By the time she reached the house, she was out of breath. She went to Bertie’s office. Sean joked that it was actually the drinking room as that’s where the earl got drunk every night.
Puck put the document Clive had given her on the desk—which wasn’t nearly as big or elaborate as Clive’s. On the top was an open checkbook. She saw that Bertie had made out a check for fifty thousand pounds to Longbow Stables. The page of the monthly expenses Clive had given her showed that there wasn’t that much in any account. The check would bounce.
Puck left the office and made a dash up to her room at the top of the house. She changed her shirt and ran a comb through her hair, then ran down the stairs to the kitchen.
“Where have you been?” her mother demanded angrily. “I’ve had this whole meal to do by myself, all while you’ve been outside daydreaming. You flit around like some butterfly, getting no exercise at all.” She gritted her teeth. “It’s time you started to grow up. If we’re going to continue to live here, we all need to be useful. Indispensable, even.”
Mrs. Aiken put half a pound of chopped up butter in a deep skillet. “What are they all doing?”
Puck ate a cherry. “Nicky and Byon are working on a play. Diana is mucking out the stables, and Nadine is going to take riding lessons from Sean. Clive is doing the accounts and Willa is writing letters.”
Mrs. Aiken frowned at her daughter. “You’re telling too much about these people. You’re too young to know that there are secrets in this house. You need to learn how to keep what you hear and see to yourself.” She glared at her daughter. “But you must tell me everything.”
“I will try,” Puck said. Her mind was on that house by the cemetery and what Nicky had said. A place to have some peace.
She watched her mother drop scallops into the puddle of butter. As Byon had said, the butter wasn’t browned, or clarified, or sauced in any way. She tried not to laugh.
Eight
When Puck finished, Kate and Jack said nothing.
Sara broke the silence. “Interesting. They’re different than I thought they would be.”
“Frenemies,” Kate said. “Nobody did what had been planned for them.”
“Right,” Sara agreed. “Nicky didn’t marry Diana as Bertie wanted. Clive didn’t marry poor, sad Willa.”
“After that night they disappeared,” Puck said, “everyone separated.”
“Forever,” Sara said. “I wonder...”
“What?” Jack asked.
“If they knew what had happened. I mean the truth. Did they know it was a murder?”
“Or murders,” Jack said.
“Yes. They knew that two murders had been committed and that’s why they separated so completely. A conspiracy of silence.”
Sara looked at Puck. “We need to know what happened after Diana and Sean disappeared.”
“Byon sold his play, If Only,” Puck said.
“His first big success,” Sara said. “It was on stage in London for over a year and played in six countries. Schools perform it now.”
They looked at her.
“I did a Wikipedia search.”
“And Clive went to London and became a banker,” Kate said. “I kind of feel sorry for him. He was trying to save the place but was hated for it.”
Puck’s face showed that she disagreed with that. “Nicky did ask Diana to marry him and she accepted. She said...” Puck hesitated.
“Said what?” Sara asked.
“That her ring was actually Oxley Manor.”
“I understand that,” Sara said. “At least Diana knew the truth of what she was taking on.”
“And Willa?” Kate asked.
“Clive asked Willa to marry him.” For a moment, Puck put her hands over her face. “We all knew that Bertie had bullied Clive into asking her. But Willa was ecstatic. She could hardly walk. She floated.”
“What did Byon and Nicky say about that engagement?” Sara asked.
“They were kind,” Puck said. “Byon said it was all so awful that he couldn’t think of worse than the truth.”
“Bad for which one?” Jack asked.
“Willa. Byon said she was going to find out that Clive had nothing but contempt for her.”
“How soon after the disappearance did he break their engagement?”
“Forty-eight hours,” Puck said. “She came apart. We thought she was going to kill herself.”
“Yeow,” Kate said.
“Wonder what she did to him after they broke up?” Sara said.
“For something that big, I would think it was more than nettles and ants,” Kate said.
They looked at Puck for an answer but she shrugged. She didn’t know.
“Did you ever find out what Sean was doing in the cemetery with the men?” Sara asked.
“No.” Puck’s voice was a whisper. “The next day everything in the house was gone.”
“You mean the mask and the recorder?” Kate asked, and Puck nodded.
“Did you see him with the men again?” Sara asked. “Maybe somewhere else?”
“No.” When Puck stood up, she swayed on her feet. “I...” The reliving of the past had exhausted her.
Sara stood. “We need to go. Bella will be wondering what happened to us.”
Jack picked up Sara’s camera. “We’ll say we went exploring to take photos.” He was reminding Sara that she wasn’t to tell Bella anything about what they’d heard.
Sara opened her camera bag and took out two clean SD cards. She put the ones with the photos of the skeleton on them into her pocket. “Let’s go take some pictures. I’d like to have something to show for our hours out.” She looked at Puck. “Is it all right to say that you invited us to breakfast?”
“I doubt if anyone will believe that.”
Sara frowned. As a writer, she knew all about isolation and being an introvert and how people criticized. “You should get out more. You should meet people. You should—” Fill in the blank. Everyone knew what she should do.
“Okay,” Jack said over Sara’s silence. “Let’s give Puck time to recover.”
Puck looked at Jack with smiling eyes.
They went downstairs to the ground floor, then outside, and stood for a moment in the cool air.