She spotted the others coming toward them, clouds of dust in their wake. It had been dry for early summer, and the farmers in the county were grumbling. Addie gave a violent sneeze. “I’m sorry I’m such a nuisance.”
Pamela dismounted at once and rushed toward her, enveloping her in a hug. “Oh! We were so worried! Thank heavens you’re not injured.”
That would have cast a dreadful pall upon the house party. Addie didn’t have the heart to tell her that, according to Rupert, much worse was coming.
Chapter Two
For an Elizabethan house, Fernald Hall displayed every modern amenity except for straight walls and even floors. Most of the guest bedrooms had an attached bath, and Addie was making full use of hers, soaking in the deep tub. She would worry about Rupert and everything else tomorrow.
The hot water, laced with her hostess’ lavender oil, felt divine, and she scrubbed with a cake of violet-studded soap that Pamela also made with flowers gathered from the estate gardens. Would she smell purple after? Addie had been through a tour of the old-fashioned stillroom before lunch, impressed by the neatly labeled bottles and fragrant hanging herbs. Pamela was quite the apothecary.
After Addie’s ignominious fall from the horse, Pamela kindly gave her a jar of homemade cream, claiming its efficacy as a painkiller. Its astringent smell alone would kill anyone, in pain or not. Addie would rather live with the minor discomfort than reek, so it sat unopened on the glass shelf table next to her Chanel No 5, a far more palatable scent.
She washed and rinsed her hair, then rose from the steaming tub and wrapped herself up in a crisp white linen bath sheet. A shaft of golden sunlight poured through the open bathroom window, and she sat in it, basking like a cat on the seat cushion, rubbing her hair dry and combing through the tangles.
“Damn. You’ve gone and done it, haven’t you? I didn’t notice earlier, what with having to cushion the blow and all and save your bottom. You cut off all your glorious hair. What a shame.”
Addie yipped and dropped the comb to the tiled floor. Rupert perched on the edge of the recently vacated tub, trailing a finger in the scented water. The cheek of him! Couldn’t he respect her privacy? She wasn’t his wife anymore.
She rose, pulled the chain on the plug, and stood over him. Her tone was frigid. “I hoped you were done with me today. And every other day.” She’d prayed it was so on Sundays and all the days of the week ending with ‘y.’
“Believe me, so did I. What a bore. How many good deeds must I perform? I must confess, it’s a cracking disappointment to be back in Old Blighty after our last adventure. But what can one do in this tenuous position but go along with a smile? Make the best of it, eh? It’s not as if one belongs to a union and can go on strike. One cannot argue with this Boss. I wonder who’s about to get the chop,” Rupert said, sounding altogether too cheerful.
Addie sighed and sat back down. He was always as vague as a charlatan clairvoyant. Allegedly never fully privy to the details, he once described his role like receiving a radio broadcast that was continuously interrupted. So it was up to Addie to put the pieces together. Yet he managed to ferret out helpful facts during their murder investigations…through somewhat underhanded means.
“Rupert! Have you no sense of decency?”
“Probably not much. You know me better than anyone.”
Faux modesty. In life, he was a famous Great War hero, his exploits in his Avro aeroplane known throughout the United Kingdom, reported in huge font by all the newspapers. Rupert was brave. Fearless. Reckless. Peacetime bored him silly, and he took up with a string of mistresses who had understandably put Addie’s freckled nose out of joint.
“Who’s at this house party, anyway?” he continued. “Anyone I know besides good old Hugh and his missus?”
“How do I know?” Addie felt peevish. Rupert knew everyone. His social life was much more active than hers, particularly with a plethora of female “friends.”
“Don’t be so irritable. It’s not my fault that I’m here.”
“Oh, yes, it is!” Addie said with asperity. “If you’d behaved yourself when you were alive, you would go straight to Heaven and leave me alone for good!”
Rupert looked wounded. “At least I haven’t wound up in the other place. Yet. These extra chances make all the difference. I have to say, though, that it seems like yesterday we were partners in crime. How long has it been? One loses track on the Other Side.”
“Three months! And I’m not ready to get mixed up in another murder so soon.” Or ever, if one was honest, despite the undeniable attraction of running into Inspector Hunter from Scotland Yard.
But he was very much off-limits at his own request.
“Dear me. You do live an exciting life. And how is your policeman?”
He would ask. “He’s not my policeman. Anyway, I have no idea.”
“What? I thought you two were getting chummy.”
So had Addie. But when a man refuses to go any further than the most spectacular kiss in all creation, what was one to do without looking pathetic?
She raised her chin. “He has his career. And I have…my obligations to Compton Chase.”
Her bravado didn’t fool Rupert. “Believe it or not, I’m sorry to hear of your falling out. But who knows? The next murder might bring you back together.”
No. Rupert had no decency at all.
After she threw a sponge at him, Rupert thoughtfully withdrew while Addie made up her face at the dressing table in her bedroom. She broke her promise to herself, her wits inevitably wandering to the future murder—who would the victim be? And why?
She felt gruesome speculating. In her opinion, at least from their behavior this afternoon, no one here deserved to die. Addie considered the guest list. Amanda and Marguerite Jordan were silly, but that was no crime—if it was, half the Bright Young People in Britain would be behind bars.
Hugh’s attractive old army friends seemed innocuous enough. Patrick Cassidy was much too full of delightful Irish blarney to warrant a premature end. Addie shivered, remembering how easily he held her as he helped her mount her sneeze-averse horse. She could hear Beckett in her ear recommending him as a possible dalliance.
Evelyn Fernald and Simon Davies were older, but nowhere near decrepit and had years and years ahead of them.
Lucas hadn’t arrived yet, but he was…well, Lucas. Much too nice to murder.
That left Hugh and Pamela. They’d already suffered so much. How dreadful to imagine someone killing either of them, or even more horrible, their child.
What about the staff? The butler in the buttery with a butter knife. Not that any death belowstairs would improve the situation. It was dashed difficult to get good servants nowadays, and Addie had great respect for those who toiled to make her life better.