Gage seemed to have noticed it as well. “So you never got up? Never looked out the window?” he tried again.
Miss Musgrave opened her mouth to answer but her father cut her off. “She said she didna.”
Gage turned to the maid. “And what of you Miss . . .”
She glanced at her employer before replying. “Peggy, sir.”
“Peggy,” Gage replied, offering her a smile as well.
A slow flush began to burn from the neckline of her brown serge gown up into her cheeks.
“Surely you must have been up and down, tending to Miss Musgrave so admirably, missing out on the Hogmanay festivities yourself.”
Miss Musgrave frowned, not seeming to like his supposition.
“Did you by chance hear or see anything unusual when passing a window?” Gage persisted.
The maid stood silent, as if considering her words, and I thought for a moment she might be about to share something. But then she replied simply, “No, sir.”
I withheld a sigh. There was certainly something Miss Musgrave and Peggy were not telling us, but now was not the time to press. Not with Mr. Musgrave present, in any case.
So we excused ourselves, gathered our outer garments, gloves, and hats, and made our way back out to the carriage. However, the maid had one more surprise for us.
I turned to say something to Gage when I heard a hiss from the corner of the building. Peggy darted her head around the corner and gestured to me before ducking back behind the wall, lest she be seen by the pretentious butler still standing by the doorway. I looked up at Gage to see if he’d seen the maid as well.
“Oh, let’s stop and admire the view for a moment. It’s such a lovely one.”
Catching on to my ploy, Gage flashed me a secret smile. “Yes, shall we.” He grinned broadly at the butler, who I swore sniffed before closing the door.
We strolled unhurriedly toward the corner where Peggy stood, in case we were being watched through a window.
“I canna be caught . . .” she stammered, glancing behind her “. . . or it’ll mean my post.”
“We understand,” I said.
She looked behind her once more and nodded. “On Hogmanay, I did step ootside once. For fresh air.”
I suspected it had more to do with escaping her charge.
“And . . . and I saw lights. O’er at the ole abbey.”
I exchanged a knowing glance with Gage. It was nothing more than we already knew, but it was confirmation, nonetheless.
“Do you know about what time that was?” he asked.
“Eleven? Half-past? ’Twasn’t yet midnight.”
“Thank you,” I told the maid and she nodded and turned to go. “Peggy.”
She looked back over her shoulder at me.
“If ever you should find yourself in need of a position, go to Clintmains Hall. Tell them I sent you.”
Our eyes held for a second longer in mutual understanding and then she was gone.
I sighed and allowed Gage to escort me back to our carriage. “Do you think she was seen?” The wind lifted the hems of my cloak and his great coat, tangling them around our heels.
“No. But perhaps it would be better if she had been.” The look in his blue eyes told me he’d observed as much as I had. Mr. Musgrave would not be an easy man to work for. Or an easy man to call father.
“Do you think Miss Musgrave was really ill?”
Gage tilted his head, considering the matter. “I don’t know. But you’re right. There was something she was keeping from us. Something she was anxious her maid would reveal.”
“To us and her father.”
Gage’s gaze sharpened. “Yes.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“This is the place, is it not?” Gage murmured in a hushed voice.
Clinging tightly to his arm, I narrowed my eyes trying to pierce the shadows under the trees, but the darkness here was absolute. “Yes,” I whispered, following his lead. “My uncle said the hut was surrounded by a stand of ancient yew trees.”
The wind sliced through the night, whistling and clattering through the branches. Like icy fingers, it crept over my shoulders and up under my skirts, making me shiver with dread. I had not enjoyed visiting the abbey on Hogmanay night, when Dodd was murdered and the late Earl of Buchan’s grave was disturbed. And I was not happy to be here again, in the cold and the dark, searching for the Nun of Dryburgh, a woman many believed to be nothing but a spirit haunting the ruins and mourning her lost love.
I had heard tales of the brokenhearted woman who had taken to living in a vault in the abbey after her lover was killed during the Jacobite rising of 1745. In the absence of her man, she swore never to again look upon the light of day. Some said she was the lady of a local nobleman and had taken up with one of her husband’s kinsmen. When their treachery was discovered, the wife was banished and the lover sent to die on a battlefield.