A Perilous Perspective (Lady Darby Mystery #10)(53)

Gage had not been so lucky. A footman passed him a towel, which he used to wipe the dampness from his bronzed face and neck and blot the worst from his hair and frock coat. Even as he rubbed one side, a single drip of water trailed across his temple, over his jaw, and down the side of his neck, disappearing under his cravat.

The sound of loud voices coming from the drawing room captured our attention, and I turned to Wheaton in question.

“The Earl of Ledbury has arrived,” he said.

My gaze flew back toward the drawing room door. Charlotte’s father. Of all the rotten timing. Of course, he would arrive when things were at their worst.

It was Gage’s turn to appear quizzical, looking to me for an explanation. Wheaton took the towel from him and discreetly withdrew as I pulled Gage toward the edge of the entry hall.

“Charlotte told me her father is somewhat . . . critical,” I murmured, reaching up to straighten his hair. “She’s afraid he doesn’t precisely approve of Rye. And that when he discovered a maid here has been murdered, it would only make matters worse.” I glanced over my shoulder as the sound of a raised male voice penetrated through the wood of the drawing room door.

“Just a moment.” Gage propped his hands on his hips as his eyes narrowed in baffled anger. “Lord Ledbury is concerned about your cousin—who is one of the steadiest and noblest gentlemen I’ve ever met—and yet he allowed his daughter to marry Stratford?”

The late Earl of Stratford had been a notorious rogue and scoundrel long before the events at Gairloch Castle when he nearly murdered Charlotte and her maid, as well as me.

“Ah, but he was an earl,” I retorted wryly.

Gage’s fury did not abate.

“He’s a hypocrite,” I clarified.

“Lovely,” he muttered, resting my arm on his and leading me toward what was beginning to sound like a pitched battle.

Gage didn’t bother to conceal our entrance, instead throwing the door open wide as we strode into the drawing room side by side. Everyone turned to look at us, and I surmised that my fears were correct. Charlotte perched on a sofa between Rye and Aunt Cait, with Uncle Dunstan standing behind them, stroking his beard, while Barbreck and Ledbury stood some half a dozen feet apart. Our entrance brought a temporary cessation to their volley of snarled insults, but I knew better than to believe it would last long.

“Oh, of course you’re here,” Lord Ledbury scoffed, being the first to react to the sight of us.

“Father,” Charlotte gasped.

“How curious that mischief and murder should follow wherever you go.” The earl’s lean face twisted in a sneer which emphasized the sharpness of his nose and chin. The dainty features that were so lovely on his daughter seemed spritelike on him. Even his tiny ears peeking out from his salt-and-pepper hair and beard.

“Father, how can you say that?” Charlotte protested. “If not for Mr. and Mrs. Gage, I would be lying dead at the bottom of a loch.”

He rolled his eyes. “Charlotte, do not resort to hyperbole. I still believe you overstate the matter.”

“I assure you, she does not,” Gage asserted in a voice that had made larger men tremble. “My wife bears a scar from the bullet Lord Stratford fired to prove it.”

I felt a twinge on my side, recalling the old wound. The bullet had only clipped me, but I still bore a two-inch-long gash where the skin had knit back together.

Lord Ledbury’s eyes narrowed at my husband, as if he still might not believe him—or perhaps he simply didn’t wish to—but he allowed the matter to drop. “I take it you’re investigating this maid’s death, then, seeing as it happened in the public rooms of the house?”

I scowled. Meaning we shouldn’t have needed to investigate if it had happened elsewhere, like belowstairs, where apparently the staff was free to live and die as they would, as long as it didn’t disrupt those who lived above?

“Yes, we’re looking into the matter,” Gage replied smoothly, though I could feel the muscles of his arm tensing beneath my own, perhaps desiring to plant the pompous man a facer.

His gaze flicked up and down my husband’s form before turning away. “I still cannot understand how it was allowed to happen. My staff would never dare enter a room where they didn’t belong unless it was part of their duties. And they certainly wouldn’t dare to show someone from outside the staff into those rooms, let alone allow them to die there.”

Aunt Cait’s brow lowered furiously at his disparagement of her ability to manage the household staff, but it was Barbreck whose outrage was most evident. His face had reddened, and his eyes seemed to be trying to bore holes in the earl’s head. I had been confronted by that enraged expression just a few short days ago, but Ledbury seemed to be little impressed by it.

“I would like to retire to my room now,” Ledbury declared. “It has been a long journey. Charlotte, perhaps you will accompany me.” It wasn’t a request but an order.

“Of course, Father,” she replied resignedly, pushing to her feet. Rye rose to his feet beside her, touching her arm in a show of support before she crossed the room toward her parent. Accepting the arm he crooked for her, she allowed herself to be led from the room, but not before sending me a pleading look.

What exactly she expected me to do, I didn’t know. I could hardly issue a counterorder. In any case, Charlotte would need to wage at least part of this battle with her father on her own. The rest of us could only do so much. I glanced about me. Though I did wonder where Lady Bearsden was. I would have thought Ledbury’s aunt would have some sort of mitigating influence on him. Perhaps she was resting, as she was wont to do in the early afternoon, and didn’t yet know her nephew had arrived.