Besides, I could only imagine the sort of things the majority of villagers were to say if I appeared at an inquest heavily pregnant.
No, I was forced to rely on Milo’s excellent memory to supply me with anything of interest. It seemed a very long time before I heard his footsteps in the hallway leading to the morning room where I sat knitting.
“Well?” I demanded as he came into the room.
“Good afternoon to you, too,” he said with a smile.
I waved an impatient hand. “Don’t give me nonsense. Give me the details of the inquest.”
He let out a short laugh and came to brush a kiss across my lips. “My bloodthirsty darling, always so impatient for gruesome details.”
I declined to encourage his teasing by giving him a response.
He sank into the chair across from me. “The verdict was murder, of course.”
“Of course.” I set my knitting aside, ready to give the matter my full attention.
“The doctor says he was hit with the rock several times. The first blow likely knocked him unconscious, and the rest were administered as he lay on the ground. His skull was crushed.”
I grimaced.
“And one more thing: a chain was missing from around his neck. Marena Hodges said that he always wore it. It wasn’t found anywhere near the body.”
“Why should the killer want that?”
“An excellent question.”
I thought suddenly of the envelope the vicar had given him. “Was there anything found in his inside jacket pocket?”
“No.”
We sat for a moment in contemplative silence.
“I spoke to a few of the stable hands before I left this morning,” he said at last. “That seems to be a dead end. None of them seemed to think that Bertie had any enemies, though more than one of them said that he’d seemed a bit distracted as of late.”
“That was probably to do with Marena.”
“Perhaps.”
“Or with the secret he knew about her mother? It clearly bothered him, whatever it was.”
“Mmm,” he said noncommittally. He clearly wasn’t entirely convinced, and I wondered why.
Grimes came into the sitting room just then. “Mr. Ludlow is on the telephone for you, sir.”
“Thank you, Grimes,” Milo said, rising from his chair. “If you’ll excuse me, darling.”
“Yes, of course,” I said, still lost in thought.
He went to speak to our solicitor, and I continued to turn the matter of Bertie Phipps’s murder over in my mind. Something was wrong with all of this, something I couldn’t quite place. I supposed I would have to question Milo more closely about the inquest.
There was a tap at the door, and I looked up to see Grimes standing there. “Mr. Darien Ames has arrived, madam.”
I wondered what the butler thought of all of this. He had been very loyal to the elder Mr. Ames. How did he feel about the appearance of a son the man had fathered on the wrong side of the blanket?
“Show him in, Grimes.”
I knew Darien was coming to see Milo, that the two of them had much to discuss, but I wanted to be there to greet him. Milo would likely be detained speaking to Ludlow, and I would have a few moments alone with my errant brother-in-law.
It wasn’t just idle curiosity that had me wanting to speak to my newfound relation. I had told Marena that I would pass along her message to him. I wondered if he had noticed her absence over the past day. Or perhaps he had found another woman in the interim. He did seem to move from one to the next with impressive speed.
“Hello, Darien,” I said as Grimes showed him into the room.
“Good afternoon,” he replied with a smile.
I studied him. It was uncanny how much he looked like Milo. It wasn’t just the black hair and the smooth, handsome planes of his face. There was something about his expressions, even, that mirrored the ones with which I had become so familiar. I wondered if their father had made the same sort of expressions.
“Can I offer you some tea?” I asked.
“Yes. Thank you.” He stepped forward then, and, in the light shining through the window, I realized that his eyes, though blue, were different from Milo’s. Milo’s eyes were a bright, clear azure, like the Mediterranean in the summer sun. Darien’s were paler, stormier in color, hovering somewhere between wintry blue and an Atlantic gray. They were striking in contrast to his dark lashes. It was no wonder that women lost their heads—and apparently their good sense—over him, and I could tell at once that, if he remained in our lives, he was going to be difficult to keep out of trouble.
Milo had been the same in his day, of course. Indeed, there were still times when I was quite useless at preventing him from getting into situations he assumed, correctly, that his good looks would get him out of.
“Sugar or milk?”
“Neither, thank you.”
“How are you finding Allingcross?” I asked him as I poured his tea. It was the sort of inane question one was expected to ask of a visitor, but I felt I had to start somewhere if we were going to become acquainted.
“It’s … different from what I’m used to,” he answered as he took the proffered cup and saucer. There was no derision in his tone, though I had almost expected it, and it occurred to me that he was much less acerbic today than he had been upon our first meeting. I wondered if it was because Milo wasn’t here, and he felt no need to put up a front.
“What are you used to?” I asked him, curious about his history.
“The sea,” he said. “Dover, Folkestone, Hastings. We moved around a bit, my mum and I, so she could find work, but we always stayed near the sea. She loved it.”
“Milo said she has passed?”
“Yes. A year ago. Pneumonia.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s a part of life, so they say.” He took a sip of his tea.
Despite his carefree air, he couldn’t hide the sadness that clouded his eyes. For all his bravado, it must have been difficult for him to be left alone in the world after her passing. Not only that, I could tell he had been very fond of his mother.
No doubt the sea had reminded him of her. I wondered if that was why he had been walking along the beach in Brighton that day when he encountered Imogen. Perhaps he had been lonely and drawn to seek companionship with the pretty young woman he met at the seaside. I realized I was making excuses for him, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit more sympathy toward him than I had previously.
Milo came into the room just then. Apparently, he had been closer at hand than I had thought.
“Hello, Darien,” he said. There was something in his tone that caught my attention, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was.
“Milo.” Darien rose from his chair to face his brother.
They made a stunning pair, the two of them standing side by side. It was a good thing, I reflected, that the two of them had not been brought up together. I thought the pair in combination might have proved too much for the women of London.
What a stir they would create the next time they were in town together. Of course, I realized I was getting ahead of myself. There was nothing to say that the two of them would ever be in London together. After all, their relationship wasn’t exactly starting under the most auspicious of circumstances.