Millicent turned quickly to the door. “Now I really must get on. You will remember that we’re dining with the Frithams this evening? The carriage will leave at seven.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Gerrard followed her to the door.

She didn’t wait for him to open it, but did so herself and started down the narrow stairs. “At seven, remember,” she called back, then whisked away down the corridor.

Gerrard leaned against the doorjamb, and wondered why Millicent had suddenly decided she’d said too much. What had she told him?

So little. Just enough to show him how much more he’d yet to learn.


Good Lord! She fell to her death from the terrace?”

“So Millicent said, and I doubt she invented it.” Gerrard lolled on the end of Barnaby’s bed, watching while his friend, now distinctly absentmindedly, tied his cravat.

Gently lowering his chin, creasing the folds expertly, Barnaby shot him a sidelong glance. “And there’s some question over the death, you say?”

“No, I don’t say-I infer.” Gerrard altered his voice to an approximation of Millicent’s. “Anything else…well, there never was any suggestion of anything else.” He reverted to his usual tones. “All said with her eyes wide and a look that clearly stated that while no one had ever suggested such a thing, it was the question in everyone’s mind.”

“A mystery!” Barnaby’s eyes glowed.

“Possibly.” Gerrard wasn’t entirely convinced of the wisdom of setting Barnaby loose on the subject, but he had to know more, and his friend was a master at ferreting out such things. “I asked Compton what he’d heard. Apparently, the late Lady Tregonning was well liked, nay, loved by all who knew her. The accepted theory is that she peered over the balustrade to look at something in the Garden of Night, overbalanced and fell. Tragic and regrettable, but nothing else. There’s no question but that the fall killed her-her neck was broken. That’s the story from the servants’ hall.”

“They usually know,” Barnaby murmured, easing on his coat.

“True.” Gerrard sat up. “However, if there’s no question over what killed her, then what caused her to go over the balustrade is the only thing that might remain in question-the only aspect that might account for Millicent’s reaction.”

Engaged in placing his handkerchief, watch and sundry other items into various pockets, Barnaby hmmed. “Suicide? It’s always an option in such cases.”

Gerrard grimaced and rose. “It could be that. Millicent wanted to explain so I wouldn’t press Jacqueline to enter the Garden of Night, then realized she’d revealed too much…yes, that might be it.”

He headed for the door; it was nearly seven o’clock.

Barnaby joined him. “But…?”

Hand on the knob, Gerrard met his friend’s eyes. “I need to know the truth, whatever it is, and for obvious reasons I can’t ask Jacqueline.”

Barnaby grinned and clapped him on the back. “Leave it to me-I’ll see what I can learn this evening. There’s sure to be someone attending who’ll be eager to swap a bit of gossip and scandal.”

Shaking his head, Gerrard led the way out of the room. “Just don’t make it sound like we’re conducting an investigation.”

“Trust me.” Barnaby followed him out and shut the door. “I’ll be the soul of discretion.”

Gerrard started for the stairs, inwardly debating. Eventually, he murmured, “There’s one other thing.”

“Oh? What?”

“I need to understand why Jacqueline’s unmarried. She’s twenty-three, attractive, and Tregonning’s heiress-even buried out here, she must have, or have had, suitors. Who? And where are they now? No one’s suggested there’s any gentleman in the wings. Is her mother’s death in some way responsible for that?”

“Interesting point.” They reached the head of the stairs; Barnaby slanted a cheerfully inquisitive glance Gerrard’s way. “Just tell me-is that the way the wind now blows?”

Gerrard snorted. “Spare me.” He started down the stairs. “I need to know for the portrait.”

“Such things shouldn’t be too hard to learn.”

“Just remember-discretion is imperative.”

“You know me.”

“Indeed-that’s why I’m reminding you.”


It wasn’t, in truth, Barnaby’s discretion that caused Gerrard concern, but his enthusiasm; once embarked on solving a mystery, Barnaby was apt to forget such niceties as feminine susceptibilities and social strictures. From his position in the circle of which Jacqueline was a member, Gerrard kept an eye on his friend as Barnaby prowled the Frithams’ drawing room.

Hunting for information. With his bright eyes, cheery personality and, when he wished it, polished address, it was an undertaking at which he admittedly excelled.

Gerrard was doing his own reconnoitering. Lady Fritham had summoned a good slice of the local gentry. By remaining in the same group as Jacqueline, he was able to gauge her reactions to others as they came up to greet them. In between shaking hands and keeping track of relationships, he viewed again the continuing conundrum of her behavior. Outwardly, she was confident, assured and serene, yet she remained reserved, aloof emotionally as distinct from physically, as if she’d taken a step back from everyone there; while she knew them well, she saw them as people to keep at a distance.

He’d thought it was distrust, and there were certainly traces of that in her stance, yet now, after hearing of her mother’s death, he wondered if what he was sensing was instead a form of inner shield, a protection she maintained so others couldn’t reach her, couldn’t hurt her.

Why would they hurt her?

Had these people hurt her? If so, how?

He started looking more closely, not at Jacqueline but at everyone else, watching, analyzing…He felt the shift in his attitude as a sudden honing of his senses, a definite alert that spread through him.

In addition to Lord and Lady Fritham and their son and daughter, the Myles family entire were present, Mr., Mrs., Master Roger and both Misses, Clara and Rosa. The severe Mrs. Elcott and her spouse were absent, perhaps not surprisingly. A Mr. and Mrs. Hancock were there, with two daughters, Cecily and Mary, in train; a local squire, Sir Humphrey Curtis, a widower, was attending with his sister, Miss Amabel Curtis.

Lord Trewarren, a local landowner, his lady and their two sons, Giles and Cedric, were presently part of their circle, along with Mitchel Cunningham and Millicent.

“Mr. Debbington, you really must share your opinion of the Hellebore Hall gardens.” Lady Trewarren, head high, peered at him myopically across the circle. “Millicent tells me you viewed them today. Will you paint them?”

“Eventually, yes, but as for my opinion, it’s difficult to rate something that’s so very unique. It certainly ranks as one of the best sources for landscape art I’ve seen.”

Lady Trewarren turned to Millicent. “Millicent, dear, you really must work on Marcus to open up the gardens on occasion. What is the point of having such wonderful gardens if no one ever sees them?”

Millicent murmured that she quite agreed. “I’m hoping that the interest sure to accrue when Mr. Debbington shows his works will help convince Marcus.”

Gerrard returned Millicent’s smile, but his attention had deflected to Lady Trewarren, and the sudden distraction he saw in her face. She’d glanced to where her older son Giles was speaking with Jacqueline.

Gerrard could hear their conversation, Giles politely inquiring whether Jacqueline would like to join him, his brother and unspecified others on a ride to St. Just tomorrow.

Giles seemed a likable enough chap; he smiled with pleasure when Jacqueline accepted the simple invitation-throwing Lady Trewarren into a maternal flutter. Gerrard had seen the like before, usually in the context of fond mamas wanting to protect their darling sons from entanglements with encroaching cits. Yet Giles was hardly a babe, and Jacqueline was no cit; regardless, as Lady Trewarren turned back to him and Millicent, conscious of her distraction and, it seemed, wishing to disguise it, her desire to suppress any association between Jacqueline and Giles showed in her eyes.

Millicent hadn’t noticed; she’d been discussing the recent spate of fine weather with Lord Trewarren.

Gerrard allowed the conversation to claim him, but he kept an eye on Lady Trewarren. Sure enough, when an opening offered, she claimed, not her husband’s but her eldest son’s arm and, excusing them from the circle, moved on.

Jacqueline showed no sign of consciousness over having a handsome admirer removed from her side, and indeed, Giles’s place was almost immediately filled by Roger Myles.

“Quite,” Gerrard said, replying to a query about the capital. “It’s sweltering in late summer.”

He shifted, scanning the crowd-trying to locate Mrs. Myles, to see if she, too, would react as Lady Trewarren had.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” The Frithams’ butler stood in the open doorway; when everyone turned to him, he bowed magisterially. “Dinner is served.”

The usual mild chaos ensued as Lady Fritham partnered them. Waving to this one, then that, she set Barnaby to escort Clara Myles, then pounced on Gerrard; linking her arm with his, she led him across the room.

Leaning close, she murmured, “Millicent mentioned that you need to spend time with Jacqueline, in pursuit of the portrait, as it were, but tonight is hardly a time for work-I’ve asked Eleanor to make sure you enjoy yourself.”

So saying, she delivered him to her daughter.

Amenable enough, Gerrard smiled and claimed Eleanor’s hand, and wondered what opportunities the seating would afford.

When they filed into the long dining room, he found himself in perfect accord with Lady Fritham’s organization. Entirely without intending to, indeed, for quite the opposite reason, she’d given him what for him was the perfect place-directly opposite Jacqueline.