The Vanishing Thief(46)

I couldn’t help smiling ruefully at his answer. We all had secrets we hide from the world and those closest to us. He held my gaze as I rose and then he strode over and opened the door for me. “If you decide to help us, we’ll be glad of your assistance,” I said as I walked up to him.

“Never, Miss Fenchurch.” But he smiled in return.

“May I ask another favor, Your Grace?”

The smile disappeared. “What is it?”

“I’d like to speak to any staff who were involved in serving tea to Victoria Dutton-Cox and your sister the day Victoria died.”

I braced myself for a quick rejection. Instead, he quietly asked, “Why? That was a long time ago.”

“Two years.”

“What can you possibly hope to accomplish?”

“I’m trying to discover what secret could be so dangerous that someone might want Drake killed rather than paying his demands or stopping him through legal channels. I’ve learned Drake was present when Victoria died. Did something happen that day to threaten Drake’s life much later?”

He kept his expression rigid, but a note of anguish wavered in his voice. “Don’t you think I’ve asked every single person who was involved in any way that day for everything they saw and heard? Asked them more than once?”

“I believe you. I still want to ask.”

“What purpose could it serve?”

I didn’t want to admit Lady Julia’s comments about the teapots had captured my attention. “I want to make certain the right questions were asked. I’m a woman, not their employer, and they have no reason to keep quiet about the details with me.”

“What details?”

“Things a duke wouldn’t pay attention to.”

“I assure you I pay attention to details. Especially when it concerns the death of the young woman I was to marry.”

I looked into his eyes. I didn’t see sorrow in them while discussing his fiancée’s death, but I had seen sorrow after I’d asked to speak to his staff. “Perhaps your servants were trying to protect you from anything that might hurt you.”

“She was dead. What more could possibly hurt me?”

“The manner of her death.”

He held my gaze for a long moment before he said, “I’ll introduce you to my cook, Mrs. Potter. She knows everything that happens in her department and who else was working that day and is still employed here.”

I followed him along the hall and down the back staircase to the kitchen. Several women, mostly young, were sitting or standing at a long table carrying on various household tasks, from slicing vegetables to mending. They all immediately set aside their work and stood facing us.

“Mrs. Potter, ladies, this is Georgia Fenchurch. She wants to know what occurred in this house the day Victoria Dutton-Cox died. Please give her any information she may require.” The duke swung around and marched past me to the stairs.

I could hear his footsteps on the wooden steps as I faced the half dozen women in aprons. None wore a welcoming expression. Mrs. Potter was perhaps in her forties and looked strong enough to enforce her wishes on the others. “Mrs. Potter, I’m primarily interested in who fixed the tea and what happened to the teapots after the young ladies left the house.”

“Sally always fixes the tea. She did that day, using Lady Margaret’s new teapots. Ever so nice and delicate they were. Too delicate. When the young ladies were helping Miss Victoria out to the carriage, their skirts caught and knocked the tray over. The tea was spilled and one of the pots broke.”

Was it an accident that the tea was spilled? I was being silly. Victoria didn’t complain about the taste, so it probably wasn’t the tea that was poisoned. “What happened?”

“We cleaned up the tea, threw out the broken china, and washed whatever was left,” one of the girls said.

“That’s Sally,” Mrs. Potter said.

“You’re the one who made the tea. And then you carried it up to the parlor where the young ladies were?”

“Yes.”

“Only tea?”

“Yes. Lady Margaret told us earlier that Miss Victoria was getting too heavy to fit into her wedding dress, so not to bring up any biscuits with the tea.”

“Did Miss Victoria complain that her hostess was being”—I searched for a word—“unwelcoming?”

Sally looked away. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Yes, you would. Those two were well-known for their disagreements. I would have listened, if only to warn the other staff if their mistress was going to be angry.”

Sally and Mrs. Potter exchanged glances. Mrs. Potter shrugged. Sally nodded. “Miss Victoria said, ‘Can’t wait to get rid of me, can you?’ Lady Margaret said, ‘Oh, sit down and drink your tea. You’ll soon be able to order anything in this house that you want.’”