To Distraction (Bastion Club 5)

Lord Cranbrook accompanied him into the attics. Deverell searched, far more thoroughly than the housekeeper had, but found nothing. He did, however, note that the girl’s bed hadn’t been slept in; it had been deliberately disarranged. There was no adequate indentation or appropriate creases in the thin sheet.

Together with Lord Cranbrook, he returned downstairs. The description Lady Moffat had given of the maid tallied with what he’d glimpsed of the female Phoebe had spirited away.

In the front hall, he turned to his host. “With your permission, my lord, I’ll look around and see what other information I can gather.”

The implication was “alone.” Lord Cranbrook nodded readily. “Very good. I’d best get back to the others.”

Deverell watched his lordship head for the library. After a moment, he turned and headed for the back lawn.

As he’d expected, the older ladies were seated beneath the trees, still exclaiming over the latest happening while keeping their charges, ambling about the lawns, some playing a desultory round of croquet, others simply chatting, under their watchful eyes.

He avoided most; pretending not to notice the gazes trained on him, he went to Audrey’s side.

She turned from Mrs. Hildebrand as he neared; she raised her brows as he hunkered beside her chair.

“Lady Cranbrook mentioned two other disappearances at house parties—did you attend both those events?” he asked.

Audrey blinked. “No, but Edith did. She could tell you about the second, at Winchelsea Park, but I was at the first, at Lady Alberstoke’s in March. It was their governess who went missing.” Audrey frowned. “Mind you, there was no reason to believe the woman’s disappearance was connected with the house party. It seemed obvious she’d simply had enough and run away.” She caught Deverell’s eye. “If you knew Lady Alberstoke, that would come as no surprise—no truer harridan was ever birthed.”

Deverell grimaced and nodded. “I’ll speak with Edith.”

He rose, his gaze going to Edith, who was sitting beneath a tree chatting with Lady Cranbrook. Phoebe sat in a chair beside her aunt, ostensibly reading her novel.

Perfectly aware she’d been surreptitiously watching him, he walked to the group, mentally listing the information he intended to let fall.

Smiling, he greeted Lady Cranbrook and Edith. Crouching between their chairs, with glib charm he elicited their help, and received breathless assurances that he could rely on them. He turned to Edith. “Audrey told me you were present at both the earlier house parties from which female staff disappeared. Is that correct?”

“Yes, indeed!” Edith nodded decisively.

Deverell let his gaze travel past Edith to Phoebe on her other side. Mildly, he asked, “And Miss Malleson, too?”

Edith flicked a smile Phoebe’s way. “Phoebe’s been with me since last Christmas. She accompanies me to all these events. Such a comfort.”

Phoebe lifted her gaze from her book and returned a fond smile; only he saw it as a fraction too tight. Only he knew how carefully she avoided his eyes.

“I’ve already heard about the event at Lady Alberstoke’s—Audrey suggested it was simply coincidence that her ladyship’s governess reached the end of her tether and fled at the time the party was underway.”

Edith nodded. “I would have to agree. No female of any sensitivity could have endured Lady Alberstoke for long, and my memory of the young woman was that she was…genteel.”

“Actually,” Lady Cranbrook put in, “she was quite lovely, as I recall.”

Deverell waited, but no further recollections were forthcoming. “What was the second incident, the one at Winchelsea Park?”

“That,” Edith replied, “was Mrs. Bonham-Cartwright’s new French dresser. A very strange affair. One minute, Mrs. Bonham-Cartwright was singing the girl’s praises, and the next, the girl had vanished. No one had any idea what had happened.”

“Well,” Lady Cranbrook said, “while we could imagine well enough that the Alberstokes’ governess might have absconded with some man—any man, really, who might have offered her a decent escape—no one could imagine where the French dresser had gone to, much less why. Mrs. Bonham-Cartwright is a kind woman, no Lady Alberstoke, but what really had us puzzled was that the dresser had only recently arrived in the country and supposedly had no friends or family here.”

“It was,” Edith gently said, “a trifle distressing imagining what might have happened to the girl, which is why this latest happening is so exercising everyone.”

Deverell met her eyes and nodded. Quickly shifting his gaze, he trapped Phoebe’s and nodded again—much less benignly. “I see.”

With that he stood; when he looked down at Edith and Lady Cranbrook, all trace of grimness had been erased from his face and his usual languid charm shone through to reassure them.

Lady Cranbrook looked up at him. “You will see what you can learn, won’t you, and tell us?”

He bowed. “That is my intention, ma’am.” Then he left.

He summoned Grainger. Together they walked out to check on his grays, currently kicking their heels in one of Lord Cranbrook’s paddocks.