The doctor stood and brushed off his sober, simple suit. He was taking a deep breath as if to agree when Colonel Mayweather popped back up like a weasel jumping out of a burrow.
“Just a moment,” he said, twirling the ends of his mustache, agitating them until they were perfect circles. “You cannot expect us to stand idly by while nothing is done with this girl! Not only my sense of duty but my sense of logic demands that she be questioned most thoroughly. Most thoroughly! Why was she the very first to come upon poor Mrs. Eames? Why did she not call for aid? Mr. Bremerton claims he found the chit lurking, and I for one will have this lurking behavior explained.”
“For once we agree,” George Bremerton chimed in. He propped his elbow up on his knee, shaking one finger in my direction. “Why, the local constable should do the questioning himself. It’s intolerable to consider staying another moment in this place with a killer stalking the halls.”
I couldn’t feel my hands. They had gone numb with cold horror. What could I say? That they were not at all in danger? That was a lie, and while they had nothing to fear from me, I knew even now the machinery of their own demise was somewhere in motion. To lie to these men did not bother me, but in that moment, flustered and afraid, I could not conjure a single word of defense.
“There was no instrument of murder found in the room,” the doctor pointed out reasonably, unbuttoning and rebuttoning his coat. “And again, I recall the woman complaining of severe headaches—”
“She said nothing of the sort to me!” Colonel Mayweather huffed, rounding on the doctor.
“Or me,” Bremerton agreed.
I could feel Lee fidgeting helplessly beside me. Even Mrs. Haylam looked a little nervous, stranded as she was in the middle of the room, the Colonel on one side and Bremerton on the other. No matter how sincerely I silently implored the doctor to speak up again, he remained silent, shifting his eyes between the two men as he fussed with his coat.
“There! You see? No objections.” Colonel Mayweather wrinkled his nose at me, grinning, as if accusing me gave him supreme pleasure. “The girl shall be turned over to the constabulary at once.”
“And yet we will do no such thing.”
The Colonel’s smugness melted away immediately. He and everyone else turned to regard the tall, handsomely cut figure in the doorway. Mr. Morningside had arrived, and he did not appear at all pleased.
Chapter Twenty-One
“When if ever did I sign over ownership of this establishment to you two gentlemen?” Mr. Morningside was dressed impeccably in indigo with a pale green cravat. The room seemed to shrink at his presence, and my eye went at once to his feet; they appeared normal, sheathed in glossy black boots.
“Really, sir, please, nobody is suggesting—”
“Anything of merit, how right you are, Colonel.” Mr. Morningside waved a folded piece of parchment back and forth as he wandered into the room. “This letter ought to clear young Louisa of any suspicion. The widow Eames was not robbed, and her correspondence suggests she had every intention of fleecing both you, Colonel Mayweather, and you, Mr. George Bremerton. If there are accusations to be flung about willy-nilly, it is not in her direction.” He paused when he reached Mrs. Haylam’s side, lazily finding my gaze and winking. “Unless of course you fancy her some enterprising young avenger of your honor, gentlemen?”
“Preposterous!” Colonel Mayweather half exploded with the word. He blinked hard, wringing out his hands and then his mustache. “Just . . . outrageous. To insult us and the widow in one breath—”
“The insult, I’m afraid, is hers to claim,” Mr. Morningside said, handing the unfinished letter to the Colonel. “Read it yourself. I believe you will find evidence enough to quench the flames of injustice.”
Before the old man could even finish reading the letter, Mr. Morningside extended his hand toward me, the very picture of calm certitude. “Now, Louisa, I think you should remove yourself from the room. There is no need for you to endure these unfounded allegations any longer. You must be exhausted.”
It was not a request, that much I knew. I stood without thinking, with one last look at Lee. Never had I felt such a tearing of my desires. I had no interest in staying in the room, but I also dreaded whatever Mr. Morningside might say to me in private. Did he know I had his book? But now I was standing, halfway to a decision, and I could not linger there without seeming suspicious. I might blurt out to these men that they were going to die here, that the widow was just the beginning, but what love had I for them when moments earlier they were ready to send me to the constable and then, presumably, the gallows?
“My condolences to you all,” I said softly, dipping down into a curtsy. “She seemed a very . . .”
Mr. Morningside’s golden eyes flashed at me.
“. . . accomplished woman.”
With that, I was being swept out of the room by Mr. Morningside, buoyed on a tide I felt powerless to stop. Mrs. Haylam said one more word to the men about taking solace in the tea and then followed us. Neither of them laid a finger on me, but it didn’t matter; I felt the combined force of their urgency and something else . . . elation, perhaps. Excitement.
The door to the Red Room closed with a bang.
Mr. Morningside dusted off his hands, leaning against the one blank spot on the wall without a bird painting. “What an immensely tricky knot you nearly hanged yourself with there, Louisa,” Mr. Morningside said, eyes sparkling.
“And what? I should thank you for the rescue?” Tears were building, threatening to spill, hot and humiliating, down my cheeks. “You left her there for me to find, didn’t you? A woman is dead and all you care to do is play cruel jokes!”
His demeanor shifted, that excitement I felt previously evaporating like snow in a fire. Slowly, he looked away from me, over my shoulder and at Mrs. Haylam. “Please fetch the doctor. He needs to do his examination. I want the formalities with Mrs. Eames over quickly.”
Sighing, she turned back toward the Red Room, but then she hesitated. “That you let her speak to you in this manner . . .”
Mr. Morningside waved her concerns away, his golden eyes burning into the side of my face. I didn’t want to look at him, or at her. I simply wanted to be away from them both. Already I was calculating where I would go next—back to the hayloft, perhaps, to search the book for more clues and some way of breaking Mr. Morningside’s hold over me.
“She is but a buzzing fly. Allow Louisa her tantrum; it bothers me not.”
“If that is the case, a fly hardly warrants your parading around aboveground. I’ve not seen you in the house proper this much in years,” Mrs. Haylam replied, but her lips hardly moved, her face tight with frustration. When she was gone, I spun at once to run for the stairs.