A Stroke of Malice (Lady Darby Mystery #8) - Anna Lee Huber Page 0,41

seen had been faint, and given their lack of intimacy, I’d known it would be unlikely she’d noted them.

“As for his teeth, you must mean the chip?”

I straightened, but she shook her head.

“Ned mentioned it. But he said you believed it had happened when . . . the man . . . was killed.” She fumbled over her words.

I sank back. “It’s likely. The chip is undoubtedly recent. Something that occurred in the last few weeks of his life. So you were not aware of Lord Helmswick having a chipped tooth?”

“No.” She glanced almost uncertainly at her brother, who shook his head to convey he wasn’t either.

“I was here when they arrived at Sunlaws,” he explained to my questioning look.

“Then you saw Lord Helmswick before he departed for Paris?” I clarified.

“Yes.”

“Who else was in residence?”

“Ned was here,” Lady Helmswick replied, turning to confer with her brother once again.

“And Hal.” Lord John tipped his head.

“Oh, and Luc was here, too, wasn’t he?” She shrugged one shoulder negligently. “Our half brother.” She narrowed her eyes in thought. “But he left before Helmswick.”

“Yes. Back to Edinburgh.”

I struggled with how to phrase my next question, even though they seemed perfectly resigned to the existence of their father’s by-blows. But of course, they were rumored to be bastards, as well, though to the duchess. “Do your father’s other children often visit Sunlaws?”

“A few of them,” Lady Helmswick said, fidgeting with the gold bracelet on her wrist as she pondered. “Luc and Colin. And Lilias is married to a barrister just over in Peebles. But not all.” Her gaze took in my tentative demeanor, before she pensively added, “You must think us a very odd family.”

I allowed a gentle smile to curl my lips. “My opinion doesn’t matter. But . . . I was actually thinking how wonderful it is that you don’t hold the circumstances of their births against them.”

“Why should we when we were all born on the same side of the blanket?” she stated bluntly. “Well, all of us except Traquair and Richard. But they’ve never held that against us either.”

“Traquair? Oh no, never. He only mentions it two or three times a year,” Lord John sneered, turning to glare across the room at a ficus plant.

“I know he can be insufferable, but just because he rags you about it doesn’t mean he bears a grudge,” his sister argued.

The look he cast her way dripped with scorn. “Perhaps not against you, but your father is royalty, remember. Mine is a mere explorer.”

“The rumors are true then?” I murmured, partly to satisfy my own curiosity, and partly to recall them to my presence in the room.

They both turned to look at me, and as before, it was Lady Helmswick who answered. “Yes. Well . . . most of them,” she amended, though she didn’t specify which ones were not. I supposed she thought the family should retain some mystery.

“Do any of your father’s other children begrudge you your places in his household?” I asked, harkening back to the earlier point I’d been attempting to make.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean? Father has never repudiated any of them. He supported them and their mothers when they were children, and once they come of age he makes certain they contract a worthy career or an advantageous marriage.”

“Yes, but that’s not the same as being raised with all the advantages of being acknowledged as a legitimate child of the duke, at least in the eyes of the law,” Lord John pointed out, catching on to my inference quicker than his sister. So long as the duchess was married to the duke when they were born, and he did not repudiate her, then they were legally the duke’s children.

“Oh yes, I see what you’re saying.” She frowned, considering the matter. “But I don’t think any of them fault us for that. Do you?” she asked her brother.

“No,” he replied after a moment’s hesitation.

“You don’t sound certain of that,” I told him.

“No. No, I am,” he countered. “That is, I’m certain about the duke’s children who are old enough to carry a grudge. I was thinking of the younger ones whose characters haven’t fully developed.”

It was a credible excuse, but something in his eyes made me question whether it was the complete truth. Before I could press him on the matter, he countered with a question of his own.

“Why are you asking about them?” He scowled. “Surely you don’t believe one of them had anything to