A warning trembled on my tongue, but I swallowed it. Plum was a man fully grown. He would not thank me for interfering in hisaffaires du coeur.
“Thank you, dearest. Mind you include Ly. He is looking frightfully peaky.”
Plum rolled his eyes again and left me, and I was glad of it. He had been in a frightfully bad temper for months, and his mood seemed to have darkened since we returned home. I trailed slowly back into the dining room and joined Brisbane at the table. I picked up my cup and put it down again. I had no appetite for cold coffee.
“What did you discover from Lucy?” he asked finally.
I pulled a face. “Nothing. She claims she has no memory whatsoever from the time she left the drawing room, until we found her, standing over Snow’s body, clutching the candelabrum.” A sudden thought occurred to me. Brisbane had a working knowledge of mesmerism. “Perhaps Lucy had been influenced by someone who knew how to wield the prodigious powers of the mind. Is that possible?”
Brisbane ran a hand over his temple. “Possible, but entirely too convenient for my taste.”
“Agreed,” I said briskly. “So the question is, whom is she protecting? Sir Cedric is the obvious choice.”
“Actually, Emma is the obvious choice,” Brisbane countered.
“Yes,” I said impatiently, “but we have already established, that is,youhave already established, this murder was done by a man.”
“True enough,” he said, far more amiably than I expected.
“So Sir Cedric is our most obvious candidate for murderer,” I finished. “We must search his rooms.”
“I will search his rooms,” he corrected. “It would be highly inappropriate for you to do so.”
I felt a little thrill of pleasure at this demonstration of his regard for me. “You mean because a lady should not be present in an unmarried gentleman’s bedchamber,” I teased, thinking of the many trips I had made to his own chamber the previous night.
“No,” he said slowly, his eyes warm with amusement. “I mean it must be done properly and by a professional. You, my lady, are still an amateur.”
He was still laughing when I left him.
THE NINETEENTH CHAPTER
He who would search for pearls must dive below.
—All for Love,John Dryden
We had not gone five feet outside the dining room before Brisbane struck out on his own without a word. I cleared my throat. He turned, his brows knit with concentration.
“Yes?”
“I thought we were meant to search together,” I told him, reaching for the ragged edges of my patience.
His stance was arrogant, legs wide apart and firmly set. He did not even have to speak to expose his stubbornness; I could read it in every line of his body. “I do not see why that should be necessary.”
“Because we are investigating this murder together.” There was a tart edge to my voice, even to my own ears. Brisbane ignored it.
He shrugged. “I do not require your assistance to search Sir Cedric’s room. Go and have a poke around the lumber rooms. Perhaps your pearls will turn up. At the very least, you can have a look through Snow’s portmanteau. I presume that is where it was stored.”
My hands fisted at my sides. I forced them to relax, and gave Brisbane my sunniest smile.
“What an excellent notion. I shall go there at once.”
He turned on his heel and left me then, but not before I saw an expression of relief flicker over his features. He was pleased to be rid of me, but why? I had known as soon as Father instructed us to work together that Brisbane opposed the idea, but this was more than simple obstinacy. Brisbane had some deeper purpose in keeping me at bay, and I knew the only way to discover it was by stealth. He was a complicated riddle of a man, but puzzling him out was a task to which I felt more than equal.
Determined to solve at least one of the mysteries afoot in the Abbey, I made my way up the staircase to the dorter. On impulse, I paused at Emma and Lucy’s door. William V nodded at me genially and I tapped.
Emma called for me to enter, and I was pleased to see that she was sitting in a chair by the fire, wrapped in a dressing gown, a luncheon tray balanced on her knees. There were a few little dishes of invalid food, a bit of soup, a blancmange, a compote of softly stewed fruits.
“I am glad to see you eating,” I remarked, taking a chair beside her.