Simon had nodded; Lady O had transferred her gaze to Portia. “As for you, gel—you’d better sit down before you fall down.”
She’d complied, sinking into the chair by the hearth; Simon had left.
Sliding from the bed, tugging her wrap about her shoulders, Lady O had picked up her cane and clomped over to take the other armchair. Easing down into it, she’d fixed her with a sapient eye. “Right then. Tell me what happened and don’t leave anything out.”
By the time she’d satisfied Lady O—allowing the fiction that she’d fallen asleep in the armchair in her room to stand—Blenkinsop had appeared.
“We’ve removed the viper, miss. The footmen have searched the room—there’s no danger there now.”
She’d murmured her thanks, inwardly struggling to believe that such a thing had actually happened, that this wasn’t some disordered dream. Lady O had summoned maids to help her dress and sent another to fetch Portia fresh clothes. And the cocoa.
When a tap on the door heralded Lord Netherfield and Simon, she was sitting, primly neat in a gown of magenta twill, sipping the cocoa and trying to assimilate the fact that someone had tried to kill her. At the very least, to scare her witless.
Lord Netherfield was concerned yet practical; after she’d recounted her story, catching Simon’s eye when she explained why she’d not slept in her bed, his lordship, perched on a stool between the armchairs, sat back and regarded them all.
“This is all most distressing. I’ve asked Blenkinsop to keep the matter quiet. None of the other ladies heard the commotion, it seems, and the staff are all trustworthy—they’ll keep mum.”
One arm braced against the mantelpiece, Simon frowned. “Why?”
Lord Netherfield looked up at him. “Starve the enemy of information, what?” He looked again at Portia. “It might not be much, but we have to face the fact that that adder could not have got under your covers by itself. Someone’s expecting you to be dead, or if not that, then at least hysterical enough to leave immediately.”
“Before the gentleman from Bow Street arrives?” Simon glanced at his lordship, who grimly nodded.
“That’s the way I see it.” Again, he looked at Portia. “How do you feel, my dear?”
She thought, admitted, “Shaken, but not shaken enough to flee.”
“That’s my girl. So”—his lordship slapped his palms on his thighs—“what can we learn from this? Why did Kitty’s murderer—in the circumstances, I think we must assume it was he or she—want you gone, one way or t’other?”
Portia looked blankly back at him.
“Because,” Simon answered, “the murderer believes you saw something that identifies him.”
“Or heard something, or in some other way know something.” Lady O nodded. “Yes, that has to be it.” She skewered Portia with her black gaze. “So—what is it you know?”
She looked back at them. “Nothing.”
They questioned her—took her back over all she’d done, all she’d seen since entering the front hall the previous afternoon. She knew what they were doing, and why, so kept her temper. In the end, she put down her empty cup, and simply said, “I can’t tell you something I don’t know.”
With a humph, a sigh, and a concerned frown, they finally accepted that.
“Well, then!” Lord Netherfield rose. “Next thing is to see this fellow Bow Street sends down. When you speak with him, tell him everything you know—about Kitty and everyone else here, too. Not just from yesterday, but ever since you arrived . . . no, more than that. Anything you know about those presently here from farther afield, too.” He met Portia’s gaze. “We can’t tell what little piece of information you may have that points a finger at the blackguard.”
She blinked, then nodded. “Yes, of course.” She started mentally cataloging those of the guests she’d known before.
Lady O snorted. “What is this business of persons from Bow Street? Why are they involved?”
“It’s the way things are done now. Not comfortable, but in the interests of justice, it seems to have its merits. Heard about a most peculiar case at my club not long ago. Gentleman done to death with a poker in his own library. They were all set to blame the butler, but then the investigating chappie proved it was the man’s brother. Huge scandal, of course. The family were devastated . . .”
His lordship’s words trailed away. They all remained silent, all thinking the same thing.
Whoever had killed Kitty, there was a good chance it was one of the guests or one of the Glossups, either Henry or James, his lordship’s grandsons. If the murderer was unmasked, there would be a scandal. Potentially a very damaging one. For someone, for some family.
Lord Netherfield eventually sighed. “You know, I can’t say I liked Kitty. Didn’t approve of her, of how she played fast and loose with Henry. She was a supremely silly and brazen chit, yet”—his lips twisted—“for all that, she didn’t deserve to be done in like that.”
He focused on them all. “I wouldn’t want her murderer to escape retribution. The poor woman deserves at least that.”
They all nodded. A pact had been made. They knew each other well enough to recognize all they held in common, a belief in justice, an instinctive reaction against those who flouted it. Together, they would work to unmask the murderer regardless of who it was.