see her children.”
I sat taller. “What was it?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me.” Her mouth flattened. “But she seemed confident about it.”
I glowered back at her, considering this new information. The fact that Lady Helmswick wished to leave her husband potentially gave her, as well as Marsdale, motive to kill Helmswick. But if this claim about her possessing knowledge she could use to blackmail him was also true, then he also held some secret that might have gotten him killed.
“I wish you had told me this sooner,” I said. “Such as when you promised to fully cooperate with us.”
“I didn’t think it pertinent,” she retorted, but we both knew that was a lie. The sheen of defiance and fear that glittered in her eyes as she glared back at me made that evident. But what precisely did she fear? That her daughter had actually done it? Or that I might prove it?
* * *
* * *
I found Lady Helmswick perched on a bench with rolled arms in her cottage-inspired sitting room, gazing out the window. She was turned away from me, so that I could only see her profile as her maid admitted me to her chamber. Dressed in a simple gown of burnt rose with a more moderate sleeve and an unfashionably high waistline, she had never looked lovelier to my eyes. It certainly complemented her skin, for it practically glowed. Or perhaps that was the reflection of the sun on the snow. As I moved closer, she glanced back at me, her blue eyes reflecting that same brightness and drowning in worry.
“Lady Darby,” she gasped. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
I waved her down as she began to rise to her feet, instead sitting on the bench beside her, all the better to spy what had absorbed her attention outside the window. Below us, the three youngest of her brothers were picking their way across the lawn that stretched away from the castle in the direction of the abbey. In the distance, I could see the tallest of the snow-topped ruins piercing the sky, the only speck on the landscape in that direction, but for a hazy hilltop far in the distance beyond the moor. Two dogs frolicked alongside the men, bounding off through the snow from time to time when one of the brothers—I thought it was Henry—bent to pick up whatever they’d dropped at his feet and then hurled it away again. At least I could be certain none of them would interrupt us in an attempt to shield their sister this time.
Her hand anxiously clutched my left arm. “I-I heard what happened, and I’m so relieved your injuries weren’t more serious.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve had my own share of precarious moments on those stairs. In truth, I avoid them whenever I can.”
I smiled tightly, wondering if she seemed overeager to share her own near accidents, or if I was being excessively suspicious. I’d certainly felt a moment’s disquiet when Trevor and I passed by the ballroom staircase on our way to this chamber. My brother had wisely chosen to take another set of stairs, but we had not been able to avoid passing by them. Even now, he sat on a bench outside, waiting for me, so I wouldn’t have to traverse past them alone.
Lady Helmswick shook her head in bafflement. “I don’t know why they weren’t refurbished long ago when Mother fell.”
I frowned. “When was that?”
“Oh, years ago. Before I was born. Before Ned, even.” Her eyes widened as if she’d had a sudden thought. “She was expecting poor George at the time.” She bit her lip uncertainly.
“The child she lost when he was only three weeks old?” I replied, recalling what Lord Edward had told me.
She nodded. “The fall didn’t cause her to go into labor, but she . . .”
“But she worried that it might have contributed to his early death,” I finished for her, trying to squash my own concerns about the lasting effects of my near tumble. It was true, I hadn’t actually fallen, but my collision with the banister had been rather forceful.
Lady Helmswick’s face constricted. “I suppose that’s why she still avoids using it to this day.”
I turned to gaze out the window again, pondering Lord Edward’s decision to mention his deceased brother. Pondering whether it had given him inspiration on how to get rid of a troublesome thorn in his side. Of course, all the Kerr brothers must also know about it, just as their sister did. So in truth,