A Murder in Time(44)
She spotted the brats, Sarah and Georgina, at the end of the procession, dangling off the arms of two young men who were dressed like the other men in the party—cravats, shirts, vests, coats, breeches, and boots—except the points of their collars were so starched and exaggerated, their cravats so elaborate, that their chins were swallowed up in yards of fabric.
“Lady Atwood, you’ve simply outdone yourself,” trilled an exquisitely lovely blonde in a sugary pink-and-white striped dress and matching coat and hat. She paused to admire the table settings. “’Tis absolutely delightful.”
“You are too kind, Lady Dover.” The woman on the Duke’s arm gave a gracious nod. “Thankfully, the weather is cooperating. ‘Tis been a dreadfully chilly summer.”
As the nuncheon began, Kendra concentrated on her duties, but couldn’t help but overhear snippets of conversation. In many ways, this was no different than social gatherings in her own time. Chatter centered around mutual acquaintances and the latest gossip from London. Yet she nearly dropped a plate when someone mentioned the health of King George and the political intrigue surrounding the Prince Regent.
Sweet Jesus. Mad King George. The guy America had revolted against. He was freaking alive!
“Careful with the dishware,” one of the maids whispered.
“Sorry.” She shook off her sense of amazement, and tried to pretend she was watching a period play. There was a lot of flirting going on, plenty of fluttering of ivory fans and eyelashes. It was weird to think that in another two hundred years people would flirt by pole dancing, twerking, and sexting.
The lunch seemed to stretch on interminably. But maybe that was because the maids were required to stand silently in the background. The footmen had the more active job, replenishing wineglasses under Mr. Harding’s direction, and serving the food under Mrs. Danbury’s eagle eye. When one of the young ladies dropped a spoon, Mrs. Danbury snapped her fingers, and a footman scooped it off the ground and replaced it with a clean spoon within seconds. If this had been a restaurant, it would’ve registered five stars.
The fruit and cheese were offered at the end of the meal, along with glasses of Madeira. Kendra finally understood the purpose of the extra ladies when several of the young men approached for permission to walk with the young ladies around the area.
Chaperones. This was an era where ladies were practically kept under glass until they could be wed off.
Shaking her head—if she’d been dropped in the middle of Mars, she couldn’t have felt more alienated—Kendra turned her attention to the mundane task of scraping off remnants of food from the china plates, and stacking them in the wicker baskets so they could be carted back to the castle for washing.
The scream that cut through the idyllic atmosphere was so shocking that, for the second time, Kendra nearly dropped the plate she held. Everyone froze. Then instinct and training kicked in. Kendra put the plate down and began running in the direction of the screams. She made an instinctive movement for her service weapon, her fingers brushing her skirt.
Goddamnit!
“Get back!” she shouted as she rounded the rocks and shrubbery. She saw a girl—Georgina, she recognized—shaking and crying in the arms of an ashen-faced man.
“What is it?” she demanded, scanning the area. What kind of wildlife did they have in these parts? “What’s wrong?”
The man gave her a blank stare. Georgina continued wailing, hysterical. Kendra considered slapping her, but thought she’d enjoy it too much. Instead, she reached out and shook the arm of the man. “What happened?”
“T-there! Over there!” he gasped and pointed to the water.
Warily, she inched toward the edge of the lake, and caught the pale glimmer in the dark water. It could’ve been a dead fish, but she knew it wasn’t. She knew what it was even before she saw the hair floating like flotsam on the surface of the water, the cameo blur below, the wide, dark eyes. Most likely, the girl had been pretty. Yet nature, as brutal as it was beautiful, had taken its toll. Now she was just dead.
12
Kendra studied the nude body that had been caught and anchored in the cattails and weeds along the shore.
“My God!” The Duke of Aldridge’s voice came from behind her, sounding shaken. “My God. Is that . . . ? We need to get her out of there. We need to help her!”
“She’s beyond help,” Kendra stated matter-of-factly, and shifted her gaze to the surrounding area. It was as idyllic from this angle as it was from where they’d set up the nuncheon. Green trees, lush shrubbery, slate-gray rocks, and the waterfall created a private oasis of which Georgina and the young man no doubt had wished to take advantage. Instead, they’d found death—and, she could see, not an easy or a natural death. Her practiced eye scanned the body, noting the dark bruises circling her throat, the ligature marks at her wrists, and the lacerations running across the torso. Something tightened inside her as her gaze fell on what she considered the most damning of all—the injury on her left breast.
Alec crouched down beside her, his face grim as he stared at the figure under the water. “We still need to get her out of there.”
“No. We need to . . .” Preserve the crime scene. It hit her like a two-ton brick that those words had no meaning here. What the hell was she going to do? Call the coroner, the cops, the CSI team? She’d never studied this particular time period, but she sure as hell knew that the tools she was so familiar with in the twenty-first century were either rudimentary now, or nonexistent.