You see, George Bremerton had not kept quiet about finding me in her room, and now two old men and one slightly younger one stared at me as if I might at any moment grow a second head and try to swallow them whole.
The doctor’s hand on my wrist was steady, but I could feel my blood and sinew trembling, the ticking clock growing louder and louder in my brain until it was the only thing I could hear.
“It’s suspicious, I say! Damned suspicious! If this were India, I can tell you what I’d do, oh yes, I can tell you how we handled things in the company.”
No. The clock was less aggravating.
“The girl is already in distress,” the man holding my wrist said. He had a soft, melodic voice, one he quite obviously used to great effect on nervous patients. Dr. Rory Merriman, that was his name. Now I remembered him introducing himself before he sat down to take my pulse. The time between finding Mrs. Eames and now had gone blurry. There’d been commotion, yelling, accusations flung in every direction, but most aimed at me.
“You will only fluster her further,” the doctor continued.
Colonel Mayweather thumped down on a divan with a harrumph. “That’s warranted, wouldn’t you say? She was found in poor Cosima’s room! Practically . . . Practically leering over her!”
“If I recall, Mr. Bremerton did not say leering,” the doctor corrected.
“Oh ho! Cosima, is it?” And now George Bremerton sprang to his feet, crossing his arms. “Awfully familiar with the dead, aren’t we? I had no idea the two of you were so well acquainted, Colonel.”
The two men erupted into shouts, each one puffing himself up as ridiculously as possible, threats and challenges flying fast and loose between them. I heard the doctor sigh as he released my wrist. He was young for a physician, with shaggy black hair graying at the temples, a square, unremarkable face, and a wisp of a mustache over his thin lips. His complexion led me to believe he was Spanish or perhaps from somewhere in South America. He had suffered from the pox as a child, with divots and scars now peppering his skin.
“These two,” he muttered, rolling his eyes behind thick spectacles. “If they could raise the dead with the force of their argument . . .”
“It does seem impolite to fight over a woman who can’t even defend herself,” I replied. That made him chuckle, and he leaned closer, studying me. It was then I noticed his hand was on my thigh, the grip too tight to be incidental. I shifted, but there was nowhere to go on the tiny sofa. “This isn’t my fault,” I added weakly. “I only found her that way.”
“She complained to me of headaches for days,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was simply ill with some unknown malady of the brain. Even curative waters cannot help such things.”
Like greed, for example, or evil.
“Then you will speak in my defense?” I asked, although really it would make no difference. Who would they report me to? The master of the house? He could hardly turn me over to the authorities, knowing, as he did, that this murder rested on his shoulders. But they might search my room and find the stolen books I had put for safekeeping under the bed. Then they would know that I intended to steal from them. What would Mr. Morningside do to a person who tried to take from his precious collections?
“Quite readily, as soon as these two fools calm down.”
He smiled at me, rather intently, too intently for my liking. His hand remained on my thigh, and the heat of it there made me feel ill. Nobody had ever touched me in this manner, and while I generally trusted physicians, there was the not so small matter of this man being a guest here. What had he done to land himself in this cursed place? Now I was watching him back, and he flinched, suddenly taking great interest in the patterns on the carpets. What was inside him? If I looked hard enough, would I see whatever black mark stained his character?
The argument raging on next to us reached an abrupt peak, and Dr. Merriman shot up from the sofa, tangling himself in the two men, who had now come to blows over the widow’s honor. It would not surprise me in the least if the afternoon ended with a duel.
While the three of them slapped lamely at each other I took a deep breath, watching as Lee burst through the door, Mrs. Haylam not far behind with tea. Lee spared the quickest glance at the men before joining me on the sofa. He looked as pale and drawn as I. I needed no mirror to know we had become reflections of each other’s fear.
“Are you all right?” he whispered, searching my face. “You . . . You were the one to find her?”
“It’s all as I said,” I replied, putting equal weight on every word.
He took my meaning at once.
“How dreadfully, dreadfully awful,” he murmured, the very last of the blood in his face draining away. His eyes roamed to the squabbling men, but he didn’t really look at them. He was gazing beyond, thinking, and it was the same for me. What were we to do now that the scant words of warning I had given him proved prophetic?
“Gentlemen, I must insist that you stop this barbarism at once!” Mrs. Haylam bit out sternly. It was a schoolmarm’s voice, a mother’s voice, the sort of soft but steely tone that brought all three grown men instantly to heel, as if they were naughty children. “There is tea here, yes? Drink it. Sit down. There has been enough upset in this house for one morning.”
The men broke apart, each taking a separate piece of furniture and claiming it as his own.
“Now then,” she added, surveying the room and landing at last on me. She did not miss, of course, the close way Lee and I sat together. Her tight expression only became that much more strained. I had forgotten the stark, skewering power of her gaze. For a moment I remembered the crone who found me in Malton, and, as she glared at me now, I could see that spirit again within her. She had changed her clothes and hairstyle, but nothing could perfectly mask her nature. “I’m told our young maid here was the first witness to the tragedy, is that correct?”
The men piped up, but she only watched me as I nodded once.
“As such,” Mrs. Haylam continued, folding her hands together and approaching me, “I must ask that she come along now and give a statement to the master of the house. He will deal directly with the village constable. And if it would not be too much trouble, Dr. Merriman, might you examine the body and prepare an official write-up of what you find? It will make the difficulties to come that much easier to face.”