The Marquess Who Loved Me - By Sara Ramsey Page 0,51
you away from the subcontinent, they wouldn’t need to send a highwayman after you here. As much as it displeases me to say it, we could likely narrow our search by looking at my houseguests.”
Lucia frowned. “The man I shot wasn’t one of your guests or servants — I didn’t recognize him at all. And I am nearly certain the same can be said for the other highwayman.”
“I didn’t recognize them either,” Ellie said. “But that doesn’t mean they weren’t hired by someone we know.”
“Then tell me, Ellie — among your guests, who is a likely culprit?” Nick asked.
“Beyond the people in this room?” she responded. She turned to Marcus. “They are my friends — I may not be able to stay unbiased. What is your assessment?”
“So you want my opinion now?” he asked.
She scowled. “Only if it helps find who wants to kill Nick. Once that is settled, I can get on with murdering him myself.”
Marcus and Nick both laughed, but Marcus sobered first. “I don’t see any of them as likely. As best as I know, none of them are involved in the East India Company. Perhaps among your servants…but even they are rather too artistic to be bloodthirsty.”
“Even the most artistic people can be bloodthirsty when provoked, Mr. Claiborne,” Lucia said.
He nearly stammered as he apologized. “Forgive me, Mrs. Grafton. I did not mean to remind you of yesterday.”
She looked just as startled as he sounded. “That wasn’t what I meant at all. Just that artists shouldn’t be overlooked.”
Nick couldn’t agree more. Ellie had the soul of an artist — but she had the brain of a general, and the steely look in her eyes was more suited to a war room than a studio. She cut off Lucia and Marcus without a moment of hesitation. “Enough. None of my servants, as far as I know, have ever gone to sea. I doubt that they’d even know how to arrange the murder of someone half a world away. We can still consider them, but I don’t see the use of it.” She turned back to Nick. “Is there really no one else?”
Nick paused, then shook his head. “Just the occasional junior secretary or hanger-on who was unhappy to be sent packing back to England. But would any of them try to murder me on two continents?”
“Nick is correct,” Marcus said. “In all the time I’ve been in London, only one man came in to complain that Nick had sent him back to England. He wasn’t pleased when I refused to help him find another job. But he was too pleasant about it to be a murderer.”
“Was it Edgewood?” Nick asked. “He was always pleasant, even when he was embezzling everything in sight.”
Marcus shrugged. “I believe so, although I could be mistaken. He didn’t make a scene, and I never saw him again. Seems unlikely he would want to kill you when there’s nothing to gain out of it.”
Nick considered their other options. “Perhaps none of the guests are directly tied to the Company. But what of their investments?”
Ellie’s hand hovered over the paper. “I know Norbury is heavily invested in the Company.”
Marcus’s nose wrinkled. “His estate is leveraged — he would be made uncomfortable if the Company’s fortunes change.”
“Still, I don’t see him as a murderer,” Ellie said, with a note of finality in her voice. She didn’t add him to the list.
Nick didn’t push it. “So our only official suspects are Ellie, Marcus, Rupert, the dowager marchioness, and the East India Company. If one of you would confess, it would make this all much easier.”
“It will have to be Marcus,” Ellie said. “I’ve no intention of confessing my sins.”
He remembered how he’d promised to learn her sins in the carriage the day before — but this wasn’t the time or the place, even if their agreement was now in full force. Instead, he gave her a loaded glance. “Someday you will, my dear.”
She leaned back in her chair, but her eyes didn’t give an inch. “Unlikely. But if this is the best we can do for a list, so be it. Do you have a plan for it?”
“Trower is working to identify the dead highwayman. Perhaps that will give us a clue. Beyond that, I plan to talk to your houseguests. If one of them is behind this, I will ferret it out.”
Ellie nodded. “I shall see what I can learn from our guests as well. Lucia knows how to pry information from visiting ladies’ maids