It was Nicholas who broke first.
“Why did you ask about Fothergill?”
Charles glanced up the table, past her, meeting Nicholas’s eyes. He paused for one instant, then said, “Because it seems likely the murderer is one of our five visitors, and at present, all of them are in the running.”
Calmly peeling an apple with a paring knife, he recounted for Nicholas without concealment or evasion not just their hypotheses about the murderer, but all they’d learned from London thus far about the five men in question.
She watched Nicholas. Saw again his puzzlement that Charles should be so forthcoming, sensed beneath it a growing confusion; that, she hoped, would be to the good.
Charles held nothing back. Returning from where he’d found Mary’s body mangled like a rag doll’s and discarded with less care, he’d decided to pull out all stops to convince Nicholas to tell him what he needed to know.
Gimby’s death had been serious enough; Mary’s murder increased the stakes. The game would escalate; he knew it would.
They were running out of time, and the murderer was moving closer. If dropping his guard with Nicholas was what it took to learn what he needed to capture the murderer and bring him to justice, so be it.
His duty was one thing, his allegiance to justice another, yet at the back of his mind he was very aware of an even more pressing, more fundamental need. He had to keep Penny safe. He was grimly aware that that compulsion no longer sprang from a simple, uncomplicated wish to protect her purely for her own sake. Protecting her was now vital to him; she was the foundation of his future—the one thing he couldn’t lose.
So he broke with the tenets of a lifetime and told Nicholas all.
He eventually fell silent. Glancing at Nicholas, he saw him frowning at his plate, clearly deeply troubled.
Beside him, Penny reached across and lifted a slice from the apple he was quartering. He followed the fruit to her mouth. The crunch as she bit into the apple’s crisp flesh seemed to break some spell.
“Lady Carmody’s afternoon tea,” she said. She looked up the table at Nicholas. “It’s this afternoon—we should attend.”
Nicholas blanched. “Oh, surely not. No one will expect—”
“On the contrary,” Penny calmly stated, “everyone will expect us to be there, not least to tell everyone what’s going on. Rumors will be rife, and some will be quite extraordinary, so the truth needs to be told. Aside from all else, our five visitors should be there. In this district, in this season, there’s not so many entertainments that one can pick and choose. And with the news of Mary’s murder widely circulating, avoiding the only gathering in the area would be far more a cause for comment than attending it would.”
Nicholas stared at her; he really did look ill. After a moment, he said, “Perhaps if you and Lostwithiel go…”
It was a question, indeed, a plea, the closest Nicholas had yet come to it. She didn’t respond, wondered.
“No.” Charles spoke quietly but decisively from beside her. His gaze was fixed on Nicholas. “Just think. Mary Maggs was a maid in your household. She went to meet a man she didn’t name but described as handsome and ‘not in the usual way.’ Then she’s found strangled. If you avoid a gathering like Lady Carmody’s, no matter what we say or do, some degree of suspicion is guaranteed to fix on you.”
Nicholas’s pallor was once again faintly green. “That’s…”
“Human nature.” Charles regarded him, not without sympathy. “I take it you haven’t spent much of your life in the country.”
“No.” Nicholas frowned. “I went from Oxford to London—I’ve lived there ever since.”
“Where’s your father’s seat?”
“Berkshire. But he’s been in residence for years—there’s rarely any need for me to be there…”
Watching the expressions flit across Nicholas’s face, Charles wondered what the last—was it regret?—meant. There was clearly some sensitivity between Nicholas and his father—something to do with their treason, perhaps.
He tucked away the notion for later examination. “Regardless, you do need to attend Lady Carmody’s event.” He glanced at Penny. “But there’s no reason we can’t all go together.”
She nodded. Beneath the table, she touched his thigh. “Indeed not. Granville’s pair needs exercising—you can drive me in the curricle, and Nicholas can ride one of the hacks.”
So they went to Lady Carmody’s tea party, and if it was every bit as bad as Nicholas had feared, at least he survived.
“Indeed,” Penny murmured, her gaze fixed on Nicholas as he satisfied Mrs. Cranfield’s and Imogen’s appalled curiosity, “he seems to be one of those people who appear to have no backbone, until one leans on him.”
Charles looked down at her. “A shrewd and insightful observation—with which, incidentally, I agree—but unfortunately that very quality is the one most holding us back. Or rather, holding him back from telling us what he knows.”
“Mmm.” They were standing sipping tea at one side of Lady Carmody’s sunken garden. The pool in the center formed a focus for the gathering, the high hedges surrounding the garden providing useful shade. They’d been required to tell their tale numerous times, but then Charles had insisted they needed their tea and moved them out of the ruck; no one had yet had the nerve to follow.