“Even arranging poor Ennis’s funeral,” Mrs. McGibbin stated, “can just as easily be done from elsewhere.” She patted Cecilia’s shoulder in passing. “Just get a good night’s sleep, dear. Everything will seem more settled in the morning.”
Sebastian watched Cecilia as she allowed Mrs. Parrish to guide her into her room. There was a certain brittleness about Cecilia’s demeanor that made him wonder…
Directing his gaze at the floor, he blindly followed Antonia, Georgia, and Hadley to the east wing.
He’d been Cecilia’s lover once upon a time; he knew her well enough to be certain she was nervous or acting a part. Or both. Experience—and what he’d overheard of that conversation in the conservatory—suggested it might well be both.
He was fairly certain that neither Sir Humphrey nor the inspector would have pressed Cecilia—the grieving widow, and her grief was real enough—over whether she knew anything. Or suspected anything, which was rather more likely.
Both Sir Humphrey and the inspector would have assumed that Cecilia knew nothing about her husband’s dealings. That was most likely true, but in this case, when those dealings involved plots and betrayal…
They reached the corridor leading to their rooms. The others called goodnight, and he raised a hand in acknowledgment.
He felt the very pointed look Antonia directed his way, but didn’t meet it. With a distant nod in her direction, he went into his room and firmly shut the door. He wasn’t ready to even think about what had erupted between them in the conservatory—what genie they’d released. He definitely wasn’t ready to take their interaction any further that night; on that score, he needed to think long and hard about how best to proceed.
As he shrugged out of his coat, his mind swung back to Cecilia.
She wasn’t stupid. Despite their various affairs, she and Ennis had still lived as a couple; he might have mentioned something over the breakfast cups that Cecilia remembered and that Ennis’s murder might have recast as having some deeper significance.
Or she might have sensed something between Ennis and someone else—some man at the house party.
He didn’t bother to ring for Wilkins but draped his coat over a chair. He stripped, tossed aside the silk pajama jacket, but donned the trousers, then slid between the sheets, turned down the lamp, slumped back, and stared at the ceiling.