In actuality, the similarities in the servants’ behavior—Mrs. Blewitt, Henry, Laurent, Stebbings—were not curious at all, for the impulse to drive suspicion away from oneself and toward another was perfectly valid given the circumstance. To know that someone in the house, someone with whom you worked closely, someone with whom you interacted on a daily basis, was capable of cutting off your associate’s head with a meat cleaver was a disturbing proposition at best. At worst, it was a truly terrifying notion to consider, an insidious waking nightmare that crept up your spine like a chittering scarab as you pondered who might be next.
It was little wonder the servants were examining one another with well-honed suspicion.
But being the next victim was not the only thing they feared. Weighing more heavily on their minds was Bea herself, the Duchess of Kesgrave, suddenly and inexplicably thrusting her nose into their business. And making such a fuss about it too! Had the matter not been settled hours ago? Did the constable not leave the premises at nine-thirty that morning at peace with his determination of accidental death? Why, then, was there a peeress in their own servants’ hall eyeing them all distrustfully?
It was only a game to her, was it not, this playing at being a lady Runner. It was what the gentry did, adopting humble roles for their amusement and then throwing them off just as lightly. Marie Antoinette, most famously, constructed an entire peasant village where she could pretend to be a dairymaid who milked cows and tended the garden.
Number forty-four was just the Duchess of Kesgrave’s Hameau de la Reine. She would ask her questions and point her finger like a spinning top landing at random, and then she would move on to the next consuming interest, gratified by her ingenuity, and they would go to the gallows.
Bea knew the comparison to the former queen of France was excessive, if for no other reason than the parallel was unlikely to occur to any of Mr. Mayhew’s servants, but she felt the argument held. They had no reason to trust her, even if they had heard about her confrontation with Lord Wem, and the consequences for them were dire, particularly now that she had assumed a duchy. Her word would be taken on faith, the evidence she presented accepted as gospel truth, and the person she deemed guilty would be crushed under the wheels of justice.
There would be no genteel exile to the wilds of Italy.
She had not noticed it at first, the way her new status was altering her investigation, pulling it in strange directions so that it did not form a familiar shape. Rather, it produced a line that squiggled from one edge of the paper to the other, haphazardly bouncing in enthusiastic confusion. Unlike the lovely curls Dolly had arranged, the power conferred on her by marriage—the clout she possessed, the influence she wielded—was an intangible thing she could not see when she looked in the mirror. She could only see it now in the eyes of her respondents.
Having Kesgrave beside her, of course, did little to mitigate the problem, for even if the staff somehow managed to forget who she was, he was right there to remind them. Silently, he sat in the room, judging the proceedings and adding to her consequences.
’Twas the very devil!
Marlow, no doubt, would attribute every advance she made in her investigation to the duke’s commanding presence.
Even so, she could not resent his company. The transition from spinster to wife had been so jarring—wonderful, to be sure, but also swift and unsettling—that she could feel only relief in the familiarity of the situation. So much had changed in the past twenty-four hours, and yet his belief in her ability remained unaltered.
Whatever happened later, whatever reasonable objection he made to his wife’s unusual avocation, she would have the knowledge of his enduring respect.
It would have to be enough.
Mindful of her authority, Bea answered Mrs. Blewitt’s accusation with a mild nod. She kept her expression neutral, deliberately bland, because she did not want to encourage the housekeeper to add elaborate details to her narration in order to make her associate appear guilty. At the same time, she did not want to discourage her from providing vital information.
It was, she acknowledged with a faint hint of exhaustion, a difficult fence to straddle, and struggling to maintain her balance, she found herself longing for the nonthreatening drabness of Beatrice Hyde-Clare.
Mrs. Blewitt, however, was disconcerted by the underwhelming reply and asked curtly if Bea had heard her clearly. The servant remembered herself a moment later, lowered her head and mumbled an apology, which she immediately repeated with more coherence.
“Gertrude is the kitchen maid?” Bea asked, recalling that Mrs. Mayhew had mentioned her as well. She had scalded the velouté, and Mr. Réjane, according the report, handled the incident with equanimity.
Could his measured approach have had the opposite of its intended effect and somehow created resentment?
“Yes,” Mrs. Blewitt said.
“I will make a note of it,” Bea said, thanking her for the information and promising to speak with her next. “First I would like to hear more about your argument with Monsieur Alphonse.”
“I do not think there is anything else to add,” Mrs. Blewitt replied. “We quibbled about the roses as we frequently do, then, as I said, I went to the pantry to assess
