A Perilous Perspective (Lady Darby Mystery #10)(115)

I found this comment interesting. Was she testing me? “Then you don’t think he was the intellect behind the forgeries? That it was his friend Signor Pellegrini’s idea?”

She shrugged. “Who else?”

But there was an undertone to her voice, a sly insinuation. I knew then that she was lying, and what’s more, she was enjoying it. The truth lurked in the glints of her dark eyes, waiting to be seen by those who had the desire to look and the ability to discern it. Her innocence and infirmity . . . was it all a fa?ade?

I wanted to kick myself for not questioning it sooner. After all, I’d noted how flushed and healthy she looked—unlike someone with a lung and heart condition. I had wondered at her ease in climbing the stairs. That is, until Anne caught up with her and she’d slowed to accept her help. One of the servants hadn’t been listening outside the library door—it had been Margaret. She’d hurried up the steps to make it look like she’d passed by much earlier. But in my defense, who would ever suspect such a thing? To pretend to be infirm not for a week or a month or a year, but for decades—an entire life! Perhaps her illness had started as something real as a child, but at some point she must have overcome it. Her muscles seemed to tell that tale, as did her complexion and her breathing—when she wasn’t intent on playing the invalid.

Mairi had acted as her maid, so she must have known. She must have seen Margaret at Lord Alisdair’s cottage, leading him about to whatever end. That’s why she’d been hired, why Margaret preferred her. She’d kept her ruse a secret. Kept it until I’d recognized the first forgery. Then, either because she’d threatened to talk or because Margaret had simply feared she might, Margaret poisoned her and her father to guarantee their silence about her involvement.

Which meant she’d probably also been the woman in the blue cloak who had plagued and misled me, and the older woman seen sneaking into my chamber. It had been Margaret, not Anne.

The pieces all seemed to fit, but what proof was there? Her strong musculature didn’t tie her directly to the murders. Neither did a tone of voice or a glint in the eye. This wasn’t an accusation that could be made with such flimsy evidence. If my suspicions were wrong and she was innocent, such an accusation could do great harm not only to Margaret but also to my family’s relationship with the Campbells. But if I was right, then Margaret was dangerous, indeed, and who knew what further havoc she might wreak? I couldn’t leave this to chance. I needed to find some sort of proof, or else coax her to give herself away.

“What do you think will happen now?” I asked, sitting on the wooden stool next to her bed and allowing my gaze to drift over the contents of the room as if contemplating the future.

“Wi’ Anne and Barbreck?” She grunted. “I imagine they’ll be more friendly noo, but I dinna expect much more to come o’ it than that. They’re too old to wed.”

My eyes caught again on the clump of mud I’d blamed on Gage. What if it hadn’t come from him but from Margaret herself? “Are we ever really too old to wed?” I posited. “I once heard about a gentleman who was two and ninety when he married his third wife.”

“Aye, maybe,” she conceded as I slipped the clasp of my gold bracelet and allowed it to fall to the floor while she wasn’t looking. “But Anne will ne’er leave Poltalloch noo. She loves it so.”

Kneeling to pick up the bracelet, I lifted aside the bed skirt and peered underneath to find a pair of boots flecked with dirt and mud before quickly rising to the chair again, making a great show of refastening my bracelet. From the corner of my eye, I could see Margaret looking at me askance, but I did not turn to acknowledge it. It was more important I feign no knowledge of what I’d just seen. That she had, indeed, been out and about recently, and Mairi was no longer here to clean up the evidence of it.

“Miss Campbell’s love for Poltalloch is unmistakable. But ‘never’ is also a very strong word,” I replied, continuing to prod at the potential of the future, hoping to find a vulnerability.

“She would be a fool to do so,” she snapped. “At least here she would be master o’ her own domain, given our nephew’s disinterest in the estate. There, she’d only be under Barbreck’s thumb and contending wi’ his cantankerous whims. They’d no’ last a day wi’oot screaming at each other.” She breathed deeply, calming her sudden flash of temper. “Nay. She’ll realize all that.”

Or Margaret would helpfully point it out to her.

“She’ll stay here.” She nodded as if the matter was decided.

“You know her best,” I replied obliquely, allowing my gaze to travel again over the contents of the room, searching for any further evidence of Margaret’s guilt. If I could just find the paternoster peas. Regrettably, there were any number of places where she might have hidden a rosary or the loose beans, and what excuse did I have to begin searching for them?

Then she offered me one herself.

She pressed a hand to her chest, her face constricting in pain. “My heart.”

I leaned toward her.

“Could you . . .” She gasped before waving her hand toward the bureau on the opposite side of the room. “There’s some medicine . . . in the top drawer . . . will you . . . ?”

I hurried across the room, opening the drawer indicated. “Which one . . . ?” I broke off as my eyes caught sight of the rosary strung with bright red beads nestled inside. It took me less than a second to register that there were no medicine vials inside the drawer beside it, and less than another second to realize that Margaret had known precisely what she was doing when she directed me to this drawer. It had not been providence but machination. The bottom dropped out of my stomach as I whirled to face her.