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СКАЧАТЬ the side table and fill the two cups that stood next to the pitcher. Her neck prickled, but when she turned, Sir Thomas was looking around the room, not at her. No doubt gauging the worth of the furnishings. She wished she’d never brought him up here to see the few things she’d thus far managed to keep. The trestle table and stools her greatgrandfather had made, the tapestry and pair of silver plates.

      Angry now at her own helplessness, she thrust the crockery cup at her visitor. He accepted it with a gracious smile, then gestured to the smaller chair that had been her mother’s. “Won’t you sit?” he asked.

      Nay. She wanted to stamp and scream and throw things. She wanted to kick the stools and hurl the plates against the whitewashed walls. Impotent rage warred with her mother’s strictures. “You have a strong will, Emmeline,” she used to say. “Use it to overcome the base emotions you inherited from Cedric.”

      Emmeline’s fingers knotted behind her back. “If you will kindly state your business, sir.”

      “Mayhap we should send for your father.”

      “Ha! So this does concern him.” Inside her, something cracked. Like a kettle set too long to fire, her anger boiled over. “This time I will not pay. I don’t care if you throw him in debtor’s prison. I don’t care if you—”

      “I spoke truly when I said I haven’t come to collect money,” Sir Thomas said gently. “It…it is about your sister.”

      “Celia?” Her anger evaporated. “What has happened now?”

      “Now? Has she been having trouble of some sort?”

      All her life. Beautiful Celia with the laughing eyes and insatiable appetite for self-indulgence inherited from their sire. She was Emmeline’s opposite in all things—pretty, popular, irresponsible. Though their mother had constantly harped about her younger sister’s frivolous ways, Emmeline loved her dearly.

      “Not trouble, exactly,” Emmeline said. “But sorrow, surely. Two years ago she wed Roger de Vienne.” Proving herself as susceptible to a rogue as their mother had been, but he’d given Celia the one thing she wanted more than anything, a chance to leave Derry for the gaiety of life in London. The prize had not come without a heavy price. “Roger was killed six months ago.” Run through by a husband who’d returned home at a most unexpected and inopportune moment Celia had retired to Derry briefly till the scandal had died down, but declared she couldn’t work in the apothecary or bury herself in the country. “Is it money?” Like Cedric, Celia never seemed to have enough.

      “Nay.” Sir Thomas set aside his cup and scrubbed a hand over his face, rearranging the fleshy folds into a mask of regret. “I am so sorry to bring you this news, but your sister is dead.”

      “Dead!” The air whooshed out of her lungs, taking with it the starch in her knees. She sank into the chair. Tears blurred her vision; a dozen questions whirled in her brain. “H-how?”

      “She was murdered,” Sir Thomas said softly. He handed her a linen handkerchief and went on, the explanation falling like hot acid on her aching heart. Two weeks ago, Celia’s maid had gone to awaken her mistress and found her dead. “I apologize for the delay, but it took me that long to conclude my investigation and locate you…through some letters in her possession.”

      Emmeline battled her tears. “H-how did she die?”

      “She was strangled.”

      “Strangled?” Emmeline’s throat contracted. “By a thief?”

      “No one had forced their way in, and naught was missing. Nor did Lily see anyone, for Mistress Celia had sent her off to bed. Despite the late hour, Lily says she was expecting a visitor.”

      “A lover who killed Celia in a passionate rage.”

      “Do you have proof of that?”

      “Nay.” She was appalled she’d spoken aloud. “I am given to fanciful musings, I fear.” She’d tried so hard to break herself of such nonsense, to be practical and logical like her mama. But Cedric came from a long line of minstrels, and the urge to weave romantic tales seemed to be bred into her.

      Sir Thomas nodded. “Small wonder. The minstrels fill women’s heads with songs of love and passion. Actually, we do believe Celia’s visitor was a lover. She had undressed and donned her bed robe. Do you know if she was involved with someone?”

      “I had a letter from Ce-Celia a month ago. She mentioned a man.” Emmeline rushed to unlock the chest where she kept her receipts and papers. A rare letter from Celia was tucked along the side. As she took it out, she saw the ledger wedged into the corner, and a pang of guilt went through her. It contained the verses she’d penned in secret With her mother gone, there was no longer any reason to hide them, but it seemed unfaithful to Mama’s memory to flaunt a skill she’d detested.

      Emmeline returned to the chair and unrolled the letter. Celia’s scrawl was as erratic and impetuous as her personality. Oh, Celia, I shall miss you so. Tears blurred her vision. She blinked them back. A Spencer did not cry in public. “’I have met the most…’” She squinted. “’Wonderful,’ I think this says. ‘Wonderful man. Lord Jamie Har…Har-something.’”

      “Harcourt”. Sir Thomas grunted in what sounded like disgust.

      “What is it? Do you know him?”

      “Aye, and I’ve questioned him, too. I said naught before because I did not want to put words into your mouth, but Lily said Mistress Celia was having an affair with Lord Jamie. Though she was not certain ’twas he your sister expected that fateful night. Do you know how long she’d been involved with him?”

      “I—I don’t. Celia seldom wrote or came to Derry, and I…I never cared for the city, so I didn’t visit her.” Reaction trembled through her. “I should have. I should have—”

      “Humph. No sense flaying yourself over that, mistress. What else does she say about James Harcourt?”

      Emmeline looked down, frowning. “He owns a ship…and is always sailing off on some…adventure or another, but when he comes back this time, I’m certain he’ll wed me.’”

      “Humph.”

      “I take it Lord Jamie is not the marrying sort”.

      “He’s said to have been through more women than three men.”

      Emmeline wasn’t surprised. Like mother, like daughter. “Do you have any proof he killed her?”

      “Nay,” he said slowly. “But there’s one more thing you should know. Lily suspected your sister was carrying a child. Though Lady Celia hadn’t named the father—”

      “My God! Celia tried to use the child to force him to wed her and he…he killed her.”

      “We cannot know that,” he said gently. “Lord Jamie was out to sea when your sister was killed.”

      “Then he had her killed.”

      “Of that, I’ve no proof.”

      “But…you mean he’ll go free? He’ll get away with murder?”

      He СКАЧАТЬ