do with what happened to that man.”
“I’m simply trying to understand all the people who may have come and gone from Sunlaws. Everyone who might have known about the old abbey’s catacombs, and the tunnel connecting them to the castle.” I folded my hands in my lap. “Did any of your half brothers or sisters know about the tunnel?”
He eyed me suspiciously before replying. “Luc did. I’m not sure about Colin.”
“But Luc doesn’t have sandy brown hair?” I clarified.
“Oh, my goodness,” Lady Helmswick gasped, as if just realizing another reason I would be interested in the duke’s other children. “No, Luc’s hair is as black as coal dust.”
“And neither does Colin,” Lord John said. “Though he’s with the East India Company army in Bengal, and has been for the past three years. So the body couldn’t be his, regardless.”
Lady Helmswick’s eyes narrowed and her lips pressed together in a thin line as if she was contemplating something, so I paused, curious to hear what she’d say. “Couldn’t he be one of those tramps and walkers my mother mentioned?” she finally burst forth with. She leaned forward as if she was as eager to convince herself of this as me. “Wouldn’t that make more sense than to assume it’s Helmswick?”
It was a struggle not to allow my vexation to show. “Firstly, we’re not assuming anything. And second . . .”
“The man’s clothes were too fine,” a voice said behind me.
I turned around in my chair to find Lord Edward standing in the doorway. My husband hovered just beyond his shoulder. The duke’s third son looked as if he’d just risen from bed. His thick auburn hair was more tangled than artful in its disarray, and his clothes were wrinkled, as if he’d slept in them. He’d forgone a neckcloth, and his lawn shirt gaped to reveal a strongly corded neck sporting a gold chain. Whatever dangled from it was hidden behind his shirt, but I suspected it was important if he wore it even now. I had to resist the urge to reach up and press my hand to the spot where the amethyst pendant my mother had given me hung beneath the neckline of my gown.
Lord Edward’s gaze softened as he advanced into the room. “Nell, I know you don’t wish to confront any of this, but ignoring it will not make it go away.” She dipped her head, as if unable to withstand the empathy shimmering in his eyes, but he pressed on. “Not until we know for certain whether it’s Helmswick or not.”
“Why are you so certain it is?” Lord John’s face twisted angrily. “Thus far I haven’t heard any evidence to suggest it’s anyone but a gentleman with a similar hair color. And all the while, Helmswick is likely safe and sound in Paris, doing whatever he dashed well pleases. Like he always does.”
This outburst seemed to surprise not only me, but also his brother and sister. They stared at him in silence as his cheeks flushed with color. It was clear he didn’t think well of his brother-in-law. What was unclear was whether his opinion was unbiased.
“Well, perhaps this will provide us some clarification,” Gage remarked, stepping forward to display one of the victim’s boots. I noted it was the one found in the corridor. The one that had not recently clung to the leg of a decaying corpse.
He held the boot out to Lady Helmswick, who accepted it gingerly. Though she didn’t speak, I could tell by the ashen pallor of her skin and the manner in which she swallowed that she recognized the stitching in the black leather.
“Helmswick had a pair very like it, didn’t he?” Lord Edward prodded gently as he sank down on the settee beside his sister, as if sensing she could not gather the words to confirm it.
She nodded, swallowing again before she could croak, “Yes.”
Lord John scowled at the boot as he took it from her hands. “Surely, a number of gentlemen possess a similar boot. You can’t tell me the bootmaker made this style exclusively for him.”
“No, but how many of those gentlemen visited Sunlaws Castle during the month of December?” Gage countered once again, sitting in the rush-seated chair next to mine.
“If he was tramping through Ettrick Forest—”
“—he wouldn’t be wearing clothes as fine as those he was found in,” Gage cut him off.
“Maybe he didn’t have anything less fine,” he argued, though his expression showed that even he knew he was grasping at straws.
Gage took the