Peril at Somner House (9 page)

“Hello.” I smiled through my teeth. “What an unexpected pleasure, Major Browning.”

“Is it? Your demeanor suggests otherwise.”

He deliberately baited me. But I'd since learned to not bite, and merely smiled and asked, in a spirit of politeness, what brought him to the island.

“The far winds.” His reply came slow, his eyes searching mine.

I glanced away. I didn't believe him.

“Thank you for your letters, Daphne. I trust you received mine?”

“You never replied,” Angela snapped in response.

Raising a brow, the Major waited to be introduced. I did my duty, my voice sounding strangled and forced for I didn't want him intruding upon our party. It was evident that my indisputable coldness caused more than Sir Marcus's face to flush. Sensing Kate's interest in my acquaintance with the Major, I tried a little harder to mask my displeasure. Cordial and cool, Angela had said.

I rolled my shoulders. I could be cool and cordial. “So what brings you to St. Mary's, Major?” I asked again.

“Shipwrecked by weather,” Sir Marcus interrupted, his joking presence very much unwanted.

I glared at Sir Marcus and he soon found a swift reason to excuse himself from our conversation.

I repeated my question to the Major as we stepped away from the party. He looked well, a little paler than when I'd last seen him. Perhaps the winter frost had frozen the last vestige of decency in his black, uncaring soul? I wondered.

“You're angry with me, aren't you?”

“Yes,” I began with a vengeance.

“I enjoyed your letters and am saddened you did not receive mine.” A glimmer twinkled in his eye as he said it.

“I doubt you even
bothered
to reply, Major. Too busy, no doubt, with whatever nefarious and clandestine operation—”

“Nefarious?” He grinned. “I like that word and I like you.” His voice dropped to a low, warm whisper. “I've missed you, Daphne.”

“Ever hear of the post?”

“I cannot be held to blame for the error of our postal system.”

“I suppose not, just as I suppose you only reply to worthy temptations.”

“Oh, I assure you. You are a very
worthy
temptation.”

Roderick happened upon us at that moment and seeing me with the Major, detached himself from Bella's side and sidled to my own.

A trifle flattered, I wondered if I had stirred a protective instinct inside the dour Roderick Trevalyan. The absurd notion vanished as soon as it entered my mind, for I truly couldn't see Roderick Trevalyan with any woman, least of all me. Far too monkish and isolated, he preferred his own company to anybody else's and seemed intent on remaining so.

After a round of introductions and pleasantries, the offer to call upon us at Somner House was made. “We are a house in mourning,” Lord Roderick advised, resuming a solemn air, and the Major gave me a quick glance, “but you, and your senior officers, are welcome.”

Thanking him for the invitation, the Major solicited a few
seconds alone with me and, unable to escape, I had no choice but to suffer his interrogation.

“And what brings Miss du Maurier to St. Mary's and Somner House, hmmm? A
murder
in the making? Who died? And did you kill this person for inspiration?”

“Don't talk so loud,” I hissed. “Your ideas are as preposterous as they are thoroughly unwelcome.”

“But I hope I'm not unwelcome to you,” he grimaced, his dark eyes faintly aroused. “We've a new mystery to unravel, have we?”

“
We,
Major, won't be unraveling anything—”

“This time it is
you
who are mistaken, Miss Daphne. Whether or not you welcome my being here, you will have to suffer it. For however long I am here depends entirely upon the weather. Now, tell me about this death, Miss du Maurier.”

“I'm sorry, Major. I have to go.” And smiling, for once having the upper hand, I waved from the door. “Cheerio.”

I asked Sir Marcus how he knew the Major as we walked away from the mill.

“Met him around the traps, once or twice. Well set up. Good contacts.”

“A veritable busybody,” I said.

“No more than you or I.” Sir Marcus smiled his best doting smile. “Ah, now, here are the others. Let us return to the House of Mourning, shall we?”

“House
in
mourning,” I corrected.

Lunch had been a strained affair. A brief stop in a village halfway to Somner, and nobody was in the mood to endure the rainy weather.

“Thank heavens that's over,” Kate breathed out loud on the drive home.

Angela tried her best to rouse her spirits. “You sang beautifully, like an angel, and it's good if you try and keep busy by helping others. It'll take your mind off…”

“Help others?” Kate echoed. “How can I think of helping others when I don't even know if I have a home anymore?”

Or a living, I thought as I sat in the front seat of the car with Sir Marcus. Since the reading of the will would take place sometime after the funeral at Somner, I sympathized with Kate. Her nerves grew increasingly raw as her future hung in the balance.

 

Angela had already suspected the worst for Kate.

“That Fernald…he's threatened her. She told me. He'll blackmail her, too.” Her voice faded into silence and I joined her as she sat brooding on the edge of her bed.

“Oh,
curse
the weather! Fernald shouldn't be in control. He's enjoying the power. Power over poor Kate.”

“But you know he can't arrest her while Roderick speaks for her.”

“He
can.
” Angela's mouth set into a grim line. “He's a little weed and he's after some sport. Sir Marcus agrees with me. Ask him, if you like. You seem to respect his opinion more than mine.”

I was too tired to think upon it further and in no mood to humor Angela. The events of the day, compounded by the arrival of the Major waltzing his way into my world again, left me with a nasty headache. I wanted to do nothing but lie in the bath and read a book and hastened to the sanctuary of the next room.

“Oh, I was going in there just now.”

Arabella waylaid me, a towel draped over her arm.

“But you can go first, Daphne,” she added upon spying the book tucked under my arm.

Without her glasses, I thought her quite attractive, particularly with the tinge of color in her cheeks.

Astonished by her graciousness, I said I'd go second since she only intended to have a shower. She nodded and marched in, shutting the door promptly behind her.

Returning to the bedroom, I discovered Angela furtively shaking out her purse in the corner. She jerked when I entered, nervous, afraid, obviously not expecting my early return.

I noted her preoccupation with the bag.

“Lost my powder pack,” she sighed.

“Oh,” I said, but did not believe her. For a long time I had suspected Angela dabbled in the occasional use of a drug, opium or cocaine, I didn't know which, and I didn't want to know. No wonder she often spent weekends away, turning her nose up at our home performance nights. The racy crowd appealed to her sensibilities and I decided I should catch her out and report it to our parents for her own good. But not just yet.

 

The Major and his senior officers attended the funeral.

I was not unduly surprised by this, having prior experience of the Major's aptitude for involving himself in affairs that seemed to be none of his concern. But perhaps they were, after all. I had to acknowledge the Major's importance in the Padthaway case. However, he certainly could not have been sent here by officials when news of the murder had not yet reached the mainland. Or had it?

I dismissed the idea as soon as it came into my head. The news had shocked Kate too much to think of telephoning friends and relatives. Could Roderick have done it for her? As far as I knew, there weren't many relations to be informed of Max's demise. There was a Trevalyan aunt and a few cousins
in America, but Lady Kate, as an adopted child, claimed no living relations. No doubt, there were hundreds of friends and acquaintances Kate could have notified, but I suspected she desired little attention.

The priest's gloomy closing words and prayer at the funeral brought a stiffness to an already cold and emotionless atmosphere. Devoid of flowers, candles, and entirely lacking sorrowful adulations of grieving family members, it was the strangest funeral I'd ever attended. It was filled with nothing but silence.

There would be no graveside burial, considering the body's state and nature of death.

Few locals occupied the empty seats, but I noticed one family, that of Jackson the gardener, sitting near Hugo on the last row.

“What d'you make of it?” Sir Marcus's curious whisper tickled my ear. “Father, mother, daughter Rachael, and little grandson Connor.”

Our curiosity heightened when directly after the service, Roderick turned to receive and acknowledge the family. Kate's face blanched at the sight of the clan.

“Spark of anger there,” Sir Marcus noted.

We watched their slow progression toward Jackson's family. My interest remained on Jackson's daughter and Max's lover, Rachael: slim, wearing a tailored black suit and a pointed little black hat; her dark hair swept high off a strong brow where sloping eyebrows framed long-lashed dark eyes; a short nose and a reddened mouth. Yes, she was beautiful in an unearthly, unusual way.

“My word,” Sir Marcus whistled, “a fine-looking filly, if ever I saw one.”

Every man in the room noticed her. The Major and his attendants were in the pleasant process of forming her acquaintance when Roderick and Kate approached. Having strangers present probably helped Kate in formally acknowledging her late husband's lover and his child. Entertained by Jackson, Connor, unquestionably Max's son with the same wispy curls and wild good looks, merely stared up at the great lady staring down at him. Oblivious to her interest in him, he wrinkled his nose and clutched his mother's hand.

Rod, Kate, and Jackson shared an exchange while Rachael maintained a dignified silence. She intrigued me, for she didn't seem the kind of flighty girl Max Trevalyan fancied. Maybe having the child had changed her, and I assumed Max had paid handsomely for the mishap.

“Poor Katie girl,” Sir Marcus sympathized. “She did so want a baby awhile back…went to countless doctors, but nothing ever came of it.”

“This child was obviously born during the marriage. That must have been hard for Kate. But no matter how hard I try, I just can't picture someone with such a serene face working as a maid, can you?”

“No,” Sir Marcus agreed, “but I have a tantalizing vision of her pulling out weeds…”

I rolled my eyes. To my detriment, the Major caught my expression. His brow lifting, he casually left the others to join us.

I hunted round for Angela. Strangely, she seemed deep in conversation with Arabella.

Blessedly, Sir Marcus stepped in to talk to the Major while I stood pale and still. I wished he would go away. I wished he'd not come to embroil himself in Somner House affairs.

“I have just met the charming Mrs. Eastley,” he began. “Jackson's daughter.”

“Ah.” Sir Marcus looked significantly at me. “Do you know her?”

“Yes, she's a widow. Her husband drowned five years ago.”

The widow romanced by the dissolute lord of the manor.
Annoyed by the Major's obtaining facts quicker than Sir Marcus and I, who were
actually in residence
at Somner, I lifted a haughty brow. “I suppose you know Mr. Fernald, too, and since you are so remarkably clever, why don't you just tell us who killed Max Trevalyan and why?”

Sir Marcus whistled, disbelief clouding his good-natured face. “I, er, shall go and rescue your sister.”

He darted off quicker than I could say “I suppose you know Miss Woodford, too, Major.”

He continued to smirk. “The venomous tone doesn't suit you, Daphne.”

“It is
Miss du Maurier
to you, thank you.”

“Miss du Maurier,” he obliged. “I have missed you these past months, as you have evidently missed me. Why else would you use the acid tongue on me?”

I stared at him in dismay.

He touched his ear. “What was that? I didn't quite hear you?”

Aware that we were attracting attention, or rather,
I'd
solicited the unwanted attention by raising my voice, I endeavored to resurrect some sense of decorum. It was hard to be friendly and well-mannered when faced with such adversity. Yet it was better for me to retain a cool distance than to exhibit emotion where Major Browning was concerned, for he was a man whose arrogance mistook feeling for infatuation.

Yes, he thought every woman was in love with him.

Yes, that was his problem.

 

“Sorry,” Angela said later as we hung our coats in the parlor of Somner House. “I got stuck talking to Bella Woodford. Thankfully, you had Sir Marcus with you. What's the Major doing here? Don't believe a gibbet about this stranded by bad weather business.”

“Oh, it's not unusual at this time of year.” Kate had overheard us. “The coastal winds drive many island-bound.”

Angela asked how she knew the Major.

“He came to the club once or twice during the war,” she replied, a fondness softening her eyes. “He's a kind man.”

Kind! My guffaw produced a warning glare from Angela.

“I'm not feeling well,” Kate admitted, swaying a little to the left.

“Then go and rest,” Angela advised, taking the weight of her coat from her and readjusting it on the hook. “I'll check on you later.”

Nodding, Kate left.

“I'm for a lie-down, too,” Angela yawned, starting up the stairs.

“All for lie-downs, are we?” Complaining, Sir. Marcus waylaid me. “Daphne, I do hope I can persuade you to accompany me in a dash of arty asylum.”

Grinning, we made arrangements for a painting caper. I said I'd go and change first, dashing upstairs ahead of a silent-footed Bella. Feeling uncharitable for not including her, I asked if she wanted to join Sir Marcus and I, but she refused,
resuming her usual sullen outlook. “No, thank you,” replied she, “my cousin and I have other plans.”

Oh, do you? I thought, hunting for my cardigan and catching Angela extracting a small packet out of her handbag. Slipping the item into her skirt pocket, she flopped onto her bed and rolled over to have a nap. Disturbed by the sight, I tried to banish it from my mind.

“My, my, you're a ferocious painter,” Sir Marcus commented over my shoulder. “Striking up a literal storm. What represents the clouds today? MB or some unknown womanly complaint?”

“
Not
Major Browning.” I determined to be clear on that score. “My sister, actually.” I relayed what had happened in the room. “She behaves oddly sometimes. I don't know what to make of it.”

“Oh, I do.” Sir Marcus smiled.

I asked him to elaborate, but he didn't seem to want to comply, uttering low, moaning sounds as I persisted. “Very well…but compose yourself for a shock.”

I nodded.

His brow arched. “I'm not
convinced
. In some ways, you are too innocent, Daphne. Charming trait, but not precisely worldly wise. You'll have to wizen up if you're to transcribe life to paper.”

My paintbrush wavered.

“All right.” Laying down his paintbrush, he faced me with a sigh. “Your sister, Angela, favors the female kind. There. I've said it.”

I stared at him, too shocked to speak. “No…she's engaged to—”

“She won't marry him. She won't marry any man, if I am a
correct reader of character, and I'd wager my best thorough-bred on
that
.”

“But…”

My voice faded into a tiny whisper and I found myself on a spiral of memories, each twisting and turning, and blindly, I followed the paths in my mind. “You may be right,” I eventually acquiesced, but it didn't lessen the shock, and I wondered how my parents would take the news, if ever they learned of it.

“Oh.” I turned from him to hide my scarlet face. Angela…and Kate. The two faces in profile blurred before me, Kate's unsure and tentative and Angela's nurturing and devoted. No…surely it
couldn't
be…

Yet had Sir Marcus stumbled upon something I didn't want to acknowledge? Was it a secret kept so clandestine as to have played a hand in the murder of Max Trevalyan?